I called on Forster this morning: he says Landor is in high delight at the congratulatory letters he has received—so you must write, dearest, and add the queen-rose to his garland. F— talks about some 500 copies—or did he say 300?—being sold already ... so there is hope for Landor’s lovers.
So I should have written once ... but like Virgil’s shepherd ... ‘know I now what love is!’—Do you remember that the first word I ever wrote to you was ‘I love you, dear Miss Barrett?’ It was so,—could not but be so—and I always loved you, as I shall always.
Tell me all you can about your dearest self, my own love. I am so happy in you, in your perfect goodness and truth,—in all of you.
Be careful this fatiguing weather ... the evenings and mornings are the only working time of the day, as in the beginning of things. But all day long is rest-time to love you, dear, and kiss you, as now—kisses
Your own.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday. 6 o’clock.
[Post-mark, June 17, 1846.]
Beloved, this weather, which makes Flush cross, perhaps helped to make me depressed this morning. I had not slept well, and ought not to have written to you till the effect of it had gone off. Now I feel more as if I had been with you yesterday. Ah well! I don’t, can’t remember what I wrote ... and some of it was wise ... for I ought not to have promised that, ... and you must loose me, that I may be loosed in Heaven, from the bands of it. Only you are not to go to Greenwich (you go to Greenwich to-morrow, do you not?) thinking that I wanted to teaze you. There is just one meaning to all my words, let them be sad or gay ... and it is, that your happiness is precious. For myself, if we were to part now and for ever, I should still owe you the only happiness of my life. But nobody is talking of parting, you know—I am yours, and cannot be put away from you except by your own hand. Which is decided! What I ask of you, is to spare me the pang of causing you to suffer on my account, ... and you may suffer sometimes, I fear, through all your affection for me, ... and indirectly, if not directly.
Two visitors I have had to-day—dear Mr. Kenyon, and Lady Margaret Cocks. She is going to Italy—(oh, of course!) to Rome. He came to tell me that the books came to me from Landor himself, and that I must write to him to thank him properly. Mrs. Jameson I do not see, nor Miss Bayley.
How hot it will be for you to-morrow! Try to be amused and not too tired, dearest beloved, and tell me in your letters how the head is.