In the midst of writing which, comes the Leeds Miss Heaton, who used to send me those long confidential letters à faire frémir, and beg me to call her ‘Ellen,’ and as this is the second time that she has sent up her card, in an accidental visit to London, I thought I would be good-natured for once, and see her. An intelligent woman, with large black eyes and a pleasant voice, and young ... manners provincial enough, for the rest, and talking as if the world were equally divided between the ‘Congregationalists’ and the ‘Churchpeople.’ She assured me that ‘Dr. Vaughan was very much annoyed’ at the article on my poems which ‘crept’ into his review, and that it was fully intended to recant at length on the first convenient opportunity. ‘And really,’ she said, ‘it seems to me that you have as many admirers among churchmen as among dissenters.’! There’s glory!—and I kept my countenance. Lost it though, five minutes afterwards, when she observed pathetically, that a ‘friend of hers who had known Mr. Browning quite intimately, had told her he was an infidel ... more’s the pity, when he has such a genius.’ I desired the particular information of your intimate friend, a little more warmly perhaps than was necessary, ... but what could be expected of me, I wonder?
I shall write again to you to-night, you know, and this is enough for two o’clock. Now will you get my letter on this Tuesday? Do you think of me ... love me? And are you well to-day? The flowers look beautiful though you put their heads into the water instead of their feet.
Your Ba.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, May 6, 1846.]
But my own only beloved, I surely did not speak too ‘insistingly’ yesterday. I shrank from your question as you put it, because you put it wrong. If you had asked me instead, whether I meant to keep my promise to you, I would have answered ‘yes’ without hesitation: but the form you chose, referred to you more than to me, and was indeed and indeed a foolish form of a question, my own dearest! For the rest ... ah, you do not see my innermost nature, ... you!—you are happily too high, and cannot see into it ... cannot perceive how the once elastic spring is broken with the long weights! ... you wonder that it should drop, when you, who lifted it up, do not hold it up! you cannot understand! ... you wonder! And I wonder too ... on the other side! I wonder how I can feel happy and alive ... as I can, through you! how I can turn my face toward life again ... as I can, for you! ... and chiefly of all, how I can ever imagine ... as I do, sometimes ... that such a one as you, may be happy perhaps with such a one as I! ... happy!
Do not judge me severely, you, to whom I have given both hands, for your own uses and ends!—you, who are more to me than I can be to you, even by your own statement—better to me than life ... or than death even, as death seemed to me before I knew you.
Certainly I love you enough, and trust you enough, if you knew what God knows. Yet, ... ‘now hear me.’ I shall not be able to please you, I think, by a firm continued belief of this engagement’s being justifiable, until the event wholly has justified it ... I mean, ... until I shall see you not less happy for having lived near me for six months or a year—should God’s mercy permit such justification. Do not blame me. I cannot help it ... I would, if I could, help it. Every time you say, as in this dearest letter, ever dearest, that you have been happy on such a day through being with me, I have a new astonishment—it runs through me from head to feet ... I open my eyes astonished, whenever my sun rises in the morning, as if I saw an angel in the sun. And I do see him, in a sense. Ah—if you make a crime to me of my astonishments, it is all over indeed! can I help it, indeed? So forgive me! let it not be too great a wrong to be covered by a pardon. Think that we are different, you and I—and do not think that I would send you to ‘money and worldly advancement’ ... do not think so meanly of my ambition for you.
Dearest dearest!—do you ever think that I could fail to you? Do you doubt for a moment, ever ... ever, ... that my hand might peradventure ‘shake less’ in being loosed from yours? Why, it might—and would! Dead hands do not shake at all,—and only so, could my hand be loosed from yours through a failing on my part. It is your hand, while you hold it: while you choose to hold it, and while it is a living hand.