4] in the
press by this time, by grace of Chapman and Hall, who accept all
risks. You speak of Tennyson's vexation about the reception of
the 'Princess.' Why did Mr. Harness and others, who 'never could
understand' his former divine works, praise this in manuscript
till the poet's hope grew to the height of his ambition? Strangely
unfortunate. We have not read it yet. I hear that Tennyson had the
other day everything packed for Italy, then turned his face toward
Ireland, and went there. Oh, for a talk with you. But this is a sort
of talk, isn't it? Accept my husband's regards. As to my love, I throw
it to you over the [sea] with both hands. God bless you.

Your ever affectionate
BA.

[Footnote 172: See Browning's _The Statue and the Bust_.]

[Footnote 173: 'the stone Called Dante's--a plain flat stone scarce
discerned From others in the pavement--whereupon He used to bring his
quiet chair out, turned To Brunelleschi's church, and pour alone The
lava of his spirit when it burned.' _Casa Guidi Windows_, part i.]

[Footnote 174: This edition, published in 1849 in two volumes
contained only _Paracelsus_ and the plays and poems of the _Bells and
Pomegranates_ series.]

_To John Kenyan_
[Florence:] May I, [1848].

My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--Surely it is quite wrong that we three,
Robert, you, and I, should be satisfied with writing little dry notes,
as short as so many proclamations, and those of the order of your
anti-Chartist magistracy, 'Whereas certain evil disposed persons &c.
&c.,' instead of our anti-Austrian Grand duchy's 'O figli amati'
(how characteristic of the north and the south, to be sure, is this
contrast! Yet, after all, they might have managed it rather better
in England!)--little dry notes brief and business-like as an
anti-Chartist proclamation! And, indeed, two of us are by no means
satisfied, whatever the third may be. The other day we were looking
over some of the dear delightful letters you used to write to us.
Real letters those were, and not little dry notes at all. Robert said,
'When I write to dear Mr. Kenyon I really do feel overcome by the
sense of what I owe to him, and so, as it is beyond words to say, why
generally I say as little as possible of anything, keeping myself to
matters of business.' An alternative very objectionable, I told him;
for to have 'a dumb devil' from ever such grateful and sentimental
reasons, when the Alps stand betwixt friend, is damnatory in the
extreme. Then,