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[Postmark: April 7, 1846]

Tuesday.

They have just sent me one proof, only — so I have
been correcting everything as fast as possible, that, returning
it at once, a revise might arrive, fit to send, for this that
comes is just as bad as if I had let it alone in the first
instance. All your corrections are golden. In ‘ Luria,’ I
alter ‘ little circle ‘ to ‘ circling faces ‘ — which is more like
what I meant. As for that point we spoke of yesterday — it
seems ‘ past praying for ‘ — if I make the speech an ‘ aside,’
I commit Ogniben to that opinion : — did you notice, at the
beginning of the second part, that on this Ogniben’s very
entry (as described by a bystander), he is made to say, for
first speech, ‘ I have known so many leaders of revolts ‘ —
‘ laughing gently to himself ? This, which was wrongly
printed in italics, as if a comment of the bystander’s own,
was a characteristic circumstance, as I meant it. All these
opinions should be delivered with a ‘gentle laughter to
himself — but — as is said elsewhere, — we profess and we
perform ! Enough of it — Meliora sperumus !

What am I to say next, my Ba ? When I write my best
and send ‘ grateful’ to you — you send my proof back,
grateful (h) Then I must do and say what you hate . ,
for I am one entire gratitude to you, God knows ! May
He reward you.

It is late ; bless you once again, my dearest ! You have
nothing so much yours as R.

My mother says that I paid only fifteen or sixteen
pounds for the Venice voyage, and much less for the
Naples one — ten and no more, she thinks — and I think ;
but that represents twenty — as the other, twenty five or
thirty pounds, to a person unconnected with the freighting
party. (In the first ship, Rothschild sent a locomotive entire
with all its appurtenances, for one article, to Trieste). Can
I make enquiries for you ? Nay, I will and at once.

[Postmark: April 7, 1846]

Tuesday.

Dearest, it is not I who am a ‘ flatterer ‘ — and if I used
the word first, it is because I had the right of it, I remember,
long and long ago. There is the vainest of vanities in
discussing the application of such a word . . and so, when
you said the other day that you ‘ never flattered ‘ forsooth
. . . (oh no !) I would not contradict you for fear of
the endless flattery it would lead to. Only that I do not
choose (because such things are allowed to pass) to be
called on my side ‘ a flatterer’ — I ! That is too much, and
too out of place. What do I ever say that is like flattery ?
I am allowed, it may be hoped, to admire the ‘ Lurias ‘ and
the rest, quite like other people, and even to say that I
admire them . . may I not lawfully? If that is flattery
woe to me ! I tell you the real truth, as I see the truth,
even in respect to them . . the ‘ Lurias ‘ . .

For instance, did I flatter you and say that you were
right yesterday? Indeed I thought you as wrong as
possible . . wonderfully wrong on such a subject, for you
. . who, only a day or two before, seemed so free from
conventional fallacies . . so free ! You would abolish the
punishment of death too . . and put away wars, I am sure !
But honourable men are bound to keep their honours clean
at the expense of so much gunpowder and so much risk of
life . . that must be, ought to be, . . let judicial deaths
and military glory be abolished ever so ! For my part, I
set all Christian principle aside, (although if it were carried
out . . and principle is nothing unless carried out . . it
would not mean cowardice but magnanimity) but I set it
aside and go on the bare social rational ground . . . and I
do advisedly declare to you that I cannot conceive of any
possible combination of circumstances which could . . I will
not say justify but even excuse an honourable man’s
having recourse to the duellist’s pistol, either on his own
account or another’s. Not only it seems to me horribly
wrong . . but absurdly wrong, it seems to me. Also . . as
a matter of pure reason . . the Parisian method of taking
aim and blowing off a man’s head for the sins of his tongue,
I do take to have a sort of judicial advantage over the
Englishman’s six paces . . throwing the dice for his life or
another man’s, because wounded by that man in his honour.
His honour ! — Who believes in such an honour . . liable
to such amends, and capable of such recovery ! You
cannot, I think — in the secret of your mind. Or if you
can . . you who are a teacher of the world . . . poor
world — it is more desperately wrong than I thought.

A man calls you ‘ a liar ‘ in an assembly of other men.
Because he is a calumniator, and, on that very account, a
worse man than you, you ask him to go down with you
on the only ground on which you two are equals . . the
duelling-ground, . . and with pistols of the same length
and friends numerically equal on each side, play at lives
with him, both mortal men that you are. If it was proposed
to you to play at real dice for the ratification or non-ratiflcation
of his calumny, the proposition would be laughed to
scorn . . and yet the chance (as chance) seems much the
same, . . and the death is an exterior circumstance which
cannot be imagined to have much virtue. At best, what do
you prove by your duel ? . . that your calumniator, though
a calumniator, is not a coward in the vulgar sense . . and
that yourself though you may still be a liar ten times over,
are not a coward either ! ‘ Here be proofs.’

And as to the custom of duelling preventing insults . .
why you say that a man of honour should not go out with
an unworthy adversary. Now supposing a man to be withheld from insult and calumny, just by the fear of being shot |
. . who is more unworthy than such a man? Therefore
you conclude irrationally, illogically, that the system operates
beyond the limit of its operations. — Oh ! I shall write as
quarrelsome letters as I choose. You are wrong, I know
and feel, when you advocate the pitiful resources of this
corrupt social life, . . and if you are wrong, how are we to
get right, we all who look to you for teaching. Are you
afraid too of being taken for a coward ? or would you excuse
that sort of fear . . that cowardice of cowardice, in other
men? For me, I value your honour, just as you do . .
more than your life . . of the two things : but the madness
of this foolishness is so clear to my eyes, than instead of
opening the door for you and keeping your secret, as that
miserable woman did last year, for the man shot by her
sister’s husband, I would just call in the police though you
were to throw me out of the window afterwards. So, with
that beautiful vision of domestic felicity, (which Mrs.
Jameson would leap up to see !) I shall end my letter —
isn’t it a letter worth thanking for ? —

Ever dearest, do you promise me that you never will be
provoked into such an act — never ? Mr. O’Connell vowed
it to himself, for a dead man . . and you may to me, for a
living woman. Promises and vows may be foolish things
for the most part . . but they cannot be more foolish than
in this case, the thing vowed against. So promise and vow.
And I will ‘ flatter ‘ you in return in the lawful way . . for
you will ‘make me happy’ . . so far! May God bless
you, beloved ! It is so wet and dreary to-day that I do not
go down-stairs — I sit instead in the gondola chair . . do
you not see ? . . and think of you . . do you not feel ? I
even love you . . if that were worth mentioning . .

being your own

Ba.

How good of you to write so on Sunday ! to compare
with my bad !

[Postmark: April 6, 1846]

Monday Morning.

I shall receive a note from you presently, I trust — but
this had better go now — for I expect a friend, and must
attend to him as he wants to go walking — so, dearest — .
dearest, take my — last work I ever shall send you, if God
please !

A word about a passage or two, — I had forgotten to say
before — gadge is a real name (in Johnson, too) for a torturing iron — it is part of the horror of such things that they
should be mysteriously named, — indefinitely, — ‘ The Duke
of Exeter’s Daughter ‘ for instance . . Ugh ! — Besides, am
I not a rhymester ?’ Well, who knows but one may want to
use such a word in a couplet with ‘ badge ‘ — which, if one
reject the old and obsolete fadge is rhymeless ?

Then Chiappino remarks that men of genius usually do
the reverse . . of beginning by dethroning &c. and so arriving with utmost reluctancy at the acknowledgment of a
natural and unalterable inequality of Mankind — instead of
that they begin at once he says, by recognizing it in their
adulation &c. &c. — I have supplied the words ‘ atonce and
taken out ‘ virtually which was unnecessary ; so that the
parallel possibly reads clearlier. I know there are other
things to say — but at this moment my memory is at fault.

Can you tell me Mrs Jameson’s address ?

My sea-friend’s opinion is altogether unfavourable to the
notion of an invalid’s trusting himself alone in a merchant
vessel — he says — ‘.it will certainly be the gentleman’s death.’
So very small a degree of comfort can be secured amid all
the inevitable horrors of dirt, roughness, &c. The expenses
are trifling in any case, on that very account. Any number
of the Shipping Gazette (I think) will give a list of all
vessels about to sail, with choice of ports — or on the walls
of the Exchange one may see their names placarded, with
reference to the Agent — or he will, himself, (my friend Chas.
Walton) do his utmost with a shipowner, we both know, and
save some expense, perhaps. I made him remark the difference
between my carelessness of accommodations and an
invalid’s proper attention beforehand — but he persisted in
saying nothing can be done, nothing effectual. My time is
out — but I must bless you my ever dearest Ba — and kiss
you —

Ever your own.

[Postmark: April 6, 1846]ZM, CC

Sunday.

I sent you some even more than usual hasty foolish words,
— not caring much, however — for dearest Ba shall have to
forgive my shortcomings every hour in the day, — it is her
destiny, and I began unluckily with that stupidest of all
notions, — that about the harm coming of genius &c., so I fell
with my subject and we rolled in the mud together — pas vrai?
But there was so many other matters alluded to in
your dearest (because last) letter — there are many things in
which I agree with you to such a tremblingly exquisite exactness, so to speak, that I hardly dare cry out lest the charm
break, the imaginary oscillation prove incomplete and your
soul, now directly over, pass beyond mine yet, and not stay !
Do you understand, dear soul of my soul, dearest Ba ? Oh,
how different it all might be ! In this House of life — where
I go, you go — where I ascend you run before — when I descend
it is after you. Now, one might have a piece of Ba,
but a very little of her, and make it up into a lady and a
mistress, and find her a room to her mind perhaps
when she should sit and sing, ‘ warble eat and dwell ‘ like
Tennyson’s blackbird, and to visit her there with due honour
one might wear the finest of robes, use the courtliest of
ceremonies — and then — after a time, leave her there and
go, the door once shut, without much blame, to throw off
the tunic and put on Lord Compton’s blouse and go whither
one liked — after, to me, the most melancholy fashion in the
world. How different with us ! If it were not, indeed —
what a mad folly would marriage be ! Do you know what
quaint thought strikes me, out of old Bunyan, on this very
subject ? He says (with another meaning though) ‘ Who
would keep a cow, that may buy milk at a penny the quart ‘
— (elegant allusion). Just so, — whoever wants ‘ a quart ‘ of
this other comfort, as solace of whatever it may be (at break-fast or tea time too), why not go and ‘ buy ‘ the same, and
having discussed it, drink claret at dinner at his club?
Why did not Mr. Butler read Fanny Kemble’s verses, paying
his penny of intellectual labour, and see her play ‘ Portia’
at night, and make her a call or ride with her in the middle
of the day — why ‘ keep the cow ‘ ? But — don’t you know
they prescribe to some constitutions the perpetual living in
a cow-house ? the breath, the unremitting influence is everything-
, — not the milk — (now, Ba — Ba is suddenly Ιω πλανωμενη and Mrs. Jameson is the Gadfly — and I am laughed
at — not too cruelly, or the other lock of hair becomes mine —
with which locks . . and not with Louis Seize iron knicknack
ones, I rather think I was occupied last time, last
farewell taking — )

From all which I infer — that I shall see you to-morrow!
Yes, or I should not have the heart to be so glad and
absurd.

Well, to-morrow makes amends — dear, dear Ba ! Why
do you persist in trying to turn my head so ? It does not
turn, I look the more steadfastly at the feet and the ground,
for all your crying and trying ! But something shocking
might happen — would happen, if it were not written that I
am to get nothing but good from Ba, — and who, who began
calling names — who used the word ‘ flatterer ‘ first ?

Bless you my own dearest flatterer — I love you with
heart and soul. Are you downstairs- to day ? it is warm, the
rain you like — yes you are down, I think. God keep you
wherever you are !

Your own.

I went last night to Lord Compton’s father’s Soiree, —
and for all our deep convictions, and philosophic rejoicing,
I assure you that of the two or three words that we interchanged-
— congratulation on the bright fortune of his son
formed no part, — any more than intelligence about ordering
Regiments to India whenever I met the relatives of the
ordered. And yesterday morning I planted a full dozen more
rose-trees, all white — to take away the yellow-rose reproach!
!

[Postmark: April 5, 1846]ZM

Sunday.

It seems to me the safest way to send back the proofs
by the early Monday post : you may choose perhaps to
bring the sheet corrected into town when you come, and so
I shall let you have what you sent me, before you come to
take it . . though I thought first of waiting. To-morrow I
shall force you to tell me how you like the ‘ Tragedy ‘ now !
For my part, it delights me — and must raise your reputation
as a poet and thinker . . must Chiappino is highly
dramatic in that first part, and speaks so finely sometimes
that it is a wrench to one’s sympathies to find him overthrown-
. Do you know that, as far as the temper of the
man goes, I am acquainted with a Chiappino . . just such
a man, in the temper, the pride and the bitterness . . not
in other things. When I read your manuscript I was
reminded — but here in print it, seems to grow nearer and
nearer. My Chiappino has tired me out at last — I have
borne more from him than women ought to bear from men,
because he was unfortunate and embittered in his nature
and by circumstances, and because I regarded him as a
friend of many years. Yet, as I have told him, anyone,
who had not such confidence in me, would think really ill of
me through reading the insolent letters which he has thought
fit to address to me on what he called a pure principle of
adoration. At last I made up my mind (and shall keep
it so) to answer no letter of the kind. Men are ignoble
in some things, past the conceiving of their fellows. Again
and again I have said . . ‘ Specify your charge against me ‘
— but there is no charge. With the most reckless and
dauntless inconsistency I am lifted halfway to the skies, and
made a mark there for mud pellets — so that I have been
excited sometimes to say quite passionately . . ‘If I am
the filth of the earth, tread on me — if I am an angel of
Heaven, respect me — but I can’t be both, remember.’ See
where your Chiappino leads you . . and me ! Though I
shall not tell you the other name of mine. Whenever I see
him now, I make Arabel stay in the room — otherwise I am
afraid — he is such a violent man. A good man, though, in
many respects, and quite an old friend. Some men grow
incensed with the continual pricks of ill-fortune, like mad
bulls : some grow tame and meek.

Well — I did not like the spirit of the Athenaeum remarks
either. I like what you say. These literary men are never
so well pleased, as in having opportunities of barking against
one another — and, for the Athenaeum people, if they wanted
to be didactic as to morals, they might have taken occasion
to be so out of their own order, and in their own country.
And then to bring in Balzac so ! The worst of Balzac (who
has not a fine moral sense at any time, great and gifted as
he is), the very worst of him, is his bearing towards his
literary brothers . . the manner in which he, who can so
nobly present genius to the reverence of humanity in
scientific men (as he describes them in his books), always
dishonours and depreciates it in the man of letters and
the poet. See his ‘ Grand Homme de Province à Paris,’
one of the most powerful of his works, but the remark
is true everywhere. I go on writing as if I were not to see
you directly. It is past four oclock — and if Mr. Kenyon
does not come to-day, he may come to-morrow, and
find you, who were here last Thursday to his knowledge ! —
Half I fear.

Observe the proof. Since you have two, you say, I have
not scrupled to write down on this ever so much improvidence, which you will glance at and decide upon finally.

‘Grateful’ . . ‘ grateful’ . . what a word that is. I
never would have such a word on any proof that came to
me for correction. Do not use such inapplicable words —
do not, dearest ! for you know very well in your under-
standing (if not in your heart) that if such a word is to be
used by either of us, it is not by you. My word, I shall
keep mine, — I am ‘ grateful you cannot be ‘ grateful ‘ . ,
for ineffable reasons . .

‘ Pour bonnes raisons
Que I’on n’ose dire.
Et que nous taisons. ‘

For the rest, it is certainly very likely that you may
‘ want all your faculties, and more ‘ … to bear with me . .
to support me with graceful resignation; and who can tell
whether I may not be found intolerable after all ?

By the way (talking of St. Catherine’s wheels and the
like torments) you wrote ‘ gag ‘ . . did you not ? . . where
the proof says ‘ gadge ‘ — I did not alter it. More and more
I like ‘ Luria.’

Your Ba.

Mr. Kenyon has been here — so our Monday is safe.

[Postmark: April 4, 1846]ZM, CC

Saturday.

Oh, my two letters — and to turn from such letters to
you, to my own Ba ! — I very well know I am not grateful
enough, if there is any grace in that, any power to avert
punishment, as one hopes ! But all my hope is in future
endeavour — it is, my Ba, — this is earnest truth. And one
thing that strikes me on hearing such prognostications of
Mrs. Jameson’s opinion on our subject — is that — as far as I
am concerned . . or yourself, indeed — we must make up
our mind to endure the stress of it, and of such opinions
generally, with all resignation . . and by the time we can
answer, — why, alas, they are gone and forgotten, so that
there’s no paying them for their impertinence. I mean,
that I do not expect as a foolish fanciful boy might, that
on the sudden application of ‘ Hymen’s torch ‘ (to give the
old simile one chance more) your happiness will blaze out
apparent to the whole world lying in darkness, like a
wondrous ‘ Catherine-wheel,’ now all blue, now red, and so
die at the bed amid an universal clapping of hands — I trust
a long life of real work ‘ begun, carried on and ended,’ as it
never otherwise could have been (certainly by me , . . and if
I dare hope, you dearest, it is because you teach me to
aspire to the height) — that the attainment of all that
happiness of daily, hourly life in entire affection, which
seeing that men of genius need rather more — ah, these
words, I cannot look back and take up the thread of the
sentence, — but I wanted to say — we will live the real
answer, will we not, dearest, all the stupidity against ‘ genius ‘
‘ poets,’ and the like, is got past the stage of being treated
with patient consideration and gentle pity — it is too vexatious-
, if it will not lie still, out of the way, by this time.
What is the crime, to his fellow man or woman (not to God,
I know that— these are peculiar sins to Him — whether
greater in His eyes, who shall say ?) — but to mankind, what
is crime which would have been prevented but for the
‘ genius ‘ involved in it ? A man of genius ill-treats his wife
— well, take away the ‘genius’ — does he so naturally
improve? See the article in to-day’s Athenaeum, about
the French Duel — far enough from ‘ men of genius ‘ these
Dujarriers &c. — but go to-night into half the estaminets of
Paris, and see whether the quarrels over dice and some
wine present any more pleasing matter of contemplation
aufond. Sin is sin everywhere and the worse, I think, for
the grossness. Being fired at by a duellist is a little better,
I think also, than being struck on the face by some ruffian.
These are extreme cases — but go higher and it is the same
thing. Poor, cowardly miscreated natures abound — if you
could throw ‘ genius ‘ into their composition, they would
become more degraded still, I suppose !

I know I want every faculty I can by any possibility dare —
want all, and much more, to teach me what you are, my
own Ba, and what I should do to prove that I am taught,
and do know.

I will write at length to you to-morrow, my all beloved.
I am, somehow, overflowing with things to say, and the
time is fearfully short — my proofs have just arrived, here
they are, not even glanced over by me — (To-morrow, love !
not one thing answered in my letters, as when I read and
read them to-night I shall say to myself). Bless you,
dearest, dearest

R.

[Postmark: April 4, 1846]

Friday Evening.

Shall the heir to a Marquisate ‘ justify his title’ in these
days ? Is not the best thing he can do for himself, to forget
it in a studio at Rome ? — and one of the best things he can
do for his country, perhaps, to desecrate it at dog-fighting
before the eyes of all men ? I should not like to have to
justify my Marquisate to reasonable men now-a-days, —
should you . . seriously speaking? It would be a hard
task, and rather dull in the performance. On the other
hand, the noble dog-fighters (unconscious patriots !) find it
easy and congenial occupation down in St. Giles’s, rubbing
out (as in the old game of fox and goose) figure by figure,
prestige by prestige, the gross absurdity of hereditary
legislators, lords, and the like. Yet of the three positions, I
would rather be at Rome, certainly a man looks nobler
there, is better, is happier . . a good deal nearer the
angels than on his ‘landed estates’ playing at feudal
proprietor, or even in St. Giles’s dog-fighting. See what a
republican you have for a . . Ba. Did you fancy me
capable of writing such unlawful, disorderly things ? And
it isn’t out of bitterness, nor covetousness . . no, indeed.
People in general would rather be Marquises than Roman
artists, consulting their own wishes and inclination. I, for
my part, ever since I could speak my mind and knew it,
always openly and inwardly preferred the glory of those who
live by their heads, to the opposite glory of those who carry
other people’s arms. So much for glory. Happiness goes
the same way to my fancy. There is something fascinating
to me, in that Bohemian way of living . . all the conventions
of society cut so close and thin, that the soul can see
through . . beyond . . above. It is ‘ real life ‘ as you say
. . whether at Rome or elsewhere. I am very glad that
you like simplicity in habits of life — it has both reasonableness and sanctity. People are apt to suffocate their faculties
by their manners — English people especially. I admire
that you, — R. B., — who have had temptation more than
enough, I am certain, under every form, have lived in
the midst of this London of ours, close to the great social
vortex, yet have kept so safe, and free, and calm and pure
from the besetting sins of our society. When you came to
see me first, I did not expect so much of you in that one
respect. How could I ? You had lived in the world, I
knew, and I thought . . . well ! — what matter, now, what I
thought ?

I will tell you instead how to-day has gone by with me.
Not like yesterday, indeed ! In the first place, I went
down-stairs, walked up and down the drawing-room twice,
and finding nobody there (they were all having luncheon in
the dining-room) came up-stairs again . . . half-way on the
stairs met Flush, who having been asleep, had not missed
me till just then, and was in the act of search. I was lost
for ever, thought poor Flush. At least I think he thought
so by his eyes. They were three times their usual largeness
— he looked quite wild . . and leaped against me with
such an ecstasy of astonished joy, that I nearly fell backward
down the stairs (whereupon, you would have had to go to
the Siren’s island, dearest, all by yourself !) After which
escape of mine and Flushie’s, and when I had persuaded
him to be good and quiet and to believe that I was not my
own ghost, I came home with him and prepared to see . .

I will tell you. She is a Mrs. Paine who lives at
Farnham, and learns Greek, and writes to me such overcoming
letters, that at last, and in a moment of imprudent
reaction from an ungrateful discourtesy on my part, I agreed
to see her if she ever came to London. Upon which, she
comes directly — I am taken in my trap. She comes and
returns the same day, and all to see me. Well — she had
been kind to me . . and she came at two to-day. Do
you know, . . for the first five minutes, I repented quite ?
Dearest . . she came just with the sort of face which a
child might take to see a real, alive lioness at the Zoological
Gardens . . she just sate down on a chair, and stared.
How can people do such things in this year of grace when
they are abolishing the Corn Laws, I wonder ? For my part
it was so unlike anything civilized I had ever been used to
that I felt as if my voice and breath went together. It
would have saved me to be able to stare back again, but
that was out of my power. So I endured — and, after a
pause, ran violently down a steep place into some sort
of conversation (thinking of your immortal Simpson, and
vowing never to be drawn into such a situation again)
and in a little while, I was able to recognize that there was
nothing worse than bad manners — ignorant manners—
and that, for the rest, my antagonist was a young, pretty
woman (rather pretty), enthusiastic and provincial, with a
strong love for poetry and literature generally, loving Carlyle
and yourself, (could I hold out against that) and telling
me all her domestic happinesses with a frankness which quite
appeased me and prevented my being too tired . . though
she stayed two hours, and wasn’t you ! —

So there is my history of to-day for you ! To-morrow
you will have the proof — and perhaps, I shall ! Monday
will bring a better thing than a proof May God bless you,
beloved. Say how you are . . to-morrow ! Mind to do
it . . or I will not sit any more in your gondola-chair.
How can you make me, unless I choose ?

And you speak against my letter to-night ? you shall not
dare do such things. It is a good, dear letter, and it is
mine to call so . . and I knew its fellows before I knew
you and loved them before I loved you, and so you are not
to be proud and scornful and try to put them down ‘in
that way.’

Your own

Ba.

[Postmark: April 3, 1846]

I want to tell you a thing before I forget it, my own Ba
— a thing that pleased me to find out this morning. A few
days ago there was a paragraph in the newspaper about
Lord Compton and his ways at Rome. His address was to
be read in the general list of working-artists kept for public
inspection at Monaldini’s news-room, and the Earl’s self
was to be found in fraternal association with ‘ young art,’ at
board and sporting-place, wearing the same distinctive
blouse and Louis IL hat with great flaps ; even his hair as
picturesquely disordered as the best of them — (the artists,
not flaps) — at all which the reporter seemed scarcely to
know whether he ought to laugh or cry. This I read in the
Daily News with other gossip about Rome, last Wednesday.
But this morning a Cambridge Advertiser of the same day
reaches me — and there, under the head of College news
(after recording that Mr A. has been appointed to this ‘
vicarage, and Mr B. licensed to the other curacy) — one
finds this — ‘The Earl Compton, M.A. (Hon. 1837) — is of
great fame in Rome as a Painter ! ‘ — which the other
authority wholly forgot to mention ; supposing, no doubt,
all the love went to the blouse and flapped hat aforesaid !
Now, is it not a good instance of that fascination which the
true life at Rome (apart from the stupidities of the travelling
English) exercises every now and then on susceptible
people ? The best thing for an English Earl to do, — (who
will be a Marquis one day) — would be to stay here and
vindicate his title by honest work with the opportunities it .
affords him — but if he cannot rise to the dignity of the best
part, surely this, he chooses, is better than many others —
being caught as some noblemen were yesterday, for instance,
superintending a dog-fight in some horrible den of thieves
in St. Giles’s. I don’t know, after all, why I tell you this, —
but that amid all the dull doings of the notable dull ones
there, and their ‘ honours ‘ — (such a wonder of a man was
Smith’s prize-man, — another had got to be gloriously first
in the Classical Tripos) — this bit of ‘fame at Rome’
seemed like a break of blue real sky with a star in it, shining
through the canvas sham clouds and oil-paper moons of
a theatre.

Now I get to you, my Ba ! How strange ! It does so
happen that I took the pen and laid out the paper with, I
really think, a completer, deeper yearning of love to you
than usual even — I seemed to have a thousand things that
I could say now — and on touching the paper . . see — I
start off with a foolish story and still foolisher comment as
if there were no Ba close at my head all the time, straight
before my eyes too ! So it is with me — I give the expressing
part up at once ! It must be understood, inferred, —
(proved, never !) All nonsense, so I will stay — and try to
be wise to-morrow — now, I have no note to guide me and
half put into my mouth what I ought to say. So, dear,
dear Ba, goodbye ! I very well know what this letter is
worth — yet because of the love and endeavour unseen, may
I not have the hand to kiss — and without the glove ? It is
kissed, whether you give it or no, — for there are two long
days more to wait — and then comes Monday ! Bless you
till then, and ever, my dearest : My own Ba —

Your R.

[Postmark: April 3, 1846]

Friday

Dearest, your flowers make the whole room look like
April, they are so full of colours . . growing fuller and
fuller as we get nearer to the sun. The wind was melancholy too, all last night — oh, I think the wind melancholy,
just as you do, — or more than you do perhaps for having
spent so many restless days and nights close on the sea-
shore in Devonshire. I seem now always to hear the sea in
the wind, voice within voice ! But I like a sudden wind
not too loud, — a wind which you hear the rain in rather
than the sea — and I like the half cloudy half sunny April
weather, such as we have it here in England, with a west or
south wind — I like and enjoy that ! and remember vividly
how I used to like to walk or wade nearly up to my waist in
the wet grass or weeds, with the sun overhead, and the
wind darkening or lightening the verdure all round.

But none of it was happiness, dearest dearest. Happiness does not come with the sun or the rain. Since my
illness, when the door of the future seemed shut and locked
before my face, and I did not tire myself with knocking
any more, I thought I was happier, happy, I thought,
just because I was tranquil unto death. Now I know life
from death, . . and the unsorrowful life for the first time
since I was a woman ; though I sit here on the edge of a
precipice in a position full of anxiety and danger. What
matter, … if one shuts one’s eyes, and listens to the birds
singing? Do you know, I am glad — I could almost
thank God — that Papa keeps so far from me . . that he
has given up coming in the evening . . I could almost
thank God. If he were affectionate, and made me, or let
me, feel myself necessary to him, . . how should I bear
(even with my reason on my side) to prepare to give him
pain ? So that the Pisa business last year, by sounding
the waters, was good in its way . . and the pang that came
with it to me, was also good. He feels ! — he loves me . .
but it is not (this, I mean to say) to the trying degrees of
feeling and love . . trying to me. Ah, well ! In any case,
I should have ended probably, in giving up all for you —
I do not profess otherwise. I used to think I should, if
ever I loved anyone — and if the love of you is different
from, it is greater than, anything preconceived . . divined.

Mrs. Jameson, the other day, brought out a theory of
hers which I refused to receive, and which I thought to
myself she would apply to me some day. with the rest of
what Miss Mitford calls ‘ those good-for-nothing poets and
poetesses.’ She maintained, (Mrs. Jameson did) that
‘artistical natures never learn wisdom from experience —
that sorrow teaches them nothing — leaves no trace at all
— that the mind is modified in no way by passion —
suffering.’ Which I disbelieved quite, and ventured to say
on the other side, that although practically a man or woman
might not be wiser, through perhaps the interception of a
vivid apprehension of the present, which might put back
the influence of the future over actions, . . yet that it was
impossible for a self-conscious nature (which all these
artistic natures are) and a sensitive nature, not to receive
some sort of modification from things suffered — ‘ No ‘ — she
said, they did not ! she had known and loved such — and
they were like children, all of them, — essentially immature.’
But she did not persuade me. What is inequality of nature,
as Dugald Stewart observed it, (and did he not say that men
of genius had lop-sided minds ?) is different, I think, from
immaturity in her sense of the word. We were talking of
her friend Mrs. Butler, which brought us to the subject.
Presently she will say of you and me . . ‘ Just see there !
she meant no harm, poor thing, I dare say — but she acts
like a child ! And, for him, his is the imbecility of most
regent genius . . such as I am to live to see confessed
imperial, or I die a disappointed woman.’ !

Do you hear? I do, distinctly. You in the meantime,
are looking at the ‘ locks ‘ . . just as poor Louis Seize did
when they were preparing his guillotine.

May God bless you, my own dearest — Think of me a
little — as you say !

Your

Ba.

[Postmark: April 1, 1846]

Now — dear, dearest Ba — let’ me begin the only way ! —
And so you are kissed whether you feel it or not — through the
distance, what matter? Dear love, I return from town —
my writing has gone away — you remain, and we are together
— as I said, it would be, so it is ! And here is your letter,
and here are recollections of all the letters for so long, all
the perfect kindnesses which I did not answer, meaning to
answer them one day — and, one day, look to receive (I may
write you) a huge sheetful of answers to bygone interrogatories, — sins of omission remedied according to ability
— and you will stare like a man, I read of somewhere, who
asked his neighbour ‘ how he fed that mule of his, so as to
keep it in such good case?’ — and then, struck by some
other fancy, went on to talk of other matters till the day’s
end — when, on alighting at their Inn (for these two were
journeying, and the talk began with the stirrup-cup) — the
other, who had been watching his opportunity, breaking
silence for the first time, answered — ‘ With oats and hay.’
Observe that the only part of the story I parallel is the surprise-
at the end — for I am not going to get whipped before
I deserve, Aminè (Ba mine). At all events I will answer this
last dear note. The ‘good’ you do me, I see you cannot
see nor understand yet — there is my answer ! Here, in
this instance, I corrected everything, — altered, improved
Did you notice the alterations (curtailments) in ‘ Luria ‘ ?
Well, I put in a few phrases in the second part of the other,
— where Ogniben speaks — and hope that they give a little
more insight as to his character — which I meant for that of
a man of wide speculation and narrow practice, — universal
understanding of men and sympathy with them, yet professionally-
restricted claims for himself, for his own life.
There, was the theology to have come in ! He should have
explained, ‘ the belief in a future state, with me, modifies
every feeling derivable from this present life — I consider
that as dependent on foregoing this — consequently, I may
see that your principles are perfectly right and proper to be
embraced so far as concerns this world, though I believe there
is an eventual gain, to be obtained elsewhere, in either
opposing or disregarding them, — in not availing myself of
the advantages they procure.’ Do you see ? — as a man may
not choose to drink wine, for his health’s sake, or from a
scruple of conscience &c. — and yet may be a good judge of
what wine should be, how it ought to taste — something like
this was meant — and when it is forgotten almost, and only the
written thing with a shadow of the meaning stays, — you wonder
that the written thing gets to look better in time ? Do you
think if I could forget you, Ba, I should not reconcile myself to
your picture — which already I love better than yesterday —
and which, to revenge, I know I shall by this time to-morrow
like less, so far less. Well, and then there is Domizia — I
could not bring her to my purpose. I left the neck stiff that
was to have bowed of its own accord — for nothing graceful
could be accomplished by pressing with both hands on the
head above ! I meant to make her leave off her own projects
through love of Luria. As it is, they in a manner fulfil themselves, so far as she has any power over them, and then, she
being left unemployed, sees Luria, begins to see him,
having hitherto seen only her own ends which he was to
further. Oh, enough of it ! I have told you, and tell
you and will tell you, my Ba, because it is simple truth, —
that you have been ‘ helping ‘ me to cover a defeat, not gain
a triumph. If I had not known yousofar these works might
have been the better : — as assuredly, the greater works, I
trust will follow, — they would have suffered in proportion !
If you take a man from prison and set him free . . do you
not probably cause a signal interruption to his previously
all ingrossing occupation, and sole labour of love, of carving
bone-boxes, making chains of cherry-stones, and other such
time-beguiling operations — does he ever take up that
business with the old alacrity? No ! But he begins
ploughing, building — (castles he makes, no bone-boxes now).
I may plough and build — but there, — leave them as they
are !

Here an end till to-morrow — my best dearest. I am
very well to-day — I forgot to say anything yesterday. You
did not go down-stairs, for all your good intentions, I hope
— this morning I mean : observe how the days are made —
the mornings are warm and sunny — after gets up such a
wind as now howls — what a sound ! The most melancholy
in the whole world I think.

No — I can’t do what I had set down — keep my remonstrance and upbraiding on the Homer-subject till
to-morrow and then speak arrows. What do you mean, Ba,
by ‘remembering’ those lines you give me — have you no
more written down, Quite happy and original they are —
but to-morrow this is waited for — dearest, bless you ever !

your R.