small bitternesses which for several days had been bitter to me, and I
could not find one of them. The tear-marks went away in the moisture
of new, happy tears. Why, how else could I have felt? how else do you
think I could? How would any woman have felt ... who could feel at all
... hearing such words said (though 'in a dream' indeed) by such a
speaker?

And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than
I thought even _you_ could have touched me--my heart was full when you
came here to-day. Henceforward I am yours for everything but to do you
harm--and I am yours too much, in my heart, ever to consent to do you
harm in that way. If I could consent to do it, not only should I be
less loyal ... but in one sense, less yours. I say this to you without
drawback and reserve, because it is all I am able to say, and perhaps
all I _shall_ be able to say. However this may be, a promise goes to
you in it that none, except God and your will, shall interpose between
you and me, ... I mean, that if He should free me within a moderate
time from the trailing chain of this weakness, I will then be to you
whatever at that hour you shall choose ... whether friend or more than
friend ... a friend to the last in any case. So it rests with God and
with you--only in the meanwhile you are most absolutely free ...
'unentangled' (as they call it) by the breadth of a thread--and if I
did not know that you considered yourself so, I would not see you any
more, let the effort cost me what it might. You may force me _feel_:
... but you cannot force me to _think_ contrary to my first thought
... that it were better for you to forget me at once in one relation.
And if better for _you_, can it be bad for _me_? which flings me down
on the stone-pavement of the logicians.

And now if I ask a boon of you, will you forget afterwards that it
ever was asked? I have hesitated a great deal; but my face is down on
the stone-pavement--no--I will not ask to-day--It shall be for another
day--and may God bless you on this and on those that come after, my
dearest friend.

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

[Post-mark, September 27, 1845.]

Think for me, speak for me, my dearest, _my own_! You that are all
great-heartedness and generosity, do that one more generous thing?

God bless you for

R.B.

What can it be you ask of me!--'a