Category: Uncategorized

[Postmark: March 26, 1846]

Wednesday Evening.

But if people half say things, — intimate things, as when
your disputant in the street (you are felicitous, I think,
in your street-experiences) suggested the possible case of the
‘ three oyster shells to an oyster,’ — why you must submit
to be answered a little, and even confuted at need. Now
just see —

. . ‘ Got all his distinction from the fact that no better ‘
. . That is precisely the fact . . so . . as you have stated
it, and implied . . ‘ The fact that no better ‘ . . is to
be found in the world — no better . . none. There, is the
peculiar combination. The isolation on one side, and the
best in the whole world, coming in for company ! And I
‘ dwell ‘ upon it, never being tired . . and if you are tired
already, you must be tired of me, because the ‘ dwelling ‘ has
grown to be a part of me and I cannot put it away. It is
my especial miracle a moi, ‘ No better ? ‘ No, indeed ! not in
the seven worlds ! and just there, lies the miraculous point.

But you mean it perhaps otherwise. You mean that it
is a sort of pis aller on my part. A pis aller along the Via
lactea . . is that what you mean ?

Shall I let you off the rest, dearest, dearest ? though you
deserve ever so much more, for implying such monstrous
things, and treading down all my violets, so and so. What
did I say to set you writing so ? I cannot remember at all ?
If I ‘ dwell ‘ on anything, beloved, it is that I feel it strongly,
be sure — and if I feel gratitude to you with the other feelings,
you should not grudge what is a happy feeling in itself, and
not dishonouring (I answer for that) to the object of it.

Now I shall tell you. I had a visitor to-day — Mrs.
Jameson ; and when she went away she left me ashamed
of myself — I felt like a hypocrite – I, who was not born
for one, I think. She began to talk of you . . talked like
a wise woman, which she is . . led me on to say just
what I might have said if I had not known you, (she,
thoroughly impressed with the notion that we two are
strangers !) and made me quite leap in my chair with a
sudden consciousness, by exclaiming at last . . ‘ I am really
glad to hear you speak so. Such appreciation ‘ &c. &c.
… imagine what she went on to say. Dearest — I believe
she rather gives me a sort of credit for appreciating you without
the jealousy ‘ de metier.’ Good Heavens . . how humiliating some conditions of praise are ! She approved me
with her eye — indeed she did. And this, while we were
agreeing that you were the best . . ‘ none better ‘ . . none
so good . . of your country and age. Do you know, while
we were talking, I felt inclined both to laugh and to cry,
and if I had ‘ given way ‘ the least, she would have been
considerably astounded. As it was, my hands were so
marble-cold when she took leave of me, that she observed it
and began making apologies for exhausting me. Now here
is a strip of the ‘ world,’ . . see what colour it will turn to
presently ! We had better, I think, go farther than to
your siren’s island — into the desert . . shall we say ? Such
stories there will be ! For certain, . . I shall have seen
you just once out of the window ! Shall you not be afraid ?
Well — and she talked of Italy too — it was before she talked
of you — and she hoped I had not given up the thoughts
of going there. To which I said that ‘ I had not . . but
that it seemed like scheming to travel in the moon.’ She
talked of a difference, and set down the moon-travelling as
simple lunacy. ‘ And simply lunatical,’ . . I said, . . ‘ my
thoughts, if chronicled, would be taken to be, perhaps ‘ –
‘No, no, no, ! . .’ she insisted . . ‘as long as I kept to the
earth, everything was to be permitted to me.’

How people talk at cross-purposes in this world . . and
act so too ! It’s the very spirit of worldly communion.
Souls are gregarious in a sense, but no soul touches another,
as a general rule. I like Mrs. Jameson nevertheless — I
like her more. She appreciates you — and it is my turn to
praise for that, now. I am to see her again to-morrow
morning, when she has the goodness to promise to bring
some etchings of her own, her illustrations of the new essays,
for me to look at.

Ah — your ‘failures in ” Luria ” and the ” Tragedy ” ‘ —
Proud, we should all be, to fail exactly so.

Dearest, are you better indeed? Walk . . talk to the
Ba in the chair , . go on to be better, ever dearest. May
God bless you ! Ah . . the ‘ I’s.’ You do not see that the
‘ I’s’ — you make them, . . all turn to ‘ yous ‘ by the time
they get to me. The ‘ Is ‘ indeed ! How dare you talk
against my eyes ? For me, I was going down-stairs to-day,
but it was wet and windy and I was warned not to go. If
I am in bad or good spirits, judge from this foolish letter —
foolish and wise, both ! — but not melancholy, anywise.
When one drops into a pun, one might as well come to an
end altogether — it can’t be worse with one.

Nor can it be better than being

Your own

‘ No better’ !! .

[Postmark: March 25, 1846]

Wednesday.

You were right to bid me never again wish my poor flowers were ‘diamonds’ — you could not, I think, speak so to my heart of any diamonds. God knows my life is for you
to take just as you take flowers :— these last please you,
serve you best when plucked — and ‘my life’s rose’ . . if I
dared profane that expression I would say, you have but to
‘stoop’ for it. Foolish, as all words are.

You dwell on that notion of your being peculiarly isolated,
— of any kindness to you, in your present state, seeming
doubled and quadrupled — what do I, what could anyone
infer from that but, most obviously, that it was a very
fortunate thing for such kindness, and that the presumable
bestower of it got all his distinction from the fact that no
better . . however, I hate this and cannot go on. Dearest,
believe that under ordinary circumstances, with ordinary
people, all operates differently — the imaginary kindness-
bestower with his ideal methods of showing and proving his
love, — there would be the rival to fear !

Do not let us talk of this — you always beat me, beside,
turn my own illustrations into obscurations — as in the notable
case of the cards and stakes and risks — I suppose, (to save
my vanity!) that if I knew anything about cards, I might go
on, a step at least, with my argument. I once heard a dispute in the street between the proprietor of an oyster-stall
and one of his customers — who was in the wrong . . that
is, who used the clenching argument you shall hear presently,
I don’t remember ; but one brought the other to this pass —

‘Are there three shells to an oyster?’ — Just that ! If there
were not — he would clearly be found in the wrong, that was
all ! — ‘Why,’ . . began the other; and I regret I did not
catch the rest — there was such a clear possibility contained
in that ‘Why . . an oyster might have three shells !’

Note the adroitness, — (calm heroic silence of the act
rather than a merely attempted word,) the mastery with
which, taking up Ba’s implied challenge, I do furnish her
with both ‘ amusement and instruction ‘ — moreover I will
at Ba’s bidding amuse and instruct the world at large, and
make them know all to be known — for my purposes — about
‘ Bells and Pomegranates ‘ — yes, it will be better.

I said rather hastily that my head ‘ached’ yesterday :
that meant, only that it was more observable because, after
walking, it is usually well — and I had been walking. To-day
it is much better ; I sit reading ‘Cromwell,’ and the newspaper,
and presently I shall go out — all will be better now,
I hope — it shall not be my fault, at least, depend on that.
All my work (work !) — well, such as it is, it is done — and I
scarcely care how — I shall be prouder to begin one day—
(may it be soon! — ) with your hand in mine from the beginning — that
is a very different thing in its effect from the same
hand touching mine after I had begun, with no suspicion
such a chance could befall ! I repeat, both these things,
‘Luria’ and the other, are manque, failures — the life-incidents
ought to have been acted over again, experienced afresh ;
and I had no inclination nor ability. But one day, my siren !

Let me make haste and correct a stupid error. I spoke
to my father last night about that tragedy of the studs — I
was wholly out in the story — the sufferer was his uncle, and
the scene should have been laid on the Guinea coast. A propos
of errors — the copyright matter is most likely a case of copy-wrong
by reporters — I never heard of it before — to be sure, I
signed a petition of Miss Martineau’s superintending once on
a time — but long ago, ‘I, I, I’ — how, dear, all important ‘I’
takes care of himself, and issues bulletins, and corrects his
wise mistakes, and all this to . . just ‘one of his readers
of the average intelligence.’ Are you that, so much as that,
Ba ? I will tell you — if you do not write to me all about
vour dear, dearest self, I shall sink with shame at the recollection
of what this letter and its like prove to be — must
prove to be ! Dear love, tell me — that you walk and are in
good spirits, and I will try and write better. May God
bless my own beloved! — Ever her own

R.

I think, am all but sure, there is a Mrs. Hornblower something !

Just a minute to say your second note has come, and
that I do hate hate having to write, not kiss my answer on
your dearest mouth — kindest, dearest — to-morrow I will
try — and meantime — though Ba by the fire will not be cold
at heart, cold of heart, at least, and I will talk to her and
more than talk — My dearest, dearest one!

Tuesday Evening.

March 25, 1846.

Ah; if I ‘do‘  . . . if I ‘should‘  . . . if I shall  . . . if I will  . . . if I must  . . . what can all the ‘ifs’ prove, but a most hypothetical state of the conscience? And in brief, I beg you to stand convinced of one thing, that whenever the ‘certain time’ comes for to ‘hate writing to me’ confessedly, ‘avowedly,’ (oh what words!) I shall not like it at all — not for all the explanations  . . . and the sights in gondola chairs, which the person seen is none the better for! The ειδωλον sits by the fire — the real Ba is cold at heart through wanting her letter. And that’s the doctrine to be preached now,  . . . is it? I ‘shrink,’ shrink from it. That’s your word! — and mine! Dearest, I began by half a jest and end by half-gravity, which is the fault of your doctrine and not of me I think. Yet it is ungrateful to be grave, when practically you are good and just about the letters, and generous too sometimes, and I could not bear the idea of obliging you to write to me, even once  . . . when . . .. Now do not fancy that I do not understand. I understand perfectly, on the contrary. Only do you try not to dislike writing when you write, or not to write when you dislike it  . . . that, I ask of you, dear dearest — and forgive me for all this over-writing and teazing and vexing which is foolish and womanish in the bad sense. It is a way of meeting,  . . . the meeting in letters,  . . . and next to receiving a letter from you, I like to write one to you  . . . and, so, revolt from thinking it lawful for you to dislike . . .. Well! the Goddess of Dulness herself couldn’t have written this better, anyway, nor more characteristically.

I will tell you how it is. You have spoilt me just as I have spoilt Flush. Flush looks at me sometimes with reproachful eyes ‘a fendre le coeur,’ because I refuse to give him my fur cuffs to tear to pieces. And as for myself, I confess to being more than half jealous of the ειδωλον in the gondola chair, who isn’t the real Ba after all, and yet is set up there to do away with the necessity ‘at certain times’ of writing to her. Which is worse than Flush. For Flush, though he began by shivering with rage and barking and howling and gnashing his teeth at the brown dog in the glass, has learnt by experience what that image means,  . . . and now contemplates it, serene in natural philosophy. Most excellent sense, all this is! — and dauntlessly ‘delivered!’

Your head aches, dearest. Mr. Moxon will have done his worst, however, presently, and then you will be a little better I do hope and trust — and the proofs, in the meanwhile, will do somewhat less harm than the manuscript. You will take heart again about ‘Luria’  . . . which I agree with you, is more diffuse  . . . that is, less close, than any of your works, not diffuse in any bad sense, but round, copious, and another proof of that wonderful variety of faculty which is so striking in you, and which signalizes itself both in the thought and in the medium of the thought. You will appreciate ‘Luria’ in time — or others will do it for you. It is a noble work under every aspect. Dear ‘Luria’! Do you remember how you told me of ‘Luria’ last year, in one of your early letters? Little I thought that ever, ever, I should feel so, while ‘Luria’ went to be printed! A long trail of thoughts, like the rack in the sky, follows his going. Can it be the same ‘Luria,’ I think, that ‘golden-hearted Luria,’ whom you talked of to me, when you complained of keeping ‘wild company,’ in the old dear letter? And I have learnt since, that ‘golden-hearted‘ is not a word for him only, or for him most. May God bless you, best and dearest! I am your own to live and to die —

Ba.

Say how you are. I shall be down-stairs to-morrow if it keeps warm.

Miss Thomson wants me to translate the Hector and Andromache scene from the ‘Iliad’ for her book; and I am going to try it.

Tuesday Afternoon.

March 24, 1846.

My own dearest, if you do  – – (for I confess to nothing of the kind), but if you should detect an unwillingness to write at certain times, what would that prove,  – – I mean, what that one need shrink from avowing? If I never had you before me except when writing letters to you  – – then! Why, we do not even talk much now! witness Mr. Buckingham and his voyage that ought to have been discussed!  – – Oh, how coldly I should write,  – – how the bleak-looking paper would seem unpropitious to carry my feeling  – – if all had to begin and try to find words this way!

Now, this morning I have been out  – – to town and back  – – and for all the walking my head aches  – – and I have the conviction that presently when I resign myself to think of you wholly, with only the pretext,  – – the make-believe of occupation, in the shape of some book to turn over the leaves of,  – – I shall see you and soon be well; so soon! You must know, there is a chair (one of the kind called gondóla-chairs by upholsterers  – – with an emphasized o)  – – which occupies the precise place, stands just in the same relation to this chair I sit on now, that yours stands in and occupies  – – to the left of the fire: and, how often, how always I turn in the dusk and see the dearest real Ba with me.

How entirely kind to take that trouble, give those sittings for me! Do you think the kindness has missed its due effect? No, no, I am glad,  – – (knowing what I now know,  – – what you meant should be, and did all in your power to prevent) that I have not received the picture, if anything short of an adequate likeness. ‘Nil nisi  – – te!’ But I have set my heart on seeing it  – – will you remember next time, next Saturday?

I will leave off now. To-morrow, dearest, only dearest Ba, I will write a longer letter  – – the clock stops it this afternoon  – – it is later than I thought, and our poor crazy post! This morning, hoping against hope, I ran to meet our postman coming meditatively up the lane  – – with a letter, indeed!  – – but Ba’s will come to-night  – – and I will be happy, already am happy, expecting it. Bless you, my own love,

Ever your  – –

 

Tuesday.

March 24, 1846.

How ungrateful I was to your flowers yesterday, never looking at them nor praising them till they were put away, and yourself gone away — and that was your fault, be it remembered, because you began to tell me of the good news from Moxon’s, and, in the joy of it, I missed the flowers  . . . for the nonce, you know. Afterward they had their due, and all the more that you were not there. My first business when you are out of the room and the house, and the street perhaps, is to arrange the flowers and to gather out of them all the thoughts you leave between the leaves and at the end of the stalks. And shall I tell you what happened, not yesterday, but the Thursday before? no, it was the Friday morning, when I found, or rather Wilson found and held up from my chair, a bunch of dead blue violets. Quite dead they seemed! You had dropped them and I had sate on them, and where we murdered them they had lain, poor things, all the night through. And Wilson thought it the vainest of labours when she saw me set about reviving them, cutting the stalks afresh, and dipping them head and ears into water — but then she did not know how you, and I, and ours, live under a miraculous dispensation, and could only simply be astonished when they took to blowing again as if they never had wanted the dew of the garden,  . . . yes, and when at last they outlived all the prosperity of the contemporary white violets which flourished in water from the beginning, and were free from the disadvantage of having been sate upon. Now you shall thank me for this letter, it is at once so amusing and instructive. After all, too, it teaches you what the great events of my life are, not that the resuscitation of your violets would not really be a great event to me, even if I led the life of a pirate, between fire and sea, otherwise. But take you away  . . . out of my life! — and what remains? The only greenness I used to have (before you brought your flowers) was as the grass growing in deserted streets,  . . . which brings a proof, in every increase, of the extending desolation.

Dearest, I persist in thinking that you ought not to be too disdainful to explain your meaning in the Pomegranates. Surely you might say in a word or two that, your title having been doubted about (to your surprise, you might say!), you refer the doubters to the Jewish priest’s robe, and the Rabbinical gloss  . . . for I suppose it is a gloss on the robe  . . . do you not think so? Consider that Mr. Kenyon and I may fairly represent the average intelligence of your readers, — and that he was altogether in the clouds as to your meaning  . . . had not the most distant notion of it, — while I, taking hold of the priest’s garment, missed the Rabbins and the distinctive significance, as completely as he did. Then for Vasari, it is not the handbook of the whole world, however it may be Mrs. Jameson’s. Now why should you be too proud to teach such persons as only desire to be taught? I persist — I shall teaze you.

This morning my brothers have been saying  . . . ‘Ah you had Mr. Browning with you yesterday, I see by the flowers,’  . . . just as if they said ‘I see queen Mab has been with you.’ Then Stormie took the opportunity of swearing to me by all his gods that your name was mentioned lately in the House of Commons — is that true? or untrue? He forgot to tell me at the time, he says, — and you were named with others and in relation to copyright matters. Is it true?

Mr. Hornblower Gill is the author of a Hymn to Passion week, and wrote to me as the ‘glorifier of pain!’ to remind me that the best glory of a soul is shown in the joy of it, and that all chief poets except Dante have seen, felt, and written it so. Thus and therefore was matured his purpose of writing an ‘ode to joy,’ as I told you. The man seems to have very good thoughts,  . . . but he writes like a colder Cowley still  . . . no impulse, no heat for fusing  . . . no inspiration, in fact. Though I have scarcely done more than glance at his ‘Passion week,’ and have little right to give an opinion.

If you have killed Luria as you helped to kill my violets, what shall I say, do you fancy? Well — we shall see! Do not kill yourself, beloved, in any case! The ιοστεφανοι

Μουσαι had better die themselves first! Ah — what am I writing? What nonsense? I mean, in deep earnest, the deepest, that you should take care and exercise, and not be vexed for Luria’s sake — Luria will have his triumph presently! May God bless you — prays your own

Ba.

 

Sunday.

March 23, 1846.

Oh, my Ba  – – how you shall hear of this to-morrow  – – that is all: I hate writing? See when presently I only write to you daily, hourly if you let me? Just this now  – – I will be with you to-morrow in any case  – – I can go away at once, if need be, or stay  – – if you like you can stop me by sending a note for me to Moxon’s before 10 o’clock  – – if anything calls for such a measure.

Now briefly,  – – I am unwell and entirely irritated with this sad ‘Luria’  – – I thought it a failure at first, I find it infinitely worse than I thought  – – it is a pure exercise of cleverness, even where most successful; clever attempted reproduction of what was conceived by another faculty, and foolishly let pass away. If I go on, even hurry the more to get on, with the printing,  – – it is to throw out and away from me the irritating obstruction once and forever. I have corrected it, cut it down, and it may stand and pledge me to doing better hereafter. I say, too, in excuse to myself, unlike the woman at her spinning-wheel, ‘He thought of his flax on the whole far more than of his singing’  – – more of his life’s sustainment, of dear, dear Ba he hates writing to, than of these wooden figures  – – no wonder all is as it is?

Here is a pure piece of the old Chorley leaven for you, just as it reappears ever and anon and throws one back on the mistrust all but abandoned! Chorley knows I have not seen that Powell for nearly fifteen months  – – that I never heard of the book till it reached me in a blank cover  – – that I never contributed a line or word to it directly or indirectly  – – and I should think he also knows that all the sham learning, notes &c., all that saves the book from the deepest deep of contempt, was contributed by Heraud (a regular critic in the ‘Athenæum’), who received his pay for the same: he knows I never spoke in my life to ‘Jones or Stephens’  – – that there is no ‘coterie’ of which I can, by any extension of the word, form a part  – – that I am in this case at the mercy of a wretched creature who to get into my favour again (to speak the plain truth) put in the gross, disgusting flattery in the notes  – – yet Chorley, knowing this, none so well, and what the writer’s end is  – – (to have it supposed I, and the others named  – – Talfourd, for instance  – – are his friends and helpers)  – – he condescends to further it by such a notice, written with that observable and characteristic duplicity, that to poor gross stupid Powell it shall look like an admiring ‘Oh, fie  – – so clever but so wicked’!  – – a kind of D’Orsay’s praise  – – while to the rest of his readers, a few depreciatory epithets  – – slight sneers convey his real sentiments, he trusts! And this he does, just because Powell buys an article of him once a quarter and would expect notice. I think I hear Chorley  – – ‘You know, I cannot praise such a book  – – it is too bad’  – – as if, as if  – – oh, it makes one sicker than having written ‘Luria,’ there’s one comfort! I shall call on Chorley and ask for his account of the matter. Meantime nobody will read his foolish notice without believing as he and Powell desire! Bless you, my own Ba  – – to-morrow makes amends to R.B.

 

March 21, 1846.

I do not understand how my letters limp so instead of flying as they ought with the feathers I give them, and how you did not receive last night, nor even early this morning, what left me at two o’clock yesterday. But I understand now the not hearing from you — you were not well. Not well, not well  . . . that is always ‘happening’ at least. And Mr. Moxon, who is to have his first sheet, whether you are well or ill! It is wrong  . . . yes, very wrong — and if one point of wrongness is touched, we shall not easily get right again — as I think mournfully, feeling confident (call me Cassandra, but I cannot jest about it) feeling certain that it will end (the means being so persisted in) by some serious illness — serious sorrow, — on yours and my part.

As to Monday, Mr. Kenyon said he would come again on Sunday — in which case, Monday will be clear. If he should not come on Sunday, he will or may on Monday, — yet — oh, in every case, perhaps you can come on Monday — there will be no time to let you know of Mr. Kenyon — and probably we shall be safe, and your being in town seems to fix the day. For myself I am well enough, and the wind has changed, which will make me better — this cold weather oppresses and weakens me, but it is close to April and can’t last and won’t last — it is warmer already. Beware of the notes! They are not Ba’s — except for the insolence, nor EBB’s — because of the carelessness. If I had known, moreover, that you were going to Moxon’s on Monday, they should have gone to the fire rather than provoked you into superfluous work for the short interval. Just so much are they despised of both EBB and Ba.

I am glad I did not hear from you yesterday because you were not well, and you must never write when you are not well. But if you had been quite well, should I have heard? — I doubt it. You meant me to hear from you only once, from Thursday to Monday. Is it not the truth now that you hate writing to me?

The Athenæum takes up the ‘Tales from Boccaccio’ as if they were worth it, and imputes in an underground way the authorship to the members of the ‘coterie’ so called — do you observe that? There is an implication that persons named in the poem wrote the poem themselves. And upon whom does the critic mean to fix the song of ‘Constancy’  . . . the song which is ‘not to puzzle anybody’ who knows the tunes of the song-writers! The perfection of commonplace it seems to me. It might have been written by the ‘poet Bunn.’ Don’t you think so?

While I write this you are in town, but you will not read it till Sunday unless I am more fortunate than usual. On Monday then! And no word before? No — I shall be sure not to hear to-night. Now do try not to suffer through ‘Luria.’ Let Mr. Moxon wait a week rather. There is time enough.

Ever your

Ba.

 

Saturday Morning.

March 21, 1846.

Dearest,  – – it just strikes me that I might by some chance be kept in town this morning  – – (having to go to Milnes’ breakfast there)  – – so as not to find the note I venture to expect, in time for an answer by our last post to-night. But I will try  – – this only is a precaution against the possibility. Dear, dear Ba! I cannot thank you, know not how to thank you for the notes! I adopt every one, of course, not as Ba’s notes but as Miss Barrett’s, not as Miss Barrett’s but as anybody’s, everybody’s  – – such incontestable improvements they suggest. When shall I tell you more  . . . on Monday or Tuesday? That I must know  – – because you appointed Monday, ‘if nothing happened  – – ‘ and Mr. K. happened  – – can you let me hear by our early post to-morrow  – – as on Monday I am to be with Moxon early, you know  – – and no letters arrive before 11-1/2 or 12. I was not very well yesterday, but to-day am much better  – – and you,  – – I say how I am precisely to have a double right to know all about you, dearest, in this snow and cold! How do you bear it? And Mr. K. spoke of ‘that being your worst day.’ Oh, dear dearest Ba, remember how I live in you  – – on the hopes, with the memory of you. Bless you ever!

R.

 

Friday.

March 20, 1846.

I shall be late with my letter this morning because my sisters have been here talking, talking  . . . and I did not like to say exactly ‘Go away that I may write.’ Mr. Kenyon shortened our time yesterday too by a whole half-hour or three quarters — the stars are against us. He is coming on Sunday, however, he says, and if so, Monday will be safe and clear — and not a word was said after you went, about you: he was in a good joyous humour, as you saw, and the letter he brought was, oh! so complimentary to me — I will tell you. The writer doesn’t see anything ‘in Browning and Turner,’ she confesses — ‘may perhaps with time and study,’ but for the present sees nothing, — only has wide-open eyes of admiration for E.B.B.  . . . now isn’t it satisfactory to me? Do you understand the full satisfaction of just that sort of thing  . . . to be praised by somebody who sees nothing in Shakespeare? — to be found on the level of somebody so flat? Better the bad-word of the Britannia, ten times over! And best, to take no thought of bad or good words!  . . . except such as I shall have to-night, perhaps! Shall I?

Will you be pleased to understand in the meanwhile a little about the ‘risks’ I am supposed to run, and not hold to such a godlike simplicity (‘gods and bulls,’ dearest!) as you made show of yesterday? If we two went to the gaming-table, and you gave me a purse of gold to play with, should I have a right to talk proudly of ‘my stakes?’ and would any reasonable person say of both of us playing together as partners, that we ran ‘equal risks’? I trow not — and so do you  . . . when you have not predetermined to be stupid, and mix up the rouge and noir into ‘one red’ of glorious confusion. What had I to lose on the point of happiness when you knew me first? — and if now I lose (as I certainly may according to your calculation) the happiness you have given me, why still I am your debtor for the gift  . . . now see! Yet to bring you down into my ashes  . . . that has been so intolerable a possibility to me from the first. Well, perhaps I run more risk than you, under that one aspect. Certainly I never should forgive myself again if you were unhappy. ‘What had I to do,’ I should think, ‘with touching your life?’ And if ever I am to think so, I would rather that I never had known you, seen your face, heard your voice — which is the uttermost sacrifice and abnegation. I could not say or sacrifice any more — not even for you! You, for you  . . . is all I can!

Since you left me I have been making up my mind to your having the headache worse than ever, through the agreement with Moxon. I do, do beseech you to spare yourself, and let ‘Luria’ go as he is, and above all things not to care for my infinite foolishnesses as you see them in those notes. Remember that if you are ill, it is not so easy to say, ‘Now I will be well again.’ Ever dearest, care for me in yourself — say how you are . . .. I am not unwell to-day, but feel flagged and weak rather with the cold  . . . and look at your flowers for courage and an assurance that the summer is within hearing. May God bless you  . . . blessing us, beloved!

Your own

Ba.

Mr. Poe has sent me his poems and tales — so now I must write to thank him for his dedication. Just now I have the book. As to Mr. Buckingham, he will go, Constantinople and back, before we talk of him.

 

March 18, 1846.

Indeed, dearest, you shall not have last word as you think,  – – all the ‘risk’ shall not be mine, neither; how can I, in the event, throw ambs-ace (is not that the old word?) and not peril your stakes too, when once we have common stock and are partners? When I see the unicorn and grieve proportionately, do you mean to say you are not going to grieve too, for my sake? And if so  – – why, you clearly run exactly the same risk,  – – must,  – – unless you mean to rejoice in my sorrow! So your chance is my chance; my success your success, you say, and my failure, your failure, will you not say? You see, you see, Ba, my own  – – own! What do you think frightened me in your letter for a second or two? You write ‘Let us talk on Thursday  . . . Monday I forgot’  – – which I read,  – – ‘no, not on Thursday  – – I had forgotten! It is to be Monday when we meet next’!  – – whereat

as Hudibras sings  – – I clutched the letter convulsively  – – till relief came.

So till to-morrow  – – my all-beloved! Bless you. I am rather hazy in the head as Archer Gurney will find in due season  – – (he comes, I told you)  – – but all the morning I have been going for once and for ever through the ‘Tragedy,’ and it is done  – – (done for). Perhaps I may bring it to-morrow  – – if my sister can copy all; I cut out a huge kind of sermon from the middle and reserve it for a better time  – – still it is very long; so long! So, if I ask, may I have ‘Luria’ back to morrow? So shall printing begin, and headache end  – – and ‘no more for the present from your loving’

R.B.