Dear Mr. Westwood,—­Your letter comes to remind me how much I ought to be ashamed of myself....  I received the book in all safety, and read your kind words about my ‘Rosary’ with more grateful satisfaction than appears from the evidence.  It is great pleasure to me to have written for such readers, and it is great hope to me to be able to write for them.  The transcription of the ‘Rosary’ is a compliment which I never anticipated, or you should have had the manuscript copy you asked for, although I have not a perfect one in my hands.  The poem is full of faults, as, indeed, all my poems appear to myself to be when I look back upon them instead of looking down.  I hope to be worthier in poetry some day of the generous appreciation which you and your friends have paid me in advance.

Tennyson is a great poet, I think, and Browning, the author of ‘Paracelsus,’ has to my mind very noble capabilities.  Do you know Mr. Horne’s ‘Orion,’ the poem published for a farthing, to the wonder of booksellers and bookbuyers who could not understand ’the speculation in its eyes?’ There are very fine things in this poem, and altogether I recommend it to your attention.  But what is ‘wanting’ in Tennyson?  He can think, he can feel, and his language is highly expressive, characteristic, and harmonious.  I am very fond of Tennyson.  He makes me thrill sometimes to the end of my fingers, as only a true great poet can.

You praise me kindly, and if, indeed, the considerations you speak of could be true of me, I am not one who could lament having ’learnt in suffering what I taught in song.’  In any case, working for the future and counting gladly on those who are likely to consider any work of mine acceptable to themselves, I shall be very sure not to forget my friends at Enfield.

Dear Mr. Westwood, I remain sincerely yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

To Mrs. Martin September 4, 1843.  Finished September 5.

My dearest Mrs. Martin, ...  I have had a great gratification within this week or two in receiving a letter—­nay, two letters—­from Miss Martineau, one of the last strangers in the world from whom I had any right to expect a kindness.  Yet most kind, most touching in kindness, were both of these letters, so much so that I was not far from crying for pleasure as I read them.  She is very hopelessly ill, you are probably aware, at Tynemouth in Northumberland, suffering agonies from internal cancer, and conquering occasional repose by the strength of opium, but ‘almost forgetting’ (to use her own words) ’to wish for health, in the intense enjoyment of pleasures independent of the body.’  She sent me a little work of hers called ’Traditions of Palestine.’  Her friends had hoped by the stationary character of some symptoms that the disease was suspended, but lately it is said to be gaining ground, and the serenity and elevation of her mind are more and more triumphantly evident as the bodily pangs thicken....