ter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as we
say in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me and
extending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice to
the rug, where the dog lay ... dear old Havannah, ... and where he and
I were likely to be dashed to pieces together and mix our uncanonised
bones. Now my present false position ... which is not the
chimney-piece's, ... is the necessity you provide for me in the shape
of my having to name this day, or that day, ... and of your coming
because I name it, and of my having to think and remember that you
come because I name it. Through a weakness, perhaps, or morbidness, or
one knows not how to define it, I _cannot help_ being uncomfortable in
having to do this,--it is impossible. Not that I distrust _you_--you
are the last in the world I could distrust: and then (although you may
be sceptical) I am naturally given to trust ... to a fault ... as some
say, or to a sin, as some reproach me:--and then again, if I were ever
such a distruster, it could not be of _you_. But if you knew me--! I
will tell you! if one of my brothers omits coming to this room for two
days, ... I never ask why it happened! if my own father omits coming
up-stairs to say 'good night,' I never say a word; and not from
indifference. Do try to make out these readings of me as a _dixit
Casaubonus_; and don't throw me down as a corrupt text, nor convict me
for an infidel which I am not. On the contrary I am grateful and happy
to believe that you like to come here; and even if you came here as a
pure act of charity and pity to me, as long as you _chose to come_ I
should not be too proud to be grateful and happy still. I could not be
proud to _you_, and I hope you will not fancy such a possibility,
which is the remotest of all. Yes, and _I_ am anxious to ask you to be
wholly generous and leave off such an interpreting philosophy as you
made use of yesterday, and forgive me when I beg you to fix your own
days for coming for the future. Will you? It is the same thing in one
way. If you like to come really every week, there is no hindrance to
it--you can do it--and the privilege and obligation remain equally
mine:--and if you name a day for coming on any week, where there is an
obstacle on my side, you will learn it from me in a moment. Why I
might as well charge _you_ with distrusting _me_, because you persist
in making me choose the days. And it is not for me to do it, but for