t together.' Is it not that?

Now--you are not to turn on me because the first is my proper feeling
to _you_, ... for poetry is not the thing given or taken between
us--it is heart and life and _my_self, not _mine_, I give--give? That
you glorify and change and, in returning then, give _me_!

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, November 21, 1845.]

Thank you! and will you, if your sister made the copy of Landor's
verses for _me_ as well as for you, thank _her_ from me for another
kindness, ... not the second nor the third? For my own part, be sure
that if I did not fall on the right subtle interpretation about the
letters, at least I did not 'think it vain' of you! vain: when,
supposing you really to have been over-gratified by such letters, it
could have proved only an excess of humility!--But ... besides the
subtlety,--you meant to be kind to _me_, you know,--and I had a
pleasure and an interest in reading them--only that ... mind. Sir John
Hanmer's, I was half angry with! Now _is_ he not cold?--and is it not
easy to see _why_ he is forced to write his own scenes five times over
and over? He might have mentioned the 'Duchess' I think; and he a
poet! Mr. Chorley speaks some things very well--but what does he mean
about 'execution,' _en revanche_? but I liked his letter and his
candour in the last page of it. Will Mr. Warburton review you? does he
mean _that_? Now do let me see any other letters you receive. _May_ I?
Of course Landor's 'dwells apart' from all: and besides the reason you
give for being gratified by it, it is well that one prophet should
open his mouth and prophesy and give his witness to the inspiration of
another. See what he says in the letter.... '_You may stand quite
alone if you will--and I think you will.' That_ is a noble testimony
to a _truth_. And he discriminates--he understands and discerns--they
are not words thrown out into the air. The 'profusion of imagery
covering the depth of thought' is a true description. And, in the
verses, he lays his finger just on your characteristics--just on those
which, when you were only a poet to me, (only a poet: does it sound
irreverent? almost, I think!) which, when you were only a poet to me,
I used to study, characteristic by characteristic, and turn myself
round and round in despair of being ever able to approach, taking them
to be so essentially and intensely masculine that like effec