stand as I chose,
never fearing that my naughty impertinences would be brought to light.
For the rest, I thank you gratefully (and may I respectfully and
gratefully thank Miss Bayley?) for the kind words of both of you, both
in this letter and as my sister heard them. It is delightful to me
to find such grace in the eyes of dearest Mr. Kenyon's friends, and I
remain, dear Miss Thomson,

Truly yours, and gladly,
E.B.B.

If there should be anything more at any time for me to do, I trust to
your trustfulness.

[Footnote 136: Afterwards Mdme. Emil Braun; see the letter of
January 9, 1850. At this time she was engaged in editing an album
or anthology, to which she had asked Miss Barrett to contribute some
classical translations.]

_To Miss Thomson_
50 Wimpole Street: Monday [1845].

My dear Miss Thomson,--Believe of me that it can only give me pleasure
when you are affectionate enough to treat me as a friend; and for
the rest, nobody need apologise for taking another into the
vineyards--least Miss Bayley and yourself to _me_. At the first
thought I felt sure that there must be a great deal about vines in
these Greeks of ours, and am surprised, I confess, in turning from one
to another, to find how few passages of length are quotable, and how
the images drop down into a line or two. Do you know the passage in
the seventh 'Odyssey' where there is a vineyard in different stages of
ripeness?--of which Pope has made the most, so I tore up what I
began to write, and leave you to him. It is in Alcinous' gardens, and
between the first and second hundred lines of the book. The one from
the 'Iliad,' open to Miss Bayley's objection, is yet too beautiful
and appropriate, I fancy, for you to throw over. Curious it is that
my first recollection went from that shield of Achilles to Hesiod's
'Shield of Hercules,' from which I send you a version--leaving out
of it what dear Miss Bayley would object to on a like ground with the
other:

Some gathered grapes, with reap-hooks in their hands,
While others bore off from the gathering hands
Whole baskets-full of bunches, black and white,
From those great ridges heaped up into fight,
With vine-leaves and their curling tendrils. So
They bore the baskets ...

... Yes! and all were saying
Their jests, while each went staggering in a row
Beneath his grape-load to the piper's playing.
The grapes were purple-ripe. And here, in fine,
Men trod them out, and there the