_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]
Dearest, you know how to say what makes me happiest, you who never
think, you say, of making me happy! For my part I do not think of it
either; I simply understand that you _are_ my happiness, and that
therefore you could not make another happiness for me, such as would
be worth having--not even _you_! Why, how could you? _That_ was in my
mind to speak yesterday, but I could not speak it--to write it, is
easier.
Talking of happiness--shall I tell you? Promise not to be angry and I
will tell you. I have thought sometimes that, if I considered myself
wholly, I should choose to die this winter--now--before I had
disappointed you in anything. But because you are better and dearer
and more to be considered than I, I do _not_ choose it. I _cannot_
choose to give you any pain, even on the chance of its being a less
pain, a less evil, than what may follow perhaps (who can say?), if I
should prove the burden of your life.
For if you make me happy with some words, you frighten me with
others--as with the extravagance yesterday--and seriously--_too_
seriously, when the moment for smiling at them is past--I am
frightened, I tremble! When you come to know me as well as I know
myself, what can save me, do you think, from disappointing and
displeasing you? I ask the question, and find no answer.
It is a poor answer, to say that I can do one thing well ... that I
have one capacity largely. On points of the general affections, I have
in thought applied to myself the words of Mme. de Stael, not
fretfully, I hope, not complainingly, I am sure (I can thank God for
most affectionate friends!) not complainingly, yet mournfully and in
profound conviction--those words--'_jamais je n'ai pas été aimée comme
j'aime_.' The capacity of loving is the largest of my powers I
think--I thought so before knowing you--and one form of feeling. And
although any woman might love you--_every_ woman,--with understanding
enough to discern you by--(oh, do not fancy that I am unduly
magnifying mine office) yet I persist in persuading myself that!
Because I have the capacity, as I said--and besides I owe more to you
than others could, it seems to me: let me boast of it. To many, you
might be better than all things while one of all things: to me you are
instead of all--to many, a crowning happiness--to me, the happiness
itself. From out of the deep dark pits men see the stars more
gloriously--and _de profundis amavi_--
It is a very poor answer! Almost as poor an answer as yours could be
if I were to ask you to teach me to please you always; or rather, how
not to displease you, disappoint you, vex you--what if all those
things were in my fate?
And--(to begin!)--_I_ am disappointed to-night. I expected a letter
which does not come--and I had felt so sure of having a letter
to-night ... unreasonably sure perhaps, which means doubly sure.
_Friday._--Remember you have had two notes of mine, and that it is
certainly not my turn to write, though I am writing.
Scarcely you had gone on Wednesday when Mr. Kenyon came. It seemed
best to me, you know, that you should go--I had the presentiment of
his footsteps--and so near they were, that if you had looked up the
street in leaving the door, you must have seen him! Of course I told
him of your having been here and also at his house; whereupon he
enquired eagerly if you meant to dine with him, seeming disappointed
by my negative. 'Now I had told him,' he said ... and murmured on to
himself loud enough for me to hear, that 'it would have been a
peculiar pleasure &c.' The reason I have not seen him lately is the
eternal 'business,' just as you thought, and he means to come 'oftener
now,' so nothing is wrong as I half thought.
As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking what
sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most
particularly admire--sulkiness?--the divine gift of sitting aloof in a
cloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps--pettishness? ...
which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one
either? obstinacy?--which is an agreeable form of temper I can assure
you, and describes itself--or the good open passion which lies on the
floor and kicks, like one of my cousins?--Certainly I prefer the last,
and should, I think, prefer it (as an evil), even if it were not the
born weakness of my own nature--though I humbly confess (to _you_, who
seem to think differently of these things) that never since I was a
child have I upset all the chairs and tables and thrown the books
about the room in a fury--I am afraid I do not even 'kick,' like my
cousin, now. Those demonstrations were all done by the 'light of other
days'--not a very full light, I used to be accustomed to think:--but
_you_,--_you_ think otherwise, _you_ take a fury to be the opposite of
'indifference,' as if there could be no such thing as self-control!
Now for my part, I do believe that the worst-tempered persons in the
world are less so through sensibility than selfishness--they spare
nobody's heart, on the ground of being themselves pricked by a straw.
Now see if it isn't so. What, after all, is a good temper but
generosity in trifles--and what, without it, is the happiness of life?
We have only to look round us. I _saw_ a woman, once, burst into
tears, because her husband cut the bread and butter too thick. I saw
_that_ with my own eyes. Was it _sensibility_, I wonder! They were at
least real tears and ran down her cheeks. 'You _always_ do it'! she
said.
Why how you must sympathize with the heroes and heroines of the French
romances (_do_ you sympathize with them very much?) when at the
slightest provocation they break up the tables and chairs, (a degree
beyond the deeds of my childhood!--_I_ only used to upset them) break
up the tables and chairs and chiffoniers, and dash the china to atoms.
The men _do_ the furniture, and the women the porcelain: and pray
observe that they always set about this as a matter of course! When
they have broken everything in the room, they sink down quite (and
very naturally) _abattus_. I remember a particular case of a hero of
Frederic Soulié's, who, in the course of an 'emotion,' takes up a
chair _unconsciously_, and breaks it into very small pieces, and then
proceeds with his soliloquy. Well!--the clearest idea this excites in
_me_, is of the low condition in Paris, of moral government and of
upholstery. Because--just consider for yourself--how _you_ would
succeed in breaking to pieces even a three-legged stool if it were
properly put together--as stools are in England--just yourself,
without a hammer and a screw! You might work at it _comme quatre_, and
find it hard to finish, I imagine. And then as a demonstration, a
child of six years old might demonstrate just so (in his sphere) and
be whipped accordingly.
How I go on writing!--and you, who do not write at all!--two extremes,
one set against the other.
But I must say, though in ever such an ill temper (which you know is
just the time to select for writing a panegyric upon good temper) that
I am glad you do not despise my own right name too much, because I
never was called Elizabeth by any one who loved me at all, and I
accept the omen. So little it seems my name that if a voice said
suddenly 'Elizabeth,' I should as soon turn round as my sisters would
... no sooner. Only, my own right name has been complained of for want
of euphony ... _Ba_ ... now and then it has--and Mr. Boyd makes a
compromise and calls me _Elibet_, because nothing could induce him to
desecrate his organs accustomed to Attic harmonies, with a _Ba_. So I
am glad, and accept the omen.
But I give you no credit for not thinking that I may forget you ... I!
As if you did not see the difference! Why, _I_ could not even forget
to _write_ to _you_, observe!--
Whenever you write, say how you are. Were you wet on Wednesday?