Your note having been forwarded to me here, I cannot forbear thanking
you with all my heart for your great kindness. Mr. Forster had
previously sent me a copy of your letter to him, together with the
expression of the high and lasting gratification he had in your handsome
response. I know he feels it most sincerely.
I became the prey of a perfect spasm of sensitive twinges, when I found
that the close of "Bleak House" had not penetrated to "the wilds of the
North" when your letter left those parts. I was so very much interested
in it myself when I wrote it here last month, that I have a fond sort of
faith in its interesting its readers. But for the hope that you may have
got it by this time, I should refuse comfort. That supports me.
The book has been a wonderful success. Its audience enormous.
I fear there is not much chance of my being able to execute any little
commission for Lady John anywhere in Italy. But I am going across the
Alps, leaving here on the tenth of next month, and returning home to
London for Christmas Day, and should indeed be happy if I could do her
any dwarf service.
You will be interested, I think, to hear that Poole lives happily on his
pension, and lives within it. He is quite incapable of any mental
exertion, and what he would have done without it I cannot imagine. I
send it to him at Paris every quarter. It is something, even amid the
estimation in which you are held, which is but a foreshadowing of what
shall be by-and-by as the people advance, to be so gratefully remembered
as he, with the best reason, remembers you. Forgive my saying this. But
the manner of that transaction, no less than the matter, is always fresh
in my memory in association with your name, and I cannot help it.
My dear Lord,
Yours very faithfully and obliged.
[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]