d the
'Doves' and everything else worth a straw of my writing. Here's a
fact which you must try to settle with your theories of simplicity and
popularity: _None of these simple poems of mine have been favorites
with general readers_. The unintelligible ones are always preferred, I
observe, by extracters, compilers, and ladies and gentlemen who write
to tell me that I'm a muse. The very Corn Law Leaguers in the North
used to leave your 'Seagulls' to fly where they could, and clap hands
over mysteries of iniquity. Dearest Miss Mitford--for the rest, don't
mistake what I write to you sometimes--don't fancy that I undervalue
simplicity and think nothing of legitimate fame--I only mean to say
that the vogue which begins with the masses generally comes to nought
(Beranger is an exceptional case, from the _form_ of his poems,
obviously), while the appreciation beginning with the few always ends
with the masses. Wasn't Wordsworth, for instance, both simple and
unpopular, when he was most divine? To go to the great from the small,
when I complain of the lamentable weakness of much in my 'Seraphim'
volume, I don't complain of the 'Seagull' and 'Doves' and the simple
verses, but exactly of the more ambitious ones. I have had to rewrite
pages upon pages of that volume. Oh, such feeble rhymes, and turns of
thought--such a dingy mistiness! Even Robert couldn't say a word for
much of it. I took great pains with the whole, and made considerable
portions new, only your favourites were not touched--not a word
touched, I think, in the 'Seagull,' and scarcely a word in the
'Doves.' You won't complain of me a great deal, I do hope and trust.
Also I put back your 'little words' into the 'House of Clouds.' The
two volumes are to come out, it appears, at the end of October; not
before, because Mr. Chapman wished to inaugurate them for his new
house in Piccadilly. There are some new poems, and one rather long
ballad written at request of anti-slavery friends in America.[205]
I arranged that it should come next to the 'Cry of the Children,' to
appear impartial as to national grievances....

Oh--Balzac--what a loss! One of the greatest and (most) original
writers of the age gone from us! To hear this news made Robert and me
very melancholy. Indeed, there seems to be fatality just now with the
writers of France. Soulie, Bernard, gone too; George Sand translating
Mazzini; Sue in a socialistical state of decadence--what he means
by writing such tra