Month: June 2018

[Postmark: June 23, 1846]

Tuesday Morning

I was just on the point of answering your dear letter, in
all the good spirits it might be expected to wake in me,
when the sad news of poor Haydon’s death stopped all ;
much I feel it, for the light words of my own about his
extravagance, as I had been told of it, but very much more
on your account, who were so lately in communication with
him. I earnestly hope, – I will trust – you have not been
rudely apprised of this – I am happy to remember that you
do not see the newspaper in the morning, – others will see it
first ; perhaps there may be no notice in the Chronicle at all,
or on the other hand, a more circumstantial one than this
in the Times which barely says – ‘that B.R.H. died suddenly
at his residence – yesterday morning. He was in his usual
health on the previous evening, and it is believed that his
decease was hastened by pecuniary embarrassment’ – and
he is called ‘ the unfortunate gentleman ‘ – which with the
rest implies the very worst, I fear. If by any chance this
should be the first intimation you receive of it . . do not
think me stupid nor brutal, – for I thought again and again
as to the right course to take . . whether it would not be
best to be silent altogether and wait and see . . but in that
case I should have surprised you more by my cold letter, –
such an one as I could bring myself to write, – for how were
it possible to speak of pictures and indifferent matters when
you perhaps have been shocked, made ill by this news ? If
I have done wrong, forgive me, my own best, dearest Ba –
I would give the world to know how you are. The storm,
too, and lightning may have made you even more than
ordinarily unfit to be startled and grieved. God knows and
must help you ! I am but your devoted –

How glad I am you told me you had never seen him.
And perhaps he may be after all a mere acquaintance . .
anything I will fancy that is likely to relieve you of pain !
Dearest dearest !

[Postmark: June 23, 1846]

Monday Evening.

Well – I did look everywhere for you to-day, – but not
more than I always do – always I do, when I go out, look
for you in the streets . . round the corners ! And Mrs.
Jameson came alone and she and I were alone at Mr.
Rogers’s, and you must help me to thank her some day for
her unspeakable kindness to me, though she did not leap to
the height of the inspiration of managing to let us see those
pictures together. Ah – if she had, it would have been too
much. As it is, she gave me a great deal of pleasure in
the kindest of ways . . and I let it be pleasure, by mixing
it with enough thoughts of you – (otherwise how could it
be pleasure ?) – and she showed the pictures, and instructed
me, really taking pains and instructing me . . and tellin g
me how Rubens painted landscapes . . as how should my
ignorance guess ? . . . and various other unknown things
The first word as we reached the door, frightened me – for
she said that perhaps we might see Mr. Rogers . . which
was a little beyond our covenant – but we did not see him,
and I suppose the Antinous on the staircase is not at all
like him. Grand it is, in its serene beauty. On a colossal
scale, in white marble. For the pictures, they are full
of wonder and divinity – each giving the measure of a
man’s soul. And think . . sketches from the hand of
Michael Angelo and Raphael ! And a statuette in clay,
alive with the life of Michael Angelo’s finger – the blind
eyes looking . . seeing . . as if in scorn of all clay !
And the union of energy and meditation in the whole
attitude ! You have seen the marble of that figure in
Florence. Then, a divine Virgin and child, worn and faded
to a shadow of Raphael’s genius, as Mrs. Jameson explained
to me and the famous ‘ Ecce Homo ‘ of Guido . . and
Rubens’ magnificent ‘ version ‘ as she called it, of Andrea
Mantegna’s ‘Triumph of Julius Caesar.’ So triumphing to
this day ! And Titian, and Tintoretto . . . and what did
not strike me the least, . . a portrait of Rembrandt by him-
self, which if his landscapes, as they say, were ‘ dug out of
nature,’ looks as if it were dug out of humanity. Such a
rugged, dark, deep subterraneous face, . . yet inspired !
seeming to realize that God took clay and breathed into the
nostrils of it. There are both the clay, and the divinity !
And think ! I saw the agreement between the bookseller
and Milton for the sale of Paradise Lost ! with Milton’s
signature and seal ! and ‘ Witnessed by William Greene,
Mr. Milton’s servant.’ How was it possible not to feel
giddy with such sights ! Almost I could have run my head
against the wall, I felt, with bewilderment – and Mrs.
Jameson must have been edified, I have thought since,
through my intense stupidity. I saw too the first edition of
‘ Paradise Lost.’ The rooms are elegant, with no pretension
to splendour . . which is good taste, a part of the good
taste everywhere. Only, on the chimney-piece of the
dining-room, were two small busts, beautiful busts, white
with marble, . . and representing – now, whom, of gods
and men, would you select for your Lares . . to help your
digestion and social merriment ? . . . Caligula and Nero
in childhood! The ‘childhood’ is horribly suggestive to me!
On the side-board is Pope’s bust, by Roubillac – a too ex
pressive, miserable face – drawn with disease and bitter
thoughts, and very painful, I felt, to look at. These things
I liked least, in the selection and arrangement. Every-
thing beside was admirable : and I write and write of it all
as if I were not tired – but I am . . and most with the
excitement and newness. Mrs. Jameson breakfasted with
Mr. Rogers yesterday, she said, and met the Countess
Hahn-Hahn, who was talking of modern literature when
her host suddenly stopped her with a question . . ‘ Did you
ever read Addison ? ‘

How late it is. Must I have done, before I have half
done?

What I did not tell you yesterday is very much in my
thoughts . . do you know ? /, too, ‘ see what I know and
testify what I have felt . . and, as far as my faculties of
perception go ! ‘ I am confident that you had better not
look for a single reason for loving me. Which is worst ?
A bad reason, or no reason at all ? A bad reason, I think
– and accept the alternative. Ah . . my own only beloved.
And how you write to me to-night ! I will read what you
tell me in Landor . . but no words of inspired lips or
pen . . no poet’s word, of the divinest, . . ever went to
my heart as yours in these letters ! Do I not love you ?
am I not your own ? And while deserving nothing of all of
it, I feel it at least – respond to it – my heart is in your
hand. May God bless you . . ‘ and me in that ,’ – because
even He could not bless me without that. Which He
knows.

Your own.

But there is much beauty in Faustina oh, surely !
The lilies, all in blow except one . . which is blowing.
Are we going to have a storm to-night ? It lightens . .
lightens !

[Postmark: June 22, 1846]

Monday.

If I only thought for myself in this instance, I should at
once go and mount guard before your house so as to see
you, at least, for a moment as you leave it.

To hope for a word would never do . . you might be
startled, or simply not like such a measure, and in simili
incontri I will not run risks, but I should be able to see you,
my Ba . . why do I not go then ? People at doors and
windows are also able, alas, to see me too – so I stay . . if
this is staying away when I can see the curled-up feet and
kiss them beside, – ever dear feet !

Do you know the days and the times and the long
interval, – you, as I know ? How strange that you should
complain, and I become the happier ! If I could alter it,
and make you feel no subject for complaint any longer, I
would, – surely I would, and be happy in that too, I hope
. . yet the other happiness needs must be given up in that
case . . I cannot reason it out. I excuse my present selfish
happiness by feeling I would not exchange the sadness of
being away from you for any imaginable delight in which
you had no part. But I will have this delight, too, my
Ba, of imagining that you are gratified by what you will see
to-day. Tell me all, and what is said, and how you are at
the end.

Thank you meanwhile for the picture of poor Mr. Boyd
. . then he never has seen you, since he was blind so long
ago ! How strange and melancholy – you say he is ‘ cheer-
ful,’ however. In that case – think of unhappy Countess
Faustina with her ‘irresistible longings,’ and give her as
much of your commiseration as she ought to get. What a
horrible book . . how have I brought in what I prescribed
to myself ‘ silence about.’ Such characters as Faustina
produce the very worst possible effect on me – I don’t know
how they strike other people – but I am at once incited
‘ debellare superbos ‘ to try at least and pull down the
arrogant – contempt would be the most Christian of all the
feelings possible to be called forth by such a woman.
Let me get back to you, my own dearest- dearest, – I do
‘ love you to-day,’ if you must ask, and bidding me think
of you is all very well – never bid me not think of you ! –
and so never find out that there could be a bidding I am
unable to obey. But what is mere ‘ thinking ‘ ? I kiss your
hand, and your eyes, and now your lips, – and ask for my
heart back again, to give it and be ever giving it. No
words can tell how I am your own.

My mother is much better, – observably so, to-day.
Oh, dearest, – I want you to read Lander’s Dialogue between
Tasso and his Sister, in the second volume, – with the
exquisite Sorrentine scenery – do read it. I see your Tasso
with his prominent eyes as if they were ever just brightening
out of a sorrow that has broken over them.

How I like (‘ love ‘ is not my word now) but like Landor,
more and more !

[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.

[Postmark: June 22, 1846]

Sunday.

What I told you yesterday is very often in my thoughts,
my own Ba – that with respect to the love for you ‘ I see
what I know and testify what I have seen.’ I know what is,
and why it is – so far as my faculties of perception allow, of
course I rest on you just as I sate on the grass in the
garden this morning with the very earth’s immensity beneath :
that is very different from trusting to this chair which is firm
enough now, but might break down from a thousand causes.
How entirely I believe in you, Ba ! When you praise me,
I believe that you are in error, yet believe it none –– I know
I am not so truthful to you – not so invariably, in the least
as in the greatest matters – in the greatest, in the ordinary
even, I speak pure truth, – but the old conventional habits
cling, as I find out on reflection sometimes – but I aspire no
less to become altogether open to your sight as you are to
me, – I in my degree, – like a smallest of lake’s face under
the sky’s : and for this also I shall have to bless you, my only
Ba, – my only Ba !

I ought never . . I think I will not again . . attempt to
write down why I love you . . (not, NOT that it is done here,
but alluded-to, touched upon . .) The elements of the
love . . (I say ‘ the ‘ love, mine, because I will not know, nor
hear, nor be taught anything by anybody else about ‘ love,’
the one love everybody knows, it seems, and lives and dies
by) – my love’s elements are so many that the attempt to
describe them is to bring about this failure . . the first that
comes is taken up and treated of at length . . as that element
of ‘ trust’ just now . . and then, in the feeling of incompet-
ence which makes the pen sink away and turns the mind
off, the others are let pass by unnamed, much less
described, or at least acknowledged for the undeniable
elements they are. What were all the trust without –
and thus I could begin again ! Let me say no more now –
and forgive all the foolishness . . it is not for my wisdom
you are to love me, Ba ! Except that if you agreed too
heartily with me on that point, I should very likely be found
turning round on you with ‘ not wise, when I adore you so ? ‘
Wise or unwise, I do adore you, my Ba ! And more and
evermore ! But see how I need your letters to train mine,
to lead them into something more like the true way . . and
to-morrow the letter will come – will it not ? And mine shall
be less about myself and more about you – whom may God
bless, prays your own

R.

[Postmark: June 19, 1846]

Friday Morning.

I shall hardly be able, I am afraid, to get your letter . .
if one should come through your dear goodness, my own Ba
. . . before I go out . . having to meet the Procters’ party in
Town : so I will just write my joy at its being little more now
than twenty-four hours before I shall see you, I trust. The
day is cool and nearer rain than I fancied probable – but, oh
the task-work, Egyptian bondage, that much going-out would
be to me, who am tired (unreasonably) beforehand on this
first and most likely last occasion during the year. It is a
pity that I am so ignorant about Hahn-Hahn’s books – one,
‘ Faustina,’ I got last night, but have neither heart nor time to
‘ get it up ‘ in a couple of hours.

Something you said on Mrs. Jameson’s authority amused
me – the encomium on my grace in sitting still to see the
play and not jumping on the stage to act too – as if it were
not the best privilege one finds in being ‘known’ never
so little, that it dispenses one from having to make oneself
known. When you are shipwrecked among Caribbee
Indians you are forced to begin professing ‘ I can make
baskets, and tell fortunes, and foresee eclipses so don’t
eat me ! ‘ And even there if they threatened nothing of
the kind, I should be content to live and die as unhonoured
as one of their own cabbage-trees.

I must go now – the day gets hotter, but then our day
draws nearer – All my heart is yours, best of dearest loves,
my own Ba, as I am your own –

[Postmark: June 19, 1846]

Thursday Evening.

But I have not been to Mr. Rogers’s to-day, after all. I
had a note from Mrs. Jameson, to put off our excursion to
Saturday . . if I consented to Saturday ! but of course I
would not consent to Saturday – and as she intimated that
another day would do as well, we shall have another day
fixed, I suppose. What a good fruit it would be of the con-
fession I made in the park, if she were to ask you to go ! ! !
Oh, I should like that – I should like it notwithstanding the
drawbacks. It would be a fair gain upon the usual times of
meeting – only that I could not care quite as much for the
pictures – yet, those too, I should like to see with you, rather
than apart from you. And you never saw them . . you ! Is
there a hope of her asking you when you are at Greenwich
together ? Now I have got this into my head, it will not go
out again – oh, you must try and enchant her properly at
Greenwich and lead her into asking you. Yet, with you or
without you in the body, the spirit of you and the influence
of you are always close to my spirit when it discerns any
beauty or feels any joy ; if I am happy on any day it is
through you wholly, whether you are absent or present,
dearest, and ever dearest !

And so, instead of Mr. Rogers’s pictures, I have been
seeing you in my thoughts, as I sate here all alone to-day.
When everybody was at dinner I remembered that I had
not been out – it was nearly eight . . there was no com-
panion for me unless I called one from the dinner-table ;
and Wilson, whom I thought of, had taken holiday. There-
fore I put on my bonnet, as a knight of old took his sword,
– aspiring to the pure heroic, – and called Flush, and
walked down-stairs and into the street, all alone – that was
something great ! And, with just Flush, I walked there, up
and down in glorious independence. Belgium might have
felt so in casting off the yoke. As to Flush, he frightened
me a little and spoilt my vain-glory – for Flush has a very
good, stout vain-glory of his own, and, although perfectly
fond of me, has no idea whatever of being ruled over by
me ! (he looks beautiful scorn out of his golden eyes, when
I order him to do this or this) . . and Flush chose to walk
on the opposite side of the street, – he would, – he insisted
on it ! and every moment I expected him to disappear into
some bag of the dogstealers, as an end to his glory, à lui.
Happily, however, I have no moral with which to point my
tale – it’s a very immoral story, and shows neither Flush nor
myself punished for our sins. Often, I am not punished
for my sins, . . am I ? You know that . . dearest, dearest !
But then, even you are not punished for your sins . . .
when you flatter so ! Ah, it is happy for you, and for your
reputation in good taste and sense, that you cannot very
well say such things except to me, who cannot believe them.
For the rest, the eyes were certainly blinded, . . being kissed
too hard.

How I like Mrs. Carlyle’s note ! You will go of course.
But it will not rain to-morrow, and you shall not have the
advantage of coming through it to me, . . for this reason
(among others far better), that I have engaged to see, at
three or four perhaps, a friend of ours from the country. She
is in London for only two days and wrote to beg me to see
her, and to-day I escaped by half a rudeness, and, if I do
to-morrow, it will be by a whole rudeness. So, not to-morrow !
And, if Saturday should be taken from us, we must find
three days somehow next week – it will be easily done.

As to Florence, the flood of English is the worst water
of all in the argument. And then Dr. Chambers ‘ warned
me off’ Florence, as being too cold for the winter. It would
be as well not to begin by being ill ; and half I am afraid of
Ravenna – though Ravenna may not be cold, and though
Shelley may belie it altogether. ‘A miserable place’ he
calls it in the ‘ Letters.’ Still I observe that his first impres-
sions are apt to be darker than remain. For instance, he
began by hating Pisa, and preferred it to most places, after-
wards. There is Pisa by the way ! Or your Sorrento . .
Salerno . . Amalfi . . you shall consider if you please – find
a new place if you like.

It is my last letter perhaps till I see you. May God bless
you, I lift up my heart to say. How happy I ought to be, . .
and am, . . with your thoughts all round me, so, as you
describe ! Let them call me your very own

BA.

[Postmark: June 18, 1846]

Thursday.

Did you really kiss me on the two eyes, my Ba ? I can-
not say ‘ perhaps at the very time I was thinking of you,’ –
more than ‘ when I was breathing ‘ – I breathe always, think
of you always, kiss you almost always. You dear, dearest
Ba ! Do pain me so again and again, – if you will so cure me
every time ! But you should not imagine that I can mistake
the motive, – as if you loved me less and therefore wrote –
oh, no – but there is no getting rid of these mistakings before
the time : they bear their fruit and die away naturally . .
the hoe never cuts up all their roots. I shall trust to hear
you say one day I am past such mistaking – but – at Amalfi ?

I am very glad, love, you go to Mr. Rogers’ to-day – what
harm can follow ? The evil in the other case was a very
precise and especial one. They say his pictures are well
worth seeing. Tell me, make me’ see you seeing ! I am
glad, too, Mrs. Jameson knows . . but her graciousness I
expected, because the causes you were able to give her would
really operate just in that manner : indeed they are the sole
causes of the secresy we have observed. I cannot help
liking Mrs. Jameson more, much more since her acquaintance
with you. Hazlitt says somewhere that the misery of con-
sorting with country-people is felt when you try for their
sympathy as to favourite actors – ‘Liston ? ‘ says the pro-
vincial, ‘ never heard of him ‘ – but – whoever knows Miss
Barrett . . ‘ Ba,’ they are not going to be let know . . of
such a person I know something more than of any other.

Talking of Hahn-Hahn, read this note of Mrs. Carlyle’s –
although to my mortification I find that the wise man is not
so peremptory on the virtue of one of Ba’s qualities as I, the
ignorant man, must continue to be. Never mind, – perhaps
‘ in the long run ‘ I may love you as if you were exactly to
Mrs. Carlyle’s mind !

I want to tell you a thing not to be forgotten about
Florence as a residence for any time. You spoke of the
bad water at Ravenna . . which if a serious inconvenience
anywhere is a very plague in Italy ; well, the medical people,
according to Vallery, attribute the black hollow cheeks and
sunk eyes and general ill health of the Florentines to their
vile water ; impregnated with lead, I think. There is only
one good fountain in the city – that opposite Santa Croce ;
I religiously abstained from drinking water there – and felt
the privation the more from having just left Rome, where the
water is the most perfectly delicious and abundant and, they
say, wholesome – in the world. That one objection is de-
cisive against Ravenna – but then, why do the English all
live at Florence ?

It makes me happy to hear of your achievements and not
of any ill result – happy ! Is it quite so warm to-day ? If
it were to rain to-morrow (!), IF – our party would be post-
poned till the next day, Saturday, I believe . . there was a
kind of understanding to that effect – now, in that case,
might I go to you to-morrow ? In the case of real heavy
rain only – the letter to-morrow will tell me perhaps . .

Goodbye, dearest dearest ; I love you wholly –

[Postmark: June 18, 1846]

Wednesday.

Dearest and ever dearest, try to forgive me when I fall
so manifestly short of you in all things ! It is the very sense
of this which throws me on despairs sometimes of being
other than a bane to your life – and then . . by way of a
remedy . . I begin to be a torment to it directly. Forgive
me. Whatever I may say I am as wholly yours as if you
held me in your hand, and I would do for you any extrava-
gance, as if it were a common thing, at a word and what
is before us is only a common thing, since I have looked to
it from the beginning. Oh – I may talk when I am out of
spirits – but you know, and I know best of all, that I could
not withdraw myself from you, unless you said ‘ Go ‘ – could
not – I have no power. Fine talking, it is of me, to talk of
withdrawing myself from you ! You know I could not at all
do it, let ever so many special pleaders come to prove to
me that you would be more prosperous and happy without
me. ‘ Then ‘ I would say . . ‘ let him put me away. I can’t
put myself away, because I am not mine but his.’ Assuredly
I would say just that, and no more. So do you forget that
I have teazed you and pained you . . . pained you ! . . I will
try not to pain you, my own, own dearest, any more. I have
grown to love you instead of the whole world ; and only one
thing . . (you understand what that is . .) is dreadful and
intolerable to me to imagine. But now it is done with ;
and you shall teach me hereafter to make you happy instead
of the contrary. So . . yes – you are kissed this time !
upon both eyes, . . that they may not see my faults. And
afterwards I will tell you a paradox . . that if I loved you a
hundred times less, I should run into such offences less in
exact proportion. And finally I will give you a promise . .
not to teaze you for a week – which were a wonderful feat for
me ! the teazer par excellence.

To-day I deserved to hear of your head being worse –
but it is better, I thank God – and your mother is better – all
such comforting news ! But it was no news that you did not
go to Greenwich to-day, – for Mrs. Jameson came for me to
drive at about six, and she and I were in Regent’s Park
until nearly eight. Then she went somewhere to dinner,
and I, who had had tea, came home to supper ! I like her
very much – more and more, certainly – and we need not be
mysterious up to the usual mark of mystery, because I told
her . . told her . . what might be told – and she was
gracious to the uttermost – not angry at all, – and said that
‘ Truth was truth, and one could breathe in the atmosphere
of it, and she was glad I had told her.’ Of you, she said,
that she admired you more than ever – yes, more than ever –
for the ‘ manner in which as a man of honour you had
kept the secret ‘ – so you were praised, and I, not blamed
. . and we shall not complain, if our end is as good as our
beginning. Also we talked of your poetry and of you per-
sonally, and I was pleased, . . which proves a little what was
said – and I heard how you were invited as a ‘ celebrity ‘ for
the Countess Hahn-Hahn to see you, and how you effaced
yourself with ever so much gracefulness ; yet not too much,
to omit charming the whole room. Mrs. Jameson praises
you always, as nobody does better. And to-morrow . . will
you be surprised to hear that to-morrow at half-past four, I
am to go again with her, . . to see Rogers’s pictures ? Is it
wrong ? shall I get into a scrape ? She promised laughingly
that I should be incognita to the only companion she thought
of taking . . a Mrs. Bracebridge, I think . . and Mr. Rogers
himself is not to be visible and she herself will mention it
to nobody. It was hard to say ‘ no ‘ – yet perhaps ‘ no ‘
would have been better. Do you think so ? Mrs. Brace-
bridge is an artist and lives or lived on Mount Hymettus ! –
and she is not to hear my name even.

Now – good night, very dear ! – most dear of all ! I will
not teaze you for a fortnight, I think. Ah – if ever I can do
that again, you shall not be pained, . . you shall think that
my heart and life are in you, and that, if they seem to flatter,
it is that they go deeper. All I am is yours which is
different from . . all I have. ‘ All I have,’ is when I may
lean my head down on the shoulder –
So let me be your own
BA.

Of those two letters, one was in the post before seven the
evening before. Now, is it not too bad ?

[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?