‘Saul’ perhaps; though admiring the poem enough to have a good spirit instead.  And do you remember of the said poem, that it is there only as a first part, and that the next parts must certainly follow and complete what will be a great lyrical work—­now remember.  And forget ‘Luria’ ... if you are better forgetting.  And forget me ... when you are happier forgetting.  I say that too.

So your idea of an unicorn is—­one horn broken off.  And you a poet!—­one horn broken off—­or hid in the blackthorn hedge!—­

Such a mistake, as our enlightened public, on their part, made, when they magnified the divinity of the brazen chariot, just under the thunder-cloud!  I don’t remember the Athenaeum, but can well believe that it said what you say.  The Athenaeum admires only what gods, men and columns reject.  It applauds nothing but mediocrity—­mark it, as a general rule!  The good, they see—­the great escapes them.  Dare to breathe a breath above the close, flat conventions of literature, and you are ‘put down’ and instructed how to be like other people.  By the way, see by the very last number, that you never think to write ‘peoples,’ on pain of writing what is obsolete—­and these the teachers of the public!  If the public does not learn, where is the marvel of it?  An imitation of Shelley!—­when if ‘Paracelsus’ was anything it was the expression of a new mind, as all might see—­as I saw, let me be proud to remember, and I was not overdazzled by ‘Ion.’

Ah, indeed if I could ‘rake and hoe’ ... or even pick up weeds along the walk, ... which is the work of the most helpless children, ... if I could do any of this, there would be some good of me:  but as for ‘shining’ ... shining ... when there is not so much light in me as to do ‘carpet work’ by, why let anyone in the world, except you, tell me to shine, and it will just be a mockery!  But you have studied astronomy with your favourite snails, who are apt to take a dark-lanthorn for the sun, and so.—­

And so, you come on Thursday, and I only hope that Mrs. Jameson will not come too, (the carpet work makes me think of her; and, not having come yet, she may come on Thursday by a fatal cross-stitch!) for I do not hear from her, and my precautions are ‘watched out,’ May God bless you always.

Your own—­

But no—­I did not forgive.  Where was the fault to be forgiven, except in me, for not being right in my meaning?

R.B. to E.B.B.

Friday.
[Post-mark, December 12, 1845.]

And now, my heart’s love, I am waiting to hear from you; my heart is full of you.  When I try to remember what I said yesterday, that thought, of what fills my heart—­only that makes me bear with the memory....  I know that even such imperfect, poorest of words must have come from thence if not bearing up to you all that is there—­and I know you are ever above me to receive, and help, and forgive, and wait for the one day which I will never say to myself cannot come, when I shall speak what I feel—­more of it—­or some of it—­for now nothing is spoken.