[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 ?)