By the bye, my dear E., I am quite concerned for the loss your mother mentions in her letter. Two chapters and a half to be missing is monstrous! It is well that _I_ have not been at Steventon lately, and therefore cannot be suspected of purloining them; two strong twigs and a half towards a nest of my own would have been something. I do not think, however, that any theft of that sort would be really very useful to me. What should I do with your strong, manly, vigorous sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labor? JANE AUSTEN: _Letter to her Nephew_, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by Austen-Leigh. * * * * * [Sidenote: A “glorious novelist.”] Read ‘Emma,’--most admirable. The little complexities of the story are beyond my comprehension, and wonderfully beautiful.... She was a glorious novelist. HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Journal_, in ‘Memorials,’ by Maria Weston Chapman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1877. * * * * * [Sidenote: ‘Persuasion.’] I have read eleven times Miss Austen’s ‘Persuasion,’ unequalled in interest, charm, and truth, to _my_ mind. HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Letter_, published in her biography, by Mrs. Fenwick Miller. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1885. * * * * * Her exquisite story of ‘Persuasion’ absolutely haunted me. Whenever it rained (and it did rain every day that I stayed in Bath, except one), I thought of Anne Elliott meeting Captain Wentworth, when driven by a shower to take refuge in a shoe-shop. Whenever I got out of breath in climbing up-hill, I thought of that same charming Anne Elliott, and of that ascent from the lower town to the upper, during which all her tribulations ceased. And when at last, by dint of trotting up one street and down another, I incurred the unromantic calamity of a blister on the heel, even that grievance became classical by the recollection of the similar catastrophe which, in consequence of her peregrinations with the admiral, had befallen dear Mrs. Croft. I doubt if any one, even Scott himself, have left such perfect impressions of character and place as Jane Austen. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: ‘Recollections of a Literary Life.’ New York: Harper & Bros., 1852. * * * * * [Sidenote: One thing lacking.] She wants nothing but the _beau-idéal_ of the female character to be a perfect novel writer.... By the way, how delightful is her ‘Emma’! the best, I think, of all her charming works. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letters_, in her ‘Life,’ by Rev. A. G. L’Estrange. * * * * * [Sidenote: Three weighty opinions.]