Your BA.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, February 20, 1846.]
And I offended you by praising your letters--or rather _mine_, if you
please--as if I had not the right! Still, you shall not, shall not
fancy that I meant to praise them in the way you seem to think--by
calling them 'graphic,' 'philosophic,'--why, did I ever use such
words? I agree with you that if I could play critic upon your letters,
it would be an end!--but no, no ... I did not, for a moment. In what I
said I went back to my first impressions--and they were _vital_
letters, I said--which was the résumé of my thoughts upon the early
ones you sent me, because I felt your letters to be _you_ from the
very first, and I began, from the beginning, to read every one several
times over. Nobody, I felt, nobody of all these writers, did write as
you did. Well!--and had I not a right to say _that_ now at last, and
was it not natural to say just _that_, when I was talking of other
people's letters and how it had grown almost impossible for me to read
them; and do I deserve to be scolded? No indeed.
And if I had the misfortune to think now, when you say it is a fine
day, that _that_ is said in more music than it could be said in by
another--where is the sin against _you_, I should like to ask. It is
yourself who is the critic, I think, after all. But over all the
brine, I hold my letters--just as Camoens did his poem. They are _best
to me_--and they are _best_. I knew what _they_ were, before I knew
what _you_ were--all of you. And I like to think that I never fancied
anyone on a level with you, even in a letter.
What makes you take them to be so bad, I suppose, is just feeling in
them how near we are. _You say that!_--not I.
Bad or good, you _are_ better--yes, 'better than the works and
words'!--though it was very shameful of you to insinuate that I talked
of fine speeches and passages and graphical and philosophical
sentences, as if I had proposed a publication of 'Elegant Extracts'
from your letters. See what blasphemy one falls into through a
beginning of light speech! It is wiser to talk of St. Petersburg; for
all Voltaire's ... '_ne disons pas de mal de Nicolas_.'
Wiser--because you will not go. If you were going ... well!--but there
is no danger--it would not do you good to go, I am so happy this time
as to be able to think--and your 'mission of humanity' lies
nearer--'strictly private and confidential'? but not in Harley
Street--so if you go _there_, dearest, keep to the 'one hour' and do
not suffer yourself to be tired and stunned in those hot rooms and
made unwell again--it is plain that you cannot bear that sort of
excitement. For Mr. Kenyon's note, ... it was a great temptation to
make a day of Friday--but I resist both for Monday's sake and for
yours, because it seems to me safer not to hurry you from one house to
another till you are tired completely. I shall think of you so much
the nearer for Mr. Kenyon's note--which is something gained. In the
meanwhile you are better, which is everything, or seems so. Ever
dearest, do you remember what it is to me that you should be better,
and keep from being worse again--I mean, of course, _try_ to keep from
being worse--be wise ... and do not stay long in those hot Harley
Street rooms. Ah--now you will think that I am afraid of the
unicorns!--
Through your being ill the other day I forgot, and afterwards went on
forgetting, to speak of and to return the ballad--which is delightful;
I have an unspeakable delight in those suggestive ballads, which seem
to make you touch with the end of your finger the full warm life of
other times ... so near they bring you, yet so suddenly all passes in
them. Certainly there is a likeness to your Duchess--it is a curious
crossing. And does it not strike you that a verse or two must be
wanting in the ballad--there is a gap, I fancy.
Tell Mr. Kenyon (if he enquires) that you come here on Monday instead
of Saturday--and if you can help it, do not mention Wednesday--it will
be as well, not. You met Alfred at the door--he came up to me
afterwards and observed that 'at last he had seen you!' 'Virgilium
tantum vidi!'
As to the thing which you try to say in the first page of this letter,
and which you 'stop' yourself in saying ... _I_ need not stop you in
it....
And now there is no time, if I am to sleep to-night. May God bless
you, dearest, dearest.