[Postmark: August 19, 1846]
See my one piece of available paper for the minute ! Ought I to write on or wait ? No, I will tell Ba at once how I love her for giving me this one more letter with its delights. ‘ Finchley ‘ – I know very well – not that I ever saw the streets, and palaces, and cathedral, with these eyes . . but in ‘ Quarles’ Emblems,’ my childhood’s pet book, I well remember that an aspiring Soul, – (a squat little womanfigure with a loose gown, hair in a coil, and bare feet –) is seated on the world, a ‘ terrestrial ball,’ – which, that you may clearly perceive it to be our world, is somewhat parsimoniously scattered over with cities and towns – and one, the evident capital of the universe and Babylon’s despair for size, – occupying as it does a tract quite equal to all Europe’s due share on the hemisphere, is marked ‘ Finchley ‘ – Do you recognize ? Yet, if you will have it only the pretty village with the fields you describe so perfectly, I accept the sweetness and give up the glory, and your Finchley is mine for ever, you dearest – whom I see in the house, and in the carriage . . but how is it you escaped the rain, Ba ? Oh, it did not rain till later, now I think a little. Those are indeed strange circumstances . . and the ‘ independent ministry ‘ at the end, seems hard to account for . . or, why hard ? Well, this is not hard to feel and know, that it is perfect joy to hear you propose such travels and adventures – Greece with you, Egypt with you ! Will you please and tell me . . (not now, but whenever your conscience prompts you on the recurrence of that notable objection, if Miss Campbell’s desirableness is to recur) . . what other woman in the whole world and Finchley, would propose to go to Egypt instead of Belgravia ? Do our tastes coincide or no ? This is putting all on the lowest possible ground . . setting love aside even, to Miss Mitford’s heart’s fullest content ; if I were to choose among women, without love to give or take, and only for other advantages, do you think any advantage would compete with this single one, – ‘ she will feel happy in travelling with you to a distance.’ Love alters the scale, overbalances everything – at the beginning I fancied you could not leave England, you know. But it singularly affects my imagination, such a life with you, – led for the world, I hope, all the more effectually for being not led in the world. If their ways are not to be ours, all is better at a distance, and so I have put this down as, surely, one palpable, unmistakable advantage even you must confess I shall gain in marrying you – (I may only love Ba’s eyes and mouth in a sort of fearful secrecy so far as words go . . she stops all speech on that subject !)
Yes indeed, Ba, I always felt that ‘ Cyprus wine ‘ poem fill my heart with unutterable desires to you. There is so much of you in it. Observe, I do no foolish injustice in criticisms . . I quite understand a charm beside the charm the world can see. Some of your pansies are entirely beautiful in themselves . . I can set them before the visitors of a flower-show and bid all pronounce on them – others, beside their beauty, come to me as this dear one, in a letter, with a story of the plucking, with a sense of the fingers that held it. Bless you, ever dearest, dear beyond words, – you have given me already in this year and a half the entirest faith and purest kindness my heart can comprehend. Do lovers ‘abuse the beloved object’ – ‘try to shake off their chains ‘ &c. &c. ? Mine is not love then ! No one minute or moment of your life with me could have been other than it was without seeming less dear, less perfect in my memory – and for all, God reward you.
To-morrow, Thursday ! And to-night I will warily speak of not having seen you.
Your own.