do the same by the
polka), and _I_, of course, much sooner, if I did not ponder these
things, and amend my ways, and take to reading 'a course of history'!!
Indeed I do not exaggerate. And just so, for a long while I was
persecuted and pestered ... vexed thoroughly sometimes ... my own
family, instructed to sing the burden out all day long--until the time
when the subject was suddenly changed by my heart being broken by that
great stone that fell out of Heaven. Afterwards I was let do anything
I could best ... which was very little, until last year--and the
working, last year, did much for me in giving me stronger roots down
into life, ... much. But think of that absurd reasoning that went
before!--the _niaiserie_ of it! For, granting all the premises all
round, it is not the _utterance_ of a thought that _can_ hurt anybody;
while only the utterance is dependent on the will; and so, what can
the taking away of an inkstand do? Those physicians are such
metaphysicians! It's curious to listen to them. And it's wise to leave
off listening: though I have met with excessive kindness among them,
... and do not refer to Dr. Chambers in any of this, of course.

I am very glad you went to Chelsea--and it seemed finer afterwards, on
purpose to make room for the divine philosophy. Which reminds me (the
going to Chelsea) that my brother Henry confessed to me yesterday,
with shame and confusion of face, to having mistaken and taken your
umbrella for another belonging to a cousin of ours then in the house.
He saw you ... without conjecturing, just at the moment, who you were.
Do _you_ conjecture sometimes that I live all alone here like Mariana
in the moated Grange? It is not quite so--: but where there are many,
as with us, every one is apt to follow his own devices--and my father
is out all day and my brothers and sisters are in and out, and with
too large a public of noisy friends for me to bear, ... and I see them
only at certain hours, ... except, of course, my sisters. And then as
you have 'a reputation' and are opined to talk generally in blank
verse, it is not likely that there should be much irreverent rushing
into this room when you are known to be in it.

The flowers are ... so beautiful! Indeed it was wrong, though, to send
me the last. It was not just to the lawful possessors and enjoyers of
them. That it was kind to _me_ I do not forget.

You are too teachable a pupil in the art of obliterating--and _omne
ignotum pro