November 29, 1845

This letter from Miss Barrett was written immediately following the letter mailed November 28, but did not make the post until November 29th when she finally sent off the offering of her hair.

"Saturday evening

This is the mere postscript to the letter I have just sent away. By a few minutes too late, comes what I have all day been waiting for, .. & besides (now it is just too late!) now I may have a skein of silk if I please, to make that knot with, .. for want of which, two locks, meant for you, have been devoted to the infernal gods already .. fallen into a tangle & thrown into the fire .. & all the hair of my head might have followed, for I was losing my patience & temper fast, .. & the post to boot. So wisely I shut my letter, (after unwisely having driven everything to the last moment!)—& now I have silk to tie fast with .. to tie a ‘nodus’ .. ‘dignus’['a knot come worthy'] of the celestial interposition—& a new packet shall be ready to go to you directly."

 

I should love to see Miss Barrett lose her temper. Do you suppose, despite all her shy ways, that when really torqued she swore like a sailor and made emphatic gestures with her fingers the way the bowmen did at Agincourt?

 

"At last I remember to tell you that the first letter you had from me this week, was forgotten, (not by me) forgotten, & detained, so, from the post—a piece of carelessness which Wilson came to confess to me too frankly for me to grumble as I should have done otherwise.

For the staying longer, I did not mean to say you were wrong not to stay. In the first place you were keeping your father ‘in a maze’, as you said yourself—& then, even without that, I never know what o’-clock it is .. never. Mr Kenyon tells me that I must live in a dream—which I do.—time goes .. seeming to go round rather than go forward. The watch I have, broke its spring two years ago, & there, I leave it in the drawer .. & the clocks all round, strike out of hearing, or at best, when the wind brings the sound, one upon another in a confusion. So you know more of time than I do or can."

 

There is a major gift hint. Men, pay attention to these little hints. It helps around birthdays, anniversaries and corporately mandated gift days like Valentines and Mothers Day.

 

"Till monday then! I send the ‘Ricordi’ to take care of the rest .. of mine. It is a touching story—& there is an impracticable nobleness from end to end in the spirit of it. How slow (to the ear & mind) that Italian rhetoric is! a language for dreamers & declaimers. Yet Dante made it for action—& Machiavelli’s prose can walk & strike as well as float & faint.

The ring is smaller than I feared at first, & may perhaps.—

Now you will not say a word. My excuse is that you had nothing to remember me by, while I had this & this & this & this .. had much too much!

If I could be too much

Your EBB"

 

And DO NOT SPEAK ABOUT THE HAIR OR RING! DO NOT  YOU DO IT!