Author: EBB

[Postmark: July 28, 1846]

Monday Morning.

Ever dearest, your ‘ Hush ‘ came too late. I had
spoken. Do not blame me however, — for I do not blame
myself. It was not very possible that I should allow your
fine schemes to lie unmolested by a breath. Nevertheless
we will not carry on this discussion any farther : my simple
protest is enough for the present, — and we shall have time,
I hope, in the future, for your nobleness to unteach itself
from being too proud. At any rate, let the subject be,
now ! I mentioned my ‘ eldest surviving brother ‘ in that
way in the paper, because he is put out of the question
by the estates being entailed . . the Jamaica estates, I
mean. And now, to have done ! Unless I could make
you easier — !

Dearest, you may come to-morrow, Tuesday . . for my
aunt goes out and we shall have a clear ground. Ah — can
it be true that you wish me to be with you so — dearest,
dearest? That you miss me as you say, the day after?
Yet I am with you in my thoughts, in my affections,
always. Let them count for something, that it may not
be entirely an absence.

Bennett to Bennett. When Wilson brought up my
coffee on the little tray on Saturday, there was a Bennett
ready on one corner. Then I must not forget to tell you
how Mrs. Paine (you remember Mrs. Paine ?) writes of you
to me, . . speaking what she little knows the effects of . .
‘ I hope, ‘ she says, ‘ that you admire ‘ Luria ‘ greatly. I don’t
know whether you will call it a sweeping conclusion, but I
feel inclined to call Browning the greatest dramatic genius
we have had for hundreds of years.’ Can anybody be more
than the ‘ greatest ‘ to anybody ? Half inclined I might be
to be jealous of my prerogative of knowing you — yet no.
Dearest is greater than Greatest . . even if one Greatest
were not greater than anotner.

As to my headache, you might as well enquire about
Troy — Fait. It was the air, perhaps — the heat or the cold
. . the causes are forgotten with the effects. And, since I
began this letter, I have been out with my aunt and Henrietta,
the former having visits to pay in all the noisiest streets
of the town, as appeared to me. The stone pavements
seemed to accumulate on all sides to run to meet us, and I
was stunned and giddy, and am so tired that I shall finish
my letter in a hurry, looking to to-morrow. We were out
nearly three hours. Think of travelling three hours in a
‘ Diligence, ‘ with a Clap of Thunder ! It may be something
like that ! And as we were coming homeward . .
there was Mr. Kenyon ! He shook hands through the
window and declared that he was on the point of paying a
visit to me, holding up as witness, his lump of sugar for
Flush . . which Flush leapt from the other side of the
carriage to accept, ore rotundo. Then the next word
was . . ‘ Did you see our friend B. ‘ . . (pronounced Bee)
. . ‘ on Saturday. ? ‘ ‘ No,’ said I . . saying no for yes in
the confusion . . . ‘ but I shall to-morrow. ‘ ‘ He dined
with me, ‘ continued Mr. Kenyon. The sound of which
struck me into a fit of clairvoyance and I had to unsay
myself with an ‘ Oh yes — I did see him on Saturday. ‘ Mr.
Kenyon must have thought me purely stupid or foolish or
something of the sort — and really I agree with him. To
imagine my telling in that unsolicited way, too, both to my
aunt and himself, that you were coming here to-morrow !
So provoking ! Well — it can’t be helped. He won’t
come to-morrow in any case.

And you will ! Dearest, how glad I am that you are
coming !

Being your own
BA.

[Postmark: July 24, 1846]

Thursday Evening

No letter for me to-night ! not a word ! — Perhaps the post
is sinning again. If so, I shall hear to-morrow morning, if
not . . may it be anything rather than that you are more
unwell than usual ! anything !

There is not much to say on my part. I had a letter
from Miss Mitford this morning, and she encloses to me . . .
you will not guess what — a lyric of the ubiquitous Bennett
— the ‘ Mignonette.’ Are you not amused ? That’s the
way to ‘ agitate ‘ for readers and praisers. She sees
something in Bennett. He is to be ‘ heard of in our
literature.’ She shed tears over the ‘ Mignonette,’ herself —

Your portrait of Victor Hugo, I like less and less — there
is something ignoble in the face — and even the forehead is
rather big than large. He does not ‘ look like a poet ‘ in any
case — now does he ?

Dearest, did I annoy you . . frighten you, . . about
Wilson yesterday ? Did that prevent you from writing to
me to-day — if really you did not write to me to-day ? It yet
was the merest question, . . I wished you to understand —
the merest question for a yes or a no — and I shall not mind,
however you may answer, be certain. I have been thinking
to-day that it would be possible enough to leave a direction
which might supply everything, and so escape inflicting the
injury apprehended — yes, and as for myself, I shall manage
perfectly. Observe how I pinned your coat, miraculously
pricking you at the same moment. I shall do for myself
and by myself, as well as possible. And therefore, judge,
speak your thoughts out to the purpose and without drawback.
I shall always feel to thank you for speaking the
truth, even where it goes against me. But this will not
go against me, however you speak it, . . understand.

And as for what my sisters think, it is nothing to the
purpose. Say your ‘ no,’ and they never shall hear it. I
will avoid the subject from henceforth, with them . . that is
all.

And take care of Mr. Kenyon to-morrow. I feel afraid
of Mr. Kenyon. But take care of yourself most — look well
that you never let me do, in the least or greatest matter,
what would seem better undone hereafter. Not in the least,
not in the greatest. For me, if I am to be thought of,
remember that you kill me, if you suffer me to injure you.
That is for me.

See how I exhort people who do not write to me ! .
Ah no ! It must be the post’s fault. You could not be
very much vexed with me, I think, for a mere proposal
about Wilson. And the rest of my letter was all made up
of assent and agreement. You could not be vexed about
Wilson. And you shall not be ill, because I cannot bear to
think of it — which, dearest, is a good reason and
irrefragable.

The Hedleys dine here, and others. I hear the voices
and the laughing. I wish I could, your voice, as near.
May God bless you . . bless you —

Your own BA.

[Postmark: July 23, 1846]

Wednesday.

Dearest, what you say is unnecessary for you to say — it
is in everything so of course and obvious ! You must have
an eccentric idea of me if you can suppose for a moment
such things to be necessary to say. If they had been unsaid,
it would have been precisely the same, believe me, in
the event.

As to the way of living — now you shall arrange that
for yourself. You shall choose your own lodging, order
your own dinner . . and if you choose to live on locusts and
wild honey, I promise not to complain . . I shall not indeed
be inclined to complain . . having no manner of ambition
about carriages and large houses, even if they were within
our possibilities, — which they may not be, according to Mr.
Surtees’s calculation or experience. The more simply we
live, the better for me ! So you shall arrange it for yourself,
lest I should make a mistake ! . . which, in that question,
is a just possible thing.

One extravagance I had intended to propose to you . .
but it shall be exactly as you like, and I hesitate a little as
I begin to speak of it. I have thought of taking Wilson
with me, . . for a year, say, if we returned then — if not, we
might send her home alone . . and by that time, I should
be stronger perhaps and wiser . . rather less sublimely
helpless and impotent than I am now. My sisters have urged
me a good deal in this matter — but if you would rather it
were otherwise, be honest and say so, and let me alter my
thoughts at once. There is one consideration which I sub-
mit to yours, . . that I cannot leave this house with the
necessary number of shoes and pocket handkerchiefs, without
help from somebody. Now whoever helps me, will
suffer through me. If I left her behind she would be turned
into the street before sunset. Would it be right and just of
me, to permit it ? Consider ! I must manage a sheltering
ignorance for my poor sisters, at the last, . . and for all our
sakes. And in order to that, again, I must have some one
else in my confidence. Whom, again, I would unwillingly
single out for an absolute victim.

Wilson is attached to me, I believe — and, in all the
discussions about Italy, she has professed herself willing to
‘ go anywhere in the world with me.’ Indeed I rather fancy
that she was disappointed bitterly last year, and that it
would not be a pure devotion. She is an expensive servant —
she has sixteen pounds a year, . . but she has her utilities
besides, and is very amiable and easily satisfied, and would
not add to the expenses, or diminish from the economies,
even in the matter of room — I would manage that for her.
Then she would lighten your responsibilities . . as the
Archbishop of Canterbury and company do Mr. Sevan’s.
Well — you have only to consider your own wishes. I
shall not care many straws, if you decide this way or that
way. Let it be as may seem to you wisest.

I like Mr. Chorley’s note. I began to write so late
that I, too, must send you a bare note to-night. May God
bless you, ever dearest. I am tired . . so tired — yet I have
not a long story to tell you of myself for the day’s chronicle
I was just out for the few minutes my walking occupies, and
came home and had coffee at half-past four ; and scarcely
was the cup empty, when Mrs. Jameson arrived — she stayed
while you might count to a hundred — and your name was
not once mentioned. And now, good-night. I hope the
‘ testimonials ‘ may be ‘ satisfactory,’ in this note which will
not wait to be a letter ! Dearest, say how your head is —
do.

I am your Ba, always !

[Postmark: July 22, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

I did not go out yesterday, and was very glad not to
have a command laid on me to go out, the wind blew so
full of damp and dreariness. Then it was pleasanter to lie
on the sofa and think of you, which I did, till at last I
actually dreamed of you, falling asleep for that purpose.
As to Flush, he came upstairs with a good deal of shame
in the bearing of his ears, and straight to me — no indeed !
I would not speak to him — then he went up to Arabel . .
‘ naughty Flush, go away ‘ . . and Wilson, . . who had
whipped him before, ‘ because it was right,’ she said . . in a
fit of poetical justice, . . did not give him any consolation.
So he lay down on the floor at my feet looking from under
his eyebrows at me. I did not forgive him till nearly
eight o’clock however. And I have not yet given him your
cakes. Almost I am inclined to think now that he has not
a soul. To behave so to you ! It is nearly as bad as if
I had thrown the coffee-cup ! Wicked Flush ! — Do you
imagine that I scolded Wilson when she confessed to having
whipped him ? I did not. It was done with her hand, and
not very hardly perhaps, though ‘he cried,’ she averred to
me — and if people, like Flush, choose to behave like dogs
savagely, they must take the consequences indeed, as dogs
usually do ! And you, so good and gentle to him ! Anyone
but you, would have said ‘ hasty words ‘ at least. I
think I shall have a muzzle for him, to make him harmless
while he learns to know you. Would it not be a good
plan ?

But nobody heard yesterday of either your visit or of
Flush’s misdoings . . so Wilson was discreet, I suppose, as
she usually is, by the instinct of her vocation. Of all the
persons who are not in our confidence, she has the most
certain knowledge of the truth. Dearest, we shall be able
to have Saturday. There will be no danger in it.

Perhaps in the days to come we shall look back on these
days as covetable things. Will you do so, because you
were loved in them as a beginning, or because you were
free ? (Am I not as bad as Flush, to ask such questions ?)
I shall look back on these days gratefully and gladly, because
the good in them has overcome the evil, for the first time in
days of mine. Yet my position is worse than yours on some
accounts — now. Henrietta has had a letter from Capt.
Surtees Cook who says in it, she says, . . ‘ I hope that poor
Ba will have courage to the end.’ There’s a generous sympathy !
Tell me that there is none in the world !

Will you let me know how you are ? Such a letter
you wrote to me on Sunday ! Ah ! — to be anything to
you . . . what is the colour of ambition afterwards ? When
I look forwards I can see no work and no rest, but what is
for you and in you. Even Duty seems to concentrate
itself into one Debt — Dearest !

Yet it will be a little otherwise perhaps ! — not that ever
I shall love you otherwise or less — No.

You shall see some day at Pisa what I will not show you
now. Does not Solomon say that ‘ there is a time to read
what is written.’ If he doesn’t, he ought.

Your very own BA.

[Postmark: July 20, 1846]

Sunday.

Dearest, the leaf of yesterday was folded down quite
smoothly and softly. A dinner party swept the thought
of you out of people’s minds. Otherwise I was prepared to
be a little afraid, — for my aunt said to Arabel, upon being
dispensed with so cavalierly from this room, . . (said in the
passage, Arabel told me, with a half-laugh,) ‘Pray which
of Ba’s lovers may this be ? ‘ So Arabel had to tell the
name of the visitor. But the dinner-party set all right, and
this morning I was asked simply whether it had been an
agreeable visit, and what you had written, and banalities
after such a fashion.

Oh, and I went out . . remembering your desire . .
was it not a desire, dearest, dearest ? I went out, any
way — but the wind blew, and I had to hold my veil against
my mouth, doubled, and trebled . . with as many folds,
indeed, as Ajax’s shield . . to keep myself in breathing
order. The wind always gives me a sort of strangling
sensation, which is the effect, I suppose, of having weak
lungs. So it was not a long walk, but I liked it because
you seemed to be with me still, — and Arabel, who walked
with me, was ‘sure, without being told, that I had had a
happy visit, just from my manner.’ The wisest of inter-
preters, I called her, and pour cause.

If ever I mistake you, Robert, doing you an injustice.
. . you ought to be angry, I think, rather and more with me
than with another — I should have far less excuse it appears
to me, for making such a mistake, than any other person in
the world. I thought so yesterday when you were speaking,
and now upon consideration I think so with an increasing
certainty. Is it your opinion that the members of our
family, . . those who live with us always, . . know us best ?
They know us on the side we offer to them . . a bare
profile . . or the head turned round to the ear — yes ! —
they do not, except by the merest chance, look into our
eyes. They know us in a conventional way . . as far from
God’s way of knowing us, as from the world’s — mid-way,
it is — and the truest and most cordial and tender affection
will not hinder this from being so partial a knowledge.
Love ! I love those who at the present moment, . . who
love me (and tenderly on both sides) . . but who are
so far from understanding me, that I never think of
speaking myself into their ears . . of trying to speak myself.
It is wonderful, it is among the great mysteries of life, to
observe how people can love one another in the dark,
blindly . . loving without knowing. And, as a matter of
general observation, if I sought to have a man or woman
revealed to me in his or her innermost nature, I would not
go to the family of the person in question — though I
should learn there best, of course, about personal habits,
and the social bearing of him or her. George Sand delights
me in one of her late works, where she says that the souls of
blood relations seldom touch except at one or two points.
Perfectly true, that is, I think — perfectly.

Remember how you used to say that I did not know
you . . which was true in a measure . . yet I felt I knew
you, and I did actually know you, in another larger measure.
And if now you are not known to me altogether, it is my
dulness which makes me unknowing.

But I know you — and I should be without excuse if
ever I wronged you with a moment’s injustice. I do not
think I ever could depreciate you for a moment, — that
would not be possible. There are other sins against you
(are they against you ?) which bring their own punishment !
You shall never be angry with me for those.

While I was writing, came Mr. Kenyon. As usual he
said that there was no use in his coming — that you had
taken his place, and so on. He was in a high good
humour, though, and spirits, and I did not mind much
what he was pleased to say. More I minded, that he
means ‘to stay in London all the summer ‘ . . which I
can’t be glad of, . . though I was glad at his not persisting
in going to Scotland against his own wishes. But he might
like to go somewhere else — it would be a pleasure, that, in
which I should sympathize ! The more shame for me !

Mr. Chorley pleases me more than he ever pleased me
before ! Only, as an analysis, he has done curiously with
‘Pippa.’ But it is good appreciation, good and righteous,
and he has given me, altogether, a great, great deal of
pleasure. As to the letter, I liked that too in its degree —
and the advice is wise for the head, if foolish for the work.
How can wise people be so foolish ?

I am going out to walk now with Henrietta, and shall
put this letter into the post with my own hand. It is seven
p.m. May God bless you. Do say how you are, dear,
dearest !

I am your very own BA.

[Postmark: July 18, 1846]

It is out of time to-night to write to you, since to-morrow
we are to meet but the letter which did not reach you,
has been recoiling on me all day. Perhaps you have it by
this time . . an uncomfortable letter, better away from
you, notwithstanding all the kindness you speak, about my
silence and the effect of that. So I write just a few words
The post office was in fault as usual. May it do perfecter
duty to-morrow.

Saturday ! our day ! At least if anything should be
against it, you shall hear at the door by a note, when you
come at three o’clock. I have put away my Thursday
night’s melancholy . . except the repentance of troubling
you with it understand that I have !

Mrs. Jameson was here to-day, and her niece, . . and
you, never named, but she is coming another day, she says,
to pay me a longer visit. I like her . . I like her. Then,
there came another visitor, . . my uncle Hedley, who
began, as usual, to talk of Italy he advises me to go this
year. ‘ If you don’t go this year, you never will go . .
and you ought at once to make an effort, and go.’ We
talked of places and of ways, and after he had said many
words in favour of Pisa, desired, if I went through Paris,
that I would pay him a visit. ‘ Ah,’ said I, ‘ uncle
Hedley, you are very good to me always, but when that
day arrives, you may be inclined, perhaps, to cast me off,’
‘ Cast you off, Ba,’ he cried in the most puzzled astonish-
ment ‘ why what can you mean ? what words to use !
Cast you off ! now do explain what you mean.’ ‘ Ah, no
one can tell,’ said I musingly. ‘Do you mean,’ he
insisted, ‘ because you will be a rebel and a runaway ? ‘ . .
(laughing !) ‘ no, no I won’t cast you off, I promise you !
Only I hope that you may be able to manage it quietly ‘
&c. &c.

He is a most amiable man, so gentle and tender ; and
fond of me ; exclusively of the poetry. I am certain that
he never can make out how anyone in the world can
consent to read my verses. But Ba, as Ba, is a decided
favourite of his, beyond all in the house not that he is a
real uncle . . only the husband of my aunt, and caring
more for me than both my real uncles, who, each of them,
much prefer a glass of claret, thank you ! The very
comparison does me too much honour for either of them.
Claret is a holy thing. If I had said half a glass, and
mixed it with water, I should have been more accurate by
so much.

Now, dearest, dearest, I say good-night and have done.
I am wholly yours and always.

[Postmark: July 17, 1846]

Thursday.

Dearest, if you feel that, must I not feel it more deeply ?
Twice or three times lately he has said to me ‘ my love ‘
and even ‘ my puss,’ his old words before he was angry
last year, . . and I quite quailed before them as if they were
so many knife-strokes. Anything but his kindness, I can
bear now.

Yet I am glad that you feel that . . The difficulty,
(almost the despair !) has been with me, to make you understand the two ends of truth . . both that he is not stone . .
and that he is immovable as stone. Perhaps only a very
peculiar nature could have held so long the position he
holds in his family. His hand would not lie so heavily,
without a pulse in it. Then he is upright faithful to
his conscience. You would respect him, . . and love him
perhaps in the end. For me, he might have been king and
father over me to the end, if he had thought it worth while
to love me openly enough yet, even so, he should not
have let you come too near. And you could not (so) have
come too near for he would have had my confidence from
the beginning, and no opportunity would have been permitted to you of proving your affection for me, and I should
have thought always what I thought at first. So the nightshade and the eglantine are twisted, twined, one in the
other, . . and the little pink roses lean up against the pale
poison of the berries — we cannot tear this from that, let us
think of it ever so much !

We must be humble and beseeching afterwards at least,
and try to get forgiven — Poor Papa ! I have turned it
over and over in my mind, whether it would be less offensive, less shocking to him, if an application were made first.
If I were strong, I think I should incline to it at all risks
but as it is, . . it might . . would, probably, . . take away the
power of action from me altogether. We should be separated, you see, from that moment, . . hindered from writing . .
hindered from meeting . . and I could evade nothing, as I
am not to say that I should have fainting fits at every
lifting of his voice, through that inconvenient nervous
temperament of mine which has so often made me ashamed
of myself. Then . . the positive disobedience might be a
greater offence than the unauthorised act. I shut my eyes
in terror sometimes. May God direct us to the best.

Oh — do not write about this, dearest, dearest? — I
throw myself out of it into the pure, sweet, deep thought of
you . . which is the love of you always. I am yours . . your
own. I never doubt of being yours. I feel too much
yours. It is might and right together. You are more to
me, beside, than the whole world.

Write nothing of this, dearest of all ! — it is of no use.
To-day . . this morning . . I went out in the carriage, and
we drove round the Park ; and Mrs. Jameson did not come
afterward. Will she put it off till Saturday ? I have heard
nothing against Saturday, by the way, worse than that con-
jecture of mine.

And I have written you, perhaps, a teazing, painful
letter . . I, who love you to-day ‘ as much as ever.’ It is
my destiny, I sometimes think, to torment you. And let
me say what I will, remember how nothing that I say can
mean a doubt you never shall have reason to reproach me
for the falseness of cowardice that double falseness . .
both to me and to you. Only I wish this were Christmas day, and we … even at Salerno . . in the ‘ bad air ‘ ! There’s
no harm in such a wish now is there ?

Ever and ever I am your own

BA.

[Postmark: July 15, 1846]

Wednesday Evening.

Well ! I anticipated your asking, I think, and told you
fully this morning. It was a chronicle I sent you, rather
than a letter. And nothing is left to tell you for I did
not go out all day . . nor yesterday. Which was wrong.
But I had visitor on visitor to-day, . . my old maid coming
to bring me her baby to look at, to Flush’s infinite delight.
Whenever she comes he devotes hmself to her, stays with
her down-stairs, lies on the corner of her gown, and, for the
most part, forbears going to sleep. To-morrow I mean to
go out . . to-morrow, when you are beginning to think
rather less of me.

Isn’t it ungrateful of me ? I think so.

I am glad, at least, that I do not appear to you ‘ sus-
picious.’ Because I dislike suspicious people myself, and
it has struck me often in the midst of the dislike . . ‘ That
is how I must appear to him.’ Ah but you are too
indulgent to me, my own dearest . . too dearest ! . . .
and you draw crooked inferences for me, shutting both the
eyes . . the near-sighted eye and far-sighted eye. Or is it,
in that strange sight of yours, that I walk between the far
and the near objects, in an invisible security ? Or is it
(which were best) that I am too near to be seen even by
the near-sighted eye, . . like a hand brought close to the
eyelashes, which, for over-closeness, nobody can see ? Let
me be too near to be seen always too near ! dearest,
dearest ! Never will I complain that you do not see me !
Be sure of that, now.

Once I used to be more uneasy, and to think that I
ought to make you see me. But Love is better than Sight,
and Love will do without Sight. Which I did not under-
stand at first. I knew it was enough for me, that you
should love me. That it was enough for you, I had to learn
afterwards.

And ‘ Grateful ‘ is my word and not yours. I am
grateful to you, if to owe you all the sense of life, all the
renewal of hope, all the possibility of happiness . . if to
owe these things to another, consciously, feelingly, shall
pass for gratitude, . . then I am grateful to you, Robert.

Do you not know it, that I should say it again ? For me,
it seems to me that I can do nothing in return. To love
you ! Why no woman in the world could do less.

I am glad, both for the public and Tennyson, that his
poems sell so well and presently you will do as well or
better and I, half as well perhaps ; so that we shall be
too rich, which will spoil it all . . won’t it ?

Mr. Horne sent me the Daily News to-day, . . the
number containing his verses on Haydon . . and I cut
from it an advertisement, for the purpose of bidding you
observe that the land journey, or river-voyage, is very much
cheaper than the sea-voyage by the steamers unless the
direct vessel to Leghorn should go as last year, and I fear
it will not. The steamer-charges of the Oriental company
are immense. Nineteen guineas to Gibraltar even !
Twenty-eight, I think, to Naples. As for the advertisement,
I send it only for what it suggests. And there is time
enough for calculations, all ways suggestible.

May God bless you, dear, dear ! How is the head ?
Shall it be better, without me, until Saturday ? Say how
it is.

Among all my visitors, the only one I expected, never
came ! No Mrs. Jameson again to-day !

Dearest, I am your very own

BA.

[Postmark: July 15, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

And is it true of to-day as you said it would be, ever
dearest, that you wish to be with me? Let me have the
comfort, or luxury rather, of the thought of it, before to-
morrow takes you a step farther off.

At dinner my aunt said to Papa.. ‘I have not seen
Ba all day and when I went to her room, to my astonish-
ment a gentleman was sitting there.’ ‘Who was that?’ said
Papa’s eyes to Arabel ‘Mr. Browning called here to-day,’
she answered ‘And Ba bowed her head,’ continued my
aunt, ‘as if she meant to signify to me that I was not to
come in’- ‘ Oh,’ cried Henrietta, ‘that must have been
a mistake of yours. Perhaps she meant just the contrary.’
‘You should have gone in,’ Papa said, ‘and seen the poet.’
Now if she really were to do that the next time! Yet I
did not, you know, make the expelling gesture she thought
she saw. Simply I was startled. As to Saturday we must
try whether we cannot defend the position.. set the
guns against the approaches to right and left.. we must
try.

In speaking too of your visit this morning, Stormy
said to her.. ‘Oh Mr. Browning is a great friend of
Ba’s! He comes here twice a week is it twice a week or
once, Arabel?’

While I write, the Hedleys come and Mrs. Hedley is
beseeching me into seeing Mr. Bevan, whom perhaps I must
see, notwithstanding Flush’s wrongs.

By the way, I made quite clear to Flush that you
left the cakes, and they were very graciously received
indeed.

Dearest, since the last word was written, Mrs. Hedley
came back leading Mr. Bevan, and Papa who had just
entered the room found the door shut upon him.. I was

nervous.. oh, so nervous! and the six feet, and some-
thing more, of Mr. Bevan seemed to me as if they never
would end, so tall the man is. Well and he sate down
by me according to my aunt’s arrangement; and I, who
began to talk a thousand miles from any such subject, with
a good reason for the precaution, found myself thrown
head-foremost into ecclesiastical architecture at the close of
about three minutes how he got there all his saints know
best! It’s his subject.. par excellence. He talks to
Arabella about arches and mullions he can’t talk of any-
thing else, I suspect. And because the Trinity is ex-
pressed in such a form of church-building, the altar at the
east, and the baptistery at the door, .. there’s no other
lawful form of a church, none at all! Not that he has an
opinion! he ‘adopts opinions,’ but would not think for
himself for the world at the risk of ultimate damnation!
Which was the amount of his talk to-day.. and really it
does not strike me as wisdom, now that I set it down so.
Yet the man expressed himself well and has a sensible face
he is a clever third-class man, I think better than the
mass for sense, but commonplace essentially. Only,
inasmuch as ecclesiastical architecture is not my subject,
I may think otherwise of him when I know him otherwise.
I do not dislike him now. And then I am conscious how
you spoil me for common men, dearest! It is scarcely fair
on them.

My aunt (Mrs. Hedley) said when she introduced him:
‘You are to understand this to be a great honour for
she never lets anybody come here except Mr. Kenyon, ..
and a few other gentlemen’… (laughing). Said Papa
‘Only one other gentleman, indeed. Only Mr. Browning,
the poet the man of the pomegranates.’ Was that likely
to calm me, do you think? How late it is I must break
off. To-night I shall write again. Dearest beloved,

I am your own always.

[Postmark: July 14, 1846]

Monday Morning.

I must write.. even if you come to-morrow. Dearest,
if I told you all that nonsense on Saturday, it was for the
sake of telling you all and of hearing you say ‘What
nonsense’ afterwards. I never began by disguising any-
thing from you.. did I? I always wished you to see
how the arrows would strike out at us from that bush and
this bush. At us. For, granting that you seriously
thought it possible for such motives to divide me from
you, … ah, granting it, .. and you may well ask my
pardon!

The world! the world could as soon catch me with a
‘line’ so baited, as you could catch a trout with a silver
sixpence at the end of a string. Not only do I think with
you entirely on that subject, but I always thought like
you. Always I have hated all their worldly systems, and
not merely now, and since I have loved you. With a
hundred a year between us, I would have married you, if
you had not been afraid. And so, think whether directly
or ‘indirectly’ I am likely to be frightened into the breach
of an engagement by what I repeated to you or by what is
like unto it. No my weaknesses are of a different class
altogether.

The talk I talked over again to you, seemed to burn in
my ears the longer on that Saturday, because, while it was
being originally talked between Papa and my aunt (touch-
ing Arabella Hedley’s marriage), he had brought a paper
for me to sign about some money placed on a railway, (not
speculatively).. and my aunt, by way of saying a lively
thing, exclaimed, ‘Is that your marriage-settlement, my
dear?’.. which made me so nervous that I wrote my
name wrong and vexed Papa into being almost cross with
me. So one word got entwined with another, and all
seemed to hang around me Do you understand?

But you do not, how you pained me when you said that.
Ah-I thought I saw you gone.. ‘so far, so far,’ as you
said.. and myself left.

Yet I should deserve it of course, if I were to give you
up for the sake of that! .. or for any other motive, ..
except your advantage.. your own. I should deserve
everything in such a case, but should feel nothing..
not even my punishment. Could I? .. being without a
heart?

Ah-after all my mistrust, did I ever mistrust you so?
I have doubted your power to love me as you believed you
loved me, perhaps but your will to be true to one you
loved, without reference to worldly influences, I never
doubted, nor could. I think I will let you beg my pardon;
you unjust, dearest..

To so much over-praise, there should be a little wrong-
ing, too.. and therefore you are not, after all, ‘unjust’
.. only ‘dearest’!….

Such a letter, besides, you have written, .. and there
are two of them to-day! You will not go from me, I
think, ‘so far, so far.’ You will not leave me behind,
with the harpoon in me, to make red the salt wilderness of
waters.

Altogether, then, I forgive you, Robert and it is
glorious for me to have something to forgive you for,
who are the best so out of measure! I seize the
opportunity.

And you come to-morrow ! Which is right.. right!
I was afraid that you would not come And Mrs.
Jameson is perfectly uncertain as you may read in this new
note which reached me with yours to-night.

All the Hedleys have dined here. To-morrow will be
clear of them.. pure of them, I was going to write..
but I thought of Mrs. Hedley’s beaming affectionate face..
(so still lovely, she looked this evening, when she came
up-stairs to kiss me!).. and could not say such a wronging
word. You would like her you could not help it.

I was in the carriage to-day in Oxford Street.. and a
sealed letter was thrown exactly at my head, my aunt and
cousin and Henrietta being with me a sealed letter sealed
with arms (not of Agincourt!) and directed ‘For your
perusal.’ Guess the meaning of that! why just a tract by
the Rev. Villiers of that parish, upon the enormous wicked-
ness of frequenting plays and balls! Perhaps I looked
as if my soul had entered into the secret of the Polka-
dancers!-who can say?

So, good-night, dearest dearest!

I cannot give myself again to you,

being your own.

Of course this was written with the poker, as you will
see by the calligraphy.