"I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw her) who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, &c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N.A., and has not a word of 'cant' or preachment in it upon _any_ opinions. She merely says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so, begging me to _burn_ her _letter_--which, by the way, I can _not_ do, as I look upon such a letter, in such circumstances, as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a letter from Drontheim, in _Norway_ (but not from a dying woman) in verse, on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at times believe oneself a poet. But if I must believe that ----, and such fellows, are poets, also, it is better to be out of the corps. "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." FROM "DETACHED THOUGHTS." "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 by 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 of life; but, on the whole, I take it that such equipoise is the condition of humanity."