Chapter XIX: Part 19

My own beloved, you shall not be uneasy on my account.—I send you foolishnesses and you are daunted by them—but see! What affects me in those churches and chapels is something different, quite different, from railroad noises and the like. You do not understand, and I never explained, ... you could not understand—but the music, the sight of the people, the old tunes of hymns ... all these things seem to suffocate my very soul with the sense of the past, past days, when there was one beside me who is not here now—I am upset, overwhelmed with it all. I think I should have been quite foolishly, hysterically ill yesterday if I had persisted in staying. Next Sunday I shall go to the vestry, and see nobody, and get over it by degrees.

Well—but for the sea-voyage, it seems to me that the great thing for us to ascertain is the precise _expense_. I should not at all mind going by sea, only that I fear the expense, and also that it is necessary to take our passages some time before, ... and then, if anything happened ... I mean any little thing ... an obstacle for a day or two! Consider our circumstances.

I shall write again perhaps. Do not rely, though, on my writing. _Perhaps_ I shall write. I shall think of your goodness certainly! May God bless you, dearest beloved, I love, love you! I cannot be more

Your own.

Don’t forget to bring the paper on ‘Colombe’s Birthday,’—and say particularly how you are—and how your mother is. In such haste I write!—

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, August 25, 1846.]

When your letter came, my love, I could have easily borne the over-ruling its objections to a visit to-day, for all my cautious philosophy! But it seems best arranged as at present ... indeed it must be best, if you agree. To-morrow repays me: nor is very long to wait!

I will only write briefly because I want to go to Town, (since there is nothing better practicable), and enquire precisely about that steamboat and the prices. I see that one may go to Trieste, a much greater journey, for ‘£12 and £15,’ according to Mr. Waghorn’s bill. Besides, the advertisement speaks of the ‘economy’ of this way—and certainly under ordinary circumstances anybody would prefer the river-voyage with its picturesqueness. There is a long account, in the paper to-day, of the earthquakes in Tuscany—which have really been formidable enough to keep away the travelling English for the next month or two—whole villages were overthrown, Leghorn has suffered considerably, the inhabitants bivouac outside the walls—and at Pisa the roof of a church fell in ... also the villas in the vicinity have been damaged. Do you fear, dearest? If you do not,—_I fear_ that the eligibility of Pisa as our place of abode is only doubled and tripled by all this. Think; there is a new lake risen, just by! and great puffs of sulphureous smoke came up through chinks in the plains. How do these wonders affect you?

You asked me about Ossian—now here is truth—the first book I ever bought in my life was Ossian ... it is now in the next room. And years before that, the first _composition_ I ever was guilty of was something in _imitation_ of Ossian, whom I had not read, but _conceived_, through two or three scraps in other books—I never can recollect _not_ writing rhymes ... but I knew they were nonsense even then; _this_, however, I thought exceedingly well of, and laid up for posterity under the cushion of a great arm-chair. ‘And now my soul is satisfied’—so said one man after killing another, the death being suggested, in its height of honour, by stars and stars (* * * *). I could not have been five years old, that’s one consolation. Years after, when I bought this book, I found a vile dissertation of Laing ... all to prove Ossian was not Ossian ... I would not read it, but could not help knowing the purpose of it, and the pith of the hatefully-irresistible arguments. The worst came in another shape, though ... an after-gleaning of real Ossianic poems, by a firm believer whose name I forget—‘if this is the _real_’—I thought! Well, to this day I believe in a nucleus for all that haze, a foundation of truth to Macpherson’s fanciful superstructure—and I have been long intending to read once again those Fingals and Malvinas.

I remember that somewhere a chief cries ‘Come round me, my thousands!’—There is an Achilles! And another, complaining of old age remarks ‘_Now_—I feel the weight of my shield!’ Nestor; and both beautifully perfect, are they not, _you_ perfect Ba?

I will go now. To-morrow I trust to see you face to face; dearest that you are!

Ever your own.

My poor mother suffers greatly. I am much better.

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

Tuesday, 6 p.m.
[Post-mark, August 26, 1846.]

I have just had a note from Mr. Kenyon, who, after his absence at Richmond, promises to come and see me on _Thursday afternoon_. Now ... would it be quite ‘unco guid’ of us ... and wise ‘above what is written’ (in your letter) if we put off our day to Friday, and gave me the power to answer to Mr. Kenyon’s certain question, ... ‘no, I have not seen him since I saw _you_.’? If you think it would be wise, my own dearest, why do not come to-morrow; do not come till Friday. See—to-day is Tuesday, and only two days more will intervene,—and we are agreed on the necessity of prudence for the coming weeks—particularly when my brothers have nothing particular to do, at this time of vacation, but to watch us on all sides. I am so nervous that my own footsteps startle me. But _quite well_ I am, and you shall not have fancies about me—as to strength, I mean—as to what I cannot do, bear, and the like.

To-night I shall write a letter as usual. This is a bare _line_, which Henrietta will throw into the post, to speak to you of to-morrow. The letter follows.

How I miss you, and long for Friday. If you have an engagement for Friday, there is Saturday. ‘_Understand_’ ... as you say, and I repeat.

To-night I will tell you where I went to-day.

Your own I am always

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

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 26, 1846.]

‘_Nor is it very long to wait_’—Alas!—My note went two hours ago to cross out the application of that phrase, and now it _is_ very long to wait, ... all the days to Friday. Tell me, dearest, if you think it wise, at least, to make such an unhappy arrangement, ... considering, you know, Mr. Kenyon and my brothers. It ought to be wise, _I_ think ... it is so unhappy and disappointing. Consider what I am without you all this long dreary while; and how little ever so much sense of wisdom can console anybody.

Friday will come however,—and I may as well go on to tell you that Mrs. Jameson came yesterday. ‘Anything settled?’ she asked; as she walked into the room. She looked at me with resolute, enquiring eyes. I wonder if she ever approaches to the divination of something like the truth—_not_ the truth, but like it. Either she must see indistinctly ‘something new and strange,’ or attribute to me a strange delight in the mysterious. She half promised to see me again before she leaves England, and begged me to write and tell her all whenever I shall have it in my power to make the communication. Affectionate she was, as always.

To-day I have seen nobody, except Mr. Boyd for a little, after driving through street upon street, where I might have met you if I had been happy enough. Albemarle Street ... were you _there_? I sate there, in the carriage, opposite to the York Hotel, while Henrietta paid her visit to old Lady Bolingbroke, a full half hour ... Flush and I—Flush staring out of the window, and I ... doing what I generally do in this room, do you ask what it was? At the end of some twenty minutes, a boy passed, who had the impertinence to look full at Flush and whistle, whereupon Flush growled, and appealed to me with two immense eyes ... both seeming to say ‘I hope you observe how I am insulted.’ So my reverie was broken in the middle—but being better tempered, rather, than Flush, or having larger resources, I did not growl, but took your latest letter out instead, which lasted for the whole remainder of the time. Then at Mr. Boyd’s ... oh, I must tell you ... he began to tell me some romantic compliments of several young ladies who desired to be disguised in servant’s accoutrements, just to open the door to me (to have a good stare, I suppose) or, in good earnest, to be my maid! (to go with us to Pisa, dearest ... how would you like _that_?—Seriously now _do_ just calculate the wonderful good fortune of such a person, in falling upon two lions instead of one—nay, on a great wild forest-lion, this time, in addition to the little puny lioness of the original bargain!) Well!—but when Mr. Boyd had done his report, I asked naturally, ‘And what am I to say to all this?’ ‘Why you are to say that you will be goodnatured, and give somebody pleasure at the cost of no pain to yourself, and go to the room down-stairs and speak three words to Miss Smith who is there, waiting.’ Imagine anybody having a Miss Smith ready in the drawing-room to let out upon one! Imagine _me_ too (to be less abstract) walking in to that same Miss Smith, ... to the effect of—! ‘Here I am! just come to be looked at. Is it at all what you expected, Miss Smith’?

The worst was, that dear Mr. Boyd would have set it down to a species of malignancy, if I had refused—so I took my courage up with both hands, and remembering that I had seen two or three times, years ago, the stepmother of the said Miss Smith, I thought I might enquire after her with a sort of propriety. And I got through it somehow. ‘Will you let me shake hands with you and ask how Mrs. Smith is? Does she remember me, I wonder? I am Elizabeth Barrett.’—‘Is it possible? Ah! I thought you were one of your sisters at first! Dear me! Why how much better, you must be, to be sure!—Oh dear me, what an illness you have had! Ah, quite shut up so long! How very, very interesting, to be sure.’—If Flush had swallowed her up in the middle, I might have forgiven him, to be sure. So interesting too, that catastrophe would have been! But you shall not set me down as a savage—it was all kindness on her side, of course—but one may be savage to a _situation_ ... (which is just the way with me, ...) without being a born barbarian woman.

As to Miss Martineau, the expression which sounds so rampant with conceit, may yet be the plainest proof of a mere instinct of self-preservation. If three Smiths would be mob enough to mob _me_ to death (and they may make a mob, as three fine days, a summer!), let us have some feeling for _her_, exposed, from various causes, to the thirties ... at the lowest comparative computation.

For Ossian, you admit the _nucleus_. Which is only like your Ba, dearest ... you will not stand higher as an Ossianic critic unless you believe the verbal authenticity, ‘nothing extenuating.’ The cushion of the armchair! _My_ place of deposit used to be between the mattresses of my crib—a little mahogany crib with cane sides to it. You were like Lord Byron (another point of likeness!) in imitating Ossian, but you were still earlier at the work than he was.

It is very well to ascertain the prices by the steamers; though my expectation is that you will find them higher than you fancy them. _Nineteen guineas_ was the charge last year, as far as Gibraltar only. Then, if you charmed ever so eloquently with the voice of the charmer, you never, as a passenger, would induce those people to diminish the rate, because of our being _three_; and a female servant is charged for at the higher rate ... if not the highest. Altogether the expenses will be, out of all comparison, beyond that of the passage through France ... see if it will not. Ten pounds, as far as the travelling goes, seem to cover everything, in going from hence to Leghorn ... to Pisa ... taking Rouen and Orleans—and meaning of course, for one person. And if the advantages are, as you describe, besides ... why should we forego them? _Is_ the fatigue so much greater? If there are more changes and shiftings, there is also more absolute rest—and the rivers are smoother than the seas. Still, it is well to consider—and there are good reasons on each side, worthy of consideration.

So much more I had to say—I break off suddenly, being benighted. How you write to me! how you wrote to me on Sunday and yesterday! How I wish for two hearts to love you with, and two lives to give to you, and two souls to bear the weight worthily of all you have given to _me_. But if one heart and one life will do, ... they are yours ... I cannot give them again.

Beloved, if your mother should be ill, we must not think of your leaving her, surely?

May God bless you, dearest beloved.

I am your BA.

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

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 26, 1846.]

Dearest, I _do_ think it will be only prudent to stay away till Friday for those reasons. Oh, how I feel _what_ a Ba, mine is ... how truly peerless a lady ... when I find instinctively at this minute while I write, that the proper course will be to seem as little affected by this enforced absence as possible ... that knowing my love she would understand any comfort I take from the eventful good of the arrangement—I have not to dwell on the present sorrow of it, lest she disbelieve me! I am your very own, dearest dearest, with you or away from you. Both your notes came together just now ... how can I thank and love you enough? I might have guessed that at the end you would thank _me_ for my own letters ... that is your ‘trick of fence,’ discovered, remember! But when you read the ‘red-leaved tablets of the heart’ ... then be satisfied ... ‘praise,’ nothing in me to you can deserve.

I have learned all particulars about the steamer. There are only two classes of passengers ... _Servants_ being the second. The first pay, for the voyage to Leghorn 21_l._—the second, 14_l._ 5_s._ all expenses included except during the stay at Genoa. No reduction ‘it is feared’ could be made in the case of so small a party—but by booking early, a separate cabin might be secured, at no additional expense. In the event of any obstacle, the passage paid for may be postponed till the departure of the next, or any future vessel of the company. Now, you see, these rates, though moderate, I think—(the ordinary term of the passage to _Genoa_ is eleven days)—are yet considerably above those of the other method by at least 20_l._, I should say. The voyage is long, supremely tiresome, and in all respects so much less interesting than the French route, that the whole scheme _can_ only be constructed for those to whom any other mode of travel is impossible. The one question to be asked therefore is ... are you really convinced that you need not be treated as one of these? And on further consideration, there arise not a few doubts as to whether the sea-voyage be not the more _difficult_ of the two—the roughness is all between here and Gibraltar—and in the case of _that_ affecting you more seriously than we hope, there would be no possibility of escaping from the ship—whereas, should you be indisposed on the other route, we can stop at once and stay for any period. Then, the ‘shiftings’ are only three or four, and probably accompanied by no very great fatigue beyond the _notion_ that a shifting there _is_. Above all, you would get the first of the sea in a little experiment, soon made and over,—so that if it proved unfavourable to you there might be an end of the matter at once. So that after all, the cheaper journey may be the safer. But all does _not_ rest with you _quite_, as I was going to say ... all my life is bound up with the success of this measure ... therefore, think and decide, my Ba!

Would there be an advantage in Mrs. Jameson accompanying us—to Orleans, at least? Would the circumstances of our marriage alter her desire, do you think? She has wished to travel with _me_, also—she must suspect the truth—I doubt whether it is not in such cases as hers, where no responsibility is involved, whether it is not better policy, as well as the more graceful, to communicate what is sure to be discovered—so getting thanks and sympathy instead of neither. All is for you to consider.

And now, dearest, I will revert, in as few words as I can, to the account you gave me, a short time since, of your income. At the beginning, if there had been the necessity I supposed, I should have proposed to myself the attainment of something like such an amount, by my utmost efforts, before we could marry. We could not under the circumstances begin with less—so as to be free from horrible contingencies,—not the least of which would be the application for assistance afterward. After we marry, nobody must hear of us. In spite of a few misgivings at first I am not proud, or rather, am proud in the right place. I am utterly, exclusively proud of you—and though I should have gloried in working myself to death to prove it, and shall be as ready to do so at any time a necessity shall exist, yet at present I shall best serve you, I think, by the life by your side, which we contemplate. I hope and believe, that by your side I shall accomplish something to justify God’s goodness and yours—and, looking at the matter in a worldly light, I see not a few reasons for thinking that unproductive as the kind of literature may be, which I should aim at producing, yet, by judicious management, and profiting by certain favourable circumstances,—I shall be able to realise an annual sum quite sufficient for every purpose—at least in Italy.

As I never calculated on such a change in my life, I had the less repugnance to my father’s generosity, that I knew that an effort at some time or other might furnish me with a few hundred pounds which would soon cover my very simple expenses. If we are poor, it is to my father’s infinite glory, who, as my mother told me last night, as we sate alone, ‘conceived such a hatred to the slave-system in the West Indies,’ (where his mother was born, who died in his infancy), that he relinquished every prospect,—supported himself, while there, in some other capacity, and came back, while yet a boy, to his father’s profound astonishment and rage—one proof of which was, that when he heard that his son was a suitor to _her_, my mother—he benevolently waited on her uncle to assure him that his niece would be thrown away on a man so evidently born to be hanged!—those were his words. My father on his return had the intention of devoting himself to art, for which he had many qualifications and abundant love—but the quarrel with his father,—who married again and continued to hate him till a few years before his death,—induced him to go at once and consume his life after a fashion he always detested. You may fancy, I am not ashamed of him.

I told my mother, who told _him_. They have never been used to interfere with, or act for me—and they trust me. If you care for any love, purely love,—you will have theirs—they give it you, whether you take it or no. You will understand, therefore, that I would not _accept_ even the 100_l._ we shall want: I said ‘you shall lend it me—I will pay it back out of my first literary earnings—I take it, because I do not want to sell my copyrights, or engage myself to write a play, or any other nuisance. Surely I can get fifty pounds next year, and the other fifty in due course!’

So, dearest, we shall have plenty for the journey—and you have only to determine the when and the how. Oh, the time! Bless you, ever dearest! I love you with all my heart and soul—

R.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]

‘_If I care for any love_’—‘_whether I take it or no._’ Now ought I not to reproach you a little, for bearing to write such words of me, when you could not but think all the while, that I should feel a good deal in reading what you wrote beside? Will you tell me that you did not know I should be glad and grateful for _tolerance_ even?—the least significance of the kinder feeling affecting me _beyond_, perhaps, what you could know of me. I am bound to them utterly.

And if it is true, as it is true, that they have much to pardon and overlook in me, ... and among the rest, the painful position imposed on you by my miserable necessities, ... they yet never shall find me, I trust, unworthy of them and you by _voluntary_ failures, and, least of all, by failures of dutiful affection towards themselves—‘IF THEY CARE FOR ANY LOVE.’

For the rest of what you tell me, it is all the purest kindness—and you were perfectly, perfectly right in taking so, and as a loan, which we ought, I think, to return when our hands are free, without waiting for the completion of other projects. By living quietly and simply, we shall surely have enough—and more than enough. Then among other resources is Blackwood. I calculated once that without unpleasant labour, with scarcely an effort, I could make a hundred a year by magazine-contributions—and this, without dishonour either. It does ‘fugitive poems,’ observe, no harm whatever, to let them fly through a periodical before they alight on their tree to sing. Then _you_ will send perhaps the sweepings of your desk to Blackwood, to alternate with my sendings! Shall we do _that_, when we sit together on the ragged edge of earthquake chasms, in the midst of the ‘sulphurous vapour.’ I, afraid? No indeed—I think I should never be afraid, if you were near enough. Only that you never must go away in _boats_. But there is time enough for such compacts.

As to the sea voyage, _that_ was _your_ scheme, and not mine, from the beginning: and your account of the expenses, if below my fear ... (although I believe that ‘servants’ do not mean ‘female servants’ and that the latter are subject to additional charges), yet seems to me to leave the Rhone and Saône route as preferable as ever. And do you mark, dear dearest, that supposing me to be unfit for the short railroad passage from Rouen to Paris and from Paris to Orleans, I must be just as unfit for the journey to Southampton, which is necessary to the sea-voyage. Then ... supposing me to be unfit for the river-passage, I must be still more unfit for the sea. So don’t suppose _either_. I am stronger than you fancy. I shall shut my eyes and think of you when there is too much noise and confusion,—the things which try me most,—and it will be easy to find a quiet room and to draw down the blinds and take rest, I suppose, ... which one might in vain long for in that crowded steamer at sea. Therefore, dearest, if I am to think and decide, I have decided ... let us go through France. And let us go quick, quick, and not stop anywhere within hearing of England ... not stop at Havre, nor at Rouen, nor at Paris—_that_ is how _I_ decide. May God help us, and smooth the way before and behind. May your father indeed be able to love me a little, for _my_ father will never love me again.

For _you_ ... you will ‘serve me best’ and serve me only, by being happy not away from me. When I shall have none but you, if I can feel myself not too much for you,—not something you would rather leave—then you will have ‘served’ me all you can. But this is more perhaps than you can—these things do not depend on the will of a man—that he should promise to do them. I speak simply for myself, and of what would give me a full contentment. Do not fancy that there is a _doubt_ in the words of it. I cannot doubt now of your affection for me. Dearest, I _cannot_. Yet you make me uneasy often through this extravagance of over-estimation; forcing me to contract ‘obligations to pay’ which I look at in speechless despair—And here is a penny.

Of Mrs. Jameson, let me write to-morrow—I am benighted and must close. On Friday we shall meet at last, surely; and then it will be all the happier in proportion to the vexation. Dearest, love me—

I am your own—

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

Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]

Dearest, I am to write to you of Mrs. Jameson. First, as to telling her ... will it not be an embarrassment both to her and ourselves? If she cannot say ‘I knew nothing of this,’ she bears the _odium_ of confidante and _adviser_ perhaps —who shall explain the distinction to others? And to Mr. Kenyon, will it not seem as if we had trusted her more than him—and though there is a broad distinction too between their cases, who shall explain _that_ to him so quickly and nicely that he shall not receive the shock of a painful impression? Consider a little—She is so _in medias res_—so in the way of all the conversation and the questionings. But it shall be as you like and think best. I am too nervous perhaps.

As for the travelling, she sets out between the seventh and tenth of September, a century before our æra, you know—but if she goes to Italy and is not too angry with me, we might certainly meet her in Paris or at Orleans ... take her up at Orleans, and go on together. That is, if you like it too. She would be pleased, I daresay, if it were proposed—and we might be kind in proposing it—and something I might say to her, if you liked it, on the condition of her not changing her mind. Certainly I do agree with you that she must have _some ideas_—she is not without imagination, and the suggestions are abundant,—though nothing points to you, mind!—if she could possibly think me capable of loving anyone else in the world, with you in it.

I had a letter to-day ... with a proposition to write ballads and other lyrics in order to the civilisation of the colonies ... especially Australia. It appears that a Mr. Angus Fife has a scheme on foot nearly, about sending missionary ballad-singers among the natives, and that I am invited to write some of them, or to _be_ invited—for nothing is specified yet. Now what do you think of _that_? One should take one’s mythology from the Kangaroos, I suppose.

Then a book of ‘serious poems’ is to be brought out in Edinburgh and contributions are desired so very politely that nobody can quite refuse.

I write to you of anything but what is in my thoughts. Your letter of yesterday took hold of me and will not let me go—it all seems too earnest for the mere dream I have been dreaming all this while—is it not a dream ... or what? And something I said in _my_ letter, which was wrong to say and I am sorry to think of—forgive me _that_, ever beloved—but you have forgiven, I know. May God bless you, and not take from _me_ my blessing in you.

I am your very own BA.

We are going out in the carriage and shall post this note. You will come to-morrow unless you hear more? Is it a compact?

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

Thursday,
[Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]

The post’s old fault, is it not, this letter that does not come? I have waited till nearly the time of the next arrival, 3 o’clock, and perhaps I begin writing now because I have observed that sometimes the letter comes just as I am trying hardest to resign myself. So may it be now, or presently!

Dearest, I did not thank you yesterday for the accounts of your visit and drive ... I always love you for such accounts; you know, I might _like_, we will say, a Miss Campbell, while she was in the very act of speaking Greek to Mr. Kenyon’s satisfaction, or making verses, or putting them into action—but there would be no following her about the streets, and through bazaars, and into houses, and loving the walking and standing and sitting and companionship with Flush! I shall be satisfied to the full if you only live in my sight,—cross the room in which I sit,—not to say, sit down by me there,—always supposing that you also, for your part, seem happy and contented,—or at least could not become more so by leaving me. But I do believe you will be happy.

And here the letter comes! See, what I tell you does now fill my life with gladness,—_that_, the counterpart of that, you promise me shall make _you_ glad too! My very own, entirely beloved Ba, there is no exaggeration, no overestimation—the case does not admit of any, indeed! If a man tells you he owns a peerless horse, the horse may go lame and the estimation sink upon that experience—but if I think, as I do, that the Elgin Horse is peerless (despite his ewe-neck) nothing further can touch it, nor change me. One of my comparisons! All I want to express is, that I love _you_, dearest, with a love that seems to separate you from your very qualities—the essential from its accidents. But you must wait to know—wait a life, perhaps.

I used those words you object to—(in your true way), because you shall love nothing connected with me for conventional reasons—and if I understated the amount of kind feeling which you might be led to return for theirs, be assured that I also expressed in the simplest and coldest terms possible my father and mother’s affection for you. I told you, they _believe_ me ... therefore, know in some measure what you are to me. They are both entirely affectionate and generous. My father is tender-hearted to a fault. I have never known much more of those circumstances in his youth than I told you, in consequence of his invincible repugnance to allude to the matter—and I have a fancy, to account for some peculiarities in him, which connects them with some abominable early experience. Thus,—if you question him about it, he shuts his eyes involuntarily and shows exactly the same marks of loathing that may be noticed while a piece of cruelty is mentioned ... and the _word_ ‘blood,’ even, makes him change colour. To all women and children _he_ is ‘chivalrous’ ... as you called his unworthy son! There is no service which the ugliest, oldest, crossest woman in the world might not exact of him. But I must leave off; to-morrow I do really see you at last, dearest! God bless you ever for your very own R.

The France-route seems in nearly every way the best—perhaps in every way—let it be as you have decided. Nothing is said in this letter, nothing answered, mind ... time presses so!

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

_Thursday Night._
[August 27, 1846.]

Here is the bad news going to you as fast as bad news _will_ go! for you ‘do really (NOT) see me to-morrow,’ Robert,—there is no chance of it for such ‘too, two’ wise people as we are! In the first place Mr. Kenyon never paid his visit to-day and will do it to-morrow instead; and secondly, and while I was gloomily musing over this ‘great fact,’ arrives the tidings of my uncle and aunt Hedley’s being at Fenton’s Hotel for two days from this evening ... so that not only Friday perishes, but even Saturday, unless there should be a change in their plans. We shall have them here continually; and there would neither be safety nor peace if we attempted a meeting. So let us take patience, dearest beloved, and let me feel you loving me through the distance. It is only for a short time, to bear these weeks without our days in them; and presently you will have too much of me perhaps,—ah, the ungrateful creature, who stops in the middle of the sentence, thunderstruck in the tenderest part of her conscience! So instead, I go on to say that certainly I shall be happy with you, as long as my ‘sitting in the room’ does not make you less happy—certainly I shall be happy with you. I thought once that the capacity of happiness was destroyed in me, but you have _made_ it over again,—God has permitted you! And while you love me _so_ ... _essentially_, as you describe, and apart from supposed and suppositious qualities ... I will take courage and hope, and believe that such a love may be enough for the happiness of us both—enough for yours even.

Your father is worthy to be your father, let you call yourself his ‘unworthy son’ ever so. The noblest inheritance of sons is to have such thoughts of their fathers, as you have of yours—the privilege of such thoughts, the faith in such virtues and the gratitude for such affection. You have better than the silver or the gold, and you can afford to leave those to less happy sons. And your mother—Scarcely I was a woman when I lost _my_ mother—dearest as she was, and very tender, (as yours even could be), and of a nature harrowed up into some furrows by the pressure of circumstances: for we lost more in her than she lost in life, my dear dearest mother. A sweet, gentle nature, which the thunder a little turned from its sweetness—as when it turns milk. One of those women who never can resist; but, in submitting and bowing on themselves, make a mark, a plait, within,—a sign of suffering. Too womanly she was—it was her only fault. Good, good, and dear—and refined too!—she would have admired and loved you,—but I can only tell you so, for she is gone past us all into the place of the purer spirits. God had to take her, before He could bless her enough.

Now I shall not write any more to-night. You had my note to-day—the note written this morning? I went out in the carriage, and we drove to one or two shops and up the Uxbridge Road, and I was utterly dull. Shall I not really see you before Monday? It seems impossible to bear. Let us hope at any rate, for Saturday.

How could such an idea enter your head, pray, as that about selling your copyrights? That would have been travelling at the price of blood, and I never should have agreed to it. I shall be able to bring you a few pennies, I hope; only it would not be enough for the journey, what _I_ could bring, under the circumstances of imprisonment. When we are free, we ought to place our money somewhere on the railroads, where the percentage will be better—which will not disturb the simplicity of our way of life, you know, though it will give us more liberty in living.

Now I expect to hear your decision about Mrs. Jameson—I expect to hear from you of yourself, though, most and chiefest—tell me how you are, and how your mother is. Dearest, _promise_ me not to say to your family any foolishness about me—remember what the recoil will be, and understand that I must suffer in proportion to all the over-praises. It quite frightens me to think of it! And then, again, I laugh to myself at your excellent logic of comparison, between Miss Campbell and me; and how you did not care for walking the bazaars and looking at the dolls with her; to the discredit of the whole class of Miss Campbells ... whereas, with ME!! &c. No wonder that your father should give you books of logic to study, books on the ‘right use of reason,’ if you do not understand that I am not better than she, except by your loving me better; that the cause is not in her or me, but in you only. Can it indeed be so true that people, when they love other people, never see them at all? Yet it seems to me that I see _you_ clearly, discern you entirely and thoroughly—which makes me love you profoundly. But you ... without seeing me at all, you love _me_ ... which does as well, I think—so I am your very own.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, August 28, 1846.]

I was beginning to dress, hours before the proper time, through the confidence of seeing you _now_,—after the letter which came early in the morning,—when this new letter changes everything. It just strikes me, what a comfort it is that whenever such a disappointment is inevitable, your hand or voice announces it, and not another’s—no second person bids me stay away for good reasons I must take in trust, leaving me to deal with the innumerable fancies that arise—on the contrary, you contrive that, with the one misfortune, twenty kindnesses shall reach me—can I be very sorry _now_, for instance, that you tell me _why_ it is, and how it affects you and how it will affect me in the end? Dear Ba, if you will not believe in the immortality of love, do think the poor thought that when love shall end, gratitude will begin!

I altogether agree with you—it is best to keep away—we cannot be too cautious now at the ‘end of things.’ I am prepared for difficulties enough, without needing to cause them by any rashness or wilfulness of my own. I really expect, for example, that out of the various plans of these sympathising friends and relations some one will mature itself sufficiently to be directly proposed to you, for your acceptance or refusal contingent on your father’s approbation; the shortness of the remaining travelling season serving to compel a speedy development. Or what if your father, who was the first to propose, or at least talk about, a voyage to Malta or elsewhere, when you took no interest in the matter comparatively, and who perhaps chiefly found fault with last year’s scheme from its not originating with himself ... what if he should again determine on some such voyage now that you are apparently as obedient to his wishes as can be desired? Would it be strange, not to say improbable, if he tells you some fine morning that your passage is taken to Madeira, or Palermo? Because, all the attempts in the world cannot hide the truth from the mind, any more than all five fingers before the eyes keep out the sun at noon-day: you see a red through them all—and your father must see your improved health and strength, and divine the opinion of everybody round him as to the simple proper course for the complete restoration of them. Therefore be prepared, my own Ba!

In any case—I trust in you wholly.

There is nothing to decide upon, with respect to Mrs. Jameson—the reasons for not sharing that confidence with her are irrefragable. I only thought of you, dearest, who have to bear her all but direct enquiries. You know, _I_ undergo nothing of the kind. Any such arrangement as that of taking her up at Orleans would be very practicable. I rejoice in your desire (by the way) of going rapidly on, stopping nowhere, till we reach our appointed place—because that spirit _helps_ the body wonderfully—and, in this case, exactly corresponds with mine. Above all, I should hate to be seen at Paris by anybody a few days only after our adventure—Chorley will be there, and the Arnoulds,—for _one_ party!

What could it be, you thought should make you ‘sorry,’ in that letter of yesterday, love? What was I to ‘forgive’? Certainly you are unforgiven hitherto, for the best of reasons.

And assure yourself, dearest, that I have told my family nothing that can possibly mislead them. Remember that I have the advantage of knowing those I speak to,—their tastes and understandings, and notions of what is advantageous and what otherwise. I spoke the simple truth about your heart—of your mind they knew something already—I explained your position with respect to your father ... unfortunately, a very few plain words do that ... I mean, a few facts, such as the parish register could supply ... sufficiently to exonerate you and me.

As to my copyrights, I never meant to sell them—it would be foolish—because, since some little time, and in consequence of the establishment of the fact that my poems, even in their present disadvantageous form, without advertisement, and unnoticed by the influential journals—do somehow manage to pay their expenses, I have had one direct offer to print a new edition,—and there are reasons for thinking, two or three booksellers, that I know, would come to terms. Smith & Elder, for instance, wrote to offer to print any poem about Italy, in any form, with any amount of advertisements, on condition of sharing profits ... taking all risk off my hands ... concluding with more than a hint that if that proposition was not favourable enough, they would try and agree to any reasonable demand.

Because Moxon is the ‘slowest’ of publishers, and if one of his books can only contrive to pay its expenses, you may be sure that a more enterprising brother of the craft would have sent it into a second or third edition—yet Moxon’s slow self even, anticipates success for the next venture. Now the fact is, not having really cared about anything except not losing too much money, I have taken very little care of my concerns in that way—not calling on Moxon for months together. But all will be different now— and I shall look into matters, and turn my experience to account, such as it is.

Well,—I am yours, _you_ are mine, dearest Ba! I love you, I think, _perceptibly_ more in these latter days! Is this absence contrived on purpose to prove how foolishly I said that I loved you the more from seeing you the oftener? Ah, you reconcile all extremes, destroy the force of all logic-books, my father’s or mine—_that_ was true, but this is also true (logical or no) that I now love you through not seeing you,—loving more, as I desire more to be with you, my best, dearest wife that will be! (_I_ could not help writing it—why should it sound sweeter than ‘Ba’?)

Your very own R.

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

Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 29, 1846.]

Will you come, dearest, after all? Judge for both of us. The Hedleys go to-morrow morning and we shall not see them after to-night when they are dining here—but Mr. Kenyon has not paid his visit, and _may_ come to-morrow, or _may_ take Sunday, which he is fond of doing—is it worth while to be afraid of Mr. Kenyon? What do you think? I leave it to your wisdom which is the greatest. Perhaps he may not come till _Monday_—yet _he may_.

Dearest, I have had all your thoughts by turns, or most of them ... and each one has withered away without coming to bear fruit. Papa seems to have no more idea of my living beyond these four walls, than of a journey to Lapland. I confess that I thought it possible he might propose the country for the summer, or even Italy for the winter, in a ‘late remark’—but no, ‘nothing’ and there is not a possibility of either word, as I see things. My brothers ‘wish that something could be arranged’—a wish which I put away quietly as often as they bring it to me. And for my uncle and aunt, they have been talking to me to-day—and she with her usual acuteness in such matters, observing my evasion, said, ‘Ah Ba, you have arranged your plans more than you would have us believe. But you are right not to tell us—indeed I would rather not hear. Only _don’t be rash_—_that_ is my only advice to you.’

I thought she had touched the truth, and wondered—but since then, from another of her words, I came to conclude that she imagined me about to accept the convoy of Henrietta and Captain Cook! She said in respect to them—‘I only say that your father’s consent ought to be _asked_, as a form of respect to him.’ Which, in their case should be, I think—and should also in ours, but for the peculiar position of one of us. My uncle urged me to keep firm and go to Italy, and my aunt, though she would not advise, she said, yet thought that I ‘ought to go,’ and that to live on in this fashion in this room was lamentable to contemplate. Both of them approved of the French route, and urged me to go to them in Paris—‘And,’ said my uncle kindly, ‘when once we _have_ you, we shall not bear to part with you, I think.’

(Do you really imagine, by the way, that to appear in Paris for one half-minute, to a single soul, could be less detestable to me than to you? I shall take care that nobody belonging to me there shall hear of my being within a hundred miles—and why need we stay in Paris the half minute? Not unless you pause to demand an audience of Mr. Chorley at the Barrière des Étoiles.)

While we were talking, Papa came into the room. My aunt said, ‘How well she is looking’—‘Do you think so?’ he said. ‘Why, do not _you_ think so? Do you pretend to say that you see no surprising difference in her?’—‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on to say. ‘She is mumpish, I think.’ Mumpish!

‘She does not talk,’ resumed he—

‘Perhaps she is nervous’—my aunt apologised—I said not one word ... When birds have their eyes out, they are apt to be mumpish.

Mumpish! The expression proved a displeasure. Yet I am sure that I have shown as little sullenness as was possible. To be very talkative and vivacious under such circumstances as those of mine, would argue insensibility, and was certainly beyond my power.

I told her gently afterwards that she had been wrong in speaking of me at all—a wrong with a right intention,—as all her wrongness must be. She was very sorry to have done it, she said, and looked sorry.

Poor Papa!—Presently I shall be worse to him than ‘mumpish’ even. But _then_, I hope, he will try to forgive me, as I have forgiven him, long ago.

My own beloved—do you know that your letter caught me in the act of wondering whether the absence would do me harm with you, according to that memorable theory. And so in the midst came the solution of the doubt—you do _not_ love me less. Nay, you love me more—ah, but if you say so, I am capable of wishing not to see you for a month added to the week! For did I not once confess to you that I loved your love as much as I loved you ... or very, very, very nearly as much? Not precisely so much. _Confiteor tibi_—but I will sing a penitential psalm low to myself and do the act of penance by seeing you to-morrow if you choose to come,—and then you shall absolve me and give me the _Benedicite_, which, _if_ you come, you cannot keep back, because it comes with you of necessity.

Not a word of your head, nor of your mother! You should come I think, to-morrow, if only to say it. Yet let us be wise to the end. Be _you_ wise to the end, and decide between Saturday and Monday. And I, for my part, promise to go to Italy, only with _you_—do not be afraid.

And for your poetry, I believe in it as ‘_golden water_’—and the ‘singing tree’ does not hide it from me with all the overdropping branches and leaves. In fact, the chief inconvenience we are likely to suffer from, in the way of income, is the having _too much_. Don’t you think so? But in that case, we will buy an island of our own in one of those purple seas, and inherit the sun—or perhaps the shadow ... of Calypso’s cave.

So do not be uneasy, dearest!—not even lest I should wish to spend three weeks in Paris, to show myself at the Champs Elysées and the opera, and gather a little glory after what you happily call ‘our adventure.’

Our adventure, indeed! But it is _you_ who are adventuring in the matter,—and as any Red Cross Knight of them all, whom you exceed in their chivalry proper.

Chiappino little knew how right he was, when he used to taunt me with my ‘New Cross Knight.’ He did—Ah! Even if he had talked of ‘Rosie Cross,’ he would not have been so far wide—the magic ‘saute aux yeaux.’

And now, will you come to-morrow, I wonder, or not? The answer is in you.

And I am your own, ever and as ever!

And you thought I was dying with a desire to tell Mrs. Jameson!!—_I!_

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]

I have just come from the vestry of Paddington chapel, and bore it very well, and saw nobody except one woman. Arabel went with me, and during the singing we escaped and stood outside the door. Now, _that_ is over; and the next time I shall care less. It was a rambling sermon, which I could hear distinctly through the open door, quite wanting in coherence, but with good and touching things in it, the more touching that they came from a preacher whose life is known to us—from Mr. Stratten, for whom I have the greatest respect, though he never looked into Shakespeare till he was fifty, and shut the book quickly, perhaps, afterward. He is the very ideal of his class; and, with some of the narrow views peculiar to it, has a heart of miraculous breadth and depth; loving further than he can see, pitying beyond what he can approve, having in him a divine Christian spirit, the ‘love of love’ in the most expansive form. How that man is beloved by his congregation, the members of his church, by his children, his friends, is wonderful to see—for everybody seems to love him _from afar_, as a man is loved who is of a purer nature than others. There is that reverence in the love—and yet no fear. His children have been encouraged and instructed to speak aloud before him on religion and other subjects in all freedom of conscience—he turns to his little daughter seriously ‘to hear what she thinks.’ The other day his eldest son, whom he had hoped to see succeed him at Paddington, determined to enter the Church of England: his wife became quite ill with grief about it, and to himself perhaps it was a trial, a disappointment. With the utmost gentleness and tenderness however, he desired him to take time for thought and act according to his conscience.—I believe for my part that there never was a holier man ... ‘except those bonds’ ... never a man who more resolutely trod under his feet every form of evil and selfish passion when it was once recognized—and looked to God and the Truth with a direct aspiration. Once I could not help writing to put our affairs into his hands to settle them for us—but _that_ would be wrong—because Papa would forbid Arabel’s going to the chapel or communicating with his family, and it would be depriving her of a comfort she holds dear—oh no. And besides, you are wise in taking the other view.