loves you.

ELIBET.

A passing reference in a previous letter (above, p. 217) has told of
the beginning of another friendship, which was to hold a large place
in Miss Barrett's later life; and the next letter is the first now
extant which was written to this new friend, Anna Jameson. Mrs.
Jameson had not at this time written the works on sacred art with
which her name is now chiefly associated; but she was already engaged
in her long struggle to earn her livelihood by her pen. Her first
work, 'The Diary of an Ennuyee' (1826), written before her marriage,
had attracted considerable attention. Since then she had written
her 'Characteristics of Women,' 'Essays on Shakespeare's Female
Characters,' 'Visits and Sketches,' and a number of compilations
of less importance. Quite recently she had been engaged to write
handbooks to the public and private art galleries of London, and had
so embarked on the career of art authorship in which her best work was
done.

The beginning and end of the following letter are lost. The subject of
it is the long and hostile comment which appeared in the 'Athenaeum'
for December 28 on Miss Martineau's letters on mesmerism.

_To Mrs. Jameson_
[End of December 1844.]

... For the 'Athenaeum,' I have always held it as a journal, first--in
the very first rank--both in ability and integrity; and knowing Mr.
Dilke _is_ the 'Athenaeum,' I could make no mistake in my estimation
of himself. I have personal reasons for gratitude to both him and his
journal, and I have always felt that it was honorable to me to have
them. Also, I do not at all think that because a woman is a woman,
she is on that account to be spared the ordinary risks of the arena
in literature and philosophy. I think no such thing. Logical chivalry
would be still more radically debasing to us than any other. It is not
therefore at all as a Harriet Martineau, but as a thinking and feeling
Martineau (now _don't_ laugh), that I hold her to have been hardly
used in the late controversy. And, if you don't laugh at _that_, don't
be too grave either, with the thought of your own share and position
in the matter; because, as must be obvious to everyone (yourself
included), you did everything possible to you to prevent the
catastrophe, and no man and no friend could have done better. My
brother George told me of his conversation with you at Mr. Lough's,
but _are_ you not mistaken in fancying that she blames you, that
she is cold with