
I received your note of 30 Novr, & have been intending to write for some little while past.
You & I have both suffered a loss in the death of that admirable woman Mrs Gilchrist—a strong warm nature, full of strong sympathetic sense & frank cordiality. I look round the circle of my acquaintance for her equal. Much might be said on such a topic: but often a little is as good as much.
The subscription has continued going on, in much the same course
as previously, as you will see from the enclosed list. In the Athenaeum (& I
believe Academy) of 2 Jany a paragraph was put in, to serve as a reminder to any
well-wishers: perhaps it may be expected that a few will respond, & that we may
then regard our little movement as wound up. I shall always esteem it a privilege to
have borne my small share in testifying the respect & gratitude to you wh. are due to you (I might say) from all open-minded men & women in the
world—& from the shut-minded too, for the matter of that.
My wife & children are away at Ventnor (Isle of Wight), as the London winter threatened
to be too much for my wife's delicate chest. I expect to join them within the next
few days, staying away some 3 weeks or so. As I may be a little hurried the last
remaining days, it is possible that I may not just now pay in the £33.16.6.
shown in the enclosed list—assuming as I do that this point wd not be regarded as material. However, the utmost likely delay wd not be long.
I have seen 3 or 4 times Mr. Chas Aldrich, of Webster City, Iowa: he told
us of
his interview with you shortly before he crossed the Atlantic. We liked him,
& wd gladly have seen more of him: but this apparently will not be, for he
must now be just about to sail back from Liverpool to New York.

