R.B. to E.B.B.
Friday Morning.
As if I could deny you anything! Here is the Review—indeed it was foolish to mind your seeing it at all. But now, may I stipulate?—You shall not send it back—but on your table I shall find and take it next Tuesday—c'est convenu! The other precious volume has not yet come to hand (nor to foot) all through your being so sure that to carry it home would have been the death of me last evening!
I cannot write my feelings in this large writing, begun on such a scale for the Review's sake; and just now—there is no denying it, and spite of all I have been incredulous about—it does seem that the fact is achieved and that I do love you, plainly, surely, more than ever, more than any day in my life before. It is your secret, the why, the how; the experience is mine. What are you doing to me?—in the heart's heart.
Rest—dearest—bless you—
E.B.B. to R.B.
Saturday.
[Post-mark, January 10, 1846.]
Kindest and dearest you are!—that is 'my secret' and for the others, I leave them to you!—only it is no secret that I should and must be glad to have the words you sent with the book,—which I should have seen at all events be sure, whether you had sent it or not. Should I not, do you think? And considering what the present generation of critics really is, the remarks on you may stand, although it is the dreariest impotency to complain of the want of flesh and blood and of human sympathy in general. Yet suffer them to say on—it is the stamp on the critical knife. There must be something eminently stupid, or farewell criticdom! And if anything more utterly untrue could be said than another, it is precisely that saying, which Mr. Mackay stands up to catch the reversion of! Do you indeed suppose that Heraud could have done this? I scarcely can believe it, though some things are said rightly as about the 'intellectuality,' and how you stand first by the brain,—which is as true as truth can be. Then, I shall have 'Pauline' in a day or two—yes, I shall and must, and will.
The 'Ballad Poems and Fancies,' the article calling itself by that name, seems indeed to be Mr. Chorley's, and is one of his very best papers, I think. There is to me a want of colour and thinness about his writings in general, with a grace and savoir faire nevertheless, and always a rightness and purity of intention. Observe what he says of 'many-sidedness' seeming to trench on opinion and principle. That, he means for himself I know, for he has said to me that through having such largeness of sympathy he has been charged with want of principle—yet 'many-sidedness' is certainly no word for him. The effect of general sympathies may be evolved both from an elastic fancy and from breadth of mind, and it seems to me that he rather bends to a phase of humanity and literature than contains it—than comprehends it. Every part of a truth implies the whole; and to accept truth all round, does not mean the recognition of contradictory things: universal sympathies cannot make a man inconsistent, but, on the contrary, sublimely consistent. A church tower may stand between the mountains and the sea, looking to either, and stand fast: but the willow-tree at the gable-end, blown now toward the north and now toward the south while its natural leaning is due east or west, is different altogether ... as different as a willow-tree from a church tower.
Ah, what nonsense! There is only one truth for me all this time, while I talk about truth and truth. And do you know, when you have told me to think of you, I have been feeling ashamed of thinking of you so much, of thinking of only you—which is too much, perhaps. Shall I tell you? it seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before to any woman what you are to me—the fulness must be in proportion, you know, to the vacancy ... and only I know what was behind—the long wilderness without the blossoming rose ... and the capacity for happiness, like a black gaping hole, before this silver flooding. Is it wonderful that I should stand as in a dream, and disbelieve—not you—but my own fate? Was ever any one taken suddenly from a lampless dungeon and placed upon the pinnacle of a mountain, without the head turning round and the heart turning faint, as mine do? And you love me more, you say?—Shall I thank you or God? Both,—indeed—and there is no possible return from me to either of you! I thank you as the unworthy may ... and as we all thank God. How shall I ever prove what my heart is to you? How will you ever see it as I feel it? I ask myself in vain.
Have so much faith in me, my only beloved, as to use me simply for your own advantage and happiness, and to your own ends without a thought of any others—that is all I could ask you with any disquiet as to the granting of it—May God bless you!—
Your
Ba.
But you have the review now—surely?
The Morning Chronicle attributes the authorship of 'Modern Poets' (our article) to Lord John Manners—so I hear this morning. I have not yet looked at the paper myself. The Athenæum, still abominably dumb!—
R.B. to E.B.B.
Saturday.
[Post-mark, January 10, 1846.]
This is no letter—love,—I make haste to tell you—to-morrow I will write. For here has a friend been calling and consuming my very destined time, and every minute seemed the last that was to be; and an old, old friend he is, beside—so—you must understand my defection, when only this scrap reaches you to-night! Ah, love,—you are my unutterable blessing,—I discover you, more of you, day by day,—hour by hour, I do think!—I am entirely yours,—one gratitude, all my soul becomes when I see you over me as now—God bless my dear, dearest.
My 'Act Fourth' is done—but too roughly this time! I will tell you—
One kiss more, dearest!
Thanks for the Review.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, January 12, 1846.]
I have no words for you, my dearest,—I shall never have.
You are mine, I am yours. Now, here is one sign of what I said ... that I must love you more than at first ... a little sign, and to be looked narrowly for or it escapes me, but then the increase it shows can only be little, so very little now—and as the fine French Chemical Analysts bring themselves to appreciate matter in its refined stages by millionths, so—! At first I only thought of being happy in you,—in your happiness: now I most think of you in the dark hours that must come—I shall grow old with you, and die with you—as far as I can look into the night I see the light with me. And surely with that provision of comfort one should turn with fresh joy and renewed sense of security to the sunny middle of the day. I am in the full sunshine now; and after, all seems cared for,—is it too homely an illustration if I say the day's visit is not crossed by uncertainties as to the return through the wild country at nightfall?—Now Keats speaks of 'Beauty, that must die—and Joy whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding farewell!' And who spoke of—looking up into the eyes and asking 'And how long will you love us'?—There is a Beauty that will not die, a Joy that bids no farewell, dear dearest eyes that will love for ever!
And I—am to love no longer than I can. Well, dear—and when I can no longer—you will not blame me? You will do only as ever, kindly and justly; hardly more. I do not pretend to say I have chosen to put my fancy to such an experiment, and consider how that is to happen, and what measures ought to be taken in the emergency—because in the 'universality of my sympathies' I certainly number a very lively one with my own heart and soul, and cannot amuse myself by such a spectacle as their supposed extinction or paralysis. There is no doubt I should be an object for the deepest commiseration of you or any more fortunate human being. And I hope that because such a calamity does not obtrude itself on me as a thing to be prayed against, it is no less duly implied with all the other visitations from which no humanity can be altogether exempt—just as God bids us ask for the continuance of the 'daily bread'!—'battle, murder and sudden death' lie behind doubtless. I repeat, and perhaps in so doing only give one more example of the instantaneous conversion of that indignation we bestow in another's case, into wonderful lenity when it becomes our own, ... that I only contemplate the possibility you make me recognize, with pity, and fear ... no anger at all; and imprecations of vengeance, for what? Observe, I only speak of cases possible; of sudden impotency of mind; that is possible—there are other ways of 'changing,' 'ceasing to love' &c. which it is safest not to think of nor believe in. A man may never leave his writing desk without seeing safe in one corner of it the folded slip which directs the disposal of his papers in the event of his reason suddenly leaving him—or he may never go out into the street without a card in his pocket to signify his address to those who may have to pick him up in an apoplectic fit—but if he once begins to fear he is growing a glass bottle, and, so, liable to be smashed,—do you see? And now, love, dear heart of my heart, my own, only Ba—see no more—see what I am, what God in his constant mercy ordinarily grants to those who have, as I, received already so much; much, past expression! It is but—if you will so please—at worst, forestalling the one or two years, for my sake; but you will be as sure of me one day as I can be now of myself—and why not now be sure? See, love—a year is gone by—we were in one relation when you wrote at the end of a letter 'Do not say I do not tire you' (by writing)—'I am sure I do.' A year has gone by—Did you tire me then? Now, you tell me what is told; for my sake, sweet, let the few years go by; we are married, and my arms are round you, and my face touches yours, and I am asking you, 'Were you not to me, in that dim beginning of 1846, a joy behind all joys, a life added to and transforming mine, the good I choose from all the possible gifts of God on this earth, for which I seemed to have lived; which accepting, I thankfully step aside and let the rest get what they can; what, it is very likely, they esteem more—for why should my eye be evil because God's is good; why should I grudge that, giving them, I do believe, infinitely less, he gives them a content in the inferior good and belief in its worth? I should have wished that further concession, that illusion as I believe it, for their sakes—but I cannot undervalue my own treasure and so scant the only tribute of mere gratitude which is in my power to pay. Hear this said now before the few years; and believe in it now for then, dearest!
Must you see 'Pauline'? At least then let me wait a few days; to correct the misprints which affect the sense, and to write you the history of it; what is necessary you should know before you see it. That article I suppose to be by Heraud—about two thirds—and the rest, or a little less, by that Mr. Powell—whose unimaginable, impudent vulgar stupidity you get some inkling of in the 'Story from Boccaccio'—of which the words quoted were his, I am sure—as sure as that he knows not whether Boccaccio lived before or after Shakspeare, whether Florence or Rome be the more northern city,—one word of Italian in general, or letter of Boccaccio's in particular. When I took pity on him once on a time and helped his verses into a sort of grammar and sense, I did not think he was a buyer of other men's verses, to be printed as his own; thus he bought two modernisations of Chaucer—'Ugolino' and another story from Leigh Hunt—and one, 'Sir Thopas' from Horne, and printed them as his own, as I learned only last week. He paid me extravagant court and, seeing no harm in the mere folly of the man, I was on good terms with him, till ten months ago he grossly insulted a friend of mine who had written an article for the Review—(which is as good as his, he being a large proprietor of the delectable property, and influencing the voices of his co-mates in council)—well, he insulted my friend, who had written that article at my special solicitation, and did all he could to avoid paying the price of it—Why?—Because the poor creature had actually taken the article to the Editor as one by his friend Serjeant Talfourd contributed for pure love of him, Powell the aforesaid,—cutting, in consequence, no inglorious figure in the eyes of Printer and Publisher! Now I was away all this time in Italy or he would never have ventured on such a piece of childish impertinence. And my friend being a true gentleman, and quite unused to this sort of 'practice,' in the American sense, held his peace and went without his 'honorarium.' But on my return, I enquired, and made him make a proper application, which Mr. Powell treated with all the insolence in the world—because, as the event showed, the having to write a cheque for 'the Author of the Article'—that author's name not being Talfourd's ... there was certain disgrace! Since then (ten months ago) I have never seen him—and he accuses himself, observe, of 'sucking my plots while I drink his tea'—one as much as the other! And now why do I tell you this, all of it? Ah,—now you shall hear! Because, it has often been in my mind to ask you what you know of this Mr. Powell, or ever knew. For he, (being profoundly versed in every sort of untruth, as every fresh experience shows me, and the rest of his acquaintance) he told me long ago, 'he used to correspond with you, and that he quarrelled with you'—which I supposed to mean that he began by sending you his books (as with one and everybody) and that, in return to your note of acknowledgment, he had chosen to write again, and perhaps, again—is it so? Do not write one word in answer to me—the name of such a miserable nullity, and husk of a man, ought not to have a place in your letters—and that way he would get near to me again; near indeed this time!—So tell me, in a word—or do not tell me.
How I never say what I sit down to say! How saying the little makes me want to say the more! How the least of little things, once taken up as a thing to be imparted to you, seems to need explanations and commentaries; all is of importance to me—every breath you breathe, every little fact (like this) you are to know!
I was out last night—to see the rest of Frank Talfourd's theatricals; and met Dickens and his set—so my evenings go away! If I do not bring the Act you must forgive me—yet I shall, I think; the roughness matters little in this stage. Chorley says very truly that a tragedy implies as much power kept back as brought out—very true that is. I do not, on the whole, feel dissatisfied—as was to be but expected—with the effect of this last—the shelve of the hill, whence the end is seen, you continuing to go down to it, so that at the very last you may pass off into a plain and so away—not come to a stop like your horse against a church wall. It is all in long speeches—the action, proper, is in them—they are no descriptions, or amplifications—but here, in a drama of this kind, all the events, (and interest), take place in the minds of the actors ... somewhat like 'Paracelsus' in that respect. You know, or don't know, that the general charge against me, of late, from the few quarters I thought it worth while to listen to, has been that of abrupt, spasmodic writing—they will find some fault with this, of course.
How you know Chorley! That is precisely the man, that willow blowing now here now there—precisely! I wish he minded the Athenæum, its silence or eloquence, no more nor less than I—but he goes on painfully plying me with invitation after invitation, only to show me, I feel confident, that he has no part nor lot in the matter: I have two kind little notes asking me to go on Thursday and Saturday. See the absurd position of us both; he asks more of my presence than he can want, just to show his own kind feeling, of which I do not doubt; and I must try and accept more hospitality than suits me, only to prove my belief in that same! For myself—if I have vanity which such Journals can raise; would the praise of them raise it, they who praised Mr. Mackay's own, own 'Dead Pan,' quite his own, the other day?—By the way, Miss Cushman informed me the other evening that the gentleman had written a certain 'Song of the Bell' ... 'singularly like Schiller's; considering that Mr. M. had never seen it!' I am told he writes for the Athenæum, but don't know. Would that sort of praise be flattering, or his holding the tongue—which Forster, deep in the mysteries of the craft, corroborated my own notion about—as pure willingness to hurt, and confessed impotence and little clever spite, and enforced sense of what may be safe at the last? You shall see they will not notice—unless a fresh publication alters the circumstances—until some seven or eight months—as before; and then they will notice, and praise, and tell anybody who cares to enquire, 'So we noticed the work.' So do not you go expecting justice or injustice till I tell you. It answers me to be found writing so, so anxious to prove I understand the laws of the game, when that game is only 'Thimble-rig' and for prizes of gingerbread-nuts—Prize or no prize, Mr. Dilke does shift the pea, and so did from the beginning—as Charles Lamb's pleasant sobriquet (Mr. Bilk, he would have it) testifies. Still he behaved kindly to that poor Frances Brown—let us forget him.
And now, my Audience, my crown-bearer, my path-preparer—I am with you again and out of them all—there, here, in my arms, is my proved palpable success! My life, my poetry, gained nothing, oh no!—but this found them, and blessed them. On Tuesday I shall see you, dearest—am much better; well to-day—are you well—or 'scarcely to be called an invalid'? Oh, when I have you, am by you—
Bless you, dearest—And be very sure you have your wish about the length of the week—still Tuesday must come! And with it your own, happy, grateful
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday Night.
[Post-mark, January 14, 1846.]
Ah Mr. Kenyon!—how he vexed me to-day. To keep away all the ten days before, and to come just at the wrong time after all! It was better for you, I suppose—believe—to go with him down-stairs—yes, it certainly was better: it was disagreeable enough to be very wise! Yet I, being addicted to every sort of superstition turning to melancholy, did hate so breaking off in the middle of that black thread ... (do you remember what we were talking of when they opened the door?) that I was on the point of saying 'Stay one moment,' which I should have repented afterwards for the best of good reasons. Oh, I should have liked to have 'fastened off' that black thread, and taken one stitch with a blue or a green one!
You do not remember what we were talking of? what you, rather, were talking of? And what I remember, at least, because it is exactly the most unkind and hard thing you ever said to me—ever dearest, so I remember it by that sign! That you should say such a thing to me—! think what it was, for indeed I will not write it down here—it would be worse than Mr. Powell! Only the foolishness of it (I mean, the foolishness of it alone) saves it, smooths it to a degree!—the foolishness being the same as if you asked a man where he would walk when he lost his head. Why, if you had asked St. Denis beforehand, he would have thought it a foolish question.
And you!—you, who talk so finely of never, never doubting; of being such an example in the way of believing and trusting—it appears, after all, that you have an imagination apprehensive (or comprehensive) of 'glass bottles' like other sublunary creatures, and worse than some of them. For mark, that I never went any farther than to the stone-wall hypothesis of your forgetting me!—I always stopped there—and never climbed, to the top of it over the broken-bottle fortification, to see which way you meant to walk afterwards. And you, to ask me so coolly—think what you asked me. That you should have the heart to ask such a question!
And the reason—! and it could seem a reasonable matter of doubt to you whether I would go to the south for my health's sake!—And I answered quite a common 'no' I believe—for you bewildered me for the moment—and I have had tears in my eyes two or three times since, just through thinking back of it all ... of your asking me such questions. Now did I not tell you when I first knew you, that I was leaning out of the window? True, that was—I was tired of living ... unaffectedly tired. All I cared to live for was to do better some of the work which, after all, was out of myself, and which I had to reach across to do. But I told you. Then, last year, for duty's sake I would have consented to go to Italy! but if you really fancy that I would have struggled in the face of all that difficulty—or struggled, indeed, anywise, to compass such an object as that—except for the motive of your caring for it and me—why you know nothing of me after all—nothing! And now, take away the motive, and I am where I was—leaning out of the window again. To put it in plainer words (as you really require information), I should let them do what they liked to me till I was dead—only I wouldn't go to Italy—if anybody proposed Italy out of contradiction. In the meantime I do entreat you never to talk of such a thing to me any more.
You know, if you were to leave me by your choice and for your happiness, it would be another thing. It would be very lawful to talk of that.
And observe! I perfectly understand that you did not think of doubting me—so to speak! But you thought, all the same, that if such a thing happened, I should be capable of doing so and so.
Well—I am not quarrelling—I am uneasy about your head rather. That pain in it—what can it mean? I do beseech you to think of me just so much as will lead you to take regular exercise every day, never missing a day; since to walk till you are tired on Tuesday and then not to walk at all until Friday is not taking exercise, nor the thing required. Ah, if you knew how dreadfully natural every sort of evil seems to my mind, you would not laugh at me for being afraid. I do beseech you, dearest! And then, Sir John Hanmer invited you, besides Mr. Warburton, and suppose you went to him for a very little time—just for the change of air? or if you went to the coast somewhere. Will you consider, and do what is right, for me? I do not propose that you should go to Italy, observe, nor any great thing at which you might reasonably hesitate. And—did you ever try smoking as a remedy? If the nerves of the head chiefly are affected it might do you good, I have been thinking. Or without the smoking, to breathe where tobacco is burnt,—that calms the nervous system in a wonderful manner, as I experienced once myself when, recovering from an illness, I could not sleep, and tried in vain all sorts of narcotics and forms of hop-pillow and inhalation, yet was tranquillized in one half hour by a pinch of tobacco being burnt in a shovel near me. Should you mind it very much? the trying I mean?
Wednesday.—For 'Pauline'—when I had named it to you I was on the point of sending for the book to the booksellers—then suddenly I thought to myself that I should wait and hear whether you very, very much would dislike my reading it. See now! Many readers have done virtuously, but I, (in this virtue I tell you of) surpassed them all!—And now, because I may, I 'must read it':—and as there are misprints to be corrected, will you do what is necessary, or what you think is necessary, and bring me the book on Monday? Do not send—bring it. In the meanwhile I send back the review which I forgot to give to you yesterday in the confusion. Perhaps you have not read it in your house, and in any case there is no use in my keeping it.
Shall I hear from you, I wonder! Oh my vain thoughts, that will not keep you well! And, ever since you have known me, you have been worse—that, you confess!—and what if it should be the crossing of my bad star? You of the 'Crown' and the 'Lyre,' to seek influences from the 'chair of Cassiopeia'! I hope she will forgive me for using her name so! I might as well have compared her to a professorship of poetry in the university of Oxford, according to the latest election. You know, the qualification, there, is,—not to be a poet.
How vexatious, yesterday! The stars (talking of them) were out of spherical tune, through the damp weather, perhaps, and that scarlet sun was a sign! First Mr. Chorley!—and last, dear Mr. Kenyon; who will say tiresome things without any provocation. Did you walk with him his way, or did he walk with you yours? or did you only walk down-stairs together?
Write to me! Remember that it is a month to Monday. Think of your very own, who bids God bless you when she prays best for herself!—
E.B.B.
Say particularly how you are—now do not omit it. And will you have Miss Martineau's books when I can lend them to you? Just at this moment I dare not, because they are reading them here.
Let Mr. Mackay have his full proprietary in his 'Dead Pan'—which is quite a different conception of the subject, and executed in blank verse too. I have no claims against him, I am sure!
But for the man!—To call him a poet! A prince and potentate of Commonplaces, such as he is!—I have seen his name in the Athenæum attached to a lyric or two ... poems, correctly called fugitive,—more than usually fugitive—but I never heard before that his hand was in the prose department.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 14, 1846.]
Was I in the wrong, dearest, to go away with Mr. Kenyon? I well knew and felt the price I was about to pay—but the thought did occur that he might have been informed my probable time of departure was that of his own arrival—and that he would not know how very soon, alas, I should be obliged to go—so ... to save you any least embarrassment in the world, I got—just that shake of the hand, just that look—and no more! And was it all for nothing, all needless after all? So I said to myself all the way home.
When I am away from you—a crowd of things press on me for utterance—'I will say them, not write them,' I think:—when I see you—all to be said seems insignificant, irrelevant,—'they can be written, at all events'—I think that too. So, feeling so much, I say so little!
I have just returned from Town and write for the Post—but you mean to write, I trust.
That was not obtained, that promise, to be happy with, as last time!
How are you?—tell me, dearest; a long week is to be waited now!
Bless you, my own, sweetest Ba.
I am wholly your
R.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Thursday.
[Post-mark, January 15, 1846.]
Dearest, dearer to my heart minute by minute, I had no wish to give you pain, God knows. No one can more readily consent to let a few years more or less of life go out of account,—be lost—but as I sate by you, you so full of the truest life, for this world as for the next,—and was struck by the possibility, all that might happen were I away, in the case of your continuing to acquiesce—dearest, it is horrible—could not but speak. If in drawing you, all of you, closer to my heart, I hurt you whom I would—outlive ... yes,—cannot speak here—forgive me, Ba.
My Ba, you are to consider now for me. Your health, your strength, it is all wonderful; that is not my dream, you know—but what all see. Now, steadily care for us both—take time, take counsel if you choose; but at the end tell me what you will do for your part—thinking of me as utterly devoted, soul and body, to you, living wholly in your life, seeing good and ill only as you see,—being yours as your hand is,—or as your Flush, rather. Then I will, on my side, prepare. When I say 'take counsel'—I reserve my last right, the man's right of first speech. I stipulate, too, and require to say my own speech in my own words or by letter—remember! But this living without you is too tormenting now. So begin thinking,—as for Spring, as for a New Year, as for a new life.
I went no farther than the door with Mr. Kenyon. He must see the truth; and—you heard the playful words which had a meaning all the same.
No more of this; only, think of it for me, love!
One of these days I shall write a long letter—on the omitted matters, unanswered questions, in your past letters. The present joy still makes me ungrateful to the previous one; but I remember. We are to live together one day, love!
Will you let Mr. Poe's book lie on the table on Monday, if you please, that I may read what he does say, with my own eyes? That I meant to ask, too!
How too, too kind you are—how you care for so little that affects me! I am very much better—I went out yesterday, as you found: to-day I shall walk, beside seeing Chorley. And certainly, certainly I would go away for a week, if so I might escape being ill (and away from you) a fortnight; but I am not ill—and will care, as you bid me, beloved! So, you will send, and take all trouble; and all about that crazy Review! Now, you should not!—I will consider about your goodness. I hardly know if I care to read that kind of book just now.
Will you, and must you have 'Pauline'? If I could pray you to revoke that decision! For it is altogether foolish and not boylike—and I shall, I confess, hate the notion of running over it—yet commented it must be; more than mere correction! I was unluckily precocious—but I had rather you saw real infantine efforts (verses at six years old, and drawings still earlier) than this ambiguous, feverish—Why not wait? When you speak of the 'Bookseller'—I smile, in glorious security—having a whole bale of sheets at the house-top. He never knew my name even!—and I withdrew these after a very little time.
And now—here is a vexation. May I be with you (for this once) next Monday, at two instead of three o'clock? Forster's business with the new Paper obliges him, he says, to restrict his choice of days to Monday next—and give up my part of Monday I will never for fifty Forsters—now, sweet, mind that! Monday is no common day, but leads to a Saturday—and if, as I ask, I get leave to call at 2—and to stay till 3-1/2—though I then lose nearly half an hour—yet all will be comparatively well. If there is any difficulty—one word and I re-appoint our party, his and mine, for the day the paper breaks down—not so long to wait, it strikes me!
Now, bless you, my precious Ba—I am your own—
—Your own R.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 17, 1846.]
Our letters have crossed; and, mine being the longest, I have a right to expect another directly, I think. I have been calculating: and it seems to me—now what I am going to say may take its place among the paradoxes,—that I gain most by the short letters. Last week the only long one came last, and I was quite contented that the 'old friend' should come to see you on Saturday and make you send me two instead of the single one I looked for: it was a clear gain, the little short note, and the letter arrived all the same. I remember, when I was a child, liking to have two shillings and sixpence better than half a crown—and now it is the same with this fairy money, which will never turn all into pebbles, or beans, whatever the chronicles may say of precedents.
Arabel did tell Mr. Kenyon (she told me) that 'Mr. Browning would soon go away'—in reply to an observation of his, that 'he would not stay as I had company'; and altogether it was better,—the lamp made it look late. But you do not appear in the least remorseful for being tempted of my black devil, my familiar, to ask such questions and leave me under such an impression—'mens conscia recti' too!!—
And Mr. Kenyon will not come until next Monday perhaps. How am I? But I am too well to be asked about. Is it not a warm summer? The weather is as 'miraculous' as the rest, I think. It is you who are unwell and make people uneasy, dearest. Say how you are, and promise me to do what is right and try to be better. The walking, the changing of the air, the leaving off Luria ... do what is right, I earnestly beseech you. The other day, I heard of Tennyson being ill again, ... too ill to write a simple note to his friend Mr. Venables, who told George. A little more than a year ago, it would have been no worse a thing to me to hear of your being ill than to hear of his being ill!—How the world has changed since then! To me, I mean.
Did I say that ever ... that 'I knew you must be tired?' And it was not even so true as that the coming event threw its shadow before?
Thursday night.—I have begun on another sheet—I could not write here what was in my heart—yet I send you this paper besides to show how I was writing to you this morning. In the midst of it came a female friend of mine and broke the thread—the visible thread, that is.
And now, even now, at this safe eight o'clock, I could not be safe from somebody, who, in her goodnature and my illfortune, must come and sit by me—and when my letter was come—'why wouldn't I read it? What wonderful politeness on my part.' She would not and could not consent to keep me from reading my letter. She would stand up by the fire rather.
No, no, three times no. Brummel got into the carriage before the Regent, ... (didn't he?) but I persisted in not reading my letter in the presence of my friend. A notice on my punctiliousness may be put down to-night in her 'private diary.' I kept the letter in my hand and only read it with those sapient ends of the fingers which the mesmerists make so much ado about, and which really did seem to touch a little of what was inside. Not all, however, happily for me! Or my friend would have seen in my eyes what they did not see.
May God bless you! Did I ever say that I had an objection to read the verses at six years old—or see the drawings either? I am reasonable, you observe! Only, 'Pauline,' I must have some day—why not without the emendations? But if you insist on them, I will agree to wait a little—if you promise at last to let me see the book, which I will not show. Some day, then! you shall not be vexed nor hurried for the day—some day. Am I not generous? And I was 'precocious' too, and used to make rhymes over my bread and milk when I was nearly a baby ... only really it was mere echo-verse, that of mine, and had nothing of mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. I used to write of virtue with a large 'V,' and 'Oh Muse' with a harp, and things of that sort. At nine years old I wrote what I called 'an epic'—and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which we used to act in the nursery. There was a French 'hexameter' tragedy on the subject of Regulus—but I cannot even smile to think of it now, there are so many grave memories—which time has made grave—hung around it. How I remember sitting in 'my house under the sideboard,' in the dining-room, concocting one of the soliloquies beginning
Que suis je? autrefois un général Remain:
Maintenant esclave de Carthage je souffre en vain.
Poor Regulus!—Can't you conceive how fine it must have been altogether? And these were my 'maturer works,' you are to understand, ... and 'the moon was bright at ten o'clock at night' years before. As to the gods and goddesses, I believed in them all quite seriously, and reconciled them to Christianity, which I believed in too after a fashion, as some greater philosophers have done—and went out one day with my pinafore full of little sticks (and a match from the housemaid's cupboard) to sacrifice to the blue-eyed Minerva who was my favourite goddess on the whole because she cared for Athens. As soon as I began to doubt about my goddesses, I fell into a vague sort of general scepticism, ... and though I went on saying 'the Lord's prayer' at nights and mornings, and the 'Bless all my kind friends' afterwards, by the childish custom ... yet I ended this liturgy with a supplication which I found in 'King's Memoirs' and which took my fancy and met my general views exactly.... 'O God, if there be a God, save my soul if I have a soul.' Perhaps the theology of many thoughtful children is scarcely more orthodox than this: but indeed it is wonderful to myself sometimes how I came to escape, on the whole, as well as I have done, considering the commonplaces of education in which I was set, with strength and opportunity for breaking the bonds all round into liberty and license. Papa used to say ... 'Don't read Gibbon's history—it's not a proper book. Don't read "Tom Jones"—and none of the books on this side, mind!' So I was very obedient and never touched the books on that side, and only read instead Tom Paine's 'Age of Reason,' and Voltaire's 'Philosophical Dictionary,' and Hume's 'Essays,' and Werther, and Rousseau, and Mary Wollstonecraft ... books, which I was never suspected of looking towards, and which were not 'on that side' certainly, but which did as well.
How I am writing!—And what are the questions you did not answer? I shall remember them by the answers I suppose—but your letters always have a fulness to me and I never seem to wish for what is not in them.
But this is the end indeed.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Night.
[In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]
Ever dearest—how you can write touching things to me; and how my whole being vibrates, as a string, to these! How have I deserved from God and you all that I thank you for? Too unworthy I am of all! Only, it was not, dearest beloved, what you feared, that was 'horrible,' it was what you supposed, rather! It was a mistake of yours. And now we will not talk of it any more.
Friday morning.—For the rest, I will think as you desire: but I have thought a great deal, and there are certainties which I know; and I hope we both are aware that nothing can be more hopeless than our position in some relations and aspects, though you do not guess perhaps that the very approach to the subject is shut up by dangers, and that from the moment of a suspicion entering one mind, we should be able to meet never again in this room, nor to have intercourse by letter through the ordinary channel. I mean, that letters of yours, addressed to me here, would infallibly be stopped and destroyed—if not opened. Therefore it is advisable to hurry on nothing—on these grounds it is advisable. What should I do if I did not see you nor hear from you, without being able to feel that it was for your happiness? What should I do for a month even? And then, I might be thrown out of the window or its equivalent—I look back shuddering to the dreadful scenes in which poor Henrietta was involved who never offended as I have offended ... years ago which seem as present as to-day. She had forbidden the subject to be referred to until that consent was obtained—and at a word she gave up all—at a word. In fact she had no true attachment, as I observed to Arabel at the time—a child never submitted more meekly to a revoked holiday. Yet how she was made to suffer. Oh, the dreadful scenes! and only because she had seemed to feel a little. I told you, I think, that there was an obliquity—an eccentricity, or something beyond—on one class of subjects. I hear how her knees were made to ring upon the floor, now! she was carried out of the room in strong hysterics, and I, who rose up to follow her, though I was quite well at that time and suffered only by sympathy, fell flat down upon my face in a fainting-fit. Arabel thought I was dead.
I have tried to forget it all—but now I must remember—and throughout our intercourse I have remembered. It is necessary to remember so much as to avoid such evils as are inevitable, and for this reason I would conceal nothing from you. Do you remember, besides, that there can be no faltering on my 'part,' and that, if I should remain well, which is not proved yet, I will do for you what you please and as you please to have it done. But there is time for considering!
Only ... as you speak of 'counsel,' I will take courage to tell you that my sisters know, Arabel is in most of my confidences, and being often in the room with me, taxed me with the truth long ago—she saw that I was affected from some cause—and I told her. We are as safe with both of them as possible ... and they thoroughly understand that if there should be any change it would not be your fault.... I made them understand that thoroughly. From themselves I have received nothing but the most smiling words of kindness and satisfaction (I thought I might tell you so much), they have too much tenderness for me to fail in it now. My brothers, it is quite necessary not to draw into a dangerous responsibility. I have felt that from the beginning, and shall continue to feel it—though I hear and can observe that they are full of suspicions and conjectures, which are never unkindly expressed. I told you once that we held hands the faster in this house for the weight over our heads. But the absolute knowledge would be dangerous for my brothers: with my sisters it is different, and I could not continue to conceal from them what they had under their eyes; and then, Henrietta is in a like position. It was not wrong of me to let them know it?—no?
Yet of what consequence is all this to the other side of the question? What, if you should give pain and disappointment where you owe such pure gratitude. But we need not talk of these things now. Only you have more to consider than I, I imagine, while the future comes on.
Dearest, let me have my way in one thing: let me see you on Tuesday instead of on Monday—on Tuesday at the old hour. Be reasonable and consider. Tuesday is almost as near as the day before it; and on Monday, I shall be hurried at first, lest Papa should be still in the house, (no harm, but an excuse for nervousness: and I can't quote a noble Roman as you can, to the praise of my conscience!) and you will be hurried at last, lest you should not be in time for Mr. Forster. On the other hand, I will not let you be rude to the Daily News, ... no, nor to the Examiner. Come on Tuesday, then, instead of Monday, and let us have the usual hours in a peaceable way,—and if there is no obstacle,—that is, if Mr. Kenyon or some equivalent authority should not take note of your being here on Tuesday, why you can come again on the Saturday afterwards—I do not see the difficulty. Are we agreed? On Tuesday, at three o'clock. Consider, besides, that the Monday arrangement would hurry you in every manner, and leave you fagged for the evening—no, I will not hear of it. Not on my account, not on yours!
Think of me on Monday instead, and write before. Are not these two lawful letters? And do not they deserve an answer?
My life was ended when I knew you, and if I survive myself it is for your sake:—that resumes all my feelings and intentions in respect to you. No 'counsel' could make the difference of a grain of dust in the balance. It is so, and not otherwise. If you changed towards me, it would be better for you I believe—and I should be only where I was before. While you do not change, I look to you for my first affections and my first duty—and nothing but your bidding me, could make me look away.
In the midst of this, Mr. Kenyon came and I felt as if I could not talk to him. No—he does not 'see how it is.' He may have passing thoughts sometimes, but they do not stay long enough to produce—even an opinion. He asked if you had been here long.
It may be wrong and ungrateful, but I do wish sometimes that the world were away—even the good Kenyon-aspect of the world.
And so, once more—may God bless you!
I am wholly yours—
Tuesday, remember! And say that you agree.