That is my side of the wonder! of the machinery of the wonder, ... as I see it!—­But there are greater things than these.

Speaking of the portrait of you in the ‘Spirit of the Age’ ... which is not like ... no!—­which has not your character, in a line of it ... something in just the forehead and eyes and hair, ... but even that, thrown utterly out of your order, by another bearing so unlike you...! speaking of that portrait ... shall I tell you?—­Mr. Horne had the goodness to send me all those portraits, and I selected the heads which, in right hero-worship, were anything to me, and had them framed after a rough fashion and hung up before my eyes; Harriet Martineau’s ... because she was a woman and admirable, and had written me some kind letters—­and for the rest, Wordsworth’s, Carlyle’s, Tennyson’s and yours.  The day you paid your first visit here, I, in a fit of shyness not quite unnatural, ... though I have been cordially laughed at for it by everybody in the house ... pulled down your portrait, ... (there is the nail, under Wordsworth—­) and then pulled down Tennyson’s in a fit of justice,—­because I would not have his hung up and yours away.  It was the delight of my brothers to open all the drawers and the boxes, and whatever they could get access to, and find and take those two heads and hang them on the old nails and analyse my ‘absurdity’ to me, day after day; but at last I tired them out, being obstinate; and finally settled the question one morning by fastening the print of you inside your Paracelsus.  Oh no, it is not like—­and I knew it was not, before I saw you, though Mr. Kenyon said, ’Rather like!’

By the way Mr. Kenyon does not come.  It is strange that he should not come:  when he told me that he could not see me ’for a week or a fortnight,’ he meant it, I suppose.

So it is to be on Saturday?  And I will write directly to America—­the letter will be sent by the time you get this.  May God bless you ever.

It is not so much a look of ‘ferocity,’ ... as you say, ... in that head, as of expression by intention.  Several people have said of it what nobody would say of you ...  ‘How affected-looking.’  Which is too strong—­but it is not like you, in any way, and there’s the truth.

So until Saturday.  I read ‘Luria’ and feel the life in him.  But walk and do not work! do you?

Wholly your

E.B.B.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday Night.
[Post-mark, December 8, 1845.]

Well, I did see your brother last night ... and very wisely neither spoke nor kept silence in the proper degree, but said that ’I hoped you were well’—­from the sudden feeling that I must say something of you—­not pretend indifference about you now ... and from the impossibility of saying the full of what I might; because other people were by—­and after, in the evening, when I should have remedied the first imperfect expression,