Forster， with his usual affection for us， comes down to bring you this letter and to bring you home.
come down to：归结为；涉及
托马斯·哈代致玛丽·哈代
Thomas Hardy to Mary Hardy
托马斯·哈代（1840—1928），英国小说家、诗人，1840年6月2日生于英国西南部的一个小村庄。哈代的文学生涯开始于诗歌，后因无缘发表，改而从事小说创作。他的第四部小说《远离尘嚣》（1874）让他一举成名。从此，他放弃建筑行业，致力于小说创作。哈代一生共发表了近20部长篇小说，其中最著名的当推《德伯家的苔丝》、《无名的裘德》、《还乡》和《卡斯特桥市长》。另有八部诗集，共918首。
My dear Mary，
I was beginning to think you had given up writing altogether when your letter came. Certainly try to get as long a time as you can Christmas.
I am glad you have been to Oxford again. It must be a jolly place. I shall try to get down there some time or other. You have no right to say that you are not connected with art. Everybody is， to a certain extent； the only difference between a professor and an amateur being is that the former has the (often disagreeable) necessity of making it to earning bread and cheese—and thus often rendering what is a pleasure to other people but a "bore" to himself.
About Thackeray， you must read something of his. He is considered to be the greatest novelist of the day—looking at novel writing of the highest kind as a perfect and truthful representation of actual life—which is no doubt the proper view to take. Hence， because his novels stand so high as works of Art or Truth， they often have anything but an elevating tendency， and on this account are particularly unfitted for young people—from their very truthfulness. People say that it is beyond Mr. Thackeray to paint a perfect man or woman—a great fault if novels are intended to instruct， but just the opposite if they are to be considered merely as Pictures. Vanity Fair is considered one of his best.