One word more—in all this, I labour against the execrable policy of the world’s husbands, fathers, brothers, and domineerers in general. I am about to marry you ... how wise, then, to encourage such a temper in you! such was that divine Griselda’s—a word rules the gentle nature—‘Do this, or....’
My own Ba, if I thought you could fear me, I think I should have the courage to give you up to-morrow!
Because to-day I am altogether yours, and you are my very own—and to-morrow never comes, they say. Bless you, my best dearest Ba—and if you think I deserve it, you shall test the excellence of those slippers on my cheek, (and not the flannelled side, neither), the next happy time I see you ... which will be soon, soon, I trust! who am more than
ever your own R.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday.
[Post-mark, September 5, 1846.]
You best! Was ever any in the world, in any possible world, so perfectly good and dear to another as you are to me! Ah! if you could know how I feel to you, when you write such words as came to me this morning—Dearest! It ends in that, all I can say. And yet I must say besides that the idea of ‘crossness,’ of hardness, never came to me, for one moment, from the previous letter. I just shook my head and thought how you would not act it out, if you had a Flush. Upon which I could not follow out my argument to myself, through thinking that you were ill.
You are better now, Robert, and you promise to take care of the dinner, where you should not go if I were near you. I should be ‘afraid of you’ far too much to let you, indeed! Such a wrong thing that dinner is ... as wrong as any dogstealer in his way ... drawing you out just when you ought to be at home and quiet, if not ‘abstinent.’ When did I ever tell you to be abstinent, pray? You are too much so, it seems to me, in general: and to pass the whole of that day without eating! How unwell you must have been, dearest! How I long to see you and ascertain that you look tolerably well! How very, very happy I should be, to be able to look at you to-morrow. But no, no! Mr. Kenyon does not come, and we must be wise, I suppose, and wait till the ground is clear of him, which will not be till Monday. Probably he will visit me on Sunday—but the chance of Saturday is like the hat on a pole in gardens, set there to frighten away the birds. Still they may sing on the other side of the wall, not to be too far from the cherries and the hope of them. Monday surely will be a clear day. Unless Mr. Kenyon shall put off his journey just to despite us—who shall say?