So you too wrote French verses?—­Mine were of less lofty argument—­one couplet makes me laugh now for the reason of its false quantity—­I translated the Ode of Alcaeus; and the last couplet ran thus....

    Harmodius, et toi, cher Aristogiton!

* * * * *

* * * * *

    Comme l’astre du jour, brillera votre nom!

The fact was, I could not bear to hurt my French Master’s feelings—­who inveterately maltreated ‘ai’s and oi’s’ and in this instance, an ‘ei.’  But ‘Pauline’ is altogether of a different sort of precocity—­you shall see it when I can master resolution to transcribe the explanation which I know is on the fly-leaf of a copy here.  Of that work, the Athenaeum said [several words erased] now, what outrageous folly!  I care, and you care, precisely nothing about its sayings and doings—­yet here I talk!

Now to you—­Ba!  When I go through sweetness to sweetness, at ‘Ba’ I stop last of all, and lie and rest.  That is the quintessence of them all,—­they all take colour and flavour from that.  So, dear, dear Ba, be glad as you can to see me to-morrow.  God knows how I embalm every such day,—­I do not believe that one of the forty is confounded with another in my memory.  So, that is gained and sure for ever.  And of letters, this makes my 104th and, like Donne’s Bride,

              ...  I take,
    My jewels from their boxes; call
    My Diamonds, Pearls, and Emeralds, and make
    Myself a constellation of them all!

Bless you, my own Beloved!

I am much better to-day—­having been not so well yesterday—­whence the note to you, perhaps!  I put that to your charity for construction.  By the way, let the foolish and needless story about my whilome friend be of this use, that it records one of the traits in that same generous love, of me, I once mentioned, I remember—­one of the points in his character which, I told you, would account, if you heard them, for my parting company with a good deal of warmth of attachment to myself.

What a day!  But you do not so much care for rain, I think.  My Mother is no worse, but still suffering sadly.

Ever your own, dearest ever—­

E.B.B. to R.B.

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 22, 1846.]

Ever since I ceased to be with you—­ever dearest,—­have been with your ‘Luria,’ if that is ceasing to be with you—­which it is, I feel at last.  Yet the new act is powerful and subtle, and very affecting, it seems to me, after a grave, suggested pathos; the reasoning is done on every hand with admirable directness and adroitness, and poor Luria’s iron baptism under such a bright crossing of swords, most miserably complete.  Still ... is he to die so? can you mean it?  Oh—­indeed I foresaw that—­not a guess of mine ever touched such an end—­and