Day: July 9, 2018

[Postmark: July 9, 1846]

See what an account we have this morning of La Cava . .
‘ quite impossible for the winter.’ What does ‘ quite impossible ‘ quite mean, I wonder ? I feel disappointed. As to
Palermo, you would rather be in Italy, and so would I, perhaps. Salerno seems questionable too ; and Vietri . . what
of Vietri ? I don’t at all see why we should receive the
responses of this friend of my friend who is not so very
much my friend, as if they were oracular and final. There
must be the right of appeal for us to other authorities.
Will you investigate and think a little ? For my part I shall
not care to what place we go, except for the climate’s sake
the cheapness too should be considered a little : and, for
the rest, every place which you should like, I should like,
and which you liked most, I should like most everything
is novelty to me, remember.

My uncle Hedley has just come now, and I must
quicken my writing. Oh to be so troubled just now . .
just now ! But I wrote to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd last
night, and told him as fully and as briefly as I could the
whole position . . and that vexation I shall try now to
throw behind me, after the fashion of dear Mr. Kenyon’s
philosophy. I put the thought of you, beloved, between
me and all other thoughts surely I can, when you were
here only yesterday. So much to think of, there is ! One
thing made me laugh in the recollection. Do you mean to
tell Mrs. Jameson that you are going to marry me, ‘ because
it is intolerable to hear me talked of? ‘ That would be an
original motive. ‘ So speaks the great poet.’

Ah Flush, Flush ! he did not hurt you really ? You
will forgive him for me ? The truth is that he hates all
unpetticoated people, and that though he does not hate you,
he has a certain distrust of you, which any outward sign,
such as the umbrella, reawakens. But if you had seen
how sorry and ashamed he was yesterday ! I slapped his
ears and told him that he never should be loved again : and
he sate on the sofa (sitting, not lying) with his eyes fixed on
me all the time I did the flowers, with an expression of
quite despair in his face. At last I said, ‘ If you are good,
Flush, you may come and say that you are sorry ‘ . . on
which he dashed across the room and, trembling all over,
kissed first one of my hands and then another, and put up
his paws to be shaken, and looked into my face with such
great beseeching eyes that you would certainly have forgiven
him just as I did. It is not savageness. If he once loved
you, you might pull his ears and his tail, and take a bone
out of his mouth even, and he would not bite you. He
has no savage caprices like other dogs and men I have
known.

Writing of Flush, in my uncle comes, and then my
cousin, and then my aunt . . . by relays ! and now it is
nearly four and this letter may be too late for the post
which reaches you irregularly. So provoked I am ! but I
shall write again, to-night, you know.

Dearest, you did me so much good yesterday ! Say how
your head is and remember Saturday. Saturday will be
clear through Chiswick may the sun shine on it !

Your own BA.

Think of the dreadful alternative as set forth in this
MS. ! The English . . or a bad climate ! Can it be
true?

[ La Cava is impossible for the winter owing to the damp
and cold. At no season should any person remain out at
the hour of sunset. An hour afterwards the air is dry and
healthy [ Is this at La Cava ? Ba ] This applies to all
Italy, and is a precaution too often neglected. Salerno has
bad air too near it, to be safe as a residence. Besides, it
is totally without the resources of books, good food, or
medical advice. Palermo would be agreeable in the
winter, and not very much frequented by English. How-
ever, where good climate exists, English are to be found.
Murray’s ‘Southern Italy’ would give every particular as to
the distance of La Cava from the sea. ]

[Postmark: July 9, 1846]

My own darling, my Ba, do you know when I read those
letters (as soon as I remembered I had got them, – for you
hold me long after both doors, up and down stairs, shut)
when I looked through them, under a gateway . . I was
pricked at the heart to have thought so, and spoken so, of
the poor writer. I will believe that he was good and even
great when in communication with you – indeed all men
are made, or make themselves, different in their approaches
to different men – and the secret of goodness and greatness
is in choosing whom you will approach, and live with, in
memory or imagination, through the crowding obvious
people who seem to live with you. That letter about
the glory of being a painter ‘ if only for the neglect ‘ is most
touching and admirable . . there is the serene spot attained,
the solid siren’s isle amid the sea ; and while there, he was
safe and well . . but he would put out to sea again, after a
breathing time, I suppose ? though even a smaller strip of
land was enough to maintain Blake, for one instance, in
power and glory through the poor, fleeting ‘ sixty years ‘ – then
comes the rest from cartooning and exhibiting. But there
is no standing, one foot on land and one on the waves, now
with the high aim in view, now with the low aim, – and all
the strange mistaken talk about ‘ prestiges,’ ‘ Youth and its
luck,’ Napoleon and the world’s surprise and interest.
There comes the low aim between the other, – an organ grinds
Mr. Jullien’s newest dance-tune, and Camoens is vexed that
the ‘choral singing which brought angels down,’ can’t also
draw street-passengers round.

I take your view of H.’s freedom, at that time, from the
thoughts of what followed.

He was weak – a strong man would have borne what so
many bear – what were his griefs, as grief goes ? Do you
remember I told you, when the news of Aliwal and the
other battles came to England, of our gardener, and his son,
a sergeant in one of the regiments engaged . . how the father
could learn nothing at first, of course . . how they told him
at the Horse Guards he should be duly informed in time,
after his betters, whether this son was dead, or wounded.
Since then, no news came . . ‘ which is good news ‘ the father
persuaded himself to think . . so the apprehensions subside,
and the hope confirms itself, more and more, while the old
fellow digs and mows and rakes away, like a man painting
historical pictures . . only without the love of it. Well, this
morning we had his daughter here to say ‘ the letter ‘ had
arrived at last . . her brother was killed in the first battle,
so there’s an end of the three months’ sickness of heart, –
and the poor fellow must bear his loss ‘ like a man ‘ – or
like a woman . . for I recollect another case, of an old
woman whom my mother was in the habit of relieving, –
who brought a letter one day which she could hardly under-
stand – it was from her son, a sailor, and went on for a
couple of pages about his good health and expectations, –
then, in a different handwriting, somebody, ‘ your son’s
shipmate’ ‘took up his pen to inform you that he fell from
the masthead into the sea and was drowned yesterday, –
which he therefore thought it right to put in the unfinished
letter.’ All which the old woman bore somehow, – seeing
she lives yet.

Well, – ought not I to say Mr. Kenyon was as kind as
usual, and his party as pleasant ? No, for you know – what
you cannot by possibility know, it seems, is, that I am not
particularly engaged next Saturday ! Ba, shall I really see
you so soon ? Bless you ever, my very, very own ! I shall
not hear to-day . . but to-morrow, – do but not keep me
waiting for that letter, and the mules shall be ready hours
and hours, for any sign I will have, at La Cava !

Ever your R.