And I have some sympathy in your habit of feeling for chairs and
tables. I remember, when I was a child and wrote poems in little
clasped books, I used to kiss the books and put them away tenderly
because I had been happy near them, and take them out by turns when I
was going from home, to cheer them by the change of air and the
pleasure of the new place. This, not for the sake of the verses
written in them, and not for the sake of writing more verses in them,
but from pure gratitude. Other books I used to treat in a like
manner--and to talk to the trees and the flowers, was a natural
inclination--but between me and that time, the cypresses grow thick
and dark.

Is it true that your wishes fulfil themselves? And when they _do_, are
they not bitter to your taste--do you not wish them _un_fulfilled? Oh,
this life, this life! There is comfort in it, they say, and I almost
believe--but the brightest place in the house, is the leaning out of
the window--at least, for me.

Of course you are _self-conscious_--How could you be a poet otherwise?
Tell me.

Ever faithfully yours,

E.B.B.

And was the little book written with Mr. Mill, pure metaphysics, or
what?