the loud clink of the spoons against the glasses, the way of calling for fresh ’sorbetti’—­for all the world is at open-coffee-house at such an hour—­when suddenly there is a stop in the sunshine, a blackness drops down, then a great white column of dust drives straight on like a wedge, and you see the acacia heads snap off, now one, then another—­and all the people scream ’la bora, la bora!’ and you are caught up in their whirl and landed in some interior, the man with the guitar on one side of you, and the boy with a cageful of little brown owls for sale, on the other—­meanwhile, the thunder claps, claps, with such a persistence, and the rain, for a finale, falls in a mass, as if you had knocked out the whole bottom of a huge tank at once—­then there is a second stop—­out comes the sun—­somebody clinks at his glass, all the world bursts out laughing, and prepares to pour out again,—­but you, the stranger, do make the best of your way out, with no preparation at all; whereupon you infallibly put your foot (and half your leg) into a river, really that, of rainwater—­that’s a Bora (and that comment of yours, a justifiable pun!) Such things you get in Italy, but better, better, the best of all things you do not (I do not) get those.  And I shall see you on Wednesday, please remember, and bring you the rest of the poem—­that you should like it, gratifies me more than I will try to say, but then, do not you be tempted by that pleasure of pleasing which I think is your besetting sin—­may it not be?—­and so cut me off from the other pleasure of being profited.  As I told you, I like so much to fancy that you see, and will see, what I do as I see it, while it is doing, as nobody else in the world should, certainly, even if they thought it worth while to want—­but when I try and build a great building I shall want you to come with me and judge it and counsel me before the scaffolding is taken down, and while you have to make your way over hods and mortar and heaps of lime, and trembling tubs of size, and those thin broad whitewashing brushes I always had a desire to take up and bespatter with.  And now goodbye—­I am to see you on Wednesday I trust—­and to hear you say you are better, still better, much better?  God grant that, and all else good for you, dear friend, and so for R.B.

ever yours.

E.B.B. to R.B.

[Post-mark, July 18, 1845.]

I suppose nobody is ever expected to acknowledge his or her ’besetting sin’—­it would be unnatural—­and therefore you will not be surprised to hear me deny the one imputed to me for mine.  I deny it quite and directly.  And if my denial goes for nothing, which is but reasonable, I might call in a great cloud of witnesses, ... a thundercloud, ... (talking of storms!) and even seek no further than this table for a first witness; this letter, I had yesterday, which calls me ... let me see how many hard names ... ‘unbending,’ ... ‘disdainful,’