[Postmark: April 3, 1846]
I want to tell you a thing before I forget it, my own Ba
— a thing that pleased me to find out this morning. A few
days ago there was a paragraph in the newspaper about
Lord Compton and his ways at Rome. His address was to
be read in the general list of working-artists kept for public
inspection at Monaldini’s news-room, and the Earl’s self
was to be found in fraternal association with ‘ young art,’ at
board and sporting-place, wearing the same distinctive
blouse and Louis IL hat with great flaps ; even his hair as
picturesquely disordered as the best of them — (the artists,
not flaps) — at all which the reporter seemed scarcely to
know whether he ought to laugh or cry. This I read in the
Daily News with other gossip about Rome, last Wednesday.
But this morning a Cambridge Advertiser of the same day
reaches me — and there, under the head of College news
(after recording that Mr A. has been appointed to this ‘
vicarage, and Mr B. licensed to the other curacy) — one
finds this — ‘The Earl Compton, M.A. (Hon. 1837) — is of
great fame in Rome as a Painter ! ‘ — which the other
authority wholly forgot to mention ; supposing, no doubt,
all the love went to the blouse and flapped hat aforesaid !
Now, is it not a good instance of that fascination which the
true life at Rome (apart from the stupidities of the travelling
English) exercises every now and then on susceptible
people ? The best thing for an English Earl to do, — (who
will be a Marquis one day) — would be to stay here and
vindicate his title by honest work with the opportunities it .
affords him — but if he cannot rise to the dignity of the best
part, surely this, he chooses, is better than many others —
being caught as some noblemen were yesterday, for instance,
superintending a dog-fight in some horrible den of thieves
in St. Giles’s. I don’t know, after all, why I tell you this, —
but that amid all the dull doings of the notable dull ones
there, and their ‘ honours ‘ — (such a wonder of a man was
Smith’s prize-man, — another had got to be gloriously first
in the Classical Tripos) — this bit of ‘fame at Rome’
seemed like a break of blue real sky with a star in it, shining
through the canvas sham clouds and oil-paper moons of
a theatre.
Now I get to you, my Ba ! How strange ! It does so
happen that I took the pen and laid out the paper with, I
really think, a completer, deeper yearning of love to you
than usual even — I seemed to have a thousand things that
I could say now — and on touching the paper . . see — I
start off with a foolish story and still foolisher comment as
if there were no Ba close at my head all the time, straight
before my eyes too ! So it is with me — I give the expressing
part up at once ! It must be understood, inferred, —
(proved, never !) All nonsense, so I will stay — and try to
be wise to-morrow — now, I have no note to guide me and
half put into my mouth what I ought to say. So, dear,
dear Ba, goodbye ! I very well know what this letter is
worth — yet because of the love and endeavour unseen, may
I not have the hand to kiss — and without the glove ? It is
kissed, whether you give it or no, — for there are two long
days more to wait — and then comes Monday ! Bless you
till then, and ever, my dearest : My own Ba —
Your R.