Day: August 17, 2018

[Postmark: August 17, 1846]

I come home from Town for my letters . . the two I ventured to expect, and here they meet me. As I said, you had written, and I thanked you then, and now, too, just as if I had been despairing all along – and over and above, there are some especial thanks to pay, – for when I could not otherwise disengage myself from a dinner a little way out of town, – having unawares confessed to the day’s being at my disposal, . . I said – ‘ I expect letters at home which must be answered ‘ – and here I am.

Or rather, here you are, dearest, – in, I do think, your dearest mood. I must shift my ground already, alter my moment of time, and avow that it is now I love you the best, the completest. Do you want to know how much kindness I can bear? If I ever am so happy as to speak so as to please you, it may be only your own kindness overflowing and running back to you – I feel every day, often in every day, the regret follow some thought of you, – that this thought, for instance, if I could secure and properly tell you this only, you would know my love for what it is, – and yet that this thought will pass unexpressed like the others ! Well, I do not care – rightly considered, there is not so much to regret – the words should lead to acts, and be felt insufficient.

Now we collect then, from Mr. Kenyon’s caution, or discretion, or pity, or ignorance, that he will not interpose, and that there will be one great effort, and acknowledgment for all ? I should certainly like it so best. You seem stronger than to need the process of preparatory disclosures, now to one, now to another friend. It is clearly best as it is like to be . . for perhaps the chances are in our favour that the few weeks more will be uninterrupted.

My time is gone – and nothing said ! For to-morrow, all rests with you . . if the note bids me go, I shall be in absolute readiness – otherwise on Wednesday . . just as you seem to discern the times and the seasons.

Bless you my own best, dearest Ba – your own R.

[Postmark: August 17, 1846]

Your sight of Widdicombe was highly dramatic – and the policeman ‘ intersit nodo ‘ as well as any god of them all. What a personage Widdicombe must be ! Think of the mental state of a man, who could gravely apply to his own face false moustachios and rouge before a looking-glass. There is something in it to wonder over, as over the megalosaurie and prodigions of ridicules. Mind – when I talked of rouge improving a complexion for the nonce, I was thinking of women ; not of men, in whom that sort of colouring (even if it were natural) is detestable, or, to measure one’s language, very ugly indeed. I have seen a man, of whom it was related that he painted his lips – so that at dinner, with every course, was removed a degree of bloom ; the lips paled at the soup, grew paler at the mutton, became white at the fricandeau and ghastly at the pudding – till with the orange at dessert, his nearest neighbours drew back their chairs a little, expecting him to fall flat in a fainting-fit. But he was very rich, and could only talk charmingly out of those painted lips. There were women who ‘couldn’t conceive why people should call him a fool.’ To every Bottom’s head (not to wrong Bottom by such a comparison), there will be a special Titania – see if there will not !

So you go on Wednesday to this club-dinner, really. And you come to me also on Wednesday. Does that remain decided? I have had a letter from that poor Chiappino, to desire a ‘ last interview ‘ . . which is promised to be ‘ pacific.’ Oh – such stuff ! Am I to hold a handkerchief to my eyes and sob a little ? Your policeman is necessary to the full development of the drama, I think. And I forgot to tell you that there were two things in which I had shown great want of feeling – one, the venturing to enclose your verses – the other . . (now listen !) the other . . the having said that ‘ I was sincerely sorry for all his real troubles.’ Which I do remember having said once, when I was out of patience – as how can any one be patient continually ? and how was I especially to condole with him in lawn and weepers, on the dreadful fact of your existence in the world ? Well – he has real troubles unfortunately, and he is going away to live in a village somewhere. Poor Chiappino! A little occupation would be the best thing that could happen for him ; it would be better than prosperity without it. When a man spins evermore on his own axis, like a child’s toy I saw the other day, . . what is the use of him but to make a noise ? No greater tormentor is there, than self-love, . . even to self. And no greater instance of this, than this !

Dearest beloved, to turn away from the whole world to you . . when I do, do I lose anything . . or not rather gain all ? Sometimes I feel to wish that I had more to sacrifice to you, so as to prove something of what is in me – but you do not require sacrifice . . it is enough, you say, that I should be happy through you. How like those words are to you ! – how they are said in your own idiom ! And for myself, I am contented to think that, . . if such things can really satisfy you, . . you would find with difficulty elsewhere in the world than here, a woman as perfectly empty of life and gladness, except what comes to her from your hands. Many would be happy through you :– but to be happy through only you, is my advantage . . my boast. In this, I shall be better than the others.

Why, if you were to drive me from you after a little, in what words could I reproach you, but just in these . . ‘ You might have left me to die before.’ Still I should be your debtor, my beloved, as now I am

Your very own

BA.

I told you that I was going to the chapel one Sunday but I have not been yet. I had not courage. May God bless you ! –

[Postmark: August 17, 1846]

No, my own dearest, your letter does not arrive on Saturday, but this morning – what then ? You will not be prevented from your usual ways of entire goodness to me by that! You will continue to write through the remainder of the writing-time? This one letter reaches me, – if another was sent, it stays back till to-morrow – so I do get a blessing by your endeavour, and am grateful as ever, my own Ba ! After all, neither of us loses, – effectually loses – anything – for my letter always comes in its good time, – it is not cast hopelessly away – and do you suppose that you lose any of the gladness and thanks ? Rather, you get them doubly – for all along, all through the suspense, I have been (invariably) sure of the deed when promised, and of the unchanging love, when only expected . . so that when the letter finds me at last, the joy being unaccountably unabated do you not see that there is a gain somehow ? I told you on Friday I loved you more at that instant than at any previous time – I will show you why, because I can show you, I think – though it seems at first an irrational word . . for always having loved you wholly, how can I, still only loving you wholly, speak of ‘ more ‘ or ‘ less ‘ ? This is why – I used to see you once a week, to sit with you for an hour and a half – to receive a letter, or two, or three, during the week – and I loved you, Ba, wholly, as I say, and reckoned time for no time in the intervals of seeing you and hearing from you. Now I see you twice in the week, and stay with you the three hours, and have letter on dear letter, – and the distance is, at least, the same, between the days, and between the letters – I will only affirm it is the same – so I must love you more – because if you were to bring me back to the old allowance of you, – the one short visit, the two or three letters, – I should be starved with what once feasted me ! (If you do not understand Flush does !) Seriously, does not that go to prove, I love you more ! Increased strength comes insensibly thus, – is only ascertained by such process of induction . . once you crossed the room to look out Shelley’s age in a book, and were not tired – now you cross London to see the trains arrive, and (I trust) are not tired . . So – you are stronger.

Dearest, I know your very meaning, in what you said of religion, and responded to it with my whole soul – what you express now, is for us both . . those are my own feelings, my convictions beside – instinct confirmed by reason. Look at that injunction to ‘ love God with all the heart, and soul, and strength ‘ and then imagine yourself bidding any faculty, that arises towards the love of him, be still ! If in a meeting house, with the blank white walls, and a simple doctrinal exposition, – all the senses should turn (from where they lie neglected) to all that sunshine in the Sistine with its music and painting, which would lift them at once to Heaven, – why should you not go forth ? – to return just as quickly, when they are nourished into a luxuriance that extinguishes, what is called, Reason’s pale wavering light, lamp or whatever it is – for I have got into a confusion with thinking of our convolvuluses that climb and tangle round the rose-trees – which might be lamps or tapers ! See the levity ! No – this sort of levity only exists because of the strong conviction, I do believe ! There seems no longer need of earnestness in assertion, or proof . . so it runs lightly over, like foam on the top of a wave.

Chorley came and was very agreeable and communicative. You shall tell me more about Mr. Mathews and his review. And with respect to his lady-friend, you will see her, I think. But first tell me of Mr. Kenyon, and yourself – how you are, and what I am to do, when to see you.

Now goodbye, my own Ba – ‘goodbye.’ Be prepared for all fantasticalness that may happen ! Perhaps some day I shall shake hands with you, simply, and go . . just to remember the more exquisitely where I once was, and where you let me stay now, you dearest, dearest heart of my heart, soul of my soul ! But the shaking-hands, at a very distant time ! Now – let me kiss you, beloved – and so I do kiss you –

Ever your own.

[Postmark: August 17, 1846]

How I thank for your letter, ever beloved. You were made perfectly to be loved – and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long. Did I tell you that before, so often as I have thought it ? It is that which makes me take it all as visionary good – for when one’s Ideal comes down to one, and walks beside one suddenly, what is it possible to do but to cry out . . ‘a dream’ ? You are the best . . best. And if you loved me only and altogether for pity, (and I think that, more than you think, the sentiment operated upon your generous chivalrous nature), and if you confessed it to me and proved it, and I knew it absolutely – what then ? As long as it was love, should I accept it less gladly, do you imagine, because of the root ? Should I think it less a gift ? should I be less grateful, . . or more ? Ah – I have my ‘theory of causation’ about it all – but we need not dispute, and will not, on any such metaphysics. Your loving me is enough to satisfy me – and if you did it because I sate rather on a green chair than a yellow one, it would be enough still for me : – only it would not, for you – because your motives are as worthy always as your acts. – Dearest !

So let us talk of the great conference in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage, in which joined himself, Arabel, Flush and I. First he said . . ‘Did Browning stay much longer with you ?’ ‘Yes – some time.’ This was as we were going on our way toward some bridge, whence to look at the Birmingham train. As we came back, he said, with an epical leap in medias res . . ‘What an extraordinary memory our friend Browning has.’ ‘Very extraordinary’ – said I – ‘and how it is raining.’ I give you Arabel’s report of my reply, for I did not myself exactly remember the full happiness of it – and she assured me besides that he looked . . looked at me . . as a man may look . . And this was everything spoken of you throughout the excursion.

But he spoke of me and observed how well I was – on which Arabel said ‘Yes – she considered me quite well ; and that nothing was the matter now but sham.’ Then the railroads were discussed in relation to me . . and she asked him – ‘Shouldn’t she try them a little, before she undertakes this great journey to Italy ?’ ‘Oh’ . . he replied – ‘she is going on no great journey.’ ‘Yes, she will, perhaps – Ba is inclined to be a great deal too wild, and now that she is getting well, I do assure you, Mr. Kenyon.’

To sit upon thorns, would express rather a ‘velvet cushion’ than where I was sitting, while she talked this foolishness. I have been upbraiding her since, very seriously; and I can only hope that the words were taken for mere jest – du bout des lévres.

Moreover Mr. Kenyon is not going away on Thursday – he has changed his plans : he has put off Cambridge till the ‘spring’ – he meets Miss Bayley nowhere – he holds his police-station in London. ‘When are you going’ I asked in my despair, trying to look satisfied. He did not know – ‘not directly, at any rate’ – ‘I need not hope to get rid of him,’ he said aside perhaps.

But we saw the great roaring, grinding Thing . . a great blind mole, it looked for blackness. We got out of the carriage to see closer – and Flush was so frightened at the roar of it, that he leapt upon the coach-box. Also it rained, – and I had ever so many raindrops on my gown and in my face even, . . which pleased me nearly as much as the railroad sight. It is something new for me to be rained upon, you know.

As for happiness – the words which you use so tenderly are in my heart already, making me happy, . . I am happy by you. Also I may say solemnly, that the greatest proof of love I could give you, is to be happy because of you – and even you cannot judge and see how great a proof that is. You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight. May God bless you, ever ever dearest!

I am your own