Day: April 24, 2018

[Postmark: April 24, 1846]

How I sympathize with poor Cloten when he complains
that ‘ he is in the habit of saying daily many things fully as
witty as those of Posthumus, men praise so — if men would
but note them ‘ ! — I feel jealous of the success and ‘ praise ‘
of my Ba, — falling as they do on the mere asides and interjectional
fits and starts of the play, — when its earnest soliloquy,
the very soul and substance of it all, never reaches
her ear, nor calls down her dear, dear words.

Yet do I say that I feel jealous ? Rather, I acquiesce
gladly in the ignorance . . because when the words, the
golden words, are brought in to me by the inferior agents,
and honestly transferred by them to the real moving powers
. . they, even, find the reward too much, too much, till they
— till they resolve (on the other side of a sheet) to keep
silence and be grateful till death help them to speak.

Well, my dear, own dearest . . the week has got to its
weary end, and to-morrow I shall trust to be with you. I
continue to feel better, — and this morning’s rain, in the
opinion of the learned, will be succeeded by warm weather.
May is just here, beside.

Let me say how a word of praise from your brother
gratifies me. I feel his kindness in other respects — feel it
deeply — as I do that of the rest of your family. Because . .
after these extravagant flatteries of mine you find such just
fault with, — wherein I go the length of attributing to you the
authorship of the ‘ Drama of Exile,’ and ‘ Geraldine ‘ and
‘ Bertha,’ and many more poems which I used to suppose my
Ba’s, — ^after that undue glorification, you will bear to be told,
by way of ‘set-off’ — that I cannot help thinking, you, of all
your family, are the most ignorant of your own value — very
ignorant you are, my sweet Ba, — but they cannot be, and
their kindness to me becomes centupled ‘ for reasons, for
reasons.’

Now let me kiss you — which kiss, as I am to really kiss
you to-morrow, my sweetest, I shall dare tell the truth of to
myself, and say ‘ The real will be better.’ At other times,
with a longer perspective of days, and days after them, until
. . why, then I make the best of pity and say ‘ Can the real
be better — what can be better than the best’? Still —
remember my ‘ peculiarity ‘ — with the greater I keep the less,
you let me say and praise me for saying — so, with all the
dear hope of to-morrow, — now, my Ba — and now, I kiss you.
May God bless you, best and dearest.

No letters that are letters — here is one however from
Arnould just arrived — an Oxford Prize Poet, and an admir-
able dear good fellow, for all his praise — which is better.

[Postmark: April 24, 1846]

Yes, you are better, I think. I thank God for that, first
of all. And, do you know, your note only just comes, and
it is past ten o’clock, and I had rung the bell to have the
letter-box investigated . . and then came the knock and
the letter ! Such a sinning post, it is, more and more.
But to come at last, is something — I am contented indeed.
And for being well, I am well too, if that is all. The wind
is a little hard on me ; but I keep in the room and think of
you and am thought of by you, and no wind, under such
circumstances, can do much harm perhaps : — it does not to
me anywise. So keep well, and believe that I am so : —
‘ well as you are well ‘ . . which sounds very well

What nonsense one comes to write when one is glad !
I observe that in myself constantly. All my wisdom seems
to depend on being pricked with pins . . or rather with
something sharper. And besides your being better, I am
glad through what you say here about your ‘ peculiarity ‘ !
Ah — how you have words in your coffers, of all sorts, . .
crowns to suit all heads . . and this, which I try on last,
suits mine better than the other glittering ones. Those
exaggerations, idealizations, with burning carbuncles in the
front of them, which made me sigh under the weight, . .
those are different — ! But when you say now that you do
not part with feelings, — that it is your peculiarity not
to wear them out, and that you are likely to care for the
sight of my handwriting as much after years as at first,
why you make me happy when you say such things, and
(see what faith I have !) I believe them, since you say them,
speaking of yourself. They are not after the fashion of men,
or women either — but, true of you, they may be, . . and I
take upon trust that they are : I accept such words from
you as means of gladness. The worst is — I mean, the
worst reasonableness that goes out to oppose them, is,
. . the fear lest, when your judgments have been corrected
by experience, the feelings may correct themselves.
But it is ungrateful to talk reason in the face of so much
love. I take up the gladness rather, and thank you and
bless you seven times over, to completion. You are the
best, I know, of all in the world. Did I tell you once that
my love was ‘something’ ? Yet it is nothing: because
there is no woman, let her heart be ever so made of stone
and steel, who could help loving you, . . I answer for all
women ! — so this is no merit of mine, though it is the best
thing I ever did in my life.

Dearest beloved, when I used to tell you to give me up,
and imagined to myself how I should feel if you did it, . .
and thought it would not be much worse than it was before
I knew you . . (a little better indeed, inasmuch as I had
the memory for ever . .) the chief pang was the idea of
another woman —— ! From that, I have turned back again
and again, recoiling like a horse set against too high a wall.
Therefore if I talk of what all women would do, I do not
mean that they should. ‘ Thirty-six Bas,’ we shall not have,
— shall we ? or I shall be like Flush, who, before he learnt to
be a philosopher, used to shiver with rage at sight of the
Flush in the looking-glass, and gnash his teeth impotently,
and quite howl. Now, — we shall not, dearest, have the
thirty-six Bas . . now, shall we ? Besides, one will be more
than enough, she fears to herself, for your comfort and
patience.

No more letters about ‘ Luria ‘ ? Did you see Moxon
when you were in town ?

Miss Bayley has not been here yet. To-morrow, perhaps.
When she comes, I shall not dare name you, but she will, I
think . . I seem sure of hearing her mind about ‘ Luria ‘ and
the ‘ Tragedy. ‘ George thinks the former ‘ very fine.’
Mr. Kenyon does not come, — and to-morrow (Friday) he
goes . . from London.

You will care for me always the same? But that is
like promising a charmed life, or an impossible immortality
to somebody — and nobody has either, except Louis Philippe.
May God bless you, — say how you are when you write
to-morrow.

Your own

Ba.

Oh — your learned Americans ! was it literal of Carlyle,
do you think, or a jest ?