be grateful than to talk so--now wouldn't it?

And here is Mr. Kenyon's letter back again--a kind good letter ... a
letter I have liked to read (so it was kind and good in you to let
me!)--and he was with me to-day and praising the 'Ride to Ghent,' and
praising the 'Duchess,' and praising you altogether as I liked to hear
him. The Ghent-ride was 'very fine'--and the

Into the midnight they galloped abreast

drew us out into the night as witnesses. And then, the 'Duchess' ...
the conception of it was noble, and the vehicle, rhythm and all, most
characteristic and individual ... though some of the rhymes ... oh,
some of the rhymes did not find grace in his ears--but the
incantation-scene, 'just trenching on the supernatural,' _that_ was
taken to be 'wonderful,' ... 'showing extraordinary power, ... as
indeed other things did ... works of a highly original writer and of
such various faculty!'--Am I not tired of writing your praises as he
said then? So I shall tell you, instead of any more, that I went down
to the drawing-room yesterday (because it was warm enough) by an act
of supererogatory virtue for which you may praise _me_ in turn. What
weather it is! and how the year seems to have forgotten itself into
April.

But after all, how have I answered your letter? and how _are_ such
letters to be answered? Do we answer the sun when he shines? May God
bless you ... it is my answer--with one word besides ... that I am
wholly and ever your

E.B.B.

On Thursday as far as I know yet--and you shall hear if there should
be an obstacle. _Will you walk?_ If you will not, you know, you must
be forgetting me a little. Will you remember me too in the act of the
play?--but above all things in taking the right exercise, and in not
overworking the head. And this for no serpent's reason.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Two letters in one--Wednesday.
[Post-mark, November 15, 1845.]

I shall see you to-morrow and yet am writing what you will have to
read perhaps. When you spoke of 'stars' and 'geniuses' in that letter,
I did not seem to hear; I was listening to those words of the letter
which were of a better silver in the sound than even your praise could
be; and now that at last I come to hear them in their extravagance (oh
such pure extravagance about 'glorious geniuses'--) I can't help
telling you they were heard last, an