I am glad you like Frederick Tennyson’s poems.  They are full of atmospherical poetry, and very melodious.  The poet is still better than the poems—­so truthful, so direct, such a reliable Christian man.  Robert and I quite love him.  We very much appreciate, too, young Lytton, your old friend.  He is noble in many ways, I think, and affectionate.  Moreover, he has an incontestable faculty in poetry, and I expect great things from him as he ripens into life and experience.  Meanwhile he has just privately printed a drama called ‘Clytemnestra,’ too ambitious because after AEschylus, but full of promise indeed.  We are hoping that he will come down and see us in the course of our rustication at the Baths, and occupy our spare bedroom....

As to Mr. ——­, his Hebrew was Chinese to you, do you say?  But, dear, he is strong in veritable Chinese besides!  And one evening he nearly assassinated me with the analysis, chapter by chapter, of a Japanese novel.  Mr. Lytton, who happened to be a witness, swore that I grew paler and paler, and not with sympathy for the heroine.  He is a miraculously vain man—­which rather amused me—­and, for the rest, is full of information—­yes, and of kindness, I think.  He gave me a little black profile of you which gives the air of your head, and is so far valuable to me.  As to myself, indeed, he has rather flattered me than otherwise—­I don’t complain, I assure you.  How could I complain of a man who compares me to Isaiah, under any circumstances?...

God bless you!  Robert’s love with that of

Your ever affectionate and faithful
BA.

* * * * *

To Mr. Chorley

Casa Tolomei (Alia Villa), Bagni di Lucca: 
August 10, [1853].

My dear Mr. Chorley,—­I can’t bear that you should intimate by half a word that you are ’a creature to be eaten’—­viz. not to have your share in friendship and confidence.  Now, if you fancy that we, for instance, don’t affectionately regard you, you are very wrong, and I am very right for feeling inclined to upbraid you.  I take the pen from Robert—­he would take it if I did not.  We scramble a little for the pen which is to tell you this—­which is to say it again and again, and be dull in the reiteration, rather than not instruct you properly, as we teach our child to do—­D O G, dog; D O G, dog; D O G, dog.  Says Robert, ’What a slow business!’ Yet he’s a quick child; and you too must be quick and comprehending, or we shall take it to heart sadly.  Often I think, and we say to one another, that we belied ourselves to you in England.  If you knew how, at that time, Robert was vexed and worn!—­why, he was not the same even to me!  He seemed to himself to be slipping out of waistcoats and friends at once—­so worn and teased he was!  But then and now believe that he loved and loves you.  Set him down as a friend—­as somebody to ‘rest on’ after all; and don’t fancy