Author: EBB

[Postmark: July 13, 1846]

Sunday. 6 P.M.

Ever, ever dearest, I have to feel for you all through Sunday, and I hear no sound and see no light. How are you? how did you get home yesterday? I thought of you more than usual after you went, if I did not love you as much as usual . . . What could that doubt have been made of?

Dearest, I had a letter last night from Mrs. Jameson, who says that on Tuesday or Wednesday at about four o’clock (though she is as little sure of the hour apparently as of the day), she means to come to see me. Now you are to consider whether this grand peutêtre will shake our Tuesday, . . whether you would rather take Thursday instead, or will run the risk as it appears. I am ready to agree, either way. She is the most uncertain of uncertain people, and may not come at all . . it’s a case for what Hume used to call sceptical scepticism. Judge! Then I have heard (I forgot to tell you) from Mr. Home – and . . did you have two letters last week from your Bennet? . . because I had, – flying leaves of ‘Mignonette,’ and other lyrical flowers.

When you had gone Arabel came to persuade me to go to the park in a cab, notwithstanding my too lively recollections of the last we chanced upon, – and I was persuaded, and so we tumbled one over another (yet not all those cabs are so rough!) to the nearest gate opening on the grass, and got out and walked a little. A lovely evening it was, but I wished somehow rather to be at home, and Flush had his foot pinched in shutting the cab-door, . . and altogether there was not much gain: – only, as for Flush’s foot, though he cried piteously and held it up, looking straight to me for sympathy, no sooner had he touched the grass than he began to run without a thought of it. Flush always makes the most of his misfortunes – he is of the Byronic school – il se pose en victime.

Now I will not write any more – I long to have my letter of to-morrow morning – I long to have it . . Shall I not have it to-morrow morning? This is posted by my hand.

I loved you yesterday . . I love you to-day . . I shall love you to-morrow.

Every day I am yours.

BA.

[Postmark: July 10, 1846]

How I have waited for your letter to-night, and it
comes nearly at ten ! It comes at last thank you for it,
ever dearest.

And I knew quite understood yesterday, that you were
sorry for me, which made you angry with another . . but, as to
poor Haydon, you are too generous and too pitiful to refuse
him any justice. I was sure that the letters would touch
you. The particular letter about the ‘ back-ground ‘ and
the ‘ neglect ‘ and Napoleon, . . that, you will observe, was
the last I had from him. Every word you say of it, I
think and feel. Yes, it was just so ! His conscience was
not a sufficient witness, . . nor was God. He must also
have the Royal Academy and the appreciators of Tom
Thumb. A ‘weak man,’ of course he was, for all vain
men are weak men. They cannot stand alone. But that
he had in him the elements of greatness that he looked to
noble aims in art and life, however distractedly, . . that his
thoughts and feelings were not those of a common man, . .
it is true, it is undeniable, and you would think so more
and more if you read through the packets of letters which
I have of his so fervid, so full of earnestness and individuality . . so alive with egotism which yet seemed to redeem
itself. Mr. Kenyon said of the letter we have spoken of,
that it was scarcely the production of a sane mind. But I
who was used to his letters, saw nothing in it in the least
unusual he has written to me far wilder letters ! That he
never should die,’ he had said once or twice before. Then
Napoleon was a favourite subject of his . . constantly re-
curred to. He was not mad then !

Poor Haydon ! Think what an agony, life was to him,
so constituted ! his own genius a clinging curse ! the
fire and the clay in him seething and quenching one
another ! the man seeing maniacally in all men the
assassins of his fame ! and, with the whole world against
him. struggling for the thing which was his life, through
night and day, in thoughts and in dreams . . struggling,
stifling, breaking the hearts of the creatures dearest to him,
in the conflict for which there was no victory, though he
could not choose but fight it. Tell me if Laocoon’s anguish
was not as an infant’s sleep, compared to this ? And could a
man, suffering so, stop to calculate very nicely the consideration due to A, and the delicacy which should be observed
toward B ? Was he scrupulously to ask himself whether
this or that cry of his might not give C a headache ?

Indeed no, no. It is for us rather to look back and consider !
Poor Haydon.

As to grief as grief of course he had no killing grief.
But he suffered.

Often it has struck me as a curious thing (yet it is not
perhaps curious) that suicides are occasioned nearly always
by a mortified self-love . . by losses in money, which force
a man into painful positions . . and scarcely ever by
bereavement through death . . scarcely ever. The wound
on the vanity is more irritating than the wound on the
affections and the word Death, if it does not make us
recoil (which it does I think sometimes, . . even from the
graves of beloved beings !), yet keeps us humble . . casts
us down from our heights. We may despond, but we do
not rebel we feel God over us.

Ah your poor gardener ! All that hope is vain and
the many, many hopes which in a father’s heart must have
preceded it ! How sorry I am for him.

You never can have a grief, dearest dearest, of which I
shall not have half for my share. That is my right from
henceforth . . and if I could have it all . . would I not,
do you think, . . and give my love to you to keep instead ?
Yes, . . indeed yes ! May God bless you always. I
have walked out to-day, you did me so much good yester-
day. As for Saturday, it certainly is our day, since you are
not ‘ particularly engaged ‘ to Miss Campbell. Saturday,
the day after to-morrow ! But the mules may wait long at
La Cava for us, if the tradition, which I sent you, is trustworthy may they not ? I feel as disappointed . . as disappointed

Your own, very own BA.

[Postmark: July 9, 1846]

See what an account we have this morning of La Cava . .
‘ quite impossible for the winter.’ What does ‘ quite impossible ‘ quite mean, I wonder ? I feel disappointed. As to
Palermo, you would rather be in Italy, and so would I, perhaps. Salerno seems questionable too ; and Vietri . . what
of Vietri ? I don’t at all see why we should receive the
responses of this friend of my friend who is not so very
much my friend, as if they were oracular and final. There
must be the right of appeal for us to other authorities.
Will you investigate and think a little ? For my part I shall
not care to what place we go, except for the climate’s sake
the cheapness too should be considered a little : and, for
the rest, every place which you should like, I should like,
and which you liked most, I should like most everything
is novelty to me, remember.

My uncle Hedley has just come now, and I must
quicken my writing. Oh to be so troubled just now . .
just now ! But I wrote to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd last
night, and told him as fully and as briefly as I could the
whole position . . and that vexation I shall try now to
throw behind me, after the fashion of dear Mr. Kenyon’s
philosophy. I put the thought of you, beloved, between
me and all other thoughts surely I can, when you were
here only yesterday. So much to think of, there is ! One
thing made me laugh in the recollection. Do you mean to
tell Mrs. Jameson that you are going to marry me, ‘ because
it is intolerable to hear me talked of? ‘ That would be an
original motive. ‘ So speaks the great poet.’

Ah Flush, Flush ! he did not hurt you really ? You
will forgive him for me ? The truth is that he hates all
unpetticoated people, and that though he does not hate you,
he has a certain distrust of you, which any outward sign,
such as the umbrella, reawakens. But if you had seen
how sorry and ashamed he was yesterday ! I slapped his
ears and told him that he never should be loved again : and
he sate on the sofa (sitting, not lying) with his eyes fixed on
me all the time I did the flowers, with an expression of
quite despair in his face. At last I said, ‘ If you are good,
Flush, you may come and say that you are sorry ‘ . . on
which he dashed across the room and, trembling all over,
kissed first one of my hands and then another, and put up
his paws to be shaken, and looked into my face with such
great beseeching eyes that you would certainly have forgiven
him just as I did. It is not savageness. If he once loved
you, you might pull his ears and his tail, and take a bone
out of his mouth even, and he would not bite you. He
has no savage caprices like other dogs and men I have
known.

Writing of Flush, in my uncle comes, and then my
cousin, and then my aunt . . . by relays ! and now it is
nearly four and this letter may be too late for the post
which reaches you irregularly. So provoked I am ! but I
shall write again, to-night, you know.

Dearest, you did me so much good yesterday ! Say how
your head is and remember Saturday. Saturday will be
clear through Chiswick may the sun shine on it !

Your own BA.

Think of the dreadful alternative as set forth in this
MS. ! The English . . or a bad climate ! Can it be
true?

[ La Cava is impossible for the winter owing to the damp
and cold. At no season should any person remain out at
the hour of sunset. An hour afterwards the air is dry and
healthy [ Is this at La Cava ? Ba ] This applies to all
Italy, and is a precaution too often neglected. Salerno has
bad air too near it, to be safe as a residence. Besides, it
is totally without the resources of books, good food, or
medical advice. Palermo would be agreeable in the
winter, and not very much frequented by English. How-
ever, where good climate exists, English are to be found.
Murray’s ‘Southern Italy’ would give every particular as to
the distance of La Cava from the sea. ]

[Postmark: July 8, 1846]

Tuesday Evening

Yes—I understand you perfectly—and it should be exactly as you say—and it is just that, which requires so much adroitness,—and such decision and strength of hand, to manage these responsibilities. Somebody is wanted to cut and burn, and be silent afterwards. I remember that bitter things are said of Shelley and Leigh Hunt beyond all the bitterness of alcohol. Olives do not taste so, though steeped in salt. There are some curious letters by poor Keats about Hunt, and they too are bitter. It would be dreadful to suffer these miseries to sow themselves about the world, like so much thistle-down . . the world, where there are thistles enough already, to make fodder for its wild asses!

As to Landor . . oh, I did not remember the note you speak of in the satire you speak of—but you remember everything . . . even me. Is it not true that Landor, too, is one of the men who carry their passions about with them into everything, as a boy would, pebbles . . muddying every clear water, with a stone here and a stone there. The end is, that we lose the image of himself in the serene depth, as we might have had it—and the little stone comes to stand for him. How unworthy of such a man as Landor, such weakness is! To think with one’s temper!! One might as well be at once Don Quixote, and fight with a warming-pan.

But I did not remember the former opinion. I took it for a constitutional fancy of Lander’s, and did not smile much more at it than at my own ‘profundity in German,’ which was a matter of course . . of course . . of course. For have I not the gift of tongues? Don’t I talk Syriac . . as well as Flush talks English—and Hebrew, like a prophetess . . and various other languages and dialects less familiarly known to persons in general than these aforesaid? So, profound indeed, must be the German and the Dutch! And perhaps it may not be worth while to answer Mr. Landor’s note for the mere purpose of telling him anything about it.

Dearest!—I have written all this before I would say a word of your coming, just to think a little more—and down all these pages I have been thinking, thinking, of you . . of your possible coming . . what nonsense they must be! Well! and the end is that, let it be wise or unwise, I must and will see you to-morrow—I cannot do otherwise. It is just as if Flush had been shut up in a box for so many days. My spirits flag . . and I could find it in my heart to grow cross like Landor and deny Goethe. So come, dearest dearest—and let the world bark at our heels if it pleases. I will just turn round and set Flush at it.

For two or three days I have not been out—not for two days . . not out of this room. This evening at seven, when they were all going to dinner, I took Wilson with me and drove into the park for air. It will do me good perhaps—but your coming will, certainly. So come, my dearest beloved!—At three, remember.

Your own
BA.

[Postmark: July 7, 1846]YS

Tuesday.

Dearest, the first thing to say is the deep joyfulness of expecting to see you, really, to-morrow—mind, the engagement with Mr. Kenyon is nothing in the way. If you cannot let me stay the usual time—I can call, pass away the interval easily . . this is a superfluous word to your goodness which is superfluous in these ‘old ways of Ba’s’—dear Ba, whom I kiss with perfect love—and shall soon kiss in no dream! Landor is all well enough in one sentence . . happily turned that is,—but I am vexed at his strange opinion of Goethe’s poem,—and the more, that a few years ago he wrote down as boldly that nothing had been written so ‘Hellenic’ these two thousand years—(in a note to the ‘Satire on the Satirists’)—and of these opinions I think the earlier much nearer the truth. Then he wrote so, because Wordsworth had depreciated Goethe—now, very likely, some maladroit applauder has said Landor’s own ‘Iphigenia’ is worthy of Goethe,—or similar platitudes.

Yes, dearest, you are quite right—and my words have a wrong sense, and one I did not mean they should bear, if they object to confessions and autobiographies in general. Only the littleness and temporary troubles, the petty battle with foes, which is but a moment’s work however the success may be, all that might go when the occasion, real or fancied, is gone. I would have the customary ‘habits,’ as we say, of the man preserved, and if they were quilted and stiffened with steel and bristling all over with the offensive and defensive weapons the man judged necessary for his safety,—they should be composed and hung up decently—telling the true story of his life. But I should not preserve the fretful gesture,—lift the arm, as it was angrily lifted to keep off a wolf—which now turns out to have been only Flush in a fever of vigilance—half-drew the sword which—Ah, let me have done with this! You understand, if I do not. For the bad story,—the telling that, if it were true, is nearly as bad as inventing it. That poor woman is the hack-block of a certain class of redoubtable braggarts—there are such stories by the dozen in circulation. All may have been misconception . . ‘advances’—to induce one more painter to introduce her face in his works.

My time is out . . I had much to say, but this letter of mine arrived by the afternoon post,—shame on the office! To-morrow!

Bless you, ever dearest dearest —
Your own.

[Postmark: July 7, 1846]

Tuesday Morning

in haste.

Dearest, I am uncertain whether I can see you to-morrow. To-night I will write again — you shall hear. You tell me to risk nothing . . which is what I feel. But I long, long to see you. You shall hear in the morning.

Read the note which Mr. Kenyon sends me from Mr. Forster. Very averse I feel, from applying, in the way prescribed, to Mr. Serjeant Talfourd. Tell me what to do, Robert . . my ‘famous in council!’ Sick at heart, it all makes me. Am I to write to Mr. Talfourd, do you think?

Oh, you would manage it for me — but to mix you up in it, will make a danger of a worse evil. May God bless you, my own. I may see you to-morrow perhaps after all it is a ‘perhaps’ though . . and I am surely

Your BA.

[Postmark: July 7, 1846]

Monday.

But I meant to ‘leave it to you,’ not to come before Wednesday but after Wednesday, in case of some Wednesday’s engagement coming to cross mine. ‘Ba’s old way’ . . do you cry out! Perhaps — only that an engagement is a possible thing always. Not meaning an engagement with Miss Campbell. I hope, hope, then, to be able to see you, dearest Robert, on Wednesday. On Wednesday, at last!

Here is a letter which I had this morning from Mr. Landor, than which can anything be more gracious? It appears . . I forgot to tell you yesterday after I heard it from Mr. Kenyon . . it appears that my note of thanks had my signature affixed to it in such a state of bad writing, that Mr. Landor, being sorely puzzled, sent the letter up to Mr. Forster to be read. Mr. Forster read it (so it could be read!) and then took it to Mr. Kenyon, who read it too, and afterwards came to scold me for being perfectly illegible. It was signed at full length too, Elizabeth Barrett Barrett . . and really I couldn’t believe that I was very guilty till Mr. Lander’s own letter persuaded me this morning of its being so much pleasanter to be guilty than innocent, for the nonce.

Ah — you use the right word for the other subject. If a bequest, it is indeed a ‘dispiriting bequest,’ this of poor Haydon’s. But I hope to the last that he meant simply to point to me as the actual holder of the papers — and certainly when he sent the great trunk here, it was with no intention of dying; Mr. Kenyon agreed with me to that effect — I showed him the notes which I had found and laid aside for you, and which you shall take with you on Wednesday. Still, there must be an editor found somewhere because the papers cannot go as they are to a publisher’s hands from mine, if I only hold them. Does any one say that I am a fit editor? Have I the power? the knowledge of art and artists? of the world? of the times? of the persons? All these things are against me — and others besides.

Now I will tell you one thing which he told me in confidence, but which is at length perhaps in those papers — I tell you because you are myself, and will understand the need and obligation to silence — and I want you to understand besides how the twenty-six volumes hang heavily on my thoughts. He told me in so many words that Mrs. Norton had made advances towards him — and that his children, in sympathy towards their mother, had dashed into atoms the bust of the poetess as it stood in his painting room.

If you can say anything safely for me at Mr. Talfourd’s, of course I shall be glad . . and Mr. Kenyon will speak to Mr. Forster, he said. I want to get back my letters too as soon as I can do it without disturbing anyone’s peace. What is in those letters, I cannot tell, so impulsively and foolishly, sometimes, I am apt to write; and at that time, through caring for nobody and feeling so loose to life, I threw away my thoughts without looking where they fell. Often my sisters have blamed me for writing in that wild way to strangers — and I should like to have the letters back before they shall have served to amuse two or three executors — but of this too, I spoke to Mr. Kenyon.

Still it is not of me that we are called to think — and I would not for the world refuse any last desire, if clearly signified, and if the power should be with me. He was not a common man — he had in him the stuff of greatness, this poor Haydon had; and we must consider reverently whatever rent garment he shall have left behind. Quite, in some respects, I think with you — but your argument does appear to me to sweep out too far on one side, so that if you do not draw it back, Robert, you will efface all autobiography and confession — tear out a page bent over by many learners — I mean when you say that because he is above (now) the passions and frailties he has recorded, we should put from us the record. True, he is above it all — true, he has done with the old Haydon; like a man outgrowing his own childhood he will not spin this top any more. Oh, it is true — I feel it all just as you do. But, after all, a man outgrowing his childhood, may leave his top to children, and no one smile! This record is not for the angels, but for us, who are a little lower at highest. Three volumes perhaps may be taken from the twenty-six full of character and interest, and not without melancholy teaching. Only some competent and sturdy hand should manage the selection; as surely as mine is unfit for it. But where to seek discretion? delicacy?

Dearest, I speak the truth to you — I am not ill indeed. When I was at best in health I used sometimes to be a little weak and faint, and it has only been so for this last day or two. By Wednesday the cloud will have passed. And, do you know, I have found out something from our long parting, . . I have found out that I love you better than even I thought. There’s a piece of finding out! My own dearest — what would become of me indeed, if I could not see you on Wednesday nor on Thursday nor on Friday? — no breath I have, for going on. No breath I should have, for living on. I do kiss you through the distance — since you tell me. I love you with my soul.

Your own I am.

Three of the flowers and nearly all the little blue ones stay with me all this while to comfort me!! isn’t it kind of them?

Two letters to-day — and such letters! Ah — if you love me always but half as much — I will agree with you now for half! Yet, O Hesiod, half is not better than the whole, by any means! Yet . . if the whole went away, and did not leave me half! —

When I was a child I heard two married women talking. One said to the other . . ‘The most painful part of marriage is the first year, when the lover changes into the husband by slow degrees.’ The other woman agreed, as a matter of fact is agreed to. I listened with my eyes and ears, and never forgot it . . as you observe. It seemed to me, child as I was, a dreadful thing to have a husband by such a process. Now, it seems to me more dreadful.

Si l’âme est immortelle
L’amour ne l’est-il pas?

Beautiful verses — just to prove to you that I do not remember only the disagreeable things . . only to teaze you with, like so many undeserved reproaches. And you so good, so best — Ah — but it is that which frightens me! so far best!

You were foolish to begin to love me, you know, as always I told you, my beloved! — but since you would begin, . . go on to do it as long as you can . . do not leave me in the wilderness. God bless you for me! —

I am your BA.

Think if people were to get hold of that imputation on poor Mrs. Norton — think!

[Postmark: July 6, 1846]
,

Sunday.

Will it do if you come on Wednesday, dearest ? It will
be safer I think — and, with people staying in the house, it
is necessary, you see, to consider a little. My aunt is so

tired with her journey that she is not likely to go out at all
to-morrow — and when I remember that you dine with Mr.
Kenyon on that Wednesday, it seems marked out for our
day. Still I leave it to you. Never have we been so long
parted, and perhaps by Wednesday you may forget me — ah
no ! Now I will not make the time longer by being
unkind . . or even unjust.

I meant to write you a long letter to-day, — but first my
aunt and cousin were here telling me all the statistics of
Arabella Hedley’s marriage, — and then Mr. Kenyon came,
. . and on such a very different subject, his talk was, that
he has left me quite depressed. It appears that poor Mr.
Haydon, in a paper entering into his reasons for self-destruc-
tion, says that he has left his manuscripts to me with a
desire for me to arrange the terms of their publication with
Longman. Of course it has affected me naturally . . such
a proof of trust when he had so many friends wiser and
stronger to look to — but I believe the reference to be simply
to the fact of his having committed to my care all his
private papers in a great trunk . . one of three which he
sent here. Two years ago when we corresponded, he made
me read a good part of his memoirs, which he thought of
publishing at that time ; and then he asked me (no, it was
a year and a half ago) to speak about them to some book-
seller . . to Longman, he said, I remember, then. I
explained, in reply, how I had not any influence with any
bookseller in the world ; advising him besides not to think
of printing, without considerable modification, what I had
read. In fact it was — with much that was individual and
interesting, — as unfit as possible for the general reader
— fervid and coarse at once, with personal references blood-
dyed at every page. At the last, I suppose, the idea came
back to him of my name in conjunction with Longman’s —
I cannot think that he meant me to do any editor’s work, for
which (with whatever earnestness of will) I must be com-
paratively unfit, both as a woman and as personally and

historically ignorant of the persons and times he writes of.
I should not know how one reference would fall innocently,
and another like a thunderbolt, on surviving persons, I
only know that without great modification, the Memoirs
should not appear at all . . that the scandal would be great
if they did. At the same time you will feel with me, I am
sure, you who always feel with me, that whatever is clearly
set for me to do, I should not shrink from under these
circumstances, whatever the unpleasantness may be, more
or less, involved in the doing. But if Mr. Serjeant Talfourd
is the executor . . is he not the obviously fit person?
Well ! there is no need to talk any more. Mr. Kenyon is to
try to see the paper. It was Mr. Forster who came to tell
him of this matter and to get him to communicate it to me.
Poor Haydon !

Dearest, I long for you to come and bring me a little
light. Tell me how you are — now tell me. Tell me too
how your mother is.

My aunt’s presence here has seemed to throw me back
suddenly and painfully into real life out of my dream-life
with you into the old dreary flats of real life. She does
not know your name even — she sees in me just Ba who is
not your Ba — and when she talks to me . . seeing me so
. . I catch the reflection of the cold abstraction as she
apprehends it, and feel myself for a moment a Ba who is
not your Ba . . sliding back into the melancholy of it !
Do you understand the curious process, I talk of so mistily?
Do you understand that she makes me sorrowful with not
talking of you while she talks to me ? Everything, in fact,
that divides us, I must suffer from — soI need not treat
metaphysically of causes and causes . . splitting the thinner
straws.

Once she looked to the table where the remains of
your flowers are, . . and said, ‘I suppose Miss Mitford
brought you those flowers.’ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘she did
not.’ ‘Oh no,’ began Arabel with a more suggestive voice,

‘not Miss Mitford’s flowers.’ But I turned the subject
quickly.

Robert ! — how did you manage to write me the dear
note from Mrs. Jameson’s ? how could you dare write and
direct it before her eyes ? What an audacity that was of
yours. Oh — and how I regretted the missing you, as you
proved it was a missing, by the letter ! Twice to miss you
on one day, seemed too much ill-luck . . . even for me, I
was going to write . . but that would have been a word of
my old life, before I knew that I was born to the best
fortune and happiest, which any woman could have, . . in
being loved by you.

Dearest, do not leave off loving me. Do not forget me
by Wednesday. Shall it be Wednesday? or must it be
Thursday? answer you.

I am your own

BA.

[Postmark: July 4, 1846]JH

Ah, this Saturday ! how heavily the wheels of it turn
round ! as if ‘ with all the weights of sleep and death hung
at them.’ After all it was not possible for me to get to Mrs.
Jameson’s this morning . . not that I was unwell to signify,
mind -but unfit for the exertion — and it would not have
been agreeable to anybody if I had gone there and fainted.
So here I am, the picture of helpless indolence, stretched out
at full length between the chair and the high stool, thinking

how you will not to-day sit on the low one, nor in your old

own place by me – oh how I think, think, think of you,

to make imperfect amends ! Are you disappointed . .
you ? I hope you are, and I fear you are. My generosity
does not carry me through the hope of it to the end. I
love your love too much. And that is the worst fault, my
beloved, I ever can find in my love of you.

Look, what Miss Mitford has sent me from the Daily
News — Mr. Horne’s lament for poor Haydon. Tell me if
you do not like it. It has moved me much, and as a
composition it is fine, I think, — worthy of ‘ Orion.’ I shall
write to Mr. Horne to thank him, as one reader of many,
for touching that solemn string into such a right melody.
To my mind, it is worth, and more than worth, twenty such
books as his ballad-book — tell me if it isn’t. It has much
affected me.

Papa went out early — so we should have escaped
the ‘ complication ‘ — but every half-hour we are expecting
our visitors. And for Monday . . I scarcely dare say yet

‘ Come on Monday.’ Only we will find our lost Pleiads
. . of that, be very sure — I am very sure. Still to miss one
for a moment draws me into darkness — or . . do you not
know that you are all my stars ? yes, and the sun, besides !
The thing which people call a sun seems to shine quite
coldly to-day, because you are not on this side of my window.

‘ All complaining is vain,’ do you say ?

Let me pass the time a little, then, by confessing to you
that what you said, some letters ago, about the character of
our intercourse, in our present relation, being a sort of
security for the future, . . that that did strike me as a true
and reasonable observation as far as it goes. I think, at
least, that if I were inclined to fear for my own happiness
apart from yours (which, as God knows, is a fear that never
comes into my head), I should have sense to reason myself
clear of it all by seeing in you none of the common rampant
man-vices which tread down a woman’s peace — and which begin the work often long before marriage. Oh, I understand
perfectly, how as soon as ever a common man is sure of a
woman’s affections, he takes up the tone of right and might
. . and he will have it so . . and he won’t have it so !
I have heard of the bitterest tears being shed by the victim
as soon as ever, by one word of hers, she had placed herself
in his power. Of such are ‘ Lovers’ quarrels ‘ for the most
part. The growth of power on one side . . and the struggle
against it, by means legal and illegal, on the other. There
are other causes, of course — but for none of them could
it be possible for me to quarrel with you now or ever.
Neither now nor ever do I look forward to the ordinary
dangers. What I have feared has been so different !
May God bless you my own . . own ! For my part, you
have my leave to make me unhappy if you please. It
only would be just that the happiness you have given, you
should take away — it is yours, as I am yours.

Say how your head is — say how your mother is. Think
of me with the thoughts that do good.

Your own

Ba.

TO THE MEMORY OF B. R. HAYDON

By the Author of ‘ Orion ‘

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse !

Thy fiery whispers rule this mortal hour,

Wherein the toiling Artist’s constant soul

Revels in glories of a visioned world, —

Power, like a god, exalting the full heart ;

Beauty with subtlest ravishment of grace

Refining all the senses ; while afar

Through vistas of the stars where strange friends dwell.

A temple smiles for him to take his seat

Among the happy Dead whose work is done.

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse !

Thou lead’st the devotee through fruitful bowers

Wherein Imagination multiplies

Divinely, and, with noblest ecstasy.

To nature ever renders truth for truth.

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse !

Thou teachest to be strong and virtuous ;

In labour, patient ; clear-eyed as a star.

Self-truthful ; vigilant within ; and full

Of faith to be, and do, and send it forth ; —

But teachest no man how to know himself.

His over-measures or his fallings short.

Nor how to know when he should step aside

Into the quiet shade, to wait his hour

And foil the common dragon of the earth.

O fatal Voice ! so syren-sweet, yet rife

With years of sorrow, deathbeds terrible !

Mourn for a worthy son whose aims were high,

Whose faith was strong amidst a scoffing age.

No warning giv’st thou, on the perilous path.

To those who need the gold thy teaching scorns,

Heedless if other knowledge hold due watch.

Thou fill’st with heavenly bliss the enraptured eyes,

While the feet move to ruin and the grave.

Therefore, O voice, inscrutably divine,

Uplifting sunward, casting in the dust,

Forgetting man as man, and mindful only

Of the man-angel even while on earth, —

Mourn now with all thine ancient tenderness,

Mingled with tears that fall in heavy drops.

For One who lost himself, remembering thee !

[Postmark: July 4, 1846]

Friday Night,

Ah ! ‘to-morrow, make haste and arrive.’ And what
good will to-morrow do when it comes ?

Dearest, with your letter to-night, I have a note from
Mrs. Jameson, who proposes that I should go to her just
on this to-morrow, between twelve and one : she will wait
for me till one and then go out. Moreover she leaves
town on Tuesday. Now I think I ought to try to be with
her this time, therefore, on the hour she mentions, and I
will try . . I mean to try. But as for seeing you even so,
and for a moment, . . I understand that it scarcely is
possible — no, not possible — you cannot have time, I think.
Thinking which, understanding which, I shall yet, in spite
of reason, listen for the footstep and the voice: certainly I
shall not help doing that.

Our to-morrow ! — How they have spoilt it for us ! In
revenge, I shall love you to-morrow twice as much, looking
at my dead flowers. Twice as much ! ! ‘ Ba never talk
extravagances.’ Twice as much is a giant fifty feet high. It
is foolish to be fabulous.

Being better this evening (almost as if I were sure to
see you in the morning) I went out to drive with Arabel
and Flush, about six o’clock, — and we were not at home
until eight, after having seen a mirage (as it appeared) of
green fields and trees. Beyond Harrow cemetery we went,
through silent lanes and hedgerows — so silent, so full of
repose ! Quite far away over the tops of the trees, was
‘London’ Arabel said . . but I could see only a cloud: —
it seemed no more, nor otherwise. Once she got out and
went into a field to give Flush a run — and I, left to myself
and you, read your last letter in the carriage, under the
branches which were dropping separate shadows of every
leaf they had. The setting sun forced them to it. Oh —
but I send you no leaves, because I could not reach any,
and did not get out to walk to-day where I might have
gathered them. Arabel tried hard to persuade me to go
into the cemetery — but let me deserve all she said to me
about weakness and foolishness, . . really that sort of thing
does sadden me — my spirits fall flat with it: it is the dark
side of death. So I begged her to go by herself and to
leave me . . I would wait for her — and she should have as
long a pleasure in that pleasure-ground of the Dead, as she
liked. ‘Very pretty,’ it is said to be — the dissenters and
the churchpeople planted in separate beds; and the
Roman Catholics conspicuous for their roses ! Oh that
ghastly mixture of horror and frivolity ! The niaiserie of
their divisions and subdivisions taken down so carefully
into the dust ! But Arabel did not go at last, and we
were at home quite late enough.

May God bless you, dear, dear ! Give me all my
thoughts (those that belong to me) to-morrow. Poor dis-
inherited to-morrow.

I will write to-morrow, at any rate — and hear — let me
hear.

And you are the best, best ! When I speak lead, you
answer gold. Because I ‘do not shock’ you, you melt my
heart away with joy.

Yet I can love you enough, even I !

Your Ba.