uite well--now wouldn't it?--and my fear
is that the 'almost well' means 'very little better.' And why, when
there is no motive for hurrying, run any risk? Don't think that I will
help you to make yourself ill. That I refuse to do even so much work
as the 'little dessert-knife' in the way of murder, ... _do_ think! So
upon the whole, I expect nothing on Saturday from this distance--and
if it comes unexpectedly (I mean the Duchess and not Saturday) _let_
it be at no cost, or at the least cost possible, will you? I am
delighted in the meanwhile to hear of the quantity of 'mala herba';
and hemlock does not come up from every seed you sow, though you call
it by ever such bad names.

Talking of poetry, I had a newspaper 'in help of social and political
progress' sent to me yesterday from America--addressed to--just my
name ... _poetess, London_! Think of the simplicity of those wild
Americans in 'calculating' that 'people in general' here in England
know what a poetess is!--Well--the post office authorities, after
deep meditation, I do not doubt, on all probable varieties of the
chimpanzee, and a glance to the Surrey Gardens on one side, and the
Zoological department of Regent's Park on the other, thought of
'Poet's Corner,' perhaps, and wrote at the top of the parcel, 'Enquire
at Paternoster Row'! whereupon the Paternoster Row people wrote again,
'Go to Mr. Moxon'--and I received my newspaper.

And talking of poetesses, I had a note yesterday (again) which quite
touched me ... from Mr. Hemans--Charles, the son of Felicia--written
with so much feeling, that it was with difficulty I could say my
perpetual 'no' to his wish about coming to see me. His mother's memory
is surrounded to him, he says, 'with almost a divine lustre'--and 'as
it cannot be to those who knew the writer alone and not the woman.' Do
you not like to hear such things said? and is it not better than your
tradition about Shelley's son? and is it not pleasant to know that
that poor noble pure-hearted woman, the Vittoria Colonna of our
country, should be so loved and comprehended by some ... by one at
least ... of her own house? Not that, in naming Shelley, I meant for a
moment to make a comparison--there is not equal ground for it.
Vittoria Colonna does not walk near Dante--no. And if you promised
never to tell Mrs. Jameson ... nor Miss Martineau ... I would confide
to you perhaps my secret profession of faith--which is ... which is
... that let us say and d