nds of God, who is merciful, trusting Him with the time that shall
be.

Arabel would have gone to tell you all this a fortnight since, but one
of my brothers has been ill with fever which was not exactly typhus,
but of the typhoid character, and we knew that you would rather
not see her under the circumstances. He is very much better (it is
Octavius), and has been out of bed to-day and yesterday.

Do not reproach me either for not writing or for not going, my very
dear friend. I have been too heavy-hearted for words; and as to the
deeds, you would not have wished me to lead others into difficulties,
the extent and result of which no one could calculate. It would not
have been just of me.

And _you_, how are you, and what are you doing?

May God bless you, my dear dear friend!

Ever yours I am, affectionately and gratefully,
E.B.B.

_To Mr. Chorley_
50 Wimpole Street: November 1845.

I must trouble you with another letter of thanks, dear Mr. Chorley,
now that I have to thank you for the value of the work as well as
the kindness of the gift, for I have read your three volumes of
'Pomfret'[137] with interest and moral assent, and with great pleasure
in various ways: it is a pure, true book without effort, which, in
these days of gesture and rolling of the eyes, is an uncommon thing.
Also you make your 'private judgment' work itself out quietly as a
simple part of the love of truth, instead of being the loud heroic
virtue it is so apt in real life to profess itself, seldom moving
without drums and trumpets and the flying of party colours. All these
you have put down rightly, wisely, and boldly, and it was, in my mind,
no less wise than bold of you to let in that odour of Tyrrwhitism into
the folds of the purple, and so prevent the very possibility of any
'prestige.' If I complained it might be that your 'private judgment'
confines its reference to 'public opinion,' and shuns, too proudly
perhaps, the higher and deeper relations of human responsibility. But
there are difficulties, I see, and you choose your path advisedly, of
course. The best character in the book I take to be _Rose_; I
cannot hesitate in selecting him. He is so lifelike with the world's
conventional life that you hear his footsteps when he walks, and,
indeed, I think his boots were apt to creak just the _soupcon_ of
a creak, just as a gentleman's boots might, and he is excellently
consistent, even down to the choice of a wife whom he could patro