Well!—setting aside the glory of it, it would have been as wise perhaps if I had abstained; our damp detestable climate reaches us otherwise than by cold, and I am not quite as well as usual this morning after an uncomfortable feverish night—not very unwell, mind, nor unwell at all in the least degree of consequence—and I tell you, only to show how susceptible I really am still, though 'scarcely an invalid,' say the complimenters.
What a way I am from your letter—that letter—or seem to be rather—for one may think of one thing and yet go on writing distrustedly of other things. So you are 'grateful' to my sisters ... you! Now I beseech you not to talk such extravagances; I mean such extravagances as words like these imply—and there are far worse words than these, in the letter ... such as I need not put my finger on; words which are sense on my lips, but no sense at all on yours, and which make me disquietedly sure that you are under an illusion. Observe!—certainly I should not choose to have a 'claim,' see! Only, what I object to, in 'illusions,' 'miracles,' and things of that sort, is the want of continuity common to such. When Joshua caused the sun to stand still, it was not for a year even!—Ungrateful, I am!
And 'pretty well' means 'not well' I am afraid—or I should be gladder still of the new act. You will tell me on Tuesday what 'pretty well' means, and if your mother is better—or I may have a letter to-morrow—dearest! May God bless you!
To-morrow too, at half past three o'clock, how joyful I shall be that my 'kind considerateness' decided not to receive you until Tuesday. My very kind considerateness, which made me eat my dinner to-day!
Your own
Ba.
A hundred letters I have, by this last, ... to set against Napoleon's Hundred Days—did you know that?
So much better I am to-night: it was nothing but a little chill from the damp—the fog, you see!
R.B. to E.B.B.
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]