but don't know. Would that sort of
praise be flattering, or his holding the tongue--which Forster, deep
in the mysteries of the craft, corroborated my own notion about--as
pure willingness to hurt, and confessed impotence and little clever
spite, and enforced sense of what may be safe at the last? You shall
see they will not notice--unless a fresh publication alters the
circumstances--until some seven or eight months--as before; and then
they _will_ notice, and _praise_, and tell anybody who cares to
enquire, '_So_ we noticed the work.' So do not you go expecting
justice or injustice till I tell you. It answers me to be found
writing so, so anxious to prove I understand the laws of the game,
when that game is only 'Thimble-rig' and for prizes of
gingerbread-nuts--Prize or no prize, Mr. Dilke _does_ shift the pea,
and so did from the beginning--as Charles Lamb's pleasant _sobriquet_
(Mr. _Bilk_, he would have it) testifies. Still he behaved kindly to
that poor Frances Brown--let us forget him.

And now, my Audience, my crown-bearer, my path-preparer--I am with you
again and out of them all--there, _here_, in my arms, is my _proved
palpable success_! My life, my poetry, gained nothing, oh no!--but
this found them, and blessed them. On Tuesday I shall see you,
dearest--am much better; well to-day--are you well--or 'scarcely to be
called an invalid'? Oh, when I _have_ you, am by you--

Bless you, dearest--And be very sure you have your wish about the
length of the week--still Tuesday must come! And with it your own,
happy, grateful

R.B.

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

Tuesday Night.
[Post-mark, January 14, 1846.]

Ah Mr. Kenyon!--how he vexed me to-day. To keep away all the ten days
before, and to come just at the wrong time after all! It was better
for you, I suppose--believe--to go with him down-stairs--yes, it
certainly was better: it was disagreeable enough to be very wise! Yet
I, being addicted to every sort of superstition turning to melancholy,
did hate so breaking off in the middle of that black thread ... (do
you remember what we were talking of when they opened the door?) that
I was on the point of saying 'Stay one moment,' which I should have
repented afterwards for the best of good reasons. Oh, I _should_ have
liked to have 'fastened off' that black thread, and taken one stitch
with a blue or a gr