[Postmark: August 10, 1846]
Sunday.
Just now I tore the few words I had begun of the letter
to you, Ba — they all went away, strangely afar from the
meaning begun in them, through my mind taking up the
thought that you were ‘ waiting ‘ for what I should write
— ‘waiting all day ‘ — and ready to call the poor joyful
service of love, ‘ goodness ‘ in me ! When such thoughts
arise, I am not fit to pay even that imperfect service —
I have only arms to receive you, kisses to give you — the
words seem too cold, indeed ! I sincerely believe this I
am to write now, will be the shorter because of the
intervention of you, — and that, like Flush, I shall
behave best when not looked at too much !
Then, in our life, — what I do earnestly in intention and
from love of you, that you will always accept and make the
best of ! How happy you make me, now and ever — in the
present happiness, in the assurance of the future’s even
greater happiness, I am obliged to believe ! It seemed
like a dream as I walked home last night and thought of
all over again, after a few hours’ talk with my old friends,
on subjects from which you were excluded, and of a kind
that brought my former feelings back again ; so as to be
understood, at least, and recognised as mine. ‘ All which
is changed now, ‘ I thought going home in the moonlight.
Chorley was apprised of my being there and came
good-naturedly — and we discussed delinquencies political
and literary : he says, times were never so bad as now —
people come without a notion of offending a critic, and
offer him money — ‘ will you do this for so much ‘ —
praise this or blame this ! He was in a bad humour, he
said ; at least teazed and tired — and really looked both,
so thaf I asked ‘ had you not better throw away a day on
our green dulness at Hatcham, strolling through it with me ? ‘
— ‘ Yes — this day next week, if you like ‘ — he answered
at once . . so that our Saturday will be gone . . so that our
Tuesday must be secured, my own Ba, and after it the Friday,
at an equal interval of time — do you let it be so? Saturday
would seem to be his only available day, poor Chorley — he
walked through the park with me and over the Bridge, at one
in the morning — in return for my proving, (I don’t quite
think that, however ! ) — proving, to Arnoultfs great
satisfaction at least, that Mr. Horne was a poet, and
moreover a dramatic one, — Chorley sees no good in him
beyond talent with an abundance of ‘ crotchets,’ and ‘ could
not read ” Orion ” for his life.’ I proved another thing too
— that Forster was not a whit behind his brethren of the
faculty, in literary morals — that the Examiner, named, was
quite as just and good as another paper, unnamed. Whereat
Chorley grew warm and lost his guard, and at last ;
declaring I forced him into corners and that speak he must ;
instanced the ‘ Examiner’s ‘ treatment of myself as not
generous . . ‘ Luria ‘ having been noticed as you remember a
week after the publication, and yet, or never, to be
reviewed in the Unnamed : Ces Miseres !
A fortnight ago when Rachel played in ‘ Andromaque ‘
‘ for the last time ‘ — Sarianna and I agreed that if she did
ever play again in it, we would go and see . . and lo,
contrary to all expectation she does repeat Hermione
to-morrow night, and we are to go. And you, Ba, you cannot
go — ought I to go ? One day, one not distant day, and
‘cannot’ will apply to us both — now, it seems to do me
good, with the crowd of its suggestions, this seeing Rachel ;
beside, Sarianna has just this only opportunity of going.
I am anxious to let the folly of that person spend itself
unaggravated by any notice of mine — I mean to you ; any
notice which should make you think it — (the folly) —
affected me as well as you ; but I do trust you will not
carry toleration too far in this case, nor furnish an
ungenerous, selfish man with weapons for your own annoyance.
‘ Insolent letters ‘ you ought to put up with from no one —
and as there is no need of concealment of my position now, I
think you will see a point when I may interfere. Always
rely on my being quietly firm, and never violent nor
exasperating : you alluded to some things which I cannot let
my fancy stop upon. Remember you are mine, now, — my
own, my very own. I know very well what a wretched
drunkenness there is in that sort of self-indulgence — what it
permits itself to do, all on the strength of its ‘ strong
feeling ‘ ‘ earnestness ‘ — stupid in execrable sophistry as
it is ! I have too a strong belief that the man who would bully
you, would drop into a fit at the sight of a man’s uplifted
little finger. Can this person be the ‘old friend in an ill
humour ‘ who followed me up-stairs one day ? I trust to
you — that is the end of all.
Now I will kiss you, my own Ba, and wait for my letter,
and then, Tuesday. Dearest, I am your own, your very
own.