Day: June 17, 2018

[Postmark: June 17, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

My own Ba, I release ‘ you from just as much as you
would easily dispense me from observing in that mutual
promise. Indeed, it has become one unnecessary for our
present relation and knowledge : it was right at the begin-
ning for either to say to the other, using calm words, ‘ It is
your good I seek, not mine,’ and as if it were demonstrated
that I should secure yours at the expense of mine by leaving
you I would endeavour to do it – so, you assure me, you
would act by me. The one point to ascertain therefore, is –
what will amount to a demonstration ; and I for my part
apprize you that no other person in the world can by any
possibility know so much of me as to be entitled to pro-
nounce in the matter – to say ‘ it is for good or for evil ‘ –
therefore, you will no more be justified in giving up to that
kind of demonstration what I consent you shall give up to
one clearly furnished by myself, the only authentic one – than
you would be justified in paying my money, entrusted to
you, on the presentation of a cheque signed by somebody
else . . somebody who loves me better than himself, my
best of friends, truest of advisers &c. &c. It skills not,
boots not – ‘ John Smith ‘ is not R.B., nor B. A. and because
R.B. or B.A. shall be instantly attended to, – the counterfeit
must be refused.’ Just this, so rational and right, I under-
stood you to bid me promise – and so much you have
promised me, a proper precaution for the earlier time when
the friend might seem to argue with some plausibility
‘ really I understand my friend’s interests better than you can.’
But now, who dares assure me that ? I disbelieve it – one
only knows better, can ever know better – yourself ; and I
will obey yourself. So with me – I know better my own
good than you do yet, I think. When I tell you that good
requires such a step as you speak of, you shall acquiesce ;
I will tell you on the instant, as you, in your own case,
should tell me on the instant. I needed not ask you to
promise, as I foolishly did, that you would not act in the
saddest of ways – professing to see what could never be, and
believe what must be untrue. At the beginning, at the first
day, suppose Mr. Kenyon had said – you prevent his getting
such a place, which brings in so much honour and wealth –
or marrying such a person who would effect the same – you
might have assented then, in your comparative ignorance,
just as you could not have objected had he said, ‘ If you
hold Mr. B. to his engagement to come here on the Derby
Day you will ruin him assuredly, for his heart and soul are on
” the turf ” and his betting-book will go to wreck.’ To this
you could never bring yourself to pretend an assent – it
would be no argument if he went on saying ‘ – Why, A and B
and C go to races and bet on them ‘ – you know I do not
so you know my estimate of honour and wealth and the rest,
apart . . I will not say from the love of you, – but from my
own life as I had traced it years ago, and as it is still traced
for me to its end, – your love coming to help it in every
smallest particular, to supply the undreamed-of omissions
in the plan of it, and remove the obstructions best seen
now that they are removed or removable. There is a calmest
‘ of calm ‘ statements of the good of you to me.

My dearest Ba, you say ‘ let us both think ‘ – think of
of this, you ! Do not for God’s sake introduce an element
of uncertainty and restlessness and dissatisfaction into the
feeling whereon my life lies. To speak for myself, this
matter is concluded, done with, – I am yours, you are mine,
and not to give use to refinements upon refinements as to
what is the being most of all each other’s, which might end
in your loving me best while I was turned a Turk in the
East, or my – you know the inquisition does all for the
pure love of the victim’s soul. Let us have common sense –
and think, in its most ordinary exercise, what would my
life be worth now without you – as I, – putting on your own
crown, accepting your own dearest assurance, – dare believe
your life would be incomplete now without mine – so you
have allowed me to believe. Then our course is plain. If
you dare make the effort, we will do as we propose, if not,
not : I have nothing to do but take your hand . . there is
not one difficulty in my path, – nor in yours on my account,
that is for me. If I change my views, and desire hereafter
what I altogether turn from now, – in what conceivable
respect will your being my wife hinder me ? If I accept the
Embassy which Young England in the person of Milnes has
promised me – you shall offer no impediment. If I rather
aspire to ‘ dine out ‘ here in London, you shall stay at home
and be good-natured. I shall attain to all these delights just
as easily with you as without you, I suppose ; ‘ No, I cannot
marry some other woman and by her means and connec-
tions and connexions ‘ – No – because first and least of all,
I begin by drawing on myself the entire cataract of shame
and disgrace in the mouth of the world, – direct accusation or
rather condemnation, against which not a word can be
urged in mitigation, because all would be the pure simple
truth – I do this, who have been fretfully wincing under the
mere apprehension of catching a mere spatter or two of
gossiping scandal – which a very few words would get rid of,
seeing that, in fact, the falseness of the imputation will be
apparent to everybody with eyes to see – for after all, here I
am, living to my own pleasure and my father and mother’s,
and at liberty to do so for ever, as mortals say. Well, and
so having gone under the whole real cataract instead of the
sprinkling impertinence of the half a dozen sprinklings from
the mop at the nursery- window which an upward look and cry
will stop at once, – so having mended the matter, I commit a
sin which I turn and ask you, should you be ever at peace with
God and yourself if you sate still and suffered me to commit, –
not on account of me and my harm to follow in both worlds,
– but in mere justice to your ‘ neighbour,’ – on whom you
would see inflicted this infamous wrong ?

Dear, dear, dear Ba, I kiss you, kiss my heart out unto
you, – best love, one love ! I see above what I will not think
over again, look over again – but what then ? Can I be
quiet when I hear the least, least motion about my treasure,
and my heart that is there, with it ? Then no more, I
beseech you, love, never one word more of all that !
Whenever I can hear such words calmly, I shall be
fit for agreeing to them, – let all be now. These two
kindest of letters both come in together to my blessing –
my entire blessing ! I was writing the last line when they
came – I will just say now, that the Greenwich affair is put
off till Friday. Do not I understand Miss Bayley ! And
do I understand you, my Ba, when I venture this time –
because of the words and the pain I shall not hide that
they did give me, to feel that, even beyond my kissing
you, you kiss this one time your own R.B.

My mother is much better, and out – she is walking
with my sister. I am very well – in the joy perhaps . . but
really much better – and have been so.

My two hundredth letter from her! I, poor?

[Postmark: June 17, 1846]

Tuesday Evening.

Best, . . best, you are, to write to me when you were
tired, and so ! When I am tired and write to you, it is too
apt to be what may trouble you. With you, how different !
In nothing do you show your strength more than in your
divine patience and tenderness towards me, till . . not
being used to it, I grow overwhelmed by it all, and would
give you my life at a word. Why did you love me, my
beloved, when you might have chosen from the most perfect
of all women and each would have loved you with the
perfectest of her nature ? That is my riddle in this world.
I can understand everything else . . I was never stopped
for the meaning of sorrow upon sorrow . . but that you
should love me I do not understand, and I think that I
never shall.

Do I remember? Yes indeed, I remember. How I
recurred and wondered afterwards, though at the moment
it seemed very simple and what was to be met with in our
philosophy every day. But there, you see, there’s the
danger of using mala verba ! The Fates catch them up
and knit them into the web ! Then I remember all the
more (though I should at any rate) through an imprudence
of my own (or a piece of ill-luck rather . . it shall not be
called an imprudence) of which I will tell you. I was
writing to Miss Mitford and of you – we differed about you
often, . . because she did not appreciate you properly, and
was fond of dwelling on the ‘ obscurity ‘ when I talked of
the light, – and I just then writing of you, added in my
headlong unreflecting way that I had had a real letter from
you which said that you loved me – ‘Oh but,’ – I wrote
on, ‘ you are not to mistake this, not to repeat it for of
course, it is simply the purest of philanthropies ‘ . . . some
words to that effect – and if yours was the purest of philan-
thropies, mine was the purest of innocences, as you may
well believe, . . for if I had had the shadow of a foresight,
I should not have fallen into the snare. So vexed I was
afterwards ! Not that she thought anything at the time,
or has referred to it since, or remembers a word now.
Only I was vexed in my innermost heart . . and am . . do
you know? . . that I should have spoken lightly of such
an expression of yours though you meant it lightly too.
Dearest ! It was a disguised angel and I should have
known it by its wings though they did not fly.

But I foresaw nothing, . . looked to you for nothing,
. . nothing can prove better to myself, than my having
mentioned the quaint word at all. For I know, and I hope
you know, how impossible it always has been to me to
choose for a subject of conversation and jest, things which
never should be spoken to friend or sister. But how was
I to foresee ? So the quaintness passed as quaintness with
me. And never from that time (you grew sacred too soon !),
never again from that moment, did I mention you to Miss
Mitford – oh yes, I did, when she talked of introducing
Mr. Chorley, and when I replied that, being a woman, I
would have my wilful way, and that my wilful way was to
see you instead. But except then . . and when I sent her
Mr. Landor’s verses on you . . not a word have I spoken
. . except in bare response. She thinks perhaps that my
old fervour about you has sunk into the socket – she
suspects nothing – in fact she does not understand what love
is . . and I never should think of asking her for sympathy.
She is one of the Black Stones, which, when I climb up
towards my Singing Tree and Golden Water, will howl
behind me and call names.

You had my second letter to-day, speaking of Landor,
and of Mr. Kenyon’s visit. At half-past six came Miss
Bayley, talking exceeding kindnesses of Italy, and entreating
me to use her . . to let her go with me and take care of me
and do me all manner of good. What kindness, really, in a
woman whom I have not seen six times in all ! I am very
grateful to her. She held my hands, and told me to write
to her if ever I had need of her – she would come at a
moment, go for a year ! – she would do anything for me I
desired ! And this woman to believe of herself that she
has no soul ! Help me to thank her in your thoughts of
her ! She said, by the way, that Mrs. Jameson had talked
to her of wishing to take me, . . but she thought (Miss
Bayley thought) that she (Mrs. Jameson) had too many
objects and too much vivacity . . it would not do so well,
she thought. In reply – I could just thank her, and scarcely
could do that, . . only I am sure she saw and felt that I
was grateful to her aright, let the words come ever so
wrong. To-morrow she leaves London for an indefinite time.

She told me too that a friend of hers, calling on Mrs.
Jameson, had found her on the point of coming to me
to-day, to drive out . . but she suffered from toothache and
was going to Cartwright’s first . . . and last, I suppose. I
dare say he put her to torture, to be classified with ‘ the
thumbscrew and the gadge’ . . some disabling torture,
for I have not seen her at all. So as at half-past seven
Henrietta was going out to dinner, Lizzie and I and Flush
took our places by her in the carriage, and went to Hyde
Park . . drove close by the Serpentine, and saw by the
ruffling of the water that there was a breath of wind more
than we felt. The shadows were gathering in quite fast,
shade upon shade ; and at last the silvery water seemed to
hold all the light left, as on the flat of a hand. Very much
I liked and enjoyed it. And, as we came home, the gas
was in the shops . . another strange sight for me – and we
all liked everything. Flush had his head out of the window
the whole way . . except when he saw a long whip, . . or
had a frightful vision at the water of somebody washing a
little dog . . which made him draw back into the carriage
with dilated eyes and quivering ears, and set about licking
my hands, for an ‘ Ora pro nobis.’ And Lizzie confided to
me, that, when she is ‘ grown up,’ she never will go out to
dinners like Henrietta, but drive in the park like Ba, instead
. . unless she can improve upon both, and live in a cottage
covered with roses, in the country. I, in the meantime,
between my companions, thought of neither of them more
than was necessary, but of somebody whom I had been
teazing perhaps . . dearest, was it so, indeed ? . . but I
avenge you by teazing myself back again ! A long rambling
letter, with nothing in it ! ‘ Passages, that lead to nothing ‘
and staircases, too ! May I be loved nevertheless, as
usual ? and forgiven for my ‘ secret faults ? ‘ You are the
whole world to me and the stars besides !

And I am your very own

BA.

[Postmark: June 17, 1846]

Tuesday. 6 o’clock.

Beloved, this weather, which makes Flush cross, perhaps
helped to make me depressed this morning. I had not
slept well, and ought not to have written to you till the
effect of it had gone off. Now I feel more as if I had been
with you yesterday. Ah well ! I don’t, can’t remember
what I wrote . . and some of it was wise . . for I ought
not to have promised that, . . and you must loose me, that
I may be loosed in Heaven, from the bands of it. Only
you are not to go to Greenwich (you go to Greenwich
to-morrow, do you not ?) thinking that I wanted to teaze you.
There is just one meaning to all my words, let them be sad
or gay . . and it is, that your happiness is precious. For
myself, if we were to part now and for ever, I should still owe
you the only happiness of my life. But nobody is talking of
parting, you know – I am yours, and cannot be put away from
you except by your own hand. Which is decided ! What
I ask of you, is to spare me the pang of causing you to
suffer on my account, . . and you may suffer sometimes, I
fear, through all your affection for me, . . and indirectly, if
not directly.

Two visitors I have had to-day – dear Mr. Kenyon, and
Lady Margaret Cocks. She is going to Italy – (oh, of
course !) to Rome. He came to tell me that the books
came to me from Landor himself, and that I must write
to him to thank him properly. Mrs. Jameson I do not see,
nor Miss Bayley.

How hot it will be for you to-morrow ! Try to be
amused and not too tired, dearest beloved, and tell me in
your letters how the head is.

While the heart beats (mine !) I am your own.

I am going in the carriage presently and shall write
again to-night. Won’t that be three times in a day according
to order?