MS fragment Mrs Clare Roels/72
[To Elizabeth Barnett?]
consciously – in extremity breaks his heart over it and is converted by his failure. I have had my head very full of it. I want to know what you think of the Apples of Sodom, for we have various controversies about it, Christabel thinks the one religious man becoming morbid and accustomed a mistake and likely to promote the popular fancy about good men and clergy, and Miss Bramston says she meant the morbidness to be part of his penance. It was confession that he wanted, but it is a painful story, and one wants someone to love though there is something noble in it. I fancy Emma’s paper was really found too late.1 When I did the Spiders, papers that came in singly before the general mass, had a tendency to be put aside, and forgotten at the right time. Please return the letter Gertrude keeps all the queer ones, and very queer they are sometimes. My poor old May has been having blisters for congestion of the liver which I don’t like, but she says she is to have a visit from Alley.2 Poor little King of Spain, it would be an escape for him3