too much for you, I am afraid; and if so,
why you will not do it--will you?--you will wait for another year,--or
at least be satisfied for this, with bringing out a number of the old
size, consisting of such poems as are fairly finished and require no
retouching. 'Saul' for instance, you might leave--! You will not let
me hear when I am gone, of your being ill--you will take care ... will
you not? Because you see ... or rather _I_ see ... you are _not_
looking well at all--no, you are not! and even if you do not care for
that, you should and must care to consider how unavailing it will be
for you to hold those golden keys of the future with a more resolute
hand than your contemporaries, should you suffer yourself to be struck
down before the gate ... should you lose the physical power while
keeping the heart and will. Heart and will are great things, and
sufficient things in your case--but after all we carry a barrow-full
of clay about with us, and we must carry it a little carefully if we
mean to keep to the path and not run zigzag into the border of the
garden. A figure which reminds me ... and I wanted no figure to remind
me ... to ask you to thank your sister for me and from me for all her
kindness about the flowers. Now you will not forget? you must not.
When I think of the repeated trouble she has taken week after week,
and all for a stranger, I must think again that it has been very
kind--and I take the liberty of saying so moreover ... _as I am not
thanking you_. Also these flowers of yesterday, which yesterday you
disdained so, look full of summer and are full of fragrance, and when
they seem to say that it is not September, I am willing to be lied to
just _so_. For I wish it were not September. I wish it were July ...
or November ... two months before or after: and that this journey were
thrown behind or in front ... anywhere to be out of sight. You do not
know the courage it requires to hold the intention of it fast through
what I feel sometimes. If it (the courage) had been prophesied to me
only a year ago, the prophet would have been laughed to scorn.
Well!--but I want you to see. George's letter, and how he and Mrs.
Hedley, when she saw Papa's note of consent to me, give unhesitating
counsel. Burn it when you have read it. It is addressed to me ...
which you will doubt from the address of it perhaps ... seeing that it
goes [Greek: ba ... rbarizon]. We are famous in this house for what
are called nick-names