Category: Uncategorized

[Postmark: April 14, 1846]

Monday.

Ever dearest I have your two letters ; and because there
are only two ‘ great lights ‘ to rule the day and the night, I
am not likely to hear from you again before to-morrow. Then
you want Mrs. Jameson’s direction . . (it is just Mrs, Jameson, Ealing !)
and here is the last ‘ Bell and Pomegranate’ — and, for all these reasons, I must write without
waiting ; I will not wait for the night. Thank you for the
book, thank you ! I turn over the leaves ever so proudly.
Tell me how I can be proud of you when I cannot be proud
of your loving me : — I am certainly proud of you. One of
my first searches was for the note explanatory of the title —
and I looked, and looked, and looked, at the end, at the
beginning, at the end again. At last I made up my mind
that you had persisted in not explaining, or that the printer
had dropped the manuscript. Why, what could make you
thrust that note on all but the titlepage of the ‘ Soul’s
Tragedy ‘ ? Oh — I comprehend. Having submitted to
explain, quite at the point of the bayonet, you determined at
least to do it where nobody could see it done. Be frank
and tell me that it was just so. Also the poor ‘ Soul’s
Tragedy,’ you have repudiated so from the ‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ . . pushing it gently aside. Well — you must allow
it to be a curious dislocation — only it is not important — and
I like the note, all except the sentence about ‘ Faith and
Works,’ which does not apply, I think, . . that instance.
‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ is a symbolic phrase — which the
other is not at all, however much difficult and doubtful
theological argument may have arisen from it as a collective
phrase. So I am the first critic, you see, notwithstanding
that Mr. Forster waylaid the first copy. Ah no ! I shall
have my gladness out of the book presently, beyond the
imagination of any possible critic. Who in the world shall
measure gladnesses with me ?

Tell me — I was going to write that ‘ Tell me ‘ in my
yesterday’s letter, but at last I was hurried, and could not
. . did you come into London on Sunday ? did you walk
past this house on the other side of the street, about two
o’clock ? Because just then I and Flush went down-stairs.
The drawing-room had nobody in it, and the window being
wide open, I walked straight to it to shut it. And there,
across the street, walked somebody … I am so near
sighted that I could only see a shadow in a dimness . . but
the shadow had, or seemed to have, a sign of you, a trace of
you . . . and instead of shutting the window I looked after
it till it vanished. No, it was not you, I feel now that
it was not you ; and indeed yesterday I felt it was not you.
But, for the moment, it made my heart stop beating, . .
that insolent shadow, . . which pretended to be you and
wasn’t. Some one, I dare say, who ‘has an occupation
eight or nine hours a day ‘ and never does anything ! I
may speak against him, for deceiving me — it’s a pure justice.

To go back to the book . . you are perfectly right about
‘ gadge,’ and in the view you take of the effect of such words.
You misunderstood me if you fancied that I objected to the
word — it was simply my ignorance which led me to doubt
whether you had written ‘ gag.’ Of course, the horror
of those specialities is heightened by the very want of
distinct understanding they meet with in us : — it is the rack
in the shadow of the vault. Oh — I fully agree.

And now . . dearest dearest . . do not bring reason to
me to prove . . . what, to prove ? I never get anything by
reason on this subject, be very sure ! — and I like better to
feel that unreasonably you love me — to feel that you love me
as, last year, you did. Which I could not feel, last year, a
whole day or even half a day together. Now the black
intervals are rarer . . which is of your goodness, beloved,
and not of mine. For me, you read me indeed a famous
lesson about faith, . . and set me an example of how you
‘ believed ‘ ! . . . but it does not apply, this lesson, . . it does
not resemble, this example ! — inasmuch as what you had to
believe . . viz. that roses blow in June . . was not quite
as difficult as what I am called to believe, . . viz. that
St. Cecilia’s angel-visitant had a crown of roses on, which
eternally were budding and blowing. But I believe . .
believe . . and want no ‘ proof ‘ of the love, but just itself
to prove it, — for nothing else is worthy. On the other side,
I have the audacity to believe, as I think I have told you,
that no woman in the world could feel for you exactly what
. . . but, here, too, I had better shun the reasons, . .
the ‘ bonnes raisons ‘ which ‘ le roy notre sire ‘ cannot abide.
— What foolishness I am writing really ! And is it to be for
a ‘ year,’ or a ‘ month ‘ — or a week, — better still ? or we may
end by a compromise for the two hours on Wednesdays, . .
if it goes on so, — more sensibly.

I have heard to-day from Miss Martineau and from Mrs.
Jameson, both — one talking Mesmer and the other Homer.
I sent her (Mrs. J.) two versions of the daughters of Pandarus,
the first in the metre you know, and the second in blank
verse ; . . and she does not decide which she likes best, she
says graciously, whereas I could not guess which I liked
worse, when I sent them on Saturday. Do let her have
‘ Luria ‘ at once. She will take the right gladness in it, even
as she appreciates you with the right words and thoughts.
But surely you use too many stamps ? Have you a pair of
scales like Zeus and me ? . . only mine are broken, or I
would send you an authority on this important subject, as
well as an opinion.

How did you not get my letter, pray, by the first post on
Monday ? You ought to have had it ! it was not my fault.
And thinking of ‘causas rerum,’ . . I was to ‘catch cold,’ I
suppose, on Saturday, because you went away ? — there was
no stronger motive. I did not however catch cold — ah,
how you make me giddy with such words, as if I did really
‘ hang over a gulph ‘ ! — not with fear though ! Is it possible,
I say to myself, that I can be so much to him ? to him !
May God bless him ! There was no harm meant by the
black seal, I think? Tell me too of the headache, and,
whether the dinner is for Wednesday, and whether, in that
case, it is still to be preferred, with all its close clipping, to
Thursday. Meantime the letter grows as if there was no
such thing as shears !

Your own

Ba

[Postmark: April 13, 1846]

Sunday.

Dearest, unspeakably dear Ba, — would I were with you !
But my heart stays with you : I write this, tired somewhat
and out of spirits — for I have been writing notes this
morning ; getting rid of the arrears which turn out more
considerable than I thought. And the moment I have done,
I look to the chair and the picture and desire to be at rest
with you; the perfect rest and happiness here on earth.
But do think, my own Ba, in the direction I indicated
yesterday — any obstacle now, would be more than I could
bear — I feel I must live with you, — if but for a year, a month
— to express the love which words cannot express, nor
these letters, nor aught else.

See one thing ! Through your adorable generosity, my
beloved, — at the beginning you pleased to tell me my love
was returned, — that I had gained your love; without your
assurance, I should never have believed that possible, whatever
you may think ; but you, what you say, I believe ;
would in other matters believe, rather than my own senses ;
and here I believed — in humbleness, God knows ; but so it
was. — Then, is there not this one poor fruit of that
generosity, one reassuring consideration, if you will accept it,
that, nearly a year ago, I was in possession of all I aspired
to? — so that if I had been too weak for my accorded
happiness — likely to be in due time satiated with it, and
less and less impressed by it, and so on, till at last ‘
changed, — would not this have happened inevitably before
now? I had gained your love ; one could not go on gaining
it — but some other love might be gained ! Indeed, I
don’t see how, in certain instances (where there is what is
called a pursuit and all the excitement of suspense, and
alternating hope and fear, all ending in the marriage day,
after the fashion of a Congreve comedy), how with the
certainty of that kind of success, all the interest of the
matter can avoid terminating. But it does seem to me,
that the love I have gained is as nothing to the love I trust
to gain. I want the love at our lives’ end, the love after
trial, the love of my love, when mine shall have had time
and occasion to prove itself ! I have already, from the
beginning indeed, had quite enough magnanimity to avoid
wishing for opportunities of doing so at your expense — I
pray you may never be in dangers from which I rescue you,
nor meet sorrow from which I divert you : but in the
ordinary chances of life — I shall be there, and ready,
and your own, heart and soul. Why do I say this to you ?

All words are so weak, — so weak !

Here, — (no, I shall have to send it to-morrow, I believe
— well, here in the course of the day) — comes ‘ Luria ‘ and
the other — and I lay it at my dear Lady’s feet, wishing it
were worthier of them, and only comforted, through all the
conviction of the offering’s unworthiness, by knowing that
she will know, — the dear, peerless, all precious Ba I adore,
will know — that I would give her my life gladlier at a
word. See what I have written on the outside — ‘ to Miss
Barrett ‘ ! — because I thought even leaving out the name might
look suspiciously ! But where no eye can see ; save your
dear eye . . there is written a dedication.

Kiss me, dear Ba. May God bless you. Care for
everything— if you should have taken cold last night, for
instance ! Talk of a sword suspended by a hair ! — what is the
feeling of one whose priceless jewel hangs over a gulf by a
hair ? Tell me all — I love you wholly and am wholly yours.

See the strangely dirty paper — it comes from my desk
where, every now and then, a candle gets over-set ; or the
snuffers remain open, aghast at what I write !

[Postmark: April 13, 1846]

Sunday.

I will not speak much of the letter, as you desire that I
should not. And because everything you write must be
answered in some way and sense, . . must have some result,
there is the less need of words in the present case. Let me
say only then, ever dearest, dearest, that I never felt towards
you as I felt when I had read that letter . . never loved you
so entirely ! . . that it went to my heart, and stayed there,
and seemed to mix with the blood of it . . . believe this
of me, dear dearest beloved ! For the rest, there is no need
for me to put aside carefully the assumption of being
didactic to you . . of being better than you, so as to teach
you ! … ah, you are so fond of dressing me up in pontifical
garments (‘ for fun,’ as the children say !) — but
because they are too large for me, they drop off always of
themselves, . . they do not require my pulling them off :
these extravagances get righted of their own accord. After
all, too, you, . . with that praeternatural submissiveness of
yours, . . you know your power upon the whole, and
understand, in the midst of the obeisances, that you can do
very much what you please, with your High Priest. Ει τις αισθησις in the ghosts of the tribe of Levi, let them see and
witness how it is !

And now, do you see. It was just natural that when we,
differed for the first time I should fall into low spirits. In
the night, at dream-time, when instead of dreams ‘ deep
thought falleth upon man.’ suddenly I have been sad even
to tears, do you know, to think of that : and whenever I am
not glad, the old fears and misgivings come back — no, you
do not understand . . you cannot, perhaps ! But dear,
dearest, never think of yourself that you have expressed
‘ insufficiently ‘ your feelings for me. Insufficiently ! No
words but just your own, between heaven and earth, could
have persuaded me that one such as you could love me !
and the tongue of angels could not speak better words for
that purpose, than just yours. Also, I know that you
love me . . I do know it, my only dearest, and recognize it
in the gratitude of my soul : — and it is through my want of
familiarity with any happiness — through the want of use in
carrying these weights of flowers, that I drop them again
and again out of weak hands. Besides the truth is, that I
am not worthy of you — and if you were to see it just as I
see it, why there would be an end . . there, . . I sometimes
think reasonably.

Well — now I shall be good for at least a fortnight. Do
I not teaze you and give you trouble ? I feel ashamed of
myself sometimes. Let me go away from myself to talk of
Mr. Kenyon, therefore !

For he came to-day, and arrived in town on Friday evening
— (what an escape on Saturday !) and said of you, . . with
those detestable spectacles — like the Greek burning glasses,
turned full on my face . . ‘ I suppose now that Mr.
Browning’s book is done and there are no more excuses for
coming, he will come without excuses.’ Then, after talk
upon other subjects, he began a long wandering sentence,
the end of which I could see a mile off, about how he
‘ ought to know better than I, but wished to enquire of
me ‘ . . . what, do you suppose ? . . why, ‘ what Mr.
Browning’s objects in life were. Because Mrs. Procter had
been saying that it was a pity he had not seven or eight
hours a day of occupation &c. &c. It is a good thing to
be angry as a refuge from being confounded : I really
could say something to that. And I did say that you ‘ did
not require an occupation as a means of living . . having
simple habits and desires — nor as an end of living, since
you found one in the exercise of your genius ! and that if
Mr. Procter had looked as simply to his art as an end, he
would have done better things.’

Which made Mr. Kenyon cry out . . ‘ Ah now ! you
are spiteful ! and you need not be, for there was nothing
unkind in what she said.’ ‘ But absurd ‘ ! . . I insisted —
‘ seeing that to put race horses into dray carts, was not
usually done nor advised.’

You told me she was a worldly woman ; and here is a
proof, sent back to you. But what business have worldly
women to talk their dust and ashes over high altars in that way ?
I was angry and sinned not — angry for the moment. Then
Mr. Kenyon agreed with me, I think, and illustrated the
subject by telling me how Wordsworth had given himself to
the service of the temple from the beginning — ‘though,’
observed Mr. Kenyon, ‘ he did not escape so from worldliness.’ But William Wordsworth is not Robert Browning.
Mr. Kenyon spoke of your family and of yourself with the
best and most reverent words.

And all this reminds me of what I have often and often
mused about saying to you, and shrank back, and torn the
paper now and then . . . You know the subject you
wanted to discuss, on Saturday. Now whenever the time
shall come for discussing that subject, let this be a point
agreed upon by both of us. The peculiarity of our circumstances will enable us to be free of the world . . of our
friends even . . of all observation and examination, in
certain respects : now let us use the advantage which falls
to us from our misfortune, — and, since we must act for ourselves at last, let us resist the curiosity of the whole race of
third persons . . even the affectionate interest of such
friends as dear Mr. Kenyon, . . and put it into the power
of nobody to say to himself or to another, . . ‘ she had so
much, and he, so much, in worldly possessions — or she had
not so much and he had not so much.’ Try to understand
what I mean. As it is not of the least importance to either
of us, as long as we can live, whether the sixpence, we live
by, came most from you or from me . . and as it will be as
much mine as yours, and yours as mine when we are together . . why let us join in throwing a little dust in all the
winking eyes round — oh, it is nonsense and weakness, I
know — but I would rather, rather, see winking eyes than
staring eyes. What has anybody to do with us ? Even my
own family . . why should they ever see the farthest figure
of our affairs, as to mere money ? There now — it is said, . .
what I have had in my head so long to say. And one other
word resumes my meditations on ‘ the subject ‘ which
will not be ripe for discussion for ever so many months . .
and that other word is . . that if ever I am to wrong you so
much as to be yours so, it is on the condition of leaving
England within the fewest possible half hours afterwards. I
told you that, long ago — so bear it in mind. I should not
dare breathe in this England. Think ! — There is my father —
and there is yours ! Do you imagine that I am not afraid
of your family? and should be still more, if it were not for
the great agony of fear on the side of my own house. Ah —
I must love you unspeakably . . even to dare think of the
possibility of such things. So we will not talk of them now.
I write what I write, to throw it off my mind and have done.
Bear it in yours, but do not refer to it — I ask you not to
refer to it.

A long straggling letter, this is. I shall have mine
to-morrow. And you will tell me if Wednesday or Thursday
shall be our day ; and above all, tell me how you are. Then
the book will come. Remember to send one to Mrs. Jameson
! I write in haste . . in haste — but one may think of
you either in haste or at leisure, without blotting the air.

Love me, beloved . . do not leave off to see if I deserve it.
I am at least (which is at most)

Your very own.

[Postmark: April 10, 1846]

Friday Morning.

Dearest, sweetest best — how can you, seeing so much,
yet see that ‘ possibility ‘ — I leave off loving you ! and be
‘ angry ‘ and ‘ vexed ‘ and the rest ! Well — take care I don’t
answer fairly and plainly that I can do all this — as the poor
women had to confess in their bewilderment when grave
judges asked ‘ by which of the thirty-seven ways they were
accustomed to signify their desire of his presence to Asmodeus’ — &c. &c. — But I cannot jest, nor trifle here — I
protest in the most solemn way I am capable of conceiving,
that I am altogether unable to imagine how or whence or
why any possible form of anger or vexation or any thing
akin can or could or should or shall ever rise in me to you
— it is a sense hitherto undreamed of, a new faculty —
altogether an inexplicable, impossible feeling. I am not
called on, surely, to suppose cases of pure impossibility ?
To say, ‘ if you did thus or thus,’ — what I know you could
no more do than go and kill cows with your own hand, and
dig up kale grounds ? But I can fancy your being angry
with me, very angry — and speaking the truth of the anger —
that is to ‘ fancied’, and God knows I should in that case
kiss my letters, here, till you pleased to judge me not unworthy to kiss the hem of your garment again. My own Ba !
My election is made or God made it for me, — and is irrevocable. I am wholly yours. I see you have yet to understand
what that implies, — but you will one day. And in this, just
said, I understand serious anger, for serious offences ; to
which, despite my earnest endeavour, who shall say I may
not be liable ? What are you given me for but to make me
better — and, in that, happier ? If you could save my soul,
‘ so as by fire,’ would your dear love shrink from that ? But
in the matter we really refer to . . . Oh, Ba, did I not pray
you at the beginning to tell me the instant you detected
anything to be altered by human effort? to give me that
chance of becoming more like you and worthier of you ?
and here where you think me gravely in the wrong, and I
am growing conscious of being in the wrong, — one or two
repetitions of such conduct as yours, such ‘ disagreeable
letters,’ and I must ‘ leave off ‘ . . . When I do that on
such ground . . I need imprecate no foolish sense on my
head, — the very worst will be in full operation. I only wrote
to justify an old feeling, exercised only in the case of others
I have heard of — men called ‘ cool murderers,’ ‘ deliberate
imbruers of their hands in,’ &c. &c. — and I meant just to say,
— well, — I, and others, despise your society and only go into
it now to be the surer that, when we leave it, we were not
excluded as the children turn from the grapes because their
teeth are set on edge, whatever may be the foxes’ pretext —
but, for your own devoted followers be a little more merciful, and while you encourage them to spend a dozen years
in a law-suit, lest they lose a few pounds . . but I won’t
repeat the offence, dear — you are right and I am wrong and
will lay it to heart, and now kiss, not your feet this time,
because I am the prouder, far from the more humble, by
this admission and retractation —

Your note arrives here — Ba ; — it would have been
‘better for me,’ that? Oh, dearest, let us marry soon, very
soon, and end all this ! If I could begin taking exceptions
again, I might charge you with such wild conventionalism,
such wondrous perversity of sight or blindness rather ! Can
you, now, by this time, tell me or yourself that you could
believe me happy with any other woman that ever breathed ?
I tell you without affectation, that I lay the whole blame to
myself . . that I feel that if I had spoken my love out
sufficiently all this doubt could never have been possible.
You quite believe I am in earnest, know my own mind and
speak as I feel, on these points we disputed about — yet I
am far from being sure of it, or so it seems now — but, as for
loving you, — there I mistake, or may be wrong, or may, or
might or or —

Now kiss me, my best-dearest beloved ! It seems I
am always understood so — the words are words, and faulty,
and inexpressive, or wrongly expressive, — but when I live
under your eyes, and die, you will never mistake, — you do
not now, thank God, say to me — ‘ you want to go elsewhere
for all you say the visit seems too brief ‘ — and, ‘ you would
change me for another, for all you possess ‘ — never do you
say such things — but when I am away, all the mistaking
begins — let it end soon, come, dearest life of my life, light
of my soul, heart’s joy of my heart !

You feel I must see you to-morrow it possible — at all
events I will call for the parcel. (What made you suppose I
was engaged to-morrow night ? The saying that I should
meet my sea-faring friend, perhaps ? But that is to be here
— he comes here — at all events, I recollect no other engagement — if I had one with Death himself, I almost think I
would go, — folly ! But let the parcel be ready (to put into
my hand at once) and I will venture at 3 o’clock.

In truth, all yesterday I was very unwell, — going about
sight-seeing with a friend and his lady-cousins, and afterward
dining with them — I came home dead with intense boring
— I rarely remember to have suffered so much. To-day I
am rather better, — much better, indeed. If I can but see
you for a few minutes to-morrow !

May God bless you, dearest — and show you the truth in
me, the one truth which I dare hope compensates for much
that is to be forgiven : when I told you at the beginning I
was not worthy, was infinitely lower &c., you seemed incredulous! well now, you see ! I, that you would persist
in hoping better things of, held such opinions as those —
and so you begin setting me right, and so I am set far on
towards right — is not all well, love ? And now go on, when
I give next occasion, and tell me more, and let me alter
more, and thank you, if I can, more — but not, not love
you more, you, Ba, whom I love wholly, — with all my
faculties, all my being. May God bless you, again — it all
ends there — !

Your own R.

[Postmark: April 10, 1846]

Friday 2 o’clock p.m.

Ever dearest I wrote last night what might make you
doubtful and uncomfortable about Saturday ; being doubtful
myself and not knowing what word to say of it. But just
now Papa has been here in the room with me, — and a
beatific Jamaica packet has just come in, as the post
declares . . (Benedetta sia l’ora &c !) and he will ‘ hear
more,’ he says, ‘ in the city to-morrow ! ‘ — So we are safe.

Come, if there should be no reason of your own for staying.
For me, I seem to have more need than usual of seeing you.
May God bless you. I am

Your

Ba.

[Postmark: April 10, 1846]

Thursday Evening.

I thought you had not written to me to-night, ever
dearest ! Nine o’clock came and went, and I heard no
postman’s knock ; and I supposed that I did not deserve
(in your mind) to hear it at all. At last I rang the bell and
said to Wilson . . ‘ Look in the letter-box— there may be a
letter perhaps. If there should be none, you need not come
up-stairs to tell me — I shall understand.’ So she left me,
and, that time, I listened for footsteps . . the footsteps of
my letter. If I had not heard them directly, what should I
have thought ?

You are good and kind, . . too good and kind always, . .
always, always ! — and I love you gratefully and shall to the
end, and with an unspeakable apprehension of what you are
in yourself, and towards me : — yet you cannot, you know,
— you know you cannot, dearest . . ‘ submit ‘ to me in an
opinion any more than I could to you, if I desired it ever
so anxiously. We will talk no more however on this subject
now. I have had some pain from it, of course . . but I am
satisfied to have had the pain, for the knowledge . . which
was as necessary as possible, under circumstances, for more
reasons than one.

Dearest . . before I go to talk of something else . .
will you be besought of me to consider within yourself, . .
and not with me to tease you ; why the ‘ case,’ spoken of,
should ‘ never in likelihood be your own ? ‘ Are you and
yours charmed from the influence of offensive observations
. . personally offensive? ‘The most unhappy thing that
could happen to you,’ is it, on that account, the farthest
thing ?

Now — ! Mrs. Jameson was here to-day, and in the
room before, almost, I heard of her being on the stairs. It
is goodnatured of her to remember me in her brief visits
to London — and she brought me two or three St. Sebastians
with the arrows through them, etched by herself, to look at
— very goodnatured ! Once she spoke of you — ‘ Oh,’ she
said, ‘ you saw Mr. Browning’s last number ! yes, I remember how you spoke of it. I suppose Mr. Kenyon lent you
his copy’ . . . And before I could speak, she was on
another subject. But I should not have had heart to say
what I meant and predetermined to say, even if the opportunity to-day had been achieved. As if you could not be
read except in Mr. Kenyon’s copy ! I might have confessed to my own copy, even if not to my own original . .
do you not think ?

Before she came, I went down to the drawing-room, I
and Flush, and found no one there . . and walked drearily
up and down the rooms, and, so, came back to mine. May
you have spent your day better. There was sunshine for
you, as I could see. God bless you and keep you. Saturday-
may be clear for us, or may not — and if it should not
be clear, certainly Monday and Tuesday will not . . what
shall be done ? Will you wait till Wednesday ? or will you
(now let it be as you choose !) come on Saturday, running
the risk of finding only a parcel . . a book and a letter . .
and so going away, if there should be reasons against the
visit. . Because last Monday was known of, and I shall not
ascertain until Saturday whether or not we shall be at
liberty. Or . . shall we at once say Wednesday ? It is for
your decision. You go out on Saturday evening . . and
perhaps altogether there may be a conspiracy against Saturday. Judge and decide.

I am writing as with the point of a pilgrim’s staff rather
than a pen. ‘ We are all strangers and pilgrims.’ Can you
read anywise ?

I think of you, bless you, love you — but it would have
been better for you never to have seen my face perhaps,
though Mr. Kenyon gave the first leave. Perhaps ! ! — I
‘flatter’ myself to-night, in chance for you.

Best beloved I am your

Ba.

[Postmark: April 9, 1846]

Thursday. 8. a.m.

Dearest, I have to go out presently and shall not be
able to return before night . . so that the letter I expect
will only be read then and answered to-morrow — what will
it be, the letter ? Nothing but dear and kind, I know . .
even deserve to know, in a sense, — because I am sure all
in my letter was meant to be ‘ read by your light.’ I submit,
unfeignedly, to you, there as elsewhere — and, — as I said, I
think, — I wrote so precisely because it was never likely to
be my own case. I should consider it the most unhappy
thing that could possibly happen to me, — (putting aside the
dreadful possibilities one refuses to consider at all, — the
most)

Have you made any discoveries about the disposition of
Saturday ? May I come, dearest ? (On Saturday evening I
shall see a friend who will tell me all he knows about ships
and voyage expenses — or refer me to higher authorities.)

Bless you, now and ever, my own Ba. Do you know,
next Saturday, in its position of successor to Good Friday,
will be the anniversary of Mr. Kenyon’s asking me, some
four years ago, ‘ if I would like to see Miss B.’ How I
remember ? I was staying with him for a couple of days.
Now, I will ask myself ‘ would you like to kiss Ba?’
‘ Then comes the Selah, Goodbye, dearest-dearest !

Yours R.

[Postmark: April 9, 1846]

Wednesday Evening.

After the question about the ‘ Sirens’ song to Ulysses,
dearest? Then directly before I suppose, the other
‘ difficult question ‘ talked of by your Sir Thomas Browne,
as to ‘ what name Achilles bore when he lived among the
women.’ That you think, will be an appropriate position
for our ‘ moot point ‘ which, once in England, was guilty of
tiring you and making your head ache : — and as for
Achilles’ name when he lived among women, it was Μωρος
you will readily guess, and I shall not dare to deny. Only
. . only . . I never shall be convinced on the ‘ previous
question’ by the arguments of your letter — it is not
possible.

May I say just one thing, without touching that specific
subject ? There is a certain class of sacrifice which men
who live in society, should pay willingly to society . . the
sacrifice of little or indifferent things, . . in respect to
mere manners and costume. There is another class of
sacrifice which should be refused by every righteous man
though ever so eminently a social man, and though to the
loss of his social position. Now you would be the last, I
am sure, to confound these two classes of sacrifice — and you
will admit that our question is simply between them . . and
to which of them, duelling belongs . . and not at all
whether society is in itself a desirable thing and much
rejoiced in by the Browns and Smiths. You refuse to wear
a fool’s cap in the street, because society forbids you —
which is well : but if, in order to avoid wearing it, you
shoot the ‘ foolish child ‘ who forces it upon you . . why
you do not well, by any means : it would not be well even
for a Brown or a Smith — but for my poet of the ‘ Bells and
Pomegranates,’ it is very ill, wonderfully ill . . so ill, that I
shut my eyes, and have the heartache (for the headache !)
only to think of it. So I will not. Why should we see
things so differently, ever dearest ? If anyone had asked
me, I could have answered for you that you saw it quite
otherwise. And you would hang men even — you !

Well ! Because I do ‘ not rue ‘ (and am so much the
more unfit to die) I am to be stabbed through the body by
an act of ‘ private judgment ‘ of my next neighbour. So I
must take care and ‘rue ‘ when I do anything wrong — and
I begin now, for being the means of tiring you, . . and
for seeming to persist so ! You may be right and I wrong,
of course — I only speak as I see. And will not speak any
more last words . . taking pardon for these I rue.

To-day I was down-stairs again — and if the sun shines
on as brightly, I shall be out of doors before long perhaps.

Your headache ! tell me how your headache is, — remember to tell me. When your letter came, I kissed it by
a sort of instinct . . not that I do always at first sight (please
to understand), but because the writing did not look angry . .
not vexed writing. Then I read . . ‘ First of all, kiss ‘ . .

So it seemed like magic.

Only I know that if I went on to write disagreeing disagreeable letters, you might not help to leave off loving me
at the end. I seem to see through this crevice.

Good Heavens ! — how dreadfully natural it would be to
me, seem to me, if you did leave off loving me ! How it
would be like the sun-s setting . . and no more wonder !
Only, more darkness, more pain. May God bless you my
only dearest ! and me, by keeping me

Your

Ba.

[Postmark: April 8, 1846]

Wednesday Morning.

First of all, kiss me, dearest, — and again — and now, with
the left arm round you, I will write what I think in as few
words as possible. I think the fault of not carrying out
principles is yours, here. Several principles would arrive at
the result you desire — Christianity, Stoicism, Asceticism,
Epicureanism (in the modern sense) — all these ‘ carried out’
stop the procedure you deprecate — but I fancy, as you state
your principle, that it is an eclecticism from these and others ;
and presently one branch crosses its fellow, and we stop,
arrive at nothing. Do you accept ‘ life’s warm-beating joy
and dole,’ for an object of that life ? Is ‘ society ‘ a thing
to desire to participate in? not by the one exceptional
case out of the million, but by men generally, — men who
‘ live ‘ only for living’s sake, in the first instance ; next, men
who, having ulterior objects and aims of happiness, yet
derive various degrees of sustainment and comfort from the
social life round them ; and so on, higher up, till you come
to the half-dozen, for whom we need not be pressingly
urgent to legislate just yet, having to attend to the world
first. Well, is social life, a good, generally to these ? If so,
— go back to another principle which I suppose you to
admit, — that ‘ good ‘ may be lawfully held, defended, — even
to the death. Now see where the ‘ cross ‘ takes place.
Something occurs which forces a man to hold this, defend
this — he must do this, or renounce it. You let him do
neither. Do not say he needs not renounce it, — we go
avowedly on the vulgar broad ground of fact — you very well
know it is a fact that by his refusing to accept a challenge,
or send one, on conventionally sufficient ground, he will be
infallibly excluded from a certain class of society thenceforth-
and forever. What society should do rather, is wholly
out of the question — what will be done? And now,
candidly, can you well fancy a more terrible wrong than
this to the ordinary multitude of men ? Alter the principles
of your reasoning — say, Christianity forbids this, — and that
will do — rational Simon renounces on his pillar more than
the pleasures of society if so he may save his soul : say,
society is not worth living in, — it is no wrong to be forced
to quit it — that will do, also, — a man with ‘ Paradise Lost ‘
or ‘ Othello ‘ to write ; or with a Ba to live beside for his
one companion, — or many other compensations, — he may
retire to his own world easily. Say, on the lowest possible
ground, ‘ out of society one eats, drinks &c. excellently well ;
what loss is there? ‘ — all these principles avail ; but mix
them — and they surely neutralize each other. A man may
live, enjoy life, oppose an attempt to prevent his enjoying
life, — yet not — you see ! ‘ The method is irrational,
proves nothing &c. ‘ — what is that to the question ? Is the
effect disputable or no ? Wordsworth decides he had better
go to court — then he must buy or borrow a court-dress.
He goes because of the poetry in him. What irrationality
in the bag and sword — in the grey duffil gown yonder, he
wrote — half through the exceeding ease and roominess of it
‘ The Excursion ‘ ; how proper he should go in it, therefore
. . beside it will wring his heartstrings to pay down the
four pounds, ten and sixpence : good, Mr. Wordsworth
There’s no compulsion ; go back to the lakes and be
entirely approved of by Miss Norwick ! . . but, if you do
choose to kiss hands (instead of cheeks ‘ smackingly ‘) why
you must even resolve to ‘ grin and bear it ‘ (a sea-phrase!)
— and, Ba, your imaginary man, who is called ‘ liar ‘ before
a large assembly, must decide for one or the other course
‘ He makes his antagonist double the wrong ‘ ? Nay — here
the wrong begins— the poor author of the outrage should
have known his word was nothing — the sense of it, he and
his like express abundantly every hour of the day, if they
please, in language only a shade removed from this that
causes all the harm, — and who does other than utterly
ineffably despise them ? but he chooses, as the very phrase
is, to oblige his adversary to act thus. He is nothing (I am
going on your own case of a supposed futile cause of
quarrel) — he may think just what he pleases — but having
said this and so — it is entirely society’s affair — and whatis
society’s present decision ? Directly it relaxes a regulation
allows another outlet to the natural contempt for, and
indifference to such men and their opinions spoken or
unspoken, everybody avails himself of it directly. If the
Lord Chamberlain issues an order this morning, ‘ No swords
need be worn at next levee ‘ — who will appear with one ?
A politician is allowed to call his opponent a destructive
&c. A critic may write that the author of such a book or
such, is the poorest creature in the world — and who dreams:
of being angry ? but society up to this time says, ‘ if a man
calls another &c. &c., then he must ‘ — Will you renounce
society? I for one, could, easily: so therefore shall Mr.
Kenyon ! Beside, I on purpose depreciate the value of an
admission into society . . as if it were only for those who
recognize no other value ; and the wiser men might easily
forego it. Not so easily ! There are uses in it, great uses,
for purposes quite beyond its limits — you pass through it, mix
with it, to get something by it : you do not go in to the
world to live on the breath of every fool there, but you
reach something out of the world by being let go quietly, if
not with a favourable welcome, among them. I leave here
to go to Wimpole Street : — I want to have as little as possible
to say to the people I find between — but, do you know, if I
allow a foolish child to put the very smallest of fool’s caps
on my head instead of the hat I usually wear, though the
comfort would be considerable in the change, — yet I shall
be followed by an increasing crowd, say to Charing Cross,
and thence pelted, perhaps, till I reach No 50 — there,
perhaps to find the servant hesitate about opening the door
to such an apparition, — and when Papa comes to hear how
illustriously your visitor was attended through the streets !
why he will specially set apart Easter Monday to testify in
person his sense of the sublime philosophy, will he not ? My
Ba — I tell the child on the first symptom of such a wish on
his part ‘ Don’t ! ‘ with all the eloquence in my power — if I
can put it handsomely off my head, even, I will, and with
pitying good nature – but if I must either wear the cap, and
pay the penalty, or — slap his face, why — ! ‘ Ah,’ you say, ‘ but
he has got a pistol that you don’t see and will shoot you
dead like a foolish child as he is.’ That he may ! Have I
to be told that in this world men, foolish or wicked, do
inflict tremendous injuries on their unoffending fellows?
Let God look to it, I say with reverence, and do you look
to this point, where the injury begins. The foolish man
who throws some disfiguring liquid in your face, which to
remove you must have recourse to some dangerous surgical
operation, — perilling himself, too, by the consequent vengeance
of the law, if you sink under knife or cauterizing iron, —
shall I say ‘ the fault is yours — why submit to the operation ?
The fault is his that institutes the very fault — which begin
by teaching him from his cradle in every possible shape !
But don’t, don’t say — ‘ the operation is unnecessary ; your
blistered face will look, does look just as usual, not merely
to me who know you, perhaps love you, — but to the whole
world . . on whose opinion of its agreeableness, I confess
that you are dependent for nearly every happy minute of
your life. ‘ In all this, I speak for the world, not for me —
I have other, too many other sources of enjoyment — I could
easily I think, do what you require. I endeavour to care
for others with none of these ; as dear, dearest Ba, sitting
in her room because of a dull day, would have me take a
few miles’ exercise. Has everybody a Ba ? I had not last
year — yet last year I had reasons, and still have, for, on
occasion, renouncing society fifty times over : what I should
do, therefore, is as improper to be held up for an example,
as the exemplary behaviour of Walpole’s old French officer
of ninety, who ‘ hearing some youths diverting themselves
with some girls in a tent close by, asked, ‘ Is this the example
I set you, gentlemen ? ‘ . But I shall be dishonoured however
— Ba will ‘ go and call the police ‘ — why, so should I for
your brother, in all but the extremest case ! — because when
I had told all the world, with whom the concern solely is,
that, despite his uttermost endeavour, I had done this, — the
world would be satisfied at once — and the whole procedure
is meant to satisfy the world — even the foolishest know that
the lion in a cage, through no fault of his, cannot snap at a fly
outside the bars. The thing to know is, will Ba dictate to
her husband ‘ a refusal to fight,’ and then recommend him
to go to a dinner-party ? Say, ‘ give up the dinner for my
sake,’ if you like — one or the other it must be : you know,
I hate and refuse dinner-parties. Does everybody ?

But now in candour, hear me : I write all this to show
the not such irrationality of the practice even on comparatively frivolous grounds . . and that those individuals to
whom you once admit society may be a legitimate enjoyment, must take such a course to retain the privileges they
value — and that the painful consequences should be as
unhesitatingly attributed to the first offence and its author, —
as the explosion and horror to the fool who would put the
match, in play perhaps, to the powder-barrel. And I
excepted myself from the operation of this necessity. But I
must confess that I can conceive of ‘combinations of
circumstances’ in which I see two things only . . or a
Third : a miscreant to be put out the world, my own arm
and best will to do it ; and,, perhaps, God to excuse ; which
is, approve. My Ba, what is Evil, in its unmistakable
shape, but a thing to suppress at any price ? I do approve
of judicial punishment to death under some circumstances
— I think we may, must say : ‘ when it comes to that we
will keep our pact of life, stand by God and put that out of
us, our world — it shall not be endured, or we shall not be
endured ‘ ! Dear Ba, is Life to become a child’s game ? A. is
wronged, B. rights him, and is a hero as we say ; B. is wronged
again, by C. ; but he must not right himself ; that is D.’s
proper part, who again is to let E. do the same kind office
for him — and so on. ‘ Defend the poor and fatherless ‘ —
and we all applaud — but if they could defend themselves,
why not ? I will not fancy cases — here’s one that strikes
me — a fact. Some soldiers were talking over a watch fire
abroad — one said that once he was travelling in Scotland
and knocked at a cottage-door — an old woman with one
child let him in, gave him a supper and a bed — next
morning he asked how they lived and she said the cow, the
milk of which he was then drinking, and the kale in the
garden, such as he was eating — were all her ‘ mailien ‘ or
sustenance — whereon, rising to go, he, for the fun, ‘ killed
the cow and destroyed the kale ‘ — ‘ the old witch crying out
she should certainly be starved ‘ — then he went his way.
‘ And she was starved, of course,’ said a young man ; ‘ do
you rue it ?’ — The other laughed ‘ Rue aught like that ! ‘
— The young man said, ‘ I was the boy, and that was my
mother — now then ! ‘ — In a minute or two the preparer of
this ‘combination of circumstances’ lay writhing with a
sword through him up to the hilt — ‘ If you had rued it ‘ — the
youth said — ‘ you should have answered it only to God ! ‘

More than enough of this — but I was anxious to stand
clearer in your dear eyes. ‘ Vows and promises ! ‘ — I want to
leave society for the Sirens’ isle, — and now I often seriously
reproach myself with conduct quite the reverse of what you
would guard against : I have too much indifferentism to
the opinions of Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown — by no means
am anxious to have his notions agree with mine. Smith
thinks Cromwell a canting villain, — Brown believes no dissenter
can be saved, — and I repeat Goethe’s ‘ Be it your unerring
rule, ne’er to contradict a fool, for if folly choose to
brave you, all your wisdom cannot save you ! ‘ And sometimes
I help out their arguments by a touch or two, after
Ogniben’s fashion — it all seems so wearisomely unprofitable ;
what comes of Smith’s second thought if you change his
first — out of that second will branch as great an error, you
may be sure ! (11 o’clock) Here comes your letter ! My own
Ba ! My dearest best, best beloved ! I, angry ! ch, how
you misinterpret, misunderstand the motions of my mind !
In all that I said, or write here, I speak of others — others,
if you please, of limited natures : I say why they may be
excused . . that is all. ‘ You do not like pork ‘ ? But those
poor Irish Colliers whose only luxury is bacon once a month ;
you understand them liking it ? I do not value society —
others do : ‘ we are all His children ‘ says Euripides and
quotes Paul.

Now, love, let this be a moot point to settle among the
flowers one day — with Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘ other hard
questions yet not impossible to be solved ‘ (‘ What song the
Sirens sang to Ulysses,’ is the first !) in which blessed hope
let me leave off ; for I confess to having written myself all-but-tired, headachy. But ‘ vexed with you ‘ ! Ba, Ba ; you
perplex me, bewilder me ; let me get right again ; kiss me,
dearest, and all is right — God bless you ever —

Your R.

[Postmark: April 8, 1846]

Tuesday Evening.

In my disagree . . able letter this morning, I forgot to
write how, after you went away, and I came to read again
the dedication, I admired it more and more — it is most
graceful and complete. Landor will be gratified and grateful . . he, allowably — and only you shall be ‘ hateful ‘ . .
and only to me, dearest, . . so that it doesn’t matter much.
As to Ogniben, you understand best of course — I understood the ‘ laughing gently to himself,’ though I omitted to
notice the italics. I perfectly understood that it was the
bystander’s observation.

Your letter came so late to-night that I despaired of it —
the postman fell into a trance somewhere I fancy, and it
was not till nine oclock that the knock (equal to the tapping
of a fairy’s wand) came to the door. Now I have two letters
to thank you for together . . for the dear one on Monday,
which lay in the shadow of your coming, and so was a
little, little, less thought of than it could have been under
any other possible circumstance . . and for this letter
to-night. Well ! and for Mr. Buckingham’s voyage, if you
will and can conveniently, (I use that word for my sake, not
for your sake — because I think of you and not of him !) but
if you can without inconvenience make enquiries about
these vessels, why I shall be glad, and shall set it to your
account as one goodness more. It would be easy for him
( and you should have done it, in your voyage) to take with
him those potted meats and portable soups and essences of
game which would prevent his being reduced to common
fare with the sailors. Then a mattress is as portable as
the soups, nearly. Apart from the asafoetida he may
endure, I should think. Do you know, I was amused at
myself yesterday, after the first movement, for liking to
hear you say that ‘dry biscuits satisfied’ you — because,
after all, I should not be easy to see you living on dry
biscuits . . Ceres and Bacchus forbid ! Oh — I don’t profess to apply, out of a pure poetical justice, Lord Byron’s
Pythagoreanism to the ‘ nobler half of creation ‘ — do not be
afraid ‘ — but it is rather desecrating and disenchanting to
mark how certain of those said Nobilities turn upon
their dinners as on the pivot of the day, for their good
pleasure and good temper besides. Did you ever observe
a lord of creation knit his brows together because the
cutlets were underdone, shooting enough fire from his
eyes to overdo them to cinders … ‘ cinder-blast ‘ them,
as schylus would have it ? Did you ever hear of the litany
which some women say through the first course . . low to
themselves ? Perhaps not ! it does not enter into your
imagination to conceive of things, which nevertheless
are.

Not that I ever thought of you with reference to such —
oh no, no ! But every variety of the ‘ Epicuri de grege
porcus,’ I have a sort of indisposition to . . even as the
animal itself (pork of nature and the kitchen) I avoid like a
Jewish woman. Do you smile ? And did I half (or whole)
make you angry this morning through being so didactic and
detestable ? Will you challenge me to six paces at Chalk
Farm, and will you ‘ take aim ‘ this time and put an end
to every sort of pretence in me to other approaches between
us two ? Tell me if you are angry, dearest ! I ask you to
tell me if you felt (for the time even) vexed with me . . I
want to know . . I need to know. Do you not know what
my reflection must reasonably be ? . . That is, apart from
provocation and excitement, you believe in the necessity of
such and such resources, . . provoked and excited you
would apply to them — there could be no counteracting
force . . no help nor hope.

So I spoke my mind — and you are vexed with me,
which I feel in the air. May God bless you dearest, dearest !
Forgive, as you can, best,

Your Ba.