Day: April 27, 2018

[Postmark: April 27, 1846]

Oh yes ; that paper is by Chorley, no doubt — I read it,
and quite wonder at him. I suppose he follows somebody’s
‘ lead ‘ — writes as he is directed — because I well remember
what he said on lending me ‘ Le Compagnon.’ There,
there is that other silly expenditure of pen and ink on the
English poets, or whatever they are. And in such work
may a man spend his youth and not a few available energies
— sad work altogether !

My love, I have done a fair day’s work this Monday, —
whoever may be idle— I thought I would call on Forster
this morning — he was out, and I crossed over to Moxon’s,
not seeing him, neither, and thence walked home — so that
to tell you I am well is superfluous enough, is it not ? But
while the sun shone brightest, (and it shines now) I said
‘ The cold wind is felt through it all, — she keeps the room ! ‘
The wind is unremitting, — savage. Do you bear it, dearest, or
suffer, as I fear ? (Speaking of Forster . . you see the Examiner,
I believe ? Or I will send it directly of course). I
entirely agree with you in your estimate of the comparative
value of French and English Romance-writers. I bade the
completest adieu to the latter on my first introduction to
Balzac, whom I greatly admire for his faculty, whatever he
may choose to do with it. Do you know a little sketch ‘ La
Messe de l’Athée,’ — most affecting to me. And for you, with
your love of a ‘ story,’ what an unceasing delight must be
that very ingenious way of his, by which he connects the
new novel with its predecessors — keeps telling you more
and more news yet of the people you have got interested in,
but seemed to have done with. Rastignac, Mme. d’Espard,
Desplein &c. — they keep alive, moving — it is not ingenious ?
Frédéric Soulié I know a little of (I let this reading drop
some ten years ago) and only George Sand’s early works :
by the way, the worst thing of all in that blessed article we
have been referring to, is the spiteful and quite uncalled for
introduction of the names of A. de Musset and De La-
mennais — what have the English families to do with that?,
Did you notice a stanza quoted from some lachrymose
rhymester to be laughed at (in the Article on Poetry) — in
which the writer complains of the illtreatment of false
friends, for’ says he’ I have felt their bangs.’ The
notion of one’s friend ‘ banging ‘ one is exhilarating when
one reflects that he might get a little pin, and prick, prick
after this fashion. No, it is probably a manner of writing, —
meant for the week’s life and the dozen readers. Here is a
note from his sister, by the way.

Now, dearest-dearest, good bye till to-morrow. I think
of you all day, and, if I dream, dream of you — and the end
of the thinking and of the dreaming is still new love, new
love of you, my sweetest, only beloved ! so I kiss you and
bless you from my heart of heart.

Ever your R.

[Postmark: April 27, 1846]

See what a brain I have, — which means, you have ! The
book I ought to put in my pocket, — and fancy I leave on
the table, — is picked up in our lane and presented to me on
my return ; so my reason, which told you I had forgotten it,
the book, was wrong, and my instinct which told me,
all the time, that I could not forget even so poor a matter if
it tended to you, — that was right, as usual ? (Don’t think
that I forgot the said book on the former occasions . . I
wanted to look through it first, so as to be able to correct any
possible mistakings, in case you should ask, or should not
ask, my siren ! I read the book during the voyage.)

Will you tell me what number of the League contains
the notice of you ? I can get it directly. I did not ask
you yesterday, being just as much master of myself as I
commonly am when with you — but after-wisdom comes duly
for a consolation, and mine was apparent in a remark I made
last night — ‘ Here is truly an illusion broken ‘ I said — ‘ for
not very long ago I used to feel impatient at listening to
other people’s commendations of her, and as if they were
usurping my especial office, — they could not see what I see,
not utter what I could utter : and now, at the beginning of
my utterance, the hand closes my mouth, while its dear fellow
shuts my eyes, — I may not see what everybody sees, nor say
what the whole world says, — I, that was to excel them all in
either function ! So now I will change my policy and bid them
praise, praise, praise, praise, since I may not. Will you let
me hear them, my Ba ? You know Chesterfield forbids his
son to play on the instrument himself — ‘ for you can pay
musicians’ he says — ‘and hear them play.’ Where may I
hear this discourser of most excellent music ?

In your last letter you spoke of ‘ other women,’ and said
they might ‘ love ‘ me — just see ! They might love me because
of something in me, lovingness in me, which they never
could have evoked . . so the effect produces the cause, my
dear ‘ inverter ‘ ! If there had been a vague aimless feeling
in me, turning hither and thither for some object to attach
itself to and spend itself on, and you had chanced to be
that object, I should understand you were very little flattered
and how a poplar does as well for a vine-prop as a palm tree
— but whatever love of mine clings to you was created by
you, dearest, — they were not in me, I believed — those
feelings, — till you came. So that, mournful and degrading
as it sounds, still it would, I think, be more rational to confess
the possibility of their living on, though you withdrew, —
finding some other — oh no, it is, — that is as great an impossibility
as the other, — they came from you, they go to you,
what is the whole world to them !

May God bless you, repay you — He can —

Well Ba, do you see the Examiner ? That is very kind,
very generous of Forster. There are real difficulties in the
way of this prompt, efficient, serviceable notice — for he has
a tribe of friends, dramatists, actors ‘ conflicting interests ‘ &c.
&c. to keep the peace among, — and he quite understands
his trade — how compensation is to be made, and an
equilibrium kept in the praises so as to offend nobody, — yet
see how he writes, and with a heap of other business on his
shoulders ! I thank him very sincerely, I am sure.

Tell me how you are, beloved — all-beloved ! I am quite
well to-day, — have been out.

Do you remember our friend Bennett of Blackheath?
(Don’t ejaculate ‘ le Benêt ‘ ! ) He sent me letters lately —
and I returned a copy of ‘ Luria ‘ to save compliments and
words — here is his answer . . (I will at once confess I could
not read it, but Ba bids me send, and what am I but Ba’s
own, very very own ?)

[Postmark: April 27, 1846 OR ]

Ever dearest you might have stayed ten minutes more.
George did not come in till half past six after all — but there
is the consciousness of being wise in one’s generation, which
consoles so many for their eternity as children of light, . .
yet doesn’t console me for my ten minutes, . . so it is as well
to say no more on this head !

I have glanced over the paper in the Athenæum and am
of an increased certainty that Mr. Chorley is the writer. It
is his way from beginning to end — and that is the way,
observe, in which little critics get to tread on the heels of
great writers who are too great to kick backwards. Think
of bringing George Sand to the level of the same sentence
with such a woman as Mrs. Ellis ! And then, the infinite
trash about the three eras in the Frenchwoman’s career, . .
which never would have been dragged into application there,
if the critic had heard of her last two volumes . . published
since the ‘ Meunier d’Angibault,’ ‘ Teverino ‘ and
‘ Isidora.’ One may be angry and sin not, over such inapplicable
commonplace. The motive of it, the low
expediency, is worse to me than the offence. Why mention
her at all . . why name in any fashion any of these
French writers, for the reception of whom the English mind
is certainly not prepared, unless they are to be named
worthily, recognised righteously ? It is just the principle of
the advice about the De Kocks ; whom people are to go
and see and deny their acquaintance afterwards. Why not
say boldly ‘ These writers have high faculty, and imagination
such as none of our romance-writers can pretend to — but
they have besides a devil — and we do not recommend them
as fit reading for English families ! ‘ Now wouldn’t it answer
every purpose ? Or silence would ! — silence, at least. But
this digging and nagging at great reputations, . . it is to me
quite insufferable : and not compensated for by the motive,
which is a truckling to conventions rather than to morals.
As if earnestness of aim was not, from the beginning, from
‘ Rose et Blanche ‘ and ‘ Indiana,’ a characteristic of George
Sand ! Really it is pitiful.

The ‘ Mysteries of the Heaths,’ I suppose to be a translation
of ‘ Sept Jours au Château,’ a very clever story from the
monstrous Hydra-headed imagination of Frederic Soulié.
Dumas is inferior to them all of course, yet a right good
storyteller when he is in the mind for storytelling ; — telling,
telling, telling, and never having done. You know I like
listening to stories — I agree with the great Sultan and would
forego ever so much cutting off of heads for the sake of a story
— it is a taste quite apart from a taste for literature : a storyteller,
I like, apart from the sweet voice. Now that book of
Dumas’s on the League wars, which distressed me so the
other day, by having the cruelty . . the ‘ villainie ‘ . . of
hanging its hero in the fourth volume . . (regularly hanging
him on a pair of gallows — wasn’t it too bad ?) that book
is amusing enough, more than amusing enough, to take
with one’s coffee . . which is my fashion, . . because you
are not here and I have nobody to talk to me. The hero
who was hanged, deserved it a little, I think, though the author
meant it for a pure misfortune and though no good romance-
reader in the world- such as I am, could bear to part with
the hero of four volumes in that manner, without pain ; but
the hero did deserve it a little when one came to consider.

In the first place, he was a traitor once or twice in war and
politics, and was quite ready to be so a third or fourth time,
. . only , . as he said to the lady he loved . . je perdrais
votre estime.’ ‘ Is that your only objection ‘ she enquired
‘ The only one ‘ he answered ! ( How frightfully true, that
those brilliant French writers have no moral sense at all ! do
not, for the most part, know right from wrong ! here, an
instance ! ) Then, from the beginning to the end of the four
volumes, he loves two women together . . a phénomène ‘
by no means uncommon, says the historian musingly, . .
and, except for the hanging, there might have been a difficulty
perhaps in the final arrangement. Yet oh . . to see
one’s hero, the hero of four volumes, and not a bad hero
either in some respects, hung up before one’s eyes ! . . it
wrongs the natural affections to think of it ! it made me
unhappy for a full hour ! There should be a society for the
prevention of cruelty to romance-readers, against the recurrence
of such things !

Pure nonsense I write to you, it seems to me.

What beautiful flowers you brought me ! — and the sweet-
brier is unfolding its leaves to-day, as if you did them, so, no
wrong. And I have been considering ; and there are not,
if you please, five but four days, between Saturday and
Thursday. In the meanwhile say how you are, dearest
dearest ! My thoughts are with you constantly . . indeed.
I could almost say, too much, . . because sometimes they
grow weak and tired . . not of you, who are best and beloved,
but of themselves, having been so long used to be sad,
May God bless you, . . bless you ! His best blessing for
me (after that ! ) were to make me worthy of you — but it
would take too many miracles.

Your

Ba.

Remember the letters, if they come.