"I am now in the fifth act of 'Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve months, besides _proses_; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And are you, too, busy? I doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon your time, which is a pity. Can't you divide your day, so as to combine both? I have had plenty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last year, and yet it is not so difficult to give a few hours to the Muses. This sentence is so like * * * * that ---- "Ever, &c. "If we were together, I should publish both my plays (periodically) in our _joint_ journal. It should be our plan to publish all our best things in that way." * * * * * In the Journal entitled "Detached Thoughts," I find the tribute to his genius which he here mentions, as well as some others, thus interestingly dwelt upon. "As far as fame goes (that is to say, _living_ fame) I have had my share, perhaps--indeed, _certainly_--more than my deserts. "Some odd instances have occurred to my own experience, of the wild and strange places to which a name may penetrate, and where it may impress. Two years ago (almost three, being in August or July, 1819,) I received at Ravenna a letter, in _English_ verse, from _Drontheim_ in Norway, written by a Norwegian, and full of the usual compliments, &c. &c. It is still somewhere amongst my papers. In the same month I received an invitation into _Holstein_ from a Mr. Jacobsen (I think) of Hamburgh: also, by the same medium, a translation of Medora's song in The Corsair by a Westphalian baroness (_not_ 'Thunderton-Tronck'), with some original verses of hers (very pretty and Klopstock-ish), and a prose translation annexed to them, on the subject of my wife:--as they concerned her more than me. I sent them to her, together with Mr. Jacobsen's letter. It was odd enough to receive an invitation to pass the _summer_ in _Holstein_ while in _Italy_, from people I never knew. The letter was addressed to Venice. Mr. Jacobsen talked to me of the 'wild roses growing in the Holstein summer.' Why then did the Cimbri and Teutones emigrate? "What a strange thing is life and man! Were I to present myself at the door of the house where my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my face--unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down the porter; and if I had gone in that year (and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in Norway), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open arms into the mansion of strangers and foreigners, attached to me by no tie but that of mind and rumour. "As far as _fame_ goes, I have had my share: it has indeed been leavened by other human contingencies, and this in a greater degree than has occurred to most literary men of a _decent_ rank in life; but, on the whole, I take it that such equipoise is the condition of humanity."