I found at home on my return yesterday my friend Pritchard, who brought me an old notice of Rachel by Jules Janin—of course there is no believing a word—but he does say that she was,—at the time he wrote,—perfectly ignorant of the most ordinary rules of grammar,—that, for instance, on meeting him she remarked (alluding to her having played previously at another theatre than the T. Français)—‘C’était moi que j’était au Gymnase!’—to which he ought to have answered, he thinks, ‘Je le savions!’—I will bring her portrait, too, if you please—and this memoir, untrustworthy as it is.
I will go now and walk about, I think—did you go out, as you promised, love? Ah, dearest,—you to wonder I could look up to you for ever as you stand,—you who once wrote to me that, in order to verify a date about Shelley in a book I lent you, ‘You had accomplished a journey to the other end of the room, even’! And now! I thankfully know this to be miraculous—nor have I to ask my spiritual director’s opinion thereon—to whom, how on earth can one surrender one’s private right of judgment when it is only by the exercise of that very right that I select him from the multitude of would-be directors of me and the whole world? What but a deliberate act of judgment takes up Dr. Pusey of Oxford rather than Mrs. Fox of Finsbury—and is it for that pernicious first step that I determine on never risking a second?
Bless you, ever dearest—and do you bless your
very own R.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, July 20, 1846.]
Dearest, the leaf of yesterday was folded down quite smoothly and softly. A dinner party swept the thought of you out of people’s minds. Otherwise I was prepared to be a little afraid,—for my aunt said to Arabel, upon being dispensed with so cavalierly from this room, ... (said in the passage, Arabel told me, with a half-laugh,) ‘Pray which of Ba’s lovers may this be?’ So Arabel had to tell the name of the visitor. But the dinner-party set all right, and this morning I was asked simply whether it had been an agreeable visit, and what you had written, and banalities after such a fashion.
Oh, and I went out ... remembering your desire ... was it not a desire, dearest, dearest? I went out, any way—but the wind blew, and I had to hold my veil against my mouth, doubled, and trebled ... with as many folds, indeed, as Ajax’s shield ... to keep myself in breathing order. The wind always gives me a sort of strangling sensation, which is the effect, I suppose, of having weak lungs. So it was not a long walk, but I liked it because you seemed to be with me still,—and Arabel, who walked with me, was ‘sure, without being told, that I had had a happy visit, just from my manner.’ The wisest of interpreters, I called her, and pour cause.
If ever I mistake you, Robert, doing you an injustice, ... you ought to be angry, I think, rather and more with me than with another—I should have far less excuse it appears to me, for making such a mistake, than any other person in the world. I thought so yesterday when you were speaking, and now upon consideration I think so with an increasing certainty. Is it your opinion that the members of our family, ... those who live with us always, ... know us best? They know us on the side we offer to them ... a bare profile ... or the head turned round to the ear—yes!—they do not, except by the merest chance, look into our eyes. They know us in a conventional way ... as far from God’s way of knowing us, as from the world’s—mid-way, it is—and the truest and most cordial and tender affection will not hinder this from being so partial a knowledge. Love! I love those who at the present moment, ... who love me (and tenderly on both sides) ... but who are so far from understanding me, that I never think of speaking myself into their ears ... of trying to speak myself. It is wonderful, it is among the great mysteries of life, to observe how people can love one another in the dark, blindly ... loving without knowing. And, as a matter of general observation, if I sought to have a man or woman revealed to me in his or her innermost nature, I would not go to the family of the person in question—though I should learn there best, of course, about personal habits, and the social bearing of him or her. George Sand delights me in one of her late works, where she says that the souls of blood relations seldom touch except at one or two points. Perfectly true, that is, I think—perfectly.
Remember how you used to say that I did not know you ... which was true in a measure ... yet I felt I knew you, and I did actually know you, in another larger measure. And if now you are not known to me altogether, it is my dulness which makes me unknowing.