s that one belief that you _will not alter_,
will just remain as you are--meaning by '_you_,' the love in you, the
qualities I have _known_ (for you will stop me, if I do not stop
myself) what I have evidence of in every letter, in every word, every
look. Keeping these, if it be God's will that the body passes,--what
is that? Write no new letters, speak no new words, look no new
looks,--only tell me, years hence that the present is alive, that what
was once, still is--and I am, must needs be, blessed as ever! You
speak of my feeling as if it were a pure speculation--as if because I
_see somewhat_ in you I make a calculation that there must be more to
see somewhere or other--where bdellium is found, the onyx-stone may be
looked for in the mystic land of the four rivers! And perhaps ... ah,
poor human nature!--perhaps I _do_ think at times on what _may_ be to
find! But what is that to you? I _offer_ for the _bdellium_--the other
may be found or not found ... what I see glitter on the ground, _that_
will suffice to make me rich as--rich as--

So bless you my own Ba! I would not wait for paper, and you must
forgive half-sheets, instead of a whole celestial quire to my love and
praise. Are you so well? So adventurous? Thank you from my heart of
hearts. And I am quite well to-day (and have received a note from
Procter _just_ this _minute_ putting off his dinner on account of the
death of his wife's sister's husband abroad). Observe _this_ sheet I
take as I find--I mean, that the tear tells of no improper speech
repented of--what English, what sense, what a soul's tragedy! but
then, what real, realest love and more than love for my ever dearest
Ba possesses her own--

_E.B.B. to R.B._

[Post-mark, March 12, 1846.]

When my Orpheus writes '[Greek: Peri lithon]' he makes a great mistake
about onyxes--there is more true onyx in this letter of his that I
have just read, than he will ever find in the desert land he goes to.
And for what 'glitters on the ground,' it reminds me of the yellow
metal sparks found in the Malvern Hills, and how we used to laugh
years ago at one of our geological acquaintances, who looked
mole-hills up that mountain-range in the scorn of his eyes, saying ...
'Nothing but mica!!' Is anybody to be rich through 'mica', I wonder?
through 'Nothing but mica?' 'As rich as--as rich as' ... _Walter the
Pennyless_?

Dearest, best you are nevertheless, and it is a sorry jest