Sunday.
March 16, 1846.
Ever dearest I am going to say one word first of all lest I should forget it afterward, of the two or three words which you said yesterday and so passingly that you probably forget to-day having said them at all. We were speaking of Mr. Chorley and his house, and you said that you did not care for such and such things for yourself, but that for others — now you remember the rest. And I just want to say what it would have been simpler to have said at the time — only not so easy — (I couldn’t say it at the time) that you are not if you please to fancy that because I am a woman I have not the pretension to do with as little in any way as you yourself . . . no, it is not that I mean to say . . .. I mean that you are not, if you please, to fancy that, because I am a woman, I look to be cared for in those outside things, or should have the slightest pleasure in any of them. So never wish nor regret in your thoughts to be able or not to be able to care this and this for me; for while you are thinking so, our thoughts go different ways, which is wrong. Mr. Fox did me a great deal too much honour in calling me ‘a religious hermit’; he was ‘curiously’ in fault, as you saw. It is not my vocation to sit on a stone in a cave — I was always too fond of lolling upon sofas or in chairs nearly as large, — and this, which I sit in, was given to me when I was a child by my uncle, the uncle I spoke of to you once, and has been lolled in nearly ever since . . . when I was well enough. Well — that is a sort of luxury, of course — but it is more idle than expensive, as a habit, and I do believe that it is the ‘head and foot of my offending’ in that matter. Yes — ‘confiteor tibi’ besides, that I do hate white dimity curtains, which is highly improper for a religious hermit of course, but excusable in me who would accept brown serge as a substitute with ever so much indifference. It is the white light which comes in the dimity which is so hateful to me. To ‘go mad in white dimity’ seems perfectly natural, and consequential even. Set aside these foibles, and one thing is as good as another with me, and the more simplicity in the way of living, the better. If I saw Mr. Chorley’s satin sofas and gilded ceilings I should call them very pretty I dare say, but never covet the possession of the like — it would never enter my mind to do so. Then Papa has not kept a carriage since I have been grown up (they grumble about it here in the house, but when people have once had great reverses they get nervous about spending money) so I shall not miss the Clarence and greys . . . and I do entreat you not to put those two ideas together again of me and the finery which has nothing to do with me. I have talked a great deal too much of all this, you will think, but I want you, once for all, to apply it broadly to the whole of the future both in the general view and the details, so that we need not return to the subject. Judge for me as for yourself — what is good for you is good for me. Otherwise I shall be humiliated, you know; just as far as I know your thoughts.
Mr. Kenyon has been here to-day — and I have been down-stairs — two great events! He was in brilliant spirits and sate talking ever so long, and named you as he always does. Something he asked, and then said suddenly . . . ‘But I don’t see why I should ask you, when I ought to know him better than you can.’ On which I was wise enough to change colour, as I felt, to the roots of my hair. There is the effect of a bad conscience! and it has happened to me before, with Mr. Kenyon, three times — once particularly, when I could have cried with vexation (to complete the effects!), he looked at me with such infinite surprise in a dead pause of any speaking. That was in the summer; and all to be said for it now, is, that it couldn’t be helped: couldn’t!
Mr. Kenyon asked of ‘Saul.’ (By the way, you never answered about the blue lilies.) He asked of ‘Saul’ and whether it would be finished in the new number. He hangs on the music of your David. Did you read in the Athenæum how Jules Janin — no, how the critic on Jules Janin (was it the critic? was it Jules Janin? the glorious confusion is gaining on me I think) has magnificently confounded places and persons in Robert Southey’s urn by the Adriatic and devoted friendship for Lord Byron? And immediately the English observer of the phenomenon, after moralizing a little on the crass ignorance of Frenchmen in respect to our literature, goes on to write like an ignoramus himself, on Mme. Charles Reybaud, encouraging that pure budding novelist, who is in fact a hack writer of romances third and fourth rate, of questionable purity enough, too. It does certainly appear wonderful that we should not sufficiently stand abreast here in Europe, to justify and necessitate the establishment of an European review — journal rather — (the ‘Foreign Review,’ so called, touching only the summits of the hills) a journal which might be on a level with the intelligent readers of all the countries of Europe, and take all the rising reputations of each, with the national light on them as they rise, into observation and judgment. If nobody can do this, it is a pity I think to do so much less — both in France and England — to snatch up a French book from over the Channel as ever and anon they do in the Athenæum, and say something prodigiously absurd of it, till people cry out ‘oh oh’ as in the House of Commons.
Oh — oh — and how wise I am to-day, as if I were a critic myself! Yesterday I was foolish instead — for I couldn’t get out of my head all the evening how you said that you would come ‘to see a candle held up at the window.’ Well! but I do not mean to love you any more just now — so I tell you plainly. Certainly I will not. I love you already too much perhaps. I feel like the turning Dervishes turning in the sun when you say such words to me — and I never shall love you any ‘less,’ because it is too much to be made less of.
And you write to-morrow? and will tell me how you are? honestly will tell me? May God bless you, most dear!
I am yours — ‘Tota tua est’
Ba.
