Oh, the spirits! Hate of Hume and belief in the facts are universal here.
[About December 1856.]
My dearest Isa,—Just before your note came I had the pleasure of burning my own to you yesterday, which was not called for, as I expected. You would have seen from that, that Robert was going to you of his own accord and mine....
I am rather glad you have not seen the 'Athenæum'; the analysis it gives of my poem is so very unfair and partial. You would say the conception was really null. It does not console me at all that I should be praised and over-praised, the idea given of the poem remaining so absolutely futile. Even the outside shell of the plan is but half given, and the double action of the metaphysical intention entirely ignored. I protest against it. Still, Robert thinks the article not likely to do harm. Perhaps not. Only one hates to be misrepresented.
So glad I am that Robert was good last night. He told me he had been defending Swedenborg and the spirits, which suggested to me some notion of superhuman virtue on his part. Yes; love him. He is my right 'glory'; and the 'lute and harp' would go for nothing beside him, even if 'Athenæums' spelled one out properly.
Dearest Isa, may God bless you! Let me hear by a word, when Ansuno passes, how you are. Your loving
E.B.B.