difficult mental process should not
be snapped at thus.

You know I never can _think_, and to think on such subjects to any
purpose would almost necessarily involve thinking on none others; and
but for my desire to please you, and not put aside with apparent
disregard your favorite mental exercises, I should be as much ashamed as
I am annoyed by the crude utterance of crude notions upon such subjects
to which you compel me.

You say our goodness and benevolence are not those of God: in
_quantity_, surely not; but in _quality_? Are there two kinds of
positive goodness? I read this morning the following passage in a book
by an American, which has been lent to me by a young Oxford man whom I
met, and fell much in love with, at Carolside--he is a great friend of
Dr. Hampden's: "The greater, purer, loftier, more complete the
character, so is the inspiration; for he that is true to conscience,
faithful to reason, obedient to religion, has not only the strength of
his own virtue, wisdom, and piety, but the whole strength of Omnipotence
on his side; for goodness, truth, and love, as we conceive them, are not
one thing in man and another in God, but the same thing in each." I
agree with this, dear Hal, and not with you, upon this point.

These speculations are a severe effort to my mind, and, besides
shrinking from the mere mental labor of considering them, I find it
difficult, in the rapid and desultory manner in which I must needs
answer letters, to place even the few ideas that occur to me upon them
clearly and coherently before you.

Did I tell you that that impudent---- I've no more room, I'll tell you
in my next. Give my love to Dorothy, and

Believe me ever yours,
FANNY.

HULL, Saturday, December 4th, 1847.

I did tolerably uncomfortably without Jeffreys [a man-servant who had
left me], and that, you know, was very well. I paid old Mrs. Dorr
something extra for doing all the work in the rooms upstairs, had a fire
made in the little man-servant's room in the hall, and, after twelve
o'clock, established Hayes therein to attend to my visitors. My table
was laid for dinner in the front drawing-room, and at dinner-time
wheeled into the back drawing-room, where, you know, I always sit; and
after my dinner wheeled out again, and the things all removed in the
other room by Hayes. The work is