You know what I am, what I would speak, and all I would do.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 27, 1845.]
I had your letter late last night, everyone almost, being out of the
house by an accident, so that it was left in the letter-box, and if I
had wished to answer it before I saw you, it had scarcely been
possible.
But it will be the same thing--for you know as well as if you saw my
answer, what it must be, what it cannot choose but be, on pain of
sinking me so infinitely below not merely your level but my own, that
the depth cannot bear a glance down. Yet, though I am not made of such
clay as to admit of my taking a base advantage of certain noble
extravagances, (and that I am not I thank God for your sake) I will
say, I must say, that your words in this letter have done me good and
made me happy, ... that I thank and bless you for them, ... and that
to receive such a proof of attachment from _you_, not only overpowers
every present evil, but seems to me a full and abundant amends for the
merely personal sufferings of my whole life. When I had read that
letter last night I _did_ think so. I looked round and round for the
small bitternesses which for several days had been bitter to me, and I
could not find one of them. The tear-marks went away in the moisture
of new, happy tears. Why, how else could I have felt? how else do you
think I could? How would any woman have felt ... who could feel at all
... hearing such words said (though 'in a dream' indeed) by such a
speaker?
And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than
I thought even _you_ could have touched me--my heart was full when you
came here to-day. Henceforward I am yours for everything but to do you
harm--and I am yours too much, in my heart, ever to consent to do you
harm in that way. If I could consent to do it, not only should I be
less loyal ... but in one sense, less yours. I say this to you without
drawback and reserve, because it is all I am able to say, and perhaps
all I _shall_ be able to say. However this may be, a promise goes to
you in it that none, except God and your will, shall interpose between
you and me, ... I mean, that if He should free me within a moderate
time from the trailing chain of this weakness, I will then be to you
whatever at that hour you shall choose ... whether friend or more than
friend ... a friend to the last in any case. So it rests with God and
with you--only in the meanwhile you are most absolutely free ...
'unentangled' (as they call it) by the breadth of a thread--and if I
did not know that you considered yourself so, I would not see you any
more, let the effort cost me what it might. You may force me _feel_:
... but you cannot force me to _think_ contrary to my first thought
... that it were better for you to forget me at once in one relation.
And if better for _you_, can it be bad for _me_? which flings me down
on the stone-pavement of the logicians.
And now if I ask a boon of you, will you forget afterwards that it
ever was asked? I have hesitated a great deal; but my face is down on
the stone-pavement--no--I will not ask to-day--It shall be for another
day--and may God bless you on this and on those that come after, my
dearest friend.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, September 27, 1845.]
Think for me, speak for me, my dearest, _my own_! You that are all
great-heartedness and generosity, do that one more generous thing?