_Tuesday_, remember! And say that you agree.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday.
[Post-mark, January 17, 1846.]
Did my own Ba, in the prosecution of her studies, get to a book on the
forb--no, _un_forbidden shelf--wherein Voltaire pleases to say that
'si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer'? I feel, after
reading these letters,--as ordinarily after seeing you, sweetest, or
hearing from you,--that if _marriage_ did not exist, I should
infallibly _invent_ it. I should say, no words, no _feelings_ even,
do justice to the whole conviction and _religion_ of my soul--and
though they may be suffered to represent some one minute's phase of
it, yet, in their very fulness and passion they do injustice to the
_unrepresented, other minute's_, depth and breadth of love ... which
let my whole life (I would say) be devoted to telling and proving and
exemplifying, if not in one, then in another way--let me have the
plain palpable power of this; the assured time for this ... something
of the satisfaction ... (but for the fantasticalness of the
illustration) ... something like the earnestness of some suitor in
Chancery if he could once get Lord Lyndhurst into a room with him, and
lock the door on them both, and know that his whole story _must_ be
listened to now, and the 'rights of it,'--dearest, the love unspoken
now you are to hear 'in all time of our tribulation, in all time of
our wealth ... at the hour of death, and'--
If I did not _know_ this was so,--nothing would have been said, or
sought for. Your friendship, the perfect pride in it, the wish for,
and eager co-operation in, your welfare, all that is different, and,
seen now, nothing.
I will care for it no more, dearest--I am wedded to you now. I believe
no human being could love you more--that thought consoles me for my
own imperfection--for when _that_ does strike me, as so often it will,
I turn round on my pursuing self, and ask 'What if it were a claim
then, what is in Her, demanded rationally, equitably, in return for
what were in you--do you like _that_ way!'--And I do _not_, Ba--you,
even, might not--when people everyday buy improveable ground, and
eligible sites for building, and don't want every inch filled up,
covered over, done to their hands! So take me, and make me what you
can and will--and though never to be _more_ yours, yet more _like_
you, I may and must be--Yes, indeed--best, only love!
And am I not grateful to your sisters--entirely grateful for that
crowning comfort; it is 'miraculous,' too, if you please--for _you_
shall know me by finger-tip intelligence or any art magic of old or
new times--but they do not see me, know me--and must moreover be
jealous of you, chary of you, as the daughters of Hesperus, of
wonderers and wistful lookers up at the gold apple--yet instead of
'rapidly levelling eager eyes'--they are indulgent? Then--shall I wish
capriciously they were _not_ your sisters, not so near you, that there
might be a kind of grace in loving them for it'--but what grace can
there be when ... yes, I will tell you--_no_, I will not--it is
foolish!--and it is _not_ foolish in me to love the table and chairs
and vases in your room.
Let me finish writing to-morrow; it would not become me to utter a
word against the arrangement--and Saturday promised, too--but though
all concludes against the early hour on Monday, yet--but this is
wrong--on Tuesday it shall be, then,--thank you, dearest! you let me
keep up the old proper form, do you not?--I shall continue to thank,
and be gratified &c. as if I had some untouched fund of thanks at my
disposal to cut a generous figure with on occasion! And so, now, for
your kind considerateness thank _you ... that I say_, which, God
knows, _could_ not say, if I died ten deaths in one to do you good,
'you are repaid'--
To-morrow I will write, and answer more. I am pretty well, and will go
out to-day--to-night. My Act is done, and copied--I will bring it. Do
you see the _Athenæum_? By Chorley surely--and kind and satisfactory.
I did not expect any notice for a long time--all that about the
'mist,' 'unchanged manner' and the like is politic concession to the
Powers that Be ... because he might tell me that and much more with
his own lips or unprofessional pen, and be thanked into the bargain,
yet he does not. But I fancy he saves me from a rougher hand--the long
extracts answer every purpose--
There is all to say yet--to-morrow!
And ever, ever your own; God bless you!