Having just now finished my work for the time being, I turn in here in
the course of a rainy walk, to have the gratification of writing a few
lines to you. If my occupations with this same right hand were less
numerous, you would soon be tired of me, I should write to you so often.
You asked Catherine a question about "Bleak House." Its circulation is
half as large again as "Copperfield"! I have just now come to the point
I have been patiently working up to in the writing, and I hope it will
suggest to you a pretty and affecting thing. In the matter of "Uncle
Tom's Cabin," I partly though not entirely agree with Mr. James. No
doubt a much lower art will serve for the handling of such a subject in
fiction, than for a launch on the sea of imagination without such a
powerful bark; but there are many points in the book very admirably
done. There is a certain St. Clair, a New Orleans gentleman, who seems
to me to be conceived with great power and originality. If he had not "a
Grecian outline of face," which I began to be a little tired of in my
earliest infancy, I should think him unexceptionable. He has a sister
too, a maiden lady from New England, in whose person the besetting
weaknesses and prejudices of the Abolitionists themselves, on the
subject of the blacks, are set forth in the liveliest and truest colours
and with the greatest boldness.
I have written for "Household Words" of this next publication-day an
article on the State funeral,[14] showing why I consider it altogether a
mistake, to be temperately but firmly objected to; which I daresay will
make a good many of the admirers of such things highly indignant. It may
have right and reason on its side, however, none the less.
Charley and I had a great talk at Dover about his going into the army,
when I thought it right to set before him fairly and faithfully the
objections to that career, no less than its advantages. The result was
that he asked in a very manly way for time to consider. So I appointed
to go down to Eton on a certain day at the beginning of this month, and
resume the subject. We resumed it accordingly at the White Hart, at
Windsor, and he came to the conclusion that he would rather be a
merchant, and try to establish some good house of business, where he
might find a path perhaps for his younger brothers, and stay at home,
and make himself the head of that long, small procession. I was very
much pleased with him indeed; he showed a fine sense and a fine feeling
in the whole matter. We have arranged, therefore, that he shall leave
Eton at Christmas, and go to Germany after the holidays, to become well
acquainted with that language, now most essential in such a walk of life
as he will probably tread.
And I think this is the whole of my news. We are always talking of you
at home. Mary Boyle dined with us a little while ago. You look out, I
imagine, on a waste of water. When I came from Windsor, I thought I must
have made a mistake and got into a boat (in the dark) instead of a
railway-carriage. Catherine and Georgina send their kindest loves. I am
ever, with the best and truest wishes of my heart, my dear Mrs. Watson,
Your most affectionate Friend.
[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]