they liked
to me till I was dead--only I _wouldn't go to Italy_--if anybody
proposed Italy out of contradiction. In the meantime I do entreat you
never to talk of such a thing to me any more.

You know, if you were to leave me by your choice and for your
happiness, it would be another thing. It would be very lawful to talk
of _that_.

And observe! I perfectly understand that you did not think of
_doubting me_--so to speak! But you thought, all the same, that if
such a thing happened, I should be capable of doing so and so.

Well--I am not quarrelling--I am uneasy about your head rather. That
pain in it--what can it mean? I do beseech you to think of me just so
much as will lead you to take regular exercise every day, never
missing a day; since to walk till you are tired on Tuesday and then
not to walk at all until Friday is _not_ taking exercise, nor the
thing required. Ah, if you knew how dreadfully natural every sort of
evil seems to my mind, you would not laugh at me for being afraid. I
do beseech you, dearest! And then, Sir John Hanmer invited you,
besides Mr. Warburton, and suppose you went to _him_ for a very little
time--just for the change of air? or if you went to the coast
somewhere. Will you consider, and do what is right, _for me_? I do not
propose that you should go to Italy, observe, nor any great thing at
which you might reasonably hesitate. And--did you ever try smoking as
a remedy? If the nerves of the head chiefly are affected it might do
you good, I have been thinking. Or without the smoking, to breathe
where tobacco is burnt,--_that_ calms the nervous system in a
wonderful manner, as I experienced once myself when, recovering from
an illness, I could not sleep, and tried in vain all sorts of
narcotics and forms of hop-pillow and inhalation, yet was
tranquillized in one half hour by a _pinch_ of _tobacco_ being burnt
in a shovel near me. Should you mind it very much? the trying I mean?

_Wednesday._--For '_Pauline_'--when I had named it to you I was on the
point of sending for the book to the booksellers--then suddenly I
thought to myself that I should wait and hear whether you very, very
much would dislike my reading it. See now! Many readers have done
virtuously, but _I_, (in this virtue I tell you of) surpassed them
all!--And now, because I may, I '_must_ read it':--and as there are
misprints to be corrected, will you do what is necessary, or what you
think is necessary, and bring me the book