Dear Mr. Chorley,—­Kindnesses are more frequent things with me than gladnesses, but I thank you earnestly for both in the letter I have this moment received.[109] You have given me a quick sudden pleasure which goes deeper (I am very sure) than self-love, for it must be something better than vanity that brings the tears so near the eyes.  I thank you, dear Mr. Chorley.

After all, we are not quite strangers.  I have had some early encouragement and direction from you, and much earlier (and later) literary pleasures from such of your writings as did not refer to me.  I have studied ’Music and Manners’[110] under you, and found an excuse for my love of romance-reading from your grateful fancy.  Then, as dear Miss Mitford’s friend, you could not help being (however against your will!) a little my acquaintance; and this she daringly promised to make you in reality some day, till I took the fervour for prophecy.

Altogether I am justified, while I thank you as a stranger, to say one more word as a friend, and that shall be the best word—­’May God bless you!’ The trials with which He tries us all are different, but our faces may be turned towards the end in cheerfulness, for ’to the end He has loved us.’  I remain,

Very faithfully, your obliged
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

You may trust me with the secret of your kindness to me.  It shall not go farther.

[Footnote 109:  A summary of its contents is given in the next letter but one.]

[Footnote 110:  Music and Manners in France and Germany:  a Series of Travelling Sketches of Art and Society, published by Mr. Chorley in 1841.]

To H.S.  Boyd Monday, September 1, 1844.

My dearest Mr. Boyd,—­I thank you for the Cyprus, and also for a still sweeter amreeta—­your praise.  Certainly to be praised as you praise me might well be supposed likely to turn a sager head than mine, but I feel that (with all my sensitive and grateful appreciation of such words) I am removed rather below than above the ordinary temptations of vanity.  Poetry is to me rather a passion than an ambition, and the gadfly which drives me along that road pricks deeper than an expectation of fame could do.

Moreover, there will be plenty of counter-irritation to prevent me from growing feverish under your praises.  And as a beginning, I hear that the ‘John Bull’ newspaper has cut me up with sanguinary gashes, for the edification of its Sabbath readers.  I have not seen it yet, but I hear so.  The ‘Drama’ is the particular victim.  Do not send for the paper.  I will let you have it, if you should wish for it.

One thing is left to me to say.  Arabel told you of a letter I had received from a professional critic, and I am sorry that she should have told you so without binding you to secrecy on the point at the same time.  In fact, the writer of the letter begged me not to speak of it, and I took an engagement to him not to speak of it.  Now it would be very unpleasant to me, and dishonorable to me, if, after entering into this engagement, the circumstance of the letter should come to be talked about.  Of course you will understand that I do not object to your having been informed of the thing, only Arabel should have remembered to ask you not to mention again the name of the critic who wrote to me.