Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 28, 1846.]
Dearest it is my fancy to write quickly this morning and take my letter to the post myself. Oh, I shall do it this time—there will be no obstacle. The office is just below Hodgson’s, the bookseller’s. And so with this letter, please to understand that I go to you twice and wholly, once in the spirit, and again in the body.
But there is nothing to tell you, except that I think of you with the thought which never can change essentially, while it deepens always. What I meant to say yesterday was simply, that I, knowing that, should be ‘bad’ if I could fail practically to myself and you. I have known from the beginning the whole painful side of what is before me, also ... I should have no excuse therefore for any weakness in any fear. Should I not be ‘bad’ then, and more unworthy of you than even according to my own account, if the obstacle came from me? It never can. Remember to be sure of it.
A change of feeling indeed would be a different thing, and we think exactly alike on the fit consequences of it. Which change is however absolutely impossible in my position and to me, ‘for reasons ... for reasons’ ... you guess at some of them, some are spoken, and others cannot be.
In one word for all, life seems to come to me only through you.
I am your very own
Ba.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 28, 1846.]
There is a long four days more of waiting—I feel more and more and ever more how, wanting you, my life wants all it can have. Dear Ba, never wonder that I fancy at times such an event’s occurrence as you tell me I need not fear. I shall always fear,—never can I hold you sufficiently fast, I shall think. So, if my jewel must be taken from me, let some eagle stoop down for it suddenly, baffling all human precaution, as I look on my treasure on a tower’s top miles and miles inland,—don’t let me have to remember, though but in a minute of life afterwards, that I let it drop into the sea through foolishly balancing it in my open hand over the water. There is one of Ba’s ‘myths,’ excepting all Ba’s felicitousness of application and glory of invention,—but then it has all my own love and worship of Ba’s self, all I care to be distinguished by.