[Postmark: August 5, 1846]
Wednesday Morning.
If I had felt, as you pleased to feel yesterday, that it had
been ‘ only one hour ‘ which my coming gained — I should
richly deserve to find out to-day, as I do fully, what the
precise value of such an hour is. But I never act so
ungratefully and foolishly — you are more than ever you
have been to me, — yet at any time I would have gone for the
moment’s sight of you, — one moment’s — and returned
happy. You never doubt this because I do not waylay
you in your walks and rides ? I consider your sisters, and
your apprehension for them, and other reasons that make
such a step objectionable. Do you remember what I said
yesterday — what I have told myself so often? It is one
proof how I love you that I am jealous of any conversation
with you which should be too interesting for itself, apart
from the joy of your presence — it is better to sit and see
you, or hear you, or only say something which, in its
insignificance, shall be obviously of no account beside the
main and proper delight — as at wine-feasts you get the wine
and a plate of thin dry tasteless biscuits — (observe, for
instance, that this noble simile was not set before you
yesterday — no, my Ba !)
And you did understand also why I left, on that mere
chance of danger to you, — for it was not, do you think it
was only the irksomeness to myself I sought to escape —
though that would have been considerable. There is no
unstable footing for me in the whole world except just in
your house — which is not yours. I ought not to be in that
one place — all I could do in any circumstances (were a
meeting to happen) would be wrong, unfortunate. The
certainty of misconception would spoil everything — so much
of gentleness as is included in gentlemianliness would pass
for a very different quality — and the manliness which one
observes there too, would look like whatever it is farthest
from. This is a real avowal of weakness — because, being in
the right, as I dare trust I am, so far as I can see through the
involvement, I ought to be able to take my stand upon it, —
and so I shall be able, and easily — but not here, just here.
With Mr. Kenyon, in spite of a few misgivings, I shall
know what to say — I can justify myself, if not convince
him. Never fancy, dearest, that he has any ‘ clay ‘ in his
composition — he may show a drop of water at the heart of
the else entire chrystal he is — did you ever see that pretty
phenomenon — of which Claudian wrote so prettily ? ‘ Non
potuit toto mentiri corpore gemmam, sed medio latuit
proditor orbe latex.’ Our Druids used to make balls for
divining out of such all-but-solid gems with the central
weakness — I have had them in my hand. Such doubts and
fears are infinitely more becoming in him, situated as he is,
than their absence would be — if he said for instance, ‘ Oh
yes, — I am used to a certain style of living, which of course
I do not change for no reason at all, — but who doubts that
I could do so, without difficulty or regret ? I shall hardly
bestow any sympathy on what I am sure must be the easiest
life in the world ! ‘ One would rather hear an epicure say
frankly he cannot conceive how people can end a dinner
without Tokay, than ask over his Tokay (as Sheridan’s
Abbot in the ‘ Duenna ‘) of the poor starved wistful attendant
monk, ‘ Haven’t you the chrystal spring ? ‘
In this case, he is directly looking to your possible
undertakings, not merely expressing his general ‘ remembrance
that we are dust ‘ and need gilding — and certainly
if in some respects you have, as I believe, less use, fewer
uses for money than ordinary women, — you also have an
absolute necessity for whatever portion you do require, —
such a necessity as they have not, neither. I shall never
grieve over the lace handkerchiefs you cannot get — but
whatever you possess already in this room of yours, or might
possess on the contingency of such illness, you must keep,
— to your life’s end. I would not take you away on any other
condition. Now listen Ba — not think for a moment that it
puts me to the least, least pain imaginable to talk on this
subject, while I know you wholly, as there I am sure I do,
and while you too know me, as I also am sure, — we may
discuss this, as we do the better or worse routes to Italy,
in the fullest confidence of our aims and desires being absolutely
identical, — so that it is but a prize for the ingenuity of
either, — a prize from the common stock of our advantage, —
whenever a facility is discovered or a difficulty avoided. So
listen, — will you, at once, or as soon as practicable, ascertain
what you certainly possess — what is quite yours, and in your
sole power, to take or to let remain — what will be just as
available to you in Italy as in England ? I want to know,
being your possible husband. My notion of the perfection
of money arrangements is that of a fairy purse which every
day should hold so much, and there an end of trouble.
Houses and land always seem like a vineyard to a man who
wants a draught of wine for present thirst : so tell me how
much will be found in the purse — because when we are in
Italy or halfway there telling will be superfluous or beyond
remedy, — easy remedy at least.
Since writing the above I have been down-stairs — and
now return to tell you, a miracle has just happened, which
my father, mother and sister are at this moment engaged in
admiring — I hear their voices in the garden. We have a
fig-tree which I planted four years ago — this year it produces
its first fruit, a small fig, ‘ seule et unique, ‘ which is still on
the tree — not another fig, ripe or unripe, living or dead, has
ever been carried into the garden — yet this morning is
discovered in the exact centre of the garden, and parallel with
the fig-tree aforesaid, another indubitable seedling fig-tree, —
‘ how begot, how nourished ? ‘ Ipse vidi — does that
prognosticate, my own Siren, my soothsayer and wise lady?
And now, have you been incommoded by the storm, —
and thunder, which was loud and lasting here ? I thought
of you with such thoughts.
And what came of my visit ? Was it really your Aunt —
did my precipitation improve matters ? Will Saturday have
to fear ?
Yesterday I was not in a mood to go quietly home —
‘ for my soul kept up too much light under my eyelids for
the night, and thus I went disquieted ‘ till at Charing Cross
it struck me that going home by water (to Greenwich, at
least) would be a calmative — so I went on board a steamer.
Close by me sate three elderly respectable men, — I could
not help hearing them talk rationally about the prospects of
the planters, the ‘ compensation there is to be in the article
of Rum,’ — how we ‘ get labour,’ which is the main thing,
and may defy, with that, Cuba, the Brazils &c. One who
talked thus was a fat genial fellow, ending every sentence
in a laugh from pure good-nature — his companions somehow
got to ‘ the Church,’ then Puseyism, then Dissent — on all
which this personage had his little opinion, — when one
friend happened to ask ‘ you think so ? ‘ — ‘ I do, ‘ said the
other ‘and indeed I know it.’ ‘How so?’ — ‘Because it
was revealed to me in a vision.’ ‘A … vision ?’ — ‘Yes,
a vision ‘ — and so he began to describe it, quite in earnest,
but with the selfsame precision and assurance, with which
he had been a little before describing the effect of the
lightning on an iron steam boat at Woolwich as he witnessed
it. In this vision he had seen the devil cast out of himself
— which he took for an earnest of God’s purposes for good
to the world at large — I thought, ‘ we mad poets, — and
this very unpoetical person ! ‘ who had also previously been
entering on the momentous question ‘ why I grow fatter
than of old, seeing that I eat no more — ‘
Come, Ba, say, is not this too bad, too far from the line ?
— I may talk this by you, — but write this away from you,
— oh, no ! Be with me then, dearest, for one moment, for
many moments, in spite of the miles, while I kiss your
sweetest lips, as now — Beloved !
I am ever your very own
Oh, — I determine not to go yet to Mrs. J’s ‘ for reasons ‘
— a phrase which ought to be ready stereotyped.