Author: RB

[Postmark: June 16, 1846]

Tuesday.

I have just returned from Town – some twelve miles at
least I must have walked in this extreme heat . . so what
has become of the headache ? And now I sit down to write
what Ba will read . . what has become of the heat and
fatigue ? In this sense Ba ‘ looks cool at me ! ‘

I shall just write that I love, and love you, and love you
again – my own Ba – just this, lest you learn the comfort of
a respite from hearing what you are doomed to hear, with
variations, all the days of your life. But not much more
than this shall I write, because the love lies still in me, and
deep, as water does, – cannot run forth in rivulets and sparkle,
this hot weather ; but then how I love her when I can only
say so, – how I feel her . . as in an old opera’s one line that
stays in my recollection the tropical sun is described on the
ocean – ‘fervid on the glittering flood’ – so she lies on
me.

See the pure nonsense, my own Ba, and laugh at it,
but not at what lies at bottom of it, because that is true as
truth, true as Ba’s self in its way.

I called on Forster this morning : he says Landor is in
high delight at the congratulatory letters he has received –
so you must write, dearest, and add the queen-rose to his
garland. F– talks about some 500 copies or did he
say 300 ? being sold already . . so there is hope for
Landor’s lovers.

So I should have written once . . but like Virgil’s
shepherd . . ‘ know I now what love is ! ‘ – Do you re-
member that the first word I ever wrote to you was ‘ I love
you, dear Miss Barrett ? ‘ It was so, – could not but be so –
and I always loved you, as I shall always.

Tell me all you can about your dearest self, my own
love. I am so happy in you, in your perfect goodness and
truth, – in all of you.

Be careful this fatiguing weather . . the evenings and
mornings are the only working time of the day, as in the
beginning of things. But all day long is rest-time to love
you, dear, and kiss you, as now – kisses

Your own.

[Postmark: June 15, 1846]

Sunday.

May I venture to speak to dearest Ba as if I had seen
her or heard from her since I wrote yesterday, – and that
seeing or that hearing had brought the usual comfort and
assurance, – and forgiveness when needed, but delight at all
times ? Do you forgive me indeed, Ba ?

I shall know to-morrow – which ‘ to-morrow ‘ is your to-
day. I am soon to be with you to-day. I trust there is
occasion to exercise fancy and say – ‘ When we meet on your
return from Tunbridge a month hence,’ or two, or three . .
to go on fancying ! What should I do, – be able to do ?
and if I understood you rightly the letter-communication
would be hindered, if not stopped altogether. Thus is one
the sport of one’s own wishes. Fine weather is desired . .
fine enough to drive people out of town into the country !

As it is, I have been sufficiently punished for that foolish
letter, which has lost me the last two or three days of your
life and deeds, my Ba. You went to Mr. Kenyon’s – may
have gone elsewhere (and gathered roses I did not deserve
to receive) – but I do not know, and shall not recover my
loss not ever . . because if you tell me now, you exclude
something new you would say otherwise . . if you write it on
Tuesday, what becomes of Tuesday’s own stock of matter
for chronicling?

Well, the proper word in my mouth is – I am sorry to
the heart, and will try never to offend so again. How you
wrote to me, also ! How you rise above yourself while I
get no nearer where you were first of all, no nearer than
ever ! But so it should be ! so may it ever be !

I believe the fault comes from a too-sweet sense of the
freedom of being true with you, telling you all, hiding
nothing. Carlyle was saying in his fine way, he understood
why the Romans confined acting to their slaves . . it was
no employment for a free man to amuse people . . be bound
to do that, and if other faculties interposed, tending to
other results on an audience than amusement, be bidden
suppress them accordingly . . and so, he thought, it would
be one day with our amusers, writers of fun, concocters of
comic pieces. I feel it delicious to be free when most
bound to you, Ba, – to be able to love on in all the liberty
of the implied subjection . . so I am angry to you, despond-
ing sometimes to you, as well as joyous and hopeful – well,
well, I love, at any rate, do love you with heart and soul,
my Ba, – ever shall love you, dearest above all dearness :
God bless you !

[Postmark: June 13, 1846]

Saturday.

Dearest, all dearest beyond my heart’s uttering, will you
forgive me for that foolish letter, and the warmth, and – FOR
ALL, – more than ever I thought to have needed to ask for-
giveness for ! I love you in every imaginable way. All was
wrong, absurd, in that letter – do you forgive now, – while I
kiss your feet, my own, own Ba ?

For see why it was wrong . . my father and mother will
NOT BE PAINED IN ANY DEGREE : they will believe what I
say, exactly what I say. I wrote on and on in a heat at the
sudden ridiculous fancy of the matter’s taking place some
fine morning, without a word of previous intimation, – ‘ I am
going away, never mind where, – with somebody, never
concern yourselves whom, – to stay, if for ever, is it any busi-
ness of yours to enquire ? ‘ All which was . . what was it ?
a method of confirming you in your complimentary belief in
my ‘calmness ‘ – or that other in my ‘ good practical sense ‘
– oh, Ba, Ba, how I deserve you ! I will only say, I agree in
all you write – it will be clearly best, and I can obviate every
untowardness here . . show that all is pure kindness and
provident caution . . so easy all will be ! And for the other
matters, I will fear nothing.

But you do – you DO understand what caused the sudden
fancy . . how I thought ‘ not show them my pride of prides,
my miraculous, altogether peerless and incomparable Ba ! ‘
It was not flying from your counsel, – oh, no !

So, is your hand in mine, or rather mine in yours again,
sweetest, best love ? All will be well. Follow out your in-
tention, as you spoke of it to me, in every point. Do not
for God’s sake run the risk, or rather, encounter the certainty
of hearing words which most likely have not anything like
the significance to the speaker that they would convey to the
hearer and so let us go quietly away. I will care nothing
about diplomatism or money-getting extraordinary why,
my own works sell and sell and are likely to sell, Moxon
says. And I mean to write wondrous works, you may be
sure, and sell them too, – and out of it all may easily come
some fifty or sixty horrible pounds a year, – on which one
lives famously in Ravenna, I dare say : think of Ravenna,
Ba ! – it seems the place of places, with the pines and the
sea, and Dante, and no English, and all Ba.

My Ba, I see you on Monday, do I not ? You let me
come then, do you not ? I am on fire to see you and know
you love me . . not as I love you . . that can never be ! I
am your own

R.

I resolve, after a long pause and much irresolution, to
write down as much as I shall be able, of an obvious fact . .
If the saddest fate I can imagine should be reserved for me . .
I should wish, you would wish to live the days out worthily,
not end them – nor go mad in them to prevent which, I
should need distraction, the more violent the better, – and it
would have to be forced on me in the only way possible –
therefore, after my death, I return nothing to your family, be
assured. You will not recur to this !

[Postmark: June 12, 1846]

Friday.

When I am close to you, in your very room, I see through
your eyes and feel what you feel but after, the sight widens
with the circle of outside things I cannot fear for a moment
what seemed redoubtable enough yesterday – nor do I
believe that there will be two opinions anywhere in the
world as to your perfect right to do as you please under the
present circumstances. People are not quite so tolerant to
other people’s preposterousness, and that which yourself
tell me exceeds anything I ever heard of or imagined – but,
dearest, on twice thinking, one surely ought not to coun-
tenance it as you propose – why should not my father and
mother know ? What possible harm can follow from their
knowing ? Why should I wound them to the very soul and
for ever, by as gratuitous a piece of unkindness as if, – no, –
there is no comparison will do ! Because, since I was a
child I never looked for the least or greatest thing within
the compass of their means to give, but given it was, nor
for liberty but it was conceded, nor confidence but it was
bestowed. I dare say they would break their hearts at such
an end of all. For in any case they will take my feeling
for their own with implicit trust and if I brought them a
beggar, or a famous actress even, they would believe in her
because of me, – if a Duchess or Miss Hudson, or Lady
Selina Huntingdon rediviva . . they would do just the same,
sorrow to say ! As to any harm or blame that can attach
itself to them, it is too absurd to think of ! What earthly
control can they have over me ? They live here, – I go my
own way, being of age and capability. How can they
interfere ?

And then, blame for what, in either God’s or the devil’s
name ? I believe you to be the one woman in the world I
am able to marry because able to love. I wish, on some
accounts, I had foreseen the contingency of such an one’s
crossing my path in this life – but I did not, and on all
ordinary grounds preferred being free and poor, accordingly.
All is altered now. Does anybody doubt that I can by
application in proper quarters obtain quite enough to support
us both in return for no extraordinary expenditure of such
faculties as I have ? If it is to be doubted, I have been
greatly misinformed, that is all. Or, setting all friends and
their proposals and the rest of the hatefulness aside – I
should say that so simple a procedure as writing to anybody
. . Lord Monteagle, for instance, who reads and likes my
works, as he said at Moxon’s two days ago on calling there
for a copy to give away . . surely to write to him, ‘ When you
are minister next month, as is expected, will you give me for
my utmost services about as much as you give Tennyson for
nothing ? ‘ – this would be rational and as easy as all ration-
ality. Let me do so, and at once, my own Ba ! And do you,
like the unutterably noble creature I know you, transfer
your own advantages to your brothers or sisters . . making
if you please a proper reservation in the case of my own
exertions failing, as failure comes everywhere. So shall
the one possible occasion of calumny be removed and all
other charges go for the simple absurdities they will be. I
am entirely in earnest about this, and indeed had thought
for a moment of putting my own share of the project into
immediate execution – but on consideration, – no ! So I
will live and so die with you. I will not be poorly endeavour-
ing to startle you with unforeseen generosities, catch you in
pretty pitfalls of magnanimities, be always surprising you, or
trying to do it. No, I resolve to do my best, through you –
by your counsel, with your help, under your eye . . the
most strenuous endeavour will only approximate to an
achievement of that, – and to suppose a superfluousness of
devotion to you (as all these surprises do) would be
miserably foolish. So, dear, dear Ba, understand and
advise me. I took up the paper with ordinary feelings . .
but the absurdity and tyranny suddenly flashed upon me . .
it must not be borne – indeed its only safety in this instance
is in its impotency. I am not without fear of some things
in this world – but the ‘ wrath of men,’ all the men living
put together, I fear as I fear the fly I have just put out of
the window ; but I fear God – and am ready, he knows, to
die this moment in taking his part against any piece of in-
justice and oppression, so I aspire to die !

See this long letter, and all about a tiny one, a plain
palpable commonplace matter about which you agree with
me, you the dear quiet Ba of my heart, with me that make
all this unnecessary fuss ! See what is behind all the
‘ bated breath and whispered humbleness ? ‘ – but it is right,
after all, to revolt against such monstrous tyranny. And I
ought not, I feel, to have forgotten the feelings of my father
and mother as I did – because I know as certainly as I
know anything that if I could bring myself to ask them to
give up everything in the world ; they would do it and
cheerfully.

So see, and forgive your own

R.

[Postmark: June 9, 1846]

Tuesday.

Is your letter ‘ long,’ my own Ba? I seem to get to the
end, each time I read it, just as sorrowfully soon as usual –
so much for thankfulness ! But if Ba is not to be ‘tall,’
depend on it, her letter shall not describe itself as ‘ long’ –
though in a sense nothing ever written, ever read by me, drew
such a trail of light after it as her letters – your letters, my
own, own love ! While I write this, my lips rest on the
eglantine . . well, it shall be ‘ dog-rose ‘ for Flushie’s sake !
You say truly about the folly – it is very foolish, – when I
fancy you proposing to give me a golden Papal rose and gift
for a King, instead of this ! And if I feel this, why should
not you, and more vividly even ? A rose from Hampstead !
And you bore the journey well ? You should tell me,
precisely, detailedly.

As for Lough’s statues . . now, I have said more than I
meant if it deters you from going to see them ! If he will
abide strictly by his promise, there is much to reward the
trouble of going.

Always remember, my Ba, that the secret is your secret
and not mine . . that I keep it while you bid me, but that
you may communicate it to whom you please, when you
please, without waiting to apprize me. I should, I think,
have preferred telling Mrs. Jameson from the beginning
about the mere visits . . or, I don’t know . . by one such
piece of frankness you only expose yourself to, fifty new –
whatever they are ! For there would be so much the
more talk about you, and either the quick woman’s wit and
discernment are to be eluded, or they are not, – foiled or not –
and how manage without . . without those particular
evasions which seem to degrade most of all ? Miss Mitford’s
promises began the embarrassment. In short I think the
best way in such a case is to tell all or none. I believe you
might tell all to Mrs. Jameson with perfect safety, but,
for her sake, I doubt the propriety . . for it would be to
introduce her forthwith to exactly our own annoyances with
respect to Mr. Kenyon, Chorley &c. Once knowing, she
cannot un-know. In any case, I promise my conscience to
give her, – and anybody else that may have a right to it, – a
full explanation at the earliest safe moment . . may that be
at no great distance ! My own feeling is for telling Mr.
Kenyon . . though you would considerably startle me if you
answered ‘ well, do ! ‘ But, of the whole world, I seem only
to care for his not feeling aggrieved : oh, he will understand !
– and can, because he knows the circumstances at your house.
Come what will, I am sure of you ; ‘ if you live, and are
well ‘ – even this last clause I might exclude ; it has
often been in my thought to tell you . . only, dearest, there
is always, when I plan never so dreamily and vaguely,
always an understood submission the most absolute to your
own desire . . but I fancied, that, in the case of any real
obstacle arising so as to necessitate the ‘ postponement,’ &c.,
I should have stipulated . . in the right yourself have given
me . . I should have said – ‘ we will postpone it, if you will
marry me now . . merely as to the form . . but so as to
enable me, if difficulties should thicken, to be by your bed-
side at least.’ You see, what you want ‘ to relieve ‘ me of, is
just what my life should be thrice paid down for and cheaply.
How could you ever be so truly mine as so ? Even the poor
service does not ‘ part us ‘ before ‘ death ‘ – ‘ till sickness
do us part ! ‘

But there will be no sickness and all happiness, I trust
in God ! Dear, dear Ba, I love you wholly and for ever
true as I kiss your rose, and will keep it for ever. Bless you.

My first letter ‘ did not reach you by the first post on
Monday morning ‘ – No ! How should it . . when I carried
it to town on Sunday night and went half a mile out of my
way to put it in the general post office at the corner of
Oxford Street !

You know I am to breakfast with Mrs. Jameson to-mor-
row and perhaps I may make some calls after : if anything
keeps me in Town so as to hinder the letter by the 8 o’clock-
post, you will know the reason . . and expect the letter the
next morning ; but I will endeavour to get back in time.

[Postmark: June 8, 1846]

Monday.

My ‘ recommendation ‘ to dearest Ba was properly
interpreted by her when she regarded the spirit and not the
letter of it.

The day was hot — even I thought who thrive in heat —
and yesterday you did well to keep the house — but last
night’s rain, and this comfort of cloudiness may allow you
to resume the exercise, — only with all ease, darling ! Mrs.
Jameson told me she called the other day on Miss Barrett,
and was informed that lady was ‘walking before her door’
— for I went last night, and deserved to be amused, perhaps,
for the effort, . . and so I was, I never liked our friend as
I now like her, I more than like the good nature and good
feeling and versatility of ready intelligence and quick general
sympathy. She is to see you to-day. She told this to a
Miss Kindersley who had been reading the ‘ Drama of Exile ‘
to her complete delight — but in listening silently, — and after,
when Mrs. J. obligingly turned and said ‘ How I should like
to introduce you to Miss Barrett . . did you ever see her?’
. . to which I answered in the old way, ‘ that nobody, as
she knew, saw you.’ At all these times did not I feel the
‘ mask ‘ you speak of ! I am, fortunately, out of the way of
enquiries . . but if the thing were of constant occurrence,
it would be intolerable. Shall it indeed end soon ? May I
count by months, by weeks ? It is not safe — beginning to
write on this subject — I can do nothing moreover.

Well, Lough has some good works, and you will be
pleased I daresay : but of all things, hold him to his bond
of maintaining the strictest privacy — for Mr. Powell or his
kith and kin go there, and his impudence and brazen
insensibility are dreadful to encounter beyond all belief!
He would book-make about ‘the meeting,’ and in his
ordinary talk, be supplied with a subject to tell lies about
for the next year or two, — unless he got a lesson earlier.
But Lough will understand and keep his promise, no doubt,
if you exact it strictly.

My mother is decidedly better, . . I am quite well—
considering Thursday is so far off ! — considering the end
of summer is so far off. Would it be profane to think of
that lament . . ‘the Summer is ended and we are not
saved ‘ ?

I am obliged to leave off here — I love you ever my best

dearest, own Ba !

[Postmark: June 8, 1846]

Sunday.

One thing you said yesterday which I want to notice
and protest against, my Ba — you charged me with speaking
depreciatingly of myself because you had set the example—
‘ I should not have thought of it but that you began.’ Now
I am tired, just at this moment, and submissive altogether,
and hopeful besides, on the whole, — so I will let you off with
a simple but firmest of protests, — I did not think of imitating
you, but spoke as I felt and knew, — and feel and know
still. The world, generally, will inform you of this in its
own good time and way, so . . taceo ! (The last opinion
of the world’s on the respective value of people and people,
is unhappily too decisive. ‘ And, after all, Mr. Langton is
quite as good as the Duke’s daughter . . for he will have
full twenty thousand a year ! ‘) I suspect I was going to
turn a pretty phrase and tell you I have only a heart, as
the play-books prescribe, — when the said heart pricks me as
if I reserved something — so I will confess to owning a
‘ forehead and an eye ‘ — one advantage over Pope, to whom
folks used to remark ‘ Sir, you have an eye ‘ — and no more
— whereas yesterday evening after leaving Ba, while I settled
myself in the corner of our omnibus to think of her, a
spruce gentleman stretched over, and amid the rumbling
begged my pardon for being forced to remark that my forehead
and eye interested him deeply, phrenologist as he was ;
and he was sure I must needs be somebody . . besides a
passenger to Greenwich ! So if Ba will trust in phrenology !
— I will at least not be unkind to her as to the learned man
— who left the vehicle in due time, lamenting that in return
for his own confidence and pink bill (‘Mr. Hamilton,
phrenologist and lecturer ‘ &c. &c.) I would not break my
obstinate reserve and augustly pronounce ‘ Am I a Beefeater
now?’

Assez de sottises : Ba, my Ba, I am happy in you beyond
hope of expression — you know how happy . . And have not
I some shade of a right, — I who loved the dear, dear pale
cheek and the thin hand, — a right to be blessed in the
wonders I see . . so long as I continue to be thankful to
God whose direct doing I know it to be : how can I ever
doubt the rest . . the so easy matters remaining — I will not
doubt more, I think.

Tell me, write of yourself, love : remember the fierce
heat . . and never go up the long stairs — or, at least, rest
at proper intervals. I think of the Homeric stone heaved
nearly to the hill-top and then ! . . An accident now would
be horrible, — think, and take every precaution — because it
is my life, (if that will influence you) my whole happiness
you are carrying safely or letting slip. May God over-watch
all and care for us !

Good bye, best beloved, — I fear I ought to go to Mrs.
Jameson’s to-night : there is a breakfast engagement for
Wednesday, to meet – this and the other notable ; and a
simple ‘ at home ‘ promised to anybody calling this evening
— and my pride won’t let me accept one nor my liking to
Mrs. J. suffer me to refuse both . . Yet the fatigue ! I
have been at church to-day, seeing people faint.

Your own, your own R.

[Postmark: June 5, 1846]

Friday.

Nor did I mean so bad, dearest dearest, as that you
were suspecting me of that . . Oh no, since ‘ Scorn of me
that ” me “) would recoil on you ‘ . . you would have no
right to bear with such a person for a moment : but I put
the broadest case possible to declare upon broadly. As I
would do so if I felt so . . felt no love longer . . so, in due
degree, I would tell you frankly a fear or a doubt if I felt
either. I thought you suspected me, perhaps, of being
deficient in this last point of courage : but it was not altogether
so, — or if it was, you shall doubt no more, but believe
the more strongly for the future . . let us kiss on that convention,
dearest ! You see, I knew it could not but be
that . . for if anything had struck you as really to be
gained by delay, you must feel whether I should listen to
that or no— last year, for instance, when you said ‘ let us
wait.’

Ah, Ba, my own, many things are that ought not to be
. . and I hide nothing . . cannot hide from you some
feelings . . as that — after all, after all — talk, and indeed
think, as one may — it is, let us say, a pleasant thing, at
least, to be able to prove one’s words, — even one’s lighter
words. The proof may justify some words, I mean, and the
rest, that admit of no proof, get believed on the score of
them, — the first words and proofs. I should like to prove a
very, very little . . if I could but do so in turning fifty-
thousand a year, or less, to some account and building
Flush a house ‘ fair to see ‘ — after which I could go on
talking about the longings never to be satisfied here . .

Now this is foolish, — so the causeless blame, if you
please, shall be transferred here . . as naughty children
punished by mistake are promised a remission of next
offence.

Oh to-morrow kisses all right . . all so right again,
dearest ! I have so much to say. Make me remember,
love, to tell you something I have just learned about Mr.
Kenyon which makes one — no, all is proper, — he should
have the money, and I the admiration and love of his
divine use of it : something to love him for, and he happy
that God will reward it. Remember — for even that I should
forget by you !

And all has been charming at Mr. Kenyon’s — Landor’s
dinner, and our flower-show feast, — I will tell you to-morrow
— and last night I went to Mrs. Procter’s in downright
spirits ‘ pour cause ‘ (with my first letter . . not my second,
which only arrived this morning) — and I danced, to put it
on record there that I was altogether happy, and saw Mrs.
Jameson, and the Countess Hahn-Hahn, and Milnes and
the Howitts and others in a multitude, — and I got to this
house door at 4 o’clock, with the birds singing loud and
the day bright and broad — and my head is quite well, — as
my mother’s is better, I hope — quite well, I am at this
minute. For the rest, the news of your two exits and
entrances in one day . . oh, thank you, thank the golden
heart of my own, own Ba ! whom I shall see to-morrow,
but can . . how I can kiss her now — being her own

R.B.

[Postmark: June 4, 1846]

Thursday.

‘Vex me,’ or ‘ teaze me,’ my own Ba, you cannot. I look
on it indeed, after a moment, as the only natural effect of
your strange disbelief in yourself, and ignorance of our true
relation one to the other by every right and reason. Only,
Ba, you are wrong — doubly, — that is, you would be wrong if
your own estimate of your power over me were the true one —
for, — though it is difficult for me to fancy these abstractions
and fantastic metamorphoses (as how one could feel without
one’s head, — or how I could live without the love of you
now I have once got it) — yet, since you make me, I will
fancy I love my head and love you no longer. . and then
(which is now) now, do you think I am so poor a creature
as to go on adding to my faults, and letting you gently
down, as the phrase is, with cowardly excuses, ‘ postponing’
this, and ‘consenting to delay’ the other, — and perhaps
managing to get you to do the whole business for me in the
end? I hope and think I should say at once — Oh, no
more of this ! But see how right I was — ‘an instinct, you
seem to see.’ So, I have been thinking, — there are but few
topics of our conversation from which any such impressions
could arise — was it that I have asked more than once, if
you could really bear another winter in London, (in all
probability a severe one) — and again, if you could get to
Italy by any ordinary means without the same opposition
you will have to encounter for my sake ? . . My Ba, as God
knows, all that was so much pure trembling attempting to
justify myself for the over-greatness of the fortune, the
excess of the joy, — if I could but feel that there was a
little of your own good in it too — that you would gain that
much advantage at least by my own inestimable advantage !
If you knew how, — spite of all endeavours, — how happy
I have been — which is a shame to confess — but how very
happy to hear that you could not without a degree of
danger stay here — could no more easily leave England
with Miss Bayley than with me ! It seemed to justify me,
as I say. And so of ‘ the wishing I had not mentioned
Italy ‘ — I wish your will to be mine, to originate mine, your
pleasure to be only mine. Expressed first — it will be my
pleasure . . but all is wrong if you take the effect, seek to
know it, before the cause. What does it matter that I should
prefer Italy to Nova Zembla ? So, you ought to have begun
by saying ‘we will go there,’ and then my pleasure in
obedience had been naturally expressed. Did I not ask you
whether you had not, after all, thought of going to Italy first
— to Pisa, or Malta, — from the very beginning ? Always to
Justify myself ! Always !

But — this too is misunderstood. Let me say humbly, I
should prefer to go with you to Italy or any place where
we can live alone for some little time, till you can know me,
be as sure of me as of yourself. Nor am I so selfish, I hope,
as that (because my uttermost pride and privilege and
glory above all glories would be to live in your sick-room
and serve you,) — as that, on that account, I would not
rather see you in a condition to need none of my service
. . the next thing to serving you, is to be — what shall
I say? — served by you . . loved by you, made happy
by you — it is the being an angel, though there might be archangels —

And if now you do not-understand, — well, I kneel to
you, my Ba, and pray you to give yourself to me in deed as
in word, the body as the heart and mind, — and now ! — at
any time, — you know what I cannot say, I cannot, I think,
— if I know myself — love you more than I do . . but I
shall always love you thus — and thus, in any case, happen
what God may ordain —

Your R.

I know this is taking the simple experimental question
too seriously to heart . . but such experiments touch at the
very quick and core of the heart . . I cannot treat them
otherwise — ought I ?

You will see Miss Bayley to-day — Mr. Kenyon asked if
I were going to call to-day . . ‘ if not. Miss B. would.’

I have your letter . . the short note, not the promised
one . . for all this writing about the question . . but I
could not merely say — ‘ Oh no, you mistake . . I had rather,
upon the whole, not wait.’

Even now the feeling, in its subsiding, hinders me from
speaking of the delightful account of ‘ Treppy ‘ . . whom I
remember now, perfectly — and what comfort is in thy dear
note !

Bless you, my ‘ darlingest creature,’ — my Ba !

[Postmark: June 3, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

I will tell you, dearest : your good is my good, and
your will mine ; if you were convinced that good would
be promoted by our remaining as we are for twenty
years instead of one, I should endeavour to submit in the
end . . after the natural attempts to find out and remove
the imagined obstacle. If, as you seem to do here, you
turn and ask about my good — yours being supposed to be
uninfluenced by what I answer . . then, here is my truth
on that subject, in that view, — my good for myself. Every
day that passes before that day is one the more of hardly
endurable anxiety and irritation, to say the least ; and the
thought of another year’s intervention of hope deferred —
altogether intolerable ! Is there anything I can do in that
year — or that you can do — to forward our object ? Any-
thing impossible to be done sooner ? If not —

You may misunderstand me now at first, dear, dearest
Ba : at first I sate quietly, you thought ; do I live quietly
now, do you think ? Ought I to show the evidence of the
unselfishness I strive, at least, to associate with my love, by
coolly informing you ‘ what would please me.’

But I will not say more, you must know . . and I seem
to know that this question was one of Ba’s old questions . .
a branch-licence, perhaps, of the original inestimable one,
that charter of my liberties, by which I am empowered to
‘ hold myself unengaged, unbound ‘ &c. &c.

Good Heaven ; I would not, — even to save the being
asked such questions, — have played the horseleech that
cries ‘ give, give,’ in Solomon’s phrase — ‘ Do you let me see
you once a week ? Give me a sight once a day ! — May I
dare kiss you ? Let me marry you to-morrow ! ‘

But to the end, the very end, I am yours : God knows
I would not do you harm for worlds — worlds ! I may
easily mistake what is harm or not. I will ask your leave to
speak — at your foot, my Ba : I would not have dared to
take the blessing of kissing your hand, much less your lip,
but that it seemed as if I was leading you into a mistake —
as did happen — and that you might fancy I only felt a
dreamy, abstract passion for a phantom of my own creating
out of your books and letters, and which only took your
name. . . That once understood, the rest you shall give me.
In every event, I am your own.

12 o’ clock. — I thought another letter might arrive. This
must go as we shall set off presently to Mr. Kenyon’s.

I did understand the question about my sister. I mean,
that you felt somewhat so, incredible as it seems — only I
believe all you say, all — to the letter, the iota. Think of
that, whenever I might ask and do not — or speak, and am
silent . . but I am getting back to the question discussed
above, which I ought not to do — understand me, dearest
dearest ! See me, open the eyes, the dear eyes, and see
the love of your R.