Day: July 20, 2018

[Postmark: July 20, 1846]

Monday Evening.

Certainly you do know me, my own Ba, beyond all other
knowledge possible to relatives, — that I know — in fact, I
found myself speaking unwarily on a subject where speech
is obliged to stop abruptly — the fault was mine for bringing
up terms, remarks &c. quite inapplicable out of this house, —
where all, as you understand, have seen me so long that
they do not see differences in me, — increases or diminutions ;
I am twice as blind, most likely, to them, after the same
fashion. Still, one is slow to concede an excuse to such
blindness — hence the ‘ hasty words ‘ I told you they charge
me with uttering.

I apprehend no danger from that, to your feeling for me —
it is your own speech my Ba, which I will take from you,
and use — my own general short-comings, you will inevitably
see and be sorry for — but there will be the more need
of your love, which I shall go on asking for daily and nightly
as if I never could have enough — which is the exact
fact ; and also, I shall grow fitter through the love to be
what you would have me, so the end may be better than the
beginning, let us hope.

Will you not do what you can with me who am your
very own ? as you are my own too, but for a different end
— I am yours to operate on, as you are my only lady to
dispose of what belongs to you. Dear, dearest Ba, it is so ;
will ever be so !

Yes, that notice by Chorley is very kind and gratifying.
I wanted — (quite apart from the poor good to me or my
books — but for Chorley’s own sake, I rather wanted) — some
decided streak of red, or spot, or spark, — some life in the
increasing grey of the ashes — this is true, live lovingness of
him — I will tell him so.

For Domett’s letter, — he means, by all that nonsense, that
my health is more in his estimation than any works producible
at its expense. All the calculation about so many
lines a day, so many a month &c., he knows to be absurd . .
you can’t write ‘ so many lines to-day,’ and add next day’s
complement, and so ‘ grow to an end ‘ — any more than you
can paint a picture by thumb-breadths. The other paragraph
about intelligibility laughs at itself all the time . . is
not to be taken for serious.

Indeed I did desire with a great desiring that you should
go out, and now I thank you for all the good account of the
walk, and victory over the wind : and how kind that sister
is ! — I shall never forget it.

My own head, since you will be teazed with intelligence
about it, was not very well yesterday, but is better decidedly
this morning — I, too, will go and put this letter in the post
and think of to-morrow . . for do not I keep to-morrow ?
I shall be with you unless another order comes . . may it
be averted ! And may you be happy always with me, as I
shall be through you . . nay, but half as happy, dearest Ba,
my very own !

Your R.

[Postmark: July 20, 1846]

Sunday.

Dearest, the leaf of yesterday was folded down quite
smoothly and softly. A dinner party swept the thought
of you out of people’s minds. Otherwise I was prepared to
be a little afraid, — for my aunt said to Arabel, upon being
dispensed with so cavalierly from this room, . . (said in the
passage, Arabel told me, with a half-laugh,) ‘Pray which
of Ba’s lovers may this be ? ‘ So Arabel had to tell the
name of the visitor. But the dinner-party set all right, and
this morning I was asked simply whether it had been an
agreeable visit, and what you had written, and banalities
after such a fashion.

Oh, and I went out . . remembering your desire . .
was it not a desire, dearest, dearest ? I went out, any
way — but the wind blew, and I had to hold my veil against
my mouth, doubled, and trebled . . with as many folds,
indeed, as Ajax’s shield . . to keep myself in breathing
order. The wind always gives me a sort of strangling
sensation, which is the effect, I suppose, of having weak
lungs. So it was not a long walk, but I liked it because
you seemed to be with me still, — and Arabel, who walked
with me, was ‘sure, without being told, that I had had a
happy visit, just from my manner.’ The wisest of inter-
preters, I called her, and pour cause.

If ever I mistake you, Robert, doing you an injustice.
. . you ought to be angry, I think, rather and more with me
than with another — I should have far less excuse it appears
to me, for making such a mistake, than any other person in
the world. I thought so yesterday when you were speaking,
and now upon consideration I think so with an increasing
certainty. Is it your opinion that the members of our
family, . . those who live with us always, . . know us best ?
They know us on the side we offer to them . . a bare
profile . . or the head turned round to the ear — yes ! —
they do not, except by the merest chance, look into our
eyes. They know us in a conventional way . . as far from
God’s way of knowing us, as from the world’s — mid-way,
it is — and the truest and most cordial and tender affection
will not hinder this from being so partial a knowledge.
Love ! I love those who at the present moment, . . who
love me (and tenderly on both sides) . . but who are
so far from understanding me, that I never think of
speaking myself into their ears . . of trying to speak myself.
It is wonderful, it is among the great mysteries of life, to
observe how people can love one another in the dark,
blindly . . loving without knowing. And, as a matter of
general observation, if I sought to have a man or woman
revealed to me in his or her innermost nature, I would not
go to the family of the person in question — though I
should learn there best, of course, about personal habits,
and the social bearing of him or her. George Sand delights
me in one of her late works, where she says that the souls of
blood relations seldom touch except at one or two points.
Perfectly true, that is, I think — perfectly.

Remember how you used to say that I did not know
you . . which was true in a measure . . yet I felt I knew
you, and I did actually know you, in another larger measure.
And if now you are not known to me altogether, it is my
dulness which makes me unknowing.

But I know you — and I should be without excuse if
ever I wronged you with a moment’s injustice. I do not
think I ever could depreciate you for a moment, — that
would not be possible. There are other sins against you
(are they against you ?) which bring their own punishment !
You shall never be angry with me for those.

While I was writing, came Mr. Kenyon. As usual he
said that there was no use in his coming — that you had
taken his place, and so on. He was in a high good
humour, though, and spirits, and I did not mind much
what he was pleased to say. More I minded, that he
means ‘to stay in London all the summer ‘ . . which I
can’t be glad of, . . though I was glad at his not persisting
in going to Scotland against his own wishes. But he might
like to go somewhere else — it would be a pleasure, that, in
which I should sympathize ! The more shame for me !

Mr. Chorley pleases me more than he ever pleased me
before ! Only, as an analysis, he has done curiously with
‘Pippa.’ But it is good appreciation, good and righteous,
and he has given me, altogether, a great, great deal of
pleasure. As to the letter, I liked that too in its degree —
and the advice is wise for the head, if foolish for the work.
How can wise people be so foolish ?

I am going out to walk now with Henrietta, and shall
put this letter into the post with my own hand. It is seven
p.m. May God bless you. Do say how you are, dear,
dearest !

I am your very own BA.

[Postmark: July 20, 1846]

Dearest Ba’s face of yesterday, with the smiles and
perfect sweetness, oh, the comfort it is to me through this
day of my especial heaviness ! I don’t know when I have
felt more stupid, and I seem to keep the closelier to you,
Ba. Is that one of my felicities of compliment ? I think if
you were here I should lay my head on your bosom, my
own beloved, and never raise it again. In your last
letter, you speak of those who care less for you than for a
‘ glass of claret ‘ there is something sublime, at all
events, astounding, in the position we occupy each of us,
I, and those less-carers, standing in respect to each other
so like England and Owhyhee, at which, they told me
when I was a boy, I should be pretty sure to arrive if I dug a
hole just through the earth, dropped to the centre and then,
turning round, climbed straight up!

I left here, yesterday, without taking the prints of
Dumas and Hugo there is a head ‘ for remembering ! ‘ and
justifying your commodations ! Chorley says, you see, my
acquisitions are rather accumulated than digested or
words to that effect I am sure at this moment the stupid,
heavy head knows not one thing, as a clear point of know-
ledge, taken in and laid by, orderly and separately. So let
me say here, while I do remember, that a letter from
Forster puts off his visit and Moxon’s till Monday should
any reason therefore, prevent your confirming to me the
gift of Tuesday, this other day will lie open but only in
that case, I trust because Tuesday objects not to Saturday,
does it? while Wednesday looks grave, and Thursday
frowns downright on the same ! Friday, remember, is Mr.
Kenyon’s day.

I wish, dearest, you would tell me precisely what you
have written all my affectionate pride in you rises at once
when I think of your poetry, that is and that is to be you
dear, dear Ba, can you not write on my shoulder while my
head lies as you permit?

I found at home on my return yesterday my friend
Pritchard, who brought me an old notice of Rachel by Jules
Janin of course there is no believing a word but he does say
that she was, at the time he wrote, perfectly ignorant of
the most ordinary rules of grammar, that, for instance, on
meeting him she remarked (alluding to her having played
previously at another theatre than the T. Frangais) ‘ C’était
moi que j’était au Gymnase ! ‘ to which he ought to have
answered, he thinks, ‘ Je le savions ! ‘ I will bring her
portrait, too, if you please and this memoir, untrustworthy
as it is.

I will go now and walk about, I think did you go out,
as you promised, love ? Ah, dearest, you to wonder I
could look up to you for ever as you stand, you who
once wrote to me that, in order to verify a date about
Shelley in a book I lent you, ‘ You had accomplished a
journey to the other end of the room, even ‘ ! And now !
I thankfully know this to be miraculous nor have I to ask
my spiritual director’s opinion thereon to whom, how on
earth can one surrender one’s private right of judgment
when it is only by the exercise of that very right that I
select him from the multitude of would-be directors of me
and the whole world ? What but a deliberate act of judg-
ment takes up Dr. Pusey of Oxford rather than Mrs. Fox of
Finsbury and is it for that pernicious first step that I
determine on never risking a second?

Bless you, ever dearest and do you bless your

very own R.