no stop at all, in this wicked little note which got so
treacherously the kisses and the thankfulness--written with no
penholder that is to belong to me, I hope--but with the feather,
possibly, which Sycorax wiped the dew from, as Caliban remembered when
he was angry! All but--(that is, all was wrong but)--to be just ...
the old, dear, so dear ending which makes my heart beat now as at
first ... and so, pays for all! Wherefore, all is right again, is it
not? and you are my own priceless Ba, my very own--and I will have
you, if you like that style, and want you, and must have you every day
and all day long--much less see you to-morrow _stand_--

... Now, there breaks down my new spirit--and, shame or no, I must
pray you, in the old way, _not_ to _receive me standing_--I should not
remain master of myself I do believe!

You have put out of my head all I intended to write--and now I slowly
begin to remember the matters they seem strangely unimportant--that
poor impotency of a Newspaper! No--nothing of that for the present.
To-morrow my dearest! Ba's first comment--'_To-morrow?_ _To-day_ is
too soon, it seems--yet it is wise, perhaps, to avoid the satiety &c.
&c. &c. &c. &c.'

Does she feel how I kissed that comment back on her dear self as fit
punishment?

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

[Post-mark, January 26, 1846.]

I must begin by invoking my own stupidity! To forget after all the
penholder! I had put it close beside me too on the table, and never
once thought of it afterwards from first to last--just as I should do
if I had a common-place book, the memoranda all turning to
obliviscenda as by particular contact. So I shall send the holder with
Miss Martineau's books which you can read or not as you like ... they
have beauty in passages ... but, trained up against the wall of a set
design, want room for branching and blossoming, great as her skill is.
I like her 'Playfellow' stories twice as well. Do you know _them_?
Written for children, and in such a fine heroic child-spirit as to be
too young and too old for nobody. Oh, and I send you besides a most
frightful extract from an American magazine sent to me yesterday ...
no, the day before ... on the subject of mesmerism--and you are to
understand, if you please, that the Mr. Edgar Poe who stands committed
in it, is my dedicator ... whose dedication I forgot, by the way, with
the rest--so, while I am sending, you shall have his poems with his