[Postmark: August 3, 1846]
Sunday.
What can I tell you, ever dearest, while I am expecting
all you are to tell me ? I will not conjecture, nor be afraid
(for you) before the time — I felt your dear hand press mine
closer while the thunder sounded — so it will always be, I
know, in life, in death — and when a thunder shall break, of
a kind that I can fear. I will hold your hand, my Ba.
Perhaps there is nothing formidable here . . indeed there
can hardly be — tell me all. I got to your Hodgson’s,
waited a few minutes till a cab passed, and then was
properly deposited at the Haymarket. The streets, at least
the roads out of Town, were flooded — very canals. Here, at
home our skylight was broken, — and our chimneys behaved
just as yours.
And now — shall I see you really on Tuesday after this
Saturday of perils? And how will your head be, — your
health in general be, you sweetest Ba ? Is it the worse for
the storm and the apprehension, — to say nothing of what
may have followed ? Oh, if but a ‘ sign ‘ might be
vouchsafed me — if I might go to Wimpole Street presently,
and merely know by the disposition of a blind or of a shutter,
that you were better, or no worse ! I ought to have contrived
something of the kind yesterday — but ‘ presence of mind ‘ !
Ba, I have been reading those poems — now to speak
soberly — I had no conception, Mrs. Butler could have
written anything so mournfully mediocre . . to go as near
flattery as I can. With the exception of three or four pieces
respectable from their apparent earnestness, all that album
writing about ‘ sprites,’ and the lily-bell, and ‘ wishes ‘ —
now to be dead and now alive, — descriptions without colour,
songs without tune, — why, Bennett towers above it ! Either
Bennett — for the one touch you recorded, ‘ I will not be
forgot ‘ — seems grandly succinct contrasted with
Yet not in tears remembered be my name —
Weep over those ye loved — for me, for me,
Give me the wreath of glory and let fame
Over my tomb spread immortality.
How many of these unfortunate Sundays are in store
for me, I wonder — eight or nine, then the two months . .
‘ when constant faith and holy hope shall die, ‘ one lost in
certainty and one in the deep deep joy of the ever present
ever dearest Ba ! Oh, Ba, how I love you !
Your own R.