Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/70

54 Celestinas. It is only useful knowledge and the multiplication table I have never tried hard at. And now—what now? Is this matter of exultation? Alas, no! Do I boast of my omnivorousness of reading, even apart from the romances? Certainly no! never, except in joke. It's against my theories and ratiocinations, which take upon themselves to assert that we all generally err by reading too much, and out of proportion to what we think. I should be wiser, I am persuaded, if I had not read half as much—should have had stronger and better exercised faculties, and should stand higher in my own appreciation. The fact is, that the ne plus ultra of intellectual indolence is this reading of books. It comes next to what the Americans call "whittling."

These wise and pregnant sentences are well worth reproduction and pondering over, although it must be confessed that Elizabeth Barrett, even if her reading were so varied as she humorously asserts, is an apparent exception to the theory she propounds. Her large range of reading continually supplies her with apt allusions and appropriate similes. Her letters, as Miss Mitford exclaims, "are such letters!"

Writing early in December 1841, that lady says she has just been reading a favourite book of Miss Barrett, lent her by that dear friend. It is Stilling's Theory of Pneumatology, and Miss Mitford faithfully describes it as "a most remarkable collection of ghost stories, dreams, &c., very interesting for its singular mixture of credulity, simplicity, shrewdness, and good faith." This letter contains the first intimation of Miss Barrett's leaning to a belief in apparitions, a belief which doubtless laid the foundation of her future credulity in matters connected with that modern imposture, Spiritualism.

Miss Mitford, in her voluminous correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett, continued to make remarks anent her spiritual theories. At first the elder lady appeared to somewhat sympathise with her friend's views; but as they became more pronounced, and