_To John Kenyon_

Casa Guidi: May 16 [1853].

My dearest Mr. Kenyon,--You are to be thanked and loved as ever, and
what can we say more? This: Do be good to us by a supererogatory virtue
and write to us. You can't know how pleasant it is to be _en rapport_
with you, though by holding such a fringe of a garment as a scrap of
letter is. We don't see you, we don't hear you! 'Rap' to us with the end
of your pen, like the benign spirit you are, and let me (who am
credulous) believe that you care for us and think kindly of us in the
midst of your brilliant London gossipry, and that you don't disdain the
talk of us, dark ultramontanists as we are. You are good to us in so
many ways, that it's a reason for being good in another way besides. At
least, to reason so is one of the foolishnesses of my gratitude.

On the whole, I am satisfied with regard to 'Colombe.' I never expected
a theatrical success, properly and vulgarly so called; and the play has
taken rank, to judge by the various criticisms, in the right way, as a
true poet's work: the defects of the acting drama seemed recognised as
the qualities of the poem. It was impossible all that subtle tracery of
thought and feeling should be painted out clear red and ochre with a
house-painter's brush, and lose nothing of its effect.[22] A play that
runs nowadays has generally four legs to run with--something of the
beast to keep it going. The human biped with the 'os divinior' is slower
than a racehorse even. What I hope is, that the poetical appreciation of
'Colombe' will give an impulse to the sale of the poems, which will be
more acceptable to us than the other kind of success....

Yes, dearest Mr. Kenyon, we mean, if we can, to go to Rome in the