ation is at the height; neither he nor
another could _help_ you; such books as yours make their own way. The
'Athenaeum' doesn't give full critiques of Dickens, for instance, and it
is arctical in general temperature. I thought I would say this to you.
Certainly I _do know_ that Mr. Chorley highly regards you in every
capacity--as writer and as woman--and in the manner in which he named
you to me in his last letter there was no chill of sentiment nor recoil
of opinion. So do not admit a doubt of _him_; he is a sure and
affectionate friend, and absolutely high-minded and reliable; of an
intact and even chivalrous delicacy. I say it, lest you might have need
of him and be scrupulous (from your late feeling) about making him
useful. It is horrible to doubt of one's friends; oh, I know _that_, and
would save you from it.

We had a letter from Paris two days ago from one of the noblest and most
intellectual men in the country, M. Milsand, a writer in the 'Deux
Mondes.' He complains of a stagnation in the imaginative literature, but
adds that he is consoled for everything by the 'state of politics.' Your
Napoleon is doing you credit, his very enemies must confess.

As for me, I can't write to-day. Your little precious, melancholy note
hangs round the neck of my heart like a stone. Arabel simply says she
is afraid from what you have written to her that you must be very ill;
she does not tell me what you wrote to her--perhaps for fear of paining
me--and now I am pained by the silence beyond measure.

Robert's love and warmest wishes for you. He appreciates your kind word
to him. And I, what am I to say? I love you from a very sad and grateful
heart, looking backwards and forwards--and _upwards_ to pray God's love
down on you!

Your ever affectionate
E.B.B., rather BA.

Precious the books will be to me. I hope not to wait to read them till
they reach me, as there is a bookseller here who will be sure to have
them. Thank you, thank you.

* * * * *

_To Miss Mitford_

Florence: September 4, 1854.

Five minutes do not pass, my beloved friend, since reading this dear
letter which has wrung from me tender and sorrowful tears, and answering
it thus. Pray for you? I do not wait that you should bid me. May the
divine love in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ shine upon you day and
night, and make all our human loves strike you as cold and dull in
comparison with that ineffable tenderness! As