I did not go down-stairs to-day because the wind blew and the thermometer fell. To-morrow, perhaps I may. And you, dearest dearest, might have put into the letters how you were when you wrote them. You might—but you did not feel well and would not say so. Confess that that was the reason. Reason or no reason, mention yourself to-morrow, and for the rest, do not write a long letter so as to increase the evil. There was nothing which I can remember as requiring an answer in what I wrote to you, and though I will have my letter of course, it shall be as brief as possible, if briefness is good for you—now always remember that. Why if I, who talk against 'Luria,' should work the mischief myself, what should I deserve? I should be my own jury directly and not recommend to mercy ... not to mine. Do take care—care for me just so much.
And, except that taking care of your health, what would you do for me that you have not done? You have given me the best of the possible gifts of one human soul to another, you have made my life new, and am I to count these things as small and insufficient? Ah, you know, you know that I cannot, ought not, will not.
May God bless you. He blesses me in letting me be grateful to you as your Ba.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, March 3, 1846.]
First and most important of all,—dearest, 'angry'—with you, and for that! It is just as if I had spoken contemptuously of that Gallery I so love and so am grateful to—having been used to go there when a child, far under the age allowed by the regulations—those two Guidos, the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob's vision, such a Watteau, the triumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group, all the Poussins with the 'Armida' and 'Jupiter's nursing'—and—no end to 'ands'—I have sate before one, some one of those pictures I had predetermined to see, a good hour and then gone away ... it used to be a green half-hour's walk over the fields. So much for one error, now for the second like unto it; what I meant by charging you with seeing, (not, not 'looking for')—seeing undue 'security' in that, in the form,—I meant to say 'you talk about me being 'free' now, free till then, and I am rather jealous of the potency attributed to the form, with all its solemnity, because it is a form, and no more—yet you frankly agree with me that that form complied with, there is no redemption; yours I am then sure enough, to repent at leisure &c. &c.' So I meant to ask, 'then, all now said, all short of that particular form of saying it, all goes for comparatively nothing'? Here it is written down—you 'wish to suspend all decisions as long as possible'—that form effects the decision, then,—till then, 'where am I'? Which is just what Lord Chesterfield cautions people against asking when they tell stories. Love, Ba, my own heart's dearest, if all is not decided now—why—hear a story, à propos of storytelling, and deduce what is deducible. A very old Unitarian minister met a still older evangelical brother—John Clayton (from whose son's mouth I heard what you shall hear)—the two fell to argument about the true faith to be held—after words enough, 'Well,' said the Unitarian, as winding up the controversy with an amicable smile—'at least let us hope we are both engaged in the pursuit of Truth!'—'Pursuit do you say?' cried the other, 'here am I with my years eighty and odd—if I haven't found Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?' My own Ba, if I have not already decided, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help! Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling, beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one's heart's good by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is there any parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of in the street—a labourer talking with his friends about 'wishes'—and this one wished, if he might get his wish, 'to have a nine gallon cask of strong ale set running that minute and his own mouth to be tied under it'—the exquisiteness of the delight was to be in the security upon security,—the being 'tied.' Now, Ba says I shall not be 'chained' if she can help!
But now—here all the jesting goes. You tell me what was observed in the 'moment's' visit; by you, and (after, I suppose) by your sisters. First, I will always see with your eyes there—next, what I see I will never speak, if it pain you; but just this much truth I ought to say, I think. I always give myself to you for the worst I am,—full of faults as you will find, if you have not found them. But I will not affect to be so bad, so wicked, as I count wickedness, as to call that conduct other than intolerable—there, in my conviction of that, is your real 'security' and mine for the future as the present. That a father choosing to give out of his whole day some five minutes to a daughter, supposed to be prevented from participating in what he, probably, in common with the whole world of sensible men, as distinguished from poets and dreamers, consider every pleasure of life, by a complete foregoing of society—that he, after the Pisa business and the enforced continuance, and as he must believe, permanence of this state in which any other human being would go mad—I do dare say, for the justification of God, who gave the mind to be used in this world,—where it saves us, we are taught, or destroys us,—and not to be sunk quietly, overlooked, and forgotten; that, under these circumstances, finding ... what, you say, unless he thinks he does find, he would close the door of his house instantly; a mere sympathizing man, of the same literary tastes, who comes good-naturedly, on a proper and unexceptionable introduction, to chat with and amuse a little that invalid daughter, once a month, so far as is known, for an hour perhaps,—that such a father should show himself 'not pleased plainly,' at such a circumstance ... my Ba, it is shocking! See, I go wholly on the supposition that the real relation is not imagined to exist between us. I so completely could understand a repugnance to trust you to me were the truth known, that, I will confess, I have several times been afraid the very reverse of this occurrence would befall; that your father would have at some time or other thought himself obliged, by the usual feeling of people in such cases, to see me for a few minutes and express some commonplace thanks after the customary mode (just as Capt. Domett sent a heap of unnecessary thanks to me not long ago for sending now a letter now a book to his son in New Zealand—keeping up the spirits of poor dear Alfred now he is cut off from the world at large)—and if this had been done, I shall not deny that my heart would have accused me—unreasonably I know but still, suppression, and reserve, and apprehension—the whole of that is horrible always! But this way of looking on the endeavour of anybody, however humble, to just preserve your life, remedy in some degree the first, if it was the first, unjustifiable measure,—this being 'displeased'—is exactly what I did not calculate upon. Observe, that in this only instance I am able to do as I shall be done by; to take up the arms furnished by the world, the usages of society—this is monstrous on the world's showing! I say this now that I may never need recur to it—that you may understand why I keep such entire silence henceforth.
Get but well, keep but as well, and all is easy now. This wonderful winter—the spring—the summer—you will take exercise, go up and down stairs, get strong. I pray you, at your feet, to do this, dearest! Then comes Autumn, with the natural expectations, as after rouge one expects noir: the likelihood of a severe winter after this mild one, which to prevent, you reiterate your demand to go and save your life in Italy, ought you not to do that? And the matters brought to issue, (with even, if possible, less shadow of ground for a refusal than before, if you are well, plainly well enough to bear the voyage) there I will bid you 'be mine in the obvious way'—if you shall preserve your belief in me—and you may in much, in all important to you. Mr. Kenyon's praise is undeserved enough, but yesterday Milnes said I was the only literary man he ever knew, tenax propositi, able to make out a life for himself and abide in it—'for,' he went on, 'you really do live without any of this titillation and fussy dependence upon adventitious excitement of all kinds, they all say they can do without.' That is more true—and I intend by God's help to live wholly for you; to spend my whole energies in reducing to practice the feeling which occupies me, and in the practical operation of which, the other work I had proposed to do will be found included, facilitated—I shall be able—but of this there is plenty time to speak hereafter—I shall, I believe, be able to do this without even allowing the world to very much misinterpret—against pure lying there is no defence, but all up to that I hope to hinder or render unimportant—as you shall know in time and place.
I have written myself grave, but write to me, dear, dearest, and I will answer in a lighter mood—even now I can say how it was yesterday's hurry happened. I called on Milnes—who told me Hanmer had broken a bone in his leg and was laid up, so I called on him too—on Moxon, by the way, (his brother telling me strangely cheering news, from the grimmest of faces, about my books selling and likely to sell ... your wishes, Ba!)—then in Bond Street about some business with somebody, then on Mrs. Montagu who was out walking all the time, and home too. I found a letter from Mr. Kenyon, perfectly kind, asking me to go on Monday to meet friends, and with yours to-day comes another confirming the choice of the day. How entirely kind he is!
I am very well, much better, indeed—taking that bath with sensibly good effect, to-night I go to Montagu's again; for shame, having kept away too long.