I did go to the drawing-room to-day ... would ... should ... did.  The sun came out, the wind changed ... where was the obstacle?  I spent a quarter of an hour in a fearful solitude, listening for knocks at the door, as a ghost-fearer might at midnight, and ‘came home’ none the worse in any way.  Be sure that I shall ‘take care’ better than you do, and there, is the worst of it all—­for you let people make you ill, and do it yourself upon occasion.

You know from my letter how I found you out in the matter of the ‘Soul’s Tragedy.’  Oh! so bad ... so weak, so unworthy of your name!  If some other people were half a quarter as much the contrary!

And so, good-night, dear dearest.  In spite of my fine speeches about ‘recollections,’ I should be unhappy enough to please you, with only those ... without you beside!  I could not take myself back from being

Your own—­

R.B. to E.B.B.

[Post-mark, March 11, 1846.]

Dear, dear Ba, but indeed I did return home earlier by two or three good hours than the night before—­and to find no letter,—­none of yours! That was reserved for this morning early, and then a rest came, a silence, over the thoughts of you—­and now again, comes this last note!  Oh, my love—­why—­what is it you think to do, or become ‘afterward,’ that you may fail in and so disappoint me?  It is not very unfit that you should thus punish yourself, and that, sinning by your own ambition of growing something beyond my Ba even, you should ‘fear’ as you say!  For, sweet, why wish, why think to alter ever by a line, change by a shade, turn better if that were possible, and so only rise the higher above me, get further from instead of nearer to my heart?  What I expect, what I build my future on, am quite, quite prepared to ‘risk’ everything for,—­is that one belief that you will not alter, will just remain as you are—­meaning by ‘you,’ the love in you, the qualities I have known (for you will stop me, if I do not stop myself) what I have evidence of in every letter, in every word, every look.  Keeping these, if it be God’s will that the body passes,—­what is that?  Write no new letters, speak no new words, look no new looks,—­only tell me, years hence that the present is alive, that what was once, still is—­and I am, must needs be, blessed as ever!  You speak of my feeling as if it were a pure speculation—­as if because I see somewhat in you I make a calculation that there must be more to see somewhere or other—­where bdellium is found, the onyx-stone may be looked for in the mystic land of the four rivers!  And perhaps ... ah, poor human nature!—­perhaps I do think at times on what may be to find!  But what is that to you?  I offer for the bdellium—­the other may be found or not found ... what I see glitter on the ground, that will suffice to make me rich as—­rich as—­