[Postmark: June 4, 1846]
Thursday.
‘Vex me,’ or ‘ teaze me,’ my own Ba, you cannot. I look
on it indeed, after a moment, as the only natural effect of
your strange disbelief in yourself, and ignorance of our true
relation one to the other by every right and reason. Only,
Ba, you are wrong — doubly, — that is, you would be wrong if
your own estimate of your power over me were the true one —
for, — though it is difficult for me to fancy these abstractions
and fantastic metamorphoses (as how one could feel without
one’s head, — or how I could live without the love of you
now I have once got it) — yet, since you make me, I will
fancy I love my head and love you no longer. . and then
(which is now) now, do you think I am so poor a creature
as to go on adding to my faults, and letting you gently
down, as the phrase is, with cowardly excuses, ‘ postponing’
this, and ‘consenting to delay’ the other, — and perhaps
managing to get you to do the whole business for me in the
end? I hope and think I should say at once — Oh, no
more of this ! But see how right I was — ‘an instinct, you
seem to see.’ So, I have been thinking, — there are but few
topics of our conversation from which any such impressions
could arise — was it that I have asked more than once, if
you could really bear another winter in London, (in all
probability a severe one) — and again, if you could get to
Italy by any ordinary means without the same opposition
you will have to encounter for my sake ? . . My Ba, as God
knows, all that was so much pure trembling attempting to
justify myself for the over-greatness of the fortune, the
excess of the joy, — if I could but feel that there was a
little of your own good in it too — that you would gain that
much advantage at least by my own inestimable advantage !
If you knew how, — spite of all endeavours, — how happy
I have been — which is a shame to confess — but how very
happy to hear that you could not without a degree of
danger stay here — could no more easily leave England
with Miss Bayley than with me ! It seemed to justify me,
as I say. And so of ‘ the wishing I had not mentioned
Italy ‘ — I wish your will to be mine, to originate mine, your
pleasure to be only mine. Expressed first — it will be my
pleasure . . but all is wrong if you take the effect, seek to
know it, before the cause. What does it matter that I should
prefer Italy to Nova Zembla ? So, you ought to have begun
by saying ‘we will go there,’ and then my pleasure in
obedience had been naturally expressed. Did I not ask you
whether you had not, after all, thought of going to Italy first
— to Pisa, or Malta, — from the very beginning ? Always to
Justify myself ! Always !
But — this too is misunderstood. Let me say humbly, I
should prefer to go with you to Italy or any place where
we can live alone for some little time, till you can know me,
be as sure of me as of yourself. Nor am I so selfish, I hope,
as that (because my uttermost pride and privilege and
glory above all glories would be to live in your sick-room
and serve you,) — as that, on that account, I would not
rather see you in a condition to need none of my service
. . the next thing to serving you, is to be — what shall
I say? — served by you . . loved by you, made happy
by you — it is the being an angel, though there might be archangels —
And if now you do not-understand, — well, I kneel to
you, my Ba, and pray you to give yourself to me in deed as
in word, the body as the heart and mind, — and now ! — at
any time, — you know what I cannot say, I cannot, I think,
— if I know myself — love you more than I do . . but I
shall always love you thus — and thus, in any case, happen
what God may ordain —
Your R.
I know this is taking the simple experimental question
too seriously to heart . . but such experiments touch at the
very quick and core of the heart . . I cannot treat them
otherwise — ought I ?
You will see Miss Bayley to-day — Mr. Kenyon asked if
I were going to call to-day . . ‘ if not. Miss B. would.’
I have your letter . . the short note, not the promised
one . . for all this writing about the question . . but I
could not merely say — ‘ Oh no, you mistake . . I had rather,
upon the whole, not wait.’
Even now the feeling, in its subsiding, hinders me from
speaking of the delightful account of ‘ Treppy ‘ . . whom I
remember now, perfectly — and what comfort is in thy dear
note !
Bless you, my ‘ darlingest creature,’ — my Ba !