Well, on Saturday then—­at three:  and I will certainly bring the verses you mention—­and trust to find you still better.

Vivi felice—­my dear friend, God bless you!

R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Wednesday-Thursday Evening
[Post-mark, July 4, 1845.]

Yes—­I know the first part of the ‘Duchess’ and have it here—­and for the rest of the poem, don’t mind about being very legible, or even legible in the usual sense; and remember how it is my boast to be able to read all such manuscript writing as never is read by people who don’t like caviare.  Now you won’t mind? really I rather like blots than otherwise—­being a sort of patron-saint of all manner of untidyness ... if Mr. Kenyon’s reproaches (of which there’s a stereotyped edition) are justified by the fact—­and he has a great organ of order, and knows ‘disorderly persons’ at a glance, I suppose.  But you won’t be particular with me in the matter of transcription? that is what I want to make sure of.  And even if you are not particular, I am afraid you are not well enough to be troubled by writing, and writing and the thinking that comes with it—­it would be wiser to wait till you are quite well—­now wouldn’t it?—­and my fear is that the ‘almost well’ means ‘very little better.’  And why, when there is no motive for hurrying, run any risk?  Don’t think that I will help you to make yourself ill.  That I refuse to do even so much work as the ‘little dessert-knife’ in the way of murder, ... do think!  So upon the whole, I expect nothing on Saturday from this distance—­and if it comes unexpectedly (I mean the Duchess and not Saturday) let it be at no cost, or at the least cost possible, will you?  I am delighted in the meanwhile to hear of the quantity of ‘mala herba’; and hemlock does not come up from every seed you sow, though you call it by ever such bad names.

Talking of poetry, I had a newspaper ’in help of social and political progress’ sent to me yesterday from America—­addressed to—­just my name ... poetess, London!  Think of the simplicity of those wild Americans in ‘calculating’ that ‘people in general’ here in England know what a poetess is!—­Well—­the post office authorities, after deep meditation, I do not doubt, on all probable varieties of the chimpanzee, and a glance to the Surrey Gardens on one side, and the Zoological department of Regent’s Park on the other, thought of ‘Poet’s Corner,’ perhaps, and wrote at the top of the parcel, ’Enquire at Paternoster Row’! whereupon the Paternoster Row people wrote again, ’Go to Mr. Moxon’—­and I received my newspaper.