To-morrow I see you, without fail. I am rejoiced as you can imagine,
at your brother's improved state.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday,
[Post-mark, October 15, 1845.]
Will this note reach you at the 'fatal hour' ... or sooner? At any
rate it is forced to ask you to take Thursday for Wednesday, inasmuch
as Mr. Kenyon in his exceeding kindness has put off his journey just
for _me_, he says, because he saw me depressed about the decision, and
wished to come and see me again to-morrow and talk the spirits up, I
suppose. It is all so kind and good, that I cannot find a voice to
grumble about the obligation it brings of writing thus. And then, if
you suffer from cold and influenza, it will be better for you not to
come for another day, ... I think _that_, for comfort. Shall I hear
how you are to-night, I wonder? Dear Occy 'turned the corner,' the
physician said, yesterday evening, and, although a little fluctuating
to-day, remains on the whole considerably better. They were just in
time to keep the fever from turning to typhus.
How fast you print your book, for it is to be out on the first of
November! Why it comes out suddenly like the sun. Mr. Kenyon asked me
if I had seen anything you were going to print; and when I mentioned
the second part of the 'Duchess' and described how your perfect
rhymes, perfectly new, and all clashing together as by natural
attraction, had put me at once to shame and admiration, he began to
praise the first part of the same poem (which I had heard him do
before, by the way) and extolled it as one of your most striking
productions.