As critiques, I should have thought more of them had
they more fully recognised Ellis Bell's merits; but the lovers of
abstract poetry are few in number.
'Your last letter was very welcome, it was written with so kind an
intention: you made it so interesting in order to divert my mind. I
should have thanked you for it before now, only that I kept waiting
for a cheerful day and mood in which to address you, and I grieve to
say the shadow which has fallen on our quiet home still lingers round
it. I am better, but others are ill now. Papa is not well, my
sister Emily has something like slow inflammation of the lungs, and
even our old servant, who lived with us nearly a quarter of a
century, is suffering under serious indisposition.
'I would fain hope that Emily is a little better this evening, but it
is difficult to ascertain this. She is a real stoic in illness: she
neither seeks nor will accept sympathy. To put any questions, to
offer any aid, is to annoy; she will not yield a step before pain or
sickness till forced; not one of her ordinary avocations will she
voluntarily renounce. You must look on and see her do what she is
unfit to do, and not dare to say a word--a painful necessity for
those to whom her health and existence are as precious as the life in
their veins.
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