to write on purpose to certify the
important fact of my being a little stronger or a little weaker on one
particular morning. That I am always ready and rejoiced to write to
you, you know perfectly well, and I have proved, by 'superfluity of
naughtiness' and prolixity through some twenty posts:--and this, and
therefore, you will agree altogether to attribute no more to me on
these counts, and determine to read me no more backwards with your
Hebrew, putting in your own vowel points without my leave! Shall it be
so?

Here is a letter grown from a note which it meant to be--and I have
been interrupted in the midst of it, or it should have gone to you
earlier. Let what I have said in it of myself pass unquestioned and
unnoticed, because it is of _me_ and not of _you_, ... and, if in any
wise lunatical, all the talking and writing in the world will not put
the implied moon into another quarter. Only be patient with me a
little, ... and let us have a smooth ground for the poems which I am
foreseeing the sight of with such pride and delight--Such pride and
delight!

And one thing ... which is chief, though it seems to come last!... you
_will_ have advice (will you not?) if that pain does not grow much
better directly? It cannot be prudent or even _safe_ to let a pain in
the head go on so long, and no remedy be attempted for it, ... and you
cannot be sure that it is a merely nervous pain and that it may not
have consequences; and this, quite apart from the consideration of
suffering. So you will see some one with an opinion to give, and take
it? _Do_, I beseech you. You will not say 'no'? Also ... if on
Wednesday you should be less well than usual, you will come on
Thursday instead, I hope, ... seeing that it must be right for you to
be quiet and silent when you suffer so, and a journey into London can
let you be neither. Otherwise, I hold to my day, ... Wednesday. And
may God bless you my dear friend.

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

You are right I see, nearly everywhere, if not quite everywhere in the
criticisms--but of course I have not looked very closely--that is, I
have read your papers but not in connection with a _my_ side of the
argument--but I shall lose the post after all.

[Footnote 1: Aeschylus, _Prometheus_ II.: 'trick of loving men,' see
note 3, on p. 39 above.]

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