Month: September 2018

[Postmark: September 5, 1846]

Saturday.

Dearest Ba, I feel your perfect goodness at my heart – I can say nothing.

Nor write very much more : my head still teazes, rather than pains me. Don’t lay more of it to the dinner than necessary : I got my sister to write a letter deprecatory of all pressing to eat and drink and such mistaken hospitality – to the end that I might sit unpitied, uncondoled with, and be an eyesore to nobody – which succeeded so well that I eat some mutton and drank wine and water without let or molestation. Our party was reduced to three, by a couple of defections – but there was an immense talking and I dare say this continuance of my ailment is partly attributable to it. I shall be quiet now. I tell you the simple truth, that you may believe – and this also believe, that it would have done me great good to go to you this morning, – if I could lean my head on your neck, what could pain it, dear dear Ba ?

I am sorry poor Flush is not back again – very sorry. But no one would hurt him, be quite sure . . his mere value prevents that.

Shall I see you on Monday then? This is the first time since we met at the beginning, that a whole week, from a Sunday to a Saturday, has gone by without a day for us. Well – I trust you are constant . . nay you are constant to your purpose of leaving at the end of this month. When we meet next, let us talk of our business, like the grave man and woman we are going to become. Mr. K. will be away – how fortunate this is ! We need implicate nobody. And in the end the reasonableness of what we do will be apparent to everybody – if I can show you well and happy, – which God send !

Kiss me as I kiss you, my own Ba. I am all one wide wonder at your loving nature : I can only give it the like love in return, and as much limited as I am limited. But I seem really to grow under you, – my faculties extend toward yours.

May God bless you, and enable me to make you as happy as your dear generous heart will be contented to be made. I am your own R.

[Postmark: September 5, 1846]

Friday.

You best ! Was ever any in the world, in any possible world, so perfectly good and dear to another as you are to me ! Ah ! if you could know how I feel to you, when you write such words as came to me this morning – Dearest ! It ends in that, all I can say. And yet I must say besides that the idea of ‘ crossness,’ of hardness, never came to me, for one moment, from the previous letter. I just shook my head and thought how you would not act it out, if you had a Flush. Upon which I could not follow out my argument to myself, through thinking that you were ill.

You are better now, Robert, and you promise to take care of the dinner, where you should not go if I were near you. I should be ‘ afraid of you ‘ far too much to let you, indeed ! Such a wrong thing that dinner is . . as wrong as any dogstealer in his way . . drawing you out just when you ought to be at home and quiet, if not ‘abstinent.’ When did I ever tell you to be abstinent, pray ? You are too much so, it seems to me, in general : and to pass the whole of that day without eating ! How unwell you must have been, dearest ! How I long to see you and ascertain that you look tolerably well ! How very, very happy I should be, to be able to look at you to-morrow. But no, no ! Mr. Kenyon does not come, and we must be wise, I suppose, and wait till the ground is clear of him, which will not be till Monday. Probably he will visit me on Sunday – but the chance of Saturday is like the hat on a pole in gardens, set there to frighten away the birds. Still they may sing on the other side of the wall, not to be too far from the cherries and the hope of them. Monday surely will be a clear day. Unless Mr. Kenyon shall put off his journey just to despite us – who shall say ?

I have not Flush yet. I am to have him to-morrow morning.

And for the Flush-argument, dear dearest, I hold that your theory is entirely good and undeniable. I agree with you throughout it, praising Mahomet, praising Hampden, and classing the Taylors, Gregorys, and Spanish banditti all together. Also I hope I should try, at least, to resist with you their various iniquities – and, for instance, I do not think that any Gregory in the world would draw a shilling from me, by a threat against my own character. I should dare that, oh, I am confident I should – the indignation would be far the stronger, where I myself only was involved. And even in the imaginary Chiappino-case, the selfish and dastardly threat would fall from me like a child’s arrow from steel. I believe so.

But Flush, poor Flush, Flush who has loved me so faithfully ; have I a right to sacrifice him in his innocence, for the sake of any Mr. Taylor’s guilt in the world ? Does not Flush’s condition assimilate to my own among the banditti ? for you agree that you would not, after all, leave me to the banditti – and I, exactly on the same ground, will not leave Flush. It seems to me that you and I are at one upon the whole question, – only that I am your Flush, and he is mine. You, if you were ‘ consistent ‘ . . dearest ! . . would not redeem me on any account. You do ever so much harm by it, observe – you produce catastrophe on catastrophe, just for the sake of my two ears without earrings ! Oh, I entirely agree with your principle. Evil should be resisted that it may fly from you.

But Flush is not to be sacrificed – nor even is Ba, it appears. So our two weaknesses may pardon one another, yours and mine !

Some dog, shut up in a mews somewhere behind this house, has been yelling and moaning to-day and yesterday. How he has made me think of my poor poor Flush, I cannot tell you – ‘ Think of Flush ‘ he seemed to say.

Yes ! – A blow in the street ! I wish somebody would propose such a thing to me, in exchange ! I would have thanked Mr. Taylor himself for striking me down in the street, if the stroke had been offered as an alternative for the loss of Flush. You may think it absurd – but when my dinner is brought to me, I feel as if I could not (scarcely) touch it – the thought of poor Flush’s golden eyes is too strong in me.

Not a word of your mother. She is better, I trust ! And you . . may God keep you better, beloved ! To be parted from you so long, teaches me the necessity of your presence – I am your very, very own.

I was out to-day – driving along the Hampstead Road. What weather !

[Postmark: September 4, 1846]

Friday Morning.

You dearest, best Ba, I will say at the beginning of the letter, and not at the end, this time, that I am very much better – my head clear from pain, if a little uncertain – I was in the garden when your letter came. The worst is, that I am really forced to go and dine out to-day – but I shall take all imaginable care and get away early . . and be ready to go and see you at a minute’s notice, should a note signify your permission to-morrow . . if Mr. Kenyon’s visit is over, for instance. I have to attribute this effect to that abstinent system of yours. Depend on it, I shall be well and continue well now.

Dear Ba, I wrote under the notion (as I said) that poor Flush was safe by your side ; and only took that occasion to point at what I must still consider the wrongness of the whole system of giving way to, instead of opposing, such proceedings. I think it lamentable weakness . . though I can quite understand and allow for it in you, – but weakness it essentially is, as you know perfectly. For see, you first put the matter in the gentlest possible light . . ‘ who would give much time and trouble to the castigation of such a fellow as that ! ‘ You ask – and immediately after, for another purpose, you very rightly rank this crime with that other enormous one, of the Spanish banditti – nay, you confess that, in this very case, any such injury to Flush as you dread would give you inexpressible grief. Is the threatening this outrage then so little a matter ? Am I to think it a less matter if the same miscreant should strike you in the street because you would probably suffer less than by this that he has done ? There is the inevitable inconsistency of wrong reasoning in all this. Say, as I told you on another subject, – ‘ I determine to resist no injury whatever, to be at the disposal of any villain in the world, trusting to God for protection here or recompense hereafter ‘ – or take my course ; which is the easier, and in the long run, however strangely it may seem, the more profitable, no one can doubt – but I take the harder – in all but the responsibility – which, without any cant, would be intolerable to me. Look at this ‘ society ‘ with its ‘ four thousand a year ‘ – which unless its members are perfect fools they will go on to double and treble – would this have existed if a proper stand had been made at the beginning ? The first silly man, woman or child who consented to pay five shillings, beyond the mere expense of keeping the dog (on the supposition of its having been found, not stolen), is responsible for all the harm – what could the thief do but go and steal another, and ask double for its ransom ?

And see – dog-stealers so encouraged are the lowest of the vile – can neither write nor read, perhaps. One of the fraternity possesses this knowledge, however, and aims higher. Accordingly, instead of stealing your dog, he determines to steal your character ; if a guinea (at the beginning) ransoms the one, ten pounds shall ransom the other ; accordingly Mr. Barnard Gregory takes pen in hand and writes to some timid man, in the first instance, that unless he receives that sum, his character will be blasted. The timid man takes your advice . . says that the ‘ love of an abstract principle ‘ must not run him into ‘ cruel hazards ‘ ‘ for the sake of a few guineas ‘ – so he pays them – who would bother himself with such vermin as Gregory ? So Gregory receives his pay for his five minutes’ penmanship – takes down a directory, and writes five hundred such letters. Serjeant Talfourd told me, counting them on his fingers, ‘ such and such ‘ (naming them) cut their throats after robbing their families, employers &c., such fled the country – such went mad . . that was the commonest event.’ At last, even so poor a creature as the Duke of Brunswick, with his detestable character and painted face, – even he plucks up courage and turns on Gregory, grown by this time into a really formidable monster by these amiable victims to the other principle of easy virtue, – and the event is that this execrable ‘ Abhorson’s ‘ trade is utterly destroyed – that form of atrocious persecution exists no longer. I am in no danger of being told, at next post delivery, that having been ‘ tracked up Vere Street, down Bond Street, &c.’ into Wimpole Street my character and yours will be the subject of an article in the next Satirist unless ‘ . .

To all of which you have a great answer – ‘ What should I do if you were to be the victim ? ‘ That my note yesterday, the second one, told you. I sacrifice myself . . all that belongs to me – but there are some interests which I belong to – I have no right, no more than inclination, in such a case, to think of myself if your safety is concerned, and as I could cut off a limb to save my head, so my head should fall most willingly to redeem yours . . I would pay every farthing I had in the world, and shoot with my own hand the receiver of it after a chase of fifty years – esteeming that to be a very worthy recompense for the trouble.

But why write all this string of truisms about the plainest thing in the world? All reformers are met at the outset by such dissuasion from their efforts. ‘ Better suffer the grievance and get off as cheaply as you [can] – You, Mahomet, – what if the Caaba be only a black stone ? You need only bow your head as the others, and make any inward remark you like on the blindness of the people. You, Hampden, have you really so little wit as to contest payment of a paltry 20s. at such risk ? ‘

Ah, but here all the fuss is just about stealing a dog – two or three words, and the matter becomes simply ludicrous – very easily got rid of ! One cannot take vengeance on the ‘ great man ‘ with his cigar and room of pictures and burlesque dignities of mediation ! Just so, when Robert was inclined to be sorry for the fate of Bertha’s sister, one can fancy what a relief and change would be operated in his feelings, if a good-natured friend send him a version of his mighty crime in Lord Rochester’s funny account of ‘ forsaken damsels ‘ . . with the motto ‘ Women have died ere now and worms have eaten them – but not for love – ‘ or ‘ At lovers’ perjuries Jove laughs ‘ why, Robert is a ‘ lady-killer ‘ like D’Orsay ! Well, enough of sermonizing for the present ; it is impossible for me to differ with you and treat that as a light matter . . or, what on earth would have been so little to wonder at, as that, loving Flush, you should determine to save him at any price ? If ‘ Chiappino ‘ were to assure you, in terms that you could not disbelieve, that in the event of your marrying me he would destroy himself, – would you answer, as I should, ‘ Do so, and take the consequences,’ – and think no more about the matter? I should absolutely leave it, as not my concern but God’s – nor should blame myself any more than if the poor man, being uncertain what to do, had said ‘If a man first passes the window – yes – if a woman – no ‘ and I, a total stranger, had passed.

One word more – in all this, I labour against the execrable policy of the world’s husbands, fathers, brothers, and domineerers in general. I am about to marry you . . how wise, then, to encourage such a temper in you ! such was that divine Griselda’s – a word rules the gentle nature – ‘ Do this, or . . . .’

My own Ba, if I thought you could fear me, I think I should have the courage to give you up to-morrow !

Because to-day I am altogether yours, and you are my very own – and to-morrow never comes, they say. Bless you, my best dearest Ba – and if you think I deserve it, you shall test the excellence of those slippers on my cheek, (and not the flannelled side, neither), the next happy time I see you . . which will be soon, soon, I trust ! who am more than

ever your own R.

[Postmark: September 4, 1846]

Thursday Evening.

Ever dearest, you are not well – that is the first thing ! – And that is the thing I saw first, when, opening your letter, my eyes fell on the ending sentence of it, – which disenchanted me in a moment from the hope of the day. Dearest – you have not been well for two or three days, it is plain, – and now you are very, very unwell – tell me if it is not so? I beseech you to let me hear the exact truth about you, for I am very uneasy, and it is dreadful to doubt about knowing the exact truth in all such cases. How everything goes against me this week ! I cannot see you. I cannot comfort myself by knowing that you are well. And then poor Flush ! You must let him pass as one of the evils, and you will, I know ; for I have not got him back yet – no, indeed.

I should have done it. The archfiend, Taylor, the man whom you are going to spend your life in persecuting (the life that belongs to me, too !), came last night to say that they would accept six pounds, six guineas, with half a guinea for himself, considering the trouble of the mediation ; and Papa desired Henry to refuse to pay, and not to tell me a word about it – all which I did not find out till this morning. Now it is less, as the money goes, than I had expected, and I was very vexed and angry, and wanted Henry to go at once and conclude the business – only he wouldn’t, talked of Papa, and persuaded me that Taylor would come to-day with a lower charge. He has not come – I knew he would not come, – and if people won’t do as I choose, I shall go down to-morrow morning myself and bring Flush back with me. All this time he is suffering and I am suffering. It may be very foolish – I do not say it is not – or it may even be ‘ awful sin,’ as Mr. Boyd sends to assure me – but I cannot endure to run cruel hazards about my poor Flush for the sake of a few guineas, or even for the sake of abstract principles of justice – I cannot. You say that I cannot, . . but that you would. You would ! – Ah dearest – most pattern of citizens, but you would not – I know you better. Your theory is far too good not to fall to pieces in practice. A man may love justice intensely ; but the love of an abstract principle is not the strongest love – now is it ? Let us consider a little, putting poor Flush out of the question. (You would bear, you say, to receive his head in a parcel – it would satisfy you to cut off Taylor’s in return). Do you mean to say that if the banditti came down on us in Italy and carried me off to the mountains, and, sending to you one of my ears, to show you my probable fate if you did not let them have . . how much may I venture to say I am worth ? . . five or six scudi, – (is that reasonable at all?) . . would your answer be ‘ Not so many crazie ‘ ; and would you wait, poised upon abstract principles, for the other ear, and the catastrophe, – as was done in Spain not long ago? Would you, dearest ? Because it is as well to know beforehand, perhaps.

Ah – how I am teazing you, my beloved, when you are not well. But indeed that life of yours is worthy of better uses than to scourge Taylor with, even if I should not be worth the crazie.

I have seen nobody and heard nothing. I bought a pair of shoes to-day lined with flannel, to walk with on the bare floors of Italy in the winter. Is not that being practical and coming to the point ? I did it indeed !

May God bless you. I love you always and am your own.

Write of yourself, I do pray you – and also, how is your mother ?

[Postmark: September 4, 1846]

Thursday Afternoon.

When I had finished that letter this morning, dearest dearest, before I could seal it, even, (my sister did it for me . . and despatched it to the post at once) I became quite ill and so sick as to be forced to go up-stairs and throw myself on the bed. It is now six o’clock, and I feel better, and have some thoughts of breaking my fast to-day – but, first of all . . did whatever it may have been I wrote seem cross – unnecessarily angry, to you, dearest Ba? Because, I confess to having felt indignant at this sample of the evils done under the sun every day . . . and as if it would be to no purpose though the whole world were peopled with Ba’s, instead of just Wimpole Street ; as they would be just so many more soft cushions for the villainously-disposed to run pins into at their pleasure. Donne says that ‘ Weakness invites, but silence feasts oppression.’ And it is horrible to fancy how all the oppressors in their several ranks may, if they choose, twitch back to them by the heartstrings after various modes the weak and silent whose secret they have found out. No one should profit by those qualities in me, at least. Having formed a resolution, I would keep it, I hope, through fire and water, and the threatener of any piece of rascality, who (as commonly happens) should be without the full heart to carry it into effect, should pay me exactly the same for the threat . . which had determined my conduct once and for ever. But in this particular case, I ought to have told you (unless you divined it, as you might) that I would give all I am ever to be worth in the world to get back your Flush for you – for your interest is not mine, any more than the lake is the river that goes to feed it, – mine is only made to feed yours – I am yours, as we say – as I feel more and more every minute.

Are you not mine, too ? And do you not forgive your own R

[Postmark: September 3, 1846]

Thursday.

I am rejoiced that poor Flush is found again, dearest – altogether rejoiced.

And now that you probably have him by your side, I will tell you what I should have done in such a case, because it explains our two ways of seeing and meeting oppression lesser or greater. I would not have given five shillings on that fellow’s application. I would have said, – and in entire earnestness ‘ You are responsible for the proceedings of your gang, and you I mark – don’t talk nonsense to me about cutting off heads or paws. Be as sure as that I stand here and tell you, I will spend my whole life in putting you down, the nuisance you declare yourself – and by every imaginable means I will be the death of you and as many of your accomplices as I can discover – but you I have discovered and will never lose sight of – now try my sincerity, by delaying to produce the dog by to-morrow. And for the ten pounds – see ! ‘ Whereupon I would give them to the first beggar in the street. You think I should receive Flush’s head ? Perhaps – so God allows matters to happen ! on purpose, it may be, that I should vindicate him by the punishment I would exact.

Observe, Ba, this course ought not to be yours, because it could not be – it would not suit your other qualities. But all religion, right and justice, with me, seem implied in such a resistance to wickedness and refusal to multiply it a hundredfold – for from this prompt payment of ten pounds for a few minutes’ act of the easiest villainy, there will be encouragement to – how many similar acts in the course of next month ? And how will the poor owners fare who have not money enough for their dogs’ redemption ? I suppose the gentleman, properly disgusted with such obstinacy, will threaten roasting at a slow fire to test the sincerity of attachment ! No – the world would grow too detestable a den of thieves and oppressors that way ! And this is too great a piece of indignation to be expressed when one has the sick vile headache that oppresses me this morning. Dearest, I am not inclined to be even as tolerant as usual. Will you be tolerant, my Ba, and forgive me – till to-morrow at least – when, what with physic, what with impatience, I shall be better one way or another ?

Ever your own R.

[Postmark: September 3, 1846]

Wednesday Evening.

‘ Our friend and follower, that was to be ‘ is that, then, your opinion of my poor darling Flush’s destiny – Ah, – I should not have been so quiet if I had not known differently and better. I ‘ shall not recover him directly,’ you think ! But, dearest, I am sure that I shall. I am learned in the ways of the Philistines – I knew from the beginning where to apply and how to persuade. The worst is poor Flush’s fright and suffering. And then, it is inconvenient just now to pay the ransom for him. But we shall have time to-morrow if not to-night. Two hours ago the chief of the Confederacy came to call on Henry and to tell him that the ‘ Society had the dog,’ having done us the honour of tracking us into Bond Street and out of Bond Street into Vere Street where he was kidnapped. Now he is in Whitechapel (poor Flush). And the great man was going down there at half past seven to meet other great men in council and hear the decision as to the ransom exacted, and would return with their ultimatum. Oh, the villainy of it is excellent, and then the humiliation of having to pay for your own vexations and anxieties ! Will they have the insolence, now, to make me pay ten pounds, as they said they would ? But I must have Flush, you know – I can’t run any risk, and bargain and haggle. There is a dreadful tradition in this neighbourhood, of a lady who did so having her dog’s head sent to her in a parcel. So I say to Henry – ‘ Get Flush back, whatever you do ‘ – for Henry is angry as he may well be, and as I should be if I was not too afraid . . and talks police-officers against theives, and finds it very hard to attend to my instructions and be civil and respectful to their captain. There he found him, smoking a cigar in a room with pictures ! They make some three or four thousand a year by their honourable employment. As to Flush’s following anyone ‘ blandly,’ never think it. ‘ He was caught up and gagged . . depend upon that. If he could have bitten, he would have bitten – if he could have yelled, he would have yelled. Indeed on a former occasion the ingenuous thief observed, that he ‘ was a difficult dog to get, he was so distrustful.’ They had to drag him with a string, put him into a cab, they said, before. Poor Flush !

Dearest, I am glad that your mother is a little better – but why should the turn of the year make you suffer, ever dearest ? I am not easy about you indeed. Remember not to use the shower-bath injudiciously – and remember to walk. Do you walk enough ? – it being as necessary for you as for your mother.

And as for me you will not say a word more to me, you will leave me to my own devices now.

Which is just exactly what you must not do. Ah, why do you say so, even, when you must not do it ? Have I refused one proposition of yours when there were not strong obstacles, that you should have finished with me so, my beloved ? For instance, I agreed to your plan about the marrying, and I agreed to go with you to Italy in the latter part of September – did I not ? And what am I disagreeing in now ? Don’t let me pass for disagreeable ! And don’t, above all, refuse to think for me, and decide for me, or what will become of me, I cannot guess. I shall be worse off than Flush is now . . in his despair, at Whitechapel. Think of my being let loose upon a common, just when the thunder-clouds are gathering ! ! You would not be so cruel, you. All I meant to say was that it would be wise to make the occasions of excitement as few as possible, for the reasons I gave you. But I shall not fail, I believe – I should despise myself too much for failing – I should lose too much by the failure. Then there is an amulet which strengthens the heart of one, – let it incline to fail ever so. Believe of me that I shall not fail, dearest beloved – I shall not, if you love me enough to stand by – believe that always.

The heart will sink indeed sometimes – as mine does to-night, I scarcely know why – but even while it sinks, I do not feel that I shall fail so – I do not. Dearest, I do not, either, ‘ misconceive,’ as you desire me not : I only infer that you will think it best to avoid the chance of meeting Mr. Kenyon, who speaks to me, in a note received this morning, of intending to leave town next Monday – of coming here he does not speak, – and he may come and he may not come, on any intermediate day. He wrote for a book he lent me. If I do not see you until Monday, it will be hard – but judge ! there was more of bitterness than of sweetness in the last visit.

Mr. Kenyon said in his note that he had seen Moxon, and that Tennyson was ‘ disappointed ‘ with the mountains. Is not that strange ? Is it a good or a bad sign when people are disappointed with the miracles of nature ? I am accustomed to fancy it a bad sign. Because a man’s imagination ought to aggrandise, glorify, consecrate. A man sees with his mind, and mind is at fault when he does not see greatly, I think.

Moxon sent a civil message to me about my books ‘ going off regularly.’

And now I must go off – it is my turn. Do you love me to-night, dearest? I ask you . . through the air. I am your very own Ba.

Say how you are, I beseech you, and tell me always and particularly of your mother.

They are all here, gone to a picnic at Richmond.

[Postmark: September 2, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

Poor Flush – how sorry I am for you, my Ba ! But you will recover him, I dare say . . not, perhaps directly ; the delay seems to justify their charge at the end : poor fellow – was he no better than the rest of us, and did all that barking and fanciful valour spend itself on such enemies as Mr. Kenyon and myself, leaving only blandness and waggings of the tail for the man with the bag ? I am sure you are grieved and frightened for our friend and follower, that was to be, at Pisa – will you not write a special note to tell me when you get him again ?

For the rest – I will urge you no more by a single word – you shall arrange everything henceforward without a desire on my part, – an expressed one at least. Do not let our happiness be caught up from us, after poor Flush’s fashion – there may be no redemption from that peril.

There can hardly be another way of carrying our purpose into effect than by that arrangement you consent to – except you choose to sacrifice a day and incur all costs of risk. Of course, the whole in the way and with the conditions that you shall determine.

Do you think, Ba, I apprehend nothing from the excitement and exhaustion attendant on it ? I altogether apprehend it, – and am therefore the more anxious that no greater difficulty should be superinduced than is absolutely necessary. Because the first part of our adventure will be dangerous in that way, I want the second part to be as safe as possible in another. I should care comparatively little about winter-travelling, even (knowing that one can take precautions) – if it were to be undertaken under really propitious circumstances, and you set forth with so much kindness to carry away as would keep you warm for a week or two – but the ‘ winter wind that is not so unkind as &c.,’ may prove, – by adding its share of unkindness to the greater, – intolerable. Now, my last word is said, however – and a kiss follows !

I thank you, dearest, for your enquiries about my mother ; and for the sympathy, and proposal of delay. She is better this morning, I hope. From the time that my sister went to Town, she discontinued the exercise which does her such evident good – and on Monday the walk began again – with no great effect yesterday because of the dull weather and sharp wind . . she kept at home – but this morning she is abroad, and will profit by this sunshine, I hope. My head will not get quite well, neither. I take both effects to be caused by the turn of the year.

Bless you, dearest – I cannot but acquiesce in your postponing our day for such reasons. Only, do not misconceive those few foolish words of impatience . . a great matter to bear truly ! I shall be punished indeed if they prevent you from according to me one hour I should have otherwise possessed.

Bless you once again, my Ba.

My mother is returned – very much better indeed. Remember Flush – to write.

[Postmark: September 2, 1846]

Here is a distress for me, dearest ! I have lost my poor Flush – lost him ! You were a prophet when you said ‘Take care.’

This morning Arabel and I, and he with us, went in a cab to Vere Street where we had a little business, and he followed us as usual into a shop and out of it again, and was at my heels when I stepped up into the carriage. Having turned, I said ‘ Flush,’ and Arabel looked round for Flush – there was no Flush ! He had been caught up in that moment, from under the wheels, do you understand ? and the thief must have run with him and thrown him into a bag perhaps. It was such a shock to me – think of it ! losing him in a moment, so ! No wonder if I looked white, as Arabel said ! So she began to comfort me by showing how certain it was that I should recover him for ten pounds at most, and we came home ever so drearily. Because Flush doesn’t know that we can recover him, and he is in the extremest despair all this while, poor darling Flush, with his fretful fears, and pretty whims, and his fancy of being near me. All this night he will howl and lament, I know perfectly, – for I fear we shall not ransom him to-night. Henry went down for me directly to the captain of the banditti, who evidently knew all about it, said Henry, – and after a little form of consideration and enquiry, promised to let us hear something this evening, but has not come yet. In the morning perhaps he will come. Henry told him that I was resolved not to give much – but of course they will make me give what they choose – I am not going to leave Flush at their mercy, and they know that as well as I do. My poor Flush !

When we shall be at Pisa, dearest, we shall be away from the London dog-stealers – it will be one of the advantages. Another may be that I may have an opportunity of ‘ forgiving ‘ you, which I have not had yet. I might reproach you a little in my letter, and I did, I believe ; but the offending was not enough for any forgiving to follow – it is too grand a word. Also your worst is better than my best, taking it on the whole. How then should I be able to forgive you, my beloved, even at Pisa ?

If we go to Southampton, we go straight from the railroad to the packet, without entering any hotel – and if we do so, no greater expense is incurred than by the long water-passage from London. Also, we reach Havre alike in the morning, and have the day before us for Rouen, Paris and Orleans. Thereupon nothing is lost by losing the early hour for the departure. Then, if I accede to your idée fixe about the marriage ! Only do not let us put a long time between that and the setting out, and do not you come here afterwards – let us go away as soon as possible afterwards at least. You are afraid for me of my suffering from the autumnal cold when it is yet far off – while I (observe this !) while I am afraid for myself, of breaking down under quite a different set of causes, in nervous excitement and exhaustion. I belong to that pitiful order of weak women who cannot command their bodies with their souls at every moment, and who sink down in hysterical disorder when they ought to act and resist. Now I think and believe that I shall take strength from my attachment to you, and so go through to the end what is before us ; but at the same time, knowing myself and fearing myself, I do desire to provoke the ‘ demon ‘ as little as possible, and to be as quiet as the situation will permit. Still, where things ought to be done, they of course must be done. Only we should consider whether they really ought to be done – not for the sake of the inconvenience to me, but of the consequence to both of us.

Do I frighten you, ever dearest ? Oh no – I shall go through it, if I keep a breath of soul in me to live with. I shall go through it, as certainly as that I love you. I speak only of the accessory circumstances, that they may be kept as smooth as is practicable.

You are not well, my beloved – and I cannot even dream of making you better this time, – because you will think it wise for us not to meet for the next few days perhaps. Mr. Kenyon will come to see me, he said, before he leaves town, and he leaves it on the fourth, fifth or sixth of September. This is the first. So I will not let you come to be vexed as last time – no, indeed. But write to me instead – and pity me for Flush. Oh, I trust to have him back to-morrow. I had no headache, and was quite perfectly well this morning . . before I lost him.

Is your mother able to walk ? is she worse on the whole than last week for instance ? We may talk of September, but you cannot leave her, you know, dearest, if she should be so ill ! it would be unkind and wrong.

More, to-morrow ! But I cannot be more to-morrow, your very own –

[Postmark: September 1, 1846]

Dearest, when your letter kept away, all this morning, I never once fancied you might be angry . . I knew you must feel the love which produced the fear. And I will lay to my heart the little, gentlest blame that there is, in the spirit which dictated it. I know, my own Ba, your words have given me the right to doubt nothing from your generosity – but it is not the mere bidding . . no, at the thousandth repetition – which can make me help myself to all that treasure which you please to call mine : I shall perhaps get used to the generosity and readier to profit by it.

I have not time to write much ; all is divinely kind of you, and I love you for forgiving me.

You could not leave at an early hour under those circumstances . . the moment I become aware of them, I fully see that.

Ah, but, Ba, am I so to blame for not taking your diamonds, while you disclaim a right over my pebbles even ? May I ‘ withdraw from the business ‘ ? &c., &c.

Kiss me, and do not say that again – and I will say you are ‘ my own,’ as I always say, – my very own !

As for ‘ sarcasms ‘ and the rest – I shall hardly do other than despise what will never be said to me, for the best of reasons – except where is to be exception. I never objected to such miserable work as that – and the other day, my annoyance was not at anything which might be fancied, by Mr. Kenyon or anybody else, but at what could not but be plainly seen – it was a fact, and not a fancy, that our visit was shortened &c., &c.

All which is foolish to think of – I will think of you and a better time.

You do not tell me how you are, Ba – and I left you with a headache. Will you tell me ? And the post may come in earlier to-morrow, – at all events I will write at length . . not in this haste. And our day ? When before have I been without a day, a fixed day, to look forward to?

Bless you, my dearest beloved –

Your own R.

I am pretty well to-day – not too well. My mother is no better than usual ; we blame the wind, with or without reason. See this scrawl ! Could anything make me write legibly, I wonder?

Ba.

BA.

βα.

Ba, Ba, Ba.