[Postmark: July 31, 1846]
Thursday Evening.
Well, then, — it wasn’t, after all, so extravagant of me to
make the proposition about ‘ four months ? ‘ How innocent
people may be treated like guilty ones, through no mistake
even, of theirs !
But I hold to my first impression about Mr. Kenyon,
whatever your second ones may be. I know him entirely,
and his views of life, and his terrors of responsibility . .
his irresolution, his apprehensiveness. He never would ‘ shake
his head ‘ good-naturedly, . . until he could do nothing else.
Just in proportion to the affection he bears each of us,
would he labour to drive us apart. And by the means you
describe ! And we who can foresee and analyze those
means from this distance, would not, either of us, resist
the actual process ! There . . do not suffer yourself, ever
dearest, to be drawn into any degree of confidence there !
It would end miserably, I know . . see . . am confidently
sure. Let him, on the contrary, see the thing done, before
he sees it at all, and then he will see the best of it . . the
good in it . . then we shall stand on the sunshiny side of
his philosophy and have all the benefit of that, instead of
having to endure, as we should now, the darkness of his
irresolution and the weight of his over-caution. Observe of
dear Mr. Kenyon, that, generous and noble as he is, he fears
like a mere man of the world. Moreover he might find very
rational cause for fearing, in a distant view of this . .
‘ most rational ‘ of marriages ! — oh, but I am wrong in my
quotation ! — this only rational marriage that ever was heard
of ! — ! ! — it is so, I think.
Where did you guess that I was to-day ? In Westminster Abbey!
But we were there at the wrong hour,
as the service was near to begin . . and I was so frightened
of the organ, that I hurried and besought my companions
out of the door after a moment or two. Frightened of the
organ ! — yes, just exactly that — and you may laugh a little
as they did. Through being so disused to music, it affects
me quite absurdly. Again the other day, in the drawing
room, because my cousin sang a song from the ‘ Puritani, ‘
of no such great melancholy, I had to go away to finish my
sobbing by myself. Which is all foolish and absurd, I
know — but people cannot help their nerves — and I was
ready to cry to-day, only to think of the organ, without
hearing it — I, who do not cry easily, either ! and all
Arabel’s jests about how I was sure of my life even if I
should hear one note, . . did not reassure me in the least.
We walked within the chapel . . merely within . . and
looked up and looked down ! How grand — how solemn !
Time itself seemed turned to stone there ! Then we stood
where the poets were laid — oh, it is very fine — it is
better than Laureateships and pensions. Do you remember what
is written on Spenser’s monument — ‘ Here lyeth, in
expectation of the second coming of Jesus Christ, . . Edmond
Spenser, having given proof of his divine spirit in his poems ‘
— something to that effect ; and it struck me as being
earnest and beautiful, and as if the writer believed in him.
We should not dare, nowadays, to put such words on a
poet’s monument. We should say . . the author of such
a book . . at most ! Michael Drayton’s inscription has
crept back into the brown heart of the stone . . all but the
name and a date, which somebody has renewed with black
lines . . black as ink.
Dearest, it will not do at all . . the going at eight
o’clock in the morning. I could not leave this house — it
would not be possible. And then, why should we wish even,
for that long passage to no end ; Southampton or Brighton
being, each of them, accessible and unobjectionable. As
for the expense, it is nearly equal, by railway or sea.
For Mrs. Jameson, I mentioned her because you did
once, and because her being so kind reminded me of it. I
thought perhaps you might like her being with us (how
should I know ? ), in which case . . Well — but you do not
wish it, . . and indeed I do not. Therefore she shall go
by herself . . dear Mrs. Jameson . . I will however write
to her, which I have not done yet. It is not so easy as
you think, perhaps, to write at once so much and so little.
Why not tell me how you are, Robert ? When you do
not, I fancy that you are not well ! Say how you are,
and love me till Saturday — and even afterwards.
Your very own BA.
As to forgiveness — ought I to have been angry when I
was not ? All I felt in that letter, was, that you loved me
— and as to your pretending to think that it was ‘ show and
acting ‘ on my part, I knew you did not really, and
could not : — but at any rate I was the farthest possible
from being angry — and the very farthest possible,
peradventure !