A copy of _Tales of Fashionable Life_ [Footnote: The first set
containing "Ennui," "Madame de Fleury," "Almeria," "The Dun," and
"Manoeuvring," in three volumes.] reached us yesterday in a Foster
frank: they looked well enough,--not very good paper, but better than
_Popular Tales._ I am going to write a story called "To-day," [Footnote:
Never written.] as a match for "To-morrow," in which I mean to show that
Impatience is as bad as Procrastination, and the desire to do too much
to-day, and to enjoy too much at present, is as bad as putting off
everything till to-morrow. What do you think of this plan? Write next
post, as, while my father is away, I am going to write a story for his
birthday. My other plan was to write a story in which young men of all
the different professions should act a part, like the "Contrast" in
higher life, [Footnote: "Patronage."] or the "Freeman Family," only
without princes, and without any possible allusion to our own family. I
have another sub-plan of writing "Coelebina in search of a Husband,"
without my father's knowing it, and without reading _Coelebs_, that I
may neither imitate nor abuse it.
I daresay you can borrow Powell's _Sermons_ from Ardbraccan or Dr.
Beaufort; the Primate lent them to my father. There is a charge on the
connection between merit and preferment, and one discourse on the
influence of academical studies and a recluse life, which I particularly
admire, and wish it had been quoted in _Professional Education._
Mr. Holland, a grand-nephew of Mr. Wedgwood's, and son to a surgeon at
Knutsford, Cheshire, and intended for a physician, came here in the
course of a pedestrian tour--spent two days--very well informed. Ask my
mother when she goes to you to tell you all that Mr. Holland told us
about Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Marcet, who is the author of
_Conversations on Chemistry_--a charming woman, by his account.
_To_ MISS RUXTON.