R.B. to E.B.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, April 6, 1846.]
I sent you some even more than usual hasty foolish words,—not caring much, however—for dearest Ba shall have to forgive my shortcomings every hour in the day,—it is her destiny, and I began unluckily with that stupidest of all notions,—that about the harm coming of genius &c., so I fell with my subject and we rolled in the mud together—pas vrai? But there was so many other matters alluded to in your dearest (because last) letter—there are many things in which I agree with you to such a tremblingly exquisite exactness, so to speak, that I hardly dare cry out lest the charm break, the imaginary oscillation prove incomplete and your soul, now directly over, pass beyond mine yet, and not stay! Do you understand, dear soul of my soul, dearest Ba? Oh, how different it all might be! In this House of life—where I go, you go—where I ascend you run before—when I descend it is after you. Now, one might have a piece of Ba, but a very little of her, and make it up into a lady and a mistress, and find her a room to her mind perhaps when she should sit and sing, ‘warble eat and dwell’ like Tennyson’s blackbird, and to visit her there with due honour one might wear the finest of robes, use the courtliest of ceremonies—and then—after a time, leave her there and go, the door once shut, without much blame, to throw off the tunic and put on Lord Compton’s blouse and go whither one liked—after, to me, the most melancholy fashion in the world. How different with us! If it were not, indeed—what a mad folly would marriage be! Do you know what quaint thought strikes me, out of old Bunyan, on this very subject? He says (with another meaning though) ‘Who would keep a cow, that may buy milk at a penny the quart’—(elegant allusion). Just so,—whoever wants ‘a quart’ of this other comfort, as solace of whatever it may be (at breakfast or tea time too), why not go and ‘buy’ the same, and having discussed it, drink claret at dinner at his club? Why did not Mr. Butler read Fanny Kemble’s verses, paying his penny of intellectual labour, and see her play ‘Portia’ at night, and make her a call or ride with her in the middle of the day—why ‘keep the cow’? But—don’t you know they prescribe to some constitutions the perpetual living in a cow-house? the breath, the unremitting influence is everything,—not the milk—(now, Ba—Ba is suddenly Ἴω πλανωμένη and Mrs. Jameson is the Gadfly—and I am laughed at—not too cruelly, or the other lock of hair becomes mine—with which locks ... and not with Louis Seize iron knick-nack ones, I rather think I was occupied last time, last farewell taking—)
From all which I infer—that I shall see you to-morrow! Yes, or I should not have the heart to be so glad and absurd.
Well, to-morrow makes amends—dear, dear Ba! Why do you persist in trying to turn my head so? It does not turn, I look the more steadfastly at the feet and the ground, for all your crying and trying! But something shocking might happen—would happen, if it were not written that I am to get nothing but good from Ba,—and who, who began calling names—who used the word ‘flatterer’ first?
Bless you my own dearest flatterer—I love you with heart and soul. Are you down-stairs to day? it is warm, the rain you like—yes you are down, I think. God keep you wherever you are!
Your own.
I went last night to Lord Compton’s father’s Soirée,—and for all our deep convictions, and philosophic rejoicing, I assure you that of the two or three words that we interchanged—congratulation on the bright fortune of his son formed no part,—any more than intelligence about ordering Regiments to India whenever I met the relatives of the ordered. And yesterday morning I planted a full dozen more rose-trees, all white—to take away the yellow-rose reproach!