Month: July 2018

[Postmark: July 6, 1846]
,

Sunday.

Will it do if you come on Wednesday, dearest ? It will
be safer I think — and, with people staying in the house, it
is necessary, you see, to consider a little. My aunt is so

tired with her journey that she is not likely to go out at all
to-morrow — and when I remember that you dine with Mr.
Kenyon on that Wednesday, it seems marked out for our
day. Still I leave it to you. Never have we been so long
parted, and perhaps by Wednesday you may forget me — ah
no ! Now I will not make the time longer by being
unkind . . or even unjust.

I meant to write you a long letter to-day, — but first my
aunt and cousin were here telling me all the statistics of
Arabella Hedley’s marriage, — and then Mr. Kenyon came,
. . and on such a very different subject, his talk was, that
he has left me quite depressed. It appears that poor Mr.
Haydon, in a paper entering into his reasons for self-destruc-
tion, says that he has left his manuscripts to me with a
desire for me to arrange the terms of their publication with
Longman. Of course it has affected me naturally . . such
a proof of trust when he had so many friends wiser and
stronger to look to — but I believe the reference to be simply
to the fact of his having committed to my care all his
private papers in a great trunk . . one of three which he
sent here. Two years ago when we corresponded, he made
me read a good part of his memoirs, which he thought of
publishing at that time ; and then he asked me (no, it was
a year and a half ago) to speak about them to some book-
seller . . to Longman, he said, I remember, then. I
explained, in reply, how I had not any influence with any
bookseller in the world ; advising him besides not to think
of printing, without considerable modification, what I had
read. In fact it was — with much that was individual and
interesting, — as unfit as possible for the general reader
— fervid and coarse at once, with personal references blood-
dyed at every page. At the last, I suppose, the idea came
back to him of my name in conjunction with Longman’s —
I cannot think that he meant me to do any editor’s work, for
which (with whatever earnestness of will) I must be com-
paratively unfit, both as a woman and as personally and

historically ignorant of the persons and times he writes of.
I should not know how one reference would fall innocently,
and another like a thunderbolt, on surviving persons, I
only know that without great modification, the Memoirs
should not appear at all . . that the scandal would be great
if they did. At the same time you will feel with me, I am
sure, you who always feel with me, that whatever is clearly
set for me to do, I should not shrink from under these
circumstances, whatever the unpleasantness may be, more
or less, involved in the doing. But if Mr. Serjeant Talfourd
is the executor . . is he not the obviously fit person?
Well ! there is no need to talk any more. Mr. Kenyon is to
try to see the paper. It was Mr. Forster who came to tell
him of this matter and to get him to communicate it to me.
Poor Haydon !

Dearest, I long for you to come and bring me a little
light. Tell me how you are — now tell me. Tell me too
how your mother is.

My aunt’s presence here has seemed to throw me back
suddenly and painfully into real life out of my dream-life
with you into the old dreary flats of real life. She does
not know your name even — she sees in me just Ba who is
not your Ba — and when she talks to me . . seeing me so
. . I catch the reflection of the cold abstraction as she
apprehends it, and feel myself for a moment a Ba who is
not your Ba . . sliding back into the melancholy of it !
Do you understand the curious process, I talk of so mistily?
Do you understand that she makes me sorrowful with not
talking of you while she talks to me ? Everything, in fact,
that divides us, I must suffer from — soI need not treat
metaphysically of causes and causes . . splitting the thinner
straws.

Once she looked to the table where the remains of
your flowers are, . . and said, ‘I suppose Miss Mitford
brought you those flowers.’ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘she did
not.’ ‘Oh no,’ began Arabel with a more suggestive voice,

‘not Miss Mitford’s flowers.’ But I turned the subject
quickly.

Robert ! — how did you manage to write me the dear
note from Mrs. Jameson’s ? how could you dare write and
direct it before her eyes ? What an audacity that was of
yours. Oh — and how I regretted the missing you, as you
proved it was a missing, by the letter ! Twice to miss you
on one day, seemed too much ill-luck . . . even for me, I
was going to write . . but that would have been a word of
my old life, before I knew that I was born to the best
fortune and happiest, which any woman could have, . . in
being loved by you.

Dearest, do not leave off loving me. Do not forget me
by Wednesday. Shall it be Wednesday? or must it be
Thursday? answer you.

I am your own

BA.

[Postmark: July 6, 1846]JH

You will have known by my two or three words that I
received your letter in time to set out for Mrs J.’s — she said
to me, directly and naturally, ‘you have missed a great
pleasure ‘ — and then accounted for your absence. Do not

be sorry, Ba, at my gladness . . for I was I hope glad
. . yes, I am sure, glad that you ran no risk if you will not
think of that, think of my risk if you had ‘fainted’ .. should
I have kept the secret, do you suppose ? Oh, dearest of
all dreamt-of dearness, – incur no unnecessary danger now,
at . . shall I dare trust, – the end of the adventure ! I
cannot fear for any mischance that may follow once let my}
arms be round you . . I mean, the blow seems then to fall
on both alike – now, what dismal, obscure months might be
prolonged between us before we meet next by a caprice
where the power is ! When have I been so long without
the blessing of your sight ! Yet how considerately you
have written, what amends you make, all that the case
admits of ! If I were less sure of my own mind, and what
it knows for best, I might understand the French lover’s
fancy of being separated from his mistress that he might be

written to and write .. but the very best I know, and have

ever in sight, and constantly shall strive after .. to see you

face to face, to live so and to die so – which I say, because it

ends all, all that can be ended .. and yet seems in itself so encountered – no death no end.

After all, I may see you to-morrow may I not ? There

is no more than a danger, an apprehension, that we may lose to-morrow also, is there ? You cannot tell me after this is

read . . I shall know before. If I receive no letter, mind, I go to you .. so that if the Post is in fault after its custom, and your note arrives at 3 o’clock you will know

why I seem to disobey it and call .. and I shall understand why you are not to be seen – but I will hope.

When you say these exquisitely dear and tender things, you know Ba, it is as if the sweet hand were on my mouth –

I cannot speak .. I try to seem as if I heard not, for all the

joy of hearing .. you give me a jewel and I cannot repeat, ‘you, you do give me a jewel.’ I am not worthy of any gift,

you must know, Ba, – never say you do not – but what you press on me, let me feel and half-see, and in the end, carry

away, but do not think I can, in set words, take them. At
most, they are, and shall be, half-gift half-loan for adornment’s sake, — mine to wear, yours to take back again.
Even this, all this ungracefulness, is proper, appropriate in
its way — I am penetrated with shame thinking on what you
say, and what my utmost devotion will deserve . . so
infinitely less will it deserve ! You are my very, very
angel.

Mrs Jameson showed me the lines you had sent her,
Horne’s very beautiful poem, — very earnest, very solemn
and pathetic, — worthy of Horne and the subject — and you
will do well to reward him as you propose. I think I will
also write two or three lines, — telling him that you called
my attention to the poem, — so that he may understand the
new friend does not drive out the old, as the old proverb
says. I will wait a day or two and write. And you are
herein, too, a dear good Ba, — to write me out the verses
in the characters I love best of all ! I may keep them,
I hope.

The weather is hot as ever : Ba, remember how I believe in you — is the indisposition ‘ nothing to signify ‘ ?
And remember the confidence I make you of every
slightest headache or what looks like it — tell me frankly as
Ba should, and will if she loves me ! I am very well . .
and my mother much better. I observe while I write, the
clouds gather propitiously for coolness if not rain — may| all
be as is best for you — ‘ and for me ? ‘ Then kiss me, really,
through the distance, and love me, my sweetest Ba !

I am your own —

[Postmark: July 4, 1846]JH

Ah, this Saturday ! how heavily the wheels of it turn
round ! as if ‘ with all the weights of sleep and death hung
at them.’ After all it was not possible for me to get to Mrs.
Jameson’s this morning . . not that I was unwell to signify,
mind -but unfit for the exertion — and it would not have
been agreeable to anybody if I had gone there and fainted.
So here I am, the picture of helpless indolence, stretched out
at full length between the chair and the high stool, thinking

how you will not to-day sit on the low one, nor in your old

own place by me – oh how I think, think, think of you,

to make imperfect amends ! Are you disappointed . .
you ? I hope you are, and I fear you are. My generosity
does not carry me through the hope of it to the end. I
love your love too much. And that is the worst fault, my
beloved, I ever can find in my love of you.

Look, what Miss Mitford has sent me from the Daily
News — Mr. Horne’s lament for poor Haydon. Tell me if
you do not like it. It has moved me much, and as a
composition it is fine, I think, — worthy of ‘ Orion.’ I shall
write to Mr. Horne to thank him, as one reader of many,
for touching that solemn string into such a right melody.
To my mind, it is worth, and more than worth, twenty such
books as his ballad-book — tell me if it isn’t. It has much
affected me.

Papa went out early — so we should have escaped
the ‘ complication ‘ — but every half-hour we are expecting
our visitors. And for Monday . . I scarcely dare say yet

‘ Come on Monday.’ Only we will find our lost Pleiads
. . of that, be very sure — I am very sure. Still to miss one
for a moment draws me into darkness — or . . do you not
know that you are all my stars ? yes, and the sun, besides !
The thing which people call a sun seems to shine quite
coldly to-day, because you are not on this side of my window.

‘ All complaining is vain,’ do you say ?

Let me pass the time a little, then, by confessing to you
that what you said, some letters ago, about the character of
our intercourse, in our present relation, being a sort of
security for the future, . . that that did strike me as a true
and reasonable observation as far as it goes. I think, at
least, that if I were inclined to fear for my own happiness
apart from yours (which, as God knows, is a fear that never
comes into my head), I should have sense to reason myself
clear of it all by seeing in you none of the common rampant
man-vices which tread down a woman’s peace — and which begin the work often long before marriage. Oh, I understand
perfectly, how as soon as ever a common man is sure of a
woman’s affections, he takes up the tone of right and might
. . and he will have it so . . and he won’t have it so !
I have heard of the bitterest tears being shed by the victim
as soon as ever, by one word of hers, she had placed herself
in his power. Of such are ‘ Lovers’ quarrels ‘ for the most
part. The growth of power on one side . . and the struggle
against it, by means legal and illegal, on the other. There
are other causes, of course — but for none of them could
it be possible for me to quarrel with you now or ever.
Neither now nor ever do I look forward to the ordinary
dangers. What I have feared has been so different !
May God bless you my own . . own ! For my part, you
have my leave to make me unhappy if you please. It
only would be just that the happiness you have given, you
should take away — it is yours, as I am yours.

Say how your head is — say how your mother is. Think
of me with the thoughts that do good.

Your own

Ba.

TO THE MEMORY OF B. R. HAYDON

By the Author of ‘ Orion ‘

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse !

Thy fiery whispers rule this mortal hour,

Wherein the toiling Artist’s constant soul

Revels in glories of a visioned world, —

Power, like a god, exalting the full heart ;

Beauty with subtlest ravishment of grace

Refining all the senses ; while afar

Through vistas of the stars where strange friends dwell.

A temple smiles for him to take his seat

Among the happy Dead whose work is done.

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse !

Thou lead’st the devotee through fruitful bowers

Wherein Imagination multiplies

Divinely, and, with noblest ecstasy.

To nature ever renders truth for truth.

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse !

Thou teachest to be strong and virtuous ;

In labour, patient ; clear-eyed as a star.

Self-truthful ; vigilant within ; and full

Of faith to be, and do, and send it forth ; —

But teachest no man how to know himself.

His over-measures or his fallings short.

Nor how to know when he should step aside

Into the quiet shade, to wait his hour

And foil the common dragon of the earth.

O fatal Voice ! so syren-sweet, yet rife

With years of sorrow, deathbeds terrible !

Mourn for a worthy son whose aims were high,

Whose faith was strong amidst a scoffing age.

No warning giv’st thou, on the perilous path.

To those who need the gold thy teaching scorns,

Heedless if other knowledge hold due watch.

Thou fill’st with heavenly bliss the enraptured eyes,

While the feet move to ruin and the grave.

Therefore, O voice, inscrutably divine,

Uplifting sunward, casting in the dust,

Forgetting man as man, and mindful only

Of the man-angel even while on earth, —

Mourn now with all thine ancient tenderness,

Mingled with tears that fall in heavy drops.

For One who lost himself, remembering thee !

[Postmark: July 4, 1846]

Saturday.

Dearest Ba, I am at Mrs. Jameson’s . . to hear you can not come ; most properly. She wants me to go and see
an Exhibition, and I cannot refuse . . so this is my poor
long letter (with kisses in the words), that was to have
been ! But on Monday, dearest, dearest, I shall see you ?
All thanks for your letter . . I dare write no more, as there
must be some difference in my way of writing to you from
other ways.

Bless you, ever, as I am ever yours —

R.

[Postmark: July 4, 1846]

Friday Night,

Ah ! ‘to-morrow, make haste and arrive.’ And what
good will to-morrow do when it comes ?

Dearest, with your letter to-night, I have a note from
Mrs. Jameson, who proposes that I should go to her just
on this to-morrow, between twelve and one : she will wait
for me till one and then go out. Moreover she leaves
town on Tuesday. Now I think I ought to try to be with
her this time, therefore, on the hour she mentions, and I
will try . . I mean to try. But as for seeing you even so,
and for a moment, . . I understand that it scarcely is
possible — no, not possible — you cannot have time, I think.
Thinking which, understanding which, I shall yet, in spite
of reason, listen for the footstep and the voice: certainly I
shall not help doing that.

Our to-morrow ! — How they have spoilt it for us ! In
revenge, I shall love you to-morrow twice as much, looking
at my dead flowers. Twice as much ! ! ‘ Ba never talk
extravagances.’ Twice as much is a giant fifty feet high. It
is foolish to be fabulous.

Being better this evening (almost as if I were sure to
see you in the morning) I went out to drive with Arabel
and Flush, about six o’clock, — and we were not at home
until eight, after having seen a mirage (as it appeared) of
green fields and trees. Beyond Harrow cemetery we went,
through silent lanes and hedgerows — so silent, so full of
repose ! Quite far away over the tops of the trees, was
‘London’ Arabel said . . but I could see only a cloud: —
it seemed no more, nor otherwise. Once she got out and
went into a field to give Flush a run — and I, left to myself
and you, read your last letter in the carriage, under the
branches which were dropping separate shadows of every
leaf they had. The setting sun forced them to it. Oh —
but I send you no leaves, because I could not reach any,
and did not get out to walk to-day where I might have
gathered them. Arabel tried hard to persuade me to go
into the cemetery — but let me deserve all she said to me
about weakness and foolishness, . . really that sort of thing
does sadden me — my spirits fall flat with it: it is the dark
side of death. So I begged her to go by herself and to
leave me . . I would wait for her — and she should have as
long a pleasure in that pleasure-ground of the Dead, as she
liked. ‘Very pretty,’ it is said to be — the dissenters and
the churchpeople planted in separate beds; and the
Roman Catholics conspicuous for their roses ! Oh that
ghastly mixture of horror and frivolity ! The niaiserie of
their divisions and subdivisions taken down so carefully
into the dust ! But Arabel did not go at last, and we
were at home quite late enough.

May God bless you, dear, dear ! Give me all my
thoughts (those that belong to me) to-morrow. Poor dis-
inherited to-morrow.

I will write to-morrow, at any rate — and hear — let me
hear.

And you are the best, best ! When I speak lead, you
answer gold. Because I ‘do not shock’ you, you melt my
heart away with joy.

Yet I can love you enough, even I !

Your Ba.

[Postmark: July 3, 1846]

Friday.

No, dear, dear Ba, I shall not see you to-day in spite of
all the hoping and fancying . . for I could not, as I calculate,
reach Mrs. Jameson’s before 1 o’clock or a little
later . . and there would be the worst of vexations, to know
you had been and gone again ! I persuade myself you may
not pay the visit to-day, . . (‘it is impossible’ you say),
and that it may be paid next week, the week in which there
is only one day for us . . how do you say, dearest ? all
complaining is vain — let to-morrow make haste and arrive !

Ba, there is nothing in your letter that shocks me, —
nothing : if you choose to imagine that ‘possibility,’ you
are consistent in imagining the proper step to take . . it is
all imagining. But I feel altogether as you feel about the
horribleness of married friends, mutual esteemers &c. — when
your name sounds in my ear like any other name, your
voice like other voices, — when we wisely cease to interfere
with each other’s pursuits, — respect differences of taste &c.
&c., all will be over then !

I cannot myself conceive of one respect in which I shall
ever fall from this feeling for you . . there never has been
one word, one gesture unprompted by the living, immediate
love beneath — but there have been many, many, so many
that the same love has suppressed, refused to be represented
by ! I say this, because I can suppose a man taking
up a service of looks and words, which service is only to
last for a time, and so may be endured, — after which the
‘real affection,’ ‘honest attachment’ &c. &c. means to go
to its ends by a shorter road, saving useless ceremony and
phrases . . do you know what I mean ? I hardly do . .
except that it is, whatever it is, opposed, as heaven to earth,
to what I feel is. I count confidently on being more and
more able to find the true words and ways (which may not
be spoken words perhaps), the true rites by which you should
be worshipped, you dear, dear Ba, my entire blessing now
and ever — and ever ; if God shall save me also.

Let me kiss you now, and long for to-morrow — I shall
bring you the poorest flowers — all is brown, dry, autumnal.
The sun shines and reproves me . . After all, there would
have been some rocks in the pleasant water of to-day’s
meeting . . ‘Oh, hardness to dissemble’ !

Here is no dissembling . . I kiss you, my very own !

[Postmark: July 3, 1846]

Friday Morning.

I am forced to say something now which you will not
like and which I, for my part, hate to say — but you shall
judge how impossible it is for me to see you to-morrow.

The visitors did not come last night ; and as this
morning we expected them hourly, the post brought a letter
instead, to the effect that they were to arrive just on Saturday
. . leaving us to calculate the time of arrival between one
p.m. to five or six. If at one, . . Papa will be in the house
and likely to stay in it all day after . . which would be a
complication of disadvantages for us, and if at three . .
why even so, my aunt would ‘ admire ‘ a little the reason of
my not seeing her at once, and there would be questions
and answers a faire fremir. So dearest dearest, I must try
to live these two days more without seeing you — and
indeed it will be hard work — the very light of the sun to-morrow,
let it be ever so bright a sun, will only reproach
the day with what it ought to have been . . our day, instead
everybody’s day or nobody’s day, a poor, blank, dreary
day. What, when the clock is at three. . . oh what will
keep me, I wonder, from being sullen to my aunt and sulky
to my cousin ? They will think me (if my ministering angel
should not throw me some hallowing thought of you, best
beloved !) considerably fallen off in the morale, however the
improvement may be of the bodily health — I shall be as
cross, as cross . . well, if I am less than cross, you must be
right after all, and I, ‘ une femme miraculeuse ‘ without
illusion ! It is too bad, too bad. The whole week — from
Monday to Monday ! And I do not positively fix even
Monday, though I hope for Monday : — but Monday may
be taken from us just as Saturday is, and the Hedleys are
to come on Tuesday . . only not to this house. I wish
they were all at Seringapatam.

Do not mind it however. Yes, mind it a little, . .
Robert ! but not overmuch — because the day shall not be
lost utterly — I shall take care. I will be on the watch for
half-days when people go out to shop . . that solemn
business of life, . . and we will have our lost day back
again . . you will see. But I could not get to Mrs.
Jameson’s this morning, not being quite well enough. It is
nothing as illness, — I tell you the truth, dear — and even
now I feel better than I did in the early morning. It was
only just enough to prevent my going. And if I had gone
I should not have seen you — you would not go in time —
you would not perhaps even have my letter in time. The
stars are against us for the moment, it seems.

Write to me, think of me, love me. You shall hear on
Saturday and on Sunday, and we will settle about Monday.

After all, it would have been difficult to have met you at
Mrs. Jameson’s, observing the ‘ fitness of things ‘ :—and as
I am subject to the madness of saying ‘ Robert ‘ without
knowing it … !

May God bless you. Say how you are ! Don’t let me
slide out of your mind through this rift in the rock. I
catch at the jutting stones.

I am your own Ba.

[Postmark: July 3, 1846]

Thursday Evening.

But, ever dearest, I do so fear that I shall not be able
to get to Mrs. Jameson’s to-morrow at all ! not at twelve, I
fear, I fear. Our visitors are to arrive late to-night, too late
for me to see them : and for me to go away at twelve in
the morning, just about the hour when they might reason-
ably expect to have and to hold me, . . seems altogether
unlawful, according to my sisters. Yet the temptation is
strong. Would half-past twelve be too early for you, if I
could manage to go at twelve ? Ah – but I shall not be
able, I do fear. Just see how it becomes possible and
impossible at once for us to touch hands ! I could almost
wring mine, to see ! For I could dare the spectacles, the
hypothetical spectacles, and the eyes discerning without
them : she has no idea to begin with – and you would not
say ‘ Ba, let us order the mules,’ I suppose. If I went, it
would be alone – but probably I shall not be able – so you
had better not think of me, and pay your visit at your own
hour ‘after the devices of your heart.’

In the meanwhile, quite you make me laugh by your
positiveness about the name-calling. Well – if ever I did
such a thing, it was in a moment of unconsciousness all the
more surprising, that, even to my own soul, in the lowest
spirit-whisper, I have not been in the habit of saying
‘ Robert,’ speaking of you. You have only been The One.
No word ever stood for you. The Idea admitted of no
representative – the words fell down before it and were
silent. Still such very positive people must be right of
course – they always are. At any rate it is only one illusion
more – and some day I expect to hear you say and swear
that you saw me fly out of one window and fly in at
another. So much for your Cleopatra’s Roman pearls,
oh my famous in council ! – and appreciation of sour
vinegar !

Dear Miss Mitford came at two to-day and stayed until
seven, and all those hours you were not once mentioned –
I had not courage – and she perhaps avoided an old subject
of controversy . . I do not know. It is singular that for
this year past you are not mentioned between us, while
other names come up like grass in the rain. No single
person will be more utterly confounded than she, when she
comes to be aware of what you are to me now – and that
I was thinking to-day, while she talked to never a listener.
She will be confounded, and angry perhaps – it will be
beyond her sympathies or if they reach so far, the effort
to make them do so will prove a more lively affection for
me, than, with all my trust in her goodness, I dare count
on. Yet very good and kind and tender, she was to me
to-day. And very variously intelligent and agreeable. Do
you know, I should say that her natural faculties were
stronger than Mrs. Jameson’s – though the latter has a
higher aspiration and, in some ways, a finer sensibility of
intellect. You would certainly call her superior to her own
books – certainly you would. She walks strongly on her
two feet in this world but nobody shall see her (not even
you) fly out of a window. Too closely she keeps to the
ground, I always feel. Now Mrs. Jameson can ‘ aspire ‘ like
Paracelsus ; and believes enough in her own soul, to know
a poet when she sees one. Ah – but all cannot be all.

Miss Mitford wrung a promise from me that ‘ if I were
well enough and in England next summer, I would go to
see her.’ So remember. Isn’t it a promise for two ?

Only we shall be mule-riding in those days – unless I
shall have tired you. Shall you be tired of me in one
winter, I wonder ? My programme is, to let you try me
for one winter, and if you are tired (as I shall know without
any confession on your side) why then I shall set the mule
on a canter and leave you in La Cava, and go and live in
Greece somewhere all alone, taking enough with me for
bread and salt. Is it a jest, do you think ? Indeed it is
not. It is very grave earnest, be sure. I believe that I
never could quarrel with you ; but the same cause would
absolutely hinder my living with you if you did not love
me. We could not lead the abominable lives of ‘ married
people ‘ all round – you know we could not – I at least
know that I could not, and just because I love you so
entirely. Then, you know, you could come to England by
yourself and . . ‘ Where’s Ba ? ‘ – ‘ Oh, she’s somewhere
in the world, I suppose. How can I tell?’ And then
Mrs. Jameson would shake her head, and observe that
the problem was solved exactly as she expected, and that
artistical natures smelt of sulphur and brimstone, without
any exceptions.

Am I laughing ? am I crying ? who can tell. But I am
not teazing, . . Robert ! . because, my Robert, if gravely I
distrusted your affection, I could not use such light-
sounding words on the whole now could I ? It is only
the supposition of a possible future . . just possible . . (as
the end of human affections passes for a possible thing) –
which made me say what I would do in such a case.

But I am yours – your own : and it is impossible, in my
belief, that I can ever fail to you so as to be less yours, on
this side the grave or across it. So, I think of impossibilities
– whatever I may, of possibilities !

Will it be possible to see you to -morrow, I wonder ! I
ask myself and not you.

And if you love me only nearly as much (instead of the
prodigal ‘ more ‘) afterward, I shall be satisfied, and shall
not run from you further than to the bottom of the page.

Where you see me as your own

BA.

[Postmark: July 2, 1846]

Thursday.

Dear, you might as well imagine you had never given
me any other of the gifts, as that you did not call me, as I
tell you. You spoke quickly, interrupting me, and, for the
name, ‘I can hear it, ‘twixt my spirit and the earth-noise
intervene ‘ ; do you think I forget one gift in another, even
a greater ? I should still taste the first freshness of the
vinegar, (or whatever was the charm of it) – though Cleopatra
had gone on dissolving pearl after pearl in it. I love you for
these gifts to me now – hereafter, it seems almost as if I
must love you even better, should you choose to continue
them to me in spite of complete knowledge : I feel this as
often as I think of it, which is not seldom.

Do you know, Mrs. Jameson asked me to go and see
her on Friday morning – would you like me to go ? What
I like . . do not fancy, because your own pleasure is to
be consulted. Should you fear the eyes, which can, on
occasion, wear spectacles ? If not . . and if our Saturday
will not be interfered with . . and if you can tell me the
hour ‘ later than twelve ‘ you mean to appoint, . . so that
my call may be neither too early nor too late . . why, then,
Ba, dearest, dearest –

La Cava – is surely our cave, Ba – early in October will
be vintage-time, – no fire flies. There will be the advantage
in the vicinity of Naples, that through the Rothschilds’
House there we can, I believe, receive and dispatch letters
without any charge, which otherwise would be an expen-
sive business in Italy. The economy of the Post Office
there is astounding. A stranger goes to a window and asks
for ‘ A’s ‘ or ‘ Z’s ‘ letters . . not even professing himself to
be ‘A,’ or ‘Z’ – whereupon the official hands over sundry
dozens of letters, without a word of enquiry, out of which
the said stranger picks what pleases him, and paying for his
selections, goes away and there an end. At Venice, I
remember, they offered me, with other letters, about ten or
fifteen for the Marquis of Hastings who was not arrived yet –
I had only to say ‘ I am sent for them ‘ . . At Rome a
lady lamented to me the sad state of things ‘ A letter
might contain Heaven only knew what and lie at the office
and ‘ – ‘I might go and get it,’ I said – ‘ You? Nay, my
husband might ! ‘ she answered as one mightily wronged.

But of your dear self now – the going out will soon and
effectually cure the nervousness, we may be sure. I am
most happy, love, to hear of the walking and increased
strength. So you used to like riding on a donkey ? Then
you shall have a mule, un bel mulo, and I will be your
muleteer, walk by your side – and you will think the
moment you see him of the wicked shoeing of cats with
walnut-shells, for they make a mule’s shoes turn up, for all
the world like large shells – those on his forefeet at least.
Will the time really come then ? Meanwhile, your visitors
. . let us hope they will go sight-seeing or call-making, do
anything but keep the house on our days . . The three
hours seem as a minute . . if they are to be curtailed, oh,
no, no, I hope. Tell me all you can, dearest . . and let me
tell you all I can, little as it is, in kissing you, my best and
dearest Ba, as now kisses your very own.

[Postmark: July 2, 1846]

Wednesday.

No, No ! indeed I never did. If you heard me say
‘ Robert,’ it was on a stair-landing in the House of Dreams
– never anywhere else ! Why how could you fancy such a
thing ? Wasn’t it rather your own disquieted Conscience
which spoke instead of me, saying ‘ Robert, don’t be extra-
vagant.’ Yes – just the speech that is, for a ‘ good uneasy,’
discerning Conscience and you took it for my speech !
‘ Don’t be extravagant ‘ I may certainly have said. Both I
and the Conscience might have said so obvious a thing.

Ah and now I have got the name, shall I have courage
to say it ? tell me, best councillor ! I like it better than
any other name, though I never spoke it with my own lips
– I never called any one by such a name . . except once
when I was in the lane with Bertha. One uncle I have,
called Robert but to me he is an ‘ uncle Hedley ‘ and no
more. So it is a white name to take into life. Isn’t this
an Hebraic expression of a preferring affection . . ‘ I have
called thee by thy name} ? And therefore, because you are
the best, only dearest ! – – Robert.

You passed by and I never knew ! How foolish – but
really it quite strikes me as something wonderful, that I
should not have known. I knew however of your being in
London, because . . . (don’t expect supernatural evidence)
Mrs. Jameson told me. She was here with me about five,
and brought her niece whom I liked just for the reasons you
give ; and herself was feeling and affectionate as ever : – it
is well that you should give me leave to love her a little.
Once she touched upon Italy . . and I admitted that I
thought of it, and thought it probable as an event . . on
which she pressed gently to know ‘on what I counted.’
‘ Perhaps on my own courage,’ I said. ‘ Oh,’ she exclaimed
‘ now I see clearly.’

Which made me smile . . the idea of her seeing clearly,
but earnestly and cordially she desired me to remember that
to be useful to me in any manner, would give her pleasure.
Such kindness ! The sense of it has sunk into my heart.
You cannot praise her too much for me. She was so kind,
that when she asked me to go to see her in Mortimer Street
on Friday, I could not help agreeing at once : and I am to
have the sofa and no company – that’s a promise. She
asked me to go at twelve o’clock, and to bring Mr. Kenyon
for an escort – but I would not answer for Mr. Kenyon’s
going, only half promising for myself. Now I must try to
fix a later hour, because . .

Listen to the because. My aunt, Miss Clarke, and my
cousin, her adopted daughter and niece, come to-morrow
evening, and stay in this house . . oh, I cannot tell you how
long : for a whole week as a beginning, certainly. I have
been sighing and moaning so about it that Arabel calls it
quite a scandal – but when one can’t be glad, why should it
be so undutiful to appear sad ? If she had but stayed in
Paris six months longer ! Well ! – and to-morrow morning
Miss Mitford comes to spend the day like the kind dear
friend she is ; and I, not the least in the world glad to see
her ! Why have you turned my heart into such hard por-
phyry ? Once, when it was plain clay, every finger (of these
womanly fingers) left a mark on it – and now, . . you see !
Even Mrs. Jameson makes me grateful to her chiefly (as I
know in myself) because she sees you as you are in part,
and will forgive me for loving you as soon as she hears of it
. . however she may, and must consistently, expect us to
torment one another, according to the way of the ‘ artistic
temperament,’ evermore, and ever more and more. But for
the rest, the others who do not know you and value you . .
I hate to see them . . and there’s the truth ! There is some-
thing too in the concealment, the reserve, the doubleness
enforced on occasion ! . which is painful and hateful.
Detestable it all is.

And I like La Cava too ! Think of a hollow in the
mountain . . something like a cave, do you think ? At least
it must be a hollow in the mountains. I wrote to my friend
this morning to ask if the place is considered warm, and if
she knew any more of it. The ‘ porticoes as at Bologna ‘ look
attractive too by the dreamlight we look at them by ; and
Baba may escape the forty thieves of English in the Cave,
with a good watchword like Sesame – now that’s half my
nonsense and half yours, I beg you to observe. I won’t be
at the charge of it all.

I was out to-day – walked up, walked down, in my old
fashion – only I do improve in walking, I think, and gain
strength.

May God bless you dear dearest ! I am your own.