[Postmark: August 10, 1846]
Sunday.
Ever dearest, I shall write to you a little this morning
and try to manage to post myself what shall be written, too
early to permit the possibility (almost) of your being without
a letter to-morrow. Dearest, how you were with me yesterday,
after you went away ! — I thought, thought, thought of
you, — and the books I took up one by one . . (I tried a
romance too ‘ Les Femmes ‘ by a writer called Desnoyers
. . quite new, and weak and foolish enough as a story, but
full of clever things about shoe tyes . . philosophy in small
🙂 the books were all so many lorgnons through which I looked
at you again and again. Did you ever hear a story of the
late Lord Grey, that he was haunted by a head, a head
without a body ? If he turned to the right or left there it
was — if he looked up in the air, there it hung . . or down
to the floor, there it lay — or walked up or down stairs, there
it bounded before him — flop . . flop . . just on its chin,
‘ Alas, poor ghost ? ‘ And just such another, as far as the
haunting goes, were you to me, dearest, yesterday — only
that you were of the celestial rather than ghastly
apparitionery, and bore plainly with you airs from Heaven full
against my forehead. How did I ever deserve you — how
ever ? Never indeed ! And how can it seem right to submit to
so much happiness undeservedly, as the knowledge
of your affection gives, you who are ‘ great in everything, ‘
as Mr. Kenyon said the other day ! Shall I tell you how I
reconcile myself to the good ? Thus it is. First I think
that no woman in the world, let her be ever so much
better than I, could quite be said to deserve you — and that
therefore there may not be such harm in your taking the
one who will owe you most with the fullest consciousness !
If it may not be merit, it shall be gratitude — that is how I
look at it when I would keep myself from falling back into
the old fears. Ah ! you may prevent my rising up to
receive you . . though I did not know that I did . . it was
a pure instinct ! — but you cannot prevent my sinking down
to the feet of your spirit when I think of the love it has
given me from the beginning and not taken away. Dearest,
dearest — I am content to owe all to you — it is not too
much humiliation !
While I was writing, came Mr. Kenyon . . the spectacles
mended, and looking whole catechisms from behind them.
The first word was, ‘ Have you seen Browning lately ? ‘ I,
taken by surprise, answered en niaise, ‘Yes, yesterday.’
‘ And did he tell you that he was coming on Wednesday,
next Wednesday ? ‘ ‘He said something of it.’
A simpleton would have done better — to call me one
were too much honour ! — yet it seemed impossible to be
adroit under the fire of the full face, spectacles included.
The words came without the will. And now, what had we
better do ? Take Tuesday, that you may be able to say on
Wednesday, ‘ I was not there to-day ‘ . . ? or be frank for
the hour and let it all pass ? Think for us, Robert — I am
quite frightened at what I have done. It seemed to me
too, afterwards, that Mr. Kenyon looked grave. Still he
talked of Miss Mitford and Mr. Buckingham, and Landor,
and of going to the Lakes himself for a few days, and
laughed and jested in great good humour, the subject being
turned — he asked me too if I had ever discussed your
poetry with Miss Mitford, on which I said that she did not
much believe in you — ‘ Not even in ” Saul ” ? ‘ said he.
I don’t know what to think. I am in a fog off the Nore.
And he proposed coming to-morrow with a carriage, to
drive me up the Harrow road to see the train coming in,
and then to take me to his house, and, so, home, – all in
his infinite kindness. He comes at half-past three — let
me have your thoughts with me then — and the letter,
farther on. Two letters, I am to have to-morrow. If Sunday
is the worst day, Monday is the best, — of those I mean of
course, on which I do not see you. May God bless you,
my own beloved. I love you in the deepest of my heart ;
which seems ever to grow deeper. I live only for you ; and
feel that it is worth while.
Your BA.