[Postmark: March 30, 1846]
Sunday Evening.
Dearest, I have been trying your plan of thinking of you
instead of writing, to-day, and the end is that I am driven to
the last of the day and have scarcely room in it to write
what I would. Observe if you please, how badly ‘ the
system works,’ as the practical people say. Then Mr.
Kenyon came and talked, — asked when I had seen you, . .
and desired, ‘if ever I saw you again,’ (ah, what an ‘if
ever’ !) that I would enquire about the ‘ blue lilies ‘ . . which
I satisfied him were of the right colour, on your authority.
But, to go to the ‘ Tragedy ‘ — I am not to admire it . .
am I ? And you really think that anyone who can think
. . feel , . could help such an admiration, or ought to try
to help it? Now just see. It is a new work with your
mark on it. That is . . it would make some six or sixteen
works for other people, if ‘ cut up into little stars ‘ — rolled
out . . diluted with rain-water. But it is your work as it
is — and if you do not care for that I care, and shall
remember to care on. It is a work full of power and
significance, and I am not at all sure (not that it is wise to
make comparisons, but that I want you to understand how I
am impressed !) — I am not at all sure that if I knew you
now first and only by these two productions, . . ‘ Luria ‘ and
the ‘ Tragedy,’ . . I should not involuntarily attribute more
power and a higher faculty to the writer of the last — I should
I think — yet ‘ Luria ‘ is the completer work . . I know it
very well. Such thoughts, you have, in this second part of
the Tragedy ! a ‘ Soul’s Tragedy ‘ indeed ! No one thinks
like you — other poets talk like the merest women in comparison. Why it is full of hope for both of us, to look
forward and consider what you may achieve with that combination of authority over the reasons and the passions,
and that wonderful variety of the plastic power !
But I am going to tell you — Certainly I think you were
right (though you know I doubted and cried out) I think
now you were right in omitting the theological argument you
told me of, from this second part. It would clog the action,
and already I am half inclined to fancy it a little clogged
in one or two places — but if this is true even, it would be
easy to lighten it. Your Ogniben (here is my only criticism
in the ways of objection) seems to me almost too wise for a
crafty worldling — tell me if he is not ! Such thoughts, for
the rest, you are prodigal of ! That about the child, . . .
do you remember how you brought it to me in your first
visit, nearly a year ago ?
Nearly a year ago ! how the time passes ! If I had ‘ done
my duty ‘ like the enchanted fish leaping on the gridiron,
and seen you never again after that first visit, you would
have forgotten all about me by this day. Or at least, ‘ that
prude ‘ I should be ! Somewhere under your feet, I should
be put down by this day ! Yes ! and my enchanted dog
would be coursing ‘ some small deer ‘ . . some unicorn
of a ‘golden horn,’ . . (not the Kilmansegg gold !) out of
hearing if I should have a mind to whistle ever so, . . but
out of harm’s way perhaps besides.
Well, I do think of it sometimes as you see. Which
proves that I love you better than myself by the whole
width of the Heavens ; the sevenfold Heavens. Yet I think
again how He of the heavens and earth brought us together
so wonderfully, holding two souls in His hand. If my fault
was in it, my will at least was not. Believe it of me, dear
dearest, that I who am as clear-sighted as other women,
and not more humble (as to the approaches of common
men), was quite resolutely blind when you came — I could
not understand the possibility of that It was too much
. . too surpassing. And so it will seem to the end. The
astonishment, I mean, will not cease to be. It is my own
especial fairy-tale . . from the spells of which, may you be
unharmed . . ! How one writes and writes over and over
the same thing ! But day by day the same sun rises, . . over,
and over, and nobody is tired. May God bless you, dearest
of all, and justify what has been by what shall be, . . and let
me be free of spoiling any sun of yours ! Shall you ever
tell me in your thoughts, I wonder, to get out of your sun ?
No — no — Love keeps love too safe ! and I have faith, you
see, as a grain of mustard-seed !
Your own
Ba.
Say how you are . . mind !