Month: August 2018

[Postmark: August 31, 1846]

Monday Morning.

Here is dearest Ba’s dearest letter, because the latest, and it is one of her very kisses incorporated and made manifest – so perfectly kind ! And should this make me ashamed of perhaps an over-earnestness in what I wrote yesterday? or not rather justify me to myself and to her – since it was on a passing fear of losing what I hold so infinitely precious, that the earnestness happened ! My own Ba, you lap me over with love upon love . . there is my first and proper love, independent of any return, and there is this return for what would reward itself. Do think how I must feel at the most transient suggestion of failure, and parting, and an end to all ! You cannot expect I can lie quietly and let my life of life be touched. And ever, dearest, through the life which I trust is about to be permitted us, – ever I shall remember where my treasure is, and turn
as vigilantly when it is approached. Beside, I was not very well, as I told you in excuse – I am much better now. Not that, upon reconsideration, I can alter my opinion on the proper course to take. We know all the miracles wrought in our favour hitherto . . are not the chances (speaking in that foolish way) against our expecting more? To-day is fine, sunny and warm, for instance, and looks as if cold weather were a long way off – but what are these fancies and appearances when weighed against the other possibility of a sudden fall of the year ? By six months more of days like this we should gain nothing, nothing in the world, you confess – by the other misfortune we lose everything perhaps.

Will you have a homely illustration ? There is a tree against our wall here which produced weeks ago a gigantic apple – which my mother had set her heart on showing a cousin of mine who is learned in fruits and trees. I told her, ‘ You had better pluck it at once – it will fall and be spoiled.’ She thought the next day or two would do its cheeks good, – just the next – so there it continued to hang till this morning, when she was about to go out with my sister – I said ‘ now is the time – you are going to my aunt’s – let me pluck you the apple ‘ – ‘ Oh,’ she said ‘ I have been looking at it, trying it, – it hangs so firmly, . . not this time, thank you ! ‘ So she went without it, two hours ago – and just now, I turned to the tree with a boding presentiment – there lay our glory, bruised in the dirt, a sad wreck ! ‘ Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love ! ‘ Rather, counsel me through apples ! Do you see the counsel ?

Come, let me not be so ungrateful to the letter, to what you have done for me, as only to speak of what you are disinclined to do. I am very glad you succeeded in going to the chapel, and that the result was so favourable – see how the dangers disappear when one farces them ! And the account of Mr. Stratten is very interesting, too – besides characteristic – do you see how ? Find as great a saint as the world holds, who shall be acknowledged to be utterly disinterested, unbiassed by anything except truth and common justice, – a man of sense as well as piety – and succeed in convincing such an one of our right to do as we purpose, – and then – let him lay the matter before your father ! To no other use than to exasperate him against Mr. Stratten, deprive your sister of the privilege of seeing his family, and bring about a little more pain and trouble !

Let me think of something else . . of the happiness you profess to feel – which it makes me entirely happy to know. I will not try and put away the crown you give me. I just say the obvious truth, . . even what I can do to make you happy, according to my ability, has yet to be experienced by you . . if my thoughts and wishes reach you with any effect at present, they will operate freelier when the obstruction is removed . . that is only natural. I shall live for you, for every minute in your life. May God bless me with such a life, as that it may be of use to you . . yours it must be whether of use or not, for I am wholly your R.

Here comes my mother back . . she is a little better to-day. I am much better as I said. And you ? Let me get the kiss I lost on Saturday ! (I dined at Arnould’s yesterday with Chorley and his brother, and the Cushmans.) Chorley goes to-night to Ostend.

[Postmark: August 31, 1846]

I wonder what I shall write to you, Ba – I could suppress my feelings here, as I do on other points, and say nothing of the hatefulness of this state of things which is prolonged so uselessly. There is the point – show me one good reason, or show of reason, why we gain anything by deferring our departure till next week instead of to-morrow, and I will bear to perform yesterday’s part for the amusement of Mr. Kenyon a dozen times over without complaint. But if the cold plunge must be taken, all this shivering delay on the bank is hurtful as well as fruitless. I do understand your anxieties, dearest – I take your fears and make them mine, while I put my own natural feeling of quite another kind away from us both, succeeding in that beyond all expectation. There is no amount of patience or suffering I would not undergo to relieve you from these apprehensions. But if, on the whole, you really determine to act as we propose in spite of them, – why, a new leaf is turned over in our journal, an old part of our adventure done with, and a new one entered upon, altogether distinct from the other. Having once decided to go to Italy with me, the next thing to decide is on the best means of going – or rather, there is just this connection between the two measures, that by the success or failure of the last, the first will have to be justified or condemned. You tell me you have decided to go – then, dearest, you will be prepared to go earlier than you promised yesterday – by the end of September at very latest. In proportion to the too probable excitement and painful circumstances of the departure, the greater amount of advantages should be secured for the departure itself. How can I take you away in even the beginning of October ? We shall be a fortnight on the journey – with the year, as everybody sees and says, a full month in advance . . cold mornings and dark evenings already. Everybody would cry out on such folly when it was found that we let the favourable weather escape, in full assurance that the Autumn would come to us unattended by any one beneficial circumstance.

My own dearest, I am wholly your own, for ever, and under every determination of yours. If you find yourself unable, or unwilling to make this effort, tell me so and plainly and at once – I will not offer a word in objection, – I will continue our present life, if you please, so far as may be desirable, and wait till next autumn, and the next and the next, till providence end our waiting. It is clearly not for me to pretend to instruct you in your duties to God and yourself ; . . enough, that I have long ago chosen to accept your decision. If, on the other hand, you make up your mind to leave England now, you will be prepared by the end of September.

I should think myself the most unworthy of human beings if I could employ any arguments with the remotest show of a tendency to frighten you into a compliance with any scheme of mine. Those methods are for people in another relation to you. But you love me, and, at lowest, shall I say, wish me well – and the fact is too obvious for me to commit any indelicacy in reminding you, that in any dreadful event to our journey of which I could accuse myself as the cause, – as of this undertaking to travel with you in the worst time of year when I could have taken the best, – in the case of your health being irretrievably shaken, for instance . . the happiest fate I should pray for would be to live and die in some corner where I might never hear a word of the English language, much less a comment in it on my own wretched imbecility, – to disappear and be forgotten.

So that must not be, for all our sakes. My family will give me to you that we may be both of us happy . . but for such an end – no !

Dearest, do you think all this earnestness foolish and uncalled for? – that I might know you spoke yesterday in mere jest, – as yourself said, ‘ only to hear what I would say ‘ ? Ah but consider, my own Ba, the way of our life, as it is, and is to be – a word, a simple word from you, is not as a word is counted in the world – the word between us is different – I am guided by your will, which a word shall signify to me. Consider that just such a word, so spoken, even with that lightness, would make me lay my life at your feet at any minute. Should we gain anything by my trying, if I could, to deaden the sense of hearing, dull the medium of communication between us ; and procuring that, instead of this prompt rising of my will at the first intimation from yours, the same effect should only follow after fifty speeches, and as many protestations of complete serious desire for their success on your part, accompanied by all kinds of acts and deeds and other evidences of the same ?

At all events, God knows I have said this in the deepest, truest love of you. I will say no more, praying you to forgive whatever you shall judge to need forgiveness here, – dearest Ba ! I will also say, if that may help me, – and what otherwise I might not have said, – that I am not too well this morning, and write with an aching head. My mother’s suffering continues too.

My friend Pritchard tells me that Brighton is not to be thought of under ordinary circumstances as a point of departure for Havre. Its one packet a week from Shoreham cannot get in if the wind and tide are unfavourable. There is the greatest uncertainty in consequence . . as I have heard before – while, of course, from Southampton, the departures are calculated punctually. He considers that the least troublesome plan, and the cheapest, is to go from London to Havre . . the voyage being so arranged that the river passage takes up the day and the sea-crossing the night – you reach Havre early in the morning and get to Paris by four o’clock, perhaps, in the afternoon . . in time to leave for Orleans and spend the night there, I suppose.

Do I make myself particularly remarkable for silliness when confronted by our friend as yesterday ? And the shortest visit, – and comments of everybody. Oh, Mr. Hunter, methinks you should be of some use to me with those amiable peculiarities of yours, if you would just dye your hair black, take a stick in your hand, sink the clerical character you do such credit to, and have the goodness just to deliver yourself of one such epithet as that pleasant one, the next time you find me on the steps of No. 50, with Mr. Kenyon somewhere higher up in the building. It is delectable work, this having to do with relatives and ‘ freemen who have a right to beat their own negroes,’ and father Zeus with his paternal epistles, and peggings to the rock, and immense indignation at ‘ this marriage you talk of ‘ which is to release his victim. Is Mr. Kenyon Hermes ?

Well, bless you in any case –

Your own R.

[Postmark: August 31, 1846]
ED

I have just come from the vestry of Paddington chapel, and bore it very well, and saw nobody except one woman. Arabel went with me, and during the singing we escaped and stood outside the door. Now, that is over ; and the next time I shall care less. It was a rambling sermon, which I could hear distinctly through the open door, quite wanting in coherence, but with good and touching things in it, the more touching that they came from a preacher whose life is known to us – from Mr. Stratten, for whom I have the greatest respect, though he never looked into Shakespeare till he was fifty, and shut the book quickly, perhaps, afterward. He is the very ideal of his class ; and, with some of the narrow views peculiar to it, has a heart of miraculous breadth and depth ; loving further than he can see, pitying beyond what he can approve, having in him a divine Christian spirit, the ‘ love of love ‘ in the most expansive form. How that man is beloved by his congregation, the members of his church, by his children, his friends, is wonderful to see – for everybody seems to love him from afar, as a man is loved who is of a purer nature than others. There is that reverence in the love – and yet no fear. His children have been encouraged and instructed to speak aloud before him on religion and other subjects in all freedom of conscience – he turns to his little daughter seriously ‘to hear what she thinks.’ The other day his eldest son, whom he had hoped to see succeed him at Paddington, determined to enter the Church of England : his wife became quite ill with grief about it, and to himself perhaps it was a trial, a disappointment. With the utmost gentleness and tenderness however, he desired him to take time for thought and act according to his conscience. – I believe for my part that there never was a holier man . . ‘ except those bonds ‘ . . never a man who more resolutely trod under his feet every form of evil and selfish passion when it was once recognized – and looked to God and the Truth with a direct aspiration. Once I could not help writing to put our affairs into his hands to settle them for us – but that would be wrong – because Papa would forbid Arabel’s going to the chapel or communicating with his family, and it would be depriving her of a comfort she holds dear – oh no. And besides, you are wise in taking the other view.

Think of our waiting day after day to fall into the net so, yesterday ! How I was provoked and vexed – but more for you, dearest dearest, than for me – much more for you. As for me I saw you, which was joy enough, let the hours be ever so clipped of their natural proportions – and then, youknow, you were obliged to go soon, whether Mr. Kenyon had come or not come. After you were gone, nothing was said, and nothing asked, and it is delightful to have heard of those intended absences one after another till far into October : which will secure us from future embarrassments. See if he means to put us to the question ! – not such a thing is in his thoughts.

And I said what you ‘ would not have believed of me ‘ ! Have you forgiven me, beloved – for saying what you would not have believed of me, – understanding that I did not mean it very seriously, though I proved to be capable of saying it ? Seriously, I don’t want to make unnecessary delays. It is a horrible position, however I may cover it with your roses and the thoughts of you – and far worse to myself than to you, inasmuch that what is painful to you once a week, is to me so continually. To hear the voice of my father and meet his eye makes me shrink back – to talk to my brothers leaves my nerves all trembling . . and even to receive the sympathy of my sisters turns into sorrow and fear, lest they should suffer through their affection for me. How I can look and sleep as well as I do, is a miracle exactly like the rest – or would be, if the love were not the deepest and strongest thing of all, and did not hold and possess me overcomingly. I feel myself to be yours notwithstanding every other influence, and being yours, cannot but be happy by you. Ah – let people talk as they please of the happiness of early youth ! Mrs. Jameson did, the other day, when she wished kindly to take her young niece with her to the Continent, that she might enjoy what in a few years she could not so much enjoy. There is a sort of blind joy common perhaps to such times – a blind joy which blunts itself with its own leaps and bounds ; peculiar to a time of comparative ignorance and inexperience of evil : – but I for my part, with all the capacity for happiness which I had from the beginning, I look back and listen to my whole life, and feel sure of what I have already told you, . . that I am happier now than I ever was before . . infinitely happier now, through you . . infinitely happier ; even now in this position I have just called ‘ horrible.’ When I hear you say for instance, that you ‘ love me perceptibly more ‘ . . why I cannot, cannot be more happy than when I hear you say that – going to Italy seems nothing ! a vulgar walk to Primrose Hill after being caught up to the third Heaven ! I think nothing of Italy now, though I shall enjoy it of course when the time comes. I think only that you love me, that you are the angel of my life, – and for the despair and desolation behind me, they serve to mark the hour of your coming, – and they are behind, as Italy is before. Never can you feel for me, Robert, as I feel for you . . it is not possible of course. I am yours in a way and degree which the tenderest of other women could not be at her will. Which you know. Why should I repeat it to you ? Why, except that is a reason to prove that we cannot, as you say, ‘ ever be a common wife and husband.’ But I don’t think I was intending to give proofs of that –no, indeed.

To-morrow I shall hear from you. Say how your mother is, in the second letter if you do not in the first. May God bless you and keep you, dearest beloved –

Your very own BA.

There is not much in the article by Mr. Chorley, but it is right and kind as far as it goes.

[Postmark: August 29, 1846]

Will you come, dearest, after all ? Judge for both of us. The Hedleys go to-morrow morning and we shall not see them after to-night when they are dining here – but Mr. Kenyon has not paid his visit, and may come to-morrow, or may take Sunday, which he is fond of doing – is it worth while to be afraid of Mr. Kenyon ? What do you think ? I leave it to your wisdom which is the greatest. Perhaps he may not come till Monday – yet he may.

Dearest, I have had all your thoughts by turns, or most of them . . and each one has withered away without coming to bear fruit. Papa seems to have no more idea of my living beyond these four walls, than of a journey to Lapland. I confess that I thought it possible he might propose the country for the summer, or even Italy for the winter, in a ‘ late remark ‘ – but no, ‘ nothing ‘ and there is not a possibility of either word, as I see things. My brothers ‘ wish that something could be arranged’ – a wish which I put away quietly as often as they bring it to me. And for my uncle and aunt, they have been talking to me to-day – and she with her usual acuteness in such matters, observing my evasion, said, ‘ Ah Ba, you have arranged your plans more than you would have us believe. But you are right not to tell us – indeed I would rather not hear. Only don’t be rash – that is my only advice to you.’

I thought she had touched the truth, and wondered – but since then, from another of her words, I came to conclude that she imagined me about to accept the convoy of Henrietta and Captain Cook ! She said in respect to them – ‘ I only say that your father’s consent ought to be asked, as a form of respect to him.’ Which, in their case should be, I think – and should also in ours, but for the peculiar position of one of us. My uncle urged me to keep firm and go to Italy, and my aunt, though she would not advise, she said, yet thought that I ‘ ought to go,’ and that to live on in this fashion in this room was lamentable to contemplate. Both of them approved of the French route, and urged me to go to them in Paris – ‘ And,’ said my uncle kindly, ‘ when once we have you, we shall not bear to part with you, I think.’

(Do you really imagine, by the way, that to appear in Paris for one half-minute, to a single soul, could be less detestable to me than to you ? I shall take care that nobody belonging to me there shall hear of my being within a hundred miles – and why need we stay in Paris the half minute ? Not unless you pause to demand an audience of Mr. Chorley at the Barriere des Etoiles.

While we were talking, Papa came into the room. My aunt said, ‘ How well she is looking ‘ -‘ Do you think so ? ‘ he said. ‘ Why, do not you think so ? Do you pretend to say that you see no surprising difference in her ? ‘ – ‘ Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on to say.’ ‘ She is mumpish, I think.’ Mumpish !

‘ She does not talk,’ resumed he –

‘ Perhaps she is nervous ‘ – my aunt apologised – I said not one word . . When birds have their eyes out, they are apt to be mumpish.

Mumpish ! The expression proved a displeasure. Yet I am sure that I have shown as little sullenness as was possible. To be very talkative and vivacious under such circumstances as those of mine, would argue insensibility, and was certainly beyond my power.

I told her gently afterwards that she had been wrong in speaking of me at all – a wrong with a right intention, – as all her wrongness must be. She was very sorry to have done it, she said, and looked sorry.

Poor Papa ! – Presently I shall be worse to him than ‘ mumpish ‘ even. But then, I hope, he will try to forgive me, as I have forgiven him, long ago.

My own beloved – do you know that your letter caught me in the act of wondering whether the absence would do me harm with you, according to that memorable theory. And so in the midst came the solution of the doubt – you do not love me less. Nay, you love me more – ah, but if you say so, I am capable of wishing not to see you for a month added to the week ! For did I not once confess to you that I loved your love as much as I loved you . . or very, very, very nearly as much ? Not precisely so much. Confiteor tibi – but I will sing a penitential psalm low to myself and do the act of penance by seeing you to-morrow if you choose to come, – and then you shall absolve me and give me the Benedicite, which, if you come, you cannot keep back, because it comes with you of necessity.

Not a word of your head, nor of your mother ! You should come I think, to-morrow, if only to say it. Yet let us be wise to the end. Be you wise to the end, and decide between Saturday and Monday. And I, for my part, promise to go to Italy, only with you do not be afraid.

And for your poetry, I believe in it as ‘ golden water ‘ – and the ‘ singing tree ‘ does not hide it from me with all the overcropping branches and leaves. In fact, the chief inconvenience we are likely to suffer from, in the way of income, is the having too much. Don’t you think so ? But in that case, we will buy an island of our own in one of those purple seas, and inherit the sun – or perhaps the shadow . . of Calypso’s cave.

So do not be uneasy, dearest ! – not even lest I should wish to spend three weeks in Paris, to show myself at the Champs Elysees and the opera, and gather a little glory after what you happily call ‘ our adventure.’

Our adventure, indeed ! But it is you who are adventuring in the matter, – and as any Red Cross Knight of them all, whom you exceed in their chivalry proper.

Chiappino little knew how right he was, when he used to taunt me with my ‘ New Cross Knight.’ He did – Ah ! Even if he had talked of ‘ Rosie Cross,’ he would not have been so far wide – the magic ‘ saute aux yeaux.’

And now, will you come to-morrow, I wonder, or not ? The answer is in you.

And I am your own, ever and as ever !

And you thought I was dying with a desire to tell Mrs. Jameson ! ! – I!

[Postmark: August 28, 1846]

I was beginning to dress, hours before the proper time, through the confidence of seeing you now, – after the letter which came early in the morning, – when this new letter changes everything. It just strikes me, what a comfort it is that whenever such a disappointment is inevitable, your hand or voice announces it, and not another’s – no second person bids me stay away for good reasons I must take in trust, leaving me to deal with the innumerable fancies that arise – on the contrary, you contrive that, with the one misfortune, twenty kindnesses shall reach me – can I be very sorry now, for instance, that you tell me why it is, and how it affects you and how it will affect me in the end ? Dear Ba, if you will not believe in the immortality of love, do think the poor thought that when love shall end, gratitude will begin !

I altogether agree with you it is best to keep away we cannot be too cautious now at the ‘ end of things.’ I am prepared for difficulties enough, without needing to cause them by any rashness or wilfulness of my own. I really expect, for example, that out of the various plans of these sympathising friends and relations some one will mature itself sufficiently to be directly proposed to you, for your acceptance or refusal contingent on your father’s approbation ; the shortness of the remaining travelling season serving to compel a speedy development. Or what if your father, who was the first to propose, or at least talk about, a voyage to Malta or elsewhere, when you took no interest in the matter comparatively, and who perhaps chiefly found fault with last year’s scheme from its not originating with himself . . what if he should again determine on some such voyage now that you are apparently as obedient to his wishes as can be desired? Would it be strange, not to say improbable, if he tells you some fine morning that your passage is taken to Madeira, or Palermo ? Because, all the attempts in the world cannot hide the truth from the mind, any more than all five fingers before the eyes keep out the sun at noon-day : you see a red through them all and your father must see your improved health and strength, and divine the opinion of everybody round him as to the simple proper course for the complete restoration of them. Therefore be prepared, my own Ba !

In any case – I trust in you wholly.

There is nothing to decide upon, with respect to Mrs. Jameson – the reasons for not sharing that confidence with her are irrefragable. I only thought of you, dearest, who have to bear her all but direct enquiries. You know, I undergo nothing of the kind. Any such arrangement as that of taking her up at Orleans would be very practicable. I rejoice in your desire (by the way) of going rapidly on, stopping nowhere, till we reach our appointed place – because that spirit helps the body wonderfully – and, in this case, exactly corresponds with mine. Above all, I should hate to be seen at Paris by anybody a few days only after our adventure – Chorley will be there, and the Arnoulds, for one party !

What could it be, you thought should make you ‘ sorry,’ in that letter of yesterday, love ? What was I to ‘ forgive ‘ ? Certainly you are unforgiven hitherto, for the best of reasons.

And assure yourself, dearest, that I have told my family nothing that can possibly mislead them. Remember that I have the advantage of knowing those I speak to, – their tastes and understandings, and notions of what is advantageous and what otherwise. I spoke the simple truth about your heart – of your mind they knew something already – I explained your position with respect to your father . . unfortunately, a very few plain words do that . . I mean, a few facts, such as the parish register could supply . . sufficiently to exonerate you and me.

As to my copyrights, I never meant to sell them – it would be foolish – because, since some little time, and in consequence of the establishment of the fact that my poems, even in their present disadvantageous form, without advertisement, and unnoticed by the influential journals – do somehow manage to pay their expenses, I have had one direct offer to print a new edition, – and there are reasons for thinking, two or three booksellers, that I know, would come to terms. Smith & Elder, for instance, wrote to offer to print any poem about Italy, in any form, with any amount of advertisements, on condition of sharing profits . . taking all risk off my hands . . concluding with more than a hint that if that proposition was not favourable enough, they would try and agree to any reasonable demand.

Because Moxon is the ‘ slowest ‘ of publishers, and if one of his books can only contrive to pay its expenses, you may be sure that a more enterprising brother of the craft would have sent it into a second or third edition – yet Moxon’s slow self even, anticipates success for the next venture. Now the fact is, not having really cared about anything except not losing too much money, I have taken very little care of my concerns in that way – not calling on Moxon for months together. But all will be different now and I shall look into matters, – and turn my experience to account, such as it is.

Well, – I am yours, you are mine, dearest Ba ! I love you, I think, perceptibly more in these latter days ! Is this absence contrived on purpose to prove how foolishly I said that I loved you the more from seeing you the oftener ? Ah, you reconcile all extremes, destroy the force of all logic-books, my father’s or mine – that was true, but this is also true (logical or no) that I now love you through not seeing you, – loving more, as I desire more to be with you, my best, dearest wife that will be ! (I could not help writing it – why should it sound sweeter than ‘ Ba ‘ ?)

Your very own R.

[Postmark: August 27, 1846]

Here is the bad news going to you as fast as bad news will go ! for you ‘ do really (NOT) see me to-morrow,’ Robert, – there is no chance of it for such ‘ too, two ‘ wise people as we are ! In the first place Mr. Kenyon never paid his visit to-day and will do it to-morrow instead ; and secondly, and while I was gloomily musing over this ‘ great fact,’ arrives the tidings of my uncle and aunt Hedley’s being at Fenton’s Hotel for two days from this evening . . so that not only Friday perishes, but even Saturday, unless there should be a change in their plans. We shall have them here continually ; and there would neither be safety nor peace if we attempted a meeting. So let us take patience, dearest beloved, and let me feel you loving me through the distance. It is only for a short time, to bear these weeks without our days in them ; and presently you will have too much of me perhaps, – ah, the ungrateful creature, who stops in the middle of the sentence, thunderstruck in the tenderest part of her conscience ! So instead, I go on to say that certainly I shall be happy with you, as long as my ‘ sitting in the room ‘ does not make you less happy – certainly I shall be happy with you. I thought once that the capacity of happiness was destroyed in me, but you have made it over again, – God has permitted you ! And while you love me so . . essentially, as you describe, and apart from supposed and suppositious qualities . . I will take courage and hope, and believe that such a love may be enough for the happiness of us both – enough or yours even.

Your father is worthy to be your father, let you call yourself his ‘ unworthy son ‘ ever so. The noblest inheritance of sons is to have such thoughts of their fathers, as you have of yours – the privilege of such thoughts, the faith in such virtues and the gratitude for such affection. You have better than the silver or the gold, and you can afford to leave those to less happy sons. And your mother – Scarcely I was a woman when I lost my mother – dearest as she was, and very tender, (as yours even could be), and of a nature harrowed up into some furrows by the pressure of circumstances : for we lost more in her than she lost in life, my dear dearest mother. A sweet, gentle nature, which the thunder a little turned from its sweetness – as when it turns milk. One of those women who never can resist ; but, in submitting and bowing on themselves, make a mark, a plait, within, – a sign of suffering. Too womanly she was – it was her only fault. Good, good, and dear – and refined too ! – she would have admired and loved you, – but I can only tell you so, for she is gone past us all into the place of the purer spirits. God had to take her, before He could bless her enough.

Now I shall not write any more to-night. You had my note to-day – the note written this morning ? I went out in the carriage, and we drove to one or two shops and up the Uxbridge Road, and I was utterly dull. Shall I not really see you before Monday ? It seems impossible to bear. Let us hope at any rate, for Saturday.

How could such an idea enter your head, pray, as that about selling your copyrights? That would have been travelling at the price of blood, and I never should have agreed to it. I shall be able to bring you a few pennies, I hope ; only it would not be enough for the journey, what I could bring, under the circumstances of imprisonment. When we are free, we ought to place our money somewhere on the railroads, where the percentage will be better – which will not disturb the simplicity of our way of life, you know, though it will give us more liberty in living.

Now I expect to hear your decision about Mrs. Jameson – I expect to hear from you of yourself, though, most and chiefest – tell me how you are, and how your mother is. Dearest, promise me not to say to your family any foolishness about me – remember what the recoil will be, and understand that I must suffer in proportion to all the over-praises. It quite frightens me to think of it ! And then, again, I laugh to myself at your excellent logic of comparison, between Miss Campbell and me ; and how you did not care for walking the bazaars and looking at the dolls with her ; to the discredit of the whole class of Miss Campbells . . whereas, with ME ! ! &c. No wonder that your father should give you books of logic to study, books on the ‘ right use of reason,’ if you do not understand that I am not better than she, except by your loving me better ; that the cause is not in her or me, but in you only. Can it indeed be so true that people, when they love other people, never see them at all ? Yet it seems to me that I see you clearly, discern you entirely and thoroughly – which makes me love you profoundly. But you . . without seeing me at all, you love me . . which does as well, I think – so I am your very own.

[Postmark: August 27, 1846]

The post’s old fault, is it not, this letter that does not come? I have waited till nearly the time of the next arrival, 3 o’clock, and perhaps I begin writing now because I have observed that sometimes the letter comes just as I am trying hardest to resign myself. So may it be now, or presently !

Dearest, I did not thank you yesterday for the accounts of your visit and drive . . I always love you for such accounts ; you know, I might like, we will say, a Miss Campbell, while she was in the very act of speaking Greek to Mr. Kenyon’s satisfaction, or making verses, or putting them into action but there would be no following her about the streets, and through bazaars, and into houses, and loving the walking and standing and sitting and companionship with Flush ! I shall be satisfied to the full if you only live in my sight, – cross the room in which I sit, – not to say, sit down by me there, – always supposing that you also, for your part, seem happy and contented, – or at least could not become more so by leaving me. But I do believe you will be happy.

And here the letter comes ! See, what I tell you does now fill my life with gladness, – that, the counterpart of that, you promise me shall make you glad too ! My very own, entirely beloved Ba, there is no exaggeration, no overestimation – the case does not admit of any, indeed ! If a man tells you he owns a peerless horse, the horse may go lame and the estimation sink upon that experience – but if I think, as I do, that the Elgin Horse is peerless (despite his ewe-neck) nothing further can touch it, nor change me. One of my comparisons ! All I want to express is, that I love you, dearest, with a love that seems to separate you from your very qualities – the essential from its accidents. But you must wait to know – wait a life, perhaps.

I used those words you object to – (in your true way), because you shall love nothing connected with me for conventional reasons – and if I understated the amount of kind feeling which you might be led to return for theirs, be assured that I also expressed in the simplest and coldest terms possible my father and mother’s affection for you. I told you, they believe me . . therefore, know in some measure what you are to me. They are both entirely affectionate and generous. My father is tender-hearted to a fault. I have never known much more of those circumstances in his youth than I told you, in consequence of his invincible repugnance to allude to the matter – and I have a fancy, to account for some peculiarities in him, which connects them with some abominable early experience. Thus, if you question him about it, he shuts his eyes involuntarily and shows exactly the same marks of loathing that may be noticed while a piece of cruelty is mentioned . . and the word ‘ blood,’ even, makes him change colour. To all women and children he is ‘ chivalrous ‘ . . as you called his unworthy son ! There is no service which the ugliest, oldest, crossest woman in the world might not exact of him. But I must leave off; to-morrow I do really see you at last, dearest ! God bless you ever for your very own R.

The France-route seems in nearly every way the best – perhaps in every way – let it be as you have decided. Nothing is said in this letter, nothing answered, mind . . time presses so !

[Postmark: August 27, 1846]

E. B. B. to R. B.

Dearest, I am to write to you of Mrs. Jameson. First, as to telling her . . will it not be an embarrassment both to her and ourselves ? If she cannot say ‘ I knew nothing of this,’ she bears the odium of confidante and adviser perhaps – who shall explain the distinction to others ? And to Mr. Kenyon, will it not seem as if we had trusted her more than him – and though there is a broad distinction too between their cases, who shall explain that to him so quickly and nicely that he shall not receive the shock of a painful impression ? Consider a little – She is so in medias res – so in the way of all the conversation and the questionings. But it shall be as you like and think best. I am too nervous perhaps.

As for the travelling, she sets out between the seventh and tenth of September, a century before our aera, you know – but if she goes to Italy and is not too angry with me, we might certainly meet her in Paris or at Orleans . . take her up at Orleans, and go on together. That is, if you like it too. She would be pleased, I daresay, if it were proposed – and we might be kind in proposing it – and something I might say to her, if you liked it, on the condition of her not changing her mind. Certainly I do agree with you that she must have some ideas – she is not without imagination, and the suggestions are abundant, – though nothing points to you, mind ! – if she could possibly think me capable of loving anyone else in the world, with you in it.

I had a letter to-day . . with a proposition to write ballads and other lyrics in order to the civilisation of the colonies . . especially Australia. It appears that a Mr. Angus Fife has a scheme on foot nearly, about sending missionary ballad-singers among the natives, and that I am invited to write some of them, or to be invited – for nothing is specified yet. Now what do you think of that ? One should take one’s mythology from the Kangaroos, I suppose.

Then a book of ‘ serious poems ‘ is to be brought out in Edinburgh and contributions are desired so very politely that nobody can quite refuse.

I write to you of anything but what is in my thoughts. Your letter of yesterday took hold of me and will not let me go – it all seems too earnest for the mere dream I have been dreaming all this while – is it not a dream . . or what ? And something I said in my letter, which was wrong to say and I am sorry to think of – forgive me that, ever beloved – but you have forgiven, I know. May God bless you, and not take from me my blessing in you.

I am your very own BA.

We are going out in the carriage and shall post this note.

You will come to-morrow unless you hear more? Is it a compact ?

[Postmark: August 27, 1846]

‘ If I care for any love ‘ – ‘ whether I take it or no.’ Now ought I not to reproach you a little, for bearing to write such words of me, when you could not but think all the while, that I should feel a good deal in reading what you wrote beside ? Will you tell me that you did not know I should be glad and grateful for tolerance even ? – the least significance of the kinder feeling affecting me beyond, perhaps, what you could know of me. I am bound to them utterly.

And if it is true, as it is true, that they have much to pardon and overlook in me, . . and among the rest, the painful position imposed on you by my miserable necessities, . . they yet never shall find me, I trust, unworthy of them and you by voluntary failures, and, least of all, by failures of dutiful affection towards themselves – ‘ IF THEY CARE FOR ANY LOVE.’

For the rest of what you tell me, it is all the purest kindness – and you were perfectly, perfectly right in taking so, and as a loan, which we ought, I think, to return when our hands are free, without waiting for the completion of other projects. By living quietly and simply, we shall surely have enough – and more than enough. Then among other resources is Blackwood. I calculated once that without unpleasant labour, with scarcely an effort, I could make a hundred a year by magazine-contributions – and this, without dishonour either. It does ‘ fugitive poems,’ observe, no harm whatever, to let them fly through a periodical before they alight on their tree to sing. Then you will send perhaps the sweepings of your desk to Blackwood, to alternate with my sendings ! Shall we do that, when we sit together on the ragged edge of earthquake chasms, in the midst of the ‘ sulphurous vapour.’ I, afraid? No indeed – I think I should never be afraid, if you were near enough. Only that you never must go away in boats. But there is time enough for such compacts.

As to the sea voyage, that was your scheme, and not mine, from the beginning : and your account of the expenses, if below my fear . . (although I believe that ‘ servants ‘ do not mean ‘ female servants ‘ and that the latter are subject to additional charges), yet seems to me to leave the Rhone and Saone route as preferable as ever. And do you mark, dear dearest, that supposing me to be unfit for the short railroad passage from Rouen to Paris and from Paris to Orleans, I must be just as unfit for the journey to Southampton, which is necessary to the sea-voyage. Then . . supposing me to be unfit for the river-passage, I must be still more unfit for the sea. So don’t suppose either. I am stronger than you fancy. I shall shut my eyes and think of you when there is too much noise and confusion, – the things which try me most, – and it will be easy to find a quiet room and to draw down the blinds and take rest, I suppose, . . which one might in vain long for in that crowded steamer at sea. Therefore, dearest, if I am to think and decide, I have decided . . let us go through France. And let us go quick, quick, and not stop anywhere within hearing of England . . not stop at Havre, nor at Rouen, nor at Paris – that is how I decide. May God help us, and smooth the way before and behind. May your father indeed be able to love me a little, for my father will never love me again.

For you . . you will ‘serve me best ‘ and serve me only, by being happy not away from me. When I shall have none but you, if I can feel myself not too much for you, – not something you would rather leave – then you will have ‘ served ‘ me all you can. But this is more perhaps than you can – these things do not depend on the will of a man – that he should promise to do them. I speak simply for myself, and of what would give me a full contentment. Do not fancy that there is a doubt in the words of it. I cannot doubt now of your affection for me. Dearest, I cannot. Yet you make me uneasy often through this extravagance of over-estimation ; forcing me to contract ‘obligations to pay ‘ which I look at in speechless despair – And here is a penny.

Of Mrs. Jameson, let me write to-morrow – I am benighted and must close. On Friday we shall meet at last, surely ; and then it will be all the happier in proportion to the vexation. Dearest, love me –

I am your own –

[Postmark: August 26, 1846]

Dearest, I do think it will be only prudent to stay away till Friday for those reasons. Oh, how I feel what a Ba, mine is . . how truly peerless a lady . . when I find instinctively at this minute while I write, that the proper course will be to seem as little affected by this enforced absence as possible . . that knowing my love she would understand any comfort I take from the eventful good of the arrangement – I have not to dwell on the present sorrow of it, lest she disbelieve me ! I am your very own, dearest dearest, with you or away from you. Both your notes came together just now . . how can I thank and love you enough ? I might have guessed that at the end you would thank me for my own letters . . that is your ‘ trick of fence,’ discovered, remember ! But when you read the ‘ red-leaved tablets of the heart ‘ . . then be satisfied . . ‘ praise,’ nothing in me to you can deserve.

I have learned all particulars about the steamer. There are only two classes of passengers . . Servants being the second. The first pay, for the voyage to Leghorn 21l. – the second, 14l. 5s. all expenses included except during the stay at Genoa. No reduction ‘ it is feared ‘ could be made in the case of so small a party – but by booking early, a separate cabin might be secured, at no additional expense. In the event of any obstacle, the passage paid for may be postponed till the departure of the next, or any future vessel of the company. Now, you see, these rates, though moderate, I think – (the ordinary term of the passage to Genoa is eleven days) – are yet considerably above those of the other method by at least 2ol., I should say. The voyage is long, supremely tiresome, and in all respects so much less interesting than the French route, that the whole scheme can only be constructed for those to whom any other mode of travel is impossible. The one question to be asked therefore is . . are you really convinced that you need not be treated as one of these ? And on further consideration, there arise not a few doubts as to whether the sea-voyage be not the more difficult of the two – the roughness is all between here and Gibraltar – and in the case of that affecting you more seriously than we hope, there would be no possibility of escaping from the ship – whereas, should you be indisposed on the other route, we can stop at once and stay for any period. Then, the ‘ shiftings ‘ are only three or four, and probably accompanied by no very great fatigue beyond the notion that a shifting there is. Above all, you would get the first of the sea in a little experiment, soon made and over, – so that if it proved unfavourable to you there might be an end of the matter at once. So that after all, the cheaper journey may be the safer. But all does not rest with you quite, as I was going to say . . all my life is bound up with the success of this measure . . therefore, think and decide, my Ba !

Would there be an advantage in Mrs. Jameson accompanying us – to Orleans, at least ? Would the circumstances of our marriage alter her desire, do you think ? She has wished to travel with me, also – she must suspect the truth – I doubt whether it is not in such cases as hers,’ where no responsibility is involved, whether it is not better policy, as well as the more graceful, to communicate what is sure to be discovered – so getting thanks and sympathy instead of neither. All is for you to consider.

And now, dearest, I will revert, in as few words as I can, to the account you gave me, a short time since, of your income. At the beginning, if there had been the necessity I supposed, I should have proposed to myself the attainment of something like such an amount, by my utmost efforts, before we could marry. We could not under the circumstances begin with less – so as to be free from horrible contingencies, – not the least of which would be the application for assistance afterward. After we marry, nobody must hear of us. In spite of a few misgivings at first I am not proud, or rather, am proud in the right place. I am utterly, exclusively proud of you – and though I should have gloried in working myself to death to prove it, and shall be as ready to do so at any time a necessity shall exist, yet at present I shall best serve you, I think, by the life by your side, which we contemplate. I hope and believe, that by your side I shall accomplish something to justify God’s goodness and yours – and, looking at the matter in a worldly light, I see not a few reasons for thinking that unproductive as the kind of literature may be, which I should aim at producing, yet, by judicious management, and profiting by certain favourable circumstances, – I shall be able to realise an annual sum quite sufficient for every purpose at least in Italy.

As I never calculated on such a change in my life, I had the less repugnance to my father’s generosity, that I knew that an effort at some time or other might furnish me with a few hundred pounds which would soon cover my very simple expenses. If we are poor, it is to my father’s infinite glory, who, as my mother told me last night, as we sate alone, ‘ conceived such a hatred to the slave-system in the West Indies,’ (where his mother was born, who died in his infancy), that he relinquished every prospect, supported himself, while there, in some other capacity, and came back, while yet a boy, to his father’s profound astonishment and rage – one proof of which was, that when he heard that his son was a suitor to her, my mother – he benevolently waited on her uncle to assure him that his niece would be thrown away on a man so evidently born to be hanged ! – those were his words. My father on his return had the intention of devoting himself to art, for which he had many qualifications and abundant love – but the quarrel with his father, – who married again and continued to hate him till a few years before his death, – induced him to go at once and consume his life after a fashion he always detested. You may fancy, I am not ashamed of him.’

I told my mother, who told him. They have never been used to interfere with, or act for me – and they trust me. If you care for any love, purely love, – you will have theirs – they give it you, whether you take it or no. You will understand, therefore, that I would not accept even the 100l. we shall want : I said ‘you shall lend it me – I will pay it back out of my first literary earnings – I take it, because I do not want to sell my copyrights, or engage myself to write a play, or any other nuisance. Surely I can get fifty pounds next year, and the other fifty in due course ! ‘

So, dearest, we shall have plenty for the journey – and you have only to determine the when and the how. Oh, the time ! Bless you, ever dearest ! I love you with all my heart and soul –

R.