Month: June 2018

[Postmark: June 30, 1846]

Tuesday.

I have looked in the map for ‘ L– ,’ the place praised
in the letter, and conclude it must be either Ceva, (La Ceva,
between Nocera and Salerno, about four miles from the
latter, and on the mountain-side, I suppose . . see a map,
my Ba !) – or else Lucera, (which looks very like the word . .
and which lies at about sixty miles to the N.E. of Naples, in
a straight line over the mountains and roadless country, but
perhaps twice as far by the mainway through Avellino, Ariano,
Bovino, and Savia – (exactly 120 Italian miles now that I
count the posts). So that there would be somewhat of a
formidable journey to undertake after the sea voyage. I
daresay at Ceva there is abundance of quietness, as the few
who visit Salerno do not go four miles inland, – can you
enquire into this ?

How inexpressibly charming it is to me to have a pretext
for writing thus . . about such approaches to the real event
these business-b’ke words, and names of places ! If at the
end you should bring yourself to say ‘ But you never
seriously believed this would take place – ‘what should I
answer, I wonder?

Let me think on what is real, indisputable, however . .
the improvement in the health as I read it on the dear, dear
cheeks yesterday. This morning is favourable again . . you
will go out, will you not ?

Mr. Kenyon sends me one of his kindest letters to ask
me to dine with him next week – on Wednesday. I feel his
kindness, just as you feel in the other case, and in its lesser
degree, I feel it, and then I know, dare think I know
whether he will be so sorry in the end, – loving you as he
does. I will send his letter that you may understand here as
elsewhere.

I think my head is dizzy with reading the debates this
morning – Peel’s speech and farewell. How exquisitely absurd,
it just strikes me, would be any measure after Miss Marti-
neau’s own heart, which should introduce women to Parlia-
ment as we understand its functions at present how essen
tially retrograde a measure ! Parliament seems no place for
originating, creative minds but for second-rate minds
influenced by and bent on working out the results of these
– and the most efficient qualities for such a purpose are
confessedly found oftener with men than with women –
physical power having a great deal to do with it beside. So
why shuffle the heaps together which, however arbitrarily
divided at first, happen luckily to lie pretty much as one
would desire, – here the great flint stones, here the pebbles
– and diamonds too. The men of genius knew all this, said
more than all this, in their way and proper place on the
outside, where Miss M. is still saying something of the kind
– to be taken up in its time by some other Mr. Cobden and
talked about, and beleaguered. But such people cannot or
will not see where their office begins and advantageously
ends ; and that there is such a thing as influencing the
influencers, playing the Bentham to the Cobden, the Barry
to a Commission for Public Works, the Lough to the three
or four industrious men with square paper caps who get
rules and plummets and dot the blocks of marble all over as
his drawings indicate. So you and I will go to Salerno or
L– – (not to the L– akes, Heaven forefend !) and if we
‘ let sail winged words, freighted with truth from the throne
of God ‘ – we may be sure –

Ah, presumption all of it ! Then, you shall fill the
words with their freight, and I will look on and love you, –
is that too much ? Yes – for any other – No – for one you
[know] is yours –

Your very own.

For the quick departing yesterday our day was not
spoken of . . it is Saturday, is it not ?

[Postmark: June 30, 1846]

Tuesday Morning.

The gods and men call you by your name, but I never
do – never dare. In case of invocation, tell me how you
should be called by such as I ? not to be always the ‘ inex-
pressive He ‘ which I make of you. In case of courage for
invocation ! –

Dearest . . (which is a name too) read on the paper in-
side what I have been studying about Salerno since we
parted yesterday. Forsyth is too severe in his deductions,
perhaps, from the apothecaries, but your Naples book will
not help me to contradict him, saying neither the one thing
nor the other. The word we could not read in the letter
yesterday, was La Cava – and La Cava is a town on the way
between Naples and Salerno, which Mrs. Stark describes as
‘ a large town with porticoes on each side of the High Street,
like those at Bologna.’ To which the letter adds, remember
‘ enchantingly beautiful, very good air and no English
Then there is Vietri, mentioned by Forsyth, between La Cava
and Salerno, and on the bay. It is as well to think of all
three. Were you ever at either ? Amalfi itself appears to
be very habitable. Oh – and your Naples book says of
Salerno, that it is illuminated by fireflies, and that the
chanting of frogs covers the noises of the city. You will like
the frogs, if you don’t the apothecaries, and I shall like the
fireflies if I don’t the frogs – but I do like frogs, you know,
and it was quite a mistake of yours when you once thought
otherwise.

Now I am going out in the carriage, to call on Mr.
Kenyon, and perhaps to see Mr. Boyd. Your flowers are
more beautiful than they were yesterday, if possible : and
the fresh coolness helps them to live, so, that I hope you
may see some of them on Saturday when you come. On
Saturday ! What a time to wait ! if not for them, yet for
me. Of the two, it is easier for them, certainly. They only
miss a little dew and air.

I shall write again to-night, – but I cannot be more then
than now, nor less ever than now

Your own

BA.

Here is a coincidence. Hardly had you left me, when,
passing near the table at the end of the room, I saw a parcel
there. Remember your question about the ‘Year of the
World’ Precisely that ! With a note, the counterpart of
yours – desiring an opinion !

May God bless you, dear, dear ! – Did I ever think I
should live to thank God that I did not die five years ago ?
– Not that I quite, quite dare to do it yet. I must be sure
first of something.

Which is not your love, my beloved – it is a something
still dearer and of more consequence.

SALERNO.

‘ Though placed between the beauties of sea and land, of
cultivated and rude nature, the city is so unhealthy that its
richer inhabitants remove to Vietri during the hot months.
In proof of its bad air, I remark here a number of apothe-
caries ! ‘ FORSYTH.

‘ Its white houses curving round the haven at the water’s
brink, the mountains crowding close behind the city, the
ruins of its Gothic castle on the olive-covered hill above,
together mirrored on the waveless water, itself alternate shine
and shadow – ’tis a noble sight.

‘ The view from Salerno is one of the loveliest pictures in
Italy. A clear-complexioned, open-eyed, and bright-faced
city is modern Salerno, – and its streets and piazza were all
astir.’ Letters from Naples.

‘ This town, the approach to which is enchanting, boasts
a tolerably good inn !!’ MRS. STARKE.

[Postmark: June 29, 1846]

Sunday.

My last letter will have answered this of yours, my
dearest, – I agree in all you say ; and sooner or later comes
to the same thing, if to any possible increase of difficulty is
brought a proportionate increase of strength to undergo it –
as let us hope will be the case ! So you see you have to
‘ understand ‘ and understand me, – I keep your faculty in
constant exercise, now with seeming to wish for postpone-
ment, and now, for anticipation ! And all the time do I
really ‘ grow greater ‘ in your eyes ? I might grow less woe-
fully, – ‘ for reasons for reasons ‘-

The sea will not be frozen, beside . . which makes me
think to tell you that Carlyle is wanting to visit only one
foreign country – Iceland. The true cradle of the Northmen
and their virtues . . all that is worth a Northman’s caring
to see is there, he thinks, and nowise in Italy. Perhaps !
Indeed, so I reason and say – Did I not once turn on myself
and speak against the Southern spirit, and even Dante, just
because of that conviction ? – (or imperfect conviction,
whence the uneasy exaggeration). Carlyle thinks modern
Italy’s abasement a direct judgment from God. ‘ Here is a
nation in whose breast arise men who could doubt, examine
the new problems of the reformation &c. – trim the balance at
intervals, and throw overboard the accumulation of falsehood
– all other nations around, less favoured, are doing it labori-
ously for themselves . . now is the time for the acumen of
the Bembos, the Bentivoglios and so forth . . and these and
their like, one and all, turn round, decline the trouble, say
‘ these things may be true, or they may not, meantime let us
go on verse-making, painting, music-scoring’ – to which all
the nation accedes as if relieved of a trouble – upon which
God bids the Germans go in and possess them ; pluck their
fruits and feel their sun after their own hard work.’ Carlyle
said the sense of this, between two huge pipe-whiffs, the other
afternoon.

‘ Pluck their fruits ‘ – some four years ago I planted . .
or held straight while my mother planted, a fig-tree, – for
love of Italy ! This year it bears its first fruit . . a single
one ! what does that bode ?

Since I wrote the last paragraph, the wind took my
thoughts away, as it always does, and I saw you again as I
used to see, before I knew you, so very substanceless, faint,
unreal – when I was struck by the reality again, – by this
paper, – by to-morrow’s visit I shall pay . . it was as if some-
one had said ‘ but that star is your own.’

I fancied you just what I find you – I knew you from the
beginning.

Let me kiss you dearest dearest –

[Postmark: June 27, 1846]

Saturday.

I said I would answer your letter to-day, my beloved,
but how shall I say more than I have said and you know ?
Do you not know, you who will not will ‘ over ‘ me, that I
cannot will against you, and that if you set yourself seriously
to take September for October, and August for September,
it is all at an end with me and the calendar ? Still, seriously
. . there is time for deciding, is there not ? . . . even if I
grant to you, which I do at once, that the road does not grow
smoother for us by prolonged delays. The single advantage
perhaps of delay is, that in the summer I get stronger every
week and fitter to travel – and then, it never was thought of
before (that I have heard) to precede September so. Last
year, was I not ordered to leave England in October, and
permitted to leave it in November ? Yet I agree, November
and perhaps October might be late – might be running a
risk through lingering . . in our case ; and you will believe
me when I say I should be loth to run the risk of being forced
to the further delay of a year – the position being scarcely
tenable. Now for September, it generally passes for a hot
month – it ripens the peaches – it is the figtime in Italy.
Well – nobody decides for September nevertheless. The
end of August is nearer – and at any rate we can consider,
and observe the signs of the heavens and earth in the mean-
while – there is so much to think of first ; and the end, re-
member, is only too frightfully easy. Also you shall not
have it on your conscience to have killed me, let ever so
much snow fall in September. If the sea should be frozen
over, almost we might go by the land – might we not ? and
apart from fabulous ports, there are the rivers – the Seine,
the Soane, the Rhone – which might be cheaper than the
sea and the steamers ; and would, I almost should fancy.
These are things among the multitude, to think of, and you
shall think of them, dearest, in your wisdom. Oh – there is
time – full time.

No – there is not, in a sense. I wanted to write so much
more, so much – and I went out to walk first, and, on re-
turning, met Mr. Kenyon, who came up-stairs with me.

Now it is too late to add a word.

May God bless you. I shall see you on Monday. I am
better for Highgate – I walked longer to-day than usual.
How strong you make me, you who make me happy !

I am your own.

[Postmark: June 27, 1846]

Saturday.

Your dear gentle laugh, as I seem to hear it, makes all
well again for the moment undoubtedly. I cannot help
trusting you implicitly . . so whenever I seem able to reason
a little, and set you reasoning for me, ought I not to try, – and
then give up, and sink my head over you . . dearest ! In
fact, I was a little frightened by what I heard and saw . .
for you, if you please, began by saying ‘ it was too cold to
go out ‘ – and you were paler, I thought. The news of High-
gate and the green leaves are re-assuring indeed – but my
brown leaves might be sent to you by myriads for all that,
for all the light laugh, – all roses fast going, lilies going . .
autumnal hollyhocks in full blow . . and now to count
three months over before summer is to end ! These rains
may do something, or hinder somewhat – and certainly our
fire was left alone early yesterday morning. Well, I have
not been presumptuous except … ah, the exception !

How could I presume, for one thing, to hope for last
evening’s letter . . a pure piece of kindness in you, Ba !
And all your kindness is pure, entire, pearl-like for round-
ness and completeness . . there is no one rough side as
when a crystal is broken off and given : do you think it no
good augury of our after life in what must be called, I sup-
pose, another relation, – that this has been so perfect . . to
me . . this last year, let me only say ? In this relation there
are as many ‘ écueils ‘ as in the other, – as many, though of a
different nature, lovers quarrel on as various grounds as the
wedded – and though with the hue and softness of love the
most energetic words and deeds may change their character;
yet one might write savage sentences in Chinese celestial-
blue ink, which after a powdering with gold-dust should
look prettier than the truest blessing in ordinary black.
But you have been PERFECT to me hitherto – perfect ! And
of course only to you is the praise . . for I have to be en-
tirely confided in by you, seeing that you cannot keep an
eye on me after I leave your room . . whereas, – not I, but a
gross, stupid fool who conceived of no liberty but that of the
body, nor that the soul may be far more unfaithful – such
an one might exult in the notion of the closed door and the
excluded world of rivals.

Bless you, darling – Monday is not very far off now !
And I am to hear again. I am much better, – my mother
much better too. I saw my French friend and talked and
heard him talk. Yesterday, the whole day, (after the fire
went out) was given to a cousin of mine, a girl, just married,
and here from Paris with her husband – these two had to be
amused somehow. Ever your very own – R.

[Postmark: June 27, 1846]

Friday Evening.

Ever dearest, I send you a bare line to-night, for it is late
and I am very tired ; having . . while you were sitting by
the fire . . been, for my part, driving to Highgate . . now
think of that ! Also it has done me good, I think, and
I shall sleep for it to-night perhaps, though I am tired
certainly.

Your letter shall be answered to-morrow – and here is a
green answer to your leaves ! – what leaves ? whence and
how ? My green little branch, I gathered myself out of the
hedge, snatching at it from the carriage- window. The roses
were gone, or nearly gone, and the few left, quite out of
reach ; and the leaves keep behind to assure you that they
do not look for snow-storms in September. No ! it was not
that, they said. I am belying what they said.

I gathered them in the hedge of the pretty close green
lane which you go through to Hampstead. Were you ever
there, I wonder ?

Dearest, I will write to-morrow. Never are you ‘ im-
patient,’ inconsiderate – and as for selfishness, I have been
uneasy sometimes, precisely because you are so little selfish.
I am not likely to mistake . . to wrench the wrong way . .
any word of yours. As for mine, it was not a mere word,
when I said that you should decide everything. Could I
hold out for November, or October, or for September even,
if you choose against ? Indeed I could not. We – you will
think – I am yours, and if you never repent that, I shall not
– I am too entirely yours.

And so good-night – dearest beloved ! Because you
have a fire in June, is the snow to fall in September, and
earth and ocean to become impassable ? Ah well ! we shall
see ! But you shall not see that I deceive you –

I am your very own

Ba.

Dear brown leaves ! where did they come from, besides
from you ?

Not a north wind. Only a north-west wind, as I could
have proved to you if you had been with me ! Yet it is a
detestable climate, this English climate, let us all confess.
Say how your head is.

[Postmark: June 26, 1846]

Friday Morning.

Arabel insists on my going out in the carriage, but I
will not, I say, before I have written my letter – and while
we talk, the rain comes down like a guardian angel, and I
cannot go out before I have written my letter, as is apparent
to all. Dearest, you did me such good yesterday with see-
ing you and hearing you, that I slept better and am better
altogether, and after a little change into the air, shall be
well – and how is your head ? Now do not forget to tell
me particularly. Say too whether you found your friend
and had the right quantity of talk and got home without
being the worse for him . . or me !

I have not had the heart to look at the newspapers, but
hear that Sir Robert Peel has provided liberally for the
present necessities of the poor Haydons. And do you
know, the more I think the more I am inclined to conclude
that the money-distress was merely an additional irritation,
and that the despair leading to the revolt against life, had its
root in disappointed ambition. The world did not recognize
his genius, and he punished the world by withdrawing the
light. If he had not that thought in him, I am wrong. The
cartoon business, and his being refused employment in the
Houses of Parliament . . that was bitter : and then came his
opposition with Tom Thumb and the dwarfs triumph . . he
talked bitterly of that in a letter to me of last week. He
was a man, you see, who carried his whole being and sensi-
bility on the outside of him ; nay, worse than so, since in
the thoughts and opinions of the world. All the audacity
and bravery and self-exultation which drew on him so much
ridicule were an agony in disguise – he could not live
without reputation, and he wrestled for it, struggled for it,
kicked for it, forgetting grace of attitude in the pang. When
all was vain, he went mad and died. Poor Haydon ! He
measures things differently now ! and let us now be right
and just in our admeasurement of what he was – for, with
all his weaknesses, he was not certainly far from being a
great man.

It is hope and help, to be able to look away from all
such thoughts, to you, dearest beloved, who do not partake
of the faults and feeblenesses of these lower geniuses – There
is hope and help for the world in you – and if for the world,
why for me indeed much more. You do not know . .
ah, you do not know – how I look up to you and trust
perfectly in you. You are above all these clouds – your
element is otherwise – men are not your taskmasters that
you should turn to them for recompense. ‘ Shall I always
think the same of you,’ you asked yesterday. But I never
think the same of you ; because day by day you look greater
and feel dearer. Only there is a deep gulph of another
question, close beside that, which suggests itself, and makes
me shudder to look down.

And now, the rain is over, and I shall dine briefly, and
go out n the carriage.

May God bless you . . très bon ! très cher, pour cause.

Toute à toi – pour toujours.

[Postmark: June 26, 1846]

Friday Morning.

I drew the table to the fire before I wrote this. Here
is cool weather, grateful to those overcome by last week’s
heat, I suppose ! – much as one conceives of a day’s starva-
tion being grateful to people who were overfeasted some
time back. But the coolness (that is, piercing cold as the
north wind can make) sets me to ponder on what you said
yesterday, – of considering summer as beginning next Wed-
nesday, or there about, and ending by consequence with
September. Our time is ‘ at the Summer’s end ‘ : and it
does strike me that there may be but too many interpositions
beside that of ‘ my own will ‘ . . far too many. If those
equinoctial winds disturb the sea, the cold weather adds
to the difficulties of the land-journey . . then the will may
interpose or stand aloof . . I cannot take you and kill you
. . really, inevitably kill you ! As it is .. or rather, as it
might be, I should feel during a transit under the most
favourable circumstances possible, somewhat as the per-
former of that trick by which a full glass of water resting in
the open hand is made to describe a circle from above to
below and back without spilling a drop – through some good-
natured suspension, in the operator’s interest, of just a
fundamental law of the universe, no more ! Therefore if
any September weather shall happen in September . . let us
understand and wait . . another year ! and another, and
another.

Now, have I ever, with all those askings, asked you once
too often, that is, unnecessarily – ‘if this should be,’ – or
‘ when this should be ? ‘ What is my ‘ will ‘ to do with it ?
Can I keep the winds away, alas ? My own will has all
along been annihilated before you, – with respect to you – I
should never be able to say ‘ she shall dine on fish, or fruit,’
‘She i shall wear silk, gloves or ‘thread gloves’ – even to
exercise in fancy that much ‘ will over you ‘ is revolting – I
will this, never to be ‘ over you ‘ if I could !

So, you decide here as elsewhere – but do decide, Ba,
my own only Ba – do think, to decide. I can know nothing
here as to what is gained or lost by delay or anticipation – I
only refer to the few obvious points of the advantage of
our ‘ flight not being in the winter ‘ – and the consideration
that the difficulty in another quarter will never be less nor
more, – therefore is out of the question.

I will tell you something I meant to speak of yesterday.
Mrs. Jameson said Mr. Kenyon had assured her, with the
kindest intentions, that it was quite vain to make those
offers of company to Pisa or elsewhere, for your Father
would never give his consent, and the very rationality of the
plan, and probability of the utmost benefit following the
adoption of it, would be the harder to forego the more they
were entertained – whereupon, ‘having the passions of his
kind he spoke some certain things ‘ – bitter and unavoid-
able. Then Mrs J. spoke too, as you may imagine ; ap-
parently from better knowledge than even I possess. Now
I repeat this to your common- sense, my Ba – it is not hard to
see that you must be silent and suffering, where no other
can or will be either – so that if a verdict needs must be
pronounced on our conduct, it will be ‘ the world’s ‘ and
not an individual’s – and for once a fair one. Mrs. Jame-
son’s very words were . . (writing from what has been, observe
what is irrevocably past, and not what may be) – ‘ I feel
unhappy when in her presence . . impelled to do her some
service, and impeded. Can nothing be done to rescue
her from this ? ought it to continue ? ‘ So speaks – not your
lover ! – who, as he told you, did long to answer ‘ someone
with attempt, at least ! ‘ But it was best, for Mrs. Jameson
would be blamed afterward, as Mr. K. might be abused, as
ourselves will be vituperated, as my family must be
calumniated . . by whom

Do you feel me kiss your feet while I write this ? I
think you must, Ba ! There is surely, – I trust, surely no
impatience here, in this as in the other letter – if there is, I
will endeavour to repress it . . but it will be difficult – for I
love you, and am not a stock nor a stone.

And as we are now, – another year !

Well, kissing the feet answers everything, declares
everything – and I kiss yours, my own Ba.

[Postmark: June 24, 1846]

Wednesday.

But, dearest love – I have just come in later than I ex-
pected, I am happy to say . . for your note only just arrives
too, they say . . and I should have been frightened more
than I need say. All blessing on you, Ba. I have seen
no paper. – but Countess Hahn-Hahn said across Carlyle’s
table that poor H. had attempted to shoot himself and then
chosen another method – too successful. Horrible indeed –
All to say now is, I shall be with you to-morrow, – my
very own, dearest of all dear created things my life and
pride and joy – (Bless you). R.

There is nothing in to-day’s Times I find –

[Postmark: June 24, 1846]

Tuesday.

Ever tenderest, kindest and most beloved, I thank you
from the quick of my heart, where the thought of you lives
constantly ! In this world full of sadness, of which I have
had my part . . full of sadness and bitterness and wrong
. . full of most ghastly contrasts of life and death, strength
and weakness side by side . . it is too much, to have you
to hold by, as the river rushes on . . too much good, too
much grace for such as I, .. as I feel always, and cannot
cease to feel !

Oh yes – it has shocked me, -this dreadful news of poor
Mr. Haydon – it chilled the blood in my veins when I heard
it from Alfred, who, seeing the Times at the Great Western
Terminus, wrote out the bare extract and sent it to me
by the post. He just thought that the Chronicle did not
mention it, . . and that I had not seen Mr. Haydon . . he
did not perhaps think how it would shock me.

For, this I cannot help thinking. Could anyone –
could my own hand even . . have averted what has happened”?
My head and heart have ached to-day over the inactive
hand ! But, for the moment, it was out of my power, with-
out an application where it would have been useless and
then, I never fancied this case to be more than a piece of a
continuous case . . of a habit fixed. Two years ago he sent
me boxes and pictures precisely so, and took them back
again poor, poor Haydon ! – as he will not this time. And
he said last week that Peel had sent him fifty pounds . .
adding . . ‘ I do not however want charity, but employ-
ment.’ Also, I have been told again and again (oh, never
by you my beloved ! ) that to give money there, was to drop
it into a hole of the ground.

But if to have dropped it so, dust to dust, would have
saved a living man – what then?

Yet of the three notes I had from him last week, the
first was written so lightly, that the second came to desire
me not to attribute to him a ‘ want of feeling.’ And who
could thjnk . . contemplate . . this calamity ? May God
have mercy on the strongest of us, for we are weak. Oh,
that a man so high hearted and highly endowed . . a bold
man, who has thrown down gauntlet after gauntlet in the
face of the world – that such a man should go mad for a
few paltry pounds ! For he was mad if he killed himself !
of that I am as sure as if I knew it. If he killed himself,
he was mad first. .

Some day, when I have the heart to look for it, you
shall see his last note. I understand now that there are
touches in it of a desperate pathos – but never could he
have meditated self-destruction while writing that note.
He said he should write six sets, of lectures more . . six
more volumes. He said he was painting a new background
to a picture, which made him ‘ feel as if his soul had wings.’
And then he hoped his brain would not turn. And he
‘ gloried ‘ in the naval dangers of his son at sea. And he
repeated an old phrase of his, which I had heard from him
often before, and which now rings hollowly to the ears of
my memory . . that he couldrit and wouldn’t die. Strange
and dreadful !

It is nearly two years since we had a correspondence of
some few months – from which at last I receded, notwith-
standing the individuality and spirit of his letters, and my
admiration for a certain fervour and magnanimity of genius,
no one could deny to him. His very faults partook of that
nobleness. But for a year and a half or more perhaps, I
scarcely have written or heard from him – until last week
when he wrote to ask for a shelter for his boxes and pictures.
If you had enquired of me the week before, I might have
answered that I did not wish to renew the intercourse –
yet who could help being shocked and saddened ? Would
it have availed, to have dropped something into that ‘ hole
in the ground ? ‘ Oh, to imagine that \ Yet a little would
have been but as nothing ! – and he did not ask even for a
little and I should have been ashamed to have offered
but a little. Yet I cannot turn the thought away – that
I did not offer.

Henry went to the house as I begged him. His son
came to the door, and to a general enquiry ‘after the
family,’ said that ‘Mr. Haydon was dead and that his
family were quite as well as could be expected.’ That
horrible banality is all I know more than you know.

Yesterday at Rogers’s, Mrs. Jameson led me to his
picture of Napoleon at St. Helena. At the moment we
looked at it, his hand was scarcely cold, perhaps. Surely
it was not made of the commonest clay of men – that
hand !

I pour out my thoughts to you, dearest dearest, as if it
were right rather to think of doing myself that good and
relief, than of you who have to read all. But you spoil me
into an excess of liberty, by your tenderness. Best in the
world ! Oh – you help me to live – I am better and lighter
since I have drawn near to you even on this paper – already
I am better and lighter. And now I am going to dream of
you . . to meet you on some mystical landing place . . in
order to be quite well to-morrow. Oh – we are so selfish
on this earth, that nothing grieves us very long, let it be
ever so grievous, unless we are touched in ourselves . . in
the apple of our eye . . in the quick of our heart . . in
what you are, and where you are . . my own dearest
beloved ! So you need not be afraid for me ! We all look
to our own, as I to you ; the thunderbolts may strike the
tops of the cedars, and, except in the first start, none of us
be moved. True it is of me – not of you perhaps – certainly
you are better than I, in all things. Best in the world, you
are ! – no one is like you. Can you read what I have
written ? Do not love me less ! Do you think that I
cannot feel you love me, through all this distance? If you
loved me less, I should know, without a word or a sign.
Because I live by your loving me ! I am your

BA.