Kiss me, dear Ba. May God bless you. Care for everything—if you should have taken cold last night, for instance! Talk of a sword suspended by a hair!—what is the feeling of one whose priceless jewel hangs over a gulf by a hair? Tell me all—I love you wholly and am wholly yours.
See the strangely dirty paper—it comes from my desk where, every now and then, a candle gets over-set; or the snuffers remain open, aghast at what I write!
E.B.B. to R.B.
Monday.
[Post-mark, April 14, 1846.]
Ever dearest I have your two letters; and because there are only two ‘great lights’ to rule the day and the night, I am not likely to hear from you again before to-morrow. Then you want Mrs. Jameson’s direction ... (it is just Mrs. Jameson, Ealing!) and here is the last ‘Bell and Pomegranate’—and, for all these reasons, I must write without waiting; I will not wait for the night. Thank you for the book, thank you! I turn over the leaves ever so proudly. Tell me how I can be proud of you, when I cannot be proud of your loving me:—I am certainly proud of you. One of my first searches was for the note explanatory of the title—and I looked, and looked, and looked, at the end, at the beginning, at the end again. At last I made up my mind that you had persisted in not explaining, or that the printer had dropped the manuscript. Why, what could make you thrust that note on all but the titlepage of the ‘Soul’s Tragedy’? Oh—I comprehend. Having submitted to explain, quite at the point of the bayonet, you determined at least to do it where nobody could see it done. Be frank and tell me that it was just so. Also the poor ‘Soul’s Tragedy,’ you have repudiated so from the ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ ... pushing it gently aside. Well—you must allow it to be a curious dislocation—only it is not important—and I like the note, all except the sentence about ‘Faith and Works,’ which does not apply, I think, ... that instance. ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ is a symbolic phrase—which the other is not at all, however much difficult and doubtful theological argument may have arisen from it as a collective phrase. So I am the first critic, you see, notwithstanding that Mr. Forster waylaid the first copy. Ah no! I shall have my gladness out of the book presently, beyond the imagination of any possible critic. Who in the world shall measure gladnesses with me?
Tell me—I was going to write that ‘Tell me’ in my yesterday’s letter, but at last I was hurried, and could not ... did you come into London on Sunday? did you walk past this house on the other side of the street, about two o’clock? Because just then I and Flush went down-stairs. The drawing-room had nobody in it, and the window being wide open, I walked straight to it to shut it. And there, across the street, walked somebody ... I am so near sighted that I could only see a shadow in a dimness ... but the shadow had, or seemed to have, a sign of you, a trace of you ... and instead of shutting the window I looked after it till it vanished. No, it was not you. I feel now that it was not you; and indeed yesterday I felt it was not you. But, for the moment, it made my heart stop beating, ... that insolent shadow, ... which pretended to be you and wasn’t. Some one, I dare say, who ‘has an occupation eight or nine hours a day’ and never does anything! I may speak against him, for deceiving me—it’s a pure justice.
To go back to the book ... you are perfectly right about ‘gadge,’ and in the view you take of the effect of such words. You misunderstood me if you fancied that I objected to the word—it was simply my ignorance which led me to doubt whether you had written ‘gag.’ Of course, the horror of those specialities is heightened by the very want of distinct understanding they meet with in us:—it is the rack in the shadow of the vault. Oh—I fully agree.
And now ... dearest dearest ... do not bring reason to me to prove ... what, to prove? I never get anything by reason on this subject, be very sure!—and I like better to feel that unreasonably you love me—to feel that you love me as, last year, you did. Which I could not feel, last year, a whole day or even half a day together. Now the black intervals are rarer ... which is of your goodness, beloved, and not of mine. For me, you read me indeed a famous lesson about faith, ... and set me an example of how you ‘believed’! ... but it does not apply, this lesson, ... it does not resemble, this example!—inasmuch as what you had to believe ... viz. that roses blow in June ... was not quite as difficult as what I am called to believe, ... viz. that St. Cecilia’s angel-visitant had a crown of roses on, which eternally were budding and blowing. But I believe ... believe ... and want no ‘proof’ of the love, but just itself to prove it,—for nothing else is worthy. On the other side, I have the audacity to believe, as I think I have told you, that no woman in the world could feel for you exactly what ... but, here, too, I had better shun the reasons, ... the ‘bonnes raisons’ which ‘le roy notre sire’ cannot abide.—What foolishness I am writing really! And is it to be for a ‘year,’ or a ‘month’—or a week,—better still? or we may end by a compromise for the two hours on Wednesdays, ... if it goes on so,—more sensibly.
I have heard to-day from Miss Martineau and from Mrs. Jameson, both—one talking Mesmer and the other Homer. I sent her (Mrs. J.) two versions of the daughters of Pandarus, the first in the metre you know, and the second in blank verse; ... and she does not decide which she likes best, she says graciously, whereas I could not guess which I liked worse, when I sent them on Saturday. Do let her have ‘Luria’ at once. She will take the right gladness in it, even as she appreciates you with the right words and thoughts. But surely you use too many stamps? Have you a pair of scales like Zeus and me? ... only mine are broken, or I would send you an authority on this important subject, as well as an opinion.