Chapter VIII: Part 8

But _you_ ... you have the superabundant mental life and individuality which admits of shifting a personality and speaking the truth still. _That_ is the highest faculty, the strongest and rarest, which exercises itself in Art,—we are all agreed there is none so great faculty as the dramatic. Several times you have hinted to me that I made you careless for the drama, and it has puzzled me to fancy how it could be, when I understand myself so clearly both the difficulty and the glory of dramatic art. Yet I am conscious of wishing you to take the other crown besides—and after having made your own creatures speak in clear human voices, to speak yourself out of that personality which God made, and with the voice which He tuned into such power and sweetness of speech. I do not think that, with all that music in you, only your own personality should be dumb, nor that having thought so much and deeply on life and its ends, you should not teach what you have learnt, in the directest and most impressive way, the mask thrown off however moist with the breath. And it is not, I believe, by the dramatic medium, that poets teach most impressively—I have seemed to observe _that_! ... it is too difficult for the common reader to analyse, and to discern between the vivid and the earnest. Also he is apt to understand better always, when he sees the lips move. Now, here is yourself, with your wonderful faculty!—it is wondered at and recognised on all sides where there are eyes to see—it is called wonderful and admirable! Yet, with an inferior power, you might have taken yourself closer to the hearts and lives of men, and made yourself dearer, though being less great. Therefore I do want you to do this with your surpassing power—it will be so easy to you to speak, and so noble, when spoken.

Not that I usen’t to fancy I could see you and know you, in a reflex image, in your creations! I used, you remember. How these broken lights and forms look strange and unlike now to me, when I stand by the complete idea. Yes, _now_ I feel that no one can know you worthily by those poems. Only ... I guessed a little. _Now_ let us have your own voice speaking of yourself—if the voice may not hurt the speaker—which is my fear.

_Evening._—Thank you, dearest dearest! I have your parcel—I have your letters ... three letters to-day, it is certainly feast day with me. Thank you my own dearest. The drawings I had just fixed in my mind, courageously to ask for, because as you _meant_ me to keep them I did not see why I should throw away a fortune—and they return to me with interest ... I observe these new vivid sketches! Some day I shall put them into a book, as _you_ should have done. Then for the Roman ode, and all the rest, thank you, thank you. _I_ looked here and looked there, though, for a letter—I could not find it at first, and was just saying to myself quite articulately ‘What wickedness’! ... meaning that it was wickedness in you to send me a parcel without a word, ... when I came upon the folded paper. For _I_ looked inside the books, be sure. _I_ did not toss them away....

There’s the gratitude of the world, you see! and of womankind in particular! there’s the malign spirit of the _genus coffee-cup-throw-arum_! Talking of which coffee-cups, you dare me to it. Which is imprudent, to say the least of it. I heard once of her most gracious Majesty’s throwing a tea-cup,—whereupon Albertus Magnus, who is no conjurer, could find nothing better to do than to walk out of the room in solemn silence. If I had been he, I should have tied the royal hands, I think; for when women get to be warlike after that demonstrative fashion, it seems to me to be allowable to teach them that they are not the strongest. I say it, never thinking of my ‘licence to’ throw coffee-cups—which you granted, knowing very well what I know intimately, ... that ... that....

I have a theory about you. Was ever anybody in the world, ... a woman at least, ... _angry with you_? If anyone ever tried, did she not fail in the first breath of the trying?—go out to curse like the prophet, and bless instead? Tell me if anyone was ever angry with you? It is impossible, I know perfectly. Therefore, as to the coffee-cup license, ... the divine Achilles, invulnerable all but the heel, might as well have said to his dearest foe ‘Draw out your sword, O Diomede, and strike me across the head, prick me in the forehead, slash me over the ears, ...’ and _that_ stand for a proof of courage!

What stuff I do write, to be sure. I was out to-day walking, with Arabel and Flush, and rested at the bookseller’s; but as I went farther than the other day, I let Stormie carry me up-stairs, ... it is such a long way! Say how you are, dearest—you do not! Shall you walk so fast when you walk with me under the trees? I shall not let you—I shall hang back, as Flush does, when he won’t go with a string. Ah—little (altogether) you know perhaps what a hard Degree that B:A: is, to take— —the BA which is not a Bachelor’s.

No, no, for the rest. It was not any Brown on earth, but the only Browning of the great genius, who was shown up as intimate friend to the Miss Cokers and elect husband of that cloud, Miss Campbell the ‘great heiress’—all in proportion, observe! But I do entreat you not to say a word to Dr. White or another. Why should you? It is mere nonsense,—so do let it evaporate quietly. Why, with all my doubts for which you have blamed me, ... at the thickest and saddest of the doubting, it never was what people could _say of you_ that could move me. And this is so foolish, and unbelieved even by the very persons who say it, perhaps! Let it pass away with other dust, in the wind. It is not worth the watering.

May God bless you! This is my last letter ... already! I had another criticism to-day from America, in a book called ‘Thoughts on the Poets,’ which is written by a Mr. Tuckermann, and selects its poets on the most singular principle ... or rather on none at all ... beginning with Petrarch, ending with Bryant, receiving Tennyson, Procter, Hunt, and your Ba ... and not a word of you! Stupid book—Petrarch and Alfieri are the only foreign poets admitted—criticisms, swept back to the desk from the magazines, I dare say. Very kind to me—you shall see if you like.

And now ... good-night at last! it must come. Have I not written you one letter as long as the three? Only not worth a third as much—_that_ I know.

Wholly and ever your

BA.

Oh I must speak, though I meant to be silent! though first, I meant to keep the great subject of the _Statesmen_ for an explosion on Wednesday. I gave up the early poems because I felt contented to read them afterwards—but listen ... my _Statesmen_, I _will not give up_. Now listen—I expect nothing at all from them—they were written for another person, and under peculiar circumstances ... they are probably as bad as anything written by you, can be. Will _that_ do, to say? And _may_ I see them? Now I ask ever so humbly ... _Dearest_!

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

3½ P.M. Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 26, 1846.]

Dearest, your dearest of notes only arrived at 2 o’clock—and Carlyle has just been with me,—come on horseback for the express purpose of strolling about—so that I was forced, forced ... you see! He is gone again—and there is only time to tell you why no more is told—but to-morrow will supply all deficiency. Bless you, my dearest best Ba. How I love you!

Your own—

Poor Capt. Jones is dead,—you may see in the papers.

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

Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 28, 1846.]

Dearest it is my fancy to write quickly this morning and take my letter to the post myself. Oh, I shall do it this time—there will be no obstacle. The office is just below Hodgson’s, the bookseller’s. And so with this letter, please to understand that I go to you twice and wholly, once in the spirit, and again in the body.

But there is nothing to tell you, except that I think of you with the thought which never can change essentially, while it deepens always. What I meant to say yesterday was simply, that I, _knowing that_, should be ‘bad’ if I could fail practically to myself and you. I have known from the beginning the whole painful side of what is before me, also ... I should have no excuse therefore for any weakness in any fear. Should I not be ‘bad’ then, and more unworthy of you than even according to my own account, if the obstacle came from _me_? _It never can._ Remember to be sure of it.

A change of feeling indeed would be a different thing, and we think exactly alike on the fit consequences of it. Which change is however absolutely impossible in my position and to _me_, ‘for reasons ... for reasons’ ... you guess at some of them, some are spoken, and others cannot be.

In one word for all, life seems to come to me only through you.

I am your very own

BA.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 28, 1846.]

There is a long four days more of waiting—I feel more and more and ever more how, wanting you, my life wants all it can have. Dear Ba, never wonder that I fancy at times such an event’s occurrence as you tell me I need not fear. I shall always fear,—never _can_ I hold you sufficiently fast, I shall think. So, if my jewel must be taken from me, let some eagle stoop down for it suddenly, baffling all human precaution, as I look on my treasure on a tower’s top miles and miles inland,—don’t let me have to remember, though but in a minute of life afterwards, that I let it drop into the sea through foolishly balancing it in my open hand over the water. There is one of Ba’s ‘myths,’ excepting all Ba’s felicitousness of application and glory of invention,—but then it has all my own love and worship of Ba’s self, all I care to be distinguished by.

I hope you go out this fine morning—the wind is cold, to be sure, but London is much warmer than this place, and the wind kept off by the houses. I have got two of Mr. Kenyon’s kind notes, to confirm the appointment for Wednesday (when Mrs. Jameson is to be of the party), and to invite me to meet Landor on Tuesday—so that for three days running I shall be in Ba’s very neighbourhood ... for if the wind can’t get through houses and walls, Ba can and does, as my heart knows. Might I not see you for a moment on the Wednesday? Ah, there will be time to contrive, to concert—but the worst is that when I see you I contrive nothing, nor do you help me, you Ba! Else, out of these walks,—who is to object to my going to see the Thames Tunnel or the Tower, by way of Wimpole Street,—wanting the organ of locality as I am said to? Whereas I am all one consciousness of the influence of one locality, turning as my whole heart and soul turn to Ba,—my dearest, dearest, whom may God bless and requite. I can only kiss you, as I do, and be your very own, my Ba, as I am and shall be ever.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 29, 1846.]

Dearest dearest, I thought I had lost my letter to-night, for not a sound came like a postman’s knock ... I thought I had lost my letter, talking of losing jewels. I waited and waited, and at last broke silence to Arabel with, ‘when _will_ the post come?’ ‘Not to-night,’ said she—‘it is nearly ten.’ On which I exclaimed so pitifully and with such a desperate sense of loss, ‘You mean to say that I shall have no letter to-night,’? ... that after she had laughed a very little, she went down-stairs to search the letterbox and brought me what I wanted.

And you think it possible that I should give up my letters and their golden fountain?—_I!_ ... while I live and have understanding! I can’t fancy what manner of eagles you believe in. If in real live eagles, ... why it is as probable as any other thing of the sort, that I (or you) should be snatched away by an eagle ... the eagle who used to live, for instance, at the Coliseum of Regent’s Park. And when I ride away upon an eagle, I may take a wrong counsel perhaps that hour from other birds of the air: ... but _till then_, I am yours to have and to hold, ... unless, as you say, you open your hand wide and cry with a distinct voice, ‘Go.’ It shall be your doing and not mine, if we two are to part—or God’s own doing, through illness and death. And the way to avert danger is to avoid observation and discussion, as much as we can—and we have not been frightened much yet, ... now have we? As for Wednesday, there is time to think. But how can you leave your sister? you cannot. So unless you derange your ‘myth’ altogether, and find a trysting place for us, ... each mounted on an eagle, ... in Nephelococcygia, we had better be satisfied, it seems to me, with Monday and Saturday.

I was out to-day as you saw by my letter, which with my own hand I dropped into the post. I liked to do it beyond what you discern. And how the sun shone,—and the little breath of wind could do nobody harm, I felt. Also there was the ‘Autography’ in the shop-window to see, before I sate down in the shop. So you were thought of by necessity, besides the freewill.

Do you not see that I am bound to you hand and foot? Why do you not see what God sees?

But it is late, and the rest must be for to-morrow. The sender of the rose-tree sent to-day a great heliotrope—so, presently, you will have to seek me in a wood.

Everywhere your own

BA.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, May 29, 1846.]

My own darling, your little note was a great delight to me last night, when I expected nothing; and though I do not hear to-day, I will believe you are well after the walk—the walk, what a ‘divine fancy’; not mentioned by Quarles!

And then the words that follow the good news of the walk ... those assurances ... oh, my best, dearest Ba,—it is all right that I cannot speak here,—if I _could_, by some miracle, speak, it would be foolish:—but my life lies before you to take and direct, and keep or give away,—I am altogether your own.

I come in rather tired from Town—having spent the morning at the Exhibition, and made calls beside. (Etty’s picture of the _sirens_ is abominable; though it looks admirable beside another picture of his: did I not tell you he had chosen the sirens for a subject?)

Oh, dearest beyond all dearness, _now_, at this moment only, your last and _pro tempore best_ letter comes to me! One can’t scold and kiss at the same time ... so let the wretched Post arrangements be unmentioned for the moment; there is enough to get up a revolution about, I do think! But you, you spoil me and undo me almost,—_ought_ to do so, at least,—they were _too_ delicious to bear, the things you say to me! Why will you not say rather what I feel,—for you can, perhaps, being what you are, and let me subscribe it! It is a real pain to me to feel as I feel, and speak no more than I speak.

And again the time urges ... just when I want most to go on writing—but to-morrow I will do nothing else. Take this now, sweet, sweet Ba, with my whole heart that loves, loves you!

Your R.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, May 30, 1846.]

I have your letter ... you who cannot write! The contrariety is a part of the ‘miracle.’ After all it seems to me that you can write for yourself pretty well—rather too well I used to think from the beginning. But if you persist in the proposition about my doing it for you, leaving room for your signature ... shall it be this way?

_Show me how to get rid of you._

(signed) _R.B._

Now isn’t it _I_ who am ... not ‘balancing my jewel’ over the gulph ... but actually tossing it up in the air out of sheer levity of joyousness? Only it is not perhaps such dangerous play as it looks: there may be a little string perhaps, tying it to my finger. Which, if it is not imprudence in act, is imprudence in fact, you see!

Dearest, I committed a felony for your sake to-day—so never doubt that I love you. We went to the Botanical Gardens, where it is unlawful to gather flowers, and I was determined to gather this for you, and the gardeners were here and there ... they seemed everywhere ... but I stooped down and gathered it. Is it felony, or burglary on green leaves—or what is the name of the crime? would the people give me up to the police, I wonder? _Transie de peur_, I was, ... listening to Arabel’s declaration that all gathering of flowers in these gardens is highly improper,—and I made her finish her discourse, standing between me and the gardeners—to prove that I was the better for it.

How pretty those gardens are, by the way! We went to the summer-house and sate there, and then on, to the empty seats where the band sit on your high days. What I enjoy most to see, is the green under the green ... where the grass stretches under trees. _That_ is something unspeakable to me, in the beauty of it. And to stand under a tree and feel the green shadow of the tree! I never knew before the difference of the _sensation_ of a green shadow and a brown one. I seemed to feel that green shadow through and through me, till it went out at the soles of my feet and mixed with the other green below. Is it nonsense, or not? Remember that by too much use we lose the knowledge and apprehension of things, and that I may feel therefore what you do not feel.

But in everything I felt _you_—and always, dearest beloved, you were nearer to me than the best.

Well; to go on with my story. Coming home and submitting to be carried up-stairs because I was tired, the news was that Miss Bayley had waited to see me three quarters of an hour. Then she sate with me an hour—and oh, such kind, insisting, persisting plans about Italy! I did not know what to say, so I was _niaise_ and grateful, and said ‘thank you, thank you’ as I could. Did Mrs. Jameson tell you of her scheme of going to Florence for two years and to Venice for one, taking her niece with her in order to an ‘artistical education’? And Mr. Bezzi, who is the ‘most accurate of men,’ furnishes the details of necessary expenses, and assures her in his programme that she may ‘walk in silk attire’ and drive her carriage like an English aristocrat, for three hundred a year, at Florence—but the place is English-ridden ... filled and polluted. Sorrento is better or even Pisa. We will keep our Siren-isles to ourselves ... will we not?

And now tell me. Was there not a picture of Sirens by Etty, exhibited years ago ... which was also ‘abominable,’ as I thought when I saw it? Is it the same picture returning like a disquieted ghoule ... much more _that_, than like a Siren at all, if it is the same, ... I remember it was scarcely to be looked at for hideousness ... though I heard some carnivorous connoisseurs praising the ‘colouring’!! Foreigners might refer such artistical successes to our national ‘beef’ ... ‘le bifteak’ ideal. The materialism of Art.

Can you love me _so_? _do_ you? ... will you always? And is any of that love ‘lost,’ do you think, ... as the saying is? Indeed it is not. I put golden basins all round (the reverse shape of lachrymatories) to catch every drop as it falls, ... so that when we two shall meet together in the new world, I may look in your face (as I cannot at this moment) and say ‘None of the love was lost, though all of it was undeserved.’ May God bless you, dearest, best! My heart is _in_ you, I think. You would laugh to see the books I take up ... first, ‘Strafford’ ... then Suetonius to see about your Cæsar ... then the Naples book. Oh, but I find you out in the _Statesmen_ ... for all the dim light.

Your very own

BA.

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, May 30, 1846.]

Oh, yes, do ‘show me how to get rid of you,’ my best Ba,—for so I shall have the virtuous delight of deciding to keep you, instead of being wholly kept by you,—it is all out of my head, now, how I used to live when I was my own: and if you can, by one more witchery, give me back that feeling for once ... Ba, I have no heart to write more nonsense, when I can take your dearest self into my arms; yet I shall never quite lie quiet and happy, I do think ... I shall be always wishing you would be angry and cruel and unjust, for a moment,—for my love overflows the bounds, needs to prove itself—all which is foolish, I know. To-day, for some unknown reason, is a day of hope with me ... all bright things seem possible; I was feeling them so, when your note came—as I sate in the garden—and when I saw the flower (Paracelsus’ _own_ ... they usually ornament his pictures with it,—I said something on the subject in the poem, too, and gave a note about ‘Flammula citrinula—herba Paracelso multum familiaris’—) when I saw that, and read on and on,—every now and then laying the letter down to feel the entire joy,—and when the end came,—Ba, dearest Ba, it was with me then as now, as always after steady thinking of _what_ you are to me ... I cannot tell you—but for the past, utterly irrespective of the future,—for what you _have_ been, this love cannot cease though you were transformed into all you are not nor could ever be. I mean, that after the blow struck, the natural vibration must follow and continue its proper period—and that my love for what I have received from you already _must_ last to my life’s end—cannot end sooner! ‘Shall I continue to love you!’

You said in Thursday’s letter—‘We have not been frightened much yet,’ our meetings have been uninterrupted hitherto, and these letters: yes, _that_ I am most thankful for—whatever should happen, our real relation one to the other is wholly known—that fact has been established beyond possibility of doubt at least. I don’t make myself understood here, I know,—but, think,—if at the very beginning any accident had separated us....

But I will believe in the end now and henceforth—I will believe you _are_ my very own Ba,—my best dream’s realization, my life’s fulfilment and consummation—and having discovered you, I shall live and die with you. So may God dispose.

I will write the rest,—(nothing is here) a longer letter to-morrow—but now my mind is too full of you—the poor hand gets despised for lagging after! All my thoughts are with you, dearest. May God bless you and make me less unworthy—

being your own, own R.

One more day—one, and Monday!

(See what kindness of Mr. Kenyon! I do not accept, having no need to trouble him as he desires—but see how kind.)

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, May 30, 1846.]

You shall have a visit from me on the seventh day as on the others, I think, because I remember you every day equally, and because, without waiting for your Saturday’s letter, I have always with me enough of you, to thank you. This morning, Henrietta and I went as usual to Hodgson’s and took possession of the chair in waiting, as Flush did of the whole territory, setting himself, with all the airs of a landed proprietor, to snap at the shop boy. Nota bene—Flush is likely to injure my popularity if I take him about with me much. He has been used, you see, to be ‘_Cæsar_ in his own house,’ and the transition to being Cæsar everywhere is the easiest thing in the world. Yet as to leaving him at home, it is impossible, ... not to mention other objections! His delight in going out in the carriage is scarcely a natural thing—but I have told you of it. Yesterday I was in the back drawing-room waiting to go out, and just said to him, ‘Flush! go and see if the carriage is come’—instantly he ran to the front windows, standing on his hind legs and looking up the street and down. Now Mr. Kenyon would declare that _that_ was my invention. Yet it is the literal truth of history.

Coming back from Hodgson’s, we passed our door and walked to 57 and home, which is an improvement in the distance. Then I walked up-stairs to the drawing-room, and was carried the rest of the way. May I be tired a little, after it all? Just a little, perhaps.

Henrietta dined at Mr. Lough’s yesterday, and met Miss Camilla Toulmin who was gracious ... and Professor Forbes, who can do nothing without the polka, ... and sundries. There was a splendid dinner, and wine of all vintages—one is in a strait in such cases to know how to praise at once the hospitable intentions and to blame the bad taste—surely it _is_ bad taste in a man like Mr. Lough who lives by his genius, to give ambitious dinners like a man who lives by his dinners. The true dignity of simplicity in these things were worth such a man’s holding, one might think. But he is kind and liberal, and a good artist, ... and sent me a very gracious invitation to go and see his works.

The Hedleys are likely to be in England this summer again— —more’s the pity. I am fond of them, but would rather, rather, not see them just now, and not be seen by them—for eyes have they, and can see. My uncle Hedley comes next week, ... comes to London for several weeks ... that is certain—and my aunt after settling the younger part of her family at Baréges for the summer, _ponders_ coming, ... as I behold from afar off, ... with her daughter Arabella, who is to be married immediately to the younger brother of the great Brewery partner, Barclay and Bevan, a Mr. Bevan. But they will not be in this house, and we must manage as we can, dearest! One leap over Sunday, and Monday comes bringing you! Then, I shall have you near on Tuesday besides, and Wednesday, afterwards! how the cup overflows! May God bless you my beloved! It is not exaggeration to say that I feel you in the air and the sun.

Ever and ever your own I am!

_Ba_.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 1, 1846.]

My own Ba, do you want to turn my head with good fortune and get at my secrets, that you give me two letters in one day? For there was too much life and warmth, I do think, in these last, to be kept in the Postman’s pouch as before—he delivered them punctually as he was obliged, not before his cold newspapers and railway-prospectuses felt astonished, you may be sure; so, as I say, do you want to try my temper and bring out infirmities of mind that may be latent, as kings used to put robes and crowns on their favourites to see what they would do then?

I will try and say as soberly as I can,—if you did not write to me for a week, I would remember and love you the same—you are not bound to any kindness, much less to this extravagance—which yet so blesses me that—

Let me leave what I can never say, and make the few remarks I ought to have made before. Mrs. Jameson did tell me something about her intended journey to Italy—but not in detail as to you. Miss Bayley seems worthy to be your friend, dearest,—and it is satisfactory, very satisfactory to find her opinion thus confirming yours, of the good you will derive from travelling. You know I look on you with absolute awe, in a sense,—I don’t understand how such a creature lives and breathes and moves and does _not_ move into fine air altogether and leave us of the Etty-manufacture! I have solemnly set down in the tablets of my brain that Ba prefers morphine to pork, but can eat so much of a chicken as Flush refuses—a chapter in my natural history quite as important as one in Pliny’s (and Ælian’s too)—‘When the Lion is sick, nothing can cure him but to eat an Ape!’—though not so important as my great, greatest record of all—‘A cup of coffee will generally cure Ba’s headaches—’

As for Pisa or Florence, or Sorrento, or New Orleans,—_ubi_ Ba, _ibi_ R.B.! Florence, however, you describe exactly ... the English there are intolerable,—even from a distance you see _that_. Indeed, I have heard here in England of a regular system of tactics by which _parvenus_ manage to get among the privileged classes which at home would keep them off inexorably. Such go to Florence, make acquaintance as ‘travellers,’ keeping the native connexions in the farthest of back grounds, and after a year or two’s expatriation, come back and go boldly to rejoice the friends they ‘passed those amusing days with’ &c.

What you say of Lough is right and true in one point of view—but I excuse him, knowing the way of life in London—what alternative has he? Even when you ask people by ones and twos, and think to be rational, what do you get for your pains? Not long ago somebody invited himself to dine with me—and got of course the plainest fare, and just hock and claret, because I like them better than heavier wines myself, and suppose others may. I had to dine in the same manner with my friend a week after, and he judiciously began by iced champagne, forced vegetables &c. What was that but telling me _such_ was his notion of the duty of the giver of ‘just a chop’ according to stipulation? It is all detestable—a mere pretext! there is simply a ‘_fait accompli_’ in every such dinner,—it is an eternal record (to the seasons’ end) that you witnessed (because you may let it alone for aught anybody cares, so long as you have eyes and can see)—_such_ a succession of turbot, and spring-soup and—_basta!_ I shall go and take tea with Carlyle before very long. Lough has asked me more than once, but I never went. I like him when he is not on the subject of himself or other artists. Of one particular in his liberality I can bear testimony, he promises at a great rate. Some three years ago he most preposterously signified his intention of giving me a cast of one of his busts—me who had neither claim on him, the slightest, nor much desire for the bust; but on this intimation I was bound to express as many thanks as if the bust had arrived in very plaster,—which it has not done to this day; so that I was too prodigal, you see, and instead of thanks ought to have contented myself with making over to him the whole profits of ‘Luria’—value received. But, jokes apart, he is a good, kind man I believe, so don’t mention this absurdity to your sister—which I am sorry for having mentioned now that mentioned it is! So sorrow shall be turned into joy, for I will only think that the evening is come, and night will follow, and morning end ... 3 o’clock with all of dearest, dearest Ba,—with the walkings and drivings to evidence in her face? _My_ face, thank God, I am let say to my unutterable joy and pride and love, above all other feelings.

Ever your own.

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 2, 1846.]

You understand, dearest beloved, all I _could_ mean about your sister’s coming here. Both I was afraid of not being liked enough ... which was one reason, and none the less reasonable because of your being ‘infatuated’ ... (oh, _that_ is precisely the word to use, and indeed I never falter to myself in the applying of it!) and I felt it to be impossible for me to receive so near a relative of yours, your own only sister, as I should another and a stranger. There would be the need in me of being affectionate to your sister! how could I not? and yet, _how could I?_ Everything is at once too near and too far—it is enough to make me tremble to think of it—it _did_, when Mr. Kenyon made his proposition. I would rather, ten times over, receive Queen Victoria and all her court——do you understand? can you misunderstand? can you pretend to fancy, as you talked yesterday, that the reluctance came from my having ‘too many visitors,’ or from any of those common causes. Why, she is your sister—and _that_ was the cause of the reluctance. You will not _dare_ to turn it into a wrong against yourself.

Now I am going to ask you a question, dearest of mine, and you will consider it carefully and examine your own wishes in respect to it, before I have any answer. In fact it is not necessary to treat of the subject of it at all at this moment—we have a great deal of time before us. Still, I want to know whether, upon reflection, you see it to be wise and better for me to go to Italy with Miss Bayley, or with any other person who may be willing to take me, (supposing I should find such a plan possible) and that you should follow with Mr. Chorley or alone, ... leaving other thoughts for another year. Or if I find this scheme, as far as I am concerned, impossible, shall we gain anything, do you think, on any side of the question that you can see, by remaining quietly as we are, you at New Cross, and I here, until next year’s summer or autumn? Shall we be wiser, more prudent, for any reason, or in any degree, by such a delay?

It is the question I ask you—it is no proposal of mine, understand—nor shall I tell you my own impression about it. I have told you that I would do as you should decide, and I will do that and no other. Only on that very account it is the more necessary that you should decide well, and according to the best lights of your own judgment and reason.

I forgot to talk to you yesterday of your _Statesmen_ which I read with a peculiar sort of pleasure, coming and going as I see you and miss you. There is no mistaking your footsteps along the sands.

May God bless you, dear dearest! Say how your head is, and love me _so_ much more than Machiavelli, as to spare it from farther injury. It is not hard to think of you to-day in this chair, where you were sitting yesterday—do you think it _is_?

Your own

BA.

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 2, 1846.]

You are the most entirely lovable creature I ever dreamed perhaps might be in a better world—altogether made up of affectionateness and generosity. I do not much fear, now, I shall ever offend you—in the miserable way of giving you direct offence which mortal will and endeavour could avert (although I speak—by design, on profession—doubtfully about the happiness of the future in some respects, yet I dare be quite bold here, and feel sure, as of my life at this moment, that I shall never do _that_, ...)—but at present I almost love even the apprehension that I may be found out too useless, too unworthy in the end; let it be said so, since I feel it so, my own Ba! I love this, because your dear love seems fit to cover any imperfection of mine: I dare say you do _not_ see them, as you say—but you will perhaps, and then I trust to the love wholly. I want forms, ways, of expressing my devotion to you—but such as I am, all is yours.

I will write more to-morrow—the stupid head will not be quiet to-day—my mother’s is sadly affected too—it is partly my fault for reading ... a state to be proud of! Don’t let my frankness do me wrong, however,—the inconvenience is very little, but I was desired to tell you, was I not? I shall go out presently and get well.

Are _you_ out to-day, beloved? It is very warm; be careful like the dearest Ba you are! And kiss me as I kiss you ... all except the adoration which is mine indefeasibly.

May God bless you ever for your very own.

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

Tuesday Night.
[Post-mark, June 3, 1846.]

My own dearest who are never to offend me!—And, true, _that_ is—because I have _tried_, before now, to be offended, and could not, ... being under a charm. So it is not my fault but yours, that never you see me angry.

But your head, _my_ head ... is it better, dearest, by this time, or is it ringing and aching even, under the crashing throat-peals of Mr. Landor’s laughter? he laughs, I remember like an ogre—he laughs as if laughter could kill, and he knew it, thinking of an enemy. May it do his friends no harm to-night! How I think of you, and, in every thought, love you! Yes, surely I can love you as if I were worthier! and better perhaps than if _I_ were better, ... though that may sound like a riddle. And dear dearest, why do you talk of your faults _so_? It is not at all gracious of you indeed. You are on a high hill above me where I cannot reach your hand—(in the myths, be it understood) and you sigh and say querulously ... ‘By and bye I may have to take a step down lower.’ Now is that gracious of you, or worthy of your usual chivalry? You ought to be _glad_, on the contrary, to be so much nearer _me_—! in the myths, be it understood! For _out_ of the myths we are near enough, as near as two hearts can be, ... I believe ... I trust!

You will not mistake what I said to you this morning my own beloved—you will not? My promise to you was to place the decision in your hands—and my desire is simply that you should decide according to your judgment and understanding ... I do not say, your affections, this time. Now it has struck me that you have a sort of _instinct_....

But no—I shall not write on that subject to-night. Rather I will tell you what I have been doing to-day to be so very, very tired. To-day I paid my first visit—not to Mr. Kenyon but to an older friend than even he—to Miss _Trepsack_ ... learn that name by heart ... whom we all of us have called ‘Treppy’ ever since we could speak. Moreover she has nursed ... tossed up ... held on her knee—Papa when he was an infant; the dearest friend of his mother and her equal, I believe, in age—so you may suppose that she is old now. Yet she can outwalk my sisters, and except for deafness, which, dear thing, she carefully explains as ‘a mere nervous affection,’—is as young as ever. But she calls us all ‘her children’ ... and I, you are to understand, am ‘her child,’ _par excellence_ ... her acknowledged darling and favourite,—perhaps because tenderly she thinks it right to carry on the love of her beloved friend, whom she lived with to the last. Once she saw you in the drawing-room—and you perhaps saw her. She dines here every Sunday, and on the other days of course often, and has the privilege of scolding everybody in the house when she is out of humour, and of being ‘coaxed’ by slow degrees back into graciousness. So, she had full right to have me on my first visit—had she not? and the goodness and kindness and funniness of the reception were enough to laugh and cry over. First ... half way up-stairs, I found a chair, to sit and rest on. Then the windows were all shut up, because I liked it so in my room. And then, for occulter reasons, a feast was spread for Arabel and Flush and me, which made me groan in the spirit, and Flush wag his tail, to look upon ... ice cream and cakes, which I was to taste and taste in despite of all memories of dinner an hour before ... and _cherrybrandy_!!! which I had to taste too, ... just then saved alive by an oath, on Arabel’s part, that I was ‘better without it.’ Think of dear Treppy!—of all the kindness, and fondness! Almost she kissed me to pieces as the ‘darlingest of children.’ So I am glad I went—and so is Flush, who highly approves of that class of hospitable attentions, and wishes it were the way of the world every day. But I am tired! so tired! The visiting is a new thing.

It is an old one that I should write such long letters. If I am tired, you might retort with the _Ed io anche_!—Yet you will not, because you are supernaturally good; and as it was in the beginning, ever shall be, you say!

But will you explain to me some day why you are sorry for Italy having been mentioned between us, and why you would rather prefer Nova Zembla? _So as to kill me the faster, is it?_

Your Ælian says that the oldest painters used to write under a tree, when they painted one, ‘This is a tree.’ So _I_ must do, I suddenly remember, under my jests ... I being, it would appear, as bad an artist in jesting, as they were in painting. Therefore ... see the last line of the last paragraph ... ‘_This is a jest._’

And _this_ is the earnest thing of all ... that I love you as I can love—and am for ever ... living and dying....

Your own—

Take care of the head, _I entreat_! and say how you are! and how your mother is! I am grieved to hear of that relapse!

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

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 3, 1846.]

I will tell you, dearest: your good is my good, and your will mine; if you were convinced _that_ good would be promoted by our remaining as we are for twenty years instead of one, I should endeavour to submit in the end ... after the natural attempts to find out and remove the imagined obstacle. If, as you seem to do here, you turn and ask about _my_ good—yours being supposed to be uninfluenced by what I answer ... then, here is my TRUTH on that subject, in that view,—my good for myself. Every day that passes before _that day_ is one the more of hardly endurable anxiety and irritation, to say the least; and the thought of another year’s intervention of hope deferred—altogether intolerable! Is there anything I can do in that year—or that you can do—to forward our object? Anything impossible to be done sooner? If not—

You may misunderstand me now at first, dear, dearest Ba: at first I sate quietly, you thought; do I live quietly now, do you think? Ought I to show the evidence of the unselfishness I _strive_, at least, to associate with my love, by coolly informing you ‘what would please me.’

But I will not say more, you must know ... and _I_ seem to know that this question was one of Ba’s old questions ... a branch-licence, perhaps, of the original inestimable one, that charter of my liberties, by which I am empowered to ‘hold myself unengaged, unbound’ &c. &c.

Good Heaven; I would not,—even to save the being asked such questions,—have played the horseleech that cries ‘give, give,’ in Solomon’s phrase—‘Do you let me see you once a week? Give me a sight once a day!—May I dare kiss you? Let me marry you to-morrow!’

But to the end, the very end, I am yours: God knows I would not do you harm for worlds—worlds! I may easily mistake what _is_ harm or not. I will ask your leave to speak—at your foot, my Ba: I would not have dared to take the blessing of kissing your hand, much less your lip, but that it seemed as if I was leading you into a mistake—as did happen—and that you might fancy I only felt a dreamy, abstract passion for a phantom of my own creating out of your books and letters, and which only took your name.... _That_ once understood, the rest you shall give me. In every event, I am your own.

_12 o’clock._—I thought another letter might arrive. This must go as we shall set off presently to Mr. Kenyon’s.

I _did_ understand the question about my sister. I mean, that you felt somewhat so, incredible as it seems—only I believe _all_ you say, all—to the letter, the iota. Think of _that_, whenever I _might_ ask and do not—or speak, and am silent ... but I am getting back to the question discussed above, which I ought not to do—understand me, dearest dearest! See me, open the eyes, the dear eyes, and see the love of your

R.

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

Wednesday—5 p.m.
[Post-mark, June 4, 1846].

Then let it be as we meant it should be. And do you forgive me, my own, if I have teazed you ... vexed you. Do I not always tell you that you are too good for me?

Yet the last of my intentions was, this time, to doubt of your attachment for me. Believe _that_. I will write to-night more fully—but never can be more than at this moment

Your

BA.

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

Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 4, 1846.]

Nothing at all had it to do with your Magna Charta, beloved, that question of mine. After you were gone the other day and I began turning your words over and over, ... (_so_, I make hay of them to feed the horses of the sun!) it struck me that you had perhaps an instinct of common sense, which, with a hand I did not see and a voice I could not hear, drew you perhaps. So I thought I would ask. For after all, this is rather a serious matter we are upon, and if you think that you are not to have your share of responsibility ... that you are not to consider and arrange and decide, and perform your own part, ... you are as much mistaken as ever _I_ was. ‘Judge what I say.’ For my part, I have done, it seems to me, nearly as much as I can do. I do not, at least, seem to myself to have any power to _doubt_ even, of the path to choose for the future. If for any reason you had seen wisdom in delay, it would have been a different thing—and the seeing was a _possible_ thing, you will admit. I did not ask you if you _desired_ a delay, but if you saw a reason for it. In the meantime I was absolutely yours, I remembered thoroughly, ... and the question went simply to enquire what you thought it best to do with your own.

For me I agree with your view—I never once thought of proposing a delay on my own account. We are standing on hot scythes, and because we do not burn in the feet, by a miracle, we have no right to count on the miracle’s prolongation. Then nothing is to be gained—and everything may be lost—and the sense of mask-wearing for another year would be suffocating. This for _me_. And for yourself, I shall not be much younger or better otherwise, I suppose, next year. I make no motion, then, for a delay, further than we have talked of, ... to the summer’s end.

My good ... happiness! Have I any that did not come from you, that is not _in_ you, that you should talk of my good apart from yours? I shudder to look back to the days when you were not for me. Was ever life so like death before? My face was so close against the tombstones, that there seemed no room even for the tears. And it is unexampled generosity of yours, that, having done all for me, you should write as you always do, about _my giving_ ... giving! Among the sons of men there is none like you as I believe and know, ... and every now and then declare to my sisters.

* * * * *

Dearest, if I vexed you, teazed you, by that question which proved unnecessary ... forgive me! Had you uncomfortable thoughts in the gardens to-day? Perhaps! And I could not smooth them away, though I drew as near as I dared ... though I was in a carriage at seven o’clock, running a mystical circle round your tents and music. Did you feel me, any more than if I were a ‘quick spider,’ I wonder.

Henrietta and Arabel were going to spend the evening with cousins of ours, and as the carriage waited for the plaiting of Henrietta’s hair, or the twisting of the ringlets, Arabel said to me ‘Will you go for a quarter of an hour?’ And in a minute, we were off ... she and Flush and Lizzie and I. Never did I expect again to see so many people—but I thought of _one_ so much that my head was kept from turning round—and we drove once round the ‘inner circle,’ so called, and looked up to Mr. Kenyon’s windows—and _there_, or _there_, you were, certainly!—and either _there_, or _there_, you were being disquieted in your thoughts by me, as certainly! Ah forgive me. After all, ... listen ... I love you with the fulness of my nature. Nothing of all this unspeakable goodness and tenderness is lost on me ... I catch on my face and hands every drop of all this dew.

So now ... you are not teazed? we are at one again, and may talk of outside things again?

But first, I must hear how the head is. _How_ is it, best and dearest? And you had my letter at last, had you not? Because I wrote it as usual, of course. May God bless you—and _me_ as I am altogether your own.

_Twice_ (observe) I have been out to-day—the first time, walking. Also, twice have I written to you.

Say how your mother is—and _yourself_!—

George and Henrietta were asked to meet you at Mr. Kenyon’s—but only to-day, and too late to forestall other engagements. Did you enjoy any of it? Tell me.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, June 4, 1846.]