[Postmark: April 8, 1846]
Wednesday Morning.
First of all, kiss me, dearest, — and again — and now, with
the left arm round you, I will write what I think in as few
words as possible. I think the fault of not carrying out
principles is yours, here. Several principles would arrive at
the result you desire — Christianity, Stoicism, Asceticism,
Epicureanism (in the modern sense) — all these ‘ carried out’
stop the procedure you deprecate — but I fancy, as you state
your principle, that it is an eclecticism from these and others ;
and presently one branch crosses its fellow, and we stop,
arrive at nothing. Do you accept ‘ life’s warm-beating joy
and dole,’ for an object of that life ? Is ‘ society ‘ a thing
to desire to participate in? not by the one exceptional
case out of the million, but by men generally, — men who
‘ live ‘ only for living’s sake, in the first instance ; next, men
who, having ulterior objects and aims of happiness, yet
derive various degrees of sustainment and comfort from the
social life round them ; and so on, higher up, till you come
to the half-dozen, for whom we need not be pressingly
urgent to legislate just yet, having to attend to the world
first. Well, is social life, a good, generally to these ? If so,
— go back to another principle which I suppose you to
admit, — that ‘ good ‘ may be lawfully held, defended, — even
to the death. Now see where the ‘ cross ‘ takes place.
Something occurs which forces a man to hold this, defend
this — he must do this, or renounce it. You let him do
neither. Do not say he needs not renounce it, — we go
avowedly on the vulgar broad ground of fact — you very well
know it is a fact that by his refusing to accept a challenge,
or send one, on conventionally sufficient ground, he will be
infallibly excluded from a certain class of society thenceforth-
and forever. What society should do rather, is wholly
out of the question — what will be done? And now,
candidly, can you well fancy a more terrible wrong than
this to the ordinary multitude of men ? Alter the principles
of your reasoning — say, Christianity forbids this, — and that
will do — rational Simon renounces on his pillar more than
the pleasures of society if so he may save his soul : say,
society is not worth living in, — it is no wrong to be forced
to quit it — that will do, also, — a man with ‘ Paradise Lost ‘
or ‘ Othello ‘ to write ; or with a Ba to live beside for his
one companion, — or many other compensations, — he may
retire to his own world easily. Say, on the lowest possible
ground, ‘ out of society one eats, drinks &c. excellently well ;
what loss is there? ‘ — all these principles avail ; but mix
them — and they surely neutralize each other. A man may
live, enjoy life, oppose an attempt to prevent his enjoying
life, — yet not — you see ! ‘ The method is irrational,
proves nothing &c. ‘ — what is that to the question ? Is the
effect disputable or no ? Wordsworth decides he had better
go to court — then he must buy or borrow a court-dress.
He goes because of the poetry in him. What irrationality
in the bag and sword — in the grey duffil gown yonder, he
wrote — half through the exceeding ease and roominess of it
‘ The Excursion ‘ ; how proper he should go in it, therefore
. . beside it will wring his heartstrings to pay down the
four pounds, ten and sixpence : good, Mr. Wordsworth
There’s no compulsion ; go back to the lakes and be
entirely approved of by Miss Norwick ! . . but, if you do
choose to kiss hands (instead of cheeks ‘ smackingly ‘) why
you must even resolve to ‘ grin and bear it ‘ (a sea-phrase!)
— and, Ba, your imaginary man, who is called ‘ liar ‘ before
a large assembly, must decide for one or the other course
‘ He makes his antagonist double the wrong ‘ ? Nay — here
the wrong begins— the poor author of the outrage should
have known his word was nothing — the sense of it, he and
his like express abundantly every hour of the day, if they
please, in language only a shade removed from this that
causes all the harm, — and who does other than utterly
ineffably despise them ? but he chooses, as the very phrase
is, to oblige his adversary to act thus. He is nothing (I am
going on your own case of a supposed futile cause of
quarrel) — he may think just what he pleases — but having
said this and so — it is entirely society’s affair — and whatis
society’s present decision ? Directly it relaxes a regulation
allows another outlet to the natural contempt for, and
indifference to such men and their opinions spoken or
unspoken, everybody avails himself of it directly. If the
Lord Chamberlain issues an order this morning, ‘ No swords
need be worn at next levee ‘ — who will appear with one ?
A politician is allowed to call his opponent a destructive
&c. A critic may write that the author of such a book or
such, is the poorest creature in the world — and who dreams:
of being angry ? but society up to this time says, ‘ if a man
calls another &c. &c., then he must ‘ — Will you renounce
society? I for one, could, easily: so therefore shall Mr.
Kenyon ! Beside, I on purpose depreciate the value of an
admission into society . . as if it were only for those who
recognize no other value ; and the wiser men might easily
forego it. Not so easily ! There are uses in it, great uses,
for purposes quite beyond its limits — you pass through it, mix
with it, to get something by it : you do not go in to the
world to live on the breath of every fool there, but you
reach something out of the world by being let go quietly, if
not with a favourable welcome, among them. I leave here
to go to Wimpole Street : — I want to have as little as possible
to say to the people I find between — but, do you know, if I
allow a foolish child to put the very smallest of fool’s caps
on my head instead of the hat I usually wear, though the
comfort would be considerable in the change, — yet I shall
be followed by an increasing crowd, say to Charing Cross,
and thence pelted, perhaps, till I reach No 50 — there,
perhaps to find the servant hesitate about opening the door
to such an apparition, — and when Papa comes to hear how
illustriously your visitor was attended through the streets !
why he will specially set apart Easter Monday to testify in
person his sense of the sublime philosophy, will he not ? My
Ba — I tell the child on the first symptom of such a wish on
his part ‘ Don’t ! ‘ with all the eloquence in my power — if I
can put it handsomely off my head, even, I will, and with
pitying good nature – but if I must either wear the cap, and
pay the penalty, or — slap his face, why — ! ‘ Ah,’ you say, ‘ but
he has got a pistol that you don’t see and will shoot you
dead like a foolish child as he is.’ That he may ! Have I
to be told that in this world men, foolish or wicked, do
inflict tremendous injuries on their unoffending fellows?
Let God look to it, I say with reverence, and do you look
to this point, where the injury begins. The foolish man
who throws some disfiguring liquid in your face, which to
remove you must have recourse to some dangerous surgical
operation, — perilling himself, too, by the consequent vengeance
of the law, if you sink under knife or cauterizing iron, —
shall I say ‘ the fault is yours — why submit to the operation ?
The fault is his that institutes the very fault — which begin
by teaching him from his cradle in every possible shape !
But don’t, don’t say — ‘ the operation is unnecessary ; your
blistered face will look, does look just as usual, not merely
to me who know you, perhaps love you, — but to the whole
world . . on whose opinion of its agreeableness, I confess
that you are dependent for nearly every happy minute of
your life. ‘ In all this, I speak for the world, not for me —
I have other, too many other sources of enjoyment — I could
easily I think, do what you require. I endeavour to care
for others with none of these ; as dear, dearest Ba, sitting
in her room because of a dull day, would have me take a
few miles’ exercise. Has everybody a Ba ? I had not last
year — yet last year I had reasons, and still have, for, on
occasion, renouncing society fifty times over : what I should
do, therefore, is as improper to be held up for an example,
as the exemplary behaviour of Walpole’s old French officer
of ninety, who ‘ hearing some youths diverting themselves
with some girls in a tent close by, asked, ‘ Is this the example
I set you, gentlemen ? ‘ . But I shall be dishonoured however
— Ba will ‘ go and call the police ‘ — why, so should I for
your brother, in all but the extremest case ! — because when
I had told all the world, with whom the concern solely is,
that, despite his uttermost endeavour, I had done this, — the
world would be satisfied at once — and the whole procedure
is meant to satisfy the world — even the foolishest know that
the lion in a cage, through no fault of his, cannot snap at a fly
outside the bars. The thing to know is, will Ba dictate to
her husband ‘ a refusal to fight,’ and then recommend him
to go to a dinner-party ? Say, ‘ give up the dinner for my
sake,’ if you like — one or the other it must be : you know,
I hate and refuse dinner-parties. Does everybody ?
But now in candour, hear me : I write all this to show
the not such irrationality of the practice even on comparatively frivolous grounds . . and that those individuals to
whom you once admit society may be a legitimate enjoyment, must take such a course to retain the privileges they
value — and that the painful consequences should be as
unhesitatingly attributed to the first offence and its author, —
as the explosion and horror to the fool who would put the
match, in play perhaps, to the powder-barrel. And I
excepted myself from the operation of this necessity. But I
must confess that I can conceive of ‘combinations of
circumstances’ in which I see two things only . . or a
Third : a miscreant to be put out the world, my own arm
and best will to do it ; and,, perhaps, God to excuse ; which
is, approve. My Ba, what is Evil, in its unmistakable
shape, but a thing to suppress at any price ? I do approve
of judicial punishment to death under some circumstances
— I think we may, must say : ‘ when it comes to that we
will keep our pact of life, stand by God and put that out of
us, our world — it shall not be endured, or we shall not be
endured ‘ ! Dear Ba, is Life to become a child’s game ? A. is
wronged, B. rights him, and is a hero as we say ; B. is wronged
again, by C. ; but he must not right himself ; that is D.’s
proper part, who again is to let E. do the same kind office
for him — and so on. ‘ Defend the poor and fatherless ‘ —
and we all applaud — but if they could defend themselves,
why not ? I will not fancy cases — here’s one that strikes
me — a fact. Some soldiers were talking over a watch fire
abroad — one said that once he was travelling in Scotland
and knocked at a cottage-door — an old woman with one
child let him in, gave him a supper and a bed — next
morning he asked how they lived and she said the cow, the
milk of which he was then drinking, and the kale in the
garden, such as he was eating — were all her ‘ mailien ‘ or
sustenance — whereon, rising to go, he, for the fun, ‘ killed
the cow and destroyed the kale ‘ — ‘ the old witch crying out
she should certainly be starved ‘ — then he went his way.
‘ And she was starved, of course,’ said a young man ; ‘ do
you rue it ?’ — The other laughed ‘ Rue aught like that ! ‘
— The young man said, ‘ I was the boy, and that was my
mother — now then ! ‘ — In a minute or two the preparer of
this ‘combination of circumstances’ lay writhing with a
sword through him up to the hilt — ‘ If you had rued it ‘ — the
youth said — ‘ you should have answered it only to God ! ‘
More than enough of this — but I was anxious to stand
clearer in your dear eyes. ‘ Vows and promises ! ‘ — I want to
leave society for the Sirens’ isle, — and now I often seriously
reproach myself with conduct quite the reverse of what you
would guard against : I have too much indifferentism to
the opinions of Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown — by no means
am anxious to have his notions agree with mine. Smith
thinks Cromwell a canting villain, — Brown believes no dissenter
can be saved, — and I repeat Goethe’s ‘ Be it your unerring
rule, ne’er to contradict a fool, for if folly choose to
brave you, all your wisdom cannot save you ! ‘ And sometimes
I help out their arguments by a touch or two, after
Ogniben’s fashion — it all seems so wearisomely unprofitable ;
what comes of Smith’s second thought if you change his
first — out of that second will branch as great an error, you
may be sure ! (11 o’clock) Here comes your letter ! My own
Ba ! My dearest best, best beloved ! I, angry ! ch, how
you misinterpret, misunderstand the motions of my mind !
In all that I said, or write here, I speak of others — others,
if you please, of limited natures : I say why they may be
excused . . that is all. ‘ You do not like pork ‘ ? But those
poor Irish Colliers whose only luxury is bacon once a month ;
you understand them liking it ? I do not value society —
others do : ‘ we are all His children ‘ says Euripides and
quotes Paul.
Now, love, let this be a moot point to settle among the
flowers one day — with Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘ other hard
questions yet not impossible to be solved ‘ (‘ What song the
Sirens sang to Ulysses,’ is the first !) in which blessed hope
let me leave off ; for I confess to having written myself all-but-tired, headachy. But ‘ vexed with you ‘ ! Ba, Ba ; you
perplex me, bewilder me ; let me get right again ; kiss me,
dearest, and all is right — God bless you ever —
Your R.