Fanny.
Bannisters, Southampton, Friday, December 17th.
I have spoken with even more than my usual carelessness and inaccuracy upon the subject of my readiness to comply with other people's wishes, but I seriously think one ought to comply with a request of anybody's that was not an impertinent or improper one. I suppose everybody is inclined to fulfil the wishes of persons they love.... But I am not given to the "small attentions," les petits soins of affection, and therefore am always particularly glad to know of any special desire of a friend's that I can comply with; a special wish, too, is a saving of trouble, like the questions in your letters which are equivalent to wishes in another way, and indicate the particular thing you want to know....
I have been out of spirits and much depressed during the first days of my stay at Bannisters, but this gloom passing off, and I am resuming my more habitual buoyancy of temper....
Bannisters, December 22d.
If you don't promise me good, I mean wholesome, food, when I come to St. Leonard's, I won't stay with you a minute. I have, for some years past, considered that there was an important deficiency in my human nature, which instead of consisting, like that of most people, of three elements, is wanting in what I should call the middle link between its lowest and highest extremities. Thus, for some time now, I have felt intimately convinced that I had senses and a soul, but no heart; but I have now further come to the conclusion that I have neither sense, soul, nor heart, and am, indeed, nothing but a stomach.... Now, don't retort upon me with starving populations, in and out of poor-houses; and your grand national starving experiment in Ireland; neither try to make me adopt it when I come to St. Leonard's, for I won't....
You will be glad to hear that poor old Mrs. Fitzhugh is better these two or three last days, and, except for the weakness and irritation in her eyes, is tolerably well and comfortable; and I, having recovered from the blue devils, am able to amuse her a little better than I did when first I came. I am glad you mentioned that your comment on my health was meant for fun. A man sat by me in Edinburgh at dinner one day, and asked me if I had ever read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," which frightened me into an indigestion; and when I told Mr. Combe of it, he gave a sad Scotch laugh, like a postman's knock, "Ha! ha! just like Farquharson's dry humor!"
CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES. You say that, as far as my own constitution is concerned, you believe my theories are right. Pray, my dear, did I ever attempt to meddle with your constitution? Permit me to say that the hygienic faith I profess has this in common with my other persuasions, that I am no propagandist, and neither seek nor desire proselytes. No, my dear friend, it is the orthodox medicine-takers, not the heterodox medicine-haters, who are always thrusting their pill-boxes and physic-bottles into their friends' bodies, and dragging or driving their souls to heaven or hell. If my physical doctrine saves my body, and my religious doctrine my soul, alive, it is all I ask of it; and you, and all other of my fellow-creatures, I deliver over to your own devices, to dose, drug, and "oh, fie!" yourselves and each other, according to your own convictions and consciences.
Ever yours,
Fanny.