_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday.
[June 30, 1845.]
I send back the prize poems which have been kept far too long even if
I do not make excuses for the keeping--but our sins are not always to
be measured by our repentance for them. Then I am well enough this
morning to have thought of going out till they told me it was not at
all a right day for it ... too windy ... soft and delightful as the
air seems to be--particularly after yesterday, when we had some winter
back again in an episode. And the roses do not die; which is quite
magnanimous of them considering their reverses; and their buds are
coming out in most exemplary resignation--like birds singing in a
cage. Now that the windows may be open, the flowers take heart to live
a little in this room.
And think of my forgetting to tell you on Saturday that I had known of
a letter being received by somebody from Miss Martineau, who is at
Ambleside at this time and so entranced with the lakes and mountains
as to be dreaming of taking or making a house among them, to live in
for the rest of her life. Mrs. Trollope, you may have heard, had
something of the same nympholepsy--no, her daughter was 'settled' in
the neighbourhood--_that_ is the more likely reason for Mrs. Trollope!
and the spirits of the hills conspired against her the first winter
and almost slew her with a fog and drove her away to your Italy where
the Oreadocracy has gentler manners. And Miss Martineau is practising
mesmerism and miracles on all sides she says, and counts on Archbishop
Whately as a new adherent. I even fancy that he has been to see her in
the character of a convert. All this from Mr. Kenyon.
There's a strange wild book called the Autobiography of Heinrich
Stilling ... one of those true devout deep-hearted Germans who believe
everything, and so are nearer the truth, I am sure, than the wise who
believe nothing; but rather over-German sometimes, and redolent of
sauerkraut--and _he_ gives a tradition ... somewhere between mesmerism
and mysticism, ... of a little spirit with gold shoebuckles, who was
his familiar spirit and appeared only in the sunshine I think ...
mottling it over with its feet, perhaps, as a child might snow. Take
away the shoebuckles and I believe in the little spirit--don't _you_?
But these English mesmerists make the shoebuckles quite conspicuous
and insist on them broadly; and the Archbishops Whately may be drawn
by _them_ (who can tell?) more than by the little spirit itself. How
is your head to-day? now really, and nothing extenuating? I will not
ask of poems, till the 'quite well' is _authentic_. May God bless you
always! my dear friend!