THE LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING AND ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT 1845-1846 (continued 9)

But I hold to my first impression about Mr. Kenyon, whatever your second ones may be. I know him entirely, and his views of life, and his terrors of responsibility ... his irresolution, his apprehensiveness. He never would ‘shake his head’ good-naturedly, ... until he could do nothing else. Just in proportion to the affection he bears each of us, would he labour to drive us apart. And by the means you describe! And we who can foresee and analyze those means from this distance, would not, either of us, resist the actual process! There ... do not suffer yourself, ever dearest, to be drawn into any degree of confidence there! It would end miserably, I know ... see ... am confidently sure. Let him, on the contrary, see the thing done, before he sees it at all, and then he will see the best of it ... the good in it ... then we shall stand on the sunshiny side of his philosophy and have all the benefit of that, instead of having to endure, as we should now, the darkness of his irresolution and the weight of his over-caution. Observe of dear Mr. Kenyon, that, generous and noble as he is, he fears like a mere man of the world. Moreover he might find very rational cause for fearing, in a distant view of this ... ‘most rational’ of marriages!—oh, but I am wrong in my quotation!—this only rational marriage that ever was heard of!—!!—it is so, I think.

Where did you guess that I was to-day? In Westminster Abbey! But we were there at the wrong hour, as the service was near to begin ... and I was so frightened of the organ, that I hurried and besought my companions out of the door after a moment or two. Frightened of the organ!—yes, just exactly that—and you may laugh a little as they did. Through being so disused to music, it affects me quite absurdly. Again the other day, in the drawing room, because my cousin sang a song from the ‘Puritani,’ of no such great melancholy, I had to go away to finish my sobbing by myself. Which is all foolish and absurd, I know—but people cannot help their nerves—and I was ready to cry to-day, only to think of the organ, without hearing it—I, who do not cry easily, either! and all Arabel’s jests about how I was sure of my life even if I should hear one note, ... did not reassure me in the least. We walked within the chapel ... merely within ... and looked up and looked down! How grand—how solemn! Time itself seemed turned to stone there! Then we stood where the poets were laid—oh, it is very fine—it is better than Laureateships and pensions. Do you remember what is written on Spenser’s monument—‘Here lyeth, in expectation of the second coming of Jesus Christ, ... Edmond Spenser, having given proof of his divine spirit in his poems’—something to that effect; and it struck me as being earnest and beautiful, and as if the writer believed in him. We should not dare, nowadays, to put such words on a poet’s monument. We should say ... the author of such a book ... at most! Michael Drayton’s inscription has crept back into the brown heart of the stone ... all but the name and a date, which somebody has renewed with black lines ... black as ink.

Dearest, it will not do at all ... the going at eight o’clock in the morning. I could not leave this house—it would not be possible. And then, why should we wish even, for that long passage to no end; Southampton or Brighton being, each of them, accessible and unobjectionable. As for the expense, it is nearly equal, by railway or sea.

For Mrs. Jameson, I mentioned her because you did once, and because her being so kind reminded me of it. I thought perhaps you might like her being with us (how should I know?), in which case ... Well—but you do not wish it, ... and indeed I do not. Therefore she shall go by herself ... dear Mrs. Jameson ... I will however write to her, which I have not done yet. It is not so easy as you think, perhaps, to write at once so much and so little.

Why not tell me how you are, Robert? When you do not, I fancy that you are not well! Say how you are, and love me till Saturday—and even afterwards.

Your very own Ba.

As to forgiveness—ought I to have been angry when I was not? All I felt in that letter, was, that you loved me—and as to your pretending to think that it was ‘show and acting’ on my part, I knew you did not really, and could not:—but at any rate I was the farthest possible from being angry—and the very farthest possible, peradventure!

R.B. to E.B.B.

Friday. [Post-mark, July 31, 1846.]

Dearest Ba, the love was as you admit, beneath all the foolish words—I will lay your pardon to my heart with the other blessings. All this missing of instant understanding—(for it does not amount to misunderstanding)—comes of letters, and our being divided. In my anxiety about a point, I go too much on the other side from mere earnestness,—as if the written words had need to make up in force what they want in sound and promptness—and assuredly if I had received such an impression directly from your suggestion (since not a ‘desire,’—you dear, dear Ba!) I should have begun at once to ask and argue ... whereas, it was only to the memory of what you said, an after impression, that I wrote in answer. Well, I will certainly ‘love you till Saturday,—and even after.’

Did you indeed go to the Abbey? How right to go! Every such expedition is the removal of a world of apprehension. And why not accept Mrs. Jameson’s offer now, stipulating for privacy, and go and see the Museum,—the Marbles? And the National Gallery, and whatever you would wish to see. At Pisa, Ba, the Cathedral will be ours, wholly—divinely beautiful it is—more impressive in itself than the Florence Duomo—and then the green grass round, over the pavement it hides.

And considerably more impressive than the party at Mrs. Milner Gibson’s last night—whereof I made one through a sudden goodnatured invitation which only came yesterday—so I went ‘for reasons.’ Chorley was there, looking very tired as he said he was. I left very early, having accomplished my purpose.

You know you are right, and that I knew you to be right about Mr. Kenyon—no confidence shall I make to him, be assured—but in the case of a direct application, with all those kind apologies in case his suspicion should be wrongly excited, what should I say?—to Mr. Kenyon, with his kindness and its right, mind—not to any other inquirer—think of the facilities during the week among the Quantock Hills! But no matter,—nothing but your own real, unmistakable consent, divides us—I believe nothing till that comes. The Havre voyage was of course merely a fact noted—all courses, ways, routes are entirely the same to me.

Thank you, dearest—I am very much better, well, indeed—so said my doctor who came last evening to see my father, whose eye is a little inflamed—so shall Ba see, but not take the trouble to say, when I rejoice in her presence to-morrow. Dearest, I love you with my whole heart and soul—may God bless you—

E.B.B. to R.B.

Sunday Morning and Evening. [Post-mark, August 3, 1846.]

Ever dearest, you were wet surely? The rain came before you reached the front door; and for a moment (before I heard it shut) I hoped you might return. Dearest, how I blame myself for letting you go—for not sending you a cab in despite of you! I was frightened out of all wisdom by the idea of who was down-stairs and listening perhaps, and watching—as if the cab would have made you appear more emphatically you! And then you said ‘the rain was over’—and I believed you as usual. If this isn’t a precedent of the evils of too much belief...!!

Altogether, yesterday may pass among the ‘unsatisfactory days,’ I think—for if I was not frightened of the storm, and indeed I was not, much—of the state of affairs down in the provinces, I was most sorely frightened—uneasy the whole time. I seem to be with you, Robert, at this moment, more than yesterday I was ... though if I look up now, I do not see you sitting there!—but when you sate there yesterday, I was looking at Papa’s face as I saw it through the floor, and now I see only yours.

Dearest, he came into the room at about seven, before he went to dinner—I was lying on the sofa and had on a white dressing gown, to get rid of the strings ... so oppressive the air was, for all the purifications of lightning. He looked a little as if the thunder had passed into him, and said, ‘Has this been your costume since the morning, pray?’

‘Oh no’—I answered—‘Only just now, because of the heat.’

‘Well,’ he resumed, with a still graver aspect ... (so displeased he looked, dearest!) ‘it appears, Ba, that that man has spent the whole day with you.’ To which I replied as quietly as I could, that you had several times meant to go away, but that the rain would not let you,—and there the colloquy ended. Brief enough—but it took my breath away ... or what was left by the previous fear. And think how it must have been a terrible day, when the lightning of it made the least terror.

I was right too about the message—he took up the fancy that I might be ill perhaps with fear ... ‘and only Mr. Browning in the room’!! which was not to be permitted. He was peremptory with Arabel, she told me.

Well—we need not talk any more of it—it has made one of us uncomfortable long enough. Shall you dare come on Tuesday after all? He will be out. If he is not—if my aunt should not be ... if a new obstacle should occur ... why you shall hear on Tuesday. At any rate I shall write, I think. He did not see you go yesterday—he had himself preceded you by an hour ... at five o’clock ... which if it had been known, would have relieved me infinitely. Yet it did not prevent ... you see ... the appalling commentary at seven—No.

With all the rest I am afraid besides of Mr. Chorley and his idea about your ‘mysteriousness.’ Let Mr. Kenyon hold that thread in one hand, and in the other the thread Henrietta gave him so carelessly, why he need not ask you for information—which reminds me of the case you put to me, Robert—and certainly you could not help a confession, in such possible circumstances. Only, even granting the circumstances, you need not confess more than is wrung from you—need you? Because Mr. Kenyon would undo us.

Before yesterday’s triple storms, I had a presentiment which oppressed me during two days ... a presentiment that it would all end ill, through some sudden accident or misery of some kind. What is the use of telling you this? I do not know. I will tell you besides, that it cannot ... shall not ... be, by my fault or failing. I may be broken indeed, but never bent.

If things should go smoothly, however, I want to say one word, once for all, in relation to them. Once or twice you have talked as if a change were to take place in your life through marrying—whereas I do beg you to keep in mind that not a pebble in the path changes, nor is pushed aside because of me. If you should make me feel myself in the way, should I like it, do you think? And how could I disturb a single habit or manner of yours ... as an unmarried man ... though being within call—I? The best of me is, that I am really very quiet and not difficult to content—having not been spoilt by an excess of prosperity even in little things. It will be prosperity in the greatest, if you seem to be happy—believe that, and leave all the rest. You will go out just as you do now ... when you choose, and as a matter of course, and without need of a word—you will be precisely as you are now in everything,—lord of the house-door-key, and of your own ways—so that when I shall go to Greece, you shall not feel yourself much better off than before I went. That shall be a reserved vengeance, Robert.

While I write, comes Mr. Kenyon,—and through a special interposition of guardian-angels, he has broken his spectacles and carries them in his hand. On which I caught at the opportunity and told him that they were the most unbecoming things in the world, and that fervently (and sincerely) I hoped never to see them mended. The next word was ... ‘Did you see Browning yesterday?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I thought so, I intended to come myself, but I thought it probable that he would be here, and so I stayed away—’

Now——I confess to you that that thought carries me a good way over to your impression. It is at least ‘suspicious,’ that he who knew you were with me on Saturday and Tuesday should expect to find you again on the next Saturday. ‘Oh—how uncomfortable’—the miracle of the broken spectacles not saving one from the discomfort of the position open to the bare eyes!—

He talked of you a little—asked what you were doing—praised you as usual ... for inexhaustible knowledge and general reasonableness, this time. Did I not think so? Yes—of course I thought so.

Presently he made me look aghast by just this question—‘Is there an attachment between your sister Henrietta and Capt. Cook?’—(put as abruptly as I put it here).

My heart leapt up—as Wordsworth’s to the rainbow in the sky—but there was a recoil in my leap. ‘Why, Mr. Kenyon?’—I said ... ‘what extraordinary questions, opening into unspeakable secrets, you do ask.’

‘But I did not know that it was a secret. How was I to know? I have seen him here very often, and it is a natural enquiry which I might have put to anybody in the house touching a matter open to general observation. I thought the affair might be an arranged one by anybody’s consent.’

‘But you ought to know,’ I answered, ‘that such things are never permitted in this house. So much for the consent. As for the matter itself you are right in your supposition—but it is a great secret,—and I entreat you not to put questions about it to anybody in or out of the house.’ Something to that effect I believe I said—I was frightened ... frightened ... and not exactly for Henrietta. What did he mean?—Had he too in his mind....

He touched on Mrs. Jameson ... just touched ... He had desired my sisters to tell me. He thought I had better write a note to thank her for her kindness. He had told her that if I had any thoughts of Italy they could be accomplished only by a sea-voyage, which was impossible to her.

I briefly expressed a sense of the kindness and said that I meant to write. On which the subject was changed in mutual haste, as seemed to me.

Is not this the book of the chronicles?... And you shall hear again on Tuesday, if the post should be faithful to me that morning. I might be inclined to put off our Tuesday’s meeting, but Mrs. Hedley remains in London for a few days after her daughter’s marriage, and ‘means to see a great deal’ of me—therefore Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,’ ... where should we look, from Tuesday? but I must consider and will write. May God bless you! Do say how you are after that rain. The storm is calm,

and ever and ever I am your own Ba.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday. [Post-mark, August 3, 1846.]

What can I tell you, ever dearest, while I am expecting all you are to tell me? I will not conjecture, nor be afraid (for you) before the time—I felt your dear hand press mine closer while the thunder sounded—so it will always be, I know, in life, in death—and when a thunder shall break, of a kind that I can fear, I will hold your hand, my Ba. Perhaps there is nothing formidable here ... indeed there can hardly be—tell me all. I got to your Hodgson’s, waited a few minutes till a cab passed, and then was properly deposited at the Haymarket. The streets, at least the roads out of Town, were flooded—very canals. Here, at home our skylight was broken,—and our chimneys behaved just as yours.

And now—shall I see you really on Tuesday after this Saturday of perils? And how will your head be,—your health in general be, you sweetest Ba? Is it the worse for the storm and the apprehension,—to say nothing of what may have followed? Oh, if but a ‘sign’ might be vouchsafed me—if I might go to Wimpole Street presently, and merely know by the disposition of a blind or of a shutter, that you were better, or no worse! I ought to have contrived something of the kind yesterday—but ‘presence of mind’!

Ba, I have been reading those poems—now to speak soberly—I had no conception, Mrs. Butler could have written anything so mournfully mediocre ... to go as near flattery as I can. With the exception of three or four pieces respectable from their apparent earnestness, all that album writing about ‘sprites,’ and the lily-bell, and ‘wishes’—now to be dead and now alive,—descriptions without colour, songs without tune,—why, Bennett towers above it! Either Bennett—for the one touch you recorded, ‘I will not be forgot’—seems grandly succinct contrasted with

How many of these unfortunate Sundays are in store for me, I wonder—eight or nine, then the two months ... ‘when constant faith and holy hope shall die,’ one lost in certainty and one in the deep deep joy of the ever present ever dearest Ba! Oh, Ba, how I love you!

Your own R.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, August 3, 1846.]

Oh, the comfort you are to me, Ba—the perpetual blessing and sustainment! And what a piece of you, how instinct with you, this letter is! I will not try to thank you, but my whole life shall.

See! Now talk of ‘three or four months’! And is not the wonder, that this should wait for the eighty-second visit to happen? Or could anything be more fortunate, more mitigating than the circumstances under which it did happen at last? The rain and thunder,—the two hours (see the accounts—nothing like it has been known, for years), at most, proved against us,—the ignorance of the visits last week—in spite of all which, see what comes and is likely to come!

Let me say at once that, at the worst, it may come! You have had time to know enough of me, my Ba,—and I, who from the first knew you, have taken one by one your promises from your lips,—I believe what you write here; I accept it as the foundation of all my future happiness—‘you will never fail me’—I will never fail you, dearest dearest.

How you have mistaken my words, whatever they may have been, about the ‘change’ to be expected in my life! I have, most sincerely I tell you, no one habit nor manner to change or persevere in,—if you once accept the general constitution of me as accordant to yours in a sufficient degree,—my incompleteness with your completeness, dearest,—there is no further difficulty. I want to be a Poet—to read books which make wise in their various ways, to see just so much of nature and the ways of men as seems necessary—and having done this already in some degree, I can easily and cheerfully afford to go without any or all of it for the future, if called upon,—and so live on, and ‘use up,’ my past acquisitions such as they are. I will go to Pisa and learn,—or stay here and learn in another way—putting, as I always have done, my whole pride, if that is the proper name, in the being able to work with the least possible materials. There is my scheme of life without you, before you existed for me; prosecuted hitherto with every sort of weakness, but always kept in view and believed in. Now then, please to introduce Ba, and say what is the habit she changes? But do not try to say what divinest confirmation she brings to ‘whatever is good and holy and true’ in this scheme, because even She cannot say that! All the liberty and forbearance ... most graceful, most characteristic of you, sweet! But why should I play with you, at taking what I mean to give again?—or rather, what it would be a horror to have to keep—why make fantastic stipulations only to have the glory of not abiding by them? If I may speak of my own desires for a moment unconnected with your happiness,—of what I want for myself purely—what I mean by marrying you,—it is, that I may be with you forever—I cannot have enough of you in any other relation: why then should I pretend to make reservations and say ‘Yes, you shall deprive me of yourself (of your sympathy, of your knowledge, and good wishes, and counsel) on such and such occasions? But I feel your entire goodness, dear angel of my life,—ever more I feel it, though all seems felt and recorded.

And now of your ‘chronicling’—of course Mr. Kenyon knows—and this is the beginning of his considerate, cautious kindness—he has determined to hurry nothing, interfere abruptly in no case, to make you infer rather than pretend to instruct you—as you must,—for ‘if the visits of Captain Cook have that appearance &c., must not those of R.B. &c., &c.,’ So, this is not from Chorley’s information, mind, but from his own spectacled acumen.

After this, it seems very natural to remark that the Havre packets leave now at nine instead of eight o’clock on Thursdays and Sundays—while the departures from Southampton are on Tuesdays and Fridays. My presentiment is that suddenly you will be removed to Devonshire or Sussex or—. In which case, our difficulties will multiply considerably—be prepared for such events!

And for to-morrow—only think of yourself, lest you should forget my interests: pray write to-night, if but two or three words. If I am allowed to call, I will bring Mrs. Butler’s book in a cover, and, if I find a note from you, leave that, as an excuse for the knock. Will you contrive that a note shall be ready—in case of your Aunt’s presence &c. If it saves you from a danger, let me stay away—until the letters stop, I can bear absence till the two months end—any such journey as I apprehend would be most annoying, deplorable indeed.

Would you not if the worst came,—what would you do?

May God bless you, infinitely bless you, ever dearest dearest, prays ever your very own—

R.

Mrs. Procter wants me to go to her on Thursday—is there anything to get out of that arrangement?—probably not—but write!

Do reconsider, Ba,—had I better stay away to-morrow? You cannot misunderstand me,—I only think of you—any man’s anger to me is Flushie’s barking, without the respectability of motive,—but, once the door shut on me, if he took to biting you! Think for us both! Is there any possibility of a suspicious sudden return because of the facilities of the day? Or of the servant being desired to mention my visits—or to ‘deny you,’ as unwell &c.? Ah my soul revolts at the notion of a scene in your presence—my own tied tongue, and a system of patience I can well resolve upon, but not be sure of, as experience makes sure.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday. [Post-mark, August 4, 1846.]

Two precious letters to make amends for yesterday! and in return only just two or three words to say ... ‘yes, come.’ And I meant to have proposed to you something like what you suggest when you talk of the book and the note. If the ground is not clear at three, and Papa (above all) still in the house, you shall have a note, instead of admittance, ... and you will understand by the sign that it is wise for us not to meet. My hope and expectation are, however, that no obstacle will occur—that he will be in the city, and she at Fenton’s Hotel, engaged in some office of consolation beside her sister. I seriously exhorted her to remain there the rest of the day to wipe away the tears of the bride’s mother ... as an appendix to the breakfast:—ah, and seriously I thought she ought to stay, as well as seriously wishing it. And thus, altogether, we shall probably have open ground when it is desirable. If not, the note!—

For the rest, dearest, do not exaggerate to yourself my report of what passed on Saturday. It was an unpleasant impression, and that is all, ... and nothing, I believe, has been thought of it since. Once before, remember, your apparition made an unpleasant impression, which was perfectly transitory then as now. Now as then, do not suffer such things to vex you beyond their due import. There will be no coming back, no directions to servants, nothing of the sort. Only it would not do to deepen Saturday’s impression with to-morrow’s—we must be prudent a little.

And you see me, my prophet, sent to Sussex or Devonshire, in a flash of lightning? That is your presentiment, do you say? Well! Sussex is possible, Kent is not impossible. This house, ... vox populi clamat,—wants cleaning, painting, papering—the inhabitants thereof, too, cry aloud for fresh air. Nevertheless, summer after summer, there have been the same reasons for going, and nobody goes. We shall see.

So, till to-morrow! Dear, dearest! you are always best—to justify the dearest, I suppose! I remember your having said before some of this ... which, never could I forget, having once heard. But think how Alfred the king divided his days—and how Solomon the king would tell you of ‘a time’ for sitting with me. ‘Bid me ... not ... discourse’ however—we shall both know what is right presently—and I in the meanwhile perfectly do now that I could not consent to your shutting yourself up for my sake—no, indeed!

Shall I fail to you? Could I? Could it be needful for me to say ‘I will not fail.’

Your own, I am.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, August 5, 1846.]

One word or two to-night and no more, let the paper spread itself as it may. Dearest, it was wise of you, perhaps, to go to-day. Wisdom was the first to wear sackcloth. My aunt, who had just had time to hear of your being in the house, found my door open, and you were noticed by a passing jest ... too passing to meet ears in authority—and I was made to put on my bonnet and go out in the carriage with our department of the bridal party, who had come home first, in order to change their costume into something wearable for comfort ... into gowns which had not a devil, torturing the wearers with a morbid sense of flounces. So they came home for that, and we were vexed and frightened for that reason—and I was taken to Kensington Gardens to leave some walkers there, and then to Fenton’s Hotel, to leave my aunt as comforter for the evening. Altogether, oh, how provoked I was! But it was wise perhaps. I will not say that it was not very wise indeed. Papa knows nothing of your having been here, and Saturday is not far off. Still, to think of two hours being cut off; and of the long journey from New Cross, just for the one hour! Shall I hear to-morrow fully, to make up for it, Robert? And tell me if you accept Mrs. Jameson’s invitation. And your head?

Flush thanks you! I asked him if he loved you even, and he wagged his tail. Generally when I ask him that question he won’t answer at all,—but you have overcome him with generosity ... as you do me!

I forgot to tell you—There is a letter from Mr. Horne which makes me vexed a little. He is coming to England, and says, that, if still I will not see him, he shall bring his guitar to play and sing for my sisters, leaving the door open that I may hear up-stairs. What a vexation! How shall I escape a checkmate now? He castles his king, and the next move undoes me. There’s a bishop though to be played first, for he wants an introduction to Whately, which I am to write for to Miss Mitford, if I don’t know him myself.

My consolation for to-day, is, that to-morrow is not Sunday. In the meanwhile, nothing is talked except of the glories of Fenton’s Hotel. The bride behaved with the most indisputable grace, and had words and smiles for everybody. The bridegroom appears to have been rather petrified (he was saying orisons to St. James, I dare say) and was condemned by the severer critics, for being able to produce no better speech at the breakfast, when his health was drunk with ever so much elaboration of eloquence, than ‘I thank you—I propose yours.’ For my part I sympathize more with him in that point of specific stupidity, than on any other I have yet heard of. If he had said as little about ecclesiastical architecture, he would have been unobjectionable, wholly. They went away with four horses, in disdain of the railroads.

But poor Mrs. Hedley was dreadfully affected—I knew she would be. This is the only grown-up daughter, you see,—the others being all children, the youngest three years old—and she loses a constant companion, besides the hourly sight of a very lovely girl, the delight of her eyes and heart.

Dearest, you understood why I told you to-day of Mr. Kenyon’s professed opinions? It was to make you know him. The rest, we know alike. And for him even, when he looks back on a thing instead of looking forward to it (where the Bude Light of the world is in his eyes and blinds them) he will see aright and as we do. Only you frightened me by your idea about his application to you. May God forbid!

May God bless you, rather, in the best way! Why should I choose how? I ‘ought’ not, I think, to fancy that I know the best for you, enough to use such words.

But I am your own. That, we both know! May I be yours, not to do you harm, my beloved! Good-night, now!

R.B. to E.B.B.

Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, August 5, 1846.]

If I had felt, as you pleased to feel yesterday, that it had been ‘only one hour’ which my coming gained—I should richly deserve to find out to-day, as I do fully, what the precise value of such an hour is. But I never act so ungratefully and foolishly—you are more than ever you have been to me,—yet at any time I would have gone for the moment’s sight of you,—one moment’s—and returned happy. You never doubt this because I do not waylay you in your walks and rides? I consider your sisters, and your apprehension for them, and other reasons that make such a step objectionable. Do you remember what I said yesterday—what I have told myself so often? It is one proof how I love you that I am jealous of any conversation with you which should be too interesting for itself, apart from the joy of your presence—it is better to sit and see you, or hear you, or only say something which, in its insignificance, shall be obviously of no account beside the main and proper delight—as at wine-feasts you get the wine and a plate of thin dry tasteless biscuits—(observe, for instance, that this noble simile was not set before you yesterday—no, my Ba!)

And you did understand also why I left, on that mere chance of danger to you,—for it was not, do you think it was only the irksomeness to myself I sought to escape—though that would have been considerable. There is no unstable footing for me in the whole world except just in your house—which is not yours. I ought not to be in that one place—all I could do in any circumstances (were a meeting to happen) would be wrong, unfortunate. The certainty of misconception would spoil everything—so much of gentleness as is included in gentlemanliness would pass for a very different quality—and the manliness which one observes there too, would look like whatever it is farthest from. This is a real avowal of weakness—because, being in the right, as I dare trust I am, so far as I can see through the involvement, I ought to be able to take my stand upon it,—and so I shall be able, and easily—but not here, just here. With Mr. Kenyon, in spite of a few misgivings, I shall know what to say—I can justify myself, if not convince him. Never fancy, dearest, that he has any ‘clay’ in his composition—he may show a drop of water at the heart of the else entire chrystal he is—did you ever see that pretty phenomenon—of which Claudian wrote so prettily? ‘Non potuit toto mentiri corpore gemmam, sed medio latuit proditor orbe latex.’ Our Druids used to make balls for divining out of such all-but-solid gems with the central weakness—I have had them in my hand. Such doubts and fears are infinitely more becoming in him, situated as he is than their absence would be—if he said for instance, ‘Oh yes,—I am used to a certain style of living, which of course I do not change for no reason at all,—but who doubts that I could do so, without difficulty or regret? I shall hardly bestow any sympathy on what I am sure must be the easiest life in the world!’ One would rather hear an epicure say frankly he cannot conceive how people can end a dinner without Tokay, than ask over his Tokay (as Sheridan’s Abbot in the ‘Duenna’) of the poor starved wistful attendant monk, ‘Haven’t you the chrystal spring?’

In this case, he is directly looking to your possible undertakings, not merely expressing his general ‘remembrance that we are dust’ and need gilding—and certainly if in some respects you have, as I believe, less use, fewer uses for money than ordinary women,—you also have an absolute necessity for whatever portion you do require,—such a necessity as they have not, neither. I shall never grieve over the lace handkerchiefs you cannot get—but whatever you possess already in this room of yours, or might possess on the contingency of such illness, you must keep,—to your life’s end. I would not take you away on any other condition. Now listen Ba—not think for a moment that it puts me to the least, least pain imaginable to talk on this subject, while I know you wholly, as there I am sure I do, and while you too know me, as I also am sure,—we may discuss this, as we do the better or worse routes to Italy, in the fullest confidence of our aims and desires being absolutely identical,—so that it is but a prize for the ingenuity of either,—a prize from the common stock of our advantage,—whenever a facility is discovered or a difficulty avoided. So listen,—will you, at once, or as soon as practicable, ascertain what you certainly possess—what is quite yours, and in your sole power, to take or to let remain—what will be just as available to you in Italy as in England? I want to know, being your possible husband. My notion of the perfection of money arrangements is that of a fairy purse which every day should hold so much, and there an end of trouble. Houses and land always seem like a vineyard to a man who wants a draught of wine for present thirst: so tell me how much will be found in the purse—because when we are in Italy or halfway there telling will be superfluous or beyond remedy,—easy remedy at least.

Since writing the above I have been down-stairs—and now return to tell you, a miracle has just happened, which my father, mother and sister are at this moment engaged in admiring—I hear their voices in the garden. We have a fig-tree which I planted four years ago—this year it produces its first fruit, a small fig, ‘seule et unique,’ which is still on the tree—not another fig, ripe or unripe, living or dead, has ever been carried into the garden—yet this morning is discovered in the exact centre of the garden, and parallel with the fig-tree aforesaid, another indubitable seedling fig-tree,—‘how begot, how nourished?’ Ipse vidi—does that prognosticate, my own Siren, my soothsayer and wise lady?

And now, have you been incommoded by the storm,—and thunder, which was loud and lasting here? I thought of you with such thoughts.

And what came of my visit? Was it really your Aunt—did my precipitation improve matters? Will Saturday have to fear?

Yesterday I was not in a mood to go quietly home—‘for my soul kept up too much light under my eyelids for the night, and thus I went disquieted’ till at Charing Cross it struck me that going home by water (to Greenwich, at least) would be a calmative—so I went on board a steamer. Close by me sate three elderly respectable men,—I could not help hearing them talk rationally about the prospects of the planters, the ‘compensation there is to be in the article of Rum,’—how we ‘get labour,’ which is the main thing, and may defy, with that, Cuba, the Brazils &c. One who talked thus was a fat genial fellow, ending every sentence in a laugh from pure good-nature—his companions somehow got to ‘the Church,’ then Puseyism, then Dissent—on all which this personage had his little opinion,—when one friend happened to ask ‘you think so?’—‘I do,’ said the other ‘and indeed I know it.’ ‘How so?’—‘Because it was revealed to me in a vision.’ ‘A ... vision?’—‘Yes, a vision’—and so he began to describe it, quite in earnest, but with the selfsame precision and assurance, with which he had been a little before describing the effect of the lightning on an iron steamboat at Woolwich as he witnessed it. In this vision he had seen the devil cast out of himself—which he took for an earnest of God’s purposes for good to the world at large—I thought, ‘we mad poets,—and this very unpoetical person!’ who had also previously been entering on the momentous question ‘why I grow fatter than of old, seeing that I eat no more—’

Come, Ba, say, is not this too bad, too far from the line?—I may talk this by you,—but write this away from you,—oh, no! Be with me then, dearest, for one moment, for many moments, in spite of the miles, while I kiss your sweetest lips, as now—Beloved!

I am ever your very own

Oh,—I determine not to go yet to Mrs. J’s ‘for reasons’—a phrase which ought to be ready stereotyped.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Wednesday Night. [Post-mark, August 6, 1846.]

Dearest, you did not have my letter, I think—the letter I wrote on Tuesday, yesterday. These iniquitous postpeople—who are not likely to see in a vision (like your fat prophet) the devil cast out of them for the good of the world! Indeed it is too bad.

To answer first the question—(You are wise beyond me in all things ... let me say that in a parenthesis!) I will tell you what I know. Stormie told me the other day that I had eight thousand pounds in the funds; of which the interest comes to me quarterly, the money being in two different per cents ... (do you understand better than I do?) and from forty to forty-five pounds Papa gives me every three months, the income tax being first deducted. It may be eight thousand pounds, or more or less, ... it is difficult to ask about it ... but what comes to me every three months, I know certainly. Then there is the ship money ... a little under two hundred a year on an average ... which I have not used at all (but must for the future use), and the annual amount of which therefore, has been added to the Fund-money until this year, when I was directed to sign a paper which invested it (i.e. the annual return) in the Eastern Railroad. That investment is to yield a large percentage, I heard, and Stormie tried to persuade me to ask Papa to place everything I had, on the same railroad. Papa had said down-stairs the other day that it would be best so—and I ought to remind him to do it, repeated Stormie, as it would very much increase ... increase by doubling almost ... the available income; and without the slightest risk of any kind. But I could not take the advice under the circumstances—I could not mention such a word as money to him, giving the appearance even of trouble about my affairs, now. And he would wonder how I should take a fancy suddenly to touch such matters with the end of my finger. Then there are the ten shares in Drury Lane Theatre—out of which comes nothing.

You wonder how I can spend, perhaps, the quarterly forty pounds and upward that come to me? I do spend them. Yet let me hold you from being frightened, and teach you to consider how easy it is to spend money, and not upon oneself. Never in any one year of my life, even when I was well, have my expenses in dress (as I told Mr. Kenyon the other day) exceeded twenty pounds. My greatest personal expense lately has been the morphine. Still the money flows out of window and door—you will understand how it flows like a stream. I have not the gift (if it is a gift) of making dresses ... in my situation, here. Elsewhere, all changes, you know. You shall not call me extravagant—you will see. If I was ‘surprised’ at what you told me of Mrs. Norton, it was only because I had had other ideas of her—for my own gown cost five shillings ... the one I had on when you spoke. So she was better than I by a mere sixpence. Ah—it came into my head afterwards that my being ‘surprised’ about Mrs. Norton, might argue my own extravagance. See!—

But the Goddess Dulness inspires me to write about it and about it, to no end. I say briefly at last, that whatever I have, is mine ... and for use in Italy, as in England. Papa has managed ... has taken a power of attorney, to manage for me kindly ... but everything is in my name—and if it were not, he could not for a moment think of interfering with an incontestable right of property. Still, I do see a difficulty at the beginning—I mean that, as I am here, I could not put my hand out for a large sum, such as would be necessary perhaps. I have had a great deal to pay and do lately,—and the next quarter will not be until the middle of October. Still there would be something, but less than is necessary. We might either wait on the road till the required sum were called for and sent—or get a hundred pounds advanced by someone for a few weeks until everything was settled ... which would be pleasanter, if possible. Poor Papa’s first act will be to abandon his management. Ah, may God grant him to do it rather angrily than painfully.

A letter, I have written to you, like the chiming of two penny pieces—a miserable letter! And there is much to tell you ... but nothing painful ... do not fear. The Hedleys dined here, and Mrs. Hedley has been sitting with me ... keeping me from writing. Good-night now it must be! When you write so of caring to be with me, my heart seems to rock with pleasure. Shouldn’t this letter have been written on ’Change, and isn’t it unworthy of all you are to me ... and even of all I am to you? But such things must be, after a fashion. Have I told you right, dearest? does it make any sense, altogether? You are wise in little subjects as in great ones, and I will let you make me wiser if you can. And there is no clay in dear Mr. Kenyon ... but just the drop in the chrystal you tell me of—only you shall not divine by him, my Druid, or you will sit by yourself under the oak tree to the end of the day!

Wholly yours and ever—in the greatest haste—

R.B. to E.B.B.

Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, August 6, 1846.]

No, dearest,—the post brought me no letter till early this morning, a few hours before the second arrival: so, in case of any unexpected stoppage in our visit-affairs, if the post can have been to blame, always be sure it is; if I do not arrive at any time when I ought to arrive, having been sent for—there is the great instance and possibility, which you are to remember! However at present, post naufragia tutus sum with my two treasures.

Thank you, dearest, for all that kind care of answering—will you now let me lay it all quietly up in my head to mature, before I ... really think upon it, much more, speak of it? If one can do both once for all, what a blessing! But a little leaven of uncertainty and apprehension, just enough to be tasted bitterly in the whole lump of our life,—that cannot be too diligently guarded against while there is time.

Well, love, your excursion to Kensington was a real good, well purchased by my early going—and I am glad the great event stood before all eyes and mouths. I seem to notice that you do not leave the house quite so often as, say, a month ago; and that you are not the better for it. Of course you cannot go out in storm and rain. Will you do what is best for my Ba, you who say you love me,—that is, love her?

Don’t I sympathize with Horne, and see with his eyes, and want with his senses! But why can he not want after the two months, I ask selfishly—seeing, or fancying I see, this inconvenience ... that, as his report will probably be the latest to the world, it would be advisable for you to look as well as possible,—would it not? It would not do for him to tell people ‘All I can say is, that a few weeks only before it happened, she appeared to me thus and thus’—while, on the other hand, if you receive him in the drawing room,—there are difficulties too.

You never told me how yesterday’s thunder affected you—nor how your general health is—yet I will answer you that I am very well to-day—about to go to Mrs. Procter’s, alas—it is good that this letter cannot reach you before night or nine o’clock—I should fail to deny myself the moment’s glance at the window—if you could be prayed to stand there! But it is past praying for now. I told you that I have excused myself to Mrs. Jameson on the ground of some kind of uncertainty that rules the next fortnight’s engagements—who shall say what a fortnight may not bring forth? I shall not mind Mr. Kenyon being of the party to-night, should it be so ordered ... for, if he asks me, I can say with dignity—‘No,—I did not call to-day,—meaning to call on Saturday, perhaps’—‘Well, there is some forbearance,’ he will think! However, he will not be present, I prophesy, and Chorley will ... or no, perhaps, Rachel’s Jeanne D’Arc may tempt him. Important to Ba, very! almost as much as to me—so at once to the really, truly, exclusively important thing, by comparison—Love me ever, dearest dearest, as I must ever love you,—and take my heart, as if it were a better offering. Also write to me and tell me that Saturday is safe ... will it be safe? Your aunt may perhaps leave you soon—and one observation of hers would be enough to ruin us—consider and decide!

Since these words were written, my mother, who was out, entered the room to confirm a horrible paragraph in the paper. You know our light momentary annoyance at the storm on Saturday; it is over for us. The next day, Mr. Chandler, the cultivator of camellias at Wandsworth, died of grief at the loss from the damage to his conservatories and flowers—which new calamity added to the other, deprived his eldest son, and partner—of his senses ... ‘he was found to be raving mad on Monday’ are the words of the Times. My mother’s informant called theirs ‘the most amicable of families.’

How strange—and a few weeks ago I read, in the same paper, a letter from Constantinople—wherein the writer mentioned that he had seen (I think, that morning) Pacha somebody, whose malpractices had just drawn down on him the Sultan’s vengeance, and who had been left with barely his life,—having lost his immense treasures, palaces and gardens &c., along with his dignity,—the writer saw this old man selling slices of melon on a bridge in the city; and on stopping in wonderment to praise such constancy, the Turk asked him with at least equal astonishment, whether it was not fitter to praise Allah who had lent him such wealth for forty years, than to repine that he had judged right to recall it now?

Could we but practise it, as we reason on it!—May God continue me that blessing I have all unworthily received ... but not, I trust, insensibly received!

May he keep you, dearest dearest

R.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Thursday. [Post-mark, August 7, 1846.]

I told you nothing yesterday; but the interruption left me no time, and the house was half asleep before I had done writing what I was able to write. Otherwise I wanted to tell you that Mrs. Jameson had been here ... that she came yesterday, and without having received my note. So I was thrown from my resources. I was obliged to thank her with my voice ... so much weaker than my hand. If you knew how frightened I was! The thunder, the morning before, (which I did not hear holding your hand!) shook me less, upon the whole. I thanked her at least ... I could do that. And then I said it was in vain ... impossible.

‘Mr. Kenyon threw cold water on the whole scheme. But you! Have you given up going to Italy?’

I said ‘no, that I have not certainly.’ I said ‘I felt deeply how her great kindness demanded every sort of frankness and openness from me towards her,——and yet, that at that moment I could not be frank—there were reasons which prevented it. Would she promise not to renew the subject to Mr. Kenyon? not to repeat to him what I said? and to wait until the whole should be explained to herself?’

She promised. She was kind beyond imagination—at least, far beyond expectation. She looked at me a little curiously, but asked no more questions until she rose to go away. And then——

‘But you will go?’ ‘Perhaps—if something unforeseen does not happen.’ ‘And you will let me know, and when you can,—when everything is settled?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you think you shall go?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And with efficient companionship?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And happily and quietly?’ ... ‘Ye ...’ I could not say the full ‘Yes,’ to that—If it had been utterable, the idea of ‘quiet’ would have been something peculiar. She loosened her grasp of her catechumen, therefore——nothing was to be done with me.

I forgot, however, to tell you that in the earlier part of the discussion she spoke of having half given up her plan of going herself. In her infinite goodness she said, ‘she seemed to want an object, and it was in the merest selfishness, she had proposed taking me as an object’—‘And if you go even without me, would it not be possible to meet you on the road? I shall go to Paris in any case. If you go, how do you go?’

‘Perhaps across France—by the rivers.’

‘Precisely. That is as it should be. Mr. Kenyon talked of a long sea-voyage.’

Now I have recited the whole dialogue to you, I think, except where my gratitude grew rhetorical, as well it might. She is the kindest, most affectionate woman in the world! and you shall let me love her for you and for me.

As for me, my own dearest, you are fanciful when you say that I do not go out so much, nor look so well. Now I will just tell you—Henrietta cried out in loud astonishment at me to-day, desiring Treppy to look at my face, when we were all standing together in this room—‘Look at Ba, Treppy!—Did you ever see anyone looking so much better; it really is wonderful, the difference within these few weeks.’ That’s Henrietta’s opinion! She quite startled me with crying out ... as if suddenly she had missed my head!—And you!

Then I have been out in the carriage to-day, just to Charing Cross, and then to Mr. Boyd’s in St. John’s Wood. I am as well at this moment as anyone in the world. I have not had one symptom of illness throughout the summer—perfectly well, I am. At the same time, being strong is different; and sometimes for a day or two together, when I do not feel the strongest, it is right to be quiet and not to walk up and down stairs. So as I ‘love Ba,’ (quite enough, I assure you!) I am quiet. There’s the only meaning of not going out every day! But the health is perfectly unaffected, I do assure you,—so keep yourself from every vexing thought of me, so far at least. Are you getting frightened for me, my beloved? Do not be frightened, I would not deceive you by an exaggeration, for the sake even of your temporary satisfaction—you may trust what I say.

For the thunder ... if you thought of me during it, as you say, ... why it did me just so much good. Think of me, dearest, in the thunder and out of the thunder; the longest peal’s worth of your thought would not content me now, because you have made me too covetous.

As to Mr. Horne, you write Sordelloisms of him—and you shall tell me your real meaning in a new edition on Saturday. Might your meaning be that I look worse in this room than in the drawing-room? Have you an objection to this room as a room? I rub my eyes and look for a little more light—(but can’t be more impertinent!—can I?)

So, till Saturday—yes, Saturday! To-morrow there is a clearance of aunts—one going at nine in the morning, and one at five in the afternoon: and uncles and cousins do not stay behind. You are glad, I think—and I, not sorry.

How striking your two stories are! Wonderful it is to me, when mere worldly reverses affect men so—I cannot comprehend it—I stand musing there. But the sublime sentiment of the Melon-seller applies to the griefs I can understand—and we may most of us (called Christians) go to him for his teaching.

May God bless you for me! Your Ba.

(I want to say one word more and so leave the subject. Stormie told me this morning, in answer to an enquiry of mine, that certainly I did not receive the whole interest of the fund-money, ... could not ... making ever so much allowance for the income-tax. And now, upon consideration, I seem to see that I cannot have done so. The ship-shares are in the ‘David Lyon,’ a vessel in the West Indian trade, in which Papa also has shares. Stormie said ‘There must be three hundred a year of interest from the fund-money—even at the low rate of interest paid there.’ Now it would be the easiest thing in the world (as I saw even in to-day’s newspaper) to have money advanced upon this—only there is a risk of its being known perhaps, which neither of us would at all like.) Burn this.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Friday Morning. [Post-mark, August 7, 1846.]

(First of all, let me tell you that the whole story about that death through grief, madness &c., turns out to be a vile fabrication,—false from beginning to end. My mother’s informant, I now find, had derived the knowledge from newspaper also—I hope the other tale, of the Turk, is true at least.)

And now, love, I can go on to say that no letter comes—is it the post’s fault? Yes—I think,—so does your goodness spoil me—you have to tell me about to-morrow, beside. I shall wait hopefully till 2 or 3 o’clock.

Mr. Kenyon was there last evening, for all my prognostications—he had already twice passed this place in the course of the day on his way to Lewisham. He soon asked me as I expected—or something that sounded like it—for, in the half whisper of his tone, I can only hope he did not put the question thus ‘Have you seen Miss Barrett since Saturday,—or have you called to-day?’ My mind misgives a little—at all events I only answered the last part of the sentence—and now, mark you!—after dinner he proposed that I should go to him on Wednesday, and make one of a party he is organising. I tried some faint excuse or other—‘You know,’ interposed he, ‘you can pay a visit to Wimpole Street and I shall know and keep away from troubling you’—or words to that effect. I thought it really better to simply (in every sense of the word) smile, and attempt to say nothing. Now, I feel sure that if I were to remark, ‘I will call on Mrs. Jameson’—for instance—he would say, ‘So will I, then, if I can’—on that day, rather than any other—unless some special business had been mentioned as the object of my visit. And here is another inconvenience he will perhaps consider ‘As he means to call on Wednesday,—there is no reason I should keep away to-morrow—Saturday—’

It will be, however, a justification in his eyes at the end—‘he knew her so well, saw so much of her,—who could wonder?’

I sate by a pleasant chatting Jewess, Goldsmid, or whatever the name is,—also by Thackeray—and Milnes came in the evening,—yet the dulness was mortal, and I am far from my ordinary self to-day. I am convinced that general society depresses my spirits more than any other cause. I could keep by myself for a month till I recovered my mind’s health. But you are part or all of that self now,—and would be, were you only present in memory, in fancy. As it is, oh, to be with you, Ba?

Three o’clock, no letter! I will put my own philosophy in practice and be consoled that you are not in any circumstances to justify and require anxiety—not unwell—nor have any fresh obstacles arisen necessarily.... Any alleviations so long as I am allowed to keep a good substantial misfortune at the end!

Once you said in your very own way ... when I sent you some roses in a box, and no letter with them, ‘Now I shall write no more to-day, not having been written to!’ I cannot write more—I see! Ah, Ba, here the letter comes!! and I will wait from reading it to kiss my gratitude to you, you utterly best and dearest! And I repeat my kisses while I write the few words there is time for—what a giver you are of all good things all together. Let me take the best first, not minding ingratitude to the rest, and say yes, to-morrow I will see you—even if Mr. Kenyon comes, it will be easy saying—‘I cannot go on Wednesday.’ Did you manage so well with Mrs. Jameson? As for Horne,—why, there may have been Sordelloisms, I daresay—I only meant, ‘if you look an invalid to him,—he will say so, just when your improved health is my one excuse for the journey and its fatigues—and if you look plainly no longer an invalid’—Oh, I don’t know ... I thought he might talk of that too, and bring in a host! There is the secret, rendered more obscurely perhaps! As for the room, the dearest four walls that I ever have been enclosed by—I only thought of the possible phrase—‘Still confined to her room’—or the like—and as—that is the fact,—I rather understood the whole tone in which you spoke of the circumstance, as of slight dissatisfaction at the notion of the intended visit ... in tuam sententiam discedens, I sordelloized!

The words about your health reassure me, beloved! I had no positive fears quite as you suppose ... but I coupled one circumstance with another, do you see, and did get to apprehend what you now show me to be groundless, thank God!

Oh, my time! Bless you, ever, ever, beloved!

Your own R.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday. [Post-mark, August 10, 1846.]

Just now I tore the few words I had begun of the letter to you, Ba—they all went away, strangely afar from the meaning begun in them, through my mind taking up the thought that you were ‘waiting’ for what I should write—‘waiting all day’—and ready to call the poor joyful service of love, ‘goodness’ in me! When such thoughts arise, I am not fit to pay even that imperfect service—I have only arms to receive you, kisses to give you—the words seem too cold, indeed! I sincerely believe this I am to write now, will be the shorter because of the intervention of you,—and that, like Flush, I shall behave best when not looked at too much!

Then, in our life,—what I do earnestly in intention and from love of you, that you will always accept and make the best of! How happy you make me, now and ever—in the present happiness, in the assurance of the future’s even greater happiness, I am obliged to believe! It seemed like a dream as I walked home last night and thought of all over again, after a few hours’ talk with my old friends, on subjects from which you were excluded, and of a kind that brought my former feelings back again; so as to be understood, at least, and recognised as mine. ‘All which is changed now,’ I thought going home in the moonlight. Chorley was apprised of my being there and came good-naturedly—and we discussed delinquencies political and literary: he says, times were never so bad as now—people come without a notion of offending a critic, and offer him money—‘will you do this for so much’—praise this or blame this! He was in a bad humour, he said; at least teazed and tired—and really looked both, so that: I asked ‘had you not better throw away a day on our green dulness at Hatcham, strolling through it with me?’—‘Yes—this day next week, if you like’—he answered at once ... so that our Saturday will be gone ... so that our Tuesday must be secured, my own Ba, and after it the Friday, at an equal interval of time—do you let it be so? Saturday would seem to be his only available day, poor Chorley—he walked through the park with me and over the Bridge, at one in the morning—in return for my proving, (I don’t quite think that, however!)—proving, to Arnould’s great satisfaction at least, that Mr. Horne was a poet, and moreover a dramatic one,—Chorley sees no good in him beyond talent with an abundance of ‘crotchets,’ and ‘could not read “Orion” for his life.’ I proved another thing too—that Forster was not a whit behind his brethren of the faculty, in literary morals—that the Examiner, named, was quite as just and good as another paper, unnamed. Whereat Chorley grew warm and lost his guard, and at last; declaring I forced him into corners and that speak he must; instanced the ‘Examiner’s’ treatment of myself as not generous ... ‘Luria’ having been noticed as you remember a week after the publication, and yet, or never, to be reviewed in the Unnamed:—Ces Misères!

A fortnight ago when Rachel played in ‘Andromaque’ ‘for the last time’—Sarianna and I agreed that if she did ever play again in it, we would go and see ... and lo, contrary to all expectation she does repeat Hermione to-morrow night, and we are to go. And you, Ba, you cannot go—ought I to go? One day, one not distant day, and ‘cannot’ will apply to us both—now, it seems to do me good, with the crowd of its suggestions, this seeing Rachel; beside, Sarianna has just this only opportunity of going.

I am anxious to let the folly of that person spend itself unaggravated by any notice of mine—I mean to you; any notice which should make you think it—(the folly)—affected me as well as you; but I do trust you will not carry toleration too far in this case, nor furnish an ungenerous, selfish man with weapons for your own annoyance. ‘Insolent letters’ you ought to put up with from no one—and as there is no need of concealment of my position now, I think you will see a point when I may interfere. Always rely on my being quietly firm, and never violent nor exasperating: you alluded to some things which I cannot let my fancy stop upon. Remember you are mine, now,—my own, my very own. I know very well what a wretched drunkenness there is in that sort of self-indulgence—what it permits itself to do, all on the strength of its ‘strong feeling’ ‘earnestness’—stupid in execrable sophistry as it is! I have too a strong belief that the man who would bully you, would drop into a fit at the sight of a man’s uplifted little finger. Can this person be the ‘old friend in an ill humour’ who followed me up-stairs one day? I trust to you—that is the end of all.

Now I will kiss you, my own Ba, and wait for my letter, and then, Tuesday. Dearest, I am your own, your very own.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Sunday. [Post-mark, August 10, 1846].

Ever dearest, I shall write to you a little this morning and try to manage to post myself what shall be written, too early to permit the possibility (almost) of your being without a letter to-morrow. Dearest, how you were with me yesterday, after you went away!—I thought, thought, thought of you,—and the books I took up one by one ... (I tried a romance too ‘Les Femmes’ by a writer called Desnoyers ... quite new, and weak and foolish enough as a story, but full of clever things about shoe tyes ... philosophy in small:) the books were all so many lorgnons through which I looked at you again and again. Did you ever hear a story of the late Lord Grey, that he was haunted by a head, a head without a body? If he turned to the right or left there it was—if he looked up in the air, there it hung ... or down to the floor, there it lay—or walked up or down stairs, there it bounded before him—flop ... flop ... just on its chin. ‘Alas, poor ghost?’ And just such another, as far as the haunting goes, were you to me, dearest, yesterday—only that you were of the celestial rather than ghastly apparitionery, and bore plainly with you airs from Heaven full against my forehead. How did I ever deserve you—how ever? Never indeed! And how can it seem right to submit to so much happiness undeservedly, as the knowledge of your affection gives, you who are ‘great in everything,’ as Mr. Kenyon said the other day! Shall I tell you how I reconcile myself to the good? Thus it is. First I think that no woman in the world, let her be ever so much better than I, could quite be said to deserve you—and that therefore there may not be such harm in your taking the one who will owe you most with the fullest consciousness! If it may not be merit, it shall be gratitude—that is how I look at it when I would keep myself from falling back into the old fears. Ah! you may prevent my rising up to receive you ... though I did not know that I did ... it was a pure instinct!—but you cannot prevent my sinking down to the feet of your spirit when I think of the love it has given me from the beginning and not taken away. Dearest, dearest—I am content to owe all to you—it is not too much humiliation!

While I was writing, came Mr. Kenyon ... the spectacles mended, and looking whole catechisms from behind them. The first word was, ‘Have you seen Browning lately?’ I, taken by surprise, answered en niaise, ‘Yes, yesterday.’ ‘And did he tell you that he was coming on Wednesday, next Wednesday?’ ‘He said something of it.’

A simpleton would have done better—to call me one were too much honour!—yet it seemed impossible to be adroit under the fire of the full face, spectacles included. The words came without the will. And now, what had we better do? Take Tuesday, that you may be able to say on Wednesday, ‘I was not there to-day’...? or be frank for the hour and let it all pass? Think for us, Robert—I am quite frightened at what I have done. It seemed to me too, afterwards, that Mr. Kenyon looked grave. Still he talked of Miss Mitford and Mr. Buckingham, and Landor, and of going to the Lakes himself for a few days, and laughed and jested in great good humour, the subject being turned—he asked me too if I had ever discussed your poetry with Miss Mitford, on which I said that she did not much believe in you—‘Not even in “Saul”?’ said he. I don’t know what to think. I am in a fog off the Nore. And he proposed coming to-morrow with a carriage, to drive me up the Harrow road to see the train coming in, and then to take me to his house, and, so, home,—all in his infinite kindness. He comes at half-past three—let me have your thoughts with me then—and the letter, farther on. Two letters, I am to have to-morrow. If Sunday is the worst day, Monday is the best,—of those I mean of course, on which I do not see you. May God bless you, my own beloved. I love you in the deepest of my heart; which seems ever to grow deeper. I live only for you; and feel that it is worth while.

Your Ba.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, August 10, 1846.]

You dearest Ba, do you write thus to put all thoughts of fear out of my head, and make me confident nothing can go ill with us if you feel so for me? I seem to have a presentiment that this afternoon, before this letter reaches you, Mr. Kenyon will have spoken—and if the whole world spoke its loudest, your words would be all I should hear. Or are they trials, every such word, of my vanity and weakness,—do you think, ‘if anything can call them up, this will?’ No, I very well know your entire truth in this and the other assurances I make my life bright with,—through any darkness that can come. What you choose to assert of yourself, I feel of myself every hour. But there must be this disproportionateness in a beloved object—before I knew you, women seemed not so much better than myself,—therefore, no love for them! There is no love but from beneath, far beneath,—that is the law of its nature—and now, no more of words—will there indeed be need of no more,—as I dare hope and believe, will the deeds suffice?—not in their own value, no! but in their plain, certain intention,—as a clear advance beyond mere words? We shall soon know—if you live, you will be mine, I must think—you have put these dear arms too surely round my neck to be disengaged now. I cannot presume to suggest thoughts to you resolutions for the future—you must impart to me always,—but I do lift up my heart in an aspiration to lead the life that seems accorded by your side, under your eyes.—I cannot write on this, dear Ba,—to say, I will live and work as I ought, seems too presumptuous. Understand all, and help me with your dearest hand, my own love!

As I say, I fancy Mr. Kenyon will speak—I only hope, the caution will act both ways, and that he will see as much inexpediency in altogether opposing as in encouraging such a step. That you should pass another winter and the risk of it—and perhaps many—that seems the worst fate. Can he apprehend any worse evil than that?

I observe in the Times to-day that the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Company have advertised a ship from Southampton to Genoa, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia and Naples on the 30th September, and that ‘thenceforth the company will despatch a first-class steamer to those ports on the 15th of every month. One more facility, should circumstances require it. Are you sure that the France journey with the delays and fatigue is preferable to this—where if the expenses are greater, yet the uncertain expenses are impossible? You are to think, beloved.

Now, will you write to-night? I may come to-morrow? Say one word—you have heard why I wanted to come, even if Mr. Kenyon’s questions had not been put—otherwise, Friday will be impossible—I can say, ‘I called on Saturday, and think of doing so next Friday—’ I must see you to-morrow indeed, love!

Let me leave off here—I love you wholly, and bless you ever as now—Your own R.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, August 11, 1846.]

Then let it be Tuesday. It will correct, too, my stupidity to Mr. Kenyon, for easily you may reply to his certain question, that you had not been here on Wednesday but meant to go on Friday instead. Ah well! By the time all this is over we shall be fit to take a degree in some Jesuits’ college—we shall have mastered all the points of casuistry. To wash one’s hands of it, and then throw away the water, will be something gained at least.

Dearest, no, indeed!—there is nothing for your goodness to do in that badness I told you of, and which you describe so precisely in your word, ‘drunkenness’ of mind. It is precisely that, and no more nor less—a throwing off of moral restraint ... a miserable degradation. One may get angry, frightened, disgusted—but, after all, compassion comes in:—and who would think of fighting a delirious man with a sword? It would be a cruelty, like murder. There is a fine nature too, under these ruins of the will; and a sensibility which strikes inwards and outwards—(no one else should have any sensibility, within a thousand miles.) Think of a sort of dumb Rousseau,—with the ‘Confessions’ in him, pining evermore to get out! A miserable man, first by constitution and next by fortune—seeing only the shadow, for the sun,—the nettles in the field,—and breathing hard when he stands among garden-roses, to attain to smelling the onions over the wall. I have told him sometimes that he had a talent for anger!—‘indignatio facit orationes’ and that is his pleasure, ‘par excellence,’—to be let talk against this abuse or that abuse, this class of men or that class of men, this or that world’s misery or offence:—he will rise up in it and be eloquent and happy. Otherwise ... mécréants we must be, he thinks, who dare to be happy in this vale of tears. Life is a long moan to him. And is not such a man enough punished? For me, I have not had the heart to take quite the position I ought to have done, looking only to his most outrageous bearing towards myself—although he talks of my scorn and sarcasms, as if I had shown myself quite equal to self-defence. An old, old friend, too!—known as a friend these twelve or thirteen years! And then, men are nearly all the same in the point of wanting generosity to women. It is a sin of sex, be sure—and we have our counter-sins and should be merciful. So I have been furiously angry, and then relented—by turns; as I could. Oh yes—it was he who followed you up-stairs. There was an explosion that day among the many—and I had to tell him as a consequence, that if he chose to make himself the fable and jest of the whole house, he was the master, but that I should insist upon his not involving my name in the discussion of his violences. Wilson said he was white with passion as he followed you, and that she in fear trembled so she could scarcely open the door. He was a little ashamed afterwards, and apologized in a manner for what sufficiently required an apology. Before a servant too!—But that is long ago—and at that time he knew nothing for a certainty. Is it possible to be continuously angry with any one who proves himself so much the weaker? The slave of himself ... of his own passions—is too unhappy for the rod of another—man or woman.

Mr. Chorley—Mr. Chorley!—how could he utter such words! Men seem imbecile sometimes—understandings have they, and understand not.

Monday Night.

Dearest, I have your last letter. Thank you out of my heart—though you are not a prophet, dear dearest—not about Mr. Kenyon at least. See how far you are from the truth-well, with that divining hazel which you wave to and fro before my eyes. Mr. Kenyon, instead of too much remembering us, has forgotten me to-day. I waited an hour with my bonnet on, and he did not come. And then came a note! He had had business—he had forgotten me—he would come to-morrow. Which I, thinking of you, wrote back a word against, and begged him to come rather on Thursday or Saturday, or Monday. Is that right, dearest? Your coming to-morrow will be very right.

But when you say that there can be no love except ‘from beneath’ ... is it right? is it comforting to hear of? No, no—indeed! How unhappy I should be if I accepted your theory! So I accept rather your love, beloved....

Trusting to be yours.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, August 12, 1846.]

I have been putting all the letters into rings—twenty together—and they look now as they should—‘infinite treasure in a little room’—note, that they were so united and so ranged from the beginning, at least since I began to count by twenties—but the white tape I used (no red tape, thank you!) was vile in its operation,—the untying and retying (so as to preserve a proper cross ) hard for clumsy fingers like mine:—these rings are perfect. How strange it will be to have no more letters! Of all the foolishnesses that ever were uttered that speech of mine,—about your letters strewing the house,—was the most thoroughly perfect! yet you have nothing to forgive in me, you say!

Just now I took up a periodical and read a few lines of a paper on the charm that there is in a contrariety of tempers and tastes, for friends and lovers—and there followed platitudes in a string—the clever like the stupid, the grave choose the lively, and so forth. Now, unless, the state of the liker and chooser is really considered by him as a misfortune,—what he would get rid of if he could in himself, so shall hardly desire to find in another—except in this not very probable case, is there not implied by every such choice, an absolute despair of any higher one? The grave man says (or would if he knew himself)—‘except on my particular grounds such a serious humour would be impossible and absurd ... and where can I find another to appreciate them? Better accept the lower state of ignorance that they exist even, and consequent gaiety,—than a preposterous melancholy arising from no adequate cause.’ And what man of genius would not associate with people of no talent at all, rather than the possessors of mere talent, who keep sufficiently near him, as they walk together, to give him annoyance at every step? Better go with Flush on his four legs, avowedly doglike, than with a monkey who will shuffle along on two for I don’t know how many yards. Now for instance, is the writer of that wise notice of Landor in last week’s Athenæum, one whit nearer your sympathy in that precise matter, than somebody who never heard of Landor or supposed him to have usually written under the signature of L.E.L.? With the exception of a word or two about the silly abuse of Plato, and on the occasional unfairness of statement, is there one word right and seasonable?

Here am I letting the words scratch themselves one after another while my thought as usual goes quite another way. Perhaps my wits are resting because of the great alacrity they are to display at Mr. Kenyon’s this evening ... I shall take care not to be first comer, nor last goer. Dearest, you are wrong in your fancy about my little caring whether he knows or does not. I see altogether with your eyes ... indeed, now that you engage to remove any suspicion of unkindness or mistrust which might attach to me in his thoughts (all I ever apprehended for myself), there is no need to consider him—at all. He can do no good nor harm. Did you ever receive such a letter? The dull morning shall excuse it—anything but the dull heart—for you fill it, however the heat may keep within, sometimes.

Bless you, Ba, my dearest, perfect love—now I will begin thinking of you again—let me kiss you, my own!

E.B.B. to R.B.

Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, August 12, 1846.]

Shall you pass through this street to Mr. Kenyon’s, this evening? I have been sitting here these five minutes, wondering. But no answer is possible now, and if I go to the window of the other room and look up and look down about half-past five or a little later, it will be in vain perhaps. Just now I have heard from Mr. Kenyon, who cannot come to-day to drive with me though he may come to talk. He does not leave London, he says, so soon as he thought!—more’s the pity. Ah! What unkind things one learns to write and meditate in this world, even of the dear Mr. Kenyons in it!—I am ashamed. Instruct your guardian angel to cover me with the shadow of his wings,—dearest.

Now I will tell you a curious thing which Treppy said to Arabel yesterday while you and I were together. Arabel was walking with her, and she was in one of her ill humours, poor Treppy, sighing and moaning over the wickedness of the people in Wimpole Street—she ‘should go and live at Ramsgate,’ she thought, as nobody paid her the right attention! That’s the intermittent groan, when she is out of humour, poor Treppy. ‘And besides’ said she, ‘it is much better that I should not go to Wimpole Street at this time when there are so many secrets. Secrets indeed! You think that nobody can see and hear except yourselves, I suppose; and there are two circumstances going on in the house, plain for any eyes to see! and those are considered secrets, I suppose.’ ‘Oh, Treppy’—interpolated Arabel ... ‘you are always fancying secrets where there are none.’ ‘Well, I don’t fancy anything now! I know—just as you do.’—Something was said too about ‘Ba’s going to Italy.’ ‘And, Treppy, do you think that she will go to Italy?’ ‘Why there is only one way for her to go—but she may go that way. If she marries, she may go.’ ‘And you would not be surprised?’ ‘I! not in the least—I am never surprised, because I always see things from the beginning. Nobody can hide anything from me.’ After which fashion she smoothed the darkness till it smiled, and boasted herself back into a calmer mood. But just observe how people are talking and inferring! It frightens me to think of it. Not that there is any danger from Treppy. She would as soon cut off her hand, as bring one of us into a difficulty, and me, the last. Only it would not do to tell her,—she must have it in her power to say ‘I did not know this’ ... for reasons of the strongest. To occasion a schism between her and this house, would be to embitter the remainder of her days.

Here is a letter from a lady in a remote district called Swineshead, who sends me lyrical specimens, and desires to know if this be Genius. She does not desire to publish; at any rate not for an indefinite number of years; but for her private and personal satisfaction, she would be glad to be informed whether she is a Sappho or George Sand or anything of that kind. What in the world is to be answered, now, to an application of that kind! To meddle with a person’s opinion of himself or herself (quite a private opinion) seems like meddling with his way of dressing, with her fashion of putting in pins—like saying you shall put your feet on a stool, or you shan’t eat pork. It is an interference with private rights, from which I really do shrink. Unfortunately too it is impossible to say what she wants to hear—I am in despair about it. When we are at Pisa we shall not hear these black stones crying after us any more perhaps. I shall listen, instead, to my talking bird and singing tree, and repose from the rest. How did you get home? And tell me of Mr. Kenyon’s dinner! So nervous I am about Mr. Kenyon, when you or I happen to be en rapport with him.

Not only I loved you yesterday, but even to-day I love you; which is remarkable. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, what will you do? Is that an ‘offence?’ Nay, but it is rather reasonable that when the hour strikes, the fairy-gold should turn back into leaves, and poor Cinderella find herself sitting in her old place among the ashes, just as she had touched the hand of the king’s son.

Don’t think I mean anything by that, ever dearest—not so much as to teaze you—Robert!

I only love you to-day—that is, I love you and do nothing more. And the Fairy Tales are on the whole, I feel, the most available literature for illustration, whenever I think of loving you.

Your own Ba.

E.B.B. to R.B.

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.

R.B. to E.B.B.

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?