Letter XXV

I have no news for you at all of anyone: all inside the house is a
simmer of peace and quiet, with blinds drawn down against the heat the
whole day long. No callers; and as for me, I never call elsewhere. The
gossips about here eke out a precarious existence by washing each
other's dirty linen in public: and the process never seems to result in
any satisfactory cleansing.

I avoid saying what news I trust to-morrow's post-bag may contain for
me. Every wish I send you comes "from the spleen," which means I am very
healthy, and, conditionally, as happy as is good for me. Pray God bless
my dear Share of the world, and make him get well for his own and my
sake! Amen.

This catches the noon post, an event which always shows I am jubilant,
with a lot of the opposite to a "little death" feeling running over my
nerves. I feel the grass growing under me: the reverse of poor Keats'
complaint. Good-by, Beloved, till I find my way into the provender of
to-morrow's post-bag.