ief poets except
Dante have seen, felt, and written it so. Thus and therefore was
matured his purpose of writing an 'ode to joy,' as I told you. The man
seems to have very good thoughts, ... but he writes like a colder
Cowley still ... no impulse, no heat for fusing ... no inspiration, in
fact. Though I have scarcely done more than glance at his 'Passion
week,' and have little right to give an opinion.

If you have killed Luria as you helped to kill my violets, what shall
I say, do you fancy? Well--we shall see! Do not kill yourself,
beloved, in any case! The [Greek: iostephanoi Mousai] had better die
themselves first! Ah--what am I writing? What nonsense? I mean, in
deep earnest, the deepest, that you should take care and exercise, and
not be vexed for Luria's sake--Luria will have his triumph presently!
May God bless you--prays your own

BA.

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

Tuesday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, March 24, 1846.]

My own dearest, if you _do_--(for I confess to nothing of the kind),
but if you _should_ detect an unwillingness to write at certain times,
what would that prove,--I mean, what that one need shrink from
avowing? If I never had you before me except when writing letters to
you--then! Why, we do not even _talk_ much now! witness Mr. Buckingham
and his voyage that ought to have been discussed!--Oh, how coldly I
should write,--how the bleak-looking paper would seem unpropitious to
carry my feeling--if all had to begin and try to find words _this_
way!

Now, this morning I have been out--to town and back--and for all the
walking my head aches--and I have the conviction that presently when I
resign myself to think of you wholly, with only the pretext,--the
make-believe of occupation, in the shape of some book to turn over the
leaves of,--I shall see you and soon be well; so soon! You must know,
there is a chair (one of the kind called gond_o_la-chairs by
upholsterers--with an emphasized o)--which occupies the precise place,
stands just in the same relation to this chair I sit on now, that
yours stands in and occupies--to the left of the fire: and, how often,
how _always_ I turn in the dusk and _see_ the dearest real Ba with me.

How entirely kind to take that trouble, give those sittings for me! Do
you think the kindness has missed its due effect? _No, no_, I am
glad,--(_knowing what I_ no