Wednesday.
October 16, 1845.
Your letter which should have reached me in the morning of yesterday, I did not receive until nearly midnight — partly through the eccentricity of our new postman whose good pleasure it is to make use of the letter-box without knocking; and partly from the confusion in the house, of illness in different ways . . . the very servants being ill, . . . one of them breaking a blood-vessel — for there is no new case of fever; . . . and for dear Occy, he grows better slowly day by day. And just so late last night, five letters were found in the letter-box, and mine . . . yours . . . among them — which accounts for my beginning to answer it only now.
What am I to say but this . . . that I know what you are . . . and that I know also what you are to me, — and that I should accept that knowledge as more than sufficient recompense for worse vexations than these late ones. Therefore let no more be said of them: and no more need be said, even if they were not likely to prove their own end good, as I believe with you. You may be quite sure that I shall be well this winter, if in any way it should be possible, and that I will not be beaten down, if the will can do anything. I admire how, if all had happened so but a year ago, (yet it could not have happened quite so!), I should certainly have been beaten down — and how it is different now, . . . and how it is only gratitude to you, to say that it is different now. My cage is not worse but better since you brought the green groundsel to it — and to dash oneself against the wires of it will not open the door. We shall see . . . and God will oversee. And in the meantime you will not talk of extravagances; and then nobody need hold up the hand — because, as I said and say, I am yours, your own — only not to hurt you. So now let us talk of the first of November and of the poems which are to come out then, and of the poems which are to come after then — and of the new avatar of ‘Sordello,’ for instance, which you taught me to look for. And let us both be busy and cheerful — and you will come and see me throughout the winter, . . . if you do not decide rather on going abroad, which may be better . . . better for your health’s sake? — in which case I shall have your letters.
And here is another . . . just arrived. How I thank you. Think of the Times! Still it was very well of them to recognise your principality. Oh yes — do let me see the proof — I understand too about the ‘making and spoiling.’
Almost you forced me to smile by thinking it worth while to say that you are ‘not selfish.’ Did Sir Percival say so to Sir Gawaine across the Round Table, in those times of chivalry to which you belong by the soul? Certainly you are not selfish! May God bless you.
Ever your
E.B.B.
The fever may last, they say, for a week longer, or even a fortnight — but it decreases. Yet he is hot still, and very weak.
To to-morrow!