2. p.m. Your parcel arrives ... the penholder; now what shall I say?
How am I to use so fine a thing even in writing to you? I will give it
you again in our Isle, and meantime keep it where my other treasures
are--my letters and my dear ringlet.
Thank you--all I can thank.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 28, 1846.]
Ever dearest--I will say, as you desire, nothing on that subject--but
this strictly for myself: you engaged me to consult my own good in the
keeping or breaking our engagement; not _your_ good as it might even
seem to me; much less seem to another. My only good in this
world--that against which all the world goes for nothing--is to spend
my life with you, and be yours. You know that when I _claim_ anything,
it is really yourself in me--you _give_ me a right and bid me use it,
and I, in fact, am most obeying you when I appear most exacting on my
own account--so, in that feeling, I dare claim, once for all, and in
all possible cases (except that dreadful one of your becoming worse
again ... in which case I wait till life ends with both of us), I
claim your promise's fulfilment--say, at the summer's end: it cannot
be for your good that this state of things should continue. We can go
to Italy for a year or two and be happy as day and night are long. For
me, I adore you. This is all unnecessary, I feel as I write: but you
will think of the main fact as _ordained_, granted by God, will you
not, dearest?--so, not to be put in doubt _ever again_--then, we can
go quietly thinking of after matters. Till to-morrow, and ever after,
God bless my heart's own, own Ba. All my soul follows you,
love--encircles you--and I live in being yours.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 31, 1846.]
Let it be this way, ever dearest. If in the time of fine weather, I am
not ill, ... _then_ ... _not now_ ... you shall decide, and your
decision shall be duty and desire to me, both--I will make no
difficulties. Remember, in the meanwhile, that I _have_ decided to let
it be as you shall choose ... _shall_ choose. That I love you enough
to give you up 'for your good,' is proof (to myself at least) that I
love you enough for any other end:--but you thought _too much of me in
the last letter_. Do not mistake me. I believe and trust in all your
words--only you are generous unawares, as other men are selfish.
More, I meant to say of this; but you moved me as usual yesterday into
the sunshine, and then I am dazzled and cannot see clearly. Still I
see that you love me and that I am bound to you:--and 'what more need
I see,' you may ask; while I cannot help looking out to the future, to
the blue ridges of the hills, to the _chances_ of your being happy
with me. Well! I am yours as _you_ see ... and not yours to teaze you.
You shall decide everything when the time comes for doing anything ...
and from this to then, I do not, dearest, expect you to use 'the
liberty of leaping out of the window,' unless you are sure of the
house being on fire! Nobody shall push you out of the window--least of
all, _I_.
For Italy ... you are right. We should be nearer the sun, as you say,
and further from the world, as I think--out of hearing of the great
storm of gossiping, when 'scirocco is loose.' Even if you liked to
live altogether abroad, coming to England at intervals, it would be no
sacrifice for me--and whether in Italy or England, we should have
sufficient or more than sufficient means of living, without modifying
by a line that 'good free life' of yours which you reasonably
praise--which, if it had been necessary to modify, _we must have
parted_, ... because I could not have borne to see you do it; though,
that you once offered it for my sake, I never shall forget.
Mr. Kenyon stayed half an hour, and asked, after you went, if you had
been here long. I reproached him with what they had been doing at his
club (the Athenæum) in blackballing Douglas Jerrold, for want of
something better to say--and he had not heard of it. There were more
black than white balls, and Dickens was so enraged at the repulse of
his friend that he gave in his own resignation like a privy
councillor.
But the really bad news is of poor Tennyson--I forgot to tell you--I
forget everything. He is seriously ill with an internal complaint and
confined to his bed, as George heard from a common friend. Which does
not prevent his writing a new poem--he has finished the second book of
it--and it is in blank verse and a fairy tale, and called the
'University,' the university-members being all females. If George has
not diluted the scheme of it with some law from the Inner Temple, I
don't know what to think--it makes me open my eyes. Now isn't the
world too old and fond of steam, for blank verse poems, in ever so
many books, to be written on the fairies? I hope they may cure him,
for the best deed they can do. He is not precisely in danger,
understand--but the complaint may _run_ into danger--so the account
went.
And you? how are you? Mind to tell me. May God bless you. Is Monday or
Tuesday to be _our_ day? If it were not for Mr. Kenyon I should take
courage and say Monday--but Tuesday and Saturday would do as
well--would they not?