ing, in a manner that nearly
made me cry and laugh with distress for you and disapprobation of you,
all your unnecessary agonies of anxiety about me, you suddenly rein
yourself up with an extra-reasonable jerk, and say that "the foolish
importance you attach to _trifles_ is as great as ever."

Now, my dearest friend, for such you undoubtedly are, allow me to
observe that this mode of speaking of me does not appear to me either
reasonable or appropriate. From what point of view I can appear a
_trifle_ to the most partial and rational of my friends, I am at a loss
to conjecture. The parallel seems to me to halt on all its feet. A
_white_, _light_, _sweet_, and _agreeable_ article of human consumption
bears, I apprehend, extremely small affinity to a _dark_, _heavy_,
_tart_, and _uneatable_ female. However, if you find that this, to me,
singularly distorted mode of viewing facts assists your hitherto
unsuccessful efforts at mental and moral equipoise, I am perfectly
willing to be a trifle in your estimation, or indeed anywhere but on
your table.

The pretty, pretty plan you devise for our meeting here during Passion
week, dear Hal, is a baseless vision. Our friends go up to London the
week after next, and I do not know when I shall be able again to stay so
far from it.

I have written to Moxon about the publication of my journal, and I
received a note from him this morning, intimating his purpose of
visiting me here, in the course of to-day, at which I feel rather
nervously dismayed.... There is a great quantity of it, and I suppose my
return to the stage may perhaps have some effect in increasing its sale.

Emily and I walk every day together, up and down the shrubbery and round
the gardens; and innumerable are the ejaculations of "Oh, how I wish
dear Hal was with us!" You are our proper complement, the missing side
of the triangle, and it is unnatural for us two to be together here
without you.

Mrs. FitzHugh is certainly a wonderful old woman, especially in her
kindliness and happy, easy cheerfulness....

We drive every day for about an hour in the pony-carriage, and walk
again for about half an hour afterwards....

And now, God bless you, my dearest Hal. I long to see you, and am most
thankful for all the tender, devoted, anxious affection you bestow on
me; I am unspeakably _grateful_ to you. Kiss dear Dorothy for me, and
tell her for goodness' sake to exert herself, and either be, or allow
you to be, slightly