Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 3, 1846.]
‘Our friend and follower, that was to be’—is that, then, your opinion of my poor darling Flush’s destiny— Ah,—I should not have been so quiet if I had not known differently and better. I ‘shall not recover him directly,’ you think! But, dearest, I am sure that I shall. I am learned in the ways of the Philistines—I knew from the beginning where to apply and how to persuade. The worst is poor Flush’s fright and suffering. And then, it is inconvenient just now to pay the ransom for him. But we shall have time to-morrow if not to-night. Two hours ago the chief of the Confederacy came to call on Henry and to tell him that the ‘Society had the dog,’ having done us the honour of tracking us into Bond Street and out of Bond Street into Vere Street where he was kidnapped. Now he is in Whitechapel (poor Flush). And the great man was going down there at half past seven to meet other great men in council and hear the decision as to the ransom exacted, and would return with their ultimatum. Oh, the villainy of it is excellent, and then the humiliation of having to pay for your own vexations and anxieties! Will they have the insolence, now, to make me pay ten pounds, as they said they would? But I must have Flush, you know—I can’t run any risk, and bargain and haggle. There is a dreadful tradition in this neighbourhood, of a lady who did so having her dog’s head sent to her in a parcel. So I say to Henry—‘Get Flush back, whatever you do’—for Henry is angry as he may well be, and as I should be if I was not too afraid ... and talks police-officers against thieves, and finds it very hard to attend to my instructions and be civil and respectful to their captain. There he found him, smoking a cigar in a room with pictures! They make some three or four thousand a year by their honourable employment. As to Flush’s following anyone ‘blandly,’ never think it. ‘He was caught up and gagged ... depend upon that. If he could have bitten, he would have bitten—if he could have yelled, he would have yelled. Indeed on a former occasion the ingenuous thief observed, that he ‘was a difficult dog to get, he was so distrustful.’ They had to drag him with a string, put him into a cab, they said, before. Poor Flush!
Dearest, I am glad that your mother is a little better—but why should the turn of the year make you suffer, ever dearest? I am not easy about you indeed. Remember not to use the shower-bath injudiciously—and remember to walk. Do you walk enough?—it being as necessary for you as for your mother.
And as for me you will not say a word more to me, you will leave me to my own devices now.
Which is just exactly what you must not do. Ah, why do you say so, even, when you must not do it? Have I refused one proposition of yours when there were not strong obstacles, that you should have finished with me so, my beloved? For instance, I agreed to your plan about the marrying, and I agreed to go with you to Italy in the latter part of September—did I not? And what am I disagreeing in now? Don’t let me pass for disagreeable! And don’t, above all, refuse to think for me, and decide for me, or what will become of me, I cannot guess. I shall be worse off than Flush is now ... in his despair, at Whitechapel. Think of my being let loose upon a common, just when the thunder-clouds are gathering!! You would not be so cruel, you. All I meant to say was that it would be wise to make the occasions of excitement as few as possible, for the reasons I gave you. But I shall not fail, I believe—I should despise myself too much for failing—I should lose too much by the failure. Then there is an amulet which strengthens the heart of one,—let it incline to fail ever so. Believe of me that I shall not fail, dearest beloved—I shall not, if you love me enough to stand by—believe that always.
The heart will sink indeed sometimes—as mine does to-night, I scarcely know why—but even while it sinks, I do not feel that I shall fail so—I do not. Dearest, I do not, either, ‘misconceive,’ as you desire me not: I only infer that you will think it best to avoid the chance of meeting Mr. Kenyon, who speaks to me, in a note received this morning, of intending to leave town next Monday—of coming here he does not speak,—and he may come and he may not come, on any intermediate day. He wrote for a book he lent me. If I do not see you until Monday, it will be hard—but judge! there was more of bitterness than of sweetness in the last visit.
Mr. Kenyon said in his note that he had seen Moxon, and that Tennyson was ‘disappointed’ with the mountains. Is not that strange? Is it a good or a bad sign when people are disappointed with the miracles of nature? I am accustomed to fancy it a bad sign. Because a man’s imagination ought to aggrandise, glorify, consecrate. A man sees with his mind, and mind is at fault when he does not see greatly, I think.
Moxon sent a civil message to me about my books ‘going off regularly.’
And now I must go off—it is my turn. Do you love me to-night, dearest? I ask you ... through the air. I am your very own Ba.
Say how you are, I beseech you, and tell me always and particularly of your mother.