_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Night.
[Post-mark, December 8, 1845.]
Well, I did see your brother last night ... and very wisely neither
spoke nor kept silence in the proper degree, but said that 'I hoped
you were well'--from the sudden feeling that I must say _something_ of
you--not pretend indifference about you _now_ ... and from the
impossibility of saying the _full_ of what I might; because other
people were by--and after, in the evening, when I should have remedied
the first imperfect expression, I had not altogether the heart. So,
you, dearest, will clear me with him if he wonders, will you not? But
it all hangs together; speaking of you,--to you,--writing to you--all
is helpless and sorrowful work by the side of what is in my soul to
say and to write--or is it not the natural consequence? If these
vehicles of feelings sufficed--_there_ would be the end!--And that my
feeling for you should end!... For the rest, the headache which kept
away while I sate with you, made itself amends afterward, and as it is
unkind to that warm Talfourd to look blank at his hospitable
endeavours, all my power of face went _à qui de droit_--
Did your brother tell you ... yes, I think ... of the portentous book,
lettered II, and thick as a law-book, of congratulatory letters on
the appearance of 'Ion'?--But how under the B's in the Index came
'Miss Barrett' and, woe's me, 'R.B.'! I don't know when I have had so
ghastly a visitation. There was the utterly _forgotten_ letter, in the
as thoroughly disused hand-writing, in the ... I fear ... still as
completely obsolete feeling--no, not so bad as that--but at first
there was all the novelty, and social admiration at the friend--it is
truly not right to pluck all the rich soil from the roots and hold
them up clean and dry as if they came _so_ from all you now see, which
is nothing at all ... like the Chinese Air-plant! Do you understand
this? And surely 'Ion' is a _very_, very beautiful and noble
conception, and finely executed,--a beautiful work--what has come
after, has lowered it down by grade after grade ... it don't stand
apart on the hill, like a wonder, now it is _built up_ to by other
attempts; but the great difference is in myself. Another maker of
another 'Ion,' finding me out and behaving as Talfourd did, would not
find _that me_, so to be behaved to, so to be honoured--though he
should have all the good will! Ten years ago!
And ten years hence!
Always understand that you do _not_ take me as I was at the beginning
... with a crowd of loves to give to _something_ and so get rid of
their pain and burden. I have _known_ what that ends in--a handful of
anything may be as sufficient a sample, serve your purposes and teach
you its nature, as well as whole heaps--and I know what most of the
pleasures of this world are--so that I _can_ be surer of myself, and
make you surer, on calm demonstrated grounds, than if I had a host of
objects of admiration or ambition _yet_ to become acquainted with. You
say, 'I am a man and may change'--I answer, yes--but, while I hold my
senses, only change for the _presumable_ better ... not for the
_experienced worst_.
Here is my Uncle's foot on the stair ... his knock hurried the last
sentence--here he is by me!--Understand what this would have led to,
how you would have been _proved logically_ my own, best, extreme want,
my life's end--YES; dearest! Bless you ever--