Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 8 February 1847: 'Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac & has read most of his books [...] we read together the other day the "Rouge et Noir", that powerful book of Stendhal's ([Marie Henri] Bayle [sic]) & he thought it very striking, & observed, .. what I had thought from the first again & again, .. that it was exactly like Balzac [italics]in the raw[end italics] .. in the material, .. & undevelopped [sic] conception. What a book it is really,only so full of pain & bitterness, & the gall of iniquity!'