Chapter IX: Part 9

‘Vex me,’ or ‘teaze me,’ my own Ba, you cannot. I look on it indeed, after a moment, as the only natural effect of your strange disbelief in yourself, and ignorance of our true relation one to the other by every right and reason. Only, Ba, you _are_ wrong—doubly,—that is, you would be wrong if your own estimate of your power over me were the true one—for,—though it is difficult for me to fancy these abstractions and fantastic metamorphoses (as how one could feel without one’s head,—or how I could live without the love of you now I have once got it)—yet, since you make me, I will fancy I love my head and love you no longer ... and then (which is _now_) _now_, do you think I am so poor a creature as to go on adding to my faults, and letting you gently down, as the phrase is, with cowardly excuses, ‘postponing’ this, and ‘consenting to delay’ the other,—and perhaps managing to get you to do the whole business for me in the end? I hope and think I should say at once—Oh, no more of this! But see how right I was—‘_an instinct_, you seem to see.’ So, I have been thinking,—there are but few topics of our conversation from which any such impressions could arise—was it that I have asked more than once, if you could really bear another winter in London, (in all probability a severe one)—and again, if you could get to Italy by any ordinary means without the same opposition you will have to encounter for my sake?... My Ba, as God knows, _all that_ was so much pure trembling attempting to justify myself for the over-greatness of the fortune, the excess of the joy,—if I could but feel that there was a little of your own good in it too—that you would gain that much advantage at least by my own inestimable advantage! If you knew how,—spite of all endeavours,—how happy I have been—which is a shame to confess—but how very happy to hear that you could not without a degree of danger stay here—could no more easily leave England with Miss Bayley than with me! It seemed to justify me, as I say. And so of ‘the wishing I had not mentioned Italy’—I wish your will to be mine, to originate mine, your pleasure to be only mine. Expressed first—it _will be_ my pleasure ... but all is wrong if you take the effect, seek to know it, before the cause. What does it matter that I should prefer Italy to Nova Zembla? So, you _ought to have begun by saying_ ‘we will go there,’ and then my pleasure in obedience had been naturally expressed. Did I not ask you whether you had not, after all, thought of going to Italy first—to Pisa, or Malta,—from the very beginning? _Always to justify myself!_ Always!

But—this too is misunderstood. Let me say humbly, I _should_ prefer to go with you to Italy or any place where we can live alone for some little time, till you can _know_ me, be as sure of me as of yourself. Nor am I so selfish, I hope, as that (because my uttermost pride and privilege and glory above all glories would be to live in your sick-room and serve you,)—as that, on that account, I would not rather see you in a condition to need none of my service ... the next thing to serving you, is to be—what shall I say?—served by you ... loved by you, made happy by you—it is the being an angel, though there might be _arch_angels—

And if _now_ you do not understand,—well, I kneel to you, my Ba, and pray you to give yourself to me in deed as in word, the body as the heart and mind,—and _now_!—at any time,—you know what I cannot say, I cannot, I think,—if I know myself—love you more than I do ... but I shall always love you _thus_—and _thus_, in any case, happen what God may ordain—

Your R.

I know this is taking the simple experimental question too seriously to heart ... but such experiments touch at the very quick and core of the heart ... I cannot treat them otherwise—_ought_ I?

You will see Miss Bayley to-day—Mr. Kenyon asked if I were going to call to-day ... ‘if not, Miss B. would.’

I have your letter ... the short note, not the promised one ... for all this writing about the question ... but I could not merely say—‘Oh no, you mistake ... I had rather, upon the whole, not wait.’

Even now the feeling, in its subsiding, hinders me from speaking of the delightful account of ‘Treppy’ ... whom I remember now, perfectly—and what comfort is in _thy_ dear note!

Bless you, _my_ ‘darlingest creature,’—my Ba!

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, June 5, 1846.]

You are too perfect, too overcomingly good and tender—dearest you are, and I have no words with which to answer you. There is little wonder indeed that _I_, being used so long to the dark, should stumble and mistake, and see men like trees walking—and yet I must tell you that I did _not_ mistake to the extent you have set down for me ... and that never was I so dull, so idiotic and ungrateful, as to fancy you into one ‘wishing to let me down gently with cowardly excuses.’ Since I first looked you in the face, and before that day, I have been incapable of defiling the idea of you with such an unworthy imputation. And surely what I _did_, fancy, was consistent with the fullest faith in you and in the completest verity of your affection for myself. You might have had reasons, surely, which I did not see, without aggrieving me in any fashion. So do not make me out _too_ stupid—it is bad enough actually. Yes—those questions you refer to, turned me down that path—and do tell me how I could be expected to guess at the real drift of them, after having been accustomed to walk rather with men than with angels! Ah—and now even, that I _see_, it makes me smile and sigh together. To say that I am not worthy, all at once grows too little to say. _No one_ could be worthy of such words from _you_. You are best, best!! How much more do you want me to owe to you, when I _begin_ by owing to your all things, ... the only happiness of my life?

As to Italy, I thought of it first, so I am in no danger of thinking that you engage me as female courier and companion ... the feminine of what Mr. Bezzi wants to be, Miss Bayley told me to-day. So if it is the same thing to you, we will put off Nova Zembla a little. But how is it possible to jest, with this letter close by? Dearest of all, believe that I am grateful to you as I ought to be ... penetrated ... touched to the bottom of my heart with the sense of what you have been to me and are; dearest beloved!

So do not reproach me with my dull questions, on Saturday. I won’t ask them any more, ... and I did not mean by them the wickedness you thought ... so now let us be tranquil and happy till the fine weather ends. Brightly it begins, does it not? So hot it is to-day—so very hot in this room! Miss Bayley came just as I had been out walking and was tired; but she talked and interested me, and I found out from her that you were not in the gardens when we drove round them, but in the house when I looked up at the windows. Very happy and agreeable you all were, she said, at Mr. Kenyon’s—though Mrs. Jameson missed the flower-show.

I forgot to tell you that Treppy is a Creole—she would say so as if she said she was a Roman. She lived, as an adopted favourite, in the house of my great grandfather in Jamaica for years, and talks to the delight of my brothers, of that ‘dear man’ who, with fifty thousand a year, wore patches at his knees and elbows, upon principle. Then there are infinite traditions of the great great grandfather, who flogged his slaves like a divinity: and upon the beatitude of the slaves as slaves, let no one presume to doubt, before Treppy. If ever she sighs over the slaves, it is to think of their emancipation. Poor creatures, to be emancipated!

May God bless you, dear dearest! Shall I ever be better, I wonder, than the torment of your life? It is _I_ who want to be ‘_justified_,’ and not _you_ my beloved,—except as to your good sense for having made such a choice.

Such as I am however, I am

Your very own

BA.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, June 5, 1846.]

Nor did _I_ mean so bad, dearest dearest, as that you _were_ suspecting me of _that_ ... Oh no, since ‘Scorn of me (_that_ “me”) would recoil on you’ ... you would have no right to bear with such a person for a moment: but I put the broadest case possible to declare upon broadly. As I would do _so_ if I felt _so_ ... felt no love longer ... so, in due degree, I would tell you frankly a fear or a doubt if I felt either. I thought you suspected me, perhaps, of being deficient in this last point of courage: but it was not altogether so,—or if it was, you shall doubt no more, but believe the more strongly for the future ... let us kiss on that convention, dearest! You see, I knew it _could not but be that_ ... for if anything had struck _you_ as really to be gained by delay, you must feel whether I should listen to that or no—last year, for instance, when you said ‘let us wait.’

Ah, Ba, my own, many things _are_ that ought not to be ... and I hide nothing ... cannot hide from you some feelings ... as that—after all, after all—talk, and indeed think, as one may—it is, let us say, a _pleasant_ thing, at least, to be able to prove one’s words,—even one’s lighter words. The proof may justify _some_ words, I mean, and the rest, that admit of no proof, get believed on the score of _them_,—the first words and proofs. I should like to prove a very, very little ... if I could but do so in turning fifty-thousand a year, or less, to some account and building Flush a house ‘fair to see’—after which I could go on talking about the longings never to be satisfied here....

Now this is foolish,—so the causeless blame, if you please, shall be transferred here ... as naughty children punished by mistake are promised a remission of next offence.

Oh to-morrow kisses all right ... all so right again, dearest! I have so much to say. Make me remember, love, to tell you something I have just learned about Mr. Kenyon which makes one—no, all is proper,—he _should_ have the money, and I the admiration and love of his divine use of it: something to love him for, and he happy that God will reward it. Remember—for even _that_ I should forget by you!

And all has been charming at Mr. Kenyon’s—Landor’s dinner, and our flower-show feast,—I will tell you to-morrow—and last night I went to Mrs. Procter’s in downright spirits ‘_pour cause_’ (with my first letter ... not my second, which only arrived this morning)—and I danced, to put it on record there that I was altogether happy, and saw Mrs. Jameson, and the Countess Hahn-Hahn, and Milnes and the Howitts and others in a multitude,—and I got to this house door at 4 o’clock, with the birds singing loud and the day bright and broad—and my head is _quite well_,—as my mother’s is better, I hope—quite well, I am at this minute. For the rest, the news of your two exits and entrances in one day ... oh, thank you, thank the golden heart of my own, own Ba! whom I shall see to-morrow, but can ... _how_ I can kiss her now—being her own

R.B.

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

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

This is the first word I have written out of my room, these five years, I think ... if I dare count anything beyond two ... for I do know that one comes after two ... (now just see what I have written!) that two comes after one, I meant to say, ... as well as a mathematician. I am writing now in the back drawing-room, half out of the window for air, driven out of my own territory by the angel of the sun this morning. Oh—it is so hot—and the darkness does not help when the lack is just of _air_. There is a thick mist lacquered over with light—it is cauldron-heat, rather than fire-heat. So different in the country it must be! Well, everybody being at church or chapel, I knew I could have this room to myself, without fear even of the dreadful knocker ... more awful to me than the famous knocks which used to visit the Wesley family—so here I curl up my feet ‘_more meo_’ on the settee, and help to keep the sabbath by _resting_ upon you. Would Miss Goldsmid call it as ‘profane’ as anything in your poems? But it will not be more profane for _that_—as I could prove if we wanted proofs—only we do not.

Such flowers as you brought me yesterday—such roses! The roses are best, as coming from your garden! When I began to arrange them, I thought I never saw such splendid roses anywhere—they are more beautiful than what you brought last year surely! It seems so to me. Dearest, how did you get home, and how are you? and how is your mother? Remember to answer my questions, if you please.

After you were gone I received from Mr. Lough a very gracious intimation that if I would go to see his studio, his statue of the Queen and other works, he would take care that no creature should be present, he would uncover all the works and provide a clear solitude for me—he ‘would not do it for a Duchess,’ he said, but he ‘would for _me_’! Now what am I to say. My sisters tell me that I can go quite easily. The place is very near, and there are no stairs. Well, I think I must go. It is very kind and considerate, and there would be a pleasure, of course. Do you know that statues have more power over me than all the pictures and all the colours thereof which the world can show? Mr. Kenyon told me once that it was a pure affectation of mine to say so—and for my own part I could not see for a long while what was the _reason_ of a most unaffected preference. I think I see it now. Painting flatters the senses and makes the Ideal credible in a vulgar way. But with sculpture it is different—and there is a grand audacity in the power of an Ideal which, appealing directly to the Senses, and to the coarsest of them, the Touch, as well as the Sight, yet forces them to receive Beauty through the door of an Abstraction which is a means abhorrent to them. Have I written what I mean, I wonder, or do you understand it, without? Then there is a great deal, of course, in that grand white repose! Like the Ideas of the Platonic system, these great sculptures seem—when looked at from a distance.

When you were gone yesterday, and I had had my coffee and put on my bonnet, I went, with the intention of walking out, as far as the drawing-room, and there, failed: not even with your recommendation in my ears, beloved, could I get any further. Notwithstanding all my flatteries (meaning the flatteries of me!) I was not at best and strongest, yesterday, nor am even to-day, though it is nothing to mind or to mention—only I think I shall not try to walk out in this heat even to-day, and yesterday it seemed impossible. So I came back and lay on my own sofa, and presently began to read ‘Le Comte de Monte Cristo,’ the new book by Dumas, (observe how I waste my time—while you learn how _not_ to fortify cities, out of Machiavelli!) and really he amuses me with his ‘Monte Cristo’ ... six volumes I am glad to see—he is the male Scheherazade certainly. Now that the hero is safe in a dungeon (of the Château d’If) it will be delightful to see how he will get out—somebody knocks at the wall already. Only the narrative is not always very clear to me, inasmuch as, when I read, I unconsciously interleave it with such thoughts of you as make very curious cross readings ... j’avais cru remarquer quelques infidelités ... he really seems to love me—l’homme n’est jamais qu’un homme ... never was any man like him—ses traits étaient bouleversés ... the calmest eyes I ever saw.... So, Dumas or Machiavelli, it is of the less consequence what I read, I suppose, while I apply so undestractedly.

May God bless you, ever beloved! I think of you, I love you—I forgot again your ‘Strafford’—Mr. Forster’s ‘Strafford,’ I beg his pardon for not attributing to him other men’s works. Not that I mean to be cross—not to him even.

I am your own.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, June 8, 1846.]

One thing you said yesterday which I want to notice and protest against, my Ba—you charged me with speaking depreciatingly of myself because you had set the example—‘I should not have thought of it but that you began.’ Now I am tired, just at this moment, and submissive altogether, and _hopeful_ besides, on the whole,—so I will let you off with a simple but firmest of protests,—I did NOT think of imitating you, but spoke as I felt and knew,—and feel and know still. The world, generally, will inform you of this in its own good time and way, so ... _taceo_! (The last opinion of the world’s on the respective value of people and people, is unhappily too decisive. ‘And, after all, Mr. Langton is quite as good as the Duke’s daughter ... for he will have full twenty thousand a year!’) I suspect I was going to turn a pretty phrase and tell you I have only a heart, as the play-books prescribe,—when the said heart pricks me as if I reserved something—so I will confess to owning a ‘forehead and an eye’—one advantage over Pope, to whom folks used to remark ‘Sir, you have an eye’—and no more—whereas yesterday evening after leaving Ba, while I settled myself in the corner of our omnibus to think of her, a spruce gentleman stretched over, and amid the rumbling begged my pardon for being forced to remark that my forehead and eye interested him deeply, phrenologist as he was; and he was sure I must needs be _somebody_ ... besides a passenger to Greenwich! So if Ba will trust in phrenology!—I will at least not be unkind to her as to the learned man—who left the vehicle in due time, lamenting that in return for his own confidence and pink bill (‘Mr. Hamilton, phrenologist and lecturer’ &c. &c.) I would not break my obstinate reserve and augustly pronounce ‘Am I a Beefeater now?’

_Assez de sottises_: Ba, my Ba, I am happy in you beyond hope of expression—you know how happy.... And have not I some shade of a right,—I who loved the dear, dear pale cheek and the thin hand,—a right to be blessed in the wonders I see ... so long as I continue to be thankful to God whose direct doing I know it to be: how can I ever doubt the rest ... the so easy matters remaining—I will not doubt more, I think.

Tell me, write of yourself, love: remember the fierce heat ... and _never_ go up the long stairs—or, at least, _rest_ at proper intervals. I think of the Homeric stone heaved nearly to the hill-top and _then_!... An accident now would be horrible,—think, and take every precaution—because it is _my_ life, (if that will influence you) my whole happiness you are carrying safely or letting slip. May God over-watch all and care for us!

Good bye, best beloved,—I fear I ought to go to Mrs. Jameson’s to-night: there is a breakfast engagement for Wednesday, to meet this and the other notable; and a simple ‘at home’ promised to anybody calling this evening—and my pride won’t let me accept _one_, nor my liking to Mrs. J. suffer me to refuse both.... Yet the fatigue! I have been at church to-day, seeing people faint.

Your own, your own R.

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, June 8, 1846.]

My ‘recommendation’ to dearest Ba was properly interpreted by her when she regarded the spirit and not the letter of it.

The day was hot—even _I_ thought who thrive in heat—and yesterday you did well to keep the house—but last night’s rain, and this comfort of cloudiness may allow you to resume the exercise,—only with _all_ ease, darling! Mrs. Jameson told me she called the other day on Miss Barrett, and was informed that lady was ‘walking before her door’—for I went last night, and deserved to be amused, perhaps, for the effort, ... and so I was, I never liked our friend as I now like her, I more than like the good nature and good feeling and versatility of ready intelligence and quick general sympathy. She is to see you to-day. She told this to a Miss Kindersley who had been reading the ‘Drama of Exile’ to her complete delight—but in listening silently,—and after, when Mrs. J. obligingly turned and said ‘How I should like to introduce _you_ to Miss Barrett ... did you ever see her?’ ... to which I answered in the old way, ‘that nobody, as she knew, saw you.’ At all these times did not I feel the ‘mask’ you speak of! I am, fortunately, out of the way of enquiries ... but if the thing were of constant occurrence, it would be intolerable. Shall it indeed end soon? May I count by months, by weeks? It is not safe—beginning to write on this subject—I can do nothing moreover.

Well, Lough has some good works, and you will be pleased I daresay: but of all things, hold him to his bond of maintaining the strictest privacy—for Mr. Powell or his kith and kin go there, and _his_ impudence and brazen insensibility are dreadful to encounter beyond all belief. He would book-make about ‘the meeting,’ and in his ordinary talk, be supplied with a subject to tell lies about for the next year or two,—unless he got a lesson earlier. But Lough will understand and keep his promise, no doubt, if you exact it strictly.

My mother is decidedly better, ... I am quite well—considering Thursday is so far off!—considering the end of summer is so far off. Would it be profane to think of that lament ... ‘the Summer is ended and we are not saved’?

I am obliged to leave off here—I love you ever my best

dearest, own Ba!

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

Monday _Morning_.
[Post-mark, June 9, 1846.]

The stars threaten you with a long letter to-day, it seems, for I stretch out my hand and take blindly the largest sheet. Dearest, I have been driving out before your letter came ... and to _Hampstead_! think of _that_. And see the proof of it—this grew in the hedges when the sun rose to-day. We had a great branch gathered, and ‘this was of it,’ starred over with dog-roses. I did in the morning long for air, through the suffocation yesterday, and the walking being better for another day, my sisters persuaded me into the carriage. Only I wanted to wait for your letter, my letter, and could not—it did not come by the usual early post, and the carriage was here before it ... so I had to go, thinking of it all the way, and having it on my return ready to gladden me. How you make me laugh with your phrenologist! ‘For the interests of science’ you should have given your name. Then, would have come the whole history in the next lecture, ... how ‘Once in an omnibus he met an individual with a forehead and eyes of mark, and knew him at a glance for the first poet of the age.’ It would have made a feature in the lecture, and highly developed, I dare say, ... to suit the features in the omnibus. Just at the moment of this observation _I_ too was thinking of eyes—‘calm eyes’ did I say? Yes, calm, serene ... which was what struck me first of all, in the look of them—was it ever observed before, I wonder? The most serene spiritual eyes, I ever saw—I thought _that_ the first day I saw _you_. They may be called by other names beside, but they shall not lose the name I then gave them. Now to bear with the horrible portrait in the matter of the eyes, is a hard thing—Mr. Howitt must have _his_ shut nearly, I think. The hair is like—and nothing else. The mouth, the form of the cheek, one is as unlike as the other. And the character of the whole is _most_ unlike of the whole—it is a vulgarized caricature—and I only wonder how I could have fastened it inside of my ‘Paracelsus’ frontispiece-fashion. When it was hung up and framed, I did not know you face to face, remember. Mr. Kenyon told me it was ‘rather like.’ But always and uninstructed I seemed to know that it was not like you in some things....

_Monday Evening._—Observe how the sentence breaks off! While I was writing it, came a ‘tapping, tapping at the chamber door,’ as sings my dedicator Edgar Poe. Flush barked vociferously; I threw down the pen and shut up the writing case, ... and lo, Mrs. Jameson! I suppose she did not guess that I was writing to you. She brought me the engravings of Xanthian marbles, and also her new essays ... and was very kind as usual, and proposed to come some day next week with a carriage to take me out,—and all this time, how we treat her! Will she not have a right to complain of being denied the degree of confidence we gave ( ... Mr. Kenyon gave for me ...) to Miss Bayley? Will she not think hereafter ‘There was no need of their deceiving _me_?’ And yet I doubt how to retreat now. Could I possibly say to her the next time she speaks of you ... or could I not? it would set her on suspecting perhaps. She talked a little to-day of Italy, and plainly asked me what thoughts I had of it,—to which I could answer truthfully ‘No thoughts, but dreams.’ Then she insisted, ‘But whenever you have thoughts, you will let me know them? You will not be in Italy when I am there, without my knowing it? And where will you go—? to Pisa? ... to Sienna? to Naples?’ And she advised ... ‘Don’t go where the English are, in any case.’ And encouraged like an oracle, ... ‘Remember that where there’s a will there’s a way’—knowing no more what she spoke, than a Pythian on the serpent’s skin.

Beloved, you are right in your fear about Mr. Lough. I have decided not to go there. Oh, it is best certainly; and, quietly considered, I shall be happier as well as safer in not going. We must walk softly on the snowdrifts of the world, now that we have got to them.

For the rest, ... that is for the chief thing ... you wrote foolishly in your first letter to-day, my beloved,—you _can_ write foolishly on occasion, let me grant to the critics. I have just so much logic as to be able to see (though I am a woman) that for _me_ to be too good for _you_, and for _you_ to be too good for _me_, cannot be true at once, both ways. Now I could discern and prove, from the beginning of the beginning, that _you_ were too good for _me_—it is too late therefore to take up the other argument—the handle of it was broken last year.

Also, I do not go to the world to ask it to appraise you—I would fain leave to Robins the things of Robins. I hope you have repented all day to-day having written so foolishly yesterday. Even Robins would not justify you.

Dearest, the avalanches are on us! Uncle and aunts coming down in a great crash! My uncle Hedley comes next week!—on the second or third of July, the eldest of my aunts, ... from Paris, ... who proposes to reside in this house for a week—it may be longer! and, still in July, the rest of the Hedleys, I think!—everybody coming, coming! Their welcome will be somewhat of a ghastly smile from _me_—for indeed I cannot be quite delighted, after the fashion of a thoroughly dutiful niece.

Ah, never mind them! Nobody can change anything, if you do not change yourself. You have ‘a right’ ... not the ‘shadow’ of one, but the very right ... to all I am, and to all the life I live. Did you not see before, what I have felt so long, that indeed you have a right to me and over me?

I am your own

BA.

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, June 9, 1846.]

_Is_ your letter ‘long,’ my own Ba? I seem to get to the end, each time I read it, just as sorrowfully soon as usual—so much for thankfulness! But if Ba is not to be ‘tall,’ depend on it, her letter shall not describe itself as ‘long’—though in a sense nothing ever written, ever read by me, drew such a trail of light after it as her letters—your letters, my own, own love! While I write this, my lips rest on the eglantine ... well, it shall be ‘_dog_-rose’ for Flushie’s sake! You say truly about the folly—it is very foolish,—when I fancy you proposing to give _me_ a golden Papal rose and gift for a King, instead of this! And if _I_ feel this, why should not you, and more vividly even? A rose from Hampstead! And you bore the journey well? You should tell me, precisely, detailedly.

As for Lough’s statues ... now, I have said more than I meant if it deters you from going to see them! If he will abide strictly by his promise, there is much to reward the trouble of going.

Always remember, my Ba, that the secret is _your_ secret and not mine ... that I keep it while you bid me, but that you may communicate it to whom you please, _when_ you please, without waiting to apprize me. I should, I think, have preferred telling Mrs. Jameson from the beginning about the mere visits ... or, I don’t know ... by one such piece of frankness you only expose yourself to fifty new—whatever they are! For there would be so much the more talk about you,—and either the quick woman’s wit and discernment are to be eluded, or they are not,—foiled or not—and how manage without ... without those _particular_ evasions which seem to degrade most of all? Miss Mitford’s promises began the embarrassment. In short I think the best way in such a case is to tell _all_ or none. I believe you might tell all to Mrs. Jameson with perfect safety, but, for _her_ sake, I doubt the propriety ... for it would be to introduce her forthwith to exactly our own annoyances with respect to Mr. Kenyon, Chorley &c. Once knowing, she cannot _un_-know. In any case, I promise my conscience to give her,—and anybody else that may have a right to it,—a full explanation at the earliest safe moment.. may _that_ be at no great distance! My own feeling is for telling Mr. Kenyon ... though you would considerably startle me if you answered ‘well, _do_!’ But, of the whole world, I seem only to care for _his_ not feeling aggrieved: oh, he will understand!—and _can_, because he knows the circumstances at your house. Come what will, I am sure of you; ‘if you live, and are well’—even this last clause I might exclude; it has often been in my thought to tell you ... only, dearest, there is always, when I plan never so dreamily and vaguely, always an understood submission the most absolute to your own desire ... but I fancied, that, in the case of any _real_ obstacle arising so as to necessitate the ‘postponement,’ &c., I should have _stipulated_ ... in the right yourself have given me ... I should have said—‘we will postpone it, if you will marry me _now_ ... merely as to the form ... but so as to enable me, if difficulties should thicken, to be by your bed-_side_ at least.’ You see, what you want ‘to relieve’ me of, is just what my life should be thrice paid down for and cheaply. How could you ever be so truly mine as _so_? Even the poor service does not ‘part us’ before ‘death’——‘till _sickness_ do us part!’

But there will be no sickness and all happiness, I trust in God! Dear, dear Ba, I love you wholly and for ever—true as I kiss your rose, and will keep it for ever. Bless you.

My first letter ‘did not reach you by the first post on Monday morning’—No! How should it ... when I carried it to town on Sunday night and went half a mile out of my way to put it in the general post office at the corner of Oxford Street!

You know I am to breakfast with Mrs. Jameson to-morrow—and perhaps I may make some calls after: if anything keeps me in Town so as to hinder the letter by the 8 o’clock post, you will know the reason ... and expect the letter the next morning; but I will endeavour to get back in time.

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

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 10, 1846.]

Best, dearest beloved, ... would it not be strange if you were not so to me? How do you think I feel, hearing you say such things ... finding such thoughts in your mind? If it is not worthy of you to have a burden set on your shoulders and to be forced into the shadow of disquietudes not your own, yet this divine tenderness is worthy of you ... worthy of your nature; as I know and recognise! May God help me to thank you, for I have not a word.

Practically however, see how your proposal would work. It could not work _at all_, unless circumstances were known—and if they were known, at the very moment of their being known you would be saved, dearest, all the trouble of coming up-stairs to me, by my being thrown out of the window to you ... upon which, you might certainly pick up the pieces of me and put them into a bag and set off for Nova Zembla. _That_ would be the event of the working of your proposition. Yet remember that I will accede to whatever you shall choose—so _think for us both_. You know more of the world and have more practical sense than I—and if you did not, had not, you may _do what you like with your own_, as surely as the Duke of Newcastle might.

For Mrs. Jameson, I never should think of telling her ‘_all_’—I should not, could not, would not! and the gods forefend that you should think of telling Mr. Kenyon any more. Now, listen. Perfectly I understand your reasons, your scruples ... what are they to be called? But I promise to take the blame of it. I will tell dear Mr. Kenyon hereafter that you would have spoken, but that I _would not let you_—won’t _that_ do? won’t it stop the pricking of the conscience? Because, you see, I know Mr. Kenyon, ... and I know perfectly that either he would be unhappy himself, or he would make us so. He never could bear the sense of responsibility. Then, as he told me to-day, and as long ago I knew, ... he is ‘irresolute,’ timid in deciding. Then he shrinks before the dæmon of the world—and ‘what may be said’ is louder to him than thunder. And then again, and worst of all, he sees afar off casualty within casualty, and a marriage without lawyers would be an abomination in his sight. Moreover, to discover ourselves to him, and _not submit to his counsels_, would be a real offence ... would it not? As it is, it may seem natural and excusable that we two of ourselves should poetically rush into a foolishness—but if we heard counsel, and rejected it!! Do you see?...

He came here to-day, dear Mr. Kenyon, and is to come with Miss Bayley on Friday, and take me in the carriage to drive, and to see his house. I must go, but dread it ... shrink from it—yes, indeed. As for Mr. Lough, how could I have ‘bound him with Styx nine times round him?’ It is easier to bind Mrs. Jameson. Oh no! You were right, and I was wrong in my first inclination about Mr. Lough.

And yesterday I was not tired to signify. I shall not be ill, my beloved,—I think I shall not. I am as perfectly well now in all respects (except that I have not strength for much exercise and noise and confusion, ...) as it is possible to be. So do not be anxious about me—rather spend your dear thoughts of me in loving me, ... dear, dearest!

You breakfast with Mrs. Jameson, and I shall remember not to long too much for the eight o’clock letter at night. Remember _you_, not to be hurried as to the writing of it.

Oh! I had a letter from my particular Bennet this morning, ... and my Georgiana desires me instantly to say why I presumed not to write to her before. I am commanded out of all further delays. ‘_Did_ I receive her letter,’ she wonders!!!! Georgiana is imperative.

May God bless you, you who bless me!

I am wholly your own.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 12, 1846.]

I must write very little to-day, dearest, because Mr. Kenyon, as a note from him just tells me, comes at half past two for me, and in the meantime I am expecting a visit from my uncle Hedley, who arrived yesterday while we were together. Scarcely could Henrietta keep him, she says, from coming up-stairs ‘to see Ba!’ We just escaped, therefore. I have been thinking that having the barbarians down on us may be at least a means of preserving us from going into the wilderness ourselves ... _my_self ... if I were taken away, as I told you, to Tunbridge, Dover, or other provinces of Siberia. How should I bear, do you think, to be taken away from you? Very badly!—though you will not hear of my being able to love you as I ought——when _that_ is precisely the only thing I can do, it seems to me, at all worthily of you.

_Ora pro me_ in Mr. Kenyon’s carriage to-day—I am getting so nervous and frightened! I shall feel all the while as if set on a vane on the top of St. Paul’s ... can you fancy the feeling? I do wish I were safe at home again, reading your letter ... which _will_ come to-night—_will_ ... _shall_ ... _must_ ... according to the letter and spirit of the Law.

You made the proposal to me about New Cross, yesterday, out of consideration and kindness to _me_! I understand it so, thanking you. For the rest, I need not, I am certain, assure you that it would be the greatest pain to me at any time, to be wanting in even the forms of respect and affection towards your family—and that I would not, from a mere motive of shyness, hazard a fault against _them_—you will believe this of me. But the usual worldly form (if the world is to give the measure) would be _against_ my paying such a visit—and under ordinary circumstances it never is paid—not _so_. Therefore the not paying it is not an omission of an ordinary form of attention—_that_ is what I mean to say. And to keep all dear to you quite safe and away from all splashing of the mud which we cannot ourselves hope to escape, is the great object,—it does seem to me. Your father and mother would be blamed (in this house, I know, if not in others) for not apprizing my father of what they knew. As it is, there is evil enough—though there is a way of escaping _that_ evil.

As it is.—Now I do beseech you to consider well whether you will not have too much pain in finding that they suffer it (after every precaution taken) ... to render all this which we are about, wise and advisable. They will suffer, to hear you spoken of as we both shall be spoken of ... be perfectly sure! They will suffer, to have to part with you _so_— —and the circumstances, perhaps, will not help to give them confidence in the stranger, who presumes _so_ to enter their family. I _ask you_ not to answer this!—only, to think of it in time, lest you should come to think of it too late. Put it between the leaves of Machiavel,—that at need you may confute yourself as well as M. Thiers.

Beloved, say how you are—and how your mother is. Here I must end—to be ready for dear Mr. Kenyon, and casualties of uncles &c. Think of me, love me—my heart is full of you.

I am your BA.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, June 12, 1846.]

When I am close to you, in your very room, I see through your eyes and feel what you feel—but after, the sight widens with the circle of outside things—I cannot fear for a moment what seemed redoubtable enough yesterday—nor do I believe that there will be two opinions anywhere in the world as to your perfect right to do as you please under the present circumstances. People are not quite so tolerant to other people’s preposterousness, and that which yourself tell me exceeds anything I ever heard of or imagined—but, dearest, on twice thinking, one surely ought not to countenance it as you propose—why should not my father and mother know? What possible harm can follow from their knowing? Why should I wound them to the very soul and for ever, by as gratuitous a piece of unkindness as if,—no,—there is no comparison will do! Because, since I was a child I never looked for the least or greatest thing within the compass of their means to give, but given it was,—nor for liberty but it was conceded, nor confidence but it was bestowed. I dare say they would break their hearts at such an end of all. For in any case they will take my feeling for their own with implicit trust—and if I brought them a beggar, or a famous actress even, they would believe in her because of me,—if a Duchess or Miss Hudson, or Lady Selina Huntingdon rediviva ... they would do just the same, sorrow to say! As to any harm or blame that can attach itself to _them_,—it is too absurd to think of! What earthly control can they have over me? They live here,—I go my own way, being of age and capability. How can they interfere?

And then, blame for _what_, in either God’s or the devil’s name? I believe you to be the one woman in the world I am able to marry because able to love. I wish, on some accounts, I had foreseen the contingency of such an one’s crossing my path in this life—but I did not, and on all ordinary grounds preferred being free and poor, accordingly. All is altered now. Does anybody doubt that I can by application in proper quarters obtain quite enough to support us both in return for no extraordinary expenditure of such faculties as I have? If it _is_ to be doubted, I have been greatly misinformed, that is all. Or, setting all friends and their proposals and the rest of the hatefulness aside—I should say that so simple a procedure as writing to anybody ... Lord Monteagle, for instance, who reads and likes my works, as he said at Moxon’s two days ago on calling there for a copy to give away ... surely to write to him, ‘When you are minister next month, as is expected, will you give me for my utmost services about as much as you give Tennyson for nothing?’—_this_ would be rational and as easy as all rationality. _Let me do so, and at once, my own_ Ba! And do you, like the unutterably noble creature I know you, transfer your own advantages to your brothers or sisters ... making if you please a proper reservation in the case of my own exertions failing, as failure comes everywhere. So shall the one possible occasion of calumny be removed and all other charges go for the simple absurdities they will be. I am entirely in earnest about this, and indeed had thought for a moment of putting my own share of the project into immediate execution—but on consideration,—no! _So_ I will live and so die with you. I will not be poorly endeavouring to startle you with unforeseen generosities, catch you in pretty pitfalls of magnanimities, be always surprising you, or trying to do it. No, I resolve to do my best, _through_ you—by your counsel, with your help, under your eye ... the most strenuous endeavour will only approximate to an achievement of _that_,—and to suppose a superfluousness of devotion to you (as all these surprises do) would be miserably foolish. So, dear, dear Ba, understand and advise me. I took up the paper with ordinary feelings ... but the absurdity and tyranny suddenly flashed upon me ... it must not be borne—indeed its only safety in this instance is in its impotency. I am not without fear of some things in this world—but the ‘wrath of men,’ all the men living put together, I fear as I fear the fly I have just put out of the window; but I fear _God_—and am ready, he knows, to die this moment in taking his part against any piece of injustice and oppression, _so_ I aspire to die!

See this long letter, and all about a tiny one, a plain palpable commonplace matter about which you agree with me, you the dear quiet Ba of my heart, with me that make all this unnecessary fuss! See what is behind all the ‘bated breath and whispered humbleness?’—but it is _right_, after all, to revolt against such monstrous tyranny. And I ought not, I feel, to have forgotten the feelings of my father and mother as I did—because I know as certainly as I know anything that if I could bring myself to ask them to give up everything in the world; they would do it and cheerfully.

So see, and forgive your own

R.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, June 13, 1846.]

But dearest, dearest, ... _when_ did I try to dissuade you from telling all to your father and mother? Surely I did not and could not. That you should ‘wound them to the very soul and for ever’ ... I am so far from counselling it, that I would rather, I think, as was intimated in my letter of this morning, have all at an end at once—_rather_! Certainly _rather_, ... when the alternative would be your certain unhappiness and remorse. _A right_, they have, to your entire confidence;—for _me_ to say a word against your giving it—may God forbid! Even that you should submit your wishes to theirs in this matter, would be no excess of duty—I said so, I think, in my letter of this morning.

At the same time, I _am_ of opinion, ... which was what I meant to put into words, ... that, _in the case_ of their approving in the sufficient degree ... and of your resolving finally on carrying out our engagement ... you should avoid committing them further than is necessary, and so exposing them to unpleasant remarks and reproaches from _my family_ ... to go no farther. You think that nothing can be said—I wish _I_ could think so. You are not to be restrained perhaps ... but you are to be _advised_ ... and it would be a natural step for your father, to go straight to his friend Mr. Kenyon. Do you see what might be done though you are ‘of age’—and for not doing which, your father might be reproached? And more there would be to do, besides. Therefore I thought that you should avoid, as far as possible, committing him openly ... making him a party in the eyes of the world (as would be done by my visit to New Cross for instance)—yet I may be wrong here, ... and you, in any case, are the master, to act as you see best.

And, looking steadily at the subject, do you not see, ... now that we look closely besides, ... how mortifying to the just pride of your family, as well as to your own self-respect, is every possible egress from these unhappy circumstances? Ah—I told you—I told you long ago! I saw that at the beginning. Giving the largest confidence to your family, you still must pain them—still.

For the rest ... you are generous and noble as always—but, no, ... I shall refuse steadily for reasons which are plain, to put away from me God’s gifts ... given perhaps in order to this very end ... and apart from which, I should not have seen myself justified, ... even as far as now I vaguely, dimly seem ... to cast the burden of me upon you. _No._ I care as little for money as you do—but this thing I will not agree to, because I ought not. At the same time, you shall be at liberty to arrange that after the deaths of us two, the money should return to my family ... this, if you choose—for it shall be by your own act hereafter, that they may know you for what you are. In the meanwhile, I should laugh to scorn all _that_ sort of calumny ... even if I could believe it to be possible. Supposing that you sought _money_, you would not be quite so stupid, the world may judge for itself, as to take hundreds instead of thousands, and pence instead of guineas. To do the world justice, it is not likely to make a blunder on such a point as this.

I wish, if you can wish so, that you were the richer. I could be content to have just nothing, if we could live easily so. But as I have a little without seeking it, you must, on the other hand, try to be content, and not be too proud.

As to Lord Monteagle, ... dearest ... you will do what you like of course, though I do not understand exactly what your object is. A pension on literary grounds is the more difficult to obtain, that the fund set apart for that end is insufficient, I believe. Then if you are to do diplomacy for it, ... how do you know that you may not be sent to Russia, or somewhere impossible for me to winter in? If you were fixed even in London, ... what then? You know best what your own views are, and wishes are—I would not cross them, if you should be happier so, or so.

And do you think that because this may be done, or not done ... and because _that_ ought _not_ to be borne ... we can make any change ... act any more openly ... face to face, perhaps—voice to voice? Alas, no!—You said once that women were as strong as men, ... unless in the concurrence of physical force. Which is a mistake. I would rather be kicked with a foot, ... (I, for one woman!...) than be overcome by a loud voice speaking cruel words. I would not yield before such words—I would not give you up if they were said ... but, being a woman and a very weak one (in more senses than the bodily), they would act on me as a dagger would, ... I could not help _dropping_, dying before them. I say it that you may understand. Tyranny? Perhaps. Yet in that strange, stern nature, there is a capacity to love—and I love him—and I shall suffer, in causing him to suffer. May God bless you. You will scarcely make out these hurried straggling words—and scarcely do they carry out my meaning. I am for ever your

BA.

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