We see comparatively so few people that we are apt to recur to
recollections of those we like best with almost childish frequency,
and a little fresh news about you would be a welcome variety,
especially the news that you had quite shaken off that spine
indisposition which was still clinging to you that last morning when
we said our good-byes. We have enough knowledge about you and your
world to interpret all the details you can give us. But our words
about our own home doings would be very vague and colourless to you.
You must always imagine us coming to see you and wanting to know as
much about you as we can, and like a charming hostess gratify that
want. I must thank you for the account of Cavour in _The Athenaeum_,
which stirred me strongly. I am afraid I have what _The Saturday
Review_ would call 'a morbid delight in deathbeds'--not having reached
that lofty superiority which considers it bad taste to allude to them.
"How is Beatrice, the blessed and blessing? That will always be a
history to interest us--how her brown hair darkens, how her voice
deepens and strengthens, and how you get more and more delight in her.
I need send no separate message to Mr. Trollope, before I say that
"I am always yours, with lively remembrance,
"MARION E. LEWES."
* * * * *
It needed George Eliot's fine and minute handwriting to put all this
into one page of note-paper.
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