ly nothing about its
sayings and doings--yet here I talk!

Now to you--Ba! When I go through sweetness to sweetness, at 'Ba' I
stop last of all, and lie and rest. That is the quintessence of them
all,--they all take colour and flavour from that. So, dear, dear Ba,
be glad as you can to see me to-morrow. God knows how I embalm every
such day,--I do not believe that one of the _forty_ is confounded with
another in my memory. So, _that_ is gained and sure for ever. And of
letters, this makes my 104th and, like Donne's Bride,

... I take,
My jewels from their boxes; call
My Diamonds, Pearls, and Emeralds, and make
Myself a constellation of them all!

Bless you, my own Beloved!

I am much better to-day--having been not so well yesterday--whence the
note to you, perhaps! I put that to your charity for construction. By
the way, let the foolish and needless story about my whilome friend be
of this use, that it records one of the traits in that same generous
love, of me, I once mentioned, I remember--one of the points in his
character which, I told you, _would_ account, if you heard them, for
my parting company with a good deal of warmth of attachment to myself.

What a day! But you do not so much care for rain, I think. My Mother
is no worse, but still suffering sadly.

Ever your own, dearest ever--

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 22, 1846.]

Ever since I ceased to be with you--ever dearest,--have been with your
'Luria,' if _that_ is ceasing to be with you--which it _is_, I feel at
last. Yet the new act is powerful and subtle, and very affecting, it
seems to me, after a grave, suggested pathos; the reasoning is done on
every hand with admirable directness and adroitness, and poor Luria's
iron baptism under such a bright crossing of swords, most miserably
complete. Still ... is he to die _so_? can you mean it? Oh--indeed I
foresaw _that_--not a guess of mine ever touched such an end--and I
can scarcely resign myself to it as a necessity, even now ... I mean,
to the act, as Luria's act, whether it is final or not--the act of
suicide being so unheroical. But you are a dramatic poet and right
perhaps, where, as a didactic poet, you would have been wrong, ...
and, after the first shock, I begin to see that your Luria is the man
Luria and that his 'sun' lights him so far and not farthe