some forgotten passage in the past sleep itself, I don't know--but
I seem to _apprehend_, comprehend entirely, for the first time, what
would happen if I lost you--the whole sense of that _closed door_ of
Catarina's came on me at once, and it was _I_ who said--not as quoting
or adapting another's words, but spontaneously, unavoidably, '_In that
door, you will not enter, I have_'.... And, dearest, the

Unwritten it must remain.

What is on the other leaf, no ill-omen, after all,--because I
strengthened myself against a merely imaginary evil--as I do always;
and _thus_--I know I never can lose you,--you surely are more mine,
there is less for the future to give or take away than in the
ordinary cases, where so much less is known, explained, possessed, as
with us. Understand for me, my dearest--

And do you think, sweet, that there _is_ any free movement of my soul
which your penholder is to secure? Well, try,--it will be yours by
every right of discovery--and I, for my part, will religiously report
to you the first time I think of you 'which, but for your present I
should not have done'--or is it not a happy, most happy way of
ensuring a better fifth act to Luria than the foregoing? See the
absurdity I write--when it will be more probably the ruin of the
whole--for was it not observed in the case of a friend of mine once,
who wrote his own part in a piece for private theatricals, and had
ends of his own to serve in it,--that he set to work somewhat after
this fashion: 'Scene 1st. A breakfast chamber--Lord and Lady A. at
table--Lady A./ No more coffee my dear?--Lord A./ One more cup!
(_Embracing her_). Lady A./ I was thinking of trying the ponies in the
Park--are you engaged? Lord A./ Why, there's that bore of a Committee
at the House till 2. (_Kissing her hand_).' And so forth, to the
astonishment of the auditory, who did not exactly see the 'sequitur'
in either instance. Well, dearest, whatever comes of it, the 'aside,'
the bye-play, the digression, will be the best, and only true business
of the piece. And though I must smile at your notion of securing
_that_ by any fresh appliance, mechanical or spiritual, yet I do thank
you, dearest, thank you from my heart indeed--(and I write with
Bramahs _always_--not being able to make a pen!)

If you have gone so far with 'Luria,' I fancy myself nearly or
altogether safe. I must not tell you, but I wished just these feelings
to be in your mind about Domizia, and the death of