However, these words are only when I am cross at having been prevented from writing to the folk I love, such as thee, of the progress of Scutari. Else generally the feeling in every soul, so wide and so deep, touches us more than I can tell, and helps us over the inevitable weight of the anxiety more than I thought possible--heavy, redfaced, old fox-hunting Squires, who never had a "sentiment" in their lives, come with their eyes full of tears; narrow-minded Farmers with _both_ eyes on the main chance are melted; young ladies who never got beyond balls and concerts are warmed. Dearest, I do feel of the feeling she has raised, it blesseth "him here who gives and those out there who take," and will do good wider than one hoped. I can't so much as write for a dispatch box for her (thinking an official of her scale must want one for her papers) without its coming back full of pretty little match boxes as an offering, and wrapped in a large contribution of old sheets.... I must give you the cream of this last three or four days' letters. Firstly, Mr. Hookham, the bookseller, sending down a parcel, says he "trusts to hear of the return of Miss N., as he does not think, though convalescent, she can get well on the shores of Bosphorus or Black Sea; that a General or Admiral can be replaced, but there can be no successor to Miss N., her skill, her fortitude, her courage cannot be replaced. I speak of courage in the most exalted sense that it is possible to characterise the bravery and devotion of woman." Then comes a letter from a shipowner in the north of Scotland going to launch a vessel, and wanting to call it after her, sends to have her name quite "correct." Next, Lady Dunsany saying that "Joan of Arc was not more a creation of the moment and _for_ the moment than F. Joan's was the same unearthly influence carrying all before its spirit might--Joan's was the same strange and sexless identity, which, belonging as it were neither to man nor woman, seemed to disembody and combine the _choicest results_ of both, and then to sweep down conventionalities, prejudices, and pruderies, with the clear, cold, crystal sceptre of its _majestic purity_. Joan's mission, too, was the condensation of her country's moral and intellectual power in the person of a young and single woman when the men of that country were so many of them imbecile and effete! I think my parallel runs pretty close." Lord Dunsany adds that he has no time to write, so he says, "ditto to Mrs. Burke," and that I know he is "fanatico for Joan of Arc rediviva, God bless her." Then a bit from Lady Byron, saying, "even her illness will advance her work as all things must for those who do all with His aid," and more that is most beautiful. Then 2 copies of the _History of Women_, with