I do hope, dear Mr. Kenyon, soon to hear that you are better—­and well—­and that your course of prophecy may not run smooth all through next week.

Very truly yours,
E. BARRETT.

Saturday.
To John Kenyon
Saturday night [about March 1844].

I return Mr. Burges’s criticism, which I omitted to talk to you of this morning, but which interested me much in the reading.  Do let him understand how obliged to him I am for permitting me to look, for a moment, according to his view of the question.  Perhaps my poetical sense is not convinced all through, and certainly my critical sense is not worth convincing, but I am delighted to be able to call by the name of Aeschylus, under the authority of Mr. Burges, those noble electrical lines (electrical for double reasons) which had struck me twenty times as Aeschylean, when I read them among the recognised fragments of Sophocles.  You hear Aeschylus’s footsteps and voice in the lines.  No other of the gods could tread so heavily, or speak so like thundering.

I wrote all this to begin with, hesitating how else to begin.  My very dear and kind friend, you understand—­do you not?—­through an expression which, whether written or spoken, must remain imperfect, to what deep, full feeling of gratitude your kindness has moved me.[92] The good you have done me, and just at the moment when I should have failed altogether without it, and in more than one way, and in a deeper than the obvious degree—­all this I know better than you do, and I thank you for it from the bottom of my heart.  I shall never forget it, as long as I live to remember anything.  The book may fail signally after all—­that is another question; but I shall not fail, to begin with, and that I owe to you, for I was falling to pieces in nerves and spirits when you came to help me.  I had only enough instinct left to be ashamed, a little, afterwards, of having sent you, in company, too, with Miss Martineau’s heroic cheerfulness, that note of weak because unavailing complaint.  It was a long compressed feeling breaking suddenly into words.  Forgive and forget that I ever so troubled you—­no, ‘troubled’ is not the word for your kindness!—­and remember, as I shall do, the great good you have done me.

May God bless you, my dear cousin.

Affectionately yours always,
E.B.B.

[Footnote 92:  Referring to Mr. Kenyon’s encouraging comments on the ‘Drama of Exile,’ which he had seen in manuscript at a time when Miss Barrett was very despondent about it.]

This note is not to be answered.

I am thinking of writing to Moxon, as there does not seem much to arrange.  The type and size of Tennyson’s books seem, upon examination, to suit my purpose excellently.

To John Kenyan March 21, 1844.