your portrait by Lawrence in our rooms"--which made me
laugh and cry, and abuse him for tantalizing me with the ghost of a
declaration at that late hour of both our days. And so we parted,
and I never met him again. On his way home that evening, his
daughter told me that he had spoken kind compassionate words of
commendation of me. I have kept them in grateful remembrance. Fine
genius! and tender gentle heart! the classic writer of the keenest
and truest satire of the social vices of our day; the master of
English style, as powerful and pure as that of the best models,
whose works he has so admirably illustrated.

"Vanity Fair" will, I suppose, be always considered Thackeray's
masterpiece--though everybody loves, beyond all his other portraits,
the exquisite one of Colonel Newcome--but it seems to me that
"Esmond" is a more extraordinary literary feat than any other of his
works--except, indeed, "Lyndon of Barry Lyndon," which is even a
more remarkable production of the same order.]

KING STREET, Monday, 14th.

If you begin your letter with such questions as "What do you think of
me?" I do not know any reason in life why my answer should ever have an
end, even within the liberal limits of the two pages which you extort
from me daily. That is a question I cannot answer; although, I must say,
I should have expected from you rather more of that constancy and
consistency (a male rather than a female quality, however), which,
having determined on a certain course as best, does not lament having
abided by it when the issue appears unprosperous. I think women are
seldom of a sufficiently determined mind to make their opinion or
resolution itself their consolation under defeat. They are more liable
to mental as well as moral misgivings and regrets than men, and an
unfortunate result easily induces them to repent a course they
deliberately adopted.

_Sole vales Veritas_ is the motto upon a little pencil-case contained in
the small work-case Emily has given me. She had it engraved on the seal,
and though it is not altogether so congenial a motto to me as Arnold and
Robertson's Christian device "Forward!" (and is moreover axiomatic
rather than hortatory), I use it partly for her sake, and partly because
it is undeniable.

Pilate wished to know what is truth--or rather pretended that he
did--and I have a very general conviction that "What is truth?" is the
speech o