[Postmark: April 17, 1846]
Friday.
No, my own dearest, I did not see you sit in your chair,
nor in mine, yesterday — did I write nothing about your walking with me by the garden wall, and on the hill, and looking
down on London ? And afterwards you went with me, indeed, to Talfourd’s (last night was that purgatorial business,
— how could I make you think it related to Monday ?) If
I have to put the least thing into words, so I put it always !
Being just like the family of somebody — ‘ who were one
and all so stupid ‘ said he — ‘ that if you bade them spell A B
they answered B A — ‘ Nay, I spell Happiness, and Blessing,
and all other good words if ever so many letters by that
same Ba ! But I want to go on and say you kept me from
such an undiluted evening of misery (because I saw you
through it all) — oh, such an evening ! — it shall be the last, I
think — and the going out is so near, — the bonnet is bought !
And you pretend not to know I would walk barefoot till I
dropped, if so I might attain to the sight of you, and it.
Do let me say, for gratitude’s sake — it is like the sign of
spring in Shelley’s ‘ Prometheus ‘ —
When ‘ mild winds shake the elder-brake,
And the wandering herdsmen know
That the white thorn soon will blow ‘ :
— that the flower of my life will blow ! Now let me
try and answer everything in Ba’s darling letters and so
not be ‘ vexed’ afterward, — recollecting how she asked
this, or bade me be sure to reply to that, and how I
answered, spelling A B for B A ! First, there is a famous
contrivance against fly tormentors, a genuine canopy, gnat-repelling enclosure of muslin which covers your bed wholly,
and into which once introduce yourself dexterously (because
the plagues try to follow slily) and lo, you are in a
syren’s isle within the isle, a world cut off from the outer
one by that fine hazy cloudish gauze — a delight it is ! Only,
if you let one persisting critic of a buzzer lie perdue, he
will have you at a glorious advantage — (not that one ever
bit ME, in England or elsewhere). And now — your letters,
— Miss Bennet’s letter that yon received ‘just after I had
gone ‘ — will you be edified if I tell you what I received the
moment I got home ? (once, beforehand — my experience
or yours, which would you rather not have ?) My sister
pointed with immense solemnity to a packet, — then delivered
a message, and then — but hear the message — a ‘ Mrs. George
Sharp’ (unless I mistake the name) lives next door to Dickens
and awfully respects him — she asks one aunt of mine, to ask
another, to ask my sister, to ask me . . who have never seen
or heard of this Mrs. George, — me who am, she has understood, a friend of Dickens, — to get inserted in the Daily
News some paragraph of a reasonable length in recommendation
of the accompanying packet of cough-drops, (lozenges,
or pills — for I was not rightly instructed which) — my fee,
I suppose, being the said packet of pillsI ! All comment is
beyond me.
Well, but your Mrs. Bennet — what a wretched, disgust-
ing sfacciataccia ! I would not be accessory to keeping those
soapy bubbles of stupid vanity from bursting, by sparing a
rough finger, certainly not. How ‘ ought you to be grateful,
perhaps ? ‘ For what on earth ?
Dearest, dearest Ba, — a ‘ passing ‘ headache of ‘ these
few days,’ what can I say, or do ? May God bless you, and
care for all. Still the comfort continues, it is not that you
have made an effort, and so grown worse.
I am pretty well, — I half determine to go out and see
Carlyle to-night, — so to forget a hasty resolution against
all company (‘ other ‘ company I had written . . as if to
honour it — Ba’s is one company, and those people’s !—
‘ another ‘ !) — I think I will go.
I spoke about Mr. Kenyon, — because I never would in
my life take a step for myself if that could be), apart from
your good, without being guided by you where possible —
much more, therefore, in a matter directly concerning you
rather than me, did I want your opinion as to the course
most proper, in the event of &c. I do not think it likely he
will speak, or I shall have to answer . . but if that did
happen, and you were not at hand, my own dearest, — how
I should be grieved if, answering wrongly, I gave you annoyance ! Here I seem to understand your wish.
My Ba, my only, utterly dear love, may God reward
you for your blessing to me — my whole heart turns to you
— and in your own. I kiss you, dearest — this morning a
very ordinary motivetto in the overture to ‘ Rabuco ‘ seemed
to tell you more than I ever shall — I sit and speak to you
by that now !
R. B.
No letters yet from ‘ anybody ‘ — the few received are
laudatory however — I will send you one from the old sailor-
friend I told you of— but, mark ! you must not send it back,
to show my eyes and grieve my heart, when the bulky letter
proves to be only this — returned ! Landor’s in due time, I
suppose ! This I send is to make you laugh . . My Ba’s
dear laugh can hurt nobody, not even my friend here — who
has praised her poems more to me, there’s my consolation,
— Consuelo —