Mr. Kenyon returns to Dover immediately. His kindness is impotent in
the case.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 18, 1845.]
But one word before we leave the subject, and then to leave it
finally; but I cannot let you go on to fancy a mystery anywhere, in
obstacles or the rest. You deserve at least a full frankness; and in
my letter I meant to be fully frank. I even told you what was an
absurdity, so absurd that I should far rather not have told you at
all, only that I felt the need of telling you all: and no mystery is
involved in that, except as an 'idiosyncrasy' is a mystery. But the
'insurmountable' difficulty is for you and everybody to see; and for
me to feel, who have been a very byword among the talkers, for a
confirmed invalid through months and years, and who, even if I were
going to Pisa and had the best prospects possible to me, should yet
remain liable to relapses and stand on precarious ground to the end of
my life. Now that is no mystery for the trying of 'faith'; but a plain
fact, which neither thinking nor speaking can make less a fact. But
_don't_ let us speak of it.
I must speak, however, (before the silence) of what you said and
repeat in words for which I gratefully thank you--and which are _not_
'ostentatious' though unnecessary words--for, if I were in a position
to accept sacrifices from you, I would not accept _such_ a sacrifice
... amounting to a sacrifice of duty and dignity as well as of ease
and satisfaction ... to an exchange of higher work for lower work ...
and of the special work you are called to, for that which is work for
anybody. I am not so ignorant of the right uses and destinies of what
you have and are. You will leave the Solicitor-Generalships to the
Fitzroy Kellys, and justify your own nature; and besides, do me the
little right, (_over_ the _over_-right you are always doing me) of
believing that I would not bear or dare to do _you_ so much wrong, if
I were in the position to do it.
And for all the rest I thank you--believe that I thank you ... and
that the feeling is not so weak as the word. That _you_ should care at
all for _me_ has been a matter of unaffected wonder to me from the
first hour until now--and I cannot help the pain I feel sometimes, in
thinking that it would have been better for you if you never had known
me. May God turn back the evil of me! Certainly I admit that I cannot
expect you ... just at this moment, ... to say more than you say, ...
and I shall try to be at ease in the consideration that you are as
accessible to the 'unicorn' now as you ever could be at any former
period of your life. And here I have done. I had done _living_, I
thought, when you came and sought me out! and why? and to what end?
_That_, I cannot help thinking now. Perhaps just that I may pray for
you--which were a sufficient end. If you come on Saturday I trust you
to leave this subject untouched,--as it must be indeed henceforth.