Bless you, ever, as I am ever yours—

R.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Saturday.
[Post-mark, July 4, 1846.]

Ah, this Saturday! how heavily the wheels of it turn round! as if ‘with all the weights of sleep and death hung at them.’ After all it was not possible for me to get to Mrs. Jameson’s this morning ... not that I was unwell to signify, mind—but unfit for the exertion—and it would not have been agreeable to anybody if I had gone there and fainted. So here I am, the picture of helpless indolence, stretched out at full length between the chair and the high stool, thinking how you will not to-day sit on the low one, nor in your old own place by me——oh how I think, think, think of you, to make imperfect amends! Are you disappointed ... you? I hope you are, and I fear you are. My generosity does not carry me through the hope of it to the end. I love your love too much. And that is the worst fault, my beloved, I ever can find in my love of you.

Look, what Miss Mitford has sent me from the Daily News—Mr. Horne’s lament for poor Haydon. Tell me if you do not like it. It has moved me much, and as a composition it is fine, I think,—worthy of ‘Orion.’ I shall write to Mr. Horne to thank him, as one reader of many, for touching that solemn string into such a right melody. To my mind, it is worth, and more than worth, twenty such books as his ballad-book—tell me if it isn’t. It has much affected me.

Papa went out early—so we should have escaped the ‘complication’—but every half-hour we are expecting our visitors. And for Monday ... I scarcely dare say yet ‘Come on Monday.’ Only we will find our lost Pleiads ... of that, be very sure—I am very sure. Still to miss one for a moment draws me into darkness—or ... do you not know that you are all my stars? yes, and the sun, besides! The thing which people call a sun seems to shine quite coldly to-day, because you are not on this side of my window. ‘All complaining is vain,’ do you say?

Let me pass the time a little, then, by confessing to you that what you said, some letters ago, about the character of our intercourse, in our present relation, being a sort of security for the future, ... that that did strike me as a true and reasonable observation as far as it goes. I think, at least, that if I were inclined to fear for my own happiness apart from yours (which, as God knows, is a fear that never comes into my head), I should have sense to reason myself clear of it all by seeing in you none of the common rampant man-vices which tread down a woman’s peace—and which begin the work often long before marriage. Oh, I understand perfectly, how as soon as ever a common man is sure of a woman’s affections, he takes up the tone of right and might ... and he will have it so ... and he won’t have it so! I have heard of the bitterest tears being shed by the victim as soon as ever, by one word of hers, she had placed herself in his power. Of such are ‘Lovers’ quarrels’ for the most part. The growth of power on one side ... and the struggle against it, by means legal and illegal, on the other. There are other causes, of course—but for none of them could it be possible for me to quarrel with you now or ever. Neither now nor ever do I look forward to the ordinary dangers. What I have feared has been so different! May God bless you my own ... own! For my part, you have my leave to make me unhappy if you please. It only would be just that the happiness you have given, you should take away—it is yours, as I am yours.

Say how your head is—say how your mother is. Think of me with the thoughts that do good.

Your own