Author: EBB

[Postmark: June 22, 1846]

Sunday.

I write to you in the drawing-room, and have brought
down with me, I find, no smaller paper – but it can’t be
filled, can it ? though I have to tell you the great news
about the lilies . . that all, except two, are in full blow . .
and that the two are unfolding . . I can almost see the
leaves move. I told you how it would be. They will live,
. . and last longer than the roses, . . which I shall have
to tell you by history as well as prediction, presently. The
next news is not so good, – for I have had a note from Mrs.
Jameson to the effect that she will come to take me to the
pictures to-morrow, Monday – so that there will be no time
to be diplomatic. My hope was of your meeting her at
Mr. Carlyle’s, before she could arrange anything finally, –
and really I do feel as disappointed as if I had had a reason
for the hope. Now, unless we have another miracle, there’s
an end, I suppose.

Think of my having left Flush behind me fast asleep.
He dashes at the door in the most peremptory way, and
nearly throws me backward when I open it, with his leaping-
up-joy . . if it is not rather his reproach.

Now I am here all alone, except Flush – sitting, leaning
against the open window with my feet curled up, and, at
them, Flush curled up too ; and I writing on my knee more
meo. Rather cooler it seems, but rather too hot still it is, I
think. How did you get home ? how are you, dearest ?
And your mother ? tell me of her, and of you ! You
always, you know (do you know ?), leave your presence with
me in the flowers ; and, as the lilies unfold, of course I see
more and more of you in each apocalypse. Still, the
Saturday’s visit is the worst of all to come to an end, as
always I feel. In the first place stands Sunday, like a wall
without a door in it ! no letter ! Monday is a good day
and makes up a little, but it does not prevent Tuesday and
Wednesday following . . more intervening days than be-
tween the other meetings – or so it seems. I forgot to
tell you that yesterday I went to Mr. Boyd’s house . . not
to see him, but as a preliminary step to seeing him. Arabel
went to his room to tell him of my being there – we are
both perhaps rather afraid of meeting after all these years
of separation. Quite blind he is – and though scarcely
older than Mr. Kenyon (perhaps a year or two or three), so
nervous, that he has really made himself infirm, and now he
refuses to walk out or even to go down-stairs. A very
peculiar life he has led ever since he lost his sight, which he
did when he was quite a young man – and a very peculiar
person he is in all possible ways. His great faculty is . .
memory . . and his great passion . . Greek to which of
late he has added Ossian. Otherwise, he talks like a man
of slow mind, which he is, . . and with a child’s way of
looking at things, such as would make you smile – oh, he
talks in the most wonderfully childish way ! Poor Mr.
Boyd. He cares for me perhaps more than he cares for
any one else . . far more than for his own only daughter ;
but he is not a man of deep sensibility, and, if he heard of
my death, would merely sleep a little sounder the next
night. Once he said to me that whenever he felt sorry
about anything, he was inclined to go to sleep. An affec-
tionate and grateful regard . . grateful for many kindnesses
. . I bear him, for my part. He says that I should wear
the crown in poetry, if I would but follow Pope – but that
the dreadful system of running lines one into another
ruins everything. When I talk of memory, I mean merely
the mechanical faculty. The associative, which makes
the other a high power, he wants. So I went to his house
in St. John’s Wood yesterday, and saw the little garden.
Poor Mr. Boyd. There, he lives, all alone – and never
leaving his chair ! yet cheerful still, I hear, in all that
desolation. As for you and Tennyson, he never heard of
you . . he never guesses at the way of modern literature
. . and it is the intense compliment to me when he reads
verses of mine, ‘ notwithstanding my corrupt taste,’ . . to
quote his own words.

Dearest, do you love me to-day ? I think of you, which
is quite the same thing. Think of me to-morrow at half- past
four when Mrs. Jameson comes, and I shall have all that
exertion to go through without the hope of you. Only that
you are always there . . here ! – and I, your very own

BA.

[Postmark: June 19, 1846]

Thursday Evening.

But I have not been to Mr. Rogers’s to-day, after all. I
had a note from Mrs. Jameson, to put off our excursion to
Saturday . . if I consented to Saturday ! but of course I
would not consent to Saturday – and as she intimated that
another day would do as well, we shall have another day
fixed, I suppose. What a good fruit it would be of the con-
fession I made in the park, if she were to ask you to go ! ! !
Oh, I should like that – I should like it notwithstanding the
drawbacks. It would be a fair gain upon the usual times of
meeting – only that I could not care quite as much for the
pictures – yet, those too, I should like to see with you, rather
than apart from you. And you never saw them . . you ! Is
there a hope of her asking you when you are at Greenwich
together ? Now I have got this into my head, it will not go
out again – oh, you must try and enchant her properly at
Greenwich and lead her into asking you. Yet, with you or
without you in the body, the spirit of you and the influence
of you are always close to my spirit when it discerns any
beauty or feels any joy ; if I am happy on any day it is
through you wholly, whether you are absent or present,
dearest, and ever dearest !

And so, instead of Mr. Rogers’s pictures, I have been
seeing you in my thoughts, as I sate here all alone to-day.
When everybody was at dinner I remembered that I had
not been out – it was nearly eight . . there was no com-
panion for me unless I called one from the dinner-table ;
and Wilson, whom I thought of, had taken holiday. There-
fore I put on my bonnet, as a knight of old took his sword,
– aspiring to the pure heroic, – and called Flush, and
walked down-stairs and into the street, all alone – that was
something great ! And, with just Flush, I walked there, up
and down in glorious independence. Belgium might have
felt so in casting off the yoke. As to Flush, he frightened
me a little and spoilt my vain-glory – for Flush has a very
good, stout vain-glory of his own, and, although perfectly
fond of me, has no idea whatever of being ruled over by
me ! (he looks beautiful scorn out of his golden eyes, when
I order him to do this or this) . . and Flush chose to walk
on the opposite side of the street, – he would, – he insisted
on it ! and every moment I expected him to disappear into
some bag of the dogstealers, as an end to his glory, à lui.
Happily, however, I have no moral with which to point my
tale – it’s a very immoral story, and shows neither Flush nor
myself punished for our sins. Often, I am not punished
for my sins, . . am I ? You know that . . dearest, dearest !
But then, even you are not punished for your sins . . .
when you flatter so ! Ah, it is happy for you, and for your
reputation in good taste and sense, that you cannot very
well say such things except to me, who cannot believe them.
For the rest, the eyes were certainly blinded, . . being kissed
too hard.

How I like Mrs. Carlyle’s note ! You will go of course.
But it will not rain to-morrow, and you shall not have the
advantage of coming through it to me, . . for this reason
(among others far better), that I have engaged to see, at
three or four perhaps, a friend of ours from the country. She
is in London for only two days and wrote to beg me to see
her, and to-day I escaped by half a rudeness, and, if I do
to-morrow, it will be by a whole rudeness. So, not to-morrow !
And, if Saturday should be taken from us, we must find
three days somehow next week – it will be easily done.

As to Florence, the flood of English is the worst water
of all in the argument. And then Dr. Chambers ‘ warned
me off’ Florence, as being too cold for the winter. It would
be as well not to begin by being ill ; and half I am afraid of
Ravenna – though Ravenna may not be cold, and though
Shelley may belie it altogether. ‘A miserable place’ he
calls it in the ‘ Letters.’ Still I observe that his first impres-
sions are apt to be darker than remain. For instance, he
began by hating Pisa, and preferred it to most places, after-
wards. There is Pisa by the way ! Or your Sorrento . .
Salerno . . Amalfi . . you shall consider if you please – find
a new place if you like.

It is my last letter perhaps till I see you. May God bless
you, I lift up my heart to say. How happy I ought to be, . .
and am, . . with your thoughts all round me, so, as you
describe ! Let them call me your very own

BA.

[Postmark: June 18, 1846]

Wednesday.

Dearest and ever dearest, try to forgive me when I fall
so manifestly short of you in all things ! It is the very sense
of this which throws me on despairs sometimes of being
other than a bane to your life – and then . . by way of a
remedy . . I begin to be a torment to it directly. Forgive
me. Whatever I may say I am as wholly yours as if you
held me in your hand, and I would do for you any extrava-
gance, as if it were a common thing, at a word and what
is before us is only a common thing, since I have looked to
it from the beginning. Oh – I may talk when I am out of
spirits – but you know, and I know best of all, that I could
not withdraw myself from you, unless you said ‘ Go ‘ – could
not – I have no power. Fine talking, it is of me, to talk of
withdrawing myself from you ! You know I could not at all
do it, let ever so many special pleaders come to prove to
me that you would be more prosperous and happy without
me. ‘ Then ‘ I would say . . ‘ let him put me away. I can’t
put myself away, because I am not mine but his.’ Assuredly
I would say just that, and no more. So do you forget that
I have teazed you and pained you . . . pained you ! . . I will
try not to pain you, my own, own dearest, any more. I have
grown to love you instead of the whole world ; and only one
thing . . (you understand what that is . .) is dreadful and
intolerable to me to imagine. But now it is done with ;
and you shall teach me hereafter to make you happy instead
of the contrary. So . . yes – you are kissed this time !
upon both eyes, . . that they may not see my faults. And
afterwards I will tell you a paradox . . that if I loved you a
hundred times less, I should run into such offences less in
exact proportion. And finally I will give you a promise . .
not to teaze you for a week – which were a wonderful feat for
me ! the teazer par excellence.

To-day I deserved to hear of your head being worse –
but it is better, I thank God – and your mother is better – all
such comforting news ! But it was no news that you did not
go to Greenwich to-day, – for Mrs. Jameson came for me to
drive at about six, and she and I were in Regent’s Park
until nearly eight. Then she went somewhere to dinner,
and I, who had had tea, came home to supper ! I like her
very much – more and more, certainly – and we need not be
mysterious up to the usual mark of mystery, because I told
her . . told her . . what might be told – and she was
gracious to the uttermost – not angry at all, – and said that
‘ Truth was truth, and one could breathe in the atmosphere
of it, and she was glad I had told her.’ Of you, she said,
that she admired you more than ever – yes, more than ever –
for the ‘ manner in which as a man of honour you had
kept the secret ‘ – so you were praised, and I, not blamed
. . and we shall not complain, if our end is as good as our
beginning. Also we talked of your poetry and of you per-
sonally, and I was pleased, . . which proves a little what was
said – and I heard how you were invited as a ‘ celebrity ‘ for
the Countess Hahn-Hahn to see you, and how you effaced
yourself with ever so much gracefulness ; yet not too much,
to omit charming the whole room. Mrs. Jameson praises
you always, as nobody does better. And to-morrow . . will
you be surprised to hear that to-morrow at half-past four, I
am to go again with her, . . to see Rogers’s pictures ? Is it
wrong ? shall I get into a scrape ? She promised laughingly
that I should be incognita to the only companion she thought
of taking . . a Mrs. Bracebridge, I think . . and Mr. Rogers
himself is not to be visible and she herself will mention it
to nobody. It was hard to say ‘ no ‘ – yet perhaps ‘ no ‘
would have been better. Do you think so ? Mrs. Brace-
bridge is an artist and lives or lived on Mount Hymettus ! –
and she is not to hear my name even.

Now – good night, very dear ! – most dear of all ! I will
not teaze you for a fortnight, I think. Ah – if ever I can do
that again, you shall not be pained, . . you shall think that
my heart and life are in you, and that, if they seem to flatter,
it is that they go deeper. All I am is yours which is
different from . . all I have. ‘ All I have,’ is when I may
lean my head down on the shoulder –
So let me be your own
BA.

Of those two letters, one was in the post before seven the
evening before. Now, is it not too bad ?

[Postmark: June 17, 1846]

Tuesday Evening.

Best, . . best, you are, to write to me when you were
tired, and so ! When I am tired and write to you, it is too
apt to be what may trouble you. With you, how different !
In nothing do you show your strength more than in your
divine patience and tenderness towards me, till . . not
being used to it, I grow overwhelmed by it all, and would
give you my life at a word. Why did you love me, my
beloved, when you might have chosen from the most perfect
of all women and each would have loved you with the
perfectest of her nature ? That is my riddle in this world.
I can understand everything else . . I was never stopped
for the meaning of sorrow upon sorrow . . but that you
should love me I do not understand, and I think that I
never shall.

Do I remember? Yes indeed, I remember. How I
recurred and wondered afterwards, though at the moment
it seemed very simple and what was to be met with in our
philosophy every day. But there, you see, there’s the
danger of using mala verba ! The Fates catch them up
and knit them into the web ! Then I remember all the
more (though I should at any rate) through an imprudence
of my own (or a piece of ill-luck rather . . it shall not be
called an imprudence) of which I will tell you. I was
writing to Miss Mitford and of you – we differed about you
often, . . because she did not appreciate you properly, and
was fond of dwelling on the ‘ obscurity ‘ when I talked of
the light, – and I just then writing of you, added in my
headlong unreflecting way that I had had a real letter from
you which said that you loved me – ‘Oh but,’ – I wrote
on, ‘ you are not to mistake this, not to repeat it for of
course, it is simply the purest of philanthropies ‘ . . . some
words to that effect – and if yours was the purest of philan-
thropies, mine was the purest of innocences, as you may
well believe, . . for if I had had the shadow of a foresight,
I should not have fallen into the snare. So vexed I was
afterwards ! Not that she thought anything at the time,
or has referred to it since, or remembers a word now.
Only I was vexed in my innermost heart . . and am . . do
you know? . . that I should have spoken lightly of such
an expression of yours though you meant it lightly too.
Dearest ! It was a disguised angel and I should have
known it by its wings though they did not fly.

But I foresaw nothing, . . looked to you for nothing,
. . nothing can prove better to myself, than my having
mentioned the quaint word at all. For I know, and I hope
you know, how impossible it always has been to me to
choose for a subject of conversation and jest, things which
never should be spoken to friend or sister. But how was
I to foresee ? So the quaintness passed as quaintness with
me. And never from that time (you grew sacred too soon !),
never again from that moment, did I mention you to Miss
Mitford – oh yes, I did, when she talked of introducing
Mr. Chorley, and when I replied that, being a woman, I
would have my wilful way, and that my wilful way was to
see you instead. But except then . . and when I sent her
Mr. Landor’s verses on you . . not a word have I spoken
. . except in bare response. She thinks perhaps that my
old fervour about you has sunk into the socket – she
suspects nothing – in fact she does not understand what love
is . . and I never should think of asking her for sympathy.
She is one of the Black Stones, which, when I climb up
towards my Singing Tree and Golden Water, will howl
behind me and call names.

You had my second letter to-day, speaking of Landor,
and of Mr. Kenyon’s visit. At half-past six came Miss
Bayley, talking exceeding kindnesses of Italy, and entreating
me to use her . . to let her go with me and take care of me
and do me all manner of good. What kindness, really, in a
woman whom I have not seen six times in all ! I am very
grateful to her. She held my hands, and told me to write
to her if ever I had need of her – she would come at a
moment, go for a year ! – she would do anything for me I
desired ! And this woman to believe of herself that she
has no soul ! Help me to thank her in your thoughts of
her ! She said, by the way, that Mrs. Jameson had talked
to her of wishing to take me, . . but she thought (Miss
Bayley thought) that she (Mrs. Jameson) had too many
objects and too much vivacity . . it would not do so well,
she thought. In reply – I could just thank her, and scarcely
could do that, . . only I am sure she saw and felt that I
was grateful to her aright, let the words come ever so
wrong. To-morrow she leaves London for an indefinite time.

She told me too that a friend of hers, calling on Mrs.
Jameson, had found her on the point of coming to me
to-day, to drive out . . but she suffered from toothache and
was going to Cartwright’s first . . . and last, I suppose. I
dare say he put her to torture, to be classified with ‘ the
thumbscrew and the gadge’ . . some disabling torture,
for I have not seen her at all. So as at half-past seven
Henrietta was going out to dinner, Lizzie and I and Flush
took our places by her in the carriage, and went to Hyde
Park . . drove close by the Serpentine, and saw by the
ruffling of the water that there was a breath of wind more
than we felt. The shadows were gathering in quite fast,
shade upon shade ; and at last the silvery water seemed to
hold all the light left, as on the flat of a hand. Very much
I liked and enjoyed it. And, as we came home, the gas
was in the shops . . another strange sight for me – and we
all liked everything. Flush had his head out of the window
the whole way . . except when he saw a long whip, . . or
had a frightful vision at the water of somebody washing a
little dog . . which made him draw back into the carriage
with dilated eyes and quivering ears, and set about licking
my hands, for an ‘ Ora pro nobis.’ And Lizzie confided to
me, that, when she is ‘ grown up,’ she never will go out to
dinners like Henrietta, but drive in the park like Ba, instead
. . unless she can improve upon both, and live in a cottage
covered with roses, in the country. I, in the meantime,
between my companions, thought of neither of them more
than was necessary, but of somebody whom I had been
teazing perhaps . . dearest, was it so, indeed ? . . but I
avenge you by teazing myself back again ! A long rambling
letter, with nothing in it ! ‘ Passages, that lead to nothing ‘
and staircases, too ! May I be loved nevertheless, as
usual ? and forgiven for my ‘ secret faults ? ‘ You are the
whole world to me and the stars besides !

And I am your very own

BA.

[Postmark: June 17, 1846]

Tuesday. 6 o’clock.

Beloved, this weather, which makes Flush cross, perhaps
helped to make me depressed this morning. I had not
slept well, and ought not to have written to you till the
effect of it had gone off. Now I feel more as if I had been
with you yesterday. Ah well ! I don’t, can’t remember
what I wrote . . and some of it was wise . . for I ought
not to have promised that, . . and you must loose me, that
I may be loosed in Heaven, from the bands of it. Only
you are not to go to Greenwich (you go to Greenwich
to-morrow, do you not ?) thinking that I wanted to teaze you.
There is just one meaning to all my words, let them be sad
or gay . . and it is, that your happiness is precious. For
myself, if we were to part now and for ever, I should still owe
you the only happiness of my life. But nobody is talking of
parting, you know – I am yours, and cannot be put away from
you except by your own hand. Which is decided ! What
I ask of you, is to spare me the pang of causing you to
suffer on my account, . . and you may suffer sometimes, I
fear, through all your affection for me, . . and indirectly, if
not directly.

Two visitors I have had to-day – dear Mr. Kenyon, and
Lady Margaret Cocks. She is going to Italy – (oh, of
course !) to Rome. He came to tell me that the books
came to me from Landor himself, and that I must write
to him to thank him properly. Mrs. Jameson I do not see,
nor Miss Bayley.

How hot it will be for you to-morrow ! Try to be
amused and not too tired, dearest beloved, and tell me in
your letters how the head is.

While the heart beats (mine !) I am your own.

I am going in the carriage presently and shall write
again to-night. Won’t that be three times in a day according
to order?

[Postmark: June 16, 1846]

Tuesday.

As to ‘ practical sense ‘ I never saw, I confess, much to
praise you for – but you began by making a great profession
of it, please to remember – and, otherwise, you certainly
ought to know more of the world and the wisdom thereof
than I, or you are dull, dearest mine, and one might as well
call the sun so on this burning dazzling morning, when
everything is at a white heat. Then for the ‘ calmness ‘
…. I did not call your eyes ‘ green ‘ after all . . nor did
I mean what you would force on me for a meaning in the
other way : you pretend to misunderstand? Eyes, at
least, that had the mastery with me from the beginning !
and it was so long, so long (as you observed yourself), that
I could not lift up mine against them they were the mystic
crystal walls, so long !

After you were gone yesterday and I had done with the
roses (exquisite roses !) and had my coffee, I saw my uncle
Hedley who had been inquiring about me, said my sisters,
all the afternoon, . . for it was he who came when we heard
the greetings on the stairs – and he told me that his wife and
daughter were to be in London early in July . . so that we
shall have the whole squadron sooner than we thought –
drawn up like a very squadron . . my other aunt, Miss
Clarke, coming at the same time, and my cousin with her,
Arlette Butler. But only those two will be in the house
here, and they will not be for very long, nor will they be
much in the way, I hope.

Shall I tell you ? I repented yesterday . . I repented
last night . . I repent to-day, having made the promise you
asked of me. I could scarcely sleep at all last night,
through thinking that I ought not to have made it. Be
generous, and free me from that promise. To be true to
you in the real right sense, I need no promises at all and if
an argument were addressed to me in order to separate us,
I should see through the piteous ingenuity of it, I think,
whatever ground it took, and admit no judgment and
authority over your life to be higher than your own. But I
have misgivings about that promise, because I can conceive
of circumstances . . Loose me from my promise, and let
me be grateful to you, my beloved, in all things and ways,
and hold you to be generous in the least as in the greatest.
What I asked of you, was as different as our positions are
– different beyond what you see or can see. No third
person can see, no second person can see . . what my
position is and has been . . I do not enter on it here.
But there is just and only one way in which I may be in-
jured by you, . . and that is, in being allowed to injure you
– so remember, remember, . . to the last available moment.

Then . . I have lived so in a dream for very long ! –
and everything, all undertakings, all movements, seem easy
in dream-life. The sense of this has lately startled me. To
waken up suddenly and find that I have wronged you –
what more misery ? – and I feel already that I am bringing
you into a position which will by some or many be
accounted unworthy of you. Well – we will not talk of it –
not now ! there is time for the grave consideration which
must be. Let us both think.

And may God bless you, ever dearest ! You are the
best and most generous of all in the world ! Whatever my
mistake may be, it is not concerning that. Also I love you,
love you. Premature things I say sometimes, which are
foolish always. Tell me how you are . . tell me how your
mother is – but speak of your own head . . tam chari . .
particularly. Overcoming, the heat is – and I do hope that
Mrs. Jameson won’t come after all.

Your
BA.

[Postmark: June 15, 1846]

Saturday Morning.

I wrote last night when my head was still struggling and
swimming between two tides of impressions received from
the excitement and fatigue of the day. Mr. Kenyon (dear
Mr. Kenyon in his exquisite kindness !) took me to see the
strange new sight (to me !) of the Great Western . . the
train coming in : and we left the carriage and had chairs –
and the rush of the people and the earth-thunder of the
engine almost overcame me . . not being used to such
sights and sounds in this room, remember ! ! and after-
wards I read and answered your letter with a whirling head.
I cannot be sure how I answered it, my head whirled so. I
only hope . . hope . . hope . . that it did not seem un-
worthy of your goodness and generosity – for that would
be unworthy of my perception of them and reverence for
them, besides. You do not, in particular, I do hope, mis-
understand my reasons for refusing to improve what you
call my ‘ advantages,’ by turning them into disadvantages
for you. Really it struck me at the moment and strikes me
new every time I think of it, that it would be monstrous in
me to stop at such an idea long enough to examine it. To
do such a thing would complete the ‘ advantages ‘ of my
alliance – if that is a desire of yours. And if I were to be
ill afterwards, there would be the crown of the crown. Now
ask yourself if I ought –

I cannot conceive of the possibility of a ‘ calumny ‘ on
such a pretext – there seems no room for it. You will how-
ever have it in your power hereafter, without injury to either
of us, to do yourself full justice in this particular – only
neither now nor hereafter shall I consent to let in sordid
withering cares with your life. God has not made it so
and it shall not be so by an act of mine.

And after all, shall we be so much . . so much too
rich ? do you fancy that Miss Kilmansegg is made of brass
compared to me ? It is not so bad, be very sure. If Arabel
should not offend Papa, she will be richer hereafter than we
are . . yet not rich even so. Why are you fanciful in that
way ? People are more likely to say that I have taken you
in. The sign of the Red Dragon ! as you suggested once
yourself !

I could make you laugh, if it were not too hot to laugh,
with telling you how I really do not know what my ‘ advan-
tages ‘ are – specifically so many, and so many. I am not
‘ allowed ‘ to spend what I might – but the motive is of
course a kind one – there is no mistaking that. Poor
Papa ! He attends just to those pecuniary interests which
no one cares for, with a scrupulous attention. Nearly two
hundred a year of ship shares I never touch. Then there is
the interest of six thousand pounds (not less at any rate) in
the funds – and I referred to the principal of that, when I
said yesterday, that when we had ceased to need it, it might
return to my family, since it came from them, if you chose.
But this is all air – and nothing shall be said of it now – and
whatever may be said hereafter, shall come from you, and be
your word rather than mine. So I beseech you, by your
affection for me, to speak no more of this hateful subject,
which I have entered for a moment lest you should exaggerate
to yourself and mistake me for the least in the world of an
heiress. As to Lord Monteagle, we can do without him, I
think – and unless he would give us a house to keep, or
something of that sort, at Sorrento or Ravenna, I do not
exactly see what he can do for us. To make an agreement
with a periodical, would be more a possibility perhaps but
it is not a necessity – there is no sort of need, in fact and
why should you be tormented ‘in the multitude of the
thoughts within you,’ utterly in vain ?

As to your family . . I understand your natural desire
of giving your confidence at the fullest to your father and
mother, who deserve and claim it . . I understand that you
should speak and listen to them, and cross no wish of theirs,
and in nothing displease and pain them. But I do not
understand the argument by which you involve the question
with other questions . . when you say, for instance, that I
‘ ought not to countenance the preposterousness and
tyranny.’ How do I seem to countenance what I revolt
from ? Do you mean that we ought to do what we are
about, openly ? It is the only meaning I can attach to your
words. Well – If you choose it to be so, knowing what
I have told you, let it be so. I can however, as I
said yesterday, answer only for my will and mind, and
not for my strength and body – and if the end should be
different from the end you looked for, you will not blame
me, being just, . . any more than I shall blame myself.
May God bless you, ever dearest !

I am your own as ever.

[Postmark: June 12, 1846]

Friday Morning.

I must write very little to-day, dearest, because Mr.
Kenyon, as a note from him just tells me, comes at half
past two for me, and in the meantime I am expecting a visit
from my uncle Hedley, who arrived yesterday while we were
together. Scarcely could Henrietta keep him, she says,
from coming up-stairs ‘ to see Ba ! ‘ We just escaped,
therefore. I have been thinking that having the barbarians
down on us may be at least a means of preserving us from
going into the wilderness ourselves . . myself . . if I were
taken away, as I told you, to Tunbridge, Dover, or other
provinces of Siberia. How should I bear, do you think, to
be taken away from you ? Very badly ! – though you will
not hear of my being able to love you as I ought – when
that is precisely the only thing I can do, it seems to me, at
all worthily of you.

Ora pro me in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage to-day – I am getting
so nervous and frightened ! I shall feel all the while as if
set on a vane on the top of St. Paul’s . . can you fancy the
feeling? I do wish I were safe at home again, reading
your letter . . which will come to-night will . . shall . . must
. . according to the letter and spirit of the Law.

You made the proposal to me about New Cross, yester-
day, out of consideration and kindness to me ! I understand
it so, thanking you. For the rest, I need not, I am certain,
assure you that it would be the greatest pain to me at any
time, to be wanting in even the forms of respect and affec-
tion towards your family – and that I would not, from a
mere motive of shyness, hazard a fault against them – you
will believe this of me. But the usual worldly form (if the
world is to give the measure) would be against my paying
such a visit – and under ordinary circumstances it never is
paid – not so. Therefore the not paying it is not an omis-
sion of an ordinary form of attention – that is what I mean to
say. And to keep all dear to you quite safe and away from
all splashing of the mud which we cannot ourselves hope to
escape, is the great object, – it does seem to me. Your
father and mother would be blamed (in this house, I know,
if not in others) for not apprizing my father of what they
knew. As it is, there is evil enough – though there is a
way of escaping that evil.

As it is. – Now I do beseech you to consider well
whether you will not have too much pain in finding that
they suffer it (after every precaution taken) . . to render all
this which we are about, wise and advisable. They will
suffer, to hear you spoken of as we both shall be spoken of
. . be perfectly sure ! They will suffer, to have to part with
you so – and the circumstances, perhaps, will not help to
give them confidence in the stranger, who presumes so to
enter their family. I ask you not to answer this ! – only, to
think of it in time, lest you should come to think of it too
late. Put it between the leaves of Machiavel, – that at need
you may confute yourself as well as M. Thiers.

Beloved, say how you are and how your mother is.
Here I must end to be ready for dear Mr. Kenyon, and
casualties of uncles &c. Think of me, love me – my heart
is full of you.

I am your BA.

[Postmark: June 10, 1846]

Tuesday Evening.

Best, dearest beloved, . . would it not be strange if you
were not so to me ? How do you think I feel, hearing you
say such things . . finding such thoughts in your mind ? If
it is not worthy of you to have a burden set on your shoulders
and to be forced into the shadow of disquietudes not your
own, yet this divine tenderness is worthy of you . . worthy
of your nature ; as I know and recognise ! May God help
me to thank you, for I have not a word.

Practically however, see how your proposal would work.
It could not work at all, unless circumstances were known –
and if they were known, at the very moment of their being
known you would be saved, dearest, all the trouble of coming
up-stairs to me, by my being thrown out of the window to
you . . upon which, you might certainly pick up the pieces
of me and put them into a bag and set off for Nova Zembla.
That would be the event of the working of your proposition.
Yet remember that I will accede to whatever you shall
choose – so think for us both. You know more of the world
and have more practical sense than I – and if you did not,
had not, you may do what you like with your own, as surely
as the Duke of Newcastle might.

For Mrs. Jameson, I never should think of telling her
‘all’ – I should not, could not, would not ! and the gods
tbrefend that you should think of telling Mr. Kenyon any
more. Now, listen. Perfectly I understand your reasons,
your scruples . . what are they to be called ? But I promise
to take the blame of it. I will tell dear Mr. Kenyon here-
after that you would have spoken, but that I would not let
you – won’t that do ? won’t it stop the pricking of the con-
science ? Because, you see, I know Mr. Kenyon, . . and I
know perfectly that either he would be unhappy himself, or
he would make us so. He never could bear the sense of
responsibility. Then, as he told me to-day, and as long ago
I knew, . . he is ‘ irresolute,’ timid in deciding. Then he
shrinks before the daemon of the world – and ‘ what may be
said ‘ is louder to him than thunder. And then again, and
worst of all, he sees afar off casualty within casualty, and a
marriage without lawyers would be an abomination in his
sight. Moreover, to discover ourselves to him, and not
submit to his counsels, would be a real offence . . would it
not ? As it is, it may seem natural and excusable that we
two of ourselves should poetically rush into a foolishness
but if we heard counsel, and rejected it ! ! Do you
see? . . .

He came here to-day, dear Mr. Kenyon, and is to come
with Miss Bayley on Friday, and take me in the carriage to
drive, and to see his house. I must go, but dread it . .
shrink from it – yes, indeed. As for Mr. Lough, how could
I have ‘ bound him with Styx nine times round him ? ‘ It
is easier to bind Mrs. Jameson. Oh no ! You were right,
and I was wrong in my first inclination about Mr. Lough.

And yesterday I was not tired to signify. I shall not be
ill, my beloved, I think I shall not. I am as perfectly well
now in all respects (except that I have not strength for much
exercise and noise and confusion, . .) as it is possible to be.
So do not be anxious about me rather spend your dear
thoughts of me in loving me, . . dear, dearest !

You breakfast with Mrs. Jameson, and I shall remember
not to long too much for the eight o’clock letter at night.
Remember you, not to be hurried as to the writing of it

Oh ! I had a letter from my particular Bennet this
morning, . . and my Georgiana desires me instantly to
say why I presumed not to write to her before. I am
commanded out of all further delays. ‘ Did I receive her
letter,’ she wonders ! ! ! ! Georgiana is imperative.

May God bless you, you who bless me !

I am wholly your own.

[Postmark: June 9, 1846]

Monday Morning.

The stars threaten you with a long letter to-day, it seems,
for I stretch out my hand and take blindly the largest sheet.
Dearest, I have been driving out before your letter came . .
and to Hampstead! think of that. And see the proof of
it – this grew in the hedges when the sun rose to-day. We
had a great branch gathered, and ‘this was of it,’ starred
over with dog-roses. I did in the morning long for air,
through the suffocation yesterday, and the walking being
better for another day, my sisters persuaded me into the
carriage. Only I wanted to wait for your letter, my letter,
and could not – it did not come by the usual early post, and
the carriage was here before it . . so I had to go, thinking
of it all the way, and having it on my return ready to
gladden me. How you make me laugh with your phreno-
logist ! ‘For the interests of science’ you should have
given your name. Then, would have come the whole history
in the next lecture, . . how ‘Once in an omnibus he met
an individual with a forehead and eyes of mark, and knew
him at a glance for the first poet of the age.’ It would
have made a feature in the lecture, and highly developed, I
dare say, . . to suit the features in the omnibus. Just at
the moment of this observation I too was thinking of eyes
‘calm eyes’ did I say ? Yes, calm, serene . . which was
what struck me first of all, in the look of them was it ever
observed before, I wonder? The most serene spiritual eyes,
I ever saw – I thought that the first day I saw you. They
may be called by other names beside, but they shall not
lose the name I then gave them. Now to bear with the
horrible portrait in the matter of the eyes, is a hard thing –
Mr. Howitt must have his shut nearly, I think. The hair is
like – and nothing else. The mouth, the form of the cheek,
one is as unlike as the other. And the character of the
whole is most unlike of the whole – it is a vulgarized
caricature and I only wonder how I could have fastened
it inside of my ‘ Paracelsus ‘ frontispiece-fashion. When it
was hung up and framed, I did not know you face to face,
remember. Mr, Kenyon told me it was ‘ rather like.’ But
always and uninstructed I seemed to know that it was not
like you in some things . .

Monday Evening.

Observe how the sentence breaks off!
While I was writing it, came a ‘ tapping, tapping at the cham-
ber door,’ as sings my dedicator Edgar Poe. Flush barked
vociferously ; I threw down the pen and shut up the writing
case, . . and lo, Mrs. Jameson ! I suppose she did not
guess that I was writing to you. She brought me the
engravings of Xanthian marbles, and also her new essays
. . and was very kind as usual, and proposed to come some
day next week with a carriage to take me out, and all this
time, how we treat her ! Will she not have a right to com-
plain of being denied the degree of confidence we gave
(. . Mr. Kenyon gave for me . .) to Miss Bayley? Will
she not think hereafter ‘There was no need of their
deceiving me ? ‘ And yet I doubt how to retreat now.
Could I possibly say to her the next time she speaks of you
. . or could I not ? it would set her on suspecting perhaps.
She talked a little to-day of Italy, and plainly asked me what
thoughts I had of it, – to which I could answer truthfully
‘ No thoughts, but dreams.’ Then she insisted, ‘ But
whenever you have thoughts, you will let me know them ?
You will not be in Italy when I am there, without my
knowing it ? And where will you go – ? to Pisa ? . . to
Sienna ? to Naples ? ‘ And she advised . . ‘ Don’t go where
the English are, in any case.’ And encouraged like an
oracle, . . ‘ Remember that where there’s a will there’s a
way ‘ knowing no more what she spoke, than a Pythian on
the serpent’s skin.

Beloved, you are right in your fear about Mr. Lough.
I have decided not to go there. Oh, it is best certainly ;
and, quietly considered, I shall be happier as well as safer
in not going. We must walk softly on the snowdrifts of the
world, now that we have got to them.

For the rest, . . that is for the chief thing . . you wrote
foolishly in your first letter to-day, my beloved, – you can
write foolishly on occasion, let me grant to the critics. I
have just so much logic as to be able to see (though I am a
woman) that for me to be too good for you, and for you to
be too good for me, cannot be true at once, both ways.
Now I could discern and prove, from the beginning of the
beginning, that you were too good for me – it is too late
therefore to take up the other argument – the handle of it
was broken last year.

Also, I do not go to the world to ask it to appraise you
I would fain leave to Robins the things of Robins. I
hope you have repented all day to-day having written so
foolishly yesterday. Even Robins would not justify you.

Dearest, the avalanches are on us ! Uncle and aunts
coming down in a great crash ! My uncle Hedley comes
next week ! – on the second or third of July, the eldest of
my aunts, . . from Paris, . . who proposes to reside in
this house for a week it may be longer ! and, still in July,
the rest of the Hedleys, I think ! – everybody coming,
coming ! Their welcome will be somewhat of a ghastly
smile from me – for indeed I cannot be quite delighted, after
the fashion of a thoroughly dutiful niece.

Ah, never mind them ! Nobody can change anything,
if you do not change yourself. You have ‘ a right ‘ . . not
the ‘ shadow ‘ of one, but the very right . . to all I am, and
to all the life I live. Did you not see before, what I have
felt so long, that indeed you have a right to me and over
me?

I am your own

BA.