obstacle. Now
again the circumstances shift--and you are in what I should wonder at
as the veriest slavery--and I who _could_ free you from it, I am here
scarcely daring to write ... though I know you must feel for me and
forgive what forces itself from me ... what retires so mutely into my
heart at your least word ... what _shall not_ be again written or
spoken, if you so will ... that I should be made happy beyond all hope
of expression by. Now while I _dream_, let me once dream! I would
marry you now and thus--I would come when you let me, and go when you
bade me--I would be no more than one of your brothers--'_no
more_'--that is, instead of getting to-morrow for Saturday, I should
get Saturday as well--two hours for one--when your head ached I
should be _here_. I deliberately choose the realization of that dream
(--of sitting simply by you for an hour every day) rather than any
other, excluding you, I am able to form for this world, or any world I
know--And it will continue but a dream.

God bless my dearest E.B.B.

R.B.

You understand that I see you to-morrow, Friday, as you propose.

I am better--thank you--and will go out to-day.

You know what I am, what I would speak, and all I would do.

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

Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 27, 1845.]

I had your letter late last night, everyone almost, being out of the
house by an accident, so that it was left in the letter-box, and if I
had wished to answer it before I saw you, it had scarcely been
possible.

But it will be the same thing--for you know as well as if you saw my
answer, what it must be, what it cannot choose but be, on pain of
sinking me so infinitely below not merely your level but my own, that
the depth cannot bear a glance down. Yet, though I am not made of such
clay as to admit of my taking a base advantage of certain noble
extravagances, (and that I am not I thank God for your sake) I will
say, I must say, that your words in this letter have done me good and
made me happy, ... that I thank and bless you for them, ... and that
to receive such a proof of attachment from _you_, not only overpowers
every present evil, but seems to me a full and abundant amends for the
merely personal sufferings of my whole life. When I had read that
letter last night I _did_ think so. I looked round and round for the