My all-beloved—­

Ah, you opposed very rightly, I dare say, the writing that paper I spoke of!  The process should be so much simpler!  I most earnestly expect of you, my love, that in the event of any such necessity as was then alluded to, you accept at once in my name any conditions possible for a human will to submit to—­there is no imaginable condition to which you allow me to accede that I will not joyfully bend all my faculties to comply with.  And you know this—­but so, also do you know more ... and yet ‘I may tire of you’—­’may forget you’!

I will write again, having the long, long week to wait!  And one of the things I must say, will be, that with my love, I cannot lose my pride in you—­that nothing but that love could balance that pride—­and that, blessing the love so divinely, you must minister to the pride as well; yes, my own—­I shall follow your fame,—­and, better than fame, the good you do—­in the world—­and, if you please, it shall all be mine—­as your hand, as your eyes—­

I will write and pray it from you into a promise ... and your promises I live upon.

May God bless you! your R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Friday.
[Post-mark, December 13, 1845.]

Do not blame me in your thoughts for what I said yesterday or wrote a day before, or think perhaps on the dark side of some other days when I cannot help it ... always when I cannot help it—­you could not blame me if you saw the full motives as I feel them.  If it is distrust, it is not of you, dearest of all!—­but of myself rather:—­it is not doubt of you, but for you.  From the beginning I have been subject to the too reasonable fear which rises as my spirits fall, that your happiness might suffer in the end through your having known me:—­it is for you I fear, whenever I fear:—­and if you were less to me, ... should I fear do you think?—­if you were to me only what I am to myself for instance, ... if your happiness were only as precious as my own in my own eyes, ... should I fear, do you think, then?  Think, and do not blame me.

To tell you to ‘forget me when forgetting seemed happiest for you,’ ... (was it not that, I said?) proved more affection than might go in smoother words....  I could prove the truth of that out of my heart.

And for the rest, you need not fear any fear of mine—­my fear will not cross a wish of yours, be sure!  Neither does it prevent your being all to me ... all:  more than I used to take for all when I looked round the world, ... almost more than I took for all in my earliest dreams.  You stand in between me and not merely the living who stood closest, but between me and the closer graves, ... and I reproach myself for this sometimes, and, so, ask you not to blame me for a different thing.