We can alter nothing by ever so many words.  After all, he is the victim.  He isolates himself—­and now and then he feels it ... the cold dead silence all round, which is the effect of an incredible system.  If he were not stronger than most men, he could not bear it as he does.  With such high qualities too!—­so upright and honourable—­you would esteem him, you would like him, I think.  And so ... dearest ... let that be the last word.

I dare say you have asked yourself sometimes, why it was that I never managed to draw you into the house here, so that you might make your own way.  Now that is one of the things impossible to me.  I have not influence enough for that.  George can never invite a friend of his even.  Do you see?  The people who do come here, come by particular license and association ...  Capt.  Surtees Cook being one of them.  Once ... when I was in high favour too ...  I asked for Mr. Kenyon to be invited to dinner—­he an old college friend, and living close by and so affectionate to me always—­I felt that he must be hurt by the neglect, and asked. It was in vain. Now, you see—­

May God bless you always!  I wrote all my spirits away in this letter yesterday, and kept it to finish to-day ... being yours every day, glad or sad, ever beloved!—­

Your BA.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, January 27, 1846.]

Why will you give me such unnecessary proofs of your goodness?  Why not leave the books for me to take away, at all events?  No—­you must fold up, and tie round, and seal over, and be at all the pains in the world with those hands I see now.  But you only threaten; say you ’shall send’—­as yet, and nothing having come, I do pray you, if not too late, to save me the shame—­add to the gratitude you never can now, I think ... only think, for you are a siren, and I don’t know certainly to what your magic may not extend.  Thus, in not so important a matter, I should have said, the day before yesterday, that no letter from you could make my heart rise within me, more than of old ... unless it should happen to be of twice the ordinary thickness ... and then there’s a fear at first lest the over-running of my dealt-out measure should be just a note of Mr. Kenyon’s, for instance!  But yesterday the very seal began with ’Ba’—­Now, always seal with that seal my letters, dearest!  Do you recollect Donne’s pretty lines about seals?

    Quondam fessus Amor loquens Amato,
    Tot et tanta loquens amica, scripsit: 
    Tandem et fessa manus dedit Sigillum.

And in his own English,

    When love, being weary, made an end
    Of kind expressions to his friend,
    He writ; when hand could write no more,
    He gave the seal—­and so left o’er.

(By the way, what a mercy that he never noticed the jingle in posse of ending ‘expressions’ and beginning ‘impressions.’)