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Tuesday Evening.

March 18, 1846.

Ah well — we shall see. Only remember that it is not my fault if I throw the double sixes, and if you, on some sun-shiny day, (a day too late to help yourself) stand face to face with a milkwhite unicorn. Ah — do not be angry. It is ungrateful of me to write so — I put a line through it to prove I have a conscience after all. I know that you love me, and I know it so well that I was reproaching myself severely not long ago, for seeming to love your love more than you. Let me tell you how I proved that, or seemed. For ever so long, you remember, I have been talking finely about giving you up for your good and so on. Which was sincere as far as the words went — but oh, the hypocrisy of our souls! — of mine, for instance! ‘I would give you up for your good’ — but when I pressed upon myself the question whether (if I had the power) I would consent to make you willing to be given up, by throwing away your love into the river, in a ring like Charlemagne’s,  . . . why I found directly that I would throw myself there sooner. I could not do it in fact — I shrank from the test. A very pitiful virtue of generosity, is your Ba’s! Still, it is not possible, I think, that she should ‘love your love more than you.’ There must be a mistake in the calculation somewhere — a figure dropt. It would be too bad for her!

Your account of your merchantmen, though with Venice in the distance, will scarcely be attractive to a confirmed invalid, I fear — and yet the steamers will be found expensive beyond his means. The sugar-vessels, which I hear most about, give out an insufferable smell and steam — let us talk of it a little on Thursday. On Monday I forgot.

For Landor’s ‘Julian,’ oh no, I cannot fancy it to be probable that those Parisians should know anything of Landor, even by a mistake. Do you not suppose that the play is founded (confounded) on Shelley’s poem, as the French use materials  . . . by distraction, into confusion? The ‘urn by the Adriatic’ (which all the French know how to turn upside down) fixes the reference to Shelley — does it not?

Not a word of the head — what does that mean, I wonder. I have not been down-stairs to-day — the wind is too cold — but you have walked?  . . . there was no excuse for you. God bless you, ever dearest. It is my last word till Thursday’s first. A fine queen you have, by the way! — a queen Log, whom you had better leave in the bushes! Witness our hand . . ..

Ba — Regina.

 

Tuesday.

‘Out of window’ would be well, as I see the leap, if it ended (so far as I am concerned) in the worst way imaginable  – – I would I ‘run the risk’ (Ba’s other word) rationally, deliberately,  – – knowing what the ordinary law of chances in this world justifies in such a case; and if the result after all was unfortunate, it would be far easier to undergo the extremest penalty with so little to reproach myself for,  – – than to put aside the adventure,  – – waive the wondrous probability of such best fortune, in a fear of the barest possibility of an adverse event, and so go to my grave, Walter the Penniless, with an eternal recollection that Miss Burdett Coutts once offered to wager sundry millions with me that she could throw double-sixes a dozen times running  – – which wager I wisely refused to accept because it was not written in the stars that such a sequence might never be. I had rather, rather a thousand-fold lose my paltry stake, and be the one recorded victim to such an unexampled unluckiness that half a dozen mad comets, suns gone wrong, and lunatic moons must have come laboriously into conjunction for my special sake to bring it to pass, which were no slight honour, properly considered!  – – And this is my way of laughing, dearest Ba, when the excess of belief in you, and happiness with you, runs over and froths if it don’t sparkle  – – underneath is a deep, a sea not to be moved. But chance, chance! there is no chance here! I have gained enough for my life, I can only put in peril the gaining more than enough. You shall change altogether my dear, dearest love, and I will be happy to the last minute on what I can remember of this past year  – – I could do that. Now, jump with me out, Ba! If you feared for yourself  – – all would be different, sadly different  – – But saying what you do say, promising ‘the strength of arm’  – – do not wonder that I call it an assurance of all being ‘well’! All is best, as you promise  – – dear, darling Ba!  – – and I say, in my degree, with all the energy of my nature, as you say, promise as you promise  – – only meaning a worship of you that is solely fit for me, fit by position  – – are not you my ‘mistress?’ Come, some good out of those old conventions, in which you lost faith after the Bower’s disappearance, (it was carried by the singing angels, like the house at Loretto, to the Siren’s isle where we shall find it preserved in a beauty ‘very rare and absolute’)  – – is it not right you should be my Lady, my Queen? and you are, and ever must be, dear Ba. Because I am suffered to kiss the lips, shall I ever refuse to embrace the feet? and kiss lips, and embrace feet, love you wholly, my Ba! May God bless you  – –

Ever your own,

R.

It would be easy for Mr. Buckingham to find a Merchant-ship bound for some Mediterranean port, after a week or two in harbour, to another and perhaps a third  – – Naples, Palermo, Syra, Constantinople, and so on. The expense would be very trifling, but the want of comfort enormous for an invalid  – – the one advantage is the solitariness of the one passenger among all those rough new creatures. I like it much, and soon get deep into their friendship, but another has other ways of viewing matters. No one article provided by the ship in the way of provisions can anybody touch. Mr. B. must lay in his own stock, and the horrors of dirt and men’s ministry are portentous, yet by a little arrangement beforehand much might be done. Still, I only know my own powers of endurance, and counsel nobody to gain my experience. On the other hand, were all to do again, I had rather have seen Venice so, with the five or six weeks’ absolute rest of the mind’s eyes, than any other imaginable way,  – – except Balloon-travelling.

Do you think they meant Landor’s ‘Count Julian’  – – the ‘subject of his tragedy’ sure enough,  – – and that he was the friend of Southey? So it struck me  – –

 

Monday Evening.

March 17, 1846.

Dearest, you are dearest always! Talk of Sirens,  . . . there must be some masculine ones ‘rari nantes,’ I fancy, (though we may not find them in unquestionable authorities like your Ælian!) to justify this voice I hear. Ah, how you speak, with that pretension, too, to dumbness! What should people be made of, in order to bear such words, do you think? Will all the wax from all the altar-candles in the Sistine Chapel, keep the piercing danger from their ears? Being tied up a good deal tighter than Ulysses did not save me. Dearest dearest: I laugh, you see, as usual, not to cry! But deep down, deeper than the Sirens go, deep underneath the tides, there, I bless and love you with the voice that makes no sound.

Other human creatures (how often I do think it to myself!) have their good things scattered over their lives, sown here and sown there, down the slopes, and by the waysides. But with me  . . . I have mine all poured down on one spot in the midst of the sands! — if you knew what I feel at moments, and at half-hours, when I give myself up to the feeling freely and take no thought of red eyes. A woman once was killed with gifts, crushed with the weight of golden bracelets thrown at her: and, knowing myself, I have wondered more than a little, how it was that I could bear this strange and unused gladness, without sinking as the emotion rose. Only I was incredulous at first, and the day broke slowly  . . . and the gifts fell like the rain  . . . softly; and God gives strength, by His providence, for sustaining blessings as well as stripes. Dearest —

For the rest I understand you perfectly — perfectly. It was simply to your thoughts, that I replied  . . . and that you need not say to yourself any more, as you did once to me when you brought me flowers, that you wished they were diamonds. It was simply to prevent the accident of such a thought, that I spoke out mine. You would not wish accidentally that you had a double-barrelled gun to give me, or a cardinal’s hat, or a snuff box, and I meant to say that you might as well — as diamonds and satin sofas à la Chorley. Thoughts are something, and your thoughts are something more. To be sure they are!

You are better you say, which makes me happy of course. And you will not make the ‘better’ worse again by doing wrong things — that is my petition. It was the excess of goodness to write those two letters for me in one day, and I thank you, thank you. Beloved, when you write, let it be, if you choose, ever so few lines. Do not suffer me (for my own sake) to tire you, because two lines or three bring you to me  . . . remember  . . . just as a longer letter would.

But where, pray, did I say, and when, that ‘everything would end well?’ Was that in the dream, when we two met on the stairs? I did not really say so I think. And ‘well’ is how you understand it. If you jump out of the window you succeed in getting to the ground, somehow, dead or alive  . . . but whether that means ‘ending well,’ depends on your way of considering matters. I am seriously of opinion nevertheless, that if ‘the arm,’ you talk of, drops, it will not be for weariness nor even for weakness, but because it is cut off at the shoulder. I will not fail to you, — may God so deal with me, so bless me, so leave me, as I live only for you and shall. Do you doubt that, my only beloved! Ah, you know well — too well, people would say  . . . but I do not think it ‘too well’ myself,  . . . knowing you.

Your

Ba.

Here is a gossip which Mr. Kenyon brought me on Sunday — disbelieving it himself, he asseverated, though Lady Chantrey said it ‘with authority,’ — that Mr. Harness had offered his hand heart and ecclesiastical dignities to Miss Burdett Coutts. It is Lady Chantrey’s and Mr. Kenyon’s secret, remember.

And  . . . will you tell me? How can a man spend four or five successive months on the sea, most cheaply — at the least pecuniary expense, I mean? Because Miss Mitford’s friend Mr. Buckingham is ordered by his medical adviser to complete his cure by these means; and he is not rich. Could he go with sufficient comfort by a merchant’s vessel to the Mediterranean  . . . and might he drift about among the Greek islands?

 

March 16, 1846.

Indeed I would, dearest Ba, go with entire gladness and pride to see a light that came from your room  – – why should that surprise you? Well, you will know one day.

We understand each other too about the sofas and gilding  – – oh, I know you, my own sweetest! For me, if I had set those matters to heart, I should have turned into the obvious way of getting them  – – not out of it, as I did resolutely from the beginning. All I meant was, to express a very natural feeling  – – if one could give you diamonds for flowers, and if you liked diamonds,  – – then, indeed! As it is, wherever we are found shall be, if you please, ‘For the love’s sake found therein  – – sweetest house was ever seen!’

Mr. Kenyon must be merciful. Lilies are of all colours in Palestine  – – one sort is particularized as white with a dark blue spot and streak  – – the water lily, lotos, which I think I meant, is blue altogether.

I have walked this morning to town and back  – – I feel much better, ‘honestly’! The head better  – – the spirits rising  – – as how should they not, when you think all will go well in the end, when you write to me that you go down-stairs and are stronger  – – and when the rest is written?

Not more now, dearest, for time is pressing, but you will answer this,  – – the love that is not here,  – – not the idle words, and I will reply to-morrow. Thursday is so far away yet!

Bless you, my very own, only dearest!

 

Sunday.

March 16, 1846.

How will the love my heart is full of for you, let me be silent? Insufficient speech is better than no speech, in one regard  – – the speaker had tried words, and if they fail, hereafter he needs not reflect that he did not even try  – – so with me now, that loving you, Ba, with all my heart and soul, all my senses being lost in one wide wondering gratitude and veneration, I press close to you to say so, in this imperfect way, my dear dearest beloved! Why do you not help me, rather than take my words, my proper word, from me and call them yours, when yours they are not? You said lately love of you ‘made you humble’  – – just as if to hinder me from saying that earnest truth!  – – entirely true it is, as I feel ever more convincingly. You do not choose to understand it should be so, nor do I much care, for the one thing you must believe, must resolve to believe in its length and breadth, is that I do love you and live only in the love of you.

I will rest on the confidence that you do so believe! You know by this that it is no shadowy image of you and not you, which having attached myself to in the first instance, I afterward compelled my fancy to see reproduced, so to speak, with tolerable exactness to the original idea, in you, the dearest real you I am blessed with  – – you know what the eyes are to me, and the lips and the hair. And I, for my part, know now, while fresh from seeing you, certainly know, whatever I may have said a short time since, that you will go on to the end, that the arm round me will not let me go,  – – over such a blind abyss  – – I refuse to think, to fancy, towards what it would be to loose you now! So I give my life, my soul into your hand  – – the giving is a mere form too, it is yours, ever yours from the first  – – but ever as I see you, sit with you, and come away to think over it all, I find more that seems mine to give; you give me more life and it goes back to you.

I shall hear from you to-morrow  – – then, I will go out early and get done with some calls, in the joy and consciousness of what waits me, and when I return I will write a few words. Are these letters, these merest attempts at getting to talk with you through the distance  – – yet always with the consolation of feeling that you will know all, interpret all and forgive it and put it right  – – can such things be cared for, expected, as you say? Then, Ba, my life must be better  . . . with the closeness to help, and the ‘finding out the way’ for which love was always noted. If you begin making in fancy a lover to your mind, I am lost at once  – – but the one quality of affection for you, which would sooner or later have to be placed on his list of component graces; that I will dare start supply  – – the entire love you could dream of is here. You think you see some of the other adornments, and only too many; and you will see plainer one day, but with that I do not concern myself  – – you shall admire the true heroes  – – but me you shall love for the love’s sake. Let me kiss you, you, my dearest, dearest  – – God bless you ever  – –

 

Sunday.

March 16, 1846.

Ever dearest I am going to say one word first of all lest I should forget it afterward, of the two or three words which you said yesterday and so passingly that you probably forget to-day having said them at all. We were speaking of Mr. Chorley and his house, and you said that you did not care for such and such things for yourself, but that for others — now you remember the rest. And I just want to say what it would have been simpler to have said at the time — only not so easy — (I couldn’t say it at the time) that you are not if you please to fancy that because I am a woman I have not the pretension to do with as little in any way as you yourself  . . . no, it is not that I mean to say . . .. I mean that you are not, if you please, to fancy that, because I am a woman, I look to be cared for in those outside things, or should have the slightest pleasure in any of them. So never wish nor regret in your thoughts to be able or not to be able to care this and this for me; for while you are thinking so, our thoughts go different ways, which is wrong. Mr. Fox did me a great deal too much honour in calling me ‘a religious hermit’; he was ‘curiously’ in fault, as you saw. It is not my vocation to sit on a stone in a cave — I was always too fond of lolling upon sofas or in chairs nearly as large, — and this, which I sit in, was given to me when I was a child by my uncle, the uncle I spoke of to you once, and has been lolled in nearly ever since  . . . when I was well enough. Well — that is a sort of luxury, of course — but it is more idle than expensive, as a habit, and I do believe that it is the ‘head and foot of my offending’ in that matter. Yes — ‘confiteor tibi’ besides, that I do hate white dimity curtains, which is highly improper for a religious hermit of course, but excusable in me who would accept brown serge as a substitute with ever so much indifference. It is the white light which comes in the dimity which is so hateful to me. To ‘go mad in white dimity’ seems perfectly natural, and consequential even. Set aside these foibles, and one thing is as good as another with me, and the more simplicity in the way of living, the better. If I saw Mr. Chorley’s satin sofas and gilded ceilings I should call them very pretty I dare say, but never covet the possession of the like — it would never enter my mind to do so. Then Papa has not kept a carriage since I have been grown up (they grumble about it here in the house, but when people have once had great reverses they get nervous about spending money) so I shall not miss the Clarence and greys  . . . and I do entreat you not to put those two ideas together again of me and the finery which has nothing to do with me. I have talked a great deal too much of all this, you will think, but I want you, once for all, to apply it broadly to the whole of the future both in the general view and the details, so that we need not return to the subject. Judge for me as for yourself — what is good for you is good for me. Otherwise I shall be humiliated, you know; just as far as I know your thoughts.

Mr. Kenyon has been here to-day — and I have been down-stairs — two great events! He was in brilliant spirits and sate talking ever so long, and named you as he always does. Something he asked, and then said suddenly  . . . ‘But I don’t see why I should ask you, when I ought to know him better than you can.’ On which I was wise enough to change colour, as I felt, to the roots of my hair. There is the effect of a bad conscience! and it has happened to me before, with Mr. Kenyon, three times — once particularly, when I could have cried with vexation (to complete the effects!), he looked at me with such infinite surprise in a dead pause of any speaking. That was in the summer; and all to be said for it now, is, that it couldn’t be helped: couldn’t!

Mr. Kenyon asked of ‘Saul.’ (By the way, you never answered about the blue lilies.) He asked of ‘Saul’ and whether it would be finished in the new number. He hangs on the music of your David. Did you read in the Athenæum how Jules Janin — no, how the critic on Jules Janin (was it the critic? was it Jules Janin? the glorious confusion is gaining on me I think) has magnificently confounded places and persons in Robert Southey’s urn by the Adriatic and devoted friendship for Lord Byron? And immediately the English observer of the phenomenon, after moralizing a little on the crass ignorance of Frenchmen in respect to our literature, goes on to write like an ignoramus himself, on Mme. Charles Reybaud, encouraging that pure budding novelist, who is in fact a hack writer of romances third and fourth rate, of questionable purity enough, too. It does certainly appear wonderful that we should not sufficiently stand abreast here in Europe, to justify and necessitate the establishment of an European review — journal rather — (the ‘Foreign Review,’ so called, touching only the summits of the hills) a journal which might be on a level with the intelligent readers of all the countries of Europe, and take all the rising reputations of each, with the national light on them as they rise, into observation and judgment. If nobody can do this, it is a pity I think to do so much less — both in France and England — to snatch up a French book from over the Channel as ever and anon they do in the Athenæum, and say something prodigiously absurd of it, till people cry out ‘oh oh’ as in the House of Commons.

Oh — oh — and how wise I am to-day, as if I were a critic myself! Yesterday I was foolish instead — for I couldn’t get out of my head all the evening how you said that you would come ‘to see a candle held up at the window.’ Well! but I do not mean to love you any more just now — so I tell you plainly. Certainly I will not. I love you already too much perhaps. I feel like the turning Dervishes turning in the sun when you say such words to me — and I never shall love you any ‘less,’ because it is too much to be made less of.

And you write to-morrow? and will tell me how you are? honestly will tell me? May God bless you, most dear!

I am yours — ‘Tota tua est’

Ba.

 

March 12, 1846.

How I get to understand this much of Law  – – that prior possession is nine points of it! Just because your infinite adroitness got first hold of the point of view whence our connection looks like ‘a dream’  . . . I find myself shut out of my very own, unable to say what is oftenest in my thought; whereas the dear, miraculous dream you were, and are, my Ba! Only, vanish  – – that you will never! My own, and for ever!

Yesterday I read the poor, inconceivably inadequate notice in the People’s Journal. How curiously wrong, too, in the personal guesses! Sad work truly. For my old friend Mrs. Adams  – – no, I must be silent: the lyrics seem doggerel in its utter purity. And so the people are to be instructed in the new age of gold! I heard two days ago precisely what I told you  – – that there was a quarrel, &c. which this service was to smooth over, no doubt. Chorley told me, in a hasty word only, that all was over, Mr. Webster would not have anything to do with his play. The said W. is one of the poorest of poor creatures, and as Chorley was certainly forewarned, forearmed I will hope him to have been likewise  – – still it is very disappointing  – – he was apparently nearer than most aspirants to the prize,  – – having the best will of the actresses on whose shoulder the burthen was to lie. I hope they have been quite honest with him  – – knowing as I do the easy process of transferring all sorts of burthens, in that theatrical world, from responsible to irresponsible members of it, actors to manager, manager to actors, as the case requires. And it is a ‘hope deferred’ with Chorley; not for the second or third time. I am very glad that he cares no more than you tell me.

Still you go down-stairs, and still return safely, and every step leads us nearer to my ‘hope.’ How unremittingly you bless me  – – a visit promises a letter, a letter brings such news, crowns me with such words, and speaks of another visit  – – and so the golden links extend. Dearest words, dearest letters  – – as I add each to my heap, I say  – – I do say  – – ‘I was poor, it now seems, a minute ago, when I had not this!’ Bless you, dear, dear Ba. On Saturday I shall be with you, I trust  – – may God bless you! Ever your own

 

March 12, 1846.

When my Orpheus writes ‘Περι λιθων’ he makes a great mistake about onyxes — there is more true onyx in this letter of his that I have just read, than he will ever find in the desert land he goes to. And for what ‘glitters on the ground,’ it reminds me of the yellow metal sparks found in the Malvern Hills, and how we used to laugh years ago at one of our geological acquaintances, who looked mole-hills up that mountain-range in the scorn of his eyes, saying  . . . ‘Nothing but mica!!’ Is anybody to be rich through ‘mica’, I wonder? through ‘Nothing but mica?’ ‘As rich as — as rich as’  . . . Walter the Pennyless?

Dearest, best you are nevertheless, and it is a sorry jest which I can break upon your poverty, with that golden heart of yours so apprehended of mine! Why if I am ‘ambitious’ — is it not because you love me as if I were worthier of your love, and that, so, I get frightened of the opening of your eyelids to the unworthiness? ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep’ — there, is my ‘ambition for afterward.’ Oh — you do not understand how with an unspeakable wonder, an astonishment which keeps me from drawing breath, I look to this Dream, and ‘see your face as the face of an angel,’ and fear for the vanishing,  . . . because dreams and angels do pass away in this world. But you, I understand you, and all your goodness past expression, past belief of mine, if I had not known you  . . . just you. If it will satisfy you that I should know you, love you, love you — why then indeed — because I never bowed down to any of the false gods I know the gold from the mica,  . . . I! ‘My own beloved’ — you should have my soul to stand on if it could make you stand higher. Yet you shall not call me ‘ambitious.’

To-day I went down-stairs again, and wished to know whether you were walking in your proportion — and your letter does call you ‘better,’ whether you walked enough or not, and it bears the Deptford post-mark. On Saturday I shall see how you are looking. So pale you were last time! I know Mr. Kenyon must have observed it, (dear Mr. Kenyon  . . . for being ‘kinder and kindest’) and that one of the ‘augurs’ marvelled at the other! By the way I forgot yesterday to tell you how Mr. Burges’s ‘apt remark’ did amuse me. And Mr. Kenyon who said much the same words to me last week in relation to this very Wordsworth junior, writhed, I am sure, and wished the ingenious observer with the lost plays of Æschylus — oh, I seem to see Mr. Kenyon’s face! He was to have come to tell me how you all behaved at dinner that day, but he keeps away  . . . you have given him too much to think of perhaps.

I heard from Miss Mitford to-day that Mr. Chorley’s hope is at an end in respect to the theatre, and (I must tell you) she praises him warmly for his philosophy and fortitude under the disappointment. How much philosophy does it take, — please to instruct me, — in order to the decent bearing of such disasters? Can I fancy one, shorter than you by a whole head of the soul, condescending to ‘bear‘ such things? No, indeed.

Be good and kind, and do not work at the ‘Tragedy’  . . . do not.

So you and I have written out all the paper in London! At least, I send and send in vain to have more envelopes ‘after my kind,’ and the last answer is, that a ‘fresh supply will arrive in eight days from Paris, and that in the meanwhile they are quite out in the article.’ An awful sign of the times, is this famine of envelopes  . . . not to speak of the scarcity of little sheets: — and the augurs look to it all of course.

For my part I think more of Chiappino — Chiappino holds me fast.

But I must let you go — it is too late. This dearest letter, which you sent me! I thank you for it with ever so much dumbness. May God bless you and keep you, and make you happy for me.

Your Ba.

March 11, 1846.

Dear, dear Ba, but indeed I did return home earlier by two or three good hours than the night before  – – and to find no letter,  – – none of yours! That was reserved for this morning early, and then a rest came, a silence, over the thoughts of you  – – and now again, comes this last note! Oh, my love  – – why  – – what is it you think to do, or become ‘afterward,’ that you may fail in and so disappoint me? It is not very unfit that you should thus punish yourself, and that, sinning by your own ambition of growing something beyond my Ba even, you should ‘fear’ as you say! For, sweet, why wish, why think to alter ever by a line, change by a shade, turn better if that were possible, and so only rise the higher above me, get further from instead of nearer to my heart? What I expect, what I build my future on, am quite, quite prepared to ‘risk’ everything for,  – – is that one belief that you will not alter, will just remain as you are  – – meaning by ‘you,’ the love in you, the qualities I have known (for you will stop me, if I do not stop myself) what I have evidence of in every letter, in every word, every look. Keeping these, if it be God’s will that the body passes,  – – what is that? Write no new letters, speak no new words, look no new looks,  – – only tell me, years hence that the present is alive, that what was once, still is  – – and I am, must needs be, blessed as ever! You speak of my feeling as if it were a pure speculation  – – as if because I see somewhat in you I make a calculation that there must be more to see somewhere or other  – – where bdellium is found, the onyx-stone may be looked for in the mystic land of the four rivers! And perhaps  . . . ah, poor human nature!  – – perhaps I do think at times on what may be to find! But what is that to you? I offer for the bdellium  – – the other may be found or not found  . . . what I see glitter on the ground, that will suffice to make me rich as  – – rich as  – –

So bless you my own Ba! I would not wait for paper, and you must forgive half-sheets, instead of a whole celestial quire to my love and praise. Are you so well? So adventurous? Thank you from my heart of hearts. And I am quite well to-day (and have received a note from Procter just this minute putting off his dinner on account of the death of his wife’s sister’s husband abroad). Observe this sheet I take as I find  – – I mean, that the tear tells of no improper speech repented of  – – what English, what sense, what a soul’s tragedy! but then, what real, realest love and more than love for my ever dearest Ba possesses her own  – –

Tuesday Evening.
March 11, 1846.

You find my letter I trust, for it was written this morning in time; and if these two lines should not be flattery  . . . oh, rank flattery!  . . . why happy letter is it, to help to bring you home ten minutes earlier, when you never ought to have left home — no, indeed! I knew how it would be yesterday, and how you would be worse and not better. You are not fit to go out, dear dearest, to sit in the glare of lights and talk and listen, and have the knives and forks to rattle all the while and remind you of the chains of necessity. Oh — should I bear it, do you think? I was thinking, when you went away — after you had quite gone. You would laugh to see me at my dinner — Flush and me — Flush placing in me such an heroic confidence, that, after he has cast one discriminating glance on the plate, and, in the case of ‘chicken,’ wagged his tail with an emphasis,  . . . he goes off to the sofa, shuts his eyes and allows a full quarter of an hour to pass before he returns to take his share. Did you ever hear of a dog before who did not persecute one with beseeching eyes at mealtimes? And remember, this is not the effect of discipline. Also if another than myself happens to take coffee or break bread in the room here, he teazes straightway with eyes and paws,  . . . teazes like a common dog and is put out of the door before he can be quieted by scolding. But with me he is sublime! Moreover he has been a very useful dog in his time (in the point of capacity), causing to disappear supererogatory dinners and impossible breakfasts which, to do him justice, is a feat accomplished without an objection on his side, always.

So, when you write me such a letter, I write back to you about Flush. Dearest beloved, but I have read the letter and felt it in my heart, through and through! and it is as wise to talk of Flush foolishly, as to fancy that I could say how it is felt  . . . this letter! Only when you spoke last of breaking off with such and such recollections, it was the melancholy of the breaking off which I protested against, was it not? and not the insufficiency of the recollections. There might have been something besides in jest. Ah, but you remember, if you please, that I was the first to wish (wishing for my own part, if I could wish exclusively) to break off in the middle the silken thread, and you told me, not — you forbade me — do you remember? For, as happiness goes, the recollections were enough,  . . . are enough for me! I mean that I should acknowledge them to be full compensation for the bitter gift of life, such as it was, to me! if that subject-matter were broken off here! ‘Bona verba’ let me speak nevertheless. You mean, you say, to run all risks with me, and I don’t mean to draw back from my particular risk of  . . . what am I to do to you hereafter to make you vexed with me? What is there in marriage to make all these people on every side of us, (who all began, I suppose, by talking of love,) look askance at one another from under the silken mask  . . . and virtually hate one another through the tyranny of the stronger and the hypocrisy of the weaker party. It never could be so with us — I know that. But you grow awful to me sometimes with the very excess of your goodness and tenderness, and still, I think to myself, if you do not keep lifting me up quite off the ground by the strong faculty of love in you, I shall not help falling short of the hope you have placed in me — it must be ‘supernatural’ of you, to the end! or I fall short and disappoint you. Consider this, beloved. Now if I could put my soul out of my body, just to stand up before you and make it clear.

I did go to the drawing-room to-day  . . . would  . . . should  . . . did. The sun came out, the wind changed  . . . where was the obstacle? I spent a quarter of an hour in a fearful solitude, listening for knocks at the door, as a ghost-fearer might at midnight, and ‘came home’ none the worse in any way. Be sure that I shall ‘take care’ better than you do, and there, is the worst of it all — for you let people make you ill, and do it yourself upon occasion.

You know from my letter how I found you out in the matter of the ‘Soul’s Tragedy.’ Oh! so bad  . . . so weak, so unworthy of your name! If some other people were half a quarter as much the contrary!

And so, good-night, dear dearest. In spite of my fine speeches about ‘recollections,’ I should be unhappy enough to please you, with only those  . . . without you beside! I could not take myself back from being

Your own —