anker also. What is the use of kings and queens in these
days, except to encourage arts and letters? Really I cannot see.
Anybody can hunt an otter out of a box--who has nerve enough.

I had a letter from America to-day, and heard that my book was not
published there until the fifth of this October. Still, a few copies
had preceded the publication, and made way among the critics, and
several reviews were in the course of germinating very greenly. Yes,
I was delighted with the 'Examiner,' and all the more so from having
interpreted the long delay of the notice, the gloomiest manner
possible. My friends try to persuade me that the book is making some
impression, and I am willing enough to be convinced. Thank you for all
your kind sympathy, my dear friend.

Now, do write to me soon again! Have you read Dr. Arnold's Life? I
have not, but am very anxious to do so, from the admirable extracts
in the 'Examiner' of last Saturday, and also from what I hear of it in
other quarters. That Dr. Arnold must have been _a man_, in the largest
and noblest sense. May God bless you, both of you! I think of you,
dearest Mrs. Martin, much, and remain

Your very affectionate
BA.

_To John Kenyon_
Saturday, October 29, 1844.

The moral of your letter, my dearest cousin, certainly is that no
green herb of a secret will spring up and flourish between you and me.

The loss of Flush was a secret. My aunt's intention of coming to
England (for I know not how to explain what she said to you, but by
the supposition of an unfulfilled intention!) was a secret. And Mr.
Chorley's letter to me was a third secret. All turned into light!

For the last, you may well praise me for discretion. The letter he
wrote was pleasanter to me than many of the kindnesses (apart from
your own) occasioned by my book--and when you asked me once 'what
letters I had received,' if ever a woman deserved to be canonised
for her silence, _I_ did! But the effort was necessary--for he
particularly desired that I would not mention to 'our common friends'
the circumstance of his having written to me; and 'common friends'
could only stand for 'Mr. Kenyon and Miss Mitford.' Of course what you
tell me, of his liking the poems better still, is delightful to hear;
but he reviewed them in the 'Athenaeum' surely! The review we read in
the 'Athenaeum' was by his hand--could not be mistaken ...

Well; but Flushie! It is too true that he has been lost--lost and won;
and true besid