For the rest he reads French and German, and we shall have to begin Latin in another year I suppose. Do you advise that, you, Mr. Ruskin? He has not given up the drawing neither. Ah! but there is a weight beyond the post, whatever your goodness may bear, and I must leave a little space for Robert. May God bless you, my dear friend! Dare I say it? it _came_. Affectionately yours always, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. * * * * * _Robert Browning to Mr. Ruskin_ I am to say something, dear Ruskin; it shall be only the best of wishes for this and all other years; go on again like the noble and dear man you are to us all, and especially to us two out of them all. Whenever I chance on an extract, a report, it lights up the dull newspaper stuff wrapt round it and makes me glad at heart and clearer in head. We, for our part, have just sent off a corrected 'Aurora Leigh,' which is the better for a deal of pains, we hope, and my wife deserves. There will be a portrait from a photograph done at Havre without retouching--good, I think. Truest love to you and yours--your father and mother. Do help us by a word every now and then. Affectionately yours, R.B. * * * * * _To Miss I. Blagden_ [Rome]: 43 Bocca di Leone: January 7 [1859]. My dearest Isa,--Your letter seemed long in coming, as this will seem to you, I fear. I ought to have answered mine at once, and put off doing so from reason to reason, and from day to day. Very busy I have been, sending off seven of the nine books of 'Aurora,'[61] having dizzied myself with the 'ifs' and 'ands,' and done some little good I hope at much cost....