I thank you earnestly for your candour hitherto, and I beseech you to be candid to the end.
It is tawny as Rhea's lion.
I know (although you don't say so) you object to that line. Yet consider its structure. Does not the final 'y' of 'tawny' suppose an apostrophe and apocope? Do you not run 'tawny as' into two syllables naturally? I want you to see my principle.
With regard to blank verse, the great Fletcher admits sometimes seventeen syllables into his lines.
I hope Miss Heard received her copy, and that you will not think me arrogant in writing freely to you.
Believe me, I write only freely and not arrogantly; and I am impressed with the conviction that my work abounds with far more faults than you in your kindness will discover, notwithstanding your acumen.
Always your affectionate and grateful
ELIBET.
To H.S. Boyd
Wednesday, August 14, 1844 [postmark].
My dearest Mr. Boyd,—I must thank you for the great great pleasure with which I have this moment read your note, the more welcome, as (without hypocrisy) I had worked myself up into a nervous apprehension, from your former one, that I should seem so 'rudis atque incomposita' to you, in consequence of certain licences, as to end by being intolerable. I know what an ear you have, and how you can hear the dust on the wheel as it goes on. Well, I wrote to you yesterday, to beg you to be patient and considerate.