[4] [Some months later the discovery was made that there had been a mistake in the War Office in the name, and that the son was unharmed.—R.B.B.]
Friday.
[Post-mark, July 10, 1846.]
And I am disappointed, dearest, in this news of La Cava—after which it would be madness to think of going there: the one reason we have to go at all is simply for your health—I mean, that if the seclusion were the main object, we might easily compass that here. All places are utterly indifferent to me if I can inhabit them with you—why should Palermo please me less than Italy proper? The distance is considerable, however, and the journey expensive—I wonder whether the steamer will sail for Leghorn as last year. As for the travelling English, they are horrible, and at Florence, unbearable ... their voices in your ear at every turn ... and such voices!—I got to very nearly hate the Tribune for their sakes. Vietri is close to Salerno and must be obvious to the same condemnation. Your friend speaks from personal experience, I presume—she may well say that the baneful effects of the hour of sunset (i.e. the Ave-maria) are too much overlooked ‘in all Italy’—I never heard of them before—but an infinity of ‘crotchets’ go from Italian brain to brain about what, in eating or drinking or walking or sleeping, will be the death of you: still, they may know best. The most dreadful event that could happen to me would be your getting worse instead of better.... God knows what I should do! So whatever precaution we can take, let us take.
Oh, poor Flush,—do you think I do not love and respect him for his jealous supervision,—his slowness to know another, having once known you? All my apprehension is that, in the imaginations down-stairs, he may very unconsciously play the part of the dog that is heard to ‘bark violently’ while something dreadful takes place: yet I do not sorrow over his slapped ears, as if they ever pained him very much—you dear Ba!
And to-morrow I shall see you. Are you, can you be, really ‘better’ after I have seen you? If it is not truth ... which I will not say ... such an assurance is the most consummate flattery I can imagine ... it may be recorded on my tombstone ‘R.B.—to whom this flattery was addressed, that, after the sight of him, Ba was better, she said.’ If it is truth ... may you say that, neither more nor less, day by day, year by year through our lives—and I shall have lived indeed!
How it rains—how it varies from hot to cold! a pretty vantage-ground whence we English can look and call other climates bad or indifferent! Now if to-morrow resembles to-day, will the Chiswick expedition hold good? I shall consider that I may go unless a letter comes to-morrow ... which would have to be written to-day. How pleasant it would be to make our days always Wednesday and Saturday ... could not that be contrived? So much for considerateness and contentedness!
I want, now, to refer as little as possible to the sad subject ... but I am glad you have written,—glad too that you are not severe on me for some hasty speeches—which did, indeed, mean as you say ... vexation at your having been vexed. And, I will just add, you remark excellently on the wound to self-love making itself that remedy, rather than the wound to the affections ... yet there are instances ... Romilly loses his wife ... so does poor Laman Blanchard.
So I go on writing, writing about all but what my heart is full of! Let me kiss you, ever dearest—to-morrow will soon arrive—meanwhile, and forever I am your own.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 12, 1846.]
When I made you promise to refer no more to that subject in your letter (which I must wait a day and a night for, alas!), I did not engage myself to the like silence ... perhaps because I was not bidden—or, no! there is a better reason; I want to beg your pardon, dearest, for all that petulancy,—for the manner of what I said rather than the matter,—there is a rationality in it all, if I could express trulier what I feel—but the manner was foolish and wrong and unnecessary to you—so do forgive and forget it. You would understand and sympathize if you knew—not me, whom you do know in some degree,—but so much of my early life as would account for the actual horror and hatred I have of those particular doctrines of the world—and the especially foolish word about the ‘travelling’ meant something like the not unnatural thought that if in this main, sole event for all good and all evil in my life,—if here the world plucked you from me by any of the innumerable lines it casts, with that indirectness, too,—then, I should simply go and live the rest of my days as far out of it as I could.
The simple thing to say is, that I who know you to be above me in all great or good feelings and therefore worship you, must be without excuse to talk inconsiderately as if I, sitting by you and speaking of the same subject, must needs feel more acutely, more strongly in one respect where, indeed, it wants very little pre-eminence in heart or brain to feel entirely the truth—a simplest of truths. It would have been laughable if I had broken out on Mrs. Proctor’s bitterness of speech, for instance ... just as though you were the slower of us two to see the nature of it! So I do again ask your pardon, dearest Ba! You said you loved me no less yesterday than ever—how must I love you and press closer to you more and more, and desire to see nothing of the world behind you, when I hear how the world thinks, and how you think! You only, only adorable woman, only imaginable love for me! And all the hastiness and petulancy comes from that ... someone seems to come close (in every such maxim of the world’s) and say ‘What is she—to so much a year? Could you be happy with her except in Mayfair—and there whom could you not be happy with!’
It is as I expected—Rachel plays on Wednesday in ‘Phèdre,’ and our friend writes to say he has secured places. May nothing overcast the perfect three hours on Tuesday,—those dear, dear spaces of dear brightness—why cannot a life be made up of these ... with the proper interposition of work, to justify God’s goodness so far as poor mortality and its endeavours can,—a week of Tuesdays—then a month—a year—a life! I must long to see you again,—always by far the most I long, the next day—the very day after I have seen you—when it is freshest in my mind what I did not say while I might have said it,—nor ask while I might have been answered—nor learn while you would have taught me—no, it is indescribable. Did I call yesterday ‘unsatisfactory’? Would I had it back now! Or better, I will wish you here when I write, with the trees to see and the birds to hear through the open window—I see you on this old chair against the purple back ... or shall you lie on the sofa? Ba, how I love you, my own perfect unapproachable mistress.
Let me kiss your feet—and now your hands and your eyes—and your lips now, for the full pardon’s sake, my sweetest love—
Ever your own—
Sunday. 6 P.M.
[Post-mark, July 13, 1846.]
Ever, ever dearest, I have to feel for you all through Sunday, and I hear no sound and see no light. How are you? how did you get home yesterday? I thought of you more than usual after you went, if I did not love you as much as usual.... What could that doubt have been made of?
Dearest, I had a letter last night from Mrs. Jameson, who says that on Tuesday or Wednesday at about four o’clock (though she is as little sure of the hour apparently as of the day), she means to come to see me. Now you are to consider whether this grand peutêtre will shake our Tuesday, ... whether you would rather take Thursday instead, or will run the risk as it appears. I am ready to agree, either way. She is the most uncertain of uncertain people, and may not come at all ... it’s a case for what Hume used to call sceptical scepticism. Judge! Then I have heard (I forgot to tell you) from Mr. Horne—and ... did you have two letters last week from your Bennet? ... because I had,—flying leaves of ‘Mignonette,’ and other lyrical flowers.
When you had gone Arabel came to persuade me to go to the park in a cab, notwithstanding my too lively recollections of the last we chanced upon,—and I was persuaded, and so we tumbled one over another (yet not all those cabs are so rough!) to the nearest gate opening on the grass, and got out and walked a little. A lovely evening it was, but I wished somehow rather to be at home, and Flush had his foot pinched in shutting the cab-door, ... and altogether there was not much gain:—only, as for Flush’s foot, though he cried piteously and held it up, looking straight to me for sympathy, no sooner had he touched the grass than he began to run without a thought of it. Flush always makes the most of his misfortunes—he is of the Byronic school—il se pose en victime.
Now I will not write any more—I long to have my letter of to-morrow morning—I long to have it.... Shall I not have it to-morrow morning? This is posted by my hand.
I loved you yesterday ... I love you to-day ... I shall love you to-morrow.
Every day I am yours.
Ba.
Monday.
[Post-mark, July 13, 1846.]
My own Ba, your letter kisses me in its entire kindness—and I kiss it and you.—Mrs. Jameson may come or keep away ... (since you let me speak and decide, which is like you) ... she may appoint and reappoint, but Tuesday was given me and I will have it if her visit is the only obstacle—for what was all the confessing worth if not to account for such a phenomenon as my presence in your room when by any chance she might discover it? Beside, as you say, she is the most uncertain of engagement-holders ... no, indeed,—no Tuesday ought to be given up for her! Therefore, unless fresh orders arrive,—at three on Tuesday ... which is happily, happily to-morrow! You are my own sweetest to reach a letter to me with your own hand, as you tell me,—and the drive, and the walk to the Post Office—thank you, Ba! Perhaps ... dare I say ... you will answer that letter I sent yesterday ... because now I remember there is no prayer at the end to prevent you ... that is, from answering the main part of it—the reverting &c.
I wrote to Mr. Horne, but shall not hear from him—on Saturday I wrote. And Mr. Bennett’s two letters are considerately written,—directed, I mean,—in a hand and with a blue ink that I recognise,—consequently the contents give me no trouble. I wrote two or three lines to the ‘year of the world’ poet,—did you take the pains? Once on a time some unknown author sent me a Tragedy, ‘not published,’ called ‘Alessandro de’ Medici,’ with some striking scenes ... I wonder who could be the writer—did it ever fall in your way?
... As if I care!—can I care about anything that is not Ba? All else seems as idle as ... as,—now you shall have a real instance in point—as my dream last night. This morning at breakfast my mother asked me, the first thing, what could so amuse me as to make me call loudly ‘Bravo’ again and again, with abundance of laughter? (My room is next to hers and the door is left ajar). Whereupon I tried to recall my dream—and all that I can seize is a passage through a gallery of Haydon’s pictures, one of which was a portrait of his wife; nor did a suspicion once cross my mind that the artist was not well and working somewhere in the vicinity all the time—How strange! I never dream if quite well—and I suppose the present state of my head just amounts to not being quite well. (It is better at any rate, and to-morrow—ought to be worse, that—Ba may prove her potency as of old).
Now I will kiss you and wait as well as I can till the full blessing. Dearest—dearest I am your own—
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 14, 1846.]
I must write ... even if you come to-morrow. Dearest, if I told you all that nonsense on Saturday, it was for the sake of telling you all and of hearing you say ‘What nonsense’ afterwards. I never began by disguising anything from you ... did I? I always wished you to see how the arrows would strike out at us from that bush and this bush. At us. For, granting that you seriously thought it possible for such motives to divide me from you, ... ah, granting it, ... and you may well ask my pardon!
The world! the world could as soon catch me with a ‘line’ so baited, as you could catch a trout with a silver sixpence at the end of a string. Not only do I think with you entirely on that subject, but I always thought like you. Always I have hated all their worldly systems, and not merely now, and since I have loved you. With a hundred a year between us, I would have married you, if you had not been afraid. And so, think whether directly or ‘indirectly’ I am likely to be frightened into the breach of an engagement by what I repeated to you or by what is like unto it. No—my weaknesses are of a different class altogether.
The talk I talked over again to you, seemed to burn in my ears the longer on that Saturday, because, while it was being originally talked between Papa and my aunt (touching Arabella Hedley’s marriage), he had brought a paper for me to sign about some money placed on a railway, (not speculatively) ... and my aunt, by way of saying a lively thing, exclaimed, ‘Is that your marriage-settlement, my dear?’ ... which made me so nervous that I wrote my name wrong and vexed Papa into being almost cross with me. So one word got entwined with another, and all seemed to hang around me—Do you understand?
But you do not, how you pained me when you said that. Ah—I thought I saw you gone ... ‘so far, so far,’ as you said ... and myself left.
Yet I should deserve it of course, if I were to give you up for the sake of that! ... or for any other motive, ... except your advantage ... your own. I should deserve everything in such a case, but should feel nothing ... not even my punishment. Could I? ... being without a heart?
Ah—after all my mistrust, did I ever mistrust you so? I have doubted your power to love me as you believed you loved me, perhaps—but your will to be true to one you loved, without reference to worldly influences, I never doubted, nor could. I think I will let you beg my pardon; you unjust, dearest....
To so much over-praise, there should be a little wronging, too ... and therefore you are not, after all, ‘unjust’ ... only ‘dearest’!...
Such a letter, besides, you have written, ... and there are two of them to-day! You will not go from me, I think, ‘so far, so far.’ You will not leave me behind, with the harpoon in me, to make red the salt wilderness of waters.
Altogether, then, I forgive you, Robert—and it is glorious for me to have something to forgive you for, who are the best so out of measure!—I seize the opportunity.
And you come to-morrow! Which is right ... right! I was afraid that you would not come—And Mrs. Jameson is perfectly uncertain as you may read in this new note which reached me with yours to-night.
All the Hedleys have dined here. To-morrow will be clear of them ... pure of them, I was going to write ... but I thought of Mrs. Hedley’s beaming affectionate face ... (so still lovely, she looked this evening, when she came up-stairs to kiss me!) ... and could not say such a wronging word. You would like her—you could not help it.
I was in the carriage to-day in Oxford Street ... and a sealed letter was thrown exactly at my head, my aunt and cousin and Henrietta being with me—a sealed letter sealed with arms (not of Agincourt!) and directed ‘For your perusal.’ Guess the meaning of that!—why just a tract by the Rev. Villiers of that parish, upon the enormous wickedness of frequenting plays and balls! Perhaps I looked as if my soul had entered into the secret of the Polka-dancers—who can say?
So, good-night, dearest dearest!—
I cannot give myself again to you,
being your own.
Of course this was written with the poker, as you will see by the calligraphy.
Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 15, 1846.]
And is it true of to-day as you said it would be, ever dearest, that you wish to be with me? Let me have the comfort, or luxury rather, of the thought of it, before to-morrow takes you a step farther off.
At dinner my aunt said to Papa ... ‘I have not seen Ba all day—and when I went to her room, to my astonishment a gentleman was sitting there.’ ‘Who was that?’ said Papa’s eyes to Arabel—‘Mr. Browning called here to-day,’ she answered—‘And Ba bowed her head,’ continued my aunt, ‘as if she meant to signify to me that I was not to come in’—‘Oh,’ cried Henrietta, ‘that must have been a mistake of yours. Perhaps she meant just the contrary.’ ‘You should have gone in,’ Papa said, ‘and seen the poet.’ Now if she really were to do that the next time!—Yet I did not, you know, make the expelling gesture she thought she saw. Simply I was startled. As to Saturday we must try whether we cannot defend the position ... set the guns against the approaches to right and left ... we must try.
In speaking too of your visit this morning, Stormy said to her ... ‘Oh Mr. Browning is a great friend of Ba’s! He comes here twice a week—is it twice a week or once, Arabel?’
While I write, the Hedleys come—and Mrs. Hedley is beseeching me into seeing Mr. Bevan, whom perhaps I must see, notwithstanding Flush’s wrongs.
By the way, I made quite clear to Flush that you left the cakes, and they were very graciously received indeed.
Dearest, since the last word was written, Mrs. Hedley came back leading Mr. Bevan, and Papa who had just entered the room found the door shut upon him.... I was nervous ... oh, so nervous! and the six feet, and something more, of Mr. Bevan seemed to me as if they never would end, so tall the man is. Well—and he sate down by me according to my aunt’s arrangement; and I, who began to talk a thousand miles from any such subject, with a good reason for the precaution, found myself thrown head-foremost into ecclesiastical architecture at the close of about three minutes—how he got there all his saints know best! It’s his subject ... par excellence. He talks to Arabella about arches and mullions—he can’t talk of anything else, I suspect. And because the Trinity is expressed in such a form of church-building, the altar at the east, and the baptistery at the door, ... there’s no other lawful form of a church, none at all! Not that he has an opinion! he ‘adopts opinions,’ but would not think for himself for the world at the risk of ultimate damnation! Which was the amount of his talk to-day ... and really it does not strike me as wisdom, now that I set it down so. Yet the man expressed himself well and has a sensible face—he is a clever third-class man, I think—better than the mass for sense, but commonplace essentially. Only, inasmuch as ecclesiastical architecture is not my subject, I may think otherwise of him when I know him otherwise. I do not dislike him now. And then I am conscious how you spoil me for common men, dearest! It is scarcely fair on them.
My aunt (Mrs. Hedley) said when she introduced him: ‘You are to understand this to be a great honour—for she never lets anybody come here except Mr. Kenyon, ... and a few other gentlemen’ ... (laughing). Said Papa—‘Only one other gentleman, indeed. Only Mr. Browning, the poet—the man of the pomegranates.’ Was that likely to calm me, do you think? How late it is—I must break off. To-night I shall write again. Dearest beloved,
I am your own always.
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, July 15, 1846.]
Dearest Ba, I am anxious to know what cannot yet be told me, how that unforeseen visit has worked—tell me the moment you can,—and fully, whatever happens.
‘Suspicious’—anything in the world rather than that, you are! When you have mistrusted your own power over me, I believed always in the mistrust ... which, indeed, matters little except to yourself. For if I would, certainly, have the truth seen as the truth, and our true position understood,—yet ... there is,—ought I not to be ashamed at saying?—an exquisite, final grace and endearingness in the ignorance, strange as I must account it. You doubly trust me,—with the treasure, and then, with the knowledge that it is a treasure, or such a treasure.
Ba, when I think of it all, my whole heart becomes one gratitude to you,—I am only yours, grateful for ever. It is the only kind of thoughts in which you shall not share (there are many in which you cannot) the thoughts to my inmost self as I go over what you say and do and try to clear up to myself the precise fascination in each: you shall not know what you do ... but shall continue to do and to let me know. I love you entirely. Where can you change so that I shall not love you more and more as I grow more able and worthier? I cannot sit for twenty-four hours by you as I sit for three—as it is, I take myself to task for not doing something here at home to justify in some measure my privilege and blessing—and the only thing that keeps conscience quiet comparatively is ... the old expedient that the Future engages to do for me what the Present cannot. Under your eyes, I will hope to work and attain your approval. I know that when you were only the great Poet and not my Ba, I would have preferred your praise, as competent to praise, to that of the whole world—I remember distinctly, and know I should have done so. And now, if I put aside the Poet and only (what an ‘only’) see my dearest, dearest lady of that hair and eyes, and hands, and voice, and all the completeness that was trusted to my arms yesterday—why I feel that if she, never having written a line, said ‘What Miss Barrett may think I do not know, but I am content with what you show me’—then, dearest, should not I be content—?
I called on Moxon—and called at Carlyle’s to no purpose. He was out, and will leave town (said the servant) next Saturday. Mrs. Carlyle has already left it. So, no Rag Fair for the present, or probably ever! This was my fault,—I having let several Sundays go by—I must write to Mr. Kenyon and try if he will come on his own account. Moxon tells me that he has sold fifteen hundred of Tennyson’s Poems in a year—and is about to print another edition in consequence. If that is the case, and Tennyson gets, say, only half a crown by the sale of each copy, expenses deducted, he will have received 178l.,—little enough, as payments are made to Punch-literature, but enough to live upon, whatever the awful fiat decides! Tennyson ‘is going’ to Switzerland presently with Moxon—but is liable to fits of indecision. He did talk of going to Italy (of course), but the other day, time being up, his brother was forced to proceed alone. Moxon is coming here first.
Now I will kiss you, dearest, and hope that Wimpole Street stands where it did, unhurt by explosions of any-kind. I have got a letter from Procter asking me to go to-day, which I cannot do. Ever your own, very own R.
Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 16, 1846.]
Well! I anticipated your asking, I think, and told you fully this morning. It was a chronicle I sent you, rather than a letter. And nothing is left to tell you—for I did not go out all day ... nor yesterday. Which was wrong. But I had visitor on visitor to-day, ... my old maid coming to bring me her baby to look at, to Flush’s infinite delight. Whenever she comes he devotes himself to her, stays with her down-stairs, lies on the corner of her gown, and, for the most part, forbears going to sleep. To-morrow I mean to go out ... to-morrow,—when you are beginning to think rather less of me.
Isn’t it ungrateful of me? I think so.
I am glad, at least, that I do not appear to you ‘suspicious.’ Because I dislike suspicious people myself, and it has struck me often in the midst of the dislike.... ‘That is how I must appear to him.’ Ah—but you are too indulgent to me, my own dearest ... too dearest! ... and you draw crooked inferences for me, shutting both the eyes ... the near-sighted eye and far-sighted eye. Or is it, in that strange sight of yours, that I walk between the far and the near objects, in an invisible security? Or is it (which were best) that I am too near to be seen even by the near-sighted eye, ... like a hand brought close to the eyelashes, which, for over-closeness, nobody can see? Let me be too near to be seen—always too near!—dearest, dearest! Never will I complain that you do not see me! Be sure of that, now.
Once I used to be more uneasy, and to think that I ought to make you see me. But Love is better than Sight, and Love will do without Sight. Which I did not understand at first. I knew it was enough for me, that you should love me. That it was enough for you, I had to learn afterwards.
And ‘Grateful’ is my word and not yours. I am grateful to you, if to owe you all the sense of life, all the renewal of hope, all the possibility of happiness ... if to owe these things to another, consciously, feelingly, shall pass for gratitude, ... then I am grateful to you, Robert. Do you not know it, that I should say it again? For me, it seems to me that I can do nothing in return. To love you! Why no woman in the world could do less.
I am glad, both for the public and Tennyson, that his poems sell so well—and presently you will do as well or better—and I, half as well perhaps; so that we shall be too rich, which will spoil it all ... won’t it?
Mr. Horne sent me the Daily News to-day, ... the number containing his verses on Haydon ... and I cut from it an advertisement, for the purpose of bidding you observe that the land journey, or river-voyage, is very much cheaper than the sea-voyage by the steamers—unless the direct vessel to Leghorn should go as last year, and I fear it will not. The steamer-charges of the Oriental company are immense. Nineteen guineas to Gibraltar even! Twenty-eight, I think, to Naples. As for the advertisement, I send it only for what it suggests. And there is time enough for calculations, all ways suggestible.
May God bless you, dear, dear! How is the head? Shall it be better, without me, until Saturday? Say how it is.
Among all my visitors, the only one I expected, never came! No Mrs. Jameson again to-day!—
Dearest, I am your very own
Ba.
Thursday.
[Post-mark, July 16, 1846.]
I should be doing your own dear face (which I see so perfectly through the distance)—too great a wrong if I so much as answered the charge of ‘not remembering.’ I see the face smile above the hand that writes! As if one may not say that a division, a wound, smarts more on the first day, and aches more on the next! As if I do not prefer the fresh sharp regret to the settling of ... what I trust in God and you I never shall feel! However, if it will please you to know, I do feel to-day as earnest a longing to be with you again as if your two letters were not here,—as if Tuesday lay only an hour behind instead of the two long days!
I think your Father’s words on those two occasions, very kind,—very! They confuse,—perhaps humble me ... that is not the expression, but it may stay. I dare say he is infinitely kind at bottom—I think so, that is, on my own account,—because, come what will or may, I shall never see otherwise than with your sight. If he could know me, I think he would soon reconcile himself to all of it,—know my heart’s purposes toward you. But that is impossible—and with the sincere will to please him by any exertion or sacrifice in my power, I shall very likely never have the opportunity of picking up a glove he might drop. In old novels, the implacable father is not seldom set upon by a round dozen of ruffians with blacked faces from behind a hedge,—and just as the odds prove too many, suddenly a stranger (to all save the reader) leaps over an adjacent ditch, &c. ‘Sir, under Providence, I owe you my life!’ &c. &c. How does Dumas improve on this in ‘Monte Cristo’—are there ‘new effects?’ Absurdity! Yet I would fain ... fain! you understand.
To talk about my ‘spoiling you for other conversers’ is ... oh, leap over hedge and ditch, somebody, to the rescue! If I praise myself for anything in our intimacy it is that I never ... but I won’t go into it. And putting my own experience aside and in its place, it strikes me that what Ba ranks as a ‘third-rate man’ may pass justly for a paragon and marvel among men as the world has a right to class them. I am quite sure if I had been present and much had uttered itself about mullions ... somebody would have looked a very babe in knowledge, and perhaps made Ba blush for him and her own waste of love and praise—So he retreats where he may keep it all in virtue of being what he is ever is, and shall be, her own R.
The river-voyage is not only the cheaper but by far the more interesting ... all to consider is the fatigue to you; what else?
I am very well to-day. Rachel’s ‘Phèdre’ was admirable last night; quite through Racine up to Euripides—the declaration-scene with Hippolytus exquisite ... I must tell you—
Thursday.
[Post-mark, July 17, 1846.]
Dearest, if you feel that, must I not feel it more deeply? Twice or three times lately he has said to me ‘my love’ and even ‘my puss,’ his old words before he was angry last year, ... and I quite quailed before them as if they were so many knife-strokes. Anything but his kindness, I can bear now.
Yet I am glad that you feel that ... The difficulty, (almost the despair!) has been with me, to make you understand the two ends of truth ... both that he is not stone ... and that he is immovable as stone. Perhaps only a very peculiar nature could have held so long the position he holds in his family. His hand would not lie so heavily, without a pulse in it. Then he is upright—faithful to his conscience. You would respect him, ... and love him perhaps in the end. For me, he might have been king and father over me to the end, if he had thought it worth while to love me openly enough—yet, even so, he should not have let you come too near. And you could not (so) have come too near—for he would have had my confidence from the beginning, and no opportunity would have been permitted to you of proving your affection for me, and I should have thought always what I thought at first. So the night-shade and the eglantine are twisted, twined, one in the other, ... and the little pink roses lean up against the pale poison of the berries—we cannot tear this from that, let us think of it ever so much!
We must be humble and beseeching afterwards at least, and try to get forgiven—Poor Papa! I have turned it over and over in my mind, whether it would be less offensive, less shocking to him, if an application were made first. If I were strong, I think I should incline to it at all risks—but as it is, ... it might ... would, probably, ... take away the power of action from me altogether. We should be separated, you see, from that moment, ... hindered from writing ... hindered from meeting ... and I could evade nothing, as I am—not to say that I should have fainting fits at every lifting of his voice, through that inconvenient nervous temperament of mine which has so often made me ashamed of myself. Then ... the positive disobedience might be a greater offence than the unauthorised act. I shut my eyes in terror sometimes. May God direct us to the best.
Oh—do not write about this, dearest, dearest?—I throw myself out of it into the pure, sweet, deep thought of you ... which is the love of you always. I am yours ... your own. I never doubt of being yours. I feel too much yours. It is might and right together. You are more to me, beside, than the whole world.
Write nothing of this, dearest of all!—it is of no use. To-day ... this morning ... I went out in the carriage, and we drove round the Park; and Mrs. Jameson did not come afterward. Will she put it off till Saturday? I have heard nothing against Saturday, by the way, worse than that conjecture of mine.
And I have written you, perhaps, a teazing, painful letter ... I, who love you to-day ‘as much as ever.’ It is my destiny, I sometimes think, to torment you. And let me say what I will, remember how nothing that I say can mean a doubt—you never shall have reason to reproach me for the falseness of cowardice—that double falseness ... both to me and to you. Only I wish this were Christmas-Day, and we ... even at Salerno ... in the ‘bad air’! There’s no harm in such a wish—now is there?
Ever and ever I am your own
Ba.
Friday.
[Post-mark, July 17, 1846.]
Did you ever see a more uncongenial, colourless day than this—that brings me no letter! I do not despair yet, however—there will be a post presently. When I am without the sight of you, and the voice of you, which a letter seems ... I feel very accurately the justice of that figure by which I am represented as ‘able to leave you alone—leaving you and following my pleasure elsewhere’—so you have written and spoken! Well, to-day, I may follow my pleasures.
I will follow you, Ba,—the thoughts of you, and long for to-morrow.
No letter for me,—the time is past. If you are well, my own Ba, I will not mind ... more than I can. You had not been out for two days—the wind is high, too. May God keep you at all times, ever dearest!
The sun shines again—now I will hope to hear at six o’clock.
I can tell you nothing better, I think, than this I heard from Moxon the other day ... it really ought to be remembered. Moxon was speaking of critics, the badness of their pay, how many pounds a column the Times allowed, and shillings the Athenæum,—and of the inevitable effects on the performances of the poor fellows. ‘How should they be at the trouble of reading any difficult book so as to review it,—Landor, for instance?’ and indeed a friend of my own has promised to write a notice in the Times—but he complains bitterly,—he shall have to read the book,—he can do no less,—and all for five or ten pounds’! All which Moxon quite seemed to understand—‘it will really take him some three or four mornings to read enough of Landor to be able to do anything effectually.’ I asked if there had been any notices of the Book already—‘Just so many,’ he said ‘as Forster had the power of getting done’—Mr. White, a clergyman, has written a play for Macready, which everybody describes as the poorest stuff imaginable,—it is immediately reviewed in Blackwood and the Edinburgh ‘Because’ continues M, ‘he is a Blackwood reviewer, and may do the like good turn to any of the confraternity.’
So—here I will end,—wanting to come to the kissing dearest Ba, and bidding her remember to-morrow how my heart sinks to-day in the silence.
Ever, dearest dearest, your very own.
Friday.
[Post-mark, July 18, 1846.]
It is out of time to-night to write to you, since to-morrow we are to meet—but the letter which did not reach you, has been recoiling on me all day. Perhaps you have it by this time ... an uncomfortable letter, better away from you, notwithstanding all the kindness you speak, about my silence and the effect of that. So I write just a few words—The post office was in fault as usual. May it do perfecter duty to-morrow.
Saturday!—our day! At least if anything should be against it, you shall hear at the door by a note, when you come at three o’clock. I have put away my Thursday night’s melancholy ... except the repentance of troubling you with it——understand that I have!
Mrs. Jameson was here to-day, and her niece, ... and you, never named,—but she is coming another day, she says, to pay me a longer visit. I like her ... I like her. Then, there came another visitor, ... my uncle Hedley, who began, as usual, to talk of Italy—he advises me to go this year.—‘If you don’t go this year, you never will go ... and you ought at once to make an effort, and go.’ We talked of places and of ways, and after he had said many words in favour of Pisa, desired, if I went through Paris, that I would pay him a visit. ‘Ah,’ said I, ‘uncle Hedley, you are very good to me always, but when that day arrives, you may be inclined, perhaps, to cast me off.’ ‘Cast you off, Ba,’ he cried in the most puzzled astonishment—‘why what can you mean? what words to use! Cast you off! now do explain what you mean.’ ‘Ah, no one can tell,’ said I musingly. ‘Do you mean,’ he insisted, ‘because you will be a rebel and a runaway?’ ... (laughing!) ‘no, no—I won’t cast you off, I promise you! Only I hope that you may be able to manage it quietly’ &c. &c.
He is a most amiable man, so gentle and tender; and fond of me; exclusively of the poetry. I am certain that he never can make out how anyone in the world can consent to read my verses. But Ba, as Ba, is a decided favourite of his, beyond all in the house—not that he is a real uncle ... only the husband of my aunt, and caring more for me than both my real uncles, who, each of them, much prefer a glass of claret,—thank you! The very comparison does me too much honour for either of them. Claret is a holy thing. If I had said half a glass, and mixed it with water, I should have been more accurate by so much.
Now, dearest, dearest, I say good-night and have done.
I am wholly yours and always.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]
Dearest Ba’s face of yesterday, with the smiles and perfect sweetness,—oh, the comfort it is to me through this day of my especial heaviness! I don’t know when I have felt more stupid, and I seem to keep the closelier to you, Ba. Is that one of my felicities of compliment? I think if you were here I should lay my head on your bosom, my own beloved, and never raise it again. In your last letter, you speak of those who care less for you than for a ‘glass of claret’—there is something sublime,—at all events, astounding, in the position we occupy each of us,—I, and those less-carers,—standing in respect to each other so like England and Owhyhee, at which, they told me when I was a boy, I should be pretty sure to arrive if I dug a hole just through the earth, dropped to the centre and then, turning round, climbed straight up!
I left here, yesterday, without taking the prints of Dumas and Hugo—there is a head ‘for remembering!’ and justifying your commodations! Chorley says, you see, my acquisitions are rather accumulated than digested—or words to that effect—I am sure at this moment the stupid, heavy head knows not one thing,—as a clear point of knowledge, taken in and laid by, orderly and separately. So let me say here, while I do remember, that a letter from Forster puts off his visit and Moxon’s till Monday—should any reason therefore, prevent your confirming to me the gift of Tuesday, this other day will lie open—but only in that case, I trust—because Tuesday objects not to Saturday, does it? while Wednesday looks grave, and Thursday frowns downright on the same! Friday, remember, is Mr. Kenyon’s day.
I wish, dearest, you would tell me precisely what you have written—all my affectionate pride in you rises at once when I think of your poetry, that is and that is to be—you dear, dear Ba, can you not write on my shoulder while my head lies as you permit?
I found at home on my return yesterday my friend Pritchard, who brought me an old notice of Rachel by Jules Janin—of course there is no believing a word—but he does say that she was,—at the time he wrote,—perfectly ignorant of the most ordinary rules of grammar,—that, for instance, on meeting him she remarked (alluding to her having played previously at another theatre than the T. Français)—‘C’était moi que j’était au Gymnase!’—to which he ought to have answered, he thinks, ‘Je le savions!’—I will bring her portrait, too, if you please—and this memoir, untrustworthy as it is.
I will go now and walk about, I think—did you go out, as you promised, love? Ah, dearest,—you to wonder I could look up to you for ever as you stand,—you who once wrote to me that, in order to verify a date about Shelley in a book I lent you, ‘You had accomplished a journey to the other end of the room, even’! And now! I thankfully know this to be miraculous—nor have I to ask my spiritual director’s opinion thereon—to whom, how on earth can one surrender one’s private right of judgment when it is only by the exercise of that very right that I select him from the multitude of would-be directors of me and the whole world? What but a deliberate act of judgment takes up Dr. Pusey of Oxford rather than Mrs. Fox of Finsbury—and is it for that pernicious first step that I determine on never risking a second?
Bless you, ever dearest—and do you bless your
very own R.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]
Dearest, the leaf of yesterday was folded down quite smoothly and softly. A dinner party swept the thought of you out of people’s minds. Otherwise I was prepared to be a little afraid,—for my aunt said to Arabel, upon being dispensed with so cavalierly from this room, ... (said in the passage, Arabel told me, with a half-laugh,) ‘Pray which of Ba’s lovers may this be?’ So Arabel had to tell the name of the visitor. But the dinner-party set all right, and this morning I was asked simply whether it had been an agreeable visit, and what you had written, and banalities after such a fashion.
Oh, and I went out ... remembering your desire ... was it not a desire, dearest, dearest? I went out, any way—but the wind blew, and I had to hold my veil against my mouth, doubled, and trebled ... with as many folds, indeed, as Ajax’s shield ... to keep myself in breathing order. The wind always gives me a sort of strangling sensation, which is the effect, I suppose, of having weak lungs. So it was not a long walk, but I liked it because you seemed to be with me still,—and Arabel, who walked with me, was ‘sure, without being told, that I had had a happy visit, just from my manner.’ The wisest of interpreters, I called her, and pour cause.
If ever I mistake you, Robert, doing you an injustice, ... you ought to be angry, I think, rather and more with me than with another—I should have far less excuse it appears to me, for making such a mistake, than any other person in the world. I thought so yesterday when you were speaking, and now upon consideration I think so with an increasing certainty. Is it your opinion that the members of our family, ... those who live with us always, ... know us best? They know us on the side we offer to them ... a bare profile ... or the head turned round to the ear—yes!—they do not, except by the merest chance, look into our eyes. They know us in a conventional way ... as far from God’s way of knowing us, as from the world’s—mid-way, it is—and the truest and most cordial and tender affection will not hinder this from being so partial a knowledge. Love! I love those who at the present moment, ... who love me (and tenderly on both sides) ... but who are so far from understanding me, that I never think of speaking myself into their ears ... of trying to speak myself. It is wonderful, it is among the great mysteries of life, to observe how people can love one another in the dark, blindly ... loving without knowing. And, as a matter of general observation, if I sought to have a man or woman revealed to me in his or her innermost nature, I would not go to the family of the person in question—though I should learn there best, of course, about personal habits, and the social bearing of him or her. George Sand delights me in one of her late works, where she says that the souls of blood relations seldom touch except at one or two points. Perfectly true, that is, I think—perfectly.
Remember how you used to say that I did not know you ... which was true in a measure ... yet I felt I knew you, and I did actually know you, in another larger measure. And if now you are not known to me altogether, it is my dulness which makes me unknowing.
But I know you—and I should be without excuse if ever I wronged you with a moment’s injustice. I do not think I ever could depreciate you for a moment,—that would not be possible. There are other sins against you (are they against you?) which bring their own punishment! You shall never be angry with me for those.
While I was writing, came Mr. Kenyon. As usual he said that there was no use in his coming—that you had taken his place, and so on. He was in a high good humour, though, and spirits, and I did not mind much what he was pleased to say. More I minded, that he means ‘to stay in London all the summer’ ... which I can’t be glad of, ... though I was glad at his not persisting in going to Scotland against his own wishes. But he might like to go somewhere else—it would be a pleasure, that, in which I should sympathize! The more shame for me!
Mr. Chorley pleases me more than he ever pleased me before! Only, as an analysis, he has done curiously with ‘Pippa.’ But it is good appreciation, good and righteous, and he has given me, altogether, a great, great deal of pleasure. As to the letter, I liked that too in its degree—and the advice is wise for the head, if foolish for the work. How can wise people be so foolish?
I am going out to walk now with Henrietta, and shall put this letter into the post with my own hand. It is seven p.m. May God bless you. Do say how you are, dear, dearest!
I am your very own Ba.
Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]
Certainly you do know me, my own Ba, beyond all other knowledge possible to relatives,—that I know—in fact, I found myself speaking unwarily on a subject where speech is obliged to stop abruptly—the fault was mine for bringing up terms, remarks &c. quite inapplicable out of this house,—where all, as you understand, have seen me so long that they do not see differences in me,—increases or diminutions; I am twice as blind, most likely, to them, after the same fashion. Still, one is slow to concede an excuse to such blindness—hence the ‘hasty words’ I told you they charge me with uttering.
I apprehend no danger from that, to your feeling for me—it is your own speech my Ba, which I will take from you, and use—my own general short-comings, you will inevitably see and be sorry for—but there will be the more need of your love, which I shall go on asking for daily and nightly as if I never could have enough—which is the exact fact; and also, I shall grow fitter through the love to be what you would have me, so the end may be better than the beginning, let us hope.
Will you not do what you can with me who am your very own? as you are my own too, but for a different end—I am yours to operate on, as you are my only lady to dispose of what belongs to you. Dear, dearest Ba, it is so; will ever be so!
Yes, that notice by Chorley is very kind and gratifying. I wanted—(quite apart from the poor good to me or my books—but for Chorley’s own sake, I rather wanted)—some decided streak of red, or spot, or spark,—some life in the increasing grey of the ashes—this is true, live lovingness of him—I will tell him so.
For Domett’s letter,—he means, by all that nonsense, that my health is more in his estimation than any works producible at its expense. All the calculation about so many lines a day, so many a month &c., he knows to be absurd ... you can’t write ‘so many lines to-day,’ and add next day’s complement, and so ‘grow to an end’—any more than you can paint a picture by thumb-breadths. The other paragraph about intelligibility laughs at itself all the time ... is not to be taken for serious.
Indeed I did desire with a great desiring that you should go out, and now I thank you for all the good account of the walk, and victory over the wind: and how kind that sister is!—I shall never forget it.
My own head, since you will be teazed with intelligence about it, was not very well yesterday, but is better decidedly this morning—I, too, will go and put this letter in the post and think of to-morrow ... for do not I keep to-morrow? I shall be with you unless another order comes ... may it be averted! And may you be happy always with me, as I shall be through you ... nay, but half as happy, dearest Ba, my very own!
Your R.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, July 22, 1846.]
How I long, my sweetest Ba, to know whether any heavy price is to be paid for our three hours yesterday,—if your Aunt knew or has discovered since? I shall not murmur in any case, I hope ... they are too delicious, these three-hour visits—and if I could pay for them by myself, Ba,—what would I not pay?
Will you let me write something, and forgive me? Because it is, I know, quite unnecessary to be written, and, beside, may almost seem an interference with your own delicacy,—teaching it its duty! However, I will venture to go on, with your hand before my two eyes. Then,—you remember what we were speaking of yesterday,—house-rents and styles of living? You will never overlook, through its very obviousness, that to consult my feelings on the only point in which they are sensitive to the world you must endeavour to live as simply and cheaply as possible, down to my own habitual simplicity and cheapness,—so that you shall come and live with me, in a sense, rather than I with Miss Campbell! You see, Ba, if you have more money than you want, you shall save it or spend it in pictures or parrots or what you please ... you avoid all offence to me who never either saved money nor spent it—but the large house, I should be forced to stay in,—the carriage, to enter, I suppose. And you see too, Ba, that the one point on which I desire the world to be informed concerning our future life, will be that it is ordered so—I wish they could hear we lived in one room like George Sand in ‘that happy year—’
No, there I have put down an absurdity—because, I shall have to confess a weakness, at some time or other, which is hardly reconcilable to that method of being happy—why may I not tell you now, my adored Ba, to whom I tell everything as it rises to me? Now put the hand on my eyes again—now that I have kissed it. I shall begin by begging a separate room from yours—I could never brush my hair and wash my face, I do think, before my own father—I could not, I am sure, take off my coat before you now—why should I ever? The kitchen is an unknown horror to me,—I come to the dining-room for whatever repast there may be,—nor willingly stay too long there,—and on the day on which poor Countess Peppa taught me how maccaroni is made,—then began a quiet revolution, (indeed a rapid one) against ‘tagliolini, ‘fettucce, ‘lasagne,’ etc., etc., etc.—typical, typical!
What foolishness ... spare me, my own Ba, and don’t answer one word,—do not even laugh,—for I know the exceeding unnecessary foolishness of it!
Chorley has just sent me a note which I will send you because it is most graceful in its modesty—but you must not, if you please, return it to me in an envelope that ought only to hold your own writing,—and so make my heart beat at first, and my brows knit at last! (Toss it into ‘my room,’ at Pisa!!)
Thus it is to be made happy and unwise! Never mind—make me happier still by telling me you are well and have been out, and where, and when, and how—the footsteps of you, Ba, should be kissed if I could follow them.
Bless you, ever dearest, dearest, as yesterday, and always you bless me—I love you with all my heart and soul—yes Ba!
Your own, very own.
Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 22, 1846.]
I did not go out yesterday, and was very glad not to have a command laid on me to go out, the wind blew so full of damp and dreariness. Then it was pleasanter to lie on the sofa and think of you, which I did, till at last I actually dreamed of you, falling asleep for that purpose. As to Flush, he came up-stairs with a good deal of shame in the bearing of his ears, and straight to me—no indeed! I would not speak to him—then he went up to Arabel ... ‘naughty Flush, go away’ ... and Wilson, ... who had whipped him before, ‘because it was right,’ she said ... in a fit of poetical justice, ... did not give him any consolation. So he lay down on the floor at my feet looking from under his eyebrows at me. I did not forgive him till nearly eight o’clock however. And I have not yet given him your cakes. Almost I am inclined to think now that he has not a soul. To behave so to you! It is nearly as bad as if I had thrown the coffee-cup! Wicked Flush!—Do you imagine that I scolded Wilson when she confessed to having whipped him? I did not. It was done with her hand, and not very hardly perhaps, though ‘he cried,’ she averred to me—and if people, like Flush, choose to behave like dogs savagely, they must take the consequences indeed, as dogs usually do! And you, so good and gentle to him! Anyone but you, would have said ‘hasty words’ at least. I think I shall have a muzzle for him, to make him harmless while he learns to know you. Would it not be a good plan?
But nobody heard yesterday of either your visit or of Flush’s misdoings ... so Wilson was discreet, I suppose, as she usually is, by the instinct of her vocation. Of all the persons who are not in our confidence, she has the most certain knowledge of the truth. Dearest, we shall be able to have Saturday. There will be no danger in it.
Perhaps in the days to come we shall look back on these days as covetable things. Will you do so, because you were loved in them as a beginning, or because you were free? (Am I not as bad as Flush, to ask such questions?) I shall look back on these days gratefully and gladly, because the good in them has overcome the evil, for the first time in days of mine. Yet my position is worse than yours on some accounts—now. Henrietta has had a letter from Capt. Surtees Cook who says in it, she says, ... ‘I hope that poor Ba will have courage to the end.’ There’s a generous sympathy! Tell me that there is none in the world!
Will you let me know how you are? Such a letter you wrote to me on Sunday! Ah!—to be anything to you ... what is the colour of ambition afterwards? When I look forwards I can see no work and no rest, but what is for you and in you. Even Duty seems to concentrate itself into one Debt—Dearest!
Yet it will be a little otherwise perhaps!—not that ever I shall love you otherwise or less—No.
You shall see some day at Pisa what I will not show you now. Does not Solomon say that ‘there is a time to read what is written.’ If he doesn’t, he ought.
Your very own Ba.
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, July 23, 1846.]
Dearest, what you say is unnecessary for you to say—it is in everything so of course and obvious! You must have an eccentric idea of me if you can suppose for a moment such things to be necessary to say. If they had been unsaid, it would have been precisely the same, believe me, in the event.
As to the way of living—now you shall arrange that for yourself. You shall choose your own lodging, order your own dinner ... and if you choose to live on locusts and wild honey, I promise not to complain ... I shall not indeed be inclined to complain ... having no manner of ambition about carriages and large houses, even if they were within our possibilities,—which they may not be, according to Mr. Surtees’s calculation or experience. The more simply we live, the better for me! So you shall arrange it for yourself, lest I should make a mistake! ... which, in that question, is a just possible thing.
One extravagance I had intended to propose to you ... but it shall be exactly as you like, and I hesitate a little as I begin to speak of it. I have thought of taking Wilson with me, ... for a year, say, if we returned then—if not, we might send her home alone ... and by that time, I should be stronger perhaps and wiser ... rather less sublimely helpless and impotent than I am now. My sisters have urged me a good deal in this matter—but if you would rather it were otherwise, be honest and say so, and let me alter my thoughts at once. There is one consideration which I submit to yours, ... that I cannot leave this house with the necessary number of shoes and pocket handkerchiefs, without help from somebody. Now whoever helps me, will suffer through me. If I left her behind she would be turned into the street before sunset. Would it be right and just of me, to permit it? Consider! I must manage a sheltering ignorance for my poor sisters, at the last, ... and for all our sakes. And in order to that, again, I must have some one else in my confidence. Whom, again, I would unwillingly single out for an absolute victim.
Wilson is attached to me, I believe—and, in all the discussions about Italy, she has professed herself willing to ‘go anywhere in the world with me.’ Indeed I rather fancy that she was disappointed bitterly last year, and that it would not be a pure devotion. She is an expensive servant—she has sixteen pounds a year, ... but she has her utilities besides, and is very amiable and easily satisfied, and would not add to the expenses, or diminish from the economies, even in the matter of room—I would manage that for her. Then she would lighten your responsibilities ... as the Archbishop of Canterbury and company do Mr. Bevan’s. Well—you have only to consider your own wishes. I shall not care many straws, if you decide this way or that way. Let it be as may seem to you wisest.
I like Mr. Chorley’s note. I began to write so late that I, too, must send you a bare note to-night. May God bless you, ever dearest. I am tired ... so tired—yet I have not a long story to tell you of myself for the day’s chronicle I was just out for the few minutes my walking occupies, and came home and had coffee at half-past four; and scarcely was the cup empty, when Mrs. Jameson arrived—she stayed while you might count to a hundred—and your name was not once mentioned. And now, good-night. I hope the ‘testimonials’ may be ‘satisfactory,’ in this note which will not wait to be a letter! Dearest, say how your head is—do.
I am your Ba, always!
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, July 23, 1846.]
I have just returned from Town and Mr. Kenyon’s, my own Ba. I called, according to compact, to point out the precise way he must go to reach us. He seemed to make sure I was going to Wimpole Street—‘Oh, no!’
So, losing Wimpole Street, I made haste home, and gain my letter,—my dear letter: yesterday night, too, the first letter arrived duly—you perfect in kindness!
My dearest—dearest,—you might go to Pisa without shoes,—or feet to wear them, for aught I know, since you may have wings, only folded away from me—but without your Wilson, or some one in her capacity, you ... no, I will not undertake to speak of you; then, I, should be simply, exactly, insane to move a step; I would rather propose, let us live on bread and water, and sail in the hold of a merchant-ship; this cannot be dispensed with! It is most fortunate, most providential, that Wilson is inclined to go—I am very happy; for a new servant, with even the best dispositions, would never be able to anticipate your wants and wishes during the voyage, at the very beginning. Yet you write of this to me so, my Ba! I think I will, in policy, begin the anger at a good place. Yes, all the anger I am capable of descends on the head—(not in kisses, whatever you may fancy).
And so poor Flush suffered after all! Dogs that are dog-like would be at no such pains to tell you they would not see you with comfort approached by a stranger who might be—! A ‘muzzle’? oh, no,—but suppose you have him removed next time, and perhaps the next, till the whole occurrence is out of his mind as the fly bite of last week—because, if he sees me and begins his barking and valiant snapping, and gets more and heavier vengeance down-stairs, perhaps,—his transient suspicion of me will confirm itself into absolute dislike, hatred, whereas, after an interval, we can renew acquaintance on a better footing. Dogs have such memories! My sister told me last week she saw in a provincial newspaper an anecdote of one,—a miller’s dog, that was a good fellow in the main, but chose to take an especial dislike to one of his master’s customers, whom he invariably flew at and annoyed—so much so that the man declared he must carry his custom elsewhere unless the dog was parted with: this the miller was unwilling to do; so he hit on an expedient—by some contrivance, the dog was suffered to fall into a deep well, and bark himself hoarse there in vain—no help came—till the obnoxious individual arrived, let himself down and brought up the prisoner. From which time nothing could exceed the devotion of the dog to his rescuer; whom he always insisted henceforth on accompanying as far as his home, for one instance of it.
I wonder whether I have anywhere one of the sketches my father made of my bulldog’s face.
What ‘tired’ you, dearest? You are not less well, I trust? Pray tell me,—and remember there are three days before our Saturday. I am very much better—the walking and riding of this morning did me good, too—and what profits it, if you are not better also? Love me in caring for yourself, which is my truest self! And I will go on and try to love you more than I do—for what may happen?
Ever your own R.
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 24, 1846.]
No letter for me to-night! not a word!—Perhaps the post is sinning again. If so, I shall hear to-morrow morning, if not ... may it be anything rather than that you are more unwell than usual! anything!
There is not much to say on my part. I had a letter from Miss Mitford this morning, and she encloses to me ... you will not guess what—a lyric of the ubiquitous Bennett—the ‘Mignonette.’ Are you not amused? That’s the way to ‘agitate’ for readers and praisers. She sees something in Bennett. He is to be ‘heard of in our literature.’ She shed tears over the ‘Mignonette,’ herself—
Your portrait of Victor Hugo, I like less and less—there is something ignoble in the face—and even the forehead is rather big than large. He does not ‘look like a poet’ in any case—now does he?
Dearest, did I annoy you ... frighten you, ... about Wilson yesterday? Did that prevent you from writing to me to-day—if really you did not write to me to-day? It yet was the merest question, ... I wished you to understand—the merest question for a yes or a no—and I shall not mind, however you may answer, be certain. I have been thinking to-day that it would be possible enough to leave a direction which might supply everything, and so escape inflicting the injury apprehended—yes, and as for myself, I shall manage perfectly. Observe how I pinned your coat, miraculously pricking you at the same moment. I shall do for myself and by myself, as well as possible. And therefore, judge, speak your thoughts out to the purpose and without drawback. I shall always feel to thank you for speaking the truth, even where it goes against me. But this will not go against me, however you speak it, ... understand.
And as for what my sisters think, it is nothing to the purpose. Say your ‘no,’ and they never shall hear it. I will avoid the subject from henceforth, with them ... that is all.
And take care of Mr. Kenyon to-morrow. I feel afraid of Mr. Kenyon. But take care of yourself most—look well that you never let me do, in the least or greatest matter, what would seem better undone hereafter. Not in the least, not in the greatest. For me, if I am to be thought of, remember that you kill me, if you suffer me to injure you. That is for me.
See how I exhort people who do not write to me!... Ah no! It must be the post’s fault. You could not be very much vexed with me, I think, for a mere proposal about Wilson. And the rest of my letter was all made up of assent and agreement. You could not be vexed about Wilson. And you shall not be ill, because I cannot bear to think of it—which, dearest, is a good reason and irrefragable.
The Hedleys dine here, and others. I hear the voices and the laughing. I wish I could, your voice, as near. May God bless you ... bless you—
Your own Ba.