_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, October 13, 1845].
These are bad news, dearest--all bad, except the enduring comfort of
your regard; the illness of your brother is worst ... that _would_
stay you, and is the first proper obstacle. I shall not attempt to
speak and prove my feelings,--you know what even Flush is to me
through you: I wait in anxiety for the next account.
If after all you do _not_ go to Pisa; why, we must be cheerful and
wise, and take courage and hope. I cannot but see with your eyes and
from your place, you know,--and will let this all be one surprizing
and deplorable mistake of mere love and care ... but no such another
mistake ought to be suffered, if you escape the effects of this. I
will not cease to believe in a better event, till the very last,
however, and it is a deep satisfaction that all has been made plain
and straight up to this strange and sad interposition like a bar. You
have done _your_ part, at least--with all that forethought and counsel
from friends and adequate judges of the case--so, if the bar _will_
not move, you will consider--will you not, dearest?--where one may
best encamp in the unforbidden country, and wait the spring and fine
weather. Would it be advisable to go where Mr. Kenyon suggested, or
elsewhere? Oh, these vain wishes ... the will here, and no means!
My life is bound up with yours--my own, first and last love. What
wonder if I feared to tire you--I who, knowing you as I do, admiring
what is so admirable (let me speak), loving what must needs be loved,
fain to learn what you only can teach; proud of so much, happy in so
much of you; I, who, for all this, neither come to admire, nor feel
proud, nor be taught,--but only, only to live with you and be by
you--that is love--for I _know_ the rest, as I say. I know those
qualities are in you ... but at them I could get in so many ways.... I
have your books, here are my letters you give me; you would answer my
questions were _I_ in Pisa--well, and it all would amount to nothing,
infinitely much as I know it is; to nothing if I could not sit by you
and see you.... I can stop at that, but not before. And it seems
strange to me how little ... less than little I have laid open of my
feelings, the nature of them to you--I smile to think how if all this
while I had been acting with the profoundest policy in intention, so
as to pledge myself to nothing I could not afterwards perform with the
most perfect ease and security, I should have done not much unlike
what I _have_ done--to be sure, one word includes many or all ... but
I have not said ... what I will not even now say ... you will
_know_--in God's time to which I trust.
I will answer your note now--the questions. I did go--(it may amuse
you to write on)--to Moxon's. First let me tell you that when I called
there the Saturday before, his brother (in his absence) informed me,
replying to the question when it came naturally in turn with a round
of like enquiries, that your poems continued to sell 'singularly
well'--they would 'end in bringing a clear profit,' he said. I thought
to catch him, and asked if they _had_ done so ... 'Oh; not at the
beginning ... it takes more time--he answered. On Thursday I saw
Moxon--he spoke rather encouragingly of my own prospects. I send him a
sheetful to-morrow, I believe, and we are 'out' on the 1st of next
month. Tennyson, by the way, has got his pension, £200 per annum--by
the other way, Moxon has bought the MSS. of Keats in the possession of
Taylor the publisher, and is going to bring out a complete edition;
which is pleasant to hear.
After settling with Moxon I went to Mrs. Carlyle's--who told me
characteristic quaintnesses of Carlyle's father and mother over the
tea she gave me. And all yesterday, you are to know, I was in a
permanent mortal fright--for my uncle came in the morning to intreat
me to go to Paris in _the evening_ about some urgent business of
his,--a five-minutes matter with his brother there,--and the affair
being really urgent and material to his and the brother's interest,
and no substitute being to be thought of, I was forced to promise to
go--in case a letter, which would arrive in Town at noon, should not
prove satisfactory. So I calculated times, and found I could be at
Paris to-morrow, and back again, _certainly_ by Wednesday--and so not
lose you on that day--oh, the fear I had!--but I was sure then and
now, that the 17th would not see you depart. But night came, and the
last Dover train left, and I drew breath freely--this morning I find
the letter was all right--so may it be with all worse apprehensions!
What you fear, precisely that, never happens, as Napoleon observed and
thereon grew bold. I had stipulated for an hour's notice, if go I
must--and that was to be wholly spent in writing to you--for in quiet
consternation my mother cared for my carpet bag.
And so, I shall hear from you to-morrow ... that is, you will write
_then_, telling me _all_ about your brother. As for what you say, with
the kindest intentions, 'of fever-contagion' and keeping away on
Wednesday on _that_ account, it is indeed 'out of the question,'--for
a first reason (which dispenses with any second) because I disbelieve
altogether in contagion from fevers, and especially from typhus
fevers--as do much better-informed men than myself--I speak quite
advisedly. If there should be only _that_ reason, therefore, you will
not deprive me of the happiness of seeing you next Wednesday.
I am not well--have a cold, influenza or some unpleasant thing, but am
better than yesterday--My mother is much better, I think (she and my
sister are resolute non-contagionists, mind you that!)