But your motive for writing to me was your desire of knowing whether my men and women were really existing creatures, or beings of my own imagination?  Nay, Mary Leadbeater, yours was a better motive; you thought that you should give pleasure by writing, and—­yet you will think me very vain—­you felt some pleasure yourself in renewing the acquaintance that commenced under such auspices!  Am I not right?  My heart tells me that I am, and hopes that you will confirm it.  Be assured that I feel a very cordial esteem for the friend of my friend,—­the virtuous, the worthy character whom I am addressing.

Yes, I will tell you readily about my creatures, whom I endeavoured to paint as nearly as I could, and dared; for in some cases I dared not.  This you will readily admit; besides, charity bade me be cautious.  Thus far you are correct; there is not one of whom I had not in my mind the original; but I was obliged in some cases to take them from their real situations, in one or two instances to change even the sex, and in many the circumstances.  The nearest to real life was the proud ostentatious man in The Borough, who disguises an ordinary mind by doing great things; but the others approach to reality at greater or less distances.  Indeed, I do not know that I could paint merely from my own fancy, and there is no cause why we should.  Is there not diversity sufficient in society?  And who can go, even but a little, into the assemblies of our fellow-wanderers from the way of perfect rectitude, and not find characters so varied and so pointed that he need not call upon his imagination?

Will you not write again?  ‘Write to thee, or for the public’, wilt thou not ask? To me and for as many as love and can discern the union of strength and simplicity, purity and good sense. Our feeling and our hearts is the language you can adopt.  Alas, I cannot with propriety use it—­our I too could once say; but I am alone now; and since my removing into a busy town among the multitude, the loneliness is but more apparent and more melancholy.  But this is only at certain times; and then I have, though at considerable distances, six female friends, unknown to each other, but all dear, very dear, to me.  With men I do not much associate; not as deserting, and much less disliking, the male part of society, but as being unfit for it; not hardy nor grave, not knowing enough, nor sufficiently acquainted with the every-day concerns of men.  But my beloved creatures have minds with which I can better assimilate ...  Think of you I must; and of me, I must entreat that you would not be unmindful.

[Footnote 1:  Cp. letter, p. 283.]

TO THE SAME

Comparisons

Trowbridge, 7 Sept. 1818.