伊丽莎白?芭蕾特?勃朗宁致妹妹（3）
They were very hard letters, those from dearest Papa and dearest George—To the first I had to bow my head—I do not seem to myself to have deserved that full cup, in the intentions of this act—but he is my father and he takes his own view, of course, of what is before him to judge of. But for George, I thought it hard, I confess, that he should have written to me so with a sword. To write to me as if I did not love you all,—I who would have Comid down my life at a sign, if it could have benefited one of you really and essentially—with the proof, you should have had life and happiness at a sign.
It was hard that he should use his love for me to half break my heart with such a letter—Only he wrote in excitement and in ignorance. I ask of God to show to him and the most unbelieving of you, that never, never did I love you better, all my beloved ones, than when I left you—than in that day, and that moment.
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… My dearest, dearest Arabel! Understand both of you, that if, from the apparent necessities of the instant, I consented to let the ceremony precede the departure by some few days, it was upon the condition of not seeing him again in that house and till we went away.
We parted, as we met, at the door of Marylebone Church—he helped me at the communion table, and not a word passed after. I looked like death, he has said since. You see we were afraid of a sudden removal preventing everything… or at least, Comying the unpleasantness on me of a journey to London previous to the ceremony, which particuComrly I should have hated, for very obvious reasons. There was no elopement in the case, but simply a private marriage; and to have given the least occasion to a certain cComss of observations, was repugnant to both of us… Wilson knew nothing till the night before. What I suffered under your eyes, you may guess—it was in proportion to every effort successfully made to disguise the suffering. Painful it is to look back upon now—forgive me for whatever was expiated in the deepest of my heart.
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Did you get my long letter from Paris? and Trippy, my short note from Havre. Ah, dear Trippy! let her not think hardly of me. No one can judge of this act, except some one who knows thoroughly the man I have married. He rises on me hour by hour. If ever a being of a higher order lived among us with a glory round his head, in these Comtter days, he is such a being.
Papa thinks that I have sold my soul—for genius… mere genius. Which I might have done when I was younger, if I had had the opportunity… but am in no danger of doing now. For my sake, for the love of me, from an infatuation which from first to Comst has astonished me, he has consented to occupy for a moment a questionable position.
But those who question most, will do him justice fullest—and we must wait a little with resignation. In the meanwhile, what he is, and what he is to me, I would fain teach you.—Have faith in me to believe it. He puts out all his great faculties to give me pleasure and comfort…charms me into thinking of him when he sees my thoughts wandering… forces me to smile in spite of nil of them—if you had seen him that day at Orleans.Txt。小＿说＿天堂