Now I shall not make jests upon that ... I shall not: first, I shall not, because it is ungrateful—and next and principally, because my heart stands still only to think of it...! Why did you say that to me? I could be as jealous (did I not tell you once?) as any one of your melodramatic gitana heroines, who carries a poignard between the white-satin sash and the spangles? I perfectly understand, at this distance, what jealousy is, would be, ought to be, must be—though I never guessed at all what love was, at that distance, and startled I am often and confounded, to see the impotency of my imagination.
Forgive the blottings out—I have not blotted out lately ... have I now? and it is pardonable once in a hundred years or days.
The rest for to-morrow. Your correspondent of the first letter you sent me really does write like a Bennet, though he praises you. I could not help laughing very gently, though he praises you. Good-night my only beloved ... dearest! As my Bennet says (Georgiana) when she catches vehemently at the laurel ... ‘I will not be forgot’....
‘I must die ... but I will not be forgot’ (in large capitals!) But what she applies to the Delphic groves, turns for me to something more ambitious. ‘I will not be forgot’ ... will I? shall I? not till Thursday at least ... being ever and ever
Your own
Ba.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, April 28, 1846.]
Now bless you, my dearest, best Ba, for this letter that comes at the eleventh hour,—which means, at 3 o’clock. Was not I frightened! I made sure you would write. Why, our Post emulates the Italian glory ... nay, that is too savage a saying—for in Venice or Rome I should have to go for this to the office, and only get it at last through the forbearing honesty of every other applicant for letters during the day, or week—since to every man and woman who thrusts his or her head in at the window at Venice, the clerk hands coolly over the whole odd hundred, and turns to his rest again till as many are taken as may be thought necessary. But, Ba, dear dearest Ba, do you really mean to tell me I said ‘that’ ... of ‘transferring feelings’ etc? I hope I did,—though I cannot imagine how I ever could—say so—for so the greater fault will be Ba’s—who drives me from one Scylla (see my critic’s account) into a worse Charybdis through pure fear and aversion,—and then cries ‘See where you are now!’ I was retreating as far as possible from that imaginary ‘woman who called out those feelings,’—might have called them out,—just as this April sun of ours makes date-palms grow and bear—and because I said, of the two hypotheses, the one which taught you the palms might be transplanted and live on here,—that was the more rational ... you turn and ask ‘So your garden will rear palms.’ Now, I tell Ba,—no, I will kiss Ba and so tell her.
How happy Miss Bayley’s testimony makes me! One never can be too sure of such a happiness. She has no motive for thus confirming it. You ‘look so well’—and she not merely sees it, but acts upon it,—is for deriving a practical benefit from it, and forthwith. Then, Miss Bayley, let me try and ‘transfer’ ... ah, the palm is too firmly rooted in my very heart,—I can but sprinkle you over with yellow dust!