Author: RB

[Postmark: August 31, 1846]

Monday Morning.

Here is dearest Ba’s dearest letter, because the latest, and it is one of her very kisses incorporated and made manifest – so perfectly kind ! And should this make me ashamed of perhaps an over-earnestness in what I wrote yesterday? or not rather justify me to myself and to her – since it was on a passing fear of losing what I hold so infinitely precious, that the earnestness happened ! My own Ba, you lap me over with love upon love . . there is my first and proper love, independent of any return, and there is this return for what would reward itself. Do think how I must feel at the most transient suggestion of failure, and parting, and an end to all ! You cannot expect I can lie quietly and let my life of life be touched. And ever, dearest, through the life which I trust is about to be permitted us, – ever I shall remember where my treasure is, and turn
as vigilantly when it is approached. Beside, I was not very well, as I told you in excuse – I am much better now. Not that, upon reconsideration, I can alter my opinion on the proper course to take. We know all the miracles wrought in our favour hitherto . . are not the chances (speaking in that foolish way) against our expecting more? To-day is fine, sunny and warm, for instance, and looks as if cold weather were a long way off – but what are these fancies and appearances when weighed against the other possibility of a sudden fall of the year ? By six months more of days like this we should gain nothing, nothing in the world, you confess – by the other misfortune we lose everything perhaps.

Will you have a homely illustration ? There is a tree against our wall here which produced weeks ago a gigantic apple – which my mother had set her heart on showing a cousin of mine who is learned in fruits and trees. I told her, ‘ You had better pluck it at once – it will fall and be spoiled.’ She thought the next day or two would do its cheeks good, – just the next – so there it continued to hang till this morning, when she was about to go out with my sister – I said ‘ now is the time – you are going to my aunt’s – let me pluck you the apple ‘ – ‘ Oh,’ she said ‘ I have been looking at it, trying it, – it hangs so firmly, . . not this time, thank you ! ‘ So she went without it, two hours ago – and just now, I turned to the tree with a boding presentiment – there lay our glory, bruised in the dirt, a sad wreck ! ‘ Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love ! ‘ Rather, counsel me through apples ! Do you see the counsel ?

Come, let me not be so ungrateful to the letter, to what you have done for me, as only to speak of what you are disinclined to do. I am very glad you succeeded in going to the chapel, and that the result was so favourable – see how the dangers disappear when one farces them ! And the account of Mr. Stratten is very interesting, too – besides characteristic – do you see how ? Find as great a saint as the world holds, who shall be acknowledged to be utterly disinterested, unbiassed by anything except truth and common justice, – a man of sense as well as piety – and succeed in convincing such an one of our right to do as we purpose, – and then – let him lay the matter before your father ! To no other use than to exasperate him against Mr. Stratten, deprive your sister of the privilege of seeing his family, and bring about a little more pain and trouble !

Let me think of something else . . of the happiness you profess to feel – which it makes me entirely happy to know. I will not try and put away the crown you give me. I just say the obvious truth, . . even what I can do to make you happy, according to my ability, has yet to be experienced by you . . if my thoughts and wishes reach you with any effect at present, they will operate freelier when the obstruction is removed . . that is only natural. I shall live for you, for every minute in your life. May God bless me with such a life, as that it may be of use to you . . yours it must be whether of use or not, for I am wholly your R.

Here comes my mother back . . she is a little better to-day. I am much better as I said. And you ? Let me get the kiss I lost on Saturday ! (I dined at Arnould’s yesterday with Chorley and his brother, and the Cushmans.) Chorley goes to-night to Ostend.

[Postmark: August 31, 1846]

I wonder what I shall write to you, Ba – I could suppress my feelings here, as I do on other points, and say nothing of the hatefulness of this state of things which is prolonged so uselessly. There is the point – show me one good reason, or show of reason, why we gain anything by deferring our departure till next week instead of to-morrow, and I will bear to perform yesterday’s part for the amusement of Mr. Kenyon a dozen times over without complaint. But if the cold plunge must be taken, all this shivering delay on the bank is hurtful as well as fruitless. I do understand your anxieties, dearest – I take your fears and make them mine, while I put my own natural feeling of quite another kind away from us both, succeeding in that beyond all expectation. There is no amount of patience or suffering I would not undergo to relieve you from these apprehensions. But if, on the whole, you really determine to act as we propose in spite of them, – why, a new leaf is turned over in our journal, an old part of our adventure done with, and a new one entered upon, altogether distinct from the other. Having once decided to go to Italy with me, the next thing to decide is on the best means of going – or rather, there is just this connection between the two measures, that by the success or failure of the last, the first will have to be justified or condemned. You tell me you have decided to go – then, dearest, you will be prepared to go earlier than you promised yesterday – by the end of September at very latest. In proportion to the too probable excitement and painful circumstances of the departure, the greater amount of advantages should be secured for the departure itself. How can I take you away in even the beginning of October ? We shall be a fortnight on the journey – with the year, as everybody sees and says, a full month in advance . . cold mornings and dark evenings already. Everybody would cry out on such folly when it was found that we let the favourable weather escape, in full assurance that the Autumn would come to us unattended by any one beneficial circumstance.

My own dearest, I am wholly your own, for ever, and under every determination of yours. If you find yourself unable, or unwilling to make this effort, tell me so and plainly and at once – I will not offer a word in objection, – I will continue our present life, if you please, so far as may be desirable, and wait till next autumn, and the next and the next, till providence end our waiting. It is clearly not for me to pretend to instruct you in your duties to God and yourself ; . . enough, that I have long ago chosen to accept your decision. If, on the other hand, you make up your mind to leave England now, you will be prepared by the end of September.

I should think myself the most unworthy of human beings if I could employ any arguments with the remotest show of a tendency to frighten you into a compliance with any scheme of mine. Those methods are for people in another relation to you. But you love me, and, at lowest, shall I say, wish me well – and the fact is too obvious for me to commit any indelicacy in reminding you, that in any dreadful event to our journey of which I could accuse myself as the cause, – as of this undertaking to travel with you in the worst time of year when I could have taken the best, – in the case of your health being irretrievably shaken, for instance . . the happiest fate I should pray for would be to live and die in some corner where I might never hear a word of the English language, much less a comment in it on my own wretched imbecility, – to disappear and be forgotten.

So that must not be, for all our sakes. My family will give me to you that we may be both of us happy . . but for such an end – no !

Dearest, do you think all this earnestness foolish and uncalled for? – that I might know you spoke yesterday in mere jest, – as yourself said, ‘ only to hear what I would say ‘ ? Ah but consider, my own Ba, the way of our life, as it is, and is to be – a word, a simple word from you, is not as a word is counted in the world – the word between us is different – I am guided by your will, which a word shall signify to me. Consider that just such a word, so spoken, even with that lightness, would make me lay my life at your feet at any minute. Should we gain anything by my trying, if I could, to deaden the sense of hearing, dull the medium of communication between us ; and procuring that, instead of this prompt rising of my will at the first intimation from yours, the same effect should only follow after fifty speeches, and as many protestations of complete serious desire for their success on your part, accompanied by all kinds of acts and deeds and other evidences of the same ?

At all events, God knows I have said this in the deepest, truest love of you. I will say no more, praying you to forgive whatever you shall judge to need forgiveness here, – dearest Ba ! I will also say, if that may help me, – and what otherwise I might not have said, – that I am not too well this morning, and write with an aching head. My mother’s suffering continues too.

My friend Pritchard tells me that Brighton is not to be thought of under ordinary circumstances as a point of departure for Havre. Its one packet a week from Shoreham cannot get in if the wind and tide are unfavourable. There is the greatest uncertainty in consequence . . as I have heard before – while, of course, from Southampton, the departures are calculated punctually. He considers that the least troublesome plan, and the cheapest, is to go from London to Havre . . the voyage being so arranged that the river passage takes up the day and the sea-crossing the night – you reach Havre early in the morning and get to Paris by four o’clock, perhaps, in the afternoon . . in time to leave for Orleans and spend the night there, I suppose.

Do I make myself particularly remarkable for silliness when confronted by our friend as yesterday ? And the shortest visit, – and comments of everybody. Oh, Mr. Hunter, methinks you should be of some use to me with those amiable peculiarities of yours, if you would just dye your hair black, take a stick in your hand, sink the clerical character you do such credit to, and have the goodness just to deliver yourself of one such epithet as that pleasant one, the next time you find me on the steps of No. 50, with Mr. Kenyon somewhere higher up in the building. It is delectable work, this having to do with relatives and ‘ freemen who have a right to beat their own negroes,’ and father Zeus with his paternal epistles, and peggings to the rock, and immense indignation at ‘ this marriage you talk of ‘ which is to release his victim. Is Mr. Kenyon Hermes ?

Well, bless you in any case –

Your own R.

[Postmark: August 28, 1846]

I was beginning to dress, hours before the proper time, through the confidence of seeing you now, – after the letter which came early in the morning, – when this new letter changes everything. It just strikes me, what a comfort it is that whenever such a disappointment is inevitable, your hand or voice announces it, and not another’s – no second person bids me stay away for good reasons I must take in trust, leaving me to deal with the innumerable fancies that arise – on the contrary, you contrive that, with the one misfortune, twenty kindnesses shall reach me – can I be very sorry now, for instance, that you tell me why it is, and how it affects you and how it will affect me in the end ? Dear Ba, if you will not believe in the immortality of love, do think the poor thought that when love shall end, gratitude will begin !

I altogether agree with you it is best to keep away we cannot be too cautious now at the ‘ end of things.’ I am prepared for difficulties enough, without needing to cause them by any rashness or wilfulness of my own. I really expect, for example, that out of the various plans of these sympathising friends and relations some one will mature itself sufficiently to be directly proposed to you, for your acceptance or refusal contingent on your father’s approbation ; the shortness of the remaining travelling season serving to compel a speedy development. Or what if your father, who was the first to propose, or at least talk about, a voyage to Malta or elsewhere, when you took no interest in the matter comparatively, and who perhaps chiefly found fault with last year’s scheme from its not originating with himself . . what if he should again determine on some such voyage now that you are apparently as obedient to his wishes as can be desired? Would it be strange, not to say improbable, if he tells you some fine morning that your passage is taken to Madeira, or Palermo ? Because, all the attempts in the world cannot hide the truth from the mind, any more than all five fingers before the eyes keep out the sun at noon-day : you see a red through them all and your father must see your improved health and strength, and divine the opinion of everybody round him as to the simple proper course for the complete restoration of them. Therefore be prepared, my own Ba !

In any case – I trust in you wholly.

There is nothing to decide upon, with respect to Mrs. Jameson – the reasons for not sharing that confidence with her are irrefragable. I only thought of you, dearest, who have to bear her all but direct enquiries. You know, I undergo nothing of the kind. Any such arrangement as that of taking her up at Orleans would be very practicable. I rejoice in your desire (by the way) of going rapidly on, stopping nowhere, till we reach our appointed place – because that spirit helps the body wonderfully – and, in this case, exactly corresponds with mine. Above all, I should hate to be seen at Paris by anybody a few days only after our adventure – Chorley will be there, and the Arnoulds, for one party !

What could it be, you thought should make you ‘ sorry,’ in that letter of yesterday, love ? What was I to ‘ forgive ‘ ? Certainly you are unforgiven hitherto, for the best of reasons.

And assure yourself, dearest, that I have told my family nothing that can possibly mislead them. Remember that I have the advantage of knowing those I speak to, – their tastes and understandings, and notions of what is advantageous and what otherwise. I spoke the simple truth about your heart – of your mind they knew something already – I explained your position with respect to your father . . unfortunately, a very few plain words do that . . I mean, a few facts, such as the parish register could supply . . sufficiently to exonerate you and me.

As to my copyrights, I never meant to sell them – it would be foolish – because, since some little time, and in consequence of the establishment of the fact that my poems, even in their present disadvantageous form, without advertisement, and unnoticed by the influential journals – do somehow manage to pay their expenses, I have had one direct offer to print a new edition, – and there are reasons for thinking, two or three booksellers, that I know, would come to terms. Smith & Elder, for instance, wrote to offer to print any poem about Italy, in any form, with any amount of advertisements, on condition of sharing profits . . taking all risk off my hands . . concluding with more than a hint that if that proposition was not favourable enough, they would try and agree to any reasonable demand.

Because Moxon is the ‘ slowest ‘ of publishers, and if one of his books can only contrive to pay its expenses, you may be sure that a more enterprising brother of the craft would have sent it into a second or third edition – yet Moxon’s slow self even, anticipates success for the next venture. Now the fact is, not having really cared about anything except not losing too much money, I have taken very little care of my concerns in that way – not calling on Moxon for months together. But all will be different now and I shall look into matters, – and turn my experience to account, such as it is.

Well, – I am yours, you are mine, dearest Ba ! I love you, I think, perceptibly more in these latter days ! Is this absence contrived on purpose to prove how foolishly I said that I loved you the more from seeing you the oftener ? Ah, you reconcile all extremes, destroy the force of all logic-books, my father’s or mine – that was true, but this is also true (logical or no) that I now love you through not seeing you, – loving more, as I desire more to be with you, my best, dearest wife that will be ! (I could not help writing it – why should it sound sweeter than ‘ Ba ‘ ?)

Your very own R.

[Postmark: August 27, 1846]

The post’s old fault, is it not, this letter that does not come? I have waited till nearly the time of the next arrival, 3 o’clock, and perhaps I begin writing now because I have observed that sometimes the letter comes just as I am trying hardest to resign myself. So may it be now, or presently !

Dearest, I did not thank you yesterday for the accounts of your visit and drive . . I always love you for such accounts ; you know, I might like, we will say, a Miss Campbell, while she was in the very act of speaking Greek to Mr. Kenyon’s satisfaction, or making verses, or putting them into action but there would be no following her about the streets, and through bazaars, and into houses, and loving the walking and standing and sitting and companionship with Flush ! I shall be satisfied to the full if you only live in my sight, – cross the room in which I sit, – not to say, sit down by me there, – always supposing that you also, for your part, seem happy and contented, – or at least could not become more so by leaving me. But I do believe you will be happy.

And here the letter comes ! See, what I tell you does now fill my life with gladness, – that, the counterpart of that, you promise me shall make you glad too ! My very own, entirely beloved Ba, there is no exaggeration, no overestimation – the case does not admit of any, indeed ! If a man tells you he owns a peerless horse, the horse may go lame and the estimation sink upon that experience – but if I think, as I do, that the Elgin Horse is peerless (despite his ewe-neck) nothing further can touch it, nor change me. One of my comparisons ! All I want to express is, that I love you, dearest, with a love that seems to separate you from your very qualities – the essential from its accidents. But you must wait to know – wait a life, perhaps.

I used those words you object to – (in your true way), because you shall love nothing connected with me for conventional reasons – and if I understated the amount of kind feeling which you might be led to return for theirs, be assured that I also expressed in the simplest and coldest terms possible my father and mother’s affection for you. I told you, they believe me . . therefore, know in some measure what you are to me. They are both entirely affectionate and generous. My father is tender-hearted to a fault. I have never known much more of those circumstances in his youth than I told you, in consequence of his invincible repugnance to allude to the matter – and I have a fancy, to account for some peculiarities in him, which connects them with some abominable early experience. Thus, if you question him about it, he shuts his eyes involuntarily and shows exactly the same marks of loathing that may be noticed while a piece of cruelty is mentioned . . and the word ‘ blood,’ even, makes him change colour. To all women and children he is ‘ chivalrous ‘ . . as you called his unworthy son ! There is no service which the ugliest, oldest, crossest woman in the world might not exact of him. But I must leave off; to-morrow I do really see you at last, dearest ! God bless you ever for your very own R.

The France-route seems in nearly every way the best – perhaps in every way – let it be as you have decided. Nothing is said in this letter, nothing answered, mind . . time presses so !

[Postmark: August 26, 1846]

Dearest, I do think it will be only prudent to stay away till Friday for those reasons. Oh, how I feel what a Ba, mine is . . how truly peerless a lady . . when I find instinctively at this minute while I write, that the proper course will be to seem as little affected by this enforced absence as possible . . that knowing my love she would understand any comfort I take from the eventful good of the arrangement – I have not to dwell on the present sorrow of it, lest she disbelieve me ! I am your very own, dearest dearest, with you or away from you. Both your notes came together just now . . how can I thank and love you enough ? I might have guessed that at the end you would thank me for my own letters . . that is your ‘ trick of fence,’ discovered, remember ! But when you read the ‘ red-leaved tablets of the heart ‘ . . then be satisfied . . ‘ praise,’ nothing in me to you can deserve.

I have learned all particulars about the steamer. There are only two classes of passengers . . Servants being the second. The first pay, for the voyage to Leghorn 21l. – the second, 14l. 5s. all expenses included except during the stay at Genoa. No reduction ‘ it is feared ‘ could be made in the case of so small a party – but by booking early, a separate cabin might be secured, at no additional expense. In the event of any obstacle, the passage paid for may be postponed till the departure of the next, or any future vessel of the company. Now, you see, these rates, though moderate, I think – (the ordinary term of the passage to Genoa is eleven days) – are yet considerably above those of the other method by at least 2ol., I should say. The voyage is long, supremely tiresome, and in all respects so much less interesting than the French route, that the whole scheme can only be constructed for those to whom any other mode of travel is impossible. The one question to be asked therefore is . . are you really convinced that you need not be treated as one of these ? And on further consideration, there arise not a few doubts as to whether the sea-voyage be not the more difficult of the two – the roughness is all between here and Gibraltar – and in the case of that affecting you more seriously than we hope, there would be no possibility of escaping from the ship – whereas, should you be indisposed on the other route, we can stop at once and stay for any period. Then, the ‘ shiftings ‘ are only three or four, and probably accompanied by no very great fatigue beyond the notion that a shifting there is. Above all, you would get the first of the sea in a little experiment, soon made and over, – so that if it proved unfavourable to you there might be an end of the matter at once. So that after all, the cheaper journey may be the safer. But all does not rest with you quite, as I was going to say . . all my life is bound up with the success of this measure . . therefore, think and decide, my Ba !

Would there be an advantage in Mrs. Jameson accompanying us – to Orleans, at least ? Would the circumstances of our marriage alter her desire, do you think ? She has wished to travel with me, also – she must suspect the truth – I doubt whether it is not in such cases as hers,’ where no responsibility is involved, whether it is not better policy, as well as the more graceful, to communicate what is sure to be discovered – so getting thanks and sympathy instead of neither. All is for you to consider.

And now, dearest, I will revert, in as few words as I can, to the account you gave me, a short time since, of your income. At the beginning, if there had been the necessity I supposed, I should have proposed to myself the attainment of something like such an amount, by my utmost efforts, before we could marry. We could not under the circumstances begin with less – so as to be free from horrible contingencies, – not the least of which would be the application for assistance afterward. After we marry, nobody must hear of us. In spite of a few misgivings at first I am not proud, or rather, am proud in the right place. I am utterly, exclusively proud of you – and though I should have gloried in working myself to death to prove it, and shall be as ready to do so at any time a necessity shall exist, yet at present I shall best serve you, I think, by the life by your side, which we contemplate. I hope and believe, that by your side I shall accomplish something to justify God’s goodness and yours – and, looking at the matter in a worldly light, I see not a few reasons for thinking that unproductive as the kind of literature may be, which I should aim at producing, yet, by judicious management, and profiting by certain favourable circumstances, – I shall be able to realise an annual sum quite sufficient for every purpose at least in Italy.

As I never calculated on such a change in my life, I had the less repugnance to my father’s generosity, that I knew that an effort at some time or other might furnish me with a few hundred pounds which would soon cover my very simple expenses. If we are poor, it is to my father’s infinite glory, who, as my mother told me last night, as we sate alone, ‘ conceived such a hatred to the slave-system in the West Indies,’ (where his mother was born, who died in his infancy), that he relinquished every prospect, supported himself, while there, in some other capacity, and came back, while yet a boy, to his father’s profound astonishment and rage – one proof of which was, that when he heard that his son was a suitor to her, my mother – he benevolently waited on her uncle to assure him that his niece would be thrown away on a man so evidently born to be hanged ! – those were his words. My father on his return had the intention of devoting himself to art, for which he had many qualifications and abundant love – but the quarrel with his father, – who married again and continued to hate him till a few years before his death, – induced him to go at once and consume his life after a fashion he always detested. You may fancy, I am not ashamed of him.’

I told my mother, who told him. They have never been used to interfere with, or act for me – and they trust me. If you care for any love, purely love, – you will have theirs – they give it you, whether you take it or no. You will understand, therefore, that I would not accept even the 100l. we shall want : I said ‘you shall lend it me – I will pay it back out of my first literary earnings – I take it, because I do not want to sell my copyrights, or engage myself to write a play, or any other nuisance. Surely I can get fifty pounds next year, and the other fifty in due course ! ‘

So, dearest, we shall have plenty for the journey – and you have only to determine the when and the how. Oh, the time ! Bless you, ever dearest ! I love you with all my heart and soul –

R.

[Postmark: August 25, 1846]

When your letter came, my love, I could have easily borne the over-ruling its objections to a visit to-day, for all my cautious philosophy ! But it seems best arranged as at present . . indeed it must be best, if you agree. To-morrow repays me : nor is very long to wait !

I will only write briefly because I want to go to Town, (since there is nothing better practicable), and enquire precisely about that steamboat and the prices. I see that one may go to Trieste, a much greater journey, for ‘ £12 and £15,’ according to Mr. Waghorn’s bill. Besides, the advertisement speaks of the ‘ economy ‘ of this way – and certainly under ordinary circumstances anybody would prefer the river-voyage with its picturesqueness. There is a long account, in the paper to-day, of the earthquakes in Tuscany – which have really been formidable enough to keep away the travelling English for the next month or two – whole villages were overthrown, Leghorn has suffered considerably, the inhabitants bivouac outside the walls and at Pisa the roof of a church fell in . . also the villas in the vicinity have been damaged. Do you fear, dearest ? If you do not, – I fear that the eligibility of Pisa as our place of abode is only doubled and tripled by all this. Think ; there is a new lake risen, just by ! and great puffs of sulphureous smoke came up through chinks in the plains. How do these wonders affect you ?

You asked me about Ossian – now here is truth – the first book I ever bought in my life was Ossian . . it is now in the next room. And years before that, the first composition I ever was guilty of was something in imitation of Ossian, whom I had not read, but conceived, through two or three scraps in other books – I never can recollect not writing rhymes . . but I knew they were nonsense even then this, however, I thought exceedingly well of, and laid up for posterity under the cushion of a great arm-chair. ‘And now my soul is satisfied ‘ – so said one man after killing another, the death being suggested, in its height of honour, by stars and stars (* * * *). I could not have been five years old, that’s one consolation. Years after, when I bought this book, I found a vile dissertation of Laing . . all to prove Ossian was not Ossian . . I would not read it, but could not help knowing the purpose of it, and the pith of the hatefully-irresistible arguments. The worst came in another shape, though . . an after-gleaning of real Ossianic poems, by a firm believer whose name I forget – ‘if this is the rear – I thought! Well, to this day I believe in a nucleus for all that haze, a foundation of truth to Macpherson’s fanciful superstructure – and I have been long intending to read once again those Fingals and Malvinas.

I remember that somewhere a chief cries ‘ Come round me, my thousands ! ‘ – There is an Achilles ! And another, complaining of old age remarks ‘ Now – I feel the weight of my shield ! ‘ Nestor ; and both beautifully perfect, are they not, you perfect Ba ?

I will go now. To-morrow I trust to see you face to face ; dearest that you are !

Ever your own.

My poor mother suffers greatly. I am much better.

[Postmark: August 24, 1846]

This time, they brought me your letter at six o’clock yesterday evening : was I startled, or no, do you think, as I received it ? But all proved right, and kind as ever, or kinder. By the post-mark, I see you did go out. Can you care in this way for my disappointments and remedy them ? If I did not love you, how I would begin now ! Every day shows me more to love in you, dearest, and I open my arms as wide as I can . . ‘ incomprehensible ‘ Ba, as Donne would say ! Also he would say much better things, however.

What a visitation ! Miss Martineau is the more formidable friend, however – Mrs. Jameson will be contented with a little confidence, you see, and ask no questions – but I doubt if you arrange matters so easily with the new-comer. Because no great delicacy can be kept alive with all that conceit – and such conceit ! A lady told me a few weeks ago that she had seen a letter in which Miss M. gave as her reason for not undertaking then, during the London season, this very journey which empty London is to benefit from now, ‘ that at such a time she should be mobbed to death ‘ : whereupon the lady went on to comment, ‘ Miss M. little knows what London is, and how many nearly as notable objects may be found to divert its truculence from herself ‘ – Tom Thumb, and Ibrahim Pacha, to wit.

Why do you suspect that you ‘ teaze ‘ me when you say ‘ there will remain too much use for the word ” painful ” ‘ ? Do you not know more of me by this time, my own Ba ? When I have spoken of the probable happiness of our future life – of the chances in our favour from a community of tastes and feelings, – I have really done it on your account, not mine. I very well know that there would be an exquisite, secret happiness through pain with you, or for you – but it is not for me to insist on that, with that divine diffidence in your own worth which meets me wherever I turn to approach you, and puts me so gently aside . . so I rather retire and content myself with occupying the ground you do concede . . and since you will only hear of my being happy in the obvious, ordinary way, I tell you, with perfect truth, that you, and only you, can make me thus – that only you, of all women, look in the direction that I look, and feel as I feel, and live for the ends of my life ; and beside that, see with my eyes the most natural and immediate way of reaching them, through a simple life, retirements from the world here (not from the real world), travel, and the rest. But all the while I know . . do not you know, Ba ? . . that the joy’s essence is in the life with you, for the sake of you, not of the mere vulgar happiness ; and that if any of our calculations should fail, it will be a surprise, a delight, a pride to me to take the new taste you shall prescribe, or leave the old one you forbid. My life being yours, what matters the change which you effect in it ?

Here, you mean not even so much as this by your ‘ painful ‘ – ‘ Elopement ‘ ! Let them call it ‘ felony ‘ or ‘ burglary ‘ – so long as they don’t go to church with us, and propose my health after breakfast ! Now you fancy this a gratuitous piece of impertinence, do you not, Ba? You are wrong, sweet : I speak from directest experience – having dreamed, the night before last, that we were married, and that on adjourning to the house of a friend of mine, his brother, a young fop I know slightly, made a speech, about a certain desk or dressing-case, which he ended by presenting to me in the name of the house ! Whereto I replied in a strain of the most alarming fluency ( . . all in the dream, I need not tell you) – ‘and then I woke.’ Oh can I have smiled, higher up in the letter, at Miss Martineau’s overexcitability on the subject of ‘ mobbing ‘ here ? The greatest coward is the wisest man . . even the suspicion of such mobs ought to keep people at their lakes, or send them to their Pisas.

By the way, Byron speaks of plucking oranges in his garden at Pisa . . I saw just a courtyard with a high wall – which may have been a garden . . but a gloomier one than the palace, even, warrants. They have painted the front fresh staring yellow and changed its name . . there being another Casa Lanfranchi on the other side of the Arno.

Now I will kiss you, dearest : used you to divine that at the very beginning, I have sometimes shortened the visit in order to arrive at the time of taking your hand ?

You will write to me to-night, I think – Tuesday is our day, remember. May God bless you, my very very dearest –

Your R

That sonnet will not turn up it is neither in Vasari, nor Dolce, nor Castiglione . . probably in Richardson’s ‘ Painting ‘ which somebody has borrowed – but I will find it yet, knowing that it must be near at hand.

[Postmark: August 22, 1846]

Your first note reached me at six o’clock yesterday . . did the dear living spirit inside help it along in spite of all the post’s hindrances? And this second comes duly. When you know I am most at a loss how to thank you, invariably you begin thanking me ! Is that because of my own practice of saying a foolish thing and then, to cover it, asking you to kiss me ? I think I will tell you now what that foolish thing was, – lest you, missing it, should go hunting and find worse, and far worse. I will just remind you, that on your enumerating your brothers and sisters, I said without a moment’s thought ‘ so, you are seven ‘ ! . . And you know how Wordsworth applied that phrase . . and in the sudden fear of wounding dearest Ba, I took such refuge for myself, rather than her ! Will you kiss me now, my own love ? And say nothing, but let it die away here, this stupidity of mine.

I hardly conceive what Mr. Kenyon means . . except perhaps a sort of general exhortation to take care, and – I mean, if he came for the purpose of catching me only, – he ought either to know or not know, keep silence or speak, approve or condemn . . and to do neither being so easy, his own cautiousness would keep him away, I should have thought.

About your books, you speak altogether wisely : in this first visit to Italy we had better take only enough to live upon, – travelling books, – and return for the rest. And so with everything else. I shall put papers &c. into a room and turn the key on them and my death’s heads – because when we come back (think of you and me . . why, we shall walk arm in arm, – would Flush object to carry an umbrella in his mouth? And so let Lough cut us in marble, all three !) – well, when we come back, all can be done leisurely and considerately. And then, Greece, Egypt, Syria, the Chamois-country, as Ba pleases !

Ba, Lord Byron is altogether in my affection again . . I have read on to the end, and am quite sure of the great qualities which the last ten or fifteen years had partially obscured. Only a little longer life and all would have been gloriously right again. I read this book of Moore’s too long ago : but I always retained my first feeling for Byron in many respects . . the interest in the places he had visited, in relics of him. I would at any time have gone to Finchley to see a curl of his hair or one of his gloves, I am sure – while Heaven knows that I could not get up enthusiasm enough to cross the room if at the other end of it all Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey were condensed into the little China bottle yonder, after the Rosicrucian fashion . . they seem to ‘ have their reward ‘ and want nobody’s love or faith. Just one of those trenchant opinions which I found fault with Byron for uttering, – as ‘ proving nothing ‘ ! But telling a weakness to Ba is not telling it to ‘the world,’ as poor authors phrase it !

By the way, Chorley has written another very kind paper, in that little journal of to-day, ‘ Colombe’s Birthday ‘ – I have only glanced at it however. See his goodwill : I will bring it on Tuesday, if you please in goodness. I was not quite so well . . (there is the bare truth . .) this morning early – but the little there was to go, has gone, and I am about to go out. My mother continues indisposed. The connection between our ailings is no fanciful one. A few weeks ago when my medical adviser was speaking about the pain and its cause . . my mother sitting by me . . he exclaimed ‘ Why, has anybody to search far for a cause of whatever nervous disorder you may suffer from, when there sits your mother . . whom you so absolutely resemble . . I can trace every feature &c. &c.’ To which I did not answer, ‘ And will anybody wonder that the said disorder flies away, when there sits my Ba, whom I so thoroughly adore.’

Yes, there you sit, Ba !

And here I kiss you, best beloved, – my very own as I am your own

[Postmark: August 21, 1846]

I think – now that the week is over with its opportunities, – and now that no selfish complaining can take advantage of your goodness, – that I will ask you how I feel, do you suppose, without my proper quantity of ‘ morphine ‘ ? May I call you my morphine?

And speaking of ‘ proper quantities ‘ – there were some remarks of yours which I altogether acquiesced in, yesterday, about a humiliating dependence in money-matters ; though I should be the first to except myself from feeling buite with the world there – I have told you, indeed, – but my case is not everybody’s. I hate being master, and alone, and absolute disposer in points where real love will save me the trouble . . because there are infinitely more and greater points where the solitary action and will, with their responsibility, cannot be avoided. I suppose that is Goethe’s meaning when he says every man has liberty enough – political liberty and social : so that when they let him write ‘ Faust ‘ after his own fashion, he does not mind how they dispose of his money, or even limit his own footsteps. Ah, – but there are the good thousands all round who don’t want to write ‘ Fausts,’ and only have money to spend and walks to take, and how do they like such an arrangement ? Moreover, I should be perhaps more refractory than anybody, if what I cheerfully agree to, as happening to take my fancy, were forced on me, as the only reasonable course. All men ought to be independent, whatever Carlyle may say. And so, too, I like being alone, myself – but I should be sorry to see the ordinary friends I have, live alone. Do you understand all this, Ba? Will you make me say it, in your mind, intelligibly? And then will you say still more of your own till the true thing is completely said ? And, after all, will you kiss me ? ‘

As I asked you yesterday . . because of a most foolish, thoughtless allusion, – which I only trust you never noticed . . do not you allude to it, not even to forgive me, dearest, dearest. I would rather be unforgiven than pain you afresh to do it . . but perhaps you did not notice my silly expression after all . . I wished your dear hands before my eyes, I know ! Still you would know it was only thoughtlessness.

All this sad morning the blackness has been quite enough to justify our fire . . we have had one there two or three days. But now the sun comes out – and I will hope you follow him, – after Mr. Kenyon’s visit ? That is to be I think !

I never write anything bearable, even for me, on these days when no letter from you leads me on phrase by phrase . . I am thrown too completely on the general feelings – ‘ Do you love Ba ? then tell her that ! ‘ Yes, indeed ! It is easier to leave all the love untold, having to speak for the moment of Finchley only ! Finchley, – the cottage, – Ba entering it – Flush following her . . now I come to something I wanted to say ! In the paper, this morning, is a paragraph about the bold villainy of dog-stealers. There is an ‘ organised society ‘ of these fellows, and they seize and convey away everybody’s Flushes, ‘ if such a one ever were,’ as Iago rhymes of his perfect wife. So friend Flush must go his high ways only, and keep out of alleys and dark corners : beside in Pisa, he must guard the house. In earnest, I warn you, Ba !

Now tell me – will there be any impediment to Tuesday ?

I think I will go out into this sunshine while it lasts. I am very well considering there are three days to wait, but a walk will do no harm, – nor will I.

All speech to you shall be ever simple, simplest. I can only love you and say so, – and I do love you, best beloved !

Your own, very own.

[Postmark: August 19, 1846]

See my one piece of available paper for the minute ! Ought I to write on or wait ? No, I will tell Ba at once how I love her for giving me this one more letter with its delights. ‘ Finchley ‘ – I know very well – not that I ever saw the streets, and palaces, and cathedral, with these eyes . . but in ‘ Quarles’ Emblems,’ my childhood’s pet book, I well remember that an aspiring Soul, – (a squat little womanfigure with a loose gown, hair in a coil, and bare feet –) is seated on the world, a ‘ terrestrial ball,’ – which, that you may clearly perceive it to be our world, is somewhat parsimoniously scattered over with cities and towns – and one, the evident capital of the universe and Babylon’s despair for size, – occupying as it does a tract quite equal to all Europe’s due share on the hemisphere, is marked ‘ Finchley ‘ – Do you recognize ? Yet, if you will have it only the pretty village with the fields you describe so perfectly, I accept the sweetness and give up the glory, and your Finchley is mine for ever, you dearest – whom I see in the house, and in the carriage . . but how is it you escaped the rain, Ba ? Oh, it did not rain till later, now I think a little. Those are indeed strange circumstances . . and the ‘ independent ministry ‘ at the end, seems hard to account for . . or, why hard ? Well, this is not hard to feel and know, that it is perfect joy to hear you propose such travels and adventures – Greece with you, Egypt with you ! Will you please and tell me . . (not now, but whenever your conscience prompts you on the recurrence of that notable objection, if Miss Campbell’s desirableness is to recur) . . what other woman in the whole world and Finchley, would propose to go to Egypt instead of Belgravia ? Do our tastes coincide or no ? This is putting all on the lowest possible ground . . setting love aside even, to Miss Mitford’s heart’s fullest content ; if I were to choose among women, without love to give or take, and only for other advantages, do you think any advantage would compete with this single one, – ‘ she will feel happy in travelling with you to a distance.’ Love alters the scale, overbalances everything – at the beginning I fancied you could not leave England, you know. But it singularly affects my imagination, such a life with you, – led for the world, I hope, all the more effectually for being not led in the world. If their ways are not to be ours, all is better at a distance, and so I have put this down as, surely, one palpable, unmistakable advantage even you must confess I shall gain in marrying you – (I may only love Ba’s eyes and mouth in a sort of fearful secrecy so far as words go . . she stops all speech on that subject !)

Yes indeed, Ba, I always felt that ‘ Cyprus wine ‘ poem fill my heart with unutterable desires to you. There is so much of you in it. Observe, I do no foolish injustice in criticisms . . I quite understand a charm beside the charm the world can see. Some of your pansies are entirely beautiful in themselves . . I can set them before the visitors of a flower-show and bid all pronounce on them – others, beside their beauty, come to me as this dear one, in a letter, with a story of the plucking, with a sense of the fingers that held it. Bless you, ever dearest, dear beyond words, – you have given me already in this year and a half the entirest faith and purest kindness my heart can comprehend. Do lovers ‘abuse the beloved object’ – ‘try to shake off their chains ‘ &c. &c. ? Mine is not love then ! No one minute or moment of your life with me could have been other than it was without seeming less dear, less perfect in my memory – and for all, God reward you.

To-morrow, Thursday ! And to-night I will warily speak of not having seen you.

Your own.