But the really bad news is of poor Tennyson—­I forgot to tell you—­I forget everything.  He is seriously ill with an internal complaint and confined to his bed, as George heard from a common friend.  Which does not prevent his writing a new poem—­he has finished the second book of it—­and it is in blank verse and a fairy tale, and called the ‘University,’ the university-members being all females.  If George has not diluted the scheme of it with some law from the Inner Temple, I don’t know what to think—­it makes me open my eyes.  Now isn’t the world too old and fond of steam, for blank verse poems, in ever so many books, to be written on the fairies?  I hope they may cure him, for the best deed they can do.  He is not precisely in danger, understand—­but the complaint may run into danger—­so the account went.

And you? how are you?  Mind to tell me.  May God bless you.  Is Monday or Tuesday to be our day?  If it were not for Mr. Kenyon I should take courage and say Monday—­but Tuesday and Saturday would do as well—­would they not?

Your own

BA.

Shall I have a letter?

R.B. to E.B.B.

Saturday.
[Post-mark, January 31, 1846.]

It is a relief to me this time to obey your wish, and reserve further remark on that subject till by and bye.  And, whereas some people, I suppose, have to lash themselves up to the due point of passion, and choose the happy minutes to be as loving in as they possibly can ... (that is, in expression; the just correspondency of word to fact and feeling:  for it—­the love—­may be very truly there, at the bottom, when it is got at, and spoken out)—­quite otherwise, I do really have to guard my tongue and set a watch on my pen ... that so I may say as little as can well be likely to be excepted to by your generosity.  Dearest, love means love, certainly, and adoration carries its sense with it—­and so, you may have received my feeling in that shape—­but when I begin to hint at the merest putting into practice one or the other profession, you ’fly out’—­instead of keeping your throne.  So let this letter lie awhile, till my heart is more used to it, and after some days or weeks I will find as cold and quiet a moment as I can, and by standing as far off you as I shall be able, see more—­’si minus prope stes, te capiet magis.’  Meanwhile, silent or speaking, I am yours to dispose of as that glove—­not that hand.

I must think that Mr. Kenyon sees, and knows, and ... in his goodness ... hardly disapproves—­he knows I could not avoid—­escape you—­for he knows, in a manner, what you are ... like your American; and, early in our intercourse, he asked me (did I tell you?) ’what I thought of his young relative’—­and I considered half a second to this effect—­’if he asked me what I thought of the Queen-diamond they showed me in the crown of the Czar—­and I answered truly—­he would not return; “then of course you mean to try and get it to keep."’ So I did tell the truth in a very few words.  Well, it is no matter.