Saturday August 13.
Miss Glasco told me yesterday that Eliza Cliffe was to be here this morning, so I suppose she will. Henrietta is going to Malvern in the evening—, & something was said of my going too, tho’ I really really actually feel “Nolo”— But in case of the possibility of it, I prepared before breakfast, some of the Seven Chiefs for Mr. Boyd. Bummy said yesterday that she wd. not go. Now if she does not, I will: not so much because I desire it, as because my not seeming to desire it, might seem strange to everybody here. It almost seems strange to myself! And yet wd. it not be stranger if—?— There is not any use in writing of it. Feeling about it, is bad enough!—
How depressed I felt yesterday evening. How I hung upon the past, as if my life as well as happiness were in it! How I thought of those words “You will never find another person who will love you as I love you”— And how I felt that to hear again the sound of those beloved, those ever ever beloved lips, I wd. barter all other sounds & sights—that I wd. in joy & gratitude lay down before her my tastes & feelings each & all, in sacrifice for the love, the exceeding love which I never, in truth, can find again. Have I not tried this, & know this & felt this: do I not feel now, bitterly, dessolately, that human love like her’s, I never can find again!—[1] Let Thy love oh Lord Jesus, … be poured as balm & oil into my heart which is stricken for the loss of human love. Surely “greater love hath no man”[2] than Thine!— And surely Thou wilt give Thy beloved sleep![3] Wd. that my heart could sleep from some thoughts—& not dream!—
Eliza Cliffe came, & I sate for my picture. The paint is beginning to crack from redundancy. In fact my features are now literally beginning to stand out from the canvass. I shall soon be a companion for the Roman Emperors, for Marcus Antoninus himself, in bas-relievo.
Such pro & conning & à la Henrietting about “who will go to Malvern”? & “shall we go to Malvern at all?” I am really wonderful. I began to feel a wish—yes!—actually a wish—to go. No going at last; & when it was decided I was glad; not merely that it was decided, but that it was decided so. H A & I in the carriage, Eliza riding, to Warm’s well.[4] Washed our faces & wet our hair,—& then, I on Eliza’s poney, we mounted the hill. “Round we went” & then “down we went”; for a black cloud in the distance frightened everybody but me. So … “home we went”. But oh how exquisite the hills looked, stretching forward before us, in the midst of that expansive & sunlit scenery!— Eliza parted from us, at our gate. I was unwell this morning, but well this evening. How some thoughts will hang about me!—
1. E.B.B. was, of course, speaking of her mother.
2. John xv.13.
3. Psalms cxxvii.2. This text later inspired E.B.B.’s poem, “The Sleep,” printed in The Seraphim and Other Poems (London, 1838), pp. 283–286.
4. Letters on Malvern Descriptive and Historical (Worcester, [N.D.]), p. 35: “On the Western side of the [Hangman’s] Hill is a Spring, called Walms Well; which is much esteemed in the neighbourhood for its beneficial effects; especially in cutaneous disorders.”
