My dear Miss Smith, Many thanks for your kind answer, I think these ladies’ biographies will be very nice work to do together, and I believe that to look into real life minutely is the best school for one’s own mind or for fiction. If I write nothing but fiction for some time, I begin to get stupid, and to feel rather as if it had been a long meal of sweets - then history is ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

Many thanks for the arrival of this morning and for your kind undertaking of the biographies. You will find a good deal more of Mrs Grant’s childhood in her Life of an American Lady, which may be got from Hookham’s library if from no where else. I wish I had the book or I would gladly lend it to you - it is a very interesting and curious picture, but in such ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith,

I think your answer is a very wise one, and quite what I can understand. I am sure with all the poor I have known unusual help unless on some very pressing occasion would be anything but really beneficial, but the three old couples might be most happily provided, and I hope Mrs Elphinstone may choose that way of spending the sum. I will put what you say before her, thank you ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I have all but finished Mrs Grant and most interesting she is. Many many thanks for her. I am not sure whether she is not a little too long, to be in thorough proportion with the others, and if I find it so, perhaps I may have to take out a few of the letters that relate less directly to her personal history, but certainly not the American ones. What an old ... continue reading