To have to say no to my betters is one of the hardest duties I have, but I’m sure we must not publish your verses, and I go down on my knees before cutting my victim’s head off, and say, ’Madam, you know how I respect and regard you, Browning’s wife and Penini’s mother; and for what I am going to do I most humbly ask your pardon.’

My girls send their very best regards and remembrances, and I am, dear Mrs. Browning,

Always yours,

W.M.  THACKERAY.

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Mrs. Browning’s answer follows.

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To W.M.  Thackeray

Rome, 126 Via Felice:  April 21, [1861].

Dear Mr. Thackeray,—­Pray consider the famous ‘tooth’ (a wise tooth!) as extracted under chloroform, and no pain suffered by anybody.

To prove that I am not sulky, I send another contribution, which may prove too much, perhaps—­and, if you think so, dispose of the supererogatory virtue by burning the manuscript, as I am sure I may rely on your having done with the last.

I confess it, dear Mr. Thackeray, never was anyone turned out of a room for indecent behaviour in a more gracious and conciliatory manner!  Also, I confess that from your ‘Cornhill’ standpoint (paterfamilias looking on) you are probably right ten times over.  From mine, however, I may not be wrong, and I appeal to you as the deep man you are, whether it is not the higher mood, which on Sunday bears with the ‘plain word,’ so offensive on Monday, during the cheating across the counter?  I am not a ‘fast woman.’  I don’t like coarse subjects, or the coarse treatment of any subject.  But I am deeply convinced that the corruption of our society requires not shut doors and windows, but light and air:  and that it is exactly because pure and prosperous women choose to ignore vice, that miserable women suffer wrong by it everywhere.  Has paterfamilias, with his Oriental traditions and veiled female faces, very successfully dealt with a certain class of evil?  What if materfamilias, with her quick sure instincts and honest innocent eyes, do more towards their expulsion by simply looking at them and calling them by their names?  See what insolence you put me up to by your kind way of naming my dignities—­’Browning’s wife and Penini’s mother.’

And I, being vain (turn some people out of a room and you don’t humble them properly), retort with—­’materfamilias!’

Our friend Mr. Story has just finished a really grand statue of the ‘African Sybil.’  It will place him very high.

Where are you all, Annie, Minnie?—­Why don’t you come and see us in Rome?

My husband bids me give you his kind regards, and I shall send Pen’s love with mine to your dear girls.

Most truly yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

We go to Florence in the latter part of May.

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