yesterday, and hardly
had they been written when your third letter came with its enclosure.
How very kind you are to me, and how am I to thank you enough! If you
had not sent me the 'Athenaeum' article I never should have seen it
probably, for my husband only saw it in the reading room, where women
don't penetrate (because in Italy we can't read, you see), and where
the periodicals are kept so strictly, like Hesperian apples, by the
dragons of the place, that none can be stolen away even for half an
hour. So he could only wish me to catch sight of that article--and you
are good enough to send it and oblige us both exceedingly. For which
kindness thank you, thank you! The favor shown to me in it is extreme,
and I am as grateful as I ought to be. Shall I ask the 'Note and
Query' magazine why the 'Athenaeum' does show me so much favor, while,
as in a late instance, so little justice is shown to my husband? It's
a problem, like another. As for poetry, I hope to do better things
in it yet, though I _have_ a child to 'stand in my sunshine,' as you
suppose he must; but he only makes the sunbeams brighter with his
glistening curls, little darling--and who can complain of that? You
can't think what a good, sweet, curious, imagining child he is. Half
the day I do nothing but admire him--there's the truth. He doesn't
talk yet much, but he gesticulates with extraordinary force of
symbol, and makes surprising revelations to us every half-hour or so.
Meanwhile Flush loses nothing, I assure you. On the contrary, he is
hugged and kissed (rather too hard sometimes), and never is permitted
to be found fault with by anybody under the new _regime_. If Flush is
scolded, Baby cries as matter of course, and he would do admirably for
a 'whipping-boy' if that excellent institution were to be revived by
Young England and the Tractarians for the benefit of our deteriorated
generations. I was ill towards the end of last summer, and we had to
go to Siena for the sake of getting strength again, and there we lived
in a villa among a sea of little hills, and wrapt up in vineyards
and olive yards, enjoying everything. Much the worst of Italy is, the
drawback about books. Somebody said the other day that we 'sate here
like posterity'--reading books with the gloss off them. But our case
in reality is far more dreary, seeing that Prince Posterity will have
glossy books of his own. How exquisite 'In Memoriam' is, how earnest
and true; after all, the gloss n