Author: EBB

[Postmark: May 12, 1846]

It is too bad, or too good, or something. Almost I
could reproach you, and quite would thank you ! . yet do
not let it be so again. You are supernaturally kind . .
kindestest, bestestest . . . and, so, dearestest by the merest
justice ; only, to think of your hastening home, as if you
were under an obligation to write to me in the face of the
seven worlds, . . that is too much, and shall not be again —
— now see that it shall not. I seem to hear the rattling of the
chain all this distance. And do, for the future, let it be
otherwise. When you are kept in London, or in any way
hindered, or unwell, . . in any case of the sort, let the vow
be kept by one line, which, too late for the day’s post, may
reach me the next day, — and I shall not be uneasy at eight
o’clock, but wait ‘ as those who wait for the morning.’ In
the meanwhile how I thank you ! The second dear letter
comes close in the footsteps of the first, as your goodnesses
are so apt to do.

Well ! — and whatever you may think about Wednesday,
I am pleased, and feel every inclination to ‘ return thanks ‘
myself in reply to the bishop of Lincoln. I send the letter
back lest you should want it. The worst is that you are
likely to have a very bad headache with the noise and con-
fusion — and the bishop’s blessing on the dramatists of
England, will not prevent it, I fear.

Look what is inside of this letter — look ! I gathered it
for you to-day when I was walking in the Regent’s Park.
Are you surprised ? Arabel and Flush and I were in the
carriage — and the sun was shining with that green light
through the trees, as if he carried down with him the very
essence of the leaves, to the ground, . . and I wished so
much to walk through a half open gate along a shaded path,
that we stopped the carriage and got out and walked, and I
put both my feet on the grass, . . which was the strangest
feeling ! . . and gathered this laburnum for you. It hung
quite high up on the tree, the little blossom did, and Arabel
said that certainly I could not reach it — but you see ! It
is a too generous return for all your flowers : or, to speak
seriously, a proof that I thought of you and wished for you
— which it was natural to do, for I never enjoyed any of my
excursions as I did to-day’s — the standing under the trees
and on the grass, was so delightful. It was like a bit of that
Dreamland which is your especial dominion, — and I felt
joyful enough for the moment, to look round for you, as for
the cause. It seemed illogical, not to see you close by.
And you were not far after all, if thoughts count as bringers
near. Dearest, we shall walk together under the trees some
day !

And all those strange people moving about like phan-
toms of life. How wonderful it looked to me ! — and only
you, . . the idea of you . . and myself seemed to be real
there ! And Flush a little, too ! —

Ah — what . . next to nonsense, . . in the first letter,
this morning ! So you think that I meant to complain
when we first met, of your ‘ loving me only for my poetry ‘ !
Which I did not, simply because I did not believe that you
loved me ! — for any reason. For the rest, I am not over-
particular, I fancy, about what I may be loved for. There
is no good reason for loving me, certainly, and my earnest
desire (as I have said again and again) is, that there should
be by profession no reason at all. But if there is to be any
sort of reason, why one is as welcome as another . . you
may love me for my shoes, if you like it . . except that they
wear out. I thought you did not love me at all — you loved
out into the air, I thought — a love a priori, as the philosophers
might say, and not by induction, any wise ! Your only
knowledge of me was by the poems (or most of it) — and
what knowledge could that be, when I feel myself so far
below my own aspirations, morally, spiritually? So I
thought you did not love me at all — I did not believe in
miracles then, nor in ‘ Divine Legations ‘ — but my miracle is
as good as Constantine’s, you may tell your bishop on
Wednesday when he has delivered his charge.

Is it eight o’clock, or three ? You write a ‘8’ which
looks like both, or at least either.

Love me, my only beloved ; since you can. May God
bless you !

I am ever and wholly your Ba.

Say how you are.

[Postmark: May 11, 1846]

Dearest when you use such words as ‘ eligible . . .’ in-
vestment . . was it ?) and I do not protest seriously and at
length, it is through the very absurdity and unnaturalness
. . as if you were to say that the last comet was made of
macaroni, and Arago stood by, he would not think it worth
while to confute you. Talking the worldly idiom, as you
will tell me you just meant to do in those words, and con-
sidering the worldly considerations, why still the advantage
is with you — I can do nothing that I can see, but stand in
your sunshine. I solemnly assure you that only the
apparent fact of your loving me, has overcome the scruple,
which, on this ground, made me recoil from . . . Well !
there is no use now in talking. But for you to talk of what
is eligible and ineligible for me, is too absurd — indeed it is.
You might be richer, to be sure — but I like it better as it is,
a hundred times — I should choose it to be so, if it were left
to my choice. In every other respect, using the world’s
measures, . . or the measure of the angel who measured
the heavenly Jerusalem, . . you are beyond me . . above
me — and nothing but your love for me could have brought
us to a level. My love for you could not have tried, even !
Now, if I teaze you with saying such things over and over,
it is the right punishment for what you said yesterday about
‘ eligible marriages ‘ — now, isn’t it ?

But your conclusion then was right. For if you were
twice yourself, with a duchy of the moon to boot, it would
avail nothing. We should have to carry all this underground
work on precisely the same. Miserable it is, nevertheless —
only, I keep my eyes from that side, as far as I can. I keep
my eyes on your face. Yesterday Henrietta told me that
Lady Carmichael, a cousin of ours, met her at the Royal
Academy and took her aside to ‘ speak seriously to her ‘ . .
to observe that she looked thin and worried, and to urge
her to act for herself . . to say too, that Mrs. Bayford, an
old hereditary friend of ours, respected by us all for her
serene, clear-headed views of most things, — and ‘ of the
strictest sect,’ too, for all domestic duties, — ‘ did not like, as
a mother, to give direct advice, but was of opinion that the
case admitted certainly and plainly of the daughter’s acting
for herself.’ In fact, it was a message, sent under cover of
a supposed irresponsibility. Which is one of a hundred
proofs to show how this case is considered exceptional
among our family friends, and that no very hard judgment
will be passed at the latest. Only, on other grounds, I
shall be blamed . . and perhaps by another class of
speakers. As for telling Mr. Kenyon, it is most un-
advisable, both for his sake and ours. Did you never hear
him talk of his organ of caution ? We should involve him
in ever so many fears for us, and force him to have his share
of the odium at last. Papa would not speak to him again
while he lived. And people might say, ‘ Mr. Kenyon did it
all.’ No — if we are to be selfwilled, let us be selfwilled . .
at least, let me ! for you, of course, are free to follow your
judgment in respect to your own friends. And then, it is
rather a matter of feeling with me after all, that as I cannot
give my confidence to my father, I should refuse it to
others. I feel that a little.

Henrietta will do nothing, I think, this year — there are
considerations of convenience to prevent it ; and it is
better for us that it should be so, and will not be worse for
her in the end. I wish that man were a little nobler, higher
. . more of a man ! He is amiable, good-natured, easy-
tempered, of good intentions in the main : but he eats and
drinks and sleeps, and shows it all when he talks. Very
popular in his regiment, very fond of his mother — there is
good in him of course — and for the rest. . .

Dearest . . to compare others with you, would be too
hard upon them. Besides, each is after his kind. Yet . .
as far as love goes . . and although this man sincerely loves
my sister, I do believe, . . I admit to myself, again and
again, that if you were to adopt such a bearing towards me,
as he does to her, I should break with you at once. And
why? Not because I am spoilt, though you knit your
brows and think so . . nor because I am exacting and
offensible, though you may fancy that too. Nor because
I hold loosely by you . . dearest beloved . . ready at a
caprice to fall away. But because then I should know you
did not love me enough to let you be happy hereafter with
me . . you, who must love according to what you are !
greatly, as you write ‘ Lurias ‘ !

To-morrow, shall you be at Mr. Kenyon’s ? To-morrow
I shall hear. Nothing has happened since I saw you.
May God bless you.

Your own, I am.

[Postmark: May 8?, 1846]

Beloved, my thoughts go to you this morning, loving
and blessing you ! May God bless you for both His worlds
— not for this alone. For me, if I can ever do or be any-
thing to you, it will be my uttermost blessing of all I ever
knew, or could know, as He knows. A year ago, I thought,
with a sort of mournful exultation, that I was pure of wishes.
Now, they recoil back on me in a spring-tide . . flow back,
wave upon wave, . . till I should lose breath to speak
them ! and it is nothing, to say that they concern another
… for they are so much the more intensely mine, and of
me. May God bless you, very dear ! dearest.

So I am to forget to-day, I am told in the letter.
Ah ! But I shall forget and remember what I please.
In the meanwhile I was surprised while writing thus to you
this morning . . as a good deed to begin with . . by Miss
Bayley’s coming. Remembering the seventh of May I
forgot Thursday, which she had named for her visit, and
altogether she took me by surprise. I thought it was
Wednesday ! She came — and then, Mr. Kenyon came, . .
and as they both went down-stairs together, Mrs. Jameson
came up. Miss Bayley is what is called strong-minded,
and with all her feeling for art and Beauty, talks of utility
like a Utilitarian of the highest, and professes to receive
nothing without proof, like a reasoner of the lowest. She
told me with a frankness for which I did not like her less,
that she was a materialist of the strictest order, and believed
in no soul and no future state. In the face of those con-
clusions, she said, she was calm and resigned. It is more
than I could be, as I confessed. My whole nature would
cry aloud against that most pitiful result of the struggle here
— a wrestling only for the dust, and not for the crown.
What a resistless melancholy would fall upon me if I had
such thoughts ! — and what a dreadful indifference. All grief,
to have itself to end in ! — all joy, to be based upon nothing-
ness ! — all love, to feel eternal separation under and over
it ! Dreary and ghastly, it would be ! I should not have
strength to love you; I think, if I had such a miserable
creed. And for life itself, . . would it be worth holding on
such terms, — with our blind Ideals making mocks and
mows at us wherever we turned? A game to throw up,
this life would be, as not worth playing to an end !

There’s a fit letter for the seventh of May ! — but why
was Thursday the seventh, and not Wednesday rather, which
would have let me escape visitors ? I thank God that I
can look over the grave with you, past the grave, . . and
hope to be worthier of you there at least.

Mrs. Jameson did not say much, being hoarse and weak
with a cold, but she told me of having met you at dinner,
and found you ‘ very agreeable.’ Also, beginning by a
word about Professor Longfellow, who has married, it
appears, and is a tolerably merciful husband for a poet . .
(‘ solving the problem of the possibility of such a thing,’
said she !) . . beginning so, she dropped into the subject of
marriage generally, and was inclined to repropose Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu’s septennial act . . which might be a
reform perhaps ! . . . . what do you think ? Have I not,
altogether, been listening to improving and memorable dis-
course on this seventh of May ? The ninth’s will be more
after my heart.

I like Mrs. Jameson, mind ! — and I like her views
on many subjects — exclusive of the septennial marriage
act, though.

How you amuse me by your account of the sponsorship !
the illustrious D’Orsay with his paletot reputation, in a cleft
stick of Alfred . . . Tennyson ! Bunn in the distance !
A curious combination it makes really . . and you read it
like a vates that you are ! —

So, good night — dearest ! — I think of you behind all
these passing clouds of subjects, my poet of the Lyre and
Crown ! Look down on your own

Ba.

[Postmark: May 7, 1846]

Now, dearest, you are close by and I am writing to you
as if you were ever so far off. People are not always the
better, you see, for being near one another. There’s a moral
to put on with your gloves — and if you were not quite
sufficiently frightened by Mrs. Jameson’s salutation, it may
be of some use to you perhaps — who knows ?

She left word yesterday that she should come to-day or
to-morrow, and as to-day she didn’t, I shall hear of you from
her to-morrow . . that is, if you go to her breakfast, which
you will do I dare say, supposing that you are not perfectly
ill and exhausted by what came before. Ah — you do not
say how you are — and I know what that means. Even
the music was half lost in the fatigue . . that is what you
express by ‘ stupefaction.’ And then to have to dine at Mr.
Procter’s without music . . say how you are . . do not omit
it this time.

Nor think that I shall forget how to-morrow is the seventh
of May . . your month as you call it somewhere . . in
Sordello, I believe . . so that I knew before, you had a
birthday there — and I shall remember it to-morrow and send
you the thoughts which are yours, and pray for you that you
may be saved from March-winds . . ever dearest !

I am glad you heard the music after all : it was something
to hear, as you describe it.

To-day I had a book sent to me from America by the
poetess Mrs. Osgood. Did you ever hear of a poetess Mrs.
Osgood ? . . and her note was of the very most affectionate,
and her book is of the most gorgeous, all purple and gold —
and she tells me . . oh, she tells me . . that I ought to go
to New York, only ‘ to see Mr. Poe’s wild eyes flash through
tears ‘ when he reads my verses. It is overcoming to think
of, even . . isn’t it ? Talking of poetesses, such as Mrs.
Osgood and me, Miss Heaton, . . the friend of your
intimate friend, . . told me yesterday that the poetess proper
of the city of Leeds was ‘ Mrs, A.’ . ‘ Mrs. A. ? ‘ said I with
an enquiring innocence. ‘ Oh,’ she went on, (divining
sarcasms in every breath I drew) . . ‘ oh ! I dare say, you
wouldn’t admit her to be a real poetess. But as she lives in
Leeds and writes verses, we call her our poetess ! and then,
really, Mrs. A. is a charming woman. She was a Miss
Roberts . . and her ‘ Spirit of the Woods,’ and of the ‘Flowers’
has been admired, I assure you.’ Well, in a moment I
seemed to remember something, — because only a few months
since, surely I had a letter from somebody who once was a
spirit of the Woods or ghost of the Flowers. Still, I could
not make out Mrs. A. . . ! ‘ Certainly ‘ I confessed modestly,
‘ I never did hear of a Mrs. A. . . and yet, and yet ‘ . . .
A most glorious confusion I was in . . when suddenly my
visitor thought of spelling the name . . ‘ H e y ‘ said she.
Now conceive that ! The Mrs. Hey who came by solution,
had both written to me and sent me a book on the Lakes
quite lately . . ‘ by the author of the Spirit of the Woods ‘ . .
There was the explanation ! And my Leeds visitor will go
back and say that I denied all knowledge of the charming
Mrs. A. the Leeds poetess, and that it was with the greatest
difficulty I could be brought to recognise her existence. Oh,
the arrogance and ingratitude of me ! And Mrs. A. . . being
‘ a churchwoman ‘ . . . will expose me of course to the
churchwardens ! May you never fall into such ill luck !
You could not expect me to walk to the post office afterwards
— now could you ?

What nonsense and foolishness I take it into my head to
send you sometimes.

I was down-stairs to-day but not out of the house. Now
you are talking, now you are laughing — I think that almost
I can hear you when I listen hard . . at Mr. Procter’s !

Do you, on the other side, hear me ? . . and how I am
calling myself your very own

Ba.

[Postmark: May 6, 1846]

But my own only beloved, I surely did not speak too
‘ insistingly ‘ yesterday. I shrank from your question as
you put it, because you put it wrong. If you had asked
me instead, whether I meant to keep my promise to you, I
would have answered ‘ yes ‘ without hesitation : but the
form you chose, referred to you more than to me, and was
indeed and indeed a foolish form of a question, my own
dearest ! For the rest . . ah, you do not see my innermost
nature, . . you ! — you are happily too high, and cannot
see into it . . cannot perceive how the once elastic spring
is broken with the long weights ! . . you wonder that it
should drop, when you, who lifted it up, do not hold it up !
you cannot understand ! . you wonder ! And I wonder
too . . on the other side ! I wonder how I can feel
happy and alive . . as I can, through you ! how I can turn
my face toward life again . . as I can, for you ! . . and
chiefly of all, how I can ever imagine . . as I do, sometimes
. . that such a one as you, may be happy perhaps with such
a one as I ! . . happy !

Do not judge me severely, you, to whom I have given
both hands, for your own uses and ends ! — you, who are
more to me than I can be to you, even by your own state-
ment — better to me than life . . or than death even, as
death seemed to me before I knew you.

Certainly I love you enough, and trust you enough, if
you knew what God knows. Yet, . . ‘ now hear me.’ I
shall not be able to please you, I think, by a firm continued
belief of this engagement’s being justifiable, until the event
wholly has justified it . . I mean, . . until I shall see you
not less happy for having lived near me for six months or a
year — should God’s mercy permit such justification. Do
not blame me. I cannot help it . . I would, if I could,
help it. Every time you say, as in this dearest letter, ever
dearest, that you have been happy on such a day through
being with me, I have a new astonishment— it runs
through me from head to feet . . I open my eyes astonished,
whenever my sun rises in the morning, as if I saw an angel in
the sun. And I do see him, in a sense. Ah — if you make
a crime to me of my astonishments, it is all over indeed ! can
I help it, indeed ? So forgive me ! let it not be too great a
wrong to be covered by a pardon. Think that we are different,
you and I — and do not think that I would send you
to ‘ money and worldly advancement ‘ . . do not think so
meanly of my ambition for you.

Dearest dearest ! — do you ever think that I could fail to
you ? Do you doubt for a moment, ever . . ever, . . that
my hand might peradventure ‘ shake less ‘ in being loosed
from yours ? Why, it might — and would ! Dead hands
do not shake at all, — and only so, could my hand be loosed
from yours through a failing on my part. It is your hand,
while you hold it : while you choose to hold it, and while it
is a living hand.

Do you know what you are to me, . . you ? We talk of
the mild weather doing me good . . of the sun doing me
good . . of going into the air as a means of good ! Have
you done me no good, do you fancy, in loving me and lift-
ing me up ? Has the unaccustomed divine love and tender-
ness been nothing to me ? Think ! Mrs. Jameson says
earnestly . . said to me the other day . . that ‘ love was
only magnetism.’ And I say in my heart, that, magnet or
no magnet, I have been drawn back into life by your means
and for you . . that I see the dancing mystical lights which .
are seen through the eyelids . . and I think of you with an
unspeakable gratitude always — always ! No other could
have done this for me — it was not possible, except by you.

But, no— do not, beloved, wish the first days here again.
You saw your way better in them than I did. I had too
bitter feelings sometimes : they looked to me like an
epigram of destiny ! as if ‘ He who sitteth on high should
laugh her to scorn — should hold her in derision ‘ — as why
not ? My best hope was that you should be my friend after
all. We will not have them back again . . those days !
And in these, you do not love me less but more } Would it
be strange to thank you ? I feel as if I ought to thank you!

I have written, written, and have more to write, yet must
end here now. The letter I wrote this morning and gave to
my sister to leave in the post, she was so naughty as to forget,
and has been well scolded as a consequence ; but the scold-
ing did not avail, I fear, to take the letter to you to-night ;
there is no chance Mrs. Jameson came to-day when I
was engaged with Lady Margaret Cocks and I could not
see her — and Mr. Kenyon came, when I could see him and
was glad. I am tired with my multitude of visitors — oh, so
tired !

Why are you melancholy, dear, dearest ? Was it my
fault ? could that be ? no — you were unwell, I think . . I
fear. Say how you are ; and believe that you may answer
your own questions, for that I never can fail to you. If
two persons have one will on a matter of that sort, they
need not be thwarted here in London — so answer your own
questions.

Wholly and ever yours I am.

[Postmark: May 6, 1846]

Dearest, it has just come into my head that I should
like to carry this letter to the post myself — but no, I shall
not be able. Probably the post is far out of reach, and
even if it were within reach, my grand scheme of walking
in the street is scarcely a possible thing to-day, for I must
keep watch in the house from two till five for Lady
Margaret Cocks, an old friend of mine, who was kind to
me when I was a child, in the country, and has not for-
gotten me since, when, two months in the year, she has
been in the habit of going to London. A good, worthy
person, with a certain cultivation as to languages and
literature, but quite manquée on the side of the imagination
. . talking of the poets, as a blind woman of colours,
calling ‘ Pippa Passes ‘ ‘ pretty and odd,’ and writing herself
‘ poems ‘ in heaps of copy books which every now and then
she brings to show me … ‘ odes ‘ to Hope and Patience
and all the cardinal virtues, with formulas of ‘ Begin my
muse’ in the fashion ended last century. She has helped
to applaud and scold me since I could walk and write
verses ; and when I was so wicked as to go to dissenting
chapels besides, she reproached me with tears in her eyes ;
but they were tears of earnest partizanship, and not of affec-
tion for me, . . she does not love me after all, nor guess at
my heart, and I do not love her, I feel. Woe to us ! for
there are good and unlovable people in the world, and we
cannot help it for our lives.

In the midst of writing which, comes the Leeds Miss
Heaton, who used to send me those long confidential letters
à faire frémir, and beg me to call her ‘ Ellen,’ and as this is
the second time that she has sent up her card, in an acci-
dental visit to London, I thought I would be good-natured
for once, and see her. An intelligent woman, with large
black eyes and a pleasant voice, and young . . manners
provincial enough, for the rest, and talking as if the world
were equally divided between the ‘ Congregationalists ‘ and
the ‘ Churchpeople.’ She assured me that ‘ Dr. Vaughan
was very much annoyed ‘ at the article on my poems which
‘ crept ‘ into his review, and that it was fully intended to
recant at length on the first convenient oppojtunity. ‘ And
really,’ she said, ‘ it seems to me that you have as many
admirers among churchmen as among dissenters.’ ! There’s
glory ! — and I kept my countenance. Lost it though, five
minutes afterwards, when she observed pathetically, that a
‘ friend of hers who had known Mr. Browning quite inti-
mately, had told her he was an infidel . . . more’s the pity,
when he has such a genius.’ I desired the particular information
of your intimate friend, a little more warmly perhaps
than was necessary, . . but what could be expected of me,
I wonder ?

I shall write again to you to-night, you know, and this is
enough for two o’clock. Now will you get my letter on this
Tuesday ? Do you think of me . . love me ? And are you
well to-day? The flowers look beautiful though you put
their heads into the water instead of their feet.

Your Ba.
Your Ba.

[Postmark: May 2, 1846]

How you write to me ! Is there any word to answer to
these words . . which, when I have read, I shut my eyes as
one bewildered, and think blindly . . or do not think — some
feelings are deeper than the thoughts touch. My only
beloved, it is thus with me . . . I stand by a miracle in
your love, and because I stand in it and it covers me,
just for that, you cannot see me ! May God grant that you .
never see me — for then we two shall be ‘ happy ‘ as you say,
and I, in the only possible manner, be very sure. Mean-
while, you do quite well not to speculate about making me
happy . . your instinct knows, if you do not know, that it is
implied in your own happiness . . or rather (not to assume
a magnanimity) in my sense of your being happy, not apart
from me. As God sees me, and as I know at all the motions
of my own soul, I may assert to you that from the first moment
of our being to each other anything, I never conceived
of happiness otherwise . . never thought of being happy
through you or by you or in you, even — your good was all
my idea of good, and is, I hear women say sometimes of
men whom they love . . ‘ such a one will make me happy,
I am sure,’ or ‘ I shall be happy with him I think’ — or
again . . ‘ He is so good and affectionate that nobody need
be afraid for my happiness.’ Now, whether you like or dis-
like it, I will tell you that I never had such thoughts of you,
nor ever, for a moment, gave you that sort of praise. I do
not know why . . or perhaps I do . . but I could not so
think of you , . I have not time nor breath . . I could
as soon play on the guitar when it is thundering. So be
happy, my own dearest . . and if it should be worth a
thought that you cannot be alone, so, you may think that too.
You have so deep and intense a nature, that it were impossible
for you to love after the fashion of other men, weakly
and imperfectly, and your love, which comes out like your
genius, may glorify enough to make you happy, perhaps.
Which is my dream, my calculation rather, when I am happiest
now. May God bless you. Suppose I should ever
read in your eyes that you were not happy with me ? — can I
help, do you fancy, such thoughts ? Could you help being
not happy ? The very word ‘ unhappiness ‘ implies that you
cannot help it. Now forgive me my naughtiness, because I
love you, and never loved but you, . . and because I promise
not to go with Miss Bayley to Italy . . I promise. Ah —
If you could pretend to be afraid of that, indeed, I have a
right to be afraid, without pretence at all . . I who am a
woman and frightened of lightning. And see the absurdity.
If I did not go to Italy with you, the reason would be that
you did not choose — and if you did not choose, I should not
choose . . I would not see Italy without your eyes — could I,
do you think ? So if Miss Bayley takes me to Italy with a
volume of the Cyclic poets, it will be as a dead Ba clasped
up between the leaves of it. You talked of a ‘ Flora,’ you
remember, in the first letter I had from you.

How bad of William Howitt ! How right you are,
always ! Yet not quite always, dear dearest beloved, happily
for your own

Ba.

Say how you are I beseech you, and honestly ! I
was down-stairs to-day, since the wind changed, and am
the better for it. What writing for a postman ! — or for you
even !

[Postmark: May 1, 1846]

I am delighted with the verses and quite surprised by
Mr. Arnould’s, having expected to find nothing but love
and law in them, and really there is a great deal besides.
Hard to believe, it was, that a university prize poet (who was
not Tennyson) could write such good verses : but he wrote
them of you, and that was enough inspiration for him, I
suppose, as it would be for others, my own dearest. How
I delight in hearing you praised ! — it is such a delightful
assent to the word which is in me, in the deepest of me.
You know that mysterious pleasure we have, in listening to
echoes ! — we hear nothing new, nothing we have not said
ourselves — yet we stand on the side of the hill and listen . .
listen . . as if to the oracles of Delphi. The very pleasure
of it all is in the repetition . . the reverberation.

When you had gone yesterday and I had taken my
coffee, holding my book . . ‘La Gorgone’ a sea-romance
by Landelle, (those little duodecimo books are the only
possible books to hold in one’s hand at coffee-times . . and
the people at Rolandi’s library sent me this, which is not
worth much, I think, but quite new and very marine) . .
holding my book at one page, as if fixed . . transfixed, . .
by a sudden eternity, . . . well, after all that was done
with, coffee and all, . . in came George, and told me that
the day before he had seen Tennyson at Mr. Venables
house, or chambers rather. Mr. Venables was unwell,
and George went to see him, and while he was there, came
the poet. He had left London for a few days, he said, and
meant to stay here for a time . . ‘ hating it perfectly ‘ like
your Donne . . ‘seeming to detest London,’ said George
. . ‘abusing everything in unmeasured words.’ Then he
had been dining at Dickens’s, and meeting various cele-
brities, and Dickens had asked him to go with him
(Dickens) to Switzerland, where he [is] going, to write his new
work : ‘ but,’ laughed Tennyson, ‘ if I went, I should be
entreating him to dismiss his sentimentality, and so we
should quarrel and part, and never see one another any
more. It was better to decline — and I have declined.’
When George had told his story, I enquired if Tennyson
was what was called an agreeable man — happy in con-
versation. And the reply was … ‘ yes — but quite inferior
to Browning ! He neither talks so well,’ observed George
with a grave consideration and balancing of the sentences,
. . ‘ nor has so frank and open a manner. The advantages
are all on Browning’s side, I should say.’ Now dear George
is a little criticised you must know in this house for his
official gravity and dignity — my sisters murmur at him very
much sometimes . . poor dear George ! — but he is good
and kind, and high and right minded, as we all know, and
I, for my part, never thought of criticising him yesterday
when he said those words rather . . . perhaps . . barris-
terially, . . had they been other words.

My other words must go by my next letter — I am to
write to you again presently, you are to be pleased to
remember . . and that letter may reach you, for aught I
can guess, at the same moment with this. In the mean-
time, ever beloved,

I am your

Ba.

[Postmark: April 29, 1846]

Dearest, you are not to blame the post, nor even me.
The reason you did not get the letter was simply that
Henrietta slept over the hour, and let it lie on the table till
past eight. Still, you should have had it before three per-
haps. Only the wrong was less a wrong than you fancied.

For my wrongs, dearest beloved, they are mine I confess,
and not yours . . ah, you are ‘ evilly persecuted, and en-
treated ‘ of me, I must allow. Yet as, with all my calumnious
imputations, I think softly to myself seven times seven times
a day that no living man is worthy to stand in your footsteps,
. . why you must try to forgive and (not) forget me. Do I
teaze you past enduring, sometimes ? Yes, yes. And wasn’t
it my fault about the ‘ imaginary woman ; ‘ that heiress, in
an hypothesis, of the ‘ love ‘ I ‘ made ‘ ? Yes, yes, yes — it
was, of course. Unless indeed she came out of thatfamous.
mist, which you fined me away into, . . the day you slew
and idealized me, remember ! — and, now I begin to consider,
I think she did ! So we will share the fault between us,
you and I. The odium of it, I was going to say — but
odium is by no means the right word, perhaps.

The truth of all is, that you are too much in the excess of
goodness, . . that you spoil me ! There it is ! Did I not
tell you, warn you, that I never was used to the purple and
fine linen of such an infinite tenderness ? If you give me
back my sackcloth, I shall know my right hand from my
left again, perhaps, . . guess where I stand . . what I am
. . recover my common sense. Will you ? no — do not.

And for the League newspaper, you mistook me, and I
forgot to say so in my letter yesterday. I told you only that
the League paper had mentioned me — not noticed me. It
was just . . I just shall tell you, that you may not spend
another thought on such a deep subject . . it was a mere
quotation from the ‘ cornships in the offing,’ with a prefatory
as that exquisite poet Miss B . . says I Now you are
done with the winter of your discontent? You are with
the snowdrops at any rate. But last year there was a
regular criticism on my poems in that League paper, and I
had every reason to thank the critic. I have heard too that
Cobden is a very gracious reader of mine . . and that his
Leeds (liege) subjects generally do me the honours of
popularity, more than any other people in England. There’s
glory for you, talking of palm-trees.

Ah — talking of palm-trees, you do not know what a
curious coincidence your thought is with a thought of mine,
which I shall not tell you now . . but some day perhaps.
There’s a mystery ! talking of Venice !

For Balzac, I have had my full or overfull pleasure from
that habit of his you speak of, . . and which seems to prove
his own good faith in the life and reality of his creations, in
such a striking manner. He is a writer of most wonderful
faculty — with an overflow of life everywhere — with the vision
and the utterance of a great seer. His French is another
language — he throws new metals into it . . malleable metals,
which fuse with the heat of his genius. There is no writer
in France, to my mind, at all comparable to Balzac — none
— but where is the reader in England to make the admission ?
— none, again . . is almost to be said.

But, dearest, you do not say how you are ; and that
silence is not lawful, and is too significant. For me, when
the wind changed for a few hours to-day, I went down-stairs
with Flush, and had my walk in the drawing-room. Mrs.
Jameson has written to proclaim her coming to-morrow at
four, — so I shall hear of ‘ Luria,’ I think. Remember to
bring my verses, if you please, on your Thursday. And if
dreaming of me should be good for making you love me,
let me be dreamt of . . go on to dream of me : and love
me, my beloved, ever so much, without grudging, — because
the love returns to you, all of it, . . as the wave to the sea ;
and with an addition of sundry grains of soiling sand, to
make you properly grateful. Take care of yourself — may
God take care of you for your own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 28, 1846]

Very good Examiner ! — I am pleased with it and with
Mr. Forster for the nonce, though he talks a little nonsense
here and there, in order to be a true critic, and though he
doesn’t talk at all, scarcely, of the ‘ Soul’s Tragedy ‘ . . . how
is one to bear it ? That ‘ Tragedy ‘ has wonderful things in it
— thoughts, suggestions, . . and more and more I feel, that
you never did better dialogue than in the first part. Every
pulse of it is alive and individual — dramatic dialogue of the
best. Nobody in the world could write such dialogue —
now, you know, you must be patient and ‘ meke as maid,’
being in the course of the forty-nine days of enduring
praises. Praises, instead of ‘ bangs ‘ ! ! — consider that it
might be worse ! — dicit ipsissima Ba.

Think of my not hearing a word about the article in the
Examiner, until I had your note this morning. And the
Examiner was in the house since Saturday night, and no-
body to tell me ! I was in high vexation, reproaching
them all, to-day — till Stormie had the impertinence to turn
round and tell me that only Papa had read the paper, and that
‘ he had of course put it away to keep me from the impro-
priety of thinking too much about . . about ‘ . . yes, really
Stormie was so impertinent. For the rest, when Papa came
up-stairs at one o’clock, he had it in his hand.

At two, Miss Bayley came, and sate here two hours, and
thought me looking so well, with such improved looks from
last autumn, that I don’t mean to groan at all to you to-day
about the wind — it is a savage wind, as you say, and I wish
it were gone, and I am afraid of stirring from the room
while it lasts, but there’s an end . . and not of me, says Miss
Bayley. She doffed her bonnet and talked and talked, and
was agreeable and affectionate, and means to come constantly
to see me . . . ( ‘ only not on Thursday,’ I desired : )
and do you know, you need not think any more of my going
with you to Italy, for she has made up her mind to take me
herself . . there is no escape for me that I can see — it’s
fixed . . certain ! with a thousand generous benignities she
stifled my ‘ no’s ‘ . . and all I had breath to say at last, was,
that ‘there was time enough for plans of that kind.’
Seriously, I was quite embarrassed to know how to adjourn
the debate. And she is capable of ‘ arranging everything ‘
— of persisting, of insisting— who knows what? And so,
. . when I am ‘ withdrawn ‘ . . carried away . . then, shall
all my ‘ feelings,’ which are in you, be given to somebody
else ? is that the way — ?

Now I shall not make jests upon that . . I shall not :
first, I shall not, because it is ungrateful — and next and
principally, because my heart stands still only to think of
it . . ! Why did you say that to me ? I could be as jealous
(did I not tell you once ? ) as any one of your melodramatic
gitana heroines, who carries a poignard between the white-
satin sash and the spangles ? I perfectly understand, at this
distance, what jealousy is, would be, ought to be, must be —
though I never guessed at all what love was, at that distance,
and startled I am often and confounded, to see the im-
potency of my imagination.

Forgive the blottings out — I have not blotted out
lately . . have I now ? and it is pardonable once in a
hundred years or days.

The rest for to-morrow. Your correspondent of the first
letter you sent me really does write like a Bennet, though
he praises you. I could not help laughing very gently,
though he praises you. Good-night my only beloved . .
dearest ! As my Bennet says (Georgiana) when she catches
vehemently at the laurel . . ‘ I will not be forgot ‘ . . .

‘ I must die . . but I will not be forgot ‘ (in large
capitals ! ) But what she applies to the Delphic groves,
turns for me to something more ambitious. ‘ I will not be
forgot ‘ . . will I ? shall I ? not till Thursday at least . . being
ever and ever

Your own

Ba.