In haste, yours,
E. P. P.
By and by Elizabeth Peabody returns to Boston, and Sophia goes on with
letters:--
I do not think I am subject to my imagination; I can let an idea go to
the grave that I see is false. When I am altogether true to the light
I have, I shall be in the heaven where the angelic Very now is. I went
to see dear Miss Burley, who sent for me to go to her room. She
insisted upon accompanying me all the way downstairs, limping
painfully, and would open the outer door for me, and bow me out with
as much deference as if I had been Victoria, or Hawthorne himself! So
much for the Word uttering itself through my fingers in the face of
Ilbrahim. [She had just finished illustrating "The Gentle Boy" by a
drawing which was greatly praised.]
Jones Very came to tea that afternoon. He was troubled at first, but
we comforted him with sympathy. His conversation with George was
divine, and such level rays of celestial light as beamed from his face
upon George, every time he looked up at him, were lovely to behold. We
told him of our enjoyment of his sonnets. He smiled, and said that,
unless we thought them beautiful because we also heard the Voice in
reading them, they would be of no avail. "Since I have shown you my
sonnets," said he to me, "I think you should show me your paintings,"
Mary brought my drawing-book and "AEschylus" [wonderfully perfect
drawings from Flaxman's illustrations]. He deeply enjoyed all. I told
him of my Ilbrahim.
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