happy not away from me. When I shall have none but you, if I can feel
myself not too much for you,—not something you would rather leave—then
you will have ‘served’ me all you can. But this is more perhaps than
you can—these things do not depend on the will of a man—that he should
promise to do them. I speak simply for myself, and of what would give me
a full contentment. Do not fancy that there is a _doubt_ in the words of
it. I cannot doubt now of your affection for me. Dearest, I _cannot_. Yet
you make me uneasy often through this extravagance of over-estimation;
forcing me to contract ‘obligations to pay’ which I look at in speechless
despair—And here is a penny.
Of Mrs. Jameson, let me write to-morrow—I am benighted and must close. On
Friday we shall meet at last, surely; and then it will be all the happier
in proportion to the vexation. Dearest, love me—
I am your own—
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]
Dearest, I am to write to you of Mrs. Jameson. First, as to telling her
... will it not be an embarrassment both to her and ourselves? If she
cannot say ‘I knew nothing of this,’ she bears the _odium_ of confidante
and _adviser_ perhaps —who shall explain the distinction to others?
And to Mr. Kenyon, will it not seem as if we had trusted her more than
him—and though there is a broad distinction too between their cases,
who shall explain _that_ to him so quickly and nicely that he shall
not receive the shock of a painful impression? Consider a little—She
is so _in medias res_—so in the way of all the conversation and the
questionings. But it shall be as you like and think best. I am too
nervous perhaps.
As for the travelling, she sets out between the seventh and tenth of
September, a century before our æra, you know—but if she goes to Italy
and is not too angry with me, we might certainly meet her in Paris or at
Orleans ... take her up at Orleans, and go on together. That is, if you
like it too. She would be pleased, I daresay, if it were proposed—and
we might be kind in proposing it—and something I might say to her, if
you liked it, on the condition of her not changing her mind. Certainly
I do agree with you that she must have _some ideas_—she is not without
imagination, and the suggestions are abundant,—though nothing points to
you, mind!—if she could possibly think me capable of loving anyone else
in the world, with you in it.
I had a letter to-day ... with a proposition to write ballads and other
lyrics in order to the civilisation of the colonies ... especially
Australia. It appears that a Mr. Angus Fife has a scheme on foot nearly,
about sending missionary ballad-singers among the natives, and that I
am invited to write some of them, or to _be_ invited—for nothing is
specified yet. Now what do you think of _that_? One should take one’s
mythology from the Kangaroos, I suppose.
Then a book of ‘serious poems’ is to be brought out in Edinburgh and
contributions are desired so very politely that nobody can quite refuse.
I write to you of anything but what is in my thoughts. Your letter of
yesterday took hold of me and will not let me go—it all seems too earnest
for the mere dream I have been dreaming all this while—is it not a dream
... or what? And something I said in _my_ letter, which was wrong to say
and I am sorry to think of—forgive me _that_, ever beloved—but you have
forgiven, I know. May God bless you, and not take from _me_ my blessing
in you.
I am your very own BA.
We are going out in the carriage and shall post this note. You will come
to-morrow unless you hear more? Is it a compact?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday,
[Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]
The post’s old fault, is it not, this letter that does not come? I have
waited till nearly the time of the next arrival, 3 o’clock, and perhaps
I begin writing now because I have observed that sometimes the letter
comes just as I am trying hardest to resign myself. So may it be now, or
presently!
Dearest, I did not thank you yesterday for the accounts of your visit and
drive ... I always love you for such accounts; you know, I might _like_,
we will say, a Miss Campbell, while she was in the very act of speaking
Greek to Mr. Kenyon’s satisfaction, or making verses, or putting them
into action—but there would be no following her about the streets, and
through bazaars, and into houses, and loving the walking and standing and
sitting and companionship with Flush! I shall be satisfied to the full
if you only live in my sight,—cross the room in which I sit,—not to say,
sit down by me there,—always supposing that you also, for your part, seem
happy and contented,—or at least could not become more so by leaving me.
But I do believe you will be happy.
And here the letter comes! See, what I tell you does now fill my life
with gladness,—_that_, the counterpart of that, you promise me shall
make _you_ glad too! My very own, entirely beloved Ba, there is no
exaggeration, no overestimation—the case does not admit of any, indeed!
If a man tells you he owns a peerless horse, the horse may go lame and
the estimation sink upon that experience—but if I think, as I do, that
the Elgin Horse is peerless (despite his ewe-neck) nothing further can
touch it, nor change me. One of my comparisons! All I want to express is,
that I love _you_, dearest, with a love that seems to separate you from
your very qualities—the essential from its accidents. But you must wait
to know—wait a life, perhaps.
I used those words you object to—(in your true way), because you
shall love nothing connected with me for conventional reasons—and if
I understated the amount of kind feeling which you might be led to
return for theirs, be assured that I also expressed in the simplest
and coldest terms possible my father and mother’s affection for you. I
told you, they _believe_ me ... therefore, know in some measure what
you are to me. They are both entirely affectionate and generous. My
father is tender-hearted to a fault. I have never known much more of
those circumstances in his youth than I told you, in consequence of his
invincible repugnance to allude to the matter—and I have a fancy, to
account for some peculiarities in him, which connects them with some
abominable early experience. Thus,—if you question him about it, he shuts
his eyes involuntarily and shows exactly the same marks of loathing that
may be noticed while a piece of cruelty is mentioned ... and the _word_
‘blood,’ even, makes him change colour. To all women and children _he_
is ‘chivalrous’ ... as you called his unworthy son! There is no service
which the ugliest, oldest, crossest woman in the world might not exact
of him. But I must leave off; to-morrow I do really see you at last,
dearest! God bless you ever for your very own R.
The France-route seems in nearly every way the best—perhaps in every
way—let it be as you have decided. Nothing is said in this letter,
nothing answered, mind ... time presses so!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
_Thursday Night._
[August 27, 1846.]
Here is the bad news going to you as fast as bad news _will_ go! for
you ‘do really (NOT) see me to-morrow,’ Robert,—there is no chance of
it for such ‘too, two’ wise people as we are! In the first place Mr.
Kenyon never paid his visit to-day and will do it to-morrow instead; and
secondly, and while I was gloomily musing over this ‘great fact,’ arrives
the tidings of my uncle and aunt Hedley’s being at Fenton’s Hotel for
two days from this evening ... so that not only Friday perishes, but
even Saturday, unless there should be a change in their plans. We shall
have them here continually; and there would neither be safety nor peace
if we attempted a meeting. So let us take patience, dearest beloved,
and let me feel you loving me through the distance. It is only for a
short time, to bear these weeks without our days in them; and presently
you will have too much of me perhaps,—ah, the ungrateful creature, who
stops in the middle of the sentence, thunderstruck in the tenderest
part of her conscience! So instead, I go on to say that certainly I
shall be happy with you, as long as my ‘sitting in the room’ does not
make you less happy—certainly I shall be happy with you. I thought once
that the capacity of happiness was destroyed in me, but you have _made_
it over again,—God has permitted you! And while you love me _so_ ...
_essentially_, as you describe, and apart from supposed and suppositious
qualities ... I will take courage and hope, and believe that such a love
may be enough for the happiness of us both—enough for yours even.
Your father is worthy to be your father, let you call yourself his
‘unworthy son’ ever so. The noblest inheritance of sons is to have such
thoughts of their fathers, as you have of yours—the privilege of such
thoughts, the faith in such virtues and the gratitude for such affection.
You have better than the silver or the gold, and you can afford to leave
those to less happy sons. And your mother—Scarcely I was a woman when
I lost _my_ mother—dearest as she was, and very tender, (as yours even
could be), and of a nature harrowed up into some furrows by the pressure
of circumstances: for we lost more in her than she lost in life, my dear
dearest mother. A sweet, gentle nature, which the thunder a little turned
from its sweetness—as when it turns milk. One of those women who never
can resist; but, in submitting and bowing on themselves, make a mark, a
plait, within,—a sign of suffering. Too womanly she was—it was her only
fault. Good, good, and dear—and refined too!—she would have admired and
loved you,—but I can only tell you so, for she is gone past us all into
the place of the purer spirits. God had to take her, before He could
bless her enough.
Now I shall not write any more to-night. You had my note to-day—the note
written this morning? I went out in the carriage, and we drove to one or
two shops and up the Uxbridge Road, and I was utterly dull. Shall I not
really see you before Monday? It seems impossible to bear. Let us hope at
any rate, for Saturday.
How could such an idea enter your head, pray, as that about selling
your copyrights? That would have been travelling at the price of blood,
and I never should have agreed to it. I shall be able to bring you a
few pennies, I hope; only it would not be enough for the journey, what
_I_ could bring, under the circumstances of imprisonment. When we are
free, we ought to place our money somewhere on the railroads, where the
percentage will be better—which will not disturb the simplicity of our
way of life, you know, though it will give us more liberty in living.
Now I expect to hear your decision about Mrs. Jameson—I expect to hear
from you of yourself, though, most and chiefest—tell me how you are, and
how your mother is. Dearest, _promise_ me not to say to your family any
foolishness about me—remember what the recoil will be, and understand
that I must suffer in proportion to all the over-praises. It quite
frightens me to think of it! And then, again, I laugh to myself at your
excellent logic of comparison, between Miss Campbell and me; and how
you did not care for walking the bazaars and looking at the dolls with
her; to the discredit of the whole class of Miss Campbells ... whereas,
with ME!! &c. No wonder that your father should give you books of logic
to study, books on the ‘right use of reason,’ if you do not understand
that I am not better than she, except by your loving me better; that the
cause is not in her or me, but in you only. Can it indeed be so true that
people, when they love other people, never see them at all? Yet it seems
to me that I see _you_ clearly, discern you entirely and thoroughly—which
makes me love you profoundly. But you ... without seeing me at all, you
love _me_ ... which does as well, I think—so I am your very own.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday.
[Post-mark, August 28, 1846.]
I was beginning to dress, hours before the proper time, through the
confidence of seeing you _now_,—after the letter which came early in the
morning,—when this new letter changes everything. It just strikes me,
what a comfort it is that whenever such a disappointment is inevitable,
your hand or voice announces it, and not another’s—no second person bids
me stay away for good reasons I must take in trust, leaving me to deal
with the innumerable fancies that arise—on the contrary, you contrive
that, with the one misfortune, twenty kindnesses shall reach me—can I be
very sorry _now_, for instance, that you tell me _why_ it is, and how it
affects you and how it will affect me in the end? Dear Ba, if you will
not believe in the immortality of love, do think the poor thought that
when love shall end, gratitude will begin!
I altogether agree with you—it is best to keep away—we cannot be too
cautious now at the ‘end of things.’ I am prepared for difficulties
enough, without needing to cause them by any rashness or wilfulness of
my own. I really expect, for example, that out of the various plans of
these sympathising friends and relations some one will mature itself
sufficiently to be directly proposed to you, for your acceptance or
refusal contingent on your father’s approbation; the shortness of the
remaining travelling season serving to compel a speedy development. Or
what if your father, who was the first to propose, or at least talk
about, a voyage to Malta or elsewhere, when you took no interest in the
matter comparatively, and who perhaps chiefly found fault with last
year’s scheme from its not originating with himself ... what if he should
again determine on some such voyage now that you are apparently as
obedient to his wishes as can be desired? Would it be strange, not to say
improbable, if he tells you some fine morning that your passage is taken
to Madeira, or Palermo? Because, all the attempts in the world cannot
hide the truth from the mind, any more than all five fingers before the
eyes keep out the sun at noon-day: you see a red through them all—and
your father must see your improved health and strength, and divine the
opinion of everybody round him as to the simple proper course for the
complete restoration of them. Therefore be prepared, my own Ba!
In any case—I trust in you wholly.
There is nothing to decide upon, with respect to Mrs. Jameson—the reasons
for not sharing that confidence with her are irrefragable. I only thought
of you, dearest, who have to bear her all but direct enquiries. You know,
_I_ undergo nothing of the kind. Any such arrangement as that of taking
her up at Orleans would be very practicable. I rejoice in your desire
(by the way) of going rapidly on, stopping nowhere, till we reach our
appointed place—because that spirit _helps_ the body wonderfully—and, in
this case, exactly corresponds with mine. Above all, I should hate to be
seen at Paris by anybody a few days only after our adventure—Chorley will
be there, and the Arnoulds,—for _one_ party!
What could it be, you thought should make you ‘sorry,’ in that letter of
yesterday, love? What was I to ‘forgive’? Certainly you are unforgiven
hitherto, for the best of reasons.
And assure yourself, dearest, that I have told my family nothing that
can possibly mislead them. Remember that I have the advantage of knowing
those I speak to,—their tastes and understandings, and notions of what
is advantageous and what otherwise. I spoke the simple truth about your
heart—of your mind they knew something already—I explained your position
with respect to your father ... unfortunately, a very few plain words do
that ... I mean, a few facts, such as the parish register could supply
... sufficiently to exonerate you and me.
As to my copyrights, I never meant to sell them—it would be
foolish—because, since some little time, and in consequence of the
establishment of the fact that my poems, even in their present
disadvantageous form, without advertisement, and unnoticed by the
influential journals—do somehow manage to pay their expenses, I have
had one direct offer to print a new edition,—and there are reasons for
thinking, two or three booksellers, that I know, would come to terms.
Smith & Elder, for instance, wrote to offer to print any poem about
Italy, in any form, with any amount of advertisements, on condition of
sharing profits ... taking all risk off my hands ... concluding with more
than a hint that if that proposition was not favourable enough, they
would try and agree to any reasonable demand.
Because Moxon is the ‘slowest’ of publishers, and if one of his books
can only contrive to pay its expenses, you may be sure that a more
enterprising brother of the craft would have sent it into a second or
third edition—yet Moxon’s slow self even, anticipates success for the
next venture. Now the fact is, not having really cared about anything
except not losing too much money, I have taken very little care of my
concerns in that way—not calling on Moxon for months together. But
all will be different now— and I shall look into matters, and turn my
experience to account, such as it is.
Well,—I am yours, _you_ are mine, dearest Ba! I love you, I think,
_perceptibly_ more in these latter days! Is this absence contrived on
purpose to prove how foolishly I said that I loved you the more from
seeing you the oftener? Ah, you reconcile all extremes, destroy the force
of all logic-books, my father’s or mine—_that_ was true, but this is also
true (logical or no) that I now love you through not seeing you,—loving
more, as I desire more to be with you, my best, dearest wife that will
be! (_I_ could not help writing it—why should it sound sweeter than ‘Ba’?)
Your very own R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 29, 1846.]
Will you come, dearest, after all? Judge for both of us. The Hedleys go
to-morrow morning and we shall not see them after to-night when they
are dining here—but Mr. Kenyon has not paid his visit, and _may_ come
to-morrow, or _may_ take Sunday, which he is fond of doing—is it worth
while to be afraid of Mr. Kenyon? What do you think? I leave it to your
wisdom which is the greatest. Perhaps he may not come till _Monday_—yet
_he may_.
Dearest, I have had all your thoughts by turns, or most of them ... and
each one has withered away without coming to bear fruit. Papa seems
to have no more idea of my living beyond these four walls, than of a
journey to Lapland. I confess that I thought it possible he might propose
the country for the summer, or even Italy for the winter, in a ‘late
remark’—but no, ‘nothing’ and there is not a possibility of either word,
as I see things. My brothers ‘wish that something could be arranged’—a
wish which I put away quietly as often as they bring it to me. And for
my uncle and aunt, they have been talking to me to-day—and she with her
usual acuteness in such matters, observing my evasion, said, ‘Ah Ba, you
have arranged your plans more than you would have us believe. But you
are right not to tell us—indeed I would rather not hear. Only _don’t be
rash_—_that_ is my only advice to you.’
I thought she had touched the truth, and wondered—but since then, from
another of her words, I came to conclude that she imagined me about to
accept the convoy of Henrietta and Captain Cook! She said in respect
to them—‘I only say that your father’s consent ought to be _asked_, as
a form of respect to him.’ Which, in their case should be, I think—and
should also in ours, but for the peculiar position of one of us. My uncle
urged me to keep firm and go to Italy, and my aunt, though she would not
advise, she said, yet thought that I ‘ought to go,’ and that to live on
in this fashion in this room was lamentable to contemplate. Both of them
approved of the French route, and urged me to go to them in Paris—‘And,’
said my uncle kindly, ‘when once we _have_ you, we shall not bear to part
with you, I think.’
(Do you really imagine, by the way, that to appear in Paris for one
half-minute, to a single soul, could be less detestable to me than to
you? I shall take care that nobody belonging to me there shall hear of
my being within a hundred miles—and why need we stay in Paris the half
minute? Not unless you pause to demand an audience of Mr. Chorley at the
Barrière des Étoiles.)
While we were talking, Papa came into the room. My aunt said, ‘How well
she is looking’—‘Do you think so?’ he said. ‘Why, do not _you_ think so?
Do you pretend to say that you see no surprising difference in her?’—‘Oh,
I don’t know,’ he went on to say. ‘She is mumpish, I think.’ Mumpish!
‘She does not talk,’ resumed he—
‘Perhaps she is nervous’—my aunt apologised—I said not one word ... When
birds have their eyes out, they are apt to be mumpish.
Mumpish! The expression proved a displeasure. Yet I am sure that I
have shown as little sullenness as was possible. To be very talkative
and vivacious under such circumstances as those of mine, would argue
insensibility, and was certainly beyond my power.
I told her gently afterwards that she had been wrong in speaking of me at
all—a wrong with a right intention,—as all her wrongness must be. She was
very sorry to have done it, she said, and looked sorry.
Poor Papa!—Presently I shall be worse to him than ‘mumpish’ even. But
_then_, I hope, he will try to forgive me, as I have forgiven him, long
ago.
My own beloved—do you know that your letter caught me in the act of
wondering whether the absence would do me harm with you, according to
that memorable theory. And so in the midst came the solution of the
doubt—you do _not_ love me less. Nay, you love me more—ah, but if you say
so, I am capable of wishing not to see you for a month added to the week!
For did I not once confess to you that I loved your love as much as I
loved you ... or very, very, very nearly as much? Not precisely so much.
_Confiteor tibi_—but I will sing a penitential psalm low to myself and
do the act of penance by seeing you to-morrow if you choose to come,—and
then you shall absolve me and give me the _Benedicite_, which, _if_ you
come, you cannot keep back, because it comes with you of necessity.
Not a word of your head, nor of your mother! You should come I think,
to-morrow, if only to say it. Yet let us be wise to the end. Be _you_
wise to the end, and decide between Saturday and Monday. And I, for my
part, promise to go to Italy, only with _you_—do not be afraid.
And for your poetry, I believe in it as ‘_golden water_’—and the ‘singing
tree’ does not hide it from me with all the overdropping branches and
leaves. In fact, the chief inconvenience we are likely to suffer from, in
the way of income, is the having _too much_. Don’t you think so? But in
that case, we will buy an island of our own in one of those purple seas,
and inherit the sun—or perhaps the shadow ... of Calypso’s cave.
So do not be uneasy, dearest!—not even lest I should wish to spend three
weeks in Paris, to show myself at the Champs Elysées and the opera, and
gather a little glory after what you happily call ‘our adventure.’
Our adventure, indeed! But it is _you_ who are adventuring in the
matter,—and as any Red Cross Knight of them all, whom you exceed in their
chivalry proper.
Chiappino little knew how right he was, when he used to taunt me with my
‘New Cross Knight.’ He did—Ah! Even if he had talked of ‘Rosie Cross,’ he
would not have been so far wide—the magic ‘saute aux yeaux.’
And now, will you come to-morrow, I wonder, or not? The answer is in you.
And I am your own, ever and as ever!
And you thought I was dying with a desire to tell Mrs. Jameson!!—_I!_
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]