where we had a little business, and he followed us as usual into a shop
and out of it again, and was at my heels when I stepped up into the
carriage. Having turned, I said ‘Flush,’ and Arabel looked round for
Flush—there was no Flush! He had been caught up in that moment, from
_under_ the wheels, do you understand? and the thief must have run with
him and thrown him into a bag perhaps. It was such a shock to me—think
of it! losing him in a moment, _so_! No wonder if I looked white, as
Arabel said! So she began to comfort me by showing how certain it was
that I should recover him for ten pounds at most, and we came home ever
so drearily. Because _Flush_ doesn’t know that we can recover him, and
he is in the extremest despair all this while, poor darling Flush, with
his fretful fears, and pretty whims, and his fancy of being near me. All
this night he will howl and lament, I know perfectly,—for I fear we shall
not ransom him to-night. Henry went down for me directly to the captain
of the banditti, who evidently knew all about it, said Henry,—and after
a little form of consideration and enquiry, promised to let us hear
something this evening, but has not come yet. In the morning perhaps he
will come. Henry told him that I was resolved not to give much—but of
course they will make me give what they choose—I am not going to leave
Flush at their mercy, and they know that as well as I do. My poor Flush!
When we shall be at Pisa, dearest, we shall be away from the London
dog-stealers—it will be one of the advantages. Another may be that I
may have an opportunity of ‘forgiving’ you, which I have not had yet. I
might reproach you a little in my letter, and I _did_, I believe; but the
offending was not enough for any _forgiving_ to follow—it is too grand a
word. Also your worst is better than my best, taking it on the whole. How
then should I be able to _forgive_ you, my beloved, even _at Pisa_?
If we go to Southampton, we go straight from the railroad to the packet,
without entering any hotel—and if we do _so_, _no_ greater expense is
incurred than by the long water-passage from London. Also, we reach
Havre alike in the morning, and have the day before us for Rouen, Paris
and Orleans. Thereupon nothing is lost by losing the early hour for the
departure. Then, if I accede to your _idée fixe_ about the marriage!
Only do not let us put a long time between that and the setting out,
and do not you come here afterwards—let us go away as soon as possible
afterwards at least. You are afraid for me of my suffering from the
autumnal cold when it is yet far off—while _I_ (observe this!) while _I_
am afraid for myself, of breaking down under quite a different set of
causes, in nervous excitement and exhaustion. I belong to that pitiful
order of weak women who cannot command their bodies with their souls at
every moment, and who sink down in hysterical disorder when they ought
to act and resist. Now I think and believe that I shall take strength
from my attachment to you, and so go through to the end what is before
us; but at the same time, knowing myself and fearing myself, I do desire
to provoke the ‘demon’ as little as possible, and to be as quiet as the
situation will permit. Still, where things _ought_ to be done, they
of course _must_ be done. Only we should consider whether they really
_ought_ to be done—not for the sake of the inconvenience to me, but of
the consequence to both of us.
Do I frighten you, ever dearest? Oh no—I shall go through it, if I keep a
breath of soul in me to live with. I shall go through it, as certainly as
that I love you. I speak only of the accessory circumstances, that they
may be kept as smooth as is practicable.
You are not well, my beloved—and I cannot even dream of making you
better this time,—because you will think it wise for us not to meet for
the next few days perhaps. Mr. Kenyon will come to see me, he said,
before he leaves town, and he leaves it on the fourth, fifth or sixth
of September. This is the first. So I will not let you come to be vexed
as last time—no, indeed. But write to me instead—and pity me for Flush.
Oh, I trust to have him back to-morrow. I had no headache, and was quite
perfectly well this morning ... before I lost him.
Is your mother able to walk? is she worse on the whole than last week
for instance? We may talk of September, but you cannot leave her, you
know, dearest, if she should be _so_ ill! it would be unkind and wrong.
More, to-morrow! But I cannot be more to-morrow, your very own—
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, September 2, 1846.]
Poor Flush—how sorry I am for you, my Ba! But you will recover him, I
dare say ... not, perhaps directly; the delay seems to justify their
charge at the end: poor fellow—was he no better than the rest of us, and
did all that barking and fanciful valour spend itself on such enemies as
Mr. Kenyon and myself, leaving only blandness and waggings of the tail
for the man with the bag? I am sure you are grieved and frightened for
our friend and follower, that was to be, at Pisa—will you not write a
special note to tell me when you get him again?
For the rest—I will urge you no more by a single word—you shall arrange
everything henceforward without a desire on my part,—an expressed one at
least. Do not let our happiness be caught up from us, after poor Flush’s
fashion—there may be no redemption from _that_ peril.
There can hardly be another way of carrying our purpose into effect than
by that arrangement you consent to—except you choose to sacrifice a day
and incur all costs of risk. Of course, the whole in the way and with the
conditions that you shall determine.
Do you think, Ba, I apprehend nothing from the excitement and exhaustion
attendant on it? I altogether apprehend it,—and am therefore the more
anxious that no greater difficulty should be superinduced than is
absolutely necessary. Because the first part of our adventure will
be dangerous in _that_ way, I want the second part to be as safe
as possible in another. I should care comparatively little about
winter-travelling, even (knowing that one can take precautions)—if it
were to be undertaken under really propitious circumstances, and you set
forth with so much kindness to carry away as would keep you warm for
a week or two—but the ‘winter wind that is not so unkind as &c.,’ may
prove,—by adding its share of unkindness to the greater,—intolerable.
Now, my last word is said, however—and a kiss follows!
I thank you, dearest, for your enquiries about my mother; and for the
sympathy, and proposal of delay. She is better this morning, I hope.
From the time that my sister went to Town, she discontinued the exercise
which does her such evident good—and on Monday the walk began again—with
no great effect yesterday because of the dull weather and sharp wind ...
she kept at home—but this morning she is abroad, and will profit by this
sunshine, I hope. My head will not get quite well, neither. I take both
effects to be caused by the turn of the year.
Bless you, dearest—I cannot but acquiesce in your postponing our day
for such reasons. Only, do not misconceive those few foolish words of
impatience ... a great matter to bear truly! I shall be punished indeed
if they prevent you from according to me one hour I should have otherwise
possessed.
Bless you once again, my Ba.
My mother is returned—very much better indeed. Remember Flush—to write.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 3, 1846.]
‘Our friend and follower, that _was_ to be’—is _that_, then, your opinion
of my poor darling Flush’s destiny— Ah,—I should not have been so
quiet if I had not known differently and better. I ‘shall not recover
him directly,’ you think! But, dearest, I am _sure_ that I _shall_. I
am learned in the ways of the Philistines—I knew from the beginning
where to apply and how to persuade. The worst is poor Flush’s fright
and suffering. And then, it is inconvenient just now to pay the ransom
for him. But we shall have time to-morrow if not to-night. Two hours
ago the chief of the Confederacy came to call on Henry and to tell him
that the ‘Society had the dog,’ having done us the honour of tracking us
into Bond Street and out of Bond Street into Vere Street where he was
kidnapped. Now he is in Whitechapel (poor Flush). And the great man was
going down there at half past seven to meet other great men in council
and hear the decision as to the ransom exacted, and would return with
their _ultimatum_. Oh, the villainy of it is excellent, and then the
humiliation of having to pay for your own vexations and anxieties! _Will_
they have the insolence, now, to make me pay ten pounds, as they said
they would? But I must have Flush, you know—I can’t run any risk, and
bargain and haggle. There is a dreadful tradition in this neighbourhood,
of a lady who did _so_ having her dog’s head sent to her in a parcel.
So I say to Henry—‘Get Flush back, whatever you do’—for Henry is angry
as he may well be, and as _I_ should be if I was not too afraid ... and
talks police-officers against thieves, and finds it very hard to attend
to my instructions and be civil and respectful to their captain. There he
found him, smoking a cigar in a room with pictures! They make some three
or four thousand a year by their honourable employment. As to Flush’s
following anyone ‘blandly,’ never think it. ‘He was caught up and gagged
... depend upon that. If he could have bitten, he would have bitten—if he
could have yelled, he would have yelled. Indeed on a former occasion the
ingenuous thief observed, that he ‘was a difficult dog to get, he was so
distrustful.’ They had to drag him with a string, put him into a cab,
they said, before. Poor Flush!
Dearest, I am glad that your mother is a little better—but why should the
turn of the year make you suffer, ever dearest? I am not easy about you
indeed. Remember not to use the shower-bath injudiciously—and remember
to walk. _Do_ you walk enough?—it being as necessary for you as for your
mother.
And as for _me_ you will not say a word more to _me_, you will leave me
to my own devices now.
Which is just exactly what you must _not_ do. Ah, why do you say so,
even, when you must not do it? Have I refused one proposition of yours
when there were not strong obstacles, that you should have finished
with me so, my beloved? For instance, I agreed to your plan about the
marrying, and I agreed to go with you to Italy in the latter part of
September—did I not? And what am I disagreeing in now? Don’t let me pass
for disagreeable! And don’t, above all, refuse to think for me, and
decide for me, or what will become of me, I cannot guess. I shall be
worse off than Flush is now ... in his despair, at Whitechapel. Think
of my being let loose upon a common, just when the thunder-clouds are
gathering!! You would not be so cruel, _you_. All I meant to say was
that it would be wise to make the occasions of excitement as few as
possible, for the reasons I gave you. But I shall not fail, I believe—I
should despise myself too much for failing—I should lose too much by the
failure. Then there is an amulet which strengthens the heart of one,—let
it incline to fail ever so. Believe of me that I shall not fail, dearest
beloved—I shall not, if you love me enough to stand by—believe _that_
always.
The heart will sink indeed sometimes—as mine does to-night, I scarcely
know why—but even while it sinks, I do not feel that I shall fail _so_—I
do not. Dearest, I do not, either, ‘misconceive,’ as you desire me
not: I only infer that you will think it best to avoid the chance of
meeting Mr. Kenyon, who speaks to me, in a note received this morning, of
intending to leave town next Monday—of coming here he does not speak,—and
he may come and he may not come, on any intermediate day. He wrote for a
book he lent me. If I do not see you until Monday, it will be hard—but
judge! there was more of bitterness than of sweetness in the last visit.
Mr. Kenyon said in his note that he had seen Moxon, and that Tennyson was
‘disappointed’ with the mountains. Is not that strange? Is it a good or a
bad sign when people are disappointed with the miracles of nature? I am
accustomed to fancy it a bad sign. Because a man’s imagination ought to
aggrandise, glorify, consecrate. A man sees with his mind, and mind is at
fault when he does not see greatly, I think.
Moxon sent a civil message to me about my books ‘going off regularly.’
And now _I_ must go off—it is my turn. Do you love me to-night, dearest?
I ask you ... through the air. I am your very own Ba.
Say how you are, I beseech you, and tell me always and particularly of
your mother.
They are all here, gone to a picnic at Richmond.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday.
[Post-mark, September 3, 1846.]
I am rejoiced that poor Flush is found again, dearest—altogether rejoiced.
And now that you probably have him by your side, I will tell you what
I should have done in such a case, because it explains our two ways of
seeing and meeting oppression lesser or greater. I would not have given
five shillings on that fellow’s application. I would have said,—and in
entire earnestness ‘_You_ are responsible for the proceedings of your
gang, and _you_ I mark—don’t talk nonsense to me about cutting off heads
or paws. Be as sure as that I stand here and tell you, I will spend my
whole life in putting you down, the nuisance you declare yourself—and by
every imaginable means I will be the death of you and as many of your
accomplices as I can discover—but _you_ I have discovered and will never
lose sight of—now try my sincerity, by delaying to produce the dog by
to-morrow. And for the ten pounds—see!’ Whereupon I would give them to
the first beggar in the street. You think I should receive Flush’s head?
Perhaps—_so_ God allows matters to happen! on purpose, it may be, that I
should vindicate him by the punishment I would exact.
Observe, Ba, this course ought not to be yours, because it _could_ not
be—it would not suit your other qualities. But all religion, right and
justice, with me, seem implied in such a resistance to wickedness and
refusal to multiply it a hundredfold—for from this prompt payment of
ten pounds for a few minutes’ act of the easiest villainy, there will
be encouragement to—how many similar acts in the course of next month?
And how will the poor owners fare who have not money enough for their
dogs’ redemption? I suppose the gentleman, properly disgusted with such
obstinacy, will threaten roasting at a slow fire to test the sincerity
of attachment! No—the world would grow too detestable a den of thieves
and oppressors that way! And this is too great a piece of indignation to
be expressed when one has the sick vile headache that oppresses me this
morning. Dearest, I am not inclined to be even as tolerant as usual. Will
you be tolerant, my Ba, and forgive me—till to-morrow at least—when, what
with physic, what with impatience, I shall be better one way or another?
Ever your own R.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, September 4, 1846.]
When I had finished that letter this morning, dearest dearest, before I
could seal it, even, (my sister did it for me ... and despatched it to
the post at once) I became quite ill and so sick as to be forced to go
up-stairs and throw myself on the bed. It is now six o’clock, and I feel
better, and have some thoughts of breaking my fast to-day—but, first of
all ... did whatever it may have been I wrote seem _cross_—unnecessarily
angry, to you, dearest Ba? Because, I confess to having felt indignant
at this sample of the evils done under the sun every day ... and as
if it would be to no purpose though the whole world were peopled with
Ba’s, instead of just Wimpole Street; as they would be just so many
more soft cushions for the villainously-disposed to run pins into at
their pleasure. Donne says that ‘Weakness invites, but silence _feasts_
oppression.’ And it is horrible to fancy how all the oppressors in
their several ranks may, if they choose, twitch back to them by the
heartstrings after various modes the weak and silent whose secret they
have found out. No one should profit by those qualities in me, at least.
Having formed a resolution, I would keep it, I hope, through fire and
water, and the threatener of any piece of rascality, who (as commonly
happens) should be without the full heart to carry it into effect, should
pay me exactly the same for the threat ... which had determined my
conduct once and for ever. But in this particular case, I ought to have
told you (unless you divined it, as you might) that I would give all I
am ever to be worth in the world to get back your Flush for you—for your
interest is not _mine_, any more than the lake is the river that goes to
feed it,—mine is only made to feed yours—I am yours, as we say—as I feel
more and more every minute.
Are you not mine, too? And do you not forgive your own R?
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 4, 1846.]
Ever dearest, you are not well—that is the first thing!—And that is
the thing I saw first, when, opening your letter, my eyes fell on the
ending sentence of it,—which disenchanted me in a moment from the hope
of the day. Dearest—you have not been well for two or three days, it
is plain,—and now you are very, very unwell—tell me if it is not so?
I beseech you to let me hear the exact truth about you, for I am very
uneasy, and it is dreadful to doubt about knowing the exact truth in all
such cases. How everything goes against me this week! I cannot see you. I
cannot comfort myself by knowing that you are well. And then poor Flush!
You must let him pass as one of the evils, and you _will_, I know; for I
have not got him back yet—no, indeed.
I should have done it. The archfiend, Taylor, the man whom you are going
to spend your life in persecuting (the life that belongs to me, too!),
came last night to say that they would accept six pounds, six guineas,
with half a guinea for himself, considering the trouble of the mediation;
and Papa desired Henry to refuse to pay, and not to tell me a word about
it—all which I did not find out till this morning. Now it is less, as
the money goes, than I had expected, and I was very vexed and angry, and
wanted Henry to go at once and conclude the business—only he wouldn’t,
talked of Papa, and persuaded me that Taylor would come to-day with a
lower charge. He has not come—I knew he would not come,—and if people
won’t do as I choose, I shall go down to-morrow morning myself and bring
Flush back with me. All this time he is suffering and I am suffering.
It may be very foolish—I do not say it is not—or it may even be ‘awful
sin,’ as Mr. Boyd sends to assure me—but I cannot endure to run cruel
hazards about my poor Flush for the sake of a few guineas, or even for
the sake of abstract principles of justice—I cannot. _You_ say that _I_
cannot, ... but that _you would_. You would!—Ah dearest—most pattern
of citizens, but you _would not_—I know you better. Your theory is far
too good not to fall to pieces in practice. A man may love justice
intensely; but the love of an abstract principle is not the strongest
love—now is it? Let us consider a little, putting poor Flush out of the
question. (You would bear, you say, to receive his head in a parcel—it
would satisfy you to cut off Taylor’s in return). Do you mean to say
that if the banditti came down on us in Italy and carried me off to the
mountains, and, sending to you one of my ears, to show you my probable
fate if you did not let them have ... how much may I venture to say I am
worth? ... five or six scudi,—(is _that_ reasonable at all?) ... would
your answer be ‘Not so many crazie’; and would you wait, poised upon
abstract principles, for the other ear, and the catastrophe,—as was done
in Spain not long ago? Would you, dearest? Because it is as well to know
beforehand, perhaps.
Ah—how I am teazing you, my beloved, when you are not well. But indeed
that life of yours is worthy of better uses than to scourge Taylor with,
even if _I_ should not be worth the crazie.
I have seen nobody and heard nothing. I bought a pair of shoes to-day
lined with flannel, to walk with on the bare floors of Italy in the
winter. Is not _that_ being practical and coming to the point? I did it
indeed!
May God bless you. I love you always and am your own.
Write of yourself, I _do pray you_—and also, how is your mother?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, September 4, 1846.]
You dearest, best Ba, I will say at the beginning of the letter, and not
at the end, this time, that I am very much better—my head clear from
pain, if a little _uncertain_—I was in the garden when your letter came.
The worst is, that I am really forced to go and dine out to-day—but I
shall take all imaginable care and get away early ... and be ready to go
and see you at a minute’s notice, should a note signify your permission
to-morrow ... if Mr. Kenyon’s visit is over, for instance. I have to
attribute this effect to that abstinent system of yours. Depend on it, I
shall be well and continue well now.
Dear Ba, I wrote under the notion (as I said) that poor Flush was safe
by your side; and only took that occasion to point at what I must still
consider the wrongness of the whole system of giving way to, instead of
opposing, such proceedings. I think it lamentable weakness ... though I
can quite understand and allow for it in you,—but weakness it essentially
_is_, as _you_ know perfectly. For see, you first put the matter in the
gentlest possible light ... ‘who would give much time and trouble to the
castigation of such a fellow as _that_!’ You ask—and immediately after,
for another purpose, you very rightly rank this crime with that other
enormous one, of the Spanish banditti—nay, you confess that, in this very
case, any such injury to Flush as you dread would give you inexpressible
grief. Is the threatening this outrage then so little a matter? Am I
to think it a less matter if the same miscreant should _strike_ you in
the street because you would probably suffer less than by this that he
_has_ done? There is the inevitable inconsistency of wrong reasoning in
all this. Say, as I told you on another subject,—‘I determine to resist
no injury whatever, to be at the disposal of any villain in the world,
trusting to God for protection here or recompense hereafter’—or take my
course; _which_ is the easier, and in the long run, however strangely it
may seem, the more profitable, no one can doubt—but I take the harder—in
all but the responsibility—which, without any cant, would be intolerable
to me. Look at this ‘society’ with its ‘four thousand a year’—which
unless its members are perfect fools they will go on to double and
treble—would this have existed if a proper stand had been made at the
beginning? The first silly man, woman or child who consented to pay five
shillings, beyond the mere expense of keeping the dog (on the supposition
of its having been found, _not_ stolen), is responsible for all the
harm—what could the thief do but go and steal another, and ask double for
its ransom?
And see—dog-stealers so encouraged are the lowest of the vile—can neither
write nor read, perhaps. One of the fraternity possesses this knowledge,
however, and aims higher. Accordingly, instead of stealing your dog,
he determines to steal your character; if a guinea (at the beginning)
ransoms the one, ten pounds shall ransom the other; accordingly Mr.
Barnard Gregory takes pen in hand and writes to some timid man, in the
first instance, that unless he receives that sum, his character will
be blasted. The timid man takes your advice ... says that the ‘love
of an abstract principle’ must not run him into ‘cruel hazards’ ‘for
the sake of a few guineas’—so he pays them—who would bother himself
with such vermin as Gregory? So Gregory receives his pay for his five
minutes’ penmanship—takes down a directory, and writes five hundred
such letters. Serjeant Talfourd told me, counting them on his fingers,
‘such and such’ (naming them) cut their throats after robbing their
families, employers &c., such fled the country—such went mad ... _that_
was the commonest event.’ At last, even so poor a creature as the Duke
of Brunswick, with his detestable character and painted face,—even _he_
plucks up courage and turns on Gregory, grown by this time into a really
formidable monster by these amiable victims to the other principle of
easy virtue,—and the event is that this execrable ‘Abhorson’s’ trade is
utterly destroyed—that form of atrocious persecution exists no longer. I
am in no danger of being told, at next post delivery, that having been
‘tracked up Vere Street, down Bond Street, &c.’ into Wimpole Street
my character and yours will be the subject of an article in the next
_Satirist_ unless ...
To all of which you have a great answer—‘What should I do if _you_ were
to be the victim?’ That my note yesterday, the second one, told you.
I sacrifice _myself_ ... all that belongs _to me_—but there are some
interests which I belong to—I have no right, no more than inclination,
in such a case, to think of myself if your safety is concerned, and as
I could cut off a limb to save my head, so my head should fall most
willingly to redeem yours ... I would pay every farthing I had in the
world, and shoot with my own hand the receiver of it after a chase of
fifty years—esteeming _that_ to be a very worthy recompense for the
trouble.