Author: RB

[Postmark: June 29, 1846]

Sunday.

My last letter will have answered this of yours, my
dearest, – I agree in all you say ; and sooner or later comes
to the same thing, if to any possible increase of difficulty is
brought a proportionate increase of strength to undergo it –
as let us hope will be the case ! So you see you have to
‘ understand ‘ and understand me, – I keep your faculty in
constant exercise, now with seeming to wish for postpone-
ment, and now, for anticipation ! And all the time do I
really ‘ grow greater ‘ in your eyes ? I might grow less woe-
fully, – ‘ for reasons for reasons ‘-

The sea will not be frozen, beside . . which makes me
think to tell you that Carlyle is wanting to visit only one
foreign country – Iceland. The true cradle of the Northmen
and their virtues . . all that is worth a Northman’s caring
to see is there, he thinks, and nowise in Italy. Perhaps !
Indeed, so I reason and say – Did I not once turn on myself
and speak against the Southern spirit, and even Dante, just
because of that conviction ? – (or imperfect conviction,
whence the uneasy exaggeration). Carlyle thinks modern
Italy’s abasement a direct judgment from God. ‘ Here is a
nation in whose breast arise men who could doubt, examine
the new problems of the reformation &c. – trim the balance at
intervals, and throw overboard the accumulation of falsehood
– all other nations around, less favoured, are doing it labori-
ously for themselves . . now is the time for the acumen of
the Bembos, the Bentivoglios and so forth . . and these and
their like, one and all, turn round, decline the trouble, say
‘ these things may be true, or they may not, meantime let us
go on verse-making, painting, music-scoring’ – to which all
the nation accedes as if relieved of a trouble – upon which
God bids the Germans go in and possess them ; pluck their
fruits and feel their sun after their own hard work.’ Carlyle
said the sense of this, between two huge pipe-whiffs, the other
afternoon.

‘ Pluck their fruits ‘ – some four years ago I planted . .
or held straight while my mother planted, a fig-tree, – for
love of Italy ! This year it bears its first fruit . . a single
one ! what does that bode ?

Since I wrote the last paragraph, the wind took my
thoughts away, as it always does, and I saw you again as I
used to see, before I knew you, so very substanceless, faint,
unreal – when I was struck by the reality again, – by this
paper, – by to-morrow’s visit I shall pay . . it was as if some-
one had said ‘ but that star is your own.’

I fancied you just what I find you – I knew you from the
beginning.

Let me kiss you dearest dearest –

[Postmark: June 27, 1846]

Saturday.

Your dear gentle laugh, as I seem to hear it, makes all
well again for the moment undoubtedly. I cannot help
trusting you implicitly . . so whenever I seem able to reason
a little, and set you reasoning for me, ought I not to try, – and
then give up, and sink my head over you . . dearest ! In
fact, I was a little frightened by what I heard and saw . .
for you, if you please, began by saying ‘ it was too cold to
go out ‘ – and you were paler, I thought. The news of High-
gate and the green leaves are re-assuring indeed – but my
brown leaves might be sent to you by myriads for all that,
for all the light laugh, – all roses fast going, lilies going . .
autumnal hollyhocks in full blow . . and now to count
three months over before summer is to end ! These rains
may do something, or hinder somewhat – and certainly our
fire was left alone early yesterday morning. Well, I have
not been presumptuous except … ah, the exception !

How could I presume, for one thing, to hope for last
evening’s letter . . a pure piece of kindness in you, Ba !
And all your kindness is pure, entire, pearl-like for round-
ness and completeness . . there is no one rough side as
when a crystal is broken off and given : do you think it no
good augury of our after life in what must be called, I sup-
pose, another relation, – that this has been so perfect . . to
me . . this last year, let me only say ? In this relation there
are as many ‘ écueils ‘ as in the other, – as many, though of a
different nature, lovers quarrel on as various grounds as the
wedded – and though with the hue and softness of love the
most energetic words and deeds may change their character;
yet one might write savage sentences in Chinese celestial-
blue ink, which after a powdering with gold-dust should
look prettier than the truest blessing in ordinary black.
But you have been PERFECT to me hitherto – perfect ! And
of course only to you is the praise . . for I have to be en-
tirely confided in by you, seeing that you cannot keep an
eye on me after I leave your room . . whereas, – not I, but a
gross, stupid fool who conceived of no liberty but that of the
body, nor that the soul may be far more unfaithful – such
an one might exult in the notion of the closed door and the
excluded world of rivals.

Bless you, darling – Monday is not very far off now !
And I am to hear again. I am much better, – my mother
much better too. I saw my French friend and talked and
heard him talk. Yesterday, the whole day, (after the fire
went out) was given to a cousin of mine, a girl, just married,
and here from Paris with her husband – these two had to be
amused somehow. Ever your very own – R.

[Postmark: June 26, 1846]

Friday Morning.

I drew the table to the fire before I wrote this. Here
is cool weather, grateful to those overcome by last week’s
heat, I suppose ! – much as one conceives of a day’s starva-
tion being grateful to people who were overfeasted some
time back. But the coolness (that is, piercing cold as the
north wind can make) sets me to ponder on what you said
yesterday, – of considering summer as beginning next Wed-
nesday, or there about, and ending by consequence with
September. Our time is ‘ at the Summer’s end ‘ : and it
does strike me that there may be but too many interpositions
beside that of ‘ my own will ‘ . . far too many. If those
equinoctial winds disturb the sea, the cold weather adds
to the difficulties of the land-journey . . then the will may
interpose or stand aloof . . I cannot take you and kill you
. . really, inevitably kill you ! As it is .. or rather, as it
might be, I should feel during a transit under the most
favourable circumstances possible, somewhat as the per-
former of that trick by which a full glass of water resting in
the open hand is made to describe a circle from above to
below and back without spilling a drop – through some good-
natured suspension, in the operator’s interest, of just a
fundamental law of the universe, no more ! Therefore if
any September weather shall happen in September . . let us
understand and wait . . another year ! and another, and
another.

Now, have I ever, with all those askings, asked you once
too often, that is, unnecessarily – ‘if this should be,’ – or
‘ when this should be ? ‘ What is my ‘ will ‘ to do with it ?
Can I keep the winds away, alas ? My own will has all
along been annihilated before you, – with respect to you – I
should never be able to say ‘ she shall dine on fish, or fruit,’
‘She i shall wear silk, gloves or ‘thread gloves’ – even to
exercise in fancy that much ‘ will over you ‘ is revolting – I
will this, never to be ‘ over you ‘ if I could !

So, you decide here as elsewhere – but do decide, Ba,
my own only Ba – do think, to decide. I can know nothing
here as to what is gained or lost by delay or anticipation – I
only refer to the few obvious points of the advantage of
our ‘ flight not being in the winter ‘ – and the consideration
that the difficulty in another quarter will never be less nor
more, – therefore is out of the question.

I will tell you something I meant to speak of yesterday.
Mrs. Jameson said Mr. Kenyon had assured her, with the
kindest intentions, that it was quite vain to make those
offers of company to Pisa or elsewhere, for your Father
would never give his consent, and the very rationality of the
plan, and probability of the utmost benefit following the
adoption of it, would be the harder to forego the more they
were entertained – whereupon, ‘having the passions of his
kind he spoke some certain things ‘ – bitter and unavoid-
able. Then Mrs J. spoke too, as you may imagine ; ap-
parently from better knowledge than even I possess. Now
I repeat this to your common- sense, my Ba – it is not hard to
see that you must be silent and suffering, where no other
can or will be either – so that if a verdict needs must be
pronounced on our conduct, it will be ‘ the world’s ‘ and
not an individual’s – and for once a fair one. Mrs. Jame-
son’s very words were . . (writing from what has been, observe
what is irrevocably past, and not what may be) – ‘ I feel
unhappy when in her presence . . impelled to do her some
service, and impeded. Can nothing be done to rescue
her from this ? ought it to continue ? ‘ So speaks – not your
lover ! – who, as he told you, did long to answer ‘ someone
with attempt, at least ! ‘ But it was best, for Mrs. Jameson
would be blamed afterward, as Mr. K. might be abused, as
ourselves will be vituperated, as my family must be
calumniated . . by whom

Do you feel me kiss your feet while I write this ? I
think you must, Ba ! There is surely, – I trust, surely no
impatience here, in this as in the other letter – if there is, I
will endeavour to repress it . . but it will be difficult – for I
love you, and am not a stock nor a stone.

And as we are now, – another year !

Well, kissing the feet answers everything, declares
everything – and I kiss yours, my own Ba.

[Postmark: June 24, 1846]

Wednesday.

But, dearest love – I have just come in later than I ex-
pected, I am happy to say . . for your note only just arrives
too, they say . . and I should have been frightened more
than I need say. All blessing on you, Ba. I have seen
no paper. – but Countess Hahn-Hahn said across Carlyle’s
table that poor H. had attempted to shoot himself and then
chosen another method – too successful. Horrible indeed –
All to say now is, I shall be with you to-morrow, – my
very own, dearest of all dear created things my life and
pride and joy – (Bless you). R.

There is nothing in to-day’s Times I find –

[Postmark: June 23, 1846]

Tuesday Morning

I was just on the point of answering your dear letter, in
all the good spirits it might be expected to wake in me,
when the sad news of poor Haydon’s death stopped all ;
much I feel it, for the light words of my own about his
extravagance, as I had been told of it, but very much more
on your account, who were so lately in communication with
him. I earnestly hope, – I will trust – you have not been
rudely apprised of this – I am happy to remember that you
do not see the newspaper in the morning, – others will see it
first ; perhaps there may be no notice in the Chronicle at all,
or on the other hand, a more circumstantial one than this
in the Times which barely says – ‘that B.R.H. died suddenly
at his residence – yesterday morning. He was in his usual
health on the previous evening, and it is believed that his
decease was hastened by pecuniary embarrassment’ – and
he is called ‘ the unfortunate gentleman ‘ – which with the
rest implies the very worst, I fear. If by any chance this
should be the first intimation you receive of it . . do not
think me stupid nor brutal, – for I thought again and again
as to the right course to take . . whether it would not be
best to be silent altogether and wait and see . . but in that
case I should have surprised you more by my cold letter, –
such an one as I could bring myself to write, – for how were
it possible to speak of pictures and indifferent matters when
you perhaps have been shocked, made ill by this news ? If
I have done wrong, forgive me, my own best, dearest Ba –
I would give the world to know how you are. The storm,
too, and lightning may have made you even more than
ordinarily unfit to be startled and grieved. God knows and
must help you ! I am but your devoted –

How glad I am you told me you had never seen him.
And perhaps he may be after all a mere acquaintance . .
anything I will fancy that is likely to relieve you of pain !
Dearest dearest !

[Postmark: June 22, 1846]

Monday.

If I only thought for myself in this instance, I should at
once go and mount guard before your house so as to see
you, at least, for a moment as you leave it.

To hope for a word would never do . . you might be
startled, or simply not like such a measure, and in simili
incontri I will not run risks, but I should be able to see you,
my Ba . . why do I not go then ? People at doors and
windows are also able, alas, to see me too – so I stay . . if
this is staying away when I can see the curled-up feet and
kiss them beside, – ever dear feet !

Do you know the days and the times and the long
interval, – you, as I know ? How strange that you should
complain, and I become the happier ! If I could alter it,
and make you feel no subject for complaint any longer, I
would, – surely I would, and be happy in that too, I hope
. . yet the other happiness needs must be given up in that
case . . I cannot reason it out. I excuse my present selfish
happiness by feeling I would not exchange the sadness of
being away from you for any imaginable delight in which
you had no part. But I will have this delight, too, my
Ba, of imagining that you are gratified by what you will see
to-day. Tell me all, and what is said, and how you are at
the end.

Thank you meanwhile for the picture of poor Mr. Boyd
. . then he never has seen you, since he was blind so long
ago ! How strange and melancholy – you say he is ‘ cheer-
ful,’ however. In that case – think of unhappy Countess
Faustina with her ‘irresistible longings,’ and give her as
much of your commiseration as she ought to get. What a
horrible book . . how have I brought in what I prescribed
to myself ‘ silence about.’ Such characters as Faustina
produce the very worst possible effect on me – I don’t know
how they strike other people – but I am at once incited
‘ debellare superbos ‘ to try at least and pull down the
arrogant – contempt would be the most Christian of all the
feelings possible to be called forth by such a woman.
Let me get back to you, my own dearest- dearest, – I do
‘ love you to-day,’ if you must ask, and bidding me think
of you is all very well – never bid me not think of you ! –
and so never find out that there could be a bidding I am
unable to obey. But what is mere ‘ thinking ‘ ? I kiss your
hand, and your eyes, and now your lips, – and ask for my
heart back again, to give it and be ever giving it. No
words can tell how I am your own.

My mother is much better, – observably so, to-day.
Oh, dearest, – I want you to read Lander’s Dialogue between
Tasso and his Sister, in the second volume, – with the
exquisite Sorrentine scenery – do read it. I see your Tasso
with his prominent eyes as if they were ever just brightening
out of a sorrow that has broken over them.

How I like (‘ love ‘ is not my word now) but like Landor,
more and more !

[Postmark: June 22, 1846]

Sunday.

What I told you yesterday is very often in my thoughts,
my own Ba – that with respect to the love for you ‘ I see
what I know and testify what I have seen.’ I know what is,
and why it is – so far as my faculties of perception allow, of
course I rest on you just as I sate on the grass in the
garden this morning with the very earth’s immensity beneath :
that is very different from trusting to this chair which is firm
enough now, but might break down from a thousand causes.
How entirely I believe in you, Ba ! When you praise me,
I believe that you are in error, yet believe it none –– I know
I am not so truthful to you – not so invariably, in the least
as in the greatest matters – in the greatest, in the ordinary
even, I speak pure truth, – but the old conventional habits
cling, as I find out on reflection sometimes – but I aspire no
less to become altogether open to your sight as you are to
me, – I in my degree, – like a smallest of lake’s face under
the sky’s : and for this also I shall have to bless you, my only
Ba, – my only Ba !

I ought never . . I think I will not again . . attempt to
write down why I love you . . (not, NOT that it is done here,
but alluded-to, touched upon . .) The elements of the
love . . (I say ‘ the ‘ love, mine, because I will not know, nor
hear, nor be taught anything by anybody else about ‘ love,’
the one love everybody knows, it seems, and lives and dies
by) – my love’s elements are so many that the attempt to
describe them is to bring about this failure . . the first that
comes is taken up and treated of at length . . as that element
of ‘ trust’ just now . . and then, in the feeling of incompet-
ence which makes the pen sink away and turns the mind
off, the others are let pass by unnamed, much less
described, or at least acknowledged for the undeniable
elements they are. What were all the trust without –
and thus I could begin again ! Let me say no more now –
and forgive all the foolishness . . it is not for my wisdom
you are to love me, Ba ! Except that if you agreed too
heartily with me on that point, I should very likely be found
turning round on you with ‘ not wise, when I adore you so ? ‘
Wise or unwise, I do adore you, my Ba ! And more and
evermore ! But see how I need your letters to train mine,
to lead them into something more like the true way . . and
to-morrow the letter will come – will it not ? And mine shall
be less about myself and more about you – whom may God
bless, prays your own

R.

[Postmark: June 19, 1846]

Friday Morning.

I shall hardly be able, I am afraid, to get your letter . .
if one should come through your dear goodness, my own Ba
. . . before I go out . . having to meet the Procters’ party in
Town : so I will just write my joy at its being little more now
than twenty-four hours before I shall see you, I trust. The
day is cool and nearer rain than I fancied probable – but, oh
the task-work, Egyptian bondage, that much going-out would
be to me, who am tired (unreasonably) beforehand on this
first and most likely last occasion during the year. It is a
pity that I am so ignorant about Hahn-Hahn’s books – one,
‘ Faustina,’ I got last night, but have neither heart nor time to
‘ get it up ‘ in a couple of hours.

Something you said on Mrs. Jameson’s authority amused
me – the encomium on my grace in sitting still to see the
play and not jumping on the stage to act too – as if it were
not the best privilege one finds in being ‘known’ never
so little, that it dispenses one from having to make oneself
known. When you are shipwrecked among Caribbee
Indians you are forced to begin professing ‘ I can make
baskets, and tell fortunes, and foresee eclipses so don’t
eat me ! ‘ And even there if they threatened nothing of
the kind, I should be content to live and die as unhonoured
as one of their own cabbage-trees.

I must go now – the day gets hotter, but then our day
draws nearer – All my heart is yours, best of dearest loves,
my own Ba, as I am your own –

[Postmark: June 18, 1846]

Thursday.

Did you really kiss me on the two eyes, my Ba ? I can-
not say ‘ perhaps at the very time I was thinking of you,’ –
more than ‘ when I was breathing ‘ – I breathe always, think
of you always, kiss you almost always. You dear, dearest
Ba ! Do pain me so again and again, – if you will so cure me
every time ! But you should not imagine that I can mistake
the motive, – as if you loved me less and therefore wrote –
oh, no – but there is no getting rid of these mistakings before
the time : they bear their fruit and die away naturally . .
the hoe never cuts up all their roots. I shall trust to hear
you say one day I am past such mistaking – but – at Amalfi ?

I am very glad, love, you go to Mr. Rogers’ to-day – what
harm can follow ? The evil in the other case was a very
precise and especial one. They say his pictures are well
worth seeing. Tell me, make me’ see you seeing ! I am
glad, too, Mrs. Jameson knows . . but her graciousness I
expected, because the causes you were able to give her would
really operate just in that manner : indeed they are the sole
causes of the secresy we have observed. I cannot help
liking Mrs. Jameson more, much more since her acquaintance
with you. Hazlitt says somewhere that the misery of con-
sorting with country-people is felt when you try for their
sympathy as to favourite actors – ‘Liston ? ‘ says the pro-
vincial, ‘ never heard of him ‘ – but – whoever knows Miss
Barrett . . ‘ Ba,’ they are not going to be let know . . of
such a person I know something more than of any other.

Talking of Hahn-Hahn, read this note of Mrs. Carlyle’s –
although to my mortification I find that the wise man is not
so peremptory on the virtue of one of Ba’s qualities as I, the
ignorant man, must continue to be. Never mind, – perhaps
‘ in the long run ‘ I may love you as if you were exactly to
Mrs. Carlyle’s mind !

I want to tell you a thing not to be forgotten about
Florence as a residence for any time. You spoke of the
bad water at Ravenna . . which if a serious inconvenience
anywhere is a very plague in Italy ; well, the medical people,
according to Vallery, attribute the black hollow cheeks and
sunk eyes and general ill health of the Florentines to their
vile water ; impregnated with lead, I think. There is only
one good fountain in the city – that opposite Santa Croce ;
I religiously abstained from drinking water there – and felt
the privation the more from having just left Rome, where the
water is the most perfectly delicious and abundant and, they
say, wholesome – in the world. That one objection is de-
cisive against Ravenna – but then, why do the English all
live at Florence ?

It makes me happy to hear of your achievements and not
of any ill result – happy ! Is it quite so warm to-day ? If
it were to rain to-morrow (!), IF – our party would be post-
poned till the next day, Saturday, I believe . . there was a
kind of understanding to that effect – now, in that case,
might I go to you to-morrow ? In the case of real heavy
rain only – the letter to-morrow will tell me perhaps . .

Goodbye, dearest dearest ; I love you wholly –

[Postmark: June 17, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

My own Ba, I release ‘ you from just as much as you
would easily dispense me from observing in that mutual
promise. Indeed, it has become one unnecessary for our
present relation and knowledge : it was right at the begin-
ning for either to say to the other, using calm words, ‘ It is
your good I seek, not mine,’ and as if it were demonstrated
that I should secure yours at the expense of mine by leaving
you I would endeavour to do it – so, you assure me, you
would act by me. The one point to ascertain therefore, is –
what will amount to a demonstration ; and I for my part
apprize you that no other person in the world can by any
possibility know so much of me as to be entitled to pro-
nounce in the matter – to say ‘ it is for good or for evil ‘ –
therefore, you will no more be justified in giving up to that
kind of demonstration what I consent you shall give up to
one clearly furnished by myself, the only authentic one – than
you would be justified in paying my money, entrusted to
you, on the presentation of a cheque signed by somebody
else . . somebody who loves me better than himself, my
best of friends, truest of advisers &c. &c. It skills not,
boots not – ‘ John Smith ‘ is not R.B., nor B. A. and because
R.B. or B.A. shall be instantly attended to, – the counterfeit
must be refused.’ Just this, so rational and right, I under-
stood you to bid me promise – and so much you have
promised me, a proper precaution for the earlier time when
the friend might seem to argue with some plausibility
‘ really I understand my friend’s interests better than you can.’
But now, who dares assure me that ? I disbelieve it – one
only knows better, can ever know better – yourself ; and I
will obey yourself. So with me – I know better my own
good than you do yet, I think. When I tell you that good
requires such a step as you speak of, you shall acquiesce ;
I will tell you on the instant, as you, in your own case,
should tell me on the instant. I needed not ask you to
promise, as I foolishly did, that you would not act in the
saddest of ways – professing to see what could never be, and
believe what must be untrue. At the beginning, at the first
day, suppose Mr. Kenyon had said – you prevent his getting
such a place, which brings in so much honour and wealth –
or marrying such a person who would effect the same – you
might have assented then, in your comparative ignorance,
just as you could not have objected had he said, ‘ If you
hold Mr. B. to his engagement to come here on the Derby
Day you will ruin him assuredly, for his heart and soul are on
” the turf ” and his betting-book will go to wreck.’ To this
you could never bring yourself to pretend an assent – it
would be no argument if he went on saying ‘ – Why, A and B
and C go to races and bet on them ‘ – you know I do not
so you know my estimate of honour and wealth and the rest,
apart . . I will not say from the love of you, – but from my
own life as I had traced it years ago, and as it is still traced
for me to its end, – your love coming to help it in every
smallest particular, to supply the undreamed-of omissions
in the plan of it, and remove the obstructions best seen
now that they are removed or removable. There is a calmest
‘ of calm ‘ statements of the good of you to me.

My dearest Ba, you say ‘ let us both think ‘ – think of
of this, you ! Do not for God’s sake introduce an element
of uncertainty and restlessness and dissatisfaction into the
feeling whereon my life lies. To speak for myself, this
matter is concluded, done with, – I am yours, you are mine,
and not to give use to refinements upon refinements as to
what is the being most of all each other’s, which might end
in your loving me best while I was turned a Turk in the
East, or my – you know the inquisition does all for the
pure love of the victim’s soul. Let us have common sense –
and think, in its most ordinary exercise, what would my
life be worth now without you – as I, – putting on your own
crown, accepting your own dearest assurance, – dare believe
your life would be incomplete now without mine – so you
have allowed me to believe. Then our course is plain. If
you dare make the effort, we will do as we propose, if not,
not : I have nothing to do but take your hand . . there is
not one difficulty in my path, – nor in yours on my account,
that is for me. If I change my views, and desire hereafter
what I altogether turn from now, – in what conceivable
respect will your being my wife hinder me ? If I accept the
Embassy which Young England in the person of Milnes has
promised me – you shall offer no impediment. If I rather
aspire to ‘ dine out ‘ here in London, you shall stay at home
and be good-natured. I shall attain to all these delights just
as easily with you as without you, I suppose ; ‘ No, I cannot
marry some other woman and by her means and connec-
tions and connexions ‘ – No – because first and least of all,
I begin by drawing on myself the entire cataract of shame
and disgrace in the mouth of the world, – direct accusation or
rather condemnation, against which not a word can be
urged in mitigation, because all would be the pure simple
truth – I do this, who have been fretfully wincing under the
mere apprehension of catching a mere spatter or two of
gossiping scandal – which a very few words would get rid of,
seeing that, in fact, the falseness of the imputation will be
apparent to everybody with eyes to see – for after all, here I
am, living to my own pleasure and my father and mother’s,
and at liberty to do so for ever, as mortals say. Well, and
so having gone under the whole real cataract instead of the
sprinkling impertinence of the half a dozen sprinklings from
the mop at the nursery- window which an upward look and cry
will stop at once, – so having mended the matter, I commit a
sin which I turn and ask you, should you be ever at peace with
God and yourself if you sate still and suffered me to commit, –
not on account of me and my harm to follow in both worlds,
– but in mere justice to your ‘ neighbour,’ – on whom you
would see inflicted this infamous wrong ?

Dear, dear, dear Ba, I kiss you, kiss my heart out unto
you, – best love, one love ! I see above what I will not think
over again, look over again – but what then ? Can I be
quiet when I hear the least, least motion about my treasure,
and my heart that is there, with it ? Then no more, I
beseech you, love, never one word more of all that !
Whenever I can hear such words calmly, I shall be
fit for agreeing to them, – let all be now. These two
kindest of letters both come in together to my blessing –
my entire blessing ! I was writing the last line when they
came – I will just say now, that the Greenwich affair is put
off till Friday. Do not I understand Miss Bayley ! And
do I understand you, my Ba, when I venture this time –
because of the words and the pain I shall not hide that
they did give me, to feel that, even beyond my kissing
you, you kiss this one time your own R.B.

My mother is much better, and out – she is walking
with my sister. I am very well – in the joy perhaps . . but
really much better – and have been so.

My two hundredth letter from her! I, poor?