_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Night.
[Post-mark, January 14, 1846.]
Ah Mr. Kenyon!--how he vexed me to-day. To keep away all the ten days
before, and to come just at the wrong time after all! It was better
for you, I suppose--believe--to go with him down-stairs--yes, it
certainly was better: it was disagreeable enough to be very wise! Yet
I, being addicted to every sort of superstition turning to melancholy,
did hate so breaking off in the middle of that black thread ... (do
you remember what we were talking of when they opened the door?) that
I was on the point of saying 'Stay one moment,' which I should have
repented afterwards for the best of good reasons. Oh, I _should_ have
liked to have 'fastened off' that black thread, and taken one stitch
with a blue or a green one!
You do not remember what we were talking of? what _you_, rather, were
talking of? And what _I_ remember, at least, because it is exactly the
most unkind and hard thing you ever said to me--ever dearest, so I
remember it by that sign! That you should say such a thing to me--!
think what it was, for indeed I will not write it down here--it would
be worse than Mr. Powell! Only the foolishness of it (I mean, the
foolishness of it alone) saves it, smooths it to a degree!--the
foolishness being the same as if you asked a man where he would walk
when he lost his head. Why, if you had asked St. Denis _beforehand_,
he would have thought it a foolish question.
And you!--you, who talk so finely of never, never doubting; of being
such an example in the way of believing and trusting--it appears,
after all, that you have an imagination apprehensive (or
comprehensive) of 'glass bottles' like other sublunary creatures, and
worse than some of them. For mark, that I never went any farther than
to the stone-wall hypothesis of your forgetting me!--_I_ always
stopped there--and never climbed, to the top of it over the
broken-bottle fortification, to see which way you meant to walk
afterwards. And you, to ask me so coolly--think what you asked me.
That you should have the heart to ask such a question!
And the reason--! and it could seem a reasonable matter of doubt to
you whether I would go to the south for my health's sake!--And I
answered quite a common 'no' I believe--for you bewildered me for the
moment--and I have had tears in my eyes two or three times since, just
through thinking back of it all ... of your asking me such questions.
Now did I not tell you when I first knew you, that I was leaning out
of the window? True, _that_ was--I was tired of living ...
unaffectedly tired. All I cared to live for was to do better some of
the work which, after all, was out of myself, and which I had to reach
across to do. But I told you. Then, last year, for duty's sake I would
have _consented_ to go to Italy! but if you really fancy that I would
have struggled in the face of all that difficulty--or struggled,
indeed, anywise, to compass such an object as _that_--except for the
motive of your caring for it and me--why you know nothing of me after
all--nothing! And now, take away the motive, and I am where I
was--leaning out of the window again. To put it in plainer words (as
you really require information), I should let them do what they liked
to me till I was dead--only I _wouldn't go to Italy_--if anybody
proposed Italy out of contradiction. In the meantime I do entreat you
never to talk of such a thing to me any more.
You know, if you were to leave me by your choice and for your
happiness, it would be another thing. It would be very lawful to talk
of _that_.
And observe! I perfectly understand that you did not think of
_doubting me_--so to speak! But you thought, all the same, that if
such a thing happened, I should be capable of doing so and so.
Well--I am not quarrelling--I am uneasy about your head rather. That
pain in it--what can it mean? I do beseech you to think of me just so
much as will lead you to take regular exercise every day, never
missing a day; since to walk till you are tired on Tuesday and then
not to walk at all until Friday is _not_ taking exercise, nor the
thing required. Ah, if you knew how dreadfully natural every sort of
evil seems to my mind, you would not laugh at me for being afraid. I
do beseech you, dearest! And then, Sir John Hanmer invited you,
besides Mr. Warburton, and suppose you went to _him_ for a very little
time--just for the change of air? or if you went to the coast
somewhere. Will you consider, and do what is right, _for me_? I do not
propose that you should go to Italy, observe, nor any great thing at
which you might reasonably hesitate. And--did you ever try smoking as
a remedy? If the nerves of the head chiefly are affected it might do
you good, I have been thinking. Or without the smoking, to breathe
where tobacco is burnt,--_that_ calms the nervous system in a
wonderful manner, as I experienced once myself when, recovering from
an illness, I could not sleep, and tried in vain all sorts of
narcotics and forms of hop-pillow and inhalation, yet was
tranquillized in one half hour by a _pinch_ of _tobacco_ being burnt
in a shovel near me. Should you mind it very much? the trying I mean?
_Wednesday._--For '_Pauline_'--when I had named it to you I was on the
point of sending for the book to the booksellers--then suddenly I
thought to myself that I should wait and hear whether you very, very
much would dislike my reading it. See now! Many readers have done
virtuously, but _I_, (in this virtue I tell you of) surpassed them
all!--And now, because I may, I '_must_ read it':--and as there are
misprints to be corrected, will you do what is necessary, or what you
think is necessary, and bring me the book on Monday? Do not
send--bring it. In the meanwhile I send back the review which I forgot
to give to you yesterday in the confusion. Perhaps you have not read
it in your house, and in any case there is no use in my keeping it.
Shall I hear from you, I wonder! Oh my vain thoughts, that will not
keep you well! And, ever since you have known me, you have been
worse--_that_, you confess!--and what if it should be the crossing of
my bad star? _You_ of the 'Crown' and the 'Lyre,' to seek influences
from the 'chair of Cassiopeia'! I hope she will forgive me for using
her name so! I might as well have compared her to a professorship of
poetry in the university of Oxford, according to the latest election.
You know, the qualification, there, is,--_not to be a poet_.
How vexatious, yesterday! The stars (talking of _them_) were out of
spherical tune, through the damp weather, perhaps, and that scarlet
sun was a sign! First Mr. Chorley!--and last, dear Mr. Kenyon; who
_will_ say tiresome things without any provocation. Did you walk with
him his way, or did he walk with you yours? or did you only walk
down-stairs together?
Write to me! Remember that it is a month to Monday. Think of your very
own, who bids God bless you when she prays best for herself!--