dealing out one sort of cards to me and everybody else'--but that
... why, '_that_' which I have, I hope, said, so need not resay. I
will tell you--Sydney Smith laughs somewhere at some Methodist or
other whose wont was, on meeting an acquaintance in the street, to
open at once on him with some enquiry after the state of his
soul--Sydney knows better now, and sees that one might quite as wisely
ask such questions as the price of Illinois stock or condition of
glebe-land,--and I _could_ say such--'could,'--the plague of it! So no
more at present from your loving.... Or, let me tell you I am going to
see Mr. Kenyon on the 12th inst.--that you do not tell me how you are,
and that yet if you do not continue to improve in health ... I shall
not see you--not--not--not--what 'knots' to untie! Surely the wind
that sets my chestnut-tree dancing, all its baby-cone-blossoms, green
now, rocking like fairy castles on a hill in an earthquake,--that is
South West, surely! God bless you, and me in that--and do write to me
soon, and tell me who was the 'flatterer,' and how he never was

Yours

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Monday--and Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 6, 1845.]

So when wise people happen to be ill, they sit up till six o'clock in
the morning and get up again at nine? Do tell me how Lurias can ever
be made out of such ungodly imprudences. If the wind blows east or
west, where can any remedy be, while such evil deeds are being
committed? And what is to be the end of it? And what is the
reasonableness of it in the meantime, when we all know that thinking,
dreaming, creating people like yourself, have two lives to bear
instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others, ...
throwing over and buckling in that fold of death, to stroke the
life-purple smoother. You have to live your own personal life, and
also Luria's life--and therefore you should sleep for both. It is
logical indeed--and rational, ... which logic is not always ... and if
I had 'the tongue of men and of angels,' I would use it to persuade
you. Polka, for the rest, may be good; but sleep is better. I think
better of sleep than I ever did, now that she will not easily come
near me except in a red hood of poppies. And besides, ... praise your
'goodnatured body' as you like, ... it i