book I

ever bought in my life was Ossian ... it is now in the next room. And years before that, the first _composition_ I ever was guilty of was something in _imitation_ of Ossian, whom I had not read, but _conceived_, through two or three scraps in other books—I never can recollect _not_ writing rhymes ... but I knew they were nonsense even then; _this_, however, I thought exceedingly well of, and laid up for posterity under the cushion of a great arm-chair. ‘And now my soul is satisfied’—so said one man after killing another, the death being suggested, in its height of honour, by stars and stars (* * * *). I could not have been five years old, that’s one consolation. Years after, when I bought this book, I found a vile dissertation of Laing ... all to prove Ossian was not Ossian ... I would not read it, but could not help knowing the purpose of it, and the pith of the hatefully-irresistible arguments. The worst came in another shape, though ... an after-gleaning of real Ossianic poems, by a firm believer whose name I forget—‘if this is the _real_’—I thought! Well, to this day I believe in a nucleus for all that haze, a foundation of truth to Macpherson’s fanciful superstructure—and I have been long intending to read once again those Fingals and Malvinas.

I remember that somewhere a chief cries ‘Come round me, my thousands!’—There is an Achilles! And another, complaining of old age remarks ‘_Now_—I feel the weight of my shield!’ Nestor; and both beautifully perfect, are they not, _you_ perfect Ba?

I will go now. To-morrow I trust to see you face to face; dearest that you are!

Ever your own.

My poor mother suffers greatly. I am much better.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday, 6 p.m. [Post-mark, August 26, 1846.]

I have just had a note from Mr. Kenyon, who, after his absence at Richmond, promises to come and see me on _Thursday afternoon_. Now ... would it be quite ‘unco guid’ of us ... and wise ‘above what is written’ (in your letter) if we put off our day to Friday, and gave me the power to answer to Mr. Kenyon’s certain question, ... ‘no, I have not seen him since I saw _you_.’? If you think it would be wise, my own dearest, why do not come to-morrow; do not come till Friday. See—to-day is Tuesday, and only two days more will intervene,—and we are agreed on the necessity of prudence for the coming weeks—particularly when my brothers have nothing particular to do, at this time of vacation, but to watch us on all sides. I am so nervous that my own footsteps startle me. But _quite well_ I am, and you shall not have fancies about me—as to strength, I mean—as to what I cannot do, bear, and the like.

To-night I shall write a letter as usual. This is a bare _line_, which Henrietta will throw into the post, to speak to you of to-morrow. The letter follows.

How I miss you, and long for Friday. If you have an engagement for Friday, there is Saturday. ‘_Understand_’ ... as you say, and I repeat.

To-night I will tell you where I went to-day.

Your own I am always

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, August 26, 1846.]

‘_Nor is it very long to wait_’—Alas!—My note went two hours ago to cross out the application of that phrase, and now it _is_ very long to wait, ... all the days to Friday. Tell me, dearest, if you think it wise, at least, to make such an unhappy arrangement, ... considering, you know, Mr. Kenyon and my brothers. It ought to be wise, _I_ think ... it is so unhappy and disappointing. Consider what I am without you all this long dreary while; and how little ever so much sense of wisdom can console anybody.

Friday will come however,—and I may as well go on to tell you that Mrs. Jameson came yesterday. ‘Anything settled?’ she asked; as she walked into the room. She looked at me with resolute, enquiring eyes. I wonder if she ever approaches to the divination of something like the truth—_not_ the truth, but like it. Either she must see indistinctly ‘something new and strange,’ or attribute to me a strange delight in the mysterious. She half promised to see me again before she leaves England, and begged me to write and tell her all whenever I shall have it in my power to make the communication. Affectionate she was, as always.

To-day I have seen nobody, except Mr. Boyd for a little, after driving through street upon street, where I might have met you if I had been happy enough. Albemarle Street ... were you _there_? I sate there, in the carriage, opposite to the York Hotel, while Henrietta paid her visit to old Lady Bolingbroke, a full half hour ... Flush and I—Flush staring out of the window, and I ... doing what I generally do in this room, do you ask what it was? At the end of some twenty minutes, a boy passed, who had the impertinence to look full at Flush and whistle, whereupon Flush growled, and appealed to me with two immense eyes ... both seeming to say ‘I hope you observe how I am insulted.’ So my reverie was broken in the middle—but being better tempered, rather, than Flush, or having larger resources, I did not growl, but took your latest letter out instead, which lasted for the whole remainder of the time. Then at Mr. Boyd’s ... oh, I must tell you ... he began to tell me some romantic compliments of several young ladies who desired to be disguised in servant’s accoutrements, just to open the door to me (to have a good stare, I suppose) or, in good earnest, to be my maid! (to go with us to Pisa, dearest ... how would you like _that_?—Seriously now _do_ just calculate the wonderful good fortune of such a person, in falling upon two lions instead of one—nay, on a great wild forest-lion, this time, in addition to the little puny lioness of the original bargain!) Well!—but when Mr. Boyd had done his report, I asked naturally, ‘And what am I to say to all this?’ ‘Why you are to say that you will be goodnatured, and give somebody pleasure at the cost of no pain to yourself, and go to the room down-stairs and speak three words to Miss Smith who is there, waiting.’ Imagine anybody having a Miss Smith ready in the drawing-room to let out upon one! Imagine _me_ too (to be less abstract) walking in to that same Miss Smith, ... to the effect of—! ‘Here I am! just come to be looked at. Is it at all what you expected, Miss Smith’?

The worst was, that dear Mr. Boyd would have set it down to a species of malignancy, if I had refused—so I took my courage up with both hands, and remembering that I had seen two or three times, years ago, the stepmother of the said Miss Smith, I thought I might enquire after her with a sort of propriety. And I got through it somehow. ‘Will you let me shake hands with you and ask how Mrs. Smith is? Does she remember me, I wonder? I am Elizabeth Barrett.’—‘Is it possible? Ah! I thought you were one of your sisters at first! Dear me! Why how much better, you must be, to be sure!—Oh dear me, what an illness you have had! Ah, quite shut up so long! How very, very interesting, to be sure.’—If Flush had swallowed her up in the middle, I might have forgiven him, to be sure. So interesting too, that catastrophe would have been! But you shall not set me down as a savage—it was all kindness on her side, of course—but one may be savage to a _situation_ ... (which is just the way with me, ...) without being a born barbarian woman.

As to Miss Martineau, the expression which sounds so rampant with conceit, may yet be the plainest proof of a mere instinct of self-preservation. If three Smiths would be mob enough to mob _me_ to death (and they may make a mob, as three fine days, a summer!), let us have some feeling for _her_, exposed, from various causes, to the thirties ... at the lowest comparative computation.

For Ossian, you admit the _nucleus_. Which is only like your Ba, dearest ... you will not stand higher as an Ossianic critic unless you believe the verbal authenticity, ‘nothing extenuating.’ The cushion of the armchair! _My_ place of deposit used to be between the mattresses of my crib—a little mahogany crib with cane sides to it. You were like Lord Byron (another point of likeness!) in imitating Ossian, but you were still earlier at the work than he was.

It is very well to ascertain the prices by the steamers; though my expectation is that you will find them higher than you fancy them. _Nineteen guineas_ was the charge last year, as far as Gibraltar only. Then, if you charmed ever so eloquently with the voice of the charmer, you never, as a passenger, would induce those people to diminish the rate, because of our being _three_; and a female servant is charged for at the higher rate ... if not the highest. Altogether the expenses will be, out of all comparison, beyond that of the passage through France ... see if it will not. Ten pounds, as far as the travelling goes, seem to cover everything, in going from hence to Leghorn ... to Pisa ... taking Rouen and Orleans—and meaning of course, for one person. And if the advantages are, as you describe, besides ... why should we forego them? _Is_ the fatigue so much greater? If there are more changes and shiftings, there is also more absolute rest—and the rivers are smoother than the seas. Still, it is well to consider—and there are good reasons on each side, worthy of consideration.

So much more I had to say—I break off suddenly, being benighted. How you write to me! how you wrote to me on Sunday and yesterday! How I wish for two hearts to love you with, and two lives to give to you, and two souls to bear the weight worthily of all you have given to _me_. But if one heart and one life will do, ... they are yours ... I cannot give them again.

Beloved, if your mother should be ill, we must not think of your leaving her, surely?

May God bless you, dearest beloved.

I am your BA.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, August 26, 1846.]

Dearest, I _do_ think it will be only prudent to stay away till Friday for those reasons. Oh, how I feel _what_ a Ba, mine is ... how truly peerless a lady ... when I find instinctively at this minute while I write, that the proper course will be to seem as little affected by this enforced absence as possible ... that knowing my love she would understand any comfort I take from the eventful good of the arrangement—I have not to dwell on the present sorrow of it, lest she disbelieve me! I am your very own, dearest dearest, with you or away from you. Both your notes came together just now ... how can I thank and love you enough? I might have guessed that at the end you would thank _me_ for my own letters ... that is your ‘trick of fence,’ discovered, remember! But when you read the ‘red-leaved tablets of the heart’ ... then be satisfied ... ‘praise,’ nothing in me to you can deserve.

I have learned all particulars about the steamer. There are only two classes of passengers ... _Servants_ being the second. The first pay, for the voyage to Leghorn 21_l._—the second, 14_l._ 5_s._ all expenses included except during the stay at Genoa. No reduction ‘it is feared’ could be made in the case of so small a party—but by booking early, a separate cabin might be secured, at no additional expense. In the event of any obstacle, the passage paid for may be postponed till the departure of the next, or any future vessel of the company. Now, you see, these rates, though moderate, I think—(the ordinary term of the passage to _Genoa_ is eleven days)—are yet considerably above those of the other method by at least 20_l._, I should say. The voyage is long, supremely tiresome, and in all respects so much less interesting than the French route, that the whole scheme _can_ only be constructed for those to whom any other mode of travel is impossible. The one question to be asked therefore is ... are you really convinced that you need not be treated as one of these? And on further consideration, there arise not a few doubts as to whether the sea-voyage be not the more _difficult_ of the two—the roughness is all between here and Gibraltar—and in the case of _that_ affecting you more seriously than we hope, there would be no possibility of escaping from the ship—whereas, should you be indisposed on the other route, we can stop at once and stay for any period. Then, the ‘shiftings’ are only three or four, and probably accompanied by no very great fatigue beyond the _notion_ that a shifting there _is_. Above all, you would get the first of the sea in a little experiment, soon made and over,—so that if it proved unfavourable to you there might be an end of the matter at once. So that after all, the cheaper journey may be the safer. But all does _not_ rest with you _quite_, as I was going to say ... all my life is bound up with the success of this measure ... therefore, think and decide, my Ba!

Would there be an advantage in Mrs. Jameson accompanying us—to Orleans, at least? Would the circumstances of our marriage alter her desire, do you think? She has wished to travel with _me_, also—she must suspect the truth—I doubt whether it is not in such cases as hers, where no responsibility is involved, whether it is not better policy, as well as the more graceful, to communicate what is sure to be discovered—so getting thanks and sympathy instead of neither. All is for you to consider.

And now, dearest, I will revert, in as few words as I can, to the account you gave me, a short time since, of your income. At the beginning, if there had been the necessity I supposed, I should have proposed to myself the attainment of something like such an amount, by my utmost efforts, before we could marry. We could not under the circumstances begin with less—so as to be free from horrible contingencies,—not the least of which would be the application for assistance afterward. After we marry, nobody must hear of us. In spite of a few misgivings at first I am not proud, or rather, am proud in the right place. I am utterly, exclusively proud of you—and though I should have gloried in working myself to death to prove it, and shall be as ready to do so at any time a necessity shall exist, yet at present I shall best serve you, I think, by the life by your side, which we contemplate. I hope and believe, that by your side I shall accomplish something to justify God’s goodness and yours—and, looking at the matter in a worldly light, I see not a few reasons for thinking that unproductive as the kind of literature may be, which I should aim at producing, yet, by judicious management, and profiting by certain favourable circumstances,—I shall be able to realise an annual sum quite sufficient for every purpose—at least in Italy.

As I never calculated on such a change in my life, I had the less repugnance to my father’s generosity, that I knew that an effort at some time or other might furnish me with a few hundred pounds which would soon cover my very simple expenses. If we are poor, it is to my father’s infinite glory, who, as my mother told me last night, as we sate alone, ‘conceived such a hatred to the slave-system in the West Indies,’ (where his mother was born, who died in his infancy), that he relinquished every prospect,—supported himself, while there, in some other capacity, and came back, while yet a boy, to his father’s profound astonishment and rage—one proof of which was, that when he heard that his son was a suitor to _her_, my mother—he benevolently waited on her uncle to assure him that his niece would be thrown away on a man so evidently born to be hanged!—those were his words. My father on his return had the intention of devoting himself to art, for which he had many qualifications and abundant love—but the quarrel with his father,—who married again and continued to hate him till a few years before his death,—induced him to go at once and consume his life after a fashion he always detested. You may fancy, I am not ashamed of him.

I told my mother, who told _him_. They have never been used to interfere with, or act for me—and they trust me. If you care for any love, purely love,—you will have theirs—they give it you, whether you take it or no. You will understand, therefore, that I would not _accept_ even the 100_l._ we shall want: I said ‘you shall lend it me—I will pay it back out of my first literary earnings—I take it, because I do not want to sell my copyrights, or engage myself to write a play, or any other nuisance. Surely I can get fifty pounds next year, and the other fifty in due course!’

So, dearest, we shall have plenty for the journey—and you have only to determine the when and the how. Oh, the time! Bless you, ever dearest! I love you with all my heart and soul—

R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Wednesday. [Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]

‘_If I care for any love_’—‘_whether I take it or no._’ Now ought I not to reproach you a little, for bearing to write such words of me, when you could not but think all the while, that I should feel a good deal in reading what you wrote beside? Will you tell me that you did not know I should be glad and grateful for _tolerance_ even?—the least significance of the kinder feeling affecting me _beyond_, perhaps, what you could know of me. I am bound to them utterly.

And if it is true, as it is true, that they have much to pardon and overlook in me, ... and among the rest, the painful position imposed on you by my miserable necessities, ... they yet never shall find me, I trust, unworthy of them and you by _voluntary_ failures, and, least of all, by failures of dutiful affection towards themselves—‘IF THEY CARE FOR ANY LOVE.’

For the rest of what you tell me, it is all the purest kindness—and you were perfectly, perfectly right in taking so, and as a loan, which we ought, I think, to return when our hands are free, without waiting for the completion of other projects. By living quietly and simply, we shall surely have enough—and more than enough. Then among other resources is Blackwood. I calculated once that without unpleasant labour, with scarcely an effort, I could make a hundred a year by magazine-contributions—and this, without dishonour either. It does ‘fugitive poems,’ observe, no harm whatever, to let them fly through a periodical before they alight on their tree to sing. Then _you_ will send perhaps the sweepings of your desk to Blackwood, to alternate with my sendings! Shall we do _that_, when we sit together on the ragged edge of earthquake chasms, in the midst of the ‘sulphurous vapour.’ I, afraid? No indeed—I think I should never be afraid, if you were near enough. Only that you never must go away in _boats_. But there is time enough for such compacts.

As to the sea voyage, _that_ was _your_ scheme, and not mine, from the beginning: and your account of the expenses, if below my fear ... (although I believe that ‘servants’ do not mean ‘female servants’ and that the latter are subject to additional charges), yet seems to me to leave the Rhone and Saône route as preferable as ever. And do you mark, dear dearest, that supposing me to be unfit for the short railroad passage from Rouen to Paris and from Paris to Orleans, I must be just as unfit for the journey to Southampton, which is necessary to the sea-voyage. Then ... supposing me to be unfit for the river-passage, I must be still more unfit for the sea. So don’t suppose _either_. I am stronger than you fancy. I shall shut my eyes and think of you when there is too much noise and confusion,—the things which try me most,—and it will be easy to find a quiet room and to draw down the blinds and take rest, I suppose, ... which one might in vain long for in that crowded steamer at sea. Therefore, dearest, if I am to think and decide, I have decided ... let us go through France. And let us go quick, quick, and not stop anywhere within hearing of England ... not stop at Havre, nor at Rouen, nor at Paris—_that_ is how _I_ decide. May God help us, and smooth the way before and behind. May your father indeed be able to love me a little, for _my_ father will never love me again.

For _you_ ... you will ‘serve me best’ and serve me only, by being happy not away from me. When I shall have none but you, if I can feel myself not too much for you,—not something you would rather leave—then you will have ‘served’ me all you can. But this is more perhaps than you can—these things do not depend on the will of a man—that he should promise to do them. I speak simply for myself, and of what would give me a full contentment. Do not fancy that there is a _doubt_ in the words of it. I cannot doubt now of your affection for me. Dearest, I _cannot_. Yet you make me uneasy often through this extravagance of over-estimation; forcing me to contract ‘obligations to pay’ which I look at in speechless despair—And here is a penny.

Of Mrs. Jameson, let me write to-morrow—I am benighted and must close. On Friday we shall meet at last, surely; and then it will be all the happier in proportion to the vexation. Dearest, love me—

I am your own—

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]

Dearest, I am to write to you of Mrs. Jameson. First, as to telling her ... will it not be an embarrassment both to her and ourselves? If she cannot say ‘I knew nothing of this,’ she bears the _odium_ of confidante and _adviser_ perhaps —who shall explain the distinction to others? And to Mr. Kenyon, will it not seem as if we had trusted her more than him—and though there is a broad distinction too between their cases, who shall explain _that_ to him so quickly and nicely that he shall not receive the shock of a painful impression? Consider a little—She is so _in medias res_—so in the way of all the conversation and the questionings. But it shall be as you like and think best. I am too nervous perhaps.

As for the travelling, she sets out between the seventh and tenth of September, a century before our æra, you know—but if she goes to Italy and is not too angry with me, we might certainly meet her in Paris or at Orleans ... take her up at Orleans, and go on together. That is, if you like it too. She would be pleased, I daresay, if it were proposed—and we might be kind in proposing it—and something I might say to her, if you liked it, on the condition of her not changing her mind. Certainly I do agree with you that she must have _some ideas_—she is not without imagination, and the suggestions are abundant,—though nothing points to you, mind!—if she could possibly think me capable of loving anyone else in the world, with you in it.

I had a letter to-day ... with a proposition to write ballads and other lyrics in order to the civilisation of the colonies ... especially Australia. It appears that a Mr. Angus Fife has a scheme on foot nearly, about sending missionary ballad-singers among the natives, and that I am invited to write some of them, or to _be_ invited—for nothing is specified yet. Now what do you think of _that_? One should take one’s mythology from the Kangaroos, I suppose.

Then a book of ‘serious poems’ is to be brought out in Edinburgh and contributions are desired so very politely that nobody can quite refuse.

I write to you of anything but what is in my thoughts. Your letter of yesterday took hold of me and will not let me go—it all seems too earnest for the mere dream I have been dreaming all this while—is it not a dream ... or what? And something I said in _my_ letter, which was wrong to say and I am sorry to think of—forgive me _that_, ever beloved—but you have forgiven, I know. May God bless you, and not take from _me_ my blessing in you.

I am your very own BA.

We are going out in the carriage and shall post this note. You will come to-morrow unless you hear more? Is it a compact?

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Thursday, [Post-mark, August 27, 1846.]

The post’s old fault, is it not, this letter that does not come? I have waited till nearly the time of the next arrival, 3 o’clock, and perhaps I begin writing now because I have observed that sometimes the letter comes just as I am trying hardest to resign myself. So may it be now, or presently!

Dearest, I did not thank you yesterday for the accounts of your visit and drive ... I always love you for such accounts; you know, I might _like_, we will say, a Miss Campbell, while she was in the very act of speaking Greek to Mr. Kenyon’s satisfaction, or making verses, or putting them into action—but there would be no following her about the streets, and through bazaars, and into houses, and loving the walking and standing and sitting and companionship with Flush! I shall be satisfied to the full if you only live in my sight,—cross the room in which I sit,—not to say, sit down by me there,—always supposing that you also, for your part, seem happy and contented,—or at least could not become more so by leaving me. But I do believe you will be happy.

And here the letter comes! See, what I tell you does now fill my life with gladness,—_that_, the counterpart of that, you promise me shall make _you_ glad too! My very own, entirely beloved Ba, there is no exaggeration, no overestimation—the case does not admit of any, indeed! If a man tells you he owns a peerless horse, the horse may go lame and the estimation sink upon that experience—but if I think, as I do, that the Elgin Horse is peerless (despite his ewe-neck) nothing further can touch it, nor change me. One of my comparisons! All I want to express is, that I love _you_, dearest, with a love that seems to separate you from your very qualities—the essential from its accidents. But you must wait to know—wait a life, perhaps.

I used those words you object to—(in your true way), because you shall love nothing connected with me for conventional reasons—and if I understated the amount of kind feeling which you might be led to return for theirs, be assured that I also expressed in the simplest and coldest terms possible my father and mother’s affection for you. I told you, they _believe_ me ... therefore, know in some measure what you are to me. They are both entirely affectionate and generous. My father is tender-hearted to a fault. I have never known much more of those circumstances in his youth than I told you, in consequence of his invincible repugnance to allude to the matter—and I have a fancy, to account for some peculiarities in him, which connects them with some abominable early experience. Thus,—if you question him about it, he shuts his eyes involuntarily and shows exactly the same marks of loathing that may be noticed while a piece of cruelty is mentioned ... and the _word_ ‘blood,’ even, makes him change colour. To all women and children _he_ is ‘chivalrous’ ... as you called his unworthy son! There is no service which the ugliest, oldest, crossest woman in the world might not exact of him. But I must leave off; to-morrow I do really see you at last, dearest! God bless you ever for your very own R.

The France-route seems in nearly every way the best—perhaps in every way—let it be as you have decided. Nothing is said in this letter, nothing answered, mind ... time presses so!

_E.B.B. to R.B._

_Thursday Night._ [August 27, 1846.]

Here is the bad news going to you as fast as bad news _will_ go! for you ‘do really (NOT) see me to-morrow,’ Robert,—there is no chance of it for such ‘too, two’ wise people as we are! In the first place Mr. Kenyon never paid his visit to-day and will do it to-morrow instead; and secondly, and while I was gloomily musing over this ‘great fact,’ arrives the tidings of my uncle and aunt Hedley’s being at Fenton’s Hotel for two days from this evening ... so that not only Friday perishes, but even Saturday, unless there should be a change in their plans. We shall have them here continually; and there would neither be safety nor peace if we attempted a meeting. So let us take patience, dearest beloved, and let me feel you loving me through the distance. It is only for a short time, to bear these weeks without our days in them; and presently you will have too much of me perhaps,—ah, the ungrateful creature, who stops in the middle of the sentence, thunderstruck in the tenderest part of her conscience! So instead, I go on to say that certainly I shall be happy with you, as long as my ‘sitting in the room’ does not make you less happy—certainly I shall be happy with you. I thought once that the capacity of happiness was destroyed in me, but you have _made_ it over again,—God has permitted you! And while you love me _so_ ... _essentially_, as you describe, and apart from supposed and suppositious qualities ... I will take courage and hope, and believe that such a love may be enough for the happiness of us both—enough for yours even.

Your father is worthy to be your father, let you call yourself his ‘unworthy son’ ever so. The noblest inheritance of sons is to have such thoughts of their fathers, as you have of yours—the privilege of such thoughts, the faith in such virtues and the gratitude for such affection. You have better than the silver or the gold, and you can afford to leave those to less happy sons. And your mother—Scarcely I was a woman when I lost _my_ mother—dearest as she was, and very tender, (as yours even could be), and of a nature harrowed up into some furrows by the pressure of circumstances: for we lost more in her than she lost in life, my dear dearest mother. A sweet, gentle nature, which the thunder a little turned from its sweetness—as when it turns milk. One of those women who never can resist; but, in submitting and bowing on themselves, make a mark, a plait, within,—a sign of suffering. Too womanly she was—it was her only fault. Good, good, and dear—and refined too!—she would have admired and loved you,—but I can only tell you so, for she is gone past us all into the place of the purer spirits. God had to take her, before He could bless her enough.

Now I shall not write any more to-night. You had my note to-day—the note written this morning? I went out in the carriage, and we drove to one or two shops and up the Uxbridge Road, and I was utterly dull. Shall I not really see you before Monday? It seems impossible to bear. Let us hope at any rate, for Saturday.

How could such an idea enter your head, pray, as that about selling your copyrights? That would have been travelling at the price of blood, and I never should have agreed to it. I shall be able to bring you a few pennies, I hope; only it would not be enough for the journey, what _I_ could bring, under the circumstances of imprisonment. When we are free, we ought to place our money somewhere on the railroads, where the percentage will be better—which will not disturb the simplicity of our way of life, you know, though it will give us more liberty in living.

Now I expect to hear your decision about Mrs. Jameson—I expect to hear from you of yourself, though, most and chiefest—tell me how you are, and how your mother is. Dearest, _promise_ me not to say to your family any foolishness about me—remember what the recoil will be, and understand that I must suffer in proportion to all the over-praises. It quite frightens me to think of it! And then, again, I laugh to myself at your excellent logic of comparison, between Miss Campbell and me; and how you did not care for walking the bazaars and looking at the dolls with her; to the discredit of the whole class of Miss Campbells ... whereas, with ME!! &c. No wonder that your father should give you books of logic to study, books on the ‘right use of reason,’ if you do not understand that I am not better than she, except by your loving me better; that the cause is not in her or me, but in you only. Can it indeed be so true that people, when they love other people, never see them at all? Yet it seems to me that I see _you_ clearly, discern you entirely and thoroughly—which makes me love you profoundly. But you ... without seeing me at all, you love _me_ ... which does as well, I think—so I am your very own.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Friday. [Post-mark, August 28, 1846.]

I was beginning to dress, hours before the proper time, through the confidence of seeing you _now_,—after the letter which came early in the morning,—when this new letter changes everything. It just strikes me, what a comfort it is that whenever such a disappointment is inevitable, your hand or voice announces it, and not another’s—no second person bids me stay away for good reasons I must take in trust, leaving me to deal with the innumerable fancies that arise—on the contrary, you contrive that, with the one misfortune, twenty kindnesses shall reach me—can I be very sorry _now_, for instance, that you tell me _why_ it is, and how it affects you and how it will affect me in the end? Dear Ba, if you will not believe in the immortality of love, do think the poor thought that when love shall end, gratitude will begin!

I altogether agree with you—it is best to keep away—we cannot be too cautious now at the ‘end of things.’ I am prepared for difficulties enough, without needing to cause them by any rashness or wilfulness of my own. I really expect, for example, that out of the various plans of these sympathising friends and relations some one will mature itself sufficiently to be directly proposed to you, for your acceptance or refusal contingent on your father’s approbation; the shortness of the remaining travelling season serving to compel a speedy development. Or what if your father, who was the first to propose, or at least talk about, a voyage to Malta or elsewhere, when you took no interest in the matter comparatively, and who perhaps chiefly found fault with last year’s scheme from its not originating with himself ... what if he should again determine on some such voyage now that you are apparently as obedient to his wishes as can be desired? Would it be strange, not to say improbable, if he tells you some fine morning that your passage is taken to Madeira, or Palermo? Because, all the attempts in the world cannot hide the truth from the mind, any more than all five fingers before the eyes keep out the sun at noon-day: you see a red through them all—and your father must see your improved health and strength, and divine the opinion of everybody round him as to the simple proper course for the complete restoration of them. Therefore be prepared, my own Ba!

In any case—I trust in you wholly.

There is nothing to decide upon, with respect to Mrs. Jameson—the reasons for not sharing that confidence with her are irrefragable. I only thought of you, dearest, who have to bear her all but direct enquiries. You know, _I_ undergo nothing of the kind. Any such arrangement as that of taking her up at Orleans would be very practicable. I rejoice in your desire (by the way) of going rapidly on, stopping nowhere, till we reach our appointed place—because that spirit _helps_ the body wonderfully—and, in this case, exactly corresponds with mine. Above all, I should hate to be seen at Paris by anybody a few days only after our adventure—Chorley will be there, and the Arnoulds,—for _one_ party!

What could it be, you thought should make you ‘sorry,’ in that letter of yesterday, love? What was I to ‘forgive’? Certainly you are unforgiven hitherto, for the best of reasons.

And assure yourself, dearest, that I have told my family nothing that can possibly mislead them. Remember that I have the advantage of knowing those I speak to,—their tastes and understandings, and notions of what is advantageous and what otherwise. I spoke the simple truth about your heart—of your mind they knew something already—I explained your position with respect to your father ... unfortunately, a very few plain words do that ... I mean, a few facts, such as the parish register could supply ... sufficiently to exonerate you and me.

As to my copyrights, I never meant to sell them—it would be foolish—because, since some little time, and in consequence of the establishment of the fact that my poems, even in their present disadvantageous form, without advertisement, and unnoticed by the influential journals—do somehow manage to pay their expenses, I have had one direct offer to print a new edition,—and there are reasons for thinking, two or three booksellers, that I know, would come to terms. Smith & Elder, for instance, wrote to offer to print any poem about Italy, in any form, with any amount of advertisements, on condition of sharing profits ... taking all risk off my hands ... concluding with more than a hint that if that proposition was not favourable enough, they would try and agree to any reasonable demand.

Because Moxon is the ‘slowest’ of publishers, and if one of his books can only contrive to pay its expenses, you may be sure that a more enterprising brother of the craft would have sent it into a second or third edition—yet Moxon’s slow self even, anticipates success for the next venture. Now the fact is, not having really cared about anything except not losing too much money, I have taken very little care of my concerns in that way—not calling on Moxon for months together. But all will be different now— and I shall look into matters, and turn my experience to account, such as it is.

Well,—I am yours, _you_ are mine, dearest Ba! I love you, I think, _perceptibly_ more in these latter days! Is this absence contrived on purpose to prove how foolishly I said that I loved you the more from seeing you the oftener? Ah, you reconcile all extremes, destroy the force of all logic-books, my father’s or mine—_that_ was true, but this is also true (logical or no) that I now love you through not seeing you,—loving more, as I desire more to be with you, my best, dearest wife that will be! (_I_ could not help writing it—why should it sound sweeter than ‘Ba’?)

Your very own R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Friday Evening. [Post-mark, August 29, 1846.]

Will you come, dearest, after all? Judge for both of us. The Hedleys go to-morrow morning and we shall not see them after to-night when they are dining here—but Mr. Kenyon has not paid his visit, and _may_ come to-morrow, or _may_ take Sunday, which he is fond of doing—is it worth while to be afraid of Mr. Kenyon? What do you think? I leave it to your wisdom which is the greatest. Perhaps he may not come till _Monday_—yet _he may_.

Dearest, I have had all your thoughts by turns, or most of them ... and each one has withered away without coming to bear fruit. Papa seems to have no more idea of my living beyond these four walls, than of a journey to Lapland. I confess that I thought it possible he might propose the country for the summer, or even Italy for the winter, in a ‘late remark’—but no, ‘nothing’ and there is not a possibility of either word, as I see things. My brothers ‘wish that something could be arranged’—a wish which I put away quietly as often as they bring it to me. And for my uncle and aunt, they have been talking to me to-day—and she with her usual acuteness in such matters, observing my evasion, said, ‘Ah Ba, you have arranged your plans more than you would have us believe. But you are right not to tell us—indeed I would rather not hear. Only _don’t be rash_—_that_ is my only advice to you.’

I thought she had touched the truth, and wondered—but since then, from another of her words, I came to conclude that she imagined me about to accept the convoy of Henrietta and Captain Cook! She said in respect to them—‘I only say that your father’s consent ought to be _asked_, as a form of respect to him.’ Which, in their case should be, I think—and should also in ours, but for the peculiar position of one of us. My uncle urged me to keep firm and go to Italy, and my aunt, though she would not advise, she said, yet thought that I ‘ought to go,’ and that to live on in this fashion in this room was lamentable to contemplate. Both of them approved of the French route, and urged me to go to them in Paris—‘And,’ said my uncle kindly, ‘when once we _have_ you, we shall not bear to part with you, I think.’

(Do you really imagine, by the way, that to appear in Paris for one half-minute, to a single soul, could be less detestable to me than to you? I shall take care that nobody belonging to me there shall hear of my being within a hundred miles—and why need we stay in Paris the half minute? Not unless you pause to demand an audience of Mr. Chorley at the Barrière des Étoiles.)

While we were talking, Papa came into the room. My aunt said, ‘How well she is looking’—‘Do you think so?’ he said. ‘Why, do not _you_ think so? Do you pretend to say that you see no surprising difference in her?’—‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on to say. ‘She is mumpish, I think.’ Mumpish!

‘She does not talk,’ resumed he—

‘Perhaps she is nervous’—my aunt apologised—I said not one word ... When birds have their eyes out, they are apt to be mumpish.

Mumpish! The expression proved a displeasure. Yet I am sure that I have shown as little sullenness as was possible. To be very talkative and vivacious under such circumstances as those of mine, would argue insensibility, and was certainly beyond my power.

I told her gently afterwards that she had been wrong in speaking of me at all—a wrong with a right intention,—as all her wrongness must be. She was very sorry to have done it, she said, and looked sorry.

Poor Papa!—Presently I shall be worse to him than ‘mumpish’ even. But _then_, I hope, he will try to forgive me, as I have forgiven him, long ago.

My own beloved—do you know that your letter caught me in the act of wondering whether the absence would do me harm with you, according to that memorable theory. And so in the midst came the solution of the doubt—you do _not_ love me less. Nay, you love me more—ah, but if you say so, I am capable of wishing not to see you for a month added to the week! For did I not once confess to you that I loved your love as much as I loved you ... or very, very, very nearly as much? Not precisely so much. _Confiteor tibi_—but I will sing a penitential psalm low to myself and do the act of penance by seeing you to-morrow if you choose to come,—and then you shall absolve me and give me the _Benedicite_, which, _if_ you come, you cannot keep back, because it comes with you of necessity.

Not a word of your head, nor of your mother! You should come I think, to-morrow, if only to say it. Yet let us be wise to the end. Be _you_ wise to the end, and decide between Saturday and Monday. And I, for my part, promise to go to Italy, only with _you_—do not be afraid.

And for your poetry, I believe in it as ‘_golden water_’—and the ‘singing tree’ does not hide it from me with all the overdropping branches and leaves. In fact, the chief inconvenience we are likely to suffer from, in the way of income, is the having _too much_. Don’t you think so? But in that case, we will buy an island of our own in one of those purple seas, and inherit the sun—or perhaps the shadow ... of Calypso’s cave.

So do not be uneasy, dearest!—not even lest I should wish to spend three weeks in Paris, to show myself at the Champs Elysées and the opera, and gather a little glory after what you happily call ‘our adventure.’

Our adventure, indeed! But it is _you_ who are adventuring in the matter,—and as any Red Cross Knight of them all, whom you exceed in their chivalry proper.

Chiappino little knew how right he was, when he used to taunt me with my ‘New Cross Knight.’ He did—Ah! Even if he had talked of ‘Rosie Cross,’ he would not have been so far wide—the magic ‘saute aux yeaux.’

And now, will you come to-morrow, I wonder, or not? The answer is in you.

And I am your own, ever and as ever!

And you thought I was dying with a desire to tell Mrs. Jameson!!—_I!_

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Sunday. [Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]

I have just come from the vestry of Paddington chapel, and bore it very well, and saw nobody except one woman. Arabel went with me, and during the singing we escaped and stood outside the door. Now, _that_ is over; and the next time I shall care less. It was a rambling sermon, which I could hear distinctly through the open door, quite wanting in coherence, but with good and touching things in it, the more touching that they came from a preacher whose life is known to us—from Mr. Stratten, for whom I have the greatest respect, though he never looked into Shakespeare till he was fifty, and shut the book quickly, perhaps, afterward. He is the very ideal of his class; and, with some of the narrow views peculiar to it, has a heart of miraculous breadth and depth; loving further than he can see, pitying beyond what he can approve, having in him a divine Christian spirit, the ‘love of love’ in the most expansive form. How that man is beloved by his congregation, the members of his church, by his children, his friends, is wonderful to see—for everybody seems to love him _from afar_, as a man is loved who is of a purer nature than others. There is that reverence in the love—and yet no fear. His children have been encouraged and instructed to speak aloud before him on religion and other subjects in all freedom of conscience—he turns to his little daughter seriously ‘to hear what she thinks.’ The other day his eldest son, whom he had hoped to see succeed him at Paddington, determined to enter the Church of England: his wife became quite ill with grief about it, and to himself perhaps it was a trial, a disappointment. With the utmost gentleness and tenderness however, he desired him to take time for thought and act according to his conscience.—I believe for my part that there never was a holier man ... ‘except those bonds’ ... never a man who more resolutely trod under his feet every form of evil and selfish passion when it was once recognized—and looked to God and the Truth with a direct aspiration. Once I could not help writing to put our affairs into his hands to settle them for us—but _that_ would be wrong—because Papa would forbid Arabel’s going to the chapel or communicating with his family, and it would be depriving her of a comfort she holds dear—oh no. And besides, you are wise in taking the other view.

Think of our waiting day after day to fall into the net so, yesterday! How I was provoked and vexed—but more for you, dearest dearest, than for me—much more for you. As for me I _saw you_, which was joy enough, let the hours be ever so clipped of their natural proportions—and then, you know, you were obliged to go soon, whether Mr. Kenyon had come or not come. After you were gone, nothing was said, and nothing asked, and it is delightful to have heard of those intended absences one after another till far into October: which will secure us from future embarrassments. See if he means to put us to the question!—not such a thing is in his thoughts.

And I said what you ‘would not have believed of me’! Have you forgiven me, beloved—for saying what you would not have believed of me,—understanding that I did not mean it very seriously, though I proved to be capable of saying it? Seriously, I don’t want to make unnecessary delays. It is a horrible position, however I may cover it with your roses and the thoughts of you—and far worse to myself than to you, inasmuch that what is painful to you once a week, is to me so continually. To hear the voice of my father and meet his eye makes me shrink back—to talk to my brothers leaves my nerves all trembling ... and even to receive the sympathy of my sisters turns into sorrow and fear, lest they should suffer through their affection for me. How I can look and sleep as well as I do, is a miracle exactly like the rest—or would be, if the love were not the deepest and strongest thing of all, and did not hold and possess me overcomingly. I feel myself to be yours notwithstanding every other influence, and being yours, cannot but be happy by you. Ah—let people talk as they please of the happiness of early youth! Mrs. Jameson did, the other day, when she wished kindly to take her young niece with her to the Continent, that she might enjoy what in a few years she could not so much enjoy. There is a sort of blind joy common perhaps to such times—a blind joy which blunts itself with its own leaps and bounds; peculiar to a time of comparative ignorance and inexperience of evil:—but I for my part, with all the capacity for happiness which I had from the beginning, I look back and listen to my whole life, and feel sure of what I have already told you, ... that I am _happier now than I ever was before_ ... infinitely happier now, through you ... infinitely happier; even now in this position I have just called ‘horrible.’ When I hear you say for instance, that you ‘love me _perceptibly_ more’ ... why I cannot, cannot be more happy than when I hear you say _that_—going to Italy seems nothing! a vulgar walk to Primrose Hill after being caught up to the third Heaven! I think nothing of Italy now, though I shall enjoy it of course when the time comes. I think only that you love me, that you are the angel of my life,—and for the despair and desolation behind me, they serve to mark the hour of your coming,—and they _are_ behind, as Italy is _before_. Never can you feel for me, Robert, as I feel for you ... it is not possible of course. I am yours in a way and degree which the tenderest of other women could not be at her will. Which you know. Why should I repeat it to you? Why, except that is a reason to prove that we cannot, as you say, ‘ever be a common wife and husband? But I don’t think I was intending to give proofs of _that_—no, indeed.

To-morrow I shall hear from you. Say how your mother is, in the second letter if you do not in the first. May God bless you and keep you, dearest beloved—

Your very own BA.

There is not much in the article by Mr. Chorley, but it is right and kind as far as it goes.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Sunday Morning. [Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]

I wonder what I shall write to you, Ba—I could suppress my feelings here, as I do on other points, and say nothing of the hatefulness of this state of things which is prolonged so uselessly. There is the point—show me one good reason, or show of reason, why we gain anything by deferring our departure till next week instead of to-morrow, and I will bear to perform yesterday’s part for the amusement of Mr. Kenyon a dozen times over without complaint. But if the cold plunge _must_ be taken, all this shivering delay on the bank is hurtful as well as fruitless. I _do_ understand your anxieties, dearest—I take your fears and make them mine, while I put my own natural feeling of quite another kind away from us both, succeeding in _that_ beyond all expectation. There is no amount of patience or suffering I would not undergo to relieve you from these apprehensions. But if, on the whole, you really determine to act as we propose in spite of them,—why, a new leaf is turned over in our journal, an old part of our adventure done with, and a new one entered upon, altogether distinct from the other. Having once decided to go to Italy with me, the next thing to decide is on the best means of going—or rather, there is just this connection between the two measures, that by the success or failure of the last, the first will have to be justified or condemned. You tell me you have decided to go—then, dearest, you will be prepared to go earlier than you promised yesterday—by the end of September at very latest. In proportion to the too probable excitement and painful circumstances of the departure, the greater amount of advantages should be secured for the departure itself. How can I take you away in even the beginning of October? We shall be a fortnight on the journey—with the year, as everybody sees and says, a full month in advance ... cold mornings and dark evenings already. Everybody would cry out on such folly when it was found that we let the favourable weather escape, in full assurance that the Autumn would come to us unattended by any one beneficial circumstance.

My own dearest, I am wholly your own, for ever, and under every determination of yours. If you find yourself unable, or unwilling to make this effort, tell me so and plainly and at once—I will not offer a word in objection,—I will continue our present life, if you please, so far as may be desirable, and wait till next autumn, and the next and the next, till providence end our waiting. It is clearly not for me to pretend to instruct you in your duties to God and yourself; ... enough, that I have long ago chosen to accept your decision. If, on the other hand, you make up your mind to leave England now, you will be prepared by the end of September.

I should think myself the most unworthy of human beings if I could employ any arguments with the remotest show of a tendency to _frighten_ you into a compliance with any scheme of mine. Those methods are for people in another relation to you. But you love me, and, at lowest, shall I say, wish me well—and the fact is too obvious for me to commit any indelicacy in reminding you, that in any dreadful event to our journey of which I could accuse myself as the cause,—as of this undertaking to travel with you in the worst time of year when I could have taken the best,—in the case of your health being irretrievably shaken, for instance ... the happiest fate I should pray for would be to live and die in some corner where I might never hear a word of the English language, much less a comment in it on my own wretched imbecility,—to disappear and be forgotten.

So that must not be, for all our sakes. My family will give me to you that we may be both of us happy ... but for such an end—no!

Dearest, do you think all this earnestness foolish and uncalled for?—that I might know you spoke yesterday in mere jest,—as yourself said, ‘only to hear what I would say’? Ah but consider, my own Ba, the way of our life, as it is, and is to be—a word, a simple word from you, is not as a word is counted in the world—the word between us is different—I am guided by your will, which a word shall signify to me. Consider that just such a word, so spoken, even with that lightness, would make me lay my life at your feet at any minute. Should we gain anything by my trying, if I could, to deaden the sense of hearing, dull the medium of communication between us; and procuring that, instead of this prompt rising of my will at the first intimation from yours, the same effect should only follow after fifty speeches, and as many protestations of complete serious desire for their success on your part, accompanied by all kinds of acts and deeds and other evidences of the same?

At all events, God knows I have said this in the deepest, truest love of you. I will say no more, praying you to forgive whatever you shall judge to need forgiveness here,—dearest Ba! I will also say, if that may help me,—and what otherwise I might not have said,—that I am not too well this morning, and write with an aching head. My mother’s suffering continues too.

My friend Pritchard tells me that Brighton is not to be thought of under ordinary circumstances as a point of departure for Havre. Its one packet a week from Shoreham cannot get in if the wind and tide are unfavourable. There is the greatest uncertainty in consequence ... as I have heard before—while, of course, from Southampton, the departures are calculated punctually. He considers that the least troublesome plan, and the cheapest, is to go from London to Havre ... the voyage being so arranged that the river passage takes up the day and the sea-crossing the night—you reach Havre early in the morning and get to Paris by four o’clock, perhaps, in the afternoon ... in time to leave for Orleans and spend the night there, I suppose.

Do I make myself particularly remarkable for silliness when confronted by our friend as yesterday? And the shortest visit,—and comments of everybody. Oh, Mr. Hunter, methinks you should be of some use to me with those amiable peculiarities of yours, if you would just dye your hair black, take a stick in your hand, sink the clerical character you do such credit to, and have the goodness just to deliver yourself of one such epithet as _that_ pleasant one, the next time you find me on the steps of No. 50, with Mr. Kenyon somewhere higher up in the building. It is delectable work, this having to do with relatives and ‘freemen who have a right to beat their own negroes,’ and father Zeus with his paternal epistles, and peggings to the rock, and immense indignation at ‘this marriage you talk of’ which is to release his victim. Is Mr. Kenyon Hermes?

Εἰσελθέτω σε μήποθ’ ὡς ἐγὼ Διὸς γνώμην φοβηθεὶς θηλύνους γενήσομαι, καὶ λιπαρήσω τὸν μέγα στυγούμενον γυναικομίμοις ὑπτιάσμασιν χερῶν, λῦσαί με δεσμῶν τῶνδε· τοῦ παντὸς δέω. _Chorus of Aunts_: ἡμῖν μὲν Ἑρμῆς οὐκ ἄκαιρα φαίνεται λέγειν, κ.τ.λ.[6]

Well, bless you in any case—

Your own R.

[6]

[‘Oh, think no more That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman’s mind Will supplicate him, loathèd as he is, With feminine upliftings of my hands, To break these chains. Far from me be the thought! _Chorus._ Our Hermes suits his reasons to the times; At least I think so.’

Æschylus, _Prometheus_, 1002-6, 1036-7.]

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, August 31, 1846.]

Here is dearest Ba’s dearest letter, because the latest, and it is one of her very kisses incorporated and made manifest—so perfectly kind! And should this make me ashamed of perhaps an over-earnestness in what I wrote yesterday? or not rather justify me to myself and to her—since it was on a passing fear of losing what I hold so infinitely precious, that the earnestness happened! My own Ba, you lap me over with love upon love ... there is my first and proper love, independent of any return, and there is _this_ return for what would reward itself. Do think how I must feel at the most transient suggestion of failure, and parting, and an end to all! You cannot expect I can lie quietly and let my life of life be touched. And ever, dearest, through the life which I trust is about to be permitted us,—ever I shall remember where my treasure is, and turn as vigilantly when it is approached. Beside, I was not very well, as I told you in excuse—I am much better now. Not that, upon reconsideration, I can alter my opinion on the proper course to take. We know all the miracles wrought in our favour hitherto ... are not the chances (speaking in that foolish way) against our expecting more? To-day is fine, sunny and warm, for instance, and looks as if cold weather were a long way off—but what are these fancies and appearances when weighed against the other possibility of a sudden _fall_ of the year? By six months more of days like this we should gain nothing, nothing in the world, you confess—by the other misfortune we lose everything perhaps.

Will you have a homely illustration? There is a tree against our wall here which produced weeks ago a gigantic apple—which my mother had set her heart on showing a cousin of mine who is learned in fruits and trees. I told her, ‘You had better pluck it at once—it will fall and be spoiled.’ She thought the next day or two would do its cheeks good,—just the next—so there it continued to hang till this morning, when she was about to go out with my sister—I said ‘now is the time—you are going to my aunt’s—let me pluck you the apple’—‘Oh,’ she said ‘I have been looking at it, trying it,—it hangs so firmly, ... not _this_ time, thank you!’ So she went without it, two hours ago—and just now, I turned to the tree with a boding presentiment—there lay our glory, bruised in the dirt, a sad wreck! ‘Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love!’ Rather, counsel me _through_ apples! Do you see the counsel?

Come, let me not be so ungrateful to the letter, to what you have done for me, as only to speak of what you are disinclined to do. I am very glad you succeeded in going to the chapel, and that the result was so favourable—see how the dangers disappear when one faces them! And the account of Mr. Stratten is very interesting, too—besides characteristic—do you see _how_? Find as great a saint as the world holds, who shall be acknowledged to be utterly disinterested, unbiassed by anything except truth and common justice,—a man of sense as well as piety—and succeed in convincing such an one of our right to do as we purpose,—and then—let _him_ lay the matter before your father! To no other use than to exasperate him against Mr. Stratten, deprive your sister of the privilege of seeing his family, and bring about a little more pain and trouble!

Let me think of something else ... of the happiness you profess to feel—which it makes me entirely happy to know. I will not try and put away the crown you give me. I just say the obvious truth, ... even what I _can_ do to make you happy, according to my ability, has yet to be experienced by you ... if my thoughts and wishes reach you with any effect at present, they will operate freelier when the obstruction is removed ... that is only natural. I shall live for you, for every minute in your life. May God bless me with such a life, as that it may be of use to you ... yours it must be whether of use or not, for I am wholly your R.

* * * * *

Here comes my mother back ... she is a little better to-day. I am much better as I said. And you? Let me get the kiss I lost on Saturday! (I dined at Arnould’s yesterday with Chorley and his brother, and the Cushmans.) Chorley goes to-night to Ostend.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Monday Night. [Post-mark, September 1, 1846.]

You are better, dearest,—and so I will confess to having felt a little inclined to reproach you gently for the earlier letter, except that you were not well when you wrote it. That you should endure painfully and impatiently a position unworthy of you, is the natural consequence of the unworthiness—and I do hold that you would be justified at this moment, on the barest motives of self-respect, in abandoning the whole ground and leaving me to Mr. Kenyon and others. What I might complain of, is another thing—what I might complain of is, that I have not given you reason to _doubt me_ or my inclination to accede to any serious wish of yours relating to the step before us. On the contrary I told you in so many words in July, that, if you really wished to go in August rather than in September, I would make no difficulty—to which you answered, remember, that _October or November would do as well_. Now _is_ it fair, ever dearest, that you should turn round on me so quickly, and call in question my willingness to keep my engagement for years, if ever? Can I help it, if the circumstances around us are painful to both of us? Did I not keep repeating, from the beginning, that they _must_ be painful? Only you could not believe, you see, until you felt the pricks. And when all is done, and the doing shall be the occasion of new affronts, sarcasms, every form of injustice, will you be any happier then, than you are now that you only imagine the possibility of them? I tremble to answer that question—even to myself—! As for myself, though I cannot help feeling pain and fear, in encountering what is to be encountered, and though I sometimes fear, in addition, for _you_, lest you should overtask your serenity in bearing your own part in it, ... yet certainly I have never wavered for a moment from the decision on which all depends. I might fill up your quotations from ‘Prometheus,’ and say how no evil takes me unaware, having foreseen all from the beginning—but I have not the heart for filling up quotations. I mean to say only, that I never wavered from the promise I gave freely; and that I will keep it freely at any time you choose—that is, within a week of any time you choose. As to a light word ... why now, dear, judge me in justice! If I had written it, there might have been more wrong in it—but I spoke it lightly to show it was light, and in the next breath I told you that it was a jest. Will you not forgive me a word so spoken, Robert? will you rather set it against me as if habitually I threw to you levities in change for earnest devotion?—you imply _that_ of me. Or you _seem_ to imply it—you did not mean, you could not, a thought approaching to unkindness,—but it looks like _that_ in the letter, or _did_, this morning. And all the time, you pretended not to know very well, ... (dearest!) ... that what you made up your mind to wish and ask of me, I had not in my power to say ‘no’ to. Ah, you _knew_ that you had only to make up your mind, and to see that the thing was possible. So if September shall be possible, let it be September. I do not object nor hold back. To sail from the Thames has not the feasibility—and listen why! All the sailing or rather steaming from London begins _early_; and I told you how out of the question it was, for me to leave this house early. I could not, without involving my sisters. Arabel sleeps in my room, on the sofa, and is seldom out of the room before nine in the morning—and for me to draw her into a ruinous confidence, or to escape without a confidence at that hour, would be equally impossible. Now see if it is my fancy, my whim! And as for the expenses, _they_ are as nearly equal as a shilling and two sixpences can be—the expense of the sea-voyage from London to Havre, and of the land and sea voyage, through Southampton ... _or_ Brighton. But of course what you say of Brighton, keeps us to Southampton, of those two routes. We can go to Southampton and meet the packet ... take the river-steamer to Rouen, and proceed as rapidly as your programme shows. You are not angry with me, dearest, dearest? I did not mean any harm.

May God bless you always. _I_ am not angry either, understand, though I did think this morning that you were a little hard on me, just when I felt myself ready to give up the whole world for you at the holding up of a finger. And now say nothing of this. I kiss the end of the dear finger; and when _it_ is ready, _I_ am ready; I will not be reproached again. Being too much your own, very own

BA.

Tell me that you keep better. And your mother?

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Tuesday—3 p.m. [Post-mark, September 1, 1846.]

Dearest, when your letter kept away, all this morning, I never once fancied you might be angry ... I knew you must feel the love which produced the fear. And I will lay to my heart the little, gentlest blame that there is, in the spirit which dictated it. I know, my own Ba, your words have given me the right to doubt nothing from your generosity—but it is not the mere bidding ... no, at the thousandth repetition—which can make me help myself to all that treasure which you please to call mine: I shall perhaps get used to the generosity and readier to profit by it.

I have not time to write much; all is divinely kind of you, and I love you for forgiving me.

You could not leave at an early hour under those circumstances ... the moment I become aware of them, I fully see that.

Ah, but, Ba, am I so to blame for not taking your diamonds, while you disclaim a right over my pebbles even? May I ‘withdraw from the business’? &c., &c.

Kiss me, and do not say that again—and I will say you are ‘my own,’ as I always say,—my very own!

As for ‘sarcasms’ and the rest—I shall hardly do other than despise what will never be said _to_ me, for the best of reasons—except where is to be exception. I never objected to such miserable work as that—and the other day, my annoyance was not at anything which _might_ be fancied, by Mr. Kenyon or anybody else, but at what could not but be plainly seen—it was a fact, and not a fancy, that our visit was shortened &c., &c.

All which is foolish to think of—I will think of you and a better time.

You do not tell me how you are, Ba—and I left you with a headache. Will you tell me? And the post may come in earlier to-morrow,—at all events I will write at length ... not in this haste. And our day? When before have I been without a day, a fixed day, to look forward to?

Bless you, my dearest beloved—

Your own R.

I am pretty well to-day—not too well. My mother is no better than usual; we blame the wind, with or without reason. See this scrawl! Could anything make me write legibly, I wonder?

Ba.

BA.

βα.

Ba, Ba, Ba.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday. [Post-mark, September 2, 1846.]

Here is a distress for me, dearest! I have lost my poor Flush—_lost_ him! You were a prophet when you said ‘Take care.’

This morning Arabel and I, and he with us, went in a cab to Vere Street where we had a little business, and he followed us as usual into a shop and out of it again, and was at my heels when I stepped up into the carriage. Having turned, I said ‘Flush,’ and Arabel looked round for Flush—there was no Flush! He had been caught up in that moment, from _under_ the wheels, do you understand? and the thief must have run with him and thrown him into a bag perhaps. It was such a shock to me—think of it! losing him in a moment, _so_! No wonder if I looked white, as Arabel said! So she began to comfort me by showing how certain it was that I should recover him for ten pounds at most, and we came home ever so drearily. Because _Flush_ doesn’t know that we can recover him, and he is in the extremest despair all this while, poor darling Flush, with his fretful fears, and pretty whims, and his fancy of being near me. All this night he will howl and lament, I know perfectly,—for I fear we shall not ransom him to-night. Henry went down for me directly to the captain of the banditti, who evidently knew all about it, said Henry,—and after a little form of consideration and enquiry, promised to let us hear something this evening, but has not come yet. In the morning perhaps he will come. Henry told him that I was resolved not to give much—but of course they will make me give what they choose—I am not going to leave Flush at their mercy, and they know that as well as I do. My poor Flush!

When we shall be at Pisa, dearest, we shall be away from the London dog-stealers—it will be one of the advantages. Another may be that I may have an opportunity of ‘forgiving’ you, which I have not had yet. I might reproach you a little in my letter, and I _did_, I believe; but the offending was not enough for any _forgiving_ to follow—it is too grand a word. Also your worst is better than my best, taking it on the whole. How then should I be able to _forgive_ you, my beloved, even _at Pisa_?

If we go to Southampton, we go straight from the railroad to the packet, without entering any hotel—and if we do _so_, _no_ greater expense is incurred than by the long water-passage from London. Also, we reach Havre alike in the morning, and have the day before us for Rouen, Paris and Orleans. Thereupon nothing is lost by losing the early hour for the departure. Then, if I accede to your _idée fixe_ about the marriage! Only do not let us put a long time between that and the setting out, and do not you come here afterwards—let us go away as soon as possible afterwards at least. You are afraid for me of my suffering from the autumnal cold when it is yet far off—while _I_ (observe this!) while _I_ am afraid for myself, of breaking down under quite a different set of causes, in nervous excitement and exhaustion. I belong to that pitiful order of weak women who cannot command their bodies with their souls at every moment, and who sink down in hysterical disorder when they ought to act and resist. Now I think and believe that I shall take strength from my attachment to you, and so go through to the end what is before us; but at the same time, knowing myself and fearing myself, I do desire to provoke the ‘demon’ as little as possible, and to be as quiet as the situation will permit. Still, where things _ought_ to be done, they of course _must_ be done. Only we should consider whether they really _ought_ to be done—not for the sake of the inconvenience to me, but of the consequence to both of us.

Do I frighten you, ever dearest? Oh no—I shall go through it, if I keep a breath of soul in me to live with. I shall go through it, as certainly as that I love you. I speak only of the accessory circumstances, that they may be kept as smooth as is practicable.

You are not well, my beloved—and I cannot even dream of making you better this time,—because you will think it wise for us not to meet for the next few days perhaps. Mr. Kenyon will come to see me, he said, before he leaves town, and he leaves it on the fourth, fifth or sixth of September. This is the first. So I will not let you come to be vexed as last time—no, indeed. But write to me instead—and pity me for Flush. Oh, I trust to have him back to-morrow. I had no headache, and was quite perfectly well this morning ... before I lost him.

Is your mother able to walk? is she worse on the whole than last week for instance? We may talk of September, but you cannot leave her, you know, dearest, if she should be _so_ ill! it would be unkind and wrong.

More, to-morrow! But I cannot be more to-morrow, your very own—

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, September 2, 1846.]

Poor Flush—how sorry I am for you, my Ba! But you will recover him, I dare say ... not, perhaps directly; the delay seems to justify their charge at the end: poor fellow—was he no better than the rest of us, and did all that barking and fanciful valour spend itself on such enemies as Mr. Kenyon and myself, leaving only blandness and waggings of the tail for the man with the bag? I am sure you are grieved and frightened for our friend and follower, that was to be, at Pisa—will you not write a special note to tell me when you get him again?

For the rest—I will urge you no more by a single word—you shall arrange everything henceforward without a desire on my part,—an expressed one at least. Do not let our happiness be caught up from us, after poor Flush’s fashion—there may be no redemption from _that_ peril.

There can hardly be another way of carrying our purpose into effect than by that arrangement you consent to—except you choose to sacrifice a day and incur all costs of risk. Of course, the whole in the way and with the conditions that you shall determine.

Do you think, Ba, I apprehend nothing from the excitement and exhaustion attendant on it? I altogether apprehend it,—and am therefore the more anxious that no greater difficulty should be superinduced than is absolutely necessary. Because the first part of our adventure will be dangerous in _that_ way, I want the second part to be as safe as possible in another. I should care comparatively little about winter-travelling, even (knowing that one can take precautions)—if it were to be undertaken under really propitious circumstances, and you set forth with so much kindness to carry away as would keep you warm for a week or two—but the ‘winter wind that is not so unkind as &c.,’ may prove,—by adding its share of unkindness to the greater,—intolerable. Now, my last word is said, however—and a kiss follows!

I thank you, dearest, for your enquiries about my mother; and for the sympathy, and proposal of delay. She is better this morning, I hope. From the time that my sister went to Town, she discontinued the exercise which does her such evident good—and on Monday the walk began again—with no great effect yesterday because of the dull weather and sharp wind ... she kept at home—but this morning she is abroad, and will profit by this sunshine, I hope. My head will not get quite well, neither. I take both effects to be caused by the turn of the year.

Bless you, dearest—I cannot but acquiesce in your postponing our day for such reasons. Only, do not misconceive those few foolish words of impatience ... a great matter to bear truly! I shall be punished indeed if they prevent you from according to me one hour I should have otherwise possessed.

Bless you once again, my Ba.

My mother is returned—very much better indeed. Remember Flush—to write.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Wednesday Evening. [Post-mark, September 3, 1846.]

‘Our friend and follower, that _was_ to be’—is _that_, then, your opinion of my poor darling Flush’s destiny— Ah,—I should not have been so quiet if I had not known differently and better. I ‘shall not recover him directly,’ you think! But, dearest, I am _sure_ that I _shall_. I am learned in the ways of the Philistines—I knew from the beginning where to apply and how to persuade. The worst is poor Flush’s fright and suffering. And then, it is inconvenient just now to pay the ransom for him. But we shall have time to-morrow if not to-night. Two hours ago the chief of the Confederacy came to call on Henry and to tell him that the ‘Society had the dog,’ having done us the honour of tracking us into Bond Street and out of Bond Street into Vere Street where he was kidnapped. Now he is in Whitechapel (poor Flush). And the great man was going down there at half past seven to meet other great men in council and hear the decision as to the ransom exacted, and would return with their _ultimatum_. Oh, the villainy of it is excellent, and then the humiliation of having to pay for your own vexations and anxieties! _Will_ they have the insolence, now, to make me pay ten pounds, as they said they would? But I must have Flush, you know—I can’t run any risk, and bargain and haggle. There is a dreadful tradition in this neighbourhood, of a lady who did _so_ having her dog’s head sent to her in a parcel. So I say to Henry—‘Get Flush back, whatever you do’—for Henry is angry as he may well be, and as _I_ should be if I was not too afraid ... and talks police-officers against thieves, and finds it very hard to attend to my instructions and be civil and respectful to their captain. There he found him, smoking a cigar in a room with pictures! They make some three or four thousand a year by their honourable employment. As to Flush’s following anyone ‘blandly,’ never think it. ‘He was caught up and gagged ... depend upon that. If he could have bitten, he would have bitten—if he could have yelled, he would have yelled. Indeed on a former occasion the ingenuous thief observed, that he ‘was a difficult dog to get, he was so distrustful.’ They had to drag him with a string, put him into a cab, they said, before. Poor Flush!

Dearest, I am glad that your mother is a little better—but why should the turn of the year make you suffer, ever dearest? I am not easy about you indeed. Remember not to use the shower-bath injudiciously—and remember to walk. _Do_ you walk enough?—it being as necessary for you as for your mother.

And as for _me_ you will not say a word more to _me_, you will leave me to my own devices now.

Which is just exactly what you must _not_ do. Ah, why do you say so, even, when you must not do it? Have I refused one proposition of yours when there were not strong obstacles, that you should have finished with me so, my beloved? For instance, I agreed to your plan about the marrying, and I agreed to go with you to Italy in the latter part of September—did I not? And what am I disagreeing in now? Don’t let me pass for disagreeable! And don’t, above all, refuse to think for me, and decide for me, or what will become of me, I cannot guess. I shall be worse off than Flush is now ... in his despair, at Whitechapel. Think of my being let loose upon a common, just when the thunder-clouds are gathering!! You would not be so cruel, _you_. All I meant to say was that it would be wise to make the occasions of excitement as few as possible, for the reasons I gave you. But I shall not fail, I believe—I should despise myself too much for failing—I should lose too much by the failure. Then there is an amulet which strengthens the heart of one,—let it incline to fail ever so. Believe of me that I shall not fail, dearest beloved—I shall not, if you love me enough to stand by—believe _that_ always.

The heart will sink indeed sometimes—as mine does to-night, I scarcely know why—but even while it sinks, I do not feel that I shall fail _so_—I do not. Dearest, I do not, either, ‘misconceive,’ as you desire me not: I only infer that you will think it best to avoid the chance of meeting Mr. Kenyon, who speaks to me, in a note received this morning, of intending to leave town next Monday—of coming here he does not speak,—and he may come and he may not come, on any intermediate day. He wrote for a book he lent me. If I do not see you until Monday, it will be hard—but judge! there was more of bitterness than of sweetness in the last visit.

Mr. Kenyon said in his note that he had seen Moxon, and that Tennyson was ‘disappointed’ with the mountains. Is not that strange? Is it a good or a bad sign when people are disappointed with the miracles of nature? I am accustomed to fancy it a bad sign. Because a man’s imagination ought to aggrandise, glorify, consecrate. A man sees with his mind, and mind is at fault when he does not see greatly, I think.

Moxon sent a civil message to me about my books ‘going off regularly.’

And now _I_ must go off—it is my turn. Do you love me to-night, dearest? I ask you ... through the air. I am your very own Ba.

Say how you are, I beseech you, and tell me always and particularly of your mother.

They are all here, gone to a picnic at Richmond.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Thursday. [Post-mark, September 3, 1846.]

I am rejoiced that poor Flush is found again, dearest—altogether rejoiced.

And now that you probably have him by your side, I will tell you what I should have done in such a case, because it explains our two ways of seeing and meeting oppression lesser or greater. I would not have given five shillings on that fellow’s application. I would have said,—and in entire earnestness ‘_You_ are responsible for the proceedings of your gang, and _you_ I mark—don’t talk nonsense to me about cutting off heads or paws. Be as sure as that I stand here and tell you, I will spend my whole life in putting you down, the nuisance you declare yourself—and by every imaginable means I will be the death of you and as many of your accomplices as I can discover—but _you_ I have discovered and will never lose sight of—now try my sincerity, by delaying to produce the dog by to-morrow. And for the ten pounds—see!’ Whereupon I would give them to the first beggar in the street. You think I should receive Flush’s head? Perhaps—_so_ God allows matters to happen! on purpose, it may be, that I should vindicate him by the punishment I would exact.

Observe, Ba, this course ought not to be yours, because it _could_ not be—it would not suit your other qualities. But all religion, right and justice, with me, seem implied in such a resistance to wickedness and refusal to multiply it a hundredfold—for from this prompt payment of ten pounds for a few minutes’ act of the easiest villainy, there will be encouragement to—how many similar acts in the course of next month? And how will the poor owners fare who have not money enough for their dogs’ redemption? I suppose the gentleman, properly disgusted with such obstinacy, will threaten roasting at a slow fire to test the sincerity of attachment! No—the world would grow too detestable a den of thieves and oppressors that way! And this is too great a piece of indignation to be expressed when one has the sick vile headache that oppresses me this morning. Dearest, I am not inclined to be even as tolerant as usual. Will you be tolerant, my Ba, and forgive me—till to-morrow at least—when, what with physic, what with impatience, I shall be better one way or another?

Ever your own R.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Thursday Afternoon. [Post-mark, September 4, 1846.]

When I had finished that letter this morning, dearest dearest, before I could seal it, even, (my sister did it for me ... and despatched it to the post at once) I became quite ill and so sick as to be forced to go up-stairs and throw myself on the bed. It is now six o’clock, and I feel better, and have some thoughts of breaking my fast to-day—but, first of all ... did whatever it may have been I wrote seem _cross_—unnecessarily angry, to you, dearest Ba? Because, I confess to having felt indignant at this sample of the evils done under the sun every day ... and as if it would be to no purpose though the whole world were peopled with Ba’s, instead of just Wimpole Street; as they would be just so many more soft cushions for the villainously-disposed to run pins into at their pleasure. Donne says that ‘Weakness invites, but silence _feasts_ oppression.’ And it is horrible to fancy how all the oppressors in their several ranks may, if they choose, twitch back to them by the heartstrings after various modes the weak and silent whose secret they have found out. No one should profit by those qualities in me, at least. Having formed a resolution, I would keep it, I hope, through fire and water, and the threatener of any piece of rascality, who (as commonly happens) should be without the full heart to carry it into effect, should pay me exactly the same for the threat ... which had determined my conduct once and for ever. But in this particular case, I ought to have told you (unless you divined it, as you might) that I would give all I am ever to be worth in the world to get back your Flush for you—for your interest is not _mine_, any more than the lake is the river that goes to feed it,—mine is only made to feed yours—I am yours, as we say—as I feel more and more every minute.

Are you not mine, too? And do you not forgive your own R?

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Thursday Evening. [Post-mark, September 4, 1846.]

Ever dearest, you are not well—that is the first thing!—And that is the thing I saw first, when, opening your letter, my eyes fell on the ending sentence of it,—which disenchanted me in a moment from the hope of the day. Dearest—you have not been well for two or three days, it is plain,—and now you are very, very unwell—tell me if it is not so? I beseech you to let me hear the exact truth about you, for I am very uneasy, and it is dreadful to doubt about knowing the exact truth in all such cases. How everything goes against me this week! I cannot see you. I cannot comfort myself by knowing that you are well. And then poor Flush! You must let him pass as one of the evils, and you _will_, I know; for I have not got him back yet—no, indeed.

I should have done it. The archfiend, Taylor, the man whom you are going to spend your life in persecuting (the life that belongs to me, too!), came last night to say that they would accept six pounds, six guineas, with half a guinea for himself, considering the trouble of the mediation; and Papa desired Henry to refuse to pay, and not to tell me a word about it—all which I did not find out till this morning. Now it is less, as the money goes, than I had expected, and I was very vexed and angry, and wanted Henry to go at once and conclude the business—only he wouldn’t, talked of Papa, and persuaded me that Taylor would come to-day with a lower charge. He has not come—I knew he would not come,—and if people won’t do as I choose, I shall go down to-morrow morning myself and bring Flush back with me. All this time he is suffering and I am suffering. It may be very foolish—I do not say it is not—or it may even be ‘awful sin,’ as Mr. Boyd sends to assure me—but I cannot endure to run cruel hazards about my poor Flush for the sake of a few guineas, or even for the sake of abstract principles of justice—I cannot. _You_ say that _I_ cannot, ... but that _you would_. You would!—Ah dearest—most pattern of citizens, but you _would not_—I know you better. Your theory is far too good not to fall to pieces in practice. A man may love justice intensely; but the love of an abstract principle is not the strongest love—now is it? Let us consider a little, putting poor Flush out of the question. (You would bear, you say, to receive his head in a parcel—it would satisfy you to cut off Taylor’s in return). Do you mean to say that if the banditti came down on us in Italy and carried me off to the mountains, and, sending to you one of my ears, to show you my probable fate if you did not let them have ... how much may I venture to say I am worth? ... five or six scudi,—(is _that_ reasonable at all?) ... would your answer be ‘Not so many crazie’; and would you wait, poised upon abstract principles, for the other ear, and the catastrophe,—as was done in Spain not long ago? Would you, dearest? Because it is as well to know beforehand, perhaps.

Ah—how I am teazing you, my beloved, when you are not well. But indeed that life of yours is worthy of better uses than to scourge Taylor with, even if _I_ should not be worth the crazie.

I have seen nobody and heard nothing. I bought a pair of shoes to-day lined with flannel, to walk with on the bare floors of Italy in the winter. Is not _that_ being practical and coming to the point? I did it indeed!

May God bless you. I love you always and am your own.

Write of yourself, I _do pray you_—and also, how is your mother?

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Friday Morning. [Post-mark, September 4, 1846.]

You dearest, best Ba, I will say at the beginning of the letter, and not at the end, this time, that I am very much better—my head clear from pain, if a little _uncertain_—I was in the garden when your letter came. The worst is, that I am really forced to go and dine out to-day—but I shall take all imaginable care and get away early ... and be ready to go and see you at a minute’s notice, should a note signify your permission to-morrow ... if Mr. Kenyon’s visit is over, for instance. I have to attribute this effect to that abstinent system of yours. Depend on it, I shall be well and continue well now.

Dear Ba, I wrote under the notion (as I said) that poor Flush was safe by your side; and only took that occasion to point at what I must still consider the wrongness of the whole system of giving way to, instead of opposing, such proceedings. I think it lamentable weakness ... though I can quite understand and allow for it in you,—but weakness it essentially _is_, as _you_ know perfectly. For see, you first put the matter in the gentlest possible light ... ‘who would give much time and trouble to the castigation of such a fellow as _that_!’ You ask—and immediately after, for another purpose, you very rightly rank this crime with that other enormous one, of the Spanish banditti—nay, you confess that, in this very case, any such injury to Flush as you dread would give you inexpressible grief. Is the threatening this outrage then so little a matter? Am I to think it a less matter if the same miscreant should _strike_ you in the street because you would probably suffer less than by this that he _has_ done? There is the inevitable inconsistency of wrong reasoning in all this. Say, as I told you on another subject,—‘I determine to resist no injury whatever, to be at the disposal of any villain in the world, trusting to God for protection here or recompense hereafter’—or take my course; _which_ is the easier, and in the long run, however strangely it may seem, the more profitable, no one can doubt—but I take the harder—in all but the responsibility—which, without any cant, would be intolerable to me. Look at this ‘society’ with its ‘four thousand a year’—which unless its members are perfect fools they will go on to double and treble—would this have existed if a proper stand had been made at the beginning? The first silly man, woman or child who consented to pay five shillings, beyond the mere expense of keeping the dog (on the supposition of its having been found, _not_ stolen), is responsible for all the harm—what could the thief do but go and steal another, and ask double for its ransom?

And see—dog-stealers so encouraged are the lowest of the vile—can neither write nor read, perhaps. One of the fraternity possesses this knowledge, however, and aims higher. Accordingly, instead of stealing your dog, he determines to steal your character; if a guinea (at the beginning) ransoms the one, ten pounds shall ransom the other; accordingly Mr. Barnard Gregory takes pen in hand and writes to some timid man, in the first instance, that unless he receives that sum, his character will be blasted. The timid man takes your advice ... says that the ‘love of an abstract principle’ must not run him into ‘cruel hazards’ ‘for the sake of a few guineas’—so he pays them—who would bother himself with such vermin as Gregory? So Gregory receives his pay for his five minutes’ penmanship—takes down a directory, and writes five hundred such letters. Serjeant Talfourd told me, counting them on his fingers, ‘such and such’ (naming them) cut their throats after robbing their families, employers &c., such fled the country—such went mad ... _that_ was the commonest event.’ At last, even so poor a creature as the Duke of Brunswick, with his detestable character and painted face,—even _he_ plucks up courage and turns on Gregory, grown by this time into a really formidable monster by these amiable victims to the other principle of easy virtue,—and the event is that this execrable ‘Abhorson’s’ trade is utterly destroyed—that form of atrocious persecution exists no longer. I am in no danger of being told, at next post delivery, that having been ‘tracked up Vere Street, down Bond Street, &c.’ into Wimpole Street my character and yours will be the subject of an article in the next _Satirist_ unless ...

To all of which you have a great answer—‘What should I do if _you_ were to be the victim?’ That my note yesterday, the second one, told you. I sacrifice _myself_ ... all that belongs _to me_—but there are some interests which I belong to—I have no right, no more than inclination, in such a case, to think of myself if your safety is concerned, and as I could cut off a limb to save my head, so my head should fall most willingly to redeem yours ... I would pay every farthing I had in the world, and shoot with my own hand the receiver of it after a chase of fifty years—esteeming _that_ to be a very worthy recompense for the trouble.

But why write all this string of truisms about the plainest thing in the world? All reformers are met at the outset by such dissuasion from their efforts. ‘Better suffer the grievance and get off as cheaply as you [can]—You, Mahomet,—what if the Caaba _be_ only a black stone? You need only bow your head as the others, and make any inward remark you like on the blindness of the people. You, Hampden, have you really so little wit as to contest payment of a paltry 20_s._ at such risk?’

Ah, but here all the fuss is just about stealing a dog—two or three words, and the matter becomes simply ludicrous—very easily got rid of! One cannot take vengeance on the ‘great man’ with his cigar and room of pictures and burlesque dignities of mediation! Just so, when Robert was inclined to be sorry for the fate of Bertha’s sister, one can fancy what a relief and change would be operated in his feelings, if a good-natured friend send him a version of his mighty crime in Lord Rochester’s funny account of ‘forsaken damsels’ ... with the motto ‘Women have died ere now and worms have eaten them—but not for love—’ or ‘At lovers’ perjuries Jove laughs’ why, Robert is a ‘lady-killer’ like D’Orsay! Well, enough of sermonizing for the present; it is impossible for me to differ with you and treat _that_ as a light matter ... or, what on earth would have been so little to wonder at, as that, loving Flush, you should determine to save him at any price? If ‘Chiappino’ were to assure you, in terms that you could not disbelieve, that in the event of your marrying me he would destroy himself,—would you answer, as I should, ‘Do so, and take the consequences,’—and think no more about the matter? I should absolutely leave it, as not my concern but God’s—nor should blame myself any more than if the poor man, being uncertain what to do, had said ‘If a man first passes the window—yes—if a woman—no’—and I, a total stranger, had passed.

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?

I have not Flush yet. I am to have him to-morrow morning.

And for the Flush-argument, dear dearest, I hold that your theory is entirely good and undeniable. I agree with you throughout it, praising Mahomet, praising Hampden, and classing the Taylors, Gregorys, and Spanish banditti all together. Also I hope I should try, at least, to resist with you their various iniquities—and, for instance, I do not think that any Gregory in the world would draw a shilling from _me_, by a threat against my own character. I should dare _that_, oh, I am confident I should—the indignation would be far the stronger, where I myself only was involved. And even in the imaginary Chiappino-case, the selfish and dastardly threat would fall from me like a child’s arrow from steel. I believe so.

But Flush, poor Flush, Flush who has loved me so faithfully; have I a right to sacrifice _him_ in his innocence, for the sake of any Mr. Taylor’s guilt in the world? Does not Flush’s condition assimilate to my own among the banditti? for you agree that you would not, after all, leave me to the banditti—and I, _exactly on the same ground_, will not leave Flush. It seems to me that you and I are _at one_ upon the whole question,—only that _I_ am _your_ Flush, and _he_ is mine. You, if you were ‘consistent’ ... dearest! ... would not redeem me on any account. You do ever so much harm by it, observe—you produce catastrophe on catastrophe, just for the sake of my two ears without earrings! Oh, I entirely agree with your principle. Evil should be resisted that it may fly from you.

But Flush is not to be sacrificed—nor even is Ba, it appears. So our two weaknesses may pardon one another, yours and mine!

Some dog, shut up in a mews somewhere behind this house, has been yelling and moaning to-day and yesterday. How he has made me think of my poor poor Flush, I cannot tell you—‘Think of Flush’ he seemed to say.

Yes!—A blow in the street! I wish somebody _would_ propose such a thing to me, in exchange! I would have thanked Mr. Taylor himself for striking me down in the street, if the stroke had been offered as an alternative for the loss of Flush. You may think it absurd—but when my dinner is brought to me, I feel as if I could not (scarcely) touch it—the thought of poor Flush’s golden eyes is too strong in me.

Not a word of your mother. She is better, I trust! And you ... may God keep you better, beloved! To be parted from you so long, teaches me the necessity of your presence—I am your very, very own.

I was out to-day—driving along the Hampstead Road. What weather!

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Saturday. [Post-mark, September 5, 1846.]

Dearest Ba, I feel your perfect goodness at my heart—I can say nothing.

Nor write very much more: my head still teazes, rather than pains me. Don’t lay more of it to the dinner than necessary: I got my sister to write a letter deprecatory of all pressing to eat and drink and such mistaken hospitality—to the end that I might sit unpitied, uncondoled with, and be an eyesore to nobody—which succeeded so well that I eat some mutton and drank wine and water without let or molestation. Our party was reduced to three, by a couple of defections—but there was an immense talking and I dare say this continuance of my ailment is partly attributable to it. I shall be quiet now. I tell you the simple truth, that you may believe—and this also believe, that it would have done me great good to go to you this morning,—if I could lean my head on your neck, what could pain it, dear dear Ba?

I am sorry poor Flush is not back again—very sorry. But no one would hurt him, be quite sure ... his mere value prevents that.

Shall I see you on Monday then? This is the _first time_ since we met at the beginning, that a whole week, from a Sunday to a Saturday, has gone by without a day for us. Well—I trust you are constant ... nay you _are_ constant to your purpose of leaving at the end of this month. When we meet next, let us talk of our business, like the grave man and woman we are going to become. Mr. K. will be away—how fortunate this is! We need implicate nobody. And in the end the reasonableness of what we do will be apparent to everybody—if I can show you well and happy,—which God send!

Kiss me as I kiss you, my own Ba. I am all one wide wonder at your loving nature: I can only give it the like love in return, and as much limited as I am limited. But I seem really to _grow_ under you,—my faculties extend toward yours.

May God bless you, and enable me to make you as happy as your dear generous heart will be contented to be made. I am your own R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Saturday Morning. [Post-mark, September 5, 1846.]

Dearest, I write just a few lines that you may know me for thinking of you to-morrow. Flush has not come and I am going on a voyage of discovery myself,—Henry being far too lukewarm. He says I may be robbed and murdered before the time for coming back, in which case remember that it is not my fault that I do not go with you to Pisa.

Just now came a kind little note from dear Mr. Kenyon, who will not come, he says, Flush being away, and has set out on his travels, meaning not to come back for a week. So I might have seen you after all, to-day! My comfort is, that it is good for you, beloved, to be quiet, and that coming through the sun might have made your head suffer. How my thoughts are with you—how all day they never fall from you! I shall have my letter to-night through your dear goodness, which is a lamp hung up for me to look towards. Aladdin’s, did you say? Yes, Aladdin’s.

As to being afraid of you ever—once, do you know, I was quite afraid ... in a peculiar sense—as when it thunders, I am afraid ... or a little different from _that_ even—or, oh yes, _very_ different from _that_. Now it is changed ... the feeling is—and I am not afraid even so—except sometimes of losing your affection by some fault of my own—I am _not_ afraid that it would be a fault of yours, remember. I trust you for goodness to the uttermost—and I know perfectly that if you did not love me (_supposing_ it) you are one who would be _ashamed_ for a woman to fear you, as some women fear some men. For _me_, I could not, you know—I knew you too well and love you too perfectly, and everybody can tell what perfect love casts out.

So you need not have done with me for _that_ reason! Understand it.

And if I shall not be slain by the ‘society,’ you shall be written to again to-night. Ah—say in the letter _I_ am to have, that you are better! And you are to come on Monday—dear, dearest! mind _that_!

Your Ba.

Come back safe, but without Flush—I am to have him to-night though.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Sunday. [Post-mark, September 7, 1846.]

Not well—not well! But I shall see you with my own eyes soon after you read what I write to-day; so I shall not write much. Only a few words to tell you that Flush is found, and lying on the sofa, with one paw and both ears hanging over the edge of it. Still my visit to Taylor was not the successful one. My hero was not at home.

I went, you know, ... did I tell you? ... with Wilson in the cab. We got into obscure streets; and our cabman stopped at a public house to ask his way. Out came two or three men, ... ‘Oh, you want to find Mr. Taylor, I dare say!’ (mark that no name had been mentioned!) and instantly an unsolicited philanthropist ran before us to the house, and out again to tell me that the great man ‘wasn’t at home! but wouldn’t I get out?’ Wilson, in an aside of terror, entreated me not to think of such a thing—she believed devoutly in the robbing and murdering, and was not reassured by the gang of benevolent men and boys who ‘lived but to oblige us’ all round the cab. ‘Then wouldn’t I see Mrs. Taylor,’ suggested the philanthropist,—and, notwithstanding my negatives, he had run back again and brought an immense feminine bandit, ... fat enough to have had an easy conscience all her life, ... who informed me that ‘her husband might be in in a few minutes, or in so many hours—wouldn’t I like to get out and wait’ (Wilson pulling at my gown, the philanthropist echoing the invitation of the feminine Taylor.)—‘No, I thanked them all—it was not necessary that I should get out, but it _was_, that Mr. Taylor should keep his promise about the restoration of a dog which he had agreed to restore—and I begged her to induce him to go to Wimpole Street in the course of the day, and not defer it any longer.’ To which, replied the lady, with the most gracious of smiles—‘Oh yes certainly’—and indeed she _did_ believe that Taylor had left home precisely on that business—poising her head to the right and left with the most easy grace—‘She was sure that Taylor would give his very best attention....’

So, in the midst of the politeness, we drove away, and Wilson seemed to be of opinion that we had escaped with our lives barely. Plain enough it was, that the gang was strong there. The society ... the ‘Fancy’ ... had their roots in the ground. The faces of those men!—

I had not been at home long, when Mr. Taylor did actually come—desiring to have six guineas confided to his honour!! ... and promising to bring back the dog. I sent down the money, and told them to trust the gentleman’s honour, as there seemed no other way for it—and while the business was being concluded, in came Alfred, and straightway called our ‘honourable friend’ (meeting him in the passage) a swindler and a liar and a thief. Which no gentleman could bear, of course. Therefore with reiterated oaths he swore, ‘as he hoped to be saved, we should never see our dog again’—and rushed out of the house. Followed a great storm. I was very angry with Alfred, who had no business to risk Flush’s life for the sake of the satisfaction of trying on names which fitted. Angry I was with Alfred, and terrified for Flush,—seeing at a glance the probability of his head being cut off as the proper vengeance! and down-stairs I went with the resolution of going again myself to Mr. Taylor’s in Manning Street, or Shoreditch [or] wherever it was, and saving the victim at any price. It was the evening, getting dusk—and everybody was crying out against me for being ‘quite mad’ and obstinate, and wilful—I was called as many names as Mr. Taylor. At last, Sette said that _he_ would do it, promised to be as civil as I could wish, and got me to be ‘in a good humour and go up to my room again.’ And he went instead of me, and took the money and fair words, and induced the ‘man of honour’ to forfeit his vengeance and go and fetch the dog. Flush arrived here at eight o’clock (at the very moment with your letter, dearest!), and the first thing he did was to dash up to this door, and then to drink his purple cup full of water, filled three times over. He was not so enthusiastic about seeing me, as I expected—he seemed bewildered and frightened—and whenever anyone said to him ‘Poor Flush, did the naughty men take you away?’ he put up his head and moaned and yelled. He has been very unhappy certainly. Dirty he is, and much thinner, and continually he is drinking. Six guineas, was his ransom—and now I have paid twenty for him to the dog-stealers.

Arabel says that I wanted _you_ yesterday, she thought, to manage me a little. She thought I was suddenly seized with madness, to prepare to walk out of the house in that state of excitement and that hour of the evening. But now—_was_ I to let them cut off Flush’s head?—

There! I have told you the whole history of yesterday’s adventures—and to-morrow I shall see you, my own dear, dear!—Only remember for my sake, _not_ to come if you are not fit to come. Dearest, remember not to run any hazards!—That dinner! which I _will_ blame, because it deserves it! Mind not to make me be as bad as that dinner, in being the means of working you harm! So I expect you to-morrow _conditionally_ ... if you are well enough!—and I thank you for the kind dear letter, welcome next to you, ... being ever and ever your own

BA.

I have been to the _vestry_ again to-day.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Sunday Afternoon. [Post-mark, September 7, 1846.]

No, dearest, I am not to see you to-morrow for all the happiness of the permission! It seems absurd, but perhaps the greater absurdity would be a refusal to submit, under circumstances. You shall hear—I got up with the old _vertiginousness_, or a little worse—and so, as I had in that case determined, went to consult my doctor. He thinks he finds the root of the evil and can remove it, ‘if I have patience enough’—so I promised ... expecting something worthy that preamble—whereas I am bidden go to bed and keep there for a day or two—from this Sunday till Wednesday morning—taking nothing but a sip of medicine I can’t distinguish from water, thrice a day—and _milk_ at discretion—no other food! The mild queerness of it is amusing, is it not? ‘And for this fine piece of self-denial,’ says he, ‘you shall be quite well by the week’s end.’—‘But may I go to town on Wednesday?’—‘Yes.’—

Now, Ba, my own Ba, you know how often I have to sorrowfully disclaim all the praises your dearest kindness would attach to me; this time, if you will praise me a little for obeying you, I will take the praise—for the truth of truths is, that I said at once to myself—‘have I a right to avoid anything which promises to relieve Her from this eternal account of aches and pains?’ So here am I writing, leaning on my elbow, in bed,—as I never wrote before I think—and perhaps my head is a little better, or I fancy so. Mind, I may read, or write,—only in bed I must lie, because there is some temperature to be kept up in the skin, or some other cause as good—‘for reasons, for reasons.’

‘The milk,’ answers Ba, is exactly to correct the superabundant gall of bitterness which overflowed lately about Flush. So it is, my own Ba—and for Flush, the victim of a principle, he is just saved from a sickness by cakes I meditated as a joy-offering on his safe return. Will you, among the other kisses, give him one for me? And save yet another for your own R.

How I shall need your letters, dearest!

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, September 7, 1846.]

Ever, ever dearest, how was it that without presentiment of evil I got up this morning in the good spirits of ‘_our_ days,’ hoping to see you, believing to see you, and feeling that it would be greater happiness than usual? The sight of your letter, even, did not provoke the cloud—_that_ was only the lesser joy, I thought, preceding the greater! And smiling to myself I was, both last night and this morning, at your phrase about the ‘business’ to be talked by the ‘grave man and woman’; understanding your precaution against all unlawful jesting!—jesters forbidden in the protocol! And then, at last, to be made so suddenly grave and sad even! How am I to be comforted, my own dearest? No way, except by your being really better, really well—in order to which I shall not let you come as soon as Wednesday: it will not be wise for you to leave your bed for a journey into London! Rather you should be very quiet, and keep in the garden at farthest. Take care of yourself, dearest dearest, and if you think of me and love me, show it in that best way. And I praise you, praise you,—nay, I thank you and am grateful to you for every such proof of love, more than for _other_ kinds of proof,—I will love you for it, my beloved! Now judge—shall I be able to help thinking of you every moment of the day? Could I help it, if I tried? In return, therefore, you will attend to the orders, submit to the discipline—ah but, will not the leaving off all food but milk weaken you out of measure? I am uneasy about that milk-diet for _you_, who always seem to me to want support, and something to stimulate. You will promise to tell me _everything_—will you, dearest?—whether better or worse, stronger or weaker, you will tell me? And if you should be too unwell to write, as may God forbid, your sister will write—she will have that great goodness? Let it be so, I beseech you.

But you will be better—oh, I mean to hope stedfastly toward your being better, and toward the possibility of our meeting before the week ends. And as for this day lost, it is not of importance except in our present thoughts: soon you will have more than enough of me, you know. For I am in earnest and not a jester _au fond_, and am ready to do just as you bid me and think best—which I tell you now, that you may not be vexed at a shadow, after my own fashion. May God bless you—‘_and me in you_.’ Have I not leave to say _that_, too, since I feel it more than you could ... (more intensely ... I do not say more sincerely ...) when you used it first? My happiness and life are in you,—I am your very own

BA.

Your mother—how is she? Mind you get an amusing book ... something to amuse only, and not use you. Do you know the ‘Mathilde’ of Sue? I shall write again to-night.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, September 7, 1846.]

I had the greatest mind, when your letter came—(the most welcome of all letters—so much more than I could expect!)—to get up at once and be well in your dearest eyes or through them—but I checked myself and thought that I ought to be contented with one such a letter through whole long weeks of annoyance, instead of one day more.

I am delighted to know Flush is with you, if I am not. Did you remember my petition about him? But, dearest, it _was_ very imprudent to go to those disgusting wretches yourself—they have had a pretty honour without knowing it!

Here I lie with a dizzy head—unable to read more than a page or two ... there is something in the unwonted position that tires me—but whenever the book is left off, I turn to the dark side of the room and see you, my very own Ba,—and so I am soon better and able to try again.

How hot, and thunder-like this oppressive air! And you who are affected by such weather? Tell me, my dearest dearest, all you can tell me—since the real lips and eyes are away.

Bless you, my beloved. Remember, I count upon seeing you on Wednesday at farthest.

Your own R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Monday Night. [Post-mark, September 8, 1846.]

How unwell you are, dearest beloved! Ah no! It is not ‘the position that tires you,’ it is the illness that incapacitates you. And _you_ to think of getting up and coming here ... you! Now, for my sake, for both our sakes, you _must_ and _shall_ be patient and quiet, and remember how my thoughts are with you conjuring you continually to quiet. As to the reading, ... you see it makes you dizzy,—and to provoke that sensation cannot plainly be right: and you will be right always, will you not, for my sake, dearest of all? And for the coming here on Wednesday, ... no, no, I say again,—you ought not to do it, and you shall not: we will see how you are, later in the week; but for Wednesday, certainly no. That violent transition from the bed to the omnibus would be manifestly wrong. Also I can be quite satisfied without seeing you, if I may but hear of your being well again. I wonder to-day how yesterday I was impatient about not having seen you so long. Oh, be well, be well, dearest! There is no need of your being ill to prove to me how I love you entirely, how I love you only!

For Flush, I did your commission, kissing the top of his head: then I took the kiss back again because it seemed too good for him _just now_. And you shall not say that you ‘are glad _he_ is with me if _you_ are not’? It is more to Flush’s disadvantage, that phrase is than all your theories which pretended to leave him with the dogstealers. How can I be glad of anyone’s being with me if you are not? And how should _you_ be glad for anything, if _I_ am not? Flush and I know our logic better than to accept that congratulation of yours, with the spike pricking us out of it.

So hot, indeed, to-day! If you thought of me, I thought of you, through it all. This close air cannot be good for you while you are shut up. But _I_ have not been shut up. I went out in the carriage and bought a pair of boots for Italy, besides the shoes—because, you see, we shall have such long walks in the forest after the camels, and it won’t do to go in one’s slippers. Does not _that_ sound like ‘a grave woman?’ You need not make laws against the jesters, after all! You need only be well! And, gravely, quite gravely, is it not likely that going to Italy, that travelling, and putting an end to all the annoyances which lately have grown up out of our affairs, will do you good, substantial good, in this chief matter of your health? It seems so to me sometimes. You are always well, you say, in Italy, and when you get there once again. But in the meanwhile, try to be a little better, my own dearest! I cannot write to you except about you to-night. The subject is too near me—I am under the shadow of the wall, and cannot see over it. To-morrow I shall hear more, and _trust to you_ to tell me the whole, unmutilated truth. May God bless you, as _I_ would, _I_ in my weakness! For the best blessing on your part, love your own

BA.

And do not tire yourself with writing. The least line—three words—I beseech you not to let me do you harm.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Tuesday Morning. [Post-mark, September 8, 1846.]

Do you think your wishes, much less your blessings, fall to the ground, my own Ba? Here is your letter, and here am I writing to you, ‘clothed and in my proper’ room My doctor bade me ‘get up and do as I pleased’—and the perfect pleasure is to say, I may indeed see you to-morrow, dearest, dearest! Can you look as you look in this letter? So entirely my own, and yet,—what should never be my own, by right ... such a treasure to one so little worthy!

I have only a few minutes to say this,—the dressing and talking having taken up the time. To-morrow shall repay me!

The lightness, slight uneasiness of the head, continues, though the general health is much better, it seems.

Do you doubt I shall be well in Italy? But I must leave off. Bless you as you have blessed me, my best, dearest Ba, me who am your very own R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, September 9, 1846.]

I write a word to say, ... dearest, do not run any risk about coming to-morrow. I mean, ... unless you are sure that the noise and exertion will not be too much for you,—unless, when the moment comes for setting off, you feel equal to it ... now, I do beseech you, very dear, not to persist in coming because you have said that you will come—I beseech you. Listen. At three o’clock I shall expect you doubtfully; at half-past three, the doubt will be the strongest; and at a quarter to four, I shall have said to myself cheerfully, that you were wise and good and had determined to stay at home. In that case, I shall have a line from you by five or six! Understand all this, and let it have the right influence and no more. Of course if I could see you without harm to yourself, and so to me, it would be a _great happiness_: it even makes me happy to think of, as a bare possibility, at this distance off! I am happy by your letter, twice over, indeed—once, for _that_ reason, ... and again, for the thought of your being in some respects better. At the same time I do not see why your wise man did not follow his plan to the end. It looks as if he did not think you better essentially because of it. Ah well, I shall see with my eyes to-morrow—_perhaps_ I shall: and I shall see in a dream to-night more certainly.

This shall go at once, though, that it may reach you in time in the morning. How I thank you for the precious note! You are so much too good to me, that your being also too _dear_ is an excusable consequence—or would be, if it were possible. I write nonsense, I believe,—but it is half for gladness ... and half ... for what makes me your own

BA.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Wednesday Night. [Post-mark, September 10, 1846.]

Dearest, you are a prophet, I suppose—there can be no denying it. This night, an edict has gone out, and George is to-morrow to be on his way to take a house for a month either at Dover, Reigate, Tunbridge, ... Papa did ‘not mind which,’ he said, and ‘you may settle it among you!!’ but he ‘must have this house empty for a month in order to its cleaning’—we are to go therefore and not delay.

Now!—what _can_ be done? It is possible that the absence may be longer than for a month, indeed it is probable—for there is much to do in painting and repairing, here in Wimpole Street, more than a month’s work they say. Decide, after thinking. I am embarrassed to the utmost degree, as to the best path to take. If we are taken away on Monday ... what then?

Of course I decline to give any opinion and express any preference,—as to places, I mean. It is not for my sake that we go:—if _I_ had been considered at all, indeed, we should have been taken away earlier, ... and not certainly now, when the cold season is at hand. And so much the better it is for me, that I have not, obviously, been thought of.

Therefore decide! It seems quite too soon and too sudden for us to set out on our Italian adventure now—and perhaps even we could not compass—

Well—but you must think for both of us. It is past twelve and I have just a moment to seal this and entrust it to Henrietta for the morning’s post.

More than ever beloved, I am

Your own BA.

I will do as you wish—understand.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, September 10, 1846.]

What do you expect this letter will be about, my own dearest? Those which I write on the mornings after our days seem naturally to _answer_ any strong point brought out in the previous discourse, and not then completely disposed of ... so they generally run in the vile fashion of a disputatious ‘last word’; ‘one word yet’—do not they? Ah, but you should remember that never does it feel so intolerable,—the barest fancy of a possibility of losing you—as when I have just seen you and heard you and, alas—left you for a time; on these occasions, it seems so horrible—that if the least recollection of a fear of yours, or a doubt ... anything which might be nursed, or let grow quietly into a serious obstacle to what we desire—if _that_ rises up threateningly,—do you wonder that I begin by attacking _it_? There are always a hundred deepest reasons for gratitude and love which I could write about, but which my after life shall prove I never have forgotten ... still, that very after-life depends perhaps on the letter of the morning reasoning with you, teazing, contradicting. Dearest Ba, I do not tell you that I am justified in plaguing you thus, at any time ... only to get your pardon, if I can, on the grounds—the true grounds.

And this pardon, if you grant it, shall be for the past offences, not for any fresh one I mean to commit now. I will not add one word to those spoken yesterday about the extreme perilousness of delay. You _give_ me yourself. Hitherto, from the very first till this moment, the giving hand has been advancing steadily—it is not for me to grasp it lest it stop within an inch or two of my forehead with its crown.

I am going to Town this morning, and will leave off now.

What a glorious dream; through nearly two years—without a single interval of blankness,—much less, bitter waking!

I may say _that_, I suppose, safely through whatever befalls!

Also I will ever say, God bless you, my dearest dearest,—my perfect angel you have been! While I am only your R.

My mother is deeply gratified at your present.

* * * * *

12 o’clock. On returning I find your note,

‘I will do as you wish—understand’—then I understand you are in earnest. If you _do_ go on Monday, our marriage will be impossible for another year—the misery! You see what we have gained by waiting. We must be _married directly_ and go to Italy. I will go for a licence to-day and we can be married on Saturday. I will call to-morrow at 3 and arrange everything with you. We can leave from Dover &c., _after_ that,—but otherwise, impossible! Inclose the ring, or a substitute—I have not a minute to spare for the post.

Ever your own R.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

4 p.m. Thursday. [Post-mark, September 10, 1846.]

I broke open your sealed letter and added the postscript just now. The post being thus saved, I can say a few words more leisurely.

I will go to-morrow, I think, and not to-day for the licence—there are fixed hours I fancy at the office—and I might be too late. I will also make the arrangement with my friend for Saturday, if we should want him,—as we shall, in all probability—it would look suspiciously to be unaccompanied. We can arrange to-morrow.

Your words, first and last, have been that you ‘would not fail me’—you will not.

And the marriage over, you can take advantage of circumstances and go early or late in the week, as may be practicable. There will be facilities in the general packing &c.,—your own measures may be taken unobserved. Write short notes to the proper persons,—promising longer ones, if necessary.

See the _tone_ I take, the way I write to _you_ ... but it is all through you, in the little brief authority you give me,—and in the perfect belief of your truth and firmness—indeed, I do not consider this an extraordinary occasion for proving those qualities—this conduct of your father’s is quite characteristic.

Otherwise, too, the departure with its bustle is not unfavourable. If you hesitated, it would be before a little hurried shopping and letter-writing! I expected it, and therefore spoke as you heard yesterday. _Now your_ part must begin. It may as well begin and end, both, _now_ as at any other time. I will bring you every information possible to-morrow.

It seems as if I should insult you if I spoke a word to confirm you, to beseech you, to relieve you from your promise, if you claim it.

God bless you, prays your own R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Thursday. [Post-mark, September 11, 1846.][7]

Dearest, I write one word, and have one will which is yours. At the same time, do not be precipitate—we shall not be taken away on Monday, no, nor for several days afterward. George has simply gone to look for houses—going to Reigate first.

Oh yes—come to-morrow. And then, you shall have the ring ... soon enough and safer.

Not a word of how you are!—_you_ so good as to write me that letter beyond compact, yet not good enough, to say how you are! Dear, dearest ... take care, and keep yourself unhurt and calm. I shall not fail to you—I do not, I will not. I will act by your decision, and I wish you to decide. I was yours long ago, and though you give me back my promise at this eleventh hour, ... you generous, dear unkind! ... you know very well that you can do as well without it. So take it again for my sake and not your own.

I cannot write, I am so tired, having been long out. Will not this dream break on a sudden? Now is the moment for the breaking of it, surely.

But come to-morrow, come. Almost everybody is to be away at Richmond, at a picnic, and we shall be free on all sides.

Ever and ever your BA.

[7] [The envelope of this letter is endorsed by R.B. ‘Saturday, Septr. 12, 1846, ¼11—11¼ A.M. (91).’ This is the record of his marriage with E.B.B. in Marylebone Church. The number 91 indicates that it was the ninety-first of their meetings, a record of which was always endorsed by Robert Browning on the letters received by him from Miss Barrett.]

_R.B. to E.B.B._

1 p.m. Saturday. [Post-mark, September 12, 1846.]

You will only expect a few words—what will those be? When the heart is full it may run over, but the real fulness stays within.

You asked me yesterday ‘if I should repent?’ Yes—my own Ba,—I could wish all the past were to do over again, that in it I might somewhat more,—never so little more, conform in the outward homage to the inward feeling. What I have professed ... (for I have performed nothing) seems to fall short of what my first love required even—and when I think of _this_ moment’s love ... I could repent, as I say.

Words can never tell you, however,—form them, transform them anyway,—how perfectly dear you are to me—perfectly dear to my heart and soul.

I look back, and in every one point, every word and gesture, every letter, every _silence_—you have been entirely perfect to me—I would not change one word, one look.

My hope and aim are to preserve this love, not to fall from it—for which I trust to God who procured it for me, and doubtlessly can preserve it.

Enough now, my dearest, dearest, own Ba! You have given me the highest, completest proof of love that ever one human being gave another. I am all gratitude—and all pride (under the proper feeling which ascribes pride to the right source) all pride that my life has been so crowned by you.

God bless you prays your very own R.

I will write to-morrow of course. Take every care of _my life_ which is in that dearest little hand; try and be composed, my beloved.

Remember to thank Wilson for me.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Saturday. Sept. 12.—4½ p.m. [Post-mark, September 12, 1846.]

Ever dearest, I write a word that you may read it and know how all is safe so far, and that I am not slain downright with the day—oh, _such a day_! I went to Mr. Boyd’s directly, so as to send Wilson home the faster—and was able to lie quietly on the sofa in his sitting-room down-stairs, before he was ready to see me, being happily engaged with a medical councillor. Then I was made to talk and take Cyprus wine,—and, my sisters delaying to come, I had some bread and butter for dinner, to keep me from looking too pale in their eyes. At last they came, and with such grave faces! Missing me and Wilson, they had taken fright,—and Arabel had forgotten at first what I told her last night about the fly. I kept saying, ‘What nonsense, ... what fancies you do have to be sure,’ ... trembling in my heart with every look they cast at me. And so, to complete the bravery, I went on with them in the carriage to Hampstead ... as far as the heath,—and talked and looked—now you shall praise me for courage—or rather you shall love me for the love which was the root of it all. How necessity makes heroes—or heroines at least! For I did not sleep all last night, and when I first went out with Wilson to get to the fly-stand in Marylebone Street I staggered so, that we both were afraid for the fear’s sake,—but we called at a chemist’s for sal volatile and were thus enabled to go on. I spoke to her last night, and she was very kind, very affectionate, and never shrank for a moment. I told her that always I should be grateful to her.

You—how are you? how is your head, ever dearest?

It seems all like a dream! When we drove past that church again, I and my sisters, there was a cloud before my eyes. Ask your mother to forgive me, Robert. If _I_ had not been there, _she_ would have been there, perhaps.

And for the rest, if either of us two is to suffer injury and sorrow for what happened there to-day—I pray that it may all fall upon _me_! Nor should I suffer the most pain _that_ way, as I know, and God knows.

Your own

BA.

Was I very uncourteous to your cousin? So kind, too, it was in him! Can there be the least danger of the newspapers? Are those books ever examined by penny-a-liners, do you suppose?

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Sunday. [Post-mark, September 14, 1846.]

My own beloved, if ever you should have reason to complain of me in things voluntary and possible, all other women would have a right to tread me underfoot, I should be so vile and utterly unworthy. There is my answer to what you wrote yesterday of wishing to be better to me ... you! What could be better than lifting me from the ground and carrying me into life and the sunshine? I was yours rather by right than by gift (yet by gift also, my beloved!); for what you have saved and renewed is surely yours. All that I am, I owe you—if I enjoy anything now and henceforth, it is through you. You know this well. Even as _I_, from the beginning, knew that I had no power against you, ... or that, if I _had_, it was for your sake.

Dearest, in the emotion and confusion of yesterday morning, there was yet room in me for one thought which was not a feeling—for I thought that, of the many, many women who have stood where I stood, and to the same end, not one of them all perhaps, not one perhaps, since that building was a church, has had reasons strong as mine, for an absolute trust and devotion towards the man she married,——not one! And then I both thought and felt, that it was only just, for them, ... those women who were less happy, ... to have that affectionate sympathy and support and presence of their nearest relations, parent or sister ... which failed to _me_, ... needing it less through being happier!

All my brothers have been here this morning, laughing and talking, and discussing this matter of the leaving town,—and in the room, at the same time, were two or three female friends of ours, from Herefordshire—and I did not _dare_ to cry out against the noise, though my head seemed splitting in two (one half for each shoulder), I had such a morbid fear of exciting a suspicion. Treppy too being one of them, I promised to go to see her to-morrow and dine in her drawing-room if she would give me, for dinner, some bread and butter. It was like having a sort of fever. And all in the midst, the bells began to ring. ‘What bells are those?’ asked one of the provincials. ‘Marylebone Church bells’ said Henrietta, standing behind my chair.

And now ... while I write, having escaped from the great din, and sit here quietly,—comes ... who do you think?—Mr. Kenyon.

He came with his spectacles, looking as if his eyes reached to their rim all the way round; and one of the first words was, ‘_When did you see Browning?_’ And I think I shall make a pretension to presence of mind henceforward; for, though _certainly_ I changed colour and he saw it, I yet answered with a tolerably quick evasion, ... ‘He was here on Friday’—and leapt straight into another subject, and left him gazing fixedly on my face. Dearest, he saw something, but not all. So we talked, talked. He told me that the ‘Fawn of Sertorius,’ (which I refused to cut open the other day,) was ascribed to Landor—and he told me that he meant to leave town again on Wednesday, and would see me once before then. On rising to go away, he mentioned your name a second time ... ‘When do you see Browning again?’ To which I answered that I did not know.

Is not _that_ pleasant? The worst is that all these combinations of things make me feel so bewildered that I cannot make the necessary arrangements, as far as the letters go. But I must break from the dream-stupor which falls on me when left to myself a little, and set about what remains to be done.

A house near Watford is thought of now—but, as none is concluded on, the removal is not likely to take place in the middle of the week even, perhaps.

I sit in a dream, when left to myself. I cannot believe, or understand. Oh! but in all this difficult, embarrassing and painful situation, I look over the palms to Troy—I feel happy and exulting to belong to you, past every opposition, out of sight of every will of man—none can put us asunder, now, at least. I have a right now openly to love you, and to hear other people call it _a duty_, when I do, ... knowing that if it were a sin, it would be done equally. Ah—_I_ shall not be first to leave off _that_—see if I shall! May God bless you, ever and ever dearest! Beseech for me the indulgence of your father and mother, and ask your sister to love me. I feel so as if I had slipped down over the wall into somebody’s garden—I feel ashamed. To be grateful and affectionate to them all, while I live, is all that I can do, and it is too much a matter of course to need to be promised. Promise it however for your very own Ba whom you made so happy with the dear letter last night. But say in the next how you are—and how your mother is.

I did hate so, to have to take off the ring! You will have to take the trouble of putting it on again, some day.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Sunday Afternoon. [Post-mark, September 14, 1846.]

Thank you a thousand times for the note, my own Ba. I welcomed it as I never yet welcomed even _your_ notes; entirely kind to write, and write _so_! Oh, I know the effort you made, the pain you bore for my sake! I tell you, once and for ever, your proof of love to me is _made_ ... I _know_ love, my dearest dearest: my whole life shall be spent in trying to furnish such a proof of _my_ affection; such a perfect proof,—and perhaps vainly spent—but I will endeavour with God’s help. Do you feel what I mean, dearest? How you have dared and done all this, under my very eyes, for my only sake? I believed you would be capable of it—what then? What is a belief? My own eyes have seen—my heart will remember!

Dearest, nothing needs _much_ trouble you farther: take your own time and opportunity. I confide in your judgment—(for I am not going to profess confidence in _you_!)—I am sure you will see and act for the best. My preparations are made; I have only to await your desires. I will not ask to see you, for instance—though of course a word brings me as usual to you—your will is altogether my will.

The first obvious advantage of our present relation, I will take. You are mine—your generosity has given to me my utmost claim upon your family—so far as I am concerned, putting aside my sympathy with you, there is nothing more they _can_ give me: so, I will say, perhaps a little less reservedly than I could have brought myself to say before, that there is no conceivable submission I will refuse, nor possible satisfaction I will hesitate to make to those feelings I have been forced to offend, if by any means I may preserve, for _you_, so much of their affection as you have been accustomed to receive; I do not require anything beyond _toleration_ for myself ... I will cheerfully accept as the truest kindness to me, a continuance of kindness _to you_. You know what I would have done to possess you:—now that I _do_ possess you, I renew the offer to _you_ ... judge with what earnest purpose of keeping my word! I do not think ... nor do you think ... that any personal application, directly or by letter, would do any good—it might rather add to the irritation we apprehend: but my consent is given beforehand to any measure you shall ever consider proper. And your father may be sure that while I adore his daughter it will be impossible for me, under any circumstances, to be wanting in the utmost respect for, and observance of, himself. Understand, with the rest, why I write this, Ba. To your brothers and sisters I am bound for ever,—by every tie of gratitude: _they_ may acquiesce more easily ... comprehending more, perhaps, of the dear treasure you are, they will forgive my ambition of gaining it. I will write to Mr. Kenyon. You will probably have time to write all the letters requisite.

Do not trouble yourself with more than is strictly necessary—you can supply all wants at Leghorn or Pisa. Let us be as unencumbered with luggage as possible.

What is your opinion about the advertisements? If our journey is delayed for a few days, we had better omit the _date_, I think. And the _cards_? I will get them engraved if you will direct me. The simplest form of course:—and the last (or among the last) happens to be also the simplest, consisting merely of the words ‘Mr. and Mrs. R.B.’ on _one_ card—with the usual ‘at home’ in a corner. How shall we manage _that_, by the way? Could we put ‘In Italy for a year?’ There is precedent for it—Sir—Fellows’ (what is the traveller’s name?)—_his_ were thus subscribed. By which means we should avoid telling people absolutely, that they need never come and see us. Choose your own fashion, my Ba, and tell me how many you require.

I only saw my cousin for a few minutes afterward—he came up in a cab immediately—he understood all there was need he should. _You_ to be ‘uncourteous’ to anybody! no, no—sweetest! But I will thank him as you bid, knowing the value of Ba’s thanks! For the prying penny-a-liners ... why, trust to Providence—we must! I do not apprehend much danger....

Dearest, I woke this morning _quite well_—quite free from the sensation in the head. I have not woke _so_, for two years perhaps—what have you been doing to me?

My father and mother and sister love you thoroughly—my mother said this morning, in my room, ‘If I were as I have been, I would try and write to her’—I said, ‘I will tell her what I know you feel.’ She is much better—(I hear her voice while I write ... below the open window). Poor Pritchard came home from the country on Friday _night_—late—and posted here immediately—he was vexed to be made understand that there was some way in which he might have served me and did not. It was kind, very kind of Wilson.

I will leave off—to resume to-morrow. Bless you, my very own, only Ba—my pride, and joy, and utter comfort. I kiss you and am ever your own.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, September 14, 1846.]

You go on to comfort me, love—bless you for it. I collect from the letter that you are recovering from the pain and excitement; that is happy! I waited to hear from you, my own Ba, and will only write a word—then go out—_think_.

Do you feel _so_, through the anxieties and trouble of this situation? You take my words from me—_I_ ‘exult’ in the irrevocability of this precious bestowal of yourself on me—come what will my life has borne flower and fruit—it is a glorious, successful, felicitous life, I thank God and you.

All has been for the best, you will see, even in these apparently untoward circumstances—this particular act was _precipitated_ by them, certainly—but it is done, and well done. Does it not simplify our arrangements that this is _done_? And surely there was every justification for the precipitancy in that proposed journey, and uncertain return,—(in Winter to a freshly-painted house!) But every moment of my life brings fresh proof to me of the intervention of Providence. How the _natural_ course would have embarrassed us!—any consultation with you respecting your own feelings on a removal at present—any desire to gratify them....

Will not Mr. Kenyon understand at least? Would it not be well to ascertain his precise address in the country,—so as to send your letter there, before the newspaper reaches him,—or any other person’s version? I will send you my letter to accompany yours—just a few words to explain why he was not consulted—(by _me_) ... what is strictly _my own_ part to be excused. What do you intend to do about Mrs. Jameson? I only want to know in the case of our mutual friends, of course, so as to avoid the necessity of going over the same ground in our letters.

I confided my approaching marriage to that kind old Pritchard, lest he should be too much wounded—if his surprise was considerable, his delight kept due proportion. You may depend on his secrecy—I need not say, I mentioned the fact _simply_ ... without a word about any circumstances. If your father could be brought to allow the matter to pass as _indifferent_ to him ... what he did not choose to interfere with, however little he approved it,—we should be fortunate? Perhaps pride, if no kinder feeling, may induce him to that.

My family all love you, dearest—you cannot conceive my father and mother’s childlike faith in goodness—and my sister is very high-spirited, and quick of apprehension—so as to seize the true point of the case at once. I am in great hopes you will love them all, and understand them. Last night, I asked my father, who was absorbed over some old book, ‘if he should not be glad to see his new daughter?’—to which he, starting, replied ‘Indeed I _shall_!’ with such a fervour as to make my mother laugh—not abated by his adding, ‘And how I should be glad of her seeing Sis!’ his other daughter, Sarianna, to wit—who was at church.

Trifles, trifles, only commended to your dear, affectionate heart. Do you confide in me, Ba? Well, you _shall_!—in my love, in my pride, in my heart’s purposes; but not in anything else. Give me your counsel at all times, beloved: I am wholly open to your desires, and teaching, and direction. Try what you can make of me,—if you can in any way justify your choice to the world. So _I_ would gladly counsel you on any point! See how I read lectures about Flush! Only give a kiss before beginning, and promise me another upon my profiting,—and I shall be twice blessed beside the profit. So, _my_ counsel being done, here begin the kisses, you dear dear Ba of mine. Bless you ever, Ba! I continue _quite well_—is it not strange ... or _is_ it? And my mother is better decidedly. When she comes back from town (where she and my sister are caring for me) I will tell her what you bade me promise to give her—in return for what she has long given you. Good-bye, my own—very own Ba, from your R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, September 14, 1846.]

Ever dearest, this one word goes to you to say about Mr. Kenyon’s letter—oh, do not send any letter, dearest, till we are out of hearing of the answer. It terrifies me to think of your sending a letter, perhaps, without delay. Do let no letter nor intimation be given till the very last. Remember that I shall be _killed_—it will be so infinitely worse than you can have an idea.

Afterwards—yes!—you will, for my sake forget some natural pride, as I, for yours, have forgotten some as natural apprehensiveness. That kindness, I expected from you, ... and now accept ... thanking you, dearest. In the meanwhile, there seems to remain the dreadful danger of the newspapers—we must trust, as you say.

Your mother’s goodness touches me very deeply. I am grateful to her and to all your family, beyond any power of mine to express my feelings. Let me be silent therefore, instead of trying.

As to the important business of the cards, you know I have heard the whole theory of etiquette lately on that subject, and you must not think of putting any ‘_At home_’ anywhere, or any other thing in the place of it. A Fellows is an authority in Asia Minor, but for the _minora_ of the cards, not at all. Put simply the names, as you say, on one card, only without abbreviation or initial, and no intimation of address, which is not necessary, and would be under our circumstances quite wrong. Then I had better perhaps send you a list of names and addresses. But for this, enough time.

They hasten me—I must go. Not from the thought however of you ... being your very own Ba.

I shall write of course in the evening again.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Monday Evening. [Post-mark, September 15, 1846.]

First, God is to be thanked for this great joy of hearing that you are better, my ever dearest—it is a joy that floats over all the other emotions. Dearest, I am so glad! I had feared that excitement’s telling on you quite in another way. When the whole is done, and we have left England and the talkers thereof behind our backs, you will be well, steadfastly and satisfactorily, I do trust. In the meantime, there seems so much to do, that I am frightened to look towards the heaps of it. As to accoutrements, everything has been arranged as simply as possible that way—but still there are necessities—and the letters, the letters! I am paralysed when I think of having to write such words as ... ‘Papa, I am married; I hope you will not be too displeased.’ Ah, poor Papa! You are too sanguine if you expect any such calm from him as an assumption of indifference would imply. To the utmost, he will be angry,—he will cast me off as far from him. Well—there is no comfort in such thoughts. How I felt to-night when I saw him at seven o’clock, for the first time since Friday, and the event of Saturday! He spoke kindly too, and asked me how I was. Once I heard of his saying of me that I was ‘the purest woman he ever knew,’—which made me smile at the moment, or laugh I believe, outright, because I understood perfectly what he meant by _that_—viz—that I had not troubled him with the iniquity of love affairs, or any impropriety of seeming to think about being married. But now the whole sex will go down with me to the perdition of faith in any of us. See the effect of my wickedness!—‘Those women!’

But we will submit, dearest. I will put myself under his feet, to be forgiven a little, ... enough to be taken up again into his arms. I love him—he is my father—he has good and high qualities after all: he is my father _above_ all. And _you_, because you are so generous and tender to me, will let me, you say, and help me to try to win back the alienated affection—for which, I thank you and bless you,—I did not thank you enough this morning. Surely I may say to him, too, ... ‘With the exception of this act, I have submitted to the least of your wishes all my life long. Set the life against the act, and forgive me, for the sake of the daughter you once loved.’ Surely I may say _that_,—and then remind him of the long suffering I have suffered,—and entreat him to pardon the happiness which has come at last.

And _he_ will wish in return, that I had died years ago! For the storm will come and endure. And at last, perhaps, he will forgive us—it is my hope.

I accede to all you say of Mr. Kenyon. I will ask him for his address in the country, and we will send, when the moment comes, our letters together.

From Mrs. Jameson I had the letter I enclose, this morning, (full of kindness—is it not?) and another really as kind from Miss Bayley, who begs me, if I cannot go to Italy, to go to Hastings and visit her. To both I must write at some length. Will _you_ write to Mrs. Jameson, besides what I shall write? And what are we to say as to travelling? As she is in Paris, perhaps we may let her have the solution of our problem sooner than the near people. May we? shall we? Yet we dare not, I suppose, talk too historically of what happened last Saturday. It is like the dates in the newspaper—advertisements, which we must eschew, as you observe.

Other things, too, you observe, my beloved, which are altogether out of date. In your ways towards me, you have acted throughout too much ‘the woman’s part,’ as that is considered. You loved me because I was lower than others, that you might be generous and raise me up:—very characteristic for a woman (in her ideal standard) but quite wrong for a man, as again and again I used to signify to you, Robert—but you went on and did it all the same. And now, you still go on—you persist—you will be the woman of the play, to the last; let the prompter prompt ever so against you. You are to do everything I like, instead of my doing what _you_ like, ... and to ‘honour and obey’ _me_, in spite of what was in the vows last Saturday,—is _that_ the way of it and of you? and are vows to be kept _so_, pray? after that fashion? Then, _don’t_ put ‘at home’ at the corner of the cards, dearest! It is my command!

And forgive the inveterate jesting, which jests with eyes full of tears. I love you—I bless God for you. You are too good for me, as always I knew. I look up to you continually.

It is best, I continue to think, that you should not come here—best for _you_, because the position, if you were to try it, would be less tolerable than ever—and best for both of us, that in case the whole truth were ever discovered (I mean, of the previous marriage) we might be able to call it simply an act in order to security. I don’t know how to put my feeling into words, but I do seem to feel that it would be better, and less offensive to those whom we offend at any rate, to avoid all possible remark on this point. It seems better to a sort of instinct I have.

Then, if I see you—farewell, the letter-writing. Oh no—there will be time enough when we are on the railway!—We shall talk then.

Ah—you say such things to me! Dearest, dearest_est_!—And you do not start at that word, ‘Irrevocable,’ as I have had fancies that you might, when the time came!’ But you may recover, by putting out your hand, all you have given me, ... nearly all. I never, never, being myself, could willingly vex you, torment you. If I approach to it, you will tell me. I will confide in you, to that end also. Dearest.

And your father’s goodness, and the affectionateness of them all. When they shall have learnt most that I am not worthy of you, they will have learnt besides that I can be grateful to _them_ and you. Certainly I am capable, I hope, of loving them all, well and with appreciation. And then ... imagine the comfort I take to the deepest of my heart from these hands held out to me! For your sake! Yes, for your sake entirely!—and, so, the more dearly comforting to

Your very own BA.

There is still difficulty about the house. They think of Tunbridge Wells.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Tuesday Morning. [Post-mark, September 15, 1846.]

My own Ba, could you think me capable of such a step? I forget what I exactly said in the first letter, but in the second, which you have received by this, I know there is mention made of _your_ account which is to accompany mine. You never quite understood, I think, my feeling about Mr. Kenyon and desire to tell him earlier. In the first place, at the very _beginning_, he seemed to stand (as he did) in closer connection with you than any other person I could communicate with,—therefore to represent, in some degree, your dear self in the worldly sense, and be able to impose on me any conditions &c. which your generous nature might be silent on, and my ignorance and excitement overlook: then there was another reason, the natural one, of our own ... _his_ friendship, rather, for me, and the circumstance of his having in a manner introduced me to your acquaintance,—at all events, facilitated my introduction,—and so being after a fashion responsible in some degree for my conduct. These two reasons, added to a general real respect for his circumspection and sagacity, and a desire to make both of them instruct me in the way of doing you good. But you effectually convinced me that in neither case would the benefit derivable balance the certain injury, or at least, annoyance, to himself—while you showed me that I should not be so truly serving you, as I had intended, by the plans I used to turn over in my mind.

In brief, it was written that your proof of love and trust to me was to be complete, the _completest_—and I could not but be proud and submit—and a few words will explain the mere sin against friendship. I quite, quite feel as you feel, nor ever had the least intention of writing ... that is, of sending any letter,—till the very last. Be sure of it.

For the cards, I have just given orders, as you desire and as I entirely agree. The notion of a word about our _not being in England_ was only a fancy for your family’s sake—just to save people’s application to _them_, to know what had become of us—and I had heard Mr. Kenyon commend the considerateness of those ‘Lydian measures’ ... albeit there was ... or narrowly escaped being—an awful oversight of the traveller’s which would have made him the sad hero of a merry story for ever ... as I will tell you some day. If you will send the addresses, at any time, that trouble will be over. In all these mighty matters, be sure I shall never take the least step without consulting you—will you draw up the advertisement, please? I will supply the clergyman’s name &c. &c.

I shall not see one friend more before I leave with you. So that nobody needs divine that since the 12th, we have not been at Margate—seeking ‘food for the mind’—

11¾ A.M.

Dearest, I agree to all—I will not see you, for those reasons. I think, as you may, that it will be a point in excuse of the precipitancy that a removal was threatened for ‘next Monday perhaps’ ... which, finding us unprepared, would have been ruinous. Say all you would have me say to your father,—no concession shall be felt by the side of your love. I will write a few words to Mrs. J.—her kindness is admirable and deserves the attention. For the _date_,—you will have seen the precautions I take,—I hope to see nobody now; but I don’t know that it will be necessary to suppress it in the advertisement, if we can leave England by the end of the week, as I hope ... do you not hope, too? For I see announcements, in to-day’s _Times_, of marriages on the 8th and 9th and our silence on that particular might be only the beginning of some mystery ... as if it had happened half a year ago, for instance. Beside, your relations will examine the register. All rests with you, however—and _will_ rest, Ba! I shall ask you to do no more of my business that I can manage myself but where I can _not_ manage ... why, then you shall think for me,—that is my command!

I suppose when a man buys a spinning-machine he loses dignity because he lets _it_ weave stockings,—does not keep on with his clumsy fingers! No, I will retain my honours, be certain,—you shall say, _Ego et rex meus_ like Wolsey—or rather, like dear, dear Ba—like yourself I will ever _worship_! See the good of taking up arms against me out of that service! If you ‘honour and obey’ me, ‘with my body I thee worship’—my best, dearest, sweetest Ba, and that I have avowed thus ‘irrevocably’—is the heart’s delight of your own R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday. [Post-mark, September 16, 1846.]

Dearest, you were in the right as usual, and I in a fright as sometimes. I took a mere fancy into my head about your writing to Mr. Kenyon. To-day he came, and I did not see him—on the ground of a headache, which, though real, was not really sufficient of itself to keep me from seeing him, if I had not distrusted my self-control—so I did not see him. To-morrow he goes away. His letters will of course be made to follow him, and we may easily precede the newspapers by a day or two.

As for the advertisements, you quite amuse me by telling me to compose an advertisement. How should I know better than you, dearest, or as well even? All I intermeddle with willingly is the matter of the date—although there is something in what you say about the mystery, and the idea of our being six months married—still it is our disquieted conscience that gives us such thoughts—and when the advertisement appears and the cards come out so very properly, people will not have enough imagination to apprehend a single mystery in the case: and the omission of the date will not be so singular ... will it? On the other hand I apprehend evil from the date of the marriage being known. One of my brothers may be sent to examine the register, but would not betray the fact in question, _I think_, to my father; would not, I am certain, willingly give cause for additional irritation against me. But if the date be publicly announced, Papa must know it, and most of my personal friends will be sure to know it. I have written letters and seen people since the twelfth ... Mr. Kenyon on Sunday, Miss Bordman on Monday. Moreover Papa would be exposed to unpleasant observations—he going every day among his City friends, and on Saturday among the rest. What quantities of good reasons, ... till you are tired of them and me!

Would you put it this way.... At such a church, by such a minister, Robert Browning Esquire, of New Cross, author of ‘Paracelsus,’ to Elizabeth Barrett, eldest daughter of Edward Moulton Barrett Esquire of Wimpole Street. Would you put it so? I do not understand really, ... and whether you should be specified as the author of ‘Paracelsus’ ... but, for _me_, it ought to be, I think, simply as I have written it. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that what we did on Saturday is quite _invalid_, so that you may give me up now if you like—it isn’t too late. You gave me a wrong name—_Moulton_ is no Christian name of mine. Moulton Barrett is our family name; Elizabeth Barrett, my Christian name—Behold and see!

I will send the list if I can have time to-night to write it—but the haste, the hurry—do you think, when in your right mind, of getting away this week? Think of the work before us! Next Monday is the day fixed for the general departure to a house taken at Little Bookham or Hookham ... what is it? Well—we must think. Tell me when you want me to go. I might go from the new house, perhaps. But you will think, dearest, and tell me. Tell me first, though, how your head continues or begins again ... for I fear that the good news is too sudden to last long—I fear.

Thankful, thankful I shall be when we are gone out of reach of evil, when I shall have heard that my poor dearest Papa is only angry with me, and not sorry because of me, and that Henrietta and Arabel are not too miserable. They come between me and the thought of you often—but I do not, for _that_, love you less—oh no. You are best and dearest in saying what you say—only, observe, there is not any practicable ‘concession’ now for you. All you can do now, is what you will do ... in being tolerant, and gentle, for my sake. My own dearest, I am your

BA.

The list to-morrow.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Wednesday. [Post-mark, September 16, 1846.]

Ever dearest, you are right about the date ... so it shall be—and so the advertisement shall run, save and except the avowal of ‘Paracelsus’ ... I avow _you_, and to add another title of honour would succeed no better than in Dalhousie’s case, who was ‘God of War and Lieutenant-general to the Earl of Mar.’ I wanted the description &c. of your father. What a strange mistake I made—(but as for invalidation, oh no!)—I save your every word and then apply them thus! (In to-day’s _Times_ is a notice without a date ... not looking at all singular. It is far better).

It is absolutely for yourself to decide on the day and the mode—if for no other reason, because I am quite ready, and shall have no kind of difficulty; while you have every kind. Make the arrangements that promise most comfort to yourself. Observe the packets and alter the route if necessary. There is one from Brighton to Dieppe every day, for instance ... but then the getting to Rouen! The Havre-boat leaves Southampton, _Wednesdays_ and _Saturdays_—and Portsmouth, _Mondays_ and _Thursdays_. The boat from London, Thursdays and Saturdays at 9 A.M.

I do not know where ‘Bookham’ is—you must decide ... I am sure you will be anxious to get away.

The business of the letters will grow less difficult when once begun—see if it will not! and in these four or five days whole epics might be written, much more letters. Have you arranged all with Wilson? Take, of course, the simplest possible wardrobe &c.—so as to reduce our luggage to the very narrowest compass. The expense—(beside the common sense of a little luggage)—is considerable—every ounce being paid for. Let us treat our journey as a mere journey—we can return for what else we want, or get it sent, or procure it abroad. I shall take just a portmanteau and carpet bag. I think the fewer books we take the better; they take up room—and the wise way always seemed to me to read in rooms at home, and open one’s eyes and _see_ abroad. A critic somewhere mentioned _that_ as my characteristic—were two other poets he named placed in novel circumstances ... in a great wood, for instance, Mr. Trench would begin opening books to see how woods were treated of ... the other man would set to writing poetry forthwith, from his old stock of associations, on the new impulse—and R.B. would sit still and learn how to write after! A pretty compliment, I thought that!—But seriously there must be a great library at Pisa ... (with that university!) and abroad they are delighted to facilitate such matters ... I have read in a chamber of the Doges’ palace at Venice painted all over by Tintoretto, walls and ceiling—and at Rome there is a library with a learned priest always kept ready ‘to solve any doubt that may arise!’ Murray’s book you have, I think? Any guide-books &c.

Be sure, dearest, I will do my utmost to conciliate your father: sometimes I could not but speak impatiently to you of him ... that was while you were in his direct power—now there is no _need_ of a word in any case ... I shall be silent if the _worst imaginable_ happens; and if anything better, most grateful. You do not need to remind me he is your father ... I shall be proud to say _mine_ too. Then, he said _that_ of you—for which I love him—love the full prompt justice of that ascription of ‘perfect purity’—it is another voice responding to mine, confirming mine.

Good-bye, dearest dearest; I continue _quite_ well ... I thank God, as you do, and see his hand in it. My poor mother suffers greatly, but is no worse ... rather, better I hope. They (all here) will leave town for some quiet place at the beginning of October for some three weeks at least. Dear, kind souls they are.

Kiss me as I kiss you, dearest Ba. I can bring you no flowers but I pluck this bud and send it with all affectionate devotion.

Your own

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

[Post-mark, September 17, 1846.]

Dearest, the general departure from this house takes place on Monday—and the house at Little Bookham is six miles from the nearest railroad, and a mile and a half from Leatherhead where a coach runs. Now you are to judge. Certainly if I go with you on Saturday I shall not have half the letters written—you, who talk so largely of epic poems, have not the least imagination of my state of mind and spirits. I began to write a letter to Papa this morning, and could do nothing but cry, and looked so pale thereupon, that everybody wondered what could be the matter. Oh—quite well I am now, and I only speak of myself in that way to show you how the inspiration is by no means sufficient for epic poems. Still, I may certainly write the necessary letters, ... and do the others on the road ... could I, do you think? I would rather have waited—indeed rather—only it may be difficult to leave Bookham ... yet _possible_—so tell me what you would have me do.

Wilson and I have a light box and a carpet bag between us—and I will be docile about the books, dearest. Do you take a desk? Had I better not, I wonder?

Then for box and carpet bag.... Remember that we cannot take them out of the house with us. We must send them the evening before—Friday evening, if we went on Saturday ... and where? Have you a friend anywhere, to whose house they might be sent, or could they go direct to the railroad office—and what office? In that case they should have your name on them, should they not?

Now think for me, ever dearest—and tell me what you do not tell me ... that you continue better. Ah no—you are ill again—or you would not wait to be told to tell me. And the dear, dear little _bud_!—I shall keep it to the end of my life, if you love me so long, ... or _not_, sir! I thank you, dearest.

Your mother!—I am very, very sorry. Would it be better and kinder to wait on _her_ account?—tell me that too.

Yes, they are perfectly kind. We must love them well:—and _I_ shall, I am sure.

Mr. Kenyon sends the ‘Fawn,’ _which IS Landor’s Fawn_, and desires me to send it to you when I have done with it. As if I could read a word! He directs me to write to him to Taunton, Somersetshire. May God bless you, beloved.

No more to-night from your very own

BA.

Are not passengers allowed to carry a specific proportion of luggage? What do you mean then, by paying for every ounce? As to Dieppe, the diligence would be more fatiguing than the river, and, without strong reasons, one would prefer of course the Havre plan. Still I am not afraid of either. Think.

You might put in the newspaper ... of Wimpole Street and Jamaica, or ... and Cinnamon Hill, Jamaica. That is right and I thought of it at first—only stopped ... seeming to wish to have as little about poor Papa as possible. Do as you think best now.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

[Post-mark, September 17, 1846.]

My only sweetest, I will write just a word to catch the earlier post,—time pressing. Bless you for all you suffer ... I _know_ it though it would be very needless to call your attention to the difficulties. I know much, if not all, and can only love and admire you,—not help, alas!

Surely these difficulties will multiply, if you go to Bookham—the way will be to leave at once. The letters may easily be written during the journey ... at Orleans, for example. But now,—you propose _Saturday_ ... nothing leaves Southampton according to _to-day’s_ advertisement, till _Tuesday_ ... the days seemed changed to _Tuesdays_ and _Fridays_. To-morrow at 8¼ P.M. and Friday the 22, 10¼. Provoking! I will go to town directly to the railway office and enquire particularly—getting the time-table also. Under these circumstances, we have only the choice of Dieppe (as needing the shortest diligence-journey)—or the Sunday morning Havre-packet, at 9 A.M.—which you do not consider practicable: though it would, I think, take us the quickliest out of all the trouble. I will let you know all particulars in a note to-night ... it shall reach you to-night.

If we went from London only, the luggage could be sent here or in any case, perhaps ... as one fly will carry them with me and mine, and save possibility of delay.

I am _very_ well, dearest dearest—my mother no worse, better, perhaps—she is out now. Our staying and getting into trouble would increase her malady.

As you leave it to me,—the name, and ‘Wimpole St.’ will do. Jamaica sounds in the wrong direction, does it not? and the other place is distinctive enough.

Take no desk ... I will take a large one—take nothing you can leave—but secure letters &c. I will take out a passport. Did you not tell me roughly at how much you estimated our expenses for the journey? Because I will take about _that_ much, and get Rothschild’s letter of credit for Leghorn. One should avoid carrying money about with one.

All this in such haste! Bless you, my dearest dearest Ba

Your R.

All was right in the licence, and Certificate and Register—the whole name is there, E.B.M.B. The clergyman made the mistake in not having the _two_ names, but all runs right to _read_ ... the essential thing.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

5 o’clock. [Post-mark, September 17, 1846.]

My own Ba, I believe, or am sure the mistake has been mine—in the flurry I noted down the departures from _Havre_—instead of _Southampton_. You must either be at the Vauxhall Station by _four_ o’clock—so as to arrive in 3 hours and a half at Southampton and leave by 8¼ P.M.—or must go by the Sunday Boat,—or _wait_ till Tuesday. Dieppe is impossible, being too early. You must decide—and let me know directly. To-morrow _is_ too early—yet one ... that is, _I_—could manage.

Ever your own, in all haste

R.B.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

7½—Thursday [Post-mark, September 18, 1846.]

My own Ba—forgive my mistaking! I had not enough confidence in my own correctness. The advertisement of the Tuesday and Friday Boats is of the South of England Steam Company. The Wednesday and Saturday is that of the _South Western_. There must be then _two_ companies, because on the Southampton Railway Bill it is expressly stated that there are departures for Havre on all four days. Perhaps you have seen my blunder. In that case, you can leave by 1-2½ as you may appoint—

Your R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

[Post-mark, September 18, 1846.]

Dearest take this word, as if it were many. I am so tired—and then it shall be the right word.

Sunday and Friday are impossible. On Saturday I will go to you, if you like—with half done, ... nothing done ... scarcely. Will you come for me to Hodgson’s? or shall I meet you at the station? At what o’clock should I set out, to be there at the hour you mention?

Also, for the boxes ... we cannot carry them out of the house, you know, Wilson and I. They must be sent on Friday evening to the Vauxhall station, ‘to be taken care of.’ Will the people keep them carefully? Ought someone to be spoken to beforehand? If we sent them to New Cross, they would not reach you in time.

Hold me my beloved—with your love. It is very hard—But Saturday seems the only day for us. Tell me if you think so indeed.

Your very own BA.

The boxes must have your name on them of course. Let there be no great haste about sending out the cards. _Saturday_ might be mentioned in the advertisement, _without_ the date—might it not?

_E.B.B. to R.B._

[Post-mark, September 18, 1846.]

Dearest, here is the paper of addresses. I cannot remember, I am so confused, half of them.

Surely you say wrong in the hour for to-morrow. Also there is the express train. Would it not be better?

Your BA.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

11½ Friday. [Post-mark, September 18, 1846.]

My own best Ba. How thankful I am you have seen my blunder—I took the other company’s days for the South Western’s changed. What I shall write now is with the tables before me (of the Railway) and a transcript from _to-day’s_ advertisement in the _Times_.

The packet will leave to-morrow evening, from the Royal Pier, Southampton at _nine_. We leave Nine Elms, Vauxhall, at _five_—to arrive at _eight_. Doors close _five_ minutes before. I will be at Hodgson’s _from_ half-past three to _four precisely_ when I shall hope you can be ready. I shall go to Vauxhall, apprise them that luggage is coming (yours) and send _mine_ there—so that we both shall be unencumbered and we can take a cab or coach from H’s.

Never mind your scanty preparations ... we can get everything at Leghorn,—and the new boats carry parcels to Leghorn on the 15th of every month, remember—so can bring what you may wish to send for.

I enclose a letter to go with yours. The cards as you choose—they are here—we can write about them from Paris or elsewhere. The advertisement, as you advise. All shall be cared for.

God bless and strengthen you, my ever dearest dearest—I will not trust myself to speak of my feelings for you—worship well belongs to such fortitude. One struggle more—if all the kindness on your part brought a strangely insufficient return, is it not possible that this step may produce all you can hope? Write to me one word more. Depend on me. I go to Town about business.

Your own, own R.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Friday Night. [Post-mark, September 19, 1846.]

At from half-past three to four, then—four will not, I suppose, be too late. I will not write more—_I cannot._ By to-morrow at this time, I shall have _you_ only, to love me—my beloved!

You _only_! As if one said _God only_. And we shall have _Him_ beside, I pray of Him.

I shall send to your address at New Cross your Hanmer’s poems—and the two dear books you gave me, which I do not like to leave here and am afraid of hurting by taking them with me. Will you ask _our_ Sister to put the parcel into a drawer, so as to keep it for us?

Your letters to me I take with me, let the ‘ounces’ cry out aloud, ever so. I _tried_ to leave them, and I could not. That is, they would not be left: it was not my fault—I will not be scolded.

Is this my last letter to you, ever dearest? Oh—if I loved you less ... a little, little less.

Why I should tell you that our marriage was invalid, or ought to be; and that you should by no means come for me to-morrow. It is dreadful ... dreadful ... to have to give pain here by a voluntary act—for the first time in my life.

Remind your mother and father of me affectionately and gratefully—and your Sister too! Would she think it too bold of me to say _our_ Sister, if she had heard it on the last page?

Do you pray for me to-night, Robert? Pray for me, and love me, that I may have courage, feeling both—

Your own

BA.

The boxes are _safely sent_. Wilson has been perfect to me. And _I_ ... calling her ‘timid,’ and afraid of her timidity! I begin to think that none are so bold as the timid, when they are fairly roused.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT

(See Vol. I., p. 443)]

INDEX

=Transcriber’s Note:= Volume 1 is available as Project Gutenberg eBook #16182. Unfortunately, the page numbers were not preserved in that volume.

Acton, Cardinal, i. 149

Adams, Mrs., i. 555

Ælian, i. 371, 377, 540; ii. 196, 202

Æschylus, i. 15, 31ff., 34, 35ff., 38ff., 45, 61, 88, 171, 313

Alfieri, Vittorio, i. 53

Andersen, Hans Christian (‘The Dane’), i. 53, 161; his ‘Improvisatore,’ i. 45, 50, 52, 54; his ‘Only a Fiddler,’ i. 154, 160

Angelico, Fra, i. 196

Apuleius, E.B.B.’s translations from, i. 168

Arnould, Joseph (afterwards Sir), ii. 102, 115, 412, 466, 487

Asolo, i. 113

‘Athenæum,’ the, i. 155, 161, 166, 288, 323, 326, 389, 395, 412, 416, 542, 558, 572; ii. 33, 35, 102, 158, 176, 307, 343, 421

Australia (proposals for E.B.B. to write ballads, &c. for), ii. 481

‘Autography,’ i. 317, 319, 323; ii. 188

Babbage, C., i. 24

Bacon, Lord, i. 481, 485

Bailey, P. J., his ‘Festus,’ i. 375, 384

Balzac, H. de, ii. 35, 91, 93, 107, 113

Barrett, Alfred, brother of E.B.B., i. 193, 195; ii. 177

Barrett, Arabel, sister of E.B.B., i. 101, 193, 216, 219, 330, 542; ii. 329, 334 and passim

Barrett, Charles John (‘Stormie’) brother of E.B.B., i. 219, 417, 575; ii. 109, 111, 408, 458

Barrett, Edward (‘Bro’), brother of E.B.B., his death, i. 175ff.

Barrett, Edward Moulton, father of E.B.B., i. 123, 131, 141, 167, 175, 190, 192, 213, 218, 235, 241ff., 409, 506, 530; ii. 26, 109, 152, 270, 293, 332, 334, 340, 342, 384, 450, 487, 489, 551

Barrett, Elizabeth Barrett: on poetic composition, i. 21 on her translation of ‘Prometheus Bound,’ i. 31 proposes to write a ‘novel’ or ‘romance’ poem, i. 32, 151, 154, 271 project of writing a drama (‘Psyché Apocalypté’) with R. H. Horne, i. 61 American appreciation, i. 115, 307; ii. 152, 166, 184, 429 proposals for wintering abroad, i. 131ff., 135, 167, 190, 209ff., 218, 225, 229, 234ff., 241 religious views, i. 145; ii. 429 on George Sand, i. 165 on the death of her brother Edward, i. 175ff. references to her dangerous illness, i. 43, 176; ii. 26 American publishers, i. 188, 189, 258, 260 on her pet name ‘Ba,’ i. 192, 195, 342, 345 her portrait, i. 195; ii. 12, 19 requests R.B.’s autograph for a friend, i. 227 on R.B.’s poetry, i. 268ff.; ii. 491 sends a ring and lock of hair to R.B., i. 308, 309 opinions on French fiction, i. 341; ii. 102 on women’s position and married life, i. 351ff.; ii. 424 early reading, i. 406 French verses, i. 405 on R.B.’s letters, i. 418, 423, 486, 493; ii. 18 on the publication of letters, i. 484 on autograph collectors, i. 535 on the difficulties of her engagement with R.B., ii. 33, 78, 81, 122, 141, 220, 222, 228, 230, 233, 336, 341, 374, 378, 383, 385, 396, 416, 458, 464, 494 on artistic Bohemianism, ii. 30 on the curiosity of strangers, their visits, letters &c., ii. 31, 73, 169, 423, 472 on duelling, ii. 40ff., 45, 53ff. on Raffael’s portrait, ii. 149 plans for going to Italy with R.B., ii. 208, 210, 275, 278ff., 288, 320, 379, 391, 417, 473, 479, 481, 490, 502ff., 506, 511 proposal for her to visit New Cross, ii. 226, 231 her money affairs, ii. 229, 235, 365, 368, 400ff., 408, 476 visit to the Great Western Railway, ii. 234, 435 visit to Mr. Rogers’ picture gallery, ii. 251, 262 visits to H. S. Boyd described, ii. 259, 282 on the death of B. R. Haydon, ii. 265, 271; on Horne’s verses on Haydon, ii. 299; bequest of his MSS. to E.B.B., ii. 304ff., 307, 309ff., 315ff., 322ff., 326 on women and politics, ii. 283 her visit to Finchley, ii. 444, 447, 452 ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’s’ offer to print her lyrics, ii. 459, 466, 478 visit to church, and the effect of music on her, ii. 460, 468, 492 proposal to write ballads &c. for Australia, ii. 481 her marriage, ii. 539 _n._, 541

Barrett, Elizabeth Barrett, works: ‘Bertha in the Lane,’ i. 10, 148, 271 ‘Catarina to Camoens,’ i. 148, 425 ‘The Cry of the Children,’ proposals for musical setting, i. 524, 537 ‘A Drama of Exile,’ i. 10, 19 ‘An Essay on Mind,’ i. 129, 132, 134, 136, 383 ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,’ i. 32, 149, 162, 271 ‘Past and Future,’ i. 282 ‘Poems,’ 2 vols. 1844, i. 9, 189, 281; ii. 285; American edition, i. 186, 187 ‘Rhyme of the Duchess May,’ i. 10 ‘The Romaunt of Margret,’ i. 383 ‘The Romaunt of the Page,’ i. 10 ‘The Seraphim,’ i. 130, 189, 383 ‘Two Sketches,’ i. 193. ‘The Vision of Fame,’ i. 132 ‘A Vision of Poets,’ i. 147, 383 ‘Wine of Cyprus,’ ii. 443, 446, 448 Translations from Bion, Theocritus, Apuleius, Nonnus, i. 168, 170ff., 497, ii. 8; from Homer, i. 579, ii. 8, 22, 25, 69, 139, 161; from Æschylus i. 31, 34, 76, 140, 142, 149, 151, ii. 459; from Pietro d’Abano, i. 462

Barrett, George, brother of E.B.B., i. 192, 196, 216, 219, 229, 235, 241, 289, 319, 322, 404, 439, 444, 492, 496, 500; ii. 115, 441

Barrett, Henrietta, sister of E.B.B., i. 128, 193, 331, 408, 433, 437, 516; ii. 141, 334, 387, 490 and passim

Barrett, Henry, brother of E.B.B., i. 158

Barrett, Lizzie, cousin of E.B.B., i. 522; ii. 245

Barrett, Mary (E.B.B.’s mother), ii. 484

Barrett, Octavius (‘Occy’) brother of E.B.B., his illness, i. 236ff., 241ff., 247ff., 265

Barrett, Sam, cousin of E.B.B., i. 522

Bartoli, his ‘Simboli,’ i. 539, 541, 545

Bayley, Miss, i. 300, 303, 304; ii. 22, 109, 111, 114, 120, 137, 196, 552; her plans for taking E.B.B. to Italy, ii. 191, 198, 208, 244

Beethoven, i. 533; ii. 153; his ‘Fidelio,’ i. 161

Benjamin of Tudela, R., i. 153

Bennet, Miss Georgiana, ii. 73, 80, 110, 225, 329, 369

Bennett, W. C., ii. 106, 124, 330, 366, 389

Bevan, Mr., ii. 334

Bezzi, Mr., ii. 139, 191

‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ i. 23; ii. 459, 466, 478

Blake, William, ii. 319

Blessington, Lady, i. 157

Boccaccio, Giovanni, i. 45, 393

Boyd, Hugh Stuart, i. 100, 236, 342; ii. 259, 261, 282, 407, 442, 443, 446, 459, 471, 541

Bremer, Miss, ii. 119

‘British Quarterly,’ the, i. 268

Browne, Sir Thomas, ii. 52, 53

Browning, Miss, i. 147, 153, 189, 519; ii. 165, 168, 204, 412, 566

Browning, Mrs., senior, i. 147; ii. 456, 483, 500

Browning, R., senior, i. 28, 147, 496; ii. 427, 549; his drawings for R.B.’s poems, i. 415, 434; his early life, ii. 477, 483, 484

Browning, Robert: Mr. Kenyon’s offer of introduction to Miss Barrett, i. 2, 281 on E.B.B.’s poems, i. 9, 147 helps Carlyle with his ‘Cromwell,’ i. 16 on the attitude of the public towards his work, i. 17ff. first visit to E.B.B., i. 72 _n._ account of the ‘bora’ at Trieste, i. 126 on ‘The Flight of the Duchess,’ i. 138 on George Sand, i. 163 baptised at an Independent Chapel, i. 147 reference to his visit to St. Petersburg, i. 155 on dramatic poetry and novels, i. 155, 161 on reading law with Basil Montagu, i. 199 his early life, i. 200, 349 on the performance of ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ i. 212, 217 his portrait in the ‘New Spirit of the Age,’ i. 316; ii. 219 sends a lock of hair to E.B.B., i. 304, 332 his visit to R. H. Horne, i. 366ff. on R. H. Horne’s ‘Ballad Romances,’ i. 370 French verses, i. 420 on a proposal of a journey to St. Petersburg, i. 489, 507 on music, i. 543 plants rose-trees, ii. 10 thoughts for future work, i. 457; ii. 25, 390 on duelling, ii. 33, 46ff., 58 on the rearrangement of his poems, ii. 71 on French romance, ii. 107 his birthday, ii. 136 at the Royal Literary Fund Dinner, ii. 143, 145, 148, 151, 158 proposal to write a long poem, ii. 176, 181 ‘Mr. Forster’s “Strafford,”’ ii. 215 meets a phrenologist, ii. 216, 219 on his engagement with E.B.B., ii. 227 proposes to seek Government employment, ii. 229, 232, 236, 248 on the death of B. R. Haydon, ii. 264, 268, 318ff. plans for his marriage, ii. 269, 376 on Parliament, ii. 281 on his name, ii. 285, 286 on Italian post offices, ii. 110, 289 on Horne’s verses on Haydon’s death, ii. 303 on Haydon’s bequest of MSS. to E.B.B., ii. 307, 315ff., 326 on strangers’ letters, ii. 330 his dream on Haydon, ii. 331 on E.B.B.’s letters, i. 296, 420; ii. 8, 249, 420, 436 on E.B.B.’s religious opinions, ii. 436 on Lord Byron, ii. 455 final preparations for their journey to Italy, ii. 465ff., 475, 495ff., 537, 555, 559 and ff. early compositions in imitation of Ossian, ii. 469 his marriage, ii. 539 _n._ his family’s attitude towards E.B.B., ii. 547, 549

Browning, Robert, works: ‘Bells and Pomegranates,’ i. 9, 13, 99, 132, 135, 144, 148, 320, 361; ii. 429; see also ‘Dramatic Romances and Lyrics,’ ‘Luria,’ and ‘A Soul’s Tragedy’ meaning of the phrase, i. 248, 250, 575; ii. 2, 67 ‘The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church,’ i. 134, 253, 278 ‘The Blot in the Scutcheon,’ i. 324 ‘The Boy and the Angel,’ (‘Theocrite,’ ‘Angel and Child’), i. 134, 261 ‘Claret and Tokay’ (Nationality in Drinks’), i. 131, 135 ‘Colombe’s Birthday,’ ii. 456, 468 ‘Count Gismond,’ i. 177 Dante, translation from, i. 348, 355 ‘Dramatic Romances and Lyrics,’ (‘Bells and Pomegranates’ No. VII.), i. 59, 66 proof of, i. 259, 260, 261, 262 its publication, i. 265, 266, 267 E.B.B. on, i. 268ff. to C. Mathews, i. 320 Mr. Kenyon on, i. 274 Mr. Fox on, i. 277, 278 noticed in the ‘Examiner,’ i. 286 noticed in the ‘New Monthly,’ i. 360 noticed in the ‘Athenæum,’ i. 412, 416 ‘Earth’s Immortalities,’ i. 261 ‘The Englishman in Italy,’ (‘England in Italy,’ ‘Fortú,’ ‘Sorrento Lines,’) i. 253, 268, 269, 278 ‘The Flight of the Duchess,’ i. 55, 58ff., 63, 76, 97, 104ff., 113, 115, 120, 122, 124, 129, 131, 135, 139, 148, 149ff., 245, 253, 261, 274, 277; ii. 91 An Elementary French Book, i. 208 ‘Garden Fancies,’ i. 134 ‘The Glove,’ i. 261, 278 ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’ (‘Spring Song’), i., 229ff. ‘Home Thoughts from the Sea,’ i. 253 ‘How we brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix,’ (‘The Ride’) i. 274, 278ff. ‘The Italian in England,’ (‘Italy in England’) i. 160, 278 ‘The Laboratory,’ i. 135 ‘The Lost Leader,’ i. 253 ‘The Lost Mistress,’ i. 253, 269 ‘Luria: a Tragedy’ (‘Bells and Pomegranates’ No. VIII.), i. 18, 22, 26, 30, 58, 60, 80, 84, 85, 261, 272, 426, 470, 474; ii. 2, 13, 21, 369 E.B.B. on, i. 276ff., 286, 313, 354, 359ff., 421ff., 462, 471, 545, 579; ii. 77 proof of, ii. 12, 17 dedication of, ii. 12, 19, 44, 66ff. publication of, ii. 66 Mr. Kenyon on, ii. 82 Carlyle on, ii. 90 Mr. Chorley on, ii. 92 noticed in the ‘Examiner,’ ii. 108, 412 ‘Night and Morning,’ i. 261 ‘Only a Player Girl,’ i. 155, 160 ‘Paracelsus,’ i. 63, 208, 246, 323, 327, 382, 395 ‘Pauline,’ i. 388, 393, 399, 402, 405, 420, 423 reviewed by J. S. Mill, i. 29, 33 ‘Pictor Ignotus,’ i. 253, 278 Pietro d’Abano, Translation from, i. 462, 466 ‘Pippa Passes,’ i. 12, 22, 24, 28, 100; ii. 349 ‘Saul,’ i. 59, 60, 76, 179, 183, 191, 261, 278, 326 Blue lilies in, i. 527, 558, 561 ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,’ i. 22 ‘Song,’ i. 261 ‘Sordello,’ i. 134, 193, 247, 348, 457, 472 ‘A Soul’s Tragedy,’ (‘Bells and Pomegranates’ No. VIII.), i. 26, 30, 97, 470, 474; ii. 16, 34, 67, 92 E.B.B. on, i. 545; ii. 13ff., 17, 34, 77 publication of, ii. 66 Mr. Kenyon on, ii. 83 Mr. Chorley on, ii. 92 noticed in the ‘Examiner,’ ii. 108

Buckingham, Mr., i. 564, 565, 570, 576

Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton, afterwards first Lord Lytton, i. 246 his ‘Alice,’ i. 161 his ‘Ernest Maltravers,’ i. 161, 166 his ‘Last Days of Pompeii,’ i. 156

Bunn, Alfred, i. 572; ii. 136

Bunyan, J., ii. 37

Burdett-Coutts, Miss, i. 564

Burges, George, i. 168, 170, 171, 497, 548, 554

Burns, R., i. 481

Bury, Lady Charles, her ‘Reminiscences,’ i. 228

Butler, Mrs. (Fanny Kemble), her poems, ii. 27, 38, 389, 391

Butler, Samuel, his ‘Hudibras’ quoted, i. 568

Byron, Lady, i. 130

Byron, Lord, i. 126; ii. 455, 464, 473

Calderon, i. 66

‘Cambridge Advertiser,’ the, ii. 28

Campbell, Miss, ii. 171, 172, 174ff., 179, 184

Campbell, Thomas, ii. 286

Carlyle, Mrs., i. 194, 238; ii. 252, 255

Carlyle, Thomas, i. 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 151, 152, 158, 194, 260, 316, 457, 459; ii. 8, 80, 81, 84, 90, 92, 98, 160, 185, 238, 277 ‘Oliver Cromwell,’ i. 16, 25, 450; ii. 2, 286

Cerutti’s Italian Grammar, i. 468

Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote,’ i. 46

Chambers, Dr., i. 123, 125, 158, 176, 186, 188, 189; ii. 255

Chapman, George, i. 98, 337

Chaucer, Geoffrey, i. 160, 267, 337, 393, 429

Chesterfield, Lord, i. 529; ii. 105

Chorley, H. F., i. 45, 107, 108, 144, 148, 154, 288, 295, 298, 315, 388, 394ff., 400, 482, 486, 492, 496, 548, 555ff., 573; ii. 92, 102, 107, 131, 135, 346, 349, 351, 353, 411, 437, 441, 443, 456, 487 his ‘Pomfret,’ i. 273, 279, 283, 291, 292

‘Christus Patiens,’ i. 171

Cimarosa, D., i. 544

Claude le Jeune, i. 543, 545

Clayton, John, i. 529

Cokers, the Misses, ii. 178, 184

Cocks, Lady Margaret, ii. 127, 131, 242

Colburn, Henry, i. 200

Coleridge, S. T., i. 280, 337, 366; ii. 83, 456

Colonna, Vittoria, i. 116

Compton, Lord, ii. 28, 29

Cook, Surtees, Captain, i. 424, 439, 516, 541; ii. 354, 355, 387, 490

Corelli, A., i. 544

Crashaw, Richard, i. 337

Cushman, Miss, i. 154, 160, 395, 446

‘Daily News,’ i. 403, 409, 424; ii. 28, 135, 177, 299, 339

Dante, i. 53, 55, 56, 57, 116, 309, 348, 355, 576; ii. 277

Darwin, Erasmus, i. 383

De Lamennais, L’Abbé, ii. 108

De Musset, Alfred, ii. 108

Dickens, Charles, i. 69, 217, 260, 394, 444; ii. 116, 122, 135 his ‘Cricket on the Hearth,’ i. 345, 355 his ‘Pictures from Italy,’ ii. 168, 169

Diderot, Denis, i. 114, 118

Dilke, C. W., i. 396; ii. 135, 177

D’Israeli, Benjamin, his ‘Sybil,’ i. 124 his ‘Vivian Grey,’ i. 52, 53ff., 56

Domett, Alfred, i. 17, 296, 531; ii. 351

Donne, Dr. John, i. 27, 145, 196, 420, 440; ii. 116

D’Orsay, Count, ii. 135, 138

Dowland, John, i. 545

Doyle, John (‘H. B.,’) ii. 432

Drayton, M., his ‘Nymphidia,’ i. 373

Dryden, John, i. 23

Dulwich Galleries, the two, i. 518, 523, 525, 528

Dumas, Alexander, ii. 103, 346 his ‘Monte Cristo,’ ii. 215, 340

Eagles, Mr., ii. 374, 453

Elliotson, Dr., i. 118

Etty, William, ii. 189, 191

Euripides, i. 21

‘Examiner,’ the, i. 288, 323, 375, 466; ii. 106, 107, 108, 412

Ferrers case, the, i. 492

Fife, Angus, ii. 481

Fisher, Miss Emma, i. 383

Ford, J., i. 337

Forster, John, i. 217, 245, 268, 293, 294, 295, 298, 300, 323, 375, 395, 403; ii. 67, 82, 106, 107, 108, 111, 215, 241, 305, 309, 312, 316, 365, 374

Forsyth, Joseph, quoted, ii. 279

Fox, Mrs., ii. 347

Fox, W. J., i. 277, 504, 556

Fletcher, J., i. 373

Florence, ii. 196, 255

Flush, Miss Barrett’s dog, i. 54, 150, 167, 236, 263ff., 549; ii. 321, 325, 357; the loss of, 505-528 passim

French and English criticisms on foreign books, i. 558, 567

Fuller, Miss Margaret Sarah (afterwards Mme. Ossoli), i. 375

Fuseli, H., i. 66

Garrow, Miss, i. 157, 289

Gill, Rev. Thomas Hornblower, i. 576; ii. 3

Godwin, William, i. 196

Goethe, J. W., i. 273; ii. 52, 313, 315, 451

Grey, Lord, ii. 414

Gurney, A., i. 74, 568

Hahn-Hahn, the Countess, ii. 213, 251, 252, 256, 263, 268

Hall, Robert, i. 514

Hall, Spencer, i. 246

Handel, G. F., i. 543

Hanmer, Sir John, i. 288, 294, 398, 532

Harness, Rev. William, i. 375

Haworth, Miss, ii. 172

Haydon, B. R., i. 86; ii. 366; his death, ii. 264, 265ff., 268, 271ff., 318ff.; bequest of his MSS. to E.B.B., ii. 304, 307, 315ff., 322ff., 326 Horne’s verses on his death, ii. 299, 300, 303, 339

Hazlitt, William, i. 337; ii. 252

Heaton, Miss, ii. 127, 133, 155, 157, 170, 172

Hedley, Arabella, her marriage, ii. 195, 304, 362, 393, 395, 430

Hedley, Mrs., i. 85, 109ff., 192; ii. 332, 334, 388

Hedley, Robert, ii. 238, 287, 321, 344

Hemans, Charles (son of Mrs. Hemans), i. 116

Heraud, John Abraham, i. 388, 393, 573

Hood, Thomas, i. 58, 63, 459

‘Hood’s Magazine,’ i. 59, 131, 133, 134ff.

Horne, R. H., i. 7, 12, 28, 32, 61, 62, 65, 82, 95, 96, 120, 121, 266, 268, 270, 315, 364ff., 393; ii. 394, 403, 407, 412 and Miss Mitford, i. 465ff., 468ff., 473 verses on the death of B. R. Haydon, ii. 299, 300, 303, 339 ‘Ballad Romances,’ i. 369ff., 372ff., 380ff., 386 his ‘Cosmo de Medici,’ i. 66, 373 ‘Death of Marlowe,’ i. 373 ‘Gregory VII.,’ i. 66 ‘New Spirit of the Age,’ i. 69 ‘Orion,’ i. 373

Howitt, Mary, i. 45, 56, 160; ii. 119, 124

Howitt, Richard, i. 246

Howitt, William, ii. 118, 121, 124

Hugo, Victor, his portrait, ii. 346, 359

Hume, David, quoted, ii. 329

Hunt, Leigh, i. 126, 171, 228, 337, 366, 367, 393; ii. 314 his translation of lines on Pulci, i. 461, 466

Hunter, Mary, i. 227, 230

Hunter, Mr., ii. 498

Jameson, Mrs., i. 116, 130, 150, 174, 312, 500, 516, 518; ii. 4, 11, 27, 69, 72, 130, 137, 144, 149, 155, 158, 161, 196, 220, 245, 250, 262, 288, 289, 290, 301, 344, 374, 457, 462, 471, 476, 480, 485, 552 her etchings, ii. 8ff., 56, 139 plan for taking E.B.B. to Italy, ii. 191, 270, 287, 370, 405ff.

Janin, Jules, i. 558; ii. 346

Jerrold, Douglas, i. 217, 444

Jones, Commodore, ii. 143, 169, 185

Jonson, Ben, performance of ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ i. 212, 216, 217ff.

Junius, ii. 171, 174

Kean, Charles, i. 200

Kean, Edmund, i. 78

Keats, John, i. 14, 18, 194, 238, 245, 366, 391; ii. 151, 314

Keats, John, his ‘Eve of St. Agnes,’ i. 194

Kelly, Mr. Fitzroy, i. 200, 211, 492

Kemble, Fanny. _See_ Mrs. Butler

Kenyon, John, i. 2, 4, 6, 9, 21, 48, 134, 143, 188, 307, 361ff., 449, 484, 486, 542; ii. 62ff., 82, 166, 212, 234, 270, 282, 309, 365, 370, 373, 380, 386, 414, 434, 452, 554, and passim

Kinglake, A. W., ii. 135

La Cava, ii. 289, 292, 320, 322, 325

Lamb, Charles, i. 337, 396, 452

‘Lancet,’ the, i. 246

Landelle, ii. 115

Landor, Walter Savage, i. 20, 131, 283, 289, 295, 298, 300, 363; ii. 44, 81, 83, 85, 187, 200, 212, 241, 309, 313, 314, 372, 374, 421, 453 his ‘Count Julian,’ i. 566, 567 his ‘Dialogue between Tasso and his Sister,’ ii. 261, 264 his ‘Pentameron,’ i. 131 verses to Robert Browning, i. 286ff., 320, 497; ii. 244

Lawes, Henry, i. 545

‘League,’ the, ii. 105, 111, 112

Lee, Nathaniel, i. 518

Leech, John, i. 217

Lewis, ‘Monk,’ i. 228

Londonderry, Lady, i. 196

Longfellow, H. W., ii. 137

Longman, Mr., ii. 366

Lough, John Graham, ii. 194, 196, 214, 218, 220, 222, 225, 455

Lowell, J. R.: his ‘Conversations on some of the Old Poets,’ i. 336ff., 343ff.

Lytton, Sir Edward. _See_ Bulwer

Machiavelli, N., i. 302, 310; ii. 215

Mackay, Charles, i. 388, 395, 400

Maclise, David, i. 218; ii. 307

Malherbe, i. 258

Manners, Lord John, i. 389

Marc-Antonio’s etchings, ii. 144, 149

Markham, Mrs., i. 344

Marlowe, Christopher, i. 97

Martineau, Harriet, i. 112, 114, 116, 246, 263, 316, 359, 363, 375, 431, 441, 469, 481; ii. 69, 283, 453, 462 her letter on Wordsworth, i. 464, 478ff., 490

Mathews, Cornelius, i. 307, 320, 324, 345, 497; ii. 429, 437, 442

Matthew, Father, i. 78

Medwin, Capt. Thomas, his ‘Conversations of Lord Byron,’ i. 228

‘Methodist Quarterly,’ the, ii. 152, 177

Mill, John Stuart, i. 29, 33, 78

Milner, Mrs., ii. 74

Milnes, R. Monckton (afterwards Lord Houghton), i. 532, 535; ii. 135, 248, 409

Milton, John, i. 45, 194; ii. 263

Mitford, Miss M. R., i. 12, 23, 61, 69, 85, 86, 96, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 147, 160, 263, 455, 456, 459, 486, 492, 500; ii. 22, 27, 243, 288, 291, 316, 359, 415, 441 on R. H. Horne, i. 465ff., 468ff., 473

Molière, i. 189

Monod, Rev. A., ii. 460ff.

Montagu, Basil, i. 199

Montagu, Lady Mary, her ‘Septennial Act,’ ii. 138

Montagu, Mrs., i. 532

Montaigne, Michel de, i. 131

Montefiore, Sir Moses, i. 489, 504, 510, 515, 526

Moore, Thomas, ii. 378; his ‘Life and Letters of Byron,’ ii. 455

‘Morning Chronicle,’ the, i. 298, 389

Moxon, Edward, i. 18, 116, 188, 235, 238, 266, 293, 298, 324, 474, 532; ii. 118, 122, 151, 285, 337, 374, 488, 512 on reviewers, ii. 343

Napoleon I., i. 24, 200, 239

‘New Monthly Magazine’ (Colburn’s), i. 52, 54, 70, 120, 361

‘New Quarterly Review,’ i. 377, 381

Northampton, Lord, i. 496

Norton, Hon. Mrs., i. 48, 51, 368 _n._; ii. 309, 401

O’Connell, D., ii. 42

Osgood, Mrs., ii. 133

Ossian, ii. 89, 259, 283, 459, 469, 473

Ovid, i. 271

Padua, i. 196

Paine, Mrs., ii. 31, 74, 83, 85, 369

Palmella, the Duke of, i. 229, 231, 241

Patmore, Coventry, ii. 135

Peel, Sir Robert, ii. 266, 271, 281

‘People’s Journal,’ the, i. 547, 555; ii. 124

Pietro d’Abano, i. 461, 466

Pisa, i. 189, 193, 196, 200, 209, 232, 236, 254, 258; ii. 464

Plato, i. 472, 541

Poe, Edgar A., i. 308, 386, 402, 446, 570; ii. 133, 220 dedication of his poems to E.B.B., i. 431 his ‘Raven,’ i. 542

Polidoro, i. 28; ii. 153

Polk, President, ii. 98

Porta, J. Baptista, i. 501

Possagno, i. 126

Powell, T., i. 393, 397, 572, 573; ii. 157

Priessnitz, i. 246

Pritchard, Captain, ii. 39, 83, 346, 498, 547

Procter, B. W., i. 312, 496, 500; ii. 133, 255, 428

Procter, Mrs. B. W., ii. 62, 70, 72, 76, 135, 213, 327

Purchas, J., i. 358

Pusey, Dr., ii. 347

Quarles, Francis, i. 419; ii. 189, 447

‘Quarterly Review,’ the, i. 20, 294, 311, 314

Quintilian, i. 36

Rabelais, François de, i. 47

Rachel, Mlle., ii. 328, 341, 346, 412

Ravenna, ii. 234, 252, 255

Reade, J. Edmund, ii. 286, 372, 374, 378

‘Retrospective Review,’ i. 344, 345, 382

Reybaud, Mme. Charles, i. 558

Robinson, Crabb, i. 484

Rogers, Samuel, i. 86ff., 196; ii. 251ff., 262, 263

Ronsard, Peter, i. 262, 271

Rossini, G. A., i. 544

Royal Society’s soirée, i. 496

Russell, Henry, i. 524, 537

Sand, George, i. 117, 119, 161, 165; ii. 102, 107, 349, 352 her ‘Comtesse de Rudolstadt,’ i. 165 her ‘Consuelo,’ i. 118, 155, 162ff., 165 her ‘Leila,’ i. 117 her ‘Spiridion,’ i. 100

Schiller, Friedrich, i. 395

Schmitz, Dr. Leonhard, i. 171

Severn, Joseph, ii. 151

Sévigné, Mme. de, i. 258

Shakespeare, William, i. 23, 43, 66, 100, 373; ii. 87

Shakespeare, William, ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ i. 15

Shaw, Sir James, ii. 154

Shelley, Mrs., i. 186, 196, 227, 287

Shelley, P. B., i. 38, 57, 66, 97, 116, 196, 215, 323, 327, 366, 480, 567; ii. 79, 151, 153, 255, 314 his ‘Cenci,’ i. 229 his ‘Marianne’s Dream,’ i. 215 his ‘Prometheus Unbound,’ i. 229 his ‘St. Irvyne, or the Rosicrucian,’ i. 226, 228

Shirley, James, quoted, ii. 175

Sidney, Sir Philip, i. 23

Sigourney, Mrs., i. 344

Simpson, Mr., i. 70ff.; ii. 32

Smith, Elder & Co., ii. 488

Smith, Rev. Sydney, i. 59; ii. 366

Socrates, i. 540, 541

Sorrento, i. 196

Soulié, Frédéric, i. 341; ii. 107 his ‘Sept Jours au Château,’ ii. 103

Southey, Robert, ii. 456

Stael, Mme. de, i. 339

Stanfield, Clarkson, i. 217

Starke, Mrs., quoted, ii. 280

‘Statesman,’ the, ii. 172, 174, 175, 185, 192, 199

Stewart, Dugald, i. 169; ii. 27

Stilling, Heinrich (autobiography of), i. 112

Stratten, Rev. James, ii. 492, 501

Sue, Eugène, ii. 441, 531

Talfourd, Mr. Serjeant, i. 321, 393, 441, 573; ii. 82, 305, 307, 310, 312, 316, 321, 365 his ‘Ion,’ i. 317ff., 319, 323

Tasso, T., i. 5; ii. 261, 264

Tennyson, Alfred, i. 19, 24, 27, 69, 100, 238, 245, 260, 316, 320, 383, 404, 444, 446; ii. 82, 115ff., 122, 135, 151, 177, 229, 337, 512 his ‘Morte d’Arthur,’ i. 97 his ‘Œnone,’ i. 97

Thackeray, W. M., i. 260; ii. 409, 428, 432

Thiers, M., i. 344

Thomson, Miss, i. 168, 171ff., 497, 500; ii. 8, 22

Thucydides, i. 171

Tieck, i. 462

‘Times,’ the, i. 246, 248; ii. 343

Titian, i. 6

Trepsack, Miss (‘Treppy’), ii. 201, 209, 211, 407, 422, 432

Trieste, i. 126

Trollope, Mrs., i. 112

Tuckermann, H., his ‘Thoughts on the Poets,’ ii. 184

Vasari, G., i. 575

Venables, George Stovin, i. 404; ii. 115

Vidocq, i. 113, 117

Voltaire, i. 410, 485, 494

Wales, Prince of (afterwards George IV.), i. 48

Warburton, Eliot, i. 288, 294, 398; ii. 374

Ward, R. P., his ‘Tremaine,’ i. 505

Watts, Dr. Isaac, i. 200

Whately, Archbishop, i. 112; ii. 395

White, Dr., i. 496

White, Henry Kirke, i. 29

Widdicombe, Harry, ii. 432, 437

Wilkie, David, i. 87

Wilson, Miss Barrett’s maid, i. 178, 477; ii. 355, 359, 541, 567

Wilson, Professor (‘Christopher North’), i. 23

Wordsworth, William, i. 74, 86, 87, 316, 363, 464ff., 484, 486; ii. 48, 63, 75, 76, 83, 118, 313, 456 Miss Martineau’s letter on, i. 464, 478ff.

Wordsworth, William, _junr._, i. 548, 554; ii. 118

Wylie, Sir James, i. 155, 161

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=EXTRACT FROM PREFATORY NOTE BY MR. ROBERT BROWNING.=

‘In a recent “Memoir of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” by JOHN H. INGRAM, it is observed that “such essays on her personal history as have appeared, either in England or elsewhere, are replete with mistakes or misstatements.” For these he proposes to substitute “a correct if short memoir”: but, kindly and appreciative as may be Mr. Ingram’s performance, there occur not a few passages in it equally “mistaken and misstated.”’

=The LETTERS of ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.= Edited, with Biographical Additions, by FREDERIC G. KENYON. In 2 vols. With Portraits. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 15_s._ net.

London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.

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NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION OF ‘THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.’

In 7 volumes, large crown 8vo. with 2 Portraits.

=THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.= By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

1. =THE AGE OF THE DESPOTS.= With a Portrait. Price 7_s._ 6_d._

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6 & 7. =THE CATHOLIC REACTION.= With a Portrait and an Index to the 7 Vols. Price 15_s._

=ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC, QUEEN OF SPAIN=: Her Life, Reign, and Times, 1451-1504. By M. LE BARON DE NERVO. Translated from the Original French by Lieut.-Colonel TEMPLE-WEST (Retired). With Portraits. Demy 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._

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=THE ANNALS OF RURAL BENGAL.= From Official Records and the Archives of Native Families. By Sir W. W. HUNTER, K.S.C.I., C.I.E., LL.D., &c. New, Revised, and Cheaper Edition (the Seventh). Crown 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._

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=FROM GRAVE TO GAY=: being Essays and Studies concerned with Certain Subjects of Serious Interest, with the Puritans, with Literature, and with the Humours of Life, now for the first time Collected and Arranged. By J. ST. LOE STRACHEY. Crown 8vo. 6_s._

‘Undeniably clever, well-informed, brightly written, and in many ways interesting.’—TIMES.

=COLLECTED CONTRIBUTIONS ON DIGESTION AND DIET.= With an Appendix on the Opium Habit in India. By Sir WILLIAM ROBERTS, M.D., F.R.S. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 5_s._

=THROUGH LONDON SPECTACLES.= By CONSTANCE MILMAN. Crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._

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=SIR CHARLES HALLÉ’S LIFE AND LETTERS.= Being an Autobiography (1819 60), with Correspondence and Diaries. Edited by his Son, C. E. HALLÉ, and his Daughter, MARIE HALLÉ. With 2 Portraits. Demy 8vo. 16_s._

‘The volume is one of the most interesting of recent contributions to the literature of music.... A strong sense of humour is manifest in the autobiography as well as in the letters, and there are some capital stories scattered up and down the volumes.’—TIMES.

=THE MEMOIRS OF BARON THIÉBAULT= (late Lieutenant-General in the French Army). With Recollections of the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire. Translated and Condensed by A. J. BUTLER, M.A., Translator of the ‘Memoirs of Marbot.’ 2 vols. With 2 Portraits and 2 Maps. Demy 8vo. 28_s._

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=PREHISTORIC MAN AND BEAST.= By the Rev. H. N. HUTCHINSON, Author of ‘Extinct Monsters,’ ‘Creatures of Other Days,’ &c. With a Preface by Sir HENRY HOWARTH, M.P., F.R.S., and 10 full-page Illustrations. Small demy 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._

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London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.

ROBERT BROWNING’S WORKS

AND ‘LIFE AND LETTERS.’

=THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING.= Edited and Annotated by AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, Q.C., M.P., and FREDERIC G. KENYON. In 2 vols, large crown 8vo. bound in cloth, gilt top, with a Portrait-Frontispiece to each volume, 7_s._ 6_d._ per volume.

⁂ An Edition has also been printed on Oxford India Paper. This can be obtained only through booksellers, who will furnish particulars as to price, &c.

=UNIFORM EDITION OF THE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING.= 17 vols. Small crown 8vo. lettered separately, or in set binding, 5_s._ each.

This Edition contains Three Portraits of Mr. Browning, at different periods of life, and a few Illustrations.

CONTENTS OF THE VOLUMES.

1. PAULINE: and SORDELLO.

2. PARACELSUS: & STRAFFORD.

3. PIPPA PASSES: KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES: THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES: and A SOUL’S TRAGEDY. With a Portrait of Mr. Browning.

4. A BLOT IN THE ’SCUTCHEON: COLOMBE’S BIRTHDAY: and MEN AND WOMEN.

5. DRAMATIC ROMANCES: and CHRISTMAS EVE & EASTER DAY.

6. DRAMATIC LYRICS: and LURIA.

7. IN A BALCONY: and DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. With a Portrait of Mr. Browning.

8. THE RING AND THE BOOK. Books 1 to 4. With 2 Illustrations.

9. THE RING AND THE BOOK. Books 5 to 8.

10. THE RING AND THE BOOK. Books 9 to 12. With a Portrait of Guido Franceschini.

11. BALAUSTION’S ADVENTURE: PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, Saviour of Society: and FIFINE AT THE FAIR.

12. RED COTTON NIGHTCAP COUNTRY: and THE INN ALBUM.

13. ARISTOPHANES’ APOLOGY, including a Transcript from Euripides, being the Last Adventure of Balaustion: and THE AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS.

14. PACCHIAROTTO, and How he Worked in Distemper; with other Poems: LA SAISIAZ: and THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC.

15. DRAMATIC IDYLS, First Series: DRAMATIC IDYLS, Second Series: and JOCOSERIA.

16. FERISHTAH’S FANCIES: and PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY. With a Portrait of Mr. Browning.

17. ASOLANDO: Fancies and Facts; and BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES TO THE POEMS.

=A SELECTION FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING.= FIRST SERIES, crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ SECOND SERIES. Crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._

=POCKET VOLUME OF SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING.= Small fcp. 8vo. bound in half-cloth, with cut or uncut edges, price ONE SHILLING.

=THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING.= By MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR. With Portrait, and Steel Engraving of Mr. Browning’s Study in De Vere Gardens. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._

London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.

NEW EDITION OF W. M. THACKERAY’S WORKS.

In 13 Volumes, Large crown 8vo. cloth, gilt top, 6_s._ each.

_THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION_ OF W. M. THACKERAY’S COMPLETE WORKS.

THIS NEW AND REVISED EDITION COMPRISES ADDITIONAL MATERIAL and HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED LETTERS, SKETCHES, and DRAWINGS.

_Derived from the Author’s Original Manuscripts and Note-Books._

AND EACH VOLUME INCLUDES A MEMOIR, IN THE FORM OF AN INTRODUCTION,

By Mrs. RICHMOND RITCHIE.

CONTENTS OF THE VOLUMES:—

1. =VANITY FAIR.= With 20 Full-page Illustrations, 11 Woodcuts, a Facsimile Letter, and a new Portrait.

2. =PENDENNIS.= With 20 Full-page Illustrations and 10 Woodcuts.

3. =YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS, &c.= With 24 Full-page Reproductions of Steel Plates by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, 11 Woodcuts, and a Portrait of the Author by MACLISE.

4. =THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON: THE FITZBOODLE PAPERS=, &c. With 16 Full-page Illustrations by J. E. MILLAIS, R.A., LUKE FILDES, A.R.A., and the Author, and 14 Woodcuts.

5. =SKETCH BOOKS:—THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK; THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK; NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO=, &c. With 16 Full-page Illustrations, 39 Woodcuts, and a Portrait of the Author by MACLISE.

6. =CONTRIBUTIONS TO ‘PUNCH’ &c.= With 20 Full-page Illustrations, 26 Woodcuts, and an Engraving of the Author from a Portrait by SAMUEL LAURENCE.

7. =THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND; and THE LECTURES.= With 20 Full-page Illustrations by GEORGE DU MAURIER, F. BARNARD, and FRANK DICKSEE, R.A., and 11 Woodcuts.

8. =THE NEWCOMES.= With 20 Full-page Illustrations by RICHARD DOYLE and 11 Woodcuts.

9. =CHRISTMAS BOOKS, &c.= With 97 Full-page Illustrations, 122 Woodcuts, and a Facsimile Letter.

10. =THE VIRGINIANS.= With 20 Full-page Illustrations, 6 Woodcuts, a Photogravure, and a new Portrait.

11. =THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP; and A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY.= With 24 Full-page Illustrations by FREDERICK WALKER and the Author, 6 Woodcuts, a Facsimile of MS., and 2 Facsimile Letters.

12. =LOVEL THE WIDOWER; ROUNDABOUT PAPERS; DENIS DUVAL, &c.= With 20 Full-page and 11 Text Illustrations by FREDERICK WALKER, A.R.A., CHARLES KEENE, and the AUTHOR, and 2 pages of MS. in facsimile.

13. =BALLADS AND MISCELLANIES.= With 35 Full-page Illustrations by the AUTHOR, GEORGE CRUIKSHANK and JOHN LEECH, 35 Woodcuts, 3 Portraits of Thackeray’s Ancestors, an Engraving of the Author from a Drawing by SAMUEL LAURENCE, and a Photogravure, from a Drawing by CHINNERY, of Thackeray at the age of 3, with his Father and Mother. The volume also contains a Life of Thackeray by LESLIE STEPHEN and a Bibliography. [_On April 15._

=The Bookman.=—‘In her new biographical edition Mrs. Richmond Ritchie gives us precisely what we want. The volumes are a pleasure to hold and to handle. They are just what we like our ordinary every-day Thackeray to be. And prefixed to each of them we have all that we wish to know, or have any right to know, about the author himself; all the circumstances, letters, and drawings which bear upon the work.’

⁂_A Prospectus of the Edition, with specimen pages, will be sent post free on application._

London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.