"It is a striking proof of the power of that most extraordinary man Defoe that I seem to recognise in every line of the narrative something of him. Has this occurred to you? The going to Waterloo with that unconsciousness of everything in the road, but the obstacles to getting on--the shutting herself up in her room and determining not to hear--the not going to the door when the knocking came--the finding out by her wild spirits when she heard he was safe, how much she had feared when in doubt and anxiety--the desperate desire to move towards him--the whole description of the cottage, and its condition; and their daily shifts and contrivances; and the lying down beside him in the bed and both _falling asleep_; and his resolving not to serve any more, but to live quietly thenceforth; and her sorrow when she saw him eating with an appetite so soon before his death; and his death itself--all these are matters of truth, which only that astonishing creature, as I think, could have told in fiction. "Of all the beautiful and tender passages--the thinking every day how happy and blest she was--the decorating him for the dinner--the standing in the balcony at night and seeing the troops melt away through the gate--and the rejoining him on his sick bed--I say not a word. They are God's own, and should be sacred. But let me say again, with an earnestness which pen and ink can no more convey than toast and water, in thanking you heartily for the perusal of this paper, that its impression on me can never be told; that the ground she travelled (which I know well) is holy ground to me from this day; and that please Heaven I will tread its every foot this very next summer, to have the softened recollection of this sad story on the very earth where it was acted. "You won't smile at this, I know. When my enthusiasms are awakened by such things they don't wear out. "Have you ever thought within yourself of that part where, having suffered so much by the news of his death, she _will not_ believe he is alive? I should have supposed that unnatural if I had seen it in fiction. "I shall never dismiss the subject from my mind, but with these hasty and very imperfect words I shall dismiss it from my paper, with two additional remarks--firstly, that Kate has been grievously putting me out by sobbing over it, while I have been writing this, and has just retired in an agony of grief; and, secondly, that _if_ a time _should_ ever come when you would not object to letting a friend copy it for himself, I hope you will bear me in your thoughts.