I did not enter, in detail, on the spirit of the alteration I propose in your story; because I thought it right that you should think out that for yourself if you applied yourself to the change. I can now assure you that you describe it exactly as I had conceived it; and if I had wanted anything to confirm me in my conviction of its being right, our both seeing it so precisely from the same point of view, would be ample assurance to me. I would leave her new and altered life to be inferred. It does not appear to me either necessary or practicable (within such limits) to do more than that. Do not be uneasy if you find the alteration demanding time. I shall quite understand that, and my interest will keep. _When_ you finish the story, send it to Mr. Wills. Besides being in daily communication with him, I am at the office once a week; and I will go over it in print, before the proof is sent to you. Very faithfully yours. 1855.[63] [Sidenote: Captain Morgan.] DEAR FRIEND,[64] I am always delighted to hear from you. Your genial earnestness does me good to think of. And every day of my life I feel more and more that to be thoroughly in earnest is everything, and to be anything short of it is nothing. You see what we have been doing to our valiant soldiers.[65] You see what miserable humbugs we are. And because we have got involved in meshes of aristocratic red tape to our unspeakable confusion, loss, and sorrow, the gentlemen who have been so kind as to ruin us are going to give us a day of humiliation and fasting the day after to-morrow. I am sick and sour to think of such things at this age of the world. . . . I am in the first stage of a new book, which consists in going round and round the idea, as you see a bird in his cage go about and about his sugar before he touches it. Always most cordially yours. FOOTNOTES: [57] The Editors have great pleasure in publishing another note to Mr. Thackeray, which has been found and sent to them by his daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, since the publication of the first two volumes. [58] Chairman of the "Administrative Reform League" Meeting at Drury Lane Theatre. [59] Mr. Higgins, best known as a writer in _The Times_, under the name of "Jacob Omnium." [60] The Members of the Administrative Reform League. [61] Mrs. Winter, a very dear friend and companion of Charles Dickens in his youth. [62] Miss Emily Jolly, authoress of "Mr. Arle," and many other clever novels. [63] This, and another Letter to Captain Morgan which appears under date of 1860, were published in _Scribner's Monthly_, October, 1877. [64] Captain Morgan was a captain in the American Merchant Service. He was an intimate friend of Mr. Leslie, R.A. (the great painter), by whom he was made known to Charles Dickens. [65] This Letter was written during the Crimean war. 1856.