_Shall_ you be tired of me in one winter, I wonder? My programme is, to
let you try me for one winter, and if you are tired (as I shall know
without any confession on your side) why then I shall set the mule on a
canter and leave you in La Cava, and go and live in Greece somewhere all
alone, taking enough with me for bread and salt. Is it a jest, do you
think? Indeed it is not. It is very grave earnest, be sure. I believe
that I never could quarrel with you; but the same cause would absolutely
hinder my living with you if you did not love me. We could not lead
the abominable lives of ‘married people’ all round—you _know_ we could
not—_I_ at least know that _I_ could not, and just because I love you so
entirely. Then, you know, you could come to England by yourself—and ...
‘Where’s Ba?’—‘Oh, she’s somewhere in the world, I suppose. How can _I_
tell?’ And then Mrs. Jameson would shake her head, and observe that the
problem was solved exactly as she expected, and that artistical natures
smelt of sulphur and brimstone, without any exceptions.
Am I laughing? am I crying? who can tell. But I am not _teazing_, ...
Robert! because, my Robert, if gravely I distrusted your affection, I
could not use such light-sounding words on the whole—now could I? It is
only the supposition of a _possible_ future ... just possible ... (as the
end of human affections passes for a possible thing)—which made me say
what I would do in such a case.
But I am yours—your own: and it is impossible, in my _belief_, that I can
ever fail to you so as to be less yours, on this side the grave or across
it. _So_, I think of _im_possibilities—whatever I may, of possibilities!
Will it be possible to see you to morrow, I wonder! I ask myself and not
you.
And if you love me only nearly as much (instead of the prodigal ‘more’)
_afterward_, I shall be satisfied, and shall not run from you further
than to the bottom of the page.
Where you see me as your own
BA.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 3, 1846.]
I am forced to say something now which you will not like and which I, for
my part, hate to say—but you shall judge how impossible it is for me to
see you to-morrow.
The visitors did not come last night; and as this morning we expected
them hourly, the post brought a letter instead, to the effect that they
were to arrive just _on Saturday_ ... leaving us to calculate the time
of arrival between one p.m. to five or six. If at one, ... Papa will be
in the house and likely to stay in it all day after ... which would be
a complication of disadvantages for us, and if at three ... why even
so, my aunt would ‘admire’ a little the reason of my not seeing her at
once, and there would be questions and answers a faire frémir. So dearest
dearest, I must try to live these two days more without seeing you—and
indeed it will be hard work—the very light of the sun to-morrow, let it
be ever so bright a sun, will only reproach the day with what it _ought_
to have been ... _our_ day, instead of everybody’s day or nobody’s day,
a poor, blank, dreary day. What, when the clock is at three ... oh
_what_ will keep me, I wonder, from being sullen to my aunt and sulky
to my cousin? They will think me (if my ministering angel should not
throw me some hallowing thought of _you_, best beloved!) considerably
fallen off in the _morale_, however the improvement may be of the bodily
health—I shall be as cross, as cross ... well, if I am less than cross,
you must be right after all, and I, ‘une femme miraculeuse’ without
illusion! It is too bad, too bad. The whole week—from Monday to Monday!
And I do not positively fix even Monday, though I hope for Monday:—but
Monday may be taken from us just as Saturday is, and the Hedleys are to
come on _Tuesday_ ... only not to this house. I wish they were all at
Seringapatam.
Do not mind it however. Yes, mind it a little, ... Robert! but not
overmuch—because the day shall not be lost utterly—I shall take care. I
will be on the watch for half-days when people go out to shop ... that
solemn business of life, ... and we will have our lost day back again
... you will see. But I could not get to Mrs. Jameson’s this morning,
not being quite well enough. It is _nothing_ as illness,—I tell you the
truth, dear—and even now I feel better than I did in the early morning.
It was only just enough to prevent my going. And if I had gone I should
not have seen you—you would not go in time—you would not perhaps even
have my letter in time. The stars are against us for the moment, it seems.
Write to me, think of me, love me. You shall hear on Saturday and on
Sunday, and we will settle about Monday.
After all, it would have been difficult to have met you at Mrs.
Jameson’s, observing the ‘fitness of things’: ... and as I am subject to
the madness of saying ‘Robert’ without knowing it...!
May God bless you. Say how you are! Don’t let me slide out of your mind
through this rift in the rock. I catch at the jutting stones.
I am your own BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday.
[Post-mark, July 3, 1846.]
No, dear, dear Ba, I shall not see you to-day in spite of all the hoping
and fancying ... for I could not, as I calculate, reach Mrs. Jameson’s
before 1 o’clock or a little later ... and there would be the worst of
vexations, to know you had been and gone again! I persuade myself you may
not pay the visit to-day, ... (‘it is impossible’ you say), and that it
may be paid next week, the week in which there is only one day for us ...
how do you say, dearest? all complaining is vain—let to-morrow make haste
and arrive!
Ba, there is nothing in your letter that shocks me,—nothing: if you
choose to imagine _that_ ‘possibility,’ you are consistent in imagining
the proper step to take ... it is all imagining. But I feel altogether
as you feel about the horribleness of married friends, mutual esteemers
&c.—when your name sounds in my ear like any other name, your voice
like other voices,—when we wisely cease to interfere with each other’s
pursuits,—respect differences of taste &c. &c., all will be over _then_!
I cannot myself conceive of one respect in which I shall ever fall from
this feeling for you ... there never has been one word, one gesture
unprompted by the living, immediate love beneath—but there have been
many, many, _so_ many that the same love has suppressed, refused to be
represented by! I say this, because I can suppose a man taking up a
service of looks and words, which service is only to last for a time, and
so may be endured,—after which the ‘real affection,’ ‘honest attachment’
&c. &c. means to go to its ends by a shorter road, saving useless
ceremony and phrases ... do you know what I mean? I hardly do ... except
that it is, whatever it is, opposed, as heaven to earth, to what I feel
is. I count confidently on being more and more able to find the true
words and ways (which may not be _spoken_ words perhaps), the true rites
by which you should be worshipped, you dear, dear Ba, my entire blessing
now and ever—and _ever_; if God shall save me also.
Let me kiss you now, and long for to-morrow—I shall bring you the poorest
flowers——all is brown, dry, autumnal. The sun shines and reproves me....
After all, there would have been some rocks in the pleasant water of
to-day’s meeting ... ‘Oh, hardness to dissemble’!
Here is no dissembling.... I kiss you, my very own!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Night,
[Post-mark, July 4, 1846.]
Ah! ‘to-morrow, make haste and arrive.’ And what good will to-morrow do
when it comes?
Dearest, with your letter to-night, I have a note from Mrs. Jameson, who
proposes that I should go to her just on this to-morrow, between twelve
and one: she will wait for me till one and then go out. Moreover she
leaves town on Tuesday. Now I think I ought to try to be with her this
time, therefore, on the hour she mentions, and I will try ... I mean to
try. But as for seeing you even _so_, and for a moment, ... I understand
that it scarcely is possible—no, _not_ possible—you cannot have time, I
think. Thinking which, understanding which, I shall yet, in spite of
reason, listen for the footstep and the voice: certainly I shall not help
doing _that_.
Our to-morrow!—How they have spoilt it for us! In revenge, I shall love
you to-morrow twice as much, looking at my dead flowers. Twice as much!!
‘_Ba, never talk extravagances._’ _Twice as much_ is a giant fifty feet
high. It is foolish to be fabulous.
Being better this evening (almost as if I were sure to see you in
the morning) I went out to drive with Arabel and Flush, about six
o’clock,—and we were not at home until eight, after having seen a mirage
(as it appeared) of green fields and trees. Beyond Harrow cemetery we
went, through silent lanes and hedgerows—so silent, so full of repose!
Quite far away over the tops of the trees, was ‘_London_,’ Arabel said
... but I could see only a cloud:—it seemed no more, nor otherwise. Once
she got out and went into a field to give Flush a run—and I, left to
myself and you, read your last letter in the carriage, under the branches
which were dropping separate shadows of every leaf they had. The setting
sun forced them to it. Oh—but I send you no leaves, because I could not
reach any, and did not get out to walk to-day where I might have gathered
them. Arabel tried hard to persuade me to go into the cemetery—but let
me deserve all she said to me about weakness and foolishness, ... really
that sort of thing does sadden me—my spirits fall flat with it: it is the
dark side of death. So I begged her to go by herself and to leave me....
I would wait for her—and she should have as long a pleasure in that
pleasure-ground of the Dead, as she liked. ‘Very pretty,’ it is said to
be—the dissenters and the churchpeople planted in separate beds; and the
Roman Catholics conspicuous for their roses! Oh that ghastly mixture of
horror and frivolity! The _niaiserie_ of their divisions and subdivisions
taken down so carefully into the dust! But Arabel did not go at last, and
we were at home quite late enough.
May God bless you, dear, dear! Give me all my thoughts (those that belong
to me) to-morrow. Poor disinherited to-morrow.
I will _write_ to-morrow, at any rate—and _hear_—let me hear.
And you are the best, best! When I speak lead, you answer gold. Because I
‘do not shock’ you, you melt my heart away with joy.
Yet I can love you enough, even I!
Your BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday.
[Post-mark, July 4, 1846.]
Dearest Ba, I am at Mrs. Jameson’s ... to hear you cannot come; most
properly. She wants me to go and see an Exhibition, and I cannot refuse
... so this is my poor long letter (with kisses in the words), that was
to have been! But on Monday, dearest, dearest, I shall see you? All
thanks for your letter.... I dare write no more, as there _must_ be some
difference in my way of writing to you from other ways.
Bless you, ever, as I am ever yours—
R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday.
[Post-mark, July 4, 1846.]
Ah, this Saturday! how heavily the wheels of it turn round! as if ‘with
all the weights of sleep and death hung at them.’ After all it was not
possible for me to get to Mrs. Jameson’s this morning ... not that I was
unwell to _signify_, mind—but unfit for the exertion—and it would not
have been agreeable to anybody if I had gone there and fainted. So here
I am, the picture of helpless indolence, stretched out at full length
between the chair and the high stool, thinking how you will not to-day
sit on the low one, nor in your old own place by me——oh how I think,
think, think of you, to make imperfect amends! Are you disappointed ...
_you_? I hope you are, and I fear you are. My generosity does not carry
me through the hope of it to the end. I love your love too much. And
_that_ is the worst fault, my beloved, I ever can find in my love of
_you_.
Look, what Miss Mitford has sent me from the _Daily News_—Mr. Horne’s
lament for poor Haydon. Tell me if you do not like it. It has moved
me much, and as a composition it is fine, I think,—worthy of ‘Orion.’
I shall write to Mr. Horne to thank him, as one reader of many, for
touching that solemn string into such a right melody. To my mind, it is
worth, and more than worth, twenty such books as his ballad-book—tell me
if it isn’t. It has much affected me.
Papa went out early—so we should have escaped the ‘complication’—but
every half-hour we are expecting our visitors. And for Monday ... I
scarcely dare say yet ‘Come on Monday.’ Only we will find our lost
Pleiads ... of that, be very sure—_I_ am very sure. Still to miss one for
a moment draws me into darkness—or ... do you not know that you are _all_
my stars? yes, and the sun, besides! The thing which people call a sun
seems to shine quite coldly to-day, because you are not on this side of
my window. ‘All complaining is vain,’ do you say?
Let me pass the time a little, then, by confessing to you that what you
said, some letters ago, about the character of our intercourse, in our
present relation, being a sort of security for the future, ... that
_that_ did strike me as a true and reasonable observation as far as it
goes. I think, at least, that if I were inclined to fear for my own
happiness apart from yours (which, as God knows, is a fear that never
comes into my head), I should have sense to reason myself clear of it all
by seeing in you none of the common rampant man-vices which tread down
a woman’s peace—and which begin the work often long before marriage.
Oh, I understand perfectly, how as soon as ever a common man is sure of
a woman’s affections, he takes up the tone of right and might ... and
he _will_ have it so ... and he _won’t_ have it so! I have heard of the
bitterest tears being shed by the victim as soon as ever, by one word of
hers, she had placed herself in his power. Of such are ‘Lovers’ quarrels’
for the most part. The growth of power on one side ... and the struggle
against it, by means legal and illegal, on the other. There are other
causes, of course—but for none of them could it be possible for _me_ to
quarrel with _you_ now or ever. Neither now nor ever do I look forward
to the ordinary dangers. What I have feared has been so different! May
God bless you my own ... own! For my part, you have my leave to make me
unhappy if you please. It only would be just that the happiness you have
given, you should take away—it is yours, as I am yours.
Say how your head is—say how your mother is. Think of me with the
thoughts that do good.
Your own
BA.
TO THE MEMORY OF B. R. HAYDON
_By the Author of ‘Orion’_
Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse!
Thy fiery whispers rule this mortal hour,
Wherein the toiling Artist’s constant soul
Revels in glories of a visioned world,—
Power, like a god, exalting the full heart;
Beauty with subtlest ravishment of grace
Refining all the senses; while afar
Through vistas of the stars where strange friends dwell.
A temple smiles for him to take his seat
Among the happy Dead whose work is done.
Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse!
Thou lead’st the devotee through fruitful bowers
Wherein Imagination multiplies
Divinely, and, with noblest ecstasy,
To nature ever renders truth for truth.
Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse!
Thou teachest to be strong and virtuous;
In labour, patient; clear-eyed as a star,
Self-truthful; vigilant within; and full
Of faith to be, and do, and send it forth;—
But teachest no man how to know himself,
His over-measures or his fallings short,
Nor how to know when he should step aside
Into the quiet shade, to wait his hour
And foil the common dragon of the earth.
O fatal Voice! so syren-sweet, yet rife
With years of sorrow, deathbeds terrible!
Mourn for a worthy son whose aims were high,
Whose faith was strong amidst a scoffing age.
No warning giv’st thou, on the perilous path,
To those who need the gold thy teaching scorns,
Heedless if other knowledge hold due watch.
Thou fill’st with heavenly bliss the enraptured eyes,
While the feet move to ruin and the grave.
Therefore, O voice, inscrutably divine,
Uplifting sunward, casting in the dust,
Forgetting man as man, and mindful only
Of the man-angel even while on earth,—
Mourn now with all thine ancient tenderness,
Mingled with tears that fall in heavy drops,
For One who lost himself, remembering thee!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 6, 1846.]
You will have known by my two or three words that I received your letter
in time to set out for Mrs. J.’s—she said to me, directly and naturally,
‘you have missed a great pleasure’—and then accounted for your absence.
Do not be sorry, Ba, at my gladness ... for I was, I hope, glad ... yes,
I am sure, glad that you ran no risk, if you will not think of _that_,
think of _my_ risk if you had ‘_fainted_’ ... should I have kept the
secret, do you suppose? Oh, dearest of all dreamt-of dearness,—incur
no unnecessary danger now, at ... shall I dare trust,—the end of the
adventure! I cannot fear for any mischance that may follow, once let
my arms be round you ... I mean, the blow seems then to fall on both
alike—now, what dismal, obscure months might be prolonged between us,
before we meet next, by a caprice where the power is! When have I been
so long without the blessing of your sight! Yet how considerately you
have written, what amends you make, all that the case admits of! If I
were less sure of my own mind, and what it knows for _best_, I might
understand the French lover’s fancy of being separated from his mistress
that he might be written to and write ... but the _very best_ I know, and
have ever in sight, and constantly shall strive after ... to see you face
to face, to live so and to die so—which I say, because it ends all, all
that can be ended ... and yet seems in itself so encountered—no death, no
end.
After all, I _may_ see you to-morrow, may I not? There is no more than a
danger, an apprehension, that we may lose to-morrow also, is there? You
cannot tell me after this is read ... I shall know before. If I receive
_no_ letter, mind, I go to you ... so that if the Post is in fault after
its custom, and your note arrives at 3 o’clock, you will know why I seem
to disobey it and call ... and I shall understand why you are not to be
seen—but I will hope.
When you say these exquisitely dear and tender things, you know Ba, it is
as if the sweet hand were on my mouth—I cannot speak ... I try to seem
as if I heard not, for all the joy of hearing ... you give me a jewel
and I cannot repeat ‘you, you _do_ give me a jewel.’ I am not worthy of
any gift, you _must_ know, Ba,—never say you do not—but what you press
on me, let me feel and half-see, and in the end, carry away, but do not
think I can, in set words, _take_ them. At most, they are, and shall be,
half-gift half-loan for adornment’s sake,—mine to wear, yours to take
back again. Even this, all this ungracefulness, is proper, appropriate in
its way—I am penetrated with shame thinking on what you say, and what my
utmost devotion will deserve ... so infinitely less will it deserve! You
are my very, very angel.
Mrs. Jameson showed me the lines you had sent her, Horne’s very beautiful
poem,—very earnest, very solemn and pathetic,—worthy of Horne and the
subject—and you will do well to reward him as you propose. I think I will
also write two or three lines,—telling him that you called my attention
to the poem,—so that he may understand the new friend does not drive out
the old, as the old proverb says. I will wait a day or two and write. And
you are herein, too, a dear good Ba,—to write me out the verses in the
characters I love best of all! I may keep them, I hope.
The weather is hot as ever: Ba, remember how I believe in you—is the
indisposition ‘nothing to signify’? And remember the confidence I make
you of every slightest headache or what looks like it—tell me frankly as
Ba should, and will if she loves me! I am very well ... and my mother
much better. I observe while I write, the clouds gather propitiously for
coolness if not rain—may all be as is best for you—‘and for me?’ Then
kiss me, really, through the distance, and love me, my sweetest Ba!
I am your own—
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 6, 1846.]
Will it do if you come on Wednesday, dearest? It will be safer I
think—and, with people staying in the house, it is necessary, you see,
to consider a little. My aunt is so tired with her journey that she is
not likely to go out at all to-morrow—and when I remember that you dine
with Mr. Kenyon on that Wednesday, it seems marked out for our day. Still
I leave it to you. Never have we been so long parted, and perhaps by
Wednesday you may forget me—ah no! Now I will not make the time longer by
being unkind ... or even unjust.
I meant to write you a long letter to-day,—but first my aunt and
cousin were here telling me all the statistics of Arabella Hedley’s
marriage,—and then Mr. Kenyon came, ... and on such a very different
subject, _his_ talk was, that he has left me quite depressed. It
appears that poor Mr. Haydon, in a paper entering into his reasons for
self-destruction, says that he has left his manuscripts to _me_, with a
desire for me to arrange the terms of their publication with Longman.
Of course it has affected me naturally ... such a proof of trust when
he had so many friends wiser and stronger to look to—but I believe the
reference to be simply to the _fact_ of his having committed to my
care all his private papers in a great trunk ... one of three which he
sent here. Two years ago when we corresponded, he made me read a good
part of his memoirs, which he thought of publishing at that time; and
then he asked me (no, it was a year and a half ago) to speak about
them to some bookseller ... to Longman, he said, I remember, then. I
explained, in reply, how I had not any influence with any bookseller
in the world; advising him besides not to think of printing, without
considerable modification, what I had read. In fact it was—with much that
was individual and interesting,—as unfit as possible for the general
reader—fervid and coarse at once, with personal references blood-dyed at
every page. At the last, I suppose, the idea came back to him of my name
in conjunction with Longman’s—I cannot think that he meant me to do any
_editor’s_ work, for which (with whatever earnestness of will) I must be
comparatively unfit, both as a woman and as personally and historically
ignorant of the persons and times he writes of. I should not know how
one reference would fall innocently, and another like a thunderbolt,
on surviving persons. I only know that without great modification, the
Memoirs should not appear at all ... that the scandal would be great if
they did. At the same time you will feel with me, I am sure, you who
always feel with me, that whatever is clearly set for me to do, I should
not shrink from under these circumstances, whatever the unpleasantness
may be, more or less, involved in the doing. But if Mr. Serjeant Talfourd
is the executor ... is he not the obviously fit person? Well! there is no
need to talk any more. Mr. Kenyon is to try to see the paper. It was Mr.
Forster who came to tell him of this matter and to get him to communicate
it to me. Poor Haydon!
Dearest, I long for you to come and bring me a little light. Tell me how
you are—now tell me. Tell me too how your mother is.
My aunt’s presence here has seemed to throw me back suddenly and
painfully into real life out of my dream-life with you——into the old
dreary flats of real life. She does not know your name even—she sees in
me just _Ba_ who is not your Ba—and when she talks to me ... seeing me so
... I catch the reflection of the cold abstraction as _she_ apprehends
it, and feel myself for a moment a Ba who is not your Ba ... sliding
back into the melancholy of it! Do you understand the curious process, I
talk of so mistily? Do you understand that she makes me sorrowful with
not talking of _you_ while she talks to _me_? Everything, in fact, that
divides us, I must suffer from—so I need not treat metaphysically of
causes and causes ... splitting the thinner straws.
Once she looked to the table where the remains of your flowers are, ...
and said, ‘I suppose Miss Mitford brought you those flowers.’ ‘No,’ I
answered, ‘she did not.’ ‘Oh no,’ began Arabel with a more suggestive
voice, ‘not Miss Mitford’s flowers.’ But I turned the subject quickly.
Robert!—how did you manage to write me the dear note from Mrs. Jameson’s?
how could you dare write and direct it before her eyes? What an audacity
that was of yours. Oh—and how I regretted the missing you, as you proved
it was a missing, by the letter! Twice to miss you on one day, seemed
too much ill-luck ... even for _me_, I was going to write ... but _that_
would have been a word of my old life, before I knew that I was born to
the best fortune and happiest, which any woman could have, ... in being
loved by _you_.
Dearest, do not leave off loving me. Do not forget me by Wednesday. Shall
it be Wednesday? or must it be Thursday? answer _you_.
I am your own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday.
[Post-mark, July 6, 1846.]
When I read, after the reasons for not seeing you to-day, this—‘still I
leave it to you,’—believe, dearest, that I at once made the sacrifice and
determined to wait till Wednesday,—as seemed best for you, and therefore
for me: but at the letter’s very end, amid the sweetest, comes ‘Wednesday
... or must it be Thursday?’ What is _that_? What ‘_must_’ is mine? Shall
you fear, or otherwise suffer, if we appoint Wednesday?