Day: May 8, 2018

[Postmark: May 8, 1846]

‘ Look down on you ‘ — my Ba ? I would die for you,
with triumphant happiness, God knows, at a signal from
your hand ! But that, — look down, — never, though you bade
me again and again, and in such words ! I look up, —
always up, — my Ba. When I indulge in my deepest luxury, I
make you stand . . do you not know that ? I sit, and my
Ba chooses to let me sit, and stands by, — understanding all
the same how the relation really is between us, — how I would,
and do, kiss her feet, — my queen’s feet !

Do you feel for me so, my love ? I seldom dare to try
and speak to you of your love for me . . my love I am
allowed to profess . . I could not steadily (I have tried,
whether you noticed it or no, and could not,) say aloud
‘ and you love me ‘ ! Because it is altogether a blessing of
your gift, — irrespective of my love to you — however it may
go to increase it. Here are the words however. Human
conviction is weak enough, no doubt, — but, when I forget
these words, and this answer of my heart to them, — I can-
not say it —

May God bless you, dearest dearest, — my Ba ! I was
at Mrs. Jameson’s this morning — she spoke of you so as to
make my heart tremble with very delight — I never liked her
so much . . I may say, never liked her before — by com-
parison. She read me your three translations, — clearly
feeling their rare beauty ; and now, — let me clap hands, my
Ba, and ask you who knows best? She means to print
both versions — the blank verse and the latter rhymed one.
Of course, of course ! But she said so many things — I must
tell you to-morrow, — if you remind me. She felt such
gratifications, too, at your thinking her etching of St.
Cecilia worthy to hang by your chair, in your sight. Do
you know, Ba, at the end, — à propos of her breakfast, I
fairly took her by both hands, and shook them with a
cordiality which I just reflect, tardily, may subject the
Literary Character to a possible misconstruction. ‘ He
must have wanted a breakfast,’ she will say !

I am going to the Museum on Monday with her, to see
Italian prints. I like her very much. And after breakfast,
Mr. Kenyon came in, and Mr. Bezzi — and Mr. K. means to
make me go and see him next Monday also, I believe.

But my seeing, and hearing, and enjoying — Saturday is
my day for all that ? To-morrow — by this time ! — too
great happiness it is, I know.

And I, too, look long over the grave, to follow you, my
own heart’s love. Let Mrs. Jameson repeal those acts, —
limit the seven years to seven days or less, — what matters ?
If the seven days have to be endured because of a law, —
then I see the weariness of course — but in our case, if a
benevolent Legislature should inform me, now, that if I
choose, I may decline visiting you to-morrow —

. . Ah, nefandum, — kiss me, my own Ba, and let the
world legislate and decree and relieve and be otherwise
notable — so they let me be your own for ever

R.

[Postmark: May 8?, 1846]

Beloved, my thoughts go to you this morning, loving
and blessing you ! May God bless you for both His worlds
— not for this alone. For me, if I can ever do or be any-
thing to you, it will be my uttermost blessing of all I ever
knew, or could know, as He knows. A year ago, I thought,
with a sort of mournful exultation, that I was pure of wishes.
Now, they recoil back on me in a spring-tide . . flow back,
wave upon wave, . . till I should lose breath to speak
them ! and it is nothing, to say that they concern another
… for they are so much the more intensely mine, and of
me. May God bless you, very dear ! dearest.

So I am to forget to-day, I am told in the letter.
Ah ! But I shall forget and remember what I please.
In the meanwhile I was surprised while writing thus to you
this morning . . as a good deed to begin with . . by Miss
Bayley’s coming. Remembering the seventh of May I
forgot Thursday, which she had named for her visit, and
altogether she took me by surprise. I thought it was
Wednesday ! She came — and then, Mr. Kenyon came, . .
and as they both went down-stairs together, Mrs. Jameson
came up. Miss Bayley is what is called strong-minded,
and with all her feeling for art and Beauty, talks of utility
like a Utilitarian of the highest, and professes to receive
nothing without proof, like a reasoner of the lowest. She
told me with a frankness for which I did not like her less,
that she was a materialist of the strictest order, and believed
in no soul and no future state. In the face of those con-
clusions, she said, she was calm and resigned. It is more
than I could be, as I confessed. My whole nature would
cry aloud against that most pitiful result of the struggle here
— a wrestling only for the dust, and not for the crown.
What a resistless melancholy would fall upon me if I had
such thoughts ! — and what a dreadful indifference. All grief,
to have itself to end in ! — all joy, to be based upon nothing-
ness ! — all love, to feel eternal separation under and over
it ! Dreary and ghastly, it would be ! I should not have
strength to love you; I think, if I had such a miserable
creed. And for life itself, . . would it be worth holding on
such terms, — with our blind Ideals making mocks and
mows at us wherever we turned? A game to throw up,
this life would be, as not worth playing to an end !

There’s a fit letter for the seventh of May ! — but why
was Thursday the seventh, and not Wednesday rather, which
would have let me escape visitors ? I thank God that I
can look over the grave with you, past the grave, . . and
hope to be worthier of you there at least.

Mrs. Jameson did not say much, being hoarse and weak
with a cold, but she told me of having met you at dinner,
and found you ‘ very agreeable.’ Also, beginning by a
word about Professor Longfellow, who has married, it
appears, and is a tolerably merciful husband for a poet . .
(‘ solving the problem of the possibility of such a thing,’
said she !) . . beginning so, she dropped into the subject of
marriage generally, and was inclined to repropose Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu’s septennial act . . which might be a
reform perhaps ! . . . . what do you think ? Have I not,
altogether, been listening to improving and memorable dis-
course on this seventh of May ? The ninth’s will be more
after my heart.

I like Mrs. Jameson, mind ! — and I like her views
on many subjects — exclusive of the septennial marriage
act, though.

How you amuse me by your account of the sponsorship !
the illustrious D’Orsay with his paletot reputation, in a cleft
stick of Alfred . . . Tennyson ! Bunn in the distance !
A curious combination it makes really . . and you read it
like a vates that you are ! —

So, good night — dearest ! — I think of you behind all
these passing clouds of subjects, my poet of the Lyre and
Crown ! Look down on your own

Ba.