What am I to say next, my Ba? When I write my best and send ‘grateful’ to you—you send my proof back, ‘grateful (h)’ Then I must do and say what you hate ... for I am one entire gratitude to you, God knows! May He reward you.

It is late; bless you once again, my dearest! You have nothing so much yours as

R.

My mother says that I paid only fifteen or sixteen pounds for the Venice voyage, and much less for the Naples one—ten, and no more, she thinks—and I think; but that represents twenty—as the other, twenty five or thirty pounds, to a person unconnected with the freighting party. (In the first ship, Rothschild sent a locomotive entire, with all its appurtenances, for one article, to Trieste). Can I make enquiries for you? Nay, I will, and at once.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 8, 1846.]

In my disagree ... able letter this morning, I forgot to write how, after you went away, and I came to read again the dedication, I admired it more and more—it is most graceful and complete. Landor will be gratified and grateful ... he, allowably—and only you shall be ‘hateful’ ... and only to me, dearest, ... so that it doesn’t matter much. As to Ogniben, you understand best of course—I understood the ‘laughing gently to himself,’ though I omitted to notice the italics. I perfectly understood that it was the bystander’s observation.

Your letter came so late to-night that I despaired of it—the postman fell into a trance somewhere I fancy, and it was not till nine oclock that the knock (equal to the tapping of a fairy’s wand) came to the door. Now I have two letters to thank you for together ... for the dear one on Monday, which lay in the shadow of your coming, and so was a little, little, less thought of than it could have been under any other possible circumstance ... and for this letter to-night. Well! and for Mr. Buckingham’s voyage, if you will and can conveniently, (I use that word for my sake, not for your sake—because I think of you and not of him!) but if you can without inconvenience make enquiries about these vessels, why I shall be glad and shall set it to your account as one goodness more. It would be easy for him (and you should have done it, in your voyage) to take with him those potted meats and portable soups and essences of game which would prevent his being reduced to common fare with the sailors. Then a mattress is as portable as the soups, nearly. Apart from the asafœtida he may endure, I should think. Do you know, I was amused at myself yesterday, after the first movement, for liking to hear you say that ‘dry biscuits satisfied’ you—because, after all, I should not be easy to see you living on dry biscuits ... Ceres and Bacchus forbid! Oh—I don’t profess to apply, out of a pure poetical justice, Lord Byron’s Pythagoreanism to the ‘nobler half of creation’—do not be afraid—but it is rather desecrating and disenchanting to mark how certain of those said Nobilities turn upon their dinners as on the pivot of the day, for their good pleasure and good temper besides. Did you ever observe a lord of creation knit his brows together because the cutlets were underdone, shooting enough fire from his eyes to overdo them to cinders ... ‘cinder-blast’ them, as Æschylus would have it? Did you ever hear of the litany which some women say through the first course ... low to themselves? Perhaps not! it does not enter into your imagination to conceive of things, which nevertheless are.

Not that I ever thought of you with reference to such—oh no, no! But every variety of the ‘Epicuri de grege porcus,’ I have a sort of indisposition to ... even as the animal itself (pork of nature and the kitchen) I avoid like a Jewish woman. Do you smile? And did I half (or whole) make you angry this morning through being so didactic and detestable? Will you challenge me to six paces at Chalk Farm, and will you ‘take aim’ this time and put an end to every sort of pretence in me to other approaches between us two? Tell me if you are angry, dearest! I ask you to tell me if you felt (for the time even) vexed with me.... I want to know.... I need to know. Do you not know what my reflection must reasonably be?... That is, apart from provocation and excitement, you believe in the necessity of such and such resources, ... provoked and excited you would apply to them—there could be no counteracting force ... no help nor hope.

So I spoke my mind—and you are vexed with me, which I feel in the air. May God bless you dearest, dearest! Forgive, as you can, best,