ou do indirectly and by a rebound. Whatever
acts upon you, becomes _you_--and whatever you love or hate, whatever
charms you or is scorned by you, acts on you and becomes _you_. Have
you read the 'Improvisatore'? or will you? The writer seems to feel,
just as I do, the good of the outward life; and he is a poet in his
soul. It is a book full of beauty and had a great charm to me.

As to the Polkas and Cellariuses I do not covet them of course ... but
what a strange world you seem to have, to me at a distance--what a
strange husk of a world! How it looks to me like mandarin-life or
something as remote; nay, not mandarin-life but mandarin _manners_,
... life, even the outer life, meaning something deeper, in my account
of it. As to dear Mr. Kenyon I do not make the mistake of fancying
that many can look like him or talk like him or _be_ like him. I know
enough to know otherwise. When he spoke of me he should have said that
I was better notwithstanding the east wind. It is really true--I am
getting slowly up from the prostration of the severe cold, and feel
stronger in myself.

But Mrs. Norton discourses excellent music--and for the rest, there
are fruits in the world so over-ripe, that they will fall, ... without
being gathered. Let Maynooth witness to it! _if you think it worth
while_!

Ever yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

And _is it_ nothing to be 'justified to one's self in one's
resources?' '_That's all_,' indeed! For the 'soul's country' we will
have it also--and I know how well the birds sing in it. How glad I was
by the way to see your letter!

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, April 30, 1845.]

If you did but know, dear Miss Barrett, how the 'full stop' after
'Morning' just above, has turned out the fullest of stops,--and how
for about a quarter of an hour since the ink dried I have been
reasoning out the why and wherefore of the stopping, the wisdom of it,
and the folly of it....

By this time you see what you have got in me--You ask me questions,
'if I like novels,' 'if the "Improvisatore" is not good,' 'if travel
and sightseeing do not effect this and that for one,' and 'what I am
devising--play or poem,'--and I shall not say I could not answer at
all manner of lengths--but, let me only begin some good piece of
writing of the kind, and ... no, you