Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, March 17, 1846.]

Dearest, you are dearest always! Talk of Sirens, ... there must be some masculine ones 'rari nantes,' I fancy, (though we may not find them in unquestionable authorities like your Ælian!) to justify this voice I hear. Ah, how you speak, with that pretension, too, to dumbness! What should people be made of, in order to bear such words, do you think? Will all the wax from all the altar-candles in the Sistine Chapel, keep the piercing danger from their ears? Being tied up a good deal tighter than Ulysses did not save me. Dearest dearest: I laugh, you see, as usual, not to cry! But deep down, deeper than the Sirens go, deep underneath the tides, there, I bless and love you with the voice that makes no sound.

Other human creatures (how often I do think it to myself!) have their good things scattered over their lives, sown here and sown there, down the slopes, and by the waysides. But with me ... I have mine all poured down on one spot in the midst of the sands!—if you knew what I feel at moments, and at half-hours, when I give myself up to the feeling freely and take no thought of red eyes. A woman once was killed with gifts, crushed with the weight of golden bracelets thrown at her: and, knowing myself, I have wondered more than a little, how it was that I could bear this strange and unused gladness, without sinking as the emotion rose. Only I was incredulous at first, and the day broke slowly ... and the gifts fell like the rain ... softly; and God gives strength, by His providence, for sustaining blessings as well as stripes. Dearest—

For the rest I understand you perfectly—perfectly. It was simply to your thoughts, that I replied ... and that you need not say to yourself any more, as you did once to me when you brought me flowers, that you wished they were diamonds. It was simply to prevent the accident of such a thought, that I spoke out mine. You would not wish accidentally that you had a double-barrelled gun to give me, or a cardinal's hat, or a snuff box, and I meant to say that you might as well—as diamonds and satin sofas à la Chorley. Thoughts are something, and your thoughts are something more. To be sure they are!

You are better you say, which makes me happy of course. And you will not make the 'better' worse again by doing wrong things—that is my petition. It was the excess of goodness to write those two letters for me in one day, and I thank you, thank you. Beloved, when you write, let it be, if you choose, ever so few lines. Do not suffer me (for my own sake) to tire you, because two lines or three bring you to me ... remember ... just as a longer letter would.

But where, pray, did I say, and when, that 'everything would end well?' Was that in the dream, when we two met on the stairs? I did not really say so I think. And 'well' is how you understand it. If you jump out of the window you succeed in getting to the ground, somehow, dead or alive ... but whether that means 'ending well,' depends on your way of considering matters. I am seriously of opinion nevertheless, that if 'the arm,' you talk of, drops, it will not be for weariness nor even for weakness, but because it is cut off at the shoulder. I will not fail to you,—may God so deal with me, so bless me, so leave me, as I live only for you and shall. Do you doubt that, my only beloved! Ah, you know well—too well, people would say ... but I do not think it 'too well' myself, ... knowing you.

Your

Ba.

Here is a gossip which Mr. Kenyon brought me on Sunday—disbelieving it himself, he asseverated, though Lady Chantrey said it 'with authority,'—that Mr. Harness had offered his hand heart and ecclesiastical dignities to Miss Burdett Coutts. It is Lady Chantrey's and Mr. Kenyon's secret, remember.

And ... will you tell me? How can a man spend four or five successive months on the sea, most cheaply—at the least pecuniary expense, I mean? Because Miss Mitford's friend Mr. Buckingham is ordered by his medical adviser to complete his cure by these means; and he is not rich. Could he go with sufficient comfort by a merchant's vessel to the Mediterranean ... and might he drift about among the Greek islands?