Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 13, 1846.]
‘Did I ever receive such a letter?’ Never—except from you. It is a question easily answered.
As to [the] other question, about the communion of contrarieties, I agree with you, thought for thought, in all your thinking about it—only adding one more reason to the reasons you point out. There is another reason at the bottom of all, I think—I cannot but think—and it is just that, when women are chosen for wives, they are not chosen for companions—that when they are selected to be loved, it is quite apart from life—‘man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart.’ A German professor selects a woman who can merely stew prunes—not because stewing prunes and reading Proclus make a delightful harmony, but because he wants his prunes stewed for him and chooses to read Proclus by himself. A fulness of sympathy, a sharing of life, one with another, ... is scarcely ever looked for except in a narrow conventional sense. Men like to come home and find a blazing fire and a smiling face and an hour of relaxation. Their serious thoughts, and earnest aims in life, they like to keep on one side. And this is the carrying out of love and marriage almost everywhere in the world—and this, the degrading of women by both.
For friendship ... why Like seeks Like in friendship very openly. To ‘have sympathy’ with a person, is a good banal current motive for friendship. Yet (for the minor points) a man with a deficiency of animal spirits may like the society of a man who can amuse him, and the amusing man may have pleasure again in the sense of using a faculty and conferring a benefit. It is happily possible to love down, and even across a chasm—or the world would be more loveless than it is. I have loved and still love people a thousand souls off—as you have and do, of course;—but to love them better on that account, would be strange and difficult.
Always I know, my beloved, that I am unworthy of your love in a hundred ways—yet I do hold fast my sense of advantage in one,—that, as far as I can see, I see after you ... understand you, divine you ... call you by your right name. Then it is something to be able to look at life itself as you look at it—(I quite sigh sometimes with satisfaction at that thought!): there will be neither hope nor regret away from your footsteps. Dearest—I feel to myself sometimes, ‘Do not move, do not speak—or the dream will vanish,’ So fearfully like a dream, it is! Like a reflection in the water of an actual old, old dream of my own, too ... touching which, ... now silent voices used to say “That romantic child.”’
What did you mean to say about my not believing in your nature ... in your feelings ... what did you and could you mean yesterday? Was it because of my speech about the ‘calm eyes’? Ah—you!—I did not think to make so impressive a speech when I made it ... for this is not the first time, Robert, you have quoted Hansard for it. Well! I shall not rise to explain after all. Only I do justice to the whole subject ... eyes inclusively ... ‘whatever you may think’ as you said yesterday with ever such significance.
No—yes—now I will ask you one thing. Common eyes will carry an emotion of a soul—and, so, not be calm, of course. Calm ones, I know, will carry the whole soul and float it up against yours, till it loses footing, and ... That is a little of what I meant by the calm in the eyes, and so I will ask you whether I could wrong, by such meaning, any depth in the nature.
At this moment you are at Mr. Kenyon’s—and you did not, I think, go up this street. Perhaps you will go home through it—but I shall not see—I cannot watch, being afraid of the over-watchers. May God bless you, my own dearest! You have my heart with you as if it lay in your hand! I told you once that I never could love (in this way of love) except upward very far and high—but you are not like me in it, I thank God—since you can love me. Love me, dearest of all—do not tire. I am your very own
Ba.
Another Bennett!!—yet the same! To Friday.
Thursday.
[Post-mark, August 13, 1846].
Dearest Ba, I love you wholly and for ever! How shall the charm ever break?
My two letters! I think we must institute solemn days whereon such letters are to be read years hence ... when I shall ask you,—(all being known, many weaknesses you do not choose to see now, and perhaps some strength and constancy you cannot be sure of—for the charm may break, you think) ... ‘If you stood there’ ... at Wimpole Street in the room ... would you whisper ‘Love, I love you, as before?’ Oh, how fortunately, fortunately the next verse comes with its sweetest reassurance!
When I have chosen to consider the circumstances of the altered life I am about to lead with you ... (‘chosen,’ because you have often suggested drawbacks, harms to my interest &c. which I have really been forced to take up and try to think over seriously, lest I should be unawares found treating what had undoubtedly come from you with disrespect), I never, after all the considering in my power, was yet able to fancy even the possibility of their existence. I will not revert to them now—nor to the few real inconveniences which I did apprehend at the beginning, but which never occurred to you: at present I take you, and with you as much happiness as I seem fit to bear in this world,—the one shadow being the fear of its continuance. Or if there is one thing I shall regret ... it is just that which I should as truly lose if I married any Miss Campbell of them all—rather, then should really lose, what now is only modified,—transferred partly and the rest retainable. There was always a great delight to me in this prolonged relation of childhood almost ... nay altogether—with all here. My father and I have not one taste in common, one artistic taste ... in pictures, he goes, ‘souls away,’ to Brauwer, Ostade, Teniers ... he would turn from the Sistine Altar piece to these—in music he desiderates a tune ‘that has a story connected with it,’ whether Charles II.’s favourite dance of ‘Brose and butter’ or—no matter,—what I mean is, that the sympathy has not been an intellectual one. I hope if you want to please me especially, Ba, you will always remember I have been accustomed, by pure choice, to have another will lead mine in the little daily matters of life. If there are two walks to take (to put the thing at simplest) you must say, ‘This one’ and not ‘either’ ... because though they were before indifferently to be chosen—after that speech, one is altogether better than the other, to me if not to you. When you have a real preference which I can discern, you will be good enough to say nothing about it, my own Ba! Now, do you not see how, with this feeling, which God knows I profess to be mine without the least affectation,—how much my happiness would be disturbed by allying myself with a woman to whose intellect, as well as goodness, I could not look up?—in an obedience to whose desires, therefore, I should not be justified in indulging? It is pleasanter to lie back on the cushions inside the carriage and let another drive—but if you suspect he cannot drive?
Nothing new at Mr. Kenyon’s yesterday—I arrived late to a small party—Thackeray and Procter—pleasant as usual. I took an opportunity of mentioning that I had come straight from home. Did you really look from the window, dearest? I was carried the other way, by the new road, but I thought of you till you may have felt it!
And indeed you are ‘out’ again as to my notions of your notions, you dearest Ba! I know well enough that by ‘calmness’ you did not mean absence of passion—I spoke only of the foolish popular notion.
To-morrow there would seem to be no impediment whatever—and I trust to be with you, beloved—but before, I can kiss you as now,—loving you as ever—ever—
Your own.
Saturday Morning.
[August 15, 1846.]
A bright beautiful day this is, on which you do not come—it seems as if you ought to have come on it by rights. Dearest, you did not meet Mr. Kenyon yesterday after you left me? I fancied that you might, and so be detected in the three hours, to the fullest length of them—it seemed possible. Now I look forward to the driving instead of to you—and he has just sent to desire me to be ready at a quarter to three, and not later, as was fixed in your hearing. And why, pray, should you be glad that I am going on this excursion? I should have liked it, if we had been living in the daylight; but with all these ‘shadows, clouds and darkness,’ it is pleasanter to me to sit still and see nobody—and least, Mr. Kenyon. Oh, that somebody would spirit him away gently, very gently, so as to do him no manner of harm in achieving the good for me!—for both you and me. Did you say ‘Do you pity me’ to me? I did not tell you yesterday that I have another new fear ... an American lady who in her time has reviewed both you and me, it seems, comes to see me ... is about to come to see me ... armed with a letter of introduction from Mr. Mathews—and in a week, I may expect her perhaps. She is directed, too, towards Mr. Horne. Observe the double chain thrown across the road at my feet—I am entreated to show her attention and introduce her to my friends ... things out of the question as I am situated. Yet I have not boldness to say ‘I will not see you.’ I almost must see her, I do fear. Mr. Mathews ought to have felt his way a little, before throwing such a weight on me. He is delighted with your ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ (to pass from his frailties to his merits) and the review of them is sent to me, he says—only that I do not receive it.
Dearest, when I told you yesterday, after speaking of the many coloured theologies of the house, that it was hard to answer for what I was, ... I meant that I felt unwilling, for my own part, to put on any of the liveries of the sects. The truth, as God sees it, must be something so different from these opinions about truth—these systems which fit different classes of men like their coats, and wear brown at the elbows always! I believe in what is divine and floats at highest, in all these different theologies—and because the really Divine draws together souls, and tends so to a unity, I could pray anywhere and with all sorts of worshippers, from the Sistine Chapel to Mr. Fox’s, those kneeling and those standing. Wherever you go, in all religious societies, there is a little to revolt, and a good deal to bear with—but it is not otherwise in the world without; and, within, you are especially reminded that God has to be more patient than yourself after all. Still you go quickest there, where your sympathies are least ruffled and disturbed—and I like, beyond comparison best, the simplicity of the dissenters ... the unwritten prayer, ... the sacraments administered quietly and without charlatanism! and the principle of a church, as they hold it, I hold it too, ... quite apart from state-necessities ... pure from the law. Well—there is enough to dissent from among the dissenters—the Formula is rampant among them as among others—you hear things like the buzzing of flies in proof of a corruption—and see every now and then something divine set up like a post for men of irritable minds and passions to rub themselves against, calling it a holy deed—you feel moreover bigotry and ignorance pressing on you on all sides, till you gasp for breath like one strangled. But better this, even, than what is elsewhere—this being elsewhere too in different degrees, besides the evil of the place. Public and social prayer is right and desirable—and I would prefer, as a matter of custom, to pray in one of those chapels, where the minister is simple-minded and not controversial—certainly would prefer it. Not exactly in the Socinian chapels, nor yet in Mr. Fox’s—not by preference. The Unitarians seem to me to throw over what is most beautiful in the Christian Doctrine; but the Formulists, on the other side, stir up a dust, in which it appears excusable not to see. When the veil of the body falls, how we shall look into each other’s faces, astonished, ... after one glance at God’s!
Have I written to you more than too much about my doxy? I was a little, little, uncomfortable in the retrospect of yesterday, lest my quick answer should have struck you as either a levity or an evasion—and have you not a right to all my thoughts of all things? For the rest, we will be married just as you like ... volo quod vis: and you will see by this profession of faith that I am not likely much to care either way. There are some solemn and beautiful things in the Church of England Marriage-service, as I once heard it read, the only time I was present at such a ceremony—but I heard it then in the abbreviated customary form ... and not as the Puseyites (who always bring up the old lamps against a new) choose to read it, they say, in spite of custom. Archdeacon Hale with an inodorous old lamp, displeased some of the congregation from Fenton’s Hotel, I hear. But we need not go to the Puseyites at least. And after all, perhaps the best will be what is easiest. Something is sure to happen—something must surely happen to put an end to it all ... before I go to Greece!
May God bless you, ever dearest: Tell me if you get this letter to-day, Saturday.
Your very own Ba.
Saturday.
[Post-mark, August 15, 1846.]
My very, very dearest—many, if not all, of those things for which I want the words when too close to you, become quite clear at a little distance. How simple, for instance, it is to admit, that in our case,—my own, only Ba once discovered, the circumstances of the weakness and retirement were, on the whole, favourable rather than otherwise! Had they been unfavourable ... I do not think a few obstacles would have discouraged me ... but this way has been easier—better—and now all is admitted! By themselves, the circumstances could never obtain more than the feeling properly due to them—do you think one particle of love goes with the pity and service to a whole Hospital of Incurables? So let all the attraction of that kind pass for what it is worth, and for no more. If all had been different, and I had still perceived you and loved you, then there might, perhaps,—or probably—be as different an aim for me,—for my own peculiar delight in you ... I should want to feel and be sure of your love, in your happiness ... certainly in your entire happiness then as now—but I should aspire to find it able to support itself in a life altogether different from the life in which I had first seen you—if you loved me you would need to be happy in quiet and solitude and simplicity and privation ... then I should know you loved me, knowing how you had been happy before! But now, do you not see that my utmost pride and delight will be to think you are happy, as you were not,—in the way you were not: if you chose to come out of a whirl of balls and parties and excursions and visitings—to my side, I should love you as you sate still by me,—but now, when you stand up simply, much more walk ... I will consider, if you let me, every step you take that brings you pleasure,—every smile on your mouth, and light on your eyes—as a directest obedience to me ... all the obedience you can ever pay me ... you shall say in every such act ‘this I do on purpose to content you!’ I hope to know you have been happy ... that shall prove you loved me, at the end.
Probably you will not hear anything to-day from Mr. Kenyon, as your sister is to be present: do you really imagine that those eyes and spectacles are less effective than the perceptions of your ‘Treppy’?
By the way, hear an odd coincidence—you heard that foolish story of Thackeray and Mr. ‘Widdicombe’ ... which I told just to avoid a dead silence and guilty blankness of face. As I was returning I met Thackeray (with Doyle—H.B.) and was energetically reminded of our dinner ... he is in very earnest, Mr. Kenyon may assure himself. Presently I reached Charing Cross—and stood waiting for my omnibus. There is always a crowd of waiters—in a moment there passes an extraordinary looking personage—a policeman on duty at this police-requiring spot saunters up to me, of all others, and says (on some miraculous impulse, no doubt)—with an overflowing impressible grin, ‘D’ye know him, Sir?’ ‘No—who may he be?’ ‘He’s Widdicombe!—He goes now to Astley’s, and afterwards to Vauxhall—there’s a good likeness of him in the painting of the Judge and Jury Club.’ Here my omnibus arrives ... ‘Thank you’ I said—and there was an end of the communication. How for many thousand years may I walk the street before another inspired policeman addresses me without preface and tells me, that is the man I have just been talking of to somebody else? Let me chronicle Mr. W.’s glories ... his face is just Tom Moore’s, plus two painted cheeks, a sham moustache, and hair curled in wiry long ringlets; Thackeray’s friend was a friend indeed, ‘warning every man and teaching every man’—the tête-à-tête would have been portentous.
Now, dearest, you cannot return me such delectabilities, so must even be content to tell me what happens to-day and what is said and done and surmised—and how you are ... three times over, how you are, dearest dearest! And I will write to-morrow, and kiss you meanwhile, as now as ever. Bless you, love—
Your R.
Saturday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]
How I thank for your letter, ever beloved. You were made perfectly to be loved—and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long. Did I tell you that before, so often as I have thought it? It is that which makes me take it all as visionary good—for when one’s Ideal comes down to one, and walks beside one suddenly, what is it possible to do but to cry out ... ‘a dream’? You are the best ... best. And if you loved me only and altogether for pity, (and I think that, more than you think, the sentiment operated upon your generous chivalrous nature), and if you confessed it to me and proved it, and I knew it absolutely—what then? As long as it was love, should I accept it less gladly, do you imagine, because of the root? Should I think it less a gift? should I be less grateful, ... or more? Ah—I have my ‘theory of causation’ about it all—but we need not dispute, and will not, on any such metaphysics. Your loving me is enough to satisfy me—and if you did it because I sate rather on a green chair than a yellow one, it would be enough still for me:—only it would not, for you—because your motives are as worthy always as your acts.—Dearest!
So let us talk of the great conference in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage, in which joined himself, Arabel, Flush and I. First he said ... ‘Did Browning stay much longer with you?’ ‘Yes—some time.’ This was as we were going on our way toward some bridge, whence to look at the Birmingham train. As we came back, he said, with an epical leap in medias res ... ‘What an extraordinary memory our friend Browning has.’ ‘Very extraordinary’—said I—‘and how it is raining.’ I give you Arabel’s report of my reply, for I did not myself exactly remember the full happiness of it—and she assured me besides that he looked ... looked at me ... as a man may look ... And this was everything spoken of you throughout the excursion.
But he spoke of me and observed how well I was—on which Arabel said ‘Yes—she considered me quite well; and that nothing was the matter now but sham.’ Then the railroads were discussed in relation to me ... and she asked him—‘Shouldn’t she try them a little, before she undertakes this great journey to Italy?’ ‘Oh’ ... he replied—‘she is going on no great journey.’ ‘Yes, she will, perhaps—Ba is inclined to be a great deal too wild, and now that she is getting well, I do assure you, Mr. Kenyon.’
To sit upon thorns, would express rather a ‘velvet cushion’ than where I was sitting, while she talked this foolishness. I have been upbraiding her since, very seriously; and I can only hope that the words were taken for mere jest—du bout des lèvres.
Moreover Mr. Kenyon is not going away on Thursday—he has changed his plans: he has put off Cambridge till the ‘spring’—he meets Miss Bayley nowhere—he holds his police-station in London. ‘When are you going’ I asked in my despair, trying to look satisfied. He did not know—‘not directly, at any rate’—‘I need not hope to get rid of him,’ he said aside perhaps.
But we saw the great roaring, grinding Thing ... a great blind mole, it looked for blackness. We got out of the carriage to see closer—and Flush was so frightened at the roar of it, that he leapt upon the coach-box. Also it rained,—and I had ever so many raindrops on my gown and in my face even, ... which pleased me nearly as much as the railroad sight. It is something new for me to be rained upon, you know.
As for happiness—the words which you use so tenderly are in my heart already, making me happy, ... I am happy by you. Also I may say solemnly, that the greatest proof of love I could give you, is to be happy because of you—and even you cannot judge and see how great a proof that is. You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight. May God bless you, ever ever dearest!
I am your own—
Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]
No, my own dearest, your letter does not arrive on Saturday, but this morning—what then? You will not be prevented from your usual ways of entire goodness to me by that? You will continue to write through the remainder of the writing-time? This one letter reaches me,—if another was sent, it stays back till to-morrow—so I do get a blessing by your endeavour, and am grateful as ever, my own Ba! After all, neither of us loses,—effectually loses—anything—for my letter always comes in its good time,—it is not cast hopelessly away—and do you suppose that you lose any of the gladness and thanks? Rather, you get them doubly—for all along, all through the suspense, I have been (invariably) sure of the deed when promised, and of the unchanging love, when only expected ... so that when the letter finds me at last, the joy being unaccountably unabated do you not see that there is a gain somehow? I told you on Friday I loved you more at that instant than at any previous time—I will show you why, because I can show you, I think—though it seems at first an irrational word ... for always having loved you wholly, how can I, still only loving you wholly, speak of ‘more’ or ‘less’?—This is why—I used to see you once a week, to sit with you for an hour and a half—to receive a letter, or two, or three, during the week—and I loved you, Ba, wholly, as I say, and reckoned time for no time in the intervals of seeing you and hearing from you. Now I see you twice in the week, and stay with you the three hours, and have letter on dear letter,—and the distance is, at least, the same, between the days, and between the letters—I will only affirm it is the same—so I must love you more—because if you were to bring me back to the old allowance of you,—the one short visit, the two or three letters,—I should be starved with what once feasted me! (If you do not understand Flush does!) Seriously, does not that go to prove, I love you more! Increased strength comes insensibly thus,—is only ascertained by such process of induction ... once you crossed the room to look out Shelley’s age in a book, and were not tired—now you cross London to see the trains arrive, and (I trust) are not tired.... So—you are stronger.
Dearest, I know your very meaning, in what you said of religion, and responded to it with my whole soul—what you express now, is for us both ... those are my own feelings, my convictions beside—instinct confirmed by reason. Look at that injunction to ‘love God with all the heart, and soul, and strength’—and then imagine yourself bidding any faculty, that arises towards the love of him, be still! If in a meeting house, with the blank white walls, and a simple doctrinal exposition,—all the senses should turn (from where they lie neglected) to all that sunshine in the Sistine with its music and painting, which would lift them at once to Heaven,—why should you not go forth?—to return just as quickly, when they are nourished into a luxuriance that extinguishes, what is called, Reason’s pale wavering light, lamp or whatever it is—for I have got into a confusion with thinking of our convolvuluses that climb and tangle round the rose-trees—which might be lamps or tapers! See the levity! No—this sort of levity only exists because of the strong conviction, I do believe! There seems no longer need of earnestness in assertion, or proof ... so it runs lightly over, like foam on the top of a wave.
Chorley came and was very agreeable and communicative. You shall tell me more about Mr. Mathews and his review. And with respect to his lady-friend, you will see her, I think. But first tell me of Mr. Kenyon, and yourself—how you are, and what I am to do, when to see you.
Now goodbye, my own Ba—‘goodbye.’ Be prepared for all fantasticalness that may happen! Perhaps some day I shall shake hands with you, simply, and go ... just to remember the more exquisitely where I once was, and where you let me stay now, you dearest, dearest heart of my heart, soul of my soul! But the shaking-hands, at a very distant time! Now—let me kiss you, beloved—and so I do kiss you—
Ever your own.
Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]
Your sight of Widdicombe was highly dramatic—and the policeman ‘intersit nodo’ as well as any god of them all. What a personage Widdicombe must be! Think of the mental state of a man, who could gravely apply to his own face false moustachios and rouge before a looking-glass. There is something in it to wonder over, as over the megalosaurie and prodigions of ridicules. Mind—when I talked of rouge improving a complexion for the nonce, I was thinking of women; not of men, in whom that sort of colouring (even if it were natural) is detestable, or, to measure one’s language, very ugly indeed. I have seen a man, of whom it was related that he painted his lips—so that at dinner, with every course, was removed a degree of bloom; the lips paled at the soup, grew paler at the mutton, became white at the fricandeau and ghastly at the pudding—till with the orange at dessert, his nearest neighbours drew back their chairs a little, expecting him to fall flat in a fainting-fit. But he was very rich, and could only talk charmingly out of those painted lips. There were women who ‘couldn’t conceive why people should call him a fool.’ To every Bottom’s head (not to wrong Bottom by such a comparison), there will be a special Titania—see if there will not!
So you go on Wednesday to this club-dinner, really. And you come to me also on Wednesday. Does that remain decided? I have had a letter from that poor Chiappino, to desire a ‘last interview’ ... which is promised to be ‘pacific.’ Oh—such stuff! Am I to hold a handkerchief to my eyes and sob a little? Your policeman is necessary to the full development of the drama, I think. And I forgot to tell you that there were two things in which I had shown great want of feeling—one, the venturing to enclose your verses—the other ... (now listen!) the other ... the having said that ‘I was sincerely sorry for all his real troubles.’ Which I do remember having said once, when I was out of patience—as how can any one be patient continually? and how was I especially to condole with him in lawn and weepers, on the dreadful fact of your existence in the world? Well—he has real troubles unfortunately, and he is going away to live in a village somewhere. Poor Chiappino! A little occupation would be the best thing that could happen for him; it would be better than prosperity without it. When a man spins evermore on his own axis, like a child’s toy I saw the other day, ... what is the use of him but to make a noise? No greater tormentor is there, than self-love, ... even to self. And no greater instance of this, than this!
Dearest beloved, to turn away from the whole world to you ... when I do, do I lose anything ... or not rather gain all? Sometimes I feel to wish that I had more to sacrifice to you, so as to prove something of what is in me—but you do not require sacrifice ... it is enough, you say, that I should be happy through you. How like those words are to you!—how they are said in your own idiom! And for myself, I am contented to think that, ... if such things can really satisfy you, ... you would find with difficulty elsewhere in the world than here, a woman as perfectly empty of life and gladness, except what comes to her from your hands. Many would be happy through you:—but to be happy through only you, is my advantage ... my boast. In this, I shall be better than the others.
Why, if you were to drive me from you after a little, in what words could I reproach you, but just in these ... ‘You might have left me to die before.’ Still I should be your debtor, my beloved, as now I am
Your very own
Ba.
I told you that I was going to the chapel one Sunday—but I have not been yet. I had not courage. May God bless you!—
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]
I come home from Town for my letters ... the two I ventured to expect, and here they meet me. As I said, you had written, and I thanked you then, and now, too, just as if I had been despairing all along—and over and above, there are some especial thanks to pay,—for when I could not otherwise disengage myself from a dinner a little way out of town,—having unawares confessed to the day’s being at my disposal, ... I said—‘I expect letters at home which must be answered’—and here I am.
Or rather, here you are, dearest,—in, I do think, your dearest mood. I must shift my ground already, alter my moment of time, and avow that it is now I love you the best, the completest. Do you want to know how much kindness I can bear? If I ever am so happy as to speak so as to please you, it may be only your own kindness overflowing and running back to you—I feel every day, often in every day, the regret follow some thought of you,—that this thought, for instance, if I could secure and properly tell you this only, you would know my love for what it is,—and yet that this thought will pass unexpressed like the others! Well, I do not care—rightly considered, there is not so much to regret—the words should lead to acts, and be felt insufficient.
Now we collect then, from Mr. Kenyon’s caution, or discretion, or pity, or ignorance, that he will not interpose, and that there will be one great effort, and acknowledgment for all? I should certainly like it so best. You seem stronger than to need the process of preparatory disclosures, now to one, now to another friend. It is clearly best as it is like to be ... for perhaps the chances are in our favour that the few weeks more will be uninterrupted.
My time is gone—and nothing said! For to-morrow, all rests with you ... if the note bids me go, I shall be in absolute readiness—otherwise on Wednesday ... just as you seem to discern the times and the seasons.
Bless you my own best, dearest Ba—your own R.
Monday.
[Post-mark, August 18, 1846.]
For these two dear letters, I thank you, dearest! You are best, as ever! And that is all I have to tell you, almost—for I have seen nobody, heard nothing ... except that Eugène Sue can paint, ... which Miss Mitford told me this morning in a note of hers, ... in which, besides, she complains of the fatigue she suffers from the visitors who go to see after her the Reading prison, as the next ‘sight’ of the neighbourhood. Better to live in Cheapside, than among the oaks, on such conditions! As to Mr. Kenyon, he does not approach me. So he may come to-morrow, perhaps, or even on Wednesday. Would it not appear the top of wisdom if you deferred our day to Thursday’s sun!—now consider! It would be a decided gain, surely, to be able to say to him on Wednesday that you had not seen me since you and he saw me together. So I propose Thursday if you permit it. Next week we may take up our two days again, as one takes up so many dropt silken stitches, ... and we will be careful that the beads do not run off in the meantime. To-day George came from circuit. He asked, for nearly a first question, whether I had thought of Italy—‘Yes, I had thought of it—but there was time to think more.’ I am uneasy a little under George’s eyes.
You did not tell me of Mr. Chorley ... whether he put questions about the Continent, or observed on the mysteries in you. Does he go himself, and when? A curious ‘fact’ is, that Mrs. Jameson was in the next house to us this morning, and also a few days ago; yet never came here—the reason certainly being a reluctance to seem to tread in upon the recalling confidence. I felt sorry, and obliged to her—both at once. Talking of confidences, I neglected to tell you when you were here last, that one more had escaped us. It was not by my choice, if by my fault. I wrote something in a note to Mr. Boyd some weeks ago, which nobody except himself would have paused to think over; but he, like a prisoner in a dungeon, sounds every stone of the walls round him, and discerns a hollowness, detects a wooden beam, ... patiently pricks out the mortar with a pin—all this, in his rayless, companionless Dark,—poor Mr. Boyd! The time before I last went to see him, he asked me if I were going to be a nun—there, was the first guess! On the next visit he puts his question precisely right—I tried to evade—then, promised to be frank in a little time—but being pressed on all sides, and drawn on by a solemn vow of secrecy, I allowed him to see the truth—and he lives such an isolated life, that it is perfectly safe with him, setting the oath aside. Also, he was very good and kind, and approved highly of the whole, and exhorted me, with ever such exhortation, to keep to my purpose, and to allow no consideration in the world or out of the world, to make any difference—quoting the moral philosophers as to the rights of such questions. Is there harm in his knowing? He knows nobody, talks to nobody, and is very faithful to his word. Just as I, you will retort, was foolish in mine! Yet I do assure you, mine was a sort of word, which to nine hundred and ninety nine persons, would have suggested nothing—only he mused over it, turned it into all lights, and had nothing to do but that. Afterwards he was proud, and asked ... ‘Was I not acute?’ It was a pleasure to him, one could not grudge.
Are you well, ever dearest? I am well. And yesterday, while they were at dinner, I walked out alone, or with Flush—twice to the corner of the street, turning it, to post your letter. May God bless you. Surely we feel alike in many, many things—the convolvuluses grow together; twisted together—and you lift me up from the ground; you! I am your very own—
Mr. Mathews said nothing more than I told you—very briefly—but he sent the review, he said—and it has not come.
Tuesday Morning
[Post-mark, August 18, 1846.]
Let it be on Thursday then, dearest, for the reasons you mention. I will say nothing of my own desires to meet you sooner ... they are corrected by the other desires to spend my whole life with you. After all, these are the critical weeks now approaching or indeed present—there shall be no fault I can avoid. So, till Thursday—
Chorley said very little ... he is all discreetness and forbearance, here as on other points. He goes to Birmingham at the end of this week, and returning after some three or four days, leaves London for Paris—probably next Saturday week. From Paris he thinks of going to Holland ... a good step,—and of staying at Scheven ... ing ... what is the Bath’s name?—not a good step, I told him, because of the mortal ugliness of the place—which I well remember ... it may have improved in ten years, to be sure. There, ‘walking on the sands,’ (sands in a heapy slope, not a traversable flat) he means to ‘grow to an end’ with his Tragedy ... there is a noble ardour in his working which one cannot help admiring—he has a few weeks’ holiday, is jaded to death with writing, and yet will write away his brief time of respite and restoratives—for what? He wondered whether there was any chance of our meeting in Paris—‘our’ meaning him and myself.
As for your communication to Mr. Boyd—how could you do otherwise, my own Ba? I am altogether regardless of whatever danger there may be, in the great delight at his sympathy and approval of your intention: he probably never heard my name before ... but his own will ever be associated divinely in my memory with those verses which always have affected me profoundly ... perhaps on the whole, more profoundly than any others you ever wrote: that is hard to prove to myself,—but I really think so—the personal allusions in it went straight to my heart at the beginning. I remember, too, how he loved and loves you ... you told me, Ba: so I am most grateful to him,—as I ever shall feel to those who, knowing you, judge me worthy of being capable of knowing you and taking your impress, and becoming yours sufficiently for your happiness.
Are you so well, dearest, in your walks,—after your rides? Does that rejoice me or no, when I would rather hear you had been happy, than simply see you without such an assurance? I am very well, since you ask—but my mother is not—her head being again affected. Yet the late improvement gives ground for hope ... nor is this a very violent attack in itself.
I suppose it was in Mrs. Jameson’s mind, as you apprehend—you must always be fond of her—(and such will be always my way of rewarding people I am fond of!)
God bless you, dearest—I love you all I can, Ba. I see another ship is advertised to sail—(a steamer) for Naples, and other southern ports—but no higher. When you are well and disposed to go to Greece, take me, my love. I should feel too happy for this world, I think, among the islands with you.
My very own, I am yours—
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 19, 1846.]
Your mother is not well, dearest? that is bad news indeed. And then, I think of your superstition of your being ill and well with her—take care and keep well, Robert, ... or of what use will it be that I should be well? To-day we drove out, and were as far as Finchley, and I am none the worse at all for it. Do you know Finchley? It is pretty and rural; the ground rising and falling as if with the weight of verdure and dew! fields, and hedgerows, and long slopes of grass thick and long enough, in its fresh greenness, quite to hide the nostrils of the grazing cows. The fields are little, too, as if the hedges wanted to get together. Then the village of Finchley straggles along the road with a line of cottages, or small houses, seeming to play at a village. No butchers, no bakers—only one shop in the place—but gardens, and creepers round the windows. Such a way from London, it looked! Arabel wanted to call on a friend of hers, a daughter of Sir William Russell’s, who married an adopted son of Lamartine, and was in the navy, and is now an Independent minister officiating in this selfsame metropolis of Finchley. A concatenation, that is, altogether. Very poor they are—living on something less than two hundred a year, with five children, and the eldest five years old. And the children came out to us, everybody else being away—so I, who would have stayed in the carriage under other circumstances, was tempted out by the children and the cottage, and they dragged us along to see the drawing room, and dining room, and ‘Papa’s flowers,’ and their own particular book ‘about the twenty-seven tailors’; and those of the children who could speak, thought Flush ‘very cool’ for walking up-stairs without being asked. (The baby opened its immense eyes wider than ever, thinking unutterable things.) So as they had been so kind and hospitable to us, we could not do less (after a quantity of admiration upon the pretty house covered with roses, and the garden and lawn, and especially the literature of those twenty-seven tailors) we could not do less than offer to give them a drive ... which was accepted with acclamation. Think of our taking into the carriage, all five children, with their prodigious eyes and cheeks—the nurse on the coachbox, to take them home at the end of some quarter of a mile! At the moment of parting, Alphonse Lamartine thought seriously of making a great scream—but upon Arabel’s perjuring herself by a promise to ‘come again soon,’ we got away without that catastrophe. A worse one is, that you may think yourself obliged to read this amusing history. To make amends, I send you what I gathered for you in the garden ‘Pansy!—that’s for thoughts.’[5]
How wise we are about Thursday! or rather about Tuesday and Wednesday, perhaps.
As for Mr. Boyd, he had just heard your name, but he is blind and deaf to modern literature, and I am not anxious that he should know you much by your poetry. He asked some questions about you, and he enquired of Arabel particularly whether she thought we cared for each other enough. But to tell you the truth, his unqualified adhesion strikes me as less the result of his love for you, than of his anger towards another. I am sure he triumphs inwardly in the idea of a chain being broken which he has so often denounced in words that pained and vexed me—and then last year’s affair about Italy made him furious. Oh—I could see plainly by the sort of smile he smiled—but we need not talk of it—I am at the end too of my time. How good you are to me not to upbraid me for imprudence and womanly talkativeness! You are too, too good. And you liked my verses to Mr. Boyd! Which I like to hear, of course. Dearest—
Shall we go to Greece then, Robert? Let us, if you like it! When we have used a little the charm of your Italy, and have been in England just to see that everybody is well, of yours and mine, ... (if you like that!) ... why straightway we can go ‘among the islands’—(and nearly as pleasant, it will be for me, as if I went there alone, having left you!). I should like to see Athens with my living eyes ... Athens was in all the dreams I dreamed, before I knew you. Why should we not see Athens, and Egypt too, and float down the mystical Nile, and stand in the shadow of the Pyramids? All of it is more possible now, than walking up this street seemed to me last year.
Indeed, there is only one miracle for me, my beloved,—and that is your loving me. Everything else under the sun, and much over it, seems the merest commonplace and workday matter-of-fact. If I found myself, suddenly, riding in Paradise, on a white elephant of golden feet, ... I should shake the bridle, I fancy, with ever so much nonchalance, and absently wonder over ‘that miracle’ of the previous world. Because ‘That’s for thoughts,’ as my flower says! look at it and listen.
As for me, I am your very own—