Month: July 2018

[Postmark: July 10, 1846]

Friday.

And I am disappointed, dearest, in this news of La Cava
after which it would be madness to think of going there :
the one reason we have to go at all is simply for your health
I mean, that if the seclusion were the main object, we
might easily compass that here. All places are utterly in-
different to me if I can inhabit them with you why should
Palermo please me less than Italy proper? The distance
is considerable, however, and the journey expensive I
wonder whether the steamer will sail for Leghorn as last
year. As for the travelling English, they are horrible, and
at Florence, unbearable . . their voices in your ear at every
turn . . and such voices ! I got to very nearly hate the
Tribune for their sakes. Vietri is close to Salerno and
must be obvious to the same condemnation. Your friend
speaks from personal experience, I presume she may well
say that the baneful effects of the hour of sunset (i.e. the
Ave-maria) are too much overlooked ‘ in all Italy ‘ I never
heard of them before but an infinity of ‘ crotchets ‘ go
from Italian brain to brain about what, in eating or drinking
or walking or sleeping, will be the death of you : still, they
may know best. The most dreadful event that could
happen to me would be your getting worse instead of
better . . God knows what I should do ! So whatever
precaution we can take, let us take.

Oh, poor Flush, do you think I do not love and respect
him for his jealous supervision, his slowness to know
another, having once known you ? All my apprehension is
that, in the imaginations down-stairs, he may very unconsci-
ously play the part of the dog that is heard to ‘ bark violently ‘
while something dreadful takes place : yet I do not sorrow
over his slapped ears, as if they ever pained him very much
you dear Ba !

And to-morrow I shall see you. Are you, can you be,
really ‘ better ‘ after I have seen you ? If it is not truth . .
which I will not say . . such an assurance is the most
consummate flattery I can imagine . . it may be recorded
on my tombstone ‘R. B. to whom this flattery was ad-
dressed, that, after the sight of him, Ba was better, she
said.’ If it is truth . . may you say that, neither more
nor less, day by day, year by year through our lives and I
shall have lived indeed !

How it rains how it varies from hot to cold ! a pretty
vantage-ground whence we English can look and call other
climates bad or indifferent ! Now if to-morrow resembles
to-day, will the Chiswick expedition hold good ? I shall
consider that I may go unless a letter comes to-morrow . .
which would have to be written to-day. How pleasant it
would be to make our days always Wednesday and Satur-
day . . could not that be contrived ? So much for con-
siderateness and contentedness !

I want, now, to refer as little as possible to the sad
subject . . but I am glad you have written,- glad too that
you are not severe on me for some hasty speeches which
did, indeed, mean as you say . . vexation at your having
been vexed. And, I will just add, you remark excellently
on the wound to self-love making itself that remedy, rather
than the wound to the affections . . yet there are instances . .
Romilly loses his wife . . so does poor Laman Blanchard.

So I go on writing, writing about all but what my heart
is full of ! Let me kiss you, ever dearest to-morrow will
soon arrive meanwhile, and forever I am your own.

[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.

[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.

[Postmark: July 8, 1846]

My own Ba, I received your note on my return from
Talfourd’s last night. I am anxious to get the first post for
this, so can only use the bare words, – if those. After
dinner, Forster put a question to our host about the
amount of the subscription ; and in a minute the paper-
bequest was introduced. Talfourd had received a letter from
Miss Mitford, enclosing one from you (or a copy of one . . I
did not hear) – whereat he pronounced ‘ so emphatically
upon H.’s conduct in making you,-‘ who could never have
known the nature of the transaction nor the very serious
consequences it involved’ the depositary of his pictures
&c. on such occasions, – the words, ‘ H. it seems, has been
in the habit of using Miss B’s house &c.’ (or to that effect)
had so offensive an implication, – that I felt obliged to say
simply, you had never seen Haydon and were altogether
amazed and distressed at his desire, – and that, for the
other matter, what he chose to send, you could not, I
supposed, bring yourself to refuse admittance to the house.
I gave no particular account of my own means of know-
ledge, nor spoke further than to remove the impression
from the minds of the people present that you must have
‘ known ‘ Haydon, as they call ‘ knowing ‘ – and Forster, for
one, expressed surprise at it. I ventured to repeat what I
mentioned to you – ‘ that it seemed likely you were selected
for the Editorship precisely on account of your isolation
from the world.’

Soon after, Forster went away – and, up-stairs, I got
Talfourd alone, and just told him that I was in the habit of
corresponding with you, that you had made me acquainted
with a few of the circumstances, and that you had at once
thought of him, Talfourd, as the proper source of instruction
on the subject. Talfourd’s reply amounted to this, – (in
the fewest words possible). The will &c. is of course an
absurdity. The papers are the undoubted property of the
creditors . . any attempt to publish them would subject
you to an action at law. They were given prospectively to
you exactly for the reason I suggested : they having been in the
first instance offered to Talfourd. Haydon knew that T.
would never print them in their offensive integrity, and hoped
that you would – being quite of the average astuteness in
worldly matters when his own vanity and selfishness were not
concerned. They might, these papers, be published with
advantage to Mrs. Haydon at some future time if the
creditors permit or without their permitting, if woven into
a substantially new framework ; as some ‘ Haydon and his
Times,’ or the like . . but there is nothing to call for such
a step at present, even in that view of advantage to the
family . . the subscription and other assistances being
sufficient for their necessities. Therefore the course T.
would recommend you to adopt is to let the deposit (if you
have one . . for he did not know, and I said nothing) – lie
untouched not giving them up to anybody, any creditor,
to Mrs. H’s prejudice.

Now, can you do better than as Forster advises?
Talfourd goes on circuit to-morrow – he said, ‘ I can hear,
or arrange anything with Miss B’s brother ‘ – so that, if there
should be no time, you can write by him, and entrust
explanations &c. But would it not be best to get done with
this matter directly to write a BRIEF note in the course of
to-day, mentioning the facts, and requesting advice ? In
order to leave you the time to do this, – should the post
presently bring me a letter allowing me to see you at three
. . unless the allowance is very free, very irresistible . . I
will rather take to-morrow . . a piece of self-denial I fear I
should not so readily bring myself to exhibit, were I not
really obliged to pass your house to-day ; so that even Ba
will understand !

Miss Mitford’s note appears to have been none of the
wisest – indeed a phrase or two I heard, were purely foolish :
H. was said to have practised ‘ Ion’s principle’ !

T. had known Haydon most intimately and for a long
time : he does not believe H. was mad — of a mad vanity, of
course. His last paper . . ‘ Haydon’s Thoughts ‘ . . was a
dissertation on the respective merits of Napoleon and
Wellington – how wrong Haydon felt he had been to prefer
the former . . and the why and the wherefore. All this
wretched stuff, in a room theatrically arranged, here his
pictures, there . . God forgive us all, fools or wise by
comparison ! The debts are said to be £3,000 . . he
having been an insolvent debtor . . how long before?
His landlord, a poor man, is creditor for £1,200.

Here I will end, and wait : this is written in all haste
. . and is so altogether no proper letter of mine that I shall
put the necessary ‘ Private ‘ at the top of it. My letter shall
go presently, if I do not go, to my own Ba-

R. B.

Should you write to your brother . . will he need
reminding that Talfourd is only to know we correspond, –
not that we are personally acquainted ? Had you not better
mention this in any case ?

God bless you, dearest, – what a letter from me to you –
to Ba ! Time, Time !

[Postmark: July 8, 1846]

Tuesday Evening

Yes—I understand you perfectly—and it should be exactly as you say—and it is just that, which requires so much adroitness,—and such decision and strength of hand, to manage these responsibilities. Somebody is wanted to cut and burn, and be silent afterwards. I remember that bitter things are said of Shelley and Leigh Hunt beyond all the bitterness of alcohol. Olives do not taste so, though steeped in salt. There are some curious letters by poor Keats about Hunt, and they too are bitter. It would be dreadful to suffer these miseries to sow themselves about the world, like so much thistle-down . . the world, where there are thistles enough already, to make fodder for its wild asses!

As to Landor . . oh, I did not remember the note you speak of in the satire you speak of—but you remember everything . . . even me. Is it not true that Landor, too, is one of the men who carry their passions about with them into everything, as a boy would, pebbles . . muddying every clear water, with a stone here and a stone there. The end is, that we lose the image of himself in the serene depth, as we might have had it—and the little stone comes to stand for him. How unworthy of such a man as Landor, such weakness is! To think with one’s temper!! One might as well be at once Don Quixote, and fight with a warming-pan.

But I did not remember the former opinion. I took it for a constitutional fancy of Lander’s, and did not smile much more at it than at my own ‘profundity in German,’ which was a matter of course . . of course . . of course. For have I not the gift of tongues? Don’t I talk Syriac . . as well as Flush talks English—and Hebrew, like a prophetess . . and various other languages and dialects less familiarly known to persons in general than these aforesaid? So, profound indeed, must be the German and the Dutch! And perhaps it may not be worth while to answer Mr. Landor’s note for the mere purpose of telling him anything about it.

Dearest!—I have written all this before I would say a word of your coming, just to think a little more—and down all these pages I have been thinking, thinking, of you . . of your possible coming . . what nonsense they must be! Well! and the end is that, let it be wise or unwise, I must and will see you to-morrow—I cannot do otherwise. It is just as if Flush had been shut up in a box for so many days. My spirits flag . . and I could find it in my heart to grow cross like Landor and deny Goethe. So come, dearest dearest—and let the world bark at our heels if it pleases. I will just turn round and set Flush at it.

For two or three days I have not been out—not for two days . . not out of this room. This evening at seven, when they were all going to dinner, I took Wilson with me and drove into the park for air. It will do me good perhaps—but your coming will, certainly. So come, my dearest beloved!—At three, remember.

Your own
BA.

[Postmark: July 7, 1846]YS

Tuesday.

Dearest, the first thing to say is the deep joyfulness of expecting to see you, really, to-morrow—mind, the engagement with Mr. Kenyon is nothing in the way. If you cannot let me stay the usual time—I can call, pass away the interval easily . . this is a superfluous word to your goodness which is superfluous in these ‘old ways of Ba’s’—dear Ba, whom I kiss with perfect love—and shall soon kiss in no dream! Landor is all well enough in one sentence . . happily turned that is,—but I am vexed at his strange opinion of Goethe’s poem,—and the more, that a few years ago he wrote down as boldly that nothing had been written so ‘Hellenic’ these two thousand years—(in a note to the ‘Satire on the Satirists’)—and of these opinions I think the earlier much nearer the truth. Then he wrote so, because Wordsworth had depreciated Goethe—now, very likely, some maladroit applauder has said Landor’s own ‘Iphigenia’ is worthy of Goethe,—or similar platitudes.

Yes, dearest, you are quite right—and my words have a wrong sense, and one I did not mean they should bear, if they object to confessions and autobiographies in general. Only the littleness and temporary troubles, the petty battle with foes, which is but a moment’s work however the success may be, all that might go when the occasion, real or fancied, is gone. I would have the customary ‘habits,’ as we say, of the man preserved, and if they were quilted and stiffened with steel and bristling all over with the offensive and defensive weapons the man judged necessary for his safety,—they should be composed and hung up decently—telling the true story of his life. But I should not preserve the fretful gesture,—lift the arm, as it was angrily lifted to keep off a wolf—which now turns out to have been only Flush in a fever of vigilance—half-drew the sword which—Ah, let me have done with this! You understand, if I do not. For the bad story,—the telling that, if it were true, is nearly as bad as inventing it. That poor woman is the hack-block of a certain class of redoubtable braggarts—there are such stories by the dozen in circulation. All may have been misconception . . ‘advances’—to induce one more painter to introduce her face in his works.

My time is out . . I had much to say, but this letter of mine arrived by the afternoon post,—shame on the office! To-morrow!

Bless you, ever dearest dearest —
Your own.

[Postmark: July 7, 1846]

Tuesday Morning

in haste.

Dearest, I am uncertain whether I can see you to-morrow. To-night I will write again — you shall hear. You tell me to risk nothing . . which is what I feel. But I long, long to see you. You shall hear in the morning.

Read the note which Mr. Kenyon sends me from Mr. Forster. Very averse I feel, from applying, in the way prescribed, to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd. Tell me what to do, Robert . . my ‘famous in council!’ Sick at heart, it all makes me. Am I to write to Mr. Talfourd, do you think?

Oh, you would manage it for me — but to mix you up in it, will make a danger of a worse evil. May God bless you, my own. I may see you to-morrow perhaps after all it is a ‘perhaps’ though . . and I am surely

Your BA.

[Postmark: July 7, 1846]

Monday.

But I meant to ‘leave it to you,’ not to come before Wednesday but after Wednesday, in case of some Wednesday’s engagement coming to cross mine. ‘Ba’s old way’ . . do you cry out! Perhaps — only that an engagement is a possible thing always. Not meaning an engagement with Miss Campbell. I hope, hope, then, to be able to see you, dearest Robert, on Wednesday. On Wednesday, at last!

Here is a letter which I had this morning from Mr. Landor, than which can anything be more gracious? It appears . . I forgot to tell you yesterday after I heard it from Mr. Kenyon . . it appears that my note of thanks had my signature affixed to it in such a state of bad writing, that Mr. Landor, being sorely puzzled, sent the letter up to Mr. Forster to be read. Mr. Forster read it (so it could be read!) and then took it to Mr. Kenyon, who read it too, and afterwards came to scold me for being perfectly illegible. It was signed at full length too, Elizabeth Barrett Barrett . . and really I couldn’t believe that I was very guilty till Mr. Lander’s own letter persuaded me this morning of its being so much pleasanter to be guilty than innocent, for the nonce.

Ah — you use the right word for the other subject. If a bequest, it is indeed a ‘dispiriting bequest,’ this of poor Haydon’s. But I hope to the last that he meant simply to point to me as the actual holder of the papers — and certainly when he sent the great trunk here, it was with no intention of dying; Mr. Kenyon agreed with me to that effect — I showed him the notes which I had found and laid aside for you, and which you shall take with you on Wednesday. Still, there must be an editor found somewhere because the papers cannot go as they are to a publisher’s hands from mine, if I only hold them. Does any one say that I am a fit editor? Have I the power? the knowledge of art and artists? of the world? of the times? of the persons? All these things are against me — and others besides.

Now I will tell you one thing which he told me in confidence, but which is at length perhaps in those papers — I tell you because you are myself, and will understand the need and obligation to silence — and I want you to understand besides how the twenty-six volumes hang heavily on my thoughts. He told me in so many words that Mrs. Norton had made advances towards him — and that his children, in sympathy towards their mother, had dashed into atoms the bust of the poetess as it stood in his painting room.

If you can say anything safely for me at Mr. Talfourd’s, of course I shall be glad . . and Mr. Kenyon will speak to Mr. Forster, he said. I want to get back my letters too as soon as I can do it without disturbing anyone’s peace. What is in those letters, I cannot tell, so impulsively and foolishly, sometimes, I am apt to write; and at that time, through caring for nobody and feeling so loose to life, I threw away my thoughts without looking where they fell. Often my sisters have blamed me for writing in that wild way to strangers — and I should like to have the letters back before they shall have served to amuse two or three executors — but of this too, I spoke to Mr. Kenyon.

Still it is not of me that we are called to think — and I would not for the world refuse any last desire, if clearly signified, and if the power should be with me. He was not a common man — he had in him the stuff of greatness, this poor Haydon had; and we must consider reverently whatever rent garment he shall have left behind. Quite, in some respects, I think with you — but your argument does appear to me to sweep out too far on one side, so that if you do not draw it back, Robert, you will efface all autobiography and confession — tear out a page bent over by many learners — I mean when you say that because he is above (now) the passions and frailties he has recorded, we should put from us the record. True, he is above it all — true, he has done with the old Haydon; like a man outgrowing his own childhood he will not spin this top any more. Oh, it is true — I feel it all just as you do. But, after all, a man outgrowing his childhood, may leave his top to children, and no one smile! This record is not for the angels, but for us, who are a little lower at highest. Three volumes perhaps may be taken from the twenty-six full of character and interest, and not without melancholy teaching. Only some competent and sturdy hand should manage the selection; as surely as mine is unfit for it. But where to seek discretion? delicacy?

Dearest, I speak the truth to you — I am not ill indeed. When I was at best in health I used sometimes to be a little weak and faint, and it has only been so for this last day or two. By Wednesday the cloud will have passed. And, do you know, I have found out something from our long parting, . . I have found out that I love you better than even I thought. There’s a piece of finding out! My own dearest — what would become of me indeed, if I could not see you on Wednesday nor on Thursday nor on Friday? — no breath I have, for going on. No breath I should have, for living on. I do kiss you through the distance — since you tell me. I love you with my soul.

Your own I am.

Three of the flowers and nearly all the little blue ones stay with me all this while to comfort me!! isn’t it kind of them?

Two letters to-day — and such letters! Ah — if you love me always but half as much — I will agree with you now for half! Yet, O Hesiod, half is not better than the whole, by any means! Yet . . if the whole went away, and did not leave me half! —

When I was a child I heard two married women talking. One said to the other . . ‘The most painful part of marriage is the first year, when the lover changes into the husband by slow degrees.’ The other woman agreed, as a matter of fact is agreed to. I listened with my eyes and ears, and never forgot it . . as you observe. It seemed to me, child as I was, a dreadful thing to have a husband by such a process. Now, it seems to me more dreadful.

Si l’âme est immortelle
L’amour ne l’est-il pas?

Beautiful verses — just to prove to you that I do not remember only the disagreeable things . . only to teaze you with, like so many undeserved reproaches. And you so good, so best — Ah — but it is that which frightens me! so far best!

You were foolish to begin to love me, you know, as always I told you, my beloved! — but since you would begin, . . go on to do it as long as you can . . do not leave me in the wilderness. God bless you for me! —

I am your BA.

Think if people were to get hold of that imputation on poor Mrs. Norton — think!

[Postmark: July 6, 1846]

Monday.

When I read, after the reasons for not seeing you to-day,
this ó’still I leave it to you,’óbelieve, dearest, that I at
once made the sacrifice and determined to wait till Wednes-
day, óas seemed best for you, and therefore for me : but at
the letter’s very end, amid the sweetest, comes ‘ Wednesday
. . or must it be Thursday?’ What is than What ‘must’
is mine ? Shall you fear, or otherwise suffer, if we appoint
Wednesday ?

Oh, another year of this ! Yet I am not, I feel, ungrate-
ful to the Past . . all the obstacles in the world can do
nothing now, nothing : earlier they might have proved
formidable annoyances. I have seen enough of you, Ba,
for an eternity of belief in you . . and you, as you confess,
you cannot think ‘ I shall forget.’

All you can, you compensate me for the absence óthat

such letters, instead of being themselves the supremest
reward and last of gains, should beócompensation, at the
best ! Am I really to have you, all of you and altogether,
and always ? If you go out of your dream-life, can I lie
quietly in mine ? But I hold your hand and hear your
voice through it all.

How do these abrupt changes in the temperature affect
you ? Yesterday at noon, so oppressively hot ó this morn-
ing, a wind and a cold. Do you feel no worse than
usual ? If you do not tell me,ó you know, I cannot keep
away. Then, this disinspiriting bequest of poor Haydon’s
journal . . his ‘ writings ‘ ó from which all the harm came,
and, it should seem, is still to come to himself and every-
body beside ó let us all forget what came of those descrip-
tions and vindications and explanations interminable ; but
as for beginning another sorrowful issue of them,ó it is part
and parcel of the insanity ó and to lay the business of editing
the ‘ twenty-six ‘ (I think) volumes, with the responsibility,
on you ó most insane ! Unless, which one would avoic
supposing, the author trusted precisely to your ignorance of
facts and isolation from the people able to instruct you.
Take one little instance of how ‘ facts ‘ may be set downó
in the Athenceum was an account of Haydon’s quoting
Waller’s verse about the eagle reached by his own feather
on the arrow,ówhich he applied to Maclise and some
others, who had profited by their intimacy with him to turn
his precepts to account and so surpass him in public estima-
tion : now, Maclise was in Haydon’s company for the first
time at Talfourd’s on that evening when I met your brother
there,óso said Talfourd in an after-supper speech,óand
Forster, to whom I mentioned the circumstance, assured
me that Maclise ‘ called on Haydon for the first time only
a few months ago ‘ . . I suppose, shortly after. New, what
right has Maclise, a fine generous fellow, to be subjected to
such an imputation as that? With an impartial prudent
man, acquainted with the artists of the last thirty years,

the editing might turn to profit : I do hope for an exercise
of Mr. Kenyon’s caution here, at all events. And then how
horrible are all these posthumous revelations, óthese passions
of the now passionless, errors of the at length better-
instructed ! All falls unfitly, ungraciouslyóthe triumphs
or the despondencies, the hopes or fears, ofó whom ? He
is so far above it all now ! Even in this lifeóimagine a
proficient in an art or science, who, after thirty or sixty
years of progressive discovery, finds that some bookseller
has disinterred and is about publishing the raw first attempt
at a work which he was guilty of in the outset !

All of which you know better than Ió what do you not
know better ? Nor as well ? óthat I love you with my
whole heart, Ba, dearest Ba, and look up into your eyes for
all light and life. Bless you.

Your very own ó

I am going to Talfourd’s to-morrow (to dine)óand per-
haps to Chorley’s in the evening. If I can do any bidding of
yours at Talfourd’s . . but that seems improbable, with
Mr Kenyon, too ! But (this between our very selves] the
Talfourds, or at least Mrs T., please to take one of their
unimaginably stupid groundless dislikes to him.