even ... have averted what has happened_? My head and heart have ached
to-day over the inactive hand! But, for the moment, it was out of my
power, without an application where it would have been useless—and
then, I never fancied this case to be more than a piece of a continuous
case ... of a habit fixed. Two years ago he sent me boxes and pictures
precisely so, and took them back again—poor, poor Haydon!—as he will not
this time. And he said last week that Peel had sent him fifty pounds ...
adding ... ‘I do not however want _charity_, but employment.’ Also, I
have been told again and again (oh, never by _you_ my beloved!) that to
give money _there_, was to drop it into a hole of the ground.
But if to have dropped it so, dust to dust, would have saved a living
man—what then?
Yet of the three notes I had from him last week, the first was written
so lightly, that the second came to desire me not to attribute to him a
‘want of feeling.’ And who could think ... contemplate ... this calamity?
May God have mercy on the strongest of us, for we are weak. Oh, that a
man so high hearted and highly endowed ... a bold man, who has thrown
down gauntlet after gauntlet in the face of the world—that such a man
should go mad for a few paltry pounds! For he was _mad_ if he killed
himself! of that I am as sure as if I knew it. If he killed himself, he
was mad first.
Some day, when I have the heart to look for it, you shall see his last
note. I understand now that there are touches in it of a desperate
pathos—but never could he have meditated self-destruction while writing
that note. He said he should write six sets of lectures more ... six more
volumes. He said he was painting a new background to a picture, which
made him ‘feel as if his soul had wings.’ And then he hoped his brain
would not turn. And he ‘gloried’ in the naval dangers of his son at sea.
And he repeated an old phrase of his, which I had heard from him often
before, and which now rings hollowly to the ears of my memory ... that he
_couldn’t and wouldn’t die_. Strange and dreadful!
It is nearly two years since we had a correspondence of some few
months—from which at last I receded, notwithstanding the individuality
and spirit of his letters, and my admiration for a certain fervour and
magnanimity of genius, no one could deny to him. His very faults partook
of that nobleness. But for a year and a half or more perhaps, I scarcely
have written or heard from him—until last week when he wrote to ask for
a shelter for his boxes and pictures. If you had enquired of me the
week before, I might have answered that I did not _wish to renew the
intercourse_—yet who could help being shocked and saddened? _Would_ it
have availed, to have dropped something into that ‘hole in the ground?’
Oh, to imagine _that_! Yet a little would have been but as nothing!—and
he did not ask even for a little—and I should have been ashamed to have
offered but a little. Yet I cannot turn the thought away—_that I did not
offer_.
Henry went to the house as I begged him. His son came to the door, and to
a general enquiry ‘after the family,’ said that ‘Mr. Haydon was dead and
that his family were quite as well as could be expected.’ That horrible
banality is all I know more than you know.
Yesterday at Rogers’s, Mrs. Jameson led me to his picture of Napoleon at
St. Helena. At the moment we looked at it, his hand was scarcely cold,
perhaps. Surely it was not made of the commonest clay of men—that hand!
I pour out my thoughts to you, dearest dearest, as if it were right
rather to think of doing myself that good and relief, than of _you_ who
have to read all. But you spoil me into an excess of liberty, by your
tenderness. Best in the world! Oh—you help me to live—I am better and
lighter since I have drawn near to you even on this paper—already I am
better and lighter. And now I am going to dream of you ... to meet you
on some mystical landing place ... in order to be quite well to-morrow.
Oh—we are so selfish on this earth, that nothing grieves us very long,
let it be ever so grievous, unless we are touched in _ourselves_ ... in
the apple of our eye ... in the quick of our heart ... in _what_ you are,
and _where_ you are ... my own dearest beloved! So you need not be afraid
for _me_! We all look to our own, as I to _you_; the thunderbolts may
strike the tops of the cedars, and, except in the first start, none of
us be moved. True it is of _me_—not of _you_ perhaps—certainly you are
better than I, in all things. Best in the world, you are!—no one is like
you. Can you read what I have written? Do not love me less! Do you think
that I cannot _feel_ you love me, through all this distance? If you loved
me less, I should know, without a word or a sign. Because I live by your
loving me! I am your
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, June 24, 1846.]
But, dearest love—I have just come in later than I expected, I am happy
to say ... for your note only just arrives too, they say ... and I should
have been frightened more than I need say. All blessing on you, Ba. I
have seen no paper.—but Countess Hahn-Hahn said across Carlyle’s table
that poor H. had attempted to shoot himself and then chosen another
method—too successful. Horrible indeed—All to say now is, I shall be with
you to-morrow,—my very own, dearest of all dear created things—my life
and pride and joy—(Bless you).
R.
There is nothing in to-day’s _Times_ I find—
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 26, 1846.]
I drew the table to the fire before I wrote this. Here is cool weather,
grateful to those overcome by last week’s heat, I suppose!—much as
one conceives of a day’s starvation being grateful to people who were
overfeasted some time back. But the coolness (that is, piercing cold as
the north wind can make) sets me to ponder on what you said yesterday,—of
considering summer as beginning next Wednesday, or there about, and
ending by consequence with September. Our time is ‘at the Summer’s end’:
and it does strike me that there may be but too many interpositions
beside that of ‘my own will’ ... far too many. If those equinoctial
winds disturb the sea, the cold weather adds to the difficulties of the
land-journey ... then the will may interpose or stand aloof ... I cannot
take you and kill you ... really, inevitably kill you! As it is ... or
rather, as it might be, I should feel during a transit under the most
favourable circumstances possible, somewhat as the performer of that
trick by which a full glass of water resting in the open hand is made
to describe a circle from above to below and back without spilling a
drop—through some good-natured suspension, in the operator’s interest,
of just a fundamental law of the universe, no more! Therefore if any
September weather shall happen in September ... let us understand and
wait ... another year! and another, and another.
Now, have I ever, with all those askings, asked you once too often, that
is, unnecessarily—‘if this should be,’—or ‘when this should be?’ What is
my ‘will’ to do with it? Can I keep the winds away, alas? My own will has
all along been annihilated before you,—with respect to you—I should never
be able to say ‘she shall dine on fish, or fruit,’ ‘She shall wear silk
gloves or thread gloves’—even to exercise in fancy that much ‘will _over
you_’ is revolting—I _will this_, never to be ‘over you’ if I could!
So, you decide here as elsewhere—but _do_ decide, Ba, my own only Ba—do
_think_, to decide. I _can_ know nothing here as to what is gained or
lost by delay or anticipation—I only refer to the few obvious points
of the advantage of our ‘flight not being in the winter’—and the
consideration that the difficulty in another quarter will never be less
nor more,—therefore is out of the question.
I will tell you something I meant to speak of yesterday. Mrs. Jameson
said Mr. Kenyon had assured her, with the kindest intentions, that it
was quite vain to make those offers of company to Pisa or elsewhere, for
your Father would never give his consent, and the very rationality of the
plan, and probability of the utmost benefit following the adoption of it,
would be the harder to forego the more they were entertained—whereupon,
‘having the passions of his kind he spoke some certain things’—bitter
and unavoidable. Then Mrs. J. spoke too, as you may imagine; apparently
from better knowledge than even I possess. Now I repeat this to your
_common-sense_, my Ba—it is not hard to see that _you_ must be silent
and suffering, where no other can or will be either—so that if a verdict
needs must be pronounced on our conduct, it will be ‘the world’s’ and
not an individual’s—and for once a fair one. Mrs. Jameson’s very words
were ... (writing from what _has been_, observe—what is irrevocably past,
and not what _may_ be)—‘I feel unhappy when in her presence ... impelled
to do her some service, and impeded. _Can_ nothing be done to rescue
her from this? _ought_ it to continue?’ So speaks—not your lover!—who,
as he told you, _did_ long to answer ‘someone with attempt, at least!’
But it was best, for Mrs. Jameson would be blamed afterward, as Mr. K.
might be abused, as ourselves will be vituperated, as my family must be
calumniated ... by _whom_.
Do you feel me kiss your feet while I write this? I think you must, Ba!
There is surely,—I trust, surely no impatience here, in this as in the
other letter—if there is, I will endeavour to repress it ... but it will
be difficult—for I love you, and am not a stock nor a stone.
And as we are now,—another year!
Well, kissing the feet answers everything, declares everything—and I kiss
yours, my own Ba.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 26, 1846.]
Arabel insists on my going out in the carriage, but I will not, I say,
before I have written my letter—and while we talk, the rain comes down
like a guardian angel, and I _cannot_ go out before I have written my
letter, as is apparent to all. Dearest, you did me such good yesterday
with seeing you and hearing you, that I slept better and am better
altogether, and after a little change into the air, shall be well—and how
is your head? Now do not forget to tell me particularly. Say too whether
you found your friend and had the right quantity of talk and got home
without being the worse for him ... or _me_!
I have not had the heart to look at the newspapers, but hear that Sir
Robert Peel has provided liberally for the present necessities of the
poor Haydons. And do you know, the more I think the more I am inclined
to conclude that the money-distress was merely an additional irritation,
and that the despair leading to the revolt against life, had its root
in disappointed ambition. The world did not recognize his genius, and
he punished the world by withdrawing the light. If he had not that
thought in him, I am wrong. The cartoon business, and his being refused
employment in the Houses of Parliament ... _that_ was bitter: and then
came his opposition with Tom Thumb and the dwarfs triumph ... he talked
bitterly of _that_ in a letter to me of last week. He was a man, you
see, who carried his whole being and sensibility on the outside of him;
nay, worse than _so_, since in the thoughts and opinions of the world.
All the audacity and bravery and self-exultation which drew on him
so much ridicule were an agony in disguise—he could not live without
reputation, and he wrestled for it, struggled for it, _kicked_ for it,
forgetting grace of attitude in the pang. When all was vain, he went mad
and died. Poor Haydon! He measures things differently now! and let _us_
now be right and just in our admeasurement of what he was—for, with all
his weaknesses, he was not certainly _far_ from being a great man.
It is hope and help, to be able to look away from all such thoughts, to
_you_, dearest beloved, who do not partake of the faults and feeblenesses
of these lower geniuses. There is hope and help for the world in you—and
if for the world, why for me indeed much more. You do not know ... ah,
you do not know—how I look up to you and trust perfectly in you. You
are above all these clouds—your element is otherwise—men are not your
taskmasters that you should turn to them for recompense. ‘Shall I always
think the same of you,’ you asked yesterday. But I _never_ think the same
of you; because day by day you look greater and feel dearer. Only there
is a deep gulph of another question, close beside _that_, which suggests
itself, and makes me shudder to look down.
And now, the rain is over, and I shall dine briefly, and go out in the
carriage.
May God bless you ... très bon!—très cher, pour cause.
Toute à toi—pour toujours.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 27, 1846.]
Ever dearest, I send you a bare line to-night, for it is late and I am
very tired; having ... while you were sitting by the fire ... been, for
my part, driving to Highgate ... now think of _that_! Also it has done
me good, I think, and I shall sleep for it to-night perhaps, though I am
tired certainly.
Your letter shall be answered to-morrow—and here is a green answer
to your leaves![3]—what leaves? whence and how? My green little
branch, I gathered myself out of the hedge, snatching at it from the
carriage-window. The roses were gone, or nearly gone, and the few left,
quite out of reach; and the leaves keep behind to assure you that they
do not look for snow-storms in _September_. No! it was not _that_, they
said. I am belying what they said.
I gathered them in the hedge of the pretty close green lane which you go
through to Hampstead. Were you ever there, I wonder?
Dearest, I will write to-morrow. Never are you ‘impatient,’
inconsiderate—and as for selfishness, I have been uneasy sometimes,
precisely because you are so _little_ selfish. I am not likely to mistake
... to wrench the wrong way ... any word of yours. As for mine, it was
not a _mere_ word, when I said that you should decide everything. Could I
hold out for November, or October, or for September even, if _you_ choose
against? Indeed I could not. We—you will think—I am yours, and if _you_
never repent _that_, _I_ shall not—I am too entirely yours.
And so good-night—dearest beloved! Because you have a fire in June, is
the snow to fall in September, and earth and ocean to become impassable?
Ah well! we shall see! But you shall not see that I deceive you—
I am your very own
_Ba_.
Dear brown leaves! where did they come from, besides from _you_?
_Not_ a north wind. Only a north-west wind, as I could have proved to you
if you had been with me! Yet it is a detestable climate, this English
climate, let us all confess. Say how your head is.
[3] [A sprig from rose-tree enclosed. R.B.’s previous letter contained
some leaves.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday.
[Post-mark, June 27, 1846.]
Your dear gentle laugh, as I seem to hear it, makes all well again for
the moment undoubtedly. I cannot help trusting you implicitly ... so
whenever I seem able to reason a little, and set you reasoning for me,
ought I not to try,—and then give up, and sink my head over you ...
dearest! In fact, I was a little frightened by what I heard and saw ...
for _you_, if you please, began by saying ‘it was too cold to go out’—and
you were paler, I thought. The news of Highgate and the green leaves are
re-assuring indeed—but my brown leaves might be sent to you by myriads
for all that, for all the light laugh,—all roses fast going, lilies going
... autumnal hollyhocks in full blow ... and now to count three months
over before summer is to end! These rains may do something, or hinder
somewhat—and certainly our fire was left alone early yesterday morning.
Well, I have not been presumptuous except ... ah, the exception!
How could I presume, for one thing, to hope for last evening’s letter
... a pure piece of kindness in you, Ba! And all your kindness is pure,
entire, pearl-like for roundness and completeness ... there is no one
rough side as when a crystal is broken off and given: do you think it
no good augury of our after life in what must be called, I suppose,
another relation,—that _this_ has been so perfect ... to me ... this last
year, let me only say? In this relation there are as many ‘écueils’ as
in the other,—as many, though of a different nature,—lovers quarrel on
as various grounds as the wedded—and though with the hue and softness
of love the most energetic words and deeds may change their character;
yet one might write savage sentences in Chinese celestial-blue ink,
which after a powdering with gold-dust should look prettier than the
truest blessing in ordinary black. But you have been PERFECT to me
hitherto—perfect! And of course only to _you_ is the praise ... for I
have to be entirely confided in by you, seeing that you cannot keep an
eye on me after I leave your room ... whereas,—not I, but a gross, stupid
fool who conceived of no liberty but that of the body, nor that the soul
may be far more unfaithful—such an one might exult in the notion of the
closed door and the excluded world of rivals.
Bless you, darling—Monday is not very far off now! And I am to hear
again. I am much better,—my mother much better too. I saw my French
friend and talked and heard him talk. Yesterday, the whole day, (after
the fire went out) was given to a cousin of mine, a girl, just married,
and here from Paris with her husband—these two had to be amused somehow.
Ever your very own—
R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday.
[Post-mark, June 27, 1846.]
I said I would answer your letter to-day, my beloved, but how shall I
say more than I have said and you know? _Do_ you not know, you who will
not will ‘over’ me, that I _cannot_ will against you, and that if you
set yourself seriously to take September for October, and August for
September, it is all at an end with me and the calendar? Still, seriously
... there is time for deciding, is there not? ... even if I grant to
you, which I do at once, that the road does not grow smoother for us by
prolonged delays. The single advantage perhaps of delay is, that in the
summer I get stronger every week and fitter to travel—and then, it never
was thought of before (that I have heard) to precede September _so_. Last
year, was I not ordered to leave England in October, and _permitted_ to
leave it in November? Yet I agree, November and perhaps October might
be late—might be running a risk through lingering ... in our case; and
you will believe me when I say I should be loth to run the risk of
being forced to the further delay of a year—the position being scarcely
tenable. Now for September, it generally passes for a hot month—it
ripens the peaches—it is the figtime in Italy. Well—nobody decides for
September nevertheless. The end of August is nearer—and at any rate we
can consider, and observe the signs of the heavens and earth in the
meanwhile—there is so much to think of first; and the end, remember, is
only too frightfully easy. Also you shall not have it on your conscience
to have killed me, let ever so much snow fall in September. If the sea
should be frozen over, almost we might go by the land—might we not? and
apart from fabulous ports, there are the rivers—the Seine, the Saône, the
Rhone—which might be cheaper than the sea and the steamers; and _would_,
I almost should fancy. These are things among the multitude, to think
of, and you shall think of them, dearest, in your wisdom. Oh—there is
time—full time.
No—there is not, in a sense. I wanted to write so much more, so much—and
I went out to walk first, and, on returning, met Mr. Kenyon, who came
up-stairs with me.
Now it is too late to add a word.
May God bless you. I shall see you on Monday. I am better for Highgate—I
walked longer to-day than usual. How strong you make me, you who make me
happy!
I am your own.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 29, 1846.]
My last letter will have answered this of yours, my dearest,—I agree
in all you say; and sooner or later comes to the same thing, if to any
possible increase of difficulty is brought a proportionate increase of
strength to undergo it—as let us hope will be the case! So you see you
have to ‘understand’ and understand me,—I keep your faculty in constant
exercise, now with seeming to wish for postponement, and now, for
anticipation! And all the time do I really ‘grow greater’ in your eyes? I
might grow less woefully,—‘for reasons—for reasons’—
The sea will not be frozen, beside ... which makes me think to tell you
that Carlyle is wanting to visit only one foreign country—_Iceland_.
The true cradle of the Northmen and their virtues ... all that is worth
a Northman’s caring to see is there, he thinks, and nowise in Italy.
Perhaps! Indeed, so I _reason_ and say—Did I not once turn on myself and
speak against the Southern spirit, and even Dante, just because of that
conviction?—(or _imperfect_ conviction, whence the uneasy exaggeration).
Carlyle thinks modern Italy’s abasement a direct judgment from God. ‘Here
is a nation in whose breast arise men who _could_ doubt, examine the
new problems of the reformation &c.—trim the balance at intervals, and
throw overboard the accumulation of falsehood—all other nations around,
less favoured, are doing it laboriously for themselves ... now is the
time for the acumen of the Bembos, the Bentivoglios and so forth ...
and these and their like, one and all, turn round, decline the trouble,
say ‘these things _may_ be true, or they may not, meantime let us go on
verse-making, painting, music-scoring’—to which all the nation accedes
as if relieved of a trouble—upon which God bids the Germans go in and
possess them; pluck their fruits and feel their sun after their own hard
work.’ Carlyle said the _sense_ of this, between two huge pipe-whiffs,
the other afternoon.
‘Pluck their fruits’—some four years ago I planted ... or held straight
while my mother planted, a fig-tree,—for love of Italy! This year it
bears its first fruit ... a single one! what does that bode?
Since I wrote the last paragraph, the wind took my thoughts away, as it
always does, and I saw you again as I used to see, _before_ I knew you,
so very substanceless, faint, unreal—when I was struck by the reality
again,—by this paper,—by to-morrow’s visit I shall pay ... it was as if
someone had said ‘but that star is your own.’
I fancied you just what I find you—I knew you from the beginning.
Let me kiss you dearest dearest—
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 30, 1846.]
The gods and men call you by your name, but I never do—never dare. In
case of invocation, tell me how you should be called by such as I? not to
be always the ‘inexpressive _He_’ which I make of you. In case of courage
for invocation!—
Dearest ... (which is a name too) read on the paper inside what I have
been studying about Salerno since we parted yesterday. Forsyth is too
severe in his deductions, perhaps, from the apothecaries, but your Naples
book will not help me to contradict him, saying neither the one thing nor
the other. The word we could not read in the letter yesterday, was _La
Cava_—and La Cava is a town on the way between Naples and Salerno, which
Mrs. Stark describes as ‘a large town with porticoes on each side of the
High Street, like those at Bologna.’ To which the letter adds, remember
‘enchantingly beautiful, very good air and no English. Then there is
Vietri, mentioned by Forsyth, between La Cava and Salerno, and _on the
bay_. It is as well to think of all three. Were you ever at either?
Amalfi itself appears to be very habitable. Oh—and your Naples book says
of Salerno, that it is illuminated by fireflies, and that the chanting
of frogs covers the noises of the city. You will like the frogs, if you
don’t the apothecaries, and I shall like the fireflies if I don’t the
frogs—but I _do_ like frogs, you know, and it was quite a mistake of
yours when you once thought otherwise.
Now I am going out in the carriage, to call on Mr. Kenyon, and perhaps to
see Mr. Boyd. Your flowers are more beautiful than they were yesterday,
if possible: and the fresh coolness helps them to live, so, that I hope
you may see some of them on Saturday when you come. On Saturday! What a
time to wait! if not for _them_, yet for _me_. Of the two, it is easier
for them, certainly. _They_ only miss a little dew and air.
I shall write again to-night,—but I cannot be more then than now, nor
less _ever_ than now
Your own
BA.
Here is a coincidence. Hardly had you left me, when, passing near the
table at the end of the room, I saw a parcel there. Remember your
question about the ‘_Year of the World_’ Precisely that! With a note, the
counterpart of yours—desiring an opinion!
May God bless you, dear, _dear_!—Did I ever think I should live to thank
God that I did not die five years ago?—Not that I quite, quite dare to do
it yet. I must be sure first of something.