s have at all influenced her in this,
but she has my very best thanks for it, and I know that they will
have some weight with you in inclining you to accept it; do, my
dearest H----, come if you can. I shall certainly not be able to
return to Ardgillan, and so my only chance of seeing you depends
upon your coming into Dublin. I wish I had been with you when you
sat in the sun and listened to the wind singing over the sea. I
have a great admiration for the wind, not so much for its purifying
influences only, as for its invisible power, strength, the quality
above all others without which there is neither moral nor mental
greatness possible. Natural objects endowed with this invisible
power please me best, as human beings who possess it attract me
most; and my preference for it over other elements of character is
because I think it communicates itself, and that while in contact
with it one feels as if it were _catching_; and whether by the
shore, when the tide is coming up fast and irresistible, or in the
books or intercourse of other minds, it seems to rouse
corresponding activity and energy in one's self, persuading one,
for the time being, that one is strong. I am sure I have felt
taller by three inches, as well as three times more vigorous in
body and mind, than I really am, when running by the sea. It seemed
as if that great mass of waters, as it rushed and roared by my
side, was communicating power directly to my mind as well as my
bodily frame, by its companionship. I wish I was on the shore now
with you. It is surprising (talking of E----) how instantaneously,
and by what subtle, indescribable means, certain qualities of
individual natures make themselves felt--refinement, imagination,
poetical sensibility. People's voices, looks, and gestures betray
these so unconsciously; and I think more by the manner, a great
deal, than the matter of their speech. Refinement, particularly, is
a wonderfully subtle, penetrating element; nothing is so positive
in its effect, and nothing so completely escapes analysis and
defies description.

I am glad dear little H---- thought I "grew pretty;" there is a
world of discrimination in that sentence of his. To your charge
that I should cultivate my judgment in preference to my
imagination, I can only answer,