Day: February 20, 2018

Friday Afternoon.

February 20, 1846.

Here is my Ba’s dearest first letter come four hours after the second, with ‘Mis-sent to Mitcham‘ written on its face as a reason,  – – one more proof of the negligence of somebody! But I do have it at last  – – what should I say? what do you expect me to say? And the first note seemed quite as much too kind as usual!

Let me write to-morrow, sweet? I am quite well and sure to mind all you bid me. I shall do no more than look in at that place (they are the cousins of a really good friend of mine, Dr. White  – – I go for him) if even that  – – for to-morrow night I must go out again, I fear  – – to pay the ordinary compliment for an invitation to the R.S.’s soirée at Lord Northampton’s. And then comes Monday  – – and to-night any unicorn I may see I will not find myself at liberty to catch. (N.B.  – – should you meditate really an addition to the ‘Elegant Extracts’  – – mind this last joke is none of mine but my father’s; when walking with me when a child, I remember, he bade a little urchin we found fishing with a stick and a string for sticklebacks in a ditch  – – ‘to mind that he brought any sturgeon he might catch to the king’  – – he having a claim on such a prize, by courtesy if not right).

As for Chorley, he is neither the one nor the other of those ugly things. One remembers Regan’s ‘Oh Heaven  – – so you will rail at me, when you are in the mood.’ But what a want of self-respect such judgments argue, or rather, want of knowledge what true self-respect is: ‘So I believed yesterday, and so now  – – and yet am neither hasty, nor inapprehensive, nor malevolent’  – – what then?

– – But I will say more of my mind  – – (not of that)  – – to-morrow, for time presses a little  – – so bless you my ever ever dearest  – – I love you wholly.

R.B.

 

Thursday Evening.

February 20, 1846.

And I offended you by praising your letters — or rather mine, if you please — as if I had not the right! Still, you shall not, shall not fancy that I meant to praise them in the way you seem to think — by calling them ‘graphic,’ ‘philosophic,’ — why, did I ever use such words? I agree with you that if I could play critic upon your letters, it would be an end! — but no, no  . . . I did not, for a moment. In what I said I went back to my first impressions — and they were vital letters, I said — which was the résumé of my thoughts upon the early ones you sent me, because I felt your letters to be you from the very first, and I began, from the beginning, to read every one several times over. Nobody, I felt, nobody of all these writers, did write as you did. Well! — and had I not a right to say that now at last, and was it not natural to say just that, when I was talking of other people’s letters and how it had grown almost impossible for me to read them; and do I deserve to be scolded? No indeed.

And if I had the misfortune to think now, when you say it is a fine day, that that is said in more music than it could be said in by another — where is the sin against you, I should like to ask. It is yourself who is the critic, I think, after all. But over all the brine, I hold my letters — just as Camoens did his poem. They are best to me — and they are best. I knew what they were, before I knew what you were — all of you. And I like to think that I never fancied anyone on a level with you, even in a letter.

What makes you take them to be so bad, I suppose, is just feeling in them how near we are. You say that! — not I.

Bad or good, you are better — yes, ‘better than the works and words’! — though it was very shameful of you to insinuate that I talked of fine speeches and passages and graphical and philosophical sentences, as if I had proposed a publication of ‘Elegant Extracts’ from your letters. See what blasphemy one falls into through a beginning of light speech! It is wiser to talk of St. Petersburg; for all Voltaire’s  . . . ‘ne disons pas de mal de Nicolas.’

Wiser — because you will not go. If you were going  . . . well! — but there is no danger — it would not do you good to go, I am so happy this time as to be able to think — and your ‘mission of humanity’ lies nearer — ‘strictly private and confidential’? but not in Harley Street — so if you go there, dearest, keep to the ‘one hour’ and do not suffer yourself to be tired and stunned in those hot rooms and made unwell again — it is plain that you cannot bear that sort of excitement. For Mr. Kenyon’s note,  . . . it was a great temptation to make a day of Friday — but I resist both for Monday’s sake and for yours, because it seems to me safer not to hurry you from one house to another till you are tired completely. I shall think of you so much the nearer for Mr. Kenyon’s note — which is something gained. In the meanwhile you are better, which is everything, or seems so. Ever dearest, do you remember what it is to me that you should be better, and keep from being worse again — I mean, of course, try to keep from being worse — be wise  . . . and do not stay long in those hot Harley Street rooms. Ah — now you will think that I am afraid of the unicorns! —

Through your being ill the other day I forgot, and afterwards went on forgetting, to speak of and to return the ballad — which is delightful; I have an unspeakable delight in those suggestive ballads, which seem to make you touch with the end of your finger the full warm life of other times  . . . so near they bring you, yet so suddenly all passes in them. Certainly there is a likeness to your Duchess — it is a curious crossing. And does it not strike you that a verse or two must be wanting in the ballad — there is a gap, I fancy.

Tell Mr. Kenyon (if he enquires) that you come here on Monday instead of Saturday — and if you can help it, do not mention Wednesday — it will be as well, not. You met Alfred at the door — he came up to me afterwards and observed that ‘at last he had seen you!’ ‘Virgilium tantum vidi!’

As to the thing which you try to say in the first page of this letter, and which you ‘stop’ yourself in saying  . . . I need not stop you in it . . ..

And now there is no time, if I am to sleep to-night. May God bless you, dearest, dearest.

I must be your own while He blesses me.