Have you read Charles Murray's book about America? and how do you like it? Do you ever see Lady Francis Egerton nowadays? How is she? What is she doing? Is she accomplishing a great deal with her life? She always seemed to me born to do so. My dear Lady Dacre, do not talk of not seeing me again. We hope to be in England next autumn, and one of the greatest pleasures I look forward to in that expectation is once more seeing you and Lord Dacre. You say my sister will marry a foreigner. She has my leave to marry a German, but the more southern blood does not mingle well with our Teutonic race....
I am sorry the only book of Catharine Sedgwick's which you have read is, "Live and Let Live," because it is essentially an American book, and some Americans think it a little exaggerated in its views, even for this country. A little story, called "Home," and another called "The Poor Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man," are, I think, better specimens of what she can do....
F. A. B.
Lenox, September 30th, 1839.
And so, dearest Harriet, Cecilia writes you that my head is enlarged, my benevolence and causality increased, and that Mr. Combe thinks me much improved. Truly, it were a pity if I were the reverse, for it was more than two years since he had seen me; but though I heartily wish this might be the case, I honestly confess to you that I do not feel as if my mental and moral progress, during the last two years, has been sufficient to push out any visible augmentation of the "bumps" of my skull in any direction.
Your saucy suggestion as to my having conciliated his good opinion by exhibiting a greater degree of faith in phrenology is, unluckily, not borne out by the facts; for, instead of more, I have a little less faith in it; and that, perversely enough, from the very circumstance of the more favorable opinion thus expressed with regard to my own "development."
MR. COMBE. In the first instance, both Mr. Combe and Cecilia expressed a good deal of surprise to some of my friends here, at their high estimate of my brain.... Having very evidently never themselves perceived any sufficient grounds for such an exalted esteem. Moreover, Mr. Combe wrote a letter to Lucretia Mott (the celebrated Quakeress, who is a good friend of mine), when he heard that she had made my acquaintance, cautioning her against falling into the mistake which all my American friends committed, of "exaggerating my reasoning powers." This was all well and good, and only amused me as rather funny; some of my American friends being tolerably shrewd folk, and upon the whole, no bad judges of brains. But then the next thing that happens is, that I see the Combes myself for a short, hurried, and most confused five minutes, during which, even if Mr. Combe's judgment were entirely in his eyes, he had no leisure for exercising it on me; and yet he now states (for Cecy is only his echo in this matter) that my disposition is much improved, and my reasoning powers much increased; and it is but two years since I was in his house, and this moral and mental progress, visible to the naked eye, on my thickly hair-roofed cranium, has taken place since then;—if so, so much the better for me, and I have made better use of my time than I imagined!
To tell you the truth, dear Harriet, I have not thought about phrenology, one way or the other, but I have thought this phrenological verdict about myself nonsense.
Mr. Combe has certainly not been influenced by any signs of conversion on my part; but I suppose he may have been influenced by the opinion held of me by my friends here, some of whom are sensible enough on all other subjects not to be suspected of idiocy, even though they do think me a rational, and, what is more, a reasoning creature.
It has been a real distress to me not to see more of Mr. Combe and Cecilia. I have always had the highest regard for him, for his kind, humane heart, and benevolent, liberal, enlightened mind. Cecy, too, during my short visit to her in Scotland, appeared to me a far more lovable person than during my previous intercourse with her: and as kinsfolk and countryfolk, without any consideration for personal liking, I feel annoyed at not being able to offer them any kindness or hospitality. But we literally seem to be running round each other; they are now at Hartford, in Connecticut, not fifty miles away from here, where they intend staying some weeks, and will probably not be in Philadelphia until we have departed for the South. When I saw them in New York, they were both looking extremely well; Cecilia fat, and cheerful, and apparently very happy, in spite of her "incidents of American travel." ...