I got this on coming home last night—­have just run through it this morning, and send it that time may not be lost.  Faults, faults; but I don’t know how I have got tired of this.  The Tragedies will be better, at least the second—­

At 3 this day!  Bless you—­

R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

I write in haste, not to lose time about the proof.  You will see on the papers here my doubtfulnesses such as they are—­but silence swallows up the admirations ... and there is no time.  ‘Theocrite’ overtakes that wish of mine which ran on so fast—­and the ‘Duchess’ grows and grows the more I look—­and ‘Saul’ is noble and must have his full royalty some day.  Would it not be well, by the way, to print it in the meanwhile as a fragment confessed ... sowing asterisks at the end.  Because as a poem of yours it stands there and wants unity, and people can’t be expected to understand the difference between incompleteness and defect, unless you make a sign.  For the new poems—­they are full of beauty.  You throw largesses out on all sides without counting the coins:  how beautiful that ‘Night and Morning’ ... and the ‘Earth’s Immortalities’ ... and the ‘Song’ too.  And for your ‘Glove,’ all women should be grateful,—­and Ronsard, honoured, in this fresh shower of music on his old grave ... though the chivalry of the interpretation, as well as much beside, is so plainly yours, ... could only be yours perhaps.  And even you are forced to let in a third person ... close to the doorway ... before you can do any good.  What a noble lion you give us too, with the ‘flash on his forehead,’ and ‘leagues in the desert already’ as we look on him!  And then, with what a ‘curious felicity’ you turn the subject ‘glove’ to another use and strike De Lorge’s blow back on him with it, in the last paragraph of your story!  And the versification!  And the lady’s speech—­(to return!) so calm, and proud—­yet a little bitter!

Am I not to thank you for all the pleasure and pride in these poems? while you stand by and try to talk them down, perhaps.

Tell me how your mother is—­tell me how you are ... you who never were to be told twice about walking.  Gone the way of all promises, is that promise?

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Wednesday Night.
[Post-mark, October 30, 1845.]

Like your kindness—­too, far too generous kindness,—­all this trouble and correcting,—­and it is my proper office now, by this time, to sit still and receive, by right Human (as opposed to Divine).  When you see the pamphlet’s self, you will find your own doing,—­but where will you find the proofs of the best of all helping and counselling and inciting, unless in new works which shall justify the unsatisfaction, if I may not say shame, at these, these written before your time, my best love?

Are you doing well to-day?  For I feel well, have walked some eight or nine miles—­and my mother is very much better ... is singularly better.  You know whether you rejoiced me or no by that information about the exercise you had taken yesterday.  Think what telling one that you grow stronger would mean!