n might expound to you clearly
out of the ninety-sixth volume of the 'Code of Conventions,' only you
are not like another, nor have you been to me like another--you began
with most improvident and (will you let me say?) _unmasculine_
generosity, and Queen Victoria does not sit upon a mat after the
fashion of Queen Pomare, nor should.

But ... but ... you know very fully that you are breaking faith in the
matter of the 'Tragedy' and 'Luria'--you promised to rest--and _you
rest for three days_. Is it _so_ that people get well? or keep well?
Indeed I do not think I shall let you have 'Luria.' Ah--be careful, I
do beseech you--be careful. There is time for a pause, and the works
will profit by it themselves. And _you_! And I ... if you are ill!--

For the rest I will let you walk in my field, and see my elms as much
as you please ... though I hear about the shower bath with a little
suspicion. Why, if it did you harm before, should it not again? and
why should you use it, if it threatens harm? Now tell me if it hasn't
made you rather unwell since the new trial!--tell me, dear, dearest.

As for myself, I believe that you set about exhorting me to be busy,
just that I might not reproach _you_ for the over-business. Confess
that _that_ was the only meaning of the exhortation. But no, you are
quite serious, you say. You even threaten me in a sort of underground
murmur, which sounds like a nascent earthquake; and if I do not write
so much a day directly, your stipendiary magistrateship will take away
my license to be loved ... I am not to be Ba to you any longer ... you
say! And is _this_ right? now I ask you. Ever so many chrystals fell
off by that stroke of the baton, I do assure you. Only you did not
mean quite what you said so too articulately, and you will unsay it,
if you please, and unthink it near the elms.

As for the writing, I will write ... I have written ... I am writing.
You do not fancy that I have given up writing?--No. Only I have
certainly been more loitering and distracted than usual in what I have
done, which is not my fault--nor yours directly--and I feel an
indisposition to setting about the romance, the hand of the soul
shakes. I am too happy and not calm enough, I suppose, to have the
right inclination. Well--it will come. But all in blots and fragments
there are verses enough, to fill a volume done in the last year.

And if there were not ... if there were none ... I hold that I should
be Ba, and al