Saturday!—our day! At least if anything should be against it, you shall hear at the door by a note, when you come at three o’clock. I have put away my Thursday night’s melancholy ... except the repentance of troubling you with it——understand that I have!

Mrs. Jameson was here to-day, and her niece, ... and you, never named,—but she is coming another day, she says, to pay me a longer visit. I like her ... I like her. Then, there came another visitor, ... my uncle Hedley, who began, as usual, to talk of Italy—he advises me to go this year.—‘If you don’t go this year, you never will go ... and you ought at once to make an effort, and go.’ We talked of places and of ways, and after he had said many words in favour of Pisa, desired, if I went through Paris, that I would pay him a visit. ‘Ah,’ said I, ‘uncle Hedley, you are very good to me always, but when that day arrives, you may be inclined, perhaps, to cast me off.’ ‘Cast you off, Ba,’ he cried in the most puzzled astonishment—‘why what can you mean? what words to use! Cast you off! now do explain what you mean.’ ‘Ah, no one can tell,’ said I musingly. ‘Do you mean,’ he insisted, ‘because you will be a rebel and a runaway?’ ... (laughing!) ‘no, no—I won’t cast you off, I promise you! Only I hope that you may be able to manage it quietly’ &c. &c.

He is a most amiable man, so gentle and tender; and fond of me; exclusively of the poetry. I am certain that he never can make out how anyone in the world can consent to read my verses. But Ba, as Ba, is a decided favourite of his, beyond all in the house—not that he is a real uncle ... only the husband of my aunt, and caring more for me than both my real uncles, who, each of them, much prefer a glass of claret,—thank you! The very comparison does me too much honour for either of them. Claret is a holy thing. If I had said half a glass, and mixed it with water, I should have been more accurate by so much.

Now, dearest, dearest, I say good-night and have done.

I am wholly yours and always.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]

Dearest Ba’s face of yesterday, with the smiles and perfect sweetness,—oh, the comfort it is to me through this day of my especial heaviness! I don’t know when I have felt more stupid, and I seem to keep the closelier to you, Ba. Is that one of my felicities of compliment? I think if you were here I should lay my head on your bosom, my own beloved, and never raise it again. In your last letter, you speak of those who care less for you than for a ‘glass of claret’—there is something sublime,—at all events, astounding, in the position we occupy each of us,—I, and those less-carers,—standing in respect to each other so like England and Owhyhee, at which, they told me when I was a boy, I should be pretty sure to arrive if I dug a hole just through the earth, dropped to the centre and then, turning round, climbed straight up!

I left here, yesterday, without taking the prints of Dumas and Hugo—there is a head ‘for remembering!’ and justifying your commodations! Chorley says, you see, my acquisitions are rather accumulated than digested—or words to that effect—I am sure at this moment the stupid, heavy head knows not one thing,—as a clear point of knowledge, taken in and laid by, orderly and separately. So let me say here, while I do remember, that a letter from Forster puts off his visit and Moxon’s till Monday—should any reason therefore, prevent your confirming to me the gift of Tuesday, this other day will lie open—but only in that case, I trust—because Tuesday objects not to Saturday, does it? while Wednesday looks grave, and Thursday frowns downright on the same! Friday, remember, is Mr. Kenyon’s day.

I wish, dearest, you would tell me precisely what you have written—all my affectionate pride in you rises at once when I think of your poetry, that is and that is to be—you dear, dear Ba, can you not write on my shoulder while my head lies as you permit?