ess you.

E.B.B.

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

Wednesday Morning,
[Post-mark, August 27, 1845.]

On the subject of your letter--quite irrespective of the injunction in
it--I would not have dared speak; now, at least. But I may permit
myself, perhaps, to say I am _most_ grateful, _most grateful_, dearest
friend, for this admission to participate, in my degree, in these
feelings. There is a better thing than being happy in your happiness;
I feel, now that you teach me, it is so. I will write no more now;
though that sentence of 'what you are _expecting_,--that I shall be
tired of you &c.,'--though I _could_ blot that out of your mind for
ever by a very few words _now_,--for you _would believe_ me at this
moment, close on the other subject:--but I will take no such
advantage--I will wait.

I have many things (indifferent things, after those) to say; will you
write, if but a few lines, to change the associations for that
purpose? Then I will write too.--

May God bless you,--in what is past and to come! I pray that from my
heart, being yours

R.B.

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

Wednesday Morning,
[Post-mark, August 27, 1845.]

But your 'Saul' is unobjectionable as far as I can see, my dear
friend. He was tormented by an evil spirit--but how, we are not told
... and the consolation is not obliged to be definite, ... is it? A
singer was sent for as a singer--and all that you are called upon to
be true to, are the general characteristics of David the chosen,
standing between his sheep and his dawning hereafter, between
innocence and holiness, and with what you speak of as the 'gracious
gold locks' besides the chrism of the prophet, on his own head--and
surely you have been happy in the tone and spirit of these lyrics ...
broken as you have left them. Where is the wrong in all this? For the
right and beauty, they are more obvious--and I cannot tell you how the
poem holds me and will not let me go until it blesses me ... and so,
where are the 'sixty lines' thrown away? I do beseech you ... you who
forget nothing, ... to remember them directly, and to go on with the
rest ... _as_ directly (be it understood) as is not injurious to your
health. The whole conception of the poem, I like ... and the execution
is