PARIS, _February, 1843_.
Our letters crossed each other, and my suspense has been relieved sooner
than I had hoped. I am very grateful. Notwithstanding the ambiguity of
its style, I am deeply gratified by what your letter tells me. That verb
of which you have such dread has to me a sweet sound, even when it is
accompanied by all those adverbs which you understand so well how to
weave around it.
Ridicule, if you like, my melancholy mood, aroused by the ruins of
Carthage. Marius, sitting beside them as we were, dreamed, it may be,
that he would enter Rome once more, while in my future I see little to
hope for. You frighten me, dear friend, when you say that you dare no
longer trust yourself to write to me, and that you have more courage to
speak to me. You say the reverse of this when we are together. Will not
the result be that you will neither speak to me nor write to me? You
were vexed with me, you say. Was this just, and had I deserved it? Had I
not your promise, and, in some measure, your example also? Have you
remained blind to this? Have you retained an unpleasant memory? Are you
still angry? All this is what I am anxious to know, and what, I am sure,
you do not intend to tell me.
I am beginning to know you by heart, and this, I believe, is the cause
of my frequent low spirits. There is in you such a strange combination
of contrasts and contradictions that it is enough to provoke a saint....
I heard sad news yesterday. Poor Sharpe died last Wednesday. The news of
his death came at the moment not only when I believed him out of danger,
but about to resume his ordinary occupations. I can not accustom myself
to the thought of seeing him no more. It seems to me that if I were to
go to London I should certainly find him there....