it would—­and that I am not to blame for saying now ... (listen!) that I never can nor will give you this thing;—­only that I will, if you please, exchange it for another thing—­you understand. I too will avoid being ‘assuming’; I will not pretend to be generous, no, nor ‘kind.’  It shall be pure merchandise or nothing at all.  Therefore determine!—­remembering always how our ‘ars poetica,’ after Horace, recommends ’dare et petere vicissim’—­which is making a clatter of pedantry to take advantage of the noise ... because perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say this to you, and perhaps I am! ... yet say it none the less.

And ... less lightly ... if you have right and reason on your side, may I not have a little on mine too?  And shall I not care, do you think?...  Think!

Then there is another reason for me, entirely mine.  You have come to me as a dream comes, as the best dreams come ... dearest—­and so there is need to me of ‘a sign’ to know the difference between dream and vision—­and that is my completest reason, my own reason—­you have none like it; none.  A ticket to know the horn-gate from the ivory, ... ought I not to have it?  Therefore send it to me before I send you anything, and if possible by that Lewisham post which was the most frequent bringer of your letters until these last few came, and which reaches me at eight in the evening when all the world is at dinner and my solitude most certain.  Everything is so still then, that I have heard the footsteps of a letter of yours ten doors off ... or more, perhaps.  Now beware of imagining from this which I say, that there is a strict police for my correspondence ... (it is not so—­) nor that I do not like hearing from you at any and every hour:  it is so.  Only I would make the smoothest and sweetest of roads for ... and you understand, and do not imagine beyond.

Tuesday evening.—­What is written is written, ... all the above:  and it is forbidden to me to write a word of what I could write down here ... forbidden for good reasons.  So I am silent on conditions ... those being ... first ... that you never do such things again ... no, you must not and shall not....  I will not let it be:  and secondly, that you try to hear the unspoken words, and understand how your gift will remain with me while I remain ... they need not be said—­just as it need not have been so beautiful, for that.  The beauty drops ‘full fathom five’ into the deep thought which covers it.  So I study my Machiavelli to contrive the possibility of wearing it, without being put to the question violently by all the curiosity of all my brothers;—­the questions ‘how’ ... ‘what’ ... ‘why’ ... put round and edgeways.  They are famous, some of them, for asking questions.  I say to them—­’well:  how many more questions?’ And now ... for me—­have I said a word?—­have I not been obedient?  And by rights and in justice, there should have been a reproach ... if there could!  Because, friendship or more than friendship, Pisa or no Pisa, it was unnecessary altogether from you to me ... but I have done, and you shall not be teazed.