Monday Morning.
[April 6, 1846.]
I shall receive a note from you presently, I trust—but this had better go now—for I expect a friend, and must attend to him as he wants to go walking—so, dearest—dearest, take my—last work I ever shall send you, if God please!
A word about a passage or two,—I had forgotten to say before—gadge is a real name (in Johnson, too) for a torturing iron—it is part of the horror of such things that they should be mysteriously named,—indefinitely,—‘The Duke of Exeter’s Daughter’ for instance ... Ugh!—Besides, am I not a rhymester? Well, who knows but one may want to use such a word in a couplet with ‘badge’—which, if one reject the old and obsolete ‘fadge,’ is rhymeless?
Then Chiappino remarks that men of genius usually do the reverse ... of beginning by dethroning &c. and so arriving with utmost reluctancy at the acknowledgment of a natural and unalterable inequality of Mankind—instead of that, they begin at once, he says, by recognizing it in their adulation &c. &c.—I have supplied the words ‘at once,’ and taken out ‘virtually,’ which was unnecessary; so that the parallel possibly reads clearlier. I know there are other things to say—but at this moment my memory is at fault.
Can you tell me Mrs. Jameson’s address?
My sea-friend’s opinion is altogether unfavourable to the notion of an invalid’s trusting himself alone in a merchant vessel—he says—‘it will certainly be the gentleman’s death.’ So very small a degree of comfort can be secured amid all the inevitable horrors of dirt, roughness, &c. The expenses are trifling in any case, on that very account. Any number of the Shipping Gazette (I think) will give a list of all vessels about to sail, with choice of ports—or on the walls of the Exchange one may see their names placarded, with reference to the Agent—or he will, himself, (my friend Chas. Walton) do his utmost with a shipowner, we both know, and save some expense, perhaps. I made him remark the difference between my carelessness of accommodations and an invalid’s proper attention beforehand—but he persisted in saying nothing can be done, nothing effectual. My time is out—but I must bless you my ever dearest Ba—and kiss you—
Ever your own.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, April 7, 1846.]
Dearest, it is not I who am a ‘flatterer’—and if I used the word first, it is because I had the right of it, I remember, long and long ago. There is the vainest of vanities in discussing the application of such a word ... and so, when you said the other day that you ‘never flattered’ forsooth ... (oh no!) I would not contradict you for fear of the endless flattery it would lead to. Only that I do not choose (because such things are allowed to pass) to be called on my side ‘a flatterer’—I! That is too much, and too out of place. What do I ever say that is like flattery? I am allowed, it may be hoped, to admire the ‘Lurias’ and the rest, quite like other people, and even to say that I admire them ... may I not lawfully? If that is flattery woe to me! I tell you the real truth, as I see the truth, even in respect to them ... the ‘Lurias’....