[Postmark: April 14, 1846]
Monday.
Ever dearest I have your two letters ; and because there
are only two ‘ great lights ‘ to rule the day and the night, I
am not likely to hear from you again before to-morrow. Then
you want Mrs. Jameson’s direction . . (it is just Mrs, Jameson, Ealing !)
and here is the last ‘ Bell and Pomegranate’ — and, for all these reasons, I must write without
waiting ; I will not wait for the night. Thank you for the
book, thank you ! I turn over the leaves ever so proudly.
Tell me how I can be proud of you when I cannot be proud
of your loving me : — I am certainly proud of you. One of
my first searches was for the note explanatory of the title —
and I looked, and looked, and looked, at the end, at the
beginning, at the end again. At last I made up my mind
that you had persisted in not explaining, or that the printer
had dropped the manuscript. Why, what could make you
thrust that note on all but the titlepage of the ‘ Soul’s
Tragedy ‘ ? Oh — I comprehend. Having submitted to
explain, quite at the point of the bayonet, you determined at
least to do it where nobody could see it done. Be frank
and tell me that it was just so. Also the poor ‘ Soul’s
Tragedy,’ you have repudiated so from the ‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ . . pushing it gently aside. Well — you must allow
it to be a curious dislocation — only it is not important — and
I like the note, all except the sentence about ‘ Faith and
Works,’ which does not apply, I think, . . that instance.
‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ is a symbolic phrase — which the
other is not at all, however much difficult and doubtful
theological argument may have arisen from it as a collective
phrase. So I am the first critic, you see, notwithstanding
that Mr. Forster waylaid the first copy. Ah no ! I shall
have my gladness out of the book presently, beyond the
imagination of any possible critic. Who in the world shall
measure gladnesses with me ?
Tell me — I was going to write that ‘ Tell me ‘ in my
yesterday’s letter, but at last I was hurried, and could not
. . did you come into London on Sunday ? did you walk
past this house on the other side of the street, about two
o’clock ? Because just then I and Flush went down-stairs.
The drawing-room had nobody in it, and the window being
wide open, I walked straight to it to shut it. And there,
across the street, walked somebody … I am so near
sighted that I could only see a shadow in a dimness . . but
the shadow had, or seemed to have, a sign of you, a trace of
you . . . and instead of shutting the window I looked after
it till it vanished. No, it was not you, I feel now that
it was not you ; and indeed yesterday I felt it was not you.
But, for the moment, it made my heart stop beating, . .
that insolent shadow, . . which pretended to be you and
wasn’t. Some one, I dare say, who ‘has an occupation
eight or nine hours a day ‘ and never does anything ! I
may speak against him, for deceiving me — it’s a pure justice.
To go back to the book . . you are perfectly right about
‘ gadge,’ and in the view you take of the effect of such words.
You misunderstood me if you fancied that I objected to the
word — it was simply my ignorance which led me to doubt
whether you had written ‘ gag.’ Of course, the horror
of those specialities is heightened by the very want of
distinct understanding they meet with in us : — it is the rack
in the shadow of the vault. Oh — I fully agree.
And now . . dearest dearest . . do not bring reason to
me to prove . . . what, to prove ? I never get anything by
reason on this subject, be very sure ! — and I like better to
feel that unreasonably you love me — to feel that you love me
as, last year, you did. Which I could not feel, last year, a
whole day or even half a day together. Now the black
intervals are rarer . . which is of your goodness, beloved,
and not of mine. For me, you read me indeed a famous
lesson about faith, . . and set me an example of how you
‘ believed ‘ ! . . . but it does not apply, this lesson, . . it does
not resemble, this example ! — inasmuch as what you had to
believe . . viz. that roses blow in June . . was not quite
as difficult as what I am called to believe, . . viz. that
St. Cecilia’s angel-visitant had a crown of roses on, which
eternally were budding and blowing. But I believe . .
believe . . and want no ‘ proof ‘ of the love, but just itself
to prove it, — for nothing else is worthy. On the other side,
I have the audacity to believe, as I think I have told you,
that no woman in the world could feel for you exactly what
. . . but, here, too, I had better shun the reasons, . .
the ‘ bonnes raisons ‘ which ‘ le roy notre sire ‘ cannot abide.
— What foolishness I am writing really ! And is it to be for
a ‘ year,’ or a ‘ month ‘ — or a week, — better still ? or we may
end by a compromise for the two hours on Wednesdays, . .
if it goes on so, — more sensibly.
I have heard to-day from Miss Martineau and from Mrs.
Jameson, both — one talking Mesmer and the other Homer.
I sent her (Mrs. J.) two versions of the daughters of Pandarus,
the first in the metre you know, and the second in blank
verse ; . . and she does not decide which she likes best, she
says graciously, whereas I could not guess which I liked
worse, when I sent them on Saturday. Do let her have
‘ Luria ‘ at once. She will take the right gladness in it, even
as she appreciates you with the right words and thoughts.
But surely you use too many stamps ? Have you a pair of
scales like Zeus and me ? . . only mine are broken, or I
would send you an authority on this important subject, as
well as an opinion.
How did you not get my letter, pray, by the first post on
Monday ? You ought to have had it ! it was not my fault.
And thinking of ‘causas rerum,’ . . I was to ‘catch cold,’ I
suppose, on Saturday, because you went away ? — there was
no stronger motive. I did not however catch cold — ah,
how you make me giddy with such words, as if I did really
‘ hang over a gulph ‘ ! — not with fear though ! Is it possible,
I say to myself, that I can be so much to him ? to him !
May God bless him ! There was no harm meant by the
black seal, I think? Tell me too of the headache, and,
whether the dinner is for Wednesday, and whether, in that
case, it is still to be preferred, with all its close clipping, to
Thursday. Meantime the letter grows as if there was no
such thing as shears !
Your own
Ba