R.B. to E.B.B.
Saturday.
[Post-mark, January 17, 1846.]
Did my own Ba, in the prosecution of her studies, get to a book on the forb—no, unforbidden shelf—wherein Voltaire pleases to say that 'si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer'? I feel, after reading these letters,—as ordinarily after seeing you, sweetest, or hearing from you,—that if marriage did not exist, I should infallibly invent it. I should say, no words, no feelings even, do justice to the whole conviction and religion of my soul—and though they may be suffered to represent some one minute's phase of it, yet, in their very fulness and passion they do injustice to the unrepresented, other minute's, depth and breadth of love ... which let my whole life (I would say) be devoted to telling and proving and exemplifying, if not in one, then in another way—let me have the plain palpable power of this; the assured time for this ... something of the satisfaction ... (but for the fantasticalness of the illustration) ... something like the earnestness of some suitor in Chancery if he could once get Lord Lyndhurst into a room with him, and lock the door on them both, and know that his whole story must be listened to now, and the 'rights of it,'—dearest, the love unspoken now you are to hear 'in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth ... at the hour of death, and'—
If I did not know this was so,—nothing would have been said, or sought for. Your friendship, the perfect pride in it, the wish for, and eager co-operation in, your welfare, all that is different, and, seen now, nothing.
I will care for it no more, dearest—I am wedded to you now. I believe no human being could love you more—that thought consoles me for my own imperfection—for when that does strike me, as so often it will, I turn round on my pursuing self, and ask 'What if it were a claim then, what is in Her, demanded rationally, equitably, in return for what were in you—do you like that way!'—And I do not, Ba—you, even, might not—when people everyday buy improveable ground, and eligible sites for building, and don't want every inch filled up, covered over, done to their hands! So take me, and make me what you can and will—and though never to be more yours, yet more like you, I may and must be—Yes, indeed—best, only love!
And am I not grateful to your sisters—entirely grateful for that crowning comfort; it is 'miraculous,' too, if you please—for you shall know me by finger-tip intelligence or any art magic of old or new times—but they do not see me, know me—and must moreover be jealous of you, chary of you, as the daughters of Hesperus, of wonderers and wistful lookers up at the gold apple—yet instead of 'rapidly levelling eager eyes'—they are indulgent? Then—shall I wish capriciously they were not your sisters, not so near you, that there might be a kind of grace in loving them for it'—but what grace can there be when ... yes, I will tell you—no, I will not—it is foolish!—and it is not foolish in me to love the table and chairs and vases in your room.
Let me finish writing to-morrow; it would not become me to utter a word against the arrangement—and Saturday promised, too—but though all concludes against the early hour on Monday, yet—but this is wrong—on Tuesday it shall be, then,—thank you, dearest! you let me keep up the old proper form, do you not?—I shall continue to thank, and be gratified &c. as if I had some untouched fund of thanks at my disposal to cut a generous figure with on occasion! And so, now, for your kind considerateness thank you ... that I say, which, God knows, could not say, if I died ten deaths in one to do you good, 'you are repaid'—
To-morrow I will write, and answer more. I am pretty well, and will go out to-day—to-night. My Act is done, and copied—I will bring it. Do you see the Athenæum? By Chorley surely—and kind and satisfactory. I did not expect any notice for a long time—all that about the 'mist,' 'unchanged manner' and the like is politic concession to the Powers that Be ... because he might tell me that and much more with his own lips or unprofessional pen, and be thanked into the bargain, yet he does not. But I fancy he saves me from a rougher hand—the long extracts answer every purpose—
There is all to say yet—to-morrow!
And ever, ever your own; God bless you!
R.
Admire the clean paper.... I did not notice that I have been writing in a desk where a candle fell! See the bottoms of the other pages!
R.B. to E.B.B.
Sunday Evening.
[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]
You may have seen, I put off all the weighty business part of the letter—but I shall do very little with it now. To be sure, a few words will serve, because you understand me, and believe in enough of me. First, then, I am wholly satisfied, thoroughly made happy in your assurance. I would build up an infinity of lives, if I could plan them, one on the other, and all resting on you, on your word—I fully believe in it,—of my feeling, the gratitude, let there be no attempt to speak. And for 'waiting'; 'not hurrying',—I leave all with you henceforth—all you say is most wise, most convincing.
On the saddest part of all,—silence. You understand, and I can understand through you. Do you know, that I never used to dream unless indisposed, and rarely then—(of late I dream of you, but quite of late)—and those nightmare dreams have invariably been of one sort. I stand by (powerless to interpose by a word even) and see the infliction of tyranny on the unresisting man or beast (generally the last)—and I wake just in time not to die: let no one try this kind of experiment on me or mine! Though I have observed that by a felicitous arrangement, the man with the whip puts it into use with an old horse commonly. I once knew a fine specimen of the boilingly passionate, desperately respectable on the Eastern principle that reverences a madman—and this fellow, whom it was to be death to oppose, (some bloodvessel was to break)—he, once at a dinner party at which I was present, insulted his wife (a young pretty simple believer in his awful immunities from the ordinary terms that keep men in order)—brought the tears into her eyes and sent her from the room ... purely to 'show off' in the eyes of his guests ... (all males, law-friends &c., he being a lawyer.) This feat accomplished, he, too, left us with an affectation of compensating relentment, to 'just say a word and return'—and no sooner was his back to the door than the biggest, stupidest of the company began to remark 'what a fortunate thing it was that Mr. So-and-so had such a submissive wife—not one of the women who would resist—that is, attempt to resist—and so exasperate our gentleman into ... Heaven only knew what!' I said it was, in one sense, a fortunate thing; because one of these women, without necessarily being the lion-tressed Bellona, would richly give him his desert, I thought—'Oh, indeed?' No—this man was not to be opposed—wait, you might, till the fit was over, and then try what kind argument would do—and so forth to unspeakable nausea. Presently we went up-stairs—there sate the wife with dried eyes, and a smile at the tea-table—and by her, in all the pride of conquest, with her hand in his, our friend—disposed to be very good-natured of course. I listened arrectis auribus, and in a minute he said he did not know somebody I mentioned. I told him, that I easily conceived—such a person would never condescend to know him, &c., and treated him to every consequence ingenuity could draw from that text—and at the end marched out of the room; and the valorous man, who had sate like a post, got up, took a candle, followed me to the door, and only said in unfeigned wonder, 'What can have possessed you, my dear B?'—All which I as much expected beforehand, as that the above mentioned man of the whip keeps quiet in the presence of an ordinary-couraged dog. All this is quite irrelevant to the case—indeed, I write to get rid of the thought altogether. But I do hold it the most stringent duty of all who can, to stop a condition, a relation of one human being to another which God never allowed to exist between Him and ourselves. Trees live and die, if you please, and accept will for a law—but with us, all commands surely refer to a previously-implanted conviction in ourselves of their rationality and justice. Or why declare that 'the Lord is holy, just and good' unless there is recognised and independent conception of holiness and goodness, to which the subsequent assertion is referable? 'You know what holiness is, what it is to be good? Then, He is that'—not, 'that is so—because he is that'; though, of course, when once the converse is demonstrated, this, too, follows, and may be urged for practical purposes. All God's urgency, so to speak, is on the justice of his judgments, rightness of his rule: yet why? one might ask—if one does believe that the rule is his; why ask further?—Because, his is a 'reasonable service,' once for all.
Understand why I turn my thoughts in this direction. If it is indeed as you fear, and no endeavour, concession, on my part will avail, under any circumstances—(and by endeavour, I mean all heart and soul could bring the flesh to perform)—in that case, you will not come to me with a shadow past hope of chasing.
The likelihood is, I over frighten myself for you, by the involuntary contrast with those here—you allude to them—if I went with this letter downstairs and said simply 'I want this taken to the direction to-night, and am unwell and unable to go, will you take it now?' my father would not say a word, or rather would say a dozen cheerful absurdities about his 'wanting a walk,' 'just having been wishing to go out' &c. At night he sits studying my works—illustrating them (I will bring you drawings to make you laugh)—and yesterday I picked up a crumpled bit of paper ... 'his notion of what a criticism on this last number ought to be,—none, that have appeared, satisfying him!'—So judge of what he will say! And my mother loves me just as much more as must of necessity be.
Once more, understand all this ... for the clock scares me of a sudden—I meant to say more—far more.
But may God bless you ever—my own dearest, my Ba—
I am wholly your R.
(Tuesday)
E.B.B. to R.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]
Your letter came just after the hope of one had past—the latest Saturday post had gone, they said, and I was beginning to be as vexed as possible, looking into the long letterless Sunday. Then, suddenly came the knock—the postman redivivus—just when it seemed so beyond hoping for—it was half past eight, observe, and there had been a post at nearly eight—suddenly came the knock, and your letter with it. Was I not glad, do you think?
And you call the Athenæum 'kind and satisfactory'? Well—I was angry instead. To make us wait so long for an 'article' like that, was not over-kind certainly, nor was it 'satisfactory' to class your peculiar qualities with other contemporary ones, as if they were not peculiar. It seemed to me cold and cautious, from the causes perhaps which you mention, but the extracts will work their own way with everybody who knows what poetry is, and for others, let the critic do his worst with them. For what is said of 'mist' I have no patience because I who know when you are obscure and never think of denying it in some of your former works, do hold that this last number is as clear and self-sufficing to a common understanding, as far as the expression and medium goes, as any book in the world, and that Mr. Chorley was bound in verity to say so. If I except that one stanza, you know, it is to make the general observation stronger. And then 'mist' is an infamous word for your kind of obscurity. You never are misty, not even in 'Sordello'—never vague. Your graver cuts deep sharp lines, always—and there is an extra-distinctness in your images and thoughts, from the midst of which, crossing each other infinitely, the general significance seems to escape. So that to talk of a 'mist,' when you are obscurest, is an impotent thing to do. Indeed it makes me angry.
But the suggested virtue of 'self-renunciation' only made me smile, because it is simply nonsense ... nonsense which proves itself to be nonsense at a glance. So genius is to renounce itself—that is the new critical doctrine, is it? Now is it not foolish? To recognize the poetical faculty of a man, and then to instruct him in 'self-renunciation' in that very relation—or rather, to hint the virtue of it, and hesitate the dislike of his doing otherwise? What atheists these critics are after all—and how the old heathens understood the divinity of gifts better, beyond any comparison. We may take shame to ourselves, looking back.
Now, shall I tell you what I did yesterday? It was so warm, so warm, the thermometer at 68 in this room, that I took it into my head to call it April instead of January, and put on a cloak and walked down-stairs into the drawing-room—walked, mind! Before, I was carried by one of my brothers,—even to the last autumn-day when I went out—I never walked a step for fear of the cold in the passages. But yesterday it was so wonderfully warm, and I so strong besides—it was a feat worthy of the day—and I surprised them all as much as if I had walked out of the window instead. That kind dear Stormie, who with all his shyness and awkwardness has the most loving of hearts in him, said that he was 'so glad to see me'!
Well!—setting aside the glory of it, it would have been as wise perhaps if I had abstained; our damp detestable climate reaches us otherwise than by cold, and I am not quite as well as usual this morning after an uncomfortable feverish night—not very unwell, mind, nor unwell at all in the least degree of consequence—and I tell you, only to show how susceptible I really am still, though 'scarcely an invalid,' say the complimenters.
What a way I am from your letter—that letter—or seem to be rather—for one may think of one thing and yet go on writing distrustedly of other things. So you are 'grateful' to my sisters ... you! Now I beseech you not to talk such extravagances; I mean such extravagances as words like these imply—and there are far worse words than these, in the letter ... such as I need not put my finger on; words which are sense on my lips, but no sense at all on yours, and which make me disquietedly sure that you are under an illusion. Observe!—certainly I should not choose to have a 'claim,' see! Only, what I object to, in 'illusions,' 'miracles,' and things of that sort, is the want of continuity common to such. When Joshua caused the sun to stand still, it was not for a year even!—Ungrateful, I am!
And 'pretty well' means 'not well' I am afraid—or I should be gladder still of the new act. You will tell me on Tuesday what 'pretty well' means, and if your mother is better—or I may have a letter to-morrow—dearest! May God bless you!
To-morrow too, at half past three o'clock, how joyful I shall be that my 'kind considerateness' decided not to receive you until Tuesday. My very kind considerateness, which made me eat my dinner to-day!
Your own
Ba.
A hundred letters I have, by this last, ... to set against Napoleon's Hundred Days—did you know that?
So much better I am to-night: it was nothing but a little chill from the damp—the fog, you see!
R.B. to E.B.B.
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]
Love, if you knew but how vexed I was, so very few minutes after my note left last night; how angry with the unnecessary harshness into which some of the phrases might be construed—you would forgive me, indeed. But, when all is confessed and forgiven, the fact remains—that it would be the one trial I know I should not be able to bear; the repetition of these 'scenes'—intolerable—not to be written of, even my mind refuses to form a clear conception of them.
My own loved letter is come—and the news; of which the reassuring postscript lets the interrupted joy flow on again. Well, and I am not to be grateful for that; nor that you do 'eat your dinner'? Indeed you will be ingenious to prevent me! I fancy myself meeting you on 'the stairs'—stairs and passages generally, and galleries (ah, thou indeed!) all, with their picturesque accidents, of landing-places, and spiral heights and depths, and sudden turns and visions of half open doors into what Quarles calls 'mollitious chambers'—and above all, landing-places—they are my heart's delight—I would come upon you unaware in a landing-place in my next dream! One day we may walk on the galleries round and over the inner court of the Doges' Palace at Venice; and read, on tablets against the wall, how such an one was banished for an 'enormous dig (intacco) into the public treasure'—another for ... what you are not to know because his friends have got chisels and chipped away the record of it—underneath the 'giants' on their stands, and in the midst of the cortile the bronze fountains whence the girls draw water.
So you too wrote French verses?—Mine were of less lofty argument—one couplet makes me laugh now for the reason of its false quantity—I translated the Ode of Alcæus; and the last couplet ran thus....
Harmodius, et toi, cher Aristogiton!
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Comme l'astre du jour, brillera votre nom!
The fact was, I could not bear to hurt my French Master's feelings—who inveterately maltreated 'ai's and oi's' and in this instance, an 'ei.' But 'Pauline' is altogether of a different sort of precocity—you shall see it when I can master resolution to transcribe the explanation which I know is on the fly-leaf of a copy here. Of that work, the Athenæum said [several words erased] now, what outrageous folly! I care, and you care, precisely nothing about its sayings and doings—yet here I talk!
Now to you—Ba! When I go through sweetness to sweetness, at 'Ba' I stop last of all, and lie and rest. That is the quintessence of them all,—they all take colour and flavour from that. So, dear, dear Ba, be glad as you can to see me to-morrow. God knows how I embalm every such day,—I do not believe that one of the forty is confounded with another in my memory. So, that is gained and sure for ever. And of letters, this makes my 104th and, like Donne's Bride,
... I take,
My jewels from their boxes; call
My Diamonds, Pearls, and Emeralds, and make
Myself a constellation of them all!
Bless you, my own Beloved!
I am much better to-day—having been not so well yesterday—whence the note to you, perhaps! I put that to your charity for construction. By the way, let the foolish and needless story about my whilome friend be of this use, that it records one of the traits in that same generous love, of me, I once mentioned, I remember—one of the points in his character which, I told you, would account, if you heard them, for my parting company with a good deal of warmth of attachment to myself.
What a day! But you do not so much care for rain, I think. My Mother is no worse, but still suffering sadly.
Ever your own, dearest ever—
E.B.B. to R.B.
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 22, 1846.]
Ever since I ceased to be with you—ever dearest,—have been with your 'Luria,' if that is ceasing to be with you—which it is, I feel at last. Yet the new act is powerful and subtle, and very affecting, it seems to me, after a grave, suggested pathos; the reasoning is done on every hand with admirable directness and adroitness, and poor Luria's iron baptism under such a bright crossing of swords, most miserably complete. Still ... is he to die so? can you mean it? Oh—indeed I foresaw that—not a guess of mine ever touched such an end—and I can scarcely resign myself to it as a necessity, even now ... I mean, to the act, as Luria's act, whether it is final or not—the act of suicide being so unheroical. But you are a dramatic poet and right perhaps, where, as a didactic poet, you would have been wrong, ... and, after the first shock, I begin to see that your Luria is the man Luria and that his 'sun' lights him so far and not farther than so, and to understand the natural reaction of all that generous trust and hopefulness, what naturally it would be. Also, it is satisfactory that Domizia, having put her woman's part off to the last, should be too late with it—it will be a righteous retribution. I had fancied that her object was to isolate him, ... to make his military glory and national recompense ring hollowly to his ears, and so commend herself, drawing back the veil.
Puccio's scornful working out of the low work, is very finely given, I think, ... and you have 'a cunning right hand,' to lift up Luria higher in the mind of your readers, by the very means used to pull down his fortunes—you show what a man he is by the very talk of his rivals ... by his 'natural godship' over Puccio. Then Husain is nobly characteristic—I like those streaks of Moorish fire in his speeches. 'Why 'twas all fighting' &c. ... that passage perhaps is over-subtle for a Husain—but too nobly right in the abstract to be altered, if it is so or not. Domizia talks philosophically besides, and how eloquently;—and very noble she is where she proclaims
The angel in thee and rejects the sprites
That ineffectual crowd about his strength,
And mingle with his work and claim a share!—
But why not 'spirits' rather than 'sprites,' which has a different association by custom? 'Spirits' is quite short enough, it seems to me, for a last word—it sounds like a monosyllable that trembles—or thrills, rather. And, do you know, I agree with yourself a little when you say (as did you not say?) that some of the speeches—Domizia's for instance—are too lengthy. I think I should like them to coil up their strength, here and there, in a few passages. Luria ... poor Luria ... is great and pathetic when he stands alone at last, and 'all his waves have gone over him.' Poor Luria!—And now, I wonder where Mr. Chorley will look, in this work,—along all the edges of the hills,—to find, or prove, his favourite 'mist!' On the glass of his own opera-lorgnon, perhaps:—shall we ask him to try that?
But first, I want to ask you something—I have had it in my head a long time, but it might as well have been in a box—and indeed if it had been in the box with your letters, I should have remembered to speak of it long ago. So now, at last, tell me—how do you write, O my poet? with steel pens, or Bramah pens, or goose-quills or crow-quills?—Because I have a penholder which was given to me when I was a child, and which I have used both then and since in the production of various great epics and immortal 'works,' until in these latter years it has seemed to me too heavy, and I have taken into service, instead of it, another two-inch-long instrument which makes Mr. Kenyon laugh to look at—and so, my fancy has run upon your having the heavier holder, which is not very heavy after all, and which will make you think of me whether you choose it or not, besides being made of a splinter from the ivory gate of old, and therefore not unworthy of a true prophet. Will you have it, dearest? Yes—because you can't help it. When you come ... on Saturday!—
And for 'Pauline,' ... I am satisfied with the promise to see it some day ... when we are in the isle of the sirens, or ready for wandering in the Doges' galleries. I seem to understand that you would really rather wish me not to see it now ... and as long as I do see it! So that shall be!—Am I not good now, and not a teazer? If there is any poetical justice in 'the seven worlds,' I shall have a letter to-night.
By the way, you owe me two letters by your confession. A hundred and four of mine you have, and I, only a hundred and two of yours ... which is a 'deficit' scarcely creditable to me, (now is it?) when, according to the law and ordinance, a woman's hundred and four letters would take two hundred and eight at least, from the other side, to justify them. Well—I feel inclined to wring out the legal per centage to the uttermost farthing; but fall into a fit of gratitude, notwithstanding, thinking of Monday, and how the second letter came beyond hope. Always better, you are, than I guess you to be,—and it was being best, to write, as you did, for me to hear twice on one day!—best and dearest!
But the first letter was not what you feared—I know you too well not to know how that letter was written and with what intention. Do you, on the other hand, endeavour to comprehend how there may be an eccentricity and obliquity in certain relations and on certain subjects, while the general character stands up worthily of esteem and regard—even of yours. Mr. Kenyon says broadly that it is monomania—neither more nor less. Then the principle of passive filial obedience is held—drawn (and quartered) from Scripture. He sees the law and the gospel on his side. Only the other day, there was a setting forth of the whole doctrine, I hear, down-stairs—'passive obedience, and particularly in respect to marriage.' One after the other, my brothers all walked out of the room, and there was left for sole auditor, Captain Surtees Cook, who had especial reasons for sitting it out against his will,—so he sate and asked 'if children were to be considered slaves' as meekly as if he were asking for information. I could not help smiling when I heard of it. He is just succeeding in obtaining what is called an 'adjutancy,' which, with the half pay, will put an end to many anxieties.
Dearest—when, in the next dream, you meet me in the 'landing-place,' tell me why I am to stand up to be reviewed again. What a fancy, that is of yours, for 'full-lengths'—and what bad policy, if a fancy, to talk of it so! because you would have had the glory and advantage, and privilege, of seeing me on my feet twenty times before now, if you had not impressed on me, in some ineffable manner, that to stand on my head would scarcely be stranger. Nevertheless you shall have it your own way, as you have everything—which makes you so very, very, exemplarily submissive, you know!
Mr. Kenyon does not come—puts it off to Saturday perhaps.
The Daily News I have had a glance at. A weak leading article, I thought ... and nothing stronger from Ireland:—but enough advertisements to promise a long future. What do you think? or have you not seen the paper? No broad principles laid down. A mere newspaper-support of the 'League.'
May God bless you. Say how you are—and do walk, and 'care' for yourself,
and, so, for your own
Ba.
Have I expressed to you at all how 'Luria' impresses me more and more? You shall see the 'remarks' with the other papers—the details of what strikes me.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 22, 1846.]
But you did not get the letter last evening—no, for all my good intentions—because somebody came over in the morning and forced me to go out ... and, perhaps, I knew what was coming, and had all my thoughts there, that is, here now, with my own letters from you. I think so—for this punishment, I will tell you, came for some sin or other last night. I woke—late, or early—and, in one of those lucid moments when all things are thoroughly perceived,—whether suggested by some forgotten passage in the past sleep itself, I don't know—but I seem to apprehend, comprehend entirely, for the first time, what would happen if I lost you—the whole sense of that closed door of Catarina's came on me at once, and it was I who said—not as quoting or adapting another's words, but spontaneously, unavoidably, 'In that door, you will not enter, I have'.... And, dearest, the
Unwritten it must remain.
What is on the other leaf, no ill-omen, after all,—because I strengthened myself against a merely imaginary evil—as I do always; and thus—I know I never can lose you,—you surely are more mine, there is less for the future to give or take away than in the ordinary cases, where so much less is known, explained, possessed, as with us. Understand for me, my dearest—
And do you think, sweet, that there is any free movement of my soul which your penholder is to secure? Well, try,—it will be yours by every right of discovery—and I, for my part, will religiously report to you the first time I think of you 'which, but for your present I should not have done'—or is it not a happy, most happy way of ensuring a better fifth act to Luria than the foregoing? See the absurdity I write—when it will be more probably the ruin of the whole—for was it not observed in the case of a friend of mine once, who wrote his own part in a piece for private theatricals, and had ends of his own to serve in it,—that he set to work somewhat after this fashion: 'Scene 1st. A breakfast chamber—Lord and Lady A. at table—Lady A./ No more coffee my dear?—Lord A./ One more cup! (Embracing her). Lady A./ I was thinking of trying the ponies in the Park—are you engaged? Lord A./ Why, there's that bore of a Committee at the House till 2. (Kissing her hand).' And so forth, to the astonishment of the auditory, who did not exactly see the 'sequitur' in either instance. Well, dearest, whatever comes of it, the 'aside,' the bye-play, the digression, will be the best, and only true business of the piece. And though I must smile at your notion of securing that by any fresh appliance, mechanical or spiritual, yet I do thank you, dearest, thank you from my heart indeed—(and I write with Bramahs always—not being able to make a pen!)
If you have gone so far with 'Luria,' I fancy myself nearly or altogether safe. I must not tell you, but I wished just these feelings to be in your mind about Domizia, and the death of Luria: the last act throws light back on all, I hope. Observe only, that Luria would stand, if I have plied him effectually with adverse influences, in such a position as to render any other end impossible without the hurt to Florence which his religion is, to avoid inflicting—passively awaiting, for instance, the sentence and punishment to come at night, would as surely inflict it as taking part with her foes. His aim is to prevent the harm she will do herself by striking him, so he moves aside from the blow. But I know there is very much to improve and heighten in this fourth act, as in the others—but the right aspect of things seems obtained and the rest of the work is plain and easy.
I am obliged to leave off—the rest to-morrow—and then dear, Saturday! I love you utterly, my own best, dearest—
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Night.
[Post-mark, January 23, 1846.]
Yes, I understand your 'Luria'—and there is to be more light; and I open the window to the east and wait for it—a little less gladly than for you on Saturday, dearest. In the meanwhile you have 'lucid moments,' and 'strengthen' yourself into the wisdom of learning to love me—and, upon consideration, it does not seem to be so hard after all ... there is 'less for the future to take away' than you had supposed—so that is the way? Ah, 'these lucid moments, in which all things are thoroughly perceived';—what harm they do me!—And I am to 'understand for you,' you say!—Am I?
On the other side, and to make the good omen complete, I remembered, after I had sealed my last letter, having made a confusion between the ivory and horn gates, the gates of false and true visions, as I am apt to do—and my penholder belongs to the ivory gate, ... as you will perceive in your lucid moments—poor holder! But, as you forget me on Wednesdays, the post testifying, ... the sinecure may not be quite so certain as the Thursday's letter says. And I too, in the meanwhile, grow wiser, ... having learnt something which you cannot do,—you of the 'Bells and Pomegranates': You cannot make a pen. Yesterday I looked round the world in vain for it.
Mr. Kenyon does not come—will not perhaps until Saturday! Which reminds me—Mr. Kenyon told me about a year ago that he had been painfully employed that morning in parting two—dearer than friends—and he had done it he said, by proving to either, that he or she was likely to mar the prospects of the other. 'If I had spoken to each, of himself or herself,' he said, 'I never could have done it.'
Was not that an ingenious cruelty? The remembrance rose up in me like a ghost, and made me ask you once to promise what you promised ... (you recollect?) because I could not bear to be stabbed with my own dagger by the hand of a third person ... so! When people have lucid moments themselves, you know, it is different.
And shall I indeed have a letter to-morrow? Or, not having the penholder yet, will you....
Goodnight. May God bless you—
Ever and wholly your
Ba.
R.B. to E.B.B.
[Post-mark, January 23, 1846.]
Now, of all perverse interpretations that ever were and never ought to have been, commend me to this of Ba's—after I bade her generosity 'understand me,' too!—which meant, 'let her pick out of my disjointed sentences a general meaning, if she can,—which I very well know their imperfect utterance would not give to one unsupplied with the key of my whole heart's-mystery'—and Ba, with the key in her hand, to pretend and poke feathers and penholders into the key-hole, and complain that the wards are wrong! So—when the poor scholar, one has read of, uses not very dissimilar language and argument—who being threatened with the deprivation of his Virgil learnt the Æneid by heart and then said 'Take what you can now'!—that Ba calls 'feeling the loss would not be so hard after all'!—I do not, at least. And if at any future moment I should again be visited—as I earnestly desire may never be the case—with a sudden consciousness of the entire inutility of all earthly love (since of my love) to hold its object back from the decree of God, if such should call it away; one of those known facts which, for practical good, we treat as supremely common-place, but which, like those of the uncertainty of life—the very existence of God, I may say—if they were not common-place, and could they be thoroughly apprehended (except in the chance minutes which make one grow old, not the mere years)—the business of the world would cease; but when you find Chaucer's graver at his work of 'graving smale seles' by the sun's light, you know that the sun's self could not have been created on that day—do you 'understand' that, Ba? And when I am with you, or here or writing or walking—and perfectly happy in the sunshine of you, I very well know I am no wiser than is good for me and that there seems no harm in feeling it impossible this should change, or fail to go on increasing till this world ends and we are safe, I with you, for ever. But when—if only once, as I told you, recording it for its very strangeness, I do feel—in a flash—that words are words, and could not alter that decree ... will you tell me how, after all, that conviction and the true woe of it are better met than by the as thorough conviction that, for one blessing, the extreme woe is impossible now—that you are, and have been, mine, and me—one with me, never to be parted—so that the complete separation not being to be thought of, such an incomplete one as is yet in Fate's power may be the less likely to attract her notice? And, dearest, in all emergencies, see, I go to you for help; for your gift of better comfort than is found in myself. Or ought I, if I could, to add one more proof to the Greek proverb 'that the half is greater than the whole'—and only love you for myself (it is absurd; but if I could disentwine you from my soul in that sense), only see my own will, and good (not in your will and good, as I now see them and shall ever see) ... should you say I did love you then? Perhaps. And it would have been better for me, I know—I should not have written this or the like—there being no post in the Siren's isle, as you will see.
And the end of the whole matter is—what? Not by any means what my Ba expects or ought to expect; that I say with a flounce 'Catch me blotting down on paper, again, the first vague impressions in the weakest words and being sure I have only to bid her "understand"!—when I can get "Blair on Rhetoric," and the additional chapter on the proper conduct of a letter'! On the contrary I tell you, Ba, my own heart's dearest, I will provoke you tenfold worse; will tell you all that comes uppermost, and what frightens me or reassures me, in moments lucid or opaque—and when all the pen-stumps and holders refuse to open the lock, out will come the key perforce; and once put that knowledge—of the entire love and worship of my heart and soul—to its proper use, and all will be clear—tell me to-morrow that it will be clear when I call you to account and exact strict payment for every word and phrase and full-stop and partial stop, and no stop at all, in this wicked little note which got so treacherously the kisses and the thankfulness—written with no penholder that is to belong to me, I hope—but with the feather, possibly, which Sycorax wiped the dew from, as Caliban remembered when he was angry! All but—(that is, all was wrong but)—to be just ... the old, dear, so dear ending which makes my heart beat now as at first ... and so, pays for all! Wherefore, all is right again, is it not? and you are my own priceless Ba, my very own—and I will have you, if you like that style, and want you, and must have you every day and all day long—much less see you to-morrow stand—
... Now, there breaks down my new spirit—and, shame or no, I must pray you, in the old way, not to receive me standing—I should not remain master of myself I do believe!
You have put out of my head all I intended to write—and now I slowly begin to remember the matters they seem strangely unimportant—that poor impotency of a Newspaper! No—nothing of that for the present. To-morrow my dearest! Ba's first comment—'To-morrow? To-day is too soon, it seems—yet it is wise, perhaps, to avoid the satiety &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.'
Does she feel how I kissed that comment back on her dear self as fit punishment?
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, January 26, 1846.]
I must begin by invoking my own stupidity! To forget after all the penholder! I had put it close beside me too on the table, and never once thought of it afterwards from first to last—just as I should do if I had a common-place book, the memoranda all turning to obliviscenda as by particular contact. So I shall send the holder with Miss Martineau's books which you can read or not as you like ... they have beauty in passages ... but, trained up against the wall of a set design, want room for branching and blossoming, great as her skill is. I like her 'Playfellow' stories twice as well. Do you know them? Written for children, and in such a fine heroic child-spirit as to be too young and too old for nobody. Oh, and I send you besides a most frightful extract from an American magazine sent to me yesterday ... no, the day before ... on the subject of mesmerism—and you are to understand, if you please, that the Mr. Edgar Poe who stands committed in it, is my dedicator ... whose dedication I forgot, by the way, with the rest—so, while I am sending, you shall have his poems with his mesmeric experience and decide whether the outrageous compliment to E.B.B. or the experiment on M. Vandeleur [Valdemar] goes furthest to prove him mad. There is poetry in the man, though, now and then, seen between the great gaps of bathos.... 'Politian' will make you laugh—as the 'Raven' made me laugh, though with something in it which accounts for the hold it took upon people such as Mr. N.P. Willis and his peers—it was sent to me from four different quarters besides the author himself, before its publication in this form, and when it had only a newspaper life. Some of the other lyrics have power of a less questionable sort. For the author, I do not know him at all—never heard from him nor wrote to him—and in my opinion, there is more faculty shown in the account of that horrible mesmeric experience (mad or not mad) than in his poems. Now do read it from the beginning to the end. That 'going out' of the hectic, struck me very much ... and the writhing away of the upper lip. Most horrible!—Then I believe so much of mesmerism, as to give room for the full acting of the story on me ... without absolutely giving full credence to it, understand.
Ever dearest, you could not think me in earnest in that letter? It was because I understood you so perfectly that I felt at liberty for the jesting a little—for had I not thought of that before, myself, and was I not reproved for speaking of it, when I said that I was content, for my part, even so? Surely you remember—and I should not have said it if I had not felt with you, felt and known, that 'there is, with us, less for the future to give or take away than in the ordinary cases.' So much less! All the happiness I have known has come to me through you, and it is enough to live for or die in—therefore living or dying I would thank God, and use that word 'enough' ... being yours in life and death. And always understanding that if either of us should go, you must let it be this one here who was nearly gone when she knew you, since I could not bear—
Now see if it is possible to write on this subject, unless one laughs to stop the tears. I was more wise on Friday.
Let me tell you instead of my sister's affairs, which are so publicly talked of in this house that there is no confidence to be broken in respect to them—yet my brothers only see and hear, and are told nothing, to keep them as clear as possible from responsibility. I may say of Henrietta that her only fault is, her virtues being written in water—I know not of one other fault. She has too much softness to be able to say 'no' in the right place—and thus, without the slightest levity ... perfectly blameless in that respect, ... she says half a yes or a quarter of a yes, or a yes in some sort of form, too often—but I will tell you. Two years ago, three men were loving her, as they called it. After a few months, and the proper quantity of interpretations, one of them consoled himself by giving nick-names to his rivals. Perseverance and Despair he called them, and so, went up to the boxes to see out the rest of the play. Despair ran to a crisis, was rejected in so many words, but appealed against the judgment and had his claim admitted—it was all silence and mildness on each side ... a tacit gaining of ground,—Despair 'was at least a gentleman,' said my brothers. On which Perseverance came on with violent re-iterations,—insisted that she loved him without knowing it, or should—elbowed poor Despair into the open streets, who being a gentleman wouldn't elbow again—swore that 'if she married another he would wait till she became a widow, trusting to Providence' ... did wait every morning till the head of the house was out, and sate day by day, in spite of the disinclination of my sisters and the rudeness of all my brothers, four hours in the drawing-room ... let himself be refused once a week and sate all the longer ... allowed everybody in the house (and a few visitors) to see and hear him in fits of hysterical sobbing, and sate on unabashed, the end being that he sits now sole regnant, my poor sister saying softly, with a few tears of remorse for her own instability, that she is 'taken by storm and cannot help it.' I give you only the résumé of this military movement—and though I seem to smile, which it was impossible to avoid at some points of the evidence as I heard it from first one person and then another, yet I am woman enough rather to be glad that the decision is made so. He is sincerely attached to her, I believe; and the want of refinement and sensibility (for he understood her affections to be engaged to another at one time) is covered in a measure by the earnestness,—and justified too by the event—everybody being quite happy and contented, even to Despair, who has a new horse and takes lessons in music.
That's love—is it not? And that's my answer (if you look for it) to the question you asked me yesterday.
Yet do not think that I am turning it all to game. I could not do so with any real earnest sentiment ... I never could ... and now least, and with my own sister whom I love so. One may smile to oneself and yet wish another well—and so I smile to you—and it is all safe with you I know. He is a second or third cousin of ours and has golden opinions from all his friends and fellow-officers—and for the rest, most of these men are like one another.... I never could see the difference between fuller's earth and common clay, among them all.
What do you think he has said since—to her too?—'I always persevere about everything. Once I began to write a farce—which they told me was as bad as could be. Well!—I persevered!—I finished it.' Perfectly unconscious, both he and she were of there being anything mal à propos in that—and no kind of harm was meant,—only it expresses the man.
Dearest—it had better be Thursday I think—our day! I was showing to-day your father's drawings,—and my brothers, and Arabel besides, admired them very much on the right grounds. Say how you are. You did not seem to me to answer frankly this time, and I was more than half uneasy when you went away. Take exercise, dear, dearest ... think of me enough for it,—and do not hurry 'Luria.' May God bless you!
Your own
Ba.