I have heard from Norwich, and find I shall have less to prepare than I expected for two nights, Friday and Saturday. I shall act at Yarmouth, and repeat what I play at Norwich.
Mrs. Jameson has taken rooms in this house, I find, and comes here to-night, and I shall be very glad of some of her company.... Certainly London, much as I hate it, agrees better with me than St. Leonard's; either the air or the water there are bad for me. I am much better than when I was there....
God bless you. Kiss your Good Angel for me—how much I love and revere her, and how I rejoice that you have such an inestimable friend and companion! I have been very happy with you, my dear and good and kind friends.
Ever yours,
Fanny.
29 King Street, St. James's, Saturday, January 15th.
"VANITY FAIR." I dined at home yesterday, dear Hal, and spent the evening in reading "Vanity Fair." It is extremely clever, but hitherto I do not like it very much. I began it at Bannisters last Winter, and then I did not like it, wonderfully clever as I thought it. Lord Ellesmere says it is better than anything of the kind (novels of manners and morals) since Fielding; but as far as I have yet gone in it, it seems to me to have one very disagreeable quality—the most prominent people in it are thorough worldlings, and though their selfishnesses, and meannesses, and dirtinesses, and pettinesses, are admirably portrayed—to the very life, indeed—I do not much rejoice in their company. It is only within the last year that I have been able to get through "Gil Blas," for the same reason; and though I did get through, I never got over the odiousness of the people I lived with during the four volumes of his experiences of life.
Is not Shakespeare true to human nature? Why does he never disgust one with it? Why does one feel comparatively clean in spirit after living with his creatures? Some of them are as bad as real men and women ever were, but some of them are as good as real men and women ever are; and one does not lose one's respect for one's kind while reading what he writes of it; and his coarse utterances, the speech of his time, hurt one comparatively little in the midst of his noble and sweet thoughts....
I am going with Henry Greville to Drury Lane to-night, and perhaps he will eat his dinner here. He has a perfect mania for playhouses, and cannot keep out of them, and I would as lief spend my evening in hearing pretty music as alone here....
I drove up and down Regent Street three times in vain to find your identical cutler, Mr. Kingsbury: perhaps he has left off business, and some one else has taken his shop. So what shall I do with your scissors? Do you think if I talk to them they will be sharpened?...