There's no unity and holding together, no reality properly so called, no thinking of any kind.

I hear that Alfred Tennyson says of him: 'He has fancy without imagination.' Still, it is difficult to say at the dawn what may be written at noon.

Certainly he is very rich and full of colour; nothing is more surprising to me than his favourable reception with the critics.

I should have thought that his very merits would be against him.
If you can read novels, and you have too much sense not to be fond of them, read 'Villette.' The scene of the greater part of it is in Belgium, and I think it a strong book.

'Ruth,' too, by Mrs.Gaskell, the author of 'Mary Barton,' has pleased me very much.