When I had finished that letter this morning, dearest dearest, before I could seal it, even, (my sister did it for me ... and despatched it to the post at once) I became quite ill and so sick as to be forced to go up-stairs and throw myself on the bed. It is now six o’clock, and I feel better, and have some thoughts of breaking my fast to-day—but, first of all ... did whatever it may have been I wrote seem cross—unnecessarily angry, to you, dearest Ba? Because, I confess to having felt indignant at this sample of the evils done under the sun every day ... and as if it would be to no purpose though the whole world were peopled with Ba’s, instead of just Wimpole Street; as they would be just so many more soft cushions for the villainously-disposed to run pins into at their pleasure. Donne says that ‘Weakness invites, but silence feasts oppression.’ And it is horrible to fancy how all the oppressors in their several ranks may, if they choose, twitch back to them by the heartstrings after various modes the weak and silent whose secret they have found out. No one should profit by those qualities in me, at least. Having formed a resolution, I would keep it, I hope, through fire and water, and the threatener of any piece of rascality, who (as commonly happens) should be without the full heart to carry it into effect, should pay me exactly the same for the threat ... which had determined my conduct once and for ever. But in this particular case, I ought to have told you (unless you divined it, as you might) that I would give all I am ever to be worth in the world to get back your Flush for you—for your interest is not mine, any more than the lake is the river that goes to feed it,—mine is only made to feed yours—I am yours, as we say—as I feel more and more every minute.
Are you not mine, too? And do you not forgive your own R?
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 4, 1846.]
Ever dearest, you are not well—that is the first thing!—And that is the thing I saw first, when, opening your letter, my eyes fell on the ending sentence of it,—which disenchanted me in a moment from the hope of the day. Dearest—you have not been well for two or three days, it is plain,—and now you are very, very unwell—tell me if it is not so? I beseech you to let me hear the exact truth about you, for I am very uneasy, and it is dreadful to doubt about knowing the exact truth in all such cases. How everything goes against me this week! I cannot see you. I cannot comfort myself by knowing that you are well. And then poor Flush! You must let him pass as one of the evils, and you will, I know; for I have not got him back yet—no, indeed.
I should have done it. The archfiend, Taylor, the man whom you are going to spend your life in persecuting (the life that belongs to me, too!), came last night to say that they would accept six pounds, six guineas, with half a guinea for himself, considering the trouble of the mediation; and Papa desired Henry to refuse to pay, and not to tell me a word about it—all which I did not find out till this morning. Now it is less, as the money goes, than I had expected, and I was very vexed and angry, and wanted Henry to go at once and conclude the business—only he wouldn’t, talked of Papa, and persuaded me that Taylor would come to-day with a lower charge. He has not come—I knew he would not come,—and if people won’t do as I choose, I shall go down to-morrow morning myself and bring Flush back with me. All this time he is suffering and I am suffering. It may be very foolish—I do not say it is not—or it may even be ‘awful sin,’ as Mr. Boyd sends to assure me—but I cannot endure to run cruel hazards about my poor Flush for the sake of a few guineas, or even for the sake of abstract principles of justice—I cannot. You say that I cannot, ... but that you would. You would!—Ah dearest—most pattern of citizens, but you would not—I know you better. Your theory is far too good not to fall to pieces in practice. A man may love justice intensely; but the love of an abstract principle is not the strongest love—now is it? Let us consider a little, putting poor Flush out of the question. (You would bear, you say, to receive his head in a parcel—it would satisfy you to cut off Taylor’s in return). Do you mean to say that if the banditti came down on us in Italy and carried me off to the mountains, and, sending to you one of my ears, to show you my probable fate if you did not let them have ... how much may I venture to say I am worth? ... five or six scudi,—(is that reasonable at all?) ... would your answer be ‘Not so many crazie’; and would you wait, poised upon abstract principles, for the other ear, and the catastrophe,—as was done in Spain not long ago? Would you, dearest? Because it is as well to know beforehand, perhaps.
Ah—how I am teazing you, my beloved, when you are not well. But indeed that life of yours is worthy of better uses than to scourge Taylor with, even if I should not be worth the crazie.
I have seen nobody and heard nothing. I bought a pair of shoes to-day lined with flannel, to walk with on the bare floors of Italy in the winter. Is not that being practical and coming to the point? I did it indeed!
May God bless you. I love you always and am your own.