Author: RB

[Postmark: March 31, 1846]

Tuesday

Dear, dear, Ba, what shall I say or not say ? On a kind
of principle, I have tried before this to subdue the expres-
sion of gratitude for the material, worldly good you do me —
for my poor store of words would all pay themselves
away here, at the beginning, and so leave the higher,
peculiar, Ba’s own gifts even without a cry of acknowledgement,
not to say of thanks. But somehow you, you my
dearest, my Ba, look out of all imaginable nooks and
crevices in the materiality — I see you through your goodness,
— I cannot distinguish between your acts now, — the greater,
indeed, and the lesser ! Which is the ‘ lesser ‘ ? With
you all their heap of work seems no more than – -. (I
cannot even think of what may serve for some lesser act of
kindness ! That is just what I wanted to say — ‘ the effect
defective comes by cause ‘ here — there is no ‘ lesser ‘ blessing
in your power, as I said !)

Now, darling, — it is late in the afternoon, as posts go —
I have been out all the morning in town, and while I was
happy with one letter (found waiting my return) — the parcel
comes — so I will just say this much, (this little, this least) —
this word now — and by tonight all shall be corrected, I
hope, and got rid of fairly. And to-morrow, I will have you
to myself, my best one, and will write till you cry out against
me. I go now. God bless you and reward you — prays your
very own R. B.

[Postmark: March 30, 1846]

Monday.

‘ The system,’ Ba ? — Were you to stop writing, as if for
my reasons ? Could I do without your letters, on any pretence? You say well — it was a foolish fancy, and now —
have done with it !

And do you think you could have refused to see me after
that visit? I mean, do you think I did not resolve so
to conduct myself ; so to ‘ humble myself and go still and
softly all my days ‘ ; that your suspicion should needs
insensibly clear up . . (if it had been so pre-ordained, and
that no more was in my destiny,) and at last I should have
been written down your friend for ever, and let come and stay,
on that footing. But you really think the confirmation of that
sentence must have been attended with such an effect — that
I should have forgotten you or so remembered you ? You
think that on the strength of such a love as that, I would
have ventured a month of my future life . . much less, the
whole of it ? Not you, Ba, — my dearest, dearest !

How you surprise me (what ever may you think) by
liking that ‘ Tragedy ‘ ! It seems as if, having got out of
the present trouble, I shall never fall into its fellow — I will
strike, for the future, on the glowing, malleable metal ;
afterward, filing is quite another process from hammering,
and a more difficult one. Note, that ‘ filing ‘ is the wrong
word, — and the rest of it, the wrong simile, — and all of it, in
its stupid wrongness very characteristic of what I try to
illustrate — oh, the better, better days are before me there as
in all else ! But, do you notice how stupid I am to-day ?
My head begins again — that is the fact ; it is better a good
deal than in the morning— its oeconomy passes my comprehension altogether, that is the other fact. With the deep
joy in my heart below — this morning’s letter here — what
does the head mean by its perversity ? I will go out presently and walk it back to its senses.

Dearest, did you receive my ‘proof ‘ this morning? Do
not correct nor look at it, nor otherwise trouble yourself —
there is plenty of time. But what day is ours to be ? Of
that you say nothing, and of my poems a great deal, ‘ O
you inverter ! ‘ But I am, rather, a reverter — and you shall
revert, and mind the natural order of things, and tell me
first of all — (in to-night’s letter, dearest ?)— that it is to be
on — ?

Now let me kiss you here — my own Ba ! Being stupid
makes some difference in me — I am no poet, nor prose- writer,
nor rational ‘ Christian, pagan nor man ‘ this afternoon — but
I am now — as yesterday — as the long ‘year ago’ — your
own, utterly your own ! May God bless you ! (I
wondered yesterday if you had gone down-stairs — ‘ no ‘ I
infer !)

[Postmark: March 30, 1846]

Sunday Afternoon.

Now, I think, if I had been ‘ pricked at the heart ‘ by
dear, dearest Ba’s charge yesterday, — if I did not certainly
know why it might sometimes seem better to be silent than
to speak, — should I not be found taking out three or four
sheets of paper, and beginning to write, and write ! My
own, dearest and best, it is not so, — not wrong, my heart’s
self tells me, — and tells you ! But, for the rest, there shall
never pass a day till my death wherein I will not write to
you, so long as you let me, excepting those days I may
spend with you, partly or . . altogether — Love, shall I
have very, very long to be hating to write, yet writing ?

You see sometimes how I talk to you, — even in mere
talking what a strange work I make of it. I go on thinking
quite another way ; so, generally, I often have thought,
the little I have written, has been an unconscious scrawling
with the mind fixed somewhere else : the subject of the
scrawl may have previously been the real object of the
mind on some similar occasion, — the very thing which then
to miss, (finding in its place such another result of a still
prior fancy-fit) — which then to see escape, or find escaped,
was the vexation of the time ! One cannot, (or I cannot)
finish up the work in one’s mind, put away the old projects
and take up new. Well, this which I feel on so many
occasions, do you wonder if — if !

I should write on this for ever ! It is all so strange, such
a dream as you say !

Indeed, love, the picture is not like, nor ‘ flattered ‘ by
any means, yet I don’t know how it is, I cannot be cross
with it — there is a touch of truth in the eyes, — would one
have believed that I know my own way with portraits ;
how I let them master eventually my most decided sense of
their unlikeness — and this finds me very prepared — still —
it seems already more faithful than last night . . how do I
determine where the miraculousness ends? (My Mother
was greatly impressed by it — and my sister, coming (from
my room) into the room where I was with a visitor, before
whom she could not speak English, said ‘ È molto bella ‘ !)

Here is my ‘ proof ‘ — I found it as I expected. I fear
I must put you to that trouble of sending the other two
acts — I hate to think of so troubling you ! But do not, Ba,
hurry yourselfnor take extraordinary pains — what is worth
your pains in these poor things ? I like Luria better now, —
it may do, now, — probably because it must ! but, as I said
yesterday, I seriously hope and trust to shew my sense of
gratitude for what is promised my future life, by doing
some real work in it : work of yours, as through you. I have
felt, not for the first time now, but from the beginning
vexed, foolishly vexed perhaps, that I could not without
attracting undesirable notice, ‘ dedicate,’ in the true sense
of the word, this or the last number to you. But if any
really worthy performance should follow, then my mouth
will be unsealed. All is forewritten !

I wonder if you have ventured down this sunny after-
noon — tell me how you are, and, once again, do not care
about those papers ; any time will do.

So, bless you, my own — my all-beloved Ba.

Your R. B.

[Postmark: March 27, 1846]

Friday.

‘ Qui laborat, orat ‘ ; so they used to say, and in that
case I have been devotional to a high degree this morning.
Seven holes did I dig (to keep up inversions of style) —
seven rose-trees did I plant — ( ‘ Brennus ‘ — and ‘ Madame
Lafarge ‘ ! are two names I remember ; very characteristic
of old Gaul and young France — ) and, for my pains, the first
fruits, first blossoms some two or three months hence, will
come, and will go to dearest Ba who first taught me what a
rose really was, how sweet it might become with superadded
memories of the room and the chair and the vase, and the cutting-
stalks and pouring fresh water . . ah, my own Ba ! — And
did you think to warn me out of the Flush-simile by the hint
of Aminè’s privilege which it would warrant ? If the ‘ ever so
much whipping ‘ should please you ! . . . And beside it was,
if I recollect, for the creature’s good, those poor imprisoned
sisters, all the time. Moreover, I was ‘ born ‘ all this and
more, that you will know, at least — and only walked
glorious and erect on two legs till dear Siren, an old friend
of, and deep in the secrets of Circe, sprinkled the waters
. . perhaps on those roses — No, before that ! —

Well, to-morrow comes fast now — and I shall trust to be
with you my beloved — and, first, you are to show me the
portrait, remember.

I am glad you like Mrs. Jameson — do not I like her all
the better, much the better ! But it is fortunate I shall not
see. her by any chance just now — she would be sure to begin
and tell me about you — and if my hands did not turn cold,
my ear-tips would assuredly turn red. I daresay that St.
Cecilia is the beautiful statue above her tomb at Rome ;
covered with a veil — affectingly beautiful ; I well remember
how she lies.

Nqw good-bye ; and to-morrow ! Bless you, ever dear,
dearest Ba —

Your own

R.

[Postmark: March 26, 1846]

Thursday Morning.

Sometimes I have a disposition to dispute with dearest
Ba, to wrench her simile-weapons out of the dexterous hand
(that is, try and do so) and have the truth of things my way
and its own way, not hers, if she be Ba — (observe, I say
nothing about ever meeting with remarkable success in
such undertakings, only, that they are entered on some-
times). But at other times I seem as if I must lie down,
like Flush, with all manner of coral necklaces about my
neck, and two sweet mysterious hands on my head, and so
be forced to hear verses on me, Ba’s verses, in which I,
that am but Flush of the lower nature, am called loving
friend and praised for not preferring to go ‘ coursing hares ‘
— with ‘ other dogs.’ So I will lie now, as you will have it,
and say in Flush-like tones (the looks that are dog’s tones)
— I don’t don’t know how it is, or why, or what it all will
end in, but I am very happy and what I hear must mean
right, by the music, — though the meaning is above me, — and
here are the hands — which I may, and will, look up to, and
kiss — determining not to insist any more this time that at
Miss Mitford’s were sundry dogs, brighter than ‘ brown ‘ —
See where, just where, Flush stops discreetly ! ‘ Eternity ‘
he would have added, ‘ but stern death ‘ &c. &c,

I treat these things lightheartedly, as you see — instead
of seriously, which would at first thought seem the wiser
course — ‘ for after all, she will find out one day ‘ &c. No
dearest, — I do not fear that ! Why make uneasy words of
saying simply I shall continue to give you my best flowers,
all I can find — if I bring violets, or grass, when you expected
to get roses, — you will know there were none in my garden
— that is all.

And for you — as I may have told you once, — as I tell
myself always — you are entirely what I love — not just a rose
plucked off with an inch of stalk, but presented as a rose
should be, with a green world of boughs round : all about
you is ‘ to my heart ‘ — (to my mind, as they phrase it) — and
were it not that, of course, I know when to have done with
fancyings and merely flitting permissible ‘ inly-sayings with
heart-playing,’ and when it is time to look at the plain ‘ best ‘
through the lock of ‘ good ‘ and ‘ better ‘ in circumstances and
accident — I do say — were the best blessing of all, the blessing
I trust and believe God intends, of your perfect restoration
to health, — were that not so palpably best, — I should catch
myself desirous that your present state of unconfirmed health
might never pass away ! Ba understands I know !. After
all, it will always stay, that luxury, — if but through the memory
of what has been, and may recur, that deepest luxury that
makes my very heartstrings tremble in the thought of — that I
shall have a right, a duty — where in another case, they would
be uncalled for, superfluous, impertinent. Tapers ordinarily
burn best let alone, with all your light depending on the little
flame, the darkest night but for it— why, stand off”— what good
can you do, so long as there is no extraordinary evil to avert,
breaking down of the candlestick to prevent ? But here —
there will be reason as well as a delight beyond delights in
always learning to close over, all but holding the flame in
the hollow of one’s hand ! I shall have a right to think it
is not mere pleasure, merely for myself, that I care and am
close by — and that which thus is called ‘ not for myself after all, in its essence, most for myself, — why it is a
luxury, a last delight ! —

In the procurement of which there will be this obstacle,
or grave matter to be first taken into consideration, — that
the world will ‘ change colour ‘ about it, will have its Own
thoughts on the subject I have my own thoughts, on its
subject, the affairs of the world and pieces of perfect good
fortune it approves of, and stamps for enviable — and on the
whole the world has quite a right to treat me uncere-
moniously, — I having begun it. As for the ‘ seeing out of
the window once ‘ — those who knew nothing about us but
our names had better think that was the way, than most
others ; and the half-dozen who knew a little more, may hear
the true account if they please, when they hear anything —
those who know all, all necessary to know, will understand
my 137 letters here and my 54 visits . . see, I write as if this
were to be pleaded to-night — would it were ! As if you
had to write the meeting between Hector and Andromache,
not the parting ! By the way, dearest, what enchanted
poetry all your translations for Miss Thomson are — as Carlyle
says ! ‘ Nobody can touch them, get at them ! ‘ How
am I the better for Nonnus, and Apuleius ? Now, do you
serve me well there ?

I shall hear to-morrow of Mrs. Jameson’s etchings and
discourses ? and more good news of you, darling ? I am quite
well to-day — going out with my sister to dine next door —
then, over to-morrow, and the letter, will come Saturday,
my day.

Bless you, my own best, dearest — I am your own.

R.

[Postmark: March 25, 1846]

Wednesday.

You were right to bid me never again wish my poor flowers were ‘diamonds’ — you could not, I think, speak so to my heart of any diamonds. God knows my life is for you
to take just as you take flowers :— these last please you,
serve you best when plucked — and ‘my life’s rose’ . . if I
dared profane that expression I would say, you have but to
‘stoop’ for it. Foolish, as all words are.

You dwell on that notion of your being peculiarly isolated,
— of any kindness to you, in your present state, seeming
doubled and quadrupled — what do I, what could anyone
infer from that but, most obviously, that it was a very
fortunate thing for such kindness, and that the presumable
bestower of it got all his distinction from the fact that no
better . . however, I hate this and cannot go on. Dearest,
believe that under ordinary circumstances, with ordinary
people, all operates differently — the imaginary kindness-
bestower with his ideal methods of showing and proving his
love, — there would be the rival to fear !

Do not let us talk of this — you always beat me, beside,
turn my own illustrations into obscurations — as in the notable
case of the cards and stakes and risks — I suppose, (to save
my vanity!) that if I knew anything about cards, I might go
on, a step at least, with my argument. I once heard a dispute in the street between the proprietor of an oyster-stall
and one of his customers — who was in the wrong . . that
is, who used the clenching argument you shall hear presently,
I don’t remember ; but one brought the other to this pass —

‘Are there three shells to an oyster?’ — Just that ! If there
were not — he would clearly be found in the wrong, that was
all ! — ‘Why,’ . . began the other; and I regret I did not
catch the rest — there was such a clear possibility contained
in that ‘Why . . an oyster might have three shells !’

Note the adroitness, — (calm heroic silence of the act
rather than a merely attempted word,) the mastery with
which, taking up Ba’s implied challenge, I do furnish her
with both ‘ amusement and instruction ‘ — moreover I will
at Ba’s bidding amuse and instruct the world at large, and
make them know all to be known — for my purposes — about
‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ — yes, it will be better.

I said rather hastily that my head ‘ached’ yesterday :
that meant, only that it was more observable because, after
walking, it is usually well — and I had been walking. To-day
it is much better ; I sit reading ‘Cromwell,’ and the newspaper,
and presently I shall go out — all will be better now,
I hope — it shall not be my fault, at least, depend on that.
All my work (work !) — well, such as it is, it is done — and I
scarcely care how — I shall be prouder to begin one day—
(may it be soon! — ) with your hand in mine from the beginning — that
is a very different thing in its effect from the same
hand touching mine after I had begun, with no suspicion
such a chance could befall ! I repeat, both these things,
‘Luria’ and the other, are manque, failures — the life-incidents
ought to have been acted over again, experienced afresh ;
and I had no inclination nor ability. But one day, my siren !

Let me make haste and correct a stupid error. I spoke
to my father last night about that tragedy of the studs — I
was wholly out in the story — the sufferer was his uncle, and
the scene should have been laid on the Guinea coast. A propos
of errors — the copyright matter is most likely a case of copy-wrong
by reporters — I never heard of it before — to be sure, I
signed a petition of Miss Martineau’s superintending once on
a time — but long ago, ‘I, I, I’ — how, dear, all important ‘I’
takes care of himself, and issues bulletins, and corrects his
wise mistakes, and all this to . . just ‘one of his readers
of the average intelligence.’ Are you that, so much as that,
Ba ? I will tell you — if you do not write to me all about
vour dear, dearest self, I shall sink with shame at the recollection
of what this letter and its like prove to be — must
prove to be ! Dear love, tell me — that you walk and are in
good spirits, and I will try and write better. May God
bless my own beloved! — Ever her own

R.

I think, am all but sure, there is a Mrs. Hornblower something !

Just a minute to say your second note has come, and
that I do hate hate having to write, not kiss my answer on
your dearest mouth — kindest, dearest — to-morrow I will
try — and meantime — though Ba by the fire will not be cold
at heart, cold of heart, at least, and I will talk to her and
more than talk — My dearest, dearest one!

Tuesday Afternoon.

March 24, 1846.

My own dearest, if you do  – – (for I confess to nothing of the kind), but if you should detect an unwillingness to write at certain times, what would that prove,  – – I mean, what that one need shrink from avowing? If I never had you before me except when writing letters to you  – – then! Why, we do not even talk much now! witness Mr. Buckingham and his voyage that ought to have been discussed!  – – Oh, how coldly I should write,  – – how the bleak-looking paper would seem unpropitious to carry my feeling  – – if all had to begin and try to find words this way!

Now, this morning I have been out  – – to town and back  – – and for all the walking my head aches  – – and I have the conviction that presently when I resign myself to think of you wholly, with only the pretext,  – – the make-believe of occupation, in the shape of some book to turn over the leaves of,  – – I shall see you and soon be well; so soon! You must know, there is a chair (one of the kind called gondóla-chairs by upholsterers  – – with an emphasized o)  – – which occupies the precise place, stands just in the same relation to this chair I sit on now, that yours stands in and occupies  – – to the left of the fire: and, how often, how always I turn in the dusk and see the dearest real Ba with me.

How entirely kind to take that trouble, give those sittings for me! Do you think the kindness has missed its due effect? No, no, I am glad,  – – (knowing what I now know,  – – what you meant should be, and did all in your power to prevent) that I have not received the picture, if anything short of an adequate likeness. ‘Nil nisi  – – te!’ But I have set my heart on seeing it  – – will you remember next time, next Saturday?

I will leave off now. To-morrow, dearest, only dearest Ba, I will write a longer letter  – – the clock stops it this afternoon  – – it is later than I thought, and our poor crazy post! This morning, hoping against hope, I ran to meet our postman coming meditatively up the lane  – – with a letter, indeed!  – – but Ba’s will come to-night  – – and I will be happy, already am happy, expecting it. Bless you, my own love,

Ever your  – –

 

Sunday.

March 23, 1846.

Oh, my Ba  – – how you shall hear of this to-morrow  – – that is all: I hate writing? See when presently I only write to you daily, hourly if you let me? Just this now  – – I will be with you to-morrow in any case  – – I can go away at once, if need be, or stay  – – if you like you can stop me by sending a note for me to Moxon’s before 10 o’clock  – – if anything calls for such a measure.

Now briefly,  – – I am unwell and entirely irritated with this sad ‘Luria’  – – I thought it a failure at first, I find it infinitely worse than I thought  – – it is a pure exercise of cleverness, even where most successful; clever attempted reproduction of what was conceived by another faculty, and foolishly let pass away. If I go on, even hurry the more to get on, with the printing,  – – it is to throw out and away from me the irritating obstruction once and forever. I have corrected it, cut it down, and it may stand and pledge me to doing better hereafter. I say, too, in excuse to myself, unlike the woman at her spinning-wheel, ‘He thought of his flax on the whole far more than of his singing’  – – more of his life’s sustainment, of dear, dear Ba he hates writing to, than of these wooden figures  – – no wonder all is as it is?

Here is a pure piece of the old Chorley leaven for you, just as it reappears ever and anon and throws one back on the mistrust all but abandoned! Chorley knows I have not seen that Powell for nearly fifteen months  – – that I never heard of the book till it reached me in a blank cover  – – that I never contributed a line or word to it directly or indirectly  – – and I should think he also knows that all the sham learning, notes &c., all that saves the book from the deepest deep of contempt, was contributed by Heraud (a regular critic in the ‘Athenæum’), who received his pay for the same: he knows I never spoke in my life to ‘Jones or Stephens’  – – that there is no ‘coterie’ of which I can, by any extension of the word, form a part  – – that I am in this case at the mercy of a wretched creature who to get into my favour again (to speak the plain truth) put in the gross, disgusting flattery in the notes  – – yet Chorley, knowing this, none so well, and what the writer’s end is  – – (to have it supposed I, and the others named  – – Talfourd, for instance  – – are his friends and helpers)  – – he condescends to further it by such a notice, written with that observable and characteristic duplicity, that to poor gross stupid Powell it shall look like an admiring ‘Oh, fie  – – so clever but so wicked’!  – – a kind of D’Orsay’s praise  – – while to the rest of his readers, a few depreciatory epithets  – – slight sneers convey his real sentiments, he trusts! And this he does, just because Powell buys an article of him once a quarter and would expect notice. I think I hear Chorley  – – ‘You know, I cannot praise such a book  – – it is too bad’  – – as if, as if  – – oh, it makes one sicker than having written ‘Luria,’ there’s one comfort! I shall call on Chorley and ask for his account of the matter. Meantime nobody will read his foolish notice without believing as he and Powell desire! Bless you, my own Ba  – – to-morrow makes amends to R.B.

 

Saturday Morning.

March 21, 1846.

Dearest,  – – it just strikes me that I might by some chance be kept in town this morning  – – (having to go to Milnes’ breakfast there)  – – so as not to find the note I venture to expect, in time for an answer by our last post to-night. But I will try  – – this only is a precaution against the possibility. Dear, dear Ba! I cannot thank you, know not how to thank you for the notes! I adopt every one, of course, not as Ba’s notes but as Miss Barrett’s, not as Miss Barrett’s but as anybody’s, everybody’s  – – such incontestable improvements they suggest. When shall I tell you more  . . . on Monday or Tuesday? That I must know  – – because you appointed Monday, ‘if nothing happened  – – ‘ and Mr. K. happened  – – can you let me hear by our early post to-morrow  – – as on Monday I am to be with Moxon early, you know  – – and no letters arrive before 11-1/2 or 12. I was not very well yesterday, but to-day am much better  – – and you,  – – I say how I am precisely to have a double right to know all about you, dearest, in this snow and cold! How do you bear it? And Mr. K. spoke of ‘that being your worst day.’ Oh, dear dearest Ba, remember how I live in you  – – on the hopes, with the memory of you. Bless you ever!

R.

 

March 18, 1846.

Indeed, dearest, you shall not have last word as you think,  – – all the ‘risk’ shall not be mine, neither; how can I, in the event, throw ambs-ace (is not that the old word?) and not peril your stakes too, when once we have common stock and are partners? When I see the unicorn and grieve proportionately, do you mean to say you are not going to grieve too, for my sake? And if so  – – why, you clearly run exactly the same risk,  – – must,  – – unless you mean to rejoice in my sorrow! So your chance is my chance; my success your success, you say, and my failure, your failure, will you not say? You see, you see, Ba, my own  – – own! What do you think frightened me in your letter for a second or two? You write ‘Let us talk on Thursday  . . . Monday I forgot’  – – which I read,  – – ‘no, not on Thursday  – – I had forgotten! It is to be Monday when we meet next’!  – – whereat

as Hudibras sings  – – I clutched the letter convulsively  – – till relief came.

So till to-morrow  – – my all-beloved! Bless you. I am rather hazy in the head as Archer Gurney will find in due season  – – (he comes, I told you)  – – but all the morning I have been going for once and for ever through the ‘Tragedy,’ and it is done  – – (done for). Perhaps I may bring it to-morrow  – – if my sister can copy all; I cut out a huge kind of sermon from the middle and reserve it for a better time  – – still it is very long; so long! So, if I ask, may I have ‘Luria’ back to morrow? So shall printing begin, and headache end  – – and ‘no more for the present from your loving’

R.B.