thoroughly 'that particular contingency' which (I tell you
plainly, I who know) the tongue of men and of angels would not modify
so as to render less full of vexations to you. Let Pisa prove the
excellent hardness of some marbles! Judge. From motives of
self-respect, you may well walk an opposite way ... _you_.... When I
told you once ... or twice ... that 'no human influence should' &c.
&c., ... I spoke for myself, quite over-looking you--and now that I
turn and see you, I am surprised that I did not see you before ...
_there_. I ask you therefore to consider 'that contingency' well--not
forgetting the other obvious evils, which the late decision about Pisa
has aggravated beyond calculation ... for as the smoke rolls off we
see the harm done by the fire. And so, and now ... is it not advisable
for you to go abroad at once ... as you always intended, you know ...
now that your book is through the press? What if you go next week? I
leave it to you. In any case _I entreat you not to answer
this_--neither let your thoughts be too hard on me for what you may
call perhaps vacillation--only that I stand excused (I do not say
justified) before my own moral sense. May God bless you. If you go, I
shall wait to see you till your return, and have letters in the
meantime. I write all this as fast as I can to have it over. What I
ask of you is, to consider alone and decide advisedly ... for both our
sakes. If it should be your choice not to make an end now, ... why I
shall understand _that_ by your not going ... or you may say '_no_' in
a word ... for I require no '_protestations_' indeed--and _you_ may
trust to _me_ ... it shall be as you choose. _You will consider my
happiness most by considering your own_ ... and that is my last word.

_Wednesday morning._--I did not say half I thought about the poems
yesterday--and their various power and beauty will be striking and
surprising to your most accustomed readers. 'St. Praxed'--'Pictor
Ignotus'--'The Ride'--'The Duchess'!--Of the new poems I like
supremely the first and last ... that 'Lost Leader' which strikes so
broadly and deep ... which nobody can ever forget--and which is worth
all the journalizing and pamphleteering in the world!--and then, the
last 'Thought' which is quite to be grudged to that place of fragments
... those grand sea-sights in the long lines. Should not these
fragments be severed otherwise than by numbers? The last stanza but
one of the 'Lost Mistress' seemed