Only I will not teaze you as I might perhaps; and now that your headache has begun again—­the headache again:  the worse than headache!  See what good my wishes do!  And try to understand that if I speak of my being ‘wrong’ now in relation to you ... of my being right before, and wrong now, ...  I mean wrong for your sake, and not for mine ... wrong in letting you come out into the desert here to me, you whose place is by the waters of Damascus.  But I need not tell you over again—­you know.  May God bless you till to-morrow and past it for ever.  Mr. Kenyon brought me your note yesterday to read about the ’order in the button-hole’—­ah!—­or ‘oh, you,’ may I not re-echo?  It enrages me to think of Mr. Forster; publishing too as he does, at a moment, the very sweepings of Landor’s desk!  Is the motive of the reticence to be looked for somewhere among the cinders?—­Too bad it is.  So, till to-morrow! and you shall not be ‘kind’ any more.

Your

E.B.B.

But how, ‘a foolish comment’?  Good and true rather!  And I admired the writing[1] ... worthy of the reeds of Jordan!

[Footnote 1:  Mr. Browning’s letter is written in an unusually bold hand.]

R.B. to E.B.B.

Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, November 27, 1845.]

How are you? and Miss Bayley’s visit yesterday, and Mr. K.’s to-day—­(He told me he should see you this morning—­and I shall pass close by, having to be in town and near you,—­but only the thought will reach you and be with you—­) tell me all this, dearest.

How kind Mr. Kenyon was last night and the day before!  He neither wonders nor is much vexed, I dare believe—­and I write now these few words to say so—­My heart is set on next Thursday, remember ... and the prize of Saturday!  Oh, dearest, believe for truth’s sake, that I WOULD most frankly own to any fault, any imperfection in the beginning of my love of you; in the pride and security of this present stage it has reached—­I would gladly learn, by the full lights now, what an insufficient glimmer it grew from, ... but there never has been change, only development and increased knowledge and strengthened feeling—­I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours for ever.  God bless you, and make me thankful!

And you will give me that?  What shall save me from wreck:  but truly?  How must I feel to you!

Yours R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, November 27, 1845.]

Now you must not blame me—­you must not.  To make a promise is one thing, and to keep it, quite another:  and the conclusion you see ’as from a tower.’  Suppose I had an oath in heaven somewhere ... near to ‘coma Berenices,’ ... never to give you what you ask for! ... would not such an oath be stronger than a mere half promise such as I sent you a few hours ago?  Admit that