their erring brethren.  I rejoice to hear that he is getting well again.  I myself am weaker and more helpless every day, and the rheumatic pain in the chest increases so rapidly, and makes writing so difficult, even the writing such a note as this, that I cannot be thankful enough for having finished “Atherton,” for I am sure I could not write it now.  There is some chance of my getting better in the summer, if I can be got into the air, and that must be by being let down in a chair through a trap-door, like so much railway luggage, for there is not the slightest power of helping myself left in me,—­nothing, indeed, but the good spirits which Shakespeare gave to Horatio, and Hamlet envied him.  Dearest Mr. Bennoch has made me a superb present,—­two portraits of our Emperor and his fair wife.  He all intellect,—­never was a brow so full of thought; she all sweetness,—­such a mouth was never seen, it seems waiting to smile.  The beauty is rather of expression than of feature, which is exactly what it ought to be....

    M.R.M.

    Swallowfield, May 2, 1854.

My Dear Friend:  Long before this time, you will, I hope, have received the sheets of “Atherton.”  It has met with an enthusiastic reception from the English press, and certainly the friends who have written to me on the subject seem to prefer the tale which fills the first volume to anything that I have done.  I hope you will like it,—­I am sure you will not detect in it the gloom of a sick-chamber.  Mr. May holds out hopes that the summer may do me good.  As yet the spring has been most unfavorable to invalids, being one combined series of east-wind, so that instead of getting better I am every day weaker than the last, unable to see more than one person a day, and quite exhausted by half an hour’s conversation.  I hope to be a little better before your arrival, dearest friend, because I must see you; but any stranger—­even Mr. Hawthorne—­is quite out of the question.

    You may imagine how kind dear Mr. Bennoch has been all through this
    long trial, next after John Ruskin and his admirable father the
    kindest of all my friends, and that is saying much.

God bless you.  Love to all my friends, poets, prosers, and the dear ——­, who are that most excellent thing, readers.  I wonder if you ever received a list of people to whom to send one or other of my works?  I wrote such with little words in my own hand, but writing is so painful and difficult, and I am always so uncertain of your getting my letters, that I cannot attempt to send another.  There was one for Mrs. Sparks.  I am sure of liking Dr. Parsons’s book,—­quite sure.  Once again, God bless you!  Little Henry grows a nice boy.

    Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

    Swallowfield, July 12, 1854.