d trust.

May God bless you, my dear cousin.

Most affectionately yours,
E.B.B.

_To John Kenyan_
50 Wimpole Street: November 5, 1844.

Well, but am I really so bad? ' _Et tu_!' Can _you_ call me careless?
Remember all the altering of manuscript and proof--and remember how
the obscurities used to fly away before your cloud-compelling, when
you were the Jove of the criticisms! That the books (I won't call
them _our_ books when I am speaking of the faults) are remarkable for
defects and superfluities of evil, I can see quite as well as another;
but then I won't admit that ' it comes' of my carelessness, and
refusing to take pains. On the contrary, my belief is, that very few
writers called ' correct ' who have selected classical models to work
from, pay more laborious attention than I do habitually to the forms
of thought and expression. ' Lady Geraldine ' was an exception in her
whole history. If I write fast sometimes (and the historical fact is
that what has been written fastest, has pleased most), l am not apt
to print without consideration. I appeal to Philip sober, if I am!
My dearest cousin, do remember! As to the faults, I do not think of
defending them, be very sure. My consolation is, that I may try to do
better in time, if I may talk of time. The worst fault of all, as far
as expression goes (the adjective-substantives, whether in prose or
verse, I cannot make up my mind to consider faulty), is that kind of
obscurity which is the same thing with inadequate expression. Be very
sure--try to be very sure--that I am not obstinate and self-opiniated
beyond measure. To _you_ in case, who have done so much for me, and
who think of me so more than kindly, I feel it to be both duty and
pleasure to defer and yield. Still, you know, we could not, if we were
ten years about it, alter down the poems to the terms of all these
reviewers. You would not desire it, if it were possible. I do not
remember that you suggested any change in the verse on Aeschylus. The
critic[115] mistakes my allusion, which was to the fact that in the
acting of the Eumenides, when the great tragic poet did actually
'frown as the gods did,' women fell down fainting from the benches.
I did not refer to the effect of his human countenance 'during
composition.' But I am very grateful to the reviewer whoever he may
be--very--and with need. See how the 'Sun' shines in response to
'Blackwood' (thank you for sending me that notice), when previously w