unsettle that sweet calm tranquillity, when I had
nothing to offer him instead? I could not say, "Go to Rome;" else I
should have shown him the way. Yet I offered myself for his examination.
One day he led the way to my speaking out; but, rightly or wrongly, I
could not respond. My reason was, "I have no certainty on the matter
myself. To say 'I think' is to tease and to distress, not to persuade."

I wrote to him on Michaelmas Day, 1843: "As you may suppose, I have
nothing to write to you about, pleasant. I _could_ tell you some very
painful things; but it is best not to anticipate trouble, which after
all can but happen, and, for what one knows, may be averted. You are
always so kind, that sometimes, when I part with you, I am nearly moved
to tears, and it would be a relief to be so, at your kindness and at my
hardness. I think no one ever had such kind friends as I have."

The next year, January 22, I wrote to him: "Pusey has quite enough on
him, and generously takes on himself more than enough, for me to add
burdens when I am not obliged; particularly too, when I am very
conscious, that there _are_ burdens, which I am or shall be obliged to
lay upon him some time or other, whether I will or no."

And on February 21: "Half-past ten. I am just up, having a bad cold; the
like has not happened to me (except twice in January) in my memory. You
may think you have been in my thoughts, long before my rising. Of course
you are so continually, as you well know. I could not come to see you; I
am not worthy of friends. With my opinions, to the full of which I dare
not confess, I feel like a guilty person with others, though I trust I
am not so. People kindly think that I have much to bear externally,
disappointment, slander, &c. No, I have nothing to bear, but the anxiety
which I feel for my friends' anxiety for me, and their perplexity. This
is a better Ash-Wednesday than birthday present;" [his birthday was the
same day as mine; it was Ash-Wednesday that year;] "but I cannot help
writing about what is uppermost. And now, my dear B., all kindest and
best wishes to you, my oldest friend, whom I must not speak more about,
and with reference to myself, lest you should be angry." It was not in
his nature to have doubts: he used to look at me with anxiety, and
wonder what had come over me.

On Easter Monday: "All that is good and gracious descend upon you and
yours from the influences of this Blessed Season; and it will be so, (s