Well, but am I really so bad? ' _Et tu_!' Can _you_ call me careless? Remember all the altering of manuscript and proof--and remember how the obscurities used to fly away before your cloud-compelling, when you were the Jove of the criticisms! That the books (I won't call them _our_ books when I am speaking of the faults) are remarkable for defects and superfluities of evil, I can see quite as well as another; but then I won't admit that ' it comes' of my carelessness, and refusing to take pains. On the contrary, my belief is, that very few writers called ' correct ' who have selected classical models to work from, pay more laborious attention than I do habitually to the forms of thought and expression. ' Lady Geraldine ' was an exception in her whole history. If I write fast sometimes (and the historical fact is that what has been written fastest, has pleased most), l am not apt to print without consideration. I appeal to Philip sober, if I am! My dearest cousin, do remember! As to the faults, I do not think of defending them, be very sure. My consolation is, that I may try to do better in time, if I may talk of time. The worst fault of all, as far as expression goes (the adjective-substantives, whether in prose or verse, I cannot make up my mind to consider faulty), is that kind of obscurity which is the same thing with inadequate expression. Be very sure--try to be very sure--that I am not obstinate and self-opiniated beyond measure. To _you_ in case, who have done so much for me, and who think of me so more than kindly, I feel it to be both duty and pleasure to defer and yield. Still, you know, we could not, if we were ten years about it, alter down the poems to the terms of all these reviewers. You would not desire it, if it were possible. I do not remember that you suggested any change in the verse on Aeschylus. The critic[115] mistakes my allusion, which was to the fact that in the acting of the Eumenides, when the great tragic poet did actually 'frown as the gods did,' women fell down fainting from the benches. I did not refer to the effect of his human countenance 'during composition.' But I am very grateful to the reviewer whoever he may be--very--and with need. See how the 'Sun' shines in response to 'Blackwood' (thank you for sending me that notice), when previously we had had but a wintry rag from the same quarter! No; if I am not spoilt by _your kindness_, I am not likely to be so by any of these exoteric praises, however beyond what I expected or deserved. And then I am like a bird with one wing broken. Throw it out of the window; and after the first feeling of pleasure in liberty, it falls heavily. I have had moments of great pleasure in hearing whatever good has been thought of the poems; but the feeling of _elation_ is too strong or rather too _long_ for me....