Author: EBB

[Postmark: March 31, 1846]

Monday.

Dearest, I send you back the two parts of the ‘ Soul’s Tragedy,’ and the proof. On a strip of paper are two or
three inanities in the form of doubts I had in reading the
first part. I think upon the whole that you owe me all
gratitude for the help of so much high critical wisdom – of
which this paper is a fair proof and expression.

The proof, the printed ‘ Luria ‘ I mean, has more
than pleased me. It is noble and admirable ; and grows
greater, the closer seen. The most exceptionable part,
it seems to me, is Domizia’s retraction at the last, for
which one looks round for the sufficient motive. But the
impression of the whole work goes straight to the soul – it
is heroic in the best sense.

I write in such haste. Oh – I should have liked to have
read again the second part of the ‘ Tragedy,’ but dare not
keep it though you give me leave. I think of the
printers – and you will let me have the proof, in this case
also.

Your letter shall be answered presently. Your sister’s
word about the picture proves very conclusively how wonderfully like it must be as a portrait ! That would settle
the question to any ‘ Royal Commission ‘ in the world – only
we need not go so far.

Dearest I end here – to begin again in another half hour.
Ah – and you promise, you promise –

No time – but ever your own.

Ba

[Postmark: March 30, 1846]

Sunday Evening.

Dearest, I have been trying your plan of thinking of you
instead of writing, to-day, and the end is that I am driven to
the last of the day and have scarcely room in it to write
what I would. Observe if you please, how badly ‘ the
system works,’ as the practical people say. Then Mr.
Kenyon came and talked, — asked when I had seen you, . .
and desired, ‘if ever I saw you again,’ (ah, what an ‘if
ever’ !) that I would enquire about the ‘ blue lilies ‘ . . which
I satisfied him were of the right colour, on your authority.

But, to go to the ‘ Tragedy ‘ — I am not to admire it . .
am I ? And you really think that anyone who can think
. . feel , . could help such an admiration, or ought to try
to help it? Now just see. It is a new work with your
mark on it. That is . . it would make some six or sixteen
works for other people, if ‘ cut up into little stars ‘ — rolled
out . . diluted with rain-water. But it is your work as it
is — and if you do not care for that I care, and shall
remember to care on. It is a work full of power and
significance, and I am not at all sure (not that it is wise to
make comparisons, but that I want you to understand how I
am impressed !) — I am not at all sure that if I knew you
now first and only by these two productions, . . ‘ Luria ‘ and
the ‘ Tragedy,’ . . I should not involuntarily attribute more
power and a higher faculty to the writer of the last — I should
I think — yet ‘ Luria ‘ is the completer work . . I know it
very well. Such thoughts, you have, in this second part of
the Tragedy ! a ‘ Soul’s Tragedy ‘ indeed ! No one thinks
like you — other poets talk like the merest women in comparison. Why it is full of hope for both of us, to look
forward and consider what you may achieve with that combination of authority over the reasons and the passions,
and that wonderful variety of the plastic power !
But I am going to tell you — Certainly I think you were
right (though you know I doubted and cried out) I think
now you were right in omitting the theological argument you
told me of, from this second part. It would clog the action,
and already I am half inclined to fancy it a little clogged
in one or two places — but if this is true even, it would be
easy to lighten it. Your Ogniben (here is my only criticism
in the ways of objection) seems to me almost too wise for a
crafty worldling — tell me if he is not ! Such thoughts, for
the rest, you are prodigal of ! That about the child, . . .
do you remember how you brought it to me in your first
visit, nearly a year ago ?

Nearly a year ago ! how the time passes ! If I had ‘ done
my duty ‘ like the enchanted fish leaping on the gridiron,
and seen you never again after that first visit, you would
have forgotten all about me by this day. Or at least, ‘ that
prude ‘ I should be ! Somewhere under your feet, I should
be put down by this day ! Yes ! and my enchanted dog
would be coursing ‘ some small deer ‘ . . some unicorn
of a ‘golden horn,’ . . (not the Kilmansegg gold !) out of
hearing if I should have a mind to whistle ever so, . . but
out of harm’s way perhaps besides.

Well, I do think of it sometimes as you see. Which
proves that I love you better than myself by the whole
width of the Heavens ; the sevenfold Heavens. Yet I think
again how He of the heavens and earth brought us together
so wonderfully, holding two souls in His hand. If my fault
was in it, my will at least was not. Believe it of me, dear
dearest, that I who am as clear-sighted as other women,
and not more humble (as to the approaches of common
men), was quite resolutely blind when you came — I could
not understand the possibility of that It was too much
. . too surpassing. And so it will seem to the end. The
astonishment, I mean, will not cease to be. It is my own
especial fairy-tale . . from the spells of which, may you be
unharmed . . ! How one writes and writes over and over
the same thing ! But day by day the same sun rises, . . over,
and over, and nobody is tired. May God bless you, dearest
of all, and justify what has been by what shall be, . . and let
me be free of spoiling any sun of yours ! Shall you ever
tell me in your thoughts, I wonder, to get out of your sun ?
No — no — Love keeps love too safe ! and I have faith, you
see, as a grain of mustard-seed !

Your own

Ba.

Say how you are . . mind !

[Postmark: March 27, 1846]

Thursday.

Not the ‘ dexterous hand ‘ — say rather the good cause.
For the rest, when you turn into a dog and lie down, are
you not afraid that a sorcerer should go by and dash the
water and speak the formula of the old tales. ‘ If thou
were born a dog, remain a dog, but if not ‘ . . If not . .
what is to happen ? Aminè whipped her enchanted hounds
ever so often in the day . . ah, what nonsense happens !

Dear, dearest, how you ‘take me with guile,’ or with
stronger than guile, . . with that divine right you have, of
talking absurdities ! You make it clear at last that I am so
much the better for being bad . . . and I . . . shall I
laugh ? can I ? is it possible ? The words go too deep . . .
as deep as death which cannot laugh ! And I am forbidden-
to ‘ dwell ‘ on the meaning of them — I ! There are
‘ I’s ‘ to match yours !

I shall have the right of doing one thing, . . (passing to
my rights). I shall hold to the right of remembering to
my last hour, that you who, might well have passed by on
the other side if we two had met on the road when I was
riding at ease, . . did not when I was in the dust. I
choose to remember that to the end of feeling. As for men
you are not to take me to be quite ignorant of what they
are worth in the gross. The most blindfolded women may
see a little under the folds . . and I have seen quite
enough to be glad to shut my eyes. Did I not tell you that
I never thought that any man whom I could love, would
stoop to love me even if I attained so far as the sight of
such. Which I never attained . . until . . until ! Then,
that you should care for me. ! ! Oh — I hold to my rights,
though you overcome me in most other things. And it is
my right to love you better than I could do if I were more
worthy to be loved by you.

Mrs. Jameson came late to-day, . . at five — and was
hurried and could not stay ten minutes, . . but showed me
her etchings and very kindly left a ‘ Dead St. Cecilia ‘ which
I admired most, for its beautiful lifelessness. She is not to
be in town again, she said, till a month has gone — a month,
at least. Oh — and ‘ quite uneasy ‘ she was, about my ‘ cold
hands ‘ — yesterday — she thought she had put me to death
with over-talking ! — which made me smile a little . . ‘ subridens.’ But she is very kind and affectionate; and you
were right to teach me to like her — and now, do you know,
I look in vain for the ‘ steely eyes ‘ I fancied I saw once,
and see nothing but two good and true ones.

Well — here is an end till Saturday. It is too late . . or
I could go on writing . . which I do not hate indeed.
Talking of hating, . . . ‘what you love entirely’ means
that you love entirely . . and no more and no less. If it
did not mean so, I should be unhappy about the mistake
. . but to ‘ love entirely ‘ is not a mistake and cannot
pass for one either on earth or in Heaven. May God
bless you, ever dearest. Such haste I write in — as if the
angels were running up Jacob’s ladder ! — or down it, rather,
at this close !

Your own

Ba.

[Postmark: March 26, 1846]

Wednesday Evening.

But if people half say things, — intimate things, as when
your disputant in the street (you are felicitous, I think,
in your street-experiences) suggested the possible case of the
‘ three oyster shells to an oyster,’ — why you must submit
to be answered a little, and even confuted at need. Now
just see —

. . ‘ Got all his distinction from the fact that no better ‘
. . That is precisely the fact . . so . . as you have stated
it, and implied . . ‘ The fact that no better ‘ . . is to
be found in the world — no better . . none. There, is the
peculiar combination. The isolation on one side, and the
best in the whole world, coming in for company ! And I
‘ dwell ‘ upon it, never being tired . . and if you are tired
already, you must be tired of me, because the ‘ dwelling ‘ has
grown to be a part of me and I cannot put it away. It is
my especial miracle a moi, ‘ No better ? ‘ No, indeed ! not in
the seven worlds ! and just there, lies the miraculous point.

But you mean it perhaps otherwise. You mean that it
is a sort of pis aller on my part. A pis aller along the Via
lactea . . is that what you mean ?

Shall I let you off the rest, dearest, dearest ? though you
deserve ever so much more, for implying such monstrous
things, and treading down all my violets, so and so. What
did I say to set you writing so ? I cannot remember at all ?
If I ‘ dwell ‘ on anything, beloved, it is that I feel it strongly,
be sure — and if I feel gratitude to you with the other feelings,
you should not grudge what is a happy feeling in itself, and
not dishonouring (I answer for that) to the object of it.

Now I shall tell you. I had a visitor to-day — Mrs.
Jameson ; and when she went away she left me ashamed
of myself — I felt like a hypocrite – I, who was not born
for one, I think. She began to talk of you . . talked like
a wise woman, which she is . . led me on to say just
what I might have said if I had not known you, (she,
thoroughly impressed with the notion that we two are
strangers !) and made me quite leap in my chair with a
sudden consciousness, by exclaiming at last . . ‘ I am really
glad to hear you speak so. Such appreciation ‘ &c. &c.
… imagine what she went on to say. Dearest — I believe
she rather gives me a sort of credit for appreciating you without
the jealousy ‘ de metier.’ Good Heavens . . how humiliating some conditions of praise are ! She approved me
with her eye — indeed she did. And this, while we were
agreeing that you were the best . . ‘ none better ‘ . . none
so good . . of your country and age. Do you know, while
we were talking, I felt inclined both to laugh and to cry,
and if I had ‘ given way ‘ the least, she would have been
considerably astounded. As it was, my hands were so
marble-cold when she took leave of me, that she observed it
and began making apologies for exhausting me. Now here
is a strip of the ‘ world,’ . . see what colour it will turn to
presently ! We had better, I think, go farther than to
your siren’s island — into the desert . . shall we say ? Such
stories there will be ! For certain, . . I shall have seen
you just once out of the window ! Shall you not be afraid ?
Well — and she talked of Italy too — it was before she talked
of you — and she hoped I had not given up the thoughts
of going there. To which I said that ‘ I had not . . but
that it seemed like scheming to travel in the moon.’ She
talked of a difference, and set down the moon-travelling as
simple lunacy. ‘ And simply lunatical,’ . . I said, . . ‘ my
thoughts, if chronicled, would be taken to be, perhaps ‘ –
‘No, no, no, ! . .’ she insisted . . ‘as long as I kept to the
earth, everything was to be permitted to me.’

How people talk at cross-purposes in this world . . and
act so too ! It’s the very spirit of worldly communion.
Souls are gregarious in a sense, but no soul touches another,
as a general rule. I like Mrs. Jameson nevertheless — I
like her more. She appreciates you — and it is my turn to
praise for that, now. I am to see her again to-morrow
morning, when she has the goodness to promise to bring
some etchings of her own, her illustrations of the new essays,
for me to look at.

Ah — your ‘failures in ” Luria ” and the ” Tragedy ” ‘ —
Proud, we should all be, to fail exactly so.

Dearest, are you better indeed? Walk . . talk to the
Ba in the chair , . go on to be better, ever dearest. May
God bless you ! Ah . . the ‘ I’s.’ You do not see that the
‘ I’s’ — you make them, . . all turn to ‘ yous ‘ by the time
they get to me. The ‘ Is ‘ indeed ! How dare you talk
against my eyes ? For me, I was going down-stairs to-day,
but it was wet and windy and I was warned not to go. If
I am in bad or good spirits, judge from this foolish letter —
foolish and wise, both ! — but not melancholy, anywise.
When one drops into a pun, one might as well come to an
end altogether — it can’t be worse with one.

Nor can it be better than being

Your own

‘ No better’ !! .

Tuesday Evening.

March 25, 1846.

Ah; if I ‘do‘  . . . if I ‘should‘  . . . if I shall  . . . if I will  . . . if I must  . . . what can all the ‘ifs’ prove, but a most hypothetical state of the conscience? And in brief, I beg you to stand convinced of one thing, that whenever the ‘certain time’ comes for to ‘hate writing to me’ confessedly, ‘avowedly,’ (oh what words!) I shall not like it at all — not for all the explanations  . . . and the sights in gondola chairs, which the person seen is none the better for! The ειδωλον sits by the fire — the real Ba is cold at heart through wanting her letter. And that’s the doctrine to be preached now,  . . . is it? I ‘shrink,’ shrink from it. That’s your word! — and mine! Dearest, I began by half a jest and end by half-gravity, which is the fault of your doctrine and not of me I think. Yet it is ungrateful to be grave, when practically you are good and just about the letters, and generous too sometimes, and I could not bear the idea of obliging you to write to me, even once  . . . when . . .. Now do not fancy that I do not understand. I understand perfectly, on the contrary. Only do you try not to dislike writing when you write, or not to write when you dislike it  . . . that, I ask of you, dear dearest — and forgive me for all this over-writing and teazing and vexing which is foolish and womanish in the bad sense. It is a way of meeting,  . . . the meeting in letters,  . . . and next to receiving a letter from you, I like to write one to you  . . . and, so, revolt from thinking it lawful for you to dislike . . .. Well! the Goddess of Dulness herself couldn’t have written this better, anyway, nor more characteristically.

I will tell you how it is. You have spoilt me just as I have spoilt Flush. Flush looks at me sometimes with reproachful eyes ‘a fendre le coeur,’ because I refuse to give him my fur cuffs to tear to pieces. And as for myself, I confess to being more than half jealous of the ειδωλον in the gondola chair, who isn’t the real Ba after all, and yet is set up there to do away with the necessity ‘at certain times’ of writing to her. Which is worse than Flush. For Flush, though he began by shivering with rage and barking and howling and gnashing his teeth at the brown dog in the glass, has learnt by experience what that image means,  . . . and now contemplates it, serene in natural philosophy. Most excellent sense, all this is! — and dauntlessly ‘delivered!’

Your head aches, dearest. Mr. Moxon will have done his worst, however, presently, and then you will be a little better I do hope and trust — and the proofs, in the meanwhile, will do somewhat less harm than the manuscript. You will take heart again about ‘Luria’  . . . which I agree with you, is more diffuse  . . . that is, less close, than any of your works, not diffuse in any bad sense, but round, copious, and another proof of that wonderful variety of faculty which is so striking in you, and which signalizes itself both in the thought and in the medium of the thought. You will appreciate ‘Luria’ in time — or others will do it for you. It is a noble work under every aspect. Dear ‘Luria’! Do you remember how you told me of ‘Luria’ last year, in one of your early letters? Little I thought that ever, ever, I should feel so, while ‘Luria’ went to be printed! A long trail of thoughts, like the rack in the sky, follows his going. Can it be the same ‘Luria,’ I think, that ‘golden-hearted Luria,’ whom you talked of to me, when you complained of keeping ‘wild company,’ in the old dear letter? And I have learnt since, that ‘golden-hearted‘ is not a word for him only, or for him most. May God bless you, best and dearest! I am your own to live and to die —

Ba.

Say how you are. I shall be down-stairs to-morrow if it keeps warm.

Miss Thomson wants me to translate the Hector and Andromache scene from the ‘Iliad’ for her book; and I am going to try it.

Tuesday.

March 24, 1846.

How ungrateful I was to your flowers yesterday, never looking at them nor praising them till they were put away, and yourself gone away — and that was your fault, be it remembered, because you began to tell me of the good news from Moxon’s, and, in the joy of it, I missed the flowers  . . . for the nonce, you know. Afterward they had their due, and all the more that you were not there. My first business when you are out of the room and the house, and the street perhaps, is to arrange the flowers and to gather out of them all the thoughts you leave between the leaves and at the end of the stalks. And shall I tell you what happened, not yesterday, but the Thursday before? no, it was the Friday morning, when I found, or rather Wilson found and held up from my chair, a bunch of dead blue violets. Quite dead they seemed! You had dropped them and I had sate on them, and where we murdered them they had lain, poor things, all the night through. And Wilson thought it the vainest of labours when she saw me set about reviving them, cutting the stalks afresh, and dipping them head and ears into water — but then she did not know how you, and I, and ours, live under a miraculous dispensation, and could only simply be astonished when they took to blowing again as if they never had wanted the dew of the garden,  . . . yes, and when at last they outlived all the prosperity of the contemporary white violets which flourished in water from the beginning, and were free from the disadvantage of having been sate upon. Now you shall thank me for this letter, it is at once so amusing and instructive. After all, too, it teaches you what the great events of my life are, not that the resuscitation of your violets would not really be a great event to me, even if I led the life of a pirate, between fire and sea, otherwise. But take you away  . . . out of my life! — and what remains? The only greenness I used to have (before you brought your flowers) was as the grass growing in deserted streets,  . . . which brings a proof, in every increase, of the extending desolation.

Dearest, I persist in thinking that you ought not to be too disdainful to explain your meaning in the Pomegranates. Surely you might say in a word or two that, your title having been doubted about (to your surprise, you might say!), you refer the doubters to the Jewish priest’s robe, and the Rabbinical gloss  . . . for I suppose it is a gloss on the robe  . . . do you not think so? Consider that Mr. Kenyon and I may fairly represent the average intelligence of your readers, — and that he was altogether in the clouds as to your meaning  . . . had not the most distant notion of it, — while I, taking hold of the priest’s garment, missed the Rabbins and the distinctive significance, as completely as he did. Then for Vasari, it is not the handbook of the whole world, however it may be Mrs. Jameson’s. Now why should you be too proud to teach such persons as only desire to be taught? I persist — I shall teaze you.

This morning my brothers have been saying  . . . ‘Ah you had Mr. Browning with you yesterday, I see by the flowers,’  . . . just as if they said ‘I see queen Mab has been with you.’ Then Stormie took the opportunity of swearing to me by all his gods that your name was mentioned lately in the House of Commons — is that true? or untrue? He forgot to tell me at the time, he says, — and you were named with others and in relation to copyright matters. Is it true?

Mr. Hornblower Gill is the author of a Hymn to Passion week, and wrote to me as the ‘glorifier of pain!’ to remind me that the best glory of a soul is shown in the joy of it, and that all chief poets except Dante have seen, felt, and written it so. Thus and therefore was matured his purpose of writing an ‘ode to joy,’ as I told you. The man seems to have very good thoughts,  . . . but he writes like a colder Cowley still  . . . no impulse, no heat for fusing  . . . no inspiration, in fact. Though I have scarcely done more than glance at his ‘Passion week,’ and have little right to give an opinion.

If you have killed Luria as you helped to kill my violets, what shall I say, do you fancy? Well — we shall see! Do not kill yourself, beloved, in any case! The ιοστεφανοι

Μουσαι had better die themselves first! Ah — what am I writing? What nonsense? I mean, in deep earnest, the deepest, that you should take care and exercise, and not be vexed for Luria’s sake — Luria will have his triumph presently! May God bless you — prays your own

Ba.

 

March 21, 1846.

I do not understand how my letters limp so instead of flying as they ought with the feathers I give them, and how you did not receive last night, nor even early this morning, what left me at two o’clock yesterday. But I understand now the not hearing from you — you were not well. Not well, not well  . . . that is always ‘happening’ at least. And Mr. Moxon, who is to have his first sheet, whether you are well or ill! It is wrong  . . . yes, very wrong — and if one point of wrongness is touched, we shall not easily get right again — as I think mournfully, feeling confident (call me Cassandra, but I cannot jest about it) feeling certain that it will end (the means being so persisted in) by some serious illness — serious sorrow, — on yours and my part.

As to Monday, Mr. Kenyon said he would come again on Sunday — in which case, Monday will be clear. If he should not come on Sunday, he will or may on Monday, — yet — oh, in every case, perhaps you can come on Monday — there will be no time to let you know of Mr. Kenyon — and probably we shall be safe, and your being in town seems to fix the day. For myself I am well enough, and the wind has changed, which will make me better — this cold weather oppresses and weakens me, but it is close to April and can’t last and won’t last — it is warmer already. Beware of the notes! They are not Ba’s — except for the insolence, nor EBB’s — because of the carelessness. If I had known, moreover, that you were going to Moxon’s on Monday, they should have gone to the fire rather than provoked you into superfluous work for the short interval. Just so much are they despised of both EBB and Ba.

I am glad I did not hear from you yesterday because you were not well, and you must never write when you are not well. But if you had been quite well, should I have heard? — I doubt it. You meant me to hear from you only once, from Thursday to Monday. Is it not the truth now that you hate writing to me?

The Athenæum takes up the ‘Tales from Boccaccio’ as if they were worth it, and imputes in an underground way the authorship to the members of the ‘coterie’ so called — do you observe that? There is an implication that persons named in the poem wrote the poem themselves. And upon whom does the critic mean to fix the song of ‘Constancy’  . . . the song which is ‘not to puzzle anybody’ who knows the tunes of the song-writers! The perfection of commonplace it seems to me. It might have been written by the ‘poet Bunn.’ Don’t you think so?

While I write this you are in town, but you will not read it till Sunday unless I am more fortunate than usual. On Monday then! And no word before? No — I shall be sure not to hear to-night. Now do try not to suffer through ‘Luria.’ Let Mr. Moxon wait a week rather. There is time enough.

Ever your

Ba.

 

Friday.

March 20, 1846.

I shall be late with my letter this morning because my sisters have been here talking, talking  . . . and I did not like to say exactly ‘Go away that I may write.’ Mr. Kenyon shortened our time yesterday too by a whole half-hour or three quarters — the stars are against us. He is coming on Sunday, however, he says, and if so, Monday will be safe and clear — and not a word was said after you went, about you: he was in a good joyous humour, as you saw, and the letter he brought was, oh! so complimentary to me — I will tell you. The writer doesn’t see anything ‘in Browning and Turner,’ she confesses — ‘may perhaps with time and study,’ but for the present sees nothing, — only has wide-open eyes of admiration for E.B.B.  . . . now isn’t it satisfactory to me? Do you understand the full satisfaction of just that sort of thing  . . . to be praised by somebody who sees nothing in Shakespeare? — to be found on the level of somebody so flat? Better the bad-word of the Britannia, ten times over! And best, to take no thought of bad or good words!  . . . except such as I shall have to-night, perhaps! Shall I?

Will you be pleased to understand in the meanwhile a little about the ‘risks’ I am supposed to run, and not hold to such a godlike simplicity (‘gods and bulls,’ dearest!) as you made show of yesterday? If we two went to the gaming-table, and you gave me a purse of gold to play with, should I have a right to talk proudly of ‘my stakes?’ and would any reasonable person say of both of us playing together as partners, that we ran ‘equal risks’? I trow not — and so do you  . . . when you have not predetermined to be stupid, and mix up the rouge and noir into ‘one red’ of glorious confusion. What had I to lose on the point of happiness when you knew me first? — and if now I lose (as I certainly may according to your calculation) the happiness you have given me, why still I am your debtor for the gift  . . . now see! Yet to bring you down into my ashes  . . . that has been so intolerable a possibility to me from the first. Well, perhaps I run more risk than you, under that one aspect. Certainly I never should forgive myself again if you were unhappy. ‘What had I to do,’ I should think, ‘with touching your life?’ And if ever I am to think so, I would rather that I never had known you, seen your face, heard your voice — which is the uttermost sacrifice and abnegation. I could not say or sacrifice any more — not even for you! You, for you  . . . is all I can!

Since you left me I have been making up my mind to your having the headache worse than ever, through the agreement with Moxon. I do, do beseech you to spare yourself, and let ‘Luria’ go as he is, and above all things not to care for my infinite foolishnesses as you see them in those notes. Remember that if you are ill, it is not so easy to say, ‘Now I will be well again.’ Ever dearest, care for me in yourself — say how you are . . .. I am not unwell to-day, but feel flagged and weak rather with the cold  . . . and look at your flowers for courage and an assurance that the summer is within hearing. May God bless you  . . . blessing us, beloved!

Your own

Ba.

Mr. Poe has sent me his poems and tales — so now I must write to thank him for his dedication. Just now I have the book. As to Mr. Buckingham, he will go, Constantinople and back, before we talk of him.

 

Tuesday Evening.

March 18, 1846.

Ah well — we shall see. Only remember that it is not my fault if I throw the double sixes, and if you, on some sun-shiny day, (a day too late to help yourself) stand face to face with a milkwhite unicorn. Ah — do not be angry. It is ungrateful of me to write so — I put a line through it to prove I have a conscience after all. I know that you love me, and I know it so well that I was reproaching myself severely not long ago, for seeming to love your love more than you. Let me tell you how I proved that, or seemed. For ever so long, you remember, I have been talking finely about giving you up for your good and so on. Which was sincere as far as the words went — but oh, the hypocrisy of our souls! — of mine, for instance! ‘I would give you up for your good’ — but when I pressed upon myself the question whether (if I had the power) I would consent to make you willing to be given up, by throwing away your love into the river, in a ring like Charlemagne’s,  . . . why I found directly that I would throw myself there sooner. I could not do it in fact — I shrank from the test. A very pitiful virtue of generosity, is your Ba’s! Still, it is not possible, I think, that she should ‘love your love more than you.’ There must be a mistake in the calculation somewhere — a figure dropt. It would be too bad for her!

Your account of your merchantmen, though with Venice in the distance, will scarcely be attractive to a confirmed invalid, I fear — and yet the steamers will be found expensive beyond his means. The sugar-vessels, which I hear most about, give out an insufferable smell and steam — let us talk of it a little on Thursday. On Monday I forgot.

For Landor’s ‘Julian,’ oh no, I cannot fancy it to be probable that those Parisians should know anything of Landor, even by a mistake. Do you not suppose that the play is founded (confounded) on Shelley’s poem, as the French use materials  . . . by distraction, into confusion? The ‘urn by the Adriatic’ (which all the French know how to turn upside down) fixes the reference to Shelley — does it not?

Not a word of the head — what does that mean, I wonder. I have not been down-stairs to-day — the wind is too cold — but you have walked?  . . . there was no excuse for you. God bless you, ever dearest. It is my last word till Thursday’s first. A fine queen you have, by the way! — a queen Log, whom you had better leave in the bushes! Witness our hand . . ..

Ba — Regina.

 

Monday Evening.

March 17, 1846.

Dearest, you are dearest always! Talk of Sirens,  . . . there must be some masculine ones ‘rari nantes,’ I fancy, (though we may not find them in unquestionable authorities like your Ælian!) to justify this voice I hear. Ah, how you speak, with that pretension, too, to dumbness! What should people be made of, in order to bear such words, do you think? Will all the wax from all the altar-candles in the Sistine Chapel, keep the piercing danger from their ears? Being tied up a good deal tighter than Ulysses did not save me. Dearest dearest: I laugh, you see, as usual, not to cry! But deep down, deeper than the Sirens go, deep underneath the tides, there, I bless and love you with the voice that makes no sound.

Other human creatures (how often I do think it to myself!) have their good things scattered over their lives, sown here and sown there, down the slopes, and by the waysides. But with me  . . . I have mine all poured down on one spot in the midst of the sands! — if you knew what I feel at moments, and at half-hours, when I give myself up to the feeling freely and take no thought of red eyes. A woman once was killed with gifts, crushed with the weight of golden bracelets thrown at her: and, knowing myself, I have wondered more than a little, how it was that I could bear this strange and unused gladness, without sinking as the emotion rose. Only I was incredulous at first, and the day broke slowly  . . . and the gifts fell like the rain  . . . softly; and God gives strength, by His providence, for sustaining blessings as well as stripes. Dearest —

For the rest I understand you perfectly — perfectly. It was simply to your thoughts, that I replied  . . . and that you need not say to yourself any more, as you did once to me when you brought me flowers, that you wished they were diamonds. It was simply to prevent the accident of such a thought, that I spoke out mine. You would not wish accidentally that you had a double-barrelled gun to give me, or a cardinal’s hat, or a snuff box, and I meant to say that you might as well — as diamonds and satin sofas à la Chorley. Thoughts are something, and your thoughts are something more. To be sure they are!

You are better you say, which makes me happy of course. And you will not make the ‘better’ worse again by doing wrong things — that is my petition. It was the excess of goodness to write those two letters for me in one day, and I thank you, thank you. Beloved, when you write, let it be, if you choose, ever so few lines. Do not suffer me (for my own sake) to tire you, because two lines or three bring you to me  . . . remember  . . . just as a longer letter would.

But where, pray, did I say, and when, that ‘everything would end well?’ Was that in the dream, when we two met on the stairs? I did not really say so I think. And ‘well’ is how you understand it. If you jump out of the window you succeed in getting to the ground, somehow, dead or alive  . . . but whether that means ‘ending well,’ depends on your way of considering matters. I am seriously of opinion nevertheless, that if ‘the arm,’ you talk of, drops, it will not be for weariness nor even for weakness, but because it is cut off at the shoulder. I will not fail to you, — may God so deal with me, so bless me, so leave me, as I live only for you and shall. Do you doubt that, my only beloved! Ah, you know well — too well, people would say  . . . but I do not think it ‘too well’ myself,  . . . knowing you.

Your

Ba.

Here is a gossip which Mr. Kenyon brought me on Sunday — disbelieving it himself, he asseverated, though Lady Chantrey said it ‘with authority,’ — that Mr. Harness had offered his hand heart and ecclesiastical dignities to Miss Burdett Coutts. It is Lady Chantrey’s and Mr. Kenyon’s secret, remember.

And  . . . will you tell me? How can a man spend four or five successive months on the sea, most cheaply — at the least pecuniary expense, I mean? Because Miss Mitford’s friend Mr. Buckingham is ordered by his medical adviser to complete his cure by these means; and he is not rich. Could he go with sufficient comfort by a merchant’s vessel to the Mediterranean  . . . and might he drift about among the Greek islands?