tire and quoted them
to pieces again, in every periodical he was ever engaged upon; and yet
after all, here 'Philip'--'must read' (out of a roll of dropping
papers with yellow ink tracings, so old!) something at which 'John'
claps his hands and says 'Really--that these ancients should own so
much wit &c.'! The _passage_ no longer looks its fresh self after this
veritable passage from hand to hand: as when, in old dances, the belle
began the figure with her own partner, and by him was transferred to
the next, and so to the next--_they_ ever _beginning_ with all the old
alacrity and spirit; but she bearing a still-accumulating weight of
tokens of gallantry, and none the better for every fresh pushing and
shoving and pulling and hauling--till, at the bottom of the room--

To which Mr. Lowell might say, that--No, I will say the true thing
against myself--and it is, that when I turn from what is in my mind,
and determine to write about anybody's book to avoid writing that I
love and love and love again my own, dearest love--because of the
cuckoo-song of it,--_then_, I shall be in no better humour with that
book than with Mr. Lowell's!

But I _have_ a new thing to say or sing--you never before heard me
love and bless and send my heart after--'Ba'--did you? Ba ... and
that is you! I TRIED ... (more than _wanted_) to call you _that_, on
Wednesday! I have a flower here--rather, a tree, a mimosa, which must
be turned and turned, the side to the light changing in a little time
to the _leafy_ side, where all the fans lean and spread ... so I turn
your name to me, that side I have not last seen: you cannot tell how I
feel glad that you will not part with the name--Barrett--seeing you
have two of the same--and must always, moreover, remain my EBB!

Dearest 'E.B.C.'--no, no! and so it will never be!

Have you seen Mr. Kenyon? I did not write ... knowing that such a
procedure would draw the kind sure letter in return, with the
invitation &c., as if I had asked for it! I had perhaps better call on
him some morning very early.

Bless you, my own sweetest. You will write to me, I know in my heart!

Ever may God bless you!

R.B.

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

Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]

Dearest, you know how to say what makes me happiest, you who never
think, you say, of making