Chapter XII: Part 12

Shall I say what you tell me ... ‘You never seriously believed’ ... shall I? I will, if you like. But it is not _Ceva_, if you like—it is Cava ... La Cava ... in my map, and according to my authorities. Otherwise, the place is the same—four miles from Salerno, I think, and ‘enchantingly beautiful.’ It is worth an enquiry certainly, this enchanting place which has no English in it, with porticoes like Bologna, and too little known to be spelt correctly by the most accomplished geographers.

Ah—your head is ‘_dizzy_,’ my beloved! Tell me how it is now. And tell me how your mother is. I think of you—love you. I, who am discontented with myself, ... self-condemned as unworthy of you, in all else ... am yet satisfied with the _love_ I have for you—it seems worthy of you, as far as an abstract affection can go, without taking note of the personality loving.

Do you see the meaning through the mist? Do you accept

Your very own

BA?

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, July 1, 1846.]

Dearest—dearest, you _did_ once, one time only, call me by my name—Robert; and though it was to bid ‘R. not talk extravagances’ (your very words) still the name so spoken became what it never had been before to me. I never am called by any pet-name, nor abbreviation, here at home or elsewhere.... Oh, best let it alone ... it is one of my incommunicable advantages to have a Ba of my own, and call her so—indeed, yes, my Ba! I write ‘dearest,’ and ‘most dearest,’ but it all ends in—‘Ba,’ and the ‘my’ is its framework,—its surrounding arm—Ba—my own Ba! ‘Robert’ is in Saxon, (_ni fallor_), ‘famous in counsel,’ so let him give a proof of his quality in counselling you to hold your good, happy inspiration about La Cava (my French map-maker must have had _Ceva in Piedmont_ in his head) for at such a place, so situate, we renounce not one sight at Salerno, nor Amalfi, nor Sorrento ... four miles ... the distance between your house and Highgate, perhaps! Cava,—the hollow of a hill; and such hills and such hollows are in that land! Oh, let it be La Cava—or Seven Dials, _with you_!

I passed through Seven Dials this morning—and afterward, by your house,—with a heart full of thoughts,—not fuller than usual, but they were more stirring and alive, near their source. I called at Mrs. Procter’s door (proceeding from Forster’s) and then on Mrs. Jameson whom I found and talked with pleasantly till a visitor came. I do extremely appreciate her, delight in her ... to avoid saying ‘love’—I was never just to her before, far from it. I saw her niece, a quiet earnest-looking little girl. But did it not please me to call in at Moxon’s and hear that (amongst other literary news dexterously enquired after) Miss Barrett’s poems were selling very well and would ere long be out of print? And, after that pleasure, came the other of finding dear, generous, noble Carlyle had sent his new edition of ‘Cromwell,’ three great volumes, with his brave energetic assurance of ‘regards’ and ‘many’ of them, in black manly writing on the first page. So may he continue to like me till he knows you; when it will be ‘mine’ instead of me, that he shall love—‘love’? I let the whole world love you—if they can overtake my love. As I read on, about the visit to Mr. Boyd, I thought, ‘I trust she will kiss his forehead,’—and I kiss yours—thus—for _that_, too,—in gratitude for that. You dear, good, blessing of a Ba, how I kiss you!—

R.B.

I am quite well to-day, and my mother is quite well—The good account of the visit is enough to make me happy on a Wednesday—leading to a Saturday! Then my two letters!

I did not see Moxon—only the brother—who tells odd stories drily; one made me laugh to-day. Poor Mr. Reade, Landor’s love, sent a book to Campbell the Poet, and then called on him ... to discover him in the very act of wiping a razor on a leaf torn out of the book, laid commodiously by his toilet-table for the express purpose.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, July 2, 1846.]

No, No! indeed I never did. If you heard me say ‘Robert,’ it was on a stair-landing in the House of Dreams—never anywhere else! Why how could you fancy such a thing? Wasn’t it rather your own disquieted Conscience which spoke instead of me, saying ‘Robert, don’t be extravagant.’ Yes—just the speech _that_ is, for a ‘good _un_easy,’ discerning Conscience—and you took it for my speech! ‘Don’t be extravagant’ I may certainly have said. Both I and the Conscience might have said so obvious a thing.

Ah—and now I have got the name, shall I have courage to say it? tell me, best councillor! I like it better than any other name, though I never spoke it with my own lips—I never called any one by such a name ... except once when I was in the lane with Bertha. One uncle I have, called Robert—but to me he is an ‘uncle Hedley’ and no more. So it is a white name to take into life. Isn’t this an Hebraic expression of a preferring affection ... ‘_I have called thee by thy name._’? And therefore, because you are the best, only dearest!——_Robert._

You passed by and I never knew! How foolish—but really it quite strikes me as something wonderful, that I should not have known. I knew however of your being in London, because ... (don’t expect supernatural evidence) Mrs. Jameson told me. She was here with me about five, and brought her niece whom I liked just for the reasons you give; and herself was feeling and affectionate as ever:—it is well that you should give me leave to love her a little. Once she touched upon Italy ... and I admitted that I thought of it, and thought it probable as an event ... on which she pressed gently to know ‘on what I counted.’ ‘Perhaps on my own courage,’ I said. ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed ‘now I see clearly.’

Which made me smile ... the idea of her seeing clearly, but earnestly and cordially she desired me to remember that to be useful to me in any manner, would give her pleasure. Such kindness! The sense of it has sunk into my heart. You cannot praise her too much for _me_. She was so kind, that when she asked me to go to see her in Mortimer Street on Friday, I could not help agreeing at once: and I am to have the sofa and no company—that’s a promise. She asked me to go at twelve o’clock, and to bring Mr. Kenyon for an escort—but I would not answer for Mr. Kenyon’s going, only half promising for myself. Now I must try to fix a later hour, because....

Listen to the _because_. My aunt, Miss Clarke, and my cousin, her adopted daughter and niece, come to-morrow evening, and stay in this house ... oh, I cannot tell you how long: for a whole week as a beginning, certainly. I have been sighing and moaning so about it that Arabel calls it quite a scandal—but when one can’t be glad, why should it be so undutiful to appear sad? If she had but stayed in Paris six months longer! Well!—and to-morrow morning Miss Mitford comes to spend the day like the kind dear friend she is; and I, not the least in the world glad to see her! Why have you turned my heart into such hard porphyry? Once, when it was plain clay, every finger (of these womanly fingers) left a mark on it—and now, ... you see! Even Mrs. Jameson makes me grateful to her chiefly (as I know in myself) because she sees you as you are in part, and will forgive me for loving you as soon as she hears of it ... however she may, and must consistently, expect us to torment one another, according to the way of the ‘artistic temperament,’ evermore, and ever more and more. But for the rest, the others who do not know you and value you ... _I hate to see them_ ... and there’s the truth! There is something too in the concealment, the reserve, the doubleness enforced on occasion! ... which is painful and hateful. Detestable it all is.

And _I_ like La Cava too! Think of a hollow in the mountain ... something like a cave, do you think? At least it must be a hollow in the mountains. I wrote to my friend this morning to ask if the place is considered warm, and if she knew any more of it. The ‘_porticoes as at Bologna_’ look attractive too by the dreamlight we look at them by; and _Baba_ may escape the forty thieves of English in the _Cave_, with a good watchword like Sesame—now that’s half _my_ nonsense and half yours, I beg you to observe. I won’t be at the charge of it all.

I was out to-day—walked up, walked down, in my old fashion—only I do improve in walking, I think, and gain strength.

May God bless you dear dearest! I am your own.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, July 2, 1846.]

Dear, you might as well imagine you had never given me any other of the gifts, as that you did not call me, as I tell you. You spoke quickly, interrupting me, and, for the name, ‘I can hear it, ’twixt my spirit and the earth-noise intervene’; do you think I forget one gift in another, even a greater? I should still taste the first freshness of the vinegar, (or whatever was the charm of it)—though Cleopatra had gone on dissolving pearl after pearl in it. I love you for these gifts to me now—hereafter, it seems almost as if I must love you even better, should you choose to continue them to me in spite of complete knowledge: I feel this as often as I think of it, which is not seldom.

Do you know, Mrs. Jameson asked _me_ to go and see her on Friday morning—would you like me to go? What _I_ like ... do not fancy,—because your own pleasure is to be consulted. Should you fear the eyes, which _can_, on occasion, wear spectacles? If not ... and if our Saturday will not be interfered with ... and if you can tell me the hour ‘later than twelve’ you mean to appoint, ... so that my call may be neither too early nor too late ... why, then, Ba, dearest, dearest—

La Cava—is surely our cave, Ba—early in October will be vintage-time,—no fire flies. There will be the advantage in the vicinity of Naples, that through the Rothschilds’ House there we can, I believe, receive and dispatch letters without any charge, which otherwise would be an expensive business in Italy. The economy of the Post Office there is astounding. A stranger goes to a window and asks for ‘A’s’ or ‘Z’s’ letters ... not even professing himself to be ‘A,’ or ‘Z’—whereupon the official hands over sundry dozens of letters, without a word of enquiry, out of which the said stranger picks what pleases him, and paying for his selections, goes away and there an end. At Venice, I remember, they offered me, with other letters, about ten or fifteen for the Marquis of Hastings who was not arrived yet—I had only to say ‘I am sent for them’.... At Rome a lady lamented to me the sad state of things ‘A letter might contain Heaven only knew what and lie at the office and’—‘_I_ might go and get it,’ I said—‘You? Nay, my husband might!’ she answered as one mightily wronged.

But of your dear self now—the going out will soon and effectually cure the nervousness, we may be sure. I am most happy, love, to hear of the walking and increased strength. So you used to like riding on a donkey? Then you shall have a mule, un bel mulo, and I will be your muleteer, walk by your side—and you will think the moment you see him of the wicked shoeing of cats with walnut-shells, for they make a mule’s shoes turn up, for all the world like large shells—those on his forefeet at least. Will the time really come then? Meanwhile, your visitors ... let us hope they will go sight-seeing or call-making, do anything but keep the house on our days.... The three hours seem as a minute ... if they are to be curtailed,—oh, no, no, I hope. Tell me all you can, dearest ... and let me tell you all I can, little as it is, in kissing you, my best and dearest Ba, as now kisses your very own.

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

Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 3, 1846.]

But, ever dearest, I do so fear that I shall not be able to get to Mrs. Jameson’s to-morrow at all! not at twelve, I fear, I fear. Our visitors are to arrive late to-night, too late for me to see them: and for me to go away at twelve in the morning, just about the hour when they might reasonably expect to have and to hold me, ... seems altogether unlawful, according to my sisters. Yet the temptation is strong. Would half-past twelve be too early for you, if I could manage to go at twelve? Ah—but I shall not be able, I do fear. Just see how it becomes possible and impossible at once for us to touch hands! I could almost wring mine, to see! For I _could_ dare the spectacles, the hypothetical spectacles, and the eyes discerning without them: she has no idea to begin with—and you would not say ‘Ba, let us order the mules,’ I suppose. If I went, it would be _alone_—but probably I shall not be able—so you had better not think of me, and pay your visit at your own hour ‘after the devices of your heart.’

In the meanwhile, quite you make me laugh by your positiveness about the name-calling. Well—if ever I did such a thing, it was in a moment of unconsciousness all the more surprising, that, even to my own soul, in the lowest spirit-whisper, I have not been in the _habit_ of saying ‘Robert,’ speaking of you. You have only been The One. No word ever stood for you. The Idea admitted of no representative—the words fell down before it and were silent. Still such very positive people must be right of course—they always are. At any rate it is only one illusion more—and some day I expect to hear you say and swear that you saw me fly out of one window and fly in at another. So much for your Cleopatra’s Roman pearls, oh my famous in council!—and appreciation of sour vinegar!

Dear Miss Mitford came at two to-day and stayed until seven, and all those hours you were not once mentioned—_I_ had not courage—and she perhaps avoided an old subject of controversy ... I do not know. It is singular that for this year past you are not mentioned between us, while other names come up like grass in the rain. No single person will be more utterly confounded than she, when she comes to be aware of what you are to me now—and _that_ I was thinking to-day, while she talked to never a listener. She will be confounded, and angry perhaps—it will be beyond her sympathies or if they reach so far, the effort to make them do so will prove a more lively affection for me, than, with all my trust in her goodness, I dare count on. Yet very good and kind and tender, she was to me to-day. And very variously intelligent and agreeable. Do you know, I should say that her _natural_ faculties were stronger than Mrs. Jameson’s—though the latter has a higher aspiration and, in some ways, a finer sensibility of intellect. You would certainly call her superior to her own books—certainly you would. She walks strongly on her two feet in this world—but nobody shall see her (not even _you_) fly out of a window. Too closely she keeps to the ground, I always feel. Now Mrs. Jameson can ‘aspire’ like Paracelsus; and believes enough in her own soul, to know a poet when she sees one. Ah—but all cannot be all.

Miss Mitford wrung a promise from me—that ‘if I were well enough and in England next summer, I would go to see _her_.’ So remember. Isn’t it a promise for two?

Only we shall be mule-riding in those days—unless I shall have tired you. _Shall_ you be tired of me in one winter, I wonder? My programme is, to let you try me for one winter, and if you are tired (as I shall know without any confession on your side) why then I shall set the mule on a canter and leave you in La Cava, and go and live in Greece somewhere all alone, taking enough with me for bread and salt. Is it a jest, do you think? Indeed it is not. It is very grave earnest, be sure. I believe that I never could quarrel with you; but the same cause would absolutely hinder my living with you if you did not love me. We could not lead the abominable lives of ‘married people’ all round—you _know_ we could not—_I_ at least know that _I_ could not, and just because I love you so entirely. Then, you know, you could come to England by yourself—and ... ‘Where’s Ba?’—‘Oh, she’s somewhere in the world, I suppose. How can _I_ tell?’ And then Mrs. Jameson would shake her head, and observe that the problem was solved exactly as she expected, and that artistical natures smelt of sulphur and brimstone, without any exceptions.

Am I laughing? am I crying? who can tell. But I am not _teazing_, ... Robert! because, my Robert, if gravely I distrusted your affection, I could not use such light-sounding words on the whole—now could I? It is only the supposition of a _possible_ future ... just possible ... (as the end of human affections passes for a possible thing)—which made me say what I would do in such a case.

But I am yours—your own: and it is impossible, in my _belief_, that I can ever fail to you so as to be less yours, on this side the grave or across it. _So_, I think of _im_possibilities—whatever I may, of possibilities!

Will it be possible to see you to morrow, I wonder! I ask myself and not you.

And if you love me only nearly as much (instead of the prodigal ‘more’) _afterward_, I shall be satisfied, and shall not run from you further than to the bottom of the page.

Where you see me as your own

BA.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 3, 1846.]

I am forced to say something now which you will not like and which I, for my part, hate to say—but you shall judge how impossible it is for me to see you to-morrow.

The visitors did not come last night; and as this morning we expected them hourly, the post brought a letter instead, to the effect that they were to arrive just _on Saturday_ ... leaving us to calculate the time of arrival between one p.m. to five or six. If at one, ... Papa will be in the house and likely to stay in it all day after ... which would be a complication of disadvantages for us, and if at three ... why even so, my aunt would ‘admire’ a little the reason of my not seeing her at once, and there would be questions and answers a faire frémir. So dearest dearest, I must try to live these two days more without seeing you—and indeed it will be hard work—the very light of the sun to-morrow, let it be ever so bright a sun, will only reproach the day with what it _ought_ to have been ... _our_ day, instead of everybody’s day or nobody’s day, a poor, blank, dreary day. What, when the clock is at three ... oh _what_ will keep me, I wonder, from being sullen to my aunt and sulky to my cousin? They will think me (if my ministering angel should not throw me some hallowing thought of _you_, best beloved!) considerably fallen off in the _morale_, however the improvement may be of the bodily health—I shall be as cross, as cross ... well, if I am less than cross, you must be right after all, and I, ‘une femme miraculeuse’ without illusion! It is too bad, too bad. The whole week—from Monday to Monday! And I do not positively fix even Monday, though I hope for Monday:—but Monday may be taken from us just as Saturday is, and the Hedleys are to come on _Tuesday_ ... only not to this house. I wish they were all at Seringapatam.

Do not mind it however. Yes, mind it a little, ... Robert! but not overmuch—because the day shall not be lost utterly—I shall take care. I will be on the watch for half-days when people go out to shop ... that solemn business of life, ... and we will have our lost day back again ... you will see. But I could not get to Mrs. Jameson’s this morning, not being quite well enough. It is _nothing_ as illness,—I tell you the truth, dear—and even now I feel better than I did in the early morning. It was only just enough to prevent my going. And if I had gone I should not have seen you—you would not go in time—you would not perhaps even have my letter in time. The stars are against us for the moment, it seems.

Write to me, think of me, love me. You shall hear on Saturday and on Sunday, and we will settle about Monday.

After all, it would have been difficult to have met you at Mrs. Jameson’s, observing the ‘fitness of things’: ... and as I am subject to the madness of saying ‘Robert’ without knowing it...!

May God bless you. Say how you are! Don’t let me slide out of your mind through this rift in the rock. I catch at the jutting stones.

I am your own BA.

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

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

No, dear, dear Ba, I shall not see you to-day in spite of all the hoping and fancying ... for I could not, as I calculate, reach Mrs. Jameson’s before 1 o’clock or a little later ... and there would be the worst of vexations, to know you had been and gone again! I persuade myself you may not pay the visit to-day, ... (‘it is impossible’ you say), and that it may be paid next week, the week in which there is only one day for us ... how do you say, dearest? all complaining is vain—let to-morrow make haste and arrive!

Ba, there is nothing in your letter that shocks me,—nothing: if you choose to imagine _that_ ‘possibility,’ you are consistent in imagining the proper step to take ... it is all imagining. But I feel altogether as you feel about the horribleness of married friends, mutual esteemers &c.—when your name sounds in my ear like any other name, your voice like other voices,—when we wisely cease to interfere with each other’s pursuits,—respect differences of taste &c. &c., all will be over _then_!

I cannot myself conceive of one respect in which I shall ever fall from this feeling for you ... there never has been one word, one gesture unprompted by the living, immediate love beneath—but there have been many, many, _so_ many that the same love has suppressed, refused to be represented by! I say this, because I can suppose a man taking up a service of looks and words, which service is only to last for a time, and so may be endured,—after which the ‘real affection,’ ‘honest attachment’ &c. &c. means to go to its ends by a shorter road, saving useless ceremony and phrases ... do you know what I mean? I hardly do ... except that it is, whatever it is, opposed, as heaven to earth, to what I feel is. I count confidently on being more and more able to find the true words and ways (which may not be _spoken_ words perhaps), the true rites by which you should be worshipped, you dear, dear Ba, my entire blessing now and ever—and _ever_; if God shall save me also.

Let me kiss you now, and long for to-morrow—I shall bring you the poorest flowers——all is brown, dry, autumnal. The sun shines and reproves me.... After all, there would have been some rocks in the pleasant water of to-day’s meeting ... ‘Oh, hardness to dissemble’!

Here is no dissembling.... I kiss you, my very own!

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

Friday Night,
[Post-mark, July 4, 1846.]

Ah! ‘to-morrow, make haste and arrive.’ And what good will to-morrow do when it comes?

Dearest, with your letter to-night, I have a note from Mrs. Jameson, who proposes that I should go to her just on this to-morrow, between twelve and one: she will wait for me till one and then go out. Moreover she leaves town on Tuesday. Now I think I ought to try to be with her this time, therefore, on the hour she mentions, and I will try ... I mean to try. But as for seeing you even _so_, and for a moment, ... I understand that it scarcely is possible—no, _not_ possible—you cannot have time, I think. Thinking which, understanding which, I shall yet, in spite of reason, listen for the footstep and the voice: certainly I shall not help doing _that_.

Our to-morrow!—How they have spoilt it for us! In revenge, I shall love you to-morrow twice as much, looking at my dead flowers. Twice as much!! ‘_Ba, never talk extravagances._’ _Twice as much_ is a giant fifty feet high. It is foolish to be fabulous.

Being better this evening (almost as if I were sure to see you in the morning) I went out to drive with Arabel and Flush, about six o’clock,—and we were not at home until eight, after having seen a mirage (as it appeared) of green fields and trees. Beyond Harrow cemetery we went, through silent lanes and hedgerows—so silent, so full of repose! Quite far away over the tops of the trees, was ‘_London_,’ Arabel said ... but I could see only a cloud:—it seemed no more, nor otherwise. Once she got out and went into a field to give Flush a run—and I, left to myself and you, read your last letter in the carriage, under the branches which were dropping separate shadows of every leaf they had. The setting sun forced them to it. Oh—but I send you no leaves, because I could not reach any, and did not get out to walk to-day where I might have gathered them. Arabel tried hard to persuade me to go into the cemetery—but let me deserve all she said to me about weakness and foolishness, ... really that sort of thing does sadden me—my spirits fall flat with it: it is the dark side of death. So I begged her to go by herself and to leave me.... I would wait for her—and she should have as long a pleasure in that pleasure-ground of the Dead, as she liked. ‘Very pretty,’ it is said to be—the dissenters and the churchpeople planted in separate beds; and the Roman Catholics conspicuous for their roses! Oh that ghastly mixture of horror and frivolity! The _niaiserie_ of their divisions and subdivisions taken down so carefully into the dust! But Arabel did not go at last, and we were at home quite late enough.

May God bless you, dear, dear! Give me all my thoughts (those that belong to me) to-morrow. Poor disinherited to-morrow.

I will _write_ to-morrow, at any rate—and _hear_—let me hear.

And you are the best, best! When I speak lead, you answer gold. Because I ‘do not shock’ you, you melt my heart away with joy.

Yet I can love you enough, even I!

Your BA.

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, July 4, 1846.]

Dearest Ba, I am at Mrs. Jameson’s ... to hear you cannot come; most properly. She wants me to go and see an Exhibition, and I cannot refuse ... so this is my poor long letter (with kisses in the words), that was to have been! But on Monday, dearest, dearest, I shall see you? All thanks for your letter.... I dare write no more, as there _must_ be some difference in my way of writing to you from other ways.

Bless you, ever, as I am ever yours—

R.

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, July 4, 1846.]

Ah, this Saturday! how heavily the wheels of it turn round! as if ‘with all the weights of sleep and death hung at them.’ After all it was not possible for me to get to Mrs. Jameson’s this morning ... not that I was unwell to _signify_, mind—but unfit for the exertion—and it would not have been agreeable to anybody if I had gone there and fainted. So here I am, the picture of helpless indolence, stretched out at full length between the chair and the high stool, thinking how you will not to-day sit on the low one, nor in your old own place by me——oh how I think, think, think of you, to make imperfect amends! Are you disappointed ... _you_? I hope you are, and I fear you are. My generosity does not carry me through the hope of it to the end. I love your love too much. And _that_ is the worst fault, my beloved, I ever can find in my love of _you_.

Look, what Miss Mitford has sent me from the _Daily News_—Mr. Horne’s lament for poor Haydon. Tell me if you do not like it. It has moved me much, and as a composition it is fine, I think,—worthy of ‘Orion.’ I shall write to Mr. Horne to thank him, as one reader of many, for touching that solemn string into such a right melody. To my mind, it is worth, and more than worth, twenty such books as his ballad-book—tell me if it isn’t. It has much affected me.

Papa went out early—so we should have escaped the ‘complication’—but every half-hour we are expecting our visitors. And for Monday ... I scarcely dare say yet ‘Come on Monday.’ Only we will find our lost Pleiads ... of that, be very sure—_I_ am very sure. Still to miss one for a moment draws me into darkness—or ... do you not know that you are _all_ my stars? yes, and the sun, besides! The thing which people call a sun seems to shine quite coldly to-day, because you are not on this side of my window. ‘All complaining is vain,’ do you say?

Let me pass the time a little, then, by confessing to you that what you said, some letters ago, about the character of our intercourse, in our present relation, being a sort of security for the future, ... that _that_ did strike me as a true and reasonable observation as far as it goes. I think, at least, that if I were inclined to fear for my own happiness apart from yours (which, as God knows, is a fear that never comes into my head), I should have sense to reason myself clear of it all by seeing in you none of the common rampant man-vices which tread down a woman’s peace—and which begin the work often long before marriage. Oh, I understand perfectly, how as soon as ever a common man is sure of a woman’s affections, he takes up the tone of right and might ... and he _will_ have it so ... and he _won’t_ have it so! I have heard of the bitterest tears being shed by the victim as soon as ever, by one word of hers, she had placed herself in his power. Of such are ‘Lovers’ quarrels’ for the most part. The growth of power on one side ... and the struggle against it, by means legal and illegal, on the other. There are other causes, of course—but for none of them could it be possible for _me_ to quarrel with _you_ now or ever. Neither now nor ever do I look forward to the ordinary dangers. What I have feared has been so different! May God bless you my own ... own! For my part, you have my leave to make me unhappy if you please. It only would be just that the happiness you have given, you should take away—it is yours, as I am yours.

Say how your head is—say how your mother is. Think of me with the thoughts that do good.

Your own

BA.

TO THE MEMORY OF B. R. HAYDON

_By the Author of ‘Orion’_

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse!
Thy fiery whispers rule this mortal hour,
Wherein the toiling Artist’s constant soul
Revels in glories of a visioned world,—
Power, like a god, exalting the full heart;
Beauty with subtlest ravishment of grace
Refining all the senses; while afar
Through vistas of the stars where strange friends dwell.
A temple smiles for him to take his seat
Among the happy Dead whose work is done.
Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse!
Thou lead’st the devotee through fruitful bowers
Wherein Imagination multiplies
Divinely, and, with noblest ecstasy,
To nature ever renders truth for truth.

Mourn, fatal Voice, whom ancients called the Muse!
Thou teachest to be strong and virtuous;
In labour, patient; clear-eyed as a star,
Self-truthful; vigilant within; and full
Of faith to be, and do, and send it forth;—
But teachest no man how to know himself,
His over-measures or his fallings short,
Nor how to know when he should step aside
Into the quiet shade, to wait his hour
And foil the common dragon of the earth.

O fatal Voice! so syren-sweet, yet rife
With years of sorrow, deathbeds terrible!
Mourn for a worthy son whose aims were high,
Whose faith was strong amidst a scoffing age.
No warning giv’st thou, on the perilous path,
To those who need the gold thy teaching scorns,
Heedless if other knowledge hold due watch.
Thou fill’st with heavenly bliss the enraptured eyes,
While the feet move to ruin and the grave.
Therefore, O voice, inscrutably divine,
Uplifting sunward, casting in the dust,
Forgetting man as man, and mindful only
Of the man-angel even while on earth,—
Mourn now with all thine ancient tenderness,
Mingled with tears that fall in heavy drops,
For One who lost himself, remembering thee!

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

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

You will have known by my two or three words that I received your letter in time to set out for Mrs. J.’s—she said to me, directly and naturally, ‘you have missed a great pleasure’—and then accounted for your absence. Do not be sorry, Ba, at my gladness ... for I was, I hope, glad ... yes, I am sure, glad that you ran no risk, if you will not think of _that_, think of _my_ risk if you had ‘_fainted_’ ... should I have kept the secret, do you suppose? Oh, dearest of all dreamt-of dearness,—incur no unnecessary danger now, at ... shall I dare trust,—the end of the adventure! I cannot fear for any mischance that may follow, once let my arms be round you ... I mean, the blow seems then to fall on both alike—now, what dismal, obscure months might be prolonged between us, before we meet next, by a caprice where the power is! When have I been so long without the blessing of your sight! Yet how considerately you have written, what amends you make, all that the case admits of! If I were less sure of my own mind, and what it knows for _best_, I might understand the French lover’s fancy of being separated from his mistress that he might be written to and write ... but the _very best_ I know, and have ever in sight, and constantly shall strive after ... to see you face to face, to live so and to die so—which I say, because it ends all, all that can be ended ... and yet seems in itself so encountered—no death, no end.

After all, I _may_ see you to-morrow, may I not? There is no more than a danger, an apprehension, that we may lose to-morrow also, is there? You cannot tell me after this is read ... I shall know before. If I receive _no_ letter, mind, I go to you ... so that if the Post is in fault after its custom, and your note arrives at 3 o’clock, you will know why I seem to disobey it and call ... and I shall understand why you are not to be seen—but I will hope.

When you say these exquisitely dear and tender things, you know Ba, it is as if the sweet hand were on my mouth—I cannot speak ... I try to seem as if I heard not, for all the joy of hearing ... you give me a jewel and I cannot repeat ‘you, you _do_ give me a jewel.’ I am not worthy of any gift, you _must_ know, Ba,—never say you do not—but what you press on me, let me feel and half-see, and in the end, carry away, but do not think I can, in set words, _take_ them. At most, they are, and shall be, half-gift half-loan for adornment’s sake,—mine to wear, yours to take back again. Even this, all this ungracefulness, is proper, appropriate in its way—I am penetrated with shame thinking on what you say, and what my utmost devotion will deserve ... so infinitely less will it deserve! You are my very, very angel.

Mrs. Jameson showed me the lines you had sent her, Horne’s very beautiful poem,—very earnest, very solemn and pathetic,—worthy of Horne and the subject—and you will do well to reward him as you propose. I think I will also write two or three lines,—telling him that you called my attention to the poem,—so that he may understand the new friend does not drive out the old, as the old proverb says. I will wait a day or two and write. And you are herein, too, a dear good Ba,—to write me out the verses in the characters I love best of all! I may keep them, I hope.

The weather is hot as ever: Ba, remember how I believe in you—is the indisposition ‘nothing to signify’? And remember the confidence I make you of every slightest headache or what looks like it—tell me frankly as Ba should, and will if she loves me! I am very well ... and my mother much better. I observe while I write, the clouds gather propitiously for coolness if not rain—may all be as is best for you—‘and for me?’ Then kiss me, really, through the distance, and love me, my sweetest Ba!

I am your own—

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

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

Will it do if you come on Wednesday, dearest? It will be safer I think—and, with people staying in the house, it is necessary, you see, to consider a little. My aunt is so tired with her journey that she is not likely to go out at all to-morrow—and when I remember that you dine with Mr. Kenyon on that Wednesday, it seems marked out for our day. Still I leave it to you. Never have we been so long parted, and perhaps by Wednesday you may forget me—ah no! Now I will not make the time longer by being unkind ... or even unjust.

I meant to write you a long letter to-day,—but first my aunt and cousin were here telling me all the statistics of Arabella Hedley’s marriage,—and then Mr. Kenyon came, ... and on such a very different subject, _his_ talk was, that he has left me quite depressed. It appears that poor Mr. Haydon, in a paper entering into his reasons for self-destruction, says that he has left his manuscripts to _me_, with a desire for me to arrange the terms of their publication with Longman. Of course it has affected me naturally ... such a proof of trust when he had so many friends wiser and stronger to look to—but I believe the reference to be simply to the _fact_ of his having committed to my care all his private papers in a great trunk ... one of three which he sent here. Two years ago when we corresponded, he made me read a good part of his memoirs, which he thought of publishing at that time; and then he asked me (no, it was a year and a half ago) to speak about them to some bookseller ... to Longman, he said, I remember, then. I explained, in reply, how I had not any influence with any bookseller in the world; advising him besides not to think of printing, without considerable modification, what I had read. In fact it was—with much that was individual and interesting,—as unfit as possible for the general reader—fervid and coarse at once, with personal references blood-dyed at every page. At the last, I suppose, the idea came back to him of my name in conjunction with Longman’s—I cannot think that he meant me to do any _editor’s_ work, for which (with whatever earnestness of will) I must be comparatively unfit, both as a woman and as personally and historically ignorant of the persons and times he writes of. I should not know how one reference would fall innocently, and another like a thunderbolt, on surviving persons. I only know that without great modification, the Memoirs should not appear at all ... that the scandal would be great if they did. At the same time you will feel with me, I am sure, you who always feel with me, that whatever is clearly set for me to do, I should not shrink from under these circumstances, whatever the unpleasantness may be, more or less, involved in the doing. But if Mr. Serjeant Talfourd is the executor ... is he not the obviously fit person? Well! there is no need to talk any more. Mr. Kenyon is to try to see the paper. It was Mr. Forster who came to tell him of this matter and to get him to communicate it to me. Poor Haydon!

Dearest, I long for you to come and bring me a little light. Tell me how you are—now tell me. Tell me too how your mother is.

My aunt’s presence here has seemed to throw me back suddenly and painfully into real life out of my dream-life with you——into the old dreary flats of real life. She does not know your name even—she sees in me just _Ba_ who is not your Ba—and when she talks to me ... seeing me so ... I catch the reflection of the cold abstraction as _she_ apprehends it, and feel myself for a moment a Ba who is not your Ba ... sliding back into the melancholy of it! Do you understand the curious process, I talk of so mistily? Do you understand that she makes me sorrowful with not talking of _you_ while she talks to _me_? Everything, in fact, that divides us, I must suffer from—so I need not treat metaphysically of causes and causes ... splitting the thinner straws.

Once she looked to the table where the remains of your flowers are, ... and said, ‘I suppose Miss Mitford brought you those flowers.’ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘she did not.’ ‘Oh no,’ began Arabel with a more suggestive voice, ‘not Miss Mitford’s flowers.’ But I turned the subject quickly.

Robert!—how did you manage to write me the dear note from Mrs. Jameson’s? how could you dare write and direct it before her eyes? What an audacity that was of yours. Oh—and how I regretted the missing you, as you proved it was a missing, by the letter! Twice to miss you on one day, seemed too much ill-luck ... even for _me_, I was going to write ... but _that_ would have been a word of my old life, before I knew that I was born to the best fortune and happiest, which any woman could have, ... in being loved by _you_.

Dearest, do not leave off loving me. Do not forget me by Wednesday. Shall it be Wednesday? or must it be Thursday? answer _you_.

I am your own

BA.

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, July 6, 1846.]

When I read, after the reasons for not seeing you to-day, this—‘still I leave it to you,’—believe, dearest, that I at once made the sacrifice and determined to wait till Wednesday,—as seemed best for you, and therefore for me: but at the letter’s very end, amid the sweetest, comes ‘Wednesday ... or must it be Thursday?’ What is _that_? What ‘_must_’ is mine? Shall you fear, or otherwise suffer, if we appoint Wednesday?

Oh, another year of this! Yet I am not, I feel, ungrateful to the Past ... all the obstacles in the world can do nothing now, nothing: earlier they might have proved formidable annoyances. I have seen enough of you, Ba, for an eternity of belief in you ... and you, as you confess, you cannot think ‘I shall forget.’

All you can, you compensate me for the absence—that such letters, instead of being themselves the supremest reward and last of gains, should be—compensation, at the best! Am I really to have you, all of you and altogether, and always? If you go out of your dream-life, can I lie quietly in mine? But I hold your hand and hear your voice through it all.

How do these abrupt changes in the temperature affect you? Yesterday at noon, so oppressively hot—this morning, a wind and a cold. Do you feel no worse than usual? If you do not tell me,—you know, I cannot keep away. Then, this disinspiriting bequest of poor Haydon’s journal ... his ‘writings’—from which all the harm came, and, it should seem, is still to come to himself and everybody beside—let us all forget what came of those descriptions and vindications and explanations interminable; but as for beginning another sorrowful issue of them,—it is part and parcel of the insanity—and to lay the business of editing the ‘twenty-six’ (I think) volumes, with the responsibility, on _you_—most insane! Unless, which one would avoid supposing, the author trusted precisely to your ignorance of facts and isolation from the people able to instruct you. Take one little instance of how ‘facts’ may be set down—in the _Athenæum_ was an account of Haydon’s quoting Waller’s verse about the eagle reached by his own feather on the arrow,—which he applied to Maclise and some others, who had profited by their intimacy with him to turn his precepts to account and so surpass him in public estimation: now, Maclise was in Haydon’s company for the first time at Talfourd’s on that evening when I met your brother there,—so said Talfourd in an after-supper speech,—and Forster, to whom I mentioned the circumstance, assured me that Maclise ‘called on Haydon for the first time only a few months ago’ ... I suppose, shortly after. Now, what right has Maclise, a fine generous fellow, to be subjected to such an imputation as that? With an impartial prudent man, acquainted with the artists of the last thirty years, the editing might turn to profit: I do hope for an exercise of Mr. Kenyon’s caution here, at all events. And then how horrible are all these posthumous revelations,—these passions of the now passionless, errors of the at length better-instructed! All falls unfitly, ungraciously—the triumphs or the despondencies, the hopes or fears, of—whom? He is so far above it all now! Even in this life—imagine a proficient in an art or science, who, after thirty or sixty years of progressive discovery, finds that some bookseller has disinterred and is about publishing the raw first attempt at a work which he was guilty of in the outset!

All of which you know better than I—what do you not know better? Nor as well?—that I love you with my whole heart, Ba, dearest Ba, and look up into your eyes for all light and life. Bless you.

Your very own—

I am going to Talfourd’s to-morrow (to dine)—and perhaps to Chorley’s in the evening. If I can do any bidding of yours at Talfourd’s ... but that seems improbable,—with Mr. Kenyon, too! But (_this between our very selves_) the Talfourds, or at least Mrs. T., please to take one of their unimaginably stupid groundless dislikes to him.

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, July 7, 1846.]

But I meant to ‘leave it to you,’ not to come before Wednesday but after Wednesday, in case of some Wednesday’s engagement coming to cross mine. ‘Ba’s old way’ ... do you cry out! Perhaps—only that an engagement is a possible thing always. Not meaning an engagement with Miss Campbell. I hope, hope, then, to be able to see you, dearest Robert, on Wednesday. On Wednesday, at last!

Here is a letter which I had this morning from Mr. Landor, than which can anything be more gracious? It appears ... I forgot to tell you yesterday after I heard it from Mr. Kenyon ... it appears that my note of thanks had my signature affixed to it in such a state of bad writing, that Mr. Landor, being sorely puzzled, sent the letter up to Mr. Forster to be read. Mr. Forster read it (so it _could_ be read!) and then took it to Mr. Kenyon, who read it too, and afterwards came to scold me for being perfectly illegible. It was signed at full length too, Elizabeth Barrett Barrett ... and really I couldn’t believe that I was very guilty till Mr. Landor’s own letter persuaded me this morning of its being so much pleasanter to be guilty than innocent, for the nonce.

Ah—you use the right word for the other subject. _If_ a bequest, it is indeed a ‘_dispiriting_ bequest,’ this of poor Haydon’s. But I hope to the last that he meant simply to point to _me_ as the actual holder of the papers—and certainly when he sent the great trunk here, it was with no intention of dying; Mr. Kenyon agreed with me to that effect—I showed him the notes which I had found and laid aside for you, and which you shall take with you on Wednesday. Still, there must be an editor found somewhere—because the papers cannot go as they are to a publisher’s hands from mine, if I _only hold_ them. Does any one say that I am a fit editor? Have I _the power_? the knowledge of art and artists? of the world? of the times? of the persons? All these things are against me—and others besides.

Now I will tell you one thing which he told me in confidence, but which is at length perhaps in those papers—I tell you because you are myself, and will understand the need and obligation to silence—and I want you to understand besides how the twenty-six volumes hang heavily on my thoughts. He told me in so many words that Mrs. Norton had made advances towards him—and that his children, in sympathy towards their mother, had dashed into atoms the bust of the poetess as it stood in his painting room.

If you can say anything _safely_ for me at Mr. Talfourd’s, of course I shall be glad ... and Mr. Kenyon will speak to Mr. Forster, he said. I want to get back my letters too as soon as I can do it without disturbing anyone’s peace. What is in those letters, I cannot tell, so impulsively and foolishly, sometimes, I am apt to write; and at that time, through caring for nobody and feeling so loose to life, I threw away my thoughts without looking where they fell. Often my sisters have blamed me for writing in that wild way to strangers—and I should like to have the letters back before they shall have served to amuse two or three executors—but of this too, I spoke to Mr. Kenyon.