ne by me worthy such a name.

God bless you, dearest friend--shall I hear from you before Tuesday?

Ever your own

R.B.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]

It is very kind to send these flowers--too kind--why are they sent?
and without one single word ... which is not too kind certainly. I
looked down into the heart of the roses and turned the carnations over
and over to the peril of their leaves, and in vain! Not a word do I
deserve to-day, I suppose! And yet if I don't, I don't deserve the
flowers either. There should have been an equal justice done to my
demerits, O Zeus with the scales!

After all I do thank you for these flowers--and they are
beautiful--and they came just in a right current of time, just when I
wanted them, or something like them--so I confess _that_ humbly, and
do thank you, at last, rather as I ought to do. Only you ought not to
give away all the flowers of your garden to _me_; and your sister
thinks so, be sure--if as silently as you sent them. Now I shall not
write any more, not having been written to. What with the Wednesday's
flowers and these, you may think how I in this room, look down on the
gardens of Damascus, let _your Jew_[1] say what he pleases of
_them_--and the Wednesday's flowers are as fresh and beautiful, I must
explain, as the new ones. They were quite supererogatory ... the new
ones ... in the sense of being flowers. Now, the sense of what I am
writing seems questionable, does it not?--at least, more so, than the
nonsense of it.

Not a word, even under the little blue flowers!!!--

E.B.B.

[Footnote 1: 'R. Benjamin of Tudela' added in Robert Browning's
handwriting.]

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

Sunday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, August 11, 1845.]

How good you are to the smallest thing I try and do--(to show I
_would_ please you for an instant if I could, rather than from any
hope such poor efforts as I am restricted to, can please you or
ought.) And that you should care for the note that was not there!--But
I was surprised by the summons to seal and deliver, since time and the
carrier were peremptory--and so, I dared divine, almost, I should hear
from you by our mid-day po