enclose to show you how it accounts reasonably for the
ink--I did it 'in a pet,' he thinks! And I ought to buy you a new
book--certainly I ought--only it is not worth doing justice for--and I
shall therefore send it back to you spoilt as it is; and you must
forgive me as magnanimously as you can.

'Omne ignotum pro magnifico'--do you think _so_? I hope not indeed!
_vo quietando_--and everything else that I ought to do--except of
course, _that_ thinking of you which is so difficult.

May God bless you. Till to-morrow!

Your own always.

Mr. Kenyon refers to 'Festus'--of which I had said that the fine
things were worth looking for, in the design manque.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 9, 1846.]

You never think, ever dearest, that I 'repent'--why what a word to
use! You never could _think_ such a word for a moment! If you were to
leave me even,--to decide that it is best for you to do it, and do
it,--I should accede at once of course, but never should I nor could I
'repent' ... regret anything ... be sorry for having known you and
loved you ... no! Which I say simply to prove that, in _no_ extreme
case, could I repent for my own sake. For yours, it might be
different.

_Not_ out of 'generosity' certainly, but from the veriest selfishness,
I choose here, before God, any possible present evil, rather than the
future consciousness of feeling myself less to you, on the whole, than
another woman might have been.

Oh, these vain and most heathenish repetitions--do I not vex you by
them, _you_ whom I would always please, and never vex? Yet they force
their way because you are the best noblest and dearest in the world,
and because your happiness is so precious a thing.

Cloth of frieze, be not too bold,
Though thou'rt matched with cloth of gold!

--_that_, beloved, was written for _me_. And you, if you would make me
happy, _always_ will look at yourself from my ground and by my light,
as I see you, and consent to be selfish in all things. Observe, that
if I were _vacillating_, I should not be so weak as to tease you with
the process of the vacillation: I should wait till my pendulum ceased
swinging. It is precisely because I am your own, past any retraction
or wish of retraction,--because I belong to you by gift and ownership,
and am ready and willing to prove it before the wo