Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/52

36 plots, your own Beaumont and Fletcher, and you take away their glory. Alfieri is more markedly a poet of action than any other poet I can think of, and how he makes you shiver!"

Speaking of the franking of her letter, she says, with the humour so frequently displayed in those earlier days of her career: "Little thinks the Bishop, whose right reverend autograph conveys my letter to you, that he is aiding and abetting the intercourse of such very fierce radicals. Indeed, the last time I thought of politics I believe I was a republican, to say nothing of some perilous stuff of 'sectarianism,' which would freeze his ecclesiastical blood to hear of." The "fierce radicalism" of "dearest Miss Mitford" was, after all, scarcely strong enough to have disturbed his Grace's equanimity, whatever her young correspondent's would have done, had he learned aught of it.

On the 5th of January 1839, Miss Barrett writes to inform her friend that her wishes for a happy new year are already fulfilled, for "papa has come!" Then, speaking of certain family reports as to their friend Kenyon not appearing to be in such good spirits as is usual with him, she throws certain side-lights upon her own character. "It must be that the life he (Kenyon) leads," she observes, "will tell at last and at least on his spirits. Only the unexcitable by nature can be supposed to endure continual external occasions of excitement. As if there were not enough—too much—that is exciting from within. For my own part, I can't understand the craving for excitement. Mine is for repose. My conversion into quietism might be attained without much preaching; and, indeed, all my favourite passages in the Holy Scriptures are those