[28 June 1846]. Browning, Robert to Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.

              Sunday.

My last letter will have answered this of yours, my dearest,-I agree in all you say: and sooner or later comes to the same thing, if to any possible increase of difficulty is brought a proportionate increase of strength to undergo it-as let us hope will be the case! So you see you have to “understand” and understand me,-I keep your faculty in constant exercise, now with seeming to wish for postponement, and now, for anticipation! And all the time do I really “grow greater” in your eyes? I might grow less, woefully,-“for reasons-for reasons”-

The sea will not be frozen, beside .. which makes me think to tell you that Carlyle is wanting to visit only one foreign country-Iceland. The true cradle of the North men and their virtues .. all that is worth a north man’s caring to see is there, he thinks, and nowise in Italy- Perhaps! Indeed, so I reason and say[.]