R.B. to E.B.B.
Tuesday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, March 24, 1846.]
My own dearest, if you do—(for I confess to nothing of the kind), but if you should detect an unwillingness to write at certain times, what would that prove,—I mean, what that one need shrink from avowing? If I never had you before me except when writing letters to you—then! Why, we do not even talk much now! witness Mr. Buckingham and his voyage that ought to have been discussed!—Oh, how coldly I should write,—how the bleak-looking paper would seem unpropitious to carry my feeling—if all had to begin and try to find words this way!
Now, this morning I have been out—to town and back—and for all the walking my head aches—and I have the conviction that presently when I resign myself to think of you wholly, with only the pretext,—the make-believe of occupation, in the shape of some book to turn over the leaves of,—I shall see you and soon be well; so soon! You must know, there is a chair (one of the kind called gondóla-chairs by upholsterers—with an emphasized o)—which occupies the precise place, stands just in the same relation to this chair I sit on now, that yours stands in and occupies—to the left of the fire: and, how often, how always I turn in the dusk and see the dearest real Ba with me.
How entirely kind to take that trouble, give those sittings for me! Do you think the kindness has missed its due effect? No, no, I am glad,—(knowing what I now know,—what you meant should be, and did all in your power to prevent) that I have not received the picture, if anything short of an adequate likeness. 'Nil nisi—te!' But I have set my heart on seeing it—will you remember next time, next Saturday?
I will leave off now. To-morrow, dearest, only dearest Ba, I will write a longer letter—the clock stops it this afternoon—it is later than I thought, and our poor crazy post! This morning, hoping against hope, I ran to meet our postman coming meditatively up the lane—with a letter, indeed!—but Ba's will come to-night—and I will be happy, already am happy, expecting it. Bless you, my own love,
Ever your—
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, March 25, 1846.]
Ah; if I 'do' ... if I 'should' ... if I shall ... if I will ... if I must ... what can all the 'ifs' prove, but a most hypothetical state of the conscience? And in brief, I beg you to stand convinced of one thing, that whenever the 'certain time' comes for to 'hate writing to me' confessedly, 'avowedly,' (oh what words!) I shall not like it at all—not for all the explanations ... and the sights in gondola chairs, which the person seen is none the better for! The ειδωλον sits by the fire—the real Ba is cold at heart through wanting her letter. And that's the doctrine to be preached now, ... is it? I 'shrink,' shrink from it. That's your word!—and mine! Dearest, I began by half a jest and end by half-gravity, which is the fault of your doctrine and not of me I think. Yet it is ungrateful to be grave, when practically you are good and just about the letters, and generous too sometimes, and I could not bear the idea of obliging you to write to me, even once ... when.... Now do not fancy that I do not understand. I understand perfectly, on the contrary. Only do you try not to dislike writing when you write, or not to write when you dislike it ... that, I ask of you, dear dearest—and forgive me for all this over-writing and teazing and vexing which is foolish and womanish in the bad sense. It is a way of meeting, ... the meeting in letters, ... and next to receiving a letter from you, I like to write one to you ... and, so, revolt from thinking it lawful for you to dislike.... Well! the Goddess of Dulness herself couldn't have written this better, anyway, nor more characteristically.