nce, I am alive
enough to be sincerely grateful for any degree of interest spent upon
me. As to Flush, he should thank you too, but at the present moment he
is quite absorbed in finding a cool place in this room to lie down in,
having sacrificed his usual favorite place at my feet, his head upon
them, oppressed by the torrid necessity of a thermometer above 70. To
Flopsy's acquaintance he would aspire gladly, only hoping that Flopsy
does not 'delight to bark and bite,' like dogs in general, because if
he does Flush would as soon be acquainted with a _cat_, he says, for
he does not pretend to be a hero. Poor Flush! 'the bright summer days
on which I am ever likely to take him out for a ramble over hill and
meadow' are never likely to shine! But he follows, or rather leaps
into my wheeled chair, and forswears merrier company even now, to be
near me. I am a good deal better, it is right to say, and look forward
to a possible prospect of being better still, though I may be shut out
from climbing the Brocken otherwise than in a vision.

You will see by the length of the 'Legend'[80] which I send to you (in
its only printed form) _why_ I do not send it to you in manuscript.
Keep the book as long as you please. My new volume is not yet in the
press, but I am writing more and more in a view to it, pleased with
the thought that some kind hands are already stretched out in welcome
and acceptance of what it may become. Not as idle as I appear, I have
also been writing some fugitive verses for American magazines. This is
my confession. Forgive its tediousness, and believe me thankfully and
very sincerely yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

[Footnote 80: _The Lay of the Brown Rosary_.]

_To Mr. Westwood_
50 Wimpole Street: September 2, 1843.

Dear Mr. Westwood,--Your letter comes to remind me how much I ought to
be ashamed of myself.... I received the book in all safety, and read
your kind words about my 'Rosary' with more grateful satisfaction than
appears from the evidence. It is great pleasure to me to have written
for such readers, and it is great hope to me to be able to write for
them. The transcription of the 'Rosary' is a compliment which I never
anticipated, or you should have had the manuscript copy you asked for,
although I have not a perfect one in my hands. The poem is full of
faults, as, indeed, all my poems appear to myself to be when I look
back upon them instead of looking down. I hope to be worthier in
poetry s