Yes, you are better, I think. I thank God for that, first of all. And, do you know, your note only just comes, and it is past ten o’clock, and I had rung the bell to have the letter-box investigated ... and then came the knock and the letter! Such a sinning post, it is, more and more. But to come at last, is something—I am contented indeed. And for being well, I am well too, if that is all. The wind is a little hard on me; but I keep in the room and think of you and am thought of by you, and no wind, under such circumstances, can do much harm perhaps:—it does not to me, anywise. So keep well, and believe that I am so:—‘well as you are well’ ... which sounds very well.
What nonsense one comes to write when one is glad! I observe that in myself constantly. All my wisdom seems to depend on being pricked with pins ... or rather with something sharper. And besides your being better, I am glad through what you say here about your ‘peculiarity’! Ah—how you have words in your coffers, of all sorts, ... crowns to suit all heads ... and this, which I try on last, suits mine better than the other glittering ones. Those exaggerations, idealizations, with burning carbuncles in the front of them, which made me sigh under the weight, ... those are different—! But when you say now that you do not part with feelings,—that it is your peculiarity not to wear them out, and that you are likely to care for the sight of my handwriting as much after years as at first, why you make me happy when you say such things, and (see what faith I have!) I believe them, since you say them, speaking of yourself. They are not after the fashion of men, or women either—but, true of you, they may be, ... and I take upon trust that they are: I accept such words from you as means of gladness. The worst is—I mean, the worst reasonableness that goes out to oppose them, is, ... the fear lest, when your judgments have been corrected by experience, the feelings may correct themselves. But it is ungrateful to talk reason in the face of so much love. I take up the gladness rather, and thank you and bless you seven times over, to completion. You are the best, I know, of all in the world. Did I tell you once that my love was ‘something’? Yet it is nothing: because there is no woman, let her heart be ever so made of stone and steel, who could help loving you, ... I answer for all women!—so this is no merit of mine, though it is the best thing I ever did in my life.
Dearest beloved, when I used to tell you to give me up, and imagined to myself how I should feel if you did it, ... and thought it would not be much worse than it was before I knew you ... (a little better indeed, inasmuch as I had the memory for ever ...) the chief pang was the idea of another woman——! From that, I have turned back again and again, recoiling like a horse set against too high a wall. Therefore if I talk of what all women would do, I do not mean that they should. ‘Thirty-six Bas,’ we shall not have,—shall we? or I shall be like Flush, who, before he learnt to be a philosopher, used to shiver with rage at sight of the Flush in the looking-glass, and gnash his teeth impotently, and quite howl. Now,—we shall not, dearest, have the thirty-six Bas ... now, shall we? Besides, one will be more than enough, she fears to herself, for your comfort and patience.
No more letters about ‘Luria’? Did you see Moxon when you were in town?
Miss Bayley has not been here yet. To-morrow, perhaps. When she comes, I shall not dare name you, but she will, I think ... I seem sure of hearing her mind about ‘Luria’ and the ‘Tragedy.’ George thinks the former ‘very fine.’ Mr. Kenyon does not come,—and to-morrow (Friday) he goes ... from London.
You will care for me always the same? But that is like promising a charmed life, or an impossible immortality to somebody—and nobody has either, except Louis Philippe. May God bless you,—say how you are when you write to-morrow.
Your own
Ba.
Oh—your learned Americans! was it literal of Carlyle, do you think, or a jest?