Author: RB

[Postmark: May 8, 1846]

‘ Look down on you ‘ — my Ba ? I would die for you,
with triumphant happiness, God knows, at a signal from
your hand ! But that, — look down, — never, though you bade
me again and again, and in such words ! I look up, —
always up, — my Ba. When I indulge in my deepest luxury, I
make you stand . . do you not know that ? I sit, and my
Ba chooses to let me sit, and stands by, — understanding all
the same how the relation really is between us, — how I would,
and do, kiss her feet, — my queen’s feet !

Do you feel for me so, my love ? I seldom dare to try
and speak to you of your love for me . . my love I am
allowed to profess . . I could not steadily (I have tried,
whether you noticed it or no, and could not,) say aloud
‘ and you love me ‘ ! Because it is altogether a blessing of
your gift, — irrespective of my love to you — however it may
go to increase it. Here are the words however. Human
conviction is weak enough, no doubt, — but, when I forget
these words, and this answer of my heart to them, — I can-
not say it —

May God bless you, dearest dearest, — my Ba ! I was
at Mrs. Jameson’s this morning — she spoke of you so as to
make my heart tremble with very delight — I never liked her
so much . . I may say, never liked her before — by com-
parison. She read me your three translations, — clearly
feeling their rare beauty ; and now, — let me clap hands, my
Ba, and ask you who knows best? She means to print
both versions — the blank verse and the latter rhymed one.
Of course, of course ! But she said so many things — I must
tell you to-morrow, — if you remind me. She felt such
gratifications, too, at your thinking her etching of St.
Cecilia worthy to hang by your chair, in your sight. Do
you know, Ba, at the end, — à propos of her breakfast, I
fairly took her by both hands, and shook them with a
cordiality which I just reflect, tardily, may subject the
Literary Character to a possible misconstruction. ‘ He
must have wanted a breakfast,’ she will say !

I am going to the Museum on Monday with her, to see
Italian prints. I like her very much. And after breakfast,
Mr. Kenyon came in, and Mr. Bezzi — and Mr. K. means to
make me go and see him next Monday also, I believe.

But my seeing, and hearing, and enjoying — Saturday is
my day for all that ? To-morrow — by this time ! — too
great happiness it is, I know.

And I, too, look long over the grave, to follow you, my
own heart’s love. Let Mrs. Jameson repeal those acts, —
limit the seven years to seven days or less, — what matters ?
If the seven days have to be endured because of a law, —
then I see the weariness of course — but in our case, if a
benevolent Legislature should inform me, now, that if I
choose, I may decline visiting you to-morrow —

. . Ah, nefandum, — kiss me, my own Ba, and let the
world legislate and decree and relieve and be otherwise
notable — so they let me be your own for ever

R.

[Postmark: May 7, 1846]

No, dearest, — I get Mrs. Jameson’s leave to put the
breakfast off till to-morrow— and this morning, instead of
resting as I had intended, I wisely went to town, to get a
call on Forster off my mind — I have walked there and back
again . . see the weakness you pity ! I cheat you, my Ba,
of all that pity . . yet when I have got it, however unjustly,

I lay it to my heart.

And I was at Mrs. Procter’s last night — Kinglake and
Chorley, with a little of Milnes and Coventry Patmore —
but no Howitts : because they have a sick child, — dying, I
am afraid. On my return I found a note from Home, who
is in London of a sudden for a week.

Oh, — The Daily News passes into the redoubtable
hands of Mr. Dilke, — and the price is to be reduced to

2d½, in emulation of the system recently adopted by the
French Journals. Forster continues to write, on the new
Editor’s particular entreaty. I rather think the scheme will
succeed, Dilke having the experience the present regime
wants — he will buy his privileges cheaply too. So that
Chorley may possibly be employed. Here ends my
patronage of it, at all events — not another number do I
groan over !

Patmore told me in his quiet way that his criticisms —
his book on which he had been expending a world of pains,
is altogether superseded by the appearance of ‘ Ulrici on
Shakespeare’ — ‘ the very words of many of his more im-
portant paragraphs are the same.’ That astounds one a
little, does it not ?

And what, what do you suppose Tennyson’s business to
have been at Dickens’ — what caused all the dining and
repining? He has been sponsor to Dickens’ child in
company with Count D’Orsay, and accordingly the novus
homo glories in the prænomina, Alfred D’Orsay Tenny-
son Dickens ! Ah, Charlie, if this don’t prove to posterity
that you might have been a Tennyson and were a D’Orsay
— why excellent labour will have been lost ! You observe,
‘ Alfred ‘ is common to both the godfather and the — devil-
father, as I take the Count to be : so Milnes has been
goodnaturedly circulating the report that in good truth
it is the Alfred of neither personage, but of — Mr. Alfred
Bunn. When you remember what the form of sponsorship is,
to what it pledges you in the ritual of the Church of England
— — and then remember that Mr. Dickens is an enlightened
Unitarian, — you will get a curious notion of the man, I
fancy.

Have you not forgotten that birthday? Do, my Ba,
forget it — my day, as I told you, is the 20th — my true,
happiest day ! But I thank you all I can, dearest — All
good to me comes through you, or for you — every wish and
hope ends in you. May God bless you, ever dear Ba. —

Your own R.

[Postmark: May 6, 1846]

Dearest Ba let me silent, as on other occasions, over
what you promise : one reads of ‘ a contest in generosity,’
and now this party was as determined to give, as that party
not to accept — far from anything so graceful, I am com-
pelled to clutch at the offering, I take all, because, because
— because I must, now ! May God requite you, my best
beloved !

I met Mrs. Jameson last evening and she began just as
I prophesied . . ‘ but ‘ said she ‘ I will tell you all when
you come and breakfast with me on Thursday — which a
note of mine now on its way to you, desires may happen ! ‘

A large party at Chorley’s, and admirable music — not
without a pleasant person or two. I wish you could hear
that marvellous Pischek, with his Rhine songs, and Bohemian
melodies. Then a Herr Kellerman told a kind of crying
story on the violoncello, full of quiet pathos, and Godefroi
— if they so spell him — harped like a God harping, im-
mortal victorious music indeed ! Altogether a notable
evening . . oh, the black ingratitude of man . . these few
words are the poor ‘set-off’ to this morning’s weary
yawning, and stupefaction. To-night having to follow beside !
So near you I shall be ! Mrs J. is to at the Procters’
to-night too. Oh, by the way, and in the straight way to
make Ba laugh . . Mrs J.’s first word was ‘ What ? Are
you married ?’ She having caught a bit of Miss Chorley’s
enquiry after ‘ Mrs. Browning’s health ‘ i.e. my mother’s.
Probably Miss Heaton’s friend, who is my intimate, heard
me profess complete infidelity as to — homœopathy . . que
sais-je ? But of all accusations in the world . . what do
you say to my having been asked if I was not the Author of
‘ Romeo and Juliet,’ and ‘ Othello ‘? A man actually asked
me that, as I sate in Covent Garden Pit to see the second
representation of ‘ Strafford ‘ — I supposed he had been set
on by somebody, but the simple face looked too quiet
for that impertinence — I was muffled up in a cloak, too ; so
I said ‘ No — so far as I am aware.’ (His question was ‘ is
not this Mr. Browning the author of &c. &c. ‘) After the
play, all was made clear by somebody in Macready’s dress-
ing room — two burlesques on Shakespeare were in the course
of performance at some minor theatre by a Mr. Brown, or
Brownley, or something Brown-like — and to these my friend
had alluded.

So is begot, so nourished ‘ il mondan rumore ‘ — I, author
of ‘ Othello ‘ ! — when I can be, and am, and may tell Ba I
am, her own, own
R.

The news about the post — the walk there which might
have been, — that is pure delight ! But take care, my all-
precious love—festina lente. All the same, what a vision I
have of the Bonnet !

[Postmark: May 5, 1846]

Yes, you were right, my Ba — our meeting was on the
20th of last May : the next letter I received was the 14th
and that ran in my head, no doubt, yesterday. You must
have many such mistakes to forgive in me when I under-
take to talk and ‘ stare ‘ at the same time . . well for me if
they are no more serious mistakes !

I referred to my letters — and found much beside the
date to reflect on. I will tell you. Would it not be perilous
in some cases, — many cases — to contrast the present with
the very early Past : the first time, even when there is
abundant fruit, with the dewy springing and blossoming ?
One would confess to a regret at the vanishing of that
charm, at least, if it were felt to be somehow vanished out
of the present. And, looking upon our experience as if it
were another’s, — undoubtedly the peril seems doubled —
with that five months’ previous correspondence . . only
then, — after all the curiosity, and hope and fear, — the first
visit to come ! And after, — shortly after, — you know —
the heightened excitement that followed . . I should not
believe in the case of another, — or should not have believed,
— that the strange delight could last . . no more than I
should think it reasonable to wonder, or even grieve, that it
did not last — so long as other delights came in due succes-
sion. Now, hear the truth ! I never, God knows, felt
the joy of being with you as I felt it yesterday — the fruit
of my happiness has grown under the blossom, lifting it and
keeping it as a coronet — not one feeling is lost, and the new
feelings are infinite. Ah, my Ba, can you wonder if I seem
less inclined to see the adorable kindness in those pro-
visions, and suppositions, and allowances for escape, change
of mind &c., you furnish me with, — than to be struck at the
strange fancy which, as I said, insists on my being free to
leave off breathing vital air the moment it shall so please
me?

And when I spoke of ‘ dishonouring suppositions ‘ I had
not the faintest approximation to an idea of standing in your
eyes for a magnanimous keeper of promises, vow-observer,
and the rest. All that is profoundly pitiable ! But to
change none of my views of the good of this life and the
next, and yet to give up my love on the view (for instance)
which sees that good in money, or worldly advancement, —
what is that if not dishonouring ?

All the while, I know your thought, your purpose in it
all, — I believe and am sure — and I bless you from my
heart — you will soon know, what you have to know — I
believe, beforehand, I repeat.

I am rather out of spirits to-day — thus I feel toward
you when at all melancholy . . you would undo me in
withdrawing from me your help, undo me, I feel ! When,
as ordinarily, I am cheerful, I have precisely the same con-
viction. Does that prove nothing, my Ba ?

Well, I give up proving, or trying to prove anything—
from the beginning I abjured mere words — and now, much
more !

Let me kiss you, ever best and dearest ! My life is in
the hand you call ‘ mine,’ — if that hand would ‘ shake ‘ less
from letting it fall, I earnestly pray God may relieve you of
it nor ever let you be even aware of what followed your
relief ! For what should one live or die in this world ?

I am wholly yours —

Did I not meet two of your brothers yesterday in the
Hall ? Pray take care of this cold wind — be satisfied with
the good deeds of the last few days.

[Postmark: May 4, 1846]

When I said one more letter might come before to-morrow,
I forgot. How used I to manage in the early ‘ day
of small things ‘ — comparatively — when letters came once a
week at most, and yet I felt myself so rich, dearest !

I want you to remember, Ba, what I shall be nearly
sure to forget when closer to you than now ; tell me to-morrow.
If I chance to see Mrs. Jameson in the course of
the week what am I to say, — that is, what have you decided
on saying? Does she know that you write to me?
Because there is a point of simple good taste to be pre-
served . . I must not listen with indifference if I am told
that ‘ her friend Miss B.’ thought well of the last number.
But she must know we write, I think, — never make any
secret of that, when the subject is brought forward.

Here is warm May weather, my Ba ; I do not shiver by
sympathy as I fancy you going down-stairs. I shall hope
to see the sweet face look its . . now, what ? ‘ Best ‘ would
be altogether an impertinence, — unless you help my meaning,
which is ‘ best,’ too.

I received two days ago a number of the People’s
Journal — from our illustrious contemporary, Bennett!
Bennett figures where Barrett might have fronted the
world. Fact ! I will cut you out his very original lyric
— observe the felicitous emendation in the author’s own
blue ink . . that supplemental trochee makes a musical
line of it ! Mary Howitt follows with a pretty, washy, very
meritorious Lyric of Life. There is ‘ a guilty one ‘ — ‘ Name
her not ! ‘ ‘ Virtue turns aside for shame ‘

She was bom of guilty kin —
Her life’s course hath guilty been —
Unto school she never went —
And whate’er she learned was sin, —

Let Her Die !

And so on — what pure nonsense ! Who cries ‘ let her die ‘
in the whole world now ? thank God, nobody. The sin of
the world (of the lookers-on, not the causers of the wrong)
consists, in these days, in looking on and asking ‘ How can
we help her dying — or factory children’s dying — or evicted
Irish peasantry’s dying ? ‘ What ails these Howitts of a
sudden, that they purvey this kind of cat-lap, — they that
once did better ? William Howitt grinds here an article on
May day ; past human power of reading of course, but I
just noticed that not a venerablest commonplace was
excused on account of its age — the quotations from
Chaucer, Spenser, Herrick got once more into rank and
file with the affecting alacrity shown the other day at a
review of the Chelsea invalids ! Oh, William, ‘ Let them
die!’

So goodbye till to-morrow, my dearest. I love you and
bless you ever, and am your

R. B.

[Postmark: May 2, 1846]

No, my Ba, your letter came as it ought last night, — and
the promise it contained of another made me restless all the
morning — to no purpose, — nothing more comes— yet — for
there is a ‘ peradventure ‘ yet unwithdrawn. When I do not
hear from you, as now, I always fancy there was some
signal reason why I ought to have heard . . that ‘ to-morrow,’
I could better bear the not hearing . . though never, never
do yesterday’s letters slip by a hair’s breadth from the place in
my affection they once take, — they could not have been dis-
pensed with,— but the imaginary letter of to-morrow could,
by contrast with to-day’s exigencies . . till to-morrow really
comes and is found preferring such claims of its own — such
claims.

This letter I have got, and will try and love enough for
two . . I can do no harm by trying . . this I do not mean
to say that I expected. May I say ‘ in heart-playing,’ . . now,
Ba, it will be a fancy, which you can pounce on and poke
your humming-bird bill through, like a needle, in a very
‘ twinkling,’ and so shall my flower’s eye be ruined for ever,
and when it turns black and shrivels up as dead flowers do,
you can triumph and ask ‘ are these your best flowers, best
feelings for me ? ‘. But now, after this deprecation, you will
be generous and only hover above, using the diamond eye
rather than the needle-bill, — and I will go on and dare say
that I should like, for one half second, not to love you, and
then feel all the love lit up in a flame to the topmost height,
at the falling of such a letter on my heart. Don’t you know
that foolish boys sometimes play at hanging themselves—
suspend themselves by the neck actually for such a half second
as this of my fancying — that they may taste the luxury of catch-
ing back at existence, and being cut down again ? There is
a notable exemplification, a worthy simile ! It all comes,
I suppose, from the joy of being rid handsomely of my
dinners and in a fair way for Monday . . nothing between
but letters, — I shall continue to hope ! At sea it always
sounds pleasantly to hear . . after passing Cape This and
Isle the other, ‘ now, next land we make is— Italy, or England,
or Greece.’

Moxon told me Tennyson was still in Town. Switzerland ?
He is a fortnight going to wherever a Train takes
him — ‘for,’ says Moxon, ‘ he has to pack up, and is too late,
and next day ‘ . . I dare say he unaffectedly hates London
where this poco-curanteism would entail all manner of dis-
agreeabilities. If I caught rightly . . that is, now apply
rightly, a word or two I heard . . one striking celebrity at
Dickens’ Dinner was — Lord Chesterfield — literary, inasmuch
as a great ‘ maker up of books ‘ — for the Derby. Macready
may have been another personage — they, Tennyson and he,
may ‘ fadge,’ in Shakespearian phrase, if the writer of the
‘ Two Voices ‘ &c. considers Home’s ‘ Douglas ‘ exquisite
poetry, — otherwise, — it is a chance!

But with respect to your Brother . . first of all — nay,
and last of all, for it all is attributable to that — I feel his
kindness, in its way, as I feel yours ; as truly, according to
its degree and claim : but — ‘ now think what I would
speak ! ‘ — When he really does see me one day — no longer
embarrassed as under the circumstances I could not but
have been on these two or three occasions when we met — he
will find something better than conversational powers to
which I never pretended — and what he will accept in preference,
— a true, faithful desire of repaying his goodness —
he will find it, that is, because it must be there, and I have
confidence in such feelings making sooner or later their
way.

So now, at 2½ p.m., I must ( — here is the Post . . from you ?
Yes — the letter is here at last — I was waiting : — now to read;
no, kissing it comes first).

And now .. I will not say a word, my love of loves, my
dearest, dearest Ba, — not one word — but I will go out and
walk where I can be alone, and think out all my thought of
you, and bless you and love you with nothing to intercept
the blessing and the love. I will look in the direction of
London and send my heart there . . Dear, dear love, I kiss
you and commend you to God. Your very own —

I am very well — quite well, dearest.

[Postmark: May 1, 1846]

I go to you, my Ba, with heart full of love, so it seems,—
yet I come away always with a greater capacity of
holding love, — for there is more and still more, — that seems
too ! At the beginning, I used to say (most truly) that
words were all inadequate to express my feelings, — now,
those very feelings seem, as I see them from this present
moment, just as inadequate in their time to represent what
I am conscious of now. I do feel more, widelier, strangelier
. . how can I tell you ? You must believe, — my only,
only beloved ! I daresay I have said this before, because
it has struck me repeatedly, — and, judging by past experi-
ence, I shall need to say it again — and often again. Am I
really destined to pass my life sitting by you ? And you
speak of your hesitation at trusting in miracles ! Oh, my Ba,
my heart’s — well, Ba, I am so far guiltless of presumption,
let come what will, that I never for the moment cease to be
. . tremblingly anxious I will say, — and conscious that the
good is too great for me in this world. You do not like
one to write so, I know, but there is a safety in it — the
presumptuous walk blindfold among pits, to a proverb —
and no one shall record that of me. And if I have cares
and scruples of this kind at times, or at all times, I have
none where most other people would have very many. I
never ask myself, as perhaps I should, — ‘ Will she be happy
too ? ‘ — All that seems removed from me, far above my con-
cernment — she — you, my Ba . . will make me so entirely
happy, that it seems enough to know . . my palm-trees
grow well enough without knowing the cause of the sun’s
heat. Then I think again, that your nature is to make
happy and to bless, and itself to be satisfied with that. — So
instead of fruitless speculations how to give you back your
own gift, I will rather resolve to lie quietly and let your
dear will have its unrestricted way. All which I take up the
paper determining not to write, — for it is foolish, poor en-
deavour at best, but, — just this time it is written. May
God bless you —

R. B.

I called on Moxon, who is better, and reports cheeringly.
Then I went to my friend’s, and thence home, not much
tired. I have to go out (to-day) with my sister but only
next door. To-morrow I hear from you, love, and on
Monday — (unless a pressing engagement &c|. — ah!

What do you say to this little familiar passage in the
daily life of friend Howitt, — for which I am indebted to
Moxon. Howitt is book-making about Poets, it seems —
where they were born, how they live, ‘ what relation their
mothers’ sons are to their fathers ‘ — etc. In the prosecution
of this laudable object he finds his way to Ambleside, calls
on Wordsworth ‘ quite promiscuously ‘ as Mrs. Malaprop says,
meaning nothing at all. And so after a little ordinary com-
plimenting and play-talk, our man of business takes to
good earnest, but dexterous questioning . . all for pure
interest in poetry and Mr. W. ‘ So, sir, after that school . .
if I understand — you went to . . to . . ? — and so on. Mr.
Wordsworth the younger having quicker eyes than his
father detected a certain shuffling movement between the
visitor’s right hand and some mysterious region between the
chair’s back and his coat-pocket . . glimpses of a pocket
case and paper note book were obtained. He thought it
(the son) high time to go and tell Mrs. Wordsworth, —
who came in and found the good old man in the full out-
pouring of all those delightful reminiscences hitherto
supposed the exclusive property of Miss Fenner no doubt !
Mrs. W — ‘desired to speak with William for a moment’
(the old William) — and then came the amazement, horror
&c. &c., and last of all came Mr. Howitt’s bow and ‘ so no
more at present from your loving &c.’ — Seriously, in my
instinct — instinct — instinct thrice I write it and thank
my stars ! Moxon said, Howitt is ‘ just gone to call on
Tennyson for information — having left his card for that
purpose.’ ‘ And one day will call on you ‘ quoth Moxon,
who is but a sinister prophet, as you may have heard — Dii
meliora piis ! It is fair enough in Tennyson’s case, for he
is apprised by Howitt’s self of the purpose of his visit, but
to try and inveigle Wordsworth into doing what he would
hate most . . to his credit be it said — why, it is abominable
— abominable !

Then I heard another story — his wife, Mary, finds out, —
at all events, translates Miss Bremer. Another publisher
gets translated other works — or may be the same, — as who
shall say him nay ? Howitt writes him a letter (which is
shown my informant), wherein ‘ rogue,’ ‘ thief,’ ‘ rascal ‘ and
similar elegancies dance pleasantly through period after
period.

‘ Come out from among them my soul, neither be thou
a partaker of their habitations ! ‘

From all which I infer — I may kiss you, may I not, love
Ba ? It is done, may I or may I not — Ever your own

[Postmark: April 29, 1846]

Oh, post, post, how I am plagued by what uses to de-
light me ! No letter, — and I cannot but think you have
written one, my Ba ! It will come perhaps at 3 o’clock.
Shame and again, shame !

Meantime I will tell you what a dear, merciful Ba you
are, in only threatening me with daggers, — when you play
at threatening, — instead of declaring you will frown at me.
. . Oh, but here ‘ Fear recoils, he knows well why, even at
the sound himself has made — ‘

The best of it is, that this was the second fright, and
by no means the most formidable. When I read that para-
graph beginning ‘ you need not think any more of going
with me to Italy ‘ — shall I only say I was alarmed ? With-
out a particle of affectation, I tell Ba, I am, cannot help
being, alarmed even now — we have been discussing possibilities
— and it is rather more possible than probable that
Miss Bayley may ‘ carry off’ my Ba, and her Flush, and, say,
an odd volume of the Cyclic Poets, all in her pocket . . she
being, if I remember, of the race of the Anakim — than that
I shall ever find in the wide world a flesh and blood woman
able to bear the weight of the ‘ feelings,’ I rest now upon
the B and the A which spell Ba s name, — only her name !

Forster sent a note last evening urging me to go and
dine with him and Leigh Hunt to-day, — there was no re-
fusing. There is sunshine — you may have been down-stairs
— but the wind continues.

I shall know to-morrow — but surely a letter is to come
presently — let me wait a little.

Nothing ! Pray write if anything have happened, my
own Ba !

No time — Ever your

[Postmark: April 28, 1846]

Now bless you, my dearest, best Ba, for this letter that
comes at the eleventh hour, — which means, at 3 o’clock.
Was not I frightened ! I made sure you would write. Why,
our Post emulates the Italian glory . . nay, that is too savage
a saying — for in Venice or Rome I should have to go for this
to the office, and only get it at last through the forbearing
honesty of every other applicant for letters during the day,
or week — since to every man and woman who thrusts his
or her head in at the window at Venice, the clerk hands
coolly over the whole odd hundred, and turns to his rest
again till as many are taken as may be thought necessary.
But, Ba, dear dearest Ba, do you really mean to tell me I
said ‘ that ‘ . . of ‘ transferring feelings ‘ etc ? I hope I did, —
though I cannot imagine how I ever could — say so — for so
the greater fault will be Ba’s — who drives me from one Scylla
(see my critic’s account) into a worse Charybdis through pure
fear and aversion, — and then cries ‘ See where you are now ! ‘
I was retreating as far as possible from that imaginary
‘ woman who called out those feelings,’ — might have called
them out, — just as this April sun of ours makes date-palms
grow and bear — and because I said, of the two hypotheses,
the one which taught you the palms might be transplanted
and live on here, — that was the more rational . . you turn
and ask ‘ So your garden will rear palms.’ Now, I tell
Ba, — no, I will kiss Ba and so tell her.

How happy Miss Bayley’s testimony makes me ! One
never can be too sure of such a happiness. She has no
motive for thus confirming it. You ‘ look so well ‘ — and
she not merely sees it, but acts upon it, — is for deriving a
practical benefit from it, and forthwith. Then, Miss Bayley,
let me try and ‘ transfer ‘ . . ah, the palm is too firmly rooted
in my very heart, — I can but sprinkle you over with yellow
dust !

Oh, Ba ; not to tell me of the League ; the number ! —
will you please tell me ? One letter more I get, do I not ?
Then comes Thursday — my Thursday.

What you style ‘ impertinence ‘ in your Brother, is very
kind and good-natured to my thinking. Well, now —
see the way a newspaper criticism affects one, nearly the
only way ! If this had been an attack — how it would
affect you and me matters nothing — it might affect others dis-
agreeably — and through them, us. So I feel very much
obliged to Forster in this instance.

I kiss you with perfect love, my sweetest best Ba. May
God bless you.

R

[Postmark: April 27, 1846]

Oh yes ; that paper is by Chorley, no doubt — I read it,
and quite wonder at him. I suppose he follows somebody’s
‘ lead ‘ — writes as he is directed — because I well remember
what he said on lending me ‘ Le Compagnon.’ There,
there is that other silly expenditure of pen and ink on the
English poets, or whatever they are. And in such work
may a man spend his youth and not a few available energies
— sad work altogether !

My love, I have done a fair day’s work this Monday, —
whoever may be idle— I thought I would call on Forster
this morning — he was out, and I crossed over to Moxon’s,
not seeing him, neither, and thence walked home — so that
to tell you I am well is superfluous enough, is it not ? But
while the sun shone brightest, (and it shines now) I said
‘ The cold wind is felt through it all, — she keeps the room ! ‘
The wind is unremitting, — savage. Do you bear it, dearest, or
suffer, as I fear ? (Speaking of Forster . . you see the Examiner,
I believe ? Or I will send it directly of course). I
entirely agree with you in your estimate of the comparative
value of French and English Romance-writers. I bade the
completest adieu to the latter on my first introduction to
Balzac, whom I greatly admire for his faculty, whatever he
may choose to do with it. Do you know a little sketch ‘ La
Messe de l’Athée,’ — most affecting to me. And for you, with
your love of a ‘ story,’ what an unceasing delight must be
that very ingenious way of his, by which he connects the
new novel with its predecessors — keeps telling you more
and more news yet of the people you have got interested in,
but seemed to have done with. Rastignac, Mme. d’Espard,
Desplein &c. — they keep alive, moving — it is not ingenious ?
Frédéric Soulié I know a little of (I let this reading drop
some ten years ago) and only George Sand’s early works :
by the way, the worst thing of all in that blessed article we
have been referring to, is the spiteful and quite uncalled for
introduction of the names of A. de Musset and De La-
mennais — what have the English families to do with that?,
Did you notice a stanza quoted from some lachrymose
rhymester to be laughed at (in the Article on Poetry) — in
which the writer complains of the illtreatment of false
friends, for’ says he’ I have felt their bangs.’ The
notion of one’s friend ‘ banging ‘ one is exhilarating when
one reflects that he might get a little pin, and prick, prick
after this fashion. No, it is probably a manner of writing, —
meant for the week’s life and the dozen readers. Here is a
note from his sister, by the way.

Now, dearest-dearest, good bye till to-morrow. I think
of you all day, and, if I dream, dream of you — and the end
of the thinking and of the dreaming is still new love, new
love of you, my sweetest, only beloved ! so I kiss you and
bless you from my heart of heart.

Ever your R.