There is nothing to alter—that is, nothing to add—in relation to myself; but there are some inaccuracies, as I have explained to you.
In a later letter Miss Barrett returns to the subject of Horne's paper on herself, saying—
Bear in your mind, then, with regard to me, that I thoroughly understand the fulness both of your kindness and your integrity. You are my friend, I hope, but you do not on that account lose the faculty of judging me, or the right of judging me frankly. I do loathe the whole system of personal compliment as a consequence of a personal interest, and I beseech you not to suffer yourself ever by any sort of kind impulse from within, or extraneous influence otherwise, to say or modify a word relating to me. The notice as it stands can be called "inadequate" only in one way—that you enter on no analysis of my poetical claims in it. In every other respect you know it is extravagantly laudatory. You have rouged me up to the eyes. . . .
In any case of your approaching the subject of my poetry, you will please me best by speaking out the truth as it occurs to you, broadly, roughly, coarsely, in its whole dimensions. I set more price on your sincerity than on your praise, and consider it more closely connected with the quality called kindness. Recollect that these people who offer a pin to me that they may prick you with it in passing, do not care a pin for me. . . . I want kindness the rarest of all nearly—which is truth.
