For the thunder ... if you thought of me during it, as you say, ... why it did me just so much good. Think of me, dearest, in the thunder and out of the thunder; the longest peal’s worth of your thought would not content me now, because you have made me too covetous.
As to Mr. Horne, you write Sordelloisms of him—and you shall tell me your real meaning in a new edition on Saturday. Might your meaning be that I look worse in this room than in the drawing-room? Have you an objection to this room as a room? I rub my eyes and look for a little more light—(but can’t be more impertinent!—can I?)
So, till Saturday—yes, Saturday! To-morrow there is a clearance of aunts—one going at nine in the morning, and one at five in the afternoon: and uncles and cousins do not stay behind. You are glad, I think—and I, not sorry.
How striking your two stories are! Wonderful it is to me, when mere worldly reverses affect men so—I cannot comprehend it—I stand musing there. But the sublime sentiment of the Melon-seller applies to the griefs I can understand—and we may most of us (called Christians) go to him for his teaching.
May God bless you for me! Your Ba.
(I want to say one word more and so leave the subject. Stormie told me this morning, in answer to an enquiry of mine, that certainly I did not receive the whole interest of the fund-money, ... could not ... making ever so much allowance for the income-tax. And now, upon consideration, I seem to see that I cannot have done so. The ship-shares are in the ‘David Lyon,’ a vessel in the West Indian trade, in which Papa also has shares. Stormie said ‘There must be three hundred a year of interest from the fund-money—even at the low rate of interest paid there.’ Now it would be the easiest thing in the world (as I saw even in to-day’s newspaper) to have money advanced upon this—only there is a risk of its being known perhaps, which neither of us would at all like.) Burn this.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 7, 1846.]
(First of all, let me tell you that the whole story about that death through grief, madness &c., turns out to be a vile fabrication,—false from beginning to end. My mother’s informant, I now find, had derived the knowledge from newspaper also—I hope the other tale, of the Turk, is true at least.)
And now, love, I can go on to say that no letter comes—is it the post’s fault? Yes—I think,—so does your goodness spoil me—you have to tell me about to-morrow, beside. I shall wait hopefully till 2 or 3 o’clock.