Month: June 2018

[Postmark: June 10, 1846]

Tuesday Evening.

Best, dearest beloved, . . would it not be strange if you
were not so to me ? How do you think I feel, hearing you
say such things . . finding such thoughts in your mind ? If
it is not worthy of you to have a burden set on your shoulders
and to be forced into the shadow of disquietudes not your
own, yet this divine tenderness is worthy of you . . worthy
of your nature ; as I know and recognise ! May God help
me to thank you, for I have not a word.

Practically however, see how your proposal would work.
It could not work at all, unless circumstances were known –
and if they were known, at the very moment of their being
known you would be saved, dearest, all the trouble of coming
up-stairs to me, by my being thrown out of the window to
you . . upon which, you might certainly pick up the pieces
of me and put them into a bag and set off for Nova Zembla.
That would be the event of the working of your proposition.
Yet remember that I will accede to whatever you shall
choose – so think for us both. You know more of the world
and have more practical sense than I – and if you did not,
had not, you may do what you like with your own, as surely
as the Duke of Newcastle might.

For Mrs. Jameson, I never should think of telling her
‘all’ – I should not, could not, would not ! and the gods
tbrefend that you should think of telling Mr. Kenyon any
more. Now, listen. Perfectly I understand your reasons,
your scruples . . what are they to be called ? But I promise
to take the blame of it. I will tell dear Mr. Kenyon here-
after that you would have spoken, but that I would not let
you – won’t that do ? won’t it stop the pricking of the con-
science ? Because, you see, I know Mr. Kenyon, . . and I
know perfectly that either he would be unhappy himself, or
he would make us so. He never could bear the sense of
responsibility. Then, as he told me to-day, and as long ago
I knew, . . he is ‘ irresolute,’ timid in deciding. Then he
shrinks before the daemon of the world – and ‘ what may be
said ‘ is louder to him than thunder. And then again, and
worst of all, he sees afar off casualty within casualty, and a
marriage without lawyers would be an abomination in his
sight. Moreover, to discover ourselves to him, and not
submit to his counsels, would be a real offence . . would it
not ? As it is, it may seem natural and excusable that we
two of ourselves should poetically rush into a foolishness
but if we heard counsel, and rejected it ! ! Do you
see? . . .

He came here to-day, dear Mr. Kenyon, and is to come
with Miss Bayley on Friday, and take me in the carriage to
drive, and to see his house. I must go, but dread it . .
shrink from it – yes, indeed. As for Mr. Lough, how could
I have ‘ bound him with Styx nine times round him ? ‘ It
is easier to bind Mrs. Jameson. Oh no ! You were right,
and I was wrong in my first inclination about Mr. Lough.

And yesterday I was not tired to signify. I shall not be
ill, my beloved, I think I shall not. I am as perfectly well
now in all respects (except that I have not strength for much
exercise and noise and confusion, . .) as it is possible to be.
So do not be anxious about me rather spend your dear
thoughts of me in loving me, . . dear, dearest !

You breakfast with Mrs. Jameson, and I shall remember
not to long too much for the eight o’clock letter at night.
Remember you, not to be hurried as to the writing of it

Oh ! I had a letter from my particular Bennet this
morning, . . and my Georgiana desires me instantly to
say why I presumed not to write to her before. I am
commanded out of all further delays. ‘ Did I receive her
letter,’ she wonders ! ! ! ! Georgiana is imperative.

May God bless you, you who bless me !

I am wholly your own.

[Postmark: June 9, 1846]

Tuesday.

Is your letter ‘ long,’ my own Ba? I seem to get to the
end, each time I read it, just as sorrowfully soon as usual –
so much for thankfulness ! But if Ba is not to be ‘tall,’
depend on it, her letter shall not describe itself as ‘ long’ –
though in a sense nothing ever written, ever read by me, drew
such a trail of light after it as her letters – your letters, my
own, own love ! While I write this, my lips rest on the
eglantine . . well, it shall be ‘ dog-rose ‘ for Flushie’s sake !
You say truly about the folly – it is very foolish, – when I
fancy you proposing to give me a golden Papal rose and gift
for a King, instead of this ! And if I feel this, why should
not you, and more vividly even ? A rose from Hampstead !
And you bore the journey well ? You should tell me,
precisely, detailedly.

As for Lough’s statues . . now, I have said more than I
meant if it deters you from going to see them ! If he will
abide strictly by his promise, there is much to reward the
trouble of going.

Always remember, my Ba, that the secret is your secret
and not mine . . that I keep it while you bid me, but that
you may communicate it to whom you please, when you
please, without waiting to apprize me. I should, I think,
have preferred telling Mrs. Jameson from the beginning
about the mere visits . . or, I don’t know . . by one such
piece of frankness you only expose yourself to, fifty new –
whatever they are ! For there would be so much the
more talk about you, and either the quick woman’s wit and
discernment are to be eluded, or they are not, – foiled or not –
and how manage without . . without those particular
evasions which seem to degrade most of all ? Miss Mitford’s
promises began the embarrassment. In short I think the
best way in such a case is to tell all or none. I believe you
might tell all to Mrs. Jameson with perfect safety, but,
for her sake, I doubt the propriety . . for it would be to
introduce her forthwith to exactly our own annoyances with
respect to Mr. Kenyon, Chorley &c. Once knowing, she
cannot un-know. In any case, I promise my conscience to
give her, – and anybody else that may have a right to it, – a
full explanation at the earliest safe moment . . may that be
at no great distance ! My own feeling is for telling Mr.
Kenyon . . though you would considerably startle me if you
answered ‘ well, do ! ‘ But, of the whole world, I seem only
to care for his not feeling aggrieved : oh, he will understand !
– and can, because he knows the circumstances at your house.
Come what will, I am sure of you ; ‘ if you live, and are
well ‘ – even this last clause I might exclude ; it has
often been in my thought to tell you . . only, dearest, there
is always, when I plan never so dreamily and vaguely,
always an understood submission the most absolute to your
own desire . . but I fancied, that, in the case of any real
obstacle arising so as to necessitate the ‘ postponement,’ &c.,
I should have stipulated . . in the right yourself have given
me . . I should have said – ‘ we will postpone it, if you will
marry me now . . merely as to the form . . but so as to
enable me, if difficulties should thicken, to be by your bed-
side at least.’ You see, what you want ‘ to relieve ‘ me of, is
just what my life should be thrice paid down for and cheaply.
How could you ever be so truly mine as so ? Even the poor
service does not ‘ part us ‘ before ‘ death ‘ – ‘ till sickness
do us part ! ‘

But there will be no sickness and all happiness, I trust
in God ! Dear, dear Ba, I love you wholly and for ever
true as I kiss your rose, and will keep it for ever. Bless you.

My first letter ‘ did not reach you by the first post on
Monday morning ‘ – No ! How should it . . when I carried
it to town on Sunday night and went half a mile out of my
way to put it in the general post office at the corner of
Oxford Street !

You know I am to breakfast with Mrs. Jameson to-mor-
row and perhaps I may make some calls after : if anything
keeps me in Town so as to hinder the letter by the 8 o’clock-
post, you will know the reason . . and expect the letter the
next morning ; but I will endeavour to get back in time.

[Postmark: June 9, 1846]

Monday Morning.

The stars threaten you with a long letter to-day, it seems,
for I stretch out my hand and take blindly the largest sheet.
Dearest, I have been driving out before your letter came . .
and to Hampstead! think of that. And see the proof of
it – this grew in the hedges when the sun rose to-day. We
had a great branch gathered, and ‘this was of it,’ starred
over with dog-roses. I did in the morning long for air,
through the suffocation yesterday, and the walking being
better for another day, my sisters persuaded me into the
carriage. Only I wanted to wait for your letter, my letter,
and could not – it did not come by the usual early post, and
the carriage was here before it . . so I had to go, thinking
of it all the way, and having it on my return ready to
gladden me. How you make me laugh with your phreno-
logist ! ‘For the interests of science’ you should have
given your name. Then, would have come the whole history
in the next lecture, . . how ‘Once in an omnibus he met
an individual with a forehead and eyes of mark, and knew
him at a glance for the first poet of the age.’ It would
have made a feature in the lecture, and highly developed, I
dare say, . . to suit the features in the omnibus. Just at
the moment of this observation I too was thinking of eyes
‘calm eyes’ did I say ? Yes, calm, serene . . which was
what struck me first of all, in the look of them was it ever
observed before, I wonder? The most serene spiritual eyes,
I ever saw – I thought that the first day I saw you. They
may be called by other names beside, but they shall not
lose the name I then gave them. Now to bear with the
horrible portrait in the matter of the eyes, is a hard thing –
Mr. Howitt must have his shut nearly, I think. The hair is
like – and nothing else. The mouth, the form of the cheek,
one is as unlike as the other. And the character of the
whole is most unlike of the whole – it is a vulgarized
caricature and I only wonder how I could have fastened
it inside of my ‘ Paracelsus ‘ frontispiece-fashion. When it
was hung up and framed, I did not know you face to face,
remember. Mr, Kenyon told me it was ‘ rather like.’ But
always and uninstructed I seemed to know that it was not
like you in some things . .

Monday Evening.

Observe how the sentence breaks off!
While I was writing it, came a ‘ tapping, tapping at the cham-
ber door,’ as sings my dedicator Edgar Poe. Flush barked
vociferously ; I threw down the pen and shut up the writing
case, . . and lo, Mrs. Jameson ! I suppose she did not
guess that I was writing to you. She brought me the
engravings of Xanthian marbles, and also her new essays
. . and was very kind as usual, and proposed to come some
day next week with a carriage to take me out, and all this
time, how we treat her ! Will she not have a right to com-
plain of being denied the degree of confidence we gave
(. . Mr. Kenyon gave for me . .) to Miss Bayley? Will
she not think hereafter ‘There was no need of their
deceiving me ? ‘ And yet I doubt how to retreat now.
Could I possibly say to her the next time she speaks of you
. . or could I not ? it would set her on suspecting perhaps.
She talked a little to-day of Italy, and plainly asked me what
thoughts I had of it, – to which I could answer truthfully
‘ No thoughts, but dreams.’ Then she insisted, ‘ But
whenever you have thoughts, you will let me know them ?
You will not be in Italy when I am there, without my
knowing it ? And where will you go – ? to Pisa ? . . to
Sienna ? to Naples ? ‘ And she advised . . ‘ Don’t go where
the English are, in any case.’ And encouraged like an
oracle, . . ‘ Remember that where there’s a will there’s a
way ‘ knowing no more what she spoke, than a Pythian on
the serpent’s skin.

Beloved, you are right in your fear about Mr. Lough.
I have decided not to go there. Oh, it is best certainly ;
and, quietly considered, I shall be happier as well as safer
in not going. We must walk softly on the snowdrifts of the
world, now that we have got to them.

For the rest, . . that is for the chief thing . . you wrote
foolishly in your first letter to-day, my beloved, – you can
write foolishly on occasion, let me grant to the critics. I
have just so much logic as to be able to see (though I am a
woman) that for me to be too good for you, and for you to
be too good for me, cannot be true at once, both ways.
Now I could discern and prove, from the beginning of the
beginning, that you were too good for me – it is too late
therefore to take up the other argument – the handle of it
was broken last year.

Also, I do not go to the world to ask it to appraise you
I would fain leave to Robins the things of Robins. I
hope you have repented all day to-day having written so
foolishly yesterday. Even Robins would not justify you.

Dearest, the avalanches are on us ! Uncle and aunts
coming down in a great crash ! My uncle Hedley comes
next week ! – on the second or third of July, the eldest of
my aunts, . . from Paris, . . who proposes to reside in
this house for a week it may be longer ! and, still in July,
the rest of the Hedleys, I think ! – everybody coming,
coming ! Their welcome will be somewhat of a ghastly
smile from me – for indeed I cannot be quite delighted, after
the fashion of a thoroughly dutiful niece.

Ah, never mind them ! Nobody can change anything,
if you do not change yourself. You have ‘ a right ‘ . . not
the ‘ shadow ‘ of one, but the very right . . to all I am, and
to all the life I live. Did you not see before, what I have
felt so long, that indeed you have a right to me and over
me?

I am your own

BA.

[Postmark: June 8, 1846]

Monday.

My ‘ recommendation ‘ to dearest Ba was properly
interpreted by her when she regarded the spirit and not the
letter of it.

The day was hot — even I thought who thrive in heat —
and yesterday you did well to keep the house — but last
night’s rain, and this comfort of cloudiness may allow you
to resume the exercise, — only with all ease, darling ! Mrs.
Jameson told me she called the other day on Miss Barrett,
and was informed that lady was ‘walking before her door’
— for I went last night, and deserved to be amused, perhaps,
for the effort, . . and so I was, I never liked our friend as
I now like her, I more than like the good nature and good
feeling and versatility of ready intelligence and quick general
sympathy. She is to see you to-day. She told this to a
Miss Kindersley who had been reading the ‘ Drama of Exile ‘
to her complete delight — but in listening silently, — and after,
when Mrs. J. obligingly turned and said ‘ How I should like
to introduce you to Miss Barrett . . did you ever see her?’
. . to which I answered in the old way, ‘ that nobody, as
she knew, saw you.’ At all these times did not I feel the
‘ mask ‘ you speak of ! I am, fortunately, out of the way of
enquiries . . but if the thing were of constant occurrence,
it would be intolerable. Shall it indeed end soon ? May I
count by months, by weeks ? It is not safe — beginning to
write on this subject — I can do nothing moreover.

Well, Lough has some good works, and you will be
pleased I daresay : but of all things, hold him to his bond
of maintaining the strictest privacy — for Mr. Powell or his
kith and kin go there, and his impudence and brazen
insensibility are dreadful to encounter beyond all belief!
He would book-make about ‘the meeting,’ and in his
ordinary talk, be supplied with a subject to tell lies about
for the next year or two, — unless he got a lesson earlier.
But Lough will understand and keep his promise, no doubt,
if you exact it strictly.

My mother is decidedly better, . . I am quite well—
considering Thursday is so far off ! — considering the end
of summer is so far off. Would it be profane to think of
that lament . . ‘the Summer is ended and we are not
saved ‘ ?

I am obliged to leave off here — I love you ever my best

dearest, own Ba !

[Postmark: June 8, 1846]

Sunday.

One thing you said yesterday which I want to notice
and protest against, my Ba — you charged me with speaking
depreciatingly of myself because you had set the example—
‘ I should not have thought of it but that you began.’ Now
I am tired, just at this moment, and submissive altogether,
and hopeful besides, on the whole, — so I will let you off with
a simple but firmest of protests, — I did not think of imitating
you, but spoke as I felt and knew, — and feel and know
still. The world, generally, will inform you of this in its
own good time and way, so . . taceo ! (The last opinion
of the world’s on the respective value of people and people,
is unhappily too decisive. ‘ And, after all, Mr. Langton is
quite as good as the Duke’s daughter . . for he will have
full twenty thousand a year ! ‘) I suspect I was going to
turn a pretty phrase and tell you I have only a heart, as
the play-books prescribe, — when the said heart pricks me as
if I reserved something — so I will confess to owning a
‘ forehead and an eye ‘ — one advantage over Pope, to whom
folks used to remark ‘ Sir, you have an eye ‘ — and no more
— whereas yesterday evening after leaving Ba, while I settled
myself in the corner of our omnibus to think of her, a
spruce gentleman stretched over, and amid the rumbling
begged my pardon for being forced to remark that my forehead
and eye interested him deeply, phrenologist as he was ;
and he was sure I must needs be somebody . . besides a
passenger to Greenwich ! So if Ba will trust in phrenology !
— I will at least not be unkind to her as to the learned man
— who left the vehicle in due time, lamenting that in return
for his own confidence and pink bill (‘Mr. Hamilton,
phrenologist and lecturer ‘ &c. &c.) I would not break my
obstinate reserve and augustly pronounce ‘ Am I a Beefeater
now?’

Assez de sottises : Ba, my Ba, I am happy in you beyond
hope of expression — you know how happy . . And have not
I some shade of a right, — I who loved the dear, dear pale
cheek and the thin hand, — a right to be blessed in the
wonders I see . . so long as I continue to be thankful to
God whose direct doing I know it to be : how can I ever
doubt the rest . . the so easy matters remaining — I will not
doubt more, I think.

Tell me, write of yourself, love : remember the fierce
heat . . and never go up the long stairs — or, at least, rest
at proper intervals. I think of the Homeric stone heaved
nearly to the hill-top and then ! . . An accident now would
be horrible, — think, and take every precaution — because it
is my life, (if that will influence you) my whole happiness
you are carrying safely or letting slip. May God over-watch
all and care for us !

Good bye, best beloved, — I fear I ought to go to Mrs.
Jameson’s to-night : there is a breakfast engagement for
Wednesday, to meet – this and the other notable ; and a
simple ‘ at home ‘ promised to anybody calling this evening
— and my pride won’t let me accept one nor my liking to
Mrs. J. suffer me to refuse both . . Yet the fatigue ! I
have been at church to-day, seeing people faint.

Your own, your own R.

[Postmark: June 6, 1846]

Sunday.

This is the first word I have written out of my room,
these five years, I think . . if I dare count anything beyond
two . . for I do know that one comes after two . . (now
just see what I have written !) that two comes after one, I
meant to say, . . as well as a mathematician. I am writing
now in the back drawing-room, half out of the window for
air, driven out of my own territory by the angel of the sun
this morning. Oh — it is so hot — and the darkness does
not help when the lack is just of air. There is a thick
mist lacquered over with light — it is cauldron-heat, rather
than fire-heat. So different in the country it must be !
Well, everybody being at church or chapel, I knew I could
have this room to myself, without fear even of the dreadful
knocker . . more awful to me than the famous knocks
which used to visit the Wesley family — so here I curl up my
feet ‘more meo’ on the settee, and help to keep the
sabbath by resting upon you. Would Miss Goldsmid call
it as ‘ profane ‘ as anything in your poems ? But it will not:
be more profane for that — as I could prove if we wanted
proofs — only we do not.

Such flowers as you brought me yesterday — such roses !
The roses are best, as coming from your garden ! When I
began to arrange them, I thought I never saw such splendid
roses anywhere — they are more beautiful than what you
brought last year surely ! It seems so to me. Dearest,
how did you get home, and how are you ? and how is your
mother ? Remember to answer my questions, if you please.

After you were gone I received from Mr. Lough a very
gracious intimation that if I would go to see his studio, his
statue of the Queen and other works, he would take care
that no creature should be present, he would uncover all
the works and provide a clear solitude for me — he ‘ would
not do it for a Duchess,’ he said, but he ‘ would for me’ !
Now what am I to say. My sisters tell me that I can go
quite easily. The place is very near, and there are no
stairs. Well, I think I must go. It is very kind and
considerate, and there would be a pleasure, of course. Do
you know that statues have more power over me than all
the pictures and all the colours thereof which the world can
show ? Mr. Kenyon told me once that it was a pure affectation
of mine to say so — and for my own part I could not
see for a long while what was the reason of a most unaffected
preference. I think I see it now. Painting flatters the
senses and makes the Ideal credible in a vulgar way. But
with sculpture it is different — and there is a grand audacity
in the power of an Ideal which, appealing directly to the
Senses, and to the coarsest of them, the Touch, as well
as the Sight, yet forces them to receive Beauty through
the door of an Abstraction which is a means abhorrent to
them. Have I written what I mean, I wonder, or do you
understand it, without? Then there is a great deal, of
course, in that grand white repose ! Like the Ideas of the
Platonic system, these great sculptures seem — when looked
at from a distance.

When you were gone yesterday, and I had had my coffee
and put on my bonnet, I went, with the intention of walking
out, as far as the drawing-room, and there, failed : not even
with your recommendation in my ears, beloved, could I get
any further. Notwithstanding all my flatteries (meaning
the flatteries of me !) I was not at best and strongest,
yesterday, nor am even to-day, though it is nothing to mind
or to mention — only I think I shall not try to walk out in
this heat even to-day, and yesterday it seemed impossible.
So I came back and lay on my own sofa, and presently
began to read ‘ Le Comte de Monte Cristo,’ the new book
by Dumas, (observe how I waste my time — while you learn
how not to fortify cities, out of Machiavelli !) and really he
amuses me with his ‘ Monte Cristo ‘ . . six volumes I am
glad to see — he is the male Scheherazade certainly. Now
that the hero is safe in a dungeon (of the Chateau d’lf) it
will be delightful to see how he will get out — somebody
knocks at the wall already. Only the narrative is not
always very clear to me, inasmuch as, when I read, I unconsciously
interleave it with such thoughts of you as make
very curious cross readings . . j’avais cru remarquer quelques
infidelitÈs . . he really seems to love me — l’homme n’est
jamais qu’un homme . . never was any man like him — ses
traits Ètaient bouleversÈs . . the calmest eyes I ever saw . .
So, Dumas or Machiavelli, it is of the less consequence
what I read, I suppose, while I apply so undestractedly.

May God bless you, ever beloved ! I think of you, I
love you — I forgot again your ‘ Strafford ‘ — Mr. Forster’s
‘ Strafford,’ I beg his pardon for not attributing to him other
men’s works. Not that I mean to be cross — not to him
even.

I am your own.

[Postmark: June 5, 1846]

Friday.

Nor did I mean so bad, dearest dearest, as that you
were suspecting me of that . . Oh no, since ‘ Scorn of me
that ” me “) would recoil on you ‘ . . you would have no
right to bear with such a person for a moment : but I put
the broadest case possible to declare upon broadly. As I
would do so if I felt so . . felt no love longer . . so, in due
degree, I would tell you frankly a fear or a doubt if I felt
either. I thought you suspected me, perhaps, of being
deficient in this last point of courage : but it was not altogether
so, — or if it was, you shall doubt no more, but believe
the more strongly for the future . . let us kiss on that convention,
dearest ! You see, I knew it could not but be
that . . for if anything had struck you as really to be
gained by delay, you must feel whether I should listen to
that or no— last year, for instance, when you said ‘ let us
wait.’

Ah, Ba, my own, many things are that ought not to be
. . and I hide nothing . . cannot hide from you some
feelings . . as that — after all, after all — talk, and indeed
think, as one may — it is, let us say, a pleasant thing, at
least, to be able to prove one’s words, — even one’s lighter
words. The proof may justify some words, I mean, and the
rest, that admit of no proof, get believed on the score of
them, — the first words and proofs. I should like to prove a
very, very little . . if I could but do so in turning fifty-
thousand a year, or less, to some account and building
Flush a house ‘ fair to see ‘ — after which I could go on
talking about the longings never to be satisfied here . .

Now this is foolish, — so the causeless blame, if you
please, shall be transferred here . . as naughty children
punished by mistake are promised a remission of next
offence.

Oh to-morrow kisses all right . . all so right again,
dearest ! I have so much to say. Make me remember,
love, to tell you something I have just learned about Mr.
Kenyon which makes one — no, all is proper, — he should
have the money, and I the admiration and love of his
divine use of it : something to love him for, and he happy
that God will reward it. Remember — for even that I should
forget by you !

And all has been charming at Mr. Kenyon’s — Landor’s
dinner, and our flower-show feast, — I will tell you to-morrow
— and last night I went to Mrs. Procter’s in downright
spirits ‘ pour cause ‘ (with my first letter . . not my second,
which only arrived this morning) — and I danced, to put it
on record there that I was altogether happy, and saw Mrs.
Jameson, and the Countess Hahn-Hahn, and Milnes and
the Howitts and others in a multitude, — and I got to this
house door at 4 o’clock, with the birds singing loud and
the day bright and broad — and my head is quite well, — as
my mother’s is better, I hope — quite well, I am at this
minute. For the rest, the news of your two exits and
entrances in one day . . oh, thank you, thank the golden
heart of my own, own Ba ! whom I shall see to-morrow,
but can . . how I can kiss her now — being her own

R.B.

[Postmark: June 5, 1846]

Thursday.

You are too perfect, too overcomingly good and tender
— dearest you are, and I have no words with which to answer
you. There is little wonder indeed that I, being used so
long to the dark, should stumble and mistake, and see men
like trees walking — and yet I must tell you that I did not
mistake to the extent you have set down for me . . and that
never was I so dull, so idiotic and ungrateful, as to fancy
you into one ‘ wishing to let me down gently with cowardly
excuses.’ Since I first looked you in the face, and before
that day, I have been incapable of defiling the idea of you
with such an unworthy imputation. And surely what I did
fancy, was consistent with the fullest faith in you and in the
completest verity of your affection for myself. You might
have had reasons, surely, which I did not see, without
aggrieving me in any fashion. So do not make me out too
stupid- it is bad enough actually. Yes — those questions
you refer to, turned me down that path— and do tell me
how I could be expected to guess at the real drift of them,
after having been accustomed to walk rather, with men than
with angels ! Ah —and now even, that I see, it makes me
smile and sigh together. To say that I am not worthy, all
at once grows too little to say. No one could be worthy of
such words from you. You are best, best ! ! How much
more do you want me to owe to you, when I begin owing
to you all things, . . the only happiness of my life?

As to Italy, I thought of it first, so I am in no danger of
thinking that you engage me as female courier and
companion . . the feminine of what Mr. Bezzi wants to be,
Miss Bayley told me to-day. So if it is the same thing to
you, we will put off Nova Zembla a little. But how is it
possible to jest, with this letter close by ? Dearest of all,
believe that I am grateful to you as I ought to be . .
penetrated . . touched to the bottom of my heart with the sense
of what you have been to me and are ; dearest beloved !

So do not reproach me with my dull questions, on
Saturday. I won’t ask them any more, . . and I did not
mean by them the wickedness you thought . . so now let
us be tranquil and happy till the fine weather ends. Brightly
it begins, does it not? So hot it is to-day — so very hot in
this room ! Miss Bayley came just as I had been out walking
and was tired ; but she talked and interested me, and I
found out from her that you were not in the gardens when
we drove round them, but in the house when I looked up at
the windows. Very happy and agreeable you all were, she
said, at Mr. Kenyon’s — though Mrs. Jameson missed the
flower-show.

I forgot to tell you that Treppy is a Creole — she would
say so as if she said she was a Roman. She lived, as an
adopted favourite, in the house of my great grandfather in
Jamaica for years, and talks to the delight of my brothers, of
that ‘ dear man ‘ who, with fifty thousand a year, wore
patches at his knees and elbows, upon principle. Then
there are infinite traditions of the great great grandfather,
who flogged his slaves like a divinity : and upon the
beatitude of the slaves as slaves, let no one presume to
doubt, before Treppy. If ever she sighs over the slaves, it
is to think of their emancipation. Poor creatures, to be
emancipated !

May God bless you, dear dearest ! Shall I ever be
better, I wonder, than the torment of your life ? It is I who
wanted to be ‘ justified,’ and not you my beloved, — except as
to your good sense for having made such a choice.

Such as I am however, I am

Your very own

Ba.

[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 !

[Postmark: June 4, 1846]

Wednesday Evening.

Nothing at all had it to do with your Magna Charta,
beloved, that question of mine. After you were gone the
other day and I began turning your words over and over, . .
(so, I make hay of them to feed the horses of the sun !) it
struck me that you had perhaps an instinct of common
sense, which, with a hand I did not see and a voice I
could not hear, drew you perhaps. So I thought I would
ask. For after all, this is rather a serious matter we are
upon, and if you think that you are not to have your share
of responsibility . . that you are not to consider and arrange
and decide, and perform your own part, . . you are as much
mistaken as ever I was. ‘ Judge what I say.’ For my part,
I have done, it seems to me, nearly as much as I can do. I
do not, at least, seem to myself to have any power to doubt
even, of the path to choose for the future. If for any reason
you had seen wisdom in delay, it would have been a different
thing — and the seeing was a possible thing, you will admit.
I did not ask you if you desired a delay, but if you saw a
reason for it. In the meantime I was absolutely yours, I
remembered thoroughly, . . and the question went simply
to enquire what you thought it best to do with your
own.

For me I agree with your view — I never once thought of
proposing a delay on my own account. We are standing on
hot scythes, and because we do not burn in the feet, by a
miracle, we have no right to count on the miracle’s prolongation.
Then nothing is to be gained — and everything may be
lost — and the sense of mask-wearing for another year would
be suffocating. This for me. And for yourself, I shall not
be much younger or better otherwise, I suppose, next year.
I make no motion, then, for a delay, further than we have
talked of, . . to the summer’s end.

My good . . happiness ! Have I any that did not come
from you, that is not in you, that you should talk of my good
apart from yours ? I shudder to look back to the days when
you were not for me. Was ever life so like death before ?
My face was so close against the tombstones, that there
seemed no room even for the tears. And it is unexampled
generosity of yours, that, having done all for me, you should
write as you always do, about my giving . . giving ! Among
the sons of men there is none like you as I believe and
know, . . and every now and then declare to my sisters.

Dearest, if I vexed you, teazed you, by that question
which proved unnecessary . . forgive me ! Had you
uncomfortable thoughts in the gardens to-day ? Perhaps !
And I could not smooth them away, though I drew as
near as I dared . . though I was in a carriage at seven
o’clock, running a mystical circle round your tents and music.
Did you feel me, any more than if I were a ‘ quick spider,’ I
wonder.

Henrietta and Arabel were going to spend the evening
with cousins of ours, and as the carriage waited for the
plaiting of Henrietta’s hair, or the twisting of the ringlets,
Arabel said to me ‘ Will you go for a quarter of an hour ? ‘
And in a minute, we were off . . she and Flush and Lizzie
and I. Never did I expect again to see so many people —
but I thought of one so much that my head was kept from
turning round — and we drove once round the ‘ inner circle,’
so called, and looked up to Mr. Kenyon’s windows — and
there, or there, you were, certainly ! — and either there, or
there, you were being disquieted in your thoughts by me, as
certainly ! Ah forgive me. After all, . . listen . . I love
you with the fulness of my nature. Nothing of all this
unspeakable goodness and tenderness is lost on me. . . I
catch on my face and hands every drop of all this dew.

So now . . you are not teazed ? we are at one again, and
may talk of outside things again ?

But first, I must hear how the head is. How is it, best
and dearest ? And you had my letter at last, had you not ?
Because I wrote it as usual, of course. May God bless you
— and me as I am altogether your own.

Twice (observe) I have been out to-day — the first time,
walking. Also, twice have I written to you.

Say how your mother is — and yourself! —

George and Henrietta were asked to meet you at Mr.
Kenyon’s — but only to-day, and too late to forestall other
engagements. Did you enjoy any of it ? Tell me.