[26 July 1846]. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett to Browning, Robert.

              Sunday-

Why should you ask such a question of me yesterday, as to whether I loved you as much then as ever? Love you as much? Why should I not love you more? .. to give question for question. And it does seem to me, too, that my question is more reasonable than yours- ‘Is it afternoon at six oclock’, you might have asked in the same breath with yours, and touched, so, as questionable a matter-

Tell me how the evening passed at Mr Kenyon’s. I have seen nobody yet-not him, not Mrs Jameson.

Seen nobody? Except all the Hedleys, who have just left my room. Do you know, the pomp & circumstance the noise & fuss & publicity of this marriage of theirs happen just in time to make me satisfied with “quite the other principle” as you said-the system they are carrying