Day: March 12, 2018

March 12, 1846.

How I get to understand this much of Law  – – that prior possession is nine points of it! Just because your infinite adroitness got first hold of the point of view whence our connection looks like ‘a dream’  . . . I find myself shut out of my very own, unable to say what is oftenest in my thought; whereas the dear, miraculous dream you were, and are, my Ba! Only, vanish  – – that you will never! My own, and for ever!

Yesterday I read the poor, inconceivably inadequate notice in the People’s Journal. How curiously wrong, too, in the personal guesses! Sad work truly. For my old friend Mrs. Adams  – – no, I must be silent: the lyrics seem doggerel in its utter purity. And so the people are to be instructed in the new age of gold! I heard two days ago precisely what I told you  – – that there was a quarrel, &c. which this service was to smooth over, no doubt. Chorley told me, in a hasty word only, that all was over, Mr. Webster would not have anything to do with his play. The said W. is one of the poorest of poor creatures, and as Chorley was certainly forewarned, forearmed I will hope him to have been likewise  – – still it is very disappointing  – – he was apparently nearer than most aspirants to the prize,  – – having the best will of the actresses on whose shoulder the burthen was to lie. I hope they have been quite honest with him  – – knowing as I do the easy process of transferring all sorts of burthens, in that theatrical world, from responsible to irresponsible members of it, actors to manager, manager to actors, as the case requires. And it is a ‘hope deferred’ with Chorley; not for the second or third time. I am very glad that he cares no more than you tell me.

Still you go down-stairs, and still return safely, and every step leads us nearer to my ‘hope.’ How unremittingly you bless me  – – a visit promises a letter, a letter brings such news, crowns me with such words, and speaks of another visit  – – and so the golden links extend. Dearest words, dearest letters  – – as I add each to my heap, I say  – – I do say  – – ‘I was poor, it now seems, a minute ago, when I had not this!’ Bless you, dear, dear Ba. On Saturday I shall be with you, I trust  – – may God bless you! Ever your own

 

March 12, 1846.

When my Orpheus writes ‘Περι λιθων’ he makes a great mistake about onyxes — there is more true onyx in this letter of his that I have just read, than he will ever find in the desert land he goes to. And for what ‘glitters on the ground,’ it reminds me of the yellow metal sparks found in the Malvern Hills, and how we used to laugh years ago at one of our geological acquaintances, who looked mole-hills up that mountain-range in the scorn of his eyes, saying  . . . ‘Nothing but mica!!’ Is anybody to be rich through ‘mica’, I wonder? through ‘Nothing but mica?’ ‘As rich as — as rich as’  . . . Walter the Pennyless?

Dearest, best you are nevertheless, and it is a sorry jest which I can break upon your poverty, with that golden heart of yours so apprehended of mine! Why if I am ‘ambitious’ — is it not because you love me as if I were worthier of your love, and that, so, I get frightened of the opening of your eyelids to the unworthiness? ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep’ — there, is my ‘ambition for afterward.’ Oh — you do not understand how with an unspeakable wonder, an astonishment which keeps me from drawing breath, I look to this Dream, and ‘see your face as the face of an angel,’ and fear for the vanishing,  . . . because dreams and angels do pass away in this world. But you, I understand you, and all your goodness past expression, past belief of mine, if I had not known you  . . . just you. If it will satisfy you that I should know you, love you, love you — why then indeed — because I never bowed down to any of the false gods I know the gold from the mica,  . . . I! ‘My own beloved’ — you should have my soul to stand on if it could make you stand higher. Yet you shall not call me ‘ambitious.’

To-day I went down-stairs again, and wished to know whether you were walking in your proportion — and your letter does call you ‘better,’ whether you walked enough or not, and it bears the Deptford post-mark. On Saturday I shall see how you are looking. So pale you were last time! I know Mr. Kenyon must have observed it, (dear Mr. Kenyon  . . . for being ‘kinder and kindest’) and that one of the ‘augurs’ marvelled at the other! By the way I forgot yesterday to tell you how Mr. Burges’s ‘apt remark’ did amuse me. And Mr. Kenyon who said much the same words to me last week in relation to this very Wordsworth junior, writhed, I am sure, and wished the ingenious observer with the lost plays of Æschylus — oh, I seem to see Mr. Kenyon’s face! He was to have come to tell me how you all behaved at dinner that day, but he keeps away  . . . you have given him too much to think of perhaps.

I heard from Miss Mitford to-day that Mr. Chorley’s hope is at an end in respect to the theatre, and (I must tell you) she praises him warmly for his philosophy and fortitude under the disappointment. How much philosophy does it take, — please to instruct me, — in order to the decent bearing of such disasters? Can I fancy one, shorter than you by a whole head of the soul, condescending to ‘bear‘ such things? No, indeed.

Be good and kind, and do not work at the ‘Tragedy’  . . . do not.

So you and I have written out all the paper in London! At least, I send and send in vain to have more envelopes ‘after my kind,’ and the last answer is, that a ‘fresh supply will arrive in eight days from Paris, and that in the meanwhile they are quite out in the article.’ An awful sign of the times, is this famine of envelopes  . . . not to speak of the scarcity of little sheets: — and the augurs look to it all of course.

For my part I think more of Chiappino — Chiappino holds me fast.

But I must let you go — it is too late. This dearest letter, which you sent me! I thank you for it with ever so much dumbness. May God bless you and keep you, and make you happy for me.

Your Ba.