Chapter XVII: Part 17

You dearest Ba, do you write thus to put all thoughts of fear out of my head, and make me confident nothing can go ill with us if you feel so for me? I seem to have a presentiment that this afternoon, before this letter reaches you, Mr. Kenyon will have spoken—and if the whole world spoke its loudest, your words would be all I should hear. Or are they trials, every such word, of my vanity and weakness,—do you think, ‘if anything can call them up, this will?’ No, I very well know your entire truth in this and the other assurances I make my life bright with,—through any darkness that can come. What you choose to assert of yourself, _I_ feel of myself every hour. But there must be this disproportionateness in a beloved object—before I knew you, women seemed not so much better than myself,—therefore, no love for them! There is no love but from beneath, far beneath,—that is the law of its nature—and now, no more of words—will there indeed be need of no more,—as I dare hope and believe, will the deeds suffice?—not in their own value, no! but in their plain, certain intention,—as a clear advance beyond mere words? We shall soon know—if you live, you will be mine, I must think—you have put these dear arms too surely round my neck to be disengaged now. I cannot presume to suggest thoughts to you resolutions for the future—you must impart to me always,—but I do lift up my heart in an aspiration to lead the life that seems accorded by your side, under your eyes.—I cannot write on this, dear Ba,—to say, I will live and work as I ought, seems too presumptuous. Understand all, and help me with your dearest hand, my own love!

As I say, I fancy Mr. Kenyon will speak—I only hope, the caution will act both ways, and that he will see as much inexpediency in altogether opposing as in encouraging such a step. That you should pass another winter and the risk of it—and perhaps many—_that_ seems the _worst_ fate. Can he apprehend any worse evil than that?

I observe in the _Times_ to-day that the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Company have advertised a ship from Southampton to Genoa, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia and Naples on the 30th September, and that ‘thenceforth the company will despatch a first-class steamer to those ports on the 15th of every month. One more facility, should circumstances require it. Are you sure that the France journey with the delays and fatigue is preferable to this—where if the expenses are greater, yet the _uncertain_ expenses are impossible? You are to think, beloved.

Now, will you write to-night? I may come to-morrow? Say one word—you have heard why I wanted to come, even if Mr. Kenyon’s questions had not been put—otherwise, Friday will be impossible—I can say, ‘I called on Saturday, and think of doing so next Friday—’ I must see you to-morrow indeed, love!

Let me leave off here—I love you wholly, and bless you ever as now—Your own R.

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

Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 11, 1846.]

Then let it be Tuesday. It will correct, too, my stupidity to Mr. Kenyon, for easily you may reply to his certain question, that you had not been here on Wednesday but meant to go on Friday instead. Ah well! By the time all this is over we shall be fit to take a degree in some Jesuits’ college—we shall have mastered all the points of casuistry. To wash one’s hands of it, and then throw away the water, will be something gained at least.

Dearest, no, indeed!—there is nothing for your goodness to do in that badness I told you of, and which you describe so precisely in your word, ‘drunkenness’ of mind. It is precisely _that_, and no more nor less—a throwing off of moral restraint ... a miserable degradation. One may get angry, frightened, disgusted—but, after all, compassion comes in:—and who would think of fighting a delirious man with a sword? It would be a cruelty, like murder. There is a fine nature too, under these ruins of the will; and a sensibility which strikes inwards and outwards—(no one else should have any sensibility, within a thousand miles.) Think of a sort of dumb Rousseau,—with the ‘Confessions’ _in_ him, pining evermore to get out! A miserable man, first by constitution and next by fortune—seeing only the shadow, for the sun,—the nettles in the field,—and breathing hard when he stands among garden-roses, to attain to smelling the onions over the wall. I have told him sometimes that he had a talent for anger!—‘indignatio facit orationes’ and _that_ is his pleasure, ‘par excellence,’—to be let talk against this abuse or that abuse, this class of men or that class of men, this or that world’s misery or offence:—he will rise up in it and be eloquent and happy. Otherwise ... mécréants we must be, he thinks, who dare to be happy in this vale of tears. Life is a long moan to him. And is not such a man enough punished? For me, I have not had the heart to take quite the position I ought to have done, looking only to his most outrageous bearing towards myself—although he talks of my scorn and sarcasms, as if I had shown myself quite equal to self-defence. An old, old friend, too!—known as a friend these twelve or thirteen years! And then, men are nearly all the same in the point of _wanting generosity to women_. It is a sin of sex, be sure—and we have our counter-sins and should be merciful. So I have been furiously angry, and then relented—by turns; as I could. Oh yes—it was he who followed you up-stairs. There was an explosion that day among the many—and I had to tell him as a consequence, that if he chose to make himself the fable and jest of the whole house, he was the master, but that I should insist upon his not involving my name in the discussion of his violences. Wilson said he was white with passion as he followed you, and that she in fear trembled so she could scarcely open the door. He was a little ashamed afterwards, and apologized in a manner for what sufficiently required an apology. Before a servant too!—But that is long ago—and at that time he knew nothing for a certainty. Is it possible to be continuously angry with any one who proves himself so _much the weaker_? The slave of himself ... of his own passions—is too unhappy for the rod of another—man or woman.

Mr. Chorley—Mr. Chorley!—how could he utter such words! Men seem imbecile sometimes—understandings have they, and understand not.

Monday Night.

Dearest, I have your last letter. Thank you out of my heart—though you are not a prophet, dear dearest—not about Mr. Kenyon at least. See how far you are from the truth-well, with that divining hazel which you wave to and fro before my eyes. Mr. Kenyon, instead of too much remembering us, has forgotten me to-day. I waited an hour with my bonnet on, and he did not come. And then came a note! He had had business—he had forgotten me—he would come to-morrow. Which I, thinking of you, wrote back a word against, and begged him to come rather on Thursday or Saturday, or Monday. Is _that_ right, dearest? Your coming to-morrow will be very right.

But when you say that there can be no love except ‘_from beneath_’ ... is it right? is it comforting to hear of? No, no—indeed! How unhappy I should be if I accepted your theory! So I accept rather your love, beloved....

Trusting to be yours.

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

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 12, 1846.]

I have been putting all the letters into rings—twenty together—and they look now as they should—‘infinite treasure in a little room’—note, that they were so united and so ranged from the beginning, at least since I began to count by twenties—but the white tape I used (no red tape, thank you!) was vile in its operation,—the untying and retying (so as to preserve a proper _cross_ ) hard for clumsy fingers like mine:—these rings are perfect. How strange it will be to have no more letters! Of all the foolishnesses that ever were uttered that speech of mine,—about your letters strewing the house,—was the most thoroughly perfect! yet you have nothing to forgive in me, you say!

Just now I took up a periodical and read a few lines of a paper on the charm that there is in a contrariety of tempers and tastes, for friends and lovers—and there followed platitudes in a string—the clever like the stupid, the grave choose the lively, and so forth. Now, unless, the state of the liker and chooser is really considered by him as a misfortune,—what he would get rid of if he could in himself, so shall hardly desire to find in another—except in this not very probable case, is there not implied by every such choice, an absolute despair of any higher one? The grave man says (or would if he knew himself)—‘except on my particular grounds such a serious humour would be impossible and absurd ... and where can I find another to appreciate them? Better accept the lower state of ignorance that they exist even, and consequent gaiety,—than a preposterous melancholy arising from no adequate cause.’ And what man of genius would not associate with people of no talent at all, rather than the possessors of _mere_ talent, who keep sufficiently near him, as they walk together, to give him annoyance at every step? Better go with Flush on his four legs, avowedly doglike, than with a monkey who will shuffle along on two for I don’t know how many yards. Now for instance, is the writer of that wise notice of Landor in last week’s _Athenæum_, one whit nearer your sympathy _in that precise matter_, than somebody who never heard of Landor or supposed him to have usually written under the signature of L.E.L.? With the exception of a word or two about the silly abuse of Plato, and on the occasional unfairness of statement, is there one word right and seasonable?

Here am I letting the words scratch themselves one after another while my thought as usual goes quite another way. Perhaps my wits are resting because of the great alacrity they are to display at Mr. Kenyon’s this evening ... I shall take care not to be first comer, nor last goer. Dearest, you are wrong in your fancy about my little caring whether he knows or does not. I see altogether with your eyes ... indeed, now that you engage to remove any suspicion of unkindness or mistrust which might attach to me in his thoughts (all I ever apprehended for _myself_), there is no need to consider him—at all. He can do no good nor harm. Did you ever receive such a letter? The dull morning shall excuse it—anything but the dull heart—for you fill it, however the _heat_ may keep within, sometimes.

Bless you, Ba, my dearest, perfect love—now I will begin thinking of you again—let me kiss you, my own!

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

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 12, 1846.]

Shall you pass through this street to Mr. Kenyon’s, this evening? I have been sitting here these five minutes, wondering. But no answer is possible now, and if I go to the window of the other room and look up and look down about half-past five or a little later, it will be in vain perhaps. Just now I have heard from Mr. Kenyon, who cannot come to-day to drive with me though he may come to talk. He does not leave London, he says, so soon as he thought!—more’s the pity. Ah! What unkind things one learns to write and meditate in this world, even of the dear Mr. Kenyons in it!—I am ashamed. Instruct your guardian angel to cover me with the shadow of his wings,—dearest.

Now I will tell you a curious thing which _Treppy_ said to Arabel yesterday while you and I were together. Arabel was walking with her, and she was in one of her ill humours, poor Treppy, sighing and moaning over the wickedness of the people in Wimpole Street—she ‘should go and live at Ramsgate,’ she thought, as nobody paid her the right attention! _That’s_ the intermittent groan, when she is out of humour, poor Treppy. ‘And besides’ said she, ‘it is much better that I should not go to Wimpole Street at this time when there are so many secrets. Secrets indeed! You think that nobody can see and hear except yourselves, I suppose; and there are two circumstances going on in the house, plain for any eyes to see! and those are considered _secrets_, I suppose.’ ‘Oh, Treppy’—interpolated Arabel ... ‘you are always fancying secrets where there are none.’ ‘Well, I don’t fancy anything now! I _know_—just as _you_ do.’—Something was said too about ‘Ba’s going to Italy.’ ‘And, Treppy, do you think that she _will_ go to Italy?’ ‘Why there is only one way for her to go—but she may go that way. If she marries, she may go.’ ‘And you would not be surprised?’ ‘_I!_ not in the least—_I_ am never surprised, because I always see things from the beginning. Nobody can hide anything from _me_.’ After which fashion she smoothed the darkness till it smiled, and boasted herself back into a calmer mood. But just observe how people are talking and inferring! It frightens me to think of it. Not that there is any danger from Treppy. She would as soon cut off her hand, as bring one of us into a difficulty, and _me_, the last. Only it would not do to _tell her_,—she must have it in her power to say ‘I did not know this’ ... for reasons of the strongest. To occasion a schism between her and this house, would be to embitter the remainder of her days.

Here is a letter from a lady in a remote district called Swineshead, who sends me lyrical specimens, and desires to know if _this be Genius_. She does not desire to publish; at any rate not for an indefinite number of years; but for her private and personal satisfaction, she would be glad to be informed whether she is a Sappho or George Sand or anything of that kind. What in the world is to be answered, now, to an application of _that_ kind! To meddle with a person’s opinion of himself or herself (quite a private opinion) seems like meddling with his way of dressing, with her fashion of putting in pins—like saying you _shall_ put your feet on a stool, or you _shan’t_ eat pork. It is an interference with private rights, from which I really do shrink. Unfortunately too it is impossible to say what she wants to hear—I am in despair about it. When we are at Pisa we shall not hear these black stones crying after us any more perhaps. I shall listen, instead, to my talking bird and singing tree, and repose from the rest. How did you get home? And tell me of Mr. Kenyon’s dinner! So nervous I am about Mr. Kenyon, when you or I happen to be _en rapport_ with him.

Not only I loved you yesterday, but even to-day I love you; which is remarkable. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, what will _you_ do? Is _that_ an ‘offence?’ Nay, but it is rather reasonable that when the hour strikes, the fairy-gold should turn back into leaves, and poor Cinderella find herself sitting in her old place among the ashes, just as she had touched the hand of the king’s son.

Don’t think I mean anything by _that_, ever dearest—not so much as to teaze you—Robert!

I only love you to-day—that is, I love you and do nothing more. And the Fairy Tales are on the whole, I feel, the most available literature for illustration, whenever I think of loving you.

Your own BA.

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

Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 13, 1846.]

‘Did I ever receive such a letter?’ Never—except from _you_. It is a question easily answered.

As to [the] other question, about the communion of contrarieties, I agree with you, thought for thought, in all your thinking about it—only adding one more reason to the reasons you point out. There is another reason at the bottom of all, _I_ think—I cannot but think—and it is just that, when women are chosen for wives, they are not chosen for companions—that when they are selected to be loved, it is quite apart from life—‘man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart.’ A German professor selects a woman who can merely stew prunes—not because stewing prunes and reading Proclus make a delightful harmony, but because he wants his prunes stewed for him and chooses to read Proclus by himself. A fulness of sympathy, a sharing of life, one with another, ... is scarcely ever looked for except in a narrow conventional sense. Men like to come home and find a blazing fire and a smiling face and an hour of relaxation. Their serious thoughts, and earnest aims in life, they like to keep on one side. And this is the carrying out of love and marriage almost everywhere in the world—and this, the degrading of women by both.

For friendship ... why Like seeks Like in friendship very openly. To ‘have sympathy’ with a person, is a good banal current motive for friendship. Yet (for the minor points) a man with a deficiency of animal spirits may like the society of a man who can amuse him, and the amusing man may have pleasure again in the sense of using a faculty and conferring a benefit. It is happily possible to _love down_, and even across a chasm—or the world would be more loveless than it is. I have loved and still love people a thousand souls off—as you have and do, of course;—but to love them _better_ on that account, would be strange and difficult.

Always I know, my beloved, that I am unworthy of your love in a hundred ways—yet I do hold fast my sense of advantage in one,—that, as far as I can see, I see after you ... understand you, divine you ... call you by your right name. Then it is something to be able to look at life itself as you look at it—(I quite _sigh_ sometimes with satisfaction at that thought!): there will be neither hope nor regret away from your footsteps. Dearest—I feel to myself sometimes, ‘Do not move, do not speak—or the dream will vanish,’ So fearfully like a dream, it is! Like a reflection in the water of an actual old, old dream of my own, too ... touching which, ... now silent voices used to say “That romantic child.”’

What did _you_ mean to say about my not believing in your nature ... in your feelings ... what did you and could you mean yesterday? Was it because of my speech about the ‘calm eyes’? Ah—_you!_—I did not think to make so impressive a speech when I made it ... for this is not the first time, Robert, you have quoted Hansard for it. Well! I shall not rise to explain after all. Only I do justice to the whole subject ... _eyes_ inclusively ... ‘whatever you may think’ as you said yesterday with ever such significance.

No—yes—now I will ask you one thing. Common eyes will carry an emotion of a soul—and, so, not be calm, of course. Calm ones, I know, will carry the whole soul and float it up against yours, till it loses footing, and ... _That_ is a little of what I meant by the calm in the eyes, and so I will ask you whether I could wrong, by such meaning, any depth in the nature.

At this moment you are at Mr. Kenyon’s—and you did not, I think, go up this street. Perhaps you will go home through it—but I shall not see—I cannot watch, being afraid of the over-watchers. May God bless you, my own dearest! You have my heart with you as if it lay in your hand! I told you once that I never could love (in _this_ way of love) except _upward_ very far and high—but you are not like me in it, I thank God—since you can love _me_. Love me, dearest of all—do not tire. I am your very own

BA.

Another Bennett!!—yet the same! _To Friday._

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, August 13, 1846].

Dearest Ba, I love you wholly and for ever! How shall the charm ever break?

My two letters! I think we must institute solemn days whereon such letters are to be read years hence ... when I shall ask you,—(all being known, many weaknesses you do not choose to see now, and perhaps some strength and constancy you cannot be sure of—for the charm may break, you think) ... ‘If you stood _there_’ ... at Wimpole Street in the room ... would you whisper ‘Love, I love you, as before?’ Oh, how fortunately, fortunately the next verse comes with its sweetest reassurance!

When I have chosen to consider the circumstances of the altered life I am about to lead with you ... (‘chosen,’ because you have often suggested drawbacks, harms to my interest &c. which I have really been forced to take up and try to think over seriously, lest I should be unawares found treating what had undoubtedly come from you with disrespect), I never, after all the considering in my power, was yet able to _fancy_ even the possibility of their existence. I will not revert to them now—nor to the few _real_ inconveniences which I _did_ apprehend at the beginning, but which never occurred to _you_: at present I take you, and with you as much happiness as I seem fit to bear in this world,—the one shadow being the fear of its continuance. Or if there is one thing I shall regret ... it is just that which I should as truly lose if I married any Miss Campbell of them all—rather, _then_ should _really_ lose, what now is only modified,—transferred partly and the rest retainable. There was always a great delight to me in this prolonged relation of childhood almost ... nay altogether—with all here. My father and I have not one taste in common, one artistic taste ... in pictures, he goes, ‘souls away,’ to Brauwer, Ostade, Teniers ... he would turn from the Sistine Altar piece to these—in music he desiderates a tune ‘that has a story connected with it,’ whether Charles II.’s favourite dance of ‘Brose and butter’ or—no matter,—what I mean is, that the sympathy has not been an intellectual one. I hope if you want to please me especially, Ba, you will always remember I have been accustomed, by pure choice, to have another will lead mine in the little daily matters of life. If there are two walks to take (to put the thing at simplest) you must say, ‘_This_ one’ and not ‘either’ ... because though they were before indifferently to be chosen—after _that_ speech, one is altogether better than the other, to _me_ if not to you. When you have a real preference which I can discern, you will be good enough to say nothing about it, my own Ba! Now, do you not see how, with this feeling, which God knows I profess to be mine without the least affectation,—how much my happiness would be disturbed by allying myself with a woman to whose intellect, as well as goodness, I could _not_ look up?—in an obedience to whose desires, therefore, I should not be justified in indulging? It is pleasanter to lie back on the cushions inside the carriage and let another drive—but if you suspect he cannot drive?

Nothing new at Mr. Kenyon’s yesterday—I arrived late to a small party—Thackeray and Procter—pleasant as usual. I took an opportunity of mentioning that I had come straight from home. Did you really look from the window, dearest? I was carried the other way, by the new road, but I thought of you till you may have felt it!

And indeed you are ‘out’ again as to my notions of your notions, you dearest Ba! I know well enough that by ‘calmness’ you did not mean absence of passion—I spoke only of the foolish popular notion.

To-morrow there would seem to be no impediment whatever—and I trust to be with you, beloved—but before, I can kiss you as now,—loving you as ever—ever—

Your own.

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

Saturday Morning.
[August 15, 1846.]

A bright beautiful day this is, on which you do not come—it seems as if you ought to have come on it by rights. Dearest, you did not meet Mr. Kenyon yesterday after you left me? I fancied that you might, and so be detected in the three hours, to the fullest length of them—it seemed possible. Now I look forward to the driving instead of to you—and he has just sent to desire me to be ready at a quarter to three, and not later, as was fixed in your hearing. And why, pray, should you be glad that I am going on this excursion? I _should_ have liked it, if we had been living in the daylight; but with all these ‘shadows, clouds and darkness,’ it is pleasanter to me to sit still and see nobody—and least, Mr. Kenyon. Oh, that somebody would spirit him away gently, very gently, so as to do him no manner of harm in achieving the good for me!—for both you and me. Did you say ‘Do you pity me’ to _me_? I did not tell you yesterday that I have another new fear ... an American lady who in her time has reviewed both you and me, it seems, comes to see me ... is about to come to see me ... armed with a letter of introduction from Mr. Mathews—and in a week, I may expect her perhaps. She is directed, too, towards Mr. Horne. Observe the double chain thrown across the road at my feet—I am entreated to show her attention and introduce her to my friends ... things out of the question as I am situated. Yet I have not boldness to say ‘I will not see you.’ I almost _must_ see her, I do fear. Mr. Mathews ought to have felt his way a little, before throwing such a weight on me. He is delighted with your ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ (to pass from his frailties to his merits) and the review of them is sent to me, he says—only that I do not receive it.

Dearest, when I told you yesterday, after speaking of the many coloured theologies of the house, that it was hard to answer for what _I_ was, ... I meant that I felt unwilling, for my own part, to put on any of the liveries of the sects. The truth, as God sees it, must be something so different from these opinions about truth—these systems which fit different classes of men like their coats, and wear brown at the elbows always! I believe in what is divine and floats at highest, in all these different theologies—and because the really Divine draws together souls, and tends so to a unity, I could pray anywhere and with all sorts of worshippers, from the Sistine Chapel to Mr. Fox’s, those kneeling and those standing. Wherever you go, in all religious societies, there is a little to revolt, and a good deal to bear with—but it is not otherwise in the world without; and, _within_, you are especially reminded that God has to be more patient than yourself after all. Still you go quickest there, where your sympathies are least ruffled and disturbed—and I like, beyond comparison best, the simplicity of the dissenters ... the unwritten prayer, ... the sacraments administered quietly and without charlatanism! and the principle of a church, as they hold it, _I_ hold it too, ... quite apart from state-necessities ... pure from the law. Well—there is enough to dissent from among the dissenters—the Formula is rampant among them as among others—you hear things like the buzzing of flies in proof of a corruption—and see every now and then something divine set up like a post for men of irritable minds and passions to rub themselves against, calling it a holy deed—you feel moreover bigotry and ignorance pressing on you on all sides, till you gasp for breath like one strangled. But better this, even, than what is elsewhere—_this_ being elsewhere too in different degrees, besides the evil of the place. Public and social prayer is right and desirable—and I would prefer, as a matter of custom, to pray in one of those chapels, where the minister is simple-minded and not controversial—certainly would prefer it. Not exactly in the Socinian chapels, nor yet in Mr. Fox’s—not by preference. The Unitarians seem to me to throw over what is most beautiful in the Christian Doctrine; but the Formulists, on the other side, stir up a dust, in which it appears excusable not to see. When the veil of the body falls, how we shall look into each other’s faces, astonished, ... after one glance at God’s!

Have I written to you more than too much about my doxy? I was a little, little, uncomfortable in the retrospect of yesterday, lest my quick answer should have struck you as either a levity or an evasion—and have you not a right to all my thoughts of all things? For the rest, we will be married just as you like ... _volo quod vis_: and you will see by this profession of faith that I am not likely much to care either way. There are some solemn and beautiful things in the Church of England Marriage-service, as I once heard it read, the only time I was present at such a ceremony—but I heard it then in the abbreviated customary form ... and not as the Puseyites (who always bring up the old lamps against a new) choose to read it, they say, in spite of custom. Archdeacon Hale with an inodorous old lamp, displeased some of the congregation from Fenton’s Hotel, I hear. But we need not go to the Puseyites at least. And after all, perhaps the best will be what is easiest. Something is sure to happen—something must surely happen to put an end to it all ... before I go to Greece!

May God bless you, ever dearest: Tell me if you get this letter to-day, Saturday.

Your very own BA.

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, August 15, 1846.]

My very, very dearest—many, if not all, of those things for which I want the words when too close to you, become quite clear at a little distance. How simple, for instance, it is to admit, that in our case,—my own, only Ba once discovered, the circumstances of the weakness and retirement were, on the whole, favourable rather than otherwise! Had they been unfavourable ... I do not think a few obstacles would have discouraged me ... but this way has been easier—better—and now all is admitted! _By themselves_, the circumstances could never obtain more than the feeling properly due to them—do you think one particle of love goes with the pity and service to a whole Hospital of Incurables? So let all the attraction of that kind pass for what it is worth, and for no more. If all had been different, and I had still perceived you and loved you, then there _might_, perhaps,—or probably—be as different an aim for me,—for my own peculiar delight in you ... I should want to feel and be sure of your love, in your happiness ... certainly in your entire happiness then as now—but I should aspire to find it able to support itself in a life altogether different from the life in which I had first seen you—if you loved me you would need to be happy in quiet and solitude and simplicity and privation ... then I should _know_ you loved me, knowing _how_ you had been happy before! But now, do you not see that my utmost pride and delight will be to think you are happy, as _you were not_,—in the way you were not: if you chose to come out of a whirl of balls and parties and excursions and visitings—to my side, I should love you as you sate still by me,—but now, when you stand up simply, much more walk ... I will consider, if you let me, every step you take that brings you pleasure,—every smile on your mouth, and light on your eyes—as a directest _obedience_ to me ... all the obedience you _can_ ever pay me ... you shall say in every such act ‘this I do on purpose to content you!’ I hope to know you have been happy ... that shall prove you loved me, at the end.

Probably you _will_ not hear anything to-day from Mr. Kenyon, as your sister is to be present: do you really imagine that those eyes and spectacles are less effective than the perceptions of your ‘Treppy’?

By the way, hear an odd coincidence—you heard that foolish story of Thackeray and Mr. ‘Widdicombe’ ... which I told just to avoid a dead silence and guilty blankness of face. As I was returning I met Thackeray (with Doyle—H.B.) and was energetically reminded of our dinner ... he is in very earnest, Mr. Kenyon may assure himself. Presently I reached Charing Cross—and stood waiting for my omnibus. There is always a crowd of waiters—in a moment there passes an extraordinary looking personage—a policeman on duty at this police-requiring spot saunters up to _me_, of all others, and says (on some miraculous impulse, no doubt)—with an overflowing impressible grin, ‘D’ye know _him_, Sir?’ ‘No—who may he be?’ ‘He’s Widdicombe!—He goes now to Astley’s, and afterwards to Vauxhall—there’s a good likeness of him in the painting of the Judge and Jury Club.’ Here my omnibus arrives ... ‘Thank you’ I said—and there was an end of the communication. How for many thousand years may I walk the street before another inspired policeman addresses me without preface and tells me, _that_ is the man I have just been talking of to somebody else? Let me chronicle Mr. W.’s glories ... his face is just Tom Moore’s, _plus_ two painted cheeks, a sham moustache, and hair curled in wiry long ringlets; Thackeray’s friend was a friend indeed, ‘warning every man and teaching every man’—the _tête-à-tête_ would have been portentous.

Now, dearest, you cannot return me such delectabilities, so must even be content to tell me what happens to-day and what is said and done and surmised—and how you are ... three times over, how you are, dearest dearest! And I will write to-morrow, and kiss you meanwhile, as now as ever. Bless you, love—

Your R.

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

Saturday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]

How I thank for your letter, ever beloved. You were made perfectly to be loved—and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long. Did I tell you _that_ before, so often as I have thought it? It is _that_ which makes me take it all as visionary good—for when one’s Ideal comes down to one, and walks beside one suddenly, what is it possible to do but to cry out ... ‘a dream’? You are the best ... best. And if you loved me only and altogether for pity, (and I think that, more than _you_ think, the sentiment operated upon your generous chivalrous nature), and if you confessed it to me and proved it, and I knew it absolutely—what then? As long as it was _love_, should I accept it less gladly, do you imagine, because of the root? Should I think it less a gift? should I be less grateful, ... or _more_? Ah—I have my ‘theory of causation’ about it all—but we need not dispute, and will not, on any such metaphysics. Your _loving_ me is enough to satisfy me—and if you did it because I sate rather on a green chair than a yellow one, it would be enough still for me:—only it would not, for _you_—because your motives are as worthy always as your acts.—Dearest!

So let us talk of the great conference in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage, in which joined himself, Arabel, Flush and I. First he said ... ‘Did Browning stay much longer with you?’ ‘Yes—some time.’ This was as we were going on our way toward some bridge, whence to look at the Birmingham train. As we came back, he said, with an epical leap _in medias res_ ... ‘What an extraordinary memory our friend Browning has.’ ‘Very extraordinary’—said I—‘and how it is raining.’ I give you Arabel’s report of my reply, for I did not myself exactly remember the full happiness of it—and she assured me besides that he looked ... looked at me ... as a man may look ... And this was everything spoken of you throughout the excursion.

But he spoke of _me_ and observed how well I was—on which Arabel said ‘Yes—she considered me quite well; and that nothing was the matter now but _sham_.’ Then the railroads were discussed in relation to me ... and she asked him—‘Shouldn’t she try them a little, before she undertakes this great journey to Italy?’ ‘Oh’ ... he replied—‘_she_ is going on no great journey.’ ‘Yes, she will, perhaps—Ba is inclined to be a great deal too wild, and now that she is getting well, I do assure you, Mr. Kenyon.’

To sit upon thorns, would express rather a ‘velvet cushion’ than where I was sitting, while she talked this foolishness. I have been upbraiding her since, very seriously; and I can only hope that the words were taken for mere jest—_du bout des lèvres_.

Moreover Mr. Kenyon is _not_ going away on Thursday—he has changed his plans: he has put off Cambridge till the ‘spring’—he meets Miss Bayley nowhere—he holds his police-station in London. ‘When _are_ you going’ I asked in my despair, trying to look satisfied. He did not know—‘not directly, at any rate’—‘I need not hope to get rid of him,’ he said aside perhaps.

But we saw the great roaring, grinding Thing ... a great blind mole, it looked for blackness. We got out of the carriage to see closer—and Flush was so frightened at the roar of it, that he leapt upon the coach-box. Also it rained,—and I had ever so many raindrops on my gown and in my face even, ... which pleased me nearly as much as the railroad sight. It is something new for me to be rained upon, you know.

As for happiness—the words which you use so tenderly are in my heart already, making me happy, ... I am happy by you. Also I may say solemnly, that the greatest proof of love I could give you, is to be happy because of you—and even _you_ cannot judge and see how great a proof _that_ is. You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight. May God bless you, ever ever dearest!

I am your own—

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]

No, my own dearest, your letter does not arrive on Saturday, but this morning—what then? You will not be prevented from your usual ways of entire goodness to me by _that_? You will continue to write through the remainder of the writing-time? This one letter reaches me,—if another was sent, it stays back till to-morrow—so I _do_ get a blessing by your endeavour, and am grateful as ever, my own Ba! After all, neither of us loses,—effectually loses—anything—for my letter always comes in its good time,—it is not cast hopelessly away—and do you suppose that _you_ lose any of the gladness and thanks? Rather, you get them doubly—for all along, all through the suspense, I have been (invariably) sure of the deed when promised, and of the unchanging love, when only expected ... so that when the letter finds me at last, the joy being unaccountably unabated do you not see that there is a _gain_ somehow? I told you on Friday I loved you more at that instant than at any previous time—I will show you why, because I _can_ show you, I think—though it seems at first an irrational word ... for always having loved you wholly, how can I, still _only_ loving you wholly, speak of ‘more’ or ‘less’?—This is why—I used to see you once a week, to sit with you for an hour and a half—to receive a letter, or two, or three, during the week—and I loved you, Ba, wholly, as I say, and reckoned time for no time in the intervals of seeing you and hearing from you. Now I see you twice in the week, and stay with you the three hours, and have letter on dear letter,—and the distance is, at least, the _same_, between the days, and between the letters—I will only affirm it is the _same_—so I must love you more—because if you were to bring me back to the old allowance of you,—the one short visit, the two or three letters,—I should be starved with what once feasted me! (If you do not understand Flush does!) Seriously, does not that go to prove, I love you more! Increased strength comes insensibly thus,—is only ascertained by such process of induction ... once you crossed the room to look out Shelley’s age in a book, and were not tired—now you cross London to see the trains arrive, and (I trust) are not tired.... _So_—you are stronger.

Dearest, I know your very meaning, in what you said of religion, and responded to it with my whole soul—what you express now, is for us both ... those are my own feelings, my convictions beside—instinct confirmed by reason. Look at that injunction to ‘love God with all the heart, and soul, and strength’—and then imagine yourself bidding any faculty, that arises towards the love of him, be still! If in a meeting house, with the blank white walls, and a simple doctrinal exposition,—all the senses should turn (from where they lie neglected) to all that sunshine in the Sistine with its music and painting, which would lift them at once to Heaven,—why should you not go forth?—to return just as quickly, when they are nourished into a luxuriance that extinguishes, what is called, Reason’s pale wavering light, lamp or whatever it is—for I have got into a confusion with thinking of our convolvuluses that climb and tangle round the rose-trees—which might be lamps or tapers! See the levity! No—this sort of levity only exists because of the strong conviction, I do believe! There seems no longer need of earnestness in assertion, or proof ... so it runs lightly over, like foam on the top of a wave.

Chorley came and was very agreeable and communicative. You shall tell me more about Mr. Mathews and his review. And with respect to his lady-friend, you will see her, I think. But first tell me of Mr. Kenyon, and yourself—how you are, and what I am to do, when to see you.

Now goodbye, my own Ba—‘goodbye.’ Be prepared for all fantasticalness that may happen! Perhaps some day I shall shake hands with you, simply, and go ... just to remember the more exquisitely where I once was, and where you let me stay now, you dearest, dearest heart of my heart, soul of my soul! But the shaking-hands, at a very distant time! _Now_—let me kiss you, beloved—and so I do kiss you—

Ever your own.

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

Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]

Your sight of Widdicombe was highly dramatic—and the policeman ‘intersit nodo’ as well as any god of them all. What a personage Widdicombe must be! Think of the mental state of a man, who could gravely apply to his own face false moustachios and rouge before a looking-glass. There is something in it to wonder over, as over the megalosaurie and prodigions of ridicules. Mind—when I talked of rouge improving a complexion for the nonce, I was thinking of women; not of men, in whom that sort of colouring (even if it were natural) is detestable, or, to measure one’s language, very ugly indeed. I have seen a man, of whom it was related that he _painted his lips_—so that at dinner, with every course, was removed a degree of bloom; the lips paled at the soup, grew paler at the mutton, became white at the fricandeau and ghastly at the pudding—till with the orange at dessert, his nearest neighbours drew back their chairs a little, expecting him to fall flat in a fainting-fit. But he was very rich, and could only talk charmingly out of those painted lips. There were women who ‘couldn’t conceive why people should call him a fool.’ To every Bottom’s head (not to wrong Bottom by such a comparison), there will be a special Titania—see if there will not!

So you go on Wednesday to this club-dinner, really. And you come to me also on Wednesday. Does _that_ remain decided? I have had a letter from that poor Chiappino, to desire a ‘last interview’ ... which is promised to be ‘pacific.’ Oh—such stuff! Am I to hold a handkerchief to my eyes and sob a little? Your policeman is necessary to the full development of the drama, I think. And I forgot to tell you that there were _two_ things in which I had shown great want of feeling—one, the venturing to enclose your verses—the other ... (now listen!) the other ... the having said that ‘I was sincerely sorry for all his real troubles.’ Which I do remember having said once, when I was out of patience—as how can any one be patient continually? and how was I especially to condole with him in lawn and weepers, on the dreadful fact of your existence in the world? Well—he has real troubles unfortunately, and he is going away to live in a village somewhere. Poor Chiappino! A little occupation would be the best thing that could happen for him; it would be better than prosperity without it. When a man spins evermore on his own axis, like a child’s toy I saw the other day, ... what is the use of him but to make a noise? No greater tormentor is there, than self-love, ... even to self. And no greater instance of this, than _this_!

Dearest beloved, to turn away from the whole world to you ... _when_ I do, do I lose anything ... or not rather gain all? Sometimes I feel to wish that I had more to sacrifice to you, so as to prove something of what is in me—but you do not require sacrifice ... it is enough, you say, that I should _be happy through you_. How like those words are to you!—how they are said in your own idiom! And for myself, I am contented to think that, ... if such things can really satisfy you, ... you would find with difficulty elsewhere in the world than here, a woman as perfectly empty of life and gladness, except what comes to her from your hands. Many would be happy through you:—but to be happy through only you, is my advantage ... my boast. In this, I shall be better than the others.

Why, if you were to drive me from you after a little, in what words could I reproach you, but just in these ... ‘You might have left me to die _before_.’ Still I should be your debtor, my beloved, as now I am

Your very own

BA.

I told you that I was going to the chapel one Sunday—but I have not been yet. I had not courage. May God bless you!—

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

Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 17, 1846.]

I come home from Town for my letters ... the _two_ I ventured to expect, and here they meet me. As I said, you _had_ written, and I thanked you _then_, and _now_, too, just as if I had been despairing all along—and over and above, there are some especial thanks to pay,—for when I could not otherwise disengage myself from a dinner a little way out of town,—having unawares confessed to the day’s being at my disposal, ... I said—‘I expect letters at home which _must_ be answered’—and here I am.

Or rather, here you are, dearest,—in, I do think, your dearest mood. I must shift my ground already, alter my moment of time, and avow that it is _now_ I love you the best, the completest. Do you want to know how much kindness I can bear? If I ever am so happy as to speak so as to please you, it may be only your own kindness overflowing and running back to you—I feel every day, often in every day, the regret follow some thought of you,—that _this_ thought, for instance, if I could secure and properly tell you _this_ only, you would know my love for what it is,—and yet that _this_ thought will pass unexpressed like the others! Well, I do not care—rightly considered, there is not so much to regret—the words _should_ lead to acts, and be felt insufficient.

Now we collect then, from Mr. Kenyon’s caution, or discretion, or pity, or ignorance, that he will not interpose, and that there will be one great effort, and acknowledgment _for all_? I should certainly like it _so_ best. You seem stronger than to need the process of preparatory disclosures, now to one, now to another friend. It is clearly best as it is like to be ... for perhaps the chances are in our favour that the few weeks more will be uninterrupted.

My time is gone—and nothing said! For to-morrow, all rests with you ... if the note bids me go, I shall be in _absolute_ readiness—otherwise on Wednesday ... just as you seem to discern the times and the seasons.

Bless you my own best, dearest Ba—your own R.

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, August 18, 1846.]

For these two dear letters, I thank you, dearest! You are best, as ever! And _that_ is all I have to tell you, almost—for I have seen nobody, heard nothing ... except that _Eugène Sue can paint_, ... which Miss Mitford told me this morning in a note of hers, ... in which, besides, she complains of the fatigue she suffers from the visitors who go to see after her the Reading prison, as the next ‘sight’ of the neighbourhood. Better to live in Cheapside, than among the oaks, on such conditions! As to Mr. Kenyon, he does not approach me. So he may come to-morrow, perhaps, or even on Wednesday. Would it not appear the top of wisdom if you deferred our day to Thursday’s sun!—now consider! It would be a decided gain, surely, to be able to say to him on Wednesday that you had not seen me since you and he saw me together. So I propose _Thursday_ if you permit it. Next week we may take up our two days again, as one takes up so many dropt silken stitches, ... and we will be careful that the beads do not run off in the meantime. To-day George came from circuit. He asked, for nearly a first question, whether I had thought of Italy—‘Yes, I had thought of it—but there was time to think more.’ I am uneasy a little under George’s eyes.