R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

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

Let me hear how you are, and that you are better instead of worse for the exertions of last night.  After you left me yesterday I considered how we might have managed it more conveniently for you, and had the lamp in, and arranged matters so as to interpose less time between the going and the dining, even if you and George did not go together, which might have been best, but which I did not like quite to propose.  Now, supposing that on Thursday you dine in town, remember not to be unnecessarily ‘perplext in the extreme’ where to spend the time before ... five, ... shall I say, at any rate?  We will have the lamp, and I can easily explain if an observation should be made ... only it will not be, because our goers-out here never come home until six, and the head of the house, not until seven ... as I told you.  George thought it worth while going to Mr. Talfourd’s yesterday, just to see the author of ‘Paracelsus’ dance the Polka ... should I not tell you?

I am vexed by another thing which he tells me—­vexed, if amused a little by the absurdity of it.  I mean that absurd affair of the ’Autography’—­now isn’t it absurd?  And for neither you nor George to have the chivalry of tearing out that letter of mine, which was absurd too in its way, and which, knowing less of the world than I know now, I wrote as if writing for my private conscience, and privately repented writing in a day, and have gone on repenting ever since when I happened to think enough of it for repentance!  Because if Mr. Serjeant Talfourd sent then his ‘Ion’ to me, he did it in mere good-nature, hearing by chance of me through the publisher of my ‘Prometheus’ at the moment, and of course caring no more for my ‘opinion’ than for the rest of me—­and it was excessively bad taste in me to say more than the briefest word of thanks in return, even if I had been competent to say it.  Ah well!—­you see how it is, and that I am vexed you should have read it, ... as George says you did ... he laughing to see me so vexed.  So I turn round and avenge myself by crying aloud against the editor of the ‘Autography’!  Surely such a thing was never done before ... even by an author in the last stage of a mortal disease of self-love.  To edit the common parlance of conventional flatteries, ... lettered in so many volumes, bound in green morocco, and laid on the drawing-room table for one’s own particular private public,—­is it not a miracle of vanity ... neither more nor less?