ur friends, all of it, I
hope and trust--not even to Reynolds.

Tell Mr. Martin that a new great daily newspaper, professing
'_ultraism_' at the right end (meaning his and mine), is making
'mighty preparation,' to be called the 'Daily News,'[138] to be
edited by Dickens and to combine with the most liberal politics such
literature as gives character to the French journals--the objects
being both to help the people and to give a _status_ to men of
letters, socially and politically--great objects which will not
be attained, I fear, by any such means. In the first place, I have
misgivings as to Dickens. He has not, I think, _breadth_ of mind
enough for such work, with all his gifts; but we shall see. An immense
capital has been offered and actually advanced. Be good patriots
and order the paper. And talking of papers, I hope you read in the
'Morning Chronicle' Landor's verses to my friend and England's poet,
Mr. Browning.[139] They have much beauty.

You know that Occy has been ill, and that he is well? I hope you are
not so behindhand in our news as not to know. For me, I am not yet
undone by the winter. I still sit in my chair and walk about the room.
But the prison doors are shut close, and I could dash myself
against them sometimes with a passionate impatience of the need-less
captivity. I feel so intimately and from evidence, how, with air and
warmth together in any fair proportion, I should be as well and happy
as the rest of the world, that it is intolerable--well, it is better
to sympathise quietly with Lady--and other energetic runaways, than
amuse you with being riotous to no end; and it is _best_ to write
one's own epitaph still more quietly, is it not?...

And oh how lightly I write, and then sigh to think of what different
colours my spirits and my paper are. Do you know what it is to
laugh, that you may not cry? Yet I hold a comfort fast.... Your very
affectionate

BA.

[Footnote 138: The first number of the _Daily News_ appeared on
January 2l, 1846, under the editorship of Charles Dickens.]

[Footnote 139: The well-known lines beginning, 'There is delight in
singing.' They appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ for November 22,
1845.]

_To Mrs. Martin_
Saturday [February-March 1846].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Indeed it has been tantalising and provoking
to have you close by without being able to gather a better advantage
from it than the knowledge that you were suffering. So passes the
world