Author: EBB

[Postmark: April 27, 1846 OR ]

Ever dearest you might have stayed ten minutes more.
George did not come in till half past six after all — but there
is the consciousness of being wise in one’s generation, which
consoles so many for their eternity as children of light, . .
yet doesn’t console me for my ten minutes, . . so it is as well
to say no more on this head !

I have glanced over the paper in the Athenæum and am
of an increased certainty that Mr. Chorley is the writer. It
is his way from beginning to end — and that is the way,
observe, in which little critics get to tread on the heels of
great writers who are too great to kick backwards. Think
of bringing George Sand to the level of the same sentence
with such a woman as Mrs. Ellis ! And then, the infinite
trash about the three eras in the Frenchwoman’s career, . .
which never would have been dragged into application there,
if the critic had heard of her last two volumes . . published
since the ‘ Meunier d’Angibault,’ ‘ Teverino ‘ and
‘ Isidora.’ One may be angry and sin not, over such inapplicable
commonplace. The motive of it, the low
expediency, is worse to me than the offence. Why mention
her at all . . why name in any fashion any of these
French writers, for the reception of whom the English mind
is certainly not prepared, unless they are to be named
worthily, recognised righteously ? It is just the principle of
the advice about the De Kocks ; whom people are to go
and see and deny their acquaintance afterwards. Why not
say boldly ‘ These writers have high faculty, and imagination
such as none of our romance-writers can pretend to — but
they have besides a devil — and we do not recommend them
as fit reading for English families ! ‘ Now wouldn’t it answer
every purpose ? Or silence would ! — silence, at least. But
this digging and nagging at great reputations, . . it is to me
quite insufferable : and not compensated for by the motive,
which is a truckling to conventions rather than to morals.
As if earnestness of aim was not, from the beginning, from
‘ Rose et Blanche ‘ and ‘ Indiana,’ a characteristic of George
Sand ! Really it is pitiful.

The ‘ Mysteries of the Heaths,’ I suppose to be a translation
of ‘ Sept Jours au Château,’ a very clever story from the
monstrous Hydra-headed imagination of Frederic Soulié.
Dumas is inferior to them all of course, yet a right good
storyteller when he is in the mind for storytelling ; — telling,
telling, telling, and never having done. You know I like
listening to stories — I agree with the great Sultan and would
forego ever so much cutting off of heads for the sake of a story
— it is a taste quite apart from a taste for literature : a storyteller,
I like, apart from the sweet voice. Now that book of
Dumas’s on the League wars, which distressed me so the
other day, by having the cruelty . . the ‘ villainie ‘ . . of
hanging its hero in the fourth volume . . (regularly hanging
him on a pair of gallows — wasn’t it too bad ?) that book
is amusing enough, more than amusing enough, to take
with one’s coffee . . which is my fashion, . . because you
are not here and I have nobody to talk to me. The hero
who was hanged, deserved it a little, I think, though the author
meant it for a pure misfortune and though no good romance-
reader in the world- such as I am, could bear to part with
the hero of four volumes in that manner, without pain ; but
the hero did deserve it a little when one came to consider.

In the first place, he was a traitor once or twice in war and
politics, and was quite ready to be so a third or fourth time,
. . only , . as he said to the lady he loved . . je perdrais
votre estime.’ ‘ Is that your only objection ‘ she enquired
‘ The only one ‘ he answered ! ( How frightfully true, that
those brilliant French writers have no moral sense at all ! do
not, for the most part, know right from wrong ! here, an
instance ! ) Then, from the beginning to the end of the four
volumes, he loves two women together . . a phénomène ‘
by no means uncommon, says the historian musingly, . .
and, except for the hanging, there might have been a difficulty
perhaps in the final arrangement. Yet oh . . to see
one’s hero, the hero of four volumes, and not a bad hero
either in some respects, hung up before one’s eyes ! . . it
wrongs the natural affections to think of it ! it made me
unhappy for a full hour ! There should be a society for the
prevention of cruelty to romance-readers, against the recurrence
of such things !

Pure nonsense I write to you, it seems to me.

What beautiful flowers you brought me ! — and the sweet-
brier is unfolding its leaves to-day, as if you did them, so, no
wrong. And I have been considering ; and there are not,
if you please, five but four days, between Saturday and
Thursday. In the meanwhile say how you are, dearest
dearest ! My thoughts are with you constantly . . indeed.
I could almost say, too much, . . because sometimes they
grow weak and tired . . not of you, who are best and beloved,
but of themselves, having been so long used to be sad,
May God bless you, . . bless you ! His best blessing for
me (after that ! ) were to make me worthy of you — but it
would take too many miracles.

Your

Ba.

Remember the letters, if they come.

[Postmark: April 24, 1846]

Yes, you are better, I think. I thank God for that, first
of all. And, do you know, your note only just comes, and
it is past ten o’clock, and I had rung the bell to have the
letter-box investigated . . and then came the knock and
the letter ! Such a sinning post, it is, more and more.
But to come at last, is something — I am contented indeed.
And for being well, I am well too, if that is all. The wind
is a little hard on me ; but I keep in the room and think of
you and am thought of by you, and no wind, under such
circumstances, can do much harm perhaps : — it does not to
me anywise. So keep well, and believe that I am so : —
‘ well as you are well ‘ . . which sounds very well

What nonsense one comes to write when one is glad !
I observe that in myself constantly. All my wisdom seems
to depend on being pricked with pins . . or rather with
something sharper. And besides your being better, I am
glad through what you say here about your ‘ peculiarity ‘ !
Ah — how you have words in your coffers, of all sorts, . .
crowns to suit all heads . . and this, which I try on last,
suits mine better than the other glittering ones. Those
exaggerations, idealizations, with burning carbuncles in the
front of them, which made me sigh under the weight, . .
those are different — ! But when you say now that you do
not part with feelings, — that it is your peculiarity not
to wear them out, and that you are likely to care for the
sight of my handwriting as much after years as at first,
why you make me happy when you say such things, and
(see what faith I have !) I believe them, since you say them,
speaking of yourself. They are not after the fashion of men,
or women either — but, true of you, they may be, . . and I
take upon trust that they are : I accept such words from
you as means of gladness. The worst is — I mean, the
worst reasonableness that goes out to oppose them, is,
. . the fear lest, when your judgments have been corrected
by experience, the feelings may correct themselves.
But it is ungrateful to talk reason in the face of so much
love. I take up the gladness rather, and thank you and
bless you seven times over, to completion. You are the
best, I know, of all in the world. Did I tell you once that
my love was ‘something’ ? Yet it is nothing: because
there is no woman, let her heart be ever so made of stone
and steel, who could help loving you, . . I answer for all
women ! — so this is no merit of mine, though it is the best
thing I ever did in my life.

Dearest beloved, when I used to tell you to give me up,
and imagined to myself how I should feel if you did it, . .
and thought it would not be much worse than it was before
I knew you . . (a little better indeed, inasmuch as I had
the memory for ever . .) the chief pang was the idea of
another woman —— ! From that, I have turned back again
and again, recoiling like a horse set against too high a wall.
Therefore if I talk of what all women would do, I do not
mean that they should. ‘ Thirty-six Bas,’ we shall not have,
— shall we ? or I shall be like Flush, who, before he learnt to
be a philosopher, used to shiver with rage at sight of the
Flush in the looking-glass, and gnash his teeth impotently,
and quite howl. Now, — we shall not, dearest, have the
thirty-six Bas . . now, shall we ? Besides, one will be more
than enough, she fears to herself, for your comfort and
patience.

No more letters about ‘ Luria ‘ ? Did you see Moxon
when you were in town ?

Miss Bayley has not been here yet. To-morrow, perhaps.
When she comes, I shall not dare name you, but she will, I
think . . I seem sure of hearing her mind about ‘ Luria ‘ and
the ‘ Tragedy. ‘ George thinks the former ‘ very fine.’
Mr. Kenyon does not come, — and to-morrow (Friday) he
goes . . from London.

You will care for me always the same? But that is
like promising a charmed life, or an impossible immortality
to somebody — and nobody has either, except Louis Philippe.
May God bless you, — say how you are when you write
to-morrow.

Your own

Ba.

Oh — your learned Americans ! was it literal of Carlyle,
do you think, or a jest ?

[Postmark: April 23, 1846]

Then seriously you are not well, since you went for the
medical advice after all ! that is the thought which is upper-
most as the effect of your letter, though I ought to be
grateful to you (and am !) for remembering to keep your
promise, made two months ago. But how can I help
thinking that you are ill . . help knowing that you felt very
ill before you came to consider that promise ? You did
feel very ill . . now did you not ? And I see in this letter
that you are not well — I see plainly, plainly ! Have you
been using the shower-bath? tell me: — and tell me how
you are — do not keep back anything. For the rest, you will
submit to the advice, you say, and you mean to submit, I
think, my own very dearest — remember that all my light
comes, not only through you, but from you, let it be April
light or November light. I say that for you. As for myself,
when I am anxious about you, it is not, I hope, for such a
reason as that my light comes from you. Before I had any
light, . . before I knew you so . . do I not remember how
Mr. Kenyon with that suggestive shake of the head and
grave dropping of the voice, when he came and told me with
other news, of your being ill, . . made me wonderfully
unhappy and restless till I could not help writing for a
directer account? Oh, those strange days to look back
upon, . . which had no miraculous light, yet were strange
days, with their ‘ darkness which might be felt ‘ and was
felt !

You will be careful, . . will you not ? . . in these ? I
am not happy about you, to-night. I feel as if you are worse
perhaps than you say. And it does you so much good to
keep talking about this misgiving and that misgiving ! — the
‘ trente-six oies ‘ are nothing at all to me, really.

For those two letters, it was far from any intention of
mine that you should have them both together, — and the
first-written went to the post at two on the day before. Too
bad it is ! I obserye that you never get a letter on the day
it is posted, unless the posting is very early, . . say before
eight, or, at latest, before nine. Which is abominable, when
the distance is considered.

And you make a piteous case out for yourself against me,
indeed, . . and it seems very hard to have to endure so
much, ‘ forty-nine days out of fifty ‘ . . . I did not think it
was so bad with you ! And when you protest gently on the
fiftieth day . . so gently . . so gently ! ! Well, the fact is
that you forget perhaps what sort of a gentle protestation it was,
you wrote to me on Sunday, you who protest so gently, and
never flatter ! And as for having your own ‘ praises blown
in your eyes ‘ for forty-nine days together, I cannot confess
to the iniquity of it, . . you mistake, you mistake, as well as
forget — only that I will not vex you and convict you too
much now that you are not well. So we shall have peace,
shall we not ? on each side. I never write extravagances —
ah, but we will not write of them, even. Any more letters
about * Luria ? *

Yes — All day to-day in the gondola chair ! There was
no leaving this room for the cold wind, and it made me feel
so tired without my taking a step scarcely, that after dinner
. . guess what I did, and save me the shame of relating ?
after dinner, my dinner at one oclock, I positively fell
fast asleep with this pen in my hand, and went to see you
in a dream I dare say, though, this time, I do not remember.
Then I half expected Miss Bayley, and she did not come,
and instead of talking to her I wrote letters to ‘ all the
peoples ‘ . . I hate writing letters, how I hate it now, except
to you only. And to-day I thought only of you, let me write
ever so away from you. Which is why you saw me in the
gondola chair.

But you are not well — the ‘ refrain ‘ comes round con-
stantly — call it a burden ! May God bless you, dearest
beloved ! Do you say harm of this April, when it is the
best April I ever saw, let it be proved to want the vulgar
sun and blue sky as much as you please ! Yet you are not
well ! say how you are ! I come clear out of the mist to
call myself

Your very own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 22, 1846]

‘ Vanity ‘ ! I never saw in you, my very dearest, even the
short morning shadow of ‘ vanity.’ ‘ Vanity ‘ is not of you!
You work as the cedars grow, upward, and without noise,
and without turning to look on the darkness you cause upon
the ground. It is only because you are best and dearest
that you let me see the letters . . . yes, and besides, because
I have a little a right to have them sent to me, — since
they concern me more than you, — and are, after a fashion,
my letters. My letters ? what am I saying ? My letters,
my true letters, are different indeed — and one of them came
to-night to prove so !
But Mr. Chorley’s and the illegible man’s whose name
begins with a D (or doesn’t) both gave me pleasure. If Mr.
Chorley did not read ‘Luria’ at once, he speaks of you in the
right words — and the naval illegible man, with his downright
earnest way of being impressed, makes a better critic than
need be sought for in the Athenæum synod. And what a
triumph (after all !) and what a privilege, and what a good
deed, is this carrying of the light down into the mines
among the workmen, this bringing down of the angels of
the Ideal into the very depth of the Real, where the hammer
rings on the rough stone. The mission of Art, like that
of Religion, is to the unlearned . . to the poor and to
the blind — to make the rugged paths straight, and the
wilderness to blossom as the rose — at least it seems so to
me. And now, pray, why am I not to hear what Carlyle
said ? will you tell me ? won’t you tell me ? how shall I
persuade you ? If I can or not, I will say God bless him
too . . since he spoke the right word, to do you good. For
the manifest advance in clearness and directness of expression
. . I quite forgot to take notice of what you said to me
— and you, who never flatter ! — about being the cause of it
— I ! Now do observe that the ‘Soul’s Tragedy,’ which is
as light as day, I never touched with my finger, except in
one place, I think . . to say . . ‘ Just here there is a little
shade.’ The fact is, that your obscurities, . . as far as they
concern the medium, . . you have been throwing off gradually
and surely this long while — you have a calmer mastery
over imagery and language, and it was to be expected that
you should. For me, I am the fly on the chariot, . . ‘ How
we drive ! ‘ Shall I ever, ever, ever, be of any use or good
to you ? See what a thought you have thrown me into,
from that height ! Shall I ever, ever, be of any use, any
good — and not, rather, the contrary to these? Love is
something : and it is something to love you better than a
better woman could : but . . but . .

There is no use nor good in writing so, and you with a
headache too ! Why, how could you get that headache ?
First with not walking ; then with walking — I ! and read-
ing Balzac. But you had been writing notes perhaps?
or Carlyle had talked too ‘ bracingly ? ‘ or you fasted too long,
being too late for his tea-kettle ? The headache came at any
rate. Did it go ? tell me, dearest beloved ! say how you are.
And let me hear if your mother continues to be better.
How happy that change must make you all ! and shall I not
thank God that it makes you happy?

Mr. Kenyon has not been here, and I have nothing,
nothing, to tell you. The east wind has kept guard at the
door, so that I should not go out, . . and nothing has
happened. I seem not to have drawn breath scarcely,
since we parted. ‘ Parted ‘ — what a word ! As if we could !
— in the full sense !

I have written to Miss Bayley to ask her to come on any
day except Saturday.

Shall the thirty-six Bas love you all together in that one
Ba who is your own ?

[Postmark: April 21, 1846]

I would not say to you yesterday, perhaps could not,
that you wrote ever so much foolishness to me in the
morning, dearest, and that I knew it ever so well. There is
no use, no help, in discussing certain questions, — some sorts
of extravagance grow by talking of, — shake this elixir, and
you have more and more bubbles on the surface of it. So
I would not speak — nor will I write much. Only I protest,
from my understanding, from my heart — and besides I do
assert the truth — clear of any ‘affectation,’ this time, —
and it is that you always make me melancholy by using
such words. It seems to me as if you were in the dark
, altogether, and held my hand for another’s : let the shutter
be opened suddenly ; and the hand . . is dropped perhaps
. . . must I not think such thoughts, when you speak
such words? I ask you if it is not reasonable. No, I do
not ask you. We will not argue whether eagles creep, or
worms fly. And see if it is distrust on my part ! Love, I
have learnt to believe in. I see the new light which
Reichenbach shows pouring forth visibly from these chrystals
tossed out. But when you say that the blue, I see, is red,
and that the little chrystals are the fixed stars of the
Heavens, how am I to think of you but that you are
deluded, mistaken? — and in what? in love itself? Ah,
— if you could know — if you could but know for a full
moment of conviction, how you depress and alarm me by
saying such things, you never would say them afterwards, I
know. So trust to me, even as I trust to you, and do
not say them ever again, . . you, who ‘never flatter’. Is it
not enough that you love me ? Is there anything greater?
And will you run the risk of ruining that great wonder by
bringing it to the test of an ‘argumentum ad absurdum’
such as I might draw from your letter ? Have pity on me,
my own dearest, and consider how I must feel to see myself
idealized away, little by little, like Ossian’s spirits into the
mist . . till . . ‘Gone is the daughter of Morven’! And
what if it is mist or moon-glory, if I stretch out my hands
to you in vain, and must still fade away farther ? Now you
will not any more. When the world comes to judge between
us two, or rather over us both, the world will say (even the
purblind world, as I myself with wide-open eyes !) that I
have not been generous with my gifts — no ; you are in a
position to choose . . and you might have chosen better —
. . that is my immoveable conviction. It has been only
your love for me, — which I believe in perfectly as love —
and which, being love, does not come by pure logic, as the
world itself may guess . . it has been only, wholly and
purely your love for me which has made a level for us two
to meet and stand together. There is my fact against your
fiction ! Now let us talk no more. We cannot agree,
because we stand in different positions . . . ‘I hear a
voice you cannot hear’ ! . . I am on the black side of the
knight’s shield. Presently you will hear perhaps, and see.
Shall you love me then? When the ideal breaks off, when
the light is gone, . . will you love me then for the love
which I shall bear you then as now, . . the only real thing ?

In the meantime I did but jest about the letters — I
know you care for mine . . because I care for yours so
infinitely : . it is a lesson learnt by heart. To-night I shall
write again ! —

Your own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 18, 1846]

Friday.

But, dearest of all, you never said a word about Monday.
So I did not misunderstand — I only misguessed. Because
you did not mention any day, I took it into my head that
you might perhaps be invited for Monday, and make an
effort, which would make a fatigue, and go there and come
here. I am glad you went to Carlyle’s — and where is
Tennyson, and the dinner at Forster’s all this while ? And
how did the Talfourds torment you so ? was it that you were
very unwell} I fear you were unwell. For me, I have
recovered from my dreadful illness of the last day or two . .
I knew I should survive it after all . . and to-day, just that
I might tell you, I went down-stairs with Flush, he running
before as when we walk together through the gate. I opened
the drawing-room door; when instead of advancing he
stopped short . . and I heard strange voices — and then he
drew back and looked up in my face exactly as if to say,
‘ No ! This will not do for us ! — we had better go home
again.’ Surely enough, visitors were in the room . . and
he and I returned upon our steps. But think of his sense !
Flush beats us both in ‘ common sense,’ dearest, we must
acknowledge, let us praise each other for it ever so. Next
to Flush we may be something, but Flush takes the pas, as
when he runs down-stairs.

To-day Mr. Kenyon came, spectacles and all. He sleeps
in those spectacles now, I think. Well, and the first
question was . . ‘Have you seen Mr. Browning? And
what did he come for again, pray?’ ‘Why I suppose,’ I
said, ‘ for the bad reason my visitors have in general, when
they come to see me ‘ — Then, very quickly I asked about
‘ Luria,’ and if he had read it and what he thought of it —
upon which, the whole pomegranate was pulled out of his
pocket, and he began to talk like the agreeable man he can
be when he doesn’t ask questions and look discerningly
through spectacles. ‘ Luria ‘ was properly praised indeed. A
very noble creation, he thought it, and heroically pathetic
. . and much struck he seemed to be with the power you
had thrown out on the secondary characters, lifting them all
to the height of humanity, justifying them by their own lights
Oh — he saw the goodness, and the greatness, the art
and the moral glory ; we had a great deal of talk. And
when he tried to find out a few darknesses, I proved to him
that they were clear noonday blazes instead, and that his
eyes were just dazzled. Then the ‘ Soul’s Tragedy ‘ made
the right impression — a wonderful work it is for suggestions,
and the conception of it as good a test of the writer’s genius,
as any we can refer to. We talked and talked. And
then he put the book into his pocket to carry it away to
some friend of his, unnamed : and we had some conversation about poets in general and their way of living, of
Wordsworth and Coleridge. I like to hear Mr. Kenyon
talk of the gods and how he used to sit within the thunder-peal. Presently, leaning up against the chimney-piece,
— he said quietly . . ‘ Do you not think — oh, I am sure
I need not ask you — in fact I know your thoughts of it
. . but how strikingly upright and loyal in all his ways and
acts, Mr. Browning is ! — how impeccable as a gentleman ‘
&c. &c. and so on and on . . I do not tell you any more,
because I should be tired perhaps . . (do you understand?)
and this is not the first time, nor second, nor third time
that he has spoken of you personally, so . . and as no man
could use more reverent language of another. And all this
time, what has become of Walter Savage Landor ? I shall
be vexed in another day. He may be from home perhaps
— there must be a reason.

Vive Pritchard ! and thank you for letting me see what
he wrote.

Oh — and you shall see what I did not send yesterday —
I shall make you read this one sheet of Mrs. Paine’s letter,
because it really touched me, and because I am bound to
undo the effects of my light speaking. As for the overpraise
of myself the overkindness in every respect, . . why we know
how ‘ sermons are found in stones ‘ … yet no praise to
the stones on that account ! But you shall read what I
send, both for her sake and mine, . . because I like you to
read it.

My own dearest, do you mind what I say, and take
exercise ? You are vexing yourself with those notes, as I
see from here. Now take care — follow my example, and
be well — if not, there will be no use in wellness to me !
May God bless you ! Do you remember when you wrote first
to me ‘ May God bless you and me in that ! ‘ It was before
we met. Can you guess what I thought? I have the
whole effect in my memory distinctly. I felt with a bitter
feeling, that it was quite a pity to throw away such beautiful
words out of the window into the dark. ‘ Bitterly ‘ does
not mean anything wrong or harsh, you know. But there
was something painful . . as if the words were too near,
for the speaker to be so far. Well — I am glad in looking
back . . yes, glad . . glad to be certain at my heart, that
I did not assume anything . . stretch out my hand for anything . . dearest ! . .

It is always when one is asleep that the dream-angels
come. Watchers see nothing but ghosts.

Yet I shall see you on Monday, and shall watch and
wait as those who wait for the morning . . that is, the
Monday-morning ! Till when and ever after, I am

Your own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 17, 1846]

Thursday Evening.

Ah, the chestnut tree : do you think that I never saw
the chestnut tree before ? Long ago, I did . . a full year
ago or more — more ! A voice talked to me of the ‘ west
wind ‘ which ‘ set dancing the baby cones of my chestnut
tree ‘ — nearly I remember the words. Do you, the time ?
It was early in the morning — ‘ before seven,’ said the voice !
— too early in the morning for my dream to be — because
a dream, says Lord Brougham when he tries at philosophy, a dream, if ever so long a dream, is all contained
in the last moment of sleep, at the turn towards waking
— so, late and not early !

No — you did not tell me of Wordsworth — not at least,
after that reading. Perhaps if Hatcham should not be
swept away in the Railway ‘ scirocco,’ I may see the ‘ hill ‘ or
the ‘ rise ‘ at some distant day. Shall I, do you think ? I
would rather see it than Wordsworth’s mountains — ‘for
reasons, for reasons ‘ as you say. And talking of reasons,
and reasonable people in general, I thought, . . after you
went away on Wednesday, and I began to remember how
you had commended your own common sense and mine,
— I thought that it might be very well for you to do it,
inasmuch as nobody else would, for you – – ὑπερ σου as the
theological critics intensify ὑπερ to the genitive, ‘ for reasons,
for reasons.’

How ‘Luria’ takes possession of me more and more !
Such a noble work ! — of a fulness, a moral grandeur ! — and
the language everywhere worthy. Tell me what you hear
the people say — I shall be anxious, which you will not be
— but, to me, you will forgive it. ‘ The Soul’s Tragedy ‘ is
wonderful — it suggests the idea of more various power than
was necessary to the completion of ‘ Luria ‘ . . though in
itself not a comparable work. But you never wrote more
vivid dramatic dialogue than that first part — it is exquisite
art, it appears to me. Tell me what the people say ! — and
tell me what the gods say . . Landor, for instance !

Mr. Kenyon has not been here — and I dare not, even in
a letter, be the first to talk to anyone of you. It is foolish
of me perhaps — but if I whisper your name I expect to be
directly answered by all the thunders of Heaven and
cannons of earth. When I was writing to Miss Martineau
the other day, for full ten minutes I held the pen ready
charged with ink over a little white place, just to say ‘ have
you read,’ . . or ‘ have you heard ‘ . . . and at last I couldn’t
write one word of those words . . I believe I said something about landed proprietors and agrarian laws instead.

So you ‘felt’ that I was down-stairs to-day ! See how
wrong feeling may be, when it has to do with such as I.
For, dearest, notwithstanding your bright sunshine I did
not go down-stairs . . only opened the window and let in
the air. I have not been quite as well, as far as just sensation goes, as usual, these few days — but it is nothing, a
passing common headache, as I told you, . . and your visit
did good rather than harm, and to-morrow you may think of
me as in the drawing-room. Oh, I might have been there
to-day, or yesterday, or the day before ! but it was pleasanter
to sit in the chair and be idle, so I sate ! But you did not
see me in my gondola chair — not you ! you were thinking
of the lambs instead, and looking over the wall to the
‘ blossomed trees ‘ . . (what trees ? cherry-trees ? apple-trees ?
pear-trees ?) and so, altogether, you lost your second sight of
me and made mistakes. Ever dearest, is your head better ?
You will not say. You are afraid to say, perhaps, that you
were ill, through writing too many notes and not going out
to take the right exercise. Ah, do remember me for that
good ! I heard yesterday that ‘ Mr. Browning looked very
pale as he came up-stairs.’ Which comes of Mr. Browning’s
writing when he should be walking ! — now doesn’t it ?

Do you go to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd’s on Monday?
and would it be better therefore if you came here on
Tuesday ? You could come on the next Saturday all the
same — consider ! Nobody shall leap into lions’ dens for
me ! so let us measure the convenience of things, as Miss
Mitford would in marriages. ‘ Convenance, ‘ though, she
would say — which is more foolish than ‘ convenience ‘ as I
write it. She asserts that every marriage in her experience
beginning by any sort of love has ended miserably — thus
run her statistics in matrimony. Add, that she thinks —
she told me last autumn — that all men without exception
are essentially tyrants, — and that poets are a worse species
of men, seeing that, all human feelings, they put into
their verses, and leave them there . . . add this, and this,
and then calculate how, if I consulted her on our prospects
(shall I ?), she would see for me an infinite succession of
indefinite thumbscrews and gadges ! ! Well — I am not
afraid — except for you sometimes ! for myself I accept my
chances for life under the peine forte et dure. And I
won’t speak to Miss Mitford, if you don’t to Mr. Kenyon . .
and I beseech you to avoid by every legitimate means the
doing that . . oh, do not ever speak that to him !

May God bless you my beloved ! — Walk for my sake,
and be well, try to be well ! For me, I am so without
trying, . . just as I am

Your own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 16, 1846]

Thursday.

This morning, you would never guess what I have been
doing. — Buying a bonnet ! That looks like a serious purpose
of going out, walking out, driving out . . now doesn’t it ?
And having chosen one a little like a Quaker’s, as I thought
to myself, I am immediately assured by the learned that
‘ nothing can be more fashionable’ . . which is a most
satisfactory proof of blind instinct, . . feeling towards the
Bude lights of the world, and which Mrs. Procter would
highly esteem me for, if she did but know it.

In the meanwhile assure yourself that I understand
perfectly your feeling about the subject of yesterday. Flies
are flies, and yet they are vexatious with their buzzing, as
flies. Only Mrs. Jameson told me the other day that a
remedy against the mosquitos . . polvere di morchia . . had
been discovered lately in Italy, so that the world might sleep
there in peace — as you may here . . let us talk no more of
it. I think I should not have told you if I had not needed
it for a talking-ladder to something else. For the rest, it is
amusing to me, quite amusing, to observe how people cannot
conceive of work except under certain familiar forms. Men
who dig in ditches have an idea that the man who leads the
plough rather rests than works : and all men of out-door
labour distrust the industry of the manufacturers in-doors —
while both manufacturers and out-door labourers consider
the holders of offices and clerkships as idle men . . gentlemen
at ease. Then between all these classes and the
intellectual worker, the difference is wider, and the want of
perception more complete. The work of creation, nobody
will admit . . though everybody has by heart, without laying
it to heart, that God rested on the seventh day. Looking
up to the stars at nights, they might as well take all to be
motionless — though if there were no motion there would be
no morning . . and they look for a morning after all. Why
who could mind such obtuse stupidity ? It is the stupidity
of mankind, par excellence of foolishness ! The hedger and
ditcher they see working, but God they do not see working.
If one built a palace without noise and confusion and the
stroke of hammers, one would scarcely get credit for it in
this world . . so full of virtue and admiration it is, to make
a noise ! Even I, you see, who said just now ‘ Talk no
more of it,’ talk more and more, and make more noise than
is necessary. Here is an end though — we leave Mrs.
Procter here. And do not think that the least word of
disrespect was said of you — indeed it was not ! neither disrespect
nor reproach. So you and I will forgive everybody
henceforward, for wishing you to be rich. And if Miss
Procter would ‘ commit suicide ‘ rather than live as you like
to live, I will not, as long as you are not tired of me — and
that, just now and as things are, is of a little more consequence
perhaps. . .

Scarcely had you gone, dearest, yesterday, when I had
two letters with the very prose of life in them, dropping its
black blotchy oil upon all the bright colours of our poetry !
I groaned in the spirit to read, and to have to answer them.
First was a Miss Georgiana Bennet — did you ever hear
of her? — I never did before, but that was my base
ignorance ; for she is a most voluminous writer it appears . .
and sent me five or six works’ (observe), . . published
under the ‘ high sanction ‘ (and reiterated subscription) of
ever so many Royal Highnesses and Right Reverends . . .
written in prose and verse, upon female education and the
portrait of Harrison Ainsworth (‘I gaze upon that noble
face, and bright expressive eyes ! miscellaneous subjects
of that sort ! — also, there is a poem of some length, called
‘ The Poetess,’ which sets forth in detail how Miss Georgiana
Bennet has found the laurel on her brow a mere nightshade,
and the glories of fame no comfort in the world. Well — all
these books were sent to me, with a note hortative — giving
indeed a very encouraging opinion of my poems generally,
but desiring me to consider, that poets write both for the
learned and the unlearned, and that in fact I am in the habit
of using a great many hard words, much to the confusion of
the latter large class of readers. She has heard (Georgiana
has) that I am a classical scholar which of course (of course)
accounts for this peculiarity . . but it is the duty of one’s
friends to tell one of one’s faults, which is the principle she
goes upon. In return for which benevolence, I am requested
to send back a copy of my poems directly, and to ‘ think of
her, as she thinks of me.’ There an end. The next letter
is from a Mrs. Milner, who used to edit the ‘ Christian
Mother’s Magazine ‘ ; the most idiotic tract-literature,
that magazine was, but supported by the Queen dowager and
a whole train of Duchesses proper — very proper indeed !
She used to edit the ‘ Christian Mother,’ but now she has
‘ generalised ‘ it, she says, to the ‘ Englishwoman’s Magazine ‘
and wants me to write for it and says. . .

Oh — I cannot have patience to go on to tell you. Besides
you will take me to be too bitter, when I ought to be grateful
perhaps ! But if you knew how hard it is for me to have to
read and write sometimes, as if you were not in the world
with me .. as if … Is it wrong to laugh a little, to put it
off, — only to you though ? And do you know, I feel ill
at ease in my conscience, on account of what I said (even
to you) about Mrs. Paine, who came to see me, you remember ; and because she has written me a letter which quite
affected me, I shall send it for you to read, to undo any
false impression. Then you will not dislike reading it on
other grounds. She is very different from the Georgiana
Bennets, and I am interested in her, and touched aright by
what she says.

You will write. You think of me ? I am better to-day,
much — and it is strange to be so, when you are not here.
Ever dearest, let your thoughts be with me —

I am your own . .

[Postmark: April 14, 1846]

Monday.

Ever dearest I have your two letters ; and because there
are only two ‘ great lights ‘ to rule the day and the night, I
am not likely to hear from you again before to-morrow. Then
you want Mrs. Jameson’s direction . . (it is just Mrs, Jameson, Ealing !)
and here is the last ‘ Bell and Pomegranate’ — and, for all these reasons, I must write without
waiting ; I will not wait for the night. Thank you for the
book, thank you ! I turn over the leaves ever so proudly.
Tell me how I can be proud of you when I cannot be proud
of your loving me : — I am certainly proud of you. One of
my first searches was for the note explanatory of the title —
and I looked, and looked, and looked, at the end, at the
beginning, at the end again. At last I made up my mind
that you had persisted in not explaining, or that the printer
had dropped the manuscript. Why, what could make you
thrust that note on all but the titlepage of the ‘ Soul’s
Tragedy ‘ ? Oh — I comprehend. Having submitted to
explain, quite at the point of the bayonet, you determined at
least to do it where nobody could see it done. Be frank
and tell me that it was just so. Also the poor ‘ Soul’s
Tragedy,’ you have repudiated so from the ‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ . . pushing it gently aside. Well — you must allow
it to be a curious dislocation — only it is not important — and
I like the note, all except the sentence about ‘ Faith and
Works,’ which does not apply, I think, . . that instance.
‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ is a symbolic phrase — which the
other is not at all, however much difficult and doubtful
theological argument may have arisen from it as a collective
phrase. So I am the first critic, you see, notwithstanding
that Mr. Forster waylaid the first copy. Ah no ! I shall
have my gladness out of the book presently, beyond the
imagination of any possible critic. Who in the world shall
measure gladnesses with me ?

Tell me — I was going to write that ‘ Tell me ‘ in my
yesterday’s letter, but at last I was hurried, and could not
. . did you come into London on Sunday ? did you walk
past this house on the other side of the street, about two
o’clock ? Because just then I and Flush went down-stairs.
The drawing-room had nobody in it, and the window being
wide open, I walked straight to it to shut it. And there,
across the street, walked somebody … I am so near
sighted that I could only see a shadow in a dimness . . but
the shadow had, or seemed to have, a sign of you, a trace of
you . . . and instead of shutting the window I looked after
it till it vanished. No, it was not you, I feel now that
it was not you ; and indeed yesterday I felt it was not you.
But, for the moment, it made my heart stop beating, . .
that insolent shadow, . . which pretended to be you and
wasn’t. Some one, I dare say, who ‘has an occupation
eight or nine hours a day ‘ and never does anything ! I
may speak against him, for deceiving me — it’s a pure justice.

To go back to the book . . you are perfectly right about
‘ gadge,’ and in the view you take of the effect of such words.
You misunderstood me if you fancied that I objected to the
word — it was simply my ignorance which led me to doubt
whether you had written ‘ gag.’ Of course, the horror
of those specialities is heightened by the very want of
distinct understanding they meet with in us : — it is the rack
in the shadow of the vault. Oh — I fully agree.

And now . . dearest dearest . . do not bring reason to
me to prove . . . what, to prove ? I never get anything by
reason on this subject, be very sure ! — and I like better to
feel that unreasonably you love me — to feel that you love me
as, last year, you did. Which I could not feel, last year, a
whole day or even half a day together. Now the black
intervals are rarer . . which is of your goodness, beloved,
and not of mine. For me, you read me indeed a famous
lesson about faith, . . and set me an example of how you
‘ believed ‘ ! . . . but it does not apply, this lesson, . . it does
not resemble, this example ! — inasmuch as what you had to
believe . . viz. that roses blow in June . . was not quite
as difficult as what I am called to believe, . . viz. that
St. Cecilia’s angel-visitant had a crown of roses on, which
eternally were budding and blowing. But I believe . .
believe . . and want no ‘ proof ‘ of the love, but just itself
to prove it, — for nothing else is worthy. On the other side,
I have the audacity to believe, as I think I have told you,
that no woman in the world could feel for you exactly what
. . . but, here, too, I had better shun the reasons, . .
the ‘ bonnes raisons ‘ which ‘ le roy notre sire ‘ cannot abide.
— What foolishness I am writing really ! And is it to be for
a ‘ year,’ or a ‘ month ‘ — or a week, — better still ? or we may
end by a compromise for the two hours on Wednesdays, . .
if it goes on so, — more sensibly.

I have heard to-day from Miss Martineau and from Mrs.
Jameson, both — one talking Mesmer and the other Homer.
I sent her (Mrs. J.) two versions of the daughters of Pandarus,
the first in the metre you know, and the second in blank
verse ; . . and she does not decide which she likes best, she
says graciously, whereas I could not guess which I liked
worse, when I sent them on Saturday. Do let her have
‘ Luria ‘ at once. She will take the right gladness in it, even
as she appreciates you with the right words and thoughts.
But surely you use too many stamps ? Have you a pair of
scales like Zeus and me ? . . only mine are broken, or I
would send you an authority on this important subject, as
well as an opinion.

How did you not get my letter, pray, by the first post on
Monday ? You ought to have had it ! it was not my fault.
And thinking of ‘causas rerum,’ . . I was to ‘catch cold,’ I
suppose, on Saturday, because you went away ? — there was
no stronger motive. I did not however catch cold — ah,
how you make me giddy with such words, as if I did really
‘ hang over a gulph ‘ ! — not with fear though ! Is it possible,
I say to myself, that I can be so much to him ? to him !
May God bless him ! There was no harm meant by the
black seal, I think? Tell me too of the headache, and,
whether the dinner is for Wednesday, and whether, in that
case, it is still to be preferred, with all its close clipping, to
Thursday. Meantime the letter grows as if there was no
such thing as shears !

Your own

Ba

[Postmark: April 13, 1846]

Sunday.

I will not speak much of the letter, as you desire that I
should not. And because everything you write must be
answered in some way and sense, . . must have some result,
there is the less need of words in the present case. Let me
say only then, ever dearest, dearest, that I never felt towards
you as I felt when I had read that letter . . never loved you
so entirely ! . . that it went to my heart, and stayed there,
and seemed to mix with the blood of it . . . believe this
of me, dear dearest beloved ! For the rest, there is no need
for me to put aside carefully the assumption of being
didactic to you . . of being better than you, so as to teach
you ! … ah, you are so fond of dressing me up in pontifical
garments (‘ for fun,’ as the children say !) — but
because they are too large for me, they drop off always of
themselves, . . they do not require my pulling them off :
these extravagances get righted of their own accord. After
all, too, you, . . with that praeternatural submissiveness of
yours, . . you know your power upon the whole, and
understand, in the midst of the obeisances, that you can do
very much what you please, with your High Priest. Ει τις αισθησις in the ghosts of the tribe of Levi, let them see and
witness how it is !

And now, do you see. It was just natural that when we,
differed for the first time I should fall into low spirits. In
the night, at dream-time, when instead of dreams ‘ deep
thought falleth upon man.’ suddenly I have been sad even
to tears, do you know, to think of that : and whenever I am
not glad, the old fears and misgivings come back — no, you
do not understand . . you cannot, perhaps ! But dear,
dearest, never think of yourself that you have expressed
‘ insufficiently ‘ your feelings for me. Insufficiently ! No
words but just your own, between heaven and earth, could
have persuaded me that one such as you could love me !
and the tongue of angels could not speak better words for
that purpose, than just yours. Also, I know that you
love me . . I do know it, my only dearest, and recognize it
in the gratitude of my soul : — and it is through my want of
familiarity with any happiness — through the want of use in
carrying these weights of flowers, that I drop them again
and again out of weak hands. Besides the truth is, that I
am not worthy of you — and if you were to see it just as I
see it, why there would be an end . . there, . . I sometimes
think reasonably.

Well — now I shall be good for at least a fortnight. Do
I not teaze you and give you trouble ? I feel ashamed of
myself sometimes. Let me go away from myself to talk of
Mr. Kenyon, therefore !

For he came to-day, and arrived in town on Friday evening
— (what an escape on Saturday !) and said of you, . . with
those detestable spectacles — like the Greek burning glasses,
turned full on my face . . ‘ I suppose now that Mr.
Browning’s book is done and there are no more excuses for
coming, he will come without excuses.’ Then, after talk
upon other subjects, he began a long wandering sentence,
the end of which I could see a mile off, about how he
‘ ought to know better than I, but wished to enquire of
me ‘ . . . what, do you suppose ? . . why, ‘ what Mr.
Browning’s objects in life were. Because Mrs. Procter had
been saying that it was a pity he had not seven or eight
hours a day of occupation &c. &c. It is a good thing to
be angry as a refuge from being confounded : I really
could say something to that. And I did say that you ‘ did
not require an occupation as a means of living . . having
simple habits and desires — nor as an end of living, since
you found one in the exercise of your genius ! and that if
Mr. Procter had looked as simply to his art as an end, he
would have done better things.’

Which made Mr. Kenyon cry out . . ‘ Ah now ! you
are spiteful ! and you need not be, for there was nothing
unkind in what she said.’ ‘ But absurd ‘ ! . . I insisted —
‘ seeing that to put race horses into dray carts, was not
usually done nor advised.’

You told me she was a worldly woman ; and here is a
proof, sent back to you. But what business have worldly
women to talk their dust and ashes over high altars in that way ?
I was angry and sinned not — angry for the moment. Then
Mr. Kenyon agreed with me, I think, and illustrated the
subject by telling me how Wordsworth had given himself to
the service of the temple from the beginning — ‘though,’
observed Mr. Kenyon, ‘ he did not escape so from worldliness.’ But William Wordsworth is not Robert Browning.
Mr. Kenyon spoke of your family and of yourself with the
best and most reverent words.

And all this reminds me of what I have often and often
mused about saying to you, and shrank back, and torn the
paper now and then . . . You know the subject you
wanted to discuss, on Saturday. Now whenever the time
shall come for discussing that subject, let this be a point
agreed upon by both of us. The peculiarity of our circumstances will enable us to be free of the world . . of our
friends even . . of all observation and examination, in
certain respects : now let us use the advantage which falls
to us from our misfortune, — and, since we must act for ourselves at last, let us resist the curiosity of the whole race of
third persons . . even the affectionate interest of such
friends as dear Mr. Kenyon, . . and put it into the power
of nobody to say to himself or to another, . . ‘ she had so
much, and he, so much, in worldly possessions — or she had
not so much and he had not so much.’ Try to understand
what I mean. As it is not of the least importance to either
of us, as long as we can live, whether the sixpence, we live
by, came most from you or from me . . and as it will be as
much mine as yours, and yours as mine when we are together . . why let us join in throwing a little dust in all the
winking eyes round — oh, it is nonsense and weakness, I
know — but I would rather, rather, see winking eyes than
staring eyes. What has anybody to do with us ? Even my
own family . . why should they ever see the farthest figure
of our affairs, as to mere money ? There now — it is said, . .
what I have had in my head so long to say. And one other
word resumes my meditations on ‘ the subject ‘ which
will not be ripe for discussion for ever so many months . .
and that other word is . . that if ever I am to wrong you so
much as to be yours so, it is on the condition of leaving
England within the fewest possible half hours afterwards. I
told you that, long ago — so bear it in mind. I should not
dare breathe in this England. Think ! — There is my father —
and there is yours ! Do you imagine that I am not afraid
of your family? and should be still more, if it were not for
the great agony of fear on the side of my own house. Ah —
I must love you unspeakably . . even to dare think of the
possibility of such things. So we will not talk of them now.
I write what I write, to throw it off my mind and have done.
Bear it in yours, but do not refer to it — I ask you not to
refer to it.

A long straggling letter, this is. I shall have mine
to-morrow. And you will tell me if Wednesday or Thursday
shall be our day ; and above all, tell me how you are. Then
the book will come. Remember to send one to Mrs. Jameson
! I write in haste . . in haste — but one may think of
you either in haste or at leisure, without blotting the air.

Love me, beloved . . do not leave off to see if I deserve it.
I am at least (which is at most)

Your very own.