Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 January 1845: 'I put down "Modeste Mignon" to take up your letter. I read my French abomination at breakfast & dinner & tea time, .. so as to forget myself & be delighted to find that I have eaten a little more than usual in my trance (deeper than mesmeric) & happy state of physical unconsciousness [...] And your first words [in letter] [...] are still of Mignon, Mignon. It is a decided case of flint to flint -- & of electricity by coincidence. 'Well -- and I am delighted with the book just as you are [...] because charmed beyond the point of pleasure produced by mere artistic power in the writer. The truth is [...] that if I were to write my own autobiography, or rather, (much rather), if Balzac were to write it for me, he could not veritably have made it different from what he has written of Modeste. The ideal life of my youth was just [italics]that[end italics], .. line for line [goes on to comment further on text] [...] And that "satiete par la pensee."! -- [italics]There[end italics], lies the test of the morbidity -- for it is morbid -- it is dangerous! & worse romances than poor Modests's is likely to be (I have only read a third of the book) might come of it [comments further on own and Mitford's responses to text]'.