So do not be uneasy, dearest!—not even lest I should wish to spend three weeks in Paris, to show myself at the Champs Elysées and the opera, and gather a little glory after what you happily call ‘our adventure.’
Our adventure, indeed! But it is you who are adventuring in the matter,—and as any Red Cross Knight of them all, whom you exceed in their chivalry proper.
Chiappino little knew how right he was, when he used to taunt me with my ‘New Cross Knight.’ He did—Ah! Even if he had talked of ‘Rosie Cross,’ he would not have been so far wide—the magic ‘saute aux yeaux.’
And now, will you come to-morrow, I wonder, or not? The answer is in you.
And I am your own, ever and as ever!
And you thought I was dying with a desire to tell Mrs. Jameson!!—I!
E.B.B. to R.B.
Sunday.
[Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]
I have just come from the vestry of Paddington chapel, and bore it very well, and saw nobody except one woman. Arabel went with me, and during the singing we escaped and stood outside the door. Now, that is over; and the next time I shall care less. It was a rambling sermon, which I could hear distinctly through the open door, quite wanting in coherence, but with good and touching things in it, the more touching that they came from a preacher whose life is known to us—from Mr. Stratten, for whom I have the greatest respect, though he never looked into Shakespeare till he was fifty, and shut the book quickly, perhaps, afterward. He is the very ideal of his class; and, with some of the narrow views peculiar to it, has a heart of miraculous breadth and depth; loving further than he can see, pitying beyond what he can approve, having in him a divine Christian spirit, the ‘love of love’ in the most expansive form. How that man is beloved by his congregation, the members of his church, by his children, his friends, is wonderful to see—for everybody seems to love him from afar, as a man is loved who is of a purer nature than others. There is that reverence in the love—and yet no fear. His children have been encouraged and instructed to speak aloud before him on religion and other subjects in all freedom of conscience—he turns to his little daughter seriously ‘to hear what she thinks.’ The other day his eldest son, whom he had hoped to see succeed him at Paddington, determined to enter the Church of England: his wife became quite ill with grief about it, and to himself perhaps it was a trial, a disappointment. With the utmost gentleness and tenderness however, he desired him to take time for thought and act according to his conscience.—I believe for my part that there never was a holier man ... ‘except those bonds’ ... never a man who more resolutely trod under his feet every form of evil and selfish passion when it was once recognized—and looked to God and the Truth with a direct aspiration. Once I could not help writing to put our affairs into his hands to settle them for us—but that would be wrong—because Papa would forbid Arabel’s going to the chapel or communicating with his family, and it would be depriving her of a comfort she holds dear—oh no. And besides, you are wise in taking the other view.
Think of our waiting day after day to fall into the net so, yesterday! How I was provoked and vexed—but more for you, dearest dearest, than for me—much more for you. As for me I saw you, which was joy enough, let the hours be ever so clipped of their natural proportions—and then, you know, you were obliged to go soon, whether Mr. Kenyon had come or not come. After you were gone, nothing was said, and nothing asked, and it is delightful to have heard of those intended absences one after another till far into October: which will secure us from future embarrassments. See if he means to put us to the question!—not such a thing is in his thoughts.