Month: April 2018

[Postmark: April 3, 1846]

I want to tell you a thing before I forget it, my own Ba
— a thing that pleased me to find out this morning. A few
days ago there was a paragraph in the newspaper about
Lord Compton and his ways at Rome. His address was to
be read in the general list of working-artists kept for public
inspection at Monaldini’s news-room, and the Earl’s self
was to be found in fraternal association with ‘ young art,’ at
board and sporting-place, wearing the same distinctive
blouse and Louis IL hat with great flaps ; even his hair as
picturesquely disordered as the best of them — (the artists,
not flaps) — at all which the reporter seemed scarcely to
know whether he ought to laugh or cry. This I read in the
Daily News with other gossip about Rome, last Wednesday.
But this morning a Cambridge Advertiser of the same day
reaches me — and there, under the head of College news
(after recording that Mr A. has been appointed to this ‘
vicarage, and Mr B. licensed to the other curacy) — one
finds this — ‘The Earl Compton, M.A. (Hon. 1837) — is of
great fame in Rome as a Painter ! ‘ — which the other
authority wholly forgot to mention ; supposing, no doubt,
all the love went to the blouse and flapped hat aforesaid !
Now, is it not a good instance of that fascination which the
true life at Rome (apart from the stupidities of the travelling
English) exercises every now and then on susceptible
people ? The best thing for an English Earl to do, — (who
will be a Marquis one day) — would be to stay here and
vindicate his title by honest work with the opportunities it .
affords him — but if he cannot rise to the dignity of the best
part, surely this, he chooses, is better than many others —
being caught as some noblemen were yesterday, for instance,
superintending a dog-fight in some horrible den of thieves
in St. Giles’s. I don’t know, after all, why I tell you this, —
but that amid all the dull doings of the notable dull ones
there, and their ‘ honours ‘ — (such a wonder of a man was
Smith’s prize-man, — another had got to be gloriously first
in the Classical Tripos) — this bit of ‘fame at Rome’
seemed like a break of blue real sky with a star in it, shining
through the canvas sham clouds and oil-paper moons of
a theatre.

Now I get to you, my Ba ! How strange ! It does so
happen that I took the pen and laid out the paper with, I
really think, a completer, deeper yearning of love to you
than usual even — I seemed to have a thousand things that
I could say now — and on touching the paper . . see — I
start off with a foolish story and still foolisher comment as
if there were no Ba close at my head all the time, straight
before my eyes too ! So it is with me — I give the expressing
part up at once ! It must be understood, inferred, —
(proved, never !) All nonsense, so I will stay — and try to
be wise to-morrow — now, I have no note to guide me and
half put into my mouth what I ought to say. So, dear,
dear Ba, goodbye ! I very well know what this letter is
worth — yet because of the love and endeavour unseen, may
I not have the hand to kiss — and without the glove ? It is
kissed, whether you give it or no, — for there are two long
days more to wait — and then comes Monday ! Bless you
till then, and ever, my dearest : My own Ba —

Your R.

[Postmark: April 3, 1846]

Friday

Dearest, your flowers make the whole room look like
April, they are so full of colours . . growing fuller and
fuller as we get nearer to the sun. The wind was melancholy too, all last night — oh, I think the wind melancholy,
just as you do, — or more than you do perhaps for having
spent so many restless days and nights close on the sea-
shore in Devonshire. I seem now always to hear the sea in
the wind, voice within voice ! But I like a sudden wind
not too loud, — a wind which you hear the rain in rather
than the sea — and I like the half cloudy half sunny April
weather, such as we have it here in England, with a west or
south wind — I like and enjoy that ! and remember vividly
how I used to like to walk or wade nearly up to my waist in
the wet grass or weeds, with the sun overhead, and the
wind darkening or lightening the verdure all round.

But none of it was happiness, dearest dearest. Happiness does not come with the sun or the rain. Since my
illness, when the door of the future seemed shut and locked
before my face, and I did not tire myself with knocking
any more, I thought I was happier, happy, I thought,
just because I was tranquil unto death. Now I know life
from death, . . and the unsorrowful life for the first time
since I was a woman ; though I sit here on the edge of a
precipice in a position full of anxiety and danger. What
matter, … if one shuts one’s eyes, and listens to the birds
singing? Do you know, I am glad — I could almost
thank God — that Papa keeps so far from me . . that he
has given up coming in the evening . . I could almost
thank God. If he were affectionate, and made me, or let
me, feel myself necessary to him, . . how should I bear
(even with my reason on my side) to prepare to give him
pain ? So that the Pisa business last year, by sounding
the waters, was good in its way . . and the pang that came
with it to me, was also good. He feels ! — he loves me . .
but it is not (this, I mean to say) to the trying degrees of
feeling and love . . trying to me. Ah, well ! In any case,
I should have ended probably, in giving up all for you —
I do not profess otherwise. I used to think I should, if
ever I loved anyone — and if the love of you is different
from, it is greater than, anything preconceived . . divined.

Mrs. Jameson, the other day, brought out a theory of
hers which I refused to receive, and which I thought to
myself she would apply to me some day. with the rest of
what Miss Mitford calls ‘ those good-for-nothing poets and
poetesses.’ She maintained, (Mrs. Jameson did) that
‘artistical natures never learn wisdom from experience —
that sorrow teaches them nothing — leaves no trace at all
— that the mind is modified in no way by passion —
suffering.’ Which I disbelieved quite, and ventured to say
on the other side, that although practically a man or woman
might not be wiser, through perhaps the interception of a
vivid apprehension of the present, which might put back
the influence of the future over actions, . . yet that it was
impossible for a self-conscious nature (which all these
artistic natures are) and a sensitive nature, not to receive
some sort of modification from things suffered — ‘ No ‘ — she
said, they did not ! she had known and loved such — and
they were like children, all of them, — essentially immature.’
But she did not persuade me. What is inequality of nature,
as Dugald Stewart observed it, (and did he not say that men
of genius had lop-sided minds ?) is different, I think, from
immaturity in her sense of the word. We were talking of
her friend Mrs. Butler, which brought us to the subject.
Presently she will say of you and me . . ‘ Just see there !
she meant no harm, poor thing, I dare say — but she acts
like a child ! And, for him, his is the imbecility of most
regent genius . . such as I am to live to see confessed
imperial, or I die a disappointed woman.’ !

Do you hear? I do, distinctly. You in the meantime,
are looking at the ‘ locks ‘ . . just as poor Louis Seize did
when they were preparing his guillotine.

May God bless you, my own dearest — Think of me a
little — as you say !

Your

Ba.

[Postmark: April 1, 1846]

Now — dear, dearest Ba — let’ me begin the only way ! —
And so you are kissed whether you feel it or not — through the
distance, what matter? Dear love, I return from town —
my writing has gone away — you remain, and we are together
— as I said, it would be, so it is ! And here is your letter,
and here are recollections of all the letters for so long, all
the perfect kindnesses which I did not answer, meaning to
answer them one day — and, one day, look to receive (I may
write you) a huge sheetful of answers to bygone interrogatories, — sins of omission remedied according to ability
— and you will stare like a man, I read of somewhere, who
asked his neighbour ‘ how he fed that mule of his, so as to
keep it in such good case?’ — and then, struck by some
other fancy, went on to talk of other matters till the day’s
end — when, on alighting at their Inn (for these two were
journeying, and the talk began with the stirrup-cup) — the
other, who had been watching his opportunity, breaking
silence for the first time, answered — ‘ With oats and hay.’
Observe that the only part of the story I parallel is the surprise-
at the end — for I am not going to get whipped before
I deserve, Aminè (Ba mine). At all events I will answer this
last dear note. The ‘good’ you do me, I see you cannot
see nor understand yet — there is my answer ! Here, in
this instance, I corrected everything, — altered, improved
Did you notice the alterations (curtailments) in ‘ Luria ‘ ?
Well, I put in a few phrases in the second part of the other,
— where Ogniben speaks — and hope that they give a little
more insight as to his character — which I meant for that of
a man of wide speculation and narrow practice, — universal
understanding of men and sympathy with them, yet professionally-
restricted claims for himself, for his own life.
There, was the theology to have come in ! He should have
explained, ‘ the belief in a future state, with me, modifies
every feeling derivable from this present life — I consider
that as dependent on foregoing this — consequently, I may
see that your principles are perfectly right and proper to be
embraced so far as concerns this world, though I believe there
is an eventual gain, to be obtained elsewhere, in either
opposing or disregarding them, — in not availing myself of
the advantages they procure.’ Do you see ? — as a man may
not choose to drink wine, for his health’s sake, or from a
scruple of conscience &c. — and yet may be a good judge of
what wine should be, how it ought to taste — something like
this was meant — and when it is forgotten almost, and only the
written thing with a shadow of the meaning stays, — you wonder
that the written thing gets to look better in time ? Do you
think if I could forget you, Ba, I should not reconcile myself to
your picture — which already I love better than yesterday —
and which, to revenge, I know I shall by this time to-morrow
like less, so far less. Well, and then there is Domizia — I
could not bring her to my purpose. I left the neck stiff that
was to have bowed of its own accord — for nothing graceful
could be accomplished by pressing with both hands on the
head above ! I meant to make her leave off her own projects
through love of Luria. As it is, they in a manner fulfil themselves, so far as she has any power over them, and then, she
being left unemployed, sees Luria, begins to see him,
having hitherto seen only her own ends which he was to
further. Oh, enough of it ! I have told you, and tell
you and will tell you, my Ba, because it is simple truth, —
that you have been ‘ helping ‘ me to cover a defeat, not gain
a triumph. If I had not known yousofar these works might
have been the better : — as assuredly, the greater works, I
trust will follow, — they would have suffered in proportion !
If you take a man from prison and set him free . . do you
not probably cause a signal interruption to his previously
all ingrossing occupation, and sole labour of love, of carving
bone-boxes, making chains of cherry-stones, and other such
time-beguiling operations — does he ever take up that
business with the old alacrity? No ! But he begins
ploughing, building — (castles he makes, no bone-boxes now).
I may plough and build — but there, — leave them as they
are !

Here an end till to-morrow — my best dearest. I am
very well to-day — I forgot to say anything yesterday. You
did not go down-stairs, for all your good intentions, I hope
— this morning I mean : observe how the days are made —
the mornings are warm and sunny — after gets up such a
wind as now howls — what a sound ! The most melancholy
in the whole world I think.

No — I can’t do what I had set down — keep my remonstrance and upbraiding on the Homer-subject till
to-morrow and then speak arrows. What do you mean, Ba,
by ‘remembering’ those lines you give me — have you no
more written down, Quite happy and original they are —
but to-morrow this is waited for — dearest, bless you ever !

your R.