a chair
through a trap-door, like so much railway luggage, for there is not
the slightest power of helping myself left in me,--nothing, indeed,
but the good spirits which Shakespeare gave to Horatio, and Hamlet
envied him. Dearest Mr. Bennoch has made me a superb present,--two
portraits of our Emperor and his fair wife. He all intellect,--never
was a brow so full of thought; she all sweetness,--such a mouth was
never seen, it seems waiting to smile. The beauty is rather of
expression than of feature, which is exactly what it ought to be....

M.R.M.

Swallowfield, May 2, 1854.

My Dear Friend: Long before this time, you will, I hope, have
received the sheets of "Atherton." It has met with an enthusiastic
reception from the English press, and certainly the friends who have
written to me on the subject seem to prefer the tale which fills the
first volume to anything that I have done. I hope you will like
it,--I am sure you will not detect in it the gloom of a
sick-chamber. Mr. May holds out hopes that the summer may do me
good. As yet the spring has been most unfavorable to invalids, being
one combined series of east-wind, so that instead of getting better
I am every day weaker than the last, unable to see more than one
person a day, and quite exhausted by half an hour's conversation. I
hope to be a little better before your arrival, dearest friend,
because I must see you; but any stranger--even Mr. Hawthorne--is
quite out of the question.

You may imagine how kind dear Mr. Bennoch has been all through this
long trial, next after John Ruskin and his admirable father the
kindest of all my friends, and that is saying much.

God bless you. Love to all my friends, poets, prosers, and the dear
----, who are that most excellent thing, readers. I wonder if you
ever received a list of people to whom to send one or other of my
works? I wrote such with little words in my own hand, but writing is
so painful and difficult, and I am always so uncertain of your
getting my letters, that I cannot attempt to send another. There was
one for Mrs. Sparks. I am sure of liking Dr. Parsons's book,--quite
sure. Once again, God bless you! Little Henry grows a nice boy.

Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, July 12, 1854.

Dearest Mr. Fields: Our excellent friend Mr. Bennoc