[Postmark: July 23, 1846]
Wednesday.
Dearest, what you say is unnecessary for you to say — it
is in everything so of course and obvious ! You must have
an eccentric idea of me if you can suppose for a moment
such things to be necessary to say. If they had been unsaid,
it would have been precisely the same, believe me, in
the event.
As to the way of living — now you shall arrange that
for yourself. You shall choose your own lodging, order
your own dinner . . and if you choose to live on locusts and
wild honey, I promise not to complain . . I shall not indeed
be inclined to complain . . having no manner of ambition
about carriages and large houses, even if they were within
our possibilities, — which they may not be, according to Mr.
Surtees’s calculation or experience. The more simply we
live, the better for me ! So you shall arrange it for yourself,
lest I should make a mistake ! . . which, in that question,
is a just possible thing.
One extravagance I had intended to propose to you . .
but it shall be exactly as you like, and I hesitate a little as
I begin to speak of it. I have thought of taking Wilson
with me, . . for a year, say, if we returned then — if not, we
might send her home alone . . and by that time, I should
be stronger perhaps and wiser . . rather less sublimely
helpless and impotent than I am now. My sisters have urged
me a good deal in this matter — but if you would rather it
were otherwise, be honest and say so, and let me alter my
thoughts at once. There is one consideration which I sub-
mit to yours, . . that I cannot leave this house with the
necessary number of shoes and pocket handkerchiefs, without
help from somebody. Now whoever helps me, will
suffer through me. If I left her behind she would be turned
into the street before sunset. Would it be right and just of
me, to permit it ? Consider ! I must manage a sheltering
ignorance for my poor sisters, at the last, . . and for all our
sakes. And in order to that, again, I must have some one
else in my confidence. Whom, again, I would unwillingly
single out for an absolute victim.
Wilson is attached to me, I believe — and, in all the
discussions about Italy, she has professed herself willing to
‘ go anywhere in the world with me.’ Indeed I rather fancy
that she was disappointed bitterly last year, and that it
would not be a pure devotion. She is an expensive servant —
she has sixteen pounds a year, . . but she has her utilities
besides, and is very amiable and easily satisfied, and would
not add to the expenses, or diminish from the economies,
even in the matter of room — I would manage that for her.
Then she would lighten your responsibilities . . as the
Archbishop of Canterbury and company do Mr. Sevan’s.
Well — you have only to consider your own wishes. I
shall not care many straws, if you decide this way or that
way. Let it be as may seem to you wisest.
I like Mr. Chorley’s note. I began to write so late
that I, too, must send you a bare note to-night. May God
bless you, ever dearest. I am tired . . so tired — yet I have
not a long story to tell you of myself for the day’s chronicle
I was just out for the few minutes my walking occupies, and
came home and had coffee at half-past four ; and scarcely
was the cup empty, when Mrs. Jameson arrived — she stayed
while you might count to a hundred — and your name was
not once mentioned. And now, good-night. I hope the
‘ testimonials ‘ may be ‘ satisfactory,’ in this note which will
not wait to be a letter ! Dearest, say how your head is —
do.
I am your Ba, always !