which became as I say, in the knowledge of it, a
plague when brought before me _with_ the thought of you,--if I passed
this slightly over it was for pure unaffected shame that I should take
up the care and stop the 'reverie serene' of--ah, the rhyme _lets_ me
say--'sweetest eyes were ever seen'--were _ever_ seen! And yourself
confess, in the Saturday's note, to having been 'unhappy for half an
hour till' &c. &c.--and do not I feel _that_ here, and am not I
plagued by it?

Well, having begun at the end of your letter, dearest, I will go back
gently (that is backwards) and tell you I 'sate thinking' too, and
with no greater comfort, on the cold yesterday. The pond before the
window was frozen ('so as to bear sparrows' somebody said) and I knew
you would feel it--'but you are not unwell'--really? thank God--and
the month wears on. Beside I have got a reassurance--you asked me once
if I were superstitious, I remember (as what do I forget that you
say?). However that may be, yesterday morning as I turned to look for
a book, an old fancy seized me to try the 'sortes' and dip into the
first page of the first I chanced upon, for my fortune; I said 'what
will be the event of my love for Her'--in so many words--and my book
turned out to be--'Cerutti's Italian Grammar!'--a propitious source of
information ... the best to be hoped, what could it prove but some
assurance that you were in the Dative Case, or I, not in the ablative
absolute? I do protest that, with the knowledge of so many horrible
pitfalls, or rather spring guns with wires on every bush ... such
dreadful possibilities of stumbling on 'conditional moods,' 'imperfect
tenses,' 'singular numbers,'--I should have been too glad to put up
with the safe spot for the sole of my foot though no larger than
afforded by such a word as 'Conjunction,' 'possessive pronoun--,'
secure so far from poor Tippet's catastrophe. Well, I ventured, and
what did I find? _This_--which I copy from the book now--'_If we love
in the other world as we do in this, I shall love thee to
eternity_'--from 'Promiscuous Exercises,' to be translated into
Italian, at the end.

And now I reach Horne and his characteristics--of which I can tell you
with confidence that they are grossly misrepresented where not
altogether false--whether it proceed from inability to see what one
may see, or disinclination, I cannot say. I know very little of Horne,
but my one visit to him a few weeks ago would show the uncand