[Postmark: July 10, 1846]
How I have waited for your letter to-night, and it
comes nearly at ten ! It comes at last thank you for it,
ever dearest.
And I knew quite understood yesterday, that you were
sorry for me, which made you angry with another . . but, as to
poor Haydon, you are too generous and too pitiful to refuse
him any justice. I was sure that the letters would touch
you. The particular letter about the ‘ back-ground ‘ and
the ‘ neglect ‘ and Napoleon, . . that, you will observe, was
the last I had from him. Every word you say of it, I
think and feel. Yes, it was just so ! His conscience was
not a sufficient witness, . . nor was God. He must also
have the Royal Academy and the appreciators of Tom
Thumb. A ‘weak man,’ of course he was, for all vain
men are weak men. They cannot stand alone. But that
he had in him the elements of greatness that he looked to
noble aims in art and life, however distractedly, . . that his
thoughts and feelings were not those of a common man, . .
it is true, it is undeniable, and you would think so more
and more if you read through the packets of letters which
I have of his so fervid, so full of earnestness and individuality . . so alive with egotism which yet seemed to redeem
itself. Mr. Kenyon said of the letter we have spoken of,
that it was scarcely the production of a sane mind. But I
who was used to his letters, saw nothing in it in the least
unusual he has written to me far wilder letters ! That he
never should die,’ he had said once or twice before. Then
Napoleon was a favourite subject of his . . constantly re-
curred to. He was not mad then !
Poor Haydon ! Think what an agony, life was to him,
so constituted ! his own genius a clinging curse ! the
fire and the clay in him seething and quenching one
another ! the man seeing maniacally in all men the
assassins of his fame ! and, with the whole world against
him. struggling for the thing which was his life, through
night and day, in thoughts and in dreams . . struggling,
stifling, breaking the hearts of the creatures dearest to him,
in the conflict for which there was no victory, though he
could not choose but fight it. Tell me if Laocoon’s anguish
was not as an infant’s sleep, compared to this ? And could a
man, suffering so, stop to calculate very nicely the consideration due to A, and the delicacy which should be observed
toward B ? Was he scrupulously to ask himself whether
this or that cry of his might not give C a headache ?
Indeed no, no. It is for us rather to look back and consider !
Poor Haydon.
As to grief as grief of course he had no killing grief.
But he suffered.
Often it has struck me as a curious thing (yet it is not
perhaps curious) that suicides are occasioned nearly always
by a mortified self-love . . by losses in money, which force
a man into painful positions . . and scarcely ever by
bereavement through death . . scarcely ever. The wound
on the vanity is more irritating than the wound on the
affections and the word Death, if it does not make us
recoil (which it does I think sometimes, . . even from the
graves of beloved beings !), yet keeps us humble . . casts
us down from our heights. We may despond, but we do
not rebel we feel God over us.
Ah your poor gardener ! All that hope is vain and
the many, many hopes which in a father’s heart must have
preceded it ! How sorry I am for him.
You never can have a grief, dearest dearest, of which I
shall not have half for my share. That is my right from
henceforth . . and if I could have it all . . would I not,
do you think, . . and give my love to you to keep instead ?
Yes, . . indeed yes ! May God bless you always. I
have walked out to-day, you did me so much good yester-
day. As for Saturday, it certainly is our day, since you are
not ‘ particularly engaged ‘ to Miss Campbell. Saturday,
the day after to-morrow ! But the mules may wait long at
La Cava for us, if the tradition, which I sent you, is trustworthy may they not ? I feel as disappointed . . as disappointed
Your own, very own BA.