me, and I would rather be the least among them, than 'dwell in the
courts of princes.'

Forgive me for writing so fast and far. Just as if you had nothing to
do but to read me. Oh, for patience for the novel.

I am, faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

_To Miss Thomson_[136]
50 Wimpole Street: Friday, May 16, 1845 [postmark].

I write one line to thank you, dear Miss Thomson, for _your_
translation (so far too liberal, though true to the spirit of my
intention) of my work for your album. How could it _not_ be a pleasure
to me to work for you?

As to my using those manuscripts otherwise than in your service, I
do not at all think of it, and I wish to say this. Perhaps I do not
(also) partake quite your 'divine fury' for converting our sex into
Greek scholarship, and I do not, I confess, think it as desirable as
you do. Where there is a love for poetry, and thirst for beauty strong
enough to justify labour, let these impulses, which are noble, be
obeyed; but in the case of the multitude it is different; and the
mere _fashion of scholarship_ among women would be a disagreeable vain
thing, and worse than vain. You, who are a Greek yourself, know that
the Greek language is not to be learnt in a flash of lightning and
by Hamiltonian systems, but that it swallows up year after year of
studious life. Now I have a 'doxy' (as Warburton called it), that
there is no exercise of the mind so little profitable to the mind
as the study of languages. It is the nearest thing to a passive
recipiency--is it not?--as a mental action, though it leaves one as
weary as ennui itself. Women want to be made to _think actively_:
their apprehension is quicker than that of men, but their defect lies
for the most part in the logical faculty and in the higher mental
activities. Well, and then, to remember how our own English poets
are neglected and scorned; our poets of the Elizabethan age! I would
rather that my countrywomen began by loving _these_.

Not that I would blaspheme against Greek poetry, or depreciate the
knowledge of the language as an attainment. I congratulate _you_ on
it, though I never should think of trying to convert other women into
a desire for it. Forgive me.

To think of Mr. Burges's comparing my Nonnus to the right Nonnus makes
my hair stand on end, and the truth is I had flattered myself that
nobody would take such trouble. I have not much reverence for Nonnus,
and have pulled him and pushed him and made him