ay God bless you.

Your ever affectionate
BA.

I hear that Guizot suffers intensely, and that there are fears lest he
may sink. Not that the complaint is mortal.

[Footnote 133: Referring to the Pythagorean doctrine of the sanctity
of beans.]

_To Mr. Westwood_
Wimpole Street: April 9, 1845.

Poor Hood! Ah! I had feared that the scene was closing on him. And I
am glad that a little of the poor gratitude of the world is laid down
at his door just now to muffle to his dying ear the harsher sounds
of life. I forgive much to Sir Robert for the sake of that
letter--though, after all, the minister is not high-hearted, or made
of heroic stuff.[134]

I am delighted that you should appreciate Mr. Browning's high
power--very high, according to my view--very high, and various. Yes,
'Paracelsus' you _should_ have. 'Sordello' has many fine things in
it, but, having been thrown down by many hands as unintelligible, and
retained in mine as certainly of the Sphinxine literature, with all
its power, I hesitate to be imperious to you in my recommendations of
it. Still, the book _is_ worth being _studied_--study is necessary
to it, as, indeed, though in a less degree, to all the works of this
poet; study is peculiarly necessary to it. He is a true poet, and a
poet, I believe, of a large '_future in-rus, about to be_.' He is only
growing to the height he will attain.

_To Mr. Westwood_
April 1845.

The sin of Sphinxine literature I admit. Have I not struggled hard to
renounce it? Do I not, day by day? Do you know that I have been
told that _I_ have written things harder to interpret than Browning
himself?--only I cannot, cannot believe it--he is so very hard. Tell
me honestly (and although I attributed the excessive good nature of
the 'Metropolitan' criticism to you, I _know_ that you can speak the
truth _truly_!) if anything like the Sphinxineness of Browning, you
discover in me; take me as far back as 'The Seraphim' volume and
answer! As for Browning, the fault is certainly great, and the
disadvantage scarcely calculable, it is so great. He cuts his language
into bits, and one has to join them together, as young children do
their dissected maps, in order to make any meaning at all, and to
study hard before one can do it. Not that I grudge the study or the
time. The depth and power of the significance (when it is apprehended)
glorifies the puzzle. With you and me it is so; but with the majority
of readers, even of reader