To John Kenyon Wimpole Street:  Sunday evening [1838?].

My dear Mr. Kenyon,—­I am so sorry to hear of your going, and I not able to say ‘good-bye’ to you, that—­I am not writing this note on that account.

It is a begging note, and now I am wondering to myself whether you will think me very childish or womanish, or silly enough to be both together (I know your thoughts upon certain parallel subjects), if I go on to do my begging fully.  I hear that you are going to Mr. Wordsworth’s—­to Rydal Mount—­and I want you to ask for yourself, and then to send to me in a letter—­by the post, I mean, two cuttings out of the garden—­of myrtle or geranium; I care very little which, or what else.  Only I say ‘myrtle’ because it is less given to die and I say two to be sure of my chances of saving one.  Will you?  You would please me very much by doing it; and certainly not dis please me by refusing to do it.  Your broadest ‘no’ would not sound half so strange to me as my ‘little crooked thing’ does to you; but you see everybody in the world is fanciful about something, and why not E.B.B.?

Dear Mr. Kenyon, I have a book of yours—­M.  Rio’s.  If you want it before you go, just write in two words, ‘Send it,’ or I shall infer from your silence that I may keep it until you come back.  No necessity for answering this otherwise.  Is it as bad as asking for autographs, or worse?  At any rate, believe me in earnest this time—­besides being, with every wish for your enjoyment of mountains and lakes and ‘cherry trees,’

Ever affectionately yours,
E.B.B.

To H.S.  Boyd [May 1838.]

My dear friend,—­I am rather better than otherwise within the last few days, but fear that nothing will make me essentially so except the invisible sun.  I am, however, a little better, and God’s will is always done in mercy.

As to the poems, do forgive me, dear Mr. Boyd; and refrain from executing your cruel threat of suffering ’the desire of reading them to pass away.’

I have not one sheet of them; and papa—­and, to say the truth, I myself—­would so very much prefer your reading the preface first, that you must try to indulge us in our phantasy.  The book Mr. Bentley half promises to finish the printing of this week.  At any rate it is likely to be all done in the next:  and you may depend upon having a copy as soon as I have power over one.

With kind regards to Miss Holmes,
Believe me, your affectionate friend,
E.B.B.

To H.S.  Boyd 50 Wimpole Street; Wednesday [May 1838].

Thank you for your inquiry, my dear friend.  I had begun to fancy that between Saunders and Otley and the ‘Seraphim’ I had fallen to the ground of your disfavour.  But I do trust to be able to send you a copy before next Sunday.