After all the book must go another day. I live in chaos do you know?
and I am too hurried at this moment ... yes it is here.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning.
How are you--may I hope to hear soon?
I don't know exactly what possessed me to set my next day so far off
as Saturday--as it was said, however, so let it be. And I will bring
the rest of the 'Duchess'--four or five hundred lines,--'heu, herba
mala crescit'--(as I once saw mournfully pencilled on a white wall at
Asolo)--but will you tell me if you quite remember the main of the
_first_ part--(_parts_ there are none except in the necessary process
of chopping up to suit the limits of a magazine--and I gave them as
much as I could transcribe at a sudden warning)--because, if you
please, I can bring the whole, of course.
After seeing _you_, that Saturday, I was caught up by a friend and
carried to see Vidocq--who did the honours of his museum of knives and
nails and hooks that have helped great murderers to their purposes--he
scarcely admits, I observe, an implement with only one attestation to
its efficacy; but the one or two exceptions rather justify his
latitude in their favour--thus one little sort of dessert knife _did_
only take _one_ life.... 'But then,' says Vidocq, 'it was the man's
own mother's life, with fifty-two blows, and all for' (I think)
'fifteen francs she had got?' So prattles good-naturedly Vidocq--one
of his best stories of that Lacénaire--'jeune homme d'un caractère
fort avenant--mais c'était un poète,' quoth he, turning sharp on _me_
out of two or three other people round him.
Here your letter breaks in, and sunshine too.
Why do you send me that book--not let me take it? What trouble for
nothing!
An old French friend of mine, a dear foolish, very French heart and
soul, is coming presently--his poor brains are whirling with mesmerism
in which he believes, as in all other unbelief. He and I are to dine
alone (I have not seen him these two years)--and I shall never be able
to keep from driving the great wedge right through his breast and
descending lower, from riveting his two foolish legs to the wintry
chasm; for I that stammer and answer hap-hazard with you, get
proportionately valiant and voluble with a mere cupful of Diderot's
rinsings, and a man into the bargain.
If you were prevented from leaving the house yesterday, assuredly
to-day you will never attempt such a thing--the wind, rain--all is
against it: I trust you will not make the first experiment except
under really favourable auspices ... for by its success you will
naturally be induced to go on or leave off--Still you are _better_! I
fully believe, dare to believe, _that_ will continue. As for me, since
you ask--find me but something _to do_, and see if I shall not be
well!--Though I _am_ well now almost.
How good you are to my roses--they are not of my making, to be sure.
Never, by the way, did Miss Martineau work such a miracle as I now
witness in the garden--I gathered at Rome, close to the fountain of
Egeria, a handful of _fennel_-seeds from the most indisputable plant
of fennel I ever chanced upon--and, lo, they are come up ... hemlock,
or something akin! In two places, moreover. Wherein does hemlock
resemble fennel? How could I mistake? No wonder that a stone's cast
off from that Egeria's fountain is the Temple of the God Ridiculus.
Well, on Saturday then--at three: and I will certainly bring the
verses you mention--and trust to find you still better.
Vivi felice--my dear friend, God bless you!