Admire the clean paper.... I did not notice that I have been writing in
a desk where a candle fell! See the bottoms of the other pages!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Evening.
[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]
You may have seen, I put off all the weighty business part of the
letter--but I shall do very little with it now. To be sure, a few
words will serve, because you understand me, and believe in _enough_
of me. First, then, I am wholly satisfied, thoroughly made happy in
your assurance. I would build up an infinity of lives, if I could plan
them, one on the other, and all resting on you, on your word--I fully
believe in it,--of my feeling, the gratitude, let there be no attempt
to speak. And for 'waiting'; 'not hurrying',--I leave all with you
henceforth--all you say is most wise, most convincing.
On the saddest part of all,--silence. You understand, and I can
understand through you. Do you know, that I never _used_ to dream
unless indisposed, and rarely then--(of late I dream of you, but quite
of late)--and _those_ nightmare dreams have invariably been of _one_
sort. I stand by (powerless to interpose by a word even) and see the
infliction of tyranny on the unresisting man or beast (generally the
last)--and I wake just in time not to die: let no one try this kind of
experiment on me or mine! Though I have observed that by a felicitous
arrangement, the man with the whip puts it into use with an old horse
commonly. I once knew a fine specimen of the boilingly passionate,
desperately respectable on the Eastern principle that reverences a
madman--and this fellow, whom it was to be death to oppose, (some
bloodvessel was to break)--he, once at a dinner party at which I was
present, insulted his wife (a young pretty simple believer in his
awful immunities from the ordinary terms that keep men in
order)--brought the tears into her eyes and sent her from the room ...
purely to 'show off' in the eyes of his guests ... (all males,
law-friends &c., he being a lawyer.) This feat accomplished, he, too,
left us with an affectation of compensating relentment, to 'just say a
word and return'--and no sooner was his back to the door than the
biggest, stupidest of the company began to remark 'what a fortunate
thing it was that Mr. So-and-so had such a submissive wife--not one of
the women who would resist--that is, attempt to resist--and so
exasperate our gentleman into ... Heaven only knew what!' I said it
_was_, in one sense, a fortunate thing; because one of these women,
without necessarily being the lion-tressed Bellona, would richly give
him his desert, I thought--'Oh, indeed?' No--_this_ man was not to be
opposed--wait, you might, till the fit was over, and then try what
kind argument would do--and so forth to unspeakable nausea. Presently
we went up-stairs--there sate the wife with dried eyes, and a smile at
the tea-table--and by her, in all the pride of conquest, with her hand
in his, our friend--disposed to be very good-natured of course. I
listened _arrectis auribus_, and in a minute he said he did not know
somebody I mentioned. I told him, _that_ I easily conceived--such a
person would never condescend to know _him_, &c., and treated him to
every consequence ingenuity could draw from that text--and at the end
marched out of the room; and the valorous man, who had sate like a
post, got up, took a candle, followed me to the door, and only said in
unfeigned wonder, 'What _can_ have possessed you, my _dear_ B?'--All
which I as much expected beforehand, as that the above mentioned man
of the whip keeps quiet in the presence of an ordinary-couraged dog.
All this is quite irrelevant to _the_ case--indeed, I write to get rid
of the thought altogether. But I do hold it the most stringent duty of
all who can, to stop a condition, a relation of one human being to
another which God never allowed to exist between Him and ourselves.
_Trees_ live and die, if you please, and accept will for a law--but
with us, all commands surely refer to a previously-implanted
conviction in ourselves of their rationality and justice. Or why
declare that 'the Lord _is_ holy, just and good' unless there is
recognised and independent conception of holiness and goodness, to
which the subsequent assertion is referable? 'You know what _holiness_
is, what it is to be good? Then, He _is_ that'--not, '_that_ is
_so_--because _he_ is that'; though, of course, when once the converse
is demonstrated, this, too, follows, and may be urged for practical
purposes. All God's urgency, so to speak, is on the _justice_ of his
judgments, _rightness_ of his rule: yet why? one might ask--if one
does believe that the rule _is_ his; why ask further?--Because, his is
a 'reasonable service,' once for all.
Understand why I turn my thoughts in this direction. If it is indeed
as you fear, and no endeavour, concession, on my part will avail,
under any circumstances--(and by endeavour, I mean all heart and soul
could bring the flesh to perform)--in that case, you will not come to
me with a shadow past hope of chasing.
The likelihood is, I over frighten myself for you, by the involuntary
contrast with those here--you allude to them--if I went with this
letter downstairs and said simply 'I want this taken to the direction
to-night, and am unwell and unable to go, will you take it now?' my
father would not say a word, or rather would say a dozen cheerful
absurdities about his 'wanting a walk,' 'just having been wishing to
go out' &c. At night he sits studying my works--illustrating them (I
will bring you drawings to make you laugh)--and _yesterday_ I picked
up a crumpled bit of paper ... 'his notion of what a criticism on this
last number ought to be,--none, that have appeared, satisfying
him!'--So judge of what he will say! And my mother loves me just as
much more as must of necessity be.
Once more, understand all this ... for the clock scares me of a
sudden--I meant to say more--far more.