Not more now, dearest, for time is pressing, but you will answer this,—­the love that is not here,—­not the idle words, and I will reply to-morrow.  Thursday is so far away yet!

Bless you, my very own, only dearest!

E.B.B. to R.B.

                                Monday Evening.
                                [Post-mark, March 17, 1846.]

Dearest, you are dearest always!  Talk of Sirens, ... there must be some masculine ones ‘rari nantes,’ I fancy, (though we may not find them in unquestionable authorities like your AElian!) to justify this voice I hear.  Ah, how you speak, with that pretension, too, to dumbness!  What should people be made of, in order to bear such words, do you think?  Will all the wax from all the altar-candles in the Sistine Chapel, keep the piercing danger from their ears?  Being tied up a good deal tighter than Ulysses did not save me.  Dearest dearest:  I laugh, you see, as usual, not to cry!  But deep down, deeper than the Sirens go, deep underneath the tides, there, I bless and love you with the voice that makes no sound.

Other human creatures (how often I do think it to myself!) have their good things scattered over their lives, sown here and sown there, down the slopes, and by the waysides.  But with me ...  I have mine all poured down on one spot in the midst of the sands!—­if you knew what I feel at moments, and at half-hours, when I give myself up to the feeling freely and take no thought of red eyes.  A woman once was killed with gifts, crushed with the weight of golden bracelets thrown at her:  and, knowing myself, I have wondered more than a little, how it was that I could bear this strange and unused gladness, without sinking as the emotion rose.  Only I was incredulous at first, and the day broke slowly ... and the gifts fell like the rain ... softly; and God gives strength, by His providence, for sustaining blessings as well as stripes.  Dearest—­

For the rest I understand you perfectly—­perfectly.  It was simply to your thoughts, that I replied ... and that you need not say to yourself any more, as you did once to me when you brought me flowers, that you wished they were diamonds.  It was simply to prevent the accident of such a thought, that I spoke out mine.  You would not wish accidentally that you had a double-barrelled gun to give me, or a cardinal’s hat, or a snuff box, and I meant to say that you might as well—­as diamonds and satin sofas a la Chorley.  Thoughts are something, and your thoughts are something more.  To be sure they are!

You are better you say, which makes me happy of course.  And you will not make the ‘better’ worse again by doing wrong things—­that is my petition.  It was the excess of goodness to write those two letters for me in one day, and I thank you, thank you.  Beloved, when you write, let it be, if you choose, ever so few lines.  Do not suffer me (for my own sake) to tire you, because two lines or three bring you to me ... remember ... just as a longer letter would.