feeling is irrepressible from me to you, when, from the height of your brilliant happy sphere, you ask, as you did ask, for personal intercourse with me.  What words but ‘kindness’ ... but ’gratitude’—­but I will not in any case be unkind and ungrateful, and do what is displeasing to you.  And let us both leave the subject with the words—­because we perceive in it from different points of view; we stand on the black and white sides of the shield; and there is no coming to a conclusion.

But you will come really on Tuesday—­and again, when you like and can together—­and it will not be more ‘inconvenient’ to me to be pleased, I suppose, than it is to people in general—­will it, do you think?  Ah—­how you misjudge!  Why it must obviously and naturally be delightful to me to receive you here when you like to come, and it cannot be necessary for me to say so in set words—­believe it of

Your friend,

E.B.B.

[Mr. Browning’s letter, to which the following is in answer was destroyed, see page 268 of the present volume.]

[Footnote 1:  ‘What have I to do with thee?’]

E.B.B. to R.B.

Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, May 24, 1845.]

I intended to write to you last night and this morning, and could not,—­you do not know what pain you give me in speaking so wildly.  And if I disobey you, my dear friend, in speaking, (I for my part) of your wild speaking, I do it, not to displease you, but to be in my own eyes, and before God, a little more worthy, or less unworthy, of a generosity from which I recoil by instinct and at the first glance, yet conclusively; and because my silence would be the most disloyal of all means of expression, in reference to it.  Listen to me then in this.  You have said some intemperate things ... fancies,—­which you will not say over again, nor unsay, but forget at once, and for ever, having said at all; and which (so) will die out between you and me alone, like a misprint between you and the printer.  And this you will do for my sake who am your friend (and you have none truer)—­and this I ask, because it is a condition necessary to our future liberty of intercourse.  You remember—­surely you do—­that I am in the most exceptional of positions; and that, just because of it, I am able to receive you as I did on Tuesday; and that, for me to listen to ‘unconscious exaggerations,’ is as unbecoming to the humilities of my position, as unpropitious (which is of more consequence) to the prosperities of yours.  Now, if there should be one word of answer attempted to this; or of reference; I must not ...  I will not see you again—­and you will justify me later in your heart.  So for my sake you will not say it—­I think you will not—­and spare me the sadness of having to break through an intercourse just as it is promising pleasure to me; to me who have so many sadnesses and so few pleasures.  You will!—­and I