Chapter XVI: Part 16

_Wednesday._--You are entirely right about those poems of Horne's--I spoke only of the effect of the first glance, and it is a principle with me to begin by welcoming any strangeness, intention of originality in men--the other way of safe copying precedents being _so_ safe! So I began by praising all that was at all questionable in the form ... reserving the ground-work for after consideration. The Elf-story turns out a pure mistake, I think--and a common mistake, too. Fairy stories, the good ones, were written for men and women, and, being true, pleased also children; now, people set about writing for children and miss them and the others too,--with that detestable irreverence and plain mocking all the time at the very wonder they profess to want to excite. All obvious bending down to the lower capacity, determining not to be the great complete man one is, by half; any patronizing minute to be spent in the nursery over the books and work and healthful play, of a visitor who will presently bid good-bye and betake himself to the Beefsteak Club--keep us from all that! The Sailor Language is good in its way; but as wrongly used in Art as real clay and mud would be, if one plastered them in the foreground of a landscape in order to attain to so much truth, at all events--the true thing to endeavour is the making a golden colour which shall do every good in the power of the dirty brown. Well, then, what a veering weathercock am I, to write so and now, _so_! Not altogether,--for first it was but the stranger's welcome I gave, the right of every new comer who must stand or fall by his behaviour once admitted within the door. And then--when I know what Horne thinks of--you, dearest; how he knew you first, and from the soul admired you; and how little he thinks of my good fortune ... I _could_ NOT begin by giving you a bad impression of anything he sends--he has such very few rewards for a great deal of hard excellent enduring work, and _none_, no reward, I do think, would he less willingly forego than your praise and sympathy. But your opinion once expressed--truth remains the truth--so, at least, I excuse myself ... and quite as much for what I say _now_ as for what was said _then_! 'King John' is very fine and full of purpose; 'The Noble Heart,' sadly faint and uncharacteristic. The chief incident, too, turns on that poor conventional fallacy about what constitutes a proper wrong to resist--a piece of morality, after a different standard, is introduced to complete another fashioned morality--a segment of a circle of larger dimensions is fitted into a smaller one. Now, you may have your own standard of morality in this matter of resistance to wrong, how and when if at all. And you may quite understand and sympathize with quite different standards innumerable of other people; but go from one to the other abruptly, you cannot, I think. 'Bear patiently all injuries--revenge in no case'--that is plain. 'Take what you conceive to be God's part, do his evident work, stand up for good and destroy evil, and co-operate with this whole scheme here'--_that_ is plain, too,--but, call Otto's act _no_ wrong, or being one, not such as should be avenged--and then, call the remark of a stranger that one is a 'recreant'--just what needs the slight punishment of instant death to the remarker--and ... where is the way? What _is_ clear?

--Not my letter! which goes on and on--'dear letters'--sweetest? because they cost all the precious labour of making out? Well, I shall see you to-morrow, I trust. Bless you, my own--I have not half said what was to say even in the letter I thought to write, and which proves only what you see! But at a thought I fly off with you, 'at a cock-crow from the Grange.'--Ever your own.

Last night, I received a copy of the _New Quarterly_--now here is popular praise, a sprig of it! Instead of the attack I supposed it to be, from my foolish friend's account, the notice is outrageously eulogistical, a stupidly extravagant laudation from first to last--and in _three other_ articles, as my sister finds by diligent fishing, they introduce my name with the same felicitous praise (except one instance, though, in a good article by Chorley I am certain); and _with_ me I don't know how many poetical _crétins_ are praised as noticeably--and, in the turning of a page, somebody is abused in the richest style of scavengering--only Carlyle! And I love him enough not to envy him nor wish to change places, and giving him mine, mount into his.

All which, let me forget in the thoughts of to-morrow! Bless you, my Ba.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 7, 1846.]

But some things are indeed said very truly, and as I like to read them--of _you_, I mean of course,--though I quite understand that it is doing no manner of good to go back so to 'Paracelsus,' heading the article 'Paracelsus and other poems,' as if the other poems could not front the reader broadly by a divine right of their own. 'Paracelsus' is a great work and will _live_, but the way to do you good with the stiffnecked public (such good as critics can do in their degree) would have been to hold fast and conspicuously the gilded horn of the last living crowned creature led by you to the altar, saying 'Look _here_.' What had he to do else, as a critic? Was he writing for the _Retrospective Review_? And then, no attempt at analytical criticism--or a failure, at the least attempt! all slack and in sentences! Still these are right things to say, true things, worthy things, said of you as a poet, though your poems do not find justice: and I like, for my own part, the issuing from my cathedral into your great world--the outermost temple of divinest consecration. I like that figure and association, and none the worse for its being a sufficient refutation of what he dared to impute, of your poetical sectarianism, in another place--_yours_!

For me, it is all quite kind enough--only I object, on my own part also, to being reviewed in the 'Seraphim,' when my better books are nearer: and also it always makes me a little savage when people talk of Tennysonianisms! I have faults enough as the Muses know,--but let them be _my_ faults! When I wrote the 'Romaunt of Margret,' I had not read a line of Tennyson. I came from the country with my eyes only half open, and he had not penetrated where I had been living and sleeping: and in fact when I afterwards tried to reach him here in London, nothing could be found except one slim volume, so that, till the collected works appeared ... _favente_ Moxon, ... I was ignorant of his best _early_ productions; and not even for the rhythmetical form of my 'Vision of the Poets,' was I indebted to the 'Two Voices,'--three pages of my 'Vision' having been written several years ago--at the beginning of my illness--and thrown aside, and taken up again in the spring of 1844. Ah, well! there's no use talking! In a solitary review which noticed my 'Essay on Mind,' somebody wrote ... 'this young lady imitates Darwin'--and I never could _read_ Darwin, ... was stopped always on the second page of the 'Loves of the Plants' when I tried to read him to 'justify myself in having an opinion'--the repulsion was too strong. Yet the 'young lady imitated Darwin' of course, as the infallible critic said so.

And who are Mr. Helps and Miss Emma Fisher and the 'many others,' whose company brings one down to the right plebeianism? The 'three poets in three distant ages born' may well stare amazed!

After all you shall not by any means say that I upset the inkstand on your review in a passion--because pray mark that the ink has over-run some of your praises, and that if I had been angry to the overthrow of an inkstand, it would not have been precisely _there_. It is the second book spoilt by me within these two days--and my fingers were so dabbled in blackness yesterday that to wring my hands would only have made matters worse. Holding them up to Mr. Kenyon they looked dirty enough to befit a poetess--as black 'as bard beseemed'--and he took the review away with him to read and save it from more harm.

How could it be that you did not get my letter which would have reached you, I thought, on Monday evening, or on Tuesday at the very very earliest?--and how is it that I did not hear from you last night again when I was unreasonable enough to expect it? is it true that you _hate_ writing to me?

At that word, comes the review back from dear Mr. Kenyon, and the letter which I enclose to show you how it accounts reasonably for the ink--I did it 'in a pet,' he thinks! And I ought to buy you a new book--certainly I ought--only it is not worth doing justice for--and I shall therefore send it back to you spoilt as it is; and you must forgive me as magnanimously as you can.

'Omne ignotum pro magnifico'--do you think _so_? I hope not indeed! _vo quietando_--and everything else that I ought to do--except of course, _that_ thinking of you which is so difficult.

May God bless you. Till to-morrow!

Your own always.

Mr. Kenyon refers to 'Festus'--of which I had said that the fine things were worth looking for, in the design manqué.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 9, 1846.]

You never think, ever dearest, that I 'repent'--why what a word to use! You never could _think_ such a word for a moment! If you were to leave me even,--to decide that it is best for you to do it, and do it,--I should accede at once of course, but never should I nor could I 'repent' ... regret anything ... be sorry for having known you and loved you ... no! Which I say simply to prove that, in _no_ extreme case, could I repent for my own sake. For yours, it might be different.

_Not_ out of 'generosity' certainly, but from the veriest selfishness, I choose here, before God, any possible present evil, rather than the future consciousness of feeling myself less to you, on the whole, than another woman might have been.

Oh, these vain and most heathenish repetitions--do I not vex you by them, _you_ whom I would always please, and never vex? Yet they force their way because you are the best noblest and dearest in the world, and because your happiness is so precious a thing.

Cloth of frieze, be not too bold,
Though thou'rt matched with cloth of gold!

--_that_, beloved, was written for _me_. And you, if you would make me happy, _always_ will look at yourself from my ground and by my light, as I see you, and consent to be selfish in all things. Observe, that if I were _vacillating_, I should not be so weak as to tease you with the process of the vacillation: I should wait till my pendulum ceased swinging. It is precisely because I am your own, past any retraction or wish of retraction,--because I belong to you by gift and ownership, and am ready and willing to prove it before the world at a word of yours,--it is precisely for this, that I remind you too often of the necessity of using this right of yours, not to your injury, of being wise and strong for both of us, and of guarding your happiness which is mine. I have said these things ninety and nine times over, and over and over have you replied to them,--as yesterday!--and now, do not speak any more. It is only my preachment for general use, and not for particular application,--only to be _ready_ for application. I love you from the deepest of my nature--the whole world is nothing to me beside you--and what is so precious, is not far from being terrible. 'How _dreadful_ is this place.'

To hear you talk yesterday, is a gladness in the thought for to-day,--it was with such a full assent that I listened to every word. It is true, I think, that we see things (things apart from ourselves) under the same aspect and colour--and it is certainly true that I have a sort of instinct by which I seem to know your views of such subjects as we have never looked at together. I know _you_ so well (yes, I boast to myself of that intimate knowledge), that I seem to know also the _idola_ of all things as they are in your eyes--so that never, scarcely, I am curious,--never anxious, to learn what your opinions may be. Now, _have_ I been curious or anxious? It was enough for me to know _you_.

More than enough! You have 'left undone'--do you say? On the contrary, you have done too much,--you _are_ too much. My cup,--which used to hold at the bottom of it just the drop of Heaven dew mingling with the absinthus,--has overflowed all this wine: and _that_ makes me look out for the vases, which would have held it better, had you stretched out your hand for them.

Say how you are--and do take care and exercise--and write to me, dearest!

Ever your own--

BA.

How right you are about 'Ben Capstan,'--and the illustration by the _yellow clay_. That is precisely what I meant,--said with more precision than I could say it. Art without an ideal is neither nature nor art. The question involves the whole difference between Madame Tussaud and Phidias.

I have just received Mr. Edgar Poe's book--and I see that the deteriorating preface which was to have saved me from the vanity-fever produceable by the dedication, is cut down and away--perhaps in this particular copy only!

Tuesday is so near, as men count, that I caught myself just now being afraid lest the week should have no chance of appearing long to you! Try to let it be long to you--will you? My consistency is wonderful.

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

Friday Morning.

As if I could deny you anything! Here is the Review--indeed it was foolish to mind your seeing it at all. But now, may I stipulate?--You shall not send it back--but on your table I shall find and take it next Tuesday--_c'est convenu_! The other precious volume has not yet come to hand (nor to foot) all through your being so sure that to carry it home would have been the death of me last evening!

I cannot write my feelings in this large writing, begun on such a scale for the Review's sake; and just now--there is no denying it, and spite of all I have been incredulous about--it does seem that the fact _is_ achieved and that I _do_ love you, plainly, surely, more than ever, more than any day in my life before. It is your secret, the why, the how; the experience is mine. What are you doing to me?--in the heart's heart.

Rest--dearest--bless you--

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, January 10, 1846.]

Kindest and dearest you are!--that is 'my secret' and for the others, I leave them to you!--only it is no secret that I should and must be glad to have the words you sent with the book,--which I should have seen at all events be sure, whether you had sent it or not. Should I not, do you think? And considering what the present generation of critics really is, the remarks on you may stand, although it is the dreariest impotency to complain of the want of flesh and blood and of human sympathy in general. Yet suffer them to say on--it is the stamp on the critical knife. There must be something eminently stupid, or farewell criticdom! And if anything more utterly untrue could be said than another, it is precisely that saying, which Mr. Mackay stands up to catch the reversion of! Do you indeed suppose that Heraud could have done this? I scarcely can believe it, though some things are said rightly as about the 'intellectuality,' and how you stand first by the brain,--which is as true as truth can be. Then, I _shall have 'Pauline' in a day or two_--yes, I shall and must, and _will_.

The 'Ballad Poems and Fancies,' the article calling itself by that name, seems indeed to be Mr. Chorley's, and is one of his very best papers, I think. There is to me a want of colour and thinness about his writings in general, with a grace and _savoir faire_ nevertheless, and always a rightness and purity of intention. Observe what he says of 'many-sidedness' seeming to trench on opinion and principle. That, he means for himself I know, for he has said to me that through having such largeness of sympathy he has been charged with want of principle--yet 'many-sidedness' is certainly no word for him. The effect of general sympathies may be evolved both from an elastic fancy and from breadth of mind, and it seems to me that he rather _bends_ to a phase of humanity and literature than contains it--than comprehends it. Every part of a truth implies the whole; and to accept truth all round, does not mean the recognition of contradictory things: universal sympathies cannot make a man inconsistent, but, on the contrary, sublimely consistent. A church tower may stand between the mountains and the sea, looking to either, and stand fast: but the willow-tree at the gable-end, blown now toward the north and now toward the south while its natural leaning is due east or west, is different altogether ... _as_ different as a willow-tree from a church tower.

Ah, what nonsense! There is only one truth for me all this time, while I talk about truth and truth. And do you know, when you have told me to think of you, I have been feeling ashamed of thinking of you so much, of thinking of only you--which _is_ too much, perhaps. Shall I tell you? it seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before to any woman what you are to me--the fulness must be in proportion, you know, to the vacancy ... and only _I_ know what was behind--the long wilderness _without_ the blossoming rose ... and the capacity for happiness, like a black gaping hole, before this silver flooding. Is it wonderful that I should stand as in a dream, and disbelieve--not _you_--but my own fate? Was ever any one taken suddenly from a lampless dungeon and placed upon the pinnacle of a mountain, without the head turning round and the heart turning faint, as mine do? And you love me _more_, you say?--Shall I thank you or God? Both,--indeed--and there is no possible return from me to either of you! I thank you as the unworthy may ... and as we all thank God. How shall I ever prove what my heart is to you? How will you ever see it as I feel it? I ask myself in vain.

Have so much faith in me, my only beloved, as to use me simply for your own advantage and happiness, and to your own ends without a thought of any others--_that_ is all I could ask you with any disquiet as to the granting of it--May God bless you!--

Your

BA.

But you have the review _now_--surely?

The _Morning Chronicle_ attributes the authorship of 'Modern Poets' (_our_ article) to Lord John Manners--so I hear this morning. I have not yet looked at the paper myself. The _Athenæum_, still abominably dumb!--

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, January 10, 1846.]

This is _no_ letter--love,--I make haste to tell you--to-morrow I will write. For here has a friend been calling and consuming my very destined time, and every minute seemed the last that was to be; and an old, old friend he is, beside--so--you must understand my defection, when only this scrap reaches you to-night! Ah, love,--you are my unutterable blessing,--I discover you, more of you, day by day,--hour by hour, I do think!--I am entirely yours,--one gratitude, all my soul becomes when I see you over me as now--God bless my dear, dearest.

My 'Act Fourth' is done--but too roughly this time! I will tell you--

One kiss more, dearest!

Thanks for the Review.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, January 12, 1846.]

I have no words for you, my dearest,--I shall never have.

You are mine, I am yours. Now, here is one sign of what I said ... that I must love you more than at first ... a little sign, and to be looked narrowly for or it escapes me, but then the increase it shows _can_ only be little, so very little now--and as the fine French Chemical Analysts bring themselves to appreciate matter in its refined stages by _millionths_, so--! At first I only thought of being _happy_ in you,--in your happiness: now I most think of you in the dark hours that must come--I shall grow old with you, and die with you--as far as I can look into the night I see the light with me. And surely with that provision of comfort one should turn with fresh joy and renewed sense of security to the sunny middle of the day. I am in the full sunshine now; and _after_, all seems cared for,--is it too homely an illustration if I say the day's visit is not crossed by uncertainties as to the return through the wild country at nightfall?--Now Keats speaks of 'Beauty, that must _die_--and Joy whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding farewell!' And _who_ spoke of--looking up into the eyes and asking 'And _how long_ will you love us'?--There is a Beauty that will not die, a Joy that bids no farewell, dear dearest eyes that will love for ever!

And _I_--am to love no longer than I can. Well, dear--and when I _can_ no longer--you will not blame me? You will do only as ever, kindly and justly; hardly more. I do not pretend to say I have chosen to put my fancy to such an experiment, and consider how _that_ is to happen, and what measures ought to be taken in the emergency--because in the 'universality of my sympathies' I certainly number a very lively one with my own heart and soul, and cannot amuse myself by such a spectacle as their supposed extinction or paralysis. There is no doubt I should be an object for the deepest commiseration of you or any more fortunate human being. And I hope that because such a calamity does not obtrude itself on me as a thing to be prayed against, it is no less duly implied with all the other visitations from which no humanity can be altogether exempt--just as God bids us ask for the continuance of the 'daily bread'!--'battle, murder and sudden death' lie behind doubtless. I repeat, and perhaps in so doing only give one more example of the instantaneous conversion of that indignation we bestow in another's case, into wonderful lenity when it becomes our own, ... that I only contemplate the _possibility_ you make me recognize, with pity, and fear ... no anger at all; and imprecations of vengeance, _for what_? Observe, I only speak of cases _possible_; of sudden impotency of mind; that _is_ possible--there _are_ other ways of '_changing_,' 'ceasing to love' &c. which it is safest not to think of nor believe in. A man _may_ never leave his writing desk without seeing safe in one corner of it the folded slip which directs the disposal of his papers in the event of his reason suddenly leaving him--or he may never go out into the street without a card in his pocket to signify his address to those who may have to pick him up in an apoplectic fit--but if he once begins to fear he is growing a glass bottle, and, _so_, liable to be smashed,--do you see? And now, love, dear heart of my heart, my own, only Ba--see no more--see what I _am_, what God in his constant mercy ordinarily grants to those who have, as I, received already so much; much, past expression! It is but--if you will so please--at worst, forestalling the one or two years, for my sake; but you _will_ be as sure of me _one_ day as I can be now of myself--and why not _now_ be sure? See, love--a year is gone by--we were in one relation when you wrote at the end of a letter 'Do not say I do not tire you' (by writing)--'_I am sure I do_.' A year has gone by--_Did you tire me then?_ _Now_, you tell me what is told; for my sake, sweet, let the few years go by; we are married, and my arms are round you, and my face touches yours, and I am asking you, '_Were you not_ to me, in that dim beginning of 1846, a joy behind all joys, a life added to and transforming mine, the good I choose from all the possible gifts of God on this earth, for which I seemed to have lived; which accepting, I thankfully step aside and let the rest get what they can; what, it is very likely, they esteem more--for why should my eye be evil because God's is good; why should I grudge that, giving them, I do believe, infinitely less, he gives them a content in the inferior good and belief in its worth? I should have wished _that_ further concession, that illusion as I believe it, for their sakes--but I cannot undervalue my own treasure and so scant the only tribute of mere gratitude which is in my power to pay. Hear this said _now before_ the few years; and believe in it _now for then_, dearest!

Must you see 'Pauline'? At least then let me wait a few days; to correct the misprints which affect the sense, and to write you the history of it; what is necessary you should know before you see it. That article I suppose to be by Heraud--about two thirds--and the rest, or a little less, by that Mr. Powell--whose unimaginable, impudent vulgar stupidity you get some inkling of in the 'Story from Boccaccio'--of which the _words_ quoted were _his_, I am sure--as sure as that he knows not whether Boccaccio lived before or after Shakspeare, whether Florence or Rome be the more northern city,--one word of Italian in general, or letter of Boccaccio's in particular. When I took pity on him once on a time and helped his verses into a sort of grammar and sense, I did not think he was a _buyer_ of other men's verses, to be printed as his own; thus he _bought_ two modernisations of Chaucer--'Ugolino' and another story from Leigh Hunt--and one, 'Sir Thopas' from Horne, and printed them as his own, as I learned only last week. He paid me extravagant court and, seeing no harm in the mere folly of the man, I was on good terms with him, till ten months ago he grossly insulted a friend of mine who had written an article for the Review--(which is as good as _his_, he being a large proprietor of the delectable property, and influencing the voices of his co-mates in council)--well, he insulted my friend, who had written that article at my special solicitation, and did all he could to avoid paying the price of it--Why?--Because the poor creature had actually taken the article to the Editor _as one by his friend Serjeant Talfourd contributed for pure love of him, Powell the aforesaid_,--cutting, in consequence, no inglorious figure in the eyes of Printer and Publisher! Now I was away all this time in Italy or he would never have ventured on such a piece of childish impertinence. And my friend being a true gentleman, and quite unused to this sort of 'practice,' in the American sense, held his peace and went without his 'honorarium.' But on my return, I enquired, and made him make a proper application, which Mr. Powell treated with all the insolence in the world--because, as the event showed, the having to write a cheque for 'the Author of _the_ Article'--that author's name _not_ being Talfourd's ... _there_ was certain disgrace! Since then (ten months ago) I have never seen him--and he accuses _himself_, observe, of 'sucking my plots while I drink his tea'--one as much as the other! And now why do I tell you this, all of it? Ah,--now you shall hear! Because, it has often been in my mind to ask you what _you_ know of this Mr. Powell, or ever knew. For he, (being profoundly versed in every sort of untruth, as every fresh experience shows me, and the rest of his acquaintance) he told me long ago, 'he used to correspond with you, and that he quarrelled with you'--which I supposed to mean that he began by sending you his books (as with one and everybody) and that, in return to your note of acknowledgment, he had chosen to write again, and perhaps, again--is it so? Do not write one word in answer to me--the name of such a miserable nullity, and husk of a man, ought not to have a place in your letters--and _that way_ he would get near to me again; near indeed this time!--So _tell_ me, in a word--or do not tell me.

How I never say what I sit down to say! How saying the little makes me want to say the more! How the least of little things, once taken up as a thing to be imparted to you, seems to need explanations and commentaries; all is of importance to me--every breath you breathe, every little fact (like this) you are to know!

I was out last night--to see the rest of Frank Talfourd's theatricals; and met Dickens and his set--so my evenings go away! If I do not bring the _Act_ you must forgive me--yet I shall, I think; the roughness matters little in this stage. Chorley says very truly that a tragedy implies as much power _kept back_ as brought out--very true that is. I do not, on the whole, feel dissatisfied--as was to be but expected--with the effect of this last--the _shelve_ of the hill, whence the end is seen, you continuing to go down to it, so that at the very last you may pass off into a plain and so away--not come to a stop like your horse against a church wall. It is all in long speeches--the _action, proper_, is in them--they are no descriptions, or amplifications--but here, in a drama of this kind, all the _events_, (and interest), take place in the _minds_ of the actors ... somewhat like 'Paracelsus' in that respect. You know, or don't know, that the general charge against me, of late, from the few quarters I thought it worth while to listen to, has been that of abrupt, spasmodic writing--they will find some fault with this, of course.

How you know Chorley! That is precisely the man, that willow blowing now here now there--precisely! I wish he minded the _Athenæum_, its silence or eloquence, no more nor less than I--but he goes on painfully plying me with invitation after invitation, only to show me, I feel confident, that _he_ has no part nor lot in the matter: I have _two_ kind little notes asking me to go on Thursday and Saturday. See the absurd position of us both; he asks more of my presence than he can want, just to show his own kind feeling, of which I do not doubt; and I must try and accept more hospitality than suits me, only to prove my belief in that same! For myself--if I have vanity which such Journals can raise; would the praise of them raise it, they who praised Mr. Mackay's own, own 'Dead Pan,' quite his own, the other day?--By the way, Miss Cushman informed me the other evening that the gentleman had written a certain 'Song of the Bell' ... 'singularly like Schiller's; _considering that Mr. M. had never_ seen it!' I am told he writes for the _Athenæum_, but don't know. Would that sort of praise be flattering, or his holding the tongue--which Forster, deep in the mysteries of the craft, corroborated my own notion about--as pure willingness to hurt, and confessed impotence and little clever spite, and enforced sense of what may be safe at the last? You shall see they will not notice--unless a fresh publication alters the circumstances--until some seven or eight months--as before; and then they _will_ notice, and _praise_, and tell anybody who cares to enquire, '_So_ we noticed the work.' So do not you go expecting justice or injustice till I tell you. It answers me to be found writing so, so anxious to prove I understand the laws of the game, when that game is only 'Thimble-rig' and for prizes of gingerbread-nuts--Prize or no prize, Mr. Dilke _does_ shift the pea, and so did from the beginning--as Charles Lamb's pleasant _sobriquet_ (Mr. _Bilk_, he would have it) testifies. Still he behaved kindly to that poor Frances Brown--let us forget him.

And now, my Audience, my crown-bearer, my path-preparer--I am with you again and out of them all--there, _here_, in my arms, is my _proved palpable success_! My life, my poetry, gained nothing, oh no!--but this found them, and blessed them. On Tuesday I shall see you, dearest--am much better; well to-day--are you well--or 'scarcely to be called an invalid'? Oh, when I _have_ you, am by you--

Bless you, dearest--And be very sure you have your wish about the length of the week--still Tuesday must come! And with it your own, happy, grateful

R.B.

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

Tuesday Night.
[Post-mark, January 14, 1846.]

Ah Mr. Kenyon!--how he vexed me to-day. To keep away all the ten days before, and to come just at the wrong time after all! It was better for you, I suppose--believe--to go with him down-stairs--yes, it certainly was better: it was disagreeable enough to be very wise! Yet I, being addicted to every sort of superstition turning to melancholy, did hate so breaking off in the middle of that black thread ... (do you remember what we were talking of when they opened the door?) that I was on the point of saying 'Stay one moment,' which I should have repented afterwards for the best of good reasons. Oh, I _should_ have liked to have 'fastened off' that black thread, and taken one stitch with a blue or a green one!

You do not remember what we were talking of? what _you_, rather, were talking of? And what _I_ remember, at least, because it is exactly the most unkind and hard thing you ever said to me--ever dearest, so I remember it by that sign! That you should say such a thing to me--! think what it was, for indeed I will not write it down here--it would be worse than Mr. Powell! Only the foolishness of it (I mean, the foolishness of it alone) saves it, smooths it to a degree!--the foolishness being the same as if you asked a man where he would walk when he lost his head. Why, if you had asked St. Denis _beforehand_, he would have thought it a foolish question.

And you!--you, who talk so finely of never, never doubting; of being such an example in the way of believing and trusting--it appears, after all, that you have an imagination apprehensive (or comprehensive) of 'glass bottles' like other sublunary creatures, and worse than some of them. For mark, that I never went any farther than to the stone-wall hypothesis of your forgetting me!--_I_ always stopped there--and never climbed, to the top of it over the broken-bottle fortification, to see which way you meant to walk afterwards. And you, to ask me so coolly--think what you asked me. That you should have the heart to ask such a question!

And the reason--! and it could seem a reasonable matter of doubt to you whether I would go to the south for my health's sake!--And I answered quite a common 'no' I believe--for you bewildered me for the moment--and I have had tears in my eyes two or three times since, just through thinking back of it all ... of your asking me such questions. Now did I not tell you when I first knew you, that I was leaning out of the window? True, _that_ was--I was tired of living ... unaffectedly tired. All I cared to live for was to do better some of the work which, after all, was out of myself, and which I had to reach across to do. But I told you. Then, last year, for duty's sake I would have _consented_ to go to Italy! but if you really fancy that I would have struggled in the face of all that difficulty--or struggled, indeed, anywise, to compass such an object as _that_--except for the motive of your caring for it and me--why you know nothing of me after all--nothing! And now, take away the motive, and I am where I was--leaning out of the window again. To put it in plainer words (as you really require information), I should let them do what they liked to me till I was dead--only I _wouldn't go to Italy_--if anybody proposed Italy out of contradiction. In the meantime I do entreat you never to talk of such a thing to me any more.

You know, if you were to leave me by your choice and for your happiness, it would be another thing. It would be very lawful to talk of _that_.

And observe! I perfectly understand that you did not think of _doubting me_--so to speak! But you thought, all the same, that if such a thing happened, I should be capable of doing so and so.

Well--I am not quarrelling--I am uneasy about your head rather. That pain in it--what can it mean? I do beseech you to think of me just so much as will lead you to take regular exercise every day, never missing a day; since to walk till you are tired on Tuesday and then not to walk at all until Friday is _not_ taking exercise, nor the thing required. Ah, if you knew how dreadfully natural every sort of evil seems to my mind, you would not laugh at me for being afraid. I do beseech you, dearest! And then, Sir John Hanmer invited you, besides Mr. Warburton, and suppose you went to _him_ for a very little time--just for the change of air? or if you went to the coast somewhere. Will you consider, and do what is right, _for me_? I do not propose that you should go to Italy, observe, nor any great thing at which you might reasonably hesitate. And--did you ever try smoking as a remedy? If the nerves of the head chiefly are affected it might do you good, I have been thinking. Or without the smoking, to breathe where tobacco is burnt,--_that_ calms the nervous system in a wonderful manner, as I experienced once myself when, recovering from an illness, I could not sleep, and tried in vain all sorts of narcotics and forms of hop-pillow and inhalation, yet was tranquillized in one half hour by a _pinch_ of _tobacco_ being burnt in a shovel near me. Should you mind it very much? the trying I mean?

_Wednesday._--For '_Pauline_'--when I had named it to you I was on the point of sending for the book to the booksellers--then suddenly I thought to myself that I should wait and hear whether you very, very much would dislike my reading it. See now! Many readers have done virtuously, but _I_, (in this virtue I tell you of) surpassed them all!--And now, because I may, I '_must_ read it':--and as there are misprints to be corrected, will you do what is necessary, or what you think is necessary, and bring me the book on Monday? Do not send--bring it. In the meanwhile I send back the review which I forgot to give to you yesterday in the confusion. Perhaps you have not read it in your house, and in any case there is no use in my keeping it.

Shall I hear from you, I wonder! Oh my vain thoughts, that will not keep you well! And, ever since you have known me, you have been worse--_that_, you confess!--and what if it should be the crossing of my bad star? _You_ of the 'Crown' and the 'Lyre,' to seek influences from the 'chair of Cassiopeia'! I hope she will forgive me for using her name so! I might as well have compared her to a professorship of poetry in the university of Oxford, according to the latest election. You know, the qualification, there, is,--_not to be a poet_.

How vexatious, yesterday! The stars (talking of _them_) were out of spherical tune, through the damp weather, perhaps, and that scarlet sun was a sign! First Mr. Chorley!--and last, dear Mr. Kenyon; who _will_ say tiresome things without any provocation. Did you walk with him his way, or did he walk with you yours? or did you only walk down-stairs together?

Write to me! Remember that it is a month to Monday. Think of your very own, who bids God bless you when she prays best for herself!--

E.B.B.

Say particularly how you are--now do not omit it. And will you have Miss Martineau's books when I can lend them to you? Just at this moment I _dare_ not, because they are reading them here.

Let Mr. Mackay have his full proprietary in his 'Dead Pan'--which is quite a different conception of the subject, and executed in blank verse too. I have no claims against him, I am sure!

But for the _man_!--To call him a poet! A prince and potentate of Commonplaces, such as he is!--I have seen his name in the _Athenæum_ attached to a lyric or two ... poems, correctly called fugitive,--more than usually fugitive--but I never heard before that his hand was in the prose department.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 14, 1846.]

Was I in the wrong, dearest, to go away with Mr. Kenyon? I _well knew and felt_ the price I was about to pay--but the thought _did_ occur that he might have been informed my probable time of departure was that of his own arrival--and that he would not know how very soon, alas, I should be _obliged_ to go--so ... to save you any least embarrassment in the world, I got--just that shake of the hand, just that look--and no more! And was it all for nothing, all needless after all? So I said to myself all the way home.

When I am away from you--a crowd of things press on me for utterance--'I will say them, not write them,' I think:--when I see you--all to be said seems insignificant, irrelevant,--'they can be written, at all events'--I think _that_ too. So, feeling so much, I say so little!

I have just returned from Town and write for the Post--but _you_ mean to write, I trust.

_That_ was not obtained, that promise, to be happy with, as last time!

How are you?--tell me, dearest; a long week is to be waited now!

Bless you, my own, sweetest Ba.

I am wholly your

R.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, January 15, 1846.]

Dearest, dearer to my heart minute by minute, I had no wish to give you pain, God knows. No one can more readily consent to let a few years more or less of life go out of account,--be lost--but as I sate by you, you so full of the truest life, for this world as for the next,--and was struck by the possibility, all that might happen were I away, in the case of your continuing to acquiesce--dearest, it _is_ horrible--could not but speak. If in drawing you, all of you, closer to my heart, I hurt you whom I would--_outlive_ ... yes,--cannot speak here--forgive me, Ba.

My Ba, you are to consider now for me. Your health, your strength, it is all wonderful; that is not my dream, you know--but what all see. Now, steadily care for us both--take time, take counsel if you choose; but at the end tell me what you will do for your part--thinking of me as utterly devoted, soul and body, to you, living wholly in your life, seeing good and ill only as you see,--being yours as your hand is,--or as your Flush, rather. Then I will, on my side, prepare. When I say 'take counsel'--I reserve my last right, the man's right of first speech. _I_ stipulate, too, and require to say my own speech in my own words or by letter--remember! But this living without you is too tormenting now. So begin thinking,--as for Spring, as for a New Year, as for a new life.

I went no farther than the door with Mr. Kenyon. He must see the truth; and--you heard the playful words which had a meaning all the same.

No more of this; only, think of it for me, love!

One of these days I shall write a long letter--on the omitted matters, unanswered questions, in your past letters. The present joy still makes me ungrateful to the previous one; but I remember. We are to live together one day, love!

Will you let Mr. Poe's book lie on the table on Monday, if you please, that I may read what he _does_ say, with my own eyes? _That_ I meant to ask, too!

How too, too kind you are--how you care for so little that affects me! I am very much better--I went out yesterday, as you found: to-day I shall walk, beside seeing Chorley. And certainly, certainly I would go away for a week, if so I might escape being ill (and away from you) a fortnight; but I am _not_ ill--and will care, as you bid me, beloved! So, you will send, and take all trouble; and all about that crazy Review! Now, you should not!--I will consider about your goodness. I hardly know if I care to read that kind of book just now.

Will you, and must you have 'Pauline'? If I could pray you to revoke that decision! For it is altogether foolish and _not_ boylike--and I shall, I confess, hate the notion of running over it--yet commented it must be; more than mere correction! I was unluckily _precocious_--but I had rather you _saw_ real infantine efforts (verses at six years old, and drawings still earlier) than this ambiguous, feverish--Why not wait? When you speak of the 'Bookseller'--I smile, in glorious security--having a whole bale of sheets at the house-top. He never knew my name even!--and I withdrew these after a very little time.

And now--here is a vexation. May I be with you (for this once) next Monday, at _two_ instead of _three_ o'clock? Forster's business with the new Paper obliges him, he says, to restrict his choice of days to _Monday_ next--and give up _my_ part of Monday I will never for fifty Forsters--now, sweet, mind that! Monday is no common day, but leads to a _Saturday_--and if, as I ask, I get leave to call at 2--and to stay till 3-1/2--though I then lose nearly half an hour--yet all will be comparatively well. If there is any difficulty--one word and I re-appoint our party, his and mine, for the day the paper breaks down--not so long to wait, it strikes me!

Now, bless you, my precious Ba--I am your own--

--Your own R.

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

Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 17, 1846.]

Our letters have crossed; and, mine being the longest, I have a right to expect another directly, I think. I have been calculating: and it seems to me--now what I am going to say may take its place among the paradoxes,--that I gain most by the short letters. Last week the only long one came last, and I was quite contented that the 'old friend' should come to see you on Saturday and make you send me two instead of the single one I looked for: it was a clear gain, the little short note, and the letter arrived all the same. I remember, when I was a child, liking to have two shillings and sixpence better than half a crown--and now it is the same with this fairy money, which will never turn all into pebbles, or beans, whatever the chronicles may say of precedents.

Arabel did tell Mr. Kenyon (she told me) that 'Mr. Browning would soon go away'--in reply to an observation of his, that 'he would not stay as I had company'; and altogether it was better,--the lamp made it look late. But you do not appear in the least remorseful for being tempted of my black devil, my familiar, to ask such questions and leave me under such an impression--'mens conscia recti' too!!--

And Mr. Kenyon will not come until next Monday perhaps. How am I? But I am too well to be asked about. Is it not a warm summer? The weather is as 'miraculous' as the rest, I think. It is you who are unwell and make people uneasy, dearest. Say how you are, and promise me to do what is right and try to be better. The walking, the changing of the air, the leaving off Luria ... do what is right, I earnestly beseech you. The other day, I heard of Tennyson being ill again, ... too ill to write a simple note to his friend Mr. Venables, who told George. A little more than a year ago, it would have been no worse a thing to me to hear of your being ill than to hear of his being ill!--How the world has changed since then! To _me_, I mean.

Did I say _that_ ever ... that 'I knew you must be tired?' And it was not even so true as that the coming event threw its shadow before?

_Thursday night._--I have begun on another sheet--I could not write here what was in my heart--yet I send you this paper besides to show how I was writing to you this morning. In the midst of it came a female friend of mine and broke the thread--the visible thread, that is.

And now, even now, at this safe eight o'clock, I could not be safe from somebody, who, in her goodnature and my illfortune, must come and sit by me--and when my letter was come--'why wouldn't I read it? What wonderful politeness on my part.' She would not and could not consent to keep me from reading my letter. She would stand up by the fire rather.

No, no, three times no. Brummel got into the carriage before the Regent, ... (didn't he?) but I persisted in not reading my letter in the presence of my friend. A notice on my punctiliousness may be put down to-night in her 'private diary.' I kept the letter in my hand and only read it with those sapient ends of the fingers which the mesmerists make so much ado about, and which really did seem to touch a little of what was inside. Not _all_, however, happily for me! Or my friend would have seen in my eyes what _they_ did not see.

May God bless you! Did I ever say that I had an objection to read the verses at six years old--or see the drawings either? I am reasonable, you observe! Only, 'Pauline,' I must have _some day_--why not without the emendations? But if you insist on them, I will agree to wait a little--if you promise _at last_ to let me see the book, which I will not show. Some day, then! you shall not be vexed nor hurried for the day--some day. Am I not generous? And _I_ was 'precocious' too, and used to make rhymes over my bread and milk when I was nearly a baby ... only really it was mere echo-verse, that of mine, and had nothing of mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. I used to write of virtue with a large 'V,' and 'Oh Muse' with a harp, and things of that sort. At nine years old I wrote what I called 'an epic'--and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which we used to act in the nursery. There was a French 'hexameter' tragedy on the subject of Regulus--but I cannot even smile to think of it now, there are so many grave memories--which time has made grave--hung around it. How I remember sitting in 'my house under the sideboard,' in the dining-room, concocting one of the soliloquies beginning

Que suis je? autrefois un général Remain:
Maintenant esclave de Carthage je souffre en vain.