Chapter II: Part 2

Mrs. Jameson, the other day, brought out a theory of hers which I refused to receive, and which I thought to myself she would apply to _me_ some day, with the rest of what Miss Mitford calls ‘those good-for-nothing poets and poetesses.’ She maintained, (Mrs. Jameson did) that ‘artistical natures never learn wisdom from experience—that sorrow teaches them nothing—leaves no trace at all—that the mind is modified in no way by passion—suffering.’ Which I disbelieved quite, and ventured to say on the other side, that although practically a man or woman might not be wiser, through perhaps the interception of a vivid apprehension of the present, which might put back the influence of the future over actions, ... yet that it was impossible for a self-conscious nature (which all these artistic natures are) and a sensitive nature, not to receive some sort of modification from things suffered—‘No’—she said, ‘they did not! she had known and loved such—and they were like children, all of them,—essentially immature.’ But she did not persuade me. What is _inequality_ of nature, as Dugald Stewart observed it, (and did he not say that men of genius had lop-sided minds?) is different, I think, from immaturity in her sense of the word. We were talking of her friend Mrs. Butler, which brought us to the subject. Presently she will say of you and me ... ‘Just see there! she meant no harm, poor thing, I dare say—but she acts like a child! And, for _him_, _his_ is the imbecility of most regent genius ... such as I am to live to see confessed imperial, or I die a disappointed woman.’!

Do you hear? _I_ do, distinctly. _You_, in the meantime, are looking at the ‘locks’ ... just as poor Louis Seize did when they were preparing his guillotine.

May God bless you, my own dearest—Think of me _a little_—as you say!

Your

BA.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, April 3, 1846.]

I want to tell you a thing before I forget it, my own Ba—a thing that pleased me to find out this morning. A few days ago there was a paragraph in the newspaper about Lord Compton and his ways at Rome. His address was to be read in the general list of working-artists kept for public inspection at Monaldini’s news-room, and the Earl’s self was to be found in fraternal association with ‘young art,’ at board and sporting-place, wearing the same distinctive _blouse_ and Louis II. hat with great flaps; even his hair as picturesquely disordered as the best of them—(the artists, not flaps)—at all which the reporter seemed scarcely to know whether he ought to laugh or cry. This I read in the _Daily News_ with other gossip about Rome, last Wednesday. But this morning a _Cambridge Advertiser_ of the same day reaches me—and there, under the head of College news (after recording that Mr. A. has been appointed to this vicarage, and Mr. B. licensed to the other curacy)—one finds this—‘The Earl Compton, M.A. (Hon. 1837)—is of great fame in Rome as a Painter!’—which the other authority wholly forgot to mention; supposing, no doubt, all the love went to the blouse and flapped hat aforesaid! Now, is it not a good instance of that fascination which the _true_ life at Rome (apart from the stupidities of the travelling English) exercises every now and then on susceptible people? The best thing for an English Earl to do,—(who will be a Marquis one day)—would be to stay here and vindicate his title by honest work with the opportunities it affords him—but if he _cannot_ rise to the dignity of the best part, surely this, he chooses, is better than many others—being caught as some noblemen were yesterday, for instance, superintending a dog-fight in some horrible den of thieves in St. Giles’s. I don’t know, after all, why I tell you this,—but that amid all the dull doings of the notable dull ones there, and their ‘honours’—(such a wonder of a man was Smith’s prize-man,—another had got to be gloriously first in the Classical Tripos)—this bit of ‘fame at Rome’ seemed like a break of blue real sky with a star in it, shining through the canvas sham clouds and oil-paper moons of a theatre.

Now I get to you, my Ba! How strange! It does so happen that I took the pen and laid out the paper with, I really think, a completer, deeper yearning of love to _you_ than usual even—I seemed to have a thousand things that I _could_ say _now_—and on touching the paper ... see—I start off with a foolish story and still foolisher comment as if there were no Ba close at my head all the time, straight before my eyes too! So it is with me—I give the _expressing_ part up at once! It must be understood, inferred,—(_proved_, never!) All nonsense, so I will stay—and try to be wise to-morrow—_now_, I have no note to guide me and half put into my mouth what I ought to say. So, dear, dear Ba, goodbye! I very well know what this letter is worth—yet because of the love and endeavour _un_seen, may I not have the hand to kiss—and without the glove? It _is_ kissed, whether you give it or no,—for there are two long days more to wait—and then comes Monday! Bless you till then, and ever, my dearest: My own Ba—

Your R.

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

Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 4, 1846.]

Shall the heir to a Marquisate ‘justify his title’ in these days? Is not the best thing he can do for _himself_, to forget it in a studio at Rome?—and one of the best things he can do for his country, perhaps, to desecrate it at dog-fighting before the eyes of all men? I should not like to have to justify my Marquisate to reasonable men now-a-days,—should _you_ ... seriously speaking? It would be a hard task, and rather dull in the performance. On the other hand, the noble dog-fighters (unconscious patriots!) find it easy and congenial occupation down in St. Giles’s, rubbing out (as in the old game of fox and goose) figure by figure, prestige by prestige, the gross absurdity of hereditary legislators, lords, and the like. Yet of the three positions, I would rather be at Rome, certainly a man looks nobler there, is better, is happier ... a good deal nearer the angels than on his ‘landed estates’ playing at feudal proprietor, or even in St. Giles’s dog-fighting. See what a republican you have for a ... _Ba_. Did you fancy me capable of writing such unlawful, disorderly things? And it isn’t out of bitterness, nor covetousness ... no, indeed. People in general would rather be Marquises than Roman artists, consulting their own wishes and inclination. I, for my part, ever since I could speak my mind and knew it, always openly and inwardly preferred the glory of those who live by their heads, to the opposite glory of those who carry other people’s arms. So much for glory. Happiness goes the same way to my fancy. There is something fascinating to me, in that Bohemian way of living ... all the conventions of society cut so close and thin, that the soul can see through ... beyond ... above. It is ‘real life’ as you say ... whether at Rome or elsewhere. I am very glad that you like simplicity in habits of life—it has both reasonableness and sanctity. People are apt to suffocate their faculties by their manners—English people especially. I admire that you,—R.B.,—who have had temptation more than enough, I am certain, under every form, have lived in the midst of this London of ours, close to the great social vortex, yet have kept so safe, and free, and calm and pure from the besetting sins of our society. When you came to see me first, I did not expect so much of you in that one respect. How could I? You had lived in the world, I knew, and I thought ... well!—what matter, _now_, what I thought?

I will tell you instead how to-day has gone by with me. Not like yesterday, indeed! In the first place, I went down-stairs, walked up and down the drawing-room twice, and finding nobody there (they were all having luncheon in the dining-room) came up-stairs again ... half-way on the stairs met Flush, who having been asleep, had not missed me till just then, and was in the act of search. I was lost for ever, thought poor Flush. At least I think he thought so by his eyes. They were three times their usual largeness—he looked quite wild ... and leaped against me with such an ecstasy of astonished joy, that I nearly fell backward down the stairs (whereupon, you would have had to go to the Siren’s island, dearest, all by yourself!) After which escape of mine and Flushie’s, and when I had persuaded him to be good and quiet and to believe that I was not my own ghost, I came home with him and prepared to see....

I will tell you. She is a Mrs. Paine who lives at Farnham, and learns Greek, and writes to me such overcoming letters, that at last, and in a moment of imprudent reaction from an ungrateful discourtesy on my part, I agreed to see her if she ever came to London. Upon which, she comes directly—I am taken in my trap. She comes and returns the same day, and all to see me. Well—she had been kind to me ... and she came at two to-day. Do you know, ... for the first five minutes, I _repented quite_? Dearest ... she came just with the sort of face which a child might take to see a real, alive lioness at the Zoological Gardens ... she just sate down on a chair, and stared. How can people do such things in this year of grace when they are abolishing the Corn Laws, I wonder? For my part it was so unlike anything civilized I had ever been used to that I felt as if my voice and breath went together. It would have saved me to be able to _stare back again_, but _that_ was out of my power. So I endured—and, after a pause, ran violently down a steep place into some sort of conversation (thinking of your immortal Simpson, and vowing never to be drawn into such a situation again) and in a little while, I was able to recognize that there was nothing worse than bad manners—_ignorant_ manners—and that, for the rest, my antagonist was a young, pretty woman (_rather_ pretty), enthusiastic and provincial, with a strong love for poetry and literature generally, loving Carlyle and _your_self, (could I hold out against _that_?) and telling me all her domestic happinesses with a frankness which quite appeased me and prevented my being too tired ... though she stayed two hours, and _wasn’t you_!—

So there is my history of to-day for you! To-morrow you will have the proof—and perhaps, _I_ shall! Monday will bring a better thing than a proof. May God bless you, beloved. Say how you are ... to-morrow! _Mind_ to do it ... or I will not sit any more in your gondola-chair. How can you make me, unless I choose?

And you speak against my letter to-night? you shall not dare do such things. It is a good, dear letter, and it is mine to call so ... and I knew its fellows before I knew you and loved them before I loved you, and so you are not to be proud and scornful and try to put them down ‘in _that_ way.’

Your own

BA.

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

Saturday.
[April 4, 1846.]

Oh, my two letters—and to turn from such letters to you, to my own Ba!—I very well know I am not grateful enough, if there is any grace in _that_, any power to avert punishment, as one hopes! But all my hope is in future endeavour—it _is_, my Ba,—this is earnest truth. And one thing that strikes me on hearing such prognostications of Mrs. Jameson’s opinion on _our_ subject—is that—as far as I am concerned ... or yourself, indeed—we must make up our mind to endure the stress of it, and of such opinions generally, with all resignation ... and by the time we _can_ answer,—why, alas, they are gone and forgotten, so that there’s no paying them for their impertinence. I mean, that I do not _expect_, as a foolish fanciful boy might, that on the sudden application of ‘Hymen’s torch’ (to give the old simile one chance more) your happiness will blaze out apparent to the whole world lying in darkness, like a wondrous ‘Catherine-wheel,’ now all blue, now red, and so die at the bed amid an universal clapping of hands—I trust a long life of real work ‘begun, carried on and ended,’ as it never otherwise could have been (certainly by _me_ ... and if I dare hope, _you_, dearest, it is because you teach me to aspire to the height)—that the attainment of all that happiness of daily, hourly life in entire affection, which seeing that men of genius need rather more—ah, these words, I cannot look back and take up the thread of the sentence,—but I wanted to say—we will live the real answer, will we not, dearest, all the stupidity against ‘genius’ ‘poets,’ and the like, is got past the stage of being treated with patient consideration and gentle pity—it is _too_ vexatious, if it will not lie still, out of the way, by this time. What _is_ the crime, to his fellow man or woman (not to God, I know that—these are peculiar sins to Him—whether greater in His eyes, who shall say?)—but to mankind, _what_ is crime which would have been prevented but for the ‘genius’ involved in it? A man of genius ill-treats his wife—well, take away the ‘genius’—does he so naturally improve? See the article in to-day’s _Athenæum_, about the French Duel—far enough from ‘men of genius’ these Dujarriers &c.—but go to-night into half the _estaminets_ of Paris, and see whether the quarrels over dice and some wine present any more pleasing matter of contemplation _au fond_. Sin is sin everywhere and the worse, I think, for the grossness. Being fired at by a duellist is a little better, I think also, than being struck on the face by some ruffian. These are extreme cases—but go higher and it is the same thing. Poor, cowardly miscreated natures abound—if you could throw ‘genius’ into their composition, they would become more degraded still, I suppose!

I know I want every faculty I can by any possibility dare—want all, and much more, to teach me what you are, my own Ba, and what I should do to prove that I am taught, and do know.

I will write at length to you to-morrow, my all beloved. I am, somehow, overflowing with things to say, and the time is _fearfully_ short—my proofs have just arrived, here they are, not even _glanced_ over by me—(To-morrow, love! not one thing answered in my letters, as when I read and read them to-night I shall say to myself). Bless you, dearest, dearest

R.

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

Sunday.
[April 5, 1846.]

It seems to me the safest way to send back the proofs by the early Monday post: you may choose perhaps to bring the sheet corrected into town when you come, and so I shall let you have what you sent me, before you come to take it ... though I thought first of waiting. To-morrow I shall force you to tell me how you like the ‘Tragedy’ _now_! For my part, it delights me—and must raise your reputation as a poet and thinker ... _must_. Chiappino is highly dramatic in that first part, and speaks so finely sometimes that it is a wrench to one’s sympathies to find him overthrown. Do you know that, as far as the _temper_ of the man goes, I am acquainted with a Chiappino ... just such a man, in the temper, the pride and the bitterness ... not in other things. When I read your manuscript I was reminded—but here in print it, seems to grow nearer and nearer. My Chiappino has tired me out at last—I have borne more from him than women ought to bear from men, because he was unfortunate and embittered in his nature and by circumstances, and because I regarded him as a friend of many years. Yet, as I have told him, anyone, who had not such confidence in me, would think really _ill of me_ through reading the insolent letters which he has thought fit to address to me on what he called a pure principle of adoration. At last I made up my mind (and shall keep it so) to answer no letter of the kind. Men are ignoble in some things, past the conceiving of their fellows. Again and again I have said ... ‘Specify your charge against me’—but there is no charge. With the most reckless and dauntless inconsistency I am lifted halfway to the skies, and made a mark there for mud pellets—so that I have been excited sometimes to say quite passionately ... ‘If I am the filth of the earth, tread on me—if I am an angel of Heaven, respect me—but I can’t be both, remember.’ See where your Chiappino leads you ... and me! Though I shall not tell you the other name of mine. Whenever I see him now, I make Arabel stay in the room—otherwise I _am afraid_—he is such a violent man. A good man, though, in many respects, and quite an old friend. Some men grow incensed with the continual pricks of ill-fortune, like mad bulls: some grow tame and meek.

Well—_I_ did not like the spirit of the _Athenæum_ remarks either. I like what _you_ say. These literary men are never so well pleased, as in having opportunities of barking against one another—and, for the _Athenæum_ people, if they wanted to be didactic as to morals, they might have taken occasion to be so out of their own order, and in their own country. And then to bring in Balzac _so_! The worst of Balzac (who has not a fine moral sense at any time, great and gifted as he is), the very worst of him, is his bearing towards his literary brothers ... the manner in which he, who can so nobly present genius to the reverence of humanity in scientific men (as he describes them in his books), always dishonours and depreciates it in the man of letters and the poet. See his ‘Grand Homme de Province à Paris,’ one of the most powerful of his works, but the remark is true everywhere. I go on writing as if I were not to see you directly. It is past four oclock—and if Mr. Kenyon does not come to-day, he may come to-morrow, and find you, who were here last Thursday to his knowledge!—Half I fear.

Observe the proof. Since you have two, you say, I have not scrupled to write down on this ever so much improvidence, which you will glance at and decide upon finally.

‘Grateful’ ... ‘grateful’ ... what a word _that_ is. I never would have such a word on any proof that came to me for correction. Do not use such inapplicable words—do not, dearest! for you know very well in your understanding (if not in your heart) that if such a word is to be used by either of us, it is _not by you_. My word, I shall keep mine,—_I_ am ‘grateful’—_you_ cannot be ‘grateful’ ... for ineffable reasons....

‘Pour bonnes raisons
Que l’on n’ose dire.
Et que nous taisons.’

For the rest, it is certainly very likely that you may ‘want all your faculties, _and more_’ ... to bear with me ... to support me with graceful resignation; and who can tell whether I may not be found intolerable after all?

By the way (talking of St. Catherine’s wheels and the like torments) you wrote ‘gag’ ... did you not? ... where the proof says ‘gadge’—I did not alter it. More and more I like ‘Luria.’

Your BA.

Mr. Kenyon has been here—so our Monday is safe.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, April 6, 1846.]

I sent you some even more than usual hasty foolish words,—not caring much, however—for dearest Ba shall have to forgive my shortcomings every hour in the day,—it is her destiny, and I began unluckily with that stupidest of all notions,—that about the harm coming of genius &c., so I fell with my subject and we rolled in the mud together—_pas vrai?_ But there was so many other matters alluded to in your _dearest_ (because last) letter—there are many things in which I agree with you to such a tremblingly exquisite exactness, so to speak, that I hardly dare cry out lest the charm break, the imaginary oscillation prove incomplete and your soul, _now_ directly over, pass beyond mine yet, and not _stay_! Do you understand, dear soul of my soul, dearest Ba? Oh, how different it all might be! In this House of life—where I go, you go—where I ascend you run before—when I descend it is after you. Now, one might have a piece of Ba, but a very little of her, and make it up into a lady and a mistress, and find her a room to her mind perhaps when she should sit and sing, ‘warble eat and dwell’ like Tennyson’s blackbird, and to visit her there with due honour one might wear the finest of robes, use the courtliest of ceremonies—and then—after a time, leave her there and go, the door once shut, without much blame, to throw off the tunic and put on Lord Compton’s blouse and go whither one liked—after, to me, the most melancholy fashion in the world. How different with us! If it were _not_, indeed—what a mad folly would marriage be! Do you know what quaint thought strikes me, out of old Bunyan, on this very subject? He says (with another meaning though) ‘Who would keep a cow, that may buy milk at a penny the quart’—(elegant allusion). Just so,—whoever wants ‘a quart’ of this other comfort, as solace of whatever it may be (at breakfast or tea time too), why not go and ‘buy’ the same, and having discussed it, drink claret at dinner at his club? Why did not Mr. Butler _read_ Fanny Kemble’s verses, paying his penny of intellectual labour, and see her play ‘Portia’ at night, and make her a call or ride with her in the middle of the day—why ‘keep the cow’? _But_—don’t you know they prescribe to some constitutions the _perpetual living_ in a cow-house? the breath, the unremitting influence is everything,—not the milk—(now, Ba—Ba is suddenly Ἴω πλανωμένη and Mrs. Jameson is the Gadfly—and I am laughed at—not too cruelly, or the other lock of hair becomes mine—with which locks ... and not with Louis Seize iron knick-nack ones, I rather think I was occupied last time, last farewell taking—)

From all which I infer—that I shall see you to-morrow! Yes, or I should not have the heart to be so glad and absurd.

Well, to-morrow makes amends—dear, dear Ba! Why do you persist in trying to turn my head so? It does not turn, I look the more steadfastly at the feet and the ground, for all your crying and trying! But something shocking might happen—_would_ happen, if it were not written that I am to get nothing but good from Ba,—and _who, who_ began calling names—who used the word ‘flatterer’ first?

Bless you my own dearest flatterer—I love you with heart and soul. Are you down-stairs to day? it is warm, the rain you like—yes you are down, I think. God keep you wherever you are!

Your own.

I went last night to Lord Compton’s father’s Soirée,—and for all our deep convictions, and philosophic rejoicing, I assure you that of the two or three words that we interchanged—congratulation on the bright fortune of his son formed no part,—any more than intelligence about ordering Regiments to India whenever I met the relatives of the ordered. And yesterday morning I planted a full dozen more rose-trees, all white—to take away the yellow-rose reproach!

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

Monday Morning.
[April 6, 1846.]

I shall receive a note from you presently, I trust—but this had better go now—for I expect a friend, and must attend to him as he wants to go walking—so, dearest—dearest, take my—last work I ever shall _send_ you, if God please!

A word about a passage or two,—I had forgotten to say before—gadge is a real name (in Johnson, too) for a torturing iron—it is part of the horror of such things that they should be mysteriously named,—indefinitely,—‘The Duke of Exeter’s Daughter’ for instance ... Ugh!—Besides, am I not a rhymester? Well, who knows but one may want to use such a word in a couplet with ‘_badge_’—which, if one reject the old and obsolete ‘_fadge_,’ is rhymeless?

Then Chiappino remarks that men of genius usually do the _reverse_ ... of beginning by dethroning &c. and so arriving with utmost reluctancy at the acknowledgment of a natural and unalterable _inequality_ of Mankind—instead of _that_, they begin _at once_, he says, by recognizing it in their adulation &c. &c.—I have supplied the words ‘_at once_,’ and taken out ‘_virtually_,’ which was unnecessary; so that the parallel possibly reads clearlier. I know there are other things to say—but at this moment my memory is at fault.

Can you tell me Mrs. Jameson’s address?

My sea-friend’s opinion is altogether unfavourable to the notion of an invalid’s trusting himself alone in a merchant vessel—he says—‘it will certainly be the gentleman’s death.’ So very small a degree of comfort can be secured amid all the inevitable horrors of dirt, roughness, &c. The expenses are trifling in any case, on that very account. Any number of the _Shipping Gazette_ (I think) will give a list of all vessels about to sail, with choice of ports—or on the walls of the Exchange one may see their names placarded, with reference to the Agent—or he will, himself, (my friend Chas. Walton) do his utmost with a shipowner, we both know, and save some expense, perhaps. I made him remark the difference between my carelessness of accommodations and an invalid’s proper attention beforehand—but he persisted in saying nothing can be done, nothing effectual. My time is out—but I must bless you my ever dearest Ba—and kiss you—

Ever your own.

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, April 7, 1846.]

Dearest, it is not I who am a ‘flatterer’—and if I used the word first, it is because I had the right of it, I remember, long and long ago. There is the vainest of vanities in discussing the application of such a word ... and so, when you said the other day that you ‘never flattered’ forsooth ... (oh no!) I would not contradict you for fear of the endless flattery it would lead to. Only that I do not choose (because such things are allowed to pass) to be called on my side ‘a flatterer’—I! _That_ is too much, and too out of place. What do I ever say that is like flattery? I am allowed, it may be hoped, to admire the ‘Lurias’ and the rest, quite like other people, and even to _say_ that I admire them ... may I not lawfully? If _that_ is flattery woe to me! I tell you the real truth, as I see the truth, even in respect to _them_ ... the ‘Lurias’....

For instance, did I flatter you and say that you were right yesterday? Indeed I thought you as wrong as possible ... wonderfully wrong on such a subject, for _you_ ... who, only a day or two before, seemed so free from conventional fallacies ... so free! You would abolish the punishment of death too ... and put away wars, I am sure! But honourable men are bound to keep their honours clean at the expense of so much gunpowder and so much risk of life ... _that_ must be, ought to be, ... let judicial deaths and military glory be abolished ever so! For my part, I set all Christian principle aside, (although if it were carried out ... and principle is nothing unless carried out ... it would not mean cowardice but magnanimity) but I set it aside and go on the bare social rational ground ... and I do advisedly declare to you that I cannot conceive of any _possible combination of circumstances_ which could ... I will _not_ say _justify_, but even _excuse_, an honourable man’s having recourse to the duellist’s pistol, either on his own account or another’s. Not only it seems to me horribly wrong ... but absurdly wrong, it seems to me. Also ... as a matter of pure reason ... the Parisian method of taking aim and blowing off a man’s head for the sins of his tongue, I do take to have a sort of judicial advantage over the Englishman’s six paces ... throwing the dice for his life or another man’s, because wounded by that man in his honour. His honour!—Who believes in such an honour ... liable to such amends, and capable of such recovery! _You_ cannot, I think—in the secret of your mind. Or if _you can ... you_, who are a teacher of the world ... poor world—it is more desperately wrong than I thought.

A man calls you ‘a liar’ in an assembly of other men. Because he is a calumniator, and, on that very account, a worse man than you, you ask him to go down with you on the only ground on which you two are equals ... the duelling-ground, ... and with pistols of the same length and friends numerically equal on each side, play at lives with him, both mortal men that you are. If it was proposed to you to play at real dice for the ratification or non-ratification of his calumny, the proposition would be laughed to scorn ... and yet the chance (as chance) seems much the same, ... and the death is an exterior circumstance which cannot be imagined to have much virtue. At best, what do you prove by your duel? ... that your calumniator, though a calumniator, is not a coward in the vulgar sense ... and that yourself, though you may still be a liar ten times over, are not a coward either! ‘Here be proofs.’

And as to the custom of duelling preventing insults ... why you _say_ that a man of honour should not go out with an unworthy adversary. Now supposing a man to be withheld from insult and calumny, just by the fear of being shot ... who is more unworthy than such a man? Therefore you conclude irrationally, illogically, that the system operates beyond the limit of its operations.—Oh! I shall write as quarrelsome letters as I choose. You are wrong, I know and feel, when you advocate the pitiful resources of this corrupt social life, ... and if you are wrong, how are we to get right, we all who look to you for teaching. Are _you_ afraid too of being taken for a coward? or would you excuse that sort of fear ... that cowardice of cowardice, in other men? For me, I value your honour, just as you do ... more than your life ... of the two things: but the madness of this foolishness is so clear to my eyes, than instead of opening the door for you and keeping your secret, as that miserable woman did last year, for the man shot by her sister’s husband, I would just _call in the police_, though you were to throw me out of the window afterwards. So, with that beautiful vision of domestic felicity, (which Mrs. Jameson would leap up to see!) I shall end my letter—isn’t it a letter worth thanking for?—

Ever dearest, do _you_ promise me that you never will be provoked into such an act—never? Mr. O’Connell vowed it to himself, for a dead man ... and you may to me, for a living woman. Promises and vows may be foolish things for the most part ... but they cannot be more foolish than, in this case, the thing vowed against. So promise and vow. And I will ‘flatter’ you in return in the lawful way ... for you _will_ ‘make me happy’ ... so far! May God bless you, beloved! It is so wet and dreary to-day that I do not go down-stairs—I sit instead in the gondola chair ... do you not see? ... and think of you ... do you not feel? I even love you ... if _that_ were worth mentioning....

being your own

BA.

How good of you to write so on Sunday! to compare with _my_ bad!

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, April 7, 1846.]

They have just sent me _one_ proof, only—so I have been correcting everything as fast as possible, that, returning it at once, a _revise_ might arrive, fit to send, for _this_ that comes is just as bad as if I had let it alone in the first instance. All your corrections are golden. In ‘Luria,’ I alter ‘little circle’ to ‘circling faces’—which is more like what I meant. As for that point we spoke of yesterday—it seems ‘past praying for’—if I make the speech an ‘aside,’ I _commit_ Ogniben to that opinion:—did you notice, at the beginning of the second part, that on this Ogniben’s very entry (as described by a bystander), he is made to say, for first speech, ‘I have known so many leaders of revolts’—‘_laughing gently to himself_’? This, which was wrongly printed in italics, as if a comment of the bystander’s own, was a characteristic circumstance, as I meant it. All these opinions should be delivered with a ‘gentle laughter to himself’—but—as is said elsewhere,—we profess and we perform! Enough of it—Meliora sper_u_mus!

What am I to say next, my Ba? When I write my best and send ‘grateful’ to you—you send my proof back, ‘_grateful_ (_h_)’ Then I _must_ do and say what you hate ... for I am one entire gratitude to you, God knows! May He reward you.

It is late; bless you once again, my dearest! You have nothing so much yours as

R.

My mother says that I paid only fifteen or sixteen pounds for the Venice voyage, and much less for the Naples one—_ten_, and no more, she thinks—and I think; but _that_ represents _twenty_—as the other, twenty five or thirty pounds, to a person unconnected with the freighting party. (In the first ship, Rothschild sent a _locomotive_ entire, with all its appurtenances, for one article, to Trieste). Can I make enquiries for you? Nay, I _will_, and at once.

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

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 8, 1846.]

In my _disagree_ ... able letter this morning, I forgot to write how, after you went away, and I came to read again the dedication, I admired it more and more—it is most graceful and complete. Landor will be gratified and grateful ... he, allowably—and only _you_ shall be ‘hateful’ ... and only to _me_, dearest, ... so that it doesn’t matter much. As to Ogniben, you understand best of course—_I_ understood the ‘laughing gently to himself,’ though I omitted to notice the italics. I perfectly understood that it was the bystander’s observation.

Your letter came so late to-night that I despaired of it—the postman fell into a trance somewhere I fancy, and it was not till nine oclock that the knock (equal to the tapping of a fairy’s wand) came to the door. Now I have two letters to thank you for together ... for the dear one on Monday, which lay in the shadow of your coming, and so was a little, little, less thought of than it could have been under any other possible circumstance ... and for this letter to-night. Well! and for Mr. Buckingham’s voyage, if you will and can conveniently, (I use _that_ word for my sake, not for your sake—because I think of _you_ and not of _him_!) but if you can without inconvenience make enquiries about these vessels, why I shall be glad and shall set it to your account as one goodness more. It would be easy for him (and _you_ should have done it, in _your_ voyage) to take with him those potted meats and portable soups and essences of game which would prevent his being reduced to common fare with the sailors. Then a mattress is as portable as the soups, nearly. Apart from the asafœtida he may endure, I should think. Do you know, I was amused at myself yesterday, after the first movement, for liking to hear you say that ‘dry biscuits satisfied’ you—because, after all, I should not be easy to see you living on dry biscuits ... Ceres and Bacchus forbid! Oh—I don’t profess to apply, out of a pure poetical justice, Lord Byron’s Pythagoreanism to the ‘nobler half of creation’—do not be afraid—but it _is_ rather desecrating and disenchanting to mark how certain of those said Nobilities turn upon their dinners as on the pivot of the day, for their good pleasure and good temper besides. Did you ever observe a lord of creation knit his brows together because the cutlets were underdone, shooting enough fire from his eyes to overdo them to cinders ... ‘cinder-blast’ them, as Æschylus would have it? Did you ever hear of the litany which some women say through the first course ... low to themselves? Perhaps not! it does not enter into your imagination to conceive of things, which nevertheless _are_.

Not that I ever thought of _you_ with reference to _such_—oh no, no! But every variety of the ‘Epicuri de grege porcus,’ I have a sort of indisposition to ... even as the animal itself (pork of nature and the kitchen) I avoid like a Jewish woman. Do you smile? And did I half (or whole) make you angry this morning through being so didactic and detestable? Will you challenge me to six paces at Chalk Farm, and _will_ you ‘take aim’ this time and put an end to every sort of pretence in me to other approaches between us two? Tell me if you are angry, dearest! I _ask_ you to tell me if you felt (for the time even) vexed with me.... I want to know.... I _need_ to know. Do _you_ not know what my reflection must reasonably be?... That is, _apart from provocation and excitement_, you believe in the necessity of such and such resources, ... provoked and excited you would apply to them—there could be no counteracting force ... no help nor hope.

So I spoke my mind—and you are vexed with me, which I feel in the air. May God bless you dearest, dearest! Forgive, as you can, best,

Your BA.

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

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, April 8, 1846.]

First of all, kiss me, dearest,—and again—and now, with the left arm round you, I will write what I think in as few words as possible. I think the fault of not carrying out principles is _yours_, here. Several principles would arrive at the result you desire—Christianity, Stoicism, Asceticism, Epicureanism (in the modern sense)—all these ‘carried out’ stop the procedure you deprecate—but I fancy, as you state your principle, that it is an _eclecticism_ from these and others; and presently one branch crosses its fellow, and we _stop_, arrive at nothing. Do you accept ‘life’s warm-beating joy and dole,’ for an object of that life? Is ‘society’ a thing to desire to participate in? not by the one exceptional case out of the million, but by men generally,—men who ‘live’ only for living’s sake, in the first instance; next, men who, having ulterior objects and aims of happiness, yet derive various degrees of sustainment and comfort from the social life round them; and so on, higher up, till you come to the half-dozen, for whom we need not be pressingly urgent to legislate just yet, having to attend to the world first. Well, is social life, a good, generally to these? If so,—go back to another principle which I suppose you to admit,—that ‘good’ may be _lawfully_ held, defended,—even to the death. Now see where the ‘cross’ takes place. Something occurs which forces a man to _hold_ this, defend this—he _must_ do this, or _renounce_ it. You let him do neither. Do not say he _needs_ not renounce it,—we go avowedly on the vulgar broad ground of fact—you very well know it is a _fact_ that by his refusing to accept a challenge, or send one, on conventionally sufficient ground, he will be infallibly excluded from a certain class of society thenceforth and forever. What society _should_ do rather, is wholly out of the question—what _will_ be done? And now, candidly, can you well fancy a more terrible wrong than this to the ordinary multitude of men? Alter the principles of your reasoning—say, Christianity forbids this,—and _that_ will do—rational Simon renounces on his pillar more than the pleasures of society if so he may save his soul: say, society is not worth living in,—it is no wrong to be forced to quit it—_that_ will do, also,—a man with ‘Paradise Lost’ or ‘Othello’ to write; or with a Ba to live beside for his one companion,—or many other compensations,—_he_ may retire to his own world easily. Say, on the lowest possible ground, ‘out of society one eats, drinks &c. excellently well; what loss is there?’—all these principles _avail_; but _mix_ them—and they surely neutralize each other. A man _may_ live, enjoy life, oppose an attempt to prevent his enjoying life,—yet not—you see! ‘The method is irrational, proves nothing &c.’—what is that to the question? Is the _effect_ disputable or no? Wordsworth decides he had better go to court—then he must buy or borrow a court-dress. He goes because of the poetry in him. What irrationality in the bag and sword—in the grey duffil gown yonder, he wrote—half through the exceeding ease and roominess of it—‘The Excursion’; how proper he should go in it, therefore ... beside it will wring his heartstrings to pay down the four pounds, ten and sixpence: good, Mr. Wordsworth! There’s no compulsion; go back to the lakes and be entirely approved of by Miss Norwick! ... but, if you _do_ choose to kiss hands (instead of cheeks ‘smackingly’) why, you must even resolve to ‘grin and bear it’ (a sea-phrase!)—and, Ba, your imaginary man, who is called ‘liar’ before a large assembly, must decide for one or the other course. ‘He makes his antagonist double the wrong’? Nay—_here_ the wrong begins—the poor author of the outrage should have known his _word_ was _nothing_—the sense of it, he and his like express abundantly every hour of the day, if they please, in language only a shade removed from this that causes all the harm,—and who does other than utterly, ineffably despise them? but he chooses, as the very phrase is, to _oblige_ his adversary to act thus. _He_ is nothing (I am going on your own case of a supposed futile cause of quarrel)—he may _think_ just what he pleases—but having _said_ this and _so_,—_it is entirely society’s affair_—and what _is_ society’s present decision? Directly it relaxes a regulation, allows another outlet to the natural contempt for, and indifference to such men and their opinions spoken or unspoken, everybody avails himself of it directly. If the Lord Chamberlain issues an order this morning, ‘No swords need be worn at next levee’—who will appear with one? A politician is allowed to call his opponent a destructive &c. A critic may write that the author of such a book or such, is the poorest creature in the world—and who dreams of being angry? but society up to this time says, ‘if a man calls another &c. &c., _then_ he must’—Will you renounce society? _I for one, could, easily: so therefore shall Mr. Kenyon!_ Beside, I on purpose depreciate the value of an admission into society ... as if it were only for those who recognize no other value; and the wiser men might easily forego it. _Not so easily!_ There are uses in it, great uses, for purposes quite beyond its limits—you pass through it, mix with it, to get something by it: you do _not_ go in to the world to live on the breath of every fool there, but you reach something _out_ of the world by being let go quietly, if not with a favourable welcome, among them. I leave _here_ to go to Wimpole Street:—I want to have as little as possible to say to the people I find _between_—but, do you know, if I allow a foolish child to put the very smallest of fool’s caps on my head instead of the hat I usually wear, though the comfort would be considerable in the change,—yet I shall be followed by an increasing crowd, say to Charing Cross, and thence pelted, perhaps, till I reach No. 50—there, perhaps to find the servant hesitate about opening the door to such an apparition,—and when Papa comes to hear how illustriously your visitor was attended through the streets! why he will specially set apart Easter Monday to testify in person his sense of the sublime philosophy, will he not? My Ba—I tell the child on the first symptom of such a wish on his part ‘Don’t!’ with all the eloquence in my power—if I can put it handsomely off my head, even, I will, and with pitying good nature—but if I _must_ either wear the cap, and pay the penalty, or—slap his face, why—! ‘Ah,’ you say, ‘but he has got a pistol that you don’t see and will shoot you dead like a foolish child as he is.’ That he may! Have I to be told that in this world men, foolish or wicked, do inflict tremendous injuries on their unoffending fellows? Let God look to it, I say with reverence, and do _you_ look to this point, _where_ the injury _is_, _begins_. The foolish man who throws some disfiguring liquid in your face, which to remove you must have recourse to some dangerous surgical operation,—perilling himself, too, by the consequent vengeance of the law, if you sink under knife or cauterizing iron,—shall I say ‘the fault is _yours_—why submit to the operation? The fault is _his_ that institutes the very fault—which begin by teaching him from his cradle in every possible shape! But don’t, don’t say—‘the operation is _unnecessary_; your blistered face will look, _does_ look just as usual, not merely to me who know you, perhaps love you,—but to the whole world ... on whose opinion of its agreeableness, I confess that you are dependent for nearly every happy minute of your life.’ In all this, I speak for the world, _not_ for me—I have other, too many other sources of enjoyment—I could _easily_, I think, do what you require. I endeavour to care for others with none of these; as dear, dearest Ba, sitting in her room because of a dull day, would have _me_ take a few miles’ exercise. Has everybody a Ba? I had not last year—yet last year I had reasons, and still have, for, on occasion, renouncing society fifty times over: what I should do, therefore, is as improper to be held up for an example, as the exemplary behaviour of Walpole’s old French officer of ninety, who ‘hearing some youths diverting themselves with some girls in a tent close by, asked, ‘Is this the example _I_ set you, gentlemen?’. But I shall be dishonoured however—Ba will ‘go and call the police’—why, so should I for your brother, in all but the extremest case!—because when I had told all the world, _with whom the concern solely_ is, that, despite his uttermost endeavour, I had done this,—the world would be satisfied at once—and the whole procedure is _meant_ to satisfy the world—even the foolishest know that the lion in a cage, through no fault of his, cannot snap at a fly outside the bars. The thing to know is, will Ba dictate to her husband ‘a refusal to fight,’ and then recommend him to go to a dinner-party? Say, ‘give up the dinner for my sake,’ if you like—one _or_ the other it _must_ be: you know, I hate and refuse dinner-parties. Does everybody?

But now in candour, hear me: I write all this to show the _not such irrationality_ of the practice even on comparatively frivolous grounds ... and that those individuals to whom you once admit society may be a legitimate enjoyment, must take such a course to retain the privileges they value—and that the painful consequences should be as unhesitatingly attributed to the first offence and its author,—as the explosion and horror to the fool who _would_ put the match, in play perhaps, to the powder-barrel. And I excepted myself from the operation of this necessity. But I must confess that I can conceive of ‘combinations of circumstances’ in which I see two things only ... or a Third: a miscreant to be put out the world, my own arm and best will to do it; and, perhaps, God to excuse; which is, approve. My Ba, what is Evil, in its unmistakable shape, but a thing to suppress at any price? I _do_ approve of judicial punishment to death under some circumstances—I think we may, _must_ say: ‘when it comes to _that_, we will keep our pact of life, stand by God and put _that_ out of us, our world—_it_ shall not be endured, or _we_ shall not be endured’! Dear Ba, is Life to become a child’s game? A. is wronged, B. rights him, and is a hero as we say; B. is wronged again, by C.; but he must not right himself; _that_ is D.’s proper part, who again is to let _E._ do the same kind office for _him_—and so on. ‘Defend the poor and fatherless’—and we all applaud—but if they could defend themselves, why not? I will not fancy cases—here’s one that strikes me—a fact. Some soldiers were talking over a watch fire abroad—one said that once he was travelling in Scotland and knocked at a cottage-door—an old woman with one child let him in, gave him a supper and a bed—next morning he asked how they lived, and she said the cow, the milk of which he was then drinking, and the kale in the garden, such as he was eating—were all her ‘_mailien_’ or sustenance—whereon, rising to go, he, for the fun, ‘killed the cow and destroyed the kale’—‘the old witch crying out she should certainly be starved’—then he went his way. ‘And she _was_ starved, of course,’ said a young man; ‘do you _rue_ it?’—The other laughed ‘Rue aught like that!’—The young man said. ‘I was the boy, and that was my mother—now then!’—In a minute or two the preparer of this ‘combination of circumstances’ lay writhing with a sword through him up to the hilt—‘If you had _rued_ it’—the youth said—‘you should have answered it only to God!’

More than enough of this—but I was anxious to stand clearer in your dear eyes. ‘Vows and promises!’—I want to leave society for the Sirens’ isle,—and _now_, I _often seriously reproach_ myself with conduct quite the reverse of what you would guard against: I have too much _indifferentism_ to the opinions of Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown—by no means am anxious to have his notions agree with mine. Smith thinks Cromwell a canting villain,—Brown believes no dissenter can be saved,—and I repeat Goethe’s ‘Be it your unerring rule, ne’er to contradict a fool, for if folly choose to brave you, all your wisdom cannot save you!’ And sometimes I help out their arguments by a touch or two, after Ogniben’s fashion—it all seems so wearisomely unprofitable; what comes of Smith’s second thought if you change his first—out of _that_ second will branch as great an error, you may be sure! (11 o’clock) Here comes your letter! My own Ba! My dearest best, best beloved! _I_, angry! oh, how you misinterpret, misunderstand the motions of my mind! In all that I said, or write here, I speak of others—others, if you please, of limited natures: I say why _they_ may be excused ... that is all. ‘_You do not like pork_’? _But_ those poor Irish Colliers whose only luxury is _bacon_ once a month; you understand _them_ liking it? I do not value society—others do: ‘_we are all His children_’ says Euripides and quotes Paul.

Now, love, let this be a moot point to settle among the flowers one day—with Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘other hard questions yet not impossible to be solved’ (‘What song the Sirens sang to Ulysses,’ is the first!) in which blessed hope let me leave off; for I confess to having written myself all-but-tired, headachy. But ‘vexed with you’! Ba, Ba; you perplex me, bewilder me; let me get right again; kiss me, dearest, and all is right—God bless you ever—

Your R.

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

Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 9, 1846.]