terrifico_ ... and therefore I won't frighten you by
walking to meet you for fear of being frightened myself.

So good-bye until Tuesday. I ought not to make you read all this, I
know, whether you like to read it or not: and I ought not to have
written it, having no better reason than because I like to write on
and on. _You_ have better reasons for thinking me very weak--and I,
too good ones for not being able to reproach you for that natural and
necessary opinion.

May God bless you my dearest friend.

E.B.B.

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

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]

What can I say, or hope to say to you when I see what you do for me?

_This_--for myself, (nothing for _you_!)--_this_, that I think the
great, great good I get by your kindness strikes me less than that
kindness.

All is right, too--

Come, I WILL have my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my
_utterest_ hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the
plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters--and the
Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from two
lines of a legend that delighted my infancy, and now instruct my
maturer years in pretty nearly all they boast of the semi-mythologic
era referred to--'In London town, when reigned King Lud, His lords
went stomping thro' the mud'--would all historic records were half as
picturesque!)

But you know, yes, _you_ know you are too indulgent by far--and treat
these roughnesses as if they were advanced to many a stage! Meantime
the pure gain is mine, and better, the kind generous spirit is mine,
(mine to profit by)--and best--best--best, the dearest friend is mine,

So be happy

R.B.

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

[Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]

Yes, I admit that it was stupid to read that word so wrong. I thought
there was a mistake somewhere, but that it was _yours_, who had
written one word, meaning to write another. 'Cower' puts it all right
of course. But is there an English word of a significance different
from 'stamp,' in 'stomp?' Does not the old word King Lud's men
stomped withal, claim identity with our 'stamping.' The _a_ and _o_
used to 'change about,' you know, in the old English writers--see