I have read the "Fatal Revenge." Don't do what the minor theatrical
people call "despi-ser" me, but I think it's very bad. The concluding
narrative is by far the most meritorious part of the business. Still,
the people are so very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and
are always knocking other people's bones about in such a very irrational
way, that I object. The way in which earthquakes won't swallow the
monsters, and volcanoes in eruption won't boil them, is extremely
aggravating. Also their habit of bolting when they are going to explain
anything.
You have sent me a very different and a much better book; and for that I
am truly grateful. With the dust of "Maturin" in my eyes, I sat down and
read "The Death of Friends," and the dust melted away in some of those
tears it is good to shed. I remember to have read "The Backroom Window"
some years ago, and I have associated it with you ever since. It is a
most delightful paper. But the two volumes are all delightful, and I
have put them on a shelf where you sit down with Charles Lamb again,
with Talfourd's vindication of him hard by.
We never meet. I hope it is not irreligious, but in this strange London
I have an inclination to adapt a portion of the Church Service to our
common experience. Thus:
"We have left unmet the people whom we ought to have met, and we have
met the people whom we ought not to have met, and there seems to be no
help in us."
But I am always, my dear Procter,
(At a distance),
Very cordially yours.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]