o the word 'poetry' has a
clear meaning to me, and all the fluency and facility and quick
ear-catching of a tune which one can find in the world, do not answer
to it--no.

How is the head? will you tell me? I have written all this without a
word of it, and yet ever since yesterday I have been uneasy, ... I
cannot help it. You see you are not better but worse. 'Since you were
in Italy'--Then is it England that disagrees with you? and is it
change away from England that you want? ... _require_, I mean. If
so--why what follows and ought to follow? You must not be ill
indeed--_that_ is the first necessity. Tell me how you are, exactly
how you are; and remember to walk, and not to work too much--for my
sake--if you care for me--if it is not too bold of me to say so. I had
fancied you were looking better rather than otherwise: but those
sensations in the head are frightful and ought to be stopped by
whatever means; even by the worst, as they would seem to _me_.
Well--it was bad news to hear of the increase of pain; for the
amendment was a 'passing show' I fear, and not caused even by thoughts
of mine or it would have appeared before; while on the other side (the
sunny side of the way) I heard on that same yesterday, what made me
glad as good news, a whole gospel of good news, and from _you_ too who
profess to say 'less than nothing,' and _that_ was that '_the times
seemed longer to you_':--do you remember saying it? And it made me
glad ... happy--perhaps too glad and happy--and surprised: yes,
surprised!--for if you had told me (but you would not have told me) if
you had let me guess ... just the contrary, ... '_that the times
seemed shorter_,' ... why it would have seemed to _me_ as natural as
nature--oh, believe me it would, and I could not have thought hardly
of you for it in the most secret or silent of my thoughts. How am I
to feel towards you, do you imagine, ... who have the world round you
and yet make me this to you? I never can tell you how, and you never
can know it without having my heart in you with all its experiences:
we measure by those weights. May God bless you! and save _me_ from
being the cause to you of any harm or grief!... I choose it for _my_
blessing instead of another. What should I be if I could fail
willingly to you in the least thing? But I _never will_, and you know
it. I will not move, nor speak, nor breathe, so as willingly and
consciously to touch, with one shade of wrong, that precious depos