boon'--once my answer to _that_ had
been the plain one--but now ... when I have better experience of--No,
now I have BEST experience of how you understand my interests; that at
last we _both_ know what is my true good--so ask, ask! _My own_, now!
For there it is!--oh, do not fear I am '_entangled_'--my crown is
loose on my head, not nailed there--my pearl lies in my hand--I may
return it to the sea, if I will!

What is it you ask of me, this first asking?

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

[Post-mark, September 29, 1845.]

Then _first_, ... first, I ask you not to misunderstand. Because we do
not ... no, we do not ... agree (but disagree) as to 'what is your
true good' ... but disagree, and as widely as ever indeed.

The other asking shall come in its season ... some day before I go, if
I go. It only relates to a restitution--and you cannot guess it if you
try ... so don't try!--and perhaps you can't grant it if you try--and
I cannot guess.

Cabins and berths all taken in the Malta steamer for both third and
twentieth of October! see what dark lanterns the stars hold out, and
how I shall stay in England after all as I think! And thus we are
thrown back on the old Gibraltar scheme with its shifting of steamers
... unless we take the dreary alternative of Madeira!--or Cadiz! Even
suppose Madeira, ... why it were for a few months alone--and there
would be no temptation to loiter as in Italy.

_Don't_ think too hardly of poor Papa. You have his wrong side ... his
side of peculiar wrongness ... to you just now. When you have walked
round him you will have other thoughts of him.

Are you better, I wonder? and taking exercise and trying to be better?
May God bless you! Tuesday need not be the last day if you like to
take one more besides--for there is no going until the fourth or
seventh, ... and the seventh is the more probable of those two. But
now you have done with me until Tuesday.

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, October 1, 1845.]

I have read to the last line of your 'Rosicrucian'; and my scepticism
grew and grew through Hume's process of doubtful doubts, and at last
rose to the full stature of incredulity ... for I never could believe
Shelley capable of such a book (call it a book!), not even