ose two Guidos,
the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob's vision, such a Watteau, the
triumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group,
all the Poussins with the 'Armida' and 'Jupiter's nursing'--and--no
end to 'ands'--I have sate before one, some _one_ of those pictures I
had predetermined to see, a good hour and then gone away ... it used
to be a green half-hour's walk over the fields. So much for one error,
now for the second like unto it; what I meant by charging you with
_seeing_, (not, _not_ '_looking_ for')--_seeing_ undue 'security' in
_that_, in the form,--I meant to say 'you talk about me being 'free'
now, free till _then_, and I am rather jealous of the potency
attributed to the _form_, with all its solemnity, because it _is_ a
form, and no more--yet you frankly agree with me that _that_ form
complied with, there is no redemption; yours I am _then_ sure enough,
to repent at leisure &c. &c.' So I meant to ask, 'then, all _now_
said, all short of that particular form of saying it, all goes for
comparatively nothing'? Here it is written down--you 'wish to
_suspend_ all decisions as long as possible'--_that_ form effects the
decision, then,--till then, 'where am I'? Which is just what Lord
Chesterfield cautions people against asking when they tell stories.
Love, Ba, my own heart's dearest, if all is _not_ decided
_now_--why--hear a story, a propos of storytelling, and deduce what is
deducible. A very old Unitarian minister met a still older evangelical
brother--John Clayton (from whose son's mouth I heard what you shall
hear)--the two fell to argument about the true faith to be held--after
words enough, 'Well,' said the Unitarian, as winding up the
controversy with an amicable smile--'at least let us hope we are both
engaged in the _pursuit_ of Truth!'--'_Pursuit_ do you say?' cried the
other, 'here am I with my years eighty and odd--if I haven't _found_
Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?' My own Ba, if I have not
already _decided_, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help!
Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling,
beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one's heart's
good by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is there
any parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of in
the street--a labourer talking with his friends about '_wishes_'--and
this one wished, if he might get his wish, 'to have a nine gallon cask
of