Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 10, 1846.]
Just now I tore the few words I had begun of the letter to you, Ba—they all went away, strangely afar from the meaning begun in them, through my mind taking up the thought that you were ‘waiting’ for what I should write—‘waiting all day’—and ready to call the poor joyful service of love, ‘goodness’ in me! When such thoughts arise, I am not fit to pay even that imperfect service—I have only arms to receive you, kisses to give you—the words seem too cold, indeed! I sincerely believe this I am to write now, will be the shorter because of the intervention of you,—and that, like Flush, I shall behave best when not looked at too much!
Then, in our life,—what I do earnestly in intention and from love of you, that you will always accept and make the best of! How happy you make me, now and ever—in the present happiness, in the assurance of the future’s even greater happiness, I am obliged to believe! It seemed like a dream as I walked home last night and thought of all over again, after a few hours’ talk with my old friends, on subjects from which you were excluded, and of a kind that brought my former feelings back again; so as to be understood, at least, and recognised as mine. ‘All which is changed now,’ I thought going home in the moonlight. Chorley was apprised of my being there and came good-naturedly—and we discussed delinquencies political and literary: he says, times were never so bad as now—people come without a notion of offending a critic, and offer him money—‘will you do this for so much’—praise this or blame this! He was in a bad humour, he said; at least teazed and tired—and really looked both, so that: I asked ‘had you not better throw away a day on our green dulness at Hatcham, strolling through it with me?’—‘Yes—this day next week, if you like’—he answered at once ... so that our Saturday will be gone ... so that our Tuesday must be secured, my own Ba, and after it the Friday, at an equal interval of time—do you let it be so? Saturday would seem to be his only available day, poor Chorley—he walked through the park with me and over the Bridge, at one in the morning—in return for my proving, (I don’t quite think that, however!)—proving, to Arnould’s great satisfaction at least, that Mr. Horne was a poet, and moreover a dramatic one,—Chorley sees no good in him beyond talent with an abundance of ‘crotchets,’ and ‘could not read “Orion” for his life.’ I proved another thing too—that Forster was not a whit behind his brethren of the faculty, in literary morals—that the Examiner, named, was quite as just and good as another paper, unnamed. Whereat Chorley grew warm and lost his guard, and at last; declaring I forced him into corners and that speak he must; instanced the ‘Examiner’s’ treatment of myself as not generous ... ‘Luria’ having been noticed as you remember a week after the publication, and yet, or never, to be reviewed in the Unnamed:—Ces Misères!
A fortnight ago when Rachel played in ‘Andromaque’ ‘for the last time’—Sarianna and I agreed that if she did ever play again in it, we would go and see ... and lo, contrary to all expectation she does repeat Hermione to-morrow night, and we are to go. And you, Ba, you cannot go—ought I to go? One day, one not distant day, and ‘cannot’ will apply to us both—now, it seems to do me good, with the crowd of its suggestions, this seeing Rachel; beside, Sarianna has just this only opportunity of going.
I am anxious to let the folly of that person spend itself unaggravated by any notice of mine—I mean to you; any notice which should make you think it—(the folly)—affected me as well as you; but I do trust you will not carry toleration too far in this case, nor furnish an ungenerous, selfish man with weapons for your own annoyance. ‘Insolent letters’ you ought to put up with from no one—and as there is no need of concealment of my position now, I think you will see a point when I may interfere. Always rely on my being quietly firm, and never violent nor exasperating: you alluded to some things which I cannot let my fancy stop upon. Remember you are mine, now,—my own, my very own. I know very well what a wretched drunkenness there is in that sort of self-indulgence—what it permits itself to do, all on the strength of its ‘strong feeling’ ‘earnestness’—stupid in execrable sophistry as it is! I have too a strong belief that the man who would bully you, would drop into a fit at the sight of a man’s uplifted little finger. Can this person be the ‘old friend in an ill humour’ who followed me up-stairs one day? I trust to you—that is the end of all.
Now I will kiss you, my own Ba, and wait for my letter, and then, Tuesday. Dearest, I am your own, your very own.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 10, 1846].
Ever dearest, I shall write to you a little this morning and try to manage to post myself what shall be written, too early to permit the possibility (almost) of your being without a letter to-morrow. Dearest, how you were with me yesterday, after you went away!—I thought, thought, thought of you,—and the books I took up one by one ... (I tried a romance too ‘Les Femmes’ by a writer called Desnoyers ... quite new, and weak and foolish enough as a story, but full of clever things about shoe tyes ... philosophy in small:) the books were all so many lorgnons through which I looked at you again and again. Did you ever hear a story of the late Lord Grey, that he was haunted by a head, a head without a body? If he turned to the right or left there it was—if he looked up in the air, there it hung ... or down to the floor, there it lay—or walked up or down stairs, there it bounded before him—flop ... flop ... just on its chin. ‘Alas, poor ghost?’ And just such another, as far as the haunting goes, were you to me, dearest, yesterday—only that you were of the celestial rather than ghastly apparitionery, and bore plainly with you airs from Heaven full against my forehead. How did I ever deserve you—how ever? Never indeed! And how can it seem right to submit to so much happiness undeservedly, as the knowledge of your affection gives, you who are ‘great in everything,’ as Mr. Kenyon said the other day! Shall I tell you how I reconcile myself to the good? Thus it is. First I think that no woman in the world, let her be ever so much better than I, could quite be said to deserve you—and that therefore there may not be such harm in your taking the one who will owe you most with the fullest consciousness! If it may not be merit, it shall be gratitude—that is how I look at it when I would keep myself from falling back into the old fears. Ah! you may prevent my rising up to receive you ... though I did not know that I did ... it was a pure instinct!—but you cannot prevent my sinking down to the feet of your spirit when I think of the love it has given me from the beginning and not taken away. Dearest, dearest—I am content to owe all to you—it is not too much humiliation!
While I was writing, came Mr. Kenyon ... the spectacles mended, and looking whole catechisms from behind them. The first word was, ‘Have you seen Browning lately?’ I, taken by surprise, answered en niaise, ‘Yes, yesterday.’ ‘And did he tell you that he was coming on Wednesday, next Wednesday?’ ‘He said something of it.’