elf. How
is your head to-day? now really, and nothing extenuating? I will not
ask of poems, till the 'quite well' is _authentic_. May God bless you
always! my dear friend!

E.B.B.

After all the book must go another day. I live in chaos do you know?
and I am too hurried at this moment ... yes it is here.

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

Tuesday Morning.

How are you--may I hope to hear soon?

I don't know exactly what possessed me to set my next day so far off
as Saturday--as it was said, however, so let it be. And I will bring
the rest of the 'Duchess'--four or five hundred lines,--'heu, herba
mala crescit'--(as I once saw mournfully pencilled on a white wall at
Asolo)--but will you tell me if you quite remember the main of the
_first_ part--(_parts_ there are none except in the necessary process
of chopping up to suit the limits of a magazine--and I gave them as
much as I could transcribe at a sudden warning)--because, if you
please, I can bring the whole, of course.

After seeing _you_, that Saturday, I was caught up by a friend and
carried to see Vidocq--who did the honours of his museum of knives and
nails and hooks that have helped great murderers to their purposes--he
scarcely admits, I observe, an implement with only one attestation to
its efficacy; but the one or two exceptions rather justify his
latitude in their favour--thus one little sort of dessert knife _did_
only take _one_ life.... 'But then,' says Vidocq, 'it was the man's
own mother's life, with fifty-two blows, and all for' (I think)
'fifteen francs she had got?' So prattles good-naturedly Vidocq--one
of his best stories of that Lacenaire--'jeune homme d'un caractere
fort avenant--mais c'etait un poete,' quoth he, turning sharp on _me_
out of two or three other people round him.

Here your letter breaks in, and sunshine too.

Why do you send me that book--not let me take it? What trouble for
nothing!

An old French friend of mine, a dear foolish, very French heart and
soul, is coming presently--his poor brains are whirling with mesmerism
in which he believes, as in all other unbelief. He and I are to dine
alone (I have not seen him these two years)--and I shall never be able
to keep from driving the great wedge right through his breast and
descending lower, from riveting his two foolish legs to the wintry
chasm; for I that stammer and answer hap-hazar