well, and saw nobody except one woman. Arabel went with me, and during
the singing we escaped and stood outside the door. Now, _that_ is over;
and the next time I shall care less. It was a rambling sermon, which I
could hear distinctly through the open door, quite wanting in coherence,
but with good and touching things in it, the more touching that they came
from a preacher whose life is known to us—from Mr. Stratten, for whom I
have the greatest respect, though he never looked into Shakespeare till
he was fifty, and shut the book quickly, perhaps, afterward. He is the
very ideal of his class; and, with some of the narrow views peculiar to
it, has a heart of miraculous breadth and depth; loving further than
he can see, pitying beyond what he can approve, having in him a divine
Christian spirit, the ‘love of love’ in the most expansive form. How that
man is beloved by his congregation, the members of his church, by his
children, his friends, is wonderful to see—for everybody seems to love
him _from afar_, as a man is loved who is of a purer nature than others.
There is that reverence in the love—and yet no fear. His children have
been encouraged and instructed to speak aloud before him on religion
and other subjects in all freedom of conscience—he turns to his little
daughter seriously ‘to hear what she thinks.’ The other day his eldest
son, whom he had hoped to see succeed him at Paddington, determined to
enter the Church of England: his wife became quite ill with grief about
it, and to himself perhaps it was a trial, a disappointment. With the
utmost gentleness and tenderness however, he desired him to take time for
thought and act according to his conscience.—I believe for my part that
there never was a holier man ... ‘except those bonds’ ... never a man
who more resolutely trod under his feet every form of evil and selfish
passion when it was once recognized—and looked to God and the Truth with
a direct aspiration. Once I could not help writing to put our affairs
into his hands to settle them for us—but _that_ would be wrong—because
Papa would forbid Arabel’s going to the chapel or communicating with his
family, and it would be depriving her of a comfort she holds dear—oh no.
And besides, you are wise in taking the other view.
Think of our waiting day after day to fall into the net so, yesterday!
How I was provoked and vexed—but more for you, dearest dearest, than for
me—much more for you. As for me I _saw you_, which was joy enough, let
the hours be ever so clipped of their natural proportions—and then, you
know, you were obliged to go soon, whether Mr. Kenyon had come or not
come. After you were gone, nothing was said, and nothing asked, and it
is delightful to have heard of those intended absences one after another
till far into October: which will secure us from future embarrassments.
See if he means to put us to the question!—not such a thing is in his
thoughts.
And I said what you ‘would not have believed of me’! Have you
forgiven me, beloved—for saying what you would not have believed of
me,—understanding that I did not mean it very seriously, though I proved
to be capable of saying it? Seriously, I don’t want to make unnecessary
delays. It is a horrible position, however I may cover it with your roses
and the thoughts of you—and far worse to myself than to you, inasmuch
that what is painful to you once a week, is to me so continually. To hear
the voice of my father and meet his eye makes me shrink back—to talk
to my brothers leaves my nerves all trembling ... and even to receive
the sympathy of my sisters turns into sorrow and fear, lest they should
suffer through their affection for me. How I can look and sleep as well
as I do, is a miracle exactly like the rest—or would be, if the love were
not the deepest and strongest thing of all, and did not hold and possess
me overcomingly. I feel myself to be yours notwithstanding every other
influence, and being yours, cannot but be happy by you. Ah—let people
talk as they please of the happiness of early youth! Mrs. Jameson did,
the other day, when she wished kindly to take her young niece with her to
the Continent, that she might enjoy what in a few years she could not so
much enjoy. There is a sort of blind joy common perhaps to such times—a
blind joy which blunts itself with its own leaps and bounds; peculiar to
a time of comparative ignorance and inexperience of evil:—but I for my
part, with all the capacity for happiness which I had from the beginning,
I look back and listen to my whole life, and feel sure of what I have
already told you, ... that I am _happier now than I ever was before_
... infinitely happier now, through you ... infinitely happier; even
now in this position I have just called ‘horrible.’ When I hear you say
for instance, that you ‘love me _perceptibly_ more’ ... why I cannot,
cannot be more happy than when I hear you say _that_—going to Italy seems
nothing! a vulgar walk to Primrose Hill after being caught up to the
third Heaven! I think nothing of Italy now, though I shall enjoy it of
course when the time comes. I think only that you love me, that you are
the angel of my life,—and for the despair and desolation behind me, they
serve to mark the hour of your coming,—and they _are_ behind, as Italy
is _before_. Never can you feel for me, Robert, as I feel for you ...
it is not possible of course. I am yours in a way and degree which the
tenderest of other women could not be at her will. Which you know. Why
should I repeat it to you? Why, except that is a reason to prove that we
cannot, as you say, ‘ever be a common wife and husband? But I don’t think
I was intending to give proofs of _that_—no, indeed.
To-morrow I shall hear from you. Say how your mother is, in the second
letter if you do not in the first. May God bless you and keep you,
dearest beloved—
Your very own BA.
There is not much in the article by Mr. Chorley, but it is right and kind
as far as it goes.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]
I wonder what I shall write to you, Ba—I could suppress my feelings here,
as I do on other points, and say nothing of the hatefulness of this state
of things which is prolonged so uselessly. There is the point—show me
one good reason, or show of reason, why we gain anything by deferring
our departure till next week instead of to-morrow, and I will bear to
perform yesterday’s part for the amusement of Mr. Kenyon a dozen times
over without complaint. But if the cold plunge _must_ be taken, all
this shivering delay on the bank is hurtful as well as fruitless. I
_do_ understand your anxieties, dearest—I take your fears and make them
mine, while I put my own natural feeling of quite another kind away
from us both, succeeding in _that_ beyond all expectation. There is no
amount of patience or suffering I would not undergo to relieve you from
these apprehensions. But if, on the whole, you really determine to act
as we propose in spite of them,—why, a new leaf is turned over in our
journal, an old part of our adventure done with, and a new one entered
upon, altogether distinct from the other. Having once decided to go to
Italy with me, the next thing to decide is on the best means of going—or
rather, there is just this connection between the two measures, that by
the success or failure of the last, the first will have to be justified
or condemned. You tell me you have decided to go—then, dearest, you will
be prepared to go earlier than you promised yesterday—by the end of
September at very latest. In proportion to the too probable excitement
and painful circumstances of the departure, the greater amount of
advantages should be secured for the departure itself. How can I take
you away in even the beginning of October? We shall be a fortnight on
the journey—with the year, as everybody sees and says, a full month in
advance ... cold mornings and dark evenings already. Everybody would cry
out on such folly when it was found that we let the favourable weather
escape, in full assurance that the Autumn would come to us unattended by
any one beneficial circumstance.
My own dearest, I am wholly your own, for ever, and under every
determination of yours. If you find yourself unable, or unwilling to make
this effort, tell me so and plainly and at once—I will not offer a word
in objection,—I will continue our present life, if you please, so far as
may be desirable, and wait till next autumn, and the next and the next,
till providence end our waiting. It is clearly not for me to pretend to
instruct you in your duties to God and yourself; ... enough, that I have
long ago chosen to accept your decision. If, on the other hand, you make
up your mind to leave England now, you will be prepared by the end of
September.
I should think myself the most unworthy of human beings if I could employ
any arguments with the remotest show of a tendency to _frighten_ you into
a compliance with any scheme of mine. Those methods are for people in
another relation to you. But you love me, and, at lowest, shall I say,
wish me well—and the fact is too obvious for me to commit any indelicacy
in reminding you, that in any dreadful event to our journey of which
I could accuse myself as the cause,—as of this undertaking to travel
with you in the worst time of year when I could have taken the best,—in
the case of your health being irretrievably shaken, for instance ...
the happiest fate I should pray for would be to live and die in some
corner where I might never hear a word of the English language, much
less a comment in it on my own wretched imbecility,—to disappear and be
forgotten.
So that must not be, for all our sakes. My family will give me to you
that we may be both of us happy ... but for such an end—no!
Dearest, do you think all this earnestness foolish and uncalled for?—that
I might know you spoke yesterday in mere jest,—as yourself said, ‘only
to hear what I would say’? Ah but consider, my own Ba, the way of our
life, as it is, and is to be—a word, a simple word from you, is not as a
word is counted in the world—the word between us is different—I am guided
by your will, which a word shall signify to me. Consider that just such
a word, so spoken, even with that lightness, would make me lay my life
at your feet at any minute. Should we gain anything by my trying, if I
could, to deaden the sense of hearing, dull the medium of communication
between us; and procuring that, instead of this prompt rising of my will
at the first intimation from yours, the same effect should only follow
after fifty speeches, and as many protestations of complete serious
desire for their success on your part, accompanied by all kinds of acts
and deeds and other evidences of the same?
At all events, God knows I have said this in the deepest, truest love of
you. I will say no more, praying you to forgive whatever you shall judge
to need forgiveness here,—dearest Ba! I will also say, if that may help
me,—and what otherwise I might not have said,—that I am not too well this
morning, and write with an aching head. My mother’s suffering continues
too.
My friend Pritchard tells me that Brighton is not to be thought of
under ordinary circumstances as a point of departure for Havre. Its
one packet a week from Shoreham cannot get in if the wind and tide are
unfavourable. There is the greatest uncertainty in consequence ... as
I have heard before—while, of course, from Southampton, the departures
are calculated punctually. He considers that the least troublesome plan,
and the cheapest, is to go from London to Havre ... the voyage being so
arranged that the river passage takes up the day and the sea-crossing
the night—you reach Havre early in the morning and get to Paris by four
o’clock, perhaps, in the afternoon ... in time to leave for Orleans and
spend the night there, I suppose.
Do I make myself particularly remarkable for silliness when confronted
by our friend as yesterday? And the shortest visit,—and comments of
everybody. Oh, Mr. Hunter, methinks you should be of some use to me with
those amiable peculiarities of yours, if you would just dye your hair
black, take a stick in your hand, sink the clerical character you do
such credit to, and have the goodness just to deliver yourself of one
such epithet as _that_ pleasant one, the next time you find me on the
steps of No. 50, with Mr. Kenyon somewhere higher up in the building.
It is delectable work, this having to do with relatives and ‘freemen
who have a right to beat their own negroes,’ and father Zeus with his
paternal epistles, and peggings to the rock, and immense indignation at
‘this marriage you talk of’ which is to release his victim. Is Mr. Kenyon
Hermes?
Εἰσελθέτω σε μήποθ’ ὡς ἐγὼ Διὸς
γνώμην φοβηθεὶς θηλύνους γενήσομαι,
καὶ λιπαρήσω τὸν μέγα στυγούμενον
γυναικομίμοις ὑπτιάσμασιν χερῶν,
λῦσαί με δεσμῶν τῶνδε· τοῦ παντὸς δέω.
_Chorus of Aunts_: ἡμῖν μὲν Ἑρμῆς οὐκ ἄκαιρα φαίνεται
λέγειν, κ.τ.λ.[6]
Well, bless you in any case—
Your own R.
[6]
[‘Oh, think no more
That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman’s mind
Will supplicate him, loathèd as he is,
With feminine upliftings of my hands,
To break these chains. Far from me be the thought!
_Chorus._ Our Hermes suits his reasons to the times;
At least I think so.’
Æschylus, _Prometheus_, 1002-6, 1036-7.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]
Here is dearest Ba’s dearest letter, because the latest, and it is one
of her very kisses incorporated and made manifest—so perfectly kind! And
should this make me ashamed of perhaps an over-earnestness in what I
wrote yesterday? or not rather justify me to myself and to her—since it
was on a passing fear of losing what I hold so infinitely precious, that
the earnestness happened! My own Ba, you lap me over with love upon love
... there is my first and proper love, independent of any return, and
there is _this_ return for what would reward itself. Do think how I must
feel at the most transient suggestion of failure, and parting, and an end
to all! You cannot expect I can lie quietly and let my life of life be
touched. And ever, dearest, through the life which I trust is about to
be permitted us,—ever I shall remember where my treasure is, and turn as
vigilantly when it is approached. Beside, I was not very well, as I told
you in excuse—I am much better now. Not that, upon reconsideration, I can
alter my opinion on the proper course to take. We know all the miracles
wrought in our favour hitherto ... are not the chances (speaking in
that foolish way) against our expecting more? To-day is fine, sunny and
warm, for instance, and looks as if cold weather were a long way off—but
what are these fancies and appearances when weighed against the other
possibility of a sudden _fall_ of the year? By six months more of days
like this we should gain nothing, nothing in the world, you confess—by
the other misfortune we lose everything perhaps.
Will you have a homely illustration? There is a tree against our wall
here which produced weeks ago a gigantic apple—which my mother had set
her heart on showing a cousin of mine who is learned in fruits and
trees. I told her, ‘You had better pluck it at once—it will fall and be
spoiled.’ She thought the next day or two would do its cheeks good,—just
the next—so there it continued to hang till this morning, when she was
about to go out with my sister—I said ‘now is the time—you are going to
my aunt’s—let me pluck you the apple’—‘Oh,’ she said ‘I have been looking
at it, trying it,—it hangs so firmly, ... not _this_ time, thank you!’
So she went without it, two hours ago—and just now, I turned to the tree
with a boding presentiment—there lay our glory, bruised in the dirt,
a sad wreck! ‘Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love!’ Rather,
counsel me _through_ apples! Do you see the counsel?
Come, let me not be so ungrateful to the letter, to what you have
done for me, as only to speak of what you are disinclined to do. I am
very glad you succeeded in going to the chapel, and that the result
was so favourable—see how the dangers disappear when one faces them!
And the account of Mr. Stratten is very interesting, too—besides
characteristic—do you see _how_? Find as great a saint as the world
holds, who shall be acknowledged to be utterly disinterested, unbiassed
by anything except truth and common justice,—a man of sense as well as
piety—and succeed in convincing such an one of our right to do as we
purpose,—and then—let _him_ lay the matter before your father! To no
other use than to exasperate him against Mr. Stratten, deprive your
sister of the privilege of seeing his family, and bring about a little
more pain and trouble!
Let me think of something else ... of the happiness you profess to
feel—which it makes me entirely happy to know. I will not try and put
away the crown you give me. I just say the obvious truth, ... even what
I _can_ do to make you happy, according to my ability, has yet to be
experienced by you ... if my thoughts and wishes reach you with any
effect at present, they will operate freelier when the obstruction is
removed ... that is only natural. I shall live for you, for every minute
in your life. May God bless me with such a life, as that it may be of use
to you ... yours it must be whether of use or not, for I am wholly your R.
* * * * *
Here comes my mother back ... she is a little better to-day. I am much
better as I said. And you? Let me get the kiss I lost on Saturday! (I
dined at Arnould’s yesterday with Chorley and his brother, and the
Cushmans.) Chorley goes to-night to Ostend.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Night.
[Post-mark, September 1, 1846.]
You are better, dearest,—and so I will confess to having felt a little
inclined to reproach you gently for the earlier letter, except that
you were not well when you wrote it. That you should endure painfully
and impatiently a position unworthy of you, is the natural consequence
of the unworthiness—and I do hold that you would be justified at this
moment, on the barest motives of self-respect, in abandoning the whole
ground and leaving me to Mr. Kenyon and others. What I might complain
of, is another thing—what I might complain of is, that I have not given
you reason to _doubt me_ or my inclination to accede to any serious wish
of yours relating to the step before us. On the contrary I told you in
so many words in July, that, if you really wished to go in August rather
than in September, I would make no difficulty—to which you answered,
remember, that _October or November would do as well_. Now _is_ it fair,
ever dearest, that you should turn round on me so quickly, and call in
question my willingness to keep my engagement for years, if ever? Can I
help it, if the circumstances around us are painful to both of us? Did I
not keep repeating, from the beginning, that they _must_ be painful? Only
you could not believe, you see, until you felt the pricks. And when all
is done, and the doing shall be the occasion of new affronts, sarcasms,
every form of injustice, will you be any happier then, than you are now
that you only imagine the possibility of them? I tremble to answer that
question—even to myself—! As for myself, though I cannot help feeling
pain and fear, in encountering what is to be encountered, and though I
sometimes fear, in addition, for _you_, lest you should overtask your
serenity in bearing your own part in it, ... yet certainly I have never
wavered for a moment from the decision on which all depends. I might
fill up your quotations from ‘Prometheus,’ and say how no evil takes me
unaware, having foreseen all from the beginning—but I have not the heart
for filling up quotations. I mean to say only, that I never wavered
from the promise I gave freely; and that I will keep it freely at any
time you choose—that is, within a week of any time you choose. As to a
light word ... why now, dear, judge me in justice! If I had written it,
there might have been more wrong in it—but I spoke it lightly to show
it was light, and in the next breath I told you that it was a jest.
Will you not forgive me a word so spoken, Robert? will you rather set it
against me as if habitually I threw to you levities in change for earnest
devotion?—you imply _that_ of me. Or you _seem_ to imply it—you did not
mean, you could not, a thought approaching to unkindness,—but it looks
like _that_ in the letter, or _did_, this morning. And all the time, you
pretended not to know very well, ... (dearest!) ... that what you made
up your mind to wish and ask of me, I had not in my power to say ‘no’
to. Ah, you _knew_ that you had only to make up your mind, and to see
that the thing was possible. So if September shall be possible, let it
be September. I do not object nor hold back. To sail from the Thames has
not the feasibility—and listen why! All the sailing or rather steaming
from London begins _early_; and I told you how out of the question it
was, for me to leave this house early. I could not, without involving my
sisters. Arabel sleeps in my room, on the sofa, and is seldom out of the
room before nine in the morning—and for me to draw her into a ruinous
confidence, or to escape without a confidence at that hour, would be
equally impossible. Now see if it is my fancy, my whim! And as for the
expenses, _they_ are as nearly equal as a shilling and two sixpences can
be—the expense of the sea-voyage from London to Havre, and of the land
and sea voyage, through Southampton ... _or_ Brighton. But of course what
you say of Brighton, keeps us to Southampton, of those two routes. We
can go to Southampton and meet the packet ... take the river-steamer to
Rouen, and proceed as rapidly as your programme shows. You are not angry
with me, dearest, dearest? I did not mean any harm.
May God bless you always. _I_ am not angry either, understand, though
I did think this morning that you were a little hard on me, just when
I felt myself ready to give up the whole world for you at the holding
up of a finger. And now say nothing of this. I kiss the end of the dear
finger; and when _it_ is ready, _I_ am ready; I will not be reproached
again. Being too much your own, very own
BA.
Tell me that you keep better. And your mother?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday—3 p.m.
[Post-mark, September 1, 1846.]
Dearest, when your letter kept away, all this morning, I never once
fancied you might be angry ... I knew you must feel the love which
produced the fear. And I will lay to my heart the little, gentlest blame
that there is, in the spirit which dictated it. I know, my own Ba, your
words have given me the right to doubt nothing from your generosity—but
it is not the mere bidding ... no, at the thousandth repetition—which can
make me help myself to all that treasure which you please to call mine: I
shall perhaps get used to the generosity and readier to profit by it.
I have not time to write much; all is divinely kind of you, and I love
you for forgiving me.
You could not leave at an early hour under those circumstances ... the
moment I become aware of them, I fully see that.
Ah, but, Ba, am I so to blame for not taking your diamonds, while
you disclaim a right over my pebbles even? May I ‘withdraw from the
business’? &c., &c.
Kiss me, and do not say that again—and I will say you are ‘my own,’ as I
always say,—my very own!
As for ‘sarcasms’ and the rest—I shall hardly do other than despise what
will never be said _to_ me, for the best of reasons—except where is to be
exception. I never objected to such miserable work as that—and the other
day, my annoyance was not at anything which _might_ be fancied, by Mr.
Kenyon or anybody else, but at what could not but be plainly seen—it was
a fact, and not a fancy, that our visit was shortened &c., &c.
All which is foolish to think of—I will think of you and a better time.
You do not tell me how you are, Ba—and I left you with a headache. Will
you tell me? And the post may come in earlier to-morrow,—at all events I
will write at length ... not in this haste. And our day? When before have
I been without a day, a fixed day, to look forward to?
Bless you, my dearest beloved—
Your own R.
I am pretty well to-day—not too well. My mother is no better than usual;
we blame the wind, with or without reason. See this scrawl! Could
anything make me write legibly, I wonder?
Ba.
BA.
βα.
Ba, Ba, Ba.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, September 2, 1846.]
Here is a distress for me, dearest! I have lost my poor Flush—_lost_ him!
You were a prophet when you said ‘Take care.’