As to my copyrights, I never meant to sell them—it would be foolish—because, since some little time, and in consequence of the establishment of the fact that my poems, even in their present disadvantageous form, without advertisement, and unnoticed by the influential journals—do somehow manage to pay their expenses, I have had one direct offer to print a new edition,—and there are reasons for thinking, two or three booksellers, that I know, would come to terms. Smith & Elder, for instance, wrote to offer to print any poem about Italy, in any form, with any amount of advertisements, on condition of sharing profits ... taking all risk off my hands ... concluding with more than a hint that if that proposition was not favourable enough, they would try and agree to any reasonable demand.
Because Moxon is the ‘slowest’ of publishers, and if one of his books can only contrive to pay its expenses, you may be sure that a more enterprising brother of the craft would have sent it into a second or third edition—yet Moxon’s slow self even, anticipates success for the next venture. Now the fact is, not having really cared about anything except not losing too much money, I have taken very little care of my concerns in that way—not calling on Moxon for months together. But all will be different now— and I shall look into matters, and turn my experience to account, such as it is.
Well,—I am yours, you are mine, dearest Ba! I love you, I think, perceptibly more in these latter days! Is this absence contrived on purpose to prove how foolishly I said that I loved you the more from seeing you the oftener? Ah, you reconcile all extremes, destroy the force of all logic-books, my father’s or mine—that was true, but this is also true (logical or no) that I now love you through not seeing you,—loving more, as I desire more to be with you, my best, dearest wife that will be! (I could not help writing it—why should it sound sweeter than ‘Ba’?)
Your very own R.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 29, 1846.]
Will you come, dearest, after all? Judge for both of us. The Hedleys go to-morrow morning and we shall not see them after to-night when they are dining here—but Mr. Kenyon has not paid his visit, and may come to-morrow, or may take Sunday, which he is fond of doing—is it worth while to be afraid of Mr. Kenyon? What do you think? I leave it to your wisdom which is the greatest. Perhaps he may not come till Monday—yet he may.
Dearest, I have had all your thoughts by turns, or most of them ... and each one has withered away without coming to bear fruit. Papa seems to have no more idea of my living beyond these four walls, than of a journey to Lapland. I confess that I thought it possible he might propose the country for the summer, or even Italy for the winter, in a ‘late remark’—but no, ‘nothing’ and there is not a possibility of either word, as I see things. My brothers ‘wish that something could be arranged’—a wish which I put away quietly as often as they bring it to me. And for my uncle and aunt, they have been talking to me to-day—and she with her usual acuteness in such matters, observing my evasion, said, ‘Ah Ba, you have arranged your plans more than you would have us believe. But you are right not to tell us—indeed I would rather not hear. Only don’t be rash—that is my only advice to you.’
I thought she had touched the truth, and wondered—but since then, from another of her words, I came to conclude that she imagined me about to accept the convoy of Henrietta and Captain Cook! She said in respect to them—‘I only say that your father’s consent ought to be asked, as a form of respect to him.’ Which, in their case should be, I think—and should also in ours, but for the peculiar position of one of us. My uncle urged me to keep firm and go to Italy, and my aunt, though she would not advise, she said, yet thought that I ‘ought to go,’ and that to live on in this fashion in this room was lamentable to contemplate. Both of them approved of the French route, and urged me to go to them in Paris—‘And,’ said my uncle kindly, ‘when once we have you, we shall not bear to part with you, I think.’
(Do you really imagine, by the way, that to appear in Paris for one half-minute, to a single soul, could be less detestable to me than to you? I shall take care that nobody belonging to me there shall hear of my being within a hundred miles—and why need we stay in Paris the half minute? Not unless you pause to demand an audience of Mr. Chorley at the Barrière des Étoiles.)