Day: January 31, 2018

Saturday.

January 31, 1846.

It is a relief to me this time to obey your wish, and reserve further remark on that subject till by and bye. And, whereas some people, I suppose, have to lash themselves up to the due point of passion, and choose the happy minutes to be as loving in as they possibly can  . . . (that is, in expression; the just correspondency of word to fact and feeling: for it  – – the love  – – may be very truly there, at the bottom, when it is got at, and spoken out)  – – quite otherwise, I do really have to guard my tongue and set a watch on my pen  . . . that so I may say as little as can well be likely to be excepted to by your generosity. Dearest, love means love, certainly, and adoration carries its sense with it  – – and so, you may have received my feeling in that shape  – – but when I begin to hint at the merest putting into practice one or the other profession, you ‘fly out’  – – instead of keeping your throne. So let this letter lie awhile, till my heart is more used to it, and after some days or weeks I will find as cold and quiet a moment as I can, and by standing as far off you as I shall be able, see more  – – ‘si minus propè stes, te capiet magis.’ Meanwhile, silent or speaking, I am yours to dispose of as that glove  – – not that hand.

I must think that Mr. Kenyon sees, and knows, and  . . . in his goodness  . . . hardly disapproves  – – he knows I could not avoid  – – escape you  – – for he knows, in a manner, what you are  . . . like your American; and, early in our intercourse, he asked me (did I tell you?) ‘what I thought of his young relative’  – – and I considered half a second to this effect  – – ‘if he asked me what I thought of the Queen-diamond they showed me in the crown of the Czar  – – and I answered truly  – – he would not return; “then of course you mean to try and get it to keep.”‘ So I did tell the truth in a very few words. Well, it is no matter.

I am sorry to hear of poor Tennyson’s condition. The projected book  – – title, scheme, all of it,  – – that is astounding;  – – and fairies? If ‘Thorpes and barnes, sheep-pens and dairies  – – this maketh that there ben no fairies’  – – locomotives and the broad or narrow gauge must keep the very ghosts of them away. But how the fashion of this world passes; the forms its beauty and truth take; if we have the making of such! I went last night, out of pure shame at a broken promise, to hear Miss Cushman and her sister in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ The whole play goes  . . . horribly; ‘speak’ bids the Poet, and so M. Walladmir [Valdemar] moves his tongue and dispenses with his jaws. Whatever is slightly touched in, indicated, to give relief to something actually insisted upon and drawn boldly  . . . here, you have it gone over with an unremitting burnt-stick, till it stares black forever! Romeo goes whining about Verona by broad daylight. Yet when a schoolfellow of mine, I remember, began translating in class Virgil after this mode, ‘Sic fatur  – – so said Æneas; lachrymans  – – a-crying‘  . . . our pedagogue turned on him furiously  – – ‘D’ye think Æneas made such a noise  – – as you shall, presently?’ How easy to conceive a boyish half-melancholy, smiling at itself.

Then Tuesday, and not Monday  . . . and Saturday will be the nearer afterward. I am singularly well to-day  – – head quite quiet  – – and yesterday your penholder began its influence and I wrote about half my last act. Writing is nothing, nor praise, nor blame, nor living, nor dying, but you are all my true life; May God bless you ever  – –

R.

 

Friday Morning.

January 31, 1846.

Let it be this way, ever dearest. If in the time of fine weather, I am not ill,  . . . then  . . . not now  . . . you shall decide, and your decision shall be duty and desire to me, both — I will make no difficulties. Remember, in the meanwhile, that I have decided to let it be as you shall choose  . . . shall choose. That I love you enough to give you up ‘for your good,’ is proof (to myself at least) that I love you enough for any other end: — but you thought too much of me in the last letter. Do not mistake me. I believe and trust in all your words — only you are generous unawares, as other men are selfish.

More, I meant to say of this; but you moved me as usual yesterday into the sunshine, and then I am dazzled and cannot see clearly. Still I see that you love me and that I am bound to you: — and ‘what more need I see,’ you may ask; while I cannot help looking out to the future, to the blue ridges of the hills, to the chances of your being happy with me. Well! I am yours as you see  . . . and not yours to teaze you. You shall decide everything when the time comes for doing anything  . . . and from this to then, I do not, dearest, expect you to use ‘the liberty of leaping out of the window,’ unless you are sure of the house being on fire! Nobody shall push you out of the window — least of all, I.

For Italy  . . . you are right. We should be nearer the sun, as you say, and further from the world, as I think — out of hearing of the great storm of gossiping, when ‘scirocco is loose.’ Even if you liked to live altogether abroad, coming to England at intervals, it would be no sacrifice for me — and whether in Italy or England, we should have sufficient or more than sufficient means of living, without modifying by a line that ‘good free life’ of yours which you reasonably praise — which, if it had been necessary to modify, we must have parted,  . . . because I could not have borne to see you do it; though, that you once offered it for my sake, I never shall forget.

Mr. Kenyon stayed half an hour, and asked, after you went, if you had been here long. I reproached him with what they had been doing at his club (the Athenæum) in blackballing Douglas Jerrold, for want of something better to say — and he had not heard of it. There were more black than white balls, and Dickens was so enraged at the repulse of his friend that he gave in his own resignation like a privy councillor.

But the really bad news is of poor Tennyson — I forgot to tell you — I forget everything. He is seriously ill with an internal complaint and confined to his bed, as George heard from a common friend. Which does not prevent his writing a new poem — he has finished the second book of it — and it is in blank verse and a fairy tale, and called the ‘University,’ the university-members being all females. If George has not diluted the scheme of it with some law from the Inner Temple, I don’t know what to think — it makes me open my eyes. Now isn’t the world too old and fond of steam, for blank verse poems, in ever so many books, to be written on the fairies? I hope they may cure him, for the best deed they can do. He is not precisely in danger, understand — but the complaint may run into danger — so the account went.

And you? how are you? Mind to tell me. May God bless you. Is Monday or Tuesday to be our day? If it were not for Mr. Kenyon I should take courage and say Monday — but Tuesday and Saturday would do as well — would they not?

Your own

Ba.

Shall I have a letter?