permitted in this house. So much for the consent. As for the matter
itself you are right in your supposition—but it is a great secret,—and
I entreat you not to put questions about it to anybody in or out of the
house.’ Something to that effect I believe I said—I was frightened ...
frightened ... and not exactly for Henrietta. What did he mean?—Had _he_
too in his mind....
He touched on Mrs. Jameson ... just _touched_ ... He had desired my
sisters to tell me. He thought I had better write a note to thank her for
her kindness. He had told her that if I had any thoughts of Italy they
could be accomplished only by a sea-voyage, which was impossible to her.
I briefly expressed a sense of the kindness and said that I meant to
write. On which the subject was changed in mutual haste, as seemed to me.
Is not this the book of the chronicles?... And you shall hear again on
Tuesday, if the post should be faithful to me that morning. I might be
inclined to put off our Tuesday’s meeting, but Mrs. Hedley remains in
London for a few days after her daughter’s marriage, and ‘means to see
a great deal’ of me—therefore Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,’ ... where
should we look, from Tuesday? but I must consider and will write. May God
bless you! Do say how you are after that rain. The storm is calm,
and ever and ever I am your own BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 3, 1846.]
What can I tell you, ever dearest, while I am expecting all you are to
tell _me_? I will not conjecture, nor be afraid (for you) before the
time—I felt your dear hand press mine closer while the thunder sounded—so
it will always be, I know, in life, in death—and when a thunder shall
break, of a kind that I can fear, I will hold _your_ hand, my Ba. Perhaps
there is nothing formidable here ... indeed there can hardly be—tell me
_all_. I got to your Hodgson’s, waited a few minutes till a cab passed,
and then was properly deposited at the Haymarket. The streets, at least
the roads out of Town, were flooded—very canals. Here, at home our
skylight was broken,—and our chimneys behaved just as yours.
And now—shall I see you really on Tuesday after this Saturday of perils?
And how will your head be,—your health in general be, you sweetest Ba? Is
it the worse for the storm and the apprehension,—to say nothing of what
may have followed? Oh, if but a ‘sign’ might be vouchsafed me—if I might
go to Wimpole Street presently, and merely know by the disposition of a
blind or of a shutter, that you were better, or no worse! I ought to have
contrived something of the kind yesterday—but ‘presence of mind’!
Ba, I have been reading those poems—now to speak soberly—I had no
conception, Mrs. Butler could have written anything so mournfully
mediocre ... to go as near flattery as I can. With the exception of three
or four pieces respectable from their apparent earnestness, all that
album writing about ‘sprites,’ and the lily-bell, and ‘wishes’—now to be
dead and now alive,—descriptions without colour, songs without tune,—why,
Bennett towers above it! _Either_ Bennett—for the one touch you recorded,
‘I will not be forgot’—seems grandly succinct contrasted with
Yet not in tears remembered be my name—
Weep over those ye loved—for me, for me,
Give me the wreath of glory and let fame
Over my tomb spread immortality.
How many of these unfortunate Sundays are in store for me, I wonder—eight
or nine, then the two months ... ‘when constant faith and holy hope shall
die,’ one lost in certainty and one in the deep deep joy of the ever
present ever dearest Ba! Oh, Ba, how I love you!
Your own R.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 3, 1846.]
Oh, the comfort you are to me, Ba—the perpetual blessing and sustainment!
And what a piece of you, how instinct with you, this letter is! I will
not try to thank you, but my whole life shall.
See! _Now_ talk of ‘three or four months’! And is not the wonder, that
this should wait for the eighty-second visit to happen? Or could anything
be more fortunate, more _mitigating_ than the circumstances under which
it _did_ happen at last? The rain and thunder,—the two hours (see the
accounts—nothing like it has been known, for years), at most, _proved_
against us,—the ignorance of the visits last week—in spite of all which,
see what comes and is likely to come!
Let me say at once that, at the worst, it _may_ come! You have had time
to know enough of me, my Ba,—and I, who from the first knew you, have
taken one by one your promises from your lips,—I _believe_ what you write
here; I accept it as the foundation of all my future happiness—‘you will
never fail me’—I will never fail you, dearest dearest.
How you have mistaken my words, whatever they may have been, about the
‘change’ to be expected in my life! I have, most sincerely I tell you,
no one habit nor manner to change or persevere in,—if you once accept
the general constitution of me as accordant to yours in a sufficient
degree,—my incompleteness with your completeness, dearest,—there is no
further difficulty. I want to be a Poet—to read books which make wise in
their various ways, to see just so much of nature and the ways of men as
seems necessary—and having done this already in some degree, I can easily
and cheerfully afford to go without any or all of it for the future,
if called upon,—and so live on, and ‘use up,’ my past acquisitions
such as they are. I will go to Pisa and learn,—or stay here and learn
in another way—putting, as I always have done, my whole pride, if that
is the proper name, in the being able to work with the least possible
materials. There is my scheme of life _without_ you, _before_ you existed
for me; prosecuted hitherto with every sort of weakness, but always
kept in view and believed in. Now then, please to introduce Ba, and
say what is the habit she changes? But do not try to say what divinest
confirmation she brings to ‘whatever is good and holy and true’ in this
scheme, because even She cannot say that! All the liberty and forbearance
... most graceful, most characteristic of you, sweet! But why should I
play with you, at taking what I mean to give again?—or rather, what
it would be a horror to have to keep—why make fantastic stipulations
only to have the glory of not abiding by them? If I may speak of my own
desires for a moment unconnected with your happiness,—of what I want _for
myself_ purely—what I mean by marrying you,—it is, that I may be with
you forever—I cannot have enough of you in any other relation: why then
should I pretend to make reservations and say ‘Yes, you shall deprive me
of yourself (of your sympathy, of your knowledge, and good wishes, and
counsel) on such and such occasions? But I feel your entire goodness,
dear angel of my life,—ever more I feel it, though all seems felt and
recorded.
And now of your ‘chronicling’—of course Mr. Kenyon _knows_—and this is
the beginning of his considerate, cautious kindness—he has determined to
hurry nothing, interfere abruptly in no case, to make you _infer_ rather
than pretend to instruct you—as you must,—for ‘if the visits of Captain
Cook _have_ that appearance &c., must not those of R.B. &c., &c.,’ So,
this is not from Chorley’s information, mind, but from his own spectacled
_acumen_.
After this, it seems very natural to remark that the Havre packets leave
now at nine instead of eight o’clock on Thursdays and Sundays—while the
departures from Southampton are on Tuesdays and Fridays. My presentiment
is that suddenly you will be removed to Devonshire or Sussex or—. In
which case, our difficulties will multiply considerably—be prepared for
such events!
And for to-morrow—only think of yourself, _lest_ you should forget my
interests: _pray write to-night_, if but two or three words. If I am
allowed to call, I will bring Mrs. Butler’s book in a cover, and, if I
find a note from you, leave _that_, as an excuse for the knock. Will you
contrive that a note shall be ready—in case of your Aunt’s presence &c.
If it saves you from a danger, let me stay away—until the letters stop,
I can bear absence _till_ the _two months end_—any such journey as I
apprehend would be most annoying, deplorable indeed.
Would you not if the worst came,—_what_ would you do?
May God bless you, infinitely bless you, ever dearest dearest, prays ever
your very own—
R.
Mrs. Procter wants me to go to her on Thursday—is there anything to get
out of _that_ arrangement?—probably not—but write!
Do _re_consider, Ba,—had I better stay away to-morrow? You cannot
misunderstand me,—I _only_ think of you—any man’s anger to me is
Flushie’s barking, without the respectability of motive,—but, once the
door shut on me, if he took to biting you! Think for us both! Is there
any possibility of a suspicious sudden return _because_ of the facilities
of the day? Or of the servant being desired to mention my visits—or to
‘deny you,’ as unwell &c.? Ah my soul revolts at the notion of a scene
in your presence—my own tied tongue, and a system of patience I can well
_resolve_ upon, but not be _sure_ of, as experience makes sure.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday.
[Post-mark, August 4, 1846.]
Two precious letters to make amends for yesterday! and in return only
just two or three words to say ... ‘yes, come.’ And I meant to have
proposed to you something like what you suggest when you talk of the book
and the note. If the ground is not clear at three, and Papa (above all)
still in the house, you shall have a note, instead of admittance, ... and
you will understand by the sign that it is wise for us not to meet. My
hope and expectation are, however, that no obstacle will occur—that _he_
will be in the city, and _she_ at Fenton’s Hotel, engaged in some office
of consolation beside her sister. I seriously exhorted her to remain
there the rest of the day to wipe away the tears of the bride’s mother
... as an appendix to the breakfast:—ah, and seriously I thought she
ought to stay, as well as seriously wishing it. And thus, altogether, we
shall probably have open ground when it is desirable. If not, the note!—
For the rest, dearest, do not exaggerate to yourself my report of what
passed on Saturday. It was an unpleasant impression, and that is all,
... and nothing, I believe, has been thought of it since. Once before,
remember, your apparition made an unpleasant impression, which was
perfectly transitory then as now. Now as then, do not suffer such things
to vex you beyond their due import. There will be no coming back, no
directions to servants, nothing of the sort. Only it would not do to
deepen Saturday’s impression with to-morrow’s—we must be prudent a little.
And you see me, my prophet, sent to Sussex or Devonshire, in a flash
of lightning? That is your presentiment, do you say? Well! Sussex
is possible, Kent is not impossible. This house, ... _vox populi
clamat_,—wants cleaning, painting, papering—the inhabitants thereof, too,
cry aloud for fresh air. Nevertheless, summer after summer, there have
been the same reasons for going, and nobody goes. We shall see.
So, till to-morrow! Dear, dearest! you are always best—to justify the
_dearest_, I suppose! I remember your having said before some of this ...
which, never could I forget, having once heard. But think how Alfred the
king divided his days—and how Solomon the king would tell you of ‘a time’
for sitting with _me_. ‘Bid me ... not ... discourse’ however—we shall
both know what is right presently—and I in the meanwhile perfectly do now
that I could not consent to your shutting yourself up for my sake—no,
indeed!
Shall I fail to you? Could I? Could it be needful for me to say ‘_I will
not fail._’
Your own, I am.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 5, 1846.]
One word or two to-night and no more, let the paper spread itself as it
may. Dearest, it was wise of you, perhaps, to go to-day. Wisdom was the
first to wear sackcloth. My aunt, who had just had time to hear of your
being in the house, found my door open, and you were noticed by a passing
jest ... too passing to meet ears in authority—and I was made to put on
my bonnet and go out in the carriage with _our_ department of the bridal
party, who had come home first, in order to change their costume into
something wearable for comfort ... into gowns which had not a devil,
torturing the wearers with a morbid sense of flounces. So they came
home for _that_, and we were vexed and frightened for _that_ reason—and
I was taken to Kensington Gardens to leave some walkers there, and
then to Fenton’s Hotel, to leave my aunt as comforter for the evening.
Altogether, oh, how provoked I was! But it was wise perhaps. I will not
say that it was not very wise indeed. Papa knows nothing of your having
been here, and Saturday is not far off. Still, to think of two hours
being cut off; and of the long journey from New Cross, just for the one
hour! Shall I hear to-morrow _fully_, to make up for it, Robert? And tell
me if you accept Mrs. Jameson’s invitation. And _your head_?
Flush thanks you! I asked him if he loved you even, and he wagged his
tail. Generally when I ask him that question he won’t answer at all,—but
you have overcome him with generosity ... as you do me!
I forgot to tell you—There is a letter from Mr. Horne which makes me
vexed a little. He is coming to England, and says, that, if still I will
not see him, he shall bring his guitar to play and sing for my sisters,
leaving the door open that I may hear up-stairs. What a vexation! How
shall I escape a checkmate now? He castles his king, and the next move
undoes me. There’s a bishop though to be played first, for he wants an
introduction to Whately, which I am to write for to Miss Mitford, if I
_don’t know him myself_.
My consolation for to-day, is, that to-morrow is not Sunday. In the
meanwhile, nothing is talked except of the glories of Fenton’s Hotel. The
bride behaved with the most indisputable grace, and had words and smiles
for everybody. The bridegroom appears to have been rather petrified
(he was saying orisons to St. James, I dare say) and was condemned by
the severer critics, for being able to produce no better speech at the
breakfast, when his health was drunk with ever so much elaboration of
eloquence, than ‘I thank you—I propose yours.’ For my part I sympathize
more with him in that point of specific stupidity, than on any other
I have yet heard of. If he had said as little about ecclesiastical
architecture, he would have been unobjectionable, wholly. They went away
with four horses, in disdain of the railroads.
But poor Mrs. Hedley was dreadfully affected—I knew she would be. This is
the only grown-up daughter, you see,—the others being all children, the
youngest three years old—and she loses a constant companion, besides the
hourly sight of a very lovely girl, the delight of her eyes and heart.
Dearest, you understood why I told you to-day of Mr. Kenyon’s professed
opinions? It was to make you know _him_. The rest, we know alike. And for
_him_ even, when he looks back on a thing instead of looking forward to
it (where the Bude Light of the world is in his eyes and blinds them) he
will see aright and as we do. Only you frightened me by your idea about
his application to you. May God forbid!
May God bless you, rather, in the best way! Why should I choose how? I
_‘ought’ not_, I think, to fancy that I know the best for you, enough to
use such words.
But I am your own. That, we both know! _May_ I be yours, not to do you
harm, my beloved! Good-night, now!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 5, 1846.]
If I had felt, as you pleased to feel yesterday, that it had been ‘only
one hour’ which my coming gained—I should richly deserve to find out
to-day, as I do fully, what the precise value of such an hour is. But
I never act so ungratefully and foolishly—you are more than ever you
have been to me,—yet at any time I would have gone for the moment’s
sight of you,—one moment’s—and returned happy. You never doubt this
because I do not waylay you in your walks and rides? I consider your
sisters, and your apprehension for them, and other reasons that make
such a step objectionable. Do you remember what I said yesterday—what
I have told myself so often? It is one proof how I love you that I am
jealous of any conversation with you which should be too interesting _for
itself_, apart from the joy of your presence—it is better to sit and see
you, or hear you, or only say something which, in its insignificance,
shall be obviously of no account beside the main and proper delight—as
at wine-feasts you get the wine and a plate of thin dry tasteless
biscuits—(observe, for instance, that this noble simile was not set
before you yesterday—no, my Ba!)
And you _did_ understand also why I left, on that mere chance of danger
to you,—for it was not, do you think it was only the irksomeness to
myself I sought to escape—though that would have been considerable.
There is no unstable footing for me in the whole world except just
in your house—which is _not_ yours. I ought not to be in that one
place—all I could do in any circumstances (were a meeting to happen)
would be _wrong_, unfortunate. The certainty of misconception would spoil
everything—so much of gentleness as is included in _gentle_manliness
would pass for a very different quality—and the _manliness_ which one
observes there too, would look like whatever it is farthest from. This is
a real avowal of weakness—because, being in the right, as I dare trust
I am, so far as I can see through the involvement, I ought to be able
to take my stand upon it,—and so I shall be able, and easily—but not
_here_, just here. With Mr. Kenyon, in spite of a few misgivings, I shall
know what to say—I can justify myself, if not convince him. Never fancy,
dearest, that he has any ‘clay’ in his composition—he may show a drop of
water at the heart of the else entire chrystal he is—did you ever see
that pretty phenomenon—of which Claudian wrote so prettily? ‘Non potuit
toto mentiri corpore gemmam, sed medio latuit proditor orbe latex.’
Our Druids used to make balls for divining out of such _all-but-solid_
gems with the central weakness—I have had them in my hand. Such doubts
and fears are infinitely more becoming in him, situated as he is than
their absence would be—if he said for instance, ‘Oh yes,—I am used to
a certain style of living, which of course I do not change for _no_
reason at all,—but who doubts that I _could_ do so, without difficulty or
regret? I shall hardly bestow any sympathy on what I am sure must be the
easiest life in the world!’ One would rather hear an epicure say frankly
he cannot conceive how people can end a dinner without Tokay, than ask
over his Tokay (as Sheridan’s Abbot in the ‘Duenna’) of the poor starved
wistful attendant monk, ‘Haven’t you the chrystal spring?’
In this case, he is directly looking to your possible undertakings,
not merely expressing his general ‘remembrance that we are dust’ and
need gilding—and certainly if in some respects you have, as I believe,
less use, fewer uses for money than ordinary women,—you also have an
absolute _necessity_ for whatever portion you _do_ require,—such a
necessity as _they_ have not, neither. I shall never grieve over the lace
handkerchiefs you cannot get—but whatever you possess already in this
room of yours, or might possess on the contingency of such illness, you
must _keep_,—to your life’s end. I would not take you away on any other
condition. Now listen Ba—not think for a moment that it puts me to the
least, least pain imaginable to talk on this subject, while I know you
wholly, as _there_ I am sure I do, and while you too know me, as I also
am sure,—we may discuss this, as we do the better or worse routes to
Italy, in the fullest confidence of our aims and desires being absolutely
identical,—so that it is but a prize for the ingenuity of either,—a
prize from the common stock of our advantage,—whenever a facility is
discovered or a difficulty avoided. So listen,—will you, at once, or as
soon as practicable, ascertain what you certainly possess—what is quite
yours, and in your sole power, to take or to let remain—what will be just
as available to you in Italy as in England? I want to know, being your
possible husband. My notion of the perfection of money arrangements is
that of a fairy purse which every day should hold _so_ much, and there an
end of trouble. Houses and land always seem like a vineyard to a man who
wants a draught of wine for present thirst: so tell me how much will be
found in the purse—because when we are in Italy or halfway there telling
will be superfluous or beyond remedy,—easy remedy at least.
* * * * *
Since writing the above I have been down-stairs—and now return to tell
you, a miracle has just happened, which my father, mother and sister
are at this moment engaged in admiring—I hear their voices in the
garden. We have a fig-tree which I planted four years ago—this year it
produces its first fruit, a small fig, ‘_seule et unique_,’ which is
still on the tree—not another fig, ripe or unripe, living or dead, has
ever been carried into the garden—yet this morning is discovered in the
exact centre of the garden, and parallel with the fig-tree aforesaid,
another indubitable seedling fig-tree,—‘how begot, how nourished?’ _Ipse
vidi_—does that prognosticate, my own Siren, my soothsayer and wise lady?
And now, have you been incommoded by the storm,—and thunder, which was
loud and lasting here? I thought of you with such thoughts.
And what came of my visit? Was it really your Aunt—did my precipitation
improve matters? Will Saturday have to fear?
Yesterday I was not in a mood to go quietly home—‘for my soul kept
up too much light under my eyelids for the night, and thus I _went_
disquieted’ till at Charing Cross it struck me that going home by water
(to Greenwich, at least) would be a calmative—so I went on board a
steamer. Close by me sate three elderly respectable men,—I could not help
hearing them talk rationally about the prospects of the planters, the
‘compensation there is to be in the article of Rum,’—how we ‘get labour,’
which is the main thing, and may defy, with that, Cuba, the Brazils &c.
One who talked thus was a fat genial fellow, ending every sentence in a
laugh from pure good-nature—his companions somehow got to ‘the Church,’
then Puseyism, then Dissent—on all which this personage had his little
opinion,—when one friend happened to ask ‘you think so?’—‘I do,’ said the
other ‘and indeed I _know_ it.’ ‘How so?’—‘Because it was revealed to me
in a vision.’ ‘A ... vision?’—‘Yes, a vision’—and so he began to describe
it, quite in earnest, but with the selfsame precision and assurance, with
which he had been a little before describing the effect of the lightning
on an iron steamboat at Woolwich as he witnessed it. In this vision he
had seen the devil cast out of himself—which he took for an earnest
of God’s purposes for good to the world at large—I thought, ‘we mad
poets,—and this very unpoetical person!’ who had also previously been
entering on the momentous question ‘why I grow fatter than of old, seeing
that I eat no more—’
Come, Ba, say, is not this too bad, too far from the line?—I may _talk_
this _by_ you,—but _write_ this _away_ from you,—oh, no! Be with me then,
dearest, for one moment, for many moments, in spite of the miles, while I
kiss your sweetest lips, as now—Beloved!
I am ever your very own
Oh,—I determine not to go _yet_ to Mrs. J’s ‘for reasons’—a phrase which
ought to be ready stereotyped.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Night.
[Post-mark, August 6, 1846.]
Dearest, you did not have my letter, I think—the letter I wrote on
Tuesday, yesterday. These iniquitous postpeople—who are not likely to see
in a vision (like your fat prophet) the devil cast out of them for the
good of the world! Indeed it is too bad.