Chapter XIV: Part 14

I called on Moxon—and called at Carlyle’s to no purpose. He was out, and will leave town (said the servant) next Saturday. Mrs. Carlyle has already left it. So, no Rag Fair for the present, or probably ever! This was my fault,—I having let several Sundays go by—I must write to Mr. Kenyon and try if he will come on his own account. Moxon tells me that he has sold fifteen hundred of Tennyson’s Poems in a year—and is about to print another edition in consequence. If that is the case, and Tennyson gets, say, only half a crown by the sale of each copy, expenses deducted, he will have received 178_l._,—little enough, as payments are made to _Punch_-literature, but enough to live upon, whatever the awful fiat decides! Tennyson ‘is going’ to Switzerland presently with Moxon—but is liable to fits of indecision. He did talk of going to Italy (of course), but the other day, time being up, his brother was forced to proceed alone. Moxon is coming here first.

Now I will kiss you, dearest, and hope that Wimpole Street stands where it did, unhurt by explosions of any-kind. I have got a letter from Procter asking me to go to-day, which I cannot do. Ever your own, very own R.

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

Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 16, 1846.]

Well! I anticipated your asking, I think, and told you _fully_ this morning. It was a chronicle I sent you, rather than a letter. And nothing is left to tell you—for I did not go out all day ... nor yesterday. Which was wrong. But I had visitor on visitor to-day, ... my old maid coming to bring me her baby to look at, to Flush’s infinite delight. Whenever she comes he devotes himself to her, stays with her down-stairs, lies on the corner of her gown, and, for the most part, forbears going to sleep. To-morrow I mean to go out ... to-morrow,—when you are beginning to think rather less of me.

Isn’t it ungrateful of me? _I think so._

I am glad, at least, that I do not appear to you ‘suspicious.’ Because I dislike suspicious people myself, and it has struck me often in the midst of the dislike.... ‘_That_ is how I must appear to _him_.’ Ah—but you are too indulgent to me, my own dearest ... too dearest! ... and you draw crooked inferences for me, shutting _both_ the eyes ... the near-sighted eye and far-sighted eye. Or is it, in that strange sight of yours, that I walk between the far and the near objects, in an invisible security? Or is it (which were best) that I am too near to be seen even by the near-sighted eye, ... like a hand brought close to the eyelashes, which, for over-closeness, nobody can see? _Let_ me be too near to be seen—always too near!—dearest, dearest! Never will I complain that you do not see me! Be sure of that, now.

Once I used to be more uneasy, and to think that I ought to _make_ you see me. But Love is better than Sight, and Love will do without Sight. Which I did not understand at first. I knew it was enough for _me_, that you should love me. That it was enough for _you_, I had to learn afterwards.

And ‘_Grateful_’ is my word and not yours. I am grateful to you, if to owe you all the sense of life, all the renewal of hope, all the possibility of happiness ... if to owe these things to another, consciously, feelingly, shall pass for gratitude, ... then _I_ am grateful to _you_, Robert. Do you not know it, that I should say it again? For me, it seems to me that I can do nothing in return. To love you! Why no woman in the world could do less.

I am glad, both for the public and Tennyson, that his poems sell so well—and presently you will do as well or better—and I, half as well perhaps; so that we shall be too rich, which will spoil it all ... won’t it?

Mr. Horne sent me the _Daily News_ to-day, ... the number containing his verses on Haydon ... and I cut from it an advertisement, for the purpose of bidding you observe that the land journey, or river-voyage, is very much cheaper than the sea-voyage by the steamers—unless the direct vessel to Leghorn should go as last year, and I fear it will not. The steamer-charges of the Oriental company are immense. Nineteen guineas to Gibraltar even! Twenty-eight, I think, to Naples. As for the advertisement, I send it only for what it suggests. And there is time enough for calculations, all ways suggestible.

May God bless you, dear, _dear_! How is the head? Shall it be better, without me, until Saturday? Say how it is.

Among all my visitors, the only one I expected, never came! No Mrs. Jameson again to-day!—

Dearest, I am your very own

BA.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, July 16, 1846.]

I should be doing your own dear face (which I see so perfectly through the distance)—too great a wrong if I so much as answered the charge of ‘not remembering.’ I see the face smile above the hand that writes! As if one may not say that a division, a wound, smarts more on the first day, and aches more on the next! As if I do not prefer the fresh sharp regret to the settling of ... what I trust in God and you I never shall feel! However, if it will please you to know, I _do_ feel to-day as earnest a longing to be with you again as if your two letters were not here,—as if Tuesday lay only an hour behind instead of the two long days!

I think your Father’s words on those two occasions, very kind,—very! They confuse,—perhaps humble me ... that is not the expression, but it may stay. I dare say he is infinitely kind at bottom—I think so, that is, on my own account,—because, come what will or may, I shall never see otherwise than with your sight. If he could know me, I think he would soon reconcile himself to all of it,—know my heart’s purposes toward you. But that is impossible—and with the sincere will to please him by any exertion or sacrifice in my power, I shall very likely never have the opportunity of picking up a glove he might drop. In old novels, the implacable father is not seldom set upon by a round dozen of ruffians with blacked faces from behind a hedge,—and just as the odds prove too many, suddenly a stranger (to all save the reader) leaps over an adjacent ditch, &c. ‘Sir, under Providence, I owe you my life!’ &c. &c. How does Dumas improve on this in ‘Monte Cristo’—are there ‘new effects?’ Absurdity! Yet I would fain ... fain! you understand.

To talk about my ‘spoiling you for other conversers’ is ... oh, leap over hedge and ditch, somebody, to the rescue! If I praise myself for anything in our intimacy it is that I never ... but I won’t go into it. And putting my own experience aside and in its place, it strikes me that what Ba ranks as a ‘third-rate man’ may pass justly for a paragon and marvel among men as the world has a right to class them. I am quite sure if I had been present and much had uttered itself about mullions ... _somebody_ would have looked a very babe in knowledge, and perhaps made Ba blush for him and her own waste of love and praise—So he retreats where he may keep it all in virtue of being what he _is_ ever is, and shall be, her own R.

The river-voyage is not only the cheaper but by far the more interesting ... _all_ to consider is the fatigue to you; what else?

I am very well to-day. Rachel’s ‘Phèdre’ was admirable last night; quite _through_ Racine up to Euripides—the declaration-scene with Hippolytus exquisite ... I must tell you—

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, July 17, 1846.]

Dearest, if _you_ feel _that_, must I not feel it more deeply? Twice or three times lately he has said to me ‘my love’ and even ‘my puss,’ his old words before he was angry last year, ... and I quite quailed before them as if they were so many knife-strokes. Anything but his _kindness_, I can bear now.

Yet I am glad that you feel _that_ ... The difficulty, (almost the despair!) has been with me, to make you understand the two ends of truth ... both that he is _not_ stone ... and that he _is_ immovable _as_ stone. Perhaps only a very peculiar nature could have held so long the position he holds in his family. His hand would not lie so heavily, without a pulse in it. Then he is upright—faithful to his conscience. You would respect him, ... and love him perhaps in the end. For me, he might have been king and father over me _to_ the end, if he had thought it worth while to love me openly enough—yet, even _so_, he should not have let you come too near. And you could not (so) have come too near—for he would have had my confidence from the beginning, and no opportunity would have been permitted to you of proving your affection for me, and I should have thought always what I thought at first. So the night-shade and the eglantine are twisted, twined, one in the other, ... and the little pink roses lean up against the pale poison of the berries—we cannot tear this from that, let us think of it ever so much!

We must be humble and beseeching _afterwards_ at least, and try to get forgiven—Poor Papa! I have turned it over and over in my mind, whether it would be less offensive, less _shocking_ to him, if an application were made first. If I were strong, I think I should incline to it at all risks—but as it is, ... it might ... would, probably, ... take away the power of action from me altogether. We should be separated, you see, from _that moment_, ... hindered from writing ... hindered from meeting ... and I could evade nothing, as I am—not to say that I should have fainting fits at every lifting of his voice, through that inconvenient nervous temperament of mine which has so often made me ashamed of myself. Then ... the positive disobedience might be a greater offence than the unauthorised act. I shut my eyes in terror sometimes. May God direct us to the best.

Oh—do not write about this, dearest, dearest?—I throw myself out of it into the pure, sweet, deep thought of you ... which is the love of you always. I am yours ... your own. I never doubt of being yours. I feel too much yours. It is might and right together. You are more to me, beside, than the whole world.

Write nothing of this, dearest of all!—it is of no use. To-day ... this morning ... I went out in the carriage, and we drove round the Park; and Mrs. Jameson did not come afterward. Will she put it off till Saturday? I have heard nothing against Saturday, by the way, worse than that conjecture of mine.

And I have written you, perhaps, a teazing, painful letter ... I, who love you to-day ‘as much as ever.’ It is my destiny, I sometimes think, to torment you. And let me say what I will, remember how nothing that I say can mean _a doubt_—you never shall have reason to reproach me for the falseness of cowardice—that double falseness ... both to me and to you. Only I wish this were Christmas-Day, and we ... even at Salerno ... in the ‘bad air’! There’s no harm in such a wish—now _is_ there?

Ever and ever I am your own

BA.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, July 17, 1846.]

Did you ever see a more uncongenial, colourless day than this—that brings me no letter! I do not despair yet, however—there will be a post presently. When I am without the sight of you, and the voice of you, which a letter seems ... I feel very accurately the justice of that figure by which I am represented as ‘able to leave you alone—leaving you and following my pleasure elsewhere’—so you have written and spoken! Well, to-day, I may follow my pleasures.

I will follow you, Ba,—the thoughts of you, and long for to-morrow.

No letter for me,—the time is past. If you are well, my own Ba, I will not mind ... more than I can. You had not been out for two days—the wind is high, too. May God keep you at all times, ever dearest!

The sun shines again—now I will hope to hear at six o’clock.

I can tell you nothing better, I think, than this I heard from Moxon the other day ... it really ought to be remembered. Moxon was speaking of critics, the badness of their pay, how many pounds a column the _Times_ allowed, and shillings the _Athenæum_,—and of the inevitable effects on the performances of the poor fellows. ‘How should they be at the trouble of reading any _difficult_ book so as to review it,—Landor, for instance?’ and indeed a friend of my own has promised to write a notice in the _Times_—but he complains bitterly,—he shall have to _read_ the book,—he can do no less,—and all for five or ten pounds’! All which Moxon quite seemed to understand—‘it will really take him some three or four mornings to read _enough_ of Landor to be able to do anything effectually.’ I asked if there had been any notices of the Book already—‘Just so many,’ he said ‘as Forster had the power of _getting done_’—Mr. White, a clergyman, has written a play for Macready, which everybody describes as the poorest stuff imaginable,—it is immediately reviewed in _Blackwood_ and the _Edinburgh_ ‘Because’ continues M, ‘he is a _Blackwood_ reviewer, and may do the like good turn to any of the confraternity.’

So—here I will end,—wanting to come to the kissing dearest Ba, and bidding her remember to-morrow how my heart sinks to-day in the silence.

Ever, dearest dearest, your very own.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, July 18, 1846.]

It is out of time to-night to write to you, since to-morrow we are to meet—but the letter which did not reach you, has been recoiling on me all day. Perhaps you have it by this time ... an uncomfortable letter, better away from you, notwithstanding all the kindness you speak, about my silence and the effect of _that_. So I write just a few words—The post office was in fault as usual. May it do perfecter duty to-morrow.

Saturday!—our day! At least if anything should be against it, you shall hear at the door by a note, when you come at three o’clock. I have put away my Thursday night’s melancholy ... except the repentance of troubling you with it——understand that I have!

Mrs. Jameson was here to-day, and her niece, ... and _you_, never named,—but she is coming another day, she says, to pay me a longer visit. I like her ... I like her. Then, there came another visitor, ... my uncle Hedley, who began, as usual, to talk of Italy—he advises me to go this year.—‘If you don’t go this year, _you never will go_ ... and you ought at once to make an effort, and go.’ We talked of places and of ways, and after he had said many words in favour of Pisa, desired, if I went through Paris, that I would pay him a visit. ‘Ah,’ said I, ‘uncle Hedley, you are very good to me always, but when that day arrives, you may be inclined, perhaps, to cast me off.’ ‘Cast you off, Ba,’ he cried in the most puzzled astonishment—‘why what _can_ you mean? what words to use! Cast you off! now do explain what you mean.’ ‘Ah, no one can tell,’ said I musingly. ‘Do you mean,’ he insisted, ‘because you will be a rebel and a runaway?’ ... (laughing!) ‘no, no—_I_ won’t cast you off, I promise you! Only I hope that you may be able to manage it quietly’ &c. &c.

He is a most amiable man, so gentle and tender; and fond of me; _exclusively_ of the poetry. I am certain that he never can make out how anyone in the world can consent to read my verses. But Ba, as Ba, is a decided favourite of his, beyond all in the house—not that he is a real uncle ... only the husband of my aunt, and caring more for me than both my real uncles, who, each of them, much prefer a glass of claret,—thank you! The very comparison does me too much honour for either of them. Claret is a holy thing. If I had said half a glass, and mixed it with water, I should have been more accurate by so much.

Now, dearest, dearest, I say good-night and have done.

I am wholly yours and always.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]

Dearest Ba’s face of yesterday, with the smiles and perfect sweetness,—oh, the comfort it is to me through this day of my especial heaviness! I don’t know when I have felt more stupid, and I seem to keep the closelier to you, Ba. Is that one of my felicities of compliment? I think if you were here I should lay my head on your bosom, my own beloved, and never raise it again. In your last letter, you speak of those who care less for you than for a ‘glass of claret’—there is something sublime,—at all events, astounding, in the position we occupy each of us,—I, and those less-carers,—standing in respect to each other so like England and Owhyhee, at which, they told me when I was a boy, I should be pretty sure to arrive if I dug a hole just through the earth, dropped to the centre and then, turning round, climbed straight up!

I left here, yesterday, without taking the prints of Dumas and Hugo—_there_ is a head ‘for remembering!’ and justifying your commodations! Chorley says, you see, my acquisitions are rather accumulated than digested—or words to that effect—I am sure at this moment the stupid, heavy head _knows_ not one thing,—as a clear point of knowledge, taken in and laid by, orderly and separately. So let me say here, while I _do_ remember, that a letter from Forster puts off his visit and Moxon’s till Monday—should any reason therefore, prevent your confirming to me the gift of Tuesday, this other day will lie open—but _only_ in that case, I trust—because Tuesday objects not to Saturday, does it? while Wednesday looks grave, and Thursday frowns downright on the same! _Friday_, remember, is Mr. Kenyon’s day.

I wish, dearest, you would tell me precisely what you have written—all my affectionate pride in you rises at once when I think of your poetry, that is and that is to be—you dear, dear Ba, can you not write on my shoulder while my head lies as you permit?

I found at home on my return yesterday my friend Pritchard, who brought me an old notice of Rachel by Jules Janin—of course there is no believing a word—but he _does_ say that she was,—at the time he wrote,—perfectly ignorant of the most ordinary rules of grammar,—that, for instance, on meeting him she remarked (alluding to her having played previously at another theatre than the T. Français)—‘C’était moi que j’était au Gymnase!’—to which he ought to have answered, he thinks, ‘Je le savions!’—I will bring her portrait, too, if you please—and this memoir, untrustworthy as it is.

I will go now and walk about, I think—did you go out, as you promised, love? Ah, dearest,—_you_ to wonder I could look up to you for ever as you stand,—you who once wrote to me that, in order to verify a date about Shelley in a book I lent you, ‘You had accomplished a journey to the other end of the room, even’! And _now_! I thankfully _know_ this to be miraculous—nor have I to ask my spiritual director’s opinion thereon—to whom, how on earth can one surrender one’s private right of judgment when it is only by the exercise of that very right that I select him from the multitude of would-be directors of me and the whole world? What but a deliberate act of judgment takes up Dr. Pusey of Oxford rather than Mrs. Fox of Finsbury—and is it for _that_ pernicious first step that I determine on never risking a second?

Bless you, ever dearest—and do you bless your

very own R.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]

Dearest, the leaf of yesterday was folded down quite smoothly and softly. A dinner party swept the thought of you out of people’s minds. Otherwise I was prepared to be a little afraid,—for my aunt said to Arabel, upon being dispensed with so cavalierly from this room, ... (said in the passage, Arabel told me, with a half-laugh,) ‘Pray which of Ba’s lovers may _this_ be?’ So Arabel had to tell the name of the visitor. But the dinner-party set all right, and this morning I was asked simply whether it had been an agreeable visit, and what you had written, and banalities after such a fashion.

Oh, and I went out ... remembering your desire ... was it not a desire, dearest, dearest? I went out, any way—but the wind blew, and I had to hold my veil against my mouth, doubled, and trebled ... with as many folds, indeed, as Ajax’s shield ... to keep myself in breathing order. The wind always gives me a sort of strangling sensation, which is the effect, I suppose, of having weak lungs. So it was not a long walk, but I liked it because you seemed to be with me still,—and Arabel, who walked with me, was ‘sure, without being told, that I had had a happy visit, just from my manner.’ The wisest of interpreters, I called her, and _pour cause_.

If ever I mistake you, Robert, doing you an injustice, ... you ought to be angry, I think, _rather_ and _more_ with me than with another—I should have far less excuse it appears to me, for making such a mistake, than any other person in the world. I thought so yesterday when you were speaking, and now upon consideration I think so with an increasing certainty. Is it your opinion that the members of our family, ... those who live with us always, ... know us best? They know us on the side we offer to them ... a bare profile ... or the head turned round to the ear—yes!—they do not, except by the merest chance, look into our eyes. They know us in a conventional way ... as far from God’s way of knowing us, as from the world’s—mid-way, it is—and the truest and most cordial and tender affection will not hinder this from being so partial a knowledge. Love! I love those who at the present moment, ... who love me (and tenderly on both sides) ... but who are so far from _understanding_ me, that I never think of speaking myself into their ears ... of trying to speak myself. It is wonderful, it is among the great mysteries of life, to observe how people can love one another in the dark, blindly ... loving without knowing. And, as a matter of general observation, if I sought to have a man or woman revealed to me in his or her innermost nature, I would not go to the _family_ of the person in question—though I should learn there best, of course, about personal habits, and the social bearing of him or her. George Sand delights me in one of her late works, where she says that the souls of blood relations seldom _touch_ except at one or two points. Perfectly true, _that_ is, I think—perfectly.

Remember how you used to say that I did not know you ... which was true in a measure ... yet I felt I knew you, and I did actually know you, in another larger measure. And if _now_ you are not known to me altogether, it is my dulness which makes me unknowing.

But I know you—and I should be without excuse if ever I wronged you with a moment’s injustice. I do not think I ever could depreciate you for a moment,—_that_ would not be possible. There are other sins against you (_are_ they against you?) which bring their own punishment! You shall never be angry with me for those.

While I was writing, came Mr. Kenyon. As usual he said that there was no use in his coming—that you had taken his place, and so on. He was in a high good humour, though, and spirits, and I did not mind much what he was pleased to say. More I minded, that he means ‘to stay in London all the summer’ ... which I can’t be glad of, ... though I was glad at his not persisting in going to Scotland against his own wishes. But he might like to go somewhere else—it would be a pleasure, _that_, in which I should sympathize! The more shame for me!

Mr. Chorley pleases me more _than he ever pleased me before_! Only, as an analysis, he has done curiously with ‘Pippa.’ But it is good appreciation, good and righteous, and he has given me, altogether, a great, great deal of pleasure. As to the letter, I liked that too in its degree—and the advice is wise for the head, if foolish for the work. How _can_ wise people be so foolish?

I am going out to walk now with Henrietta, and shall put this letter into the post with my own hand. It is seven p.m. May God bless you. Do say how you are, dear, dearest!

I am your very own BA.

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

Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]

Certainly you _do_ know me, my own Ba, beyond all other knowledge possible to relatives,—_that_ I know—in fact, I found myself speaking unwarily on a subject where speech is obliged to stop abruptly—the fault was mine for bringing up terms, remarks &c. quite inapplicable out of this house,—where all, as you understand, have seen me so long that they do not see differences in me,—increases or diminutions; I am twice as blind, most likely, to _them_, after the same fashion. Still, one is slow to concede an excuse to such blindness—hence the ‘hasty words’ I told you they charge me with uttering.

I apprehend no danger from _that_, to your feeling for me—it is your own speech my Ba, which I will take from you, and use—my own general short-comings, you will inevitably see and be sorry for—but there will be the more need of your love, which I shall go on asking for daily and nightly as if I never could have enough—which is the exact fact; and also, I shall grow fitter through the love to be what you would have me, so the end may be better than the beginning, let us hope.

Will you not do what you can with me who am your very own? as you are my own too, but for a different end—I am yours to operate on, as you are my only lady to dispose of what belongs to you. Dear, dearest Ba, it _is_ so; will ever be so!

Yes, that notice by Chorley is very kind and gratifying. I wanted—(_quite_ apart from the poor good to me or my books—but for Chorley’s own sake, I rather wanted)—some decided streak of red, or spot, or spark,—some life in the increasing grey of the ashes—this is true, _live_ lovingness of him—I will tell him so.

For Domett’s letter,—he means, by all that nonsense, that my health is more in his estimation than any works producible at its expense. All the calculation about so many lines a day, so many a month &c., _he_ knows to be absurd ... you _can’t_ write ‘so many lines to-day,’ and add next day’s complement, and so ‘grow to an end’—any more than you can paint a picture by thumb-breadths. The other paragraph about intelligibility laughs at itself all the time ... is not to be taken for serious.

Indeed I _did_ desire with a great desiring that you should go out, and now I thank you for all the good account of the walk, and victory over the wind: and how kind that sister is!—I shall never forget it.

My own head, since you _will_ be teazed with intelligence about it, was not very well yesterday, but is better decidedly this morning—_I_, too, will go and put this letter in the post and think of to-morrow ... for do not I keep to-morrow? I shall be with you unless another order comes ... may it be averted! And may you be happy always _with_ me, as I shall be through you ... nay, but half as happy, dearest Ba, my very own!

Your R.

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, July 22, 1846.]

How I long, my sweetest Ba, to know whether any heavy price is to be paid for our three hours yesterday,—if your Aunt knew or has discovered since? I shall not murmur in any case, I hope ... they are too delicious, these three-hour visits—and if _I_ could pay for them by myself, Ba,—what would I not pay?

Will you let me write something, and forgive me? Because it is, I know, quite unnecessary to be written, and, beside, may almost seem an interference with your own delicacy,—teaching it its duty! However, I will venture to go on, with your hand before my two eyes. Then,—you remember what we were speaking of yesterday,—house-rents and styles of living? You will never overlook, through its very obviousness, that to consult my feelings on the only point in which they are sensitive to the world you must endeavour to live as simply and cheaply as possible, down to my own habitual simplicity and cheapness,—so that you shall come and live with me, in a sense, rather than I with Miss Campbell! You see, Ba, if you have more money than you want, you shall save it or spend it in pictures or parrots or what you please ... you avoid all offence to _me_ who never either saved money nor spent it—but the large house, I should be forced to stay in,—the carriage, to enter, I suppose. And you see too, Ba, that the one point on which I desire the world to be informed concerning our future life, will be that it is ordered _so_—I wish they could hear we lived in one room like George Sand in ‘that happy year—’

No, there I have put down an absurdity—because, I shall have to confess a weakness, at some time or other, which is hardly reconcilable to that method of being happy—why may I not tell you now, my adored Ba, to whom I tell everything as it rises to me? Now put the hand on my eyes again—now that I have kissed it. I shall begin by begging a separate room from yours—I could never brush my hair and wash my face, I do think, before my own father—I could not, I am sure, take off my coat before you _now_—why should I ever? The kitchen is an unknown horror to me,—I come to the dining-room for whatever repast there may be,—nor willingly stay too long there,—and on the day on which poor Countess Peppa taught me how maccaroni is made,—_then_ began a quiet revolution, (indeed a rapid one) against ‘tagliolini, ‘fettucce, ‘lasagne,’ etc., etc., etc.—typical, typical!

What foolishness ... spare me, my own Ba, and don’t answer one word,—do not even laugh,—for I _know_ the exceeding unnecessary foolishness of it!

Chorley has just sent me a note which I will send you because it is most graceful in its modesty—but you must not, if you please, return it to me in an envelope that ought only to hold your own writing,—and so make my heart beat at first, and my brows knit at last! (Toss it into ‘my room,’ at Pisa!!)

Thus it is to be made happy and unwise! Never mind—make me happier still by telling me you are well and have been out, and where, and when, and how—the footsteps of you, Ba, should be kissed if I could follow them.

Bless you, ever dearest, dearest, as yesterday, and always you bless me—I love you with all my heart and soul—_yes_ Ba!

Your own, very own.

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

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 22, 1846.]

I did not go out yesterday, and was very glad not to have a command laid on me to go out, the wind blew so full of damp and dreariness. Then it was pleasanter to lie on the sofa and think of you, which I did, till at last I actually dreamed of you, falling asleep for that purpose. As to Flush, he came up-stairs with a good deal of shame in the bearing of his ears, and straight to me—no indeed! I would not speak to him—then he went up to Arabel ... ‘naughty Flush, go away’ ... and Wilson, ... who had whipped him before, ‘because it was right,’ she said ... in a fit of poetical justice, ... did not give him any consolation. So he lay down on the floor at my feet looking from under his eyebrows at me. I did not forgive him till nearly eight o’clock however. And I have not yet given him your cakes. Almost I am inclined to think now that he has not _a soul_. To behave so to you! It is nearly as bad as if I had thrown the coffee-cup! Wicked Flush!—Do you imagine that I scolded Wilson when she confessed to having whipped him? I did not. It was done with her hand, and not very hardly perhaps, though ‘he cried,’ she averred to me—and if people, like Flush, choose to behave like dogs savagely, they must take the consequences indeed, as dogs usually do! And _you_, so good and gentle to him! Anyone but _you_, would have said ‘hasty words’ at least. I think I shall have a muzzle for him, to make him harmless while he learns to know you. Would it not be a good plan?

But nobody heard yesterday of either your visit or of Flush’s misdoings ... so Wilson was discreet, I suppose, as she usually is, by the instinct of her vocation. Of all the persons who are _not_ in our confidence, she has the most certain knowledge of the truth. Dearest, we shall be able to have Saturday. There will be no danger in it.

Perhaps in the days to come we shall look back on these days as covetable things. Will _you_ do so, because you were loved in them as a beginning, or because you were _free_? (Am _I_ not as bad as Flush, to ask such questions?) _I_ shall look back on these days gratefully and gladly, because the good in them has overcome the evil, for the first time in days of mine. Yet my position is worse than yours on some accounts—_now_. Henrietta has had a letter from Capt. Surtees Cook who says in it, she says, ... ‘I hope that poor Ba will have courage to the end.’ There’s a generous sympathy! Tell me that there is none in the world!

Will you let me know how you are? Such a letter you wrote to me on Sunday! Ah!—to _be anything to you_ ... what is the colour of _ambition_ afterwards? When I look forwards I can see no work and no rest, but what is for you and in you. Even Duty seems to concentrate itself into one Debt—Dearest!

Yet it will be a little otherwise perhaps!—not that ever I shall love you otherwise or less—No.

You shall see some day at Pisa what I will not show you now. Does not Solomon say that ‘there is a time to read what is written.’ If he doesn’t, he _ought_.

Your very own BA.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, July 23, 1846.]

Dearest, what you say is unnecessary for you to say—it is in everything _so_ of course and obvious! You must have an eccentric idea of _me_ if you can suppose for a moment such things to be necessary to say. If they had been _unsaid_, it would have been precisely the same, believe me, in the event.

As to the way of living—now you shall arrange _that_ for yourself. You shall choose your own lodging, order your own dinner ... and if you choose to live on locusts and wild honey, I promise not to complain ... I shall not indeed be _inclined_ to complain ... having no manner of ambition about carriages and large houses, even if they were within our possibilities,—which they may not be, according to Mr. Surtees’s calculation or experience. The more simply we live, the better for _me_! So you shall arrange it for yourself, lest I should make a mistake! ... which, in _that_ question, is a just possible thing.

One extravagance I had intended to propose to you ... but it shall be exactly as you like, and I hesitate a little as I begin to speak of it. I have thought of taking Wilson with me, ... for a year, say, if we returned then—if not, we might send her home alone ... and by that time, I should be stronger perhaps and wiser ... rather less sublimely helpless and impotent than I am now. My sisters have urged me a good deal in this matter—but if you would rather it were otherwise, be honest and say so, and let me alter my thoughts at once. There is one consideration which I submit to yours, ... that I cannot leave this house with the necessary number of shoes and pocket handkerchiefs, without help from somebody. Now whoever helps me, will suffer through me. If I left her behind she would be turned into the street before sunset. Would it be right and just of me, to permit it? Consider! I must manage a sheltering ignorance for my poor sisters, at the last, ... and for all our sakes. And in order to _that_, again, I must have some one else in my confidence. Whom, again, I would unwillingly single out for an absolute _victim_.

Wilson is attached to me, I believe—and, in all the discussions about Italy, she has professed herself willing to ‘go anywhere in the world with me.’ Indeed I rather fancy that she was disappointed bitterly last year, and that it would not be a pure devotion. She is an expensive servant—she has sixteen pounds a year, ... but she has her utilities besides, and is very amiable and easily satisfied, and would not add to the expenses, or diminish from the economies, even in the matter of room—_I_ would manage _that_ for her. Then she would lighten your responsibilities ... as the Archbishop of Canterbury and company do Mr. Bevan’s. Well—you have only to consider your own wishes. I shall not care many straws, if you decide this way or that way. Let it be as may seem to you wisest.

I like Mr. Chorley’s note. I began to write so late that _I_, too, must send you a bare note to-night. May God bless you, ever dearest. I am tired ... so tired—yet I have not a long story to tell you of myself for the day’s chronicle I was just out for the few minutes my walking occupies, and came home and had coffee at half-past four; and scarcely was the cup empty, when Mrs. Jameson arrived—she stayed while you might count to a hundred—and your name was not once mentioned. And now, good-night. I hope the ‘testimonials’ may be ‘satisfactory,’ in this note which will not wait to be a letter! Dearest, say how your head is—do.

I am your Ba, always!

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, July 23, 1846.]

I have just returned from Town and Mr. Kenyon’s, my own Ba. I called, according to compact, to point out the precise way he must go to reach us. He seemed to make sure I was going to Wimpole Street—‘Oh, no!’

So, losing Wimpole Street, I made haste home, and gain my letter,—my dear letter: yesterday night, too, the first letter arrived duly—you perfect in kindness!

My dearest—dearest,—you might go to Pisa without shoes,—or feet to wear them, for aught I know, since you may have wings, only folded away from me—but without your Wilson, or some one in her capacity, you ... no, I will not undertake to speak of _you_; then, _I_, should be simply, exactly, INSANE to move a step; I would rather propose, let us live on bread and water, and sail in the hold of a merchant-ship; THIS CANNOT be dispensed with! It is most fortunate, most providential, that Wilson is inclined to go—I am _very_ happy; for a new servant, with even the best dispositions, would never be able to anticipate your wants and wishes during the voyage, at the very beginning. Yet you write of this to me _so_, my Ba! I think I will, in policy, begin the anger at a good place. Yes, all the anger I am capable of descends on the head—(not in kisses, whatever you may fancy).

And so poor Flush suffered after all! Dogs that are dog-like would be at no such pains to tell you they would not see you with comfort approached by a stranger who might be—! A ‘muzzle’? oh, no,—but suppose you have him removed next time, and perhaps the next, till the whole occurrence is out of his mind as the fly bite of last week—because, if he sees me and begins his barking and valiant snapping, and gets more and heavier vengeance down-stairs, perhaps,—his transient suspicion of me will confirm itself into absolute dislike, hatred, whereas, after an interval, we can renew acquaintance on a better footing. Dogs have such memories! My sister told me last week she saw in a provincial newspaper an anecdote of one,—a miller’s dog, that was a good fellow in the main, but chose to take an especial dislike to one of his master’s customers, whom he invariably flew at and annoyed—so much so that the man declared he must carry his custom elsewhere unless the dog was parted with: this the miller was unwilling to do; so he hit on an expedient—by some contrivance, the dog was suffered to fall into a deep well, and bark himself hoarse there in vain—no help came—till the obnoxious individual arrived, let himself down and brought up the prisoner. From which time nothing could exceed the devotion of the dog to his rescuer; whom he always insisted henceforth on accompanying as far as his home, for one instance of it.

I wonder whether I have anywhere one of the sketches my father made of my bulldog’s face.

What ‘tired’ you, dearest? You are not _less_ well, I trust? Pray tell me,—and remember there are three days before our Saturday. I am very much better—the walking and riding of this morning did me good, too—and what profits it, if you are not better also? Love me in caring for yourself, which is _my_ truest self! And I will go on and try to love you more than I do—for what may happen?

Ever your own R.

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

Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, July 24, 1846.]

No letter for me to-night! not a word!—Perhaps the post is sinning again. If so, I shall hear to-morrow morning, if not ... may it be anything rather than that you are more unwell than usual! anything!

There is not much to say on my part. I had a letter from Miss Mitford this morning, and she encloses to me ... you will not guess what—a lyric of the ubiquitous Bennett—the ‘Mignonette.’ Are you not amused? That’s the way to ‘agitate’ for readers and praisers. She sees something in Bennett. He is to be ‘heard of in our literature.’ She shed tears over the ‘Mignonette,’ herself—

Your portrait of Victor Hugo, I like less and less—there is something ignoble in the face—and even the forehead is rather big than large. _He_ does not ‘look like a poet’ in any case—now does he?

Dearest, did I annoy you ... frighten you, ... about Wilson yesterday? Did _that_ prevent you from writing to me to-day—if really you did not write to me to-day? It yet was the merest _question_, ... I wished you to understand—the merest question for a yes or a no—and I shall not mind, _however_ you may answer, be certain. I have been thinking to-day that it would be possible enough to leave a direction which might supply everything, and so escape inflicting the injury apprehended—yes, and as for myself, I shall manage perfectly. Observe how I pinned your coat, miraculously pricking you at the same moment. I shall do for myself and by myself, as well as possible. And therefore, judge, speak your thoughts out to the purpose and without drawback. I shall always feel to thank you for speaking the _truth_, even where it goes against me. But _this_ will not go against me, _however_ you speak it, ... understand.

And as for what my sisters think, it is nothing to the purpose. Say your ‘no,’ and they never shall hear it. I will avoid the subject from henceforth, with them ... _that_ is all.

And take care of Mr. Kenyon to-morrow. I feel afraid of Mr. Kenyon. But take care of yourself most—look well that you never let me do, in the least or greatest matter, what would seem better undone hereafter. Not in the least, not in the greatest. For me, if I am to be thought of, remember that you _kill_ me, if you suffer me to injure you. That is for _me_.

See how I exhort people who do not write to me!... Ah no! It must be the post’s fault. You could not be very much vexed with me, I think, for a mere proposal about Wilson. And the rest of my letter was all made up of assent and agreement. You could not be vexed about Wilson. And you _shall_ not be ill, because I cannot bear to think of it—which, dearest, is a good reason and irrefragable.

The Hedleys dine here, and others. I hear the voices and the laughing. I wish I could, your voice, as near. May God bless you ... bless you—

Your own BA.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, July 24, 1846.]

Sweet, sweet, sweet Ba, look to be kissed to-morrow till it hurts you,—punished you ought to be for such a letter! When the ancients were in doubt about a man’s identity (the ancient fathers) they called him ‘aut Erasmus (or whoever it might be) aut—diabolus!’—no gradation, no mean between best and worst! Or do you think Flush bit me and inoculated me with super-cynical snappishness? Well, I _do_ think I should not have conducted myself as you consider highly possible,—even if you _had_ made, let me say at once, the _most_ preposterous of proposals, even that of going _without_ Wilson, or her substitute. I think and am sure I should, like a rational being, write all the faster to try and get you to reconsider the matter—convinced as I should be that your perfect good sense would, after a few minutes examination, see that I could no more take you away without such assistance than desire you to perform the passage of the Mont Cenis on foot. Do I not remember that you intended to be thus accompanied even when your sister was to be of the party? But the absolute necessity of what you fancy I may object to ... it is not _that_, I complain about—but of the strange notion, that whenever Fate shall decree that you say, or do, or think anything, from which I shall be forced to differ,—my proceedings will needs take this fashion and colour—I shall ‘sulk’ and _say_ nothing,—or perhaps turn aside grandly offended and meditative of noble vengeance! Oh, Ba, dearest, dearest beyond all words, come for _once_ and always _into_ the heart which is your own, and see how full it is of you, and if you say, _that_ does not prevent the head being weak and acting accordingly, I will begin exemplifying the very point I want to convince you of by at once writing and speaking and by every imaginable means making you know, that the heart _does_ teach the head better than such foolishness—ought to do it, and _does_ do it!

Do you believe me, Ba, my own? Or, what nonsense! Did you _wonder_ at my letter when it did come? Or _did_ it come? It was duly posted at Deptford—moreover the ‘Thursday’ at the top was written ‘Wednesday’—because all day long I was in that error—having been used to see you on Mondays, and to calculate my time by the number of days since I saw you—whence, knowing to my cost that two days had gone by since such an event, I thought what I wrote.

Now kiss me, my very own, for an end to every thing—your doubt and my impudent making the most of it,—for I do not doubt _you_, sweetest, truest, best love!

To-morrow brings me to you, Ba, I trust—I will be careful to-day, never fear your

own devoted R.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 27, 1846.]

Why should you ask such a question of me yesterday, as to whether I loved you as much then as ever? Love you as much? Why should I not love you _more_? ... to give question for question. And it does seem to me, too, that _my_ question is more reasonable than yours. ‘Is it afternoon at six o’clock,’ you might have asked in the same breath with yours, and touched, _so_, as questionable a matter.

Tell me how the evening passed at Mr. Kenyon’s. I have seen nobody yet—not him, not Mrs. Jameson.

Seen nobody? Except all the Hedleys, who have just left my room. Do you know, the pomp and circumstance, the noise and fuss and publicity of this marriage of theirs happen just in time to make me satisfied with ‘quite the other principle’ as you said. The system they are carrying out is detestable to its own extreme. Fifty or sixty people are to breakfast at Fenton’s Hotel, ... with processions to and fro! ... which altogether, though the bride will bear it very well, (for she has been used to be a Belle _ex-officio_, and this business has been arranged by her and for her—otherwise they would have all been in Paris) is likely, I think, to half kill the bride’s mother. My poor aunt wonders how she will get through it. To have to part with her daughter in that crowd! So barbarous a system it is, this system of public marriages, under whatever light considered. Both my sisters are invited; and so was _I_! (in vain) and Henrietta officiates as a bridesmaid. Did I tell you that Arabella Hedley is a glorious convert to Puseyism, as might have been expected, and talked here like a theologian a few days since, and ‘considered the dissenters in a most dangerous position,’ much to the amusement of my brothers.

What am I writing of all this time? Dearest, how did you get home yesterday through the ambush at Mr. Kenyon’s? Tell me everything. And _know_ that I love you ‘as much,’ my own beloved!—you may know it.

When Flush came into the room and had spoken to me (in the Flush-language) and had examined your chair, he suddenly fell into a rapture and reminded me that the cakes you left, were on the table. So I explained thoroughly to him that _you_ had brought them for him, and that he ought to be properly ashamed therefore for his past wickedness, and make up his mind to love you and not bite you for the future—and then he was allowed to profit from your goodness to him. How _over_-good of you! It is an encouragement to throw coffee-cups, ... such over-goodness!

Nobody knew of your being here yesterday—at least, not that _I_ know! So Tuesday looks brightly, at a distance. At a distance! The day after to-morrow! Ah, it seems too near! Too near, in the sense of saying ‘_Too good_ ... to be true.’