Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work. - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Flush likes civilised life, and the society of little dogs with turned-up tails, such as Florence abounds with. Unhappily it abounds also with fleas, which afflict poor Flush to the verge sometimes of despair. Fancy Robert and me down on our knees combing him, with a basin of water on one side! He suffers to such a degree from fleas that I cannot bear to witness it. He tears off his pretty curls through the irritation. Do you know of a remedy?

The world of books is still the world, I write, And both worlds have God’s providence, thank God, To keep and hearten: with some struggle, indeed, Among the breakers, some hard swimming through The deeps - I lost breath in my soul sometimes And cried, ”God save me if there’s any God,” But even so, God saved me; and, being dashed From error on to error, every turn Still brought me nearer to the central truth.

Here's ivy! — take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.