Saturday.
[Post-mark, May 30, 1846.]
You shall have a visit from me on the seventh day as on the others, I think, because I remember you every day equally, and because, without waiting for your Saturday’s letter, I have always with me enough of you, to thank you. This morning, Henrietta and I went as usual to Hodgson’s and took possession of the chair in waiting, as Flush did of the whole territory, setting himself, with all the airs of a landed proprietor, to snap at the shop boy. Nota bene—Flush is likely to injure my popularity if I take him about with me much. He has been used, you see, to be ‘Cæsar in his own house,’ and the transition to being Cæsar everywhere is the easiest thing in the world. Yet as to leaving him at home, it is impossible, ... not to mention other objections! His delight in going out in the carriage is scarcely a natural thing—but I have told you of it. Yesterday I was in the back drawing-room waiting to go out, and just said to him, ‘Flush! go and see if the carriage is come’—instantly he ran to the front windows, standing on his hind legs and looking up the street and down. Now Mr. Kenyon would declare that that was my invention. Yet it is the literal truth of history.
Coming back from Hodgson’s, we passed our door and walked to 57 and home, which is an improvement in the distance. Then I walked up-stairs to the drawing-room, and was carried the rest of the way. May I be tired a little, after it all? Just a little, perhaps.
Henrietta dined at Mr. Lough’s yesterday, and met Miss Camilla Toulmin who was gracious ... and Professor Forbes, who can do nothing without the polka, ... and sundries. There was a splendid dinner, and wine of all vintages—one is in a strait in such cases to know how to praise at once the hospitable intentions and to blame the bad taste—surely it is bad taste in a man like Mr. Lough who lives by his genius, to give ambitious dinners like a man who lives by his dinners. The true dignity of simplicity in these things were worth such a man’s holding, one might think. But he is kind and liberal, and a good artist, ... and sent me a very gracious invitation to go and see his works.
The Hedleys are likely to be in England this summer again— —more’s the pity. I am fond of them, but would rather, rather, not see them just now, and not be seen by them—for eyes have they, and can see. My uncle Hedley comes next week, ... comes to London for several weeks ... that is certain—and my aunt after settling the younger part of her family at Baréges for the summer, ponders coming, ... as I behold from afar off, ... with her daughter Arabella, who is to be married immediately to the younger brother of the great Brewery partner, Barclay and Bevan, a Mr. Bevan. But they will not be in this house, and we must manage as we can, dearest! One leap over Sunday, and Monday comes bringing you! Then, I shall have you near on Tuesday besides, and Wednesday, afterwards! how the cup overflows! May God bless you my beloved! It is not exaggeration to say that I feel you in the air and the sun.
Ever and ever your own I am!
Ba.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 1, 1846.]
My own Ba, do you want to turn my head with good fortune and get at my secrets, that you give me two letters in one day? For there was too much life and warmth, I do think, in these last, to be kept in the Postman’s pouch as before—he delivered them punctually as he was obliged, not before his cold newspapers and railway-prospectuses felt astonished, you may be sure; so, as I say, do you want to try my temper and bring out infirmities of mind that may be latent, as kings used to put robes and crowns on their favourites to see what they would do then?
I will try and say as soberly as I can,—if you did not write to me for a week, I would remember and love you the same—you are not bound to any kindness, much less to this extravagance—which yet so blesses me that—
Let me leave what I can never say, and make the few remarks I ought to have made before. Mrs. Jameson did tell me something about her intended journey to Italy—but not in detail as to you. Miss Bayley seems worthy to be your friend, dearest,—and it is satisfactory, very satisfactory to find her opinion thus confirming yours, of the good you will derive from travelling. You know I look on you with absolute awe, in a sense,—I don’t understand how such a creature lives and breathes and moves and does not move into fine air altogether and leave us of the Etty-manufacture! I have solemnly set down in the tablets of my brain that Ba prefers morphine to pork, but can eat so much of a chicken as Flush refuses—a chapter in my natural history quite as important as one in Pliny’s (and Ælian’s too)—‘When the Lion is sick, nothing can cure him but to eat an Ape!’—though not so important as my great, greatest record of all—‘A cup of coffee will generally cure Ba’s headaches—’
As for Pisa or Florence, or Sorrento, or New Orleans,—ubi Ba, ibi R.B.! Florence, however, you describe exactly ... the English there are intolerable,—even from a distance you see that. Indeed, I have heard here in England of a regular system of tactics by which parvenus manage to get among the privileged classes which at home would keep them off inexorably. Such go to Florence, make acquaintance as ‘travellers,’ keeping the native connexions in the farthest of back grounds, and after a year or two’s expatriation, come back and go boldly to rejoice the friends they ‘passed those amusing days with’ &c.
What you say of Lough is right and true in one point of view—but I excuse him, knowing the way of life in London—what alternative has he? Even when you ask people by ones and twos, and think to be rational, what do you get for your pains? Not long ago somebody invited himself to dine with me—and got of course the plainest fare, and just hock and claret, because I like them better than heavier wines myself, and suppose others may. I had to dine in the same manner with my friend a week after, and he judiciously began by iced champagne, forced vegetables &c. What was that but telling me such was his notion of the duty of the giver of ‘just a chop’ according to stipulation? It is all detestable—a mere pretext! there is simply a ‘fait accompli’ in every such dinner,—it is an eternal record (to the seasons’ end) that you witnessed (because you may let it alone for aught anybody cares, so long as you have eyes and can see)—such a succession of turbot, and spring-soup and—basta! I shall go and take tea with Carlyle before very long. Lough has asked me more than once, but I never went. I like him when he is not on the subject of himself or other artists. Of one particular in his liberality I can bear testimony, he promises at a great rate. Some three years ago he most preposterously signified his intention of giving me a cast of one of his busts—me who had neither claim on him, the slightest, nor much desire for the bust; but on this intimation I was bound to express as many thanks as if the bust had arrived in very plaster,—which it has not done to this day; so that I was too prodigal, you see, and instead of thanks ought to have contented myself with making over to him the whole profits of ‘Luria’—value received. But, jokes apart, he is a good, kind man I believe, so don’t mention this absurdity to your sister—which I am sorry for having mentioned now that mentioned it is! So sorrow shall be turned into joy, for I will only think that the evening is come, and night will follow, and morning end ... 3 o’clock with all of dearest, dearest Ba,—with the walkings and drivings to evidence in her face? My face, thank God, I am let say to my unutterable joy and pride and love, above all other feelings.
Ever your own.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 2, 1846.]
You understand, dearest beloved, all I could mean about your sister’s coming here. Both I was afraid of not being liked enough ... which was one reason, and none the less reasonable because of your being ‘infatuated’ ... (oh, that is precisely the word to use, and indeed I never falter to myself in the applying of it!) and I felt it to be impossible for me to receive so near a relative of yours, your own only sister, as I should another and a stranger. There would be the need in me of being affectionate to your sister! how could I not? and yet, how could I? Everything is at once too near and too far—it is enough to make me tremble to think of it—it did, when Mr. Kenyon made his proposition. I would rather, ten times over, receive Queen Victoria and all her court——do you understand? can you misunderstand? can you pretend to fancy, as you talked yesterday, that the reluctance came from my having ‘too many visitors,’ or from any of those common causes. Why, she is your sister—and that was the cause of the reluctance. You will not dare to turn it into a wrong against yourself.
Now I am going to ask you a question, dearest of mine, and you will consider it carefully and examine your own wishes in respect to it, before I have any answer. In fact it is not necessary to treat of the subject of it at all at this moment—we have a great deal of time before us. Still, I want to know whether, upon reflection, you see it to be wise and better for me to go to Italy with Miss Bayley, or with any other person who may be willing to take me, (supposing I should find such a plan possible) and that you should follow with Mr. Chorley or alone, ... leaving other thoughts for another year. Or if I find this scheme, as far as I am concerned, impossible, shall we gain anything, do you think, on any side of the question that you can see, by remaining quietly as we are, you at New Cross, and I here, until next year’s summer or autumn? Shall we be wiser, more prudent, for any reason, or in any degree, by such a delay?
It is the question I ask you—it is no proposal of mine, understand—nor shall I tell you my own impression about it. I have told you that I would do as you should decide, and I will do that and no other. Only on that very account it is the more necessary that you should decide well, and according to the best lights of your own judgment and reason.
I forgot to talk to you yesterday of your Statesmen which I read with a peculiar sort of pleasure, coming and going as I see you and miss you. There is no mistaking your footsteps along the sands.
May God bless you, dear dearest! Say how your head is, and love me so much more than Machiavelli, as to spare it from farther injury. It is not hard to think of you to-day in this chair, where you were sitting yesterday—do you think it is?
Your own
Ba.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 2, 1846.]
You are the most entirely lovable creature I ever dreamed perhaps might be in a better world—altogether made up of affectionateness and generosity. I do not much fear, now, I shall ever offend you—in the miserable way of giving you direct offence which mortal will and endeavour could avert (although I speak—by design, on profession—doubtfully about the happiness of the future in some respects, yet I dare be quite bold here, and feel sure, as of my life at this moment, that I shall never do that, ...)—but at present I almost love even the apprehension that I may be found out too useless, too unworthy in the end; let it be said so, since I feel it so, my own Ba! I love this, because your dear love seems fit to cover any imperfection of mine: I dare say you do not see them, as you say—but you will perhaps, and then I trust to the love wholly. I want forms, ways, of expressing my devotion to you—but such as I am, all is yours.
I will write more to-morrow—the stupid head will not be quiet to-day—my mother’s is sadly affected too—it is partly my fault for reading ... a state to be proud of! Don’t let my frankness do me wrong, however,—the inconvenience is very little, but I was desired to tell you, was I not? I shall go out presently and get well.
Are you out to-day, beloved? It is very warm; be careful like the dearest Ba you are! And kiss me as I kiss you ... all except the adoration which is mine indefeasibly.
May God bless you ever for your very own.
Tuesday Night.
[Post-mark, June 3, 1846.]
My own dearest who are never to offend me!—And, true, that is—because I have tried, before now, to be offended, and could not, ... being under a charm. So it is not my fault but yours, that never you see me angry.
But your head, my head ... is it better, dearest, by this time, or is it ringing and aching even, under the crashing throat-peals of Mr. Landor’s laughter? he laughs, I remember like an ogre—he laughs as if laughter could kill, and he knew it, thinking of an enemy. May it do his friends no harm to-night! How I think of you, and, in every thought, love you! Yes, surely I can love you as if I were worthier! and better perhaps than if I were better, ... though that may sound like a riddle. And dear dearest, why do you talk of your faults so? It is not at all gracious of you indeed. You are on a high hill above me where I cannot reach your hand—(in the myths, be it understood) and you sigh and say querulously ... ‘By and bye I may have to take a step down lower.’ Now is that gracious of you, or worthy of your usual chivalry? You ought to be glad, on the contrary, to be so much nearer me—! in the myths, be it understood! For out of the myths we are near enough, as near as two hearts can be, ... I believe ... I trust!
You will not mistake what I said to you this morning my own beloved—you will not? My promise to you was to place the decision in your hands—and my desire is simply that you should decide according to your judgment and understanding ... I do not say, your affections, this time. Now it has struck me that you have a sort of instinct....
But no—I shall not write on that subject to-night. Rather I will tell you what I have been doing to-day to be so very, very tired. To-day I paid my first visit—not to Mr. Kenyon but to an older friend than even he—to Miss Trepsack ... learn that name by heart ... whom we all of us have called ‘Treppy’ ever since we could speak. Moreover she has nursed ... tossed up ... held on her knee—Papa when he was an infant; the dearest friend of his mother and her equal, I believe, in age—so you may suppose that she is old now. Yet she can outwalk my sisters, and except for deafness, which, dear thing, she carefully explains as ‘a mere nervous affection,’—is as young as ever. But she calls us all ‘her children’ ... and I, you are to understand, am ‘her child,’ par excellence ... her acknowledged darling and favourite,—perhaps because tenderly she thinks it right to carry on the love of her beloved friend, whom she lived with to the last. Once she saw you in the drawing-room—and you perhaps saw her. She dines here every Sunday, and on the other days of course often, and has the privilege of scolding everybody in the house when she is out of humour, and of being ‘coaxed’ by slow degrees back into graciousness. So, she had full right to have me on my first visit—had she not? and the goodness and kindness and funniness of the reception were enough to laugh and cry over. First ... half way up-stairs, I found a chair, to sit and rest on. Then the windows were all shut up, because I liked it so in my room. And then, for occulter reasons, a feast was spread for Arabel and Flush and me, which made me groan in the spirit, and Flush wag his tail, to look upon ... ice cream and cakes, which I was to taste and taste in despite of all memories of dinner an hour before ... and cherrybrandy!!! which I had to taste too, ... just then saved alive by an oath, on Arabel’s part, that I was ‘better without it.’ Think of dear Treppy!—of all the kindness, and fondness! Almost she kissed me to pieces as the ‘darlingest of children.’ So I am glad I went—and so is Flush, who highly approves of that class of hospitable attentions, and wishes it were the way of the world every day. But I am tired! so tired! The visiting is a new thing.
It is an old one that I should write such long letters. If I am tired, you might retort with the Ed io anche!—Yet you will not, because you are supernaturally good; and as it was in the beginning, ever shall be, you say!
But will you explain to me some day why you are sorry for Italy having been mentioned between us, and why you would rather prefer Nova Zembla? So as to kill me the faster, is it?
Your Ælian says that the oldest painters used to write under a tree, when they painted one, ‘This is a tree.’ So I must do, I suddenly remember, under my jests ... I being, it would appear, as bad an artist in jesting, as they were in painting. Therefore ... see the last line of the last paragraph ... ‘This is a jest.’
And this is the earnest thing of all ... that I love you as I can love—and am for ever ... living and dying....
Your own—
Take care of the head, I entreat! and say how you are! and how your mother is! I am grieved to hear of that relapse!
Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 3, 1846.]
I will tell you, dearest: your good is my good, and your will mine; if you were convinced that good would be promoted by our remaining as we are for twenty years instead of one, I should endeavour to submit in the end ... after the natural attempts to find out and remove the imagined obstacle. If, as you seem to do here, you turn and ask about my good—yours being supposed to be uninfluenced by what I answer ... then, here is my truth on that subject, in that view,—my good for myself. Every day that passes before that day is one the more of hardly endurable anxiety and irritation, to say the least; and the thought of another year’s intervention of hope deferred—altogether intolerable! Is there anything I can do in that year—or that you can do—to forward our object? Anything impossible to be done sooner? If not—
You may misunderstand me now at first, dear, dearest Ba: at first I sate quietly, you thought; do I live quietly now, do you think? Ought I to show the evidence of the unselfishness I strive, at least, to associate with my love, by coolly informing you ‘what would please me.’
But I will not say more, you must know ... and I seem to know that this question was one of Ba’s old questions ... a branch-licence, perhaps, of the original inestimable one, that charter of my liberties, by which I am empowered to ‘hold myself unengaged, unbound’ &c. &c.
Good Heaven; I would not,—even to save the being asked such questions,—have played the horseleech that cries ‘give, give,’ in Solomon’s phrase—‘Do you let me see you once a week? Give me a sight once a day!—May I dare kiss you? Let me marry you to-morrow!’
But to the end, the very end, I am yours: God knows I would not do you harm for worlds—worlds! I may easily mistake what is harm or not. I will ask your leave to speak—at your foot, my Ba: I would not have dared to take the blessing of kissing your hand, much less your lip, but that it seemed as if I was leading you into a mistake—as did happen—and that you might fancy I only felt a dreamy, abstract passion for a phantom of my own creating out of your books and letters, and which only took your name.... That once understood, the rest you shall give me. In every event, I am your own.
12 o’clock.—I thought another letter might arrive. This must go as we shall set off presently to Mr. Kenyon’s.
I did understand the question about my sister. I mean, that you felt somewhat so, incredible as it seems—only I believe all you say, all—to the letter, the iota. Think of that, whenever I might ask and do not—or speak, and am silent ... but I am getting back to the question discussed above, which I ought not to do—understand me, dearest dearest! See me, open the eyes, the dear eyes, and see the love of your
R.
Wednesday—5 p.m.
[Post-mark, June 4, 1846].
Then let it be as we meant it should be. And do you forgive me, my own, if I have teazed you ... vexed you. Do I not always tell you that you are too good for me?
Yet the last of my intentions was, this time, to doubt of your attachment for me. Believe that. I will write to-night more fully—but never can be more than at this moment
Your
Ba.
Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 4, 1846.]
Nothing at all had it to do with your Magna Charta, beloved, that question of mine. After you were gone the other day and I began turning your words over and over, ... (so, I make hay of them to feed the horses of the sun!) it struck me that you had perhaps an instinct of common sense, which, with a hand I did not see and a voice I could not hear, drew you perhaps. So I thought I would ask. For after all, this is rather a serious matter we are upon, and if you think that you are not to have your share of responsibility ... that you are not to consider and arrange and decide, and perform your own part, ... you are as much mistaken as ever I was. ‘Judge what I say.’ For my part, I have done, it seems to me, nearly as much as I can do. I do not, at least, seem to myself to have any power to doubt even, of the path to choose for the future. If for any reason you had seen wisdom in delay, it would have been a different thing—and the seeing was a possible thing, you will admit. I did not ask you if you desired a delay, but if you saw a reason for it. In the meantime I was absolutely yours, I remembered thoroughly, ... and the question went simply to enquire what you thought it best to do with your own.
For me I agree with your view—I never once thought of proposing a delay on my own account. We are standing on hot scythes, and because we do not burn in the feet, by a miracle, we have no right to count on the miracle’s prolongation. Then nothing is to be gained—and everything may be lost—and the sense of mask-wearing for another year would be suffocating. This for me. And for yourself, I shall not be much younger or better otherwise, I suppose, next year. I make no motion, then, for a delay, further than we have talked of, ... to the summer’s end.
My good ... happiness! Have I any that did not come from you, that is not in you, that you should talk of my good apart from yours? I shudder to look back to the days when you were not for me. Was ever life so like death before? My face was so close against the tombstones, that there seemed no room even for the tears. And it is unexampled generosity of yours, that, having done all for me, you should write as you always do, about my giving ... giving! Among the sons of men there is none like you as I believe and know, ... and every now and then declare to my sisters.
Dearest, if I vexed you, teazed you, by that question which proved unnecessary ... forgive me! Had you uncomfortable thoughts in the gardens to-day? Perhaps! And I could not smooth them away, though I drew as near as I dared ... though I was in a carriage at seven o’clock, running a mystical circle round your tents and music. Did you feel me, any more than if I were a ‘quick spider,’ I wonder.
Henrietta and Arabel were going to spend the evening with cousins of ours, and as the carriage waited for the plaiting of Henrietta’s hair, or the twisting of the ringlets, Arabel said to me ‘Will you go for a quarter of an hour?’ And in a minute, we were off ... she and Flush and Lizzie and I. Never did I expect again to see so many people—but I thought of one so much that my head was kept from turning round—and we drove once round the ‘inner circle,’ so called, and looked up to Mr. Kenyon’s windows—and there, or there, you were, certainly!—and either there, or there, you were being disquieted in your thoughts by me, as certainly! Ah forgive me. After all, ... listen ... I love you with the fulness of my nature. Nothing of all this unspeakable goodness and tenderness is lost on me ... I catch on my face and hands every drop of all this dew.
So now ... you are not teazed? we are at one again, and may talk of outside things again?
But first, I must hear how the head is. How is it, best and dearest? And you had my letter at last, had you not? Because I wrote it as usual, of course. May God bless you—and me as I am altogether your own.
Twice (observe) I have been out to-day—the first time, walking. Also, twice have I written to you.
Say how your mother is—and yourself!—
George and Henrietta were asked to meet you at Mr. Kenyon’s—but only to-day, and too late to forestall other engagements. Did you enjoy any of it? Tell me.
Thursday.
[Post-mark, June 4, 1846.]
‘Vex me,’ or ‘teaze me,’ my own Ba, you cannot. I look on it indeed, after a moment, as the only natural effect of your strange disbelief in yourself, and ignorance of our true relation one to the other by every right and reason. Only, Ba, you are wrong—doubly,—that is, you would be wrong if your own estimate of your power over me were the true one—for,—though it is difficult for me to fancy these abstractions and fantastic metamorphoses (as how one could feel without one’s head,—or how I could live without the love of you now I have once got it)—yet, since you make me, I will fancy I love my head and love you no longer ... and then (which is now) now, do you think I am so poor a creature as to go on adding to my faults, and letting you gently down, as the phrase is, with cowardly excuses, ‘postponing’ this, and ‘consenting to delay’ the other,—and perhaps managing to get you to do the whole business for me in the end? I hope and think I should say at once—Oh, no more of this! But see how right I was—‘an instinct, you seem to see.’ So, I have been thinking,—there are but few topics of our conversation from which any such impressions could arise—was it that I have asked more than once, if you could really bear another winter in London, (in all probability a severe one)—and again, if you could get to Italy by any ordinary means without the same opposition you will have to encounter for my sake?... My Ba, as God knows, all that was so much pure trembling attempting to justify myself for the over-greatness of the fortune, the excess of the joy,—if I could but feel that there was a little of your own good in it too—that you would gain that much advantage at least by my own inestimable advantage! If you knew how,—spite of all endeavours,—how happy I have been—which is a shame to confess—but how very happy to hear that you could not without a degree of danger stay here—could no more easily leave England with Miss Bayley than with me! It seemed to justify me, as I say. And so of ‘the wishing I had not mentioned Italy’—I wish your will to be mine, to originate mine, your pleasure to be only mine. Expressed first—it will be my pleasure ... but all is wrong if you take the effect, seek to know it, before the cause. What does it matter that I should prefer Italy to Nova Zembla? So, you ought to have begun by saying ‘we will go there,’ and then my pleasure in obedience had been naturally expressed. Did I not ask you whether you had not, after all, thought of going to Italy first—to Pisa, or Malta,—from the very beginning? Always to justify myself! Always!
But—this too is misunderstood. Let me say humbly, I should prefer to go with you to Italy or any place where we can live alone for some little time, till you can know me, be as sure of me as of yourself. Nor am I so selfish, I hope, as that (because my uttermost pride and privilege and glory above all glories would be to live in your sick-room and serve you,)—as that, on that account, I would not rather see you in a condition to need none of my service ... the next thing to serving you, is to be—what shall I say?—served by you ... loved by you, made happy by you—it is the being an angel, though there might be archangels—
And if now you do not understand,—well, I kneel to you, my Ba, and pray you to give yourself to me in deed as in word, the body as the heart and mind,—and now!—at any time,—you know what I cannot say, I cannot, I think,—if I know myself—love you more than I do ... but I shall always love you thus—and thus, in any case, happen what God may ordain—
Your R.
I know this is taking the simple experimental question too seriously to heart ... but such experiments touch at the very quick and core of the heart ... I cannot treat them otherwise—ought I?
You will see Miss Bayley to-day—Mr. Kenyon asked if I were going to call to-day ... ‘if not, Miss B. would.’
I have your letter ... the short note, not the promised one ... for all this writing about the question ... but I could not merely say—‘Oh no, you mistake ... I had rather, upon the whole, not wait.’
Even now the feeling, in its subsiding, hinders me from speaking of the delightful account of ‘Treppy’ ... whom I remember now, perfectly—and what comfort is in thy dear note!
Bless you, my ‘darlingest creature,’—my Ba!
Thursday.
[Post-mark, June 5, 1846.]
You are too perfect, too overcomingly good and tender—dearest you are, and I have no words with which to answer you. There is little wonder indeed that I, being used so long to the dark, should stumble and mistake, and see men like trees walking—and yet I must tell you that I did not mistake to the extent you have set down for me ... and that never was I so dull, so idiotic and ungrateful, as to fancy you into one ‘wishing to let me down gently with cowardly excuses.’ Since I first looked you in the face, and before that day, I have been incapable of defiling the idea of you with such an unworthy imputation. And surely what I did, fancy, was consistent with the fullest faith in you and in the completest verity of your affection for myself. You might have had reasons, surely, which I did not see, without aggrieving me in any fashion. So do not make me out too stupid—it is bad enough actually. Yes—those questions you refer to, turned me down that path—and do tell me how I could be expected to guess at the real drift of them, after having been accustomed to walk rather with men than with angels! Ah—and now even, that I see, it makes me smile and sigh together. To say that I am not worthy, all at once grows too little to say. No one could be worthy of such words from you. You are best, best!! How much more do you want me to owe to you, when I begin by owing to your all things, ... the only happiness of my life?
As to Italy, I thought of it first, so I am in no danger of thinking that you engage me as female courier and companion ... the feminine of what Mr. Bezzi wants to be, Miss Bayley told me to-day. So if it is the same thing to you, we will put off Nova Zembla a little. But how is it possible to jest, with this letter close by? Dearest of all, believe that I am grateful to you as I ought to be ... penetrated ... touched to the bottom of my heart with the sense of what you have been to me and are; dearest beloved!
So do not reproach me with my dull questions, on Saturday. I won’t ask them any more, ... and I did not mean by them the wickedness you thought ... so now let us be tranquil and happy till the fine weather ends. Brightly it begins, does it not? So hot it is to-day—so very hot in this room! Miss Bayley came just as I had been out walking and was tired; but she talked and interested me, and I found out from her that you were not in the gardens when we drove round them, but in the house when I looked up at the windows. Very happy and agreeable you all were, she said, at Mr. Kenyon’s—though Mrs. Jameson missed the flower-show.
I forgot to tell you that Treppy is a Creole—she would say so as if she said she was a Roman. She lived, as an adopted favourite, in the house of my great grandfather in Jamaica for years, and talks to the delight of my brothers, of that ‘dear man’ who, with fifty thousand a year, wore patches at his knees and elbows, upon principle. Then there are infinite traditions of the great great grandfather, who flogged his slaves like a divinity: and upon the beatitude of the slaves as slaves, let no one presume to doubt, before Treppy. If ever she sighs over the slaves, it is to think of their emancipation. Poor creatures, to be emancipated!
May God bless you, dear dearest! Shall I ever be better, I wonder, than the torment of your life? It is I who want to be ‘justified,’ and not you my beloved,—except as to your good sense for having made such a choice.
Such as I am however, I am
Your very own
Ba.
Friday.
[Post-mark, June 5, 1846.]
Nor did I mean so bad, dearest dearest, as that you were suspecting me of that ... Oh no, since ‘Scorn of me (that “me”) would recoil on you’ ... you would have no right to bear with such a person for a moment: but I put the broadest case possible to declare upon broadly. As I would do so if I felt so ... felt no love longer ... so, in due degree, I would tell you frankly a fear or a doubt if I felt either. I thought you suspected me, perhaps, of being deficient in this last point of courage: but it was not altogether so,—or if it was, you shall doubt no more, but believe the more strongly for the future ... let us kiss on that convention, dearest! You see, I knew it could not but be that ... for if anything had struck you as really to be gained by delay, you must feel whether I should listen to that or no—last year, for instance, when you said ‘let us wait.’
Ah, Ba, my own, many things are that ought not to be ... and I hide nothing ... cannot hide from you some feelings ... as that—after all, after all—talk, and indeed think, as one may—it is, let us say, a pleasant thing, at least, to be able to prove one’s words,—even one’s lighter words. The proof may justify some words, I mean, and the rest, that admit of no proof, get believed on the score of them,—the first words and proofs. I should like to prove a very, very little ... if I could but do so in turning fifty-thousand a year, or less, to some account and building Flush a house ‘fair to see’—after which I could go on talking about the longings never to be satisfied here....
Now this is foolish,—so the causeless blame, if you please, shall be transferred here ... as naughty children punished by mistake are promised a remission of next offence.
Oh to-morrow kisses all right ... all so right again, dearest! I have so much to say. Make me remember, love, to tell you something I have just learned about Mr. Kenyon which makes one—no, all is proper,—he should have the money, and I the admiration and love of his divine use of it: something to love him for, and he happy that God will reward it. Remember—for even that I should forget by you!
And all has been charming at Mr. Kenyon’s—Landor’s dinner, and our flower-show feast,—I will tell you to-morrow—and last night I went to Mrs. Procter’s in downright spirits ‘pour cause’ (with my first letter ... not my second, which only arrived this morning)—and I danced, to put it on record there that I was altogether happy, and saw Mrs. Jameson, and the Countess Hahn-Hahn, and Milnes and the Howitts and others in a multitude,—and I got to this house door at 4 o’clock, with the birds singing loud and the day bright and broad—and my head is quite well,—as my mother’s is better, I hope—quite well, I am at this minute. For the rest, the news of your two exits and entrances in one day ... oh, thank you, thank the golden heart of my own, own Ba! whom I shall see to-morrow, but can ... how I can kiss her now—being her own
R.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 6, 1846.]
This is the first word I have written out of my room, these five years, I think ... if I dare count anything beyond two ... for I do know that one comes after two ... (now just see what I have written!) that two comes after one, I meant to say, ... as well as a mathematician. I am writing now in the back drawing-room, half out of the window for air, driven out of my own territory by the angel of the sun this morning. Oh—it is so hot—and the darkness does not help when the lack is just of air. There is a thick mist lacquered over with light—it is cauldron-heat, rather than fire-heat. So different in the country it must be! Well, everybody being at church or chapel, I knew I could have this room to myself, without fear even of the dreadful knocker ... more awful to me than the famous knocks which used to visit the Wesley family—so here I curl up my feet ‘more meo’ on the settee, and help to keep the sabbath by resting upon you. Would Miss Goldsmid call it as ‘profane’ as anything in your poems? But it will not be more profane for that—as I could prove if we wanted proofs—only we do not.
Such flowers as you brought me yesterday—such roses! The roses are best, as coming from your garden! When I began to arrange them, I thought I never saw such splendid roses anywhere—they are more beautiful than what you brought last year surely! It seems so to me. Dearest, how did you get home, and how are you? and how is your mother? Remember to answer my questions, if you please.
After you were gone I received from Mr. Lough a very gracious intimation that if I would go to see his studio, his statue of the Queen and other works, he would take care that no creature should be present, he would uncover all the works and provide a clear solitude for me—he ‘would not do it for a Duchess,’ he said, but he ‘would for me’! Now what am I to say. My sisters tell me that I can go quite easily. The place is very near, and there are no stairs. Well, I think I must go. It is very kind and considerate, and there would be a pleasure, of course. Do you know that statues have more power over me than all the pictures and all the colours thereof which the world can show? Mr. Kenyon told me once that it was a pure affectation of mine to say so—and for my own part I could not see for a long while what was the reason of a most unaffected preference. I think I see it now. Painting flatters the senses and makes the Ideal credible in a vulgar way. But with sculpture it is different—and there is a grand audacity in the power of an Ideal which, appealing directly to the Senses, and to the coarsest of them, the Touch, as well as the Sight, yet forces them to receive Beauty through the door of an Abstraction which is a means abhorrent to them. Have I written what I mean, I wonder, or do you understand it, without? Then there is a great deal, of course, in that grand white repose! Like the Ideas of the Platonic system, these great sculptures seem—when looked at from a distance.
When you were gone yesterday, and I had had my coffee and put on my bonnet, I went, with the intention of walking out, as far as the drawing-room, and there, failed: not even with your recommendation in my ears, beloved, could I get any further. Notwithstanding all my flatteries (meaning the flatteries of me!) I was not at best and strongest, yesterday, nor am even to-day, though it is nothing to mind or to mention—only I think I shall not try to walk out in this heat even to-day, and yesterday it seemed impossible. So I came back and lay on my own sofa, and presently began to read ‘Le Comte de Monte Cristo,’ the new book by Dumas, (observe how I waste my time—while you learn how not to fortify cities, out of Machiavelli!) and really he amuses me with his ‘Monte Cristo’ ... six volumes I am glad to see—he is the male Scheherazade certainly. Now that the hero is safe in a dungeon (of the Château d’If) it will be delightful to see how he will get out—somebody knocks at the wall already. Only the narrative is not always very clear to me, inasmuch as, when I read, I unconsciously interleave it with such thoughts of you as make very curious cross readings ... j’avais cru remarquer quelques infidelités ... he really seems to love me—l’homme n’est jamais qu’un homme ... never was any man like him—ses traits étaient bouleversés ... the calmest eyes I ever saw.... So, Dumas or Machiavelli, it is of the less consequence what I read, I suppose, while I apply so undestractedly.
May God bless you, ever beloved! I think of you, I love you—I forgot again your ‘Strafford’—Mr. Forster’s ‘Strafford,’ I beg his pardon for not attributing to him other men’s works. Not that I mean to be cross—not to him even.
I am your own.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 8, 1846.]
One thing you said yesterday which I want to notice and protest against, my Ba—you charged me with speaking depreciatingly of myself because you had set the example—‘I should not have thought of it but that you began.’ Now I am tired, just at this moment, and submissive altogether, and hopeful besides, on the whole,—so I will let you off with a simple but firmest of protests,—I did not think of imitating you, but spoke as I felt and knew,—and feel and know still. The world, generally, will inform you of this in its own good time and way, so ... taceo! (The last opinion of the world’s on the respective value of people and people, is unhappily too decisive. ‘And, after all, Mr. Langton is quite as good as the Duke’s daughter ... for he will have full twenty thousand a year!’) I suspect I was going to turn a pretty phrase and tell you I have only a heart, as the play-books prescribe,—when the said heart pricks me as if I reserved something—so I will confess to owning a ‘forehead and an eye’—one advantage over Pope, to whom folks used to remark ‘Sir, you have an eye’—and no more—whereas yesterday evening after leaving Ba, while I settled myself in the corner of our omnibus to think of her, a spruce gentleman stretched over, and amid the rumbling begged my pardon for being forced to remark that my forehead and eye interested him deeply, phrenologist as he was; and he was sure I must needs be somebody ... besides a passenger to Greenwich! So if Ba will trust in phrenology!—I will at least not be unkind to her as to the learned man—who left the vehicle in due time, lamenting that in return for his own confidence and pink bill (‘Mr. Hamilton, phrenologist and lecturer’ &c. &c.) I would not break my obstinate reserve and augustly pronounce ‘Am I a Beefeater now?’
Assez de sottises: Ba, my Ba, I am happy in you beyond hope of expression—you know how happy.... And have not I some shade of a right,—I who loved the dear, dear pale cheek and the thin hand,—a right to be blessed in the wonders I see ... so long as I continue to be thankful to God whose direct doing I know it to be: how can I ever doubt the rest ... the so easy matters remaining—I will not doubt more, I think.
Tell me, write of yourself, love: remember the fierce heat ... and never go up the long stairs—or, at least, rest at proper intervals. I think of the Homeric stone heaved nearly to the hill-top and then!... An accident now would be horrible,—think, and take every precaution—because it is my life, (if that will influence you) my whole happiness you are carrying safely or letting slip. May God over-watch all and care for us!
Good bye, best beloved,—I fear I ought to go to Mrs. Jameson’s to-night: there is a breakfast engagement for Wednesday, to meet this and the other notable; and a simple ‘at home’ promised to anybody calling this evening—and my pride won’t let me accept one, nor my liking to Mrs. J. suffer me to refuse both.... Yet the fatigue! I have been at church to-day, seeing people faint.
Your own, your own R.
Monday.
[Post-mark, June 8, 1846.]
My ‘recommendation’ to dearest Ba was properly interpreted by her when she regarded the spirit and not the letter of it.
The day was hot—even I thought who thrive in heat—and yesterday you did well to keep the house—but last night’s rain, and this comfort of cloudiness may allow you to resume the exercise,—only with all ease, darling! Mrs. Jameson told me she called the other day on Miss Barrett, and was informed that lady was ‘walking before her door’—for I went last night, and deserved to be amused, perhaps, for the effort, ... and so I was, I never liked our friend as I now like her, I more than like the good nature and good feeling and versatility of ready intelligence and quick general sympathy. She is to see you to-day. She told this to a Miss Kindersley who had been reading the ‘Drama of Exile’ to her complete delight—but in listening silently,—and after, when Mrs. J. obligingly turned and said ‘How I should like to introduce you to Miss Barrett ... did you ever see her?’ ... to which I answered in the old way, ‘that nobody, as she knew, saw you.’ At all these times did not I feel the ‘mask’ you speak of! I am, fortunately, out of the way of enquiries ... but if the thing were of constant occurrence, it would be intolerable. Shall it indeed end soon? May I count by months, by weeks? It is not safe—beginning to write on this subject—I can do nothing moreover.
Well, Lough has some good works, and you will be pleased I daresay: but of all things, hold him to his bond of maintaining the strictest privacy—for Mr. Powell or his kith and kin go there, and his impudence and brazen insensibility are dreadful to encounter beyond all belief. He would book-make about ‘the meeting,’ and in his ordinary talk, be supplied with a subject to tell lies about for the next year or two,—unless he got a lesson earlier. But Lough will understand and keep his promise, no doubt, if you exact it strictly.
My mother is decidedly better, ... I am quite well—considering Thursday is so far off!—considering the end of summer is so far off. Would it be profane to think of that lament ... ‘the Summer is ended and we are not saved’?
I am obliged to leave off here—I love you ever my best
dearest, own Ba!
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 9, 1846.]
The stars threaten you with a long letter to-day, it seems, for I stretch out my hand and take blindly the largest sheet. Dearest, I have been driving out before your letter came ... and to Hampstead! think of that. And see the proof of it—this grew in the hedges when the sun rose to-day. We had a great branch gathered, and ‘this was of it,’ starred over with dog-roses. I did in the morning long for air, through the suffocation yesterday, and the walking being better for another day, my sisters persuaded me into the carriage. Only I wanted to wait for your letter, my letter, and could not—it did not come by the usual early post, and the carriage was here before it ... so I had to go, thinking of it all the way, and having it on my return ready to gladden me. How you make me laugh with your phrenologist! ‘For the interests of science’ you should have given your name. Then, would have come the whole history in the next lecture, ... how ‘Once in an omnibus he met an individual with a forehead and eyes of mark, and knew him at a glance for the first poet of the age.’ It would have made a feature in the lecture, and highly developed, I dare say, ... to suit the features in the omnibus. Just at the moment of this observation I too was thinking of eyes—‘calm eyes’ did I say? Yes, calm, serene ... which was what struck me first of all, in the look of them—was it ever observed before, I wonder? The most serene spiritual eyes, I ever saw—I thought that the first day I saw you. They may be called by other names beside, but they shall not lose the name I then gave them. Now to bear with the horrible portrait in the matter of the eyes, is a hard thing—Mr. Howitt must have his shut nearly, I think. The hair is like—and nothing else. The mouth, the form of the cheek, one is as unlike as the other. And the character of the whole is most unlike of the whole—it is a vulgarized caricature—and I only wonder how I could have fastened it inside of my ‘Paracelsus’ frontispiece-fashion. When it was hung up and framed, I did not know you face to face, remember. Mr. Kenyon told me it was ‘rather like.’ But always and uninstructed I seemed to know that it was not like you in some things....
Monday Evening.—Observe how the sentence breaks off! While I was writing it, came a ‘tapping, tapping at the chamber door,’ as sings my dedicator Edgar Poe. Flush barked vociferously; I threw down the pen and shut up the writing case, ... and lo, Mrs. Jameson! I suppose she did not guess that I was writing to you. She brought me the engravings of Xanthian marbles, and also her new essays ... and was very kind as usual, and proposed to come some day next week with a carriage to take me out,—and all this time, how we treat her! Will she not have a right to complain of being denied the degree of confidence we gave ( ... Mr. Kenyon gave for me ...) to Miss Bayley? Will she not think hereafter ‘There was no need of their deceiving me?’ And yet I doubt how to retreat now. Could I possibly say to her the next time she speaks of you ... or could I not? it would set her on suspecting perhaps. She talked a little to-day of Italy, and plainly asked me what thoughts I had of it,—to which I could answer truthfully ‘No thoughts, but dreams.’ Then she insisted, ‘But whenever you have thoughts, you will let me know them? You will not be in Italy when I am there, without my knowing it? And where will you go—? to Pisa? ... to Sienna? to Naples?’ And she advised ... ‘Don’t go where the English are, in any case.’ And encouraged like an oracle, ... ‘Remember that where there’s a will there’s a way’—knowing no more what she spoke, than a Pythian on the serpent’s skin.
Beloved, you are right in your fear about Mr. Lough. I have decided not to go there. Oh, it is best certainly; and, quietly considered, I shall be happier as well as safer in not going. We must walk softly on the snowdrifts of the world, now that we have got to them.
For the rest, ... that is for the chief thing ... you wrote foolishly in your first letter to-day, my beloved,—you can write foolishly on occasion, let me grant to the critics. I have just so much logic as to be able to see (though I am a woman) that for me to be too good for you, and for you to be too good for me, cannot be true at once, both ways. Now I could discern and prove, from the beginning of the beginning, that you were too good for me—it is too late therefore to take up the other argument—the handle of it was broken last year.
Also, I do not go to the world to ask it to appraise you—I would fain leave to Robins the things of Robins. I hope you have repented all day to-day having written so foolishly yesterday. Even Robins would not justify you.
Dearest, the avalanches are on us! Uncle and aunts coming down in a great crash! My uncle Hedley comes next week!—on the second or third of July, the eldest of my aunts, ... from Paris, ... who proposes to reside in this house for a week—it may be longer! and, still in July, the rest of the Hedleys, I think!—everybody coming, coming! Their welcome will be somewhat of a ghastly smile from me—for indeed I cannot be quite delighted, after the fashion of a thoroughly dutiful niece.
Ah, never mind them! Nobody can change anything, if you do not change yourself. You have ‘a right’ ... not the ‘shadow’ of one, but the very right ... to all I am, and to all the life I live. Did you not see before, what I have felt so long, that indeed you have a right to me and over me?
I am your own
Ba.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 9, 1846.]
Is your letter ‘long,’ my own Ba? I seem to get to the end, each time I read it, just as sorrowfully soon as usual—so much for thankfulness! But if Ba is not to be ‘tall,’ depend on it, her letter shall not describe itself as ‘long’—though in a sense nothing ever written, ever read by me, drew such a trail of light after it as her letters—your letters, my own, own love! While I write this, my lips rest on the eglantine ... well, it shall be ‘dog-rose’ for Flushie’s sake! You say truly about the folly—it is very foolish,—when I fancy you proposing to give me a golden Papal rose and gift for a King, instead of this! And if I feel this, why should not you, and more vividly even? A rose from Hampstead! And you bore the journey well? You should tell me, precisely, detailedly.
As for Lough’s statues ... now, I have said more than I meant if it deters you from going to see them! If he will abide strictly by his promise, there is much to reward the trouble of going.
Always remember, my Ba, that the secret is your secret and not mine ... that I keep it while you bid me, but that you may communicate it to whom you please, when you please, without waiting to apprize me. I should, I think, have preferred telling Mrs. Jameson from the beginning about the mere visits ... or, I don’t know ... by one such piece of frankness you only expose yourself to fifty new—whatever they are! For there would be so much the more talk about you,—and either the quick woman’s wit and discernment are to be eluded, or they are not,—foiled or not—and how manage without ... without those particular evasions which seem to degrade most of all? Miss Mitford’s promises began the embarrassment. In short I think the best way in such a case is to tell all or none. I believe you might tell all to Mrs. Jameson with perfect safety, but, for her sake, I doubt the propriety ... for it would be to introduce her forthwith to exactly our own annoyances with respect to Mr. Kenyon, Chorley &c. Once knowing, she cannot un-know. In any case, I promise my conscience to give her,—and anybody else that may have a right to it,—a full explanation at the earliest safe moment.. may that be at no great distance! My own feeling is for telling Mr. Kenyon ... though you would considerably startle me if you answered ‘well, do!’ But, of the whole world, I seem only to care for his not feeling aggrieved: oh, he will understand!—and can, because he knows the circumstances at your house. Come what will, I am sure of you; ‘if you live, and are well’—even this last clause I might exclude; it has often been in my thought to tell you ... only, dearest, there is always, when I plan never so dreamily and vaguely, always an understood submission the most absolute to your own desire ... but I fancied, that, in the case of any real obstacle arising so as to necessitate the ‘postponement,’ &c., I should have stipulated ... in the right yourself have given me ... I should have said—‘we will postpone it, if you will marry me now ... merely as to the form ... but so as to enable me, if difficulties should thicken, to be by your bed-side at least.’ You see, what you want ‘to relieve’ me of, is just what my life should be thrice paid down for and cheaply. How could you ever be so truly mine as so? Even the poor service does not ‘part us’ before ‘death’——‘till sickness do us part!’
But there will be no sickness and all happiness, I trust in God! Dear, dear Ba, I love you wholly and for ever—true as I kiss your rose, and will keep it for ever. Bless you.
My first letter ‘did not reach you by the first post on Monday morning’—No! How should it ... when I carried it to town on Sunday night and went half a mile out of my way to put it in the general post office at the corner of Oxford Street!
You know I am to breakfast with Mrs. Jameson to-morrow—and perhaps I may make some calls after: if anything keeps me in Town so as to hinder the letter by the 8 o’clock post, you will know the reason ... and expect the letter the next morning; but I will endeavour to get back in time.
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 10, 1846.]
Best, dearest beloved, ... would it not be strange if you were not so to me? How do you think I feel, hearing you say such things ... finding such thoughts in your mind? If it is not worthy of you to have a burden set on your shoulders and to be forced into the shadow of disquietudes not your own, yet this divine tenderness is worthy of you ... worthy of your nature; as I know and recognise! May God help me to thank you, for I have not a word.
Practically however, see how your proposal would work. It could not work at all, unless circumstances were known—and if they were known, at the very moment of their being known you would be saved, dearest, all the trouble of coming up-stairs to me, by my being thrown out of the window to you ... upon which, you might certainly pick up the pieces of me and put them into a bag and set off for Nova Zembla. That would be the event of the working of your proposition. Yet remember that I will accede to whatever you shall choose—so think for us both. You know more of the world and have more practical sense than I—and if you did not, had not, you may do what you like with your own, as surely as the Duke of Newcastle might.
For Mrs. Jameson, I never should think of telling her ‘all’—I should not, could not, would not! and the gods forefend that you should think of telling Mr. Kenyon any more. Now, listen. Perfectly I understand your reasons, your scruples ... what are they to be called? But I promise to take the blame of it. I will tell dear Mr. Kenyon hereafter that you would have spoken, but that I would not let you—won’t that do? won’t it stop the pricking of the conscience? Because, you see, I know Mr. Kenyon, ... and I know perfectly that either he would be unhappy himself, or he would make us so. He never could bear the sense of responsibility. Then, as he told me to-day, and as long ago I knew, ... he is ‘irresolute,’ timid in deciding. Then he shrinks before the dæmon of the world—and ‘what may be said’ is louder to him than thunder. And then again, and worst of all, he sees afar off casualty within casualty, and a marriage without lawyers would be an abomination in his sight. Moreover, to discover ourselves to him, and not submit to his counsels, would be a real offence ... would it not? As it is, it may seem natural and excusable that we two of ourselves should poetically rush into a foolishness—but if we heard counsel, and rejected it!! Do you see?...
He came here to-day, dear Mr. Kenyon, and is to come with Miss Bayley on Friday, and take me in the carriage to drive, and to see his house. I must go, but dread it ... shrink from it—yes, indeed. As for Mr. Lough, how could I have ‘bound him with Styx nine times round him?’ It is easier to bind Mrs. Jameson. Oh no! You were right, and I was wrong in my first inclination about Mr. Lough.
And yesterday I was not tired to signify. I shall not be ill, my beloved,—I think I shall not. I am as perfectly well now in all respects (except that I have not strength for much exercise and noise and confusion, ...) as it is possible to be. So do not be anxious about me—rather spend your dear thoughts of me in loving me, ... dear, dearest!
You breakfast with Mrs. Jameson, and I shall remember not to long too much for the eight o’clock letter at night. Remember you, not to be hurried as to the writing of it.
Oh! I had a letter from my particular Bennet this morning, ... and my Georgiana desires me instantly to say why I presumed not to write to her before. I am commanded out of all further delays. ‘Did I receive her letter,’ she wonders!!!! Georgiana is imperative.
May God bless you, you who bless me!
I am wholly your own.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 12, 1846.]
I must write very little to-day, dearest, because Mr. Kenyon, as a note from him just tells me, comes at half past two for me, and in the meantime I am expecting a visit from my uncle Hedley, who arrived yesterday while we were together. Scarcely could Henrietta keep him, she says, from coming up-stairs ‘to see Ba!’ We just escaped, therefore. I have been thinking that having the barbarians down on us may be at least a means of preserving us from going into the wilderness ourselves ... myself ... if I were taken away, as I told you, to Tunbridge, Dover, or other provinces of Siberia. How should I bear, do you think, to be taken away from you? Very badly!—though you will not hear of my being able to love you as I ought——when that is precisely the only thing I can do, it seems to me, at all worthily of you.
Ora pro me in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage to-day—I am getting so nervous and frightened! I shall feel all the while as if set on a vane on the top of St. Paul’s ... can you fancy the feeling? I do wish I were safe at home again, reading your letter ... which will come to-night—will ... shall ... must ... according to the letter and spirit of the Law.
You made the proposal to me about New Cross, yesterday, out of consideration and kindness to me! I understand it so, thanking you. For the rest, I need not, I am certain, assure you that it would be the greatest pain to me at any time, to be wanting in even the forms of respect and affection towards your family—and that I would not, from a mere motive of shyness, hazard a fault against them—you will believe this of me. But the usual worldly form (if the world is to give the measure) would be against my paying such a visit—and under ordinary circumstances it never is paid—not so. Therefore the not paying it is not an omission of an ordinary form of attention—that is what I mean to say. And to keep all dear to you quite safe and away from all splashing of the mud which we cannot ourselves hope to escape, is the great object,—it does seem to me. Your father and mother would be blamed (in this house, I know, if not in others) for not apprizing my father of what they knew. As it is, there is evil enough—though there is a way of escaping that evil.
As it is.—Now I do beseech you to consider well whether you will not have too much pain in finding that they suffer it (after every precaution taken) ... to render all this which we are about, wise and advisable. They will suffer, to hear you spoken of as we both shall be spoken of ... be perfectly sure! They will suffer, to have to part with you so— —and the circumstances, perhaps, will not help to give them confidence in the stranger, who presumes so to enter their family. I ask you not to answer this!—only, to think of it in time, lest you should come to think of it too late. Put it between the leaves of Machiavel,—that at need you may confute yourself as well as M. Thiers.
Beloved, say how you are—and how your mother is. Here I must end—to be ready for dear Mr. Kenyon, and casualties of uncles &c. Think of me, love me—my heart is full of you.
I am your Ba.
Friday.
[Post-mark, June 12, 1846.]
When I am close to you, in your very room, I see through your eyes and feel what you feel—but after, the sight widens with the circle of outside things—I cannot fear for a moment what seemed redoubtable enough yesterday—nor do I believe that there will be two opinions anywhere in the world as to your perfect right to do as you please under the present circumstances. People are not quite so tolerant to other people’s preposterousness, and that which yourself tell me exceeds anything I ever heard of or imagined—but, dearest, on twice thinking, one surely ought not to countenance it as you propose—why should not my father and mother know? What possible harm can follow from their knowing? Why should I wound them to the very soul and for ever, by as gratuitous a piece of unkindness as if,—no,—there is no comparison will do! Because, since I was a child I never looked for the least or greatest thing within the compass of their means to give, but given it was,—nor for liberty but it was conceded, nor confidence but it was bestowed. I dare say they would break their hearts at such an end of all. For in any case they will take my feeling for their own with implicit trust—and if I brought them a beggar, or a famous actress even, they would believe in her because of me,—if a Duchess or Miss Hudson, or Lady Selina Huntingdon rediviva ... they would do just the same, sorrow to say! As to any harm or blame that can attach itself to them,—it is too absurd to think of! What earthly control can they have over me? They live here,—I go my own way, being of age and capability. How can they interfere?
And then, blame for what, in either God’s or the devil’s name? I believe you to be the one woman in the world I am able to marry because able to love. I wish, on some accounts, I had foreseen the contingency of such an one’s crossing my path in this life—but I did not, and on all ordinary grounds preferred being free and poor, accordingly. All is altered now. Does anybody doubt that I can by application in proper quarters obtain quite enough to support us both in return for no extraordinary expenditure of such faculties as I have? If it is to be doubted, I have been greatly misinformed, that is all. Or, setting all friends and their proposals and the rest of the hatefulness aside—I should say that so simple a procedure as writing to anybody ... Lord Monteagle, for instance, who reads and likes my works, as he said at Moxon’s two days ago on calling there for a copy to give away ... surely to write to him, ‘When you are minister next month, as is expected, will you give me for my utmost services about as much as you give Tennyson for nothing?’—this would be rational and as easy as all rationality. Let me do so, and at once, my own Ba! And do you, like the unutterably noble creature I know you, transfer your own advantages to your brothers or sisters ... making if you please a proper reservation in the case of my own exertions failing, as failure comes everywhere. So shall the one possible occasion of calumny be removed and all other charges go for the simple absurdities they will be. I am entirely in earnest about this, and indeed had thought for a moment of putting my own share of the project into immediate execution—but on consideration,—no! So I will live and so die with you. I will not be poorly endeavouring to startle you with unforeseen generosities, catch you in pretty pitfalls of magnanimities, be always surprising you, or trying to do it. No, I resolve to do my best, through you—by your counsel, with your help, under your eye ... the most strenuous endeavour will only approximate to an achievement of that,—and to suppose a superfluousness of devotion to you (as all these surprises do) would be miserably foolish. So, dear, dear Ba, understand and advise me. I took up the paper with ordinary feelings ... but the absurdity and tyranny suddenly flashed upon me ... it must not be borne—indeed its only safety in this instance is in its impotency. I am not without fear of some things in this world—but the ‘wrath of men,’ all the men living put together, I fear as I fear the fly I have just put out of the window; but I fear God—and am ready, he knows, to die this moment in taking his part against any piece of injustice and oppression, so I aspire to die!
See this long letter, and all about a tiny one, a plain palpable commonplace matter about which you agree with me, you the dear quiet Ba of my heart, with me that make all this unnecessary fuss! See what is behind all the ‘bated breath and whispered humbleness?’—but it is right, after all, to revolt against such monstrous tyranny. And I ought not, I feel, to have forgotten the feelings of my father and mother as I did—because I know as certainly as I know anything that if I could bring myself to ask them to give up everything in the world; they would do it and cheerfully.