no, not in the least. It was a matter of income, he would tell
me, and of keeping two establishments; and I would answer that it ought
rather to have been a matter of faith in God and in the value of God's
gifts, the greatest of which is love. I am romantic about love--oh, much
more than you are, though older than you. A man's life does not develop
rightly without it, and what is called an 'improvident marriage' often
appears to me a noble, righteous, and prudent act. Your Ninian was a man
before he was a brother. I hold that he had no right to sacrifice a
great spiritual good of his own to the worldly good of his family,
however he made it out. He should have said: 'God gives me this gift, He
will find me energy to work for it and suffer for it. We will all live
together, struggle together if it is necessary, a little more poorly, a
little more laboriously, but keeping true to the best aims of life, all
of us.'

That's what _my_ Ninian would have said. I don't like to see noble
Ninians crushed flat under family Juggernauts, from whatever heroic
motives--not I. Do you forgive me for being so candid?

I must tell you that Mrs. Jameson, who is staying in this house, read
your book in England and mentioned it to me as a good book, 'very
gracefully written,' before I read it, quite irrespectively, too, of my
dedication, which was absent from the copy she saw at Brighton. It was
mentioned as one of the novels which had pleased her most lately.

I shall like to show you my child, as you like children, and as I am
vain--oh, past endurance vain, about him. You won't understand a word he
says, though, for he speaks three languages at once, and most of the
syllables of each wrong side foremost.

No, don't call me a Bonapartist. I am not a Bonapartist indeed. But I am
a Democrat and singularly (in these days) consequent about universal
suffrage. Also, facts in England have been much mis-stated; but there's
no room for politics to-day.

When I thank you, remember that my husband thanks you. We both hope to
see you before this month shall be quite at an end, and then you will
know me better, I hope; and though I shall lose a great deal by your
knowing me, of course, yet you won't, _after that_, make such mistakes
as you 'confess' in this note which I have just read over again. Did I
think you 'sentimental'? Won't you rather think _me_ sentimental to-day?
Through it all,

Your affectionate
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.