If it were not for Mr. Kenyon, I should say, almost, Wednesday,
instead of Thursday--I want to see you so much, and to see for myself
about the looks and spirits, only it would not do if he found you here
on Wednesday. Let him come to-morrow or on Tuesday, and Wednesday will
be safe--shall we consider? what do you think?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, February 16, 1846.]
Here is the letter again, dearest: I suppose it gives me the same
pleasure, in reading, as you--and Mr. K. as me, and anybody else as
him; if all the correspondence which was claimed again and burnt on
some principle or other some years ago be at all of the nature of this
sample, the measure seems questionable. Burn anybody's _real_
letters, well and good: they move and live--the thoughts, feelings,
and expressions even,--in a self-imposed circle limiting the
experience of two persons only--_there_ is the standard, and to _that_
the appeal--how should a third person know? His presence breaks the
line, so to speak, and lets in a whole tract of country on the
originally inclosed spot--so that its trees, which were from side to
side there, seem left alone and wondering at their sudden unimportance
in the broad land; while its 'ferns such as I never saw before' and
which have been petted proportionably, look extravagant enough amid
the new spread of good honest grey grass that is now the earth's
general wear. So that the significance is lost at once, and whole
value of such letters--the cypher changed, the vowel-points removed:
but how can that affect clever writing like this? What do you, to whom
it is addressed, see in it more than the world that wants to see it
and shan't have it? One understands shutting an unprivileged eye to
the ineffable mysteries of those 'upper-rooms,' now that the broom and
dust pan, stocking-mending and gingerbread-making are invested with
such unforeseen reverence ... but the carriage-sweep and quarry,
together with Jane and our baskets, and a pleasant shadow of
Wordsworth's Sunday hat preceding his own rapid strides in the
direction of Miss Fenwick's house--surely, 'men's eyes were made to
see, so let them gaze' at all _this_! And so I, gazing with a clear
conscience, am very glad to hear so much good of a very good person
and so well told. She plainly sees the proper use and advantage of a
country-life; and _that_ knowledge gets to seem a high point of
attainment doubtless by the side of the Wordsworth she speaks of--for
_mine_ he shall not be as long as I am able! Was ever such a '_great_'
poet before? Put one trait with the other--the theory of rural
innocence--alternation of 'vulgar trifles' with dissertating with
style of 'the utmost grandeur that _even you_ can conceive' (speak for
yourself, Miss M.!)--and that amiable transition from two o'clock's
grief at the death of one's brother to three o'clock's happiness in
the 'extraordinary mesmeric discourse' of one's friend. All this, and
the rest of the serene and happy inspired daily life which a piece of
'unpunctuality' can ruin, and to which the guardian 'angel' brings as
crowning qualification the knack of poking the fire adroitly--of
this--what can one say but that--no, best hold one's tongue and read
the 'Lyrical Ballads' with finger in ear. Did not Shelley say long ago
'He had no more _imagination_ than a pint-pot'--though in those days
he used to walk about France and Flanders like a man? _Now_, he is
'most comfortable in his worldly affairs' and just this comes of it!
He lives the best twenty years of his life after the way of his own
heart--and when one presses in to see the result of the rare
experiment ... what the _one_ alchemist whom fortune has allowed to
get all his coveted materials and set to work at last in earnest with
fire and melting-pot--what _he_ produces after all the talk of him and
the like of him; why, you get _pulvis et cinis_--a man at the mercy of
the tongs and shovel!
Well! Let us despair at nothing, but, wishing success to the newer
aspirant, expect better things from Miss M. when the 'knoll,' and
'paradise,' and their facilities, operate properly; and that she will
make a truer estimate of the importance and responsibilities of
'authorship' than she does at present, if I understand rightly the
sense in which she describes her own life as it means to be; for in
one sense it is all good and well, and quite natural that she should
like 'that sort of strenuous handwork' better than book-making; like
the play better than the labour, as we are apt to do. If she realises
a very ordinary scheme of literary life, planned under the eye of God
not 'the public,' and prosecuted under the constant sense of the
night's coming which ends it good or bad--then, she will be sure to
'like' the rest and sport--teaching her maids and sewing her gloves
and making delicate visitors comfortable--so much more rational a
resource is the worst of them than gin-and-water, for instance. But
if, as I rather suspect, these latter are to figure as a virtual
_half_ duty of the whole Man--as of equal importance (on the ground of
the innocence and utility of such occupations) with the book-making
aforesaid--always supposing _that_ to be of the right kind--_then_ I
respect Miss M. just as I should an Archbishop of Canterbury whose
business was the teaching A.B.C. at an infant-school--he who might set
on the Tens to instruct the Hundreds how to convince the Thousands of
the propriety of doing that and many other things. Of course one will
respect him only the more if when _that_ matter is off his mind he
relaxes at such a school instead of over a chess-board; as it will
increase our love for Miss M. to find that making 'my good Jane (from
Tyne-mouth)'--'happier and--I hope--wiser' is an amusement, or more,
after the day's progress towards the 'novel for next year' which is to
inspire thousands, beyond computation, with the ardour of making
innumerable other Janes and delicate relatives happier and wiser--who
knows but as many as Burns did, and does, so make happier and wiser?
Only, _his quarry_ and after-solace was that 'marble bowl often
replenished with whiskey' on which Dr. Curry discourses mournfully,
'Oh, be wiser Thou!'--and remember it was only _after_ Lord Bacon had
written to an end _his_ Book--given us for ever the Art of
Inventing--whether steam-engine or improved dust-pan--that he took on
himself to do a little exemplary 'hand work'; got out on that cold St.
Alban's road to stuff a fowl with snow and so keep it fresh, and got
into his bed and died of the cold in his hands ('strenuous _hand_
work'--) before the snow had time to melt. He did not begin in his
youth by saying--'I have a horror of merely writing 'Novum Organums'
and shall give half my energies to the stuffing fowls'!
All this it is _my_ amusement, of an indifferent kind, to put down
solely on the pleasant assurance contained in that postscript, of the
one way of never quarrelling with Miss M.--'by joining in her plan
and practice of plain speaking'--could she but 'get people to do it!'
Well, she gets me for a beginner: the funny thing would be to know
what Chorley's desperate utterance amounted to! Did you ever hear of
the plain speaking of some of the continental lottery-projectors? An
estate on the Rhine, for instance, is to be disposed of, and the
holder of the lucky ticket will find himself suddenly owner of a
mediæval castle with an unlimited number of dependencies--vineyards,
woods, pastures, and so forth--all only waiting the new master's
arrival--while inside, all is swept and garnished (not to say,
varnished)--the tables are spread, the wines on the board, all is
ready for the reception _but_ ... here 'plain speaking' becomes
necessary--it prevents quarrels, and, could the projector get people
to practise it as he does all would be well; so he, at least, will
speak plainly--you hear what _is_ provided but, he cannot, dares not
withhold what is _not_--there is then, to speak plainly,--no night
cap! You _will_ have to bring your own night cap. The projector
furnishes somewhat, as you hear, but not _all_--and now--the worst is
heard,--will you quarrel with him? Will my own dear, dearest Ba please
and help me here, and fancy Chorley's concessions, and tributes, and
recognitions, and then, at the very end, the 'plain words,' to
counterbalance all, that have been to overlook and pardon?
Oh, my own Ba, hear _my_ plain speech--and how this is _not_ an
attempt to frighten you out of your dear wish to '_hear_ from me'--no,
indeed--but a whim, a caprice,--and now it is out! over, done with!
And now I am with you again--it is to _you_ I shall write next. Bless
you, ever--my beloved. I am much better, indeed--and mean to be well.
And you! But I will write--this goes for nothing--or only _this_, that
I am your very own--
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday.
[Post-mark, February 16, 1846.]
My long letter is with you, dearest, to show how serious my illness
was 'while you wrote': unless you find that letter too foolish, as I
do on twice thinking--or at all events a most superfluous bestowment
of handwork while the heart was elsewhere, and with you--never more
so! Dear, dear Ba, your adorable goodness sinks into me till it nearly
pains,--so exquisite and strange is the pleasure: _so_ you care for
me, and think of me, and write to me!--I shall never die for you, and
if it could be so, what would death prove? But I can live on, your own
as now,--utterly your own.
Dear Ba, do you suppose we differ on so plain a point as that of the
superior wisdom, and generosity, too, of announcing such a change &c.
at the eleventh hour? There can be no doubt of it,--and now, what of
it to me?
But I am not going to write to-day--only this--that I am better,
having not been quite so well last night--so I shut up books (that is,
of my own) and mean to think about nothing but you, and you, and still
you, for a whole week--so all will come right, I hope! _May_ I take
Wednesday? And do you say that,--hint at the possibility of that,
because you have been reached by my own remorse at feeling that if I
had kept my appointment _last_ Saturday (but one)--Thursday would have
been my day this past week, and this very Monday had been gained?
Shall I not lose a day for ever unless I get Wednesday and
Saturday?--yet ... care ... dearest--let nothing horrible happen.