_Ba._
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Evening.
[Post-mark, January 26, 1846.]
I will not try and write much to-night, dearest, for my head gives a
little warning--and I have so much to think of!--spite of my penholder
being kept back from me after all! Now, ought I to have asked for it?
Or did I not seem grateful enough at the promise? This last would be a
characteristic reason, seeing that I reproached myself with feeling
_too_ grateful for the 'special symbol'--the 'essential meaning' of
which was already in my soul. Well then, I will--I do pray for
it--next time; and I will keep it for that one yesterday and all its
memories--and it shall bear witness against me, if, on the Siren's
isle, I grow forgetful of Wimpole Street. And when is 'next time' to
be--Wednesday or Thursday? When I look back on the strangely steady
widening of my horizon--how no least interruption has occurred to
visits or letters--oh, care _you_, sweet--care for us both!
That remark of your sister's delights me--you remember?--that the
anger would not be so formidable. I have exactly the fear of
encountering _that_, which the sense of having to deal with a ghost
would induce: there's no striking at it with one's partizan. Well, God
is above all! It is not my fault if it so happens that by returning my
love you make me exquisitely blessed; I believe--more than hope, I am
_sure_ I should do all I ever _now_ can do, if you were never to know
it--that is, my love for you was in the first instance its own
reward--if one must use such phrases--and if it were possible for
that ... not _anger_, which is of no good, but that _opposition_--that
adverse will--to show that your good would be attained by the--
But it would need to be _shown_ to me. You have said thus to me--in
the very last letter, indeed. But with me, or any _man_, the instincts
of happiness develop themselves too unmistakably where there is
anything like a freedom of will. The man whose heart is set on being
rich or influential after the worldly fashion, may be found far enough
from the attainment of either riches or influence--but he will be in
the presumed way to them--pumping at the pump, if he is really anxious
for water, even though the pump be dry--but not sitting still by the
dusty roadside.
I believe--first of all, you--but when that is done, and I am allowed
to call your heart _mine_,--I cannot think you would be happy if
parted from me--and _that_ belief, coming to add to my own feeling in
_that_ case. So, this will _be_--I trust in God.
In life, in death, I am your own, _my_ own! My head has got well
already! It is so slight a thing, that I make such an ado about! Do
not reply to these bodings--they are gone--they seem absurd! All steps
secured but the last, and that last the easiest! Yes--far easiest! For
first you had to be created, only that; and then, in my time; and
then, not in Timbuctoo but Wimpole Street, and then ... the strange
hedge round the sleeping Palace keeping the world off--and then ...
all was to begin, all the difficulty only _begin_:--and now ... see
where is reached! And I kiss you, and bless you, my dearest, in
earnest of the end!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday.
[Post-mark, January 27, 1846.]
You have had my letter and heard about the penholder. Your fancy of
'not seeming grateful enough,' is not wise enough for _you_, dearest;
when you know that _I_ know your common fault to be the undue
magnifying of everything that comes from me, and I am always
complaining of it outwardly and inwardly. That suddenly I should set
about desiring you to be more grateful,--even for so great a boon as
an old penholder,--would be a more astounding change than any to be
sought or seen in a prime minister.
Another mistake you made concerning Henrietta and her opinion--and
there's no use nor comfort in leaving you in it. Henrietta says that
the 'anger would not be so formidable after all'! Poor dearest
Henrietta, who trembles at the least bending of the brows ... who has
less courage than I, and the same views of the future! What she
referred to, was simply the infrequency of the visits. 'Why was I
afraid,' she said--'where was the danger? who would be the
_informer_?'--Well! I will not say any more. It is just natural that
you, in your circumstances and associations, should be unable to see
what I have seen from the beginning--only you will not hereafter
reproach me, in the most secret of your thoughts, for not having told
you plainly. If I could have told you with greater plainness I should
blame myself (and I do not) because it is not an opinion I have, but a
perception. I see, I know. The result ... the end of all ... perhaps
now and then I see _that_ too ... in the 'lucid moments' which are not
the happiest for anybody. Remember, in all cases, that I shall not
repent of any part of our past intercourse; and that, therefore, when
the time for decision comes, you will be free to look at the question
as if you saw it then for the first moment, without being hampered by
considerations about 'all those yesterdays.'
For _him_ ... he would rather see me dead at his foot than yield the
point: and he will say so, and mean it, and persist in the meaning.
Do you ever wonder at me ... that I should write such things, and have
written others so different? _I have thought that in myself very
often._ Insincerity and injustice may seem the two ends, while I
occupy the straight betwixt two--and I should not like you to doubt
how this may be! Sometimes I have begun to show you the truth, and
torn the paper; I _could_ not. Yet now again I am borne on to tell
you, ... to save you from some thoughts which you cannot help perhaps.
There has been no insincerity--nor is there injustice. I believe, I am
certain, I have loved him better than the rest of his children. I have
heard the fountain within the rock, and my heart has struggled in
towards him through the stones of the rock ... thrust off ... dropping
off ... turning in again and clinging! Knowing what is excellent in
him well, loving him as my only parent left, and for himself dearly,
notwithstanding that hardness and the miserable 'system' which made
him appear harder still, I have loved him and been proud of him for
his high qualities, for his courage and fortitude when he bore up so
bravely years ago under the worldly reverses which he yet felt
acutely--more than you and I could feel them--but the fortitude was
admirable. Then came the trials of love--then, I was repulsed too
often, ... made to suffer in the suffering of those by my side ...
depressed by petty daily sadnesses and terrors, from which it is
possible however for an elastic affection to rise again as past. Yet
my friends used to say 'You look broken-spirited'--and it was true. In
the midst, came my illness,--and when I was ill he grew gentler and
let me draw nearer than ever I had done: and after that great stroke
... you _know_ ... though _that_ fell in the middle of a storm of
emotion and sympathy on my part, which drove clearly against him, God
seemed to strike our hearts together by the shock; and I was grateful
to him for not saying aloud what I said to myself in my agony, '_If it
had not been for you_'...! And comparing my self-reproach to what I
imagined his self-reproach must certainly be (for if _I_ had loved
selfishly, _he_ had not been kind), I felt as if I could love and
forgive him for two ... (I knowing that serene generous departed
spirit, and seeming left to represent it) ... and I did love him
better than all those left to _me_ to love in the world here. I proved
a little my affection for him, by coming to London at the risk of my
life rather than diminish the comfort of his home by keeping a part of
my family away from him. And afterwards for long and long he spoke to
me kindly and gently, and of me affectionately and with too much
praise; and God knows that I had as much joy as I imagined myself
capable of again, in the sound of his footstep on the stairs, and of
his voice when he prayed in this room; my best hope, as I have told
him since, being, to die beneath his eyes. Love is so much to me
naturally--it is, to all women! and it was so much to _me_ to feel
sure at last that _he_ loved me--to forget all blame--to pull the
weeds up from that last illusion of life:--and this, till the
Pisa-business, which threw me off, far as ever, again--farther than
ever--when George said 'he could not flatter me' and I dared not
flatter myself. But do _you_ believe that I never wrote what I did not
feel: I never did. And I ask one kindness more ... do not notice what
I have written here. Let it pass. We can alter nothing by ever so many
words. After all, he is the victim. He isolates himself--and now and
then he feels it ... the cold dead silence all round, which is the
effect of an incredible system. If he were not stronger than most men,
he could not bear it as he does. With such high qualities too!--so
upright and honourable--you would esteem him, you would like him, I
think. And so ... dearest ... let _that_ be the last word.
I dare say you have asked yourself sometimes, why it was that I never
managed to draw you into the house here, so that you might make your
own way. Now _that_ is one of the things impossible to me. I have not
influence enough for _that_. George can never invite a friend of his
even. Do you see? The people who do come here, come by particular
license and association ... Capt. Surtees Cook being one of them.
Once ... when I was in high favour too ... I asked for Mr. Kenyon to
be invited to dinner--he an old college friend, and living close by
and so affectionate to me always--I felt that he must be hurt by the
neglect, and asked. _It was in vain._ Now, you see--
May God bless you always! I wrote all my spirits away in this letter
yesterday, and kept it to finish to-day ... being yours every day,
glad or sad, ever beloved!--
Your BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, January 27, 1846.]
Why will you give me such unnecessary proofs of your goodness? Why not
leave the books for me to take away, at all events? No--you must fold
up, and tie round, and seal over, and be at all the pains in the world
with those hands I see now. But you only threaten; say you 'shall
send'--as yet, and nothing having come, I do pray you, if not too
late, to save me the shame--add to the gratitude you never can now, I
think ... only _think_, for you are a siren, and I don't know
certainly to what your magic may not extend. Thus, in not so important
a matter, I should have said, the day before yesterday, that no letter
from you could make my heart rise within me, more than of old ...
unless it should happen to be of twice the ordinary thickness ... and
_then_ there's a fear at first lest the over-running of my dealt-out
measure should be just a note of Mr. Kenyon's, for instance! But
yesterday the very seal began with 'Ba'--Now, always seal with that
seal my letters, dearest! Do you recollect Donne's pretty lines about
seals?
Quondam fessus Amor loquens Amato,
Tot et tanta loquens amica, scripsit:
Tandem et fessa manus dedit Sigillum.
And in his own English,
When love, being weary, made an end
Of kind expressions to his friend,
He writ; when hand could write no more,
He gave the seal--and so left o'er.
(By the way, what a mercy that he never noticed the jingle _in posse_
of ending 'expressions' and beginning 'impressions.')
How your account of the actors in the 'Love's Labour Lost' amused me!
I rather like, though, the notion of that steady, business-like
pursuit of love under difficulties; and the _sobbing_ proves something
surely! Serjt. Talfourd says--is it not he who says it?--'All tears
are not for sorrow.' I should incline to say, from my own feeling,
that no tears were. They only express joy in me, or sympathy with
joy--and so is it with you too, I should think.
Understand that I do _not_ disbelieve in Mesmerism--I only object to
insufficient evidence being put forward as quite irrefragable. I keep
an open sense on the subject--ready to be instructed; and should have
refused such testimony as Miss Martineau's if it had been adduced in
support of something I firmly believed--'non _tali_ auxilio'--indeed,
so has truth been harmed, and only so, from the beginning. So, I shall
read what you bid me, and learn all I can.
I am not quite so well this week--yesterday some friends came early
and kept me at home--for which I seem to suffer a little; less,
already, than in the morning--so I will go out and walk away the
whirring ... which is all the mighty ailment. As for 'Luria' I have
not looked at it since I saw you--which means, saw you in the body,
because last night I saw you; as I wonder if you know!
Thursday, and again I am with you--and you will forget nothing ... how
the farewell is to be returned? Ah, my dearest, sweetest Ba; how
entirely I love you!