26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET.
MY DEAR CHARLES GREVILLE,

I send you back Channing's book, with many thanks. The controversial
part of his sermons does not satisfy me. No controversy does; no
arguments, whether for or against Christianity, ever appear to me
_conclusive_; but as I am a person who would like extremely to have it
demonstrated _why_ two and two make four, you can easily conceive that
arguments upon any subject seldom seem perfectly satisfactory to me. As
for my convictions, which are, I thank God, vivid and strong, I think
they spring from a species of intuition, mercifully granted to those who
have a natural incapacity for reasoning, _i.e._ the whole female _sect_.
And, talking of them, I do not like Dryden, though I exclaim with
delight at the glorious beauty and philosophical truth of some of his
poetry; but oh! he has nasty notions about women. Did you ever see
Correggio's picture of the Gismonda? It is a wonderful portrait of
grief. Even Guercino's "Hagar" is inferior to it in the mere expression
of misery. Knowing no more of the story years ago than I gathered from a
fine print of Correggio's picture, I wrote a rhapsody upon it, which I
will show you some day.

The "Leaf and the Flower" is very gorgeous, but it does not touch the
heart like earnest praise of a virtue, loved, felt, and practised; and
Dryden's "Hymns to Chastity" would scarcely, I think, satisfy me, even
had I not in memory sundry sublime things of Spenser, Dante, and Milton
on the same theme. Thank you for both the books. Each in its kind is
very good.

I am yours very truly,
F. A. B.

[Mr. Greville had lent me a volume of Dr. Channing's "Sermons," and
Dryden's "Fables," which I had never before read.]

26, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, Saturday, April 29th.
DEAREST GRANNY,

I send you back, with thanks, the critique on Adelaide. It is very civil
and, I think, not otherwise than just, except perhaps in comparing my
sister _at present_ to Pasta.

If genius alone were the same thing as genius and years of study, labor,
experience, and practice, genius would be a finer thing even than it is.
My sister perpetually reminded me of Pasta, and, had she remained a few
years longer in her profession, would, I think, have equalled her. I
could not give her higher praise, for nobody, since the setting o