And you will give me that? What shall save me from wreck: but truly? How must I feel to you!
Yours R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, November 27, 1845.]
Now you must not blame me—you must not. To make a promise is one thing, and to keep it, quite another: and the conclusion you see 'as from a tower.' Suppose I had an oath in heaven somewhere ... near to 'coma Berenices,' ... never to give you what you ask for! ... would not such an oath be stronger than a mere half promise such as I sent you a few hours ago? Admit that it would—and that I am not to blame for saying now ... (listen!) that I never can nor will give you this thing;—only that I will, if you please, exchange it for another thing—you understand. I too will avoid being 'assuming'; I will not pretend to be generous, no, nor 'kind.' It shall be pure merchandise or nothing at all. Therefore determine!—remembering always how our 'ars poetica,' after Horace, recommends 'dare et petere vicissim'—which is making a clatter of pedantry to take advantage of the noise ... because perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say this to you, and perhaps I am! ... yet say it none the less.
And ... less lightly ... if you have right and reason on your side, may I not have a little on mine too? And shall I not care, do you think?... Think!
Then there is another reason for me, entirely mine. You have come to me as a dream comes, as the best dreams come ... dearest—and so there is need to me of 'a sign' to know the difference between dream and vision—and that is my completest reason, my own reason—you have none like it; none. A ticket to know the horn-gate from the ivory, ... ought I not to have it? Therefore send it to me before I send you anything, and if possible by that Lewisham post which was the most frequent bringer of your letters until these last few came, and which reaches me at eight in the evening when all the world is at dinner and my solitude most certain. Everything is so still then, that I have heard the footsteps of a letter of yours ten doors off ... or more, perhaps. Now beware of imagining from this which I say, that there is a strict police for my correspondence ... (it is not so—) nor that I do not like hearing from you at any and every hour: it is so. Only I would make the smoothest and sweetest of roads for ... and you understand, and do not imagine beyond.
Tuesday evening.—What is written is written, ... all the above: and it is forbidden to me to write a word of what I could write down here ... forbidden for good reasons. So I am silent on conditions ... those being ... first ... that you never do such things again ... no, you must not and shall not.... I will not let it be: and secondly, that you try to hear the unspoken words, and understand how your gift will remain with me while I remain ... they need not be said—just as it need not have been so beautiful, for that. The beauty drops 'full fathom five' into the deep thought which covers it. So I study my Machiavelli to contrive the possibility of wearing it, without being put to the question violently by all the curiosity of all my brothers;—the questions 'how' ... 'what' ... 'why' ... put round and edgeways. They are famous, some of them, for asking questions. I say to them—'well: how many more questions?' And now ... for me—have I said a word?—have I not been obedient? And by rights and in justice, there should have been a reproach ... if there could! Because, friendship or more than friendship, Pisa or no Pisa, it was unnecessary altogether from you to me ... but I have done, and you shall not be teazed.
Wednesday.—Only ... I persist in the view of the other question. This will not do for the 'sign,' ... this, which, so far from being qualified for disproving a dream, is the beautiful image of a dream in itself ... so beautiful: and with the very shut eyelids, and the "little folding of the hands to sleep." You see at a glance it will not do. And so—
Just as one might be interrupted while telling a fairy-tale, ... in the midst of the "and so's" ... just so, I have been interrupted by the coming in of Miss Bayley, and here she has been sitting for nearly two hours, from twelve to two nearly, and I like her, do you know. Not only she talks well, which was only a thing to expect, but she seems to feel ... to have great sensibility—and her kindness to me ... kindness of manner and words and expression, all together ... quite touched me.—I did not think of her being so loveable a person. Yet it was kind and generous, her proposition about Italy; (did I tell you how she made it to me through Mr. Kenyon long ago—when I was a mere stranger to her?) the proposition to go there with me herself. It was quite a grave, earnest proposal of hers—which was one of the reasons why I could not even wish not to see her to-day. Because you see, it was a tremendous degree of experimental generosity, to think of going to Italy by sea with an invalid stranger, "seule à seule." And she was wholly in earnest, wholly. Is there not good in the world after all?