_Liverpool_, February 7th, 1856
Thy letter, my own most beloved, (dated Jany. 31st) arrived yesterday,
and revived me at once out of a state of half-torpor, half
misery--just as much of each as could co-exist with the other. Do not
think that I am always in that state; but one thing, dearest, I have
been most thoroughly taught by this separation--that is, the absolute
necessity of expression. I must tell thee I love thee. I must be told
that thou lovest me. It must be said in words and symbolized with
caresses; or else, at last, imprisoned Love will go frantic, and tear
all to pieces the heart that holds it. And the only other alternative
is to be torpid. I just manage to hold out from one letter of thine to
another; and then comes life and joy again. Thou canst not conceive
what an effect yesterday's letter had on me. It renewed my youth, and
made my step lighter; it absolutely gave me an appetite; and I went
to bed joyfully to think of it. Oh, my wife, why did God give thee
to poor unworthy me! Art thou sure that He made thee for me? Ah, thy
intuition must have been well-founded on this point; because,
otherwise, all through eternity, thou wouldst carry my stain upon
thee; and how could thine own angel ever need thee then! Thou art
mine!--Thou _shalt_ be mine! Thou hast given thyself to me
irredeemably. Thou hast grown to me. Thou canst never get away.
Oh, my love, it is a desperate thing that I cannot see thee this very
instant. Dost thou ever feel, at one and the same moment, the
impossibility of doing without me, and also the impossibility of
having me? I know not how it is that my strong wishes do not bring
thee here bodily, while I am writing these words. One of the two
impossibilities must needs be overcome; and it seems the strongest
impossibility that thou shouldst be anywhere else, when I need thee so
insufferably.
Well, my own wife, I have a little wreaked myself now, and will go on
more quietly with what I have further to say. As regards
O'Sullivan--(how funny that thou shouldst put quotation marks to this
name, as if astonished at my calling him so! Did we not entirely agree
in thinking "John" an undue and undesirable familiarity? But thou
mayst call him "John," or "Jack" either, as best suits thee.)--as
regards O'Sullivan, then, my present opinion of him is precisely what
thou thyself didst leave upon my mind, in our discussions of his
character. I have often had a similar experience before, resulting
from thy criticism upon any views of mine. Thou insensibly convertest
me to thy own opinion, and art afterwards surprised to find it so; in
fact, I seldom am aware of the change in my own mind, until the
subject chances to come up for further discussion, and I find myself
on what was thy side.
But I will try to give my true idea of his character. I know that he
has most vivid affections--a quick, womanly sensibility--a light and
tender grace, which, in happy circumstances, would make all his deeds
and demonstrations beautiful. In respect to companionship, beyond all
doubt, he has never been in such fortunate circumstances as during his
present intercourse with thee; and I am willing to allow that thou
bringest out his angelic part, and therefore canst not be expected to
see anything but an angel in him. It has sometimes seemed to me that
the lustre of his angel-plumage has been a little dimmed--his
heavenly garments a little soiled and bedraggled--by the foul ways
through which it has been his fate to tread, and the foul companions
with whom necessity and politics have brought him acquainted. But I
had rather thou shouldst take _him_ for a friend than any other man I
ever knew (unless, perhaps, George Bradford, who can hardly be
reckoned a man at all,) because I think the Devil has a smaller share
in O'Sullivan than in other bipeds who wear breeches. To do him
justice, he is miraculously pure and true, considering what his
outward life has been. Now, dearest, I have a genuine affection for
him, and a confidence in his honor; and as respects his defects in
everything that concerns pecuniary matters, I believe him to have kept
his integrity intact to a degree that is really wonderful, in spite of
the embarrassments of a lifetime. If we had his whole life mapped out
before us, I should probably forgive him some things which thy severer
sense of right would condemn. Thou talkest of his high principle; but
that does not appear to me to be his kind of moral endowment. Perhaps
he may have the material that principles are manufactured from.
My beloved, he is not the man in whom I see my ideal of a friend; not
for his lack of principle, not for any ill-deeds or practical
shortcomings which I know of or suspect; not but what he is amiable,
loveable, fully capable of self-sacrifice, utterly incapable of
selfishness. The only reason, that I can put into words, is, that he
never stirs me to any depth beneath my surface; I like him, and enjoy
his society, and he calls up, I think, whatever small part of me is
elegant and agreeable; but neither of my best nor of my worst has he
ever, or could he ever, have a glimpse. I should wish my friend of
friends to be a sterner and grimmer man than he; and it is my opinion,
sweetest wife, that the truest manly delicacy is to be found in those
stern, grim natures--a little alpine flower, of tenderest texture, and
loveliest hue, and delicious fragrance, springing out of a rocky soil
in a high, breezy, mountain atmosphere. O'Sullivan's quick, genial
soil produces an abundant growth of flowers, but not just this
precious little flower. He is too much like a woman, without being a
woman; and between the two characters, he misses the quintessential
delicacy of both. There are some tests of thorough refinement which,
perhaps, he could not stand. And yet I shall not dispute that for
refinement and delicacy he is one out of a thousand; and we might
spend a lifetime together without putting him to a test too severe.
As for his sympathies, he would be always ready to pour them out (not
exactly like Niagara, but like a copious garden-fountain) for those he
loved.
If thou thinkest I have done him great injustice in the foregoing
sketch, it is very probable that thou wilt bring me over to thy way of
thinking; and perhaps balance matters by passing over to mine.
Dearest, I do hope I shall next hear of thee from Madeira; for this
suspense is hard to bear. Thou must not mind what I say to thee, in my
impatient agonies, about coming back. Whatever can be borne, I shall
find myself able to bear, for the sake of restoring thee to health. I
have now groped so far through the thick darkness that [a] little
glimmer of light begins to appear at the other end of the passage; it
will grow clearer and brighter continually, and at last it will show
me my dearest wife. I do hope thou wilt find thy husband wiser and
better than he has been hitherto; wiser, in knowing the more
adequately what a treasure he has in thee; and better, because I feel
it such a shame to be loved by thee without deserving it. Dost thou
love me?
Give my love to Una, to whom I cannot write now, without doubling
the postage. Do not let little Rosebud forget me. Remember me to
Fanny, and present my regards to Madame O'Sullivan, and Mrs. Susan,
and Miss Rodgers. So all is said very properly.
Thou toldest me not to write to Madeira before hearing from thee
there; but I shall send this to the care of the American Consul, to
whom I wrote by the last Lisbon steamer, sending the letter to
O'Sullivan's care. Thine own-ownest.
Julian is perfectly well.