ity--mark it, as a
general rule! The good, they see--the great escapes them. Dare to
breathe a breath above the close, flat conventions of literature, and
you are 'put down' and instructed how to be like other people. By the
way, see by the very last number, that you never think to write
'peoples,' on pain of writing what is obsolete--and these the teachers
of the public! If the public does not learn, where is the marvel of
it? An imitation of Shelley!--when if 'Paracelsus' was anything it was
the expression of a new mind, as all might see--as _I_ saw, let me be
proud to remember, and I was not overdazzled by 'Ion.'

Ah, indeed if I could 'rake and hoe' ... or even pick up weeds along
the walk, ... which is the work of the most helpless children, ... if
I could do any of this, there would be some good of me: but as for
'shining' ... shining ... when there is not so much light in me as to
do 'carpet work' by, why let anyone in the world, _except you_, tell
me to shine, and it will just be a mockery! But you have studied
astronomy with your favourite snails, who are apt to take a
dark-lanthorn for the sun, and so.--

And so, you come on Thursday, and I only hope that Mrs. Jameson will
not come too, (the carpet work makes me think of her; and, not having
come yet, she may come on Thursday by a fatal cross-stitch!) for I do
not hear from her, and my precautions are 'watched out,' May God bless
you always.

Your own--

But no--I did not forgive. Where was the fault to be forgiven, except
in _me_, for not being right in my meaning?

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, December 12, 1845.]

And now, my heart's love, I am waiting to hear from you; my heart is
_full_ of you. When I try to remember what I said yesterday, _that_
thought, of what fills my heart--only _that_ makes me bear with the
memory.... I know that even such imperfect, poorest of words _must_
have come _from_ thence if not bearing up to you all that is
there--and I know you are ever above me to receive, and help, and
forgive, and _wait_ for the one day which I will never say to myself
cannot come, when I shall speak what I feel--more of it--or _some_ of
it--for now nothing is spoken.

My all-beloved--

Ah, you opposed very rightly, I dare say, the writing that paper I
spoke of! The process should be so much simpler! I most earnestly
_exp