Chapter XI: Part 11

I write to you in the drawing-room, and have brought down with me, I find, no smaller paper—but it can’t be filled, can it? though I have to tell you the great news about the lilies ... that all, except _two_, are in full blow ... and that the two are unfolding ... I can almost see the leaves move. I told you how it would be. They will live, ... and last longer than the roses, ... which I shall have to tell you by history as well as prediction, presently. The next news is not so good,—for I have had a note from Mrs. Jameson to the effect that she will come to take me to the pictures to-morrow, Monday—so that there will be no time to be diplomatic. My hope was of your meeting her at Mr. Carlyle’s, before she could arrange anything finally,—and really I do feel as disappointed as if I had had a reason for the hope. Now, unless we have another miracle, there’s an end, I suppose.

Think of my having left Flush behind me fast asleep. He dashes at the door in the most peremptory way, and nearly throws me backward when I open it, with his leaping-up-joy ... if it is not rather his reproach.

Now I am here all alone, except Flush—sitting, leaning against the open window with my feet curled up, and, at them, Flush curled up too; and I writing on my knee _more meo_. Rather cooler it seems, but rather too hot still it is, I think. How did you get home? how are you, dearest? And your mother? tell me of her, and of you! You always, you know (_do_ you know?), leave your presence with me in the flowers; and, as the lilies unfold, of course I see more and more of you in each apocalypse. Still, the Saturday’s visit is the worst of all to come to an end, as always I feel. In the first place stands Sunday, like a wall without a door in it! no letter! Monday is a good day and makes up a little, but it does not prevent Tuesday and Wednesday following ... more intervening days than between the other meetings—or so it seems. I forgot to tell you that yesterday I went to Mr. Boyd’s house ... not to see him, but as a preliminary step to seeing him. Arabel went to his room to tell him of my being there—we are both perhaps rather afraid of meeting after all these years of separation. Quite blind he is—and though scarcely older than Mr. Kenyon (perhaps a year or two or three), so nervous, that he has really made himself infirm, and now he refuses to walk out or even to go down-stairs. A very peculiar life he has led ever since he lost his sight, which he did when he was quite a young man—and a very peculiar person he is in all possible ways. His great faculty is ... _memory_ ... and his great passion ... Greek—to which of late he has added _Ossian_. Otherwise, he talks like a man of slow mind, which he is, ... and with a child’s way of looking at things, such as would make you smile—oh, he talks in the most wonderfully childish way! Poor Mr. Boyd. He cares for me perhaps more than he cares for any one else ... far more than for his own only daughter; but he is not a man of deep sensibility, and, if he heard of my death, would merely sleep a little sounder the next night. Once he said to me that whenever he felt sorry about anything, he was inclined to go to sleep. An affectionate and grateful regard ... grateful for many kindnesses ... I bear him, for my part. He says that I should wear the crown in poetry, if I would but follow Pope—but that the dreadful system of running lines one into another ruins everything. When I talk of _memory_, I mean merely the mechanical faculty. The _associative_, which makes the other a high power, he wants. So I went to his house in St. John’s Wood yesterday, and saw the little garden. Poor Mr. Boyd. There, he lives, all alone—and never leaving his chair! yet cheerful still, I hear, in all that desolation. As for you and Tennyson, he never heard of you ... he never guesses at the way of modern literature ... and it is the intense compliment to me when he reads verses of mine, ‘notwithstanding my corrupt taste,’ ... to quote his own words.

Dearest, do you love me to-day? I think of you, which is quite the same thing. Think of _me_ to-morrow at half-past four when Mrs. Jameson comes, and I shall have all that exertion to go through without the hope of you. Only that you are always _there_ ... _here_!—and I, your very own

BA.

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, June 22, 1846.]

If I only thought for myself in this instance, I should at once go and mount guard before your house so as to see you, at least, for a moment as you leave it.

To hope for a word would never do ... you might be startled, or simply not like such a measure, and _in simili incontri_ I will not run risks, but I should be able to _see_ you, my Ba ... why do I not go then? People at doors and windows are also able, alas, to see _me_ too—so I stay ... if this _is_ staying away when I can see the curled-up feet and kiss them beside,—ever-dear feet!

Do _you_ know the days and the times and the long interval,—you, as _I_ know? How strange that you should complain, and I become the happier! If I could alter it, and make you feel no subject for complaint any longer, I _would_,—surely I would, and be happy in that too, I hope ... yet the other happiness needs must be given up in that case ... I cannot reason it out. I excuse my present selfish happiness by feeling I would not exchange the sadness of being away from you for any imaginable delight in which you had no part. But I will have this delight, too, my Ba, of imagining that you are gratified by what you will see to-day. Tell me all, and what is said, and how you are at the end.

Thank you meanwhile for the picture of poor Mr. Boyd ... then he never _has_ seen you, since he was blind so long ago! How strange and melancholy—you say he is ‘cheerful,’ however. In that case—think of unhappy Countess Faustina with her ‘irresistible longings,’ and give her as much of your commiseration as she ought to get. What a horrible book ... how have I brought in what I prescribed to myself ‘silence about.’ Such characters as Faustina produce the very worst possible effect on me—I don’t know how they strike other people—but I am at once incited ‘debellare superbos’—to try at least and pull down the arrogant—_contempt_ would be the most Christian of all the feelings possible to be called forth by such a woman. Let me get back to you, my own dearest-dearest,—I _do_ ‘love you to-day,’ if you must ask,—and bidding me think of you is all very well—never bid me not think of you!—and so never find out that there could be a bidding I am unable to obey. But what is mere ‘_thinking_’? I kiss your hand, and your eyes, and now your lips,—and ask for my heart back again, to give it and be ever giving it. No words can tell how I am your own.

My mother is much better,—observably so, to-day. Oh, dearest,—I want you to read Landor’s Dialogue between Tasso and his Sister, in the second volume,—with the exquisite Sorrentine scenery—do read it. I see your Tasso with his prominent eyes as if they were ever just brightening out of a sorrow that has broken over them.

How I like (‘love’ is not my word now) but like Landor, more and more!

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

Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 23, 1846.]

Well—I did look everywhere for you to-day,—but not more than I always do—always I do, when I go out, look for you in the streets ... round the corners! And Mrs. Jameson came _alone_ and she and I were alone at Mr. Rogers’s, and you must help me to thank her some day for her unspeakable kindness to me, though she did not leap to the height of the inspiration of managing to let us see those pictures together. Ah—if she had, it would have been too much. As it is, she gave me a great deal of pleasure in the kindest of ways ... and I let it _be_ pleasure, by mixing it with enough thoughts of you—(otherwise how could it be pleasure?)—and she showed the pictures, and instructed me, really taking pains and instructing me ... and telling me how Rubens painted landscapes ... as how should my ignorance guess? ... and various other unknown things The first word as we reached the door, frightened me—for she said that perhaps we might see Mr. Rogers ... which was a little beyond our covenant—but we did not see him, and I suppose the Antinous on the staircase is not at all like him. Grand it is, in its serene beauty. On a colossal scale, in white marble. For the pictures, they are full of wonder and divinity—each giving the measure of a man’s soul. And think ... sketches from the hand of Michael Angelo and Raphael! And a statuette in clay, alive with the life of Michael Angelo’s finger—the blind eyes looking ... seeing ... as if in scorn of all clay! And the union of energy and meditation in the whole attitude! You have seen the marble of that figure in Florence. Then, a divine Virgin and child, worn and faded to a shadow of Raphael’s genius, as Mrs. Jameson explained to me—and the famous ‘Ecce Homo’ of Guido ... and Rubens’ magnificent ‘_version_,’ as she called it, of Andrea Mantegna’s ‘Triumph of Julius Cæsar.’ So triumphing to this day! And Titian, and Tintoretto ... and what did not strike me the least, ... a portrait of Rembrandt by himself, which if his landscapes, as they say, were ‘dug out of nature,’ looks as if it were dug out of humanity. Such a rugged, dark, deep subterraneous face, ... yet inspired—! seeming to realize that God took clay and breathed into the nostrils of it. There are both the clay, and the divinity! And think! I saw the agreement between the bookseller and Milton for the sale of Paradise Lost! with Milton’s signature and seal! and ‘_Witnessed by William Greene, Mr. Milton’s servant._’ How was it possible not to feel giddy with such sights! Almost I could have run my head against the wall, I felt, with bewilderment—and Mrs. Jameson must have been edified, I have thought since, through my intense stupidity. I saw too the first edition of ‘Paradise Lost.’ The rooms are elegant, with no pretension to splendour ... which is good taste, a _part_ of the good taste everywhere. Only, on the chimney-piece of the dining-room, were two small busts, beautiful busts, white with marble, ... and representing—now, whom, of gods and men, would you select for your Lares ... to help your digestion and social merriment?... Caligula and Nero in _childhood_! The ‘_childhood_’ is horribly suggestive to me! On the side-board is Pope’s bust, by Roubillac—a too expressive, miserable face—drawn with disease and bitter thoughts, and very painful, I felt, to look at. These things I liked least, in the selection and arrangement. Everything beside was admirable: and I write and write of it all as if I were not tired—but I am ... and most with the excitement and newness. Mrs. Jameson breakfasted with Mr. Rogers yesterday, she said, and met the Countess Hahn-Hahn, who was talking of modern literature when her host suddenly stopped her with a question ... ‘Did you ever read Addison?’

How late it is. Must I have done, before I have half done?

What I did _not_ tell you yesterday is very much in my thoughts ... do you know? _I_, too, ‘see what I know and testify what I have felt ... and, as far as my faculties of perception go!’ I am confident that you had better not look for a single reason for loving me. Which is worst? A bad reason, or no reason at all? A bad reason, _I_ think—and accept the alternative. Ah ... my own only beloved. And how you write to me to-night! I will read what you tell me in Landor ... but no words of inspired lips or pen ... no poet’s word, of the divinest, ... ever went to my heart as yours in these letters! Do I not love you? am I not your own? And while deserving nothing of all of it, I _feel_ it at least—respond to it—my heart is in your hand. May God bless you ... ‘_and me in that_,’—because even He could not bless me without _that_. Which He knows.

Your own.

But there is much beauty in Faustina—oh, surely!

The lilies, all in blow except one ... which is blowing.

Are we going to have a storm to-night? It lightens ... lightens!

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

Tuesday Morning
[Post-mark, June 23, 1846.]

I was just on the point of answering your dear letter, in all the good spirits it might be expected to wake in me, when the sad news of poor Haydon’s death stopped all; much I feel it, for the light words of my own about his extravagance, as I had been told of it, but very much more on your account, who were so lately in communication with him. I earnestly hope,—I will trust—you have not been rudely apprised of this—I am happy to remember that you do not see the newspaper in the morning,—others will see it first; perhaps there may be no notice in the _Chronicle_ at all, or on the other hand, a more circumstantial one than this in the _Times_ which barely says—‘that B.R.H. died suddenly at his residence—yesterday morning. He was in his usual health on the previous evening, and it is believed that his decease was hastened by pecuniary embarrassment’—and he is called ‘the unfortunate gentleman’—which with the rest implies the very worst, I fear. If by any chance _this_ should be the first intimation you receive of it ... do not think me stupid nor brutal,—for I thought again and again as to the right course to take ... whether it would not be best to be silent altogether and wait and see ... but in that case I should have surprised you more by my cold letter,—such an one as I could bring myself to write,—for how were it possible to speak of pictures and indifferent matters when you perhaps have been shocked, made ill by this news? If I have done wrong, forgive me, my own best, dearest Ba—I would give the world to know how you are. The storm, too, and lightning may have made you even more than ordinarily unfit to be startled and grieved. God knows and must help you! I am but your devoted—

* * * * *

How glad I am you told me you had never seen him. And perhaps he may be after all a mere acquaintance ... anything I will fancy that is likely to relieve you of pain! Dearest dearest!

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 24, 1846.]

Ever tenderest, kindest and most beloved, I thank you from the quick of my heart, where the thought of you lives constantly! In this world full of sadness, of which I have had my part ... full of sadness and bitterness and wrong ... full of most ghastly contrasts of life and death, strength and weakness side by side ... it is too much, to have _you_ to hold by, as the river rushes on ... too much good, too much grace for such as I, ... as I feel always, and cannot cease to feel!

Oh yes—it has shocked me, this dreadful news of poor Mr. Haydon—it chilled the blood in my veins when I heard it from Alfred, who, seeing the _Times_ at the Great Western Terminus, wrote out the bare extract and sent it to me by the post. He just thought that the _Chronicle_ did not mention it, ... and that I had not seen Mr. Haydon ... he did not perhaps think how it would shock me.

For, _this_ _I_ cannot help thinking. Could anyone—_could my own hand even ... have averted what has happened_? My head and heart have ached to-day over the inactive hand! But, for the moment, it was out of my power, without an application where it would have been useless—and then, I never fancied this case to be more than a piece of a continuous case ... of a habit fixed. Two years ago he sent me boxes and pictures precisely so, and took them back again—poor, poor Haydon!—as he will not this time. And he said last week that Peel had sent him fifty pounds ... adding ... ‘I do not however want _charity_, but employment.’ Also, I have been told again and again (oh, never by _you_ my beloved!) that to give money _there_, was to drop it into a hole of the ground.

But if to have dropped it so, dust to dust, would have saved a living man—what then?

Yet of the three notes I had from him last week, the first was written so lightly, that the second came to desire me not to attribute to him a ‘want of feeling.’ And who could think ... contemplate ... this calamity? May God have mercy on the strongest of us, for we are weak. Oh, that a man so high hearted and highly endowed ... a bold man, who has thrown down gauntlet after gauntlet in the face of the world—that such a man should go mad for a few paltry pounds! For he was _mad_ if he killed himself! of that I am as sure as if I knew it. If he killed himself, he was mad first.

Some day, when I have the heart to look for it, you shall see his last note. I understand now that there are touches in it of a desperate pathos—but never could he have meditated self-destruction while writing that note. He said he should write six sets of lectures more ... six more volumes. He said he was painting a new background to a picture, which made him ‘feel as if his soul had wings.’ And then he hoped his brain would not turn. And he ‘gloried’ in the naval dangers of his son at sea. And he repeated an old phrase of his, which I had heard from him often before, and which now rings hollowly to the ears of my memory ... that he _couldn’t and wouldn’t die_. Strange and dreadful!

It is nearly two years since we had a correspondence of some few months—from which at last I receded, notwithstanding the individuality and spirit of his letters, and my admiration for a certain fervour and magnanimity of genius, no one could deny to him. His very faults partook of that nobleness. But for a year and a half or more perhaps, I scarcely have written or heard from him—until last week when he wrote to ask for a shelter for his boxes and pictures. If you had enquired of me the week before, I might have answered that I did not _wish to renew the intercourse_—yet who could help being shocked and saddened? _Would_ it have availed, to have dropped something into that ‘hole in the ground?’ Oh, to imagine _that_! Yet a little would have been but as nothing!—and he did not ask even for a little—and I should have been ashamed to have offered but a little. Yet I cannot turn the thought away—_that I did not offer_.

Henry went to the house as I begged him. His son came to the door, and to a general enquiry ‘after the family,’ said that ‘Mr. Haydon was dead and that his family were quite as well as could be expected.’ That horrible banality is all I know more than you know.

Yesterday at Rogers’s, Mrs. Jameson led me to his picture of Napoleon at St. Helena. At the moment we looked at it, his hand was scarcely cold, perhaps. Surely it was not made of the commonest clay of men—that hand!

I pour out my thoughts to you, dearest dearest, as if it were right rather to think of doing myself that good and relief, than of _you_ who have to read all. But you spoil me into an excess of liberty, by your tenderness. Best in the world! Oh—you help me to live—I am better and lighter since I have drawn near to you even on this paper—already I am better and lighter. And now I am going to dream of you ... to meet you on some mystical landing place ... in order to be quite well to-morrow. Oh—we are so selfish on this earth, that nothing grieves us very long, let it be ever so grievous, unless we are touched in _ourselves_ ... in the apple of our eye ... in the quick of our heart ... in _what_ you are, and _where_ you are ... my own dearest beloved! So you need not be afraid for _me_! We all look to our own, as I to _you_; the thunderbolts may strike the tops of the cedars, and, except in the first start, none of us be moved. True it is of _me_—not of _you_ perhaps—certainly you are better than I, in all things. Best in the world, you are!—no one is like you. Can you read what I have written? Do not love me less! Do you think that I cannot _feel_ you love me, through all this distance? If you loved me less, I should know, without a word or a sign. Because I live by your loving me! I am your

BA.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, June 24, 1846.]

But, dearest love—I have just come in later than I expected, I am happy to say ... for your note only just arrives too, they say ... and I should have been frightened more than I need say. All blessing on you, Ba. I have seen no paper.—but Countess Hahn-Hahn said across Carlyle’s table that poor H. had attempted to shoot himself and then chosen another method—too successful. Horrible indeed—All to say now is, I shall be with you to-morrow,—my very own, dearest of all dear created things—my life and pride and joy—(Bless you).

R.

There is nothing in to-day’s _Times_ I find—

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 26, 1846.]

I drew the table to the fire before I wrote this. Here is cool weather, grateful to those overcome by last week’s heat, I suppose!—much as one conceives of a day’s starvation being grateful to people who were overfeasted some time back. But the coolness (that is, piercing cold as the north wind can make) sets me to ponder on what you said yesterday,—of considering summer as beginning next Wednesday, or there about, and ending by consequence with September. Our time is ‘at the Summer’s end’: and it does strike me that there may be but too many interpositions beside that of ‘my own will’ ... far too many. If those equinoctial winds disturb the sea, the cold weather adds to the difficulties of the land-journey ... then the will may interpose or stand aloof ... I cannot take you and kill you ... really, inevitably kill you! As it is ... or rather, as it might be, I should feel during a transit under the most favourable circumstances possible, somewhat as the performer of that trick by which a full glass of water resting in the open hand is made to describe a circle from above to below and back without spilling a drop—through some good-natured suspension, in the operator’s interest, of just a fundamental law of the universe, no more! Therefore if any September weather shall happen in September ... let us understand and wait ... another year! and another, and another.

Now, have I ever, with all those askings, asked you once too often, that is, unnecessarily—‘if this should be,’—or ‘when this should be?’ What is my ‘will’ to do with it? Can I keep the winds away, alas? My own will has all along been annihilated before you,—with respect to you—I should never be able to say ‘she shall dine on fish, or fruit,’ ‘She shall wear silk gloves or thread gloves’—even to exercise in fancy that much ‘will _over you_’ is revolting—I _will this_, never to be ‘over you’ if I could!

So, you decide here as elsewhere—but _do_ decide, Ba, my own only Ba—do _think_, to decide. I _can_ know nothing here as to what is gained or lost by delay or anticipation—I only refer to the few obvious points of the advantage of our ‘flight not being in the winter’—and the consideration that the difficulty in another quarter will never be less nor more,—therefore is out of the question.

I will tell you something I meant to speak of yesterday. Mrs. Jameson said Mr. Kenyon had assured her, with the kindest intentions, that it was quite vain to make those offers of company to Pisa or elsewhere, for your Father would never give his consent, and the very rationality of the plan, and probability of the utmost benefit following the adoption of it, would be the harder to forego the more they were entertained—whereupon, ‘having the passions of his kind he spoke some certain things’—bitter and unavoidable. Then Mrs. J. spoke too, as you may imagine; apparently from better knowledge than even I possess. Now I repeat this to your _common-sense_, my Ba—it is not hard to see that _you_ must be silent and suffering, where no other can or will be either—so that if a verdict needs must be pronounced on our conduct, it will be ‘the world’s’ and not an individual’s—and for once a fair one. Mrs. Jameson’s very words were ... (writing from what _has been_, observe—what is irrevocably past, and not what _may_ be)—‘I feel unhappy when in her presence ... impelled to do her some service, and impeded. _Can_ nothing be done to rescue her from this? _ought_ it to continue?’ So speaks—not your lover!—who, as he told you, _did_ long to answer ‘someone with attempt, at least!’ But it was best, for Mrs. Jameson would be blamed afterward, as Mr. K. might be abused, as ourselves will be vituperated, as my family must be calumniated ... by _whom_.

Do you feel me kiss your feet while I write this? I think you must, Ba! There is surely,—I trust, surely no impatience here, in this as in the other letter—if there is, I will endeavour to repress it ... but it will be difficult—for I love you, and am not a stock nor a stone.

And as we are now,—another year!

Well, kissing the feet answers everything, declares everything—and I kiss yours, my own Ba.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 26, 1846.]

Arabel insists on my going out in the carriage, but I will not, I say, before I have written my letter—and while we talk, the rain comes down like a guardian angel, and I _cannot_ go out before I have written my letter, as is apparent to all. Dearest, you did me such good yesterday with seeing you and hearing you, that I slept better and am better altogether, and after a little change into the air, shall be well—and how is your head? Now do not forget to tell me particularly. Say too whether you found your friend and had the right quantity of talk and got home without being the worse for him ... or _me_!

I have not had the heart to look at the newspapers, but hear that Sir Robert Peel has provided liberally for the present necessities of the poor Haydons. And do you know, the more I think the more I am inclined to conclude that the money-distress was merely an additional irritation, and that the despair leading to the revolt against life, had its root in disappointed ambition. The world did not recognize his genius, and he punished the world by withdrawing the light. If he had not that thought in him, I am wrong. The cartoon business, and his being refused employment in the Houses of Parliament ... _that_ was bitter: and then came his opposition with Tom Thumb and the dwarfs triumph ... he talked bitterly of _that_ in a letter to me of last week. He was a man, you see, who carried his whole being and sensibility on the outside of him; nay, worse than _so_, since in the thoughts and opinions of the world. All the audacity and bravery and self-exultation which drew on him so much ridicule were an agony in disguise—he could not live without reputation, and he wrestled for it, struggled for it, _kicked_ for it, forgetting grace of attitude in the pang. When all was vain, he went mad and died. Poor Haydon! He measures things differently now! and let _us_ now be right and just in our admeasurement of what he was—for, with all his weaknesses, he was not certainly _far_ from being a great man.

It is hope and help, to be able to look away from all such thoughts, to _you_, dearest beloved, who do not partake of the faults and feeblenesses of these lower geniuses. There is hope and help for the world in you—and if for the world, why for me indeed much more. You do not know ... ah, you do not know—how I look up to you and trust perfectly in you. You are above all these clouds—your element is otherwise—men are not your taskmasters that you should turn to them for recompense. ‘Shall I always think the same of you,’ you asked yesterday. But I _never_ think the same of you; because day by day you look greater and feel dearer. Only there is a deep gulph of another question, close beside _that_, which suggests itself, and makes me shudder to look down.

And now, the rain is over, and I shall dine briefly, and go out in the carriage.

May God bless you ... très bon!—très cher, pour cause.

Toute à toi—pour toujours.

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

Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 27, 1846.]

Ever dearest, I send you a bare line to-night, for it is late and I am very tired; having ... while you were sitting by the fire ... been, for my part, driving to Highgate ... now think of _that_! Also it has done me good, I think, and I shall sleep for it to-night perhaps, though I am tired certainly.

Your letter shall be answered to-morrow—and here is a green answer to your leaves![3]—what leaves? whence and how? My green little branch, I gathered myself out of the hedge, snatching at it from the carriage-window. The roses were gone, or nearly gone, and the few left, quite out of reach; and the leaves keep behind to assure you that they do not look for snow-storms in _September_. No! it was not _that_, they said. I am belying what they said.

I gathered them in the hedge of the pretty close green lane which you go through to Hampstead. Were you ever there, I wonder?

Dearest, I will write to-morrow. Never are you ‘impatient,’ inconsiderate—and as for selfishness, I have been uneasy sometimes, precisely because you are so _little_ selfish. I am not likely to mistake ... to wrench the wrong way ... any word of yours. As for mine, it was not a _mere_ word, when I said that you should decide everything. Could I hold out for November, or October, or for September even, if _you_ choose against? Indeed I could not. We—you will think—I am yours, and if _you_ never repent _that_, _I_ shall not—I am too entirely yours.

And so good-night—dearest beloved! Because you have a fire in June, is the snow to fall in September, and earth and ocean to become impassable? Ah well! we shall see! But you shall not see that I deceive you—

I am your very own

_Ba_.

Dear brown leaves! where did they come from, besides from _you_?

_Not_ a north wind. Only a north-west wind, as I could have proved to you if you had been with me! Yet it is a detestable climate, this English climate, let us all confess. Say how your head is.

[3] [A sprig from rose-tree enclosed. R.B.’s previous letter contained some leaves.]

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, June 27, 1846.]

Your dear gentle laugh, as I seem to hear it, makes all well again for the moment undoubtedly. I cannot help trusting you implicitly ... so whenever I seem able to reason a little, and set you reasoning for me, ought I not to try,—and then give up, and sink my head over you ... dearest! In fact, I was a little frightened by what I heard and saw ... for _you_, if you please, began by saying ‘it was too cold to go out’—and you were paler, I thought. The news of Highgate and the green leaves are re-assuring indeed—but my brown leaves might be sent to you by myriads for all that, for all the light laugh,—all roses fast going, lilies going ... autumnal hollyhocks in full blow ... and now to count three months over before summer is to end! These rains may do something, or hinder somewhat—and certainly our fire was left alone early yesterday morning. Well, I have not been presumptuous except ... ah, the exception!

How could I presume, for one thing, to hope for last evening’s letter ... a pure piece of kindness in you, Ba! And all your kindness is pure, entire, pearl-like for roundness and completeness ... there is no one rough side as when a crystal is broken off and given: do you think it no good augury of our after life in what must be called, I suppose, another relation,—that _this_ has been so perfect ... to me ... this last year, let me only say? In this relation there are as many ‘écueils’ as in the other,—as many, though of a different nature,—lovers quarrel on as various grounds as the wedded—and though with the hue and softness of love the most energetic words and deeds may change their character; yet one might write savage sentences in Chinese celestial-blue ink, which after a powdering with gold-dust should look prettier than the truest blessing in ordinary black. But you have been PERFECT to me hitherto—perfect! And of course only to _you_ is the praise ... for I have to be entirely confided in by you, seeing that you cannot keep an eye on me after I leave your room ... whereas,—not I, but a gross, stupid fool who conceived of no liberty but that of the body, nor that the soul may be far more unfaithful—such an one might exult in the notion of the closed door and the excluded world of rivals.

Bless you, darling—Monday is not very far off now! And I am to hear again. I am much better,—my mother much better too. I saw my French friend and talked and heard him talk. Yesterday, the whole day, (after the fire went out) was given to a cousin of mine, a girl, just married, and here from Paris with her husband—these two had to be amused somehow. Ever your very own—

R.

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, June 27, 1846.]

I said I would answer your letter to-day, my beloved, but how shall I say more than I have said and you know? _Do_ you not know, you who will not will ‘over’ me, that I _cannot_ will against you, and that if you set yourself seriously to take September for October, and August for September, it is all at an end with me and the calendar? Still, seriously ... there is time for deciding, is there not? ... even if I grant to you, which I do at once, that the road does not grow smoother for us by prolonged delays. The single advantage perhaps of delay is, that in the summer I get stronger every week and fitter to travel—and then, it never was thought of before (that I have heard) to precede September _so_. Last year, was I not ordered to leave England in October, and _permitted_ to leave it in November? Yet I agree, November and perhaps October might be late—might be running a risk through lingering ... in our case; and you will believe me when I say I should be loth to run the risk of being forced to the further delay of a year—the position being scarcely tenable. Now for September, it generally passes for a hot month—it ripens the peaches—it is the figtime in Italy. Well—nobody decides for September nevertheless. The end of August is nearer—and at any rate we can consider, and observe the signs of the heavens and earth in the meanwhile—there is so much to think of first; and the end, remember, is only too frightfully easy. Also you shall not have it on your conscience to have killed me, let ever so much snow fall in September. If the sea should be frozen over, almost we might go by the land—might we not? and apart from fabulous ports, there are the rivers—the Seine, the Saône, the Rhone—which might be cheaper than the sea and the steamers; and _would_, I almost should fancy. These are things among the multitude, to think of, and you shall think of them, dearest, in your wisdom. Oh—there is time—full time.

No—there is not, in a sense. I wanted to write so much more, so much—and I went out to walk first, and, on returning, met Mr. Kenyon, who came up-stairs with me.

Now it is too late to add a word.

May God bless you. I shall see you on Monday. I am better for Highgate—I walked longer to-day than usual. How strong you make me, you who make me happy!

I am your own.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 29, 1846.]

My last letter will have answered this of yours, my dearest,—I agree in all you say; and sooner or later comes to the same thing, if to any possible increase of difficulty is brought a proportionate increase of strength to undergo it—as let us hope will be the case! So you see you have to ‘understand’ and understand me,—I keep your faculty in constant exercise, now with seeming to wish for postponement, and now, for anticipation! And all the time do I really ‘grow greater’ in your eyes? I might grow less woefully,—‘for reasons—for reasons’—

The sea will not be frozen, beside ... which makes me think to tell you that Carlyle is wanting to visit only one foreign country—_Iceland_. The true cradle of the Northmen and their virtues ... all that is worth a Northman’s caring to see is there, he thinks, and nowise in Italy. Perhaps! Indeed, so I _reason_ and say—Did I not once turn on myself and speak against the Southern spirit, and even Dante, just because of that conviction?—(or _imperfect_ conviction, whence the uneasy exaggeration). Carlyle thinks modern Italy’s abasement a direct judgment from God. ‘Here is a nation in whose breast arise men who _could_ doubt, examine the new problems of the reformation &c.—trim the balance at intervals, and throw overboard the accumulation of falsehood—all other nations around, less favoured, are doing it laboriously for themselves ... now is the time for the acumen of the Bembos, the Bentivoglios and so forth ... and these and their like, one and all, turn round, decline the trouble, say ‘these things _may_ be true, or they may not, meantime let us go on verse-making, painting, music-scoring’—to which all the nation accedes as if relieved of a trouble—upon which God bids the Germans go in and possess them; pluck their fruits and feel their sun after their own hard work.’ Carlyle said the _sense_ of this, between two huge pipe-whiffs, the other afternoon.

‘Pluck their fruits’—some four years ago I planted ... or held straight while my mother planted, a fig-tree,—for love of Italy! This year it bears its first fruit ... a single one! what does that bode?

Since I wrote the last paragraph, the wind took my thoughts away, as it always does, and I saw you again as I used to see, _before_ I knew you, so very substanceless, faint, unreal—when I was struck by the reality again,—by this paper,—by to-morrow’s visit I shall pay ... it was as if someone had said ‘but that star is your own.’

I fancied you just what I find you—I knew you from the beginning.

Let me kiss you dearest dearest—

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

Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 30, 1846.]

The gods and men call you by your name, but I never do—never dare. In case of invocation, tell me how you should be called by such as I? not to be always the ‘inexpressive _He_’ which I make of you. In case of courage for invocation!—

Dearest ... (which is a name too) read on the paper inside what I have been studying about Salerno since we parted yesterday. Forsyth is too severe in his deductions, perhaps, from the apothecaries, but your Naples book will not help me to contradict him, saying neither the one thing nor the other. The word we could not read in the letter yesterday, was _La Cava_—and La Cava is a town on the way between Naples and Salerno, which Mrs. Stark describes as ‘a large town with porticoes on each side of the High Street, like those at Bologna.’ To which the letter adds, remember ‘enchantingly beautiful, very good air and no English. Then there is Vietri, mentioned by Forsyth, between La Cava and Salerno, and _on the bay_. It is as well to think of all three. Were you ever at either? Amalfi itself appears to be very habitable. Oh—and your Naples book says of Salerno, that it is illuminated by fireflies, and that the chanting of frogs covers the noises of the city. You will like the frogs, if you don’t the apothecaries, and I shall like the fireflies if I don’t the frogs—but I _do_ like frogs, you know, and it was quite a mistake of yours when you once thought otherwise.

Now I am going out in the carriage, to call on Mr. Kenyon, and perhaps to see Mr. Boyd. Your flowers are more beautiful than they were yesterday, if possible: and the fresh coolness helps them to live, so, that I hope you may see some of them on Saturday when you come. On Saturday! What a time to wait! if not for _them_, yet for _me_. Of the two, it is easier for them, certainly. _They_ only miss a little dew and air.

I shall write again to-night,—but I cannot be more then than now, nor less _ever_ than now

Your own

BA.

Here is a coincidence. Hardly had you left me, when, passing near the table at the end of the room, I saw a parcel there. Remember your question about the ‘_Year of the World_’ Precisely that! With a note, the counterpart of yours—desiring an opinion!

May God bless you, dear, _dear_!—Did I ever think I should live to thank God that I did not die five years ago?—Not that I quite, quite dare to do it yet. I must be sure first of something.

Which is not your _love_, my beloved—it is a something still dearer and of more consequence.

SALERNO.

‘Though placed between the beauties of sea and land, of
cultivated and rude nature, the city is _so unhealthy_ that its
richer inhabitants remove to Vietri during the hot months. In
proof of its bad air, I remark here a number of apothecaries!’

FORSYTH.

‘Its white houses curving round the haven at the water’s brink,
the mountains crowding close behind the city, the ruins of
its Gothic castle on the olive-covered hill above, together
mirrored on the waveless water, itself alternate shine and
shadow—’tis a noble sight.

‘The view from Salerno is one of the loveliest pictures in
Italy. A clear-complexioned, open-eyed, and bright-faced city
is modern Salerno,—and its streets and piazza were all astir.’

_Letters from Naples._

‘This town, the approach to which is enchanting, boasts a
tolerably good _inn_!!’

MRS. STARKE.

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 30, 1846.]

I have looked in the map for ‘L——,’ the place praised in the letter, and conclude it must be either Ceva, (La Ceva, between Nocera and Salerno, about four miles from the latter, and on the mountain-side, I suppose ... see a map, my Ba!)—or else _Lucera_, (which looks very like the word ... and which lies at about sixty miles to the N.E. of Naples, in a straight line over the mountains and roadless country, but perhaps twice as far by the mainway through _Avellino_, _Ariano_, _Bovino_, and Savia—exactly 120 Italian miles now that I count the posts). So that there would be somewhat of a formidable journey to undertake after the sea voyage. I daresay at Ceva there is abundance of quietness, as the few who visit Salerno do not go four miles inland,—can you enquire into this?

How inexpressibly charming it is to me to have a pretext for writing thus ... about such approaches to the real event—these business-like words, and names of places! If at the end you should bring yourself to say ‘But you never seriously believed this would take place’—what should I answer, I wonder?

Let me think on what is real, indisputable, however ... the improvement in the health as I read it on the dear, dear cheeks yesterday. This morning is favourable again ... you will go out, will you not?

Mr. Kenyon sends me one of his kindest letters to ask me to dine with him next week—on Wednesday. I feel _his_ kindness, just as you feel in the other case, and in its lesser degree, I feel it,—and then I know,—dare think I know whether he will be so sorry in the end,—loving you as he does. I will send his letter that you may understand here as elsewhere.

I think my head is dizzy with reading the debates this morning—Peel’s speech and farewell. How exquisitely absurd, it just strikes me, would be any measure after Miss Martineau’s own heart, which should introduce women to Parliament as we understand its functions at present—how essentially retrograde a measure! Parliament seems no place for originating, creative minds—but for second-rate minds influenced by and bent on working out the results of these—and the most efficient qualities for such a purpose are confessedly found oftener with men than with women—physical power having a great deal to do with it beside. So why shuffle the heaps together which, however arbitrarily divided at first, happen luckily to lie pretty much as one would desire,—here the great flint stones, here the pebbles—and diamonds too. The men of genius knew all this, said more than all this, in their way and proper place on the outside, where Miss M. is still saying something of the kind—to be taken up in its time by some other Mr. Cobden and talked about, and beleaguered. But such people cannot or will not see where their office begins and advantageously ends; and that there is such a thing as influencing the influencers, playing the Bentham to the Cobden, the Barry to a Commission for Public Works, the Lough to the three or four industrious men with square paper caps who get rules and plummets and dot the blocks of marble all over as his drawings indicate. So you and I will go to Salerno or L—— (not to the L—akes, Heaven forefend!) and if we ‘let sail winged words, freighted with truth from the throne of God’—we may be sure——

Ah, presumption all of it! Then, you shall fill the words with their freight, and I will look on and love you,—is that too much? _Yes_—for any other—_No_—for one you [know] is _yours_—

Your very own.

For the quick departing yesterday our day was not spoken of ... it is Saturday, is it not?

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

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 1, 1846.]

Thank you for letting me see dear Mr. Kenyon’s letter. He loves you, admires you, trusts you. When what is done cannot be undone, then he will forgive you besides—that is, he will forgive both of us, and set himself to see all manner of good where now he would see evil if we asked him to look. So we will not, if you please, ask him to look on the encouragement of ever so many more kind notes, pleasant as they are to read, and worthy to trust to, under certain conditions. Dear Mr. Kenyon—but how good he is! And I love him more (shall it be _under-love_?) because of his right perception and understanding of _you_—no one among men sets you higher than he does as a man and as a poet—even if he misses the subtle sense, sometimes.

So you dine with him—don’t you? And I shall have you on Wednesday instead of Thursday! yes, certainly. And on Saturday, of course, next time.

In the carriage, to-day, I went first to Mr. Kenyon’s, and as he was not at home, left a card for a footstep. Then Arabel and Flush and I proceeded on our way to Mr. Boyd’s in St. John’s Wood, and I was so nervous ... so anxious for an excuse for turning back ... that ... can you guess what Arabel said to me? ‘Oh Ba’; she said, ‘such a coward as _you_ are, never will be ... married, while the world lasts.’ Which made me laugh if it did not make me persevere—for you see by it what her notion is of an heroic deed! So, there, I stood at last, at the door of poor Mr. Boyd’s dark little room, and saw him sitting ... as if he had not moved these seven years—these seven heavy, changeful years. Seeing him, my heart was too full to speak at first, but I stooped and kissed his poor bent-down forehead, which he never lifts up, his chin being quite buried in his breast. Presently we began to talk of Ossian and Cyprus wine, and I was forced, as I would not have Ossian for a god, to take a little of the Cyprus,—there was no help for me, nor alternative: so I took as little as I could, while he went on proving to me that the Adamic fall and corruption of human nature (Mr. Boyd is a great theologian) were never in any single instance so disgustingly exemplified as in the _literary controversy about Ossian_; every man of the Highland Society having a lost soul in him; and Walter Scott ... oh, the woman who poisoned all her children the other day, is a saint to Walter Scott, ... so we need not talk of him any more. ‘Arabel!—how much has she taken of that wine? not half a glass.’ ‘But Mr. Boyd, you would not have me be obliged to carry her home.’

That visit being over, we went into the Park, Hyde Park, and drove close to the Serpentine, and then returned. Flush would not keep his head out of the window (his favourite pleasure) all the way, because several drops of rain trickled down his ears. Flush has no idea of wetting his ears:—his nose so near, too!

Right you are, I think, in opposition to Miss Martineau, though your reasons are too gracious to be right ... except indeed as to the physical inaptitude, which is an obvious truth. Another truth (to my mind) is, that women, as they _are_ (whatever they _may be_) have not mental strength any more than they have bodily; have not instruction, capacity, wholeness of intellect enough. To deny that women, as a class, have defects, is as false I think, as to deny that women have wrongs.

Then you are right again in affirming that the creators have no business _there_, with the practical men—_you_ should not be _there_ for instance. And _I_ (if I am to be thought of) would be prouder to eat cresses and maccaroni (Dearest—there is a manufactory of maccaroni and writing-paper at Amalfi close by—observe that combination! maccaroni and writing-paper!) _I_ would be prouder to eat cresses and maccaroni with _you_ as _you_, than to sit with diamonds in my ears, under the shelter of the woolsack, _you_ being a law-lord and parliamentary maker of speeches! By the way, I _couldn’t_ have diamonds in my ears: they never were _bored_ for it ... as I never was _born_ for it. A physical inaptitude, here too!