Yours

R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday—­and Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 6, 1845.]

So when wise people happen to be ill, they sit up till six o’clock in the morning and get up again at nine?  Do tell me how Lurias can ever be made out of such ungodly imprudences.  If the wind blows east or west, where can any remedy be, while such evil deeds are being committed?  And what is to be the end of it?  And what is the reasonableness of it in the meantime, when we all know that thinking, dreaming, creating people like yourself, have two lives to bear instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others, ... throwing over and buckling in that fold of death, to stroke the life-purple smoother.  You have to live your own personal life, and also Luria’s life—­and therefore you should sleep for both.  It is logical indeed—­and rational, ... which logic is not always ... and if I had ‘the tongue of men and of angels,’ I would use it to persuade you.  Polka, for the rest, may be good; but sleep is better.  I think better of sleep than I ever did, now that she will not easily come near me except in a red hood of poppies.  And besides, ... praise your ‘goodnatured body’ as you like, ... it is only a seeming goodnature!  Bodies bear malice in a terrible way, be very sure!—­appear mild and smiling for a few short years, and then ... out with a cold steel; and the soul has it, ‘with a vengeance,’ ... according to the phrase!  You will not persist, (will you?) in this experimental homicide.  Or tell me if you will, that I may do some more tearing.  It really, really is wrong.  Exercise is one sort of rest and you feel relieved by it—­and sleep is another:  one being as necessary as the other.

This is the first thing I have to say.  The next is a question. What do you mean about your manuscripts ... about ‘Saul’ and the portfolio? for I am afraid of hazardously supplying ellipses—­and your ‘Bos’ comes to [Greek:  bous epi glosse].[1] I get half bribed to silence by the very pleasure of fancying.  But if it could be possible that you should mean to say you would show me....  Can it be? or am I reading this ‘Attic contraction’ quite the wrong way?  You see I am afraid of the difference between flattering myself and being flattered; the fatal difference.  And now will you understand that I should be too overjoyed to have revelations from the ‘Portfolio,’ ... however incarnated with blots and pen-scratches, ... to be able to ask impudently of them now?  Is that plain?

It must be, ... at any rate, ... that if you would like to ’write something together’ with me, I should like it still better.  I should like it for some ineffable reasons.  And I should not like it a bit the less for the grand supply of jests it would administer to the critical Board of Trade, about visible darkness, multiplied by two, mounting into palpable obscure.  We should not mind ... should we? you would not mind, if you had got over certain other considerations deconsiderating to your coadjutor.  Yes—­but I dare not do it, ...  I mean, think of it, ... just now, if ever:  and I will tell you why in a Mediaeval-Gothic-architectural manuscript.