Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, Horne, and others actually executed
some portions of the work; Tennyson and Browning, it was hoped, would
lend a hand with some of the later parts. Horne invited Miss Barrett
to contribute, and, besides executing modernisations of 'Queen
Annelida and False Arcite' and 'The Complaint of Annelida,'[56] she
also advised generally on the work of the other writers during its
progress through the press. The other literary project was for a
lyrical drama, to be written in collaboration with Horne. It was to be
called 'Psyche Apocalypte,' and was to be a drama on the Greek model,
treating of the birth and self-realisation of the soul of man.

[Footnote 56: These versions are not reprinted in her collected
_Poetical Works_, but are to be found in 'Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer
modernised,' (1841).]

The sketch of its contents, given in the correspondence with Horne,
will make the modern reader accept with equanimity the fact that it
never progressed beyond the initial stage of drafting the plot. It is
allegorical, philosophical, fantastic, unreal--everything which was
calculated to bring out the worst characteristics of Miss Barrett's
style and to intensify her faults. Fortunately her removal from
Torquay to London interrupted the execution of the scheme. It
was never seriously taken up again, and, though never explicitly
abandoned, died a natural death from inanition, somewhat to the relief
of Miss Barrett, who had come to recognise its impracticability.

Apart from the correspondence with Horne, which has been published
elsewhere, very few letters are left from this period; but those which
here follow serve to bridge over the interval until the departure
from Torquay, which closes one well-marked period in the life of the
poetess.

_To Mrs. Martin_
December 11, 1840.

My ever dearest Mrs. Martin,--I should have written to you without
this last proof of your remembrance--this cape, which, warm and pretty
as it is, I value so much more as the work of your hands and gift of
your affection towards me. Thank you, dearest Mrs. Martin, and thank
you too for _all the rest_--for all your sympathy and love. And do
believe that although grief had so changed me from myself and warped
me from my old instincts, as to prevent my looking forwards with
pleasure to seeing you again, yet that full amends are made in the
looking back with a pleasure more true because more tender than any
old retrospections. Do give m