The great interest of it is
that it belongs to a different age of the human mind, in which
there is so much like and also unlike ourselves. Many of our
commonplaces and common words are being thought out for the first
time by Plato. Add to this that in the original this book is the
most perfect work of art in the world. I wonder whether it will
have any meaning or interest for you.
You asked me once whether I desired to make a Sister of Charity of
you. Certainly not (although there are worse occupations); nor do
I desire to make anything. But your talking about plans of life
does lead me to think of what would be best and happiest for you.
I do not object to the hunting and going to Florence and Rome, but
should there not be some higher end to which these are the steps?
I think that you might happily fill up a great portion of your
life with literature (I am convinced that you have considerable
talent and might become eminent) and a small portion with works of
benevolence, just to keep us in love and charity with our poor
neighbours; and the rest I do not grudge to society and hunting.
Do you think that I am a hard taskmaster? Not very, I think. More
especially as you will not be led away by my good advice. You see
that I cannot bear to think of you hunting and ballet-dancing when
you are "fair, fat and forty-five." Do prepare yourself for that
awful age.
I went to see Mrs. H. Ward the other day: she insists on doing
battle with the reviewer in the Quarterly, and is thinking of
another novel, of which the subject will be the free-thinking of
honest working-men in Paris and elsewhere.
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