you went away—­after you had quite gone.  You would laugh to see me at my dinner—­Flush and me—­Flush placing in me such an heroic confidence, that, after he has cast one discriminating glance on the plate, and, in the case of ‘chicken,’ wagged his tail with an emphasis, ... he goes off to the sofa, shuts his eyes and allows a full quarter of an hour to pass before he returns to take his share.  Did you ever hear of a dog before who did not persecute one with beseeching eyes at mealtimes?  And remember, this is not the effect of discipline.  Also if another than myself happens to take coffee or break bread in the room here, he teazes straightway with eyes and paws, ... teazes like a common dog and is put out of the door before he can be quieted by scolding.  But with me he is sublime!  Moreover he has been a very useful dog in his time (in the point of capacity), causing to disappear supererogatory dinners and impossible breakfasts which, to do him justice, is a feat accomplished without an objection on his side, always.

So, when you write me such a letter, I write back to you about Flush.  Dearest beloved, but I have read the letter and felt it in my heart, through and through! and it is as wise to talk of Flush foolishly, as to fancy that I could say how it is felt ... this letter!  Only when you spoke last of breaking off with such and such recollections, it was the melancholy of the breaking off which I protested against, was it not? and not the insufficiency of the recollections.  There might have been something besides in jest.  Ah, but you remember, if you please, that I was the first to wish (wishing for my own part, if I could wish exclusively) to break off in the middle the silken thread, and you told me, not—­you forbade me—­do you remember?  For, as happiness goes, the recollections were enough, ... are enough for me!  I mean that I should acknowledge them to be full compensation for the bitter gift of life, such as it was, to me! if that subject-matter were broken off here!  ‘Bona verba’ let me speak nevertheless.  You mean, you say, to run all risks with me, and I don’t mean to draw back from my particular risk of ... what am I to do to you hereafter to make you vexed with me?  What is there in marriage to make all these people on every side of us, (who all began, I suppose, by talking of love,) look askance at one another from under the silken mask ... and virtually hate one another through the tyranny of the stronger and the hypocrisy of the weaker party.  It never could be so with us—­I know that.  But you grow awful to me sometimes with the very excess of your goodness and tenderness, and still, I think to myself, if you do not keep lifting me up quite off the ground by the strong faculty of love in you, I shall not help falling short of the hope you have placed in me—­it must be ‘supernatural’ of you, to the end! or I fall short and disappoint you.  Consider this, beloved.  Now if I could put my soul out of my body, just to stand up before you and make it clear.