’For an instance of this delight I have in writing, so strong is it that I can read pages I have written, and tear the stuff to strips (I did yesterday), and resume, as if nothing had happened.  The waves within are ready for any displacement.  That must be a good sign.  I do not doubt of excelling my Princess; and if she received compliments, the next may hope for more.  Consider, too, the novel pleasure of earning money by the labour we delight in.  It is an answer to your question whether I am happy.  Yes, as the savage islander before the ship entered the bay with the fire-water.  My blood is wine, and I have the slumbers of an infant.  I dream, wake, forget my dream, barely dress before the pen is galloping; barely breakfast; no toilette till noon.  A savage in good sooth!  You see, my Emmy, I could not house with the “companionable person” you hint at.  The poles can never come together till the earth is crushed.  She would find my habits intolerable, and I hers contemptible, though we might both be companionable persons.  My dear, I could not even live with myself.  My blessed little quill, which helps me divinely to live out of myself, is and must continue to be my one companion.  It is my mountain height, morning light, wings, cup from the springs, my horse, my goal, my lancet and replenisher, my key of communication with the highest, grandest, holiest between earth and heaven-the vital air connecting them.

’In justice let me add that I have not been troubled by hearing of any of the mysterious legal claims, et caetera.  I am sorry to hear bad reports of health.  I wish him entire felicity—­no step taken to bridge division!  The thought of it makes me tigrish.

’A new pianist playing his own pieces (at Lady Singleby’s concert) has given me exquisite pleasure’ and set me composing songs—­not to his music, which could be rendered only by sylphs moving to “soft recorders” in the humour of wildness, languor, bewitching caprices, giving a new sense to melody.  How I wish you had been with me to hear him!  It was the most AEolian thing ever caught from a night-breeze by the soul of a poet.

’But do not suppose me having headlong tendencies to the melting mood.  (The above, by the way, is a Pole settled in Paris, and he is to be introduced to me at Lady Pennon’s.)—­What do you say to my being invited by Mr. Whitmonby to aid him in writing leading articles for the paper he is going to conduct! “write as you talk and it will do,” he says.  I am choosing my themes.  To write—­of politics—­as I talk, seems to me like an effort to jump away from my shadow.  The black dog of consciousness declines to be shaken off.  If some one commanded me to talk as I write!  I suspect it would be a way of winding me up to a sharp critical pitch rapidly.