fer much more? If
a man knows that ... but I am teaching you! All I mean is, that, in
Benedick's phrase, 'the world must go on.' He who honestly wants his
wife to sit at the head of his table and carve ... that is be his
_help-meat_ (not 'help mete for him')--he shall assuredly find a girl
of his degree who wants the table to sit at; and some dear friend to
mortify, who _would_ be glad of such a piece of fortune; and if that
man offers that woman a bunch of orange-flowers and a sonnet, instead
of a buck-horn-handled sabre-shaped knife, sheathed in a 'Every Lady
Her Own _Market-Woman_, Being a Table of' &c. &c.--_then_, I say he
is--

Bless you, dearest--the clock strikes--and time is none--but--bless
you!

Your own R.B.

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

Saturday 4. p.m.
[Post-mark, December 27, 1845.]

I was forced to leave off abruptly on Christmas Morning--and now I
have but a few minutes before our inexorable post leaves. I hoped to
return from Town earlier. But I can say something--and Monday will
make amends.

'For ever' and for ever I _do_ love you, dearest--love you with my
whole heart--in life, in death--

Yes; I did go to Mr. Kenyon's--who had a little to forgive in my slack
justice to his good dinner, but was for the rest his own kind
self--and I went, also, to Moxon's--who said something about my
number's going off 'rather heavily'--so let it!

Too good, too, too indulgent you are, my own Ba, to 'acts' first or
last; but all the same, I am glad and encouraged. _Let_ me get done
with these, and better things will follow.

Now, bless you, ever, my sweetest--I have you ever in my thoughts--And
on Monday, remember, I am to see you.

Your own R.B.

See what I cut out of a _Cambridge Advertiser_[1] of the 24th--to make
you laugh!

[Footnote 1: The cutting enclosed is:--'A Few Rhymes for the Present
Christmas' by J. Purchas, Esq., B.A. It is headed by several
quotations, the first of which is signed 'Elizabeth B. Barrett:'

'This age shows to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.'

This is followed by extracts from Pindar, 'Lear,' and the Hon. Mrs.
Norton.]

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, December 27, 1845.]

Yes, inde