ect_ of you, my love, that in the event of any such necessity as
was then alluded to, you accept at once in my name _any_ conditions
possible for a human will to submit to--there is no imaginable
condition to which you allow me to accede that I will not joyfully
bend all my faculties to comply with. And you know this--but so, also
do you know _more_ ... and yet 'I may tire of you'--'may forget you'!

I will write again, having the long, long week to wait! And one of the
things I must say, will be, that with my love, I cannot lose my pride
in you--that nothing _but_ that love could balance that pride--and
that, blessing the love so divinely, you must minister to the pride as
well; yes, my own--I shall follow your fame,--and, better than fame,
the good you do--in the world--and, if you please, it shall all be
mine--as your hand, as your eyes--

I will write and pray it from you into a promise ... and your promises
I live upon.

May God bless you! your R.B.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, December 13, 1845.]

Do not blame me in your thoughts for what I said yesterday or wrote a
day before, or think perhaps on the dark side of some other days when
I cannot help it ... always when I cannot help it--you could not
blame me if you saw the full motives as I feel them. If it is
distrust, it is not of _you_, dearest of all!--but of myself
rather:--it is not doubt _of_ you, but _for_ you. From the beginning I
have been subject to the too reasonable fear which rises as my spirits
fall, that your happiness might suffer in the end through your having
known me:--it is for _you_ I fear, whenever I fear:--and if you were
less to me, ... _should_ I fear do you think?--if you were to me only
what I am to myself for instance, ... if your happiness were only as
precious as my own in my own eyes, ... should I fear, do you think,
_then_? Think, and do not blame me.

To tell you to 'forget me when forgetting seemed happiest for you,'
... (was it not _that_, I said?) proved more affection than might go
in smoother words.... I could prove the truth of _that_ out of my
heart.

And for the rest, you need not fear any fear of mine--my fear will not
cross a wish of yours, be sure! Neither does it prevent your being all
to me ... all: more than I used to take for all when I looked round
the world, ... almost more than I took for all in my earliest dreams.
You stand in betw