philosophy of it make you 'melancholy,'
ever dearest, more than the other arts, which each has the seal of the
age, modifying itself after a fashion and _to_ one? Because it changes
more, perhaps. Yet all the Arts are mediators between the soul and the
Infinite, ... shifting always like a mist, between the Breath on this
side, and the Light on that side ... shifted and coloured; mediators,
messengers, projected from the Soul, to go and feel, for Her, _out
there_!

You don't call me 'kind' I confess--but then you call me 'too kind'
which is nearly as bad, you must allow on your part. Only you were not
in earnest when you said _that_, as it appeared afterward. _Were_ you,
yesterday, in pretending to think that I owed you nothing ... _I_?

May God bless you. He knows that to give myself to you, is not to pay
you. Such debts are not so paid.

Yet I am your

BA.

_People's Journal_ for March 7th.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, March 10, 1846.]

Dear, dear Ba, if you were here I should not much _speak_ to you, not
at first--nor, indeed, at last,--but as it is, sitting alone, only
words can be spoken, or (worse) written, and, oh how different to look
into the eyes and imagine what _might_ be said, what ought to be said,
though it never can be--and to sit and say and write, and only imagine
who looks above me, looks down, understanding and pardoning all! My
love, my Ba, the fault you found once with some expressions of mine
about the amount of imperishable pleasures already hoarded in my mind,
the indestructible memories of you; that fault, which I refused to
acquiesce under the imputation of, at first, you remember--well,
_what_ a fault it was, by this better light! If all stopped here and
now; horrible! complete oblivion were the thing to be prayed for,
rather! As it is, _now_, I must go on, must live the life out, and die
yours. And you are doing your utmost to advance the event of
events,--the exercise, and consequently (is it not?) necessarily
improved sleep, and the projects for the fine days, the walking ... a
pure bliss to think of! Well, now--I think I shall show seamanship of
a sort, and 'try another tack'--do not be over bold, my sweetest; the
cold _is_ considerable,--taken into account the previous mildness. One
ill-advised