Category: Uncategorized

[Postmark: April 28, 1846]

Very good Examiner ! — I am pleased with it and with
Mr. Forster for the nonce, though he talks a little nonsense
here and there, in order to be a true critic, and though he
doesn’t talk at all, scarcely, of the ‘ Soul’s Tragedy ‘ . . . how
is one to bear it ? That ‘ Tragedy ‘ has wonderful things in it
— thoughts, suggestions, . . and more and more I feel, that
you never did better dialogue than in the first part. Every
pulse of it is alive and individual — dramatic dialogue of the
best. Nobody in the world could write such dialogue —
now, you know, you must be patient and ‘ meke as maid,’
being in the course of the forty-nine days of enduring
praises. Praises, instead of ‘ bangs ‘ ! ! — consider that it
might be worse ! — dicit ipsissima Ba.

Think of my not hearing a word about the article in the
Examiner, until I had your note this morning. And the
Examiner was in the house since Saturday night, and no-
body to tell me ! I was in high vexation, reproaching
them all, to-day — till Stormie had the impertinence to turn
round and tell me that only Papa had read the paper, and that
‘ he had of course put it away to keep me from the impro-
priety of thinking too much about . . about ‘ . . yes, really
Stormie was so impertinent. For the rest, when Papa came
up-stairs at one o’clock, he had it in his hand.

At two, Miss Bayley came, and sate here two hours, and
thought me looking so well, with such improved looks from
last autumn, that I don’t mean to groan at all to you to-day
about the wind — it is a savage wind, as you say, and I wish
it were gone, and I am afraid of stirring from the room
while it lasts, but there’s an end . . and not of me, says Miss
Bayley. She doffed her bonnet and talked and talked, and
was agreeable and affectionate, and means to come constantly
to see me . . . ( ‘ only not on Thursday,’ I desired : )
and do you know, you need not think any more of my going
with you to Italy, for she has made up her mind to take me
herself . . there is no escape for me that I can see — it’s
fixed . . certain ! with a thousand generous benignities she
stifled my ‘ no’s ‘ . . and all I had breath to say at last, was,
that ‘there was time enough for plans of that kind.’
Seriously, I was quite embarrassed to know how to adjourn
the debate. And she is capable of ‘ arranging everything ‘
— of persisting, of insisting— who knows what? And so,
. . when I am ‘ withdrawn ‘ . . carried away . . then, shall
all my ‘ feelings,’ which are in you, be given to somebody
else ? is that the way — ?

Now I shall not make jests upon that . . I shall not :
first, I shall not, because it is ungrateful — and next and
principally, because my heart stands still only to think of
it . . ! Why did you say that to me ? I could be as jealous
(did I not tell you once ? ) as any one of your melodramatic
gitana heroines, who carries a poignard between the white-
satin sash and the spangles ? I perfectly understand, at this
distance, what jealousy is, would be, ought to be, must be —
though I never guessed at all what love was, at that distance,
and startled I am often and confounded, to see the im-
potency of my imagination.

Forgive the blottings out — I have not blotted out
lately . . have I now ? and it is pardonable once in a
hundred years or days.

The rest for to-morrow. Your correspondent of the first
letter you sent me really does write like a Bennet, though
he praises you. I could not help laughing very gently,
though he praises you. Good-night my only beloved . .
dearest ! As my Bennet says (Georgiana) when she catches
vehemently at the laurel . . ‘ I will not be forgot ‘ . . .

‘ I must die . . but I will not be forgot ‘ (in large
capitals ! ) But what she applies to the Delphic groves,
turns for me to something more ambitious. ‘ I will not be
forgot ‘ . . will I ? shall I ? not till Thursday at least . . being
ever and ever

Your own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 27, 1846]

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

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

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

Ever your R.

[Postmark: April 27, 1846]

See what a brain I have, — which means, you have ! The
book I ought to put in my pocket, — and fancy I leave on
the table, — is picked up in our lane and presented to me on
my return ; so my reason, which told you I had forgotten it,
the book, was wrong, and my instinct which told me,
all the time, that I could not forget even so poor a matter if
it tended to you, — that was right, as usual ? (Don’t think
that I forgot the said book on the former occasions . . I
wanted to look through it first, so as to be able to correct any
possible mistakings, in case you should ask, or should not
ask, my siren ! I read the book during the voyage.)

Will you tell me what number of the League contains
the notice of you ? I can get it directly. I did not ask
you yesterday, being just as much master of myself as I
commonly am when with you — but after-wisdom comes duly
for a consolation, and mine was apparent in a remark I made
last night — ‘ Here is truly an illusion broken ‘ I said — ‘ for
not very long ago I used to feel impatient at listening to
other people’s commendations of her, and as if they were
usurping my especial office, — they could not see what I see,
not utter what I could utter : and now, at the beginning of
my utterance, the hand closes my mouth, while its dear fellow
shuts my eyes, — I may not see what everybody sees, nor say
what the whole world says, — I, that was to excel them all in
either function ! So now I will change my policy and bid them
praise, praise, praise, praise, since I may not. Will you let
me hear them, my Ba ? You know Chesterfield forbids his
son to play on the instrument himself — ‘ for you can pay
musicians’ he says — ‘and hear them play.’ Where may I
hear this discourser of most excellent music ?

In your last letter you spoke of ‘ other women,’ and said
they might ‘ love ‘ me — just see ! They might love me because
of something in me, lovingness in me, which they never
could have evoked . . so the effect produces the cause, my
dear ‘ inverter ‘ ! If there had been a vague aimless feeling
in me, turning hither and thither for some object to attach
itself to and spend itself on, and you had chanced to be
that object, I should understand you were very little flattered
and how a poplar does as well for a vine-prop as a palm tree
— but whatever love of mine clings to you was created by
you, dearest, — they were not in me, I believed — those
feelings, — till you came. So that, mournful and degrading
as it sounds, still it would, I think, be more rational to confess
the possibility of their living on, though you withdrew, —
finding some other — oh no, it is, — that is as great an impossibility
as the other, — they came from you, they go to you,
what is the whole world to them !

May God bless you, repay you — He can —

Well Ba, do you see the Examiner ? That is very kind,
very generous of Forster. There are real difficulties in the
way of this prompt, efficient, serviceable notice — for he has
a tribe of friends, dramatists, actors ‘ conflicting interests ‘ &c.
&c. to keep the peace among, — and he quite understands
his trade — how compensation is to be made, and an
equilibrium kept in the praises so as to offend nobody, — yet
see how he writes, and with a heap of other business on his
shoulders ! I thank him very sincerely, I am sure.

Tell me how you are, beloved — all-beloved ! I am quite
well to-day, — have been out.

Do you remember our friend Bennett of Blackheath?
(Don’t ejaculate ‘ le Benêt ‘ ! ) He sent me letters lately —
and I returned a copy of ‘ Luria ‘ to save compliments and
words — here is his answer . . (I will at once confess I could
not read it, but Ba bids me send, and what am I but Ba’s
own, very very own ?)

[Postmark: April 27, 1846 OR ]

Ever dearest you might have stayed ten minutes more.
George did not come in till half past six after all — but there
is the consciousness of being wise in one’s generation, which
consoles so many for their eternity as children of light, . .
yet doesn’t console me for my ten minutes, . . so it is as well
to say no more on this head !

I have glanced over the paper in the Athenæum and am
of an increased certainty that Mr. Chorley is the writer. It
is his way from beginning to end — and that is the way,
observe, in which little critics get to tread on the heels of
great writers who are too great to kick backwards. Think
of bringing George Sand to the level of the same sentence
with such a woman as Mrs. Ellis ! And then, the infinite
trash about the three eras in the Frenchwoman’s career, . .
which never would have been dragged into application there,
if the critic had heard of her last two volumes . . published
since the ‘ Meunier d’Angibault,’ ‘ Teverino ‘ and
‘ Isidora.’ One may be angry and sin not, over such inapplicable
commonplace. The motive of it, the low
expediency, is worse to me than the offence. Why mention
her at all . . why name in any fashion any of these
French writers, for the reception of whom the English mind
is certainly not prepared, unless they are to be named
worthily, recognised righteously ? It is just the principle of
the advice about the De Kocks ; whom people are to go
and see and deny their acquaintance afterwards. Why not
say boldly ‘ These writers have high faculty, and imagination
such as none of our romance-writers can pretend to — but
they have besides a devil — and we do not recommend them
as fit reading for English families ! ‘ Now wouldn’t it answer
every purpose ? Or silence would ! — silence, at least. But
this digging and nagging at great reputations, . . it is to me
quite insufferable : and not compensated for by the motive,
which is a truckling to conventions rather than to morals.
As if earnestness of aim was not, from the beginning, from
‘ Rose et Blanche ‘ and ‘ Indiana,’ a characteristic of George
Sand ! Really it is pitiful.

The ‘ Mysteries of the Heaths,’ I suppose to be a translation
of ‘ Sept Jours au Château,’ a very clever story from the
monstrous Hydra-headed imagination of Frederic Soulié.
Dumas is inferior to them all of course, yet a right good
storyteller when he is in the mind for storytelling ; — telling,
telling, telling, and never having done. You know I like
listening to stories — I agree with the great Sultan and would
forego ever so much cutting off of heads for the sake of a story
— it is a taste quite apart from a taste for literature : a storyteller,
I like, apart from the sweet voice. Now that book of
Dumas’s on the League wars, which distressed me so the
other day, by having the cruelty . . the ‘ villainie ‘ . . of
hanging its hero in the fourth volume . . (regularly hanging
him on a pair of gallows — wasn’t it too bad ?) that book
is amusing enough, more than amusing enough, to take
with one’s coffee . . which is my fashion, . . because you
are not here and I have nobody to talk to me. The hero
who was hanged, deserved it a little, I think, though the author
meant it for a pure misfortune and though no good romance-
reader in the world- such as I am, could bear to part with
the hero of four volumes in that manner, without pain ; but
the hero did deserve it a little when one came to consider.

In the first place, he was a traitor once or twice in war and
politics, and was quite ready to be so a third or fourth time,
. . only , . as he said to the lady he loved . . je perdrais
votre estime.’ ‘ Is that your only objection ‘ she enquired
‘ The only one ‘ he answered ! ( How frightfully true, that
those brilliant French writers have no moral sense at all ! do
not, for the most part, know right from wrong ! here, an
instance ! ) Then, from the beginning to the end of the four
volumes, he loves two women together . . a phénomène ‘
by no means uncommon, says the historian musingly, . .
and, except for the hanging, there might have been a difficulty
perhaps in the final arrangement. Yet oh . . to see
one’s hero, the hero of four volumes, and not a bad hero
either in some respects, hung up before one’s eyes ! . . it
wrongs the natural affections to think of it ! it made me
unhappy for a full hour ! There should be a society for the
prevention of cruelty to romance-readers, against the recurrence
of such things !

Pure nonsense I write to you, it seems to me.

What beautiful flowers you brought me ! — and the sweet-
brier is unfolding its leaves to-day, as if you did them, so, no
wrong. And I have been considering ; and there are not,
if you please, five but four days, between Saturday and
Thursday. In the meanwhile say how you are, dearest
dearest ! My thoughts are with you constantly . . indeed.
I could almost say, too much, . . because sometimes they
grow weak and tired . . not of you, who are best and beloved,
but of themselves, having been so long used to be sad,
May God bless you, . . bless you ! His best blessing for
me (after that ! ) were to make me worthy of you — but it
would take too many miracles.

Your

Ba.

Remember the letters, if they come.

[Postmark: April 24, 1846]

How I sympathize with poor Cloten when he complains
that ‘ he is in the habit of saying daily many things fully as
witty as those of Posthumus, men praise so — if men would
but note them ‘ ! — I feel jealous of the success and ‘ praise ‘
of my Ba, — falling as they do on the mere asides and interjectional
fits and starts of the play, — when its earnest soliloquy,
the very soul and substance of it all, never reaches
her ear, nor calls down her dear, dear words.

Yet do I say that I feel jealous ? Rather, I acquiesce
gladly in the ignorance . . because when the words, the
golden words, are brought in to me by the inferior agents,
and honestly transferred by them to the real moving powers
. . they, even, find the reward too much, too much, till they
— till they resolve (on the other side of a sheet) to keep
silence and be grateful till death help them to speak.

Well, my dear, own dearest . . the week has got to its
weary end, and to-morrow I shall trust to be with you. I
continue to feel better, — and this morning’s rain, in the
opinion of the learned, will be succeeded by warm weather.
May is just here, beside.

Let me say how a word of praise from your brother
gratifies me. I feel his kindness in other respects — feel it
deeply — as I do that of the rest of your family. Because . .
after these extravagant flatteries of mine you find such just
fault with, — wherein I go the length of attributing to you the
authorship of the ‘ Drama of Exile,’ and ‘ Geraldine ‘ and
‘ Bertha,’ and many more poems which I used to suppose my
Ba’s, — ^after that undue glorification, you will bear to be told,
by way of ‘set-off’ — that I cannot help thinking, you, of all
your family, are the most ignorant of your own value — very
ignorant you are, my sweet Ba, — but they cannot be, and
their kindness to me becomes centupled ‘ for reasons, for
reasons.’

Now let me kiss you — which kiss, as I am to really kiss
you to-morrow, my sweetest, I shall dare tell the truth of to
myself, and say ‘ The real will be better.’ At other times,
with a longer perspective of days, and days after them, until
. . why, then I make the best of pity and say ‘ Can the real
be better — what can be better than the best’? Still —
remember my ‘ peculiarity ‘ — with the greater I keep the less,
you let me say and praise me for saying — so, with all the
dear hope of to-morrow, — now, my Ba — and now, I kiss you.
May God bless you, best and dearest.

No letters that are letters — here is one however from
Arnould just arrived — an Oxford Prize Poet, and an admir-
able dear good fellow, for all his praise — which is better.

[Postmark: April 24, 1846]

Yes, you are better, I think. I thank God for that, first
of all. And, do you know, your note only just comes, and
it is past ten o’clock, and I had rung the bell to have the
letter-box investigated . . and then came the knock and
the letter ! Such a sinning post, it is, more and more.
But to come at last, is something — I am contented indeed.
And for being well, I am well too, if that is all. The wind
is a little hard on me ; but I keep in the room and think of
you and am thought of by you, and no wind, under such
circumstances, can do much harm perhaps : — it does not to
me anywise. So keep well, and believe that I am so : —
‘ well as you are well ‘ . . which sounds very well

What nonsense one comes to write when one is glad !
I observe that in myself constantly. All my wisdom seems
to depend on being pricked with pins . . or rather with
something sharper. And besides your being better, I am
glad through what you say here about your ‘ peculiarity ‘ !
Ah — how you have words in your coffers, of all sorts, . .
crowns to suit all heads . . and this, which I try on last,
suits mine better than the other glittering ones. Those
exaggerations, idealizations, with burning carbuncles in the
front of them, which made me sigh under the weight, . .
those are different — ! But when you say now that you do
not part with feelings, — that it is your peculiarity not
to wear them out, and that you are likely to care for the
sight of my handwriting as much after years as at first,
why you make me happy when you say such things, and
(see what faith I have !) I believe them, since you say them,
speaking of yourself. They are not after the fashion of men,
or women either — but, true of you, they may be, . . and I
take upon trust that they are : I accept such words from
you as means of gladness. The worst is — I mean, the
worst reasonableness that goes out to oppose them, is,
. . the fear lest, when your judgments have been corrected
by experience, the feelings may correct themselves.
But it is ungrateful to talk reason in the face of so much
love. I take up the gladness rather, and thank you and
bless you seven times over, to completion. You are the
best, I know, of all in the world. Did I tell you once that
my love was ‘something’ ? Yet it is nothing: because
there is no woman, let her heart be ever so made of stone
and steel, who could help loving you, . . I answer for all
women ! — so this is no merit of mine, though it is the best
thing I ever did in my life.

Dearest beloved, when I used to tell you to give me up,
and imagined to myself how I should feel if you did it, . .
and thought it would not be much worse than it was before
I knew you . . (a little better indeed, inasmuch as I had
the memory for ever . .) the chief pang was the idea of
another woman —— ! From that, I have turned back again
and again, recoiling like a horse set against too high a wall.
Therefore if I talk of what all women would do, I do not
mean that they should. ‘ Thirty-six Bas,’ we shall not have,
— shall we ? or I shall be like Flush, who, before he learnt to
be a philosopher, used to shiver with rage at sight of the
Flush in the looking-glass, and gnash his teeth impotently,
and quite howl. Now, — we shall not, dearest, have the
thirty-six Bas . . now, shall we ? Besides, one will be more
than enough, she fears to herself, for your comfort and
patience.

No more letters about ‘ Luria ‘ ? Did you see Moxon
when you were in town ?

Miss Bayley has not been here yet. To-morrow, perhaps.
When she comes, I shall not dare name you, but she will, I
think . . I seem sure of hearing her mind about ‘ Luria ‘ and
the ‘ Tragedy. ‘ George thinks the former ‘ very fine.’
Mr. Kenyon does not come, — and to-morrow (Friday) he
goes . . from London.

You will care for me always the same? But that is
like promising a charmed life, or an impossible immortality
to somebody — and nobody has either, except Louis Philippe.
May God bless you, — say how you are when you write
to-morrow.

Your own

Ba.

Oh — your learned Americans ! was it literal of Carlyle,
do you think, or a jest ?

[Postmark: April 23, 1846]

Dear, dear Ba, I was never very ill, and now am very
much better, quite well, indeed. I mean to co-operate
with your wishes, and my doctor’s doings, which are luckily
gentle enough, — and so, how should I fail of bringing into
subjection this restive, ill-conditioned head of mine ?

This morning I have walked to town and back — leaving
myself barely time to write — but just before going out, I
got your letter, for which I was waiting ; and the joy of it,
the entire delight, carried me lightly out and in again. Ah,
my own Ba, — of the two ‘ extravagances which you never
write nor speak,’ — after all, if I must, I concede the praises
and eagle-soaring and, and — because, if I please, I can say,
if you do persist in making me, ‘ why, it may be so, — how
should I know, or Ba not know ? ‘ And as a man may
suppose himself poor and yet be rightful owner to a wonder-
ful estate somewhere (in novels &c) — so, I, the intellectually
poor &c &c — But, dearest, if you say ‘ My letters
tire you’ —— say that again — and then what unknown
gadge ought to stop the darling mouth ? How does honey
dew bind up the rose from opening ? Moreover it is one
peculiarity of my mind that it loses no pleasure, — must not
forego the former for the latter pleasure. How shall I ex-
plain ? I believe that, when I should have been your
husband for years, — years — if I were separated from you for
a day and a letter came — I think my heart would move to it
just as it now does — because now, when I see you, know
what that blessing is — still the very oldest first flutter of
delight at ‘ Miss Barrett’s ‘ writing it is all here, all !

Shall my heart flutter, then, to-morrow, my dear dear
heart’s heart ? And it shall be not April when I read it
your letter — but June and May — if it tells me you are well,
as I am well — now, if I say that, can you doubt what I
consider my present state ? But be better, dear Ba, and
make me better — I should like to breathe and move and
live by your allowance and pleasure — being your very very
own

R.B.

I see this morning a characteristic piece of news in the
paper. President Polk, with an eye to business, gets his
brother, a tall gaunt hungry man, appointed Ambassador to
Naples — why not? So he arrives a year ago, — finds the
Neapolitans speak Italian, or else French, or else German
— that is, the Diplomatic Body at Naples don’t speak
English — on which discovery, Polk secundus sees he may
as well amuse himself, so goes to Paris for half a year, —
then to Rome where he is now, seeing sights — who could
tell the Italians were not able to talk English ? Is not that
American entirely ? Carlyle told me of an American who
was commissioned by some learned body of his countrymen
to ask two questions . . ‘What C.’s opinion was as to
a future state?’ — and next ‘ what relation Goethe was to
Goethe’s mother’s husband ? ‘ —

[Postmark: April 23, 1846]

Then seriously you are not well, since you went for the
medical advice after all ! that is the thought which is upper-
most as the effect of your letter, though I ought to be
grateful to you (and am !) for remembering to keep your
promise, made two months ago. But how can I help
thinking that you are ill . . help knowing that you felt very
ill before you came to consider that promise ? You did
feel very ill . . now did you not ? And I see in this letter
that you are not well — I see plainly, plainly ! Have you
been using the shower-bath? tell me: — and tell me how
you are — do not keep back anything. For the rest, you will
submit to the advice, you say, and you mean to submit, I
think, my own very dearest — remember that all my light
comes, not only through you, but from you, let it be April
light or November light. I say that for you. As for myself,
when I am anxious about you, it is not, I hope, for such a
reason as that my light comes from you. Before I had any
light, . . before I knew you so . . do I not remember how
Mr. Kenyon with that suggestive shake of the head and
grave dropping of the voice, when he came and told me with
other news, of your being ill, . . made me wonderfully
unhappy and restless till I could not help writing for a
directer account? Oh, those strange days to look back
upon, . . which had no miraculous light, yet were strange
days, with their ‘ darkness which might be felt ‘ and was
felt !

You will be careful, . . will you not ? . . in these ? I
am not happy about you, to-night. I feel as if you are worse
perhaps than you say. And it does you so much good to
keep talking about this misgiving and that misgiving ! — the
‘ trente-six oies ‘ are nothing at all to me, really.

For those two letters, it was far from any intention of
mine that you should have them both together, — and the
first-written went to the post at two on the day before. Too
bad it is ! I obserye that you never get a letter on the day
it is posted, unless the posting is very early, . . say before
eight, or, at latest, before nine. Which is abominable, when
the distance is considered.

And you make a piteous case out for yourself against me,
indeed, . . and it seems very hard to have to endure so
much, ‘ forty-nine days out of fifty ‘ . . . I did not think it
was so bad with you ! And when you protest gently on the
fiftieth day . . so gently . . so gently ! ! Well, the fact is
that you forget perhaps what sort of a gentle protestation it was,
you wrote to me on Sunday, you who protest so gently, and
never flatter ! And as for having your own ‘ praises blown
in your eyes ‘ for forty-nine days together, I cannot confess
to the iniquity of it, . . you mistake, you mistake, as well as
forget — only that I will not vex you and convict you too
much now that you are not well. So we shall have peace,
shall we not ? on each side. I never write extravagances —
ah, but we will not write of them, even. Any more letters
about * Luria ? *

Yes — All day to-day in the gondola chair ! There was
no leaving this room for the cold wind, and it made me feel
so tired without my taking a step scarcely, that after dinner
. . guess what I did, and save me the shame of relating ?
after dinner, my dinner at one oclock, I positively fell
fast asleep with this pen in my hand, and went to see you
in a dream I dare say, though, this time, I do not remember.
Then I half expected Miss Bayley, and she did not come,
and instead of talking to her I wrote letters to ‘ all the
peoples ‘ . . I hate writing letters, how I hate it now, except
to you only. And to-day I thought only of you, let me write
ever so away from you. Which is why you saw me in the
gondola chair.

But you are not well — the ‘ refrain ‘ comes round con-
stantly — call it a burden ! May God bless you, dearest
beloved ! Do you say harm of this April, when it is the
best April I ever saw, let it be proved to want the vulgar
sun and blue sky as much as you please ! Yet you are not
well ! say how you are ! I come clear out of the mist to
call myself

Your very own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 22, 1846]

I never thought I should convince you, dearest — and I
was foolish to write so, since it makes you reply so. At all
events, I do not habitually offend in this kind — forty-nine
days out of fifty I hear my own praises from your lips, and
yet keep silence — on the fiftieth I protest gently — is that too
much ? Then I will be quiet altogether, my Ba, and get a
comfort out of the consciousness of obedience there at least.
But I should like some talking-bird to tell you the struggle
there is and what I could say. Shall I idealize you into mere
mist, Ba, and see the fine, fine, last of you ? Well, I cannot
even play with the fancy of that — so, one day, when so much
is to be cleared up between us, look for a word or two on
this matter also. Some savage speech about the ‘ hand I
was to have dropped ‘ — the whole ending with the Promethean
— Οὑτως ὑβρἰζειν τους ὑβρἰζοντας χρέων. Meantime
my revenge on the hand must be to kiss it — I kiss it.

Yesterday’s letters both arrived this morning by the 11½
post — was that right ? I add my mite of savageness to the
general treasury of wrath : every body is complaining . Still,
so long as I do get my letters, — such letters !

The cold wind continues — you will have kept the room
to-day no doubt — what colourless weather ; not the moist
fresh bright true April of old years ! I shall go out presently
— but with such an effort, such unwillingness ! I am better
however — and my mother still continues well — goes out
every morning — so there is hope for everybody. I ought to
tell you that I went to my doctor last evening — (remembering
to whom I promised I would do so, if need were, or good
seemed likely to follow) — and he speaks encouragingly and
I have engaged to be obedient ; perhaps, because he ordains
no very intolerable laws. He says I am better than when he
saw me last — and, as he wanted then to begin and prescribe,
. . . there is clearly a gain of about two months’ comfort !

Here strikes fatal four-o’clock ! To-morrow for more
writing ; and now, for the never-ending love, and thought of
my dearest dearest. May God bless you, Ba.

Your own ——

[Postmark: April 22, 1846]

‘ Vanity ‘ ! I never saw in you, my very dearest, even the
short morning shadow of ‘ vanity.’ ‘ Vanity ‘ is not of you!
You work as the cedars grow, upward, and without noise,
and without turning to look on the darkness you cause upon
the ground. It is only because you are best and dearest
that you let me see the letters . . . yes, and besides, because
I have a little a right to have them sent to me, — since
they concern me more than you, — and are, after a fashion,
my letters. My letters ? what am I saying ? My letters,
my true letters, are different indeed — and one of them came
to-night to prove so !
But Mr. Chorley’s and the illegible man’s whose name
begins with a D (or doesn’t) both gave me pleasure. If Mr.
Chorley did not read ‘Luria’ at once, he speaks of you in the
right words — and the naval illegible man, with his downright
earnest way of being impressed, makes a better critic than
need be sought for in the Athenæum synod. And what a
triumph (after all !) and what a privilege, and what a good
deed, is this carrying of the light down into the mines
among the workmen, this bringing down of the angels of
the Ideal into the very depth of the Real, where the hammer
rings on the rough stone. The mission of Art, like that
of Religion, is to the unlearned . . to the poor and to
the blind — to make the rugged paths straight, and the
wilderness to blossom as the rose — at least it seems so to
me. And now, pray, why am I not to hear what Carlyle
said ? will you tell me ? won’t you tell me ? how shall I
persuade you ? If I can or not, I will say God bless him
too . . since he spoke the right word, to do you good. For
the manifest advance in clearness and directness of expression
. . I quite forgot to take notice of what you said to me
— and you, who never flatter ! — about being the cause of it
— I ! Now do observe that the ‘Soul’s Tragedy,’ which is
as light as day, I never touched with my finger, except in
one place, I think . . to say . . ‘ Just here there is a little
shade.’ The fact is, that your obscurities, . . as far as they
concern the medium, . . you have been throwing off gradually
and surely this long while — you have a calmer mastery
over imagery and language, and it was to be expected that
you should. For me, I am the fly on the chariot, . . ‘ How
we drive ! ‘ Shall I ever, ever, ever, be of any use or good
to you ? See what a thought you have thrown me into,
from that height ! Shall I ever, ever, be of any use, any
good — and not, rather, the contrary to these? Love is
something : and it is something to love you better than a
better woman could : but . . but . .

There is no use nor good in writing so, and you with a
headache too ! Why, how could you get that headache ?
First with not walking ; then with walking — I ! and read-
ing Balzac. But you had been writing notes perhaps?
or Carlyle had talked too ‘ bracingly ? ‘ or you fasted too long,
being too late for his tea-kettle ? The headache came at any
rate. Did it go ? tell me, dearest beloved ! say how you are.
And let me hear if your mother continues to be better.
How happy that change must make you all ! and shall I not
thank God that it makes you happy?

Mr. Kenyon has not been here, and I have nothing,
nothing, to tell you. The east wind has kept guard at the
door, so that I should not go out, . . and nothing has
happened. I seem not to have drawn breath scarcely,
since we parted. ‘ Parted ‘ — what a word ! As if we could !
— in the full sense !

I have written to Miss Bayley to ask her to come on any
day except Saturday.

Shall the thirty-six Bas love you all together in that one
Ba who is your own ?