As to ‘Consuelo’ I agree with nearly all that you say of it—­though George Sand, we are to remember, is greater than ‘Consuelo,’ and not to be depreciated according to the defects of that book, nor classified as ‘femme qui parle’ ... she who is man and woman together, ... judging her by the standard of even that book in the nobler portions of it.  For the inconsequency of much in the book, I admit it of course—­and you will admit that it is the rarest of phenomena when men ... men of logic ... follow their own opinions into their obvious results—­nobody, you know, ever thinks of doing such a thing:  to pursue one’s own inferences is to rush in where angels ... perhaps ... do not fear to tread, ... but where there will not be much other company.  So the want of practical logic shall be a human fault rather than a womanly one, if you please:  and you must please also to remember that ‘Consuelo’ is only ‘half the orange’; and that when you complain of its not being a whole one, you overlook that hand which is holding to you the ‘Comtesse de Rudolstadt’ in three volumes!  Not that I, who have read the whole, profess a full satisfaction about Albert and the rest—­and Consuelo is made to be happy by a mere clap-trap at last:  and Mme. Dudevant has her specialities,—­in which, other women, I fancy, have neither part nor lot, ... even here!—­Altogether, the book is a sort of rambling ‘Odyssey,’ a female ‘Odyssey,’ if you like, but full of beauty and nobleness, let the faults be where they may.  And then, I like those long, long books, one can live away into ... leaving the world and above all oneself, quite at the end of the avenue of palms—­quite out of sight and out of hearing!—­Oh, I have felt something like that so often—­so often! and you never felt it, and never will, I hope.

But if Bulwer had written nothing but the ‘Ernest Maltravers’ books, you would think perhaps more highly of him.  Do you not think it possible now?  It is his most impotent struggling into poetry, which sets about proving a negative of genius on him—­that, which the Athenaeum praises as ’respectable attainment in various walks of literature’—! like the Athenaeum, isn’t it? and worthy praise, to be administered by professed judges of art?  What is to be expected of the public, when the teachers of the public teach so?—­

When you come on Tuesday, do not forget the MS. if any is done—­only don’t let it be done so as to tire and hurt you—­mind!  And good-bye until Tuesday, from

E.B.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 18, 1845.]