To Miss Mitford 50 Wimpole Street:  Thursday [June 1838].

We thank you gratefully, dearest Miss Mitford.  Papa and I and all of us thank you for your more than kindnesses.  The extracts were both gladdening and surprising—­and the one the more for being the other also.  Oh! it was so kind of you, in the midst of your multitude of occupations, to make time (out of love) to send them to us!

As to the ballad, dearest Miss Mitford, which you and Mr. Kenyon are indulgent enough to like, remember that he passed his criticism over it—­before it went to you—­and so if you did not find as many obscurities as he did in it, the reason is—­his merit and not mine.  But don’t believe him—­no!—­don’t believe even Mr. Kenyon—­whenever he says that I am perversely obscure.  Unfortunately obscure, not perversely—­that is quite a wrong word.  And the last time he used it to me (and then, I assure you, another word still worse was with it) I begged him to confine them for the future to his jesting moods.  Because, indeed, I am not in the very least degree perverse in this fault of mine, which is my destiny rather than my choice, and comes upon me, I think, just where I would eschew it most.  So little has perversity to do with its occurrence, that my fear of it makes me sometimes feel quite nervous and thought-tied in composition....

I have not seen Mr. Kenyon since I wrote last.  All last week I was not permitted to get out of bed, and was haunted with leeches and blisters.  And in the course of it, Lady Dacre was so kind as to call here, and to leave a note instead of the personal greeting which I was not able to receive.  The honor she did me a year ago, in sending me her book, encouraged me to offer her my poems.  I hesitated about doing so at first, lest it should appear as if my vanity were dreaming of a return; but Mr. Kenyon’s opinion turned the balance.  I was very sorry not to have seen Lady Dacre and have written a reply to her note expressive of this regret.  But, after all, this inaudible voice (except in its cough) could have scarcely made her understand that I was obliged by her visit, had I been able to receive it.

Dr. Chambers has freed me again into the drawing-room, and I am much better or he would not have done so.  There is not, however, much strength or much health, nor any near prospect of regaining either.  It is well that, in proportion to our feebleness, we may feel our dependence upon God.

I feel as if I had not said half, and they have come to ask me if I have not said all!  My beloved friend, may you be happy in all ways!

Do write whenever you wish to talk and have no one to talk to nearer you than I am! Indeed, I did not forget Dr. Mitford when I wrote those words, although they look like it.

Your gratefully affectionate
E.B.  BARRETT.

To H.S.  Boyd 50 Wimpole Street:  Wednesday morning [June 1838].