A bright beautiful day this is, on which you do not come—it seems as if you ought to have come on it by rights. Dearest, you did not meet Mr. Kenyon yesterday after you left me? I fancied that you might, and so be detected in the three hours, to the fullest length of them—it seemed possible. Now I look forward to the driving instead of to you—and he has just sent to desire me to be ready at a quarter to three, and not later, as was fixed in your hearing. And why, pray, should you be glad that I am going on this excursion? I should have liked it, if we had been living in the daylight; but with all these ‘shadows, clouds and darkness,’ it is pleasanter to me to sit still and see nobody—and least, Mr. Kenyon. Oh, that somebody would spirit him away gently, very gently, so as to do him no manner of harm in achieving the good for me!—for both you and me. Did you say ‘Do you pity me’ to me? I did not tell you yesterday that I have another new fear ... an American lady who in her time has reviewed both you and me, it seems, comes to see me ... is about to come to see me ... armed with a letter of introduction from Mr. Mathews—and in a week, I may expect her perhaps. She is directed, too, towards Mr. Horne. Observe the double chain thrown across the road at my feet—I am entreated to show her attention and introduce her to my friends ... things out of the question as I am situated. Yet I have not boldness to say ‘I will not see you.’ I almost must see her, I do fear. Mr. Mathews ought to have felt his way a little, before throwing such a weight on me. He is delighted with your ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ (to pass from his frailties to his merits) and the review of them is sent to me, he says—only that I do not receive it.
Dearest, when I told you yesterday, after speaking of the many coloured theologies of the house, that it was hard to answer for what I was, ... I meant that I felt unwilling, for my own part, to put on any of the liveries of the sects. The truth, as God sees it, must be something so different from these opinions about truth—these systems which fit different classes of men like their coats, and wear brown at the elbows always! I believe in what is divine and floats at highest, in all these different theologies—and because the really Divine draws together souls, and tends so to a unity, I could pray anywhere and with all sorts of worshippers, from the Sistine Chapel to Mr. Fox’s, those kneeling and those standing. Wherever you go, in all religious societies, there is a little to revolt, and a good deal to bear with—but it is not otherwise in the world without; and, within, you are especially reminded that God has to be more patient than yourself after all. Still you go quickest there, where your sympathies are least ruffled and disturbed—and I like, beyond comparison best, the simplicity of the dissenters ... the unwritten prayer, ... the sacraments administered quietly and without charlatanism! and the principle of a church, as they hold it, I hold it too, ... quite apart from state-necessities ... pure from the law. Well—there is enough to dissent from among the dissenters—the Formula is rampant among them as among others—you hear things like the buzzing of flies in proof of a corruption—and see every now and then something divine set up like a post for men of irritable minds and passions to rub themselves against, calling it a holy deed—you feel moreover bigotry and ignorance pressing on you on all sides, till you gasp for breath like one strangled. But better this, even, than what is elsewhere—this being elsewhere too in different degrees, besides the evil of the place. Public and social prayer is right and desirable—and I would prefer, as a matter of custom, to pray in one of those chapels, where the minister is simple-minded and not controversial—certainly would prefer it. Not exactly in the Socinian chapels, nor yet in Mr. Fox’s—not by preference. The Unitarians seem to me to throw over what is most beautiful in the Christian Doctrine; but the Formulists, on the other side, stir up a dust, in which it appears excusable not to see. When the veil of the body falls, how we shall look into each other’s faces, astonished, ... after one glance at God’s!
Have I written to you more than too much about my doxy? I was a little, little, uncomfortable in the retrospect of yesterday, lest my quick answer should have struck you as either a levity or an evasion—and have you not a right to all my thoughts of all things? For the rest, we will be married just as you like ... volo quod vis: and you will see by this profession of faith that I am not likely much to care either way. There are some solemn and beautiful things in the Church of England Marriage-service, as I once heard it read, the only time I was present at such a ceremony—but I heard it then in the abbreviated customary form ... and not as the Puseyites (who always bring up the old lamps against a new) choose to read it, they say, in spite of custom. Archdeacon Hale with an inodorous old lamp, displeased some of the congregation from Fenton’s Hotel, I hear. But we need not go to the Puseyites at least. And after all, perhaps the best will be what is easiest. Something is sure to happen—something must surely happen to put an end to it all ... before I go to Greece!
May God bless you, ever dearest: Tell me if you get this letter to-day, Saturday.
Your very own Ba.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Saturday.
[Post-mark, August 15, 1846.]
My very, very dearest—many, if not all, of those things for which I want the words when too close to you, become quite clear at a little distance. How simple, for instance, it is to admit, that in our case,—my own, only Ba once discovered, the circumstances of the weakness and retirement were, on the whole, favourable rather than otherwise! Had they been unfavourable ... I do not think a few obstacles would have discouraged me ... but this way has been easier—better—and now all is admitted! By themselves, the circumstances could never obtain more than the feeling properly due to them—do you think one particle of love goes with the pity and service to a whole Hospital of Incurables? So let all the attraction of that kind pass for what it is worth, and for no more. If all had been different, and I had still perceived you and loved you, then there might, perhaps,—or probably—be as different an aim for me,—for my own peculiar delight in you ... I should want to feel and be sure of your love, in your happiness ... certainly in your entire happiness then as now—but I should aspire to find it able to support itself in a life altogether different from the life in which I had first seen you—if you loved me you would need to be happy in quiet and solitude and simplicity and privation ... then I should know you loved me, knowing how you had been happy before! But now, do you not see that my utmost pride and delight will be to think you are happy, as you were not,—in the way you were not: if you chose to come out of a whirl of balls and parties and excursions and visitings—to my side, I should love you as you sate still by me,—but now, when you stand up simply, much more walk ... I will consider, if you let me, every step you take that brings you pleasure,—every smile on your mouth, and light on your eyes—as a directest obedience to me ... all the obedience you can ever pay me ... you shall say in every such act ‘this I do on purpose to content you!’ I hope to know you have been happy ... that shall prove you loved me, at the end.
Probably you will not hear anything to-day from Mr. Kenyon, as your sister is to be present: do you really imagine that those eyes and spectacles are less effective than the perceptions of your ‘Treppy’?
By the way, hear an odd coincidence—you heard that foolish story of Thackeray and Mr. ‘Widdicombe’ ... which I told just to avoid a dead silence and guilty blankness of face. As I was returning I met Thackeray (with Doyle—H.B.) and was energetically reminded of our dinner ... he is in very earnest, Mr. Kenyon may assure himself. Presently I reached Charing Cross—and stood waiting for my omnibus. There is always a crowd of waiters—in a moment there passes an extraordinary looking personage—a policeman on duty at this police-requiring spot saunters up to me, of all others, and says (on some miraculous impulse, no doubt)—with an overflowing impressible grin, ‘D’ye know him, Sir?’ ‘No—who may he be?’ ‘He’s Widdicombe!—He goes now to Astley’s, and afterwards to Vauxhall—there’s a good likeness of him in the painting of the Judge and Jury Club.’ Here my omnibus arrives ... ‘Thank you’ I said—and there was an end of the communication. How for many thousand years may I walk the street before another inspired policeman addresses me without preface and tells me, that is the man I have just been talking of to somebody else? Let me chronicle Mr. W.’s glories ... his face is just Tom Moore’s, plus two painted cheeks, a sham moustache, and hair curled in wiry long ringlets; Thackeray’s friend was a friend indeed, ‘warning every man and teaching every man’—the tête-à-tête would have been portentous.