think ... if I dare count anything beyond two ... for I do know that one
comes after two ... (now just see what I have written!) that two comes
after one, I meant to say, ... as well as a mathematician. I am writing
now in the back drawing-room, half out of the window for air, driven out
of my own territory by the angel of the sun this morning. Oh—it is so
hot—and the darkness does not help when the lack is just of _air_. There
is a thick mist lacquered over with light—it is cauldron-heat, rather
than fire-heat. So different in the country it must be! Well, everybody
being at church or chapel, I knew I could have this room to myself,
without fear even of the dreadful knocker ... more awful to me than
the famous knocks which used to visit the Wesley family—so here I curl
up my feet ‘_more meo_’ on the settee, and help to keep the sabbath by
_resting_ upon you. Would Miss Goldsmid call it as ‘profane’ as anything
in your poems? But it will not be more profane for _that_—as I could
prove if we wanted proofs—only we do not.
Such flowers as you brought me yesterday—such roses! The roses are best,
as coming from your garden! When I began to arrange them, I thought I
never saw such splendid roses anywhere—they are more beautiful than what
you brought last year surely! It seems so to me. Dearest, how did you
get home, and how are you? and how is your mother? Remember to answer my
questions, if you please.
After you were gone I received from Mr. Lough a very gracious intimation
that if I would go to see his studio, his statue of the Queen and other
works, he would take care that no creature should be present, he would
uncover all the works and provide a clear solitude for me—he ‘would
not do it for a Duchess,’ he said, but he ‘would for _me_’! Now what
am I to say. My sisters tell me that I can go quite easily. The place
is very near, and there are no stairs. Well, I think I must go. It is
very kind and considerate, and there would be a pleasure, of course.
Do you know that statues have more power over me than all the pictures
and all the colours thereof which the world can show? Mr. Kenyon told
me once that it was a pure affectation of mine to say so—and for my own
part I could not see for a long while what was the _reason_ of a most
unaffected preference. I think I see it now. Painting flatters the senses
and makes the Ideal credible in a vulgar way. But with sculpture it is
different—and there is a grand audacity in the power of an Ideal which,
appealing directly to the Senses, and to the coarsest of them, the Touch,
as well as the Sight, yet forces them to receive Beauty through the door
of an Abstraction which is a means abhorrent to them. Have I written
what I mean, I wonder, or do you understand it, without? Then there is
a great deal, of course, in that grand white repose! Like the Ideas of
the Platonic system, these great sculptures seem—when looked at from a
distance.
When you were gone yesterday, and I had had my coffee and put on my
bonnet, I went, with the intention of walking out, as far as the
drawing-room, and there, failed: not even with your recommendation
in my ears, beloved, could I get any further. Notwithstanding all
my flatteries (meaning the flatteries of me!) I was not at best and
strongest, yesterday, nor am even to-day, though it is nothing to mind
or to mention—only I think I shall not try to walk out in this heat even
to-day, and yesterday it seemed impossible. So I came back and lay on
my own sofa, and presently began to read ‘Le Comte de Monte Cristo,’
the new book by Dumas, (observe how I waste my time—while you learn how
_not_ to fortify cities, out of Machiavelli!) and really he amuses me
with his ‘Monte Cristo’ ... six volumes I am glad to see—he is the male
Scheherazade certainly. Now that the hero is safe in a dungeon (of the
Château d’If) it will be delightful to see how he will get out—somebody
knocks at the wall already. Only the narrative is not always very clear
to me, inasmuch as, when I read, I unconsciously interleave it with such
thoughts of you as make very curious cross readings ... j’avais cru
remarquer quelques infidelités ... he really seems to love me—l’homme
n’est jamais qu’un homme ... never was any man like him—ses traits
étaient bouleversés ... the calmest eyes I ever saw.... So, Dumas or
Machiavelli, it is of the less consequence what I read, I suppose, while
I apply so undestractedly.
May God bless you, ever beloved! I think of you, I love you—I forgot
again your ‘Strafford’—Mr. Forster’s ‘Strafford,’ I beg his pardon for
not attributing to him other men’s works. Not that I mean to be cross—not
to him even.
I am your own.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 8, 1846.]
One thing you said yesterday which I want to notice and protest against,
my Ba—you charged me with speaking depreciatingly of myself because you
had set the example—‘I should not have thought of it but that you began.’
Now I am tired, just at this moment, and submissive altogether, and
_hopeful_ besides, on the whole,—so I will let you off with a simple but
firmest of protests,—I did NOT think of imitating you, but spoke as I
felt and knew,—and feel and know still. The world, generally, will inform
you of this in its own good time and way, so ... _taceo_! (The last
opinion of the world’s on the respective value of people and people, is
unhappily too decisive. ‘And, after all, Mr. Langton is quite as good as
the Duke’s daughter ... for he will have full twenty thousand a year!’)
I suspect I was going to turn a pretty phrase and tell you I have only
a heart, as the play-books prescribe,—when the said heart pricks me as
if I reserved something—so I will confess to owning a ‘forehead and an
eye’—one advantage over Pope, to whom folks used to remark ‘Sir, you have
an eye’—and no more—whereas yesterday evening after leaving Ba, while I
settled myself in the corner of our omnibus to think of her, a spruce
gentleman stretched over, and amid the rumbling begged my pardon for
being forced to remark that my forehead and eye interested him deeply,
phrenologist as he was; and he was sure I must needs be _somebody_ ...
besides a passenger to Greenwich! So if Ba will trust in phrenology!—I
will at least not be unkind to her as to the learned man—who left the
vehicle in due time, lamenting that in return for his own confidence and
pink bill (‘Mr. Hamilton, phrenologist and lecturer’ &c. &c.) I would not
break my obstinate reserve and augustly pronounce ‘Am I a Beefeater now?’
_Assez de sottises_: Ba, my Ba, I am happy in you beyond hope of
expression—you know how happy.... And have not I some shade of a right,—I
who loved the dear, dear pale cheek and the thin hand,—a right to be
blessed in the wonders I see ... so long as I continue to be thankful to
God whose direct doing I know it to be: how can I ever doubt the rest ...
the so easy matters remaining—I will not doubt more, I think.
Tell me, write of yourself, love: remember the fierce heat ... and
_never_ go up the long stairs—or, at least, _rest_ at proper intervals.
I think of the Homeric stone heaved nearly to the hill-top and
_then_!... An accident now would be horrible,—think, and take every
precaution—because it is _my_ life, (if that will influence you) my whole
happiness you are carrying safely or letting slip. May God over-watch all
and care for us!
Good bye, best beloved,—I fear I ought to go to Mrs. Jameson’s to-night:
there is a breakfast engagement for Wednesday, to meet this and the
other notable; and a simple ‘at home’ promised to anybody calling this
evening—and my pride won’t let me accept _one_, nor my liking to Mrs.
J. suffer me to refuse both.... Yet the fatigue! I have been at church
to-day, seeing people faint.
Your own, your own R.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday.
[Post-mark, June 8, 1846.]
My ‘recommendation’ to dearest Ba was properly interpreted by her when
she regarded the spirit and not the letter of it.
The day was hot—even _I_ thought who thrive in heat—and yesterday you
did well to keep the house—but last night’s rain, and this comfort of
cloudiness may allow you to resume the exercise,—only with _all_ ease,
darling! Mrs. Jameson told me she called the other day on Miss Barrett,
and was informed that lady was ‘walking before her door’—for I went last
night, and deserved to be amused, perhaps, for the effort, ... and so I
was, I never liked our friend as I now like her, I more than like the
good nature and good feeling and versatility of ready intelligence and
quick general sympathy. She is to see you to-day. She told this to a Miss
Kindersley who had been reading the ‘Drama of Exile’ to her complete
delight—but in listening silently,—and after, when Mrs. J. obligingly
turned and said ‘How I should like to introduce _you_ to Miss Barrett
... did you ever see her?’ ... to which I answered in the old way, ‘that
nobody, as she knew, saw you.’ At all these times did not I feel the
‘mask’ you speak of! I am, fortunately, out of the way of enquiries ...
but if the thing were of constant occurrence, it would be intolerable.
Shall it indeed end soon? May I count by months, by weeks? It is not
safe—beginning to write on this subject—I can do nothing moreover.
Well, Lough has some good works, and you will be pleased I daresay:
but of all things, hold him to his bond of maintaining the strictest
privacy—for Mr. Powell or his kith and kin go there, and _his_ impudence
and brazen insensibility are dreadful to encounter beyond all belief.
He would book-make about ‘the meeting,’ and in his ordinary talk,
be supplied with a subject to tell lies about for the next year or
two,—unless he got a lesson earlier. But Lough will understand and keep
his promise, no doubt, if you exact it strictly.
My mother is decidedly better, ... I am quite well—considering Thursday
is so far off!—considering the end of summer is so far off. Would it be
profane to think of that lament ... ‘the Summer is ended and we are not
saved’?
I am obliged to leave off here—I love you ever my best
dearest, own Ba!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday _Morning_.
[Post-mark, June 9, 1846.]
The stars threaten you with a long letter to-day, it seems, for I stretch
out my hand and take blindly the largest sheet. Dearest, I have been
driving out before your letter came ... and to _Hampstead_! think of
_that_. And see the proof of it—this grew in the hedges when the sun rose
to-day. We had a great branch gathered, and ‘this was of it,’ starred
over with dog-roses. I did in the morning long for air, through the
suffocation yesterday, and the walking being better for another day, my
sisters persuaded me into the carriage. Only I wanted to wait for your
letter, my letter, and could not—it did not come by the usual early post,
and the carriage was here before it ... so I had to go, thinking of it
all the way, and having it on my return ready to gladden me. How you
make me laugh with your phrenologist! ‘For the interests of science’ you
should have given your name. Then, would have come the whole history in
the next lecture, ... how ‘Once in an omnibus he met an individual with
a forehead and eyes of mark, and knew him at a glance for the first poet
of the age.’ It would have made a feature in the lecture, and highly
developed, I dare say, ... to suit the features in the omnibus. Just at
the moment of this observation _I_ too was thinking of eyes—‘calm eyes’
did I say? Yes, calm, serene ... which was what struck me first of all,
in the look of them—was it ever observed before, I wonder? The most
serene spiritual eyes, I ever saw—I thought _that_ the first day I saw
_you_. They may be called by other names beside, but they shall not lose
the name I then gave them. Now to bear with the horrible portrait in
the matter of the eyes, is a hard thing—Mr. Howitt must have _his_ shut
nearly, I think. The hair is like—and nothing else. The mouth, the form
of the cheek, one is as unlike as the other. And the character of the
whole is _most_ unlike of the whole—it is a vulgarized caricature—and
I only wonder how I could have fastened it inside of my ‘Paracelsus’
frontispiece-fashion. When it was hung up and framed, I did not know you
face to face, remember. Mr. Kenyon told me it was ‘rather like.’ But
always and uninstructed I seemed to know that it was not like you in some
things....
_Monday Evening._—Observe how the sentence breaks off! While I was
writing it, came a ‘tapping, tapping at the chamber door,’ as sings my
dedicator Edgar Poe. Flush barked vociferously; I threw down the pen
and shut up the writing case, ... and lo, Mrs. Jameson! I suppose she
did not guess that I was writing to you. She brought me the engravings
of Xanthian marbles, and also her new essays ... and was very kind as
usual, and proposed to come some day next week with a carriage to take
me out,—and all this time, how we treat her! Will she not have a right
to complain of being denied the degree of confidence we gave ( ... Mr.
Kenyon gave for me ...) to Miss Bayley? Will she not think hereafter
‘There was no need of their deceiving _me_?’ And yet I doubt how to
retreat now. Could I possibly say to her the next time she speaks of you
... or could I not? it would set her on suspecting perhaps. She talked
a little to-day of Italy, and plainly asked me what thoughts I had of
it,—to which I could answer truthfully ‘No thoughts, but dreams.’ Then
she insisted, ‘But whenever you have thoughts, you will let me know them?
You will not be in Italy when I am there, without my knowing it? And
where will you go—? to Pisa? ... to Sienna? to Naples?’ And she advised
... ‘Don’t go where the English are, in any case.’ And encouraged like an
oracle, ... ‘Remember that where there’s a will there’s a way’—knowing no
more what she spoke, than a Pythian on the serpent’s skin.
Beloved, you are right in your fear about Mr. Lough. I have decided not
to go there. Oh, it is best certainly; and, quietly considered, I shall
be happier as well as safer in not going. We must walk softly on the
snowdrifts of the world, now that we have got to them.
For the rest, ... that is for the chief thing ... you wrote foolishly
in your first letter to-day, my beloved,—you _can_ write foolishly on
occasion, let me grant to the critics. I have just so much logic as to be
able to see (though I am a woman) that for _me_ to be too good for _you_,
and for _you_ to be too good for _me_, cannot be true at once, both ways.
Now I could discern and prove, from the beginning of the beginning, that
_you_ were too good for _me_—it is too late therefore to take up the
other argument—the handle of it was broken last year.
Also, I do not go to the world to ask it to appraise you—I would fain
leave to Robins the things of Robins. I hope you have repented all day
to-day having written so foolishly yesterday. Even Robins would not
justify you.
Dearest, the avalanches are on us! Uncle and aunts coming down in a great
crash! My uncle Hedley comes next week!—on the second or third of July,
the eldest of my aunts, ... from Paris, ... who proposes to reside in
this house for a week—it may be longer! and, still in July, the rest
of the Hedleys, I think!—everybody coming, coming! Their welcome will
be somewhat of a ghastly smile from _me_—for indeed I cannot be quite
delighted, after the fashion of a thoroughly dutiful niece.
Ah, never mind them! Nobody can change anything, if you do not change
yourself. You have ‘a right’ ... not the ‘shadow’ of one, but the very
right ... to all I am, and to all the life I live. Did you not see
before, what I have felt so long, that indeed you have a right to me and
over me?
I am your own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 9, 1846.]
_Is_ your letter ‘long,’ my own Ba? I seem to get to the end, each time I
read it, just as sorrowfully soon as usual—so much for thankfulness! But
if Ba is not to be ‘tall,’ depend on it, her letter shall not describe
itself as ‘long’—though in a sense nothing ever written, ever read by
me, drew such a trail of light after it as her letters—your letters, my
own, own love! While I write this, my lips rest on the eglantine ...
well, it shall be ‘_dog_-rose’ for Flushie’s sake! You say truly about
the folly—it is very foolish,—when I fancy you proposing to give _me_ a
golden Papal rose and gift for a King, instead of this! And if _I_ feel
this, why should not you, and more vividly even? A rose from Hampstead!
And you bore the journey well? You should tell me, precisely, detailedly.
As for Lough’s statues ... now, I have said more than I meant if it
deters you from going to see them! If he will abide strictly by his
promise, there is much to reward the trouble of going.
Always remember, my Ba, that the secret is _your_ secret and not mine ...
that I keep it while you bid me, but that you may communicate it to whom
you please, _when_ you please, without waiting to apprize me. I should,
I think, have preferred telling Mrs. Jameson from the beginning about
the mere visits ... or, I don’t know ... by one such piece of frankness
you only expose yourself to fifty new—whatever they are! For there would
be so much the more talk about you,—and either the quick woman’s wit and
discernment are to be eluded, or they are not,—foiled or not—and how
manage without ... without those _particular_ evasions which seem to
degrade most of all? Miss Mitford’s promises began the embarrassment.
In short I think the best way in such a case is to tell _all_ or none.
I believe you might tell all to Mrs. Jameson with perfect safety, but,
for _her_ sake, I doubt the propriety ... for it would be to introduce
her forthwith to exactly our own annoyances with respect to Mr. Kenyon,
Chorley &c. Once knowing, she cannot _un_-know. In any case, I promise my
conscience to give her,—and anybody else that may have a right to it,—a
full explanation at the earliest safe moment.. may _that_ be at no great
distance! My own feeling is for telling Mr. Kenyon ... though you would
considerably startle me if you answered ‘well, _do_!’ But, of the whole
world, I seem only to care for _his_ not feeling aggrieved: oh, he will
understand!—and _can_, because he knows the circumstances at your house.
Come what will, I am sure of you; ‘if you live, and are well’—even this
last clause I might exclude; it has often been in my thought to tell
you ... only, dearest, there is always, when I plan never so dreamily
and vaguely, always an understood submission the most absolute to your
own desire ... but I fancied, that, in the case of any _real_ obstacle
arising so as to necessitate the ‘postponement,’ &c., I should have
_stipulated_ ... in the right yourself have given me ... I should have
said—‘we will postpone it, if you will marry me _now_ ... merely as to
the form ... but so as to enable me, if difficulties should thicken, to
be by your bed-_side_ at least.’ You see, what you want ‘to relieve’ me
of, is just what my life should be thrice paid down for and cheaply. How
could you ever be so truly mine as _so_? Even the poor service does not
‘part us’ before ‘death’——‘till _sickness_ do us part!’
But there will be no sickness and all happiness, I trust in God! Dear,
dear Ba, I love you wholly and for ever—true as I kiss your rose, and
will keep it for ever. Bless you.
My first letter ‘did not reach you by the first post on Monday
morning’—No! How should it ... when I carried it to town on Sunday night
and went half a mile out of my way to put it in the general post office
at the corner of Oxford Street!
You know I am to breakfast with Mrs. Jameson to-morrow—and perhaps I may
make some calls after: if anything keeps me in Town so as to hinder the
letter by the 8 o’clock post, you will know the reason ... and expect the
letter the next morning; but I will endeavour to get back in time.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 10, 1846.]
Best, dearest beloved, ... would it not be strange if you were not so to
me? How do you think I feel, hearing you say such things ... finding such
thoughts in your mind? If it is not worthy of you to have a burden set
on your shoulders and to be forced into the shadow of disquietudes not
your own, yet this divine tenderness is worthy of you ... worthy of your
nature; as I know and recognise! May God help me to thank you, for I have
not a word.
Practically however, see how your proposal would work. It could not work
_at all_, unless circumstances were known—and if they were known, at the
very moment of their being known you would be saved, dearest, all the
trouble of coming up-stairs to me, by my being thrown out of the window
to you ... upon which, you might certainly pick up the pieces of me and
put them into a bag and set off for Nova Zembla. _That_ would be the
event of the working of your proposition. Yet remember that I will accede
to whatever you shall choose—so _think for us both_. You know more of
the world and have more practical sense than I—and if you did not, had
not, you may _do what you like with your own_, as surely as the Duke of
Newcastle might.
For Mrs. Jameson, I never should think of telling her ‘_all_’—I should
not, could not, would not! and the gods forefend that you should think
of telling Mr. Kenyon any more. Now, listen. Perfectly I understand your
reasons, your scruples ... what are they to be called? But I promise
to take the blame of it. I will tell dear Mr. Kenyon hereafter that
you would have spoken, but that I _would not let you_—won’t _that_ do?
won’t it stop the pricking of the conscience? Because, you see, I know
Mr. Kenyon, ... and I know perfectly that either he would be unhappy
himself, or he would make us so. He never could bear the sense of
responsibility. Then, as he told me to-day, and as long ago I knew, ...
he is ‘irresolute,’ timid in deciding. Then he shrinks before the dæmon
of the world—and ‘what may be said’ is louder to him than thunder. And
then again, and worst of all, he sees afar off casualty within casualty,
and a marriage without lawyers would be an abomination in his sight.
Moreover, to discover ourselves to him, and _not submit to his counsels_,
would be a real offence ... would it not? As it is, it may seem natural
and excusable that we two of ourselves should poetically rush into a
foolishness—but if we heard counsel, and rejected it!! Do you see?...
He came here to-day, dear Mr. Kenyon, and is to come with Miss Bayley on
Friday, and take me in the carriage to drive, and to see his house. I
must go, but dread it ... shrink from it—yes, indeed. As for Mr. Lough,
how could I have ‘bound him with Styx nine times round him?’ It is easier
to bind Mrs. Jameson. Oh no! You were right, and I was wrong in my first
inclination about Mr. Lough.
And yesterday I was not tired to signify. I shall not be ill, my
beloved,—I think I shall not. I am as perfectly well now in all respects
(except that I have not strength for much exercise and noise and
confusion, ...) as it is possible to be. So do not be anxious about
me—rather spend your dear thoughts of me in loving me, ... dear, dearest!
You breakfast with Mrs. Jameson, and I shall remember not to long too
much for the eight o’clock letter at night. Remember _you_, not to be
hurried as to the writing of it.
Oh! I had a letter from my particular Bennet this morning, ... and my
Georgiana desires me instantly to say why I presumed not to write to her
before. I am commanded out of all further delays. ‘_Did_ I receive her
letter,’ she wonders!!!! Georgiana is imperative.
May God bless you, you who bless me!
I am wholly your own.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 12, 1846.]
I must write very little to-day, dearest, because Mr. Kenyon, as a
note from him just tells me, comes at half past two for me, and in
the meantime I am expecting a visit from my uncle Hedley, who arrived
yesterday while we were together. Scarcely could Henrietta keep him, she
says, from coming up-stairs ‘to see Ba!’ We just escaped, therefore. I
have been thinking that having the barbarians down on us may be at least
a means of preserving us from going into the wilderness ourselves ...
_my_self ... if I were taken away, as I told you, to Tunbridge, Dover, or
other provinces of Siberia. How should I bear, do you think, to be taken
away from you? Very badly!—though you will not hear of my being able to
love you as I ought——when _that_ is precisely the only thing I can do, it
seems to me, at all worthily of you.
_Ora pro me_ in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage to-day—I am getting so nervous and
frightened! I shall feel all the while as if set on a vane on the top of
St. Paul’s ... can you fancy the feeling? I do wish I were safe at home
again, reading your letter ... which _will_ come to-night—_will_ ...
_shall_ ... _must_ ... according to the letter and spirit of the Law.