ernal clump of evergreens and thatched
summer house--to say nothing of the 'invisible railing' miserably
visible everywhere.

You very well know _what_ a vision it is you give me--when you speak
of _standing up by the table_ to care for my flowers--(which I will
never be ashamed of again, by the way--I will say for the future;
'here are my best'--in this as in other things.) Now, do you remember,
that once I bade you not surprise me out of my good behaviour by
standing to meet me unawares, as visions do, some day--but now--_omne
ignotum_? No, dearest!

Ought I to say there will be two days more? till Saturday--and if one
word comes, _one_ line--think! I am wholly yours--yours, beloved!

R.B.

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

January 1, 1845 [1846].

How good you are--how best! it is a favourite play of my memory to
take up the thought of what you were to me (to my mind gazing!) years
ago, as the poet in an abstraction--then the thoughts of you, a little
clearer, in concrete personality, as Mr. Kenyon's friend, who had
dined with him on such a day, or met him at dinner on such another,
and said some great memorable thing 'on Wednesday last,' and enquired
kindly about _me_ perhaps on Thursday,--till I was proud! and so, the
thoughts of you, nearer and nearer (yet still afar!) as the Mr.
Browning who meant to do me the honour of writing to me, and who did
write; and who asked me once in a letter (does he remember?) 'not to
lean out of the window while his foot was on the stair!'--to take up
all those thoughts, and more than those, one after another, and tie
them together with all _these_, which cannot be named so easily--which
cannot be classed in botany and Greek. It is a nosegay of mystical
flowers, looking strangely and brightly, and keeping their May-dew
through the Christmases--better than even _your_ flowers! And I am not
'ashamed' of mine, ... be very sure! no!

For the siren, I never suggested to you any such thing--why you do not
pretend to have read such a suggestion in my letter certainly. _That_
would have been most exemplarily modest of me! would it not, O
Ulysses?

And you meant to write, ... you _meant_! and went to walk in 'Poet's
lane' instead, (in the 'Aonius of Highgate') which I remember to have
read of--does not Hunt speak of it in his Memoirs?--and so now there
is another track of light in the traditions of the