for ‘my spirits’ in the usual sense; you must not think such a thing.  The medical man who came to see me made me take it the other day when he was in the room, before the right hour and when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the need he observed in the pulse.  ‘It was a necessity of my position,’ he said.  Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually do who take opium.  I am not even subject to an opium-headache.  As to the low spirits I will not say that mine have not been low enough and with cause enough; but even then, ... why if you were to ask the nearest witnesses, ... say, even my own sisters, ... everybody would tell you, I think, that the ‘cheerfulness’ even then, was the remarkable thing in me—­certainly it has been remarked about me again and again.  Nobody has known that it was an effort (a habit of effort) to throw the light on the outside,—­I do abhor so that ignoble groaning aloud of the ’groans of Testy and Sensitude’—­yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in anything.  Think if I could mean to complain of ‘low spirits’ now, and to you.  Why it would be like complaining of not being able to see at noon—­which would simply prove that I was very blind.  And you, who are not blind, cannot make out what is written—­so you need not try.  May God bless you long after you have done blessing me!

Your own

E.B.B.

Now I am half tempted to tear this letter in two (and it is long enough for three) and to send you only the latter half.  But you will understand—­you will not think that there is a contradiction between the first and last ... you cannot.  One is a truth of me—­and the other a truth of you—­and we two are different, you know.

You are not over-working in ‘Luria’?  That you should not, is a truth, too.

I observed that Mr. Kenyon put in ‘Junior’ to your address.  Ought that to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you without hesitation?

Mr. Kenyon asked me for Mr. Chorley’s book, or you should have it.  Shall I send it to you presently?

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, November 17, 1845.]

At last your letter comes—­and the deep joy—­(I know and use to analyse my own feelings, and be sober in giving distinctive names to their varieties; this is deep joy,)—­the true love with which I take this much of you into my heart, ... that proves what it is I wanted so long, and find at last, and am happy for ever.  I must have more than ’intimated’—­I must have spoken plainly out the truth, if I do myself the barest justice, and told you long ago that the admiration at your works went away, quite another way and afar from the love of you.  If I could fancy some method of what I shall say happening without all the obvious stumbling-blocks of falseness, &c. which no foolish fancy dares associate with you ...