_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, August 30, 1845.]
Can you understand me _so_, dearest friend, after all? Do you see
me--when I am away, or with you--'taking offence' at words, 'being
vexed' at words, or deeds of yours, even if I could not immediately
trace them to their source of entire, pure kindness; as I have
hitherto done in every smallest instance?
I believe in _you_ absolutely, utterly--I believe that when you bade
me, that time, be silent--that such was your bidding, and I was
silent--dare I say I think you did not know at that time the power I
have over myself, that I could sit and speak and listen as I have done
since? Let me say now--_this only once_--that I loved you from my
soul, and gave you my life, so much of it as you would take,--and all
that is _done_, not to be altered now: it was, in the nature of the
proceeding, wholly independent of any return on your part. I will not
think on extremes you might have resorted to; as it is, the assurance
of your friendship, the intimacy to which you admit me, _now_, make
the truest, deepest joy of my life--a joy I can never think fugitive
while we are in life, because I KNOW, as to me, I _could_ not
willingly displease you,--while, as to you, your goodness and
understanding will always see to the bottom of involuntary or ignorant
faults--always help me to correct them. I have done now. If I thought
you were like other women I have known, I should say so
much!--but--(my first and last word--I _believe_ in you!)--what you
could and would give me, of your affection, you would give nobly and
simply and as a giver--you would not need that I tell you--(_tell_
you!)--what would be supreme happiness to me in the event--however
distant--
I repeat ... I call on your justice to remember, on your intelligence
to believe ... that this is merely a more precise stating the _first_
subject; to put an end to any possible misunderstanding--to prevent
your henceforth believing that because I _do not write_, from thinking
too deeply of you, I am offended, vexed &c. &c. I will never recur to
this, nor shall you see the least difference in my manner next Monday:
it is indeed, always before me ... how I know nothing of you and
yours. But I think I ought to have spoken when I did--and to speak
clearly ... or more clearly what I do, as it is my pride and duty to
fall back, now, on the feeling with which I have been in the
meantime--Yours--God bless you--