he should think so.  Indeed—­indeed I am not so morbidly vain.  Why, if you had told me that the books were without any sort of value in your eyes, do you imagine that I should not have valued you, reverenced you ever after for your truth, so sacred a thing in friendship?  I really believe it would have been my predominant feeling.  But you proved your truth without trying me so hardly; I had both truth and praise from you, and surely quite enough, and more than enough, as many would think, of the latter.

My dearest papa left us this morning to go for a few days into Cornwall for the purpose of examining a quarry in which he has bought or is about to buy shares, and he means to strike on for the Land’s End and to see Falmouth before he returns.  It depresses me to think of his being away; his presence or the sense of his nearness having so much cheering and soothing influence with me; but it will be an excellent change for him, even if he does not, as he expects, dig an immense fortune out of the quarries....

Your affectionate and ever obliged
BA.

[Footnote 113:  Mrs. Jameson’s earliest book, and one which achieved considerable popularity, was her Diary of an Ennuyee.]

To Cornelius Mathews London, 50 Wimpole Street:  October 1, 1844.

My dear Mr. Mathews,—­I have just received your note, which, on the principle of single sighs or breaths being wafted from Indies to the poles, arrived quite safely, and I was very glad to have it.  I shall fall into monotony if I go on to talk of my continued warm sense of your wonderful kindness to me, a stranger according to the manner of men; and, indeed, I have just this moment been writing a note to a friend two streets away, and calling it ‘wonderful kindness.’  I cannot, however, of course, allow you to run the tether of your impulse and furnish me with the reviews of my books and other things you speak of at your own expense, and I should prefer, if you would have the goodness to give the necessary direction to Messrs. Putnam & Co., that they should send what would interest me to see, together with a note of the pecuniary debt to themselves.  I shall like to see the reviews, of course; and that you should have taken the first word of American judgment into your own mouth is a pleasant thought to me, and leaves me grateful.  In England I have no reason so far to be otherwise than well pleased.  There has not, indeed, been much yet besides newspaper criticisms—­except ‘Ainsworth’s Magazine,’ which is benignant!—­there has not been time.  The monthly reviews give themselves ‘pause’ in such matters to set the plumes of their dignity, and I am rather glad than otherwise not to have the first fruits of their haste.  The ‘Atlas,’ the best newspaper for literary reviews, excepting always the ‘Examiner,’ who does not speak yet, is generous to me, and I have reason to be satisfied with others.  And our most influential quarterly