_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, August 25, 1845.]
But what have _I_ done that you should ask what have _you_ done? I
have not brought any accusation, have I ... no, nor _thought_ any, I
am sure--and it was only the 'kindness and considerateness'--argument
that was irresistible as a thing to be retorted, when your thanks came
so naturally and just at the corner of an application. And then, you
know, it is gravely true, seriously true, sadly true, that I am always
expecting to hear or to see how tired you are at last of me!--sooner
or later, you know!--But I did not mean any seriousness in that
letter. No, nor did I mean ... (to pass to another question ...) to
provoke you to the
Mister Hayley ... so are _you_....
reply complimentary. All I observed concerning yourself, was the
_combination_--which not an idiom in chivalry could treat
grammatically as a thing common to _me_ and you, inasmuch as everyone
who has known me for half a day, may know that, if there is anything
peculiar in me, it lies for the most part in an extraordinary
deficiency in this and this and this, ... there is no need to describe
what. Only nuns of the strictest sect of the nunneries are rather
wiser in some points, and have led less restricted lives than I have
in others. And if it had not been for my 'carpet-work'--
Well--and do you know that I have, for the last few years, taken quite
to despise book-knowledge and its effect on the mind--I mean when
people _live by it_ as most readers by profession do, ... cloistering
their souls under these roofs made with heads, when they might be
under the sky. Such people grow dark and narrow and low, with all
their pains.
_Friday._--I was writing you see before you came--and now I go on in
haste to speak 'off my mind' some things which are on it. First ... of
yourself; how can it be that you are unwell again, ... and that you
should talk (now did you not?--did I not hear you say so?) of being
'weary in your soul' ... _you_? What should make _you_, dearest
friend, weary in your soul; or out of spirits in any way?--Do ... tell
me.... I was going to write without a pause--and almost I might,
perhaps, ... even as one of the two hundred of your friends, ...
almost I might say out that 'Do tell me.' Or is it (which I am
inclined to think most probable) that you are tired of a same life and
want change? It may happen to anyone sometimes, and is independent of
your will and choice, you know--and I know, and the whole world knows:
and would it not therefore be wise of you, in that case, to fold your
life new again and go abroad at once? What can make you weary in your
soul, is a problem to me. You are the last from whom I should have
expected such a word. And you did say so, I _think_. I _think_ that it
was not a mistake of mine. And _you_, ... with a full liberty, and the
world in your hand for every purpose and pleasure of it!--Or is it
that, being unwell, your spirits are affected by _that_? But then you
might be more unwell than you like to admit--. And I am teasing you
with talking of it ... am I not?--and being disagreeable is only one
third of the way towards being useful, it is good to remember in time.
And then the next thing to write off my mind is ... that you must not,
you must not, make an unjust opinion out of what I said to-day. I have
been uncomfortable since, lest you should--and perhaps it would have
been better if I had not said it apart from all context in that way;
only that you could not long be a friend of mine without knowing and
seeing what so lies on the surface. But then, ... as far as I am
concerned, ... no one cares less for a 'will' than I do (and this
though I never had one, ... in clear opposition to your theory which
holds generally nevertheless) for a will in the common things of life.
Every now and then there must of course be a crossing and
vexation--but in one's mere pleasures and fantasies, one would rather
be crossed and vexed a little than vex a person one loves ... and it
is possible to get used to the harness and run easily in it at last;
and there is a side-world to hide one's thoughts in, and 'carpet-work'
to be immoral on in spite of Mrs. Jameson, ... and the word
'literature' has, with me, covered a good deal of liberty as you must
see ... real liberty which is never enquired into--and it has happened
throughout my life by an accident (as far as anything is accident)
that my own sense of right and happiness on any important point of
overt action, has never run contrariwise to the way of obedience
required of me ... while in things not exactly _overt_, I and all of
us are apt to act sometimes up to the limit of our means of acting,
with shut doors and windows, and no waiting for cognisance or
permission. Ah--and that last is the worst of it all perhaps! to be
forced into concealments from the heart naturally nearest to us; and
forced away from the natural source of counsel and strength!--and
then, the disingenuousness--the cowardice--the 'vices of
slaves'!--and everyone you see ... all my brothers, ... constrained
_bodily_ into submission ... apparent submission at least ... by that
worst and most dishonouring of necessities, the necessity of _living_,
everyone of them all, except myself, being dependent in money-matters
on the inflexible will ... do you see? But what you do _not_ see, what
you _cannot_ see, is the deep tender affection behind and below all
those patriarchal ideas of governing grown up children 'in the way
they _must_ go!' and there never was (under the strata) a truer
affection in a father's heart ... no, nor a worthier heart in itself
... a heart loyaller and purer, and more compelling to gratitude and
reverence, than his, as I see it! The evil is in the system--and he
simply takes it to be his duty to rule, and to make happy according to
his own views of the propriety of happiness--he takes it to be his
duty to rule like the Kings of Christendom, by divine right. But he
loves us through and through it--and _I_, for one, love _him_! and
when, five years ago, I lost what I loved best in the world beyond
comparison and rivalship ... far better than himself as he knew ...
for everyone who knew _me_ could not choose but know what was my first
and chiefest affection ... when I lost _that_, ... I felt that he
stood the nearest to me on the closed grave ... or by the unclosing
sea ... I do not know which nor could ask. And I will tell you that
not only he has been kind and patient and forbearing to me through the
tedious trial of this illness (far more trying to standers by than you
have an idea of perhaps) but that he was generous and forbearing in
that hour of bitter trial, and never reproached me as he might have
done and as my own soul has not spared--never once said to me then or
since, that if it had not been for _me_, the crown of his house would
not have fallen. He _never did_ ... and he might have said it, and
more--and I could have answered nothing. Nothing, except that I had
paid my own price--and that the price I paid was greater than his
_loss_ ... his!! For see how it was; and how, 'not with my hand but
heart,' I was the cause or occasion of that misery--and though not
with the intention of my heart but with its weakness, yet the
_occasion_, any way!
They sent me down you know to Torquay--Dr. Chambers saying that I
could not live a winter in London. The worst--what people call the
worst--was apprehended for me at that time. So I was sent down with my
sister to my aunt there--and he, my brother whom I loved so, was sent
too, to take us there and return. And when the time came for him to
leave me, _I_, to whom he was the dearest of friends and brothers in
one ... the only one of my family who ... well, but I cannot write of
these things; and it is enough to tell you that he was above us all,
better than us all, and kindest and noblest and dearest to _me_,
beyond comparison, any comparison, as I said--and when the time came
for him to leave me _I_, weakened by illness, could not master my
spirits or drive back my tears--and my aunt kissed them away instead
of reproving me as she should have done; and said that _she_ would
take care that I should not be grieved ... _she_! ... and so she sate
down and wrote a letter to Papa to tell him that he would 'break my
heart' if he persisted in calling away my brother--As if hearts were
broken _so_! I have thought bitterly since that my heart did not break
for a good deal more than _that_! And Papa's answer was--burnt into
me, as with fire, it is--that 'under such circumstances he did not
refuse to suspend his purpose, but that he considered it to be _very
wrong in me to exact such a thing_.' So there was no separation
_then_: and month after month passed--and sometimes I was better and
sometimes worse--and the medical men continued to say that they would
not answer for my life ... they! if I were agitated--and so there was
no more talk of a separation. And once _he_ held my hand, ... how I
remember! and said that he 'loved me better than them all and that he
_would not_ leave me ... till I was well,' he said! how I remember
_that_! And ten days from that day the boat had left the shore which
never returned; never--and he _had_ left me! gone! For three days we
waited--and I hoped while I could--oh--that awful agony of three days!
And the sun shone as it shines to-day, and there was no more wind than
now; and the sea under the windows was like this paper for
smoothness--and my sisters drew the curtains back that I might see for
myself how smooth the sea was, and how it could hurt nobody--and other
boats came back one by one.