Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/74

58 as it may be, which is uppermost—and sometimes, too, when it is not uppermost. I struggle against a sadness which is strong, by putting a levity in the place of it. Now you will wonder what I have been writing if you have not received the note yet, and so I will explain to you that it was only some foolishness about the twenty-five copies—about Miss Mitford's victory and my defeat. κ. τ. λ."

The tone of this and other letters written by Elizabeth Barrett is explained by what she writes in a following communication to Horne. Referring to her great shyness in meeting strangers, she says, "But that you won't believe, because, as Mr. Kenyon says, I grow insolent when I have a pen in my hand, and you know me only 'by that sign.' I sometimes doubt to myself (do you know, besides) whether if I should ever be face to face with you, the shame and the shyness would not annihilate the pleasure of it to me!"

That this shyness was real, no student of Elizabeth Barrett's life and letters can doubt, and that that it was which ofttimes forced her into writing somewhat over-strained and bold epistles—so different to her retiring nature—just as very bashful people often blurt out more forcible and more courageous things than really brave but more self-possessed persons would dare to.

As the year advanced, and there were no signs of the invalid's falling back into her former sad condition, Miss Mitford, assisted by Mr. Kenyon, endeavoured to impress upon Mr. Barrett the advantages likely to accrue to his daughter by her being got out of town; but either he or the invalid herself feared the risk, and nothing was done. Her collection of poems, which it was arranged Moxon should publish, was rapidly approaching completion. It was to be in two volumes,