hsafe to me; and yet if
you would let me see anything you may have in a readable state by you,
... 'The Flight of the Duchess' ... or act or scene of 'The Soul's
Tragedy,' ... I shall be so glad and grateful to you! Oh--if you
change your mind and choose to be _bien prie_, I will grant it is your
right, and begin my liturgy directly. But this is not teazing (in the
intention of it!) and I understand all about the transcription, and
the inscrutableness of rough copies,--that is, if you write as I do,
so that my guardian angel or M. Champollion cannot read what is
written. Only whatever they can, (remember!) _I_ can: and you are not
to mind trusting me with the cacistography possible to mortal readers.

The sun shines so that nobody dares complain of the east wind--and
indeed I am better altogether. May God bless you, my dear friend.

E.B.B.

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

[Post-mark, June 14, 1845.]

When I ask my wise self what I really do remember of the Prize poem,
the answer is--both of Chapman's lines a-top, quite worth any prize
for their quoter--then, the good epithet of 'Green Europe' contrasting
with Africa--then, deep in the piece, a picture of a Vestal in a
vault, where I see a dipping and winking lamp plainest, and last of
all the ominous 'all was dark' that dismisses you. I read the poem
many years ago, and never since, though I have an impression that the
versification is good, yet from your commentary I see I must have said
a good deal more in its praise than that. But have you not discovered
by this time that I go on talking with my thoughts away?

I know, I have always been jealous of my own musical faculty (I can
write music).--Now that I see the uselessness of such jealousy, and am
for loosing and letting it go, it may be cramped possibly. Your music
is more various and exquisite than any modern writer's to my ear. One
should study the mechanical part of the art, as nearly all that there
is to be studied--for the more one sits and thinks over the creative
process, the more it confirms itself as 'inspiration,' nothing more
nor less. Or, at worst, you write down old inspirations, what you
remember of them ... but with _that_ it begins. 'Reflection' is
exactly what it names itself--a _re_-presentation, in scattered rays
from every angle of incidence, of what first of all became present in
a great light, a whole one. So tel