"Now, my dear M., the effect must have been from your words, and certainly not my music. I merely mention this foolish story to show you how much I am indebted to you for even your pastimes. A man may praise and praise, but no one recollects but that which pleases--at least, in composition. Though I think no one equal to you in that department, or in satire,--and surely no one was ever so popular in both,--I certainly am of opinion that you have not yet done all _you_ can do, though more than enough for any one else. I want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and I see in you what I never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of your own powers, which I cannot account for, and which must be unaccountable, when a _Cossac_ like me can appal a _cuirassier_. Your story I did not, could not, know,--I thought only of a Peri. I wish you had confided in me, not for your sake, but mine, and to prevent the world from losing a much better poem than my own, but which, I yet hope, this _clashing_ will not even now deprive them of.[87] Mine is the work of a week, written, _why_ I have partly told you, and partly I cannot tell you by letter--some day I will. "Go on--I shall really be very unhappy if I at all interfere with you. The success of mine is yet problematical; though the public will probably purchase a certain quantity, on the presumption of their own propensity for 'The Giaour' and such 'horrid mysteries.' The only advantage I have is being on the spot; and that merely amounts to saving me the trouble of turning over books which I had better read again. If _your chamber_ was furnished in the same way, you have no need to _go there_ to describe--I mean only as to _accuracy_--because I drew it from recollection. "This last thing of mine _may_ have the same fate, and I assure you I have great doubts about it. But, even if not, its little day will be over before you are ready and willing. Come out--'screw your courage to the sticking-place.' Except the Post Bag (and surely you cannot complain of a want of success there), you have not been _regularly_ out for some years. No man stands higher,--whatever you may think on a rainy day, in your provincial retreat. 'Aucun homme, dans aucune langue, n'a ete, peut-etre, plus completement le poete du coeur et le poete des femmes. Les critiques lui reprochent de n'avoir represente le monde ni tel qu'il est, ni tel qu'il doit etre; _mais les femmes repondent qu'il l'a represente tel qu'elles le desirent_.'--I should have thought Sismondi had written this for you instead of Metastasio. "Write to me, and tell me of _yourself_. Do you remember what Rousseau said to some one--'Have we quarrelled? you have talked to me often, and never once mentioned yourself.'