To H.S.  Boyd [June 1838.]

My dear Friend,—­I begged your servant to wait—­how long ago I am afraid to think—­but certainly I must not make this note very long.  I did intend to write to you to-day in any case.  Since Saturday I have had my thanks ready at the end of my fingers waiting to slide along to the nib of my pen.  Thank you for all your kindness and criticism, which is kindness too—­thank you at last.  Would that I deserved the praises as well as I do most of the findings-fault—­and there is no time now to say more of them.  Yet I believe I have something to say, and will find a time to say it in.

Dr. Chambers has just been here, and does not think me quite as well as usual.  The truth is that I was rather excited and tired yesterday by rather too much talking and hearing talking, and suffer for it to-day in my pulse.  But I am better on the whole.

Mr. Cross,[49] the great lion, the insect-making lion, came yesterday with Mr. Kenyon, and afterwards Lady Dacre.  She is kind and gentle in her manner.  She told me that she had ’placed my book in the hands of Mr. Bobus Smith, the brother of Sidney Smith, and the best judge in England,’ and that it was to be returned to her on Tuesday.  If I should hear the ‘judgment,’ I will tell you, whether you care to hear it or not.  There is no other review, as far as I am aware.

Give my love to Miss Bordman.  When is she coming to see me?

The thunder did not do me any harm.

Your affectionate friend, in great haste, although your servant is not likely to think so, E.B.B.

[Footnote 49:  Andrew Crosse, the electrician, who had recently published his observations of a remarkable development of insect life in connection with certain electrical experiments—­a discovery which caused much controversy at the time, on account of its supposed bearings on the origin of life and the doctrine of creation.]

To H.S.  Boyd [June 1838.]

My dear Friend,—­You must let me feel my thanks to you, even when I do not say them.  I have put up your various notes together, and perhaps they may do me as much good hereafter, as they have already, for the most part, given me pleasure.

The ‘burden pure have been’ certainly was a misprint, as certainly ’nor man nor nature satisfy’[50] is ungrammatical.  But I am not so sure about the passage in Isobel: 

I am not used to tears at nights Instead of slumber—­nor to prayer.

Now I think that the passage may imply a repetition of the words with which it begins, after ‘nor’—­thus—­’nor am I used to prayer,’ &c.  Either you or I may be right about it, and either ‘or’ or ‘nor’ may be grammatical.  At least, so I pray.[51]

You did not answer one question.  Do you consider that ‘apolyptic’ stands without excuse?[52]

I never read Greek to any person except yourself and Mr. MacSwiney, my brother’s tutor.  To him I read longer than a few weeks, but then it was rather guessing and stammering and tottering through parts of Homer and extracts from Xenophon than reading. You would not have called it reading if you had heard it.