What do you think I have been doing to-day to Mr. Kenyon? Sending him the ‘enchanted poetry’ which such as you are never to see ... the translation about Hector and Andromache!—yes, really. Yet after all it is not that I like him so much better than you ... I do not indeed ... it is just that Miss Thomson and her book are of consequence to him, and that he hears through Miss Bayley and herself of the attempt here and the failure there, ... and so, being interested altogether, he asked me to let him see what I did with Homer. And it is not much. Old Homer laughs his translators to very scorn ... and he does not spare me, for being a woman. Surpassingly and profoundly beautiful that scene is. I have tried it in blank verse. About a year ago, when I had a sudden fit of translating, I made an experiment on the first fifty lines of the Iliad in a rhymed measure which seemed to me rather nearer to the Greek cadence than our common heroic verse. Listen to what I remember—
Thus he spake in his prayer: and Apollo gave ear to the whole;
And came down from the steep of Olympus, with wrath in his soul;
On his shoulder the bow, and the quiver fast woven by fate,
And the darts hurtled on, as he trod, with the thrill of his hate
And the step of his godhead. Like night did he travel below—
And he sate down afar from the ships, and drew strong to the bow—
And so we get to the arrows you talked of ... ah, do you remember ... do you remember? ... which were to kill dogs and mules, you said! But they didn’t. I have an enchanted dog (‘which nobody can deny’!) and am not far to seek in my Apollo.
To-day I had a letter from Miss Mitford who says that, inasmuch as she does not go to Paris, she shall come for a fortnight to London and ‘see me every day.’!! No time is fixed—but I look a little aghast. Am I not grateful and affectionate? Is it right of you, not to let me love anyone as I used to do? Is it in that sense that you kill the dogs and mules? Perhaps. The truth is, I would rather she did not come—far rather. And she may not, after all— ... now I am ashamed of myself thoroughly
I have not been down-stairs to-day—the weather seemed so doubtful. To-morrow, if it is possible, I will ... must ... do it. So ... goodbye till the day after—Thursday. May God bless you every day! and if only as I think of you ... you would not lose much!