_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, 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.