.

So you and I have written out all the paper in London! At least, I
send and send in vain to have more envelopes 'after my kind,' and the
last answer is, that a 'fresh supply will arrive in eight days from
Paris, and that in the meanwhile they are quite _out_ in the article.'
An awful sign of the times, is this famine of envelopes ... not to
speak of the scarcity of little sheets:--and the augurs look to it all
of course.

For _my_ part I think more of Chiappino--Chiappino holds me fast.

But I must let _you_ go--it is too late. This dearest letter, which
you sent me! I thank you for it with ever so much dumbness. May God
bless you and keep you, and make you happy for me.

Your BA.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

[Post-mark, March 12, 1846.]

How I get to understand this much of Law--that prior possession is
nine points of it! Just because your infinite adroitness got first
hold of the point of view whence our connection looks like 'a dream'
... I find myself shut out of my very own, unable to say what is
oftenest in my thought; whereas the dear, miraculous dream _you_ were,
and are, my Ba! Only, _vanish_--_that_ you will never! My own, and for
ever!

Yesterday I read the poor, inconceivably inadequate notice in the
_People's Journal_. How curiously wrong, too, in the personal guesses!
Sad work truly. For my old friend Mrs. Adams--no, I must be silent:
the lyrics seem doggerel in its utter purity. And so the people are to
be instructed in the new age of gold! I _heard_ two days ago precisely
what I told you--that there was a quarrel, &c. which this service was
to smooth over, no doubt. Chorley told me, in a hasty word only, that
all was over, Mr. Webster would not have anything to do with his play.
The said W. is one of the poorest of poor creatures, and as Chorley
was certainly forewarned, forearmed I will hope him to have been
likewise--still it is very disappointing--he was apparently nearer
than most aspirants to the prize,--having the best will of the
actresses on whose shoulder the burthen was to lie. I hope they have
been quite honest with him--knowing as I do the easy process of
transferring all sorts of burthens, in that theatrical world, from
responsible to irresponsible members of it, actors to manager, manager
to actors, as the case requires. And it is a 'hope deferred' with
Chorley; not for the second or third time. I am