[Postmark: May 30, 1846]
Friday.
I have your letter . . you who cannot write ! The
contrariety is a part of the ‘ miracle.’ After all it seems to
me that you can write for yourself pretty well— rather too
well I used to think from the beginning. But if you persist
in the proposition about my doing it for you, leaving room
for your signature . . shall it be this way ?
Show me how to get rid of you.
(signed) R. B.
Now isn’t it I who am . . not ‘balancing my jewel’
over the gulph . . but actually tossing it up in the air out
of sheer levity of joyousness ? Only it is not perhaps such
dangerous play as it looks : there may be a little string
perhaps, tying it to my finger. Which, if it is not imprudence
in act, is imprudence in fact, you see !
Dearest, I committed a felony for your sake to-day — so
never doubt that I love you. We went to the Botanical
Gardens, where it is unlawful to gather flowers, and I was
determined to gather this for you, and the gardeners were
here and there . . they seemed everywhere . . but I
stooped down and gathered it. Is it felony, or burglary on
green leaves — or what is the name of the crime ? would the
people give me up to the police, I wonder ? Transie de peur,
I was, . . listening to Arabel’s declaration that all gathering
of flowers in these gardens is highly improper, — and I
made her finish her discourse, standing between me and
the gardeners — to prove that I was the better for it.
How pretty those gardens are, by the way ! We went
to the summer-house and sate there, and then on, to the
empty seats where the band sit on your high days. What I
enjoy most to see, is the green under the green . . where
the grass stretches under trees. That is something unspeakable
to me, in the beauty of it. And to stand under
a tree and feel the green shadow of the tree ! I never knew
before the difference of the sensation of a green shadow and
a brown one. I seemed to feel that green shadow through
and through me, till it went out at the soles of my feet and
mixed with the other green below. Is it nonsense, or not ?
Remember that by too much use we lose the knowledge
and apprehension of things, and that I may feel therefore
what you do not feel.
But in everything I felt you — and always, dearest
beloved, you were nearer to me than the best.
Well ; to go on with my story. Coming home and
submitting to be carried up-stairs because I was tired, the
news was that Miss Bayley had waited to see me three
quarters of an hour. Then she sate with me an hour — and
oh, such kind, insisting, persisting plans about Italy ! I did
not know what to say, so I was niaise and grateful, and said
‘ thank you, thank you ‘ as I could Did Mrs. Jameson
tell you of her scheme of going to Florence for two years
and to Venice for one, taking her niece with her in order to
an ‘ artistical education ‘ ? And Mr. Bezzi, who is the ‘ most
accurate of men,’ furnishes the details of necessary expenses,
and assures her in his programme that she may ‘ walk in silk
attire ‘ and drive her carriage like an English aristocrat, for
three hundred a year, at Florence — but the place is English-
ridden . . filled and polluted. Sorrento is better or even
Pisa. We will keep our Siren-isles to ourselves . . will we
not?
And now tell me. Was there not a picture of Sirens by
Etty, exhibited years ago . . which was also ‘ abominable,’
as I thought when I saw it ? Is it the same picture returning
like a disquieted ghoule . . much more that, than like
a Siren at all, if it is the same, . . I remember it was
scarcely to be looked at for hideousness . . though I heard
some carnivorous connoisseurs praising the ‘ colouring ‘ ! !
Foreigners might refer such artistical successes to our
national ‘beef . . . ‘le bifteak’ ideal. The materialism
of Art.
Can you love me so? do you? . . will you always?
And is any of that love ‘ lost,’ do you think, . . as the saying
is ? Indeed it is not. I put golden basins all round (the
reverse shape of lachrymatories) to catch every drop as it
falls, . . so that when we two shall meet together in the
new world, I may look in your face (as I cannot at this
moment) and say ‘ None of the love was lost, though all of
it was undeserved.’ May God bless you, dearest, best !
My heart is in you, I think. You would laugh to see the
books I take up . . first, ‘ Strafford ‘ . . then Suetonius to
see about your Caesar . . then the Naples book. Oh, but I
find you out in the Statesmen . . for all the dim light.
Your very own
Ba.