.L.
[_Aurora Leigh_]. Also there is a passion for essential truth (as
apprehended) and a necessity for speaking it out at all risks,
inconvenient to personal peace. Add to this and much else the loss of
the sweet unconscious cool privacy among the 'reeds' ...[1] which I
for one care so much for--the loss of the privilege of being glad or
sorry, ill or well, without a 'notice.' That may have its glory to
certain minds. But most people would be glad to 'stir their tea in
silence' when they are grave, and even to talk nonsense (much too
frivolously) when they are merry, without its running the round of the
newspapers in two worlds perhaps. You know I don't _invent_, Isa. In
fact, I am sorely tempted to send Mr. Trollope a letter I had this
morning, as an illustration of my view, and a reply to his criticism.
Only this letter among many begins with too many fair speeches. Still
it seems written by somebody in earnest and with a liking for me. Its
main object is to complain of the cowardly morality in _Pan_. Then a
stroke on the poems before Congress. The writer has heard that I 'had
been to Paris, was _feted_ by the Emperor, and had had my head turned
by Imperial flatteries,' in consequence of which I had taken to
'praise and flatter the tyrant, and try to help his selfish ambition.'
Well! one should laugh and be wise. But somehow one doesn't laugh. A
letter beginning, 'You are a great teacher of truth,' and ending, 'You
are a dishonest wretch,' makes you cold somehow, and ill disposed
towards the satisfactions of literary distinction. Yes! and be sure,
Isa, that the 'true gods sigh,' and have reason to sigh, for the cost
and pain of it; sigh only ... don't haggle over the cost; don't grudge
a crazia, but.... sigh, sigh ... while they pay honestly.

"On the other hand, there's much light talking and congratulation,
excellent returns to the pocket from the poem in the _Cornhill_;
pleasant praise from dear Mr. Trollope.... with all drawbacks: a good
opinion from Isa worth its gold--and Pan laughs.

"But he is a beast up to the waist; yes, Mr. Trollope, a beast. He is
not a true god.

"And I am neither god nor beast, if you please--only a

"BA."

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: These dots do not indicate any hiatus. They exist in the
MS. as here given.]

It seems that she certainly imagined me to be the critic; but must
have been subsequently undeceived. I will not venture to say a word on
the