Or, what would be still better, I could talk to you (and, if you were here now, to an accompaniment of winds that would well suit the subject) instead of writing to you concerning your "Orestes." When we talk we are our own living commentary, and there are so many _running notes_ of look, tone, and gesture, that there is small danger of being misunderstood, and less danger of being imperfectly understood--in writing; but no! it is foolish to abuse a good substitute because it is not all that the original is,--so I will do my best and, believe me, I consider this letter which I am about to write as merely an exercise of my own judgment--a something that may make you better acquainted, perhaps, with the architecture and furniture of _my_ mind, though it will probably convey to you little or nothing that had not occurred to you before respecting your own tragedy. One thing I beg solicitously of you, that, if anywhere I appear to speak positively, you will acquit me of any correspondent feeling. I hope that it is not a frequent feeling with me in any case, and, that if it appear so, I am belied by my own warmth of manner. In the present instance it is impossible. I have been too deeply impressed by the work, and I am now about to give you, not criticisms nor decisions, but a history of my impressions, and, for the greater part, of my first impressions, and if anywhere there seem anything like a tone of warmth or dogmatism, do, my dear sir, be kind enough to regard it as no more than a way of conveying to you the _whole_ of my meaning; or, for I am writing too seriously, as the dexterous _toss_, necessary to turn an idea out of its pudding-bag, round and _unbroken_.
Several pages of minute criticisms on Sotheby's "Orestes" form part of the original transcript of the letter.
ST. CLEAR, CAERMARTHEN, Tuesday, November 16, 1802.