[Postmark: June 22, 1846]
Sunday.
I write to you in the drawing-room, and have brought
down with me, I find, no smaller paper – but it can’t be
filled, can it ? though I have to tell you the great news
about the lilies . . that all, except two, are in full blow . .
and that the two are unfolding . . I can almost see the
leaves move. I told you how it would be. They will live,
. . and last longer than the roses, . . which I shall have
to tell you by history as well as prediction, presently. The
next news is not so good, – for I have had a note from Mrs.
Jameson to the effect that she will come to take me to the
pictures to-morrow, Monday – so that there will be no time
to be diplomatic. My hope was of your meeting her at
Mr. Carlyle’s, before she could arrange anything finally, –
and really I do feel as disappointed as if I had had a reason
for the hope. Now, unless we have another miracle, there’s
an end, I suppose.
Think of my having left Flush behind me fast asleep.
He dashes at the door in the most peremptory way, and
nearly throws me backward when I open it, with his leaping-
up-joy . . if it is not rather his reproach.
Now I am here all alone, except Flush – sitting, leaning
against the open window with my feet curled up, and, at
them, Flush curled up too ; and I writing on my knee more
meo. Rather cooler it seems, but rather too hot still it is, I
think. How did you get home ? how are you, dearest ?
And your mother ? tell me of her, and of you ! You
always, you know (do you know ?), leave your presence with
me in the flowers ; and, as the lilies unfold, of course I see
more and more of you in each apocalypse. Still, the
Saturday’s visit is the worst of all to come to an end, as
always I feel. In the first place stands Sunday, like a wall
without a door in it ! no letter ! Monday is a good day
and makes up a little, but it does not prevent Tuesday and
Wednesday following . . more intervening days than be-
tween the other meetings – or so it seems. I forgot to
tell you that yesterday I went to Mr. Boyd’s house . . not
to see him, but as a preliminary step to seeing him. Arabel
went to his room to tell him of my being there – we are
both perhaps rather afraid of meeting after all these years
of separation. Quite blind he is – and though scarcely
older than Mr. Kenyon (perhaps a year or two or three), so
nervous, that he has really made himself infirm, and now he
refuses to walk out or even to go down-stairs. A very
peculiar life he has led ever since he lost his sight, which he
did when he was quite a young man – and a very peculiar
person he is in all possible ways. His great faculty is . .
memory . . and his great passion . . Greek to which of
late he has added Ossian. Otherwise, he talks like a man
of slow mind, which he is, . . and with a child’s way of
looking at things, such as would make you smile – oh, he
talks in the most wonderfully childish way ! Poor Mr.
Boyd. He cares for me perhaps more than he cares for
any one else . . far more than for his own only daughter ;
but he is not a man of deep sensibility, and, if he heard of
my death, would merely sleep a little sounder the next
night. Once he said to me that whenever he felt sorry
about anything, he was inclined to go to sleep. An affec-
tionate and grateful regard . . grateful for many kindnesses
. . I bear him, for my part. He says that I should wear
the crown in poetry, if I would but follow Pope – but that
the dreadful system of running lines one into another
ruins everything. When I talk of memory, I mean merely
the mechanical faculty. The associative, which makes
the other a high power, he wants. So I went to his house
in St. John’s Wood yesterday, and saw the little garden.
Poor Mr. Boyd. There, he lives, all alone – and never
leaving his chair ! yet cheerful still, I hear, in all that
desolation. As for you and Tennyson, he never heard of
you . . he never guesses at the way of modern literature
. . and it is the intense compliment to me when he reads
verses of mine, ‘ notwithstanding my corrupt taste,’ . . to
quote his own words.
Dearest, do you love me to-day ? I think of you, which
is quite the same thing. Think of me to-morrow at half- past
four when Mrs. Jameson comes, and I shall have all that
exertion to go through without the hope of you. Only that
you are always there . . here ! – and I, your very own
BA.