_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, February 19, 1846.]
My sweetest, best, dearest Ba I _do_ love you less, much less already,
and adore you more, more by so much more as I see of you, think of
you--I am yours just as much as those flowers; and you may pluck those
flowers to pieces or put them in your breast; it is not because you so
bless me now that you may not if you please one day--you will stop me
here; but it is the truth and I live in it.
I am quite well; indeed, this morning, _noticeably_ well, they tell
me, and well I mean to keep if I can.
When I got home last evening I found this note--and I have _accepted_,
that I might say I could also keep an engagement, if so minded, at
Harley Street--thereby insinuating that other reasons _may_ bring me
into the neighbourhood than _the_ reason--but I shall either not go
there, or only for an hour at most. I also found a note headed
'Strictly private and confidential'--so here it goes from my mouth to
my heart--pleasantly proposing that I should start in a few days for
St. Petersburg, as secretary to somebody going there on a 'mission of
humanity'--_grazie tante_!
Did you hear of my meeting someone at the door whom I take to have
been one of your brothers?
One thing vexed me in your letter--I will tell you, the praise of
_my_ letters. Now, one merit they have--in language mystical--that of
having _no_ merit. If I caught myself trying to write finely,
graphically &c. &c., nay, if I found myself conscious of having in my
own opinion, so written, all would be over! yes, over! I should be
respecting you inordinately, paying a proper tribute to your genius,
summoning the necessary collectedness,--plenty of all that! But the
feeling with which I write to you, not knowing that it is
writing,--with _you_, face and mouth and hair and eyes opposite me,
touching me, knowing that all _is_ as I say, and helping out the
imperfect phrases from your own intuition--_that_ would be gone--and
_what_ in its place? 'Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we write to
Ambleside.' No, no, love, nor can it ever be so, nor should it ever be
so if--even if, preserving all that intimate relation, with the
carelessness, _still_, somehow, was obtained with no effort in the
world, graphic writing and philosophic and what you please--for I
_will_ be--_would_ be, better than my works and words with an infinite
stock beyond what I put into convenient circulation whether in fine
speeches fit to remember, or fine passages to quote. For the rest, I
had meant to tell you before now, that you often put me 'in a maze'
when you particularize letters of mine--'such an one was kind' &c. I
know, sometimes I seem to give the matter up in despair, I take out
paper and fall thinking on you, and bless you with my whole heart and
then begin: 'What a fine day this is?' I distinctly remember having
done that repeatedly--but the converse is not true by any means, that
(when the expression may happen to fall more consentaneously to the
mind's motion) that less is felt, oh no! But the particular thought at
the time has not been of the _insufficiency_ of expression, as in the
other instance.
Now I will leave off--to begin elsewhere--for I am always with you,
beloved, best beloved! Now you will write? And walk much, and sleep
more? Bless you, dearest--ever--
Your own,
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-marks, Mis-sent to Mitcham. February 19 and 20, 1846.]
Best and kindest of all that ever were to be loved in dreams, and
wondered at and loved out of them, you are indeed! I cannot make you
feel how I felt that night when I knew that to save me an anxious
thought you had come so far so late--it was almost too much to feel,
and _is_ too much to speak. So let it pass. You will never act so
again, ever dearest--you shall not. If the post sins, why leave the
sin to the post; and I will remember for the future, will be ready to
remember, how postmen are fallible and how you live at the end of a
lane--and not be uneasy about a silence if there should be one
unaccounted for. For the Tuesday coming, I shall remember that
too--who could forget it?... I put it in the niche of the wall, one
golden lamp more of your giving, to throw light purely down to the end
of my life--I do thank you. And the truth is, I _should_ have been in
a panic, had there been no letter that evening--I was frightened the
day before, then reasoned the fears back and waited: and if there had
been no letter after all--. But you are supernaturally good and kind.
How can I ever 'return' as people say (as they might say in their
ledgers) ... any of it all? How indeed can I who have not even a heart
left of my own, to love you with?
I quite trust to your promise in respect to the medical advice, if
walking and rest from work do not prevent at once the recurrence of
those sensations--it was a promise, remember. And you will tell me the
very truth of how you are--and you will try the music, and not be
nervous, dearest. Would not _riding_ be good for you--consider. And
why should you be 'alone' when your sister is in the house? How I keep
thinking of you all day--you cannot really be alone with so many
thoughts ... such swarms of thoughts, if you could but see them,
drones and bees together!
George came in from Westminster Hall after we parted yesterday and
said that he had talked with the junior counsel of the wretched
plaintiffs in the Ferrers case, and that the belief was in the mother
being implicated, although not from the beginning. It was believed too
that the miserable girl had herself taken step after step into the
mire, involved herself gradually, the first guilt being an
extravagance in personal expenses, which she lied and lied to account
for in the face of her family. 'Such a respectable family,' said
George, 'the grandfather in court looking venerable, and everyone
indignant upon being so disgraced by her!' But for the respectability
in the best sense, I do not quite see. That all those people should
acquiesce in the indecency (according to every standard of English
manners in any class of society) of thrusting the personal expenses of
a member of their family on Lord Ferrers, she still bearing their
name--and in those peculiar circumstances of her supposed position
too--where is the respectability? And they are furious with her, which
is not to be wondered at after all. Her counsel had an interview with
her previous to the trial, to satisfy themselves of her good faith,
and she was quite resolute and earnest, persisting in every statement.
On the coming out of the anonymous letters, Fitzroy Kelly said to the
juniors that if anyone could suggest a means of explanation, he would
be eager to carry forward the case, ... but for him he saw no way of
escaping from the fact of the guilt of their client. Not a voice could
speak for her. So George was told. There is no ground for a
prosecution for a conspiracy, he says, but she is open to the charge
for _forgery_, of course, and to the dreadful consequences, though it
is not considered at all likely that Lord Ferrers could wish to
disturb her beyond the ruin she has brought on her own life.
Think of Miss Mitford's growing quite cold about Mr. Chorley who has
spent two days with her lately, and of her saying in a letter to me
this morning that he is very much changed and grown to be 'a
presumptuous coxcomb.' He has displeased her in some way--that is
clear. What changes there are in the world.
Should I ever change to _you_, do you think, ... even if you came to
'love me less'--not that I meant to reproach you with that
possibility. May God bless you, dear dearest. It is another miracle
(beside the many) that I get nearer to the mountains yet still they
seem more blue. Is not _that_ strange?