I have been much affected by the receipt of your kindest and best of
letters; for I know out of the midst of what anxieties it comes to me,
and I appreciate such remembrance from my heart. You and yours are
always with us, however. It is no new thing for you to have a part in
any scene of my life. It very rarely happens that a day passes without
our thoughts and conversation travelling to Sherborne. We are so much
there that I cannot tell you how plainly I see you as I write.
I know you would have been full of sympathy and approval if you had been
present at Birmingham, and that you would have concurred in the tone I
tried to take about the eternal duties of the arts to the people. I took
the liberty of putting the court and that kind of thing out of the
question, and recognising nothing _but_ the arts and the people. The
more we see of life and its brevity, and the world and its varieties,
the more we know that no exercise of our abilities in any art, but the
addressing of it to the great ocean of humanity in which we are drops,
and not to bye-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever
will lay the foundations of an endurable retrospect. Is it not so? _You_
should have as much practical information on this subject, now, my dear
friend, as any man.
My dearest Macready, I cannot forbear this closing word. I still look
forward to our meeting as we used to do in the happy times we have
known together, so far as your old hopefulness and energy are concerned.
And I think I never in my life have been more glad to receive a sign,
than I have been to hail that which I find in your handwriting.
Some of your old friends at Birmingham are full of interest and enquiry.
Kate and Georgina send their dearest loves to you, and to Miss Macready,
and to all the children. I am ever, and no matter where I am--and quite
as much in a crowd as alone--my dearest Macready,
Your affectionate and most attached Friend.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]