ite to me again,
will you not? And be as brief as your heart lets you, to me who hoard
up your words and get remote and imperfect ideas of what ... shall it
be written?... anger at you could mean, when I see a line blotted out;
a _second-thoughted_ finger-tip rapidly put forth upon one of my gold
pieces!

I rather think if Warburton reviews me it will be in the _Quarterly_,
which I know he writes for. Hanmer is a very sculpturesque passionless
high-minded and amiable man ... this coldness, as you see it, is part
of him. I like his poems, I think, better than you--'the Sonnets,' do
you know them? Not 'Fra Cipolla.' See what is here, since you will not
let me have only you to look at--this is Landor's first
opinion--expressed to Forster--see the date! and last of all, see me
and know me, beloved! May God bless you!

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, November 22, 1845.]

Mr. Kenyon came yesterday--and do you know when he took out those
verses and spoke his preface and I understood what was to follow, I
had a temptation from my familiar Devil not to say I had read them
before--I had the temptation strong and clear. For he (Mr. K.) told me
that your sister let him see them--.

But no--My 'vade retro' prevailed, and I spoke the truth and shamed
the devil and surprised Mr. Kenyon besides, as I could observe. Not an
observation did he make till he was just going away half an hour
afterwards, and then he said rather dryly ... 'And now may I ask how
long ago it was when you first read these verses?--was it a fortnight
ago?' It was better, I think, that I should not have made a mystery of
such a simple thing, ... and yet I felt half vexed with myself and
with him besides. But the verses,--how he praised them! more than I
thought of doing ... as verses--though there is beauty and music and
all that ought to be. Do you see clearly now that the latter lines
refer to the combination in you,--the qualities over and above those
held in common with Chaucer? And I have heard this morning from two or
three of the early readers of the _Chronicle_ (I never care to see it
till the evening) that the verses are there--so that my wishes have
fulfilled themselves _there_ at least--strangely, for wishes of mine
... which generally 'go by contraries' as the soothsayers declare of
dreams. How kind of you to send me the fragment to Mr. Forster! and
how I like to read it. Was t