rior innocence in being shut
up even in precincts of rose-trees, away from those great sources
of human sympathy and occasions of mental elevation and instruction
without which many natures grow narrow, many others gloomy, and
perhaps, if the truth were known, very few prosper entirely, lit is
not that I, who have always lived a good deal in solitude and live
in it still more now, and love the country even painfully in my
recollections of it, would decry either one or the other--solitude
is most effective in a contrast, and if you do not break the bark
you cannot bud the tree, and, in short (not to be _in long_), I could
write a dissertation, which I will spare you, 'about it and about it.'
...

Tell George to lend you--nay, I think I will be generous and let him
give you, although the author gave me the book--the copy of the new
epic, 'Orion,' which he has with him. You have probably observed the
advertisement, and are properly instructed that Mr. Horne the poet,
who has sold three editions already at a farthing a copy, and is
selling a fourth at a shilling, and is about to sell a fifth at half
a crown (on the precise principle of the aerial machine--launching
himself into popularity by a first impulse on the people), is my
unknown friend, with whom I have corresponded these four years without
having seen his face. Do you remember the beech leaves sent to me from
Epping Forest? Yes, you must. Well, the sender is the poet, and the
poem I think a very noble one, and I want you to think so too. So
hereby I empower you to take it away from George and keep it for my
sake--if you will!

Dear Mr. Martin was so kind as to come and see me as you commanded,
and I must tell you that I thought him looking so better than well
that I was more than commonly glad to see him. Give my love to him,
and join me in as much metropolitan missionary zeal as will bring you
both to London for six months of the year. Oh, I wish you would come!
Not that it is necessary for _you_, but that it will be _so_ good for
_us_.

My ivy is growing, and I have _green blinds_, against which there is
an outcry. They say that I do it out of envy, and for the equalisation
of complexions.

Ever your affectionate,
BA.

_To Mr. Westwood_
50 Wimpole Street: August 1843.

Dear Mr. Westwood,--I thank you very much for the kindness of your
questioning, and am able to answer that notwithstanding the, as it
seems to you, fatal significance of a woman's sile