seeing you, certainly know, whatever I may have said a short time since, that you will go on to the end, that the arm round me will not let me go,—­over such a blind abyss—­I refuse to think, to fancy, towards what it would be to loose you now!  So I give my life, my soul into your hand—­the giving is a mere form too, it is yours, ever yours from the first—­but ever as I see you, sit with you, and come away to think over it all, I find more that seems mine to give; you give me more life and it goes back to you.

I shall hear from you to-morrow—­then, I will go out early and get done with some calls, in the joy and consciousness of what waits me, and when I return I will write a few words.  Are these letters, these merest attempts at getting to talk with you through the distance—­yet always with the consolation of feeling that you will know all, interpret all and forgive it and put it right—­can such things be cared for, expected, as you say?  Then, Ba, my life must be better ... with the closeness to help, and the ‘finding out the way’ for which love was always noted.  If you begin making in fancy a lover to your mind, I am lost at once—­but the one quality of affection for you, which would sooner or later have to be placed on his list of component graces; that I will dare start supply—­the entire love you could dream of is here.  You think you see some of the other adornments, and only too many; and you will see plainer one day, but with that I do not concern myself—­you shall admire the true heroes—­but me you shall love for the love’s sake.  Let me kiss you, you, my dearest, dearest—­God bless you ever—­

R.B. to E.B.B.

[Post-mark, March 16, 1846.]

Indeed I would, dearest Ba, go with entire gladness and pride to see a light that came from your room—­why should that surprise you?  Well, you will know one day.

We understand each other too about the sofas and gilding—­oh, I know you, my own sweetest!  For me, if I had set those matters to heart, I should have turned into the obvious way of getting them—­not out of it, as I did resolutely from the beginning.  All I meant was, to express a very natural feeling—­if one could give you diamonds for flowers, and if you liked diamonds,—­then, indeed!  As it is, wherever we are found shall be, if you please, ’For the love’s sake found therein—­sweetest house was ever seen!’

Mr. Kenyon must be merciful.  Lilies are of all colours in Palestine—­one sort is particularized as white with a dark blue spot and streak—­the water lily, lotos, which I think I meant, is blue altogether.

I have walked this morning to town and back—­I feel much better, ‘honestly’!  The head better—­the spirits rising—­as how should they not, when you think all will go well in the end, when you write to me that you go down-stairs and are stronger—­and when the rest is written?