Victorianellinuccia,—You would have heard from me earlier in the week than this, had I not been suffering under a cold and cough of such severity, that it affected the very muscles of my neck to a degree which rendered it painful for me to do anything with my head but to let it lie back on the top of an armchair, and so direct its eyes on a book and read. Of all kinds of approbations of my scribblements—nay, I will call them writings in consideration of their sincerity and their approvers—there is none that ever pleases me so much as those like Mr. Peacock’s; and I beg you to make him my grateful acknowledgments, as well as to accept them yourself for sending them to me in a letter so delightful. As to any violation of modesty in your showing me what he says of you, in the first place there is no such violation; and secondly, if there could be, it is the privilege of women so really modest (and the wicked exquisites know it) to be able to set this modesty aside on occasions gloriously appropriate, and so make us love it the more on all others. With cordial remembrances to your traveller,
