Month: June 2017

Monday.

[June 30, 1845.]

I send back the prize poems which have been kept far too long even if I do not make excuses for the keeping — but our sins are not always to be measured by our repentance for them. Then I am well enough this morning to have thought of going out till they told me it was not at all a right day for it  . . . too windy  . . . soft and delightful as the air seems to be — particularly after yesterday, when we had some winter back again in an episode. And the roses do not die; Continue reading “#54”

Friday Evening.

June 28, 1845.

You are very kind and always — but really that does not seem a good reason against your coming to-morrow — so come, if it should not rain. If it rains, it concludes for Monday  . . . or Tuesday; whichever may be clear of rain. I was tired on Wednesday by the confounding confusion of more voices than usual in this room; but the effect passed off, and though Miss Mitford was with me for hours yesterday I am not unwell to-day. And pray speak bona verba about the awful things which are possible between this now and Wednesday. You continue to be better, I do hope? I am forced to the brevity you see, by the post on one side, and my friends on the other, who have so long overstayed the coming of your note — but it is enough to assure you that you will do no harm by coming — only give pleasure.

Ever yours, my dear friend,

E.B.B.

 

Friday Morning.

June 27, 1845.

Let me make haste and write down To-morrow, Saturday, and not later, lest my selfishness be thoroughly got under in its struggle with a better feeling that tells me you must be far too tired for another visitor this week. Continue reading “#52”

Thursday Evening.

June 27, 1845.

After all it must be for Saturday, as Mrs. Hedley comes again on Friday, to-morrow, from New Cross, — or just beyond it, Eltham Park — to London for a few days, on account of the illness of one of her children. I write in the greatest haste after Miss Mitford has left me  . . . and so tired! to say this, that if you can and will come on Saturday,  . . . or if not on Monday or Tuesday, there is no reason against it.

Your friend always,

E.B.B.

 

12. Wednesday.

June 25, 1845.

Pomegranates you may cut deep down the middle and see into, but not hearts,  – – so why should I try and speak?

Friday is best day because nearest, but Saturday is next best  – – it is next near, you know: if I get no note, therefore, Friday is my day.

Now is Post-time,  – – which happens properly.

God bless you, and so your own

R.B.

 

Tuesday Evening.

June 25, 1845.

What will you think when I write to ask you not to come to-morrow, Wednesday; but  . . . on Friday perhaps, instead? But do see how it is; and judge if it is to be helped.

I have waited hour after hour, hoping to hear from Miss Mitford that she would agree to take Thursday in change for Wednesday, — and just as I begin to wonder whether she can have received my letter at all, Continue reading “#49”

Tuesday Morning,

June 24, 1845.

(So my friend did not in the spirit see me write that first letter, on Friday, which was too good and true to send, and met, five minutes after, its natural fate accordingly. Then on Saturday I thought to take health by storm, and walked myself half dead all the morning  – – about town too: last post-hour from this Thule of a suburb  – – 4 P.M. on Saturdays, next expedition of letters, 8 A.M. on Mondays;  – – and then my real letter set out with the others  – – and, it should seem, set at rest a ‘wonder whether thy friend’s questions deserved answering’  – – de-served  – – answer-ing  – – !) Continue reading “#48”

Monday.

June 24, 1845.

I had begun to be afraid that I did not deserve to have my questions answered; and I was afraid of asking them over again. But it is worse to be afraid that you are not better at all in any essential manner (after all your assurances) and that the medical means have failed so far. Did you go to somebody who knows anything? — because there is no excuse, you see, in common sense, Continue reading “#47”

Sunday Afternoon.

June 23, 1845.

And if I am ‘suspicious of your suspiciousness,’ who gives cause, pray? The matter was long ago settled, I thought, when you first took exception to what I said about higher and lower, and I consented to this much  – – that you should help seeing, if you could, our true intellectual and moral relation each to the other, so long as you would allow me to see what is there, fronting me. ‘Is my eye evil because yours is not good?’ My own friend, if I wished to ‘make you vain,’ if having ‘found the Bower’ I did really address myself to the wise business of spoiling its rose-roof,  – – I think that at least where there was such a will, there would be also something not unlike a way,   Continue reading “#46”

Thursday Evening.

June 20, 1845.

If on Greek literature or anything else it is your pleasure to cultivate a reputation for ignorance, I will respect your desire — and indeed the point of the deficiency in question being far above my sight I am not qualified either to deny or assert the existence of it; so you are free to have it all your own way. Continue reading “#45”