I should have answered your letter sooner had I before been able to give you any certain intelligence of our theatrical proceedings next week, but I was so afraid of some change taking place in the list of the plays that I resolved not to write until alteration was impossible.  The plays for next week are, on Monday, “Venice Preserved;” on Wednesday, “The Grecian Daughter;” Thursday, “The Merchant of Venice.”  I wish your people may be able to come up, the latter end of the week; I think “Romeo and Juliet,” and “The Merchant of Venice,” are nice plays for them to see.  But you have, I know, an invitation from Mrs. J——­ to come into town on Monday.  I do not know whether my wishes have at all influenced her in this, but she has my very best thanks for it, and I know that they will have some weight with you in inclining you to accept it; do, my dearest H——­, come if you can.  I shall certainly not be able to return to Ardgillan, and so my only chance of seeing you depends upon your coming into Dublin.  I wish I had been with you when you sat in the sun and listened to the wind singing over the sea.  I have a great admiration for the wind, not so much for its purifying influences only, as for its invisible power, strength, the quality above all others without which there is neither moral nor mental greatness possible.  Natural objects endowed with this invisible power please me best, as human beings who possess it attract me most; and my preference for it over other elements of character is because I think it communicates itself, and that while in contact with it one feels as if it were catching; and whether by the shore, when the tide is coming up fast and irresistible, or in the books or intercourse of other minds, it seems to rouse corresponding activity and energy in one’s self, persuading one, for the time being, that one is strong.  I am sure I have felt taller by three inches, as well as three times more vigorous in body and mind, than I really am, when running by the sea.  It seemed as if that great mass of waters, as it rushed and roared by my side, was communicating power directly to my mind as well as my bodily frame, by its companionship.  I wish I was on the shore now with you.  It is surprising (talking of E——­) how instantaneously, and by what subtle, indescribable means, certain qualities of individual natures make themselves felt—­refinement, imagination, poetical sensibility.  People’s voices, looks, and gestures betray these so unconsciously; and I think more by the manner, a great deal, than the matter of their speech.  Refinement, particularly, is a wonderfully subtle, penetrating element; nothing is so positive in its effect, and nothing so completely escapes analysis and defies description.

I am glad dear little H——­ thought I “grew pretty;” there is a world of discrimination in that sentence of his.  To your charge that I should cultivate my judgment in preference to my imagination, I can only answer,