e is one
thing, and to keep it, quite another: and the conclusion you see 'as
from a tower.' Suppose I had an oath in heaven somewhere ... near to
'coma Berenices,' ... never to give you what you ask for! ... would
not such an oath be stronger than a mere half promise such as I sent
you a few hours ago? Admit that it would--and that I am not to blame
for saying now ... (listen!) that I _never can_ nor _will give you
this thing_;--only that I will, if you please, exchange it for another
thing--you understand. _I_ too will avoid being 'assuming'; I will not
pretend to be generous, no, nor 'kind.' It shall be pure merchandise
or nothing at all. Therefore determine!--remembering always how our
'ars poetica,' after Horace, recommends 'dare et petere
vicissim'--which is making a clatter of pedantry to take advantage of
the noise ... because perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say this to
you, and perhaps I _am_! ... yet say it none the less.

And ... less lightly ... if you have right and reason on your side,
may I not have a little on mine too? And shall I not care, do you
think?... Think!

Then there is another reason for me, entirely mine. You have come to
me as a dream comes, as the best dreams come ... dearest--and so there
is need to me of 'a sign' to know the difference between dream and
vision--and _that_ is my completest reason, my own reason--you have
none like it; none. A ticket to know the horn-gate from the ivory, ...
ought I not to have it? Therefore send it to me before I send you
anything, and if possible by that Lewisham post which was the most
frequent bringer of your letters until these last few came, and which
reaches me at eight in the evening when all the world is at dinner and
my solitude most certain. Everything is so still then, that I have
heard the footsteps of a letter of yours ten doors off ... or more,
perhaps. Now beware of imagining from this which I say, that there is
a strict police for my correspondence ... (it is not so--) nor that I
do not like hearing from you at any and every hour: it _is_ so. Only I
would make the smoothest and sweetest of roads for ... and you
_understand_, and do not _imagine_ beyond.

_Tuesday evening._--What is written is written, ... all the above: and
it is forbidden to me to write a word of what I could write down here
... forbidden for good reasons. So I am silent on _conditions_ ...
those being ... first ... that you never do such things again ... no,
you must