R.B. to E.B.B.

Friday Night.
[Post-mark, November 22, 1845.]

How good and kind to send me these books! (The letter I say nothing of, according to convention:  if I wrote down ‘best and kindest’ ... oh, what poorest words!) I shall tell you all about ‘Pomfret,’ be sure.  Chorley talked of it, as we walked homewards together last night,—­modestly and well, and spoke of having given away two copies only ... to his mother one, and the other to—­Miss Barrett, and ’she seemed interested in the life of it, entered into his purpose in it,’ and I listened to it all, loving Chorley for his loveability which is considerable at other times, and saying to myself what might run better in the child’s couplet—­’Not more than others I deserve, Though God has given me more’!—­Given me the letter which expresses surprise that I shall feel these blanks between the days when I see you longer and longer!  So am I surprised—­that I should have mentioned so obvious a matter at all; or leave unmentioned a hundred others its correlatives which I cannot conceive you to be ignorant of, you!  When I spread out my riches before me, and think what the hour and more means that you endow one with, I do—­not to say could—­I do form resolutions, and say to myself—­’If next time I am bidden stay away a FORTNIGHT, I will not reply by a word beyond the grateful assent.’  I do, God knows, lay up in my heart these priceless treasures,—­shall I tell you?  I never in my life kept a journal, a register of sights, or fancies, or feelings; in my last travel I put down on a slip of paper a few dates, that I might remember in England, on such a day I was on Vesuvius, in Pompeii, at Shelley’s grave; all that should be kept in memory is, with me, best left to the brain’s own process.  But I have, from the first, recorded the date and the duration of every visit to you; the numbers of minutes you have given me ... and I put them together till they make ... nearly two days now; four-and-twenty-hour-long-days, that I have been by you—­and I enter the room determining to get up and go sooner ... and I go away into the light street repenting that I went so soon by I don’t know how many minutes—­for, love, what is it all, this love for you, but an earnest desiring to include you in myself, if that might be; to feel you in my very heart and hold you there for ever, through all chance and earthly changes!

There, I had better leave off; the words!

I was very glad to find myself with your brother yesterday; I like him very much and mean to get a friend in him—­(to supply the loss of my friend ...  Miss Barrett—­which is gone, the friendship, so gone!) But I did not ask after you because I heard Moxon do it.  Now of Landor’s verses:  I got a note from Forster yesterday telling me that he, too, had received a copy ... so that there is no injunction to be secret.  So I got a copy for dear Mr. Kenyon, and, lo! what comes!  I send the note to make you smile!  I shall reply that I felt in duty bound to apprise you; as I did.  You will observe that I go to that too facile gate of his on Tuesday, my day ... from your house directly.  The worst is that I have got entangled with invitations already, and must go out again, hating it, to more than one place.