Day: May 12, 2018

[Postmark: May 12, 1846]

My Ba, your flower is the one flower I have seen, or see
or shall see — when it fades ‘ I will bless it till it shine,’ and
when I can bless you no longer it shall fade with me and
my letters and . . perhaps . . my ring. Ba, if . . I was
going to say, if you meant to make me most exquisitely
happy . . and you did surely mean it . . well, you succeed,
as you know ! And I see you on the grass, and am with
you as you properly acknowledge. And by this letter’s
presence and testimony, I may judge you to be not much
the worse, — not fatigued . . is it so ? Oh, it was a good
inspiration that led you through the half-opened gate and
under the laburnum, and, better still, that made you see us
‘ one day walking by the trees together ‘ — when all I shall
say is, — I hope, in spite of that felicity to remember and
feel this, as vividly as now.

‘ For the chain you hear rattle’ . . there comes the
earthly mood again and the inspiration goes away altogether !
So you being Miss Barrett and not my Ba for the moment,
I will give you none of my, and Ba’s, syren-island illustrations,
but ask you, what a fine lady would say if you caught
at her diamond necklace and cried — ‘ You shall wear no
such chains,— indeed you shall not ! ‘ Why even Flush is
proud of his corals and blue beads, you tell me ! As for
me, — being used to bear sundry heavier chains than this of
writing to you — owning the degradation of being, for
instance, forced to respire so many times a minute in order
to live — to go out into the open air so as to continue well —
with many similarly affronting impositions on a free spirit . .
on the whole, I can very patiently submit to write a letter
which is duly read, and forgiven for its imperfections, and
interpreted into a rationality (sometimes) not its own, and
then answered by the sweetest hand that ever ministered to
the dearest, dearest Ba that ever was imagined, or can be !
Ba, — there are three Syren’s Isles, you know : I shall
infallibly get into the farthest of them, a full thirty yards
from you and the tower, — so as to need being written to —
— for the cicale make such a noise that you will not be able
to call to me — which is as well, for you may . . that is, I
might — break my neck by a sudden leap on the needles of
rocks . . as I remember the boatman told me.

As for what you wish yesterday . . the mode of my
expressing my love . . I never think of it, — I have none —
no system, nor attempt at such a thing — I begin and end by
saying I love you — whatever comes of it. There is one obvious
remark to make however . . that unless I had loved you
and felt that every instant of my life depended on you for
its support and comfort, — I should never have dreamed of
what has been proposed and accepted . . Your own good-
ness at the very beginning would have rendered that super-
fluous ; for I was put in possession of your friendship, —
might write to you, and receive letters — might even hope to
see you as often as anybody — would not this have sufficed a
reasonable friendship? May not Mr. Kenyon be your
satisfied friend ? . But all was different — and so ——

So I am blessed now — and can only bless you. But
goodbye, dearest, till to-morrow — and next day, which is
ours. At 8 — eight I conjecture my martyrdom may take
place . . oh, think of me and help me ! I shall feel you, —
as ever. You forgot the letter after all . . can you send
it ? It may be convenient to produce, as I know nobody of
them all — terrible it is altogether ! ‘ At six ‘ the dinner
begins —— 1 shall get behind my brother Dramatists . .
and say very little about them, even.

Kiss me, in any case, of failure, or success, — and the
one will be forgotten, and the other doubled, centupled — to
your own —

[Postmark: May 12, 1846]

It is too bad, or too good, or something. Almost I
could reproach you, and quite would thank you ! . yet do
not let it be so again. You are supernaturally kind . .
kindestest, bestestest . . . and, so, dearestest by the merest
justice ; only, to think of your hastening home, as if you
were under an obligation to write to me in the face of the
seven worlds, . . that is too much, and shall not be again —
— now see that it shall not. I seem to hear the rattling of the
chain all this distance. And do, for the future, let it be
otherwise. When you are kept in London, or in any way
hindered, or unwell, . . in any case of the sort, let the vow
be kept by one line, which, too late for the day’s post, may
reach me the next day, — and I shall not be uneasy at eight
o’clock, but wait ‘ as those who wait for the morning.’ In
the meanwhile how I thank you ! The second dear letter
comes close in the footsteps of the first, as your goodnesses
are so apt to do.

Well ! — and whatever you may think about Wednesday,
I am pleased, and feel every inclination to ‘ return thanks ‘
myself in reply to the bishop of Lincoln. I send the letter
back lest you should want it. The worst is that you are
likely to have a very bad headache with the noise and con-
fusion — and the bishop’s blessing on the dramatists of
England, will not prevent it, I fear.

Look what is inside of this letter — look ! I gathered it
for you to-day when I was walking in the Regent’s Park.
Are you surprised ? Arabel and Flush and I were in the
carriage — and the sun was shining with that green light
through the trees, as if he carried down with him the very
essence of the leaves, to the ground, . . and I wished so
much to walk through a half open gate along a shaded path,
that we stopped the carriage and got out and walked, and I
put both my feet on the grass, . . which was the strangest
feeling ! . . and gathered this laburnum for you. It hung
quite high up on the tree, the little blossom did, and Arabel
said that certainly I could not reach it — but you see ! It
is a too generous return for all your flowers : or, to speak
seriously, a proof that I thought of you and wished for you
— which it was natural to do, for I never enjoyed any of my
excursions as I did to-day’s — the standing under the trees
and on the grass, was so delightful. It was like a bit of that
Dreamland which is your especial dominion, — and I felt
joyful enough for the moment, to look round for you, as for
the cause. It seemed illogical, not to see you close by.
And you were not far after all, if thoughts count as bringers
near. Dearest, we shall walk together under the trees some
day !

And all those strange people moving about like phan-
toms of life. How wonderful it looked to me ! — and only
you, . . the idea of you . . and myself seemed to be real
there ! And Flush a little, too ! —

Ah — what . . next to nonsense, . . in the first letter,
this morning ! So you think that I meant to complain
when we first met, of your ‘ loving me only for my poetry ‘ !
Which I did not, simply because I did not believe that you
loved me ! — for any reason. For the rest, I am not over-
particular, I fancy, about what I may be loved for. There
is no good reason for loving me, certainly, and my earnest
desire (as I have said again and again) is, that there should
be by profession no reason at all. But if there is to be any
sort of reason, why one is as welcome as another . . you
may love me for my shoes, if you like it . . except that they
wear out. I thought you did not love me at all — you loved
out into the air, I thought — a love a priori, as the philosophers
might say, and not by induction, any wise ! Your only
knowledge of me was by the poems (or most of it) — and
what knowledge could that be, when I feel myself so far
below my own aspirations, morally, spiritually? So I
thought you did not love me at all — I did not believe in
miracles then, nor in ‘ Divine Legations ‘ — but my miracle is
as good as Constantine’s, you may tell your bishop on
Wednesday when he has delivered his charge.

Is it eight o’clock, or three ? You write a ‘8’ which
looks like both, or at least either.

Love me, my only beloved ; since you can. May God
bless you !

I am ever and wholly your Ba.

Say how you are.