Remember not to agree to do the etching. Pray be careful not to involve the precious eyes too much. How easy it would be to etch them out! Frightfully easy.
[Paris] 3: Rue du Colisée:
Monday, January 29, 1856 [postmark].
Dearest Fanny,—I can't get over it that you should fancy I meant to 'banter' you.[47] If I wrote lightly, it was partly that you wrote lightly, and partly perhaps because at bottom I wasn't light at all. When one feels out of spirits, it's the most natural thing possible to be extravagantly gay; now, isn't it?
And now believe me with what truth and earnestness of heart I am interested in all that concerns you; and this is every woman's chief concern, of course, this great fact of love and marriage. My advice is, be sure of him first, and of yourself chiefly. For the rest I would marry ('if I were a woman,' I was going to say), though the whole world spouted fire in my face. Marriage is a personal matter, be sure, and the nearest and wisest can't judge for you. If you can make up two hundred a year between you, or less even, there is no pecuniary obstacle in my eyes. People may live very cheaply and very happily if they are happy otherwise.
As for me, my only way was to cut the knot—because it was an untieable knot—and because my fingers generally are not strong at untieing. What do you mean by Mr. Kenyon's backing me? Nobody backed me except the north wind which blew us vehemently out of England. Mr. Kenyon knew no more of the affair than you did, though he was very kind afterwards and took my part. And as to money, there was (and is) little enough. It was a case of pure madness (for people of the world), just like table-moving and spirit-rapping and the 'hands'!
But you, my dear friend, I do earnestly entreat you to consider if you are sure of principles, sentiment—and of yourself. Because, whether you know it or not, you are happily situated now as far as exterior circumstances are concerned. They are not worth much, but they have their worth. They give you liberty to follow your own devices, to think the beautiful and feel the noble; to live out, in short, your individual life, which it is so hard to do in marriage, even where you marry worthily.
I say this probably 'as one who beateth the air;' yet you must consider that I who say it, and who say it emphatically, consider a happy marriage as the happiest state, and that all pecuniary reasons against love are both ineffectual and stupid.
Flippancy, flippancy, of course. London would be better (for your friends) as a residence for you, than Wittemberg can be; and for that, and no other account, I could be sorry that you did not settle so.