Month: April 2018

[Postmark: April 23, 1846]

Then seriously you are not well, since you went for the
medical advice after all ! that is the thought which is upper-
most as the effect of your letter, though I ought to be
grateful to you (and am !) for remembering to keep your
promise, made two months ago. But how can I help
thinking that you are ill . . help knowing that you felt very
ill before you came to consider that promise ? You did
feel very ill . . now did you not ? And I see in this letter
that you are not well — I see plainly, plainly ! Have you
been using the shower-bath? tell me: — and tell me how
you are — do not keep back anything. For the rest, you will
submit to the advice, you say, and you mean to submit, I
think, my own very dearest — remember that all my light
comes, not only through you, but from you, let it be April
light or November light. I say that for you. As for myself,
when I am anxious about you, it is not, I hope, for such a
reason as that my light comes from you. Before I had any
light, . . before I knew you so . . do I not remember how
Mr. Kenyon with that suggestive shake of the head and
grave dropping of the voice, when he came and told me with
other news, of your being ill, . . made me wonderfully
unhappy and restless till I could not help writing for a
directer account? Oh, those strange days to look back
upon, . . which had no miraculous light, yet were strange
days, with their ‘ darkness which might be felt ‘ and was
felt !

You will be careful, . . will you not ? . . in these ? I
am not happy about you, to-night. I feel as if you are worse
perhaps than you say. And it does you so much good to
keep talking about this misgiving and that misgiving ! — the
‘ trente-six oies ‘ are nothing at all to me, really.

For those two letters, it was far from any intention of
mine that you should have them both together, — and the
first-written went to the post at two on the day before. Too
bad it is ! I obserye that you never get a letter on the day
it is posted, unless the posting is very early, . . say before
eight, or, at latest, before nine. Which is abominable, when
the distance is considered.

And you make a piteous case out for yourself against me,
indeed, . . and it seems very hard to have to endure so
much, ‘ forty-nine days out of fifty ‘ . . . I did not think it
was so bad with you ! And when you protest gently on the
fiftieth day . . so gently . . so gently ! ! Well, the fact is
that you forget perhaps what sort of a gentle protestation it was,
you wrote to me on Sunday, you who protest so gently, and
never flatter ! And as for having your own ‘ praises blown
in your eyes ‘ for forty-nine days together, I cannot confess
to the iniquity of it, . . you mistake, you mistake, as well as
forget — only that I will not vex you and convict you too
much now that you are not well. So we shall have peace,
shall we not ? on each side. I never write extravagances —
ah, but we will not write of them, even. Any more letters
about * Luria ? *

Yes — All day to-day in the gondola chair ! There was
no leaving this room for the cold wind, and it made me feel
so tired without my taking a step scarcely, that after dinner
. . guess what I did, and save me the shame of relating ?
after dinner, my dinner at one oclock, I positively fell
fast asleep with this pen in my hand, and went to see you
in a dream I dare say, though, this time, I do not remember.
Then I half expected Miss Bayley, and she did not come,
and instead of talking to her I wrote letters to ‘ all the
peoples ‘ . . I hate writing letters, how I hate it now, except
to you only. And to-day I thought only of you, let me write
ever so away from you. Which is why you saw me in the
gondola chair.

But you are not well — the ‘ refrain ‘ comes round con-
stantly — call it a burden ! May God bless you, dearest
beloved ! Do you say harm of this April, when it is the
best April I ever saw, let it be proved to want the vulgar
sun and blue sky as much as you please ! Yet you are not
well ! say how you are ! I come clear out of the mist to
call myself

Your very own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 22, 1846]

I never thought I should convince you, dearest — and I
was foolish to write so, since it makes you reply so. At all
events, I do not habitually offend in this kind — forty-nine
days out of fifty I hear my own praises from your lips, and
yet keep silence — on the fiftieth I protest gently — is that too
much ? Then I will be quiet altogether, my Ba, and get a
comfort out of the consciousness of obedience there at least.
But I should like some talking-bird to tell you the struggle
there is and what I could say. Shall I idealize you into mere
mist, Ba, and see the fine, fine, last of you ? Well, I cannot
even play with the fancy of that — so, one day, when so much
is to be cleared up between us, look for a word or two on
this matter also. Some savage speech about the ‘ hand I
was to have dropped ‘ — the whole ending with the Promethean
— Οὑτως ὑβρἰζειν τους ὑβρἰζοντας χρέων. Meantime
my revenge on the hand must be to kiss it — I kiss it.

Yesterday’s letters both arrived this morning by the 11½
post — was that right ? I add my mite of savageness to the
general treasury of wrath : every body is complaining . Still,
so long as I do get my letters, — such letters !

The cold wind continues — you will have kept the room
to-day no doubt — what colourless weather ; not the moist
fresh bright true April of old years ! I shall go out presently
— but with such an effort, such unwillingness ! I am better
however — and my mother still continues well — goes out
every morning — so there is hope for everybody. I ought to
tell you that I went to my doctor last evening — (remembering
to whom I promised I would do so, if need were, or good
seemed likely to follow) — and he speaks encouragingly and
I have engaged to be obedient ; perhaps, because he ordains
no very intolerable laws. He says I am better than when he
saw me last — and, as he wanted then to begin and prescribe,
. . . there is clearly a gain of about two months’ comfort !

Here strikes fatal four-o’clock ! To-morrow for more
writing ; and now, for the never-ending love, and thought of
my dearest dearest. May God bless you, Ba.

Your own ——

[Postmark: April 22, 1846]

‘ Vanity ‘ ! I never saw in you, my very dearest, even the
short morning shadow of ‘ vanity.’ ‘ Vanity ‘ is not of you!
You work as the cedars grow, upward, and without noise,
and without turning to look on the darkness you cause upon
the ground. It is only because you are best and dearest
that you let me see the letters . . . yes, and besides, because
I have a little a right to have them sent to me, — since
they concern me more than you, — and are, after a fashion,
my letters. My letters ? what am I saying ? My letters,
my true letters, are different indeed — and one of them came
to-night to prove so !
But Mr. Chorley’s and the illegible man’s whose name
begins with a D (or doesn’t) both gave me pleasure. If Mr.
Chorley did not read ‘Luria’ at once, he speaks of you in the
right words — and the naval illegible man, with his downright
earnest way of being impressed, makes a better critic than
need be sought for in the Athenæum synod. And what a
triumph (after all !) and what a privilege, and what a good
deed, is this carrying of the light down into the mines
among the workmen, this bringing down of the angels of
the Ideal into the very depth of the Real, where the hammer
rings on the rough stone. The mission of Art, like that
of Religion, is to the unlearned . . to the poor and to
the blind — to make the rugged paths straight, and the
wilderness to blossom as the rose — at least it seems so to
me. And now, pray, why am I not to hear what Carlyle
said ? will you tell me ? won’t you tell me ? how shall I
persuade you ? If I can or not, I will say God bless him
too . . since he spoke the right word, to do you good. For
the manifest advance in clearness and directness of expression
. . I quite forgot to take notice of what you said to me
— and you, who never flatter ! — about being the cause of it
— I ! Now do observe that the ‘Soul’s Tragedy,’ which is
as light as day, I never touched with my finger, except in
one place, I think . . to say . . ‘ Just here there is a little
shade.’ The fact is, that your obscurities, . . as far as they
concern the medium, . . you have been throwing off gradually
and surely this long while — you have a calmer mastery
over imagery and language, and it was to be expected that
you should. For me, I am the fly on the chariot, . . ‘ How
we drive ! ‘ Shall I ever, ever, ever, be of any use or good
to you ? See what a thought you have thrown me into,
from that height ! Shall I ever, ever, be of any use, any
good — and not, rather, the contrary to these? Love is
something : and it is something to love you better than a
better woman could : but . . but . .

There is no use nor good in writing so, and you with a
headache too ! Why, how could you get that headache ?
First with not walking ; then with walking — I ! and read-
ing Balzac. But you had been writing notes perhaps?
or Carlyle had talked too ‘ bracingly ? ‘ or you fasted too long,
being too late for his tea-kettle ? The headache came at any
rate. Did it go ? tell me, dearest beloved ! say how you are.
And let me hear if your mother continues to be better.
How happy that change must make you all ! and shall I not
thank God that it makes you happy?

Mr. Kenyon has not been here, and I have nothing,
nothing, to tell you. The east wind has kept guard at the
door, so that I should not go out, . . and nothing has
happened. I seem not to have drawn breath scarcely,
since we parted. ‘ Parted ‘ — what a word ! As if we could !
— in the full sense !

I have written to Miss Bayley to ask her to come on any
day except Saturday.

Shall the thirty-six Bas love you all together in that one
Ba who is your own ?

[Postmark: April 21, 1846]

My dearest Ba, my sweetest, only love must sit, if she
please, in the gondola chair and let me talk to-day, not
write to her — for my head aches, — from pure perversity, —
and a little from my morning spent over a novel of Balzac’s —
that is it, not any real illness, I know — however, the effect
is the same. Beside I got tired with the long walk from
Carlyle’s last night — for I went and saw him to heart’s
content — and he talked characteristically and well, and
constringingly, bracingly. He has been in the country a
little, — that is, has gone down to see his wife occasionally
who was on a visit at Croydon, whence she only returned
on Saturday. He told me he had read my last number ;
and that he had ‘been read to’ — some good reader had
recited ‘The Duchess ‘ to him. Altogether he said wonder-
fully kind things and was pleased to prophesy in the same
spirit ; God bless him ! We talked for three or four hours
— he asked me to come again soon, and I will.

Here are two letters — Chorley’s, one — and the other
from quite another kind of man, an old friend who ‘ docks ‘
ships or something like it ; a great lover of ‘ intelligibility in
writing,’ and heretofore a sufferer from my poetry.

My love, I lend you such things with exactly as much
vanity as . . no comparison will serve ! it is the French
vulgarism — comme . . n’importe quoi ! Celui me pousse à
la vanité comme — n’importe quoi !

Will you have a significative ‘ comme ‘ of another kind ?

‘ je me trouve bête ce matin comme . . trente-six oies ! ‘
— (I assure you this is no flower culled from Balzac this
morning — but a little ‘souvenir’ of an old play.)

Now, if I were to say to myself something is dear as

‘ thirty-six Bas ‘ — I should be scared, as when looking into a
mirror cut into façettes one is met on every side by the
same face, twenty times repeated. Nothing can add to my
conception of the one Ba — my one, only — ever dear,
dearest Ba — ‘what perfect nonsense’ says Ba — and nonsensical
I will be— —all she pleases so long as let live and
die her very own.

[Postmark: April 21, 1846]

I would not say to you yesterday, perhaps could not,
that you wrote ever so much foolishness to me in the
morning, dearest, and that I knew it ever so well. There is
no use, no help, in discussing certain questions, — some sorts
of extravagance grow by talking of, — shake this elixir, and
you have more and more bubbles on the surface of it. So
I would not speak — nor will I write much. Only I protest,
from my understanding, from my heart — and besides I do
assert the truth — clear of any ‘affectation,’ this time, —
and it is that you always make me melancholy by using
such words. It seems to me as if you were in the dark
, altogether, and held my hand for another’s : let the shutter
be opened suddenly ; and the hand . . is dropped perhaps
. . . must I not think such thoughts, when you speak
such words? I ask you if it is not reasonable. No, I do
not ask you. We will not argue whether eagles creep, or
worms fly. And see if it is distrust on my part ! Love, I
have learnt to believe in. I see the new light which
Reichenbach shows pouring forth visibly from these chrystals
tossed out. But when you say that the blue, I see, is red,
and that the little chrystals are the fixed stars of the
Heavens, how am I to think of you but that you are
deluded, mistaken? — and in what? in love itself? Ah,
— if you could know — if you could but know for a full
moment of conviction, how you depress and alarm me by
saying such things, you never would say them afterwards, I
know. So trust to me, even as I trust to you, and do
not say them ever again, . . you, who ‘never flatter’. Is it
not enough that you love me ? Is there anything greater?
And will you run the risk of ruining that great wonder by
bringing it to the test of an ‘argumentum ad absurdum’
such as I might draw from your letter ? Have pity on me,
my own dearest, and consider how I must feel to see myself
idealized away, little by little, like Ossian’s spirits into the
mist . . till . . ‘Gone is the daughter of Morven’! And
what if it is mist or moon-glory, if I stretch out my hands
to you in vain, and must still fade away farther ? Now you
will not any more. When the world comes to judge between
us two, or rather over us both, the world will say (even the
purblind world, as I myself with wide-open eyes !) that I
have not been generous with my gifts — no ; you are in a
position to choose . . and you might have chosen better —
. . that is my immoveable conviction. It has been only
your love for me, — which I believe in perfectly as love —
and which, being love, does not come by pure logic, as the
world itself may guess . . it has been only, wholly and
purely your love for me which has made a level for us two
to meet and stand together. There is my fact against your
fiction ! Now let us talk no more. We cannot agree,
because we stand in different positions . . . ‘I hear a
voice you cannot hear’ ! . . I am on the black side of the
knight’s shield. Presently you will hear perhaps, and see.
Shall you love me then? When the ideal breaks off, when
the light is gone, . . will you love me then for the love
which I shall bear you then as now, . . the only real thing ?

In the meantime I did but jest about the letters — I
know you care for mine . . because I care for yours so
infinitely : . it is a lesson learnt by heart. To-night I shall
write again ! —

Your own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 20, 1846]

Just now I read again your last note for a particular purpose
of thinking about the end of it . . where you say, as
you have said so many times, ‘that your hand was not
stretched out to the good — it came to you sleeping ‘ — etc. I
wanted to try and find out and be able to explain to myself,
and perhaps to you, why the wrongness in you should be so
exquisitely dear to me, dear as the rightness, or dearer, inasmuch
as it is the topmost grace of all, seen latest on leaving the contemplation of the others, and first on returning
to them – – because, Ba, that adorable spirit in all these
phrases, what I should adore without their embodiment in
these phrases which fall into my heart and stay there, that
strange unconsciousness of how the love-account really stands
between us, who was giver altogether and who taker, and, by
consequence, what is the befitting virtue for each of us, a
generous disposition to forgetfulness on the giver’s part, as of
everlasting remembrance and gratitude on the other — this unconsciousness is wrongs my heart’s darling, strangely wrong
by the contrast with your marvellous apprehension on other
points, every other point I am capable of following you to.
I solemnly assure you I cannot imagine any point of view
wherein I ought to appear to any rational creature the bene-
fitting party and you the benefitted — nor any matter in which
I can be supposed to be even magnanimous, (so that it might
be said, ‘ there is a sacrifice ‘ — ‘ that is to be borne with ‘
&c) — none where such a supposition is not degrading to me,
dishonouring and affronting. I know you, my Ba, not because
you are my Ba, but through the best exercise of whatever
power in me you too often praise, I know — that you are immeasurably
my superior, while you talk most eloquently and
affectingly to me, I know and could prove you are as much
my Poet as my Mistress ; if I suspected it before I knew
you, personally, how is it with me now I feel it every
day, I tell myself every day it is so. Yet you do not feel nor
know it — for you write thus to me. Well, — and this is what
I meant to say from the beginning of the letter, I love your
inability to feel it in spite of right and justice and rationality.
I would, — I will at a moment’s notice, give you back your
golden words, and lie under your mind supremacy as I take
unutterable delight in doing under your eye, your hand.
So Shakespeare chose to ‘ envy this man’s art and that man’s
scope ‘ in the Sonnets, But I did not mean to try and
explain what is unexplainable after all — (though I wisely said
I would try and explain ! ) You seem to me altogether . .
(if you think my words sounded like flattery, here shall come
at the end — anything but that !) you do seem, my precious
Ba, too entirely mine this minute, — my heart’s, my senses’,
my soul’s precise το καλον to last ! Too perfect for that !
The true power with the ignorance of it, the real hold of my
heart, as you can hold this letter, — yet the fear with it that
you may ‘ vex me ‘ by a word, — makes me angry. Well, —
if one must see an end of all perfection — still, to know one
was privileged to see it — Nay, it is safe now — for this present
, all my future would not pay, whatever your own future
turned to !

Yet if I had to say, ‘ I shall see her in a month or two —
perhaps — as this time last year I was saying in a kind of
contented feeling !

Thank God I shall see her to-morrow — my dearest, best,
only Ba cannot change by to-morrow ! — What nonsense !
The words break down, yet I will be trying to use them !

God bless my dearest, ever bless her.

I shall be with you soon after this reaches you, I trust —
now, I kiss you, however, and now, my Ba !

Letters ! since you bid me send them, — do you not ? —
see what the longer says of the improved diction, freedom
from difficulty &c. Who is to praise for that, my Ba ? Oh,
your R. B. wholly and solely to be sure !

[Postmark: April 18, 1846]

Saturday.

So my dear, own Ba has good sense, best sense — whatever Flush’s may be ! Do you think . . (to take the
extreme horn of a certain dilemma I see) . . that —

Now, dearest, somehow I can’t write the great proof
down — I will tell you on Monday — as to my good sense.
I was wrong to give such a praise to myself in the particular
case you were alluding to at the time — the good sense of the
bird which finds out its mate amid a forest-full of birds of
another kind ! Why the poorest brown butterfly will seek
out a brown stone in a gravel walk, or brown leaf in a flower
bed, to settle on and be happy (And I suppose even dear
Carlyle is no longer my brown leaf ; at least, I could not go
last night. I will, however, try again on Monday — after
leaving you — with that elixir in my veins).

Mrs. Paine’s note is charming. I thank you, dearest,
for sending it — (How I like being reminded of thanks, due
from me to you, which I may somehow come near the expression of ! I am silent about an infinity of blessings —
but I do say how grateful I am for this kindness ! ). Now,
there is the legitimate process ; the proper benefit received,
in the first instance, and profited by, and thence grows in
proper time the desire of being admitted to see you — so
different from the vulgar ‘ Georgianas ‘ who, possibly, hearing
of the privilege extended to such a person as this we speak
of, would say, with the triumphant chuckle of low cunning,
‘ ah, — I will get as far, by one stroke of the pen — by one
bold desire ” to be thought of as I think of her.” ‘ She
could but ask and be refused ! Whereas Mrs. Paine was
already in possession of much more dear, dear Ba, than
could be taken away even by a refusal — besides, her reverence-
would have made her understand and acquiesce even
in that. Therefore, I am glad, sympathisingly glad she is
rewarded, that good, gentle Mrs. Paine ! I will bring her
note with me.

Because, here is Mr. Kenyon’s, and Landor’s (which
had been sent to Moxon’s some days ago, whence the delay)
— and Mrs. Jameson’s. All kind and indulgent and flattering
in their various ways . . but, my Ba, my dear, dear Ba,
other praises disregarding, I but harken those of yours — only
saying — Ah, it is wrong to take the sacrificial vessel and
say, — ‘ See, it holds my draught of wine, too ‘ ! — I will not do
so, not parody your verses again. And I like to be praised
now, in a sense, much, much more than ever — but, darling,
oh how easily, if need were, I could know the world was
abusing at its loudest outside ; if you were inside . . though
but the thinnest of gauze canopies kept us from the buzzing !
This is only said on this subject, struck out by it, not of
it, — for the praise is good true praise and from the worthies
of our time — but — you, I love, — and there is the world-wide
difference. And what ought I to say to Mr. Kenyon’s
report of me ? Stand quietly, assentingly ? You will agree
to this at least, that he cannot know what he says — only be
disposed to hope and believe it is so : still, to speak so to
you — what would I not do to repay him, if that could be !
What a divinely merciful thought of God for our sake . .
that we cannot know each other — infallibly know — as we
know other things, in their qualities ! For instance, I bid
you know my love for you (which would be knowing me) — I
complain that you do not, cannot — yet, — if you could . . my
Ba, would you have been ever quite my Ba? If you said,
calmly as when judging of material objects, ‘ there is affection,
so much, and sincerity, and admiration &c., yes, that I see,
of course, for it is there plainly ‘ — So I should lose the
delight crowning the delight, — first of the fact, as I know it;
and then of this ; that you desired to know it, chose to lean
forward, and take my poor testimony for a fact, believing
through desire, or at least will to believe — so that I do, in the
exercise of common sense, adore you, more and more, as I
live to see more, and feel more. So let me kiss you, my
pearl of woman. Do I ‘ remember ‘ praying God to bless me
through the blessing on you ? Shall I ever forget to pray so,
rather ! My dear — dearest, I pray now, with all my heart ;
may He bless you — and what else can now bless your
own R ? —

[Postmark: April 18, 1846]

Friday.

But, dearest of all, you never said a word about Monday.
So I did not misunderstand — I only misguessed. Because
you did not mention any day, I took it into my head that
you might perhaps be invited for Monday, and make an
effort, which would make a fatigue, and go there and come
here. I am glad you went to Carlyle’s — and where is
Tennyson, and the dinner at Forster’s all this while ? And
how did the Talfourds torment you so ? was it that you were
very unwell} I fear you were unwell. For me, I have
recovered from my dreadful illness of the last day or two . .
I knew I should survive it after all . . and to-day, just that
I might tell you, I went down-stairs with Flush, he running
before as when we walk together through the gate. I opened
the drawing-room door; when instead of advancing he
stopped short . . and I heard strange voices — and then he
drew back and looked up in my face exactly as if to say,
‘ No ! This will not do for us ! — we had better go home
again.’ Surely enough, visitors were in the room . . and
he and I returned upon our steps. But think of his sense !
Flush beats us both in ‘ common sense,’ dearest, we must
acknowledge, let us praise each other for it ever so. Next
to Flush we may be something, but Flush takes the pas, as
when he runs down-stairs.

To-day Mr. Kenyon came, spectacles and all. He sleeps
in those spectacles now, I think. Well, and the first
question was . . ‘Have you seen Mr. Browning? And
what did he come for again, pray?’ ‘Why I suppose,’ I
said, ‘ for the bad reason my visitors have in general, when
they come to see me ‘ — Then, very quickly I asked about
‘ Luria,’ and if he had read it and what he thought of it —
upon which, the whole pomegranate was pulled out of his
pocket, and he began to talk like the agreeable man he can
be when he doesn’t ask questions and look discerningly
through spectacles. ‘ Luria ‘ was properly praised indeed. A
very noble creation, he thought it, and heroically pathetic
. . and much struck he seemed to be with the power you
had thrown out on the secondary characters, lifting them all
to the height of humanity, justifying them by their own lights
Oh — he saw the goodness, and the greatness, the art
and the moral glory ; we had a great deal of talk. And
when he tried to find out a few darknesses, I proved to him
that they were clear noonday blazes instead, and that his
eyes were just dazzled. Then the ‘ Soul’s Tragedy ‘ made
the right impression — a wonderful work it is for suggestions,
and the conception of it as good a test of the writer’s genius,
as any we can refer to. We talked and talked. And
then he put the book into his pocket to carry it away to
some friend of his, unnamed : and we had some conversation about poets in general and their way of living, of
Wordsworth and Coleridge. I like to hear Mr. Kenyon
talk of the gods and how he used to sit within the thunder-peal. Presently, leaning up against the chimney-piece,
— he said quietly . . ‘ Do you not think — oh, I am sure
I need not ask you — in fact I know your thoughts of it
. . but how strikingly upright and loyal in all his ways and
acts, Mr. Browning is ! — how impeccable as a gentleman ‘
&c. &c. and so on and on . . I do not tell you any more,
because I should be tired perhaps . . (do you understand?)
and this is not the first time, nor second, nor third time
that he has spoken of you personally, so . . and as no man
could use more reverent language of another. And all this
time, what has become of Walter Savage Landor ? I shall
be vexed in another day. He may be from home perhaps
— there must be a reason.

Vive Pritchard ! and thank you for letting me see what
he wrote.

Oh — and you shall see what I did not send yesterday —
I shall make you read this one sheet of Mrs. Paine’s letter,
because it really touched me, and because I am bound to
undo the effects of my light speaking. As for the overpraise
of myself the overkindness in every respect, . . why we know
how ‘ sermons are found in stones ‘ … yet no praise to
the stones on that account ! But you shall read what I
send, both for her sake and mine, . . because I like you to
read it.

My own dearest, do you mind what I say, and take
exercise ? You are vexing yourself with those notes, as I
see from here. Now take care — follow my example, and
be well — if not, there will be no use in wellness to me !
May God bless you ! Do you remember when you wrote first
to me ‘ May God bless you and me in that ! ‘ It was before
we met. Can you guess what I thought? I have the
whole effect in my memory distinctly. I felt with a bitter
feeling, that it was quite a pity to throw away such beautiful
words out of the window into the dark. ‘ Bitterly ‘ does
not mean anything wrong or harsh, you know. But there
was something painful . . as if the words were too near,
for the speaker to be so far. Well — I am glad in looking
back . . yes, glad . . glad to be certain at my heart, that
I did not assume anything . . stretch out my hand for anything . . dearest ! . .

It is always when one is asleep that the dream-angels
come. Watchers see nothing but ghosts.

Yet I shall see you on Monday, and shall watch and
wait as those who wait for the morning . . that is, the
Monday-morning ! Till when and ever after, I am

Your own

Ba.

[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 —

[Postmark: April 17, 1846]

Thursday Evening.

Ah, the chestnut tree : do you think that I never saw
the chestnut tree before ? Long ago, I did . . a full year
ago or more — more ! A voice talked to me of the ‘ west
wind ‘ which ‘ set dancing the baby cones of my chestnut
tree ‘ — nearly I remember the words. Do you, the time ?
It was early in the morning — ‘ before seven,’ said the voice !
— too early in the morning for my dream to be — because
a dream, says Lord Brougham when he tries at philosophy, a dream, if ever so long a dream, is all contained
in the last moment of sleep, at the turn towards waking
— so, late and not early !

No — you did not tell me of Wordsworth — not at least,
after that reading. Perhaps if Hatcham should not be
swept away in the Railway ‘ scirocco,’ I may see the ‘ hill ‘ or
the ‘ rise ‘ at some distant day. Shall I, do you think ? I
would rather see it than Wordsworth’s mountains — ‘for
reasons, for reasons ‘ as you say. And talking of reasons,
and reasonable people in general, I thought, . . after you
went away on Wednesday, and I began to remember how
you had commended your own common sense and mine,
— I thought that it might be very well for you to do it,
inasmuch as nobody else would, for you – – ὑπερ σου as the
theological critics intensify ὑπερ to the genitive, ‘ for reasons,
for reasons.’

How ‘Luria’ takes possession of me more and more !
Such a noble work ! — of a fulness, a moral grandeur ! — and
the language everywhere worthy. Tell me what you hear
the people say — I shall be anxious, which you will not be
— but, to me, you will forgive it. ‘ The Soul’s Tragedy ‘ is
wonderful — it suggests the idea of more various power than
was necessary to the completion of ‘ Luria ‘ . . though in
itself not a comparable work. But you never wrote more
vivid dramatic dialogue than that first part — it is exquisite
art, it appears to me. Tell me what the people say ! — and
tell me what the gods say . . Landor, for instance !

Mr. Kenyon has not been here — and I dare not, even in
a letter, be the first to talk to anyone of you. It is foolish
of me perhaps — but if I whisper your name I expect to be
directly answered by all the thunders of Heaven and
cannons of earth. When I was writing to Miss Martineau
the other day, for full ten minutes I held the pen ready
charged with ink over a little white place, just to say ‘ have
you read,’ . . or ‘ have you heard ‘ . . . and at last I couldn’t
write one word of those words . . I believe I said something about landed proprietors and agrarian laws instead.

So you ‘felt’ that I was down-stairs to-day ! See how
wrong feeling may be, when it has to do with such as I.
For, dearest, notwithstanding your bright sunshine I did
not go down-stairs . . only opened the window and let in
the air. I have not been quite as well, as far as just sensation goes, as usual, these few days — but it is nothing, a
passing common headache, as I told you, . . and your visit
did good rather than harm, and to-morrow you may think of
me as in the drawing-room. Oh, I might have been there
to-day, or yesterday, or the day before ! but it was pleasanter
to sit in the chair and be idle, so I sate ! But you did not
see me in my gondola chair — not you ! you were thinking
of the lambs instead, and looking over the wall to the
‘ blossomed trees ‘ . . (what trees ? cherry-trees ? apple-trees ?
pear-trees ?) and so, altogether, you lost your second sight of
me and made mistakes. Ever dearest, is your head better ?
You will not say. You are afraid to say, perhaps, that you
were ill, through writing too many notes and not going out
to take the right exercise. Ah, do remember me for that
good ! I heard yesterday that ‘ Mr. Browning looked very
pale as he came up-stairs.’ Which comes of Mr. Browning’s
writing when he should be walking ! — now doesn’t it ?

Do you go to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd’s on Monday?
and would it be better therefore if you came here on
Tuesday ? You could come on the next Saturday all the
same — consider ! Nobody shall leap into lions’ dens for
me ! so let us measure the convenience of things, as Miss
Mitford would in marriages. ‘ Convenance, ‘ though, she
would say — which is more foolish than ‘ convenience ‘ as I
write it. She asserts that every marriage in her experience
beginning by any sort of love has ended miserably — thus
run her statistics in matrimony. Add, that she thinks —
she told me last autumn — that all men without exception
are essentially tyrants, — and that poets are a worse species
of men, seeing that, all human feelings, they put into
their verses, and leave them there . . . add this, and this,
and then calculate how, if I consulted her on our prospects
(shall I ?), she would see for me an infinite succession of
indefinite thumbscrews and gadges ! ! Well — I am not
afraid — except for you sometimes ! for myself I accept my
chances for life under the peine forte et dure. And I
won’t speak to Miss Mitford, if you don’t to Mr. Kenyon . .
and I beseech you to avoid by every legitimate means the
doing that . . oh, do not ever speak that to him !

May God bless you my beloved ! — Walk for my sake,
and be well, try to be well ! For me, I am so without
trying, . . just as I am

Your own

Ba.