[No surviving envelope]

Your answer to my question (though it is a good deal to get you to answer a question at all) was Silly. I did not suppose that my visit had been any great help in any way – though I hoped that perhaps you might continue to see the Farrands in Pasadena, asStephensons, the;a1 a change from the Stevensons and the Alexanders and the Dan Smiths; but I did want to know whether it had done any harm: eitherEyre, Mary B.favoured among EH's Claremont circle;a6 inGalitzi, Dr Christinefavoured among EH's Claremont friends;a3 the way of malice (the only people I felt any real confidence in were Miss Eyre and Miss Galitzi, everyone else talked some foreign language) or internally <spiritually – or nervously?>: and on neither of these points have you thrown the slightest light. Are you being, like other Americans, just Polite? What I care about in a correspondent (as if I had ever had any other! or was likely to have – and am less likely with every letter I write to you) is not so much affection even, or certainly compliments – saying things that will please me, or Politeness; but just Frankness. I wish you could write to me merely as if you had to speak to somebody, and would be willing to consider myself as happening to be the only person available for the purpose. <This is not in the least a criticism of the way you do write! It is just meandering on.> I am humble enough to be delighted to be used; but am too proud to be willing to reside in the situation of a mendicant. If I cannot be of any use to you, I had rather do without you.

ISociety of Saint John the Evangelist, Cambridge, Mass.;a4 did not expect that the Cowley chapel would be crowded because I went there regularly. And of course it hasn’t made the slightest difference. I prefer that it should not.