B.'
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
'_April_ 5_th_, 1851.
'DEAR ELLEN,--Mr. Taylor has been and is gone; things are just as
they were. I only know in addition to the slight information I
possessed before, that this Indian undertaking is necessary to the
continued prosperity of the firm of Smith, Elder, & Co., and that he,
Taylor, alone was pronounced to possess the power and means to carry
it out successfully--that mercantile honour, combined with his own
sense of duty, obliged him to accept the post of honour and of danger
to which he has been appointed, that he goes with great personal
reluctance, and that he contemplates an absence of five years.
'He looked much thinner and older. I saw him very near, and once
through my glass; the resemblance to Branwell struck me forcibly--it
is marked. He is not ugly, but very peculiar; the lines in his face
show an inflexibility, and, I must add, a hardness of character which
do not attract. As he stood near me, as he looked at me in his keen
way, it was all I could do to stand my ground tranquilly and
steadily, and not to recoil as before. It is no use saying anything
if I am not candid. I avow then, that on this occasion, predisposed
as I was to regard him very favourably, his manners and his personal
presence scarcely pleased me more than at the first interview.
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