Day: August 22, 2018

[Postmark: August 22, 1846]
ED

I begin to write before one this morning, with the high resolve that you shall have a letter on Sunday, to-morrow, at least, – it shall be put into the post so precisely at the right hour. At two I am going out in the carriage to Mr. Boyd’s and other places, – and dining duties are to be performed before then, and before now I have had a visitor. Guess whom – Mrs. Jameson. So I am on a ‘ narrow neck of land ‘ . . such as Wesley wrote hymns about ; . and stans in pede uno on it can make for you but a hurried letter.

She came in with a questioning face, and after wondering to find me visible so soon, plunged into the centre of the question and asked ‘what was settled . . what I was doing about Italy. ‘ – ‘Just nothing,’ I told her. ‘She found me as she left me, able to say no word.’

‘But what are you going to do – ‘ throwing herself back in the chair with a sudden – ‘but oh, I must not enquire.’

I went on to say that ‘ in the first place my going would not take place till quite the end of September if so soon, – that I had determined to make no premature fuss, – and that, for the actual present, nothing was either to be done or said.

‘ Very sudden then, it is to be. In fact, there is only an elopement for you – ‘ she observed laughing.

So I was obliged to laugh.

(But, dearest, nobody will use such a word surely to the event. We shall be in such an obvious exercise of Right by Daylight – surely nobody will use such a word.)

I talked of Mr. Kenyon, – how he had been with me yesterday and brought the mountains of the Earth into my room – ‘ which was almost too much,’ I said, ‘ for a prisoner.’ ‘ Yes – but if you go to Italy. .’

‘ But Mr. Kenyon thinks I shall not. In his opinion, my case is desperate.’

‘ But I tell you that it is not. Nobody’s case is desperate when the will is not at fault. And a woman’s will when she wills thoroughly as I hope you do, is strong enough to overcome. When I hear people say that circumstances are against them, I always retort, . . you mean that your will is not with you ! I believe in the will – I have faith in it.’

There is an oracle for us, to remember for good ! She goes to Paris, she says, with her niece, between the seventh and tenth of September, – and after a few days at Paris she goes to Orleans for the cathedral’s sake – but what follows is doubtful . . Italy is doubtful. Only that my opinion is, as I told her, that if Italy is doubtful here in London, at Orleans, when she gets there, it will be certain. She will not resist the attraction towards the South. She looked at me all the while she told me this . . looked into my eyes, like a Diviner.

On Monday morning she comes to see me again. It is all painful, or rather unpleasant. One should not use strong words out of place, and there will remain too much use for this. How I teaze you now !

Believe me, through it all, that when I think of the very worst of the future, I love you the best, and feel most certain of never hesitating. As long as you choose to have me, my beloved, I have chosen – I am yours already –

and your own always –

Ba.

[Postmark: August 22, 1846]

Your first note reached me at six o’clock yesterday . . did the dear living spirit inside help it along in spite of all the post’s hindrances? And this second comes duly. When you know I am most at a loss how to thank you, invariably you begin thanking me ! Is that because of my own practice of saying a foolish thing and then, to cover it, asking you to kiss me ? I think I will tell you now what that foolish thing was, – lest you, missing it, should go hunting and find worse, and far worse. I will just remind you, that on your enumerating your brothers and sisters, I said without a moment’s thought ‘ so, you are seven ‘ ! . . And you know how Wordsworth applied that phrase . . and in the sudden fear of wounding dearest Ba, I took such refuge for myself, rather than her ! Will you kiss me now, my own love ? And say nothing, but let it die away here, this stupidity of mine.

I hardly conceive what Mr. Kenyon means . . except perhaps a sort of general exhortation to take care, and – I mean, if he came for the purpose of catching me only, – he ought either to know or not know, keep silence or speak, approve or condemn . . and to do neither being so easy, his own cautiousness would keep him away, I should have thought.

About your books, you speak altogether wisely : in this first visit to Italy we had better take only enough to live upon, – travelling books, – and return for the rest. And so with everything else. I shall put papers &c. into a room and turn the key on them and my death’s heads – because when we come back (think of you and me . . why, we shall walk arm in arm, – would Flush object to carry an umbrella in his mouth? And so let Lough cut us in marble, all three !) – well, when we come back, all can be done leisurely and considerately. And then, Greece, Egypt, Syria, the Chamois-country, as Ba pleases !

Ba, Lord Byron is altogether in my affection again . . I have read on to the end, and am quite sure of the great qualities which the last ten or fifteen years had partially obscured. Only a little longer life and all would have been gloriously right again. I read this book of Moore’s too long ago : but I always retained my first feeling for Byron in many respects . . the interest in the places he had visited, in relics of him. I would at any time have gone to Finchley to see a curl of his hair or one of his gloves, I am sure – while Heaven knows that I could not get up enthusiasm enough to cross the room if at the other end of it all Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey were condensed into the little China bottle yonder, after the Rosicrucian fashion . . they seem to ‘ have their reward ‘ and want nobody’s love or faith. Just one of those trenchant opinions which I found fault with Byron for uttering, – as ‘ proving nothing ‘ ! But telling a weakness to Ba is not telling it to ‘the world,’ as poor authors phrase it !

By the way, Chorley has written another very kind paper, in that little journal of to-day, ‘ Colombe’s Birthday ‘ – I have only glanced at it however. See his goodwill : I will bring it on Tuesday, if you please in goodness. I was not quite so well . . (there is the bare truth . .) this morning early – but the little there was to go, has gone, and I am about to go out. My mother continues indisposed. The connection between our ailings is no fanciful one. A few weeks ago when my medical adviser was speaking about the pain and its cause . . my mother sitting by me . . he exclaimed ‘ Why, has anybody to search far for a cause of whatever nervous disorder you may suffer from, when there sits your mother . . whom you so absolutely resemble . . I can trace every feature &c. &c.’ To which I did not answer, ‘ And will anybody wonder that the said disorder flies away, when there sits my Ba, whom I so thoroughly adore.’

Yes, there you sit, Ba !

And here I kiss you, best beloved, – my very own as I am your own

[Postmark: August 22, 1846]
ED

Can I be as good for you as morphine is for me, I wonder . . even at the cost of being as bad also ? Can’t you leave me off without risking your life, – nor go on with me without running the hazards of all poison. Ah ! – it will not do, so. The figure exceeds me, let it be ever so fatal. I may not be your morphine, even if I shall be your Ba ! – you see !

You are my prophet though, in a few things. For instance, Mr. Kenyon came to-day, and sate here I really believe two hours, talking of poor Papa . . (oh ! not of us, my prophet !) and at length, of the Pyrenees and of Switzerland, and of the characteristics of mountain scenery – full of interest it all was, and I thought (while he talked) that when you and I had done with the crocodiles, we might look for a chamois or two. If I ‘ drive,’ I shall drive that way, I think still . . that is, ever since four o’clock, I have thought. Mr. Kenyon said . . ‘ You had a visitor yesterday ! ‘ ‘ Yes ‘ said I – ‘ Mr. Browning came.’ ‘ You mean that he actually did come, through that pouring rain ! Well – he told me he was coming : but when I saw the rain, I imagined it to be out of the question.’ Just observe his subtlety. Imagining that you did not come yesterday he concluded of course that you would come to-day, – and straightway hurried here himself ! Moreover he seems to me to have resolved on never again leaving London ! Because Mr. Eagles goes to the seaside instead of to the Quantock hills, Mr. Kenyon has written to Landor a proposition toward a general renouncement of the adventure. Quite cross I felt, to hear of it ! And it doesn’t unruffle me to be told, even that he goes to Richmond on Tuesday and sleeps there and spends the Wednesday. Nothing can unruffle me. So tiresome it is ! Then I am provoked a little by the news he brought me of ‘ Miss Martineau’s leaving the Lakes for a month or two ‘ – seeing that if she leaves the Lakes, it is for London – there are nets on all sides of us. I am under a promise to see her, and I shrink both from herself and her consequences. Now, is it not tiresome ? Those are coming, and these are not going away. The hunters are upon us . . and where we run, we run into the nets.

Dearest, I have been considering one thing, and do you consider whether, if we do achieve this peculiar madness of going to Italy, we should take any books, and what they should be. A few books of the small editions would be desirable perhaps and then it were well for us to arrange it so that we should not take duplicates, and that the possession of the duodecimo should ‘ have the preference ‘ . . do you understand ? Also, this arrangement being made, and the time approaching, I had better perhaps send you my part of the books, so as to save the difficulty of taking more packets than absolutely were necessary, from this house. It will be very difficult to remove things without exciting observation – and my sisters must not observe. The consequences would be frightful if they were suspected of knowing; and, poor things, I could not drive them into acting a part.

My own beloved, when my courage seems to bend and break, I turn to you and look at you . . as men see visions ! It is enough, always. Did you ever give me pain by a purpose of yours ? – do you not rather keep me from all pain? – do we blame the wind that breathes gently, because a reed or a weed trembles in it ? I could not feel much pain while sitting near you, I think – unless you suffered a little, . . or looked as if you did not love me. And that was not at least yesterday.

May God bless you dearest, ever dearest.

I am your own.

Say how your mother is and how you are. Don’t neglect this.