Author: EBB

[Postmark: August 24, 1846]
ED

But dearest – Did you not understand that I understood ? I know your words better than you think, you see. Were you afraid to trust me to give a chase to them in my recollection, lest I should fall blindly upon some ‘ Secret Sin ‘ of yours ? a wild boar, instead of a poor little coney belonging to the rocks of my desolation ? – such as it was before you made the yellow furze grow everywhere on it ? Now, it is like me for wickedness, to begin talking of your ‘ Secret Sins,’ just by this opportunity. You overcome me with goodness – there’s the real truth, and the whole of it.

While I am writing, comes in Arabel with such a face. My brother had been talking, talking of me. Stormie suddenly touched her and said ‘ Is it true that there is an engagement between Mr. Browning and Ba – ? ‘ She was taken unaware, but had just power to say ‘ You had better ask them, if you want to know. What nonsense, Storm.’ ‘ Well,’ he resumed, ‘ I’ll ask Ba when I go up-stairs.’ George was by, looking as grave as if antedating his judgeship. Think how frightened I was, Robert . . expecting them up-stairs every minute, – for all my brothers come here on Sunday, all together. But they came, and not a single word was said – not on that subject, and I talked on every other in a sort of hurried way – I was so frightened.

Saturday Mr. Boyd and I talked on it for two hours nearly, he would not let me go with his kindness. Nothing, he said, would make him gladder than our having gone, and escaped the storms. In fact, what with affection for me, and disaffection in other directions, he thinks of nothing besides, I do believe. He only wishes that he had known last year, in order to exhort me properly. The very triumph of reason and righteousness, he considers the whole affair. But I told you what Mr. Boyd is – dear, poor Mr. Boyd ! Talking such pure childishness sometimes, in such pure Attic – yet one of the very most upright men, after all, that I ever dreamt of – one of the men born shepherds – with a crook in the hand, instead of the metaphorical ‘ silver spoon in the mouth.’ Good, dear Mr. Boyd, – I am very grateful to him for his goodness to me just now. I assure you that he takes us up exactly as if we were Ossian and Macpherson, or a criticism of Person’s, or a new chapter of Bentley on Phalaris. By the way, do you believe in Ossian ? Let me be properly prepared for that question.

But I have a question for you of my own. Listen to me, my Famous in Council, and give me back words of wisdom. A long, long while ago, nearly a year since perhaps, I wrote to the Blackwoods of Edinburgh to mention my new ‘ Prometheus,’ and to ask if they would care to use it in their magazine, that, and verses more my own ; whether they would care to have them at the usual magazine terms – I had some lyrics by me, and people have constantly advised me to print in Blackwood, with the prospect of republishing in the independent form. You get at the public so, and are paid for your poems instead of paying for them. Did I tell you all this before – and about my having written the enquiry ? At any rate, no reply came – I concluded that Mr. Blackwood did not think it worth while to write, and eschewed the poems – and the subject passed from my thoughts till last night. Then came a very civil note. The authorities receiving nothing from me, were afraid that their answer to my letter had not reached me, and therefore wrote again. They would ‘ like to see ‘ my ‘ Prometheus ‘ though apprehensive of its being unfit for the Magazine – but particularly desire to have all manner of lyrics, whatever I have by me. Now, what do you think ? What shall I do ? Would it not be well to let this door between us and Blackwood stand open. One is not in the worst company there – they pay well, – and you have the opportunity of standing face to face with the public at any moment – without hindering the solemner interviews. When we are in Italy, particularly . . ! Do you see ? Tell me your thoughts.

Since I began this letter, I have been to the Scotch Church in our neighbourhood – and it has all been in vain – I could not stay. We heard that a French minister, a M. Alphonse Monod of Montauban, was to preach at three o’clock, in French – and counting on a small congregation, and Arabel (through a knowledge of the localities) encouraging me with the prospect of sitting close to the door, and retiring back into the entrance-hall when the singing began, so as to escape that excitement – I agreed to make the trial, and she and I set out in a cab from the cab-stand hard by . . to which we walked. But the church was filling, obviously filling, as we arrived . . and grew fuller and fuller. We went in and came out again, and I sate down on the stairs – and the people came faster and faster, and I could not keep the tears out of my eyes to begin with.

One gets nervous among all these people if a straw stirs. So Arabel after due observations on every side, decided that it would be too much of a congregation for me, and that I had better go home to Flush – (poor Flush having been left at home in a state of absolute despair). She therefore put me into a cab and sent me to Wimpole Street, and stayed behind herself to hear M. Monod – there’s my adventure to-day. When I opened my door on my return, Flush threw himself upon me with a most ecstatical agony, and for full ten minutes did not cease jumping and kissing my hands – he thought he had lost me for certain, this time. Oh ! and you warn me against the danger of losing him. Indeed I take care and take thought too – those ‘ organised banditti ‘ are not merely banditti de comedie – they are a dreadful reality. Did I not tell you once that they had announced to me that I should not have Flush back the next time, for less than ten guineas ? But you will let him come with us to Italy, instead – will you not, dear, dearest ? in good earnest, will you not? Because, if I leave him behind, he will be teazed for my sins in this house – or I could not be sure of the reverse of it. And even if he escaped that fate, consider how he would break his heart about me. Dogs pine to death sometimes – and if ever a dog loved a man, or a woman, Flush loves me. But you say that he shall keep the house at Pisa – and you mean it, I hope and I think ? – you are in earnest. May God bless you, – so, I say my prayers, though I missed the Church. To-morrow, comes my letter . . come my two letters ! the happy Monday ! The happier Tuesday, if on Tuesday comes the writer of the letters !

His very own BA.

[Postmark: August 22, 1846]
ED

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

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

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

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

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

So I was obliged to laugh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and your own always –

Ba.

[Postmark: August 22, 1846]
ED

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

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

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

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

May God bless you dearest, ever dearest.

I am your own.

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

[Postmark: August 21, 1846]

Dearest, this is to be a brief letter, though my heart shall find room in whatever goes to you. Yesterday cost us nothing – no observation was made : we were in all security notwithstanding the forebodings on either side. May they find such an end in circumstances of still more consequence. Dearest, your flowers are beautiful beyond their beauty of yesterday which I praised – they think themselves still in the garden ; we have done them no sort of wrong. What a luring thought you leave with me in the flowers ! How I look at them as a sign of you, left behind – your footstep in the ground ! It has been so from the beginning. And yet sometimes you try to prove that you are not always good. You !

If you are not good, it is because you are best. I will admit so much.

Oh, to look back ! It is so wonderful to me to look back on my life and my old philosophy of life, made of the necessities of sorrow and the resolution to attain to something better than a perpetual moaning and complaint, – to that state of neutralized emotion to which I did attain – that serenity which meant the failure of hope ! Can I look back to such things, and not thank you next to God ? For you, who had the power, to stoop to having the will, – is it not worthy of thanks ? So I thank you and love you and shall always, however it may be hereafter. I could not feel otherwise to you, I think, than by my feeling at this moment.

How Papa has startled me. He came in while I was writing . . (I shut the writing-case as he walked over the floor – ) and then, after the usual talk of the weather, and how the nights ‘ were growing cold,’ . . he said suddenly . . looking to the table . . ‘ What a beautiful colour those little blue flowers have – ‘ Calling them just so, . . ‘ little blue flowers.’ I could scarcely answer I was so frightened – but he observed nothing and turned and left the room with his favourite enquiry pour rire, as to whether he ‘ could do anything for me in the City.’

Do anything for me in the City ! Well – do you do something for me, by thinking of me and loving me, Robert. Dear you are, never to be tired of me, with so much reason for it as I know. May God bless you, very dear ! – and ever dearest ! I am your own too entirely to need to say so.

Ba.

[Postmark: August 19, 1846]
ED

Your mother is not well, dearest ? that is bad news indeed. And then, I think of your superstition of your being ill and well with her – take care and keep well, Robert, . . or of what use will it be that I should be well ? To-day we drove out, and were as far as Finchley, and I am none the worse at all for it. Do you know Finchley ? It is pretty and rural ; the ground rising and falling as if with the weight of verdure and dew ! fields, and hedgerows, and long slopes of grass thick and long enough, in its fresh greenness, quite to hide the nostrils of the grazing cows. The fields are little, too, as if the hedges wanted to get together. Then the village of Finchley straggles along the road with a line of cottages, or small houses, seeming to play at a village. No butchers, no bakers – only one shop in the place – but gardens, and creepers round the windows. Such a way from London, it looked ! Arabel wanted to call on a friend of hers, a daughter of Sir William Russell’s, who married an adopted son of Lamartine, and was in the navy, and is now an Independent minister officiating in this selfsame metropolis of Finchley. A concatenation, that is, altogether. Very poor they are – living on something less than two hundred a year, with five children, and the eldest five years old. And the children came out to us, everybody else being away – so I, who would have stayed in the carriage under other circumstances, was tempted out by the children and the cottage, and they dragged us along to see the drawing room, and dining room, and ‘Papa’s flowers,’ and their own particular book ‘ about the twenty-seven tailors ‘ ; and those of the children who could speak, thought Flush ‘ very cool ‘ for walking up-stairs without being asked. (The baby opened its immense eyes wider than ever, thinking unutterable things.) So as they had been so kind and hospitable to us, we could not do less (after a quantity of admiration upon the pretty house covered with roses, and the garden and lawn, and especially the literature of those twenty-seven tailors) we could not do less than offer to give them a drive . . which was accepted with acclamation. Think of our taking into the carriage, all five children, with their prodigious eyes and cheeks – the nurse on the coachbox, to take them home at the end of some quarter of a mile ! At the moment of parting, Alphonse Lamartine thought seriously of making a great scream – but upon Arabel’s perjuring herself by a promise to ‘ come again soon,’ we got away without that catastrophe. A worse one is, that you may think yourself obliged to read this amusing history. To make amends, I send you what I gathered for you in the garden ‘ Pansy ! – that’s for thoughts.’

How wise we are about Thursday ! or rather about Tuesday and Wednesday, perhaps.

As for Mr. Boyd, he had just heard your name, but he is blind and deaf to modern literature, and I am not anxious that he should know you much by your poetry. He asked some questions about you, and he enquired of Arabel particularly whether she thought we cared for each other enough. But to tell you the truth, his unqualified adhesion strikes me as less the result of his love for you, than of his anger towards another. I am sure he triumphs inwardly in the idea of a chain being broken which he has so often denounced in words that pained and vexed me – and then last year’s affair about Italy made him furious. Oh – I could see plainly by the sort of smile he smiled – but we need not talk of it – I am at the end too of my time. How good you are to me not to upbraid me for imprudence and womanly talkativeness ! You are too, too good. And you liked my verses to Mr. Boyd ! Which I like to hear, of course. Dearest –

Shall we go to Greece then, Robert? Let us, if you like it ! When we have used a little the charm of your Italy, and have been in England just to see that everybody is well, of yours and mine, . . (if you like that !) . . why straightway we can go ‘ among the islands ‘ – (and nearly as pleasant, it will be for me, as if I went there alone, having left you !). I should like to see Athens with my living eyes . . Athens was in all the dreams I dreamed, before I knew you. Why should we not see Athens, and Egypt too, and float down the mystical Nile, and stand in the shadow of the Pyramids ? All of it is more possible now, than walking up this street seemed to me last year.

Indeed, there is only one miracle for me, my beloved, – and that is your loving me. Everything else under the sun, and much over it, seems the merest commonplace and workday matter-of-fact. If I found myself, suddenly, riding in Paradise, on a white elephant of golden feet, . . I should shake the bridle, I fancy, with ever so much nonchalance, and absently wonder over ‘ that miracle ‘ of the previous world. Because ‘THAT’S for thoughts,’ as my flower says ! look at it and listen.

As for me, I am your very own –

[Postmark: August 18, 1846]
ED

For these two dear letters, I thank you, dearest ! You are best, as ever ! And that is all I have to tell you, almost – for I have seen nobody, heard nothing . . except that Eugene Sue can paint, . . which Miss Mitford told me this morning in a note of hers, . . in which, besides, she complains of the fatigue she suffers from the visitors who go to see after her the Reading prison, as the next ‘ sight ‘ of the neighbourhood. Better to live in Cheapside, than among the oaks, on such conditions ! As to Mr. Kenyon, he does not approach me. So he may come to-morrow, perhaps, or even on Wednesday. Would it not appear the top of wisdom if you deferred our day to Thursday’s sun ! – now consider ! It would be a decided gain, surely, to be able to say to him on Wednesday that you had not seen me since you and he saw me together. So I propose Thursday if you permit it. Next week we may take up our two days again, as one takes up so many dropt silken stitches, . . and we will be careful that the beads do not run off in the meantime. To-day George came from circuit. He asked, for nearly a first question, whether I had thought of Italy – ‘Yes, I had thought of it – but there was time to think more.’ I am uneasy a little under George’s eyes.

You did not tell me of Mr. Chorley . . whether he put questions about the Continent, or pbserved on the mysteries in you. Does he go himself, and when ? A curious ‘ fact ‘ is, that Mrs. Jameson was in the next house to us this morning, and also a few days ago ; yet never came here – the reason certainly being a reluctance to seem to tread in upon the recalling confidence. I felt sorry, and obliged to her – both at once. Talking of confidences, I neglected to tell you when you were here last, that one more had escaped us. It was not by my choice, if by my fault. I wrote something in a note to Mr. Boyd some weeks ago, which nobody except himself would have paused to think over ; but he, like a prisoner in a dungeon, sounds every stone of the walls round him, and discerns a hollowness, detects a wooden beam, . . patiently pricks out the mortar with a pin – all this, in his rayless, compamonless Dark, – poor Mr. Boyd ! The time before I last went to see him, he asked me if I were going to be a nun – there, was the first guess! On the next visit he puts his question precisely right – I tried to evade – then, promised to be frank in a little time – but being pressed on all sides, and drawn on by a solemn vow of secrecy, I allowed him to see the truth – and he lives such an isolated life, that it is perfectly safe with him, setting the oath aside. Also, he was very good and kind, and approved highly of the whole, and exhorted me, with ever such exhortation, to keep to my purpose, and to allow no consideration in the world or out of the world, to make any difference – quoting the moral philosophers as to the rights of such questions. Is there harm in his knowing ? He knows nobody, talks to nobody, and is very faithful to his word. Just as I, you will retort, was foolish in mine ! Yet I do assure you, mine was a sort of word, which to nine hundred and ninety nine persons, would have suggested nothing – only he mused over it, turned it into all lights, and had nothing to do but that. Afterwards he was proud, and asked . . ‘ Was I not acute ? ‘ It was a pleasure to him, one could not grudge.

Are you well, ever dearest ? I am well. And yesterday, while they were at dinner, I walked out alone, or with Flush – twice to the corner of the street, turning it, to post your letter. May God bless you. Surely we feel alike in many, many things – the convolvuluses grow together ; twisted together and you lift me up from the ground ; you ! I am your very own –

Mr. Mathews said nothing more than I told you very briefly but he sent the review, he said – and it has not come.

[Postmark: August 17, 1846]

Your sight of Widdicombe was highly dramatic – and the policeman ‘ intersit nodo ‘ as well as any god of them all. What a personage Widdicombe must be ! Think of the mental state of a man, who could gravely apply to his own face false moustachios and rouge before a looking-glass. There is something in it to wonder over, as over the megalosaurie and prodigions of ridicules. Mind – when I talked of rouge improving a complexion for the nonce, I was thinking of women ; not of men, in whom that sort of colouring (even if it were natural) is detestable, or, to measure one’s language, very ugly indeed. I have seen a man, of whom it was related that he painted his lips – so that at dinner, with every course, was removed a degree of bloom ; the lips paled at the soup, grew paler at the mutton, became white at the fricandeau and ghastly at the pudding – till with the orange at dessert, his nearest neighbours drew back their chairs a little, expecting him to fall flat in a fainting-fit. But he was very rich, and could only talk charmingly out of those painted lips. There were women who ‘couldn’t conceive why people should call him a fool.’ To every Bottom’s head (not to wrong Bottom by such a comparison), there will be a special Titania – see if there will not !

So you go on Wednesday to this club-dinner, really. And you come to me also on Wednesday. Does that remain decided? I have had a letter from that poor Chiappino, to desire a ‘ last interview ‘ . . which is promised to be ‘ pacific.’ Oh – such stuff ! Am I to hold a handkerchief to my eyes and sob a little ? Your policeman is necessary to the full development of the drama, I think. And I forgot to tell you that there were two things in which I had shown great want of feeling – one, the venturing to enclose your verses – the other . . (now listen !) the other . . the having said that ‘ I was sincerely sorry for all his real troubles.’ Which I do remember having said once, when I was out of patience – as how can any one be patient continually ? and how was I especially to condole with him in lawn and weepers, on the dreadful fact of your existence in the world ? Well – he has real troubles unfortunately, and he is going away to live in a village somewhere. Poor Chiappino! A little occupation would be the best thing that could happen for him ; it would be better than prosperity without it. When a man spins evermore on his own axis, like a child’s toy I saw the other day, . . what is the use of him but to make a noise ? No greater tormentor is there, than self-love, . . even to self. And no greater instance of this, than this !

Dearest beloved, to turn away from the whole world to you . . when I do, do I lose anything . . or not rather gain all ? Sometimes I feel to wish that I had more to sacrifice to you, so as to prove something of what is in me – but you do not require sacrifice . . it is enough, you say, that I should be happy through you. How like those words are to you ! – how they are said in your own idiom ! And for myself, I am contented to think that, . . if such things can really satisfy you, . . you would find with difficulty elsewhere in the world than here, a woman as perfectly empty of life and gladness, except what comes to her from your hands. Many would be happy through you :– but to be happy through only you, is my advantage . . my boast. In this, I shall be better than the others.

Why, if you were to drive me from you after a little, in what words could I reproach you, but just in these . . ‘ You might have left me to die before.’ Still I should be your debtor, my beloved, as now I am

Your very own

BA.

I told you that I was going to the chapel one Sunday but I have not been yet. I had not courage. May God bless you ! –

[Postmark: August 17, 1846]

How I thank for your letter, ever beloved. You were made perfectly to be loved – and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long. Did I tell you that before, so often as I have thought it ? It is that which makes me take it all as visionary good – for when one’s Ideal comes down to one, and walks beside one suddenly, what is it possible to do but to cry out . . ‘a dream’ ? You are the best . . best. And if you loved me only and altogether for pity, (and I think that, more than you think, the sentiment operated upon your generous chivalrous nature), and if you confessed it to me and proved it, and I knew it absolutely – what then ? As long as it was love, should I accept it less gladly, do you imagine, because of the root ? Should I think it less a gift ? should I be less grateful, . . or more ? Ah – I have my ‘theory of causation’ about it all – but we need not dispute, and will not, on any such metaphysics. Your loving me is enough to satisfy me – and if you did it because I sate rather on a green chair than a yellow one, it would be enough still for me : – only it would not, for you – because your motives are as worthy always as your acts. – Dearest !

So let us talk of the great conference in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage, in which joined himself, Arabel, Flush and I. First he said . . ‘Did Browning stay much longer with you ?’ ‘Yes – some time.’ This was as we were going on our way toward some bridge, whence to look at the Birmingham train. As we came back, he said, with an epical leap in medias res . . ‘What an extraordinary memory our friend Browning has.’ ‘Very extraordinary’ – said I – ‘and how it is raining.’ I give you Arabel’s report of my reply, for I did not myself exactly remember the full happiness of it – and she assured me besides that he looked . . looked at me . . as a man may look . . And this was everything spoken of you throughout the excursion.

But he spoke of me and observed how well I was – on which Arabel said ‘Yes – she considered me quite well ; and that nothing was the matter now but sham.’ Then the railroads were discussed in relation to me . . and she asked him – ‘Shouldn’t she try them a little, before she undertakes this great journey to Italy ?’ ‘Oh’ . . he replied – ‘she is going on no great journey.’ ‘Yes, she will, perhaps – Ba is inclined to be a great deal too wild, and now that she is getting well, I do assure you, Mr. Kenyon.’

To sit upon thorns, would express rather a ‘velvet cushion’ than where I was sitting, while she talked this foolishness. I have been upbraiding her since, very seriously; and I can only hope that the words were taken for mere jest – du bout des lévres.

Moreover Mr. Kenyon is not going away on Thursday – he has changed his plans : he has put off Cambridge till the ‘spring’ – he meets Miss Bayley nowhere – he holds his police-station in London. ‘When are you going’ I asked in my despair, trying to look satisfied. He did not know – ‘not directly, at any rate’ – ‘I need not hope to get rid of him,’ he said aside perhaps.

But we saw the great roaring, grinding Thing . . a great blind mole, it looked for blackness. We got out of the carriage to see closer – and Flush was so frightened at the roar of it, that he leapt upon the coach-box. Also it rained, – and I had ever so many raindrops on my gown and in my face even, . . which pleased me nearly as much as the railroad sight. It is something new for me to be rained upon, you know.

As for happiness – the words which you use so tenderly are in my heart already, making me happy, . . I am happy by you. Also I may say solemnly, that the greatest proof of love I could give you, is to be happy because of you – and even you cannot judge and see how great a proof that is. You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight. May God bless you, ever ever dearest!

I am your own

[Postmark: August 15, 1846]

Saturday Morning.

A bright beautiful day this is, on which you do not come
— it seems as if you ought to have come on it by rights.
Dearest, you did not meet Mr. Kenyon yesterday after you
left me ? I fancied that you might, and so be detected in
the three hours, to the fullest length of them — it seemed
possible. Now I look forward to the driving instead of to
you — and he has just sent to desire me to be ready at a
quarter to three, and not later, as was fixed in your
hearing. And why, pray, should you be glad that I am going
on this excursion ? I should have liked it, if we had been
living in the daylight ; but with all these ‘ shadows, clouds
and darkness, ‘ it is pleasanter to me to sit still and see
nobody — and least, Mr. Kenyon. Oh, that somebody
would spirit him away gently, very gently, so as to do him
no manner of harm in achieving the good for me ! — for
both you and me. Did you say ‘ Do you pity me ‘ to me ?
I did not tell you yesterday that I have another new fear
. . an American lady who in her time has reviewed both
you and me, it seems, comes to see me . . is about to
come to see me . . armed with a letter of introduction
from Mr. Mathews — and in a week, I may expect her perhaps.
She is directed, too, towards Mr. Horne. Observe
the double chain thrown across the road at my feet — I am
entreated to show her attention and introduce her to my
friends . . things out of the question as I am situated.
Yet I have not boldness to say ‘ I will not see you.’ I
almost must see her, I do fear. Mr. Mathews ought to
have felt his way a little, before throwing such a weight on
me. He is delighted with your ‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘
(to pass from his frailties to his merits) and the
review of them is sent to me, he says — only that I do not
receive it.

Dearest, when I told you yesterday, after speaking of
the many coloured theologies of the house, that it was hard
to answer for what I was, . . I meant that I felt unwilling,
for my own part, to put on any of the liveries of the sects.
The truth, as God sees it, must be something so different
from these opinions about truth — these systems which fit
different classes of men like their coats, and wear brown at
the elbows always ! I believe in what is divine and floats
at highest, in all these different theologies — and because the
really Divine draws together souls, and tends so to a unity,
I could pray anywhere and with all sorts of worshippers,
from the Sistine Chapel to Mr. Fox’s, those kneeling and
those standing. Wherever you go, in all religious societies,
there is a little to revolt, and a good deal to bear with —
but it is not otherwise in the world without ; and, within, you
are especially reminded that God has to be more patient
than yourself after all. Still you go quickest there, where
your sympathies are least ruffled and disturbed — and I like,
beyond comparison best, the simplicity of the dissenters . .
the unwritten prayer, . . the sacraments administered
quietly and without charlatanism ! and the principle of a
church, as they hold it, I hold it too, . . quite apart from
state-necessities . . pure from the law. Well — there is
enough to dissent from among the dissenters — the Formula
is rampant among them as among others — you hear things
like the buzzing of flies in proof of a corruption — and see
every now and then something divine set up like a post for
men of irritable minds and passions to rub themselves
against, calling it a holy deed — you feel moreover bigotry
and ignorance pressing on you on all sides, till you gasp for
breath like one strangled. But better this, even, than
what is elsewhere — this being elsewhere too in different
degrees, besides the evil of the place. Public and social
prayer is right and desirable — and I would prefer, as a
matter of custom, to pray in one of those chapels, where
the minister is simple-minded and not controversial —
certainly would prefer it. Not exactly in the Socinian chapels,
nor yet in Mr. Fox’s — not by preference. The Unitarians
seem to me to throw over what is most beautiful in the
Christian Doctrine ; but the Formulists, on the other side,
stir up a dust, in which it appears excusable not to see.
When the veil of the body falls, how we shall look into
each other’s faces, astonished, . . after one glance at
God’s !

Have I written to you more than too much about my
doxy ? I was a little, little, uncomfortable in the retrospect
of yesterday, lest my quick answer should have struck you
as either a levity or an evasion — and have you not a right
to all ray thoughts of all things? For the rest, we will be
married just as you like . . volo quod vis : and you will
see by this profession of faith that I am not likely much to
care either way. There are some solemn and beautiful
things in the Church of England Marriage-service, as I once
heard it read, the only time I was present at such a ceremony
— but I heard it then in the abbreviated customary
form . . and not as the Puseyites (who always bring up the
old lamps against a new) choose to read it, they say, in spite
of custom. Archdeacon Hale with an inodorous old lamp,
displeased some of the congregation from Fenton’s Hotel, I
hear. But we need not go to the Puseyites at least. And
after all, perhaps the best will be what is easiest.
Something is sure to happen — something must surely happen
to put an end to it all … before I go to Greece !

May God bless you, ever dearest : Tell me if you get
this letter to-day, Saturday.

Your very own BA.

[Postmark: August 13, 1846]

Wednesday Evening.

‘ Did I ever receive such a letter ? ‘ Never — except
from you. It is a question easily answered.

As to other question, about the communion of contrarieties,
I agree with you, thought for thought, in all your
thinking about it — only adding one more reason to the
reasons you point out. There is another reason at the
bottom of all, I think — I cannot but think — and it is
just that, when women are chosen for wives, they are not
chosen for companions — that when they are selected to be
loved, it is quite apart from life — ‘ man’s love is of man’s
life a thing apart. ‘ A German professor selects a woman
who can merely stew prunes — not because stewing prunes
and reading Proclus make a delightful harmony, but because
he wants his prunes stewed for him and chooses to read
Proclus by himself. A fulness of sympathy, a sharing of
life, one with another, . . is scarcely ever looked for except
in a narrow conventional sense. Men like to come home
and find a blazing fire and a smiling face and an hour of
relaxation. Their serious thoughts, and earnest aims in
life, they like to keep on one side. And this is the carrying
out of love and marriage almost everywhere in the world —
and this, the degrading of women by both.

For friendship . . why Like seeks Like in friendship
very openly. To ‘ have sympathy ‘ with a person, is a good
banal current motive for friendship. Yet (for the minor
points) a man with a deficiency of animal spirits may like
the society of a man who can amuse him, and the amusing
man may have pleasure again in the sense of using a faculty
and conferring a benefit. It is happily possible to love
down, and even across a chasm — or the world would be
more loveless than it is. I have loved and still love people
a thousand souls off — as you have and do, of course ; —
but to love them better on that account, would be strange and
difficult.

Always I know, my beloved, that I am unworthy of
your love in a hundred ways — yet I do hold fast my sense
of advantage in one, — that, as far as I can see, I see
after you . . understand you, divine you . . call you by
your right name. Then it is something to be able to look
at life itself as you look at it — (I quite sigh sometimes with
satisfaction at that thought !) : there will be neither hope nor
regret away from your footsteps. Dearest — I feel to myself
sometimes, ‘ Do not move, do not speak — or the dream will
vanish.’ So fearfully like a dream, it is ! Like a reflection
in the water of an actual old, old dream of my own, too . .
touching which, . . now silent voices used to say “That
romantic child.”

What did you mean to say about my not believing in
your nature . . in your feelings . . what did you and could
you mean yesterday ? Was it because of my speech about
the ‘ calm eyes ‘ ? Ah — you ! — I did not think to make so
impressive a speech when I made it . . for this is not the
first time, Robert, you have quoted Hansard for it.
Well ! I shall not rise to explain after all. Only I do
justice to the whole subject . . eyes inclusively . .
‘ whatever you may think ‘ as you said yesterday with ever
such significance.

No — yes — now I will ask you one thing. Common eyes
will carry an emotion of a soul — and, so, not be calm, of
course. Calm ones, I know, will carry the whole soul and
float it up against yours, till it loses footing, and . . . . .
That is a little of what I meant by the calm in the eyes, and
so I will ask you whether I could wrong, by such meaning,
any depth in the nature.

At this moment you are at Mr. Kenyon’s — and you did
not, I think, go up this street. Perhaps you will go home
through it — but I shall not see — I cannot watch, being
afraid of the over-watchers. May God bless you, my own
dearest ! You have my heart with you as if it lay in your
hand ! I told you once that I never could love (in this
way of love) except upward very far and high — but you
are not like me in it, I thank God — since you can love
me. Love me, dearest of all — do not tire. I am your very
own

BA.

Another Bennett ! ! — yet the same. ! To Friday.