Chapter XIV: Part 14

I will write again, having the long, long week to wait! And one of the things I must say, will be, that with my love, I cannot lose my pride in you--that nothing _but_ that love could balance that pride--and that, blessing the love so divinely, you must minister to the pride as well; yes, my own--I shall follow your fame,--and, better than fame, the good you do--in the world--and, if you please, it shall all be mine--as your hand, as your eyes--

I will write and pray it from you into a promise ... and your promises I live upon.

May God bless you! your R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Friday.
[Post-mark, December 13, 1845.]

Do not blame me in your thoughts for what I said yesterday or wrote a day before, or think perhaps on the dark side of some other days when I cannot help it ... always when I cannot help it--you could not blame me if you saw the full motives as I feel them. If it is distrust, it is not of _you_, dearest of all!--but of myself rather:--it is not doubt _of_ you, but _for_ you. From the beginning I have been subject to the too reasonable fear which rises as my spirits fall, that your happiness might suffer in the end through your having known me:--it is for _you_ I fear, whenever I fear:--and if you were less to me, ... _should_ I fear do you think?--if you were to me only what I am to myself for instance, ... if your happiness were only as precious as my own in my own eyes, ... should I fear, do you think, _then_? Think, and do not blame me.

To tell you to 'forget me when forgetting seemed happiest for you,' ... (was it not _that_, I said?) proved more affection than might go in smoother words.... I could prove the truth of _that_ out of my heart.

And for the rest, you need not fear any fear of mine--my fear will not cross a wish of yours, be sure! Neither does it prevent your being all to me ... all: more than I used to take for all when I looked round the world, ... almost more than I took for all in my earliest dreams. You stand in between me and not merely the living who stood closest, but between me and the closer graves, ... and I reproach myself for this sometimes, and, so, ask you not to blame me for a different thing.

As to unfavourable influences, ... I can speak of them quietly, having foreseen them from the first, ... and it is true, I have been thinking since yesterday, that I might be prevented from receiving you here, and _should_, if all were known: but with that act, the adverse power would end. It is not my fault if I have to choose between two affections; only my pain; and I have not to choose between two duties, I feel, ... since I am yours, while I am of any worth to you at all. For the plan of the sealed letter, it would correct no evil,--ah, you do not see, you do not understand. The danger does not come from the side to which a reason may go. Only one person holds the thunder--and I shall be thundered at; I shall not be reasoned with--it is impossible. I could tell you some dreary chronicles made for laughing and crying over; and you know that if I once thought I might be loved enough to be spared above others, I cannot think so now. In the meanwhile we need not for the present be afraid. Let there be ever so many suspectors, there will be no informers. I suspect the suspectors, but the informers are out of the world, I am very sure:--and then, the one person, by a curious anomaly, _never_ draws an inference of this order, until the bare blade of it is thrust palpably into his hand, point outwards. So it has been in other cases than ours--and so it is, at this moment in the house, with others than ourselves.

I have your letter to stop me. If I had my whole life in my hands with your letter, could I thank you for it, I wonder, at all worthily? I cannot believe that I could. Yet in life and in death I shall be grateful to you.--

But for the paper--no. Now, observe, that it would seem like a prepared apology for something wrong. And besides--the apology would be nothing but the offence in another form--unless you said it was all a mistake--(_will_ you, again?)--that it was all a mistake and you were only calling for your boots! Well, if you said _that_, it would be worth writing, but anything less would be something worse than nothing: and would not save me--which you were thinking of, I know--would not save me the least of the stripes. For 'conditions'--now I will tell you what I said once in a jest....

'If a prince of Eldorado should come, with a pedigree of lineal descent from some signory in the moon in one hand, and a ticket of good-behaviour from the nearest Independent chapel, in the other'--?

'Why even _then_,' said my sister Arabel, 'it would not _do_.' And she was right, and we all agreed that she was right. It is an obliquity of the will--and one laughs at it till the turn comes for crying. Poor Henrietta has suffered silently, with that softest of possible natures, which hers is indeed; beginning with implicit obedience, and ending with something as unlike it as possible: but, you see, where money is wanted, and where the dependence is total--see! And when once, in the case of the one dearest to me; when just at the last he was involved in the same grief, and I attempted to make over my advantages to him; (it could be no sacrifice, you know--_I_ did not want the money, and could buy nothing with it so good as his happiness,--) why then, my hands were seized and tied--and then and there, in the midst of the trouble, came the end of all! I tell you all this, just to make you understand a little. Did I not tell you before? But there is no danger at present--and why ruffle this present with disquieting thoughts? Why not leave that future to itself? For me, I sit in the track of the avalanche quite calmly ... so calmly as to surprise myself at intervals--and yet I know the reason of the calmness well.

For Mr. Kenyon--dear Mr. Kenyon--he will speak the softest of words, if any--only he will think privately that you are foolish and that I am ungenerous, but I will not say so any more now, so as to teaze you.

There is another thing, of more consequence than _his_ thoughts, which is often in my mind to ask you of--but there will be time for such questions--let us leave the winter to its own peace. If I should be ill again you will be reasonable and we both must submit to God's necessity. Not, you know, that I have the least intention of being ill, if I can help it--and in the case of a tolerably mild winter, and with all this strength to use, there are probabilities for me--and then I have sunshine from _you_, which is better than Pisa's.

And what more would you say? Do I not hear and understand! It seems to me that I do both, or why all this wonder and gratitude? If the devotion of the remainder of my life could prove that I hear, ... would it be proof enough? Proof enough perhaps--but not gift enough.

May God bless you always.

I have put _some_ of the hair into a little locket which was given to me when I was a child by my favourite uncle, Papa's only brother, who used to tell me that he loved me better than my own father did, and was jealous when I was not glad. It is through him in part, that I am richer than my sisters--through him and his mother--and a great grief it was and trial, when he died a few years ago in Jamaica, proving by his last act that I was unforgotten. And now I remember how he once said to me: 'Do you beware of ever loving!--If you do, you will not do it half: it will be for life and death.'

So I put the hair into his locket, which I wear habitually, and which never had hair before--the natural use of it being for perfume:--and this is the best perfume for all hours, besides the completing of a prophecy.

Your

E.B.B.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, December 15, 1845.]

Every word you write goes to my heart and lives there: let us live so, and die so, if God will. I trust many years hence to begin telling you what I feel now;--that the beam of the light will have _reached_ you!--meantime it _is_ here. Let me kiss your forehead, my sweetest, dearest.

Wednesday I am waiting for--how waiting for!

After all, it seems probable that there was no intentional mischief in that jeweller's management of the ring. The divided gold must have been exposed to fire--heated thoroughly, perhaps,--and what became of the contents then! Well, all is safe now, and I go to work again of course. My next act is just done--that is, _being_ done--but, what I did not foresee, I cannot bring it, copied, by Wednesday, as my sister went this morning on a visit for the week.

On the matters, the others, I will not think, as you bid me,--if I can help, at least. But your kind, gentle, good sisters! and the provoking sorrow of the _right_ meaning at bottom of the wrong doing--wrong to itself and its plain purpose--and meanwhile, the real tragedy and sacrifice of a life!

If you should see Mr. Kenyon, and can find if he will be disengaged on Wednesday evening, I shall be glad to go in that case.

But I have been writing, as I say, and will leave off this, for the better communing with you. Don't imagine I am unwell; I feel quite well, but a little tired, and the thought of you waits in such readiness! So, may God bless you, beloved!

I am all your own

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Monday.
[Post-mark, December 16, 1845.]

Mr. Kenyon has not come--he does not come so often, I think. Did he _know_ from _you_ that you were to see me last Thursday? If he did it might be as well, do you not think? to go to him next week. Will it not seem frequent, otherwise? But if you did _not_ tell him of Thursday distinctly (_I_ did not--remember!), he might take the Wednesday's visit to be the substitute for rather than the successor of Thursday's: and in that case, why not write a word to him yourself to propose dining with him as he suggested? He really wishes to see you--of that, I am sure. But you will know what is best to do, and he may come here to-morrow perhaps, and ask a whole set of questions about you; so my right hand may forget its cunning for any good it does. Only don't send messages by _me_, please!

How happy I am with your letter to-night.

When I had sent away my last letter I began to remember, and could not help smiling to do so, that I had totally forgotten the great subject of my 'fame,' and the oath you administered about it--totally! Now how do you read that omen? If I forget myself, who is to remember me, do you think?--except _you_?--which brings me where I would stay. Yes--'yours' it must be, but _you_, it had better be! But, to leave the vain superstitions, let me go on to assure you that I did mean to answer that part of your former letter, and do mean to behave well and be obedient. Your wish would be enough, even if there could be likelihood without it of my doing nothing ever again. Oh, certainly I have been idle--it comes of lotus-eating--and, besides, of sitting too long in the sun. Yet 'idle' may not be the word! silent I have been, through too many thoughts to speak just _that_!--As to writing letters and reading manuscripts' filling all my time, why I must lack 'vital energy' indeed--you do not mean seriously to fancy such a thing of me! For the rest.... Tell me--Is it your opinion that when the apostle Paul saw the unspeakable things, being snatched up into the third Heavens 'whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell,'--is it your opinion that, all the week after, he worked particularly hard at the tent-making? For my part, I doubt it.

I would not speak profanely or extravagantly--it is not the best way to thank God. But to say only that I was in the desert and that I am among the palm-trees, is to say nothing ... because it is easy to _understand how_, after walking straight on ... on ... furlong after furlong ... dreary day after dreary day, ... one may come to the end of the sand and within sight of the fountain:--there is nothing miraculous in _that_, you know!

Yet even in that case, to doubt whether it may not all be _mirage_, would be the natural first thought, the recurring dream-fear! now would it not? And you can reproach me for _my_ thoughts, as if _they_ were unnatural!

Never mind about the third act--the advantage is that you will not tire yourself perhaps the next week. What gladness it is that you should really seem better, and how much better _that_ is than even 'Luria.'

Mrs. Jameson came to-day--but I will tell you.

May God bless you now and always.

Your

E.B.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, December 17, 1845.]

Henrietta had a note from Mr. Kenyon to the effect that he was 'coming to see _Ba_' to-day if in any way he found it possible. Now he has not come--and the inference is that he will come to-morrow--in which case you will be convicted of not wishing to be with him perhaps. So ... would it not be advisable for you to call at his door for a moment--and _before_ you come here? Think of it. You know it would not do to vex him--would it?

Your

E.B.B.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, December 19, 1845.]

I ought to have written yesterday: so to-day when I need a letter and get none, there is my own fault besides, and the less consolation. A letter from you would light up this sad day. Shall I fancy how, if a letter lay _there_ where I look, rain might fall and winds blow while I listened to you, long after the _words_ had been laid to heart? But here you are in your place--with me who am your own--your own--and so the rhyme joins on,

She shall speak to me in places lone
With a low and holy tone--
Ay: when I have lit my lamp at night
She shall be present with my sprite:
And I will say, whate'er it be,
Every word she telleth me!

Now, is that taken from your book? No--but from _my_ book, which holds my verses as I write them; and as I open it, I read that.

And speaking of verse--somebody gave me a few days ago that Mr. Lowell's book you once mentioned to me. Anyone who 'admires' _you_ shall have my sympathy at once--even though he _do_ change the laughing wine-_mark_ into a 'stain' in that perfectly beautiful triplet--nor am I to be indifferent to his good word for myself (though not very happily connected with the criticism on the epithet in that 'Yorkshire Tragedy'--which has better things, by the way--seeing that 'white boy,' in old language, meant just 'good boy,' a general epithet, as Johnson notices in the life of Dryden, whom the schoolmaster Busby was used to class with his 'white boys'--this is hypercriticism, however). But these American books should not be reprinted here--one asks, what and where is the class to which they address themselves? for, no doubt, we have our congregations of ignoramuses that enjoy the profoundest ignorance imaginable on the subjects treated of; but _these_ are evidently not the audience Mr. Lowell reckons on; rather, if one may trust the manner of his setting to work, he would propound his doctrine to the class. Always to be found, of spirits instructed up to a certain height and there resting--vines that run up a prop and there tangle and grow to a knot--which want supplying with fresh poles; so the provident man brings his bundle into the grounds, and sticks them in laterally or a-top of the others, as the case requires, and all the old stocks go on growing again--but here, with us, whoever _wanted_ Chaucer, or Chapman, or Ford, got him long ago--what else have Lamb, and Coleridge, and Hazlitt and Hunt and so on to the end of their generations ... what else been doing this many a year? What one passage of all these, cited with the very air of a Columbus, but has been known to all who know anything of poetry this many, many a year? The others, who don't know anything, are the stocks that have got to _shoot_, not climb higher--_compost_, they want in the first place! Ford's and Crashaw's rival Nightingales--why they have been dissertated on by Wordsworth and Coleridge, then by Lamb and Hazlitt, then worked to death by Hunt, who printed them entire and quoted them to pieces again, in every periodical he was ever engaged upon; and yet after all, here 'Philip'--'must read' (out of a roll of dropping papers with yellow ink tracings, so old!) something at which 'John' claps his hands and says 'Really--that these ancients should own so much wit &c.'! The _passage_ no longer looks its fresh self after this veritable passage from hand to hand: as when, in old dances, the belle began the figure with her own partner, and by him was transferred to the next, and so to the next--_they_ ever _beginning_ with all the old alacrity and spirit; but she bearing a still-accumulating weight of tokens of gallantry, and none the better for every fresh pushing and shoving and pulling and hauling--till, at the bottom of the room--

To which Mr. Lowell might say, that--No, I will say the true thing against myself--and it is, that when I turn from what is in my mind, and determine to write about anybody's book to avoid writing that I love and love and love again my own, dearest love--because of the cuckoo-song of it,--_then_, I shall be in no better humour with that book than with Mr. Lowell's!

But I _have_ a new thing to say or sing--you never before heard me love and bless and send my heart after--'Ba'--did you? Ba ... and that is you! I TRIED ... (more than _wanted_) to call you _that_, on Wednesday! I have a flower here--rather, a tree, a mimosa, which must be turned and turned, the side to the light changing in a little time to the _leafy_ side, where all the fans lean and spread ... so I turn your name to me, that side I have not last seen: you cannot tell how I feel glad that you will not part with the name--Barrett--seeing you have two of the same--and must always, moreover, remain my EBB!

Dearest 'E.B.C.'--no, no! and so it will never be!

Have you seen Mr. Kenyon? I did not write ... knowing that such a procedure would draw the kind sure letter in return, with the invitation &c., as if I had asked for it! I had perhaps better call on him some morning very early.

Bless you, my own sweetest. You will write to me, I know in my heart!

Ever may God bless you!

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]

Dearest, you know how to say what makes me happiest, you who never think, you say, of making me happy! For my part I do not think of it either; I simply understand that you _are_ my happiness, and that therefore you could not make another happiness for me, such as would be worth having--not even _you_! Why, how could you? _That_ was in my mind to speak yesterday, but I could not speak it--to write it, is easier.

Talking of happiness--shall I tell you? Promise not to be angry and I will tell you. I have thought sometimes that, if I considered myself wholly, I should choose to die this winter--now--before I had disappointed you in anything. But because you are better and dearer and more to be considered than I, I do _not_ choose it. I _cannot_ choose to give you any pain, even on the chance of its being a less pain, a less evil, than what may follow perhaps (who can say?), if I should prove the burden of your life.

For if you make me happy with some words, you frighten me with others--as with the extravagance yesterday--and seriously--_too_ seriously, when the moment for smiling at them is past--I am frightened, I tremble! When you come to know me as well as I know myself, what can save me, do you think, from disappointing and displeasing you? I ask the question, and find no answer.

It is a poor answer, to say that I can do one thing well ... that I have one capacity largely. On points of the general affections, I have in thought applied to myself the words of Mme. de Stael, not fretfully, I hope, not complainingly, I am sure (I can thank God for most affectionate friends!) not complainingly, yet mournfully and in profound conviction--those words--'_jamais je n'ai pas été aimée comme j'aime_.' The capacity of loving is the largest of my powers I think--I thought so before knowing you--and one form of feeling. And although any woman might love you--_every_ woman,--with understanding enough to discern you by--(oh, do not fancy that I am unduly magnifying mine office) yet I persist in persuading myself that! Because I have the capacity, as I said--and besides I owe more to you than others could, it seems to me: let me boast of it. To many, you might be better than all things while one of all things: to me you are instead of all--to many, a crowning happiness--to me, the happiness itself. From out of the deep dark pits men see the stars more gloriously--and _de profundis amavi_--

It is a very poor answer! Almost as poor an answer as yours could be if I were to ask you to teach me to please you always; or rather, how not to displease you, disappoint you, vex you--what if all those things were in my fate?

And--(to begin!)--_I_ am disappointed to-night. I expected a letter which does not come--and I had felt so sure of having a letter to-night ... unreasonably sure perhaps, which means doubly sure.

_Friday._--Remember you have had two notes of mine, and that it is certainly not my turn to write, though I am writing.

Scarcely you had gone on Wednesday when Mr. Kenyon came. It seemed best to me, you know, that you should go--I had the presentiment of his footsteps--and so near they were, that if you had looked up the street in leaving the door, you must have seen him! Of course I told him of your having been here and also at his house; whereupon he enquired eagerly if you meant to dine with him, seeming disappointed by my negative. 'Now I had told him,' he said ... and murmured on to himself loud enough for me to hear, that 'it would have been a peculiar pleasure &c.' The reason I have not seen him lately is the eternal 'business,' just as you thought, and he means to come 'oftener now,' so nothing is wrong as I half thought.

As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking what sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most particularly admire--sulkiness?--the divine gift of sitting aloof in a cloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps--pettishness? ... which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one either? obstinacy?--which is an agreeable form of temper I can assure you, and describes itself--or the good open passion which lies on the floor and kicks, like one of my cousins?--Certainly I prefer the last, and should, I think, prefer it (as an evil), even if it were not the born weakness of my own nature--though I humbly confess (to _you_, who seem to think differently of these things) that never since I was a child have I upset all the chairs and tables and thrown the books about the room in a fury--I am afraid I do not even 'kick,' like my cousin, now. Those demonstrations were all done by the 'light of other days'--not a very full light, I used to be accustomed to think:--but _you_,--_you_ think otherwise, _you_ take a fury to be the opposite of 'indifference,' as if there could be no such thing as self-control! Now for my part, I do believe that the worst-tempered persons in the world are less so through sensibility than selfishness--they spare nobody's heart, on the ground of being themselves pricked by a straw. Now see if it isn't so. What, after all, is a good temper but generosity in trifles--and what, without it, is the happiness of life? We have only to look round us. I _saw_ a woman, once, burst into tears, because her husband cut the bread and butter too thick. I saw _that_ with my own eyes. Was it _sensibility_, I wonder! They were at least real tears and ran down her cheeks. 'You _always_ do it'! she said.

Why how you must sympathize with the heroes and heroines of the French romances (_do_ you sympathize with them very much?) when at the slightest provocation they break up the tables and chairs, (a degree beyond the deeds of my childhood!--_I_ only used to upset them) break up the tables and chairs and chiffoniers, and dash the china to atoms. The men _do_ the furniture, and the women the porcelain: and pray observe that they always set about this as a matter of course! When they have broken everything in the room, they sink down quite (and very naturally) _abattus_. I remember a particular case of a hero of Frederic Soulié's, who, in the course of an 'emotion,' takes up a chair _unconsciously_, and breaks it into very small pieces, and then proceeds with his soliloquy. Well!--the clearest idea this excites in _me_, is of the low condition in Paris, of moral government and of upholstery. Because--just consider for yourself--how _you_ would succeed in breaking to pieces even a three-legged stool if it were properly put together--as stools are in England--just yourself, without a hammer and a screw! You might work at it _comme quatre_, and find it hard to finish, I imagine. And then as a demonstration, a child of six years old might demonstrate just so (in his sphere) and be whipped accordingly.

How I go on writing!--and you, who do not write at all!--two extremes, one set against the other.

But I must say, though in ever such an ill temper (which you know is just the time to select for writing a panegyric upon good temper) that I am glad you do not despise my own right name too much, because I never was called Elizabeth by any one who loved me at all, and I accept the omen. So little it seems my name that if a voice said suddenly 'Elizabeth,' I should as soon turn round as my sisters would ... no sooner. Only, my own right name has been complained of for want of euphony ... _Ba_ ... now and then it has--and Mr. Boyd makes a compromise and calls me _Elibet_, because nothing could induce him to desecrate his organs accustomed to Attic harmonies, with a _Ba_. So I am glad, and accept the omen.

But I give you no credit for not thinking that I may forget you ... I! As if you did not see the difference! Why, _I_ could not even forget to _write_ to _you_, observe!--

Whenever you write, say how you are. Were you wet on Wednesday?

Your own--

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Saturday.
[Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]

I do not, nor will not think, dearest, of ever 'making you happy'--I can imagine no way of working that end, which does not go straight to my own truest, only true happiness--yet in every such effort there is implied some distinction, some supererogatory grace, or why speak of it at all? _You_ it is, are my happiness, and all that ever can be: YOU--dearest!

But never, if you would not, what you will not do I know, never revert to _that_ frightful wish. 'Disappoint me?' 'I speak what I know and testify what I have seen'--you shall 'mystery' again and again--I do not dispute that, but do not _you_ dispute, neither, that mysteries are. But it is simply because I do most justice to the mystical part of what I feel for you, because I consent to lay most stress on that fact of facts that I love you, beyond admiration, and respect, and esteem and affection even, and do not adduce any reason which stops short of accounting for _that_, whatever else it would account for, because I do this, in pure logical justice--_you_ are able to turn and wonder (if you _do ... now_) what causes it all! My love, only wait, only believe in me, and it cannot be but I shall, little by little, become known to you--after long years, perhaps, but still one day: I _would_ say _this_ now--but I will write more to-morrow. God bless my sweetest--ever, love, I am your

R.B.

But my letter came last night, did it not?

Another thing--no, _to-morrow_--for time presses, and, in all cases, _Tuesday_--remember!

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Saturday.
[Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]

I have your letter now, and now I am sorry I sent mine. If I wrote that you had 'forgotten to write,' I did not mean it; not a word! If I had meant it I should not have written it. But it would have been better for every reason to have waited just a little longer before writing at all. A besetting sin of mine is an impatience which makes people laugh when it does not entangle their silks, pull their knots tighter, and tear their books in cutting them open.

How right you are about Mr. Lowell! He has a refined fancy and is graceful for an American critic, but the truth is, otherwise, that he knows nothing of English poetry or the next thing to nothing, and has merely had a dream of the early dramatists. The amount of his reading in that direction is an article in the _Retrospective Review_ which contains extracts; and he re-extracts the extracts, re-quotes the quotations, and, 'a pede Herculem,' from the foot infers the man, or rather from the sandal-string of the foot, infers and judges the soul of the man--it is comparative anatomy under the most speculative conditions. How a writer of his talents and pretensions could make up his mind to make up a book on such slight substratum, is a curious proof of the state of literature in America. Do you not think so? Why a lecturer on the English Dramatists for a 'Young Ladies' academy' here in England, might take it to be necessary to have better information than he could gather from an odd volume of an old review! And then, Mr. Lowell's naïveté in showing his authority,--as if the Elizabethan poets lay mouldering in inaccessible manuscript somewhere below the lowest deep of Shakespeare's grave,--is curious beyond the rest! Altogether, the fact is an epigram on the surface-literature of America. As you say, their books do not suit us:--Mrs. Markham might as well send her compendium of the History of France to M. Thiers. If they _knew_ more they could not give parsley crowns to their own native poets when there is greater merit among the rabbits. Mrs. Sigourney has just sent me--just this morning--her 'Scenes in my Native Land' and, peeping between the uncut leaves, I read of the poet Hillhouse, of 'sublime spirit and Miltonic energy,' standing in 'the temple of Fame' as if it were built on purpose for him. I suppose he is like most of the American poets, who are shadows of the true, as flat as a shadow, as colourless as a shadow, as lifeless and as transitory. Mr. Lowell himself is, in his verse-books, poetical, if not a poet--and certainly this little book we are talking of is grateful enough in some ways--you would call it a _pretty book_--would you not? Two or three letters I have had from him ... all very kind!--and _that_ reminds me, alas! of some ineffable ingratitude on my own part! When one's conscience grows too heavy, there is nothing for it but to throw it away!--

Do you remember how I tried to tell you what he said of you, and how you would not let me?

Mr. Mathews said of _him_, having met him once in society, that he was the concentration of conceit in appearance and manner. But since then they seem to be on better terms.

Where is the meaning, pray, of E.B._C._? _your_ meaning, I mean?

My true initials are E.B.M.B.--my long name, as opposed to my short one, being Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett!--there's a full length to take away one's breath!--Christian name ... Elizabeth Barrett:--surname, Moulton Barrett. So long it is, that to make it portable, I fell into the habit of doubling it up and packing it closely, ... and of forgetting that I was a _Moulton_, altogether. One might as well write the alphabet as all four initials. Yet our family-name is _Moulton Barrett_, and my brothers reproach me sometimes for sacrificing the governorship of an old town in Norfolk with a little honourable verdigris from the Heralds' Office. As if I cared for the _Retrospective Review_! Nevertheless it is true that I would give ten towns in Norfolk (if I had them) to own some purer lineage than that of the blood of the slave! Cursed we are from generation to generation!--I seem to hear the 'Commination Service.'

May God bless you always, always! beyond the always of this world!--

Your

E.B.B.

Mr. Dickens's 'Cricket' sings repetitions, and, with considerable beauty, is extravagant. It does not appear to me by any means one of his most successful productions, though quite free from what was reproached as bitterness and one-sidedness, last year.

You do not say how you are--not a word! And you are wrong in saying that you 'ought to have written'--as if 'ought' could be in place _so_! You _never 'ought' to write to me you know_! or rather ... if you ever think you ought, you ought not! Which is a speaking of mysteries on my part!

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Sunday Night.
[Post-mark, December 22, 1845.]

Now, '_ought_' you to be 'sorry you sent that letter,' which made, and makes me so happy--so happy--can you bring yourself to turn round and tell one you have so blessed with your bounty that there was a mistake, and you meant only half that largess? If you are not sensible that you _do_ make me most happy by such letters, and do not warm in the reflection of your own rays, then I _do_ give up indeed the last chance of procuring _you_ happiness. My own 'ought,' which you object to, shall be withdrawn--being only a pure bit of selfishness; I felt, in missing the letter of yours, next day, that I _might_ have drawn it down by one of mine,--if I had begged never so gently, the gold would have fallen--_there_ was my omitted duty to myself which you properly blame. I should stand silently and wait and be sure of the ever-remembering goodness.

Let me count my gold now--and rub off any speck that stays the full shining. First--_that thought_ ... I told you; I pray you, pray you, sweet--never that again--or what leads never so remotely or indirectly to it! On _your own fancied ground_, the fulfilment would be of necessity fraught with every woe that can fall in this life. I am yours for ever--if you are not _here_, with me--what then? Say, you take all of yourself away but just enough to live on; then, _that_ defeats every kind purpose ... as if you cut away all the ground from my feet but so much as serves for bare standing room ... why still, I _stand_ there--and is it the better that I have no broader space, when off _that_ you cannot force me? I have your memory, the knowledge of you, the idea of you printed into my heart and brain,--on that, I can live my life--but it is for you, the dear, utterly generous creature I know you, to give me more and more beyond mere life--to extend life and deepen it--as you do, and will do. Oh, _how_ I love you when I think of the entire truthfulness of your generosity to me--how, meaning and willing to _give_, you gave _nobly_! Do you think I have not seen in this world how women who _do_ love will manage to confer that gift on occasion? And shall I allow myself to fancy how much alloy such pure gold as _your_ love would have rendered endurable? Yet it came, virgin ore, to complete my fortune! And what but this makes me confident and happy? _Can_ I take a lesson by your fancies, and begin frightening myself with saying ... 'But if she saw all the world--the worthier, better men there ... those who would' &c. &c. No, I think of the great, dear _gift_ that it was; how I '_won_' NOTHING (the hateful word, and _French_ thought)--did nothing by my own arts or cleverness in the matter ... so what pretence have the _more_ artful or more clever for:--but I cannot write out this folly--I am yours for ever, with the utmost sense of gratitude--to say I would give you my life joyfully is little.... I would, I hope, do that for two or three other people--but I am not conscious of any imaginable point in which I would not implicitly devote my whole self to you--be disposed of by you as for the best. There! It is not to be spoken of--let me _live_ it into proof, beloved!

And for 'disappointment and a burden' ... now--let us get quite away from ourselves, and not see one of the filaments, but only the _cords_ of love with the world's horny eye. Have we such jarring tastes, then? Does your inordinate attachment to gay life interfere with my deep passion for society? 'Have they common sympathy in each other's pursuits?'--always asks Mrs. Tomkins! Well, here was I when you knew me, fixed in my way of life, meaning with God's help to write what may be written and so die at peace with myself so far. Can you help me or no? Do you _not_ help me so much that, if you saw the more likely peril for poor human nature, you would say, 'He will be jealous of all the help coming from me,--none from him to me!'--And _that would_ be a consequence of the help, all-too-great for hope of return, with any one less possessed than I with the exquisiteness of being _transcended_ and the _blest_ one.

But--'here comes the Selah and the voice is hushed'--I will speak of other things. When we are together one day--the days I believe in--I mean to set about that reconsidering 'Sordello'--it has always been rather on my mind--but yesterday I was reading the 'Purgatorio' and the first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one struck me with a new significance, as well describing the man and his purpose and fate in my own poem--see; one of the burthened, contorted souls tells Virgil and Dante--

Noi fummo già tutti per forza morti,
E _peccatori infin' all' ultim' ora_:
QUIVI--_lume del ciel ne fece accorti
Si chè, pentendo e perdonando, fora
Di vita uscimmo a Dio pacificati
Che del disio di se veder n'accora._[1]

Which is just my Sordello's story ... could I '_do_' it off hand, I wonder--

And sinners were we to the extreme hour;
_Then_, light from heaven fell, making us aware,
So that, repenting us and pardoned, out
Of life we passed to God, at peace with Him
Who fills the heart with yearning Him to see.

There were many singular incidents attending my work on that subject--thus, quite at the end, I found out there _was printed_ and not published, a little historical tract by a Count V---- something, called 'Sordello'--with the motto 'Post fata resurgam'! I hope he prophesied. The main of this--biographical notices--is extracted by Muratori, I think. Last year when I set foot in Naples I found after a few minutes that at some theatre, that night, the opera was to be 'one act of Sordello' and I never looked twice, nor expended a couple of carlines on the _libretto_!

I wanted to tell you, in last letter, that when I spoke of people's tempers _you_ have no concern with 'people'--I do not glance obliquely at _your_ temper--either to discover it, or praise it, or adapt myself to it. I speak of the relation one sees in other cases--how one opposes passionate foolish people, but hates cold clever people who take quite care enough of themselves. I myself am born supremely passionate--so I was born with light yellow hair: all changes--that is the passion changes its direction and, taking a channel large enough, looks calmer, perhaps, than it should--and all my sympathies go with quiet strength, of course--but I know what the other kind is. As for the breakages of chairs, and the appreciation of Parisian _meubles_; manibus, pedibusque descendo in tuam sententiam, Ba, mi ocelle! ('What was E.B. C?' why, the first letter after, and _not_, E.B. _B_, my own _B_! There was no latent meaning in the C--but I had no inclination to go on to D, or E, for instance).

And so, love, Tuesday is to be our day--one day more--and then! And meanwhile '_care_' for me! a good word for you--but _my_ care, what is that! One day I aspire to _care_, though! I shall not go away at any dear Mr. K.'s coming! They call me down-stairs to supper--and my fire is out, and you keep me from feeling cold and yet ask if I am well? Yes, well--yes, happy--and your own ever--I must bid God bless you--dearest!

R.B.

[Footnote 1: 'Purg.' v. 52 7.]

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Sunday Night.
[Post-mark, December 24, 1845.]

But did I dispute? Surely not. Surely I believe in you and in 'mysteries.' Surely I prefer the no-reason to ever so much rationalism ... (rationalism and infidelity go together they say!). All which I may do, and be afraid sometimes notwithstanding, and when you overpraise me (_not_ over_love_) I must be frightened as I told you.

It is with me as with the theologians. I believe in you and can be happy and safe _so_; but when my 'personal merits' come into question in any way, even the least, ... why then the position grows untenable: it is no more 'of grace.'

Do I tease you as I tease myself sometimes? But do not wrong me in turn! Do not keep repeating that 'after long years' I shall know you--know you!--as if I did not without the years. If you are forced to refer me to those long ears, I must deserve the thistles besides. The thistles are the corollary.

For it is obvious--manifest--that I cannot doubt of you, that I may doubt of myself, of happiness, of the whole world,--but of _you_--_not_: it is obvious that if I could doubt of you and _act so_ I should be a very idiot, or worse indeed. And _you_ ... you think I doubt of you whenever I make an interjection!--now do you not? And is it reasonable?--Of _you_, I mean?

_Monday._--For my part, you must admit it to be too possible that you may be, as I say, 'disappointed' in me--it _is_ too possible. And if it does me good to say so, even now perhaps ... if it is mere weakness to say so and simply torments you, why do _you_ be magnanimous and forgive _that_ ... let it pass as a weakness and forgive it _so_. Often I think painful things which I do not tell you and....

While I write, your letter comes. Kindest of you it was, to write me such a letter, when I expected scarcely the shadow of one!--this makes up for the other letter which I expected unreasonably and which you '_ought not_' to have written, as was proved afterwards. And now why should I go on with that sentence? What had I to say of 'painful things,' I wonder? all the painful things seem gone ... vanished. I forget what I had to say. Only do you still think of this, dearest beloved; that I sit here in the dark but for _you_, and that the light you bring me (from _my_ fault!--from the nature of _my_ darkness!) is not a settled light as when you open the shutters in the morning, but a light made by candles which burn some of them longer and some shorter, and some brighter and briefer, at once--being 'double-wicks,' and that there is an intermission for a moment now and then between the dropping of the old light into the socket and the lighting of the new. Every letter of yours is a new light which burns so many hours ... and _then_!--I am morbid, you see--or call it by what name you like ... too wise or too foolish. 'If the light of the body is darkness, how great is that darkness.' Yet even when I grow too wise, I admit always that while you love me it is an answer to all. And I am never so much too foolish as to wish to be worthier for my own sake--only for yours:--not for my own sake, since I am content to owe all things to you.

And it could be so much to you to lose me!--and you say so,--and _then_ think it needful to tell me not to think the other thought! As if _that_ were possible! Do you remember what you said once of the flowers?--that you 'felt a respect for them when they had passed out of your hands.' And must it not be so with my life, which if you choose to have it, must be respected too? Much more with my life! Also, see that I, who had my warmest affections on the other side of the grave, feel that it is otherwise with me now--quite otherwise. I did not like it at first to be so much otherwise. And I could not have had any such thought through a weariness of life or any of my old motives, but simply to escape the 'risk' I told you of. Should I have said to you instead of it ... '_Love me for ever_'? Well then, ... I _do_.

As to my 'helping' you, my help is in your fancy; and if you go on with the fancy, I perfectly understand that it will be as good as deeds. We _have_ sympathy too--we walk one way--oh, I do not forget the advantages. Only Mrs. Tomkins's ideas of happiness are below my ambition for you.

So often as I have said (it reminds me) that in this situation I should be more exacting than any other woman--so often I have said it: and so different everything is from what I thought it would be! Because if I am exacting it is for _you_ and not for _me_--it is altogether for _you_--you understand _that_, dearest of all ... it is for _you wholly_. It never crosses my thought, in a lightning even, the question whether I may be happy so and so--_I_. It is the other question which comes always--too often for peace.

People used to say to me, 'You expect too much--you are too romantic.' And my answer always was that 'I could not expect too much when I expected nothing at all' ... which was the truth--for I never thought (and how often I have _said that_!) I never thought that anyone whom _I_ could love, would stoop to love _me_ ... the two things seemed clearly incompatible to my understanding.

And now when it comes in a miracle, you wonder at me for looking twice, thrice, four times, to see if it comes through ivory or _horn_. You wonder that it should seem to me at first all illusion--illusion for you,--illusion for me as a consequence. But how natural.

It is true of me--very true--that I have not a high appreciation of what passes in the world (and not merely the Tomkins-world!) under the name of love; and that a distrust of the thing had grown to be a habit of mind with me when I knew you first. It has appeared to me, through all the seclusion of my life and the narrow experience it admitted of, that in nothing men--and women too--were so apt to mistake their own feelings, as in this one thing. Putting _falseness_ quite on one side, quite out of sight and consideration, an honest mistaking of feeling appears wonderfully common, and no mistake has such frightful results--none can. Self-love and generosity, a mistake may come from either--from pity, from admiration, from any blind impulse--oh, when I look at the histories of my own female friends--to go no step further! And if it is true of the _women_, what must the other side be? To see the marriages which are made every day! worse than solitudes and more desolate! In the case of the two happiest I ever knew, one of the husbands said in confidence to a brother of mine--not much in confidence or I should not have heard it, but in a sort of smoking frankness,--that he had 'ruined his prospects by marrying'; and the other said to himself at the very moment of professing an extraordinary happiness, ... 'But I should have done as well if I had not married _her_.'

Then for the falseness--the first time I ever, in my own experience, heard that word which rhymes to glove and comes as easily off and on (on some hands!)--it was from a man of whose attentions to another woman I was at that _time her confidante_. I was bound so to silence for her sake, that I could not even speak the scorn that was in me--and in fact my uppermost feeling was a sort of horror ... a terror--for I was very young then, and the world did, at the moment, look ghastly!

The falseness and the calculations!--why how can you, who are _just_, _blame women_ ... when you must know what the 'system' of man is towards them,--and of men not ungenerous otherwise? Why are women to be blamed if they act as if they had to do with swindlers?--is it not the mere instinct of preservation which makes them do it? These make women what they are. And your 'honourable men,' the most loyal of them, (for instance) is it not a rule with them (unless when taken unaware through a want of self-government) to force a woman (trying all means) to force a woman to stand committed in her affections ... (they with their feet lifted all the time to trample on her for want of delicacy) before _they_ risk the pin-prick to their own personal pitiful vanities? Oh--to see how these things are set about by _men_! to see how a man carefully holding up on each side the skirts of an embroidered vanity to keep it quite safe from the wet, will contrive to tell you in so many words that he ... might love you if the sun shone! And women are to be blamed! Why there are, to be sure, cold and heartless, light and changeable, ungenerous and calculating women in the world!--that is sure. But for the most part, they are only what they are made ... and far better than the nature of the making ... of that I am confident. The loyal make the loyal, the disloyal the disloyal. And I give no more discredit to those women you speak of, than I myself can take any credit in this thing--I. Because who could be disloyal with _you_ ... with whatever corrupt inclination? _you_, who are the noblest of all? If you judge me so, ... it is my privilege rather than my merit ... as I feel of myself.