book I
first printed when a boy, with John Mill, the metaphysical head, _his_ marginal note that 'the writer possesses a deeper self-consciousness than I ever knew in a sane human being.' So I never deceived myself much, nor called my feelings for people other than they were. And who has a right to say, if I have not, that I had, but I said that, supernatural or no. Pray tell me, too, of your present doings and projects, and never write yourself 'grateful' to me, who _am_ grateful, very grateful to you,--for none of your words but I take in earnest--and tell me if Spring _be not_ coming, come, and I will take to writing the gravest of letters, because this beginning is for gladness' sake, like Carlyle's song couplet. My head aches a little to-day too, and, as poor dear Kirke White said to the moon, from his heap of mathematical papers,
'I throw aside the learned sheet; I cannot choose but gaze, she looks so--mildly sweet.'
Out on the foolish phrase, but there's hard rhyming without it.
Ever yours faithfully,
ROBERT BROWNING.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
50 Wimpole Street: Feb. 27, 1845.
Yes, but, dear Mr. Browning, I want the spring according to the new 'style' (mine), and not the old one of you and the rest of the poets. To me unhappily, the snowdrop is much the same as the snow--it feels as cold underfoot--and I have grown sceptical about 'the voice of the turtle,' the east winds blow so loud. April is a Parthian with a dart, and May (at least the early part of it) a spy in the camp. _That_ is my idea of what you call spring; mine, in the _new style_! A little later comes my spring; and indeed after such severe weather, from which I have just escaped with my life, I may thank it for coming at all. How happy you are, to be able to listen to the 'birds' without the commentary of the east wind, which, like other commentaries, spoils the music. And how happy I am to listen to you, when you write such kind open-hearted letters to me! I am delighted to hear all you say to me of yourself, and 'Luria,' and the spider, and to do him no dishonour in the association, of the great teacher of the age, Carlyle, who is also yours and mine. He fills the office of a poet--does he not?--by analysing humanity back into its elements, to the destruction of the conventions of the hour. That is--strictly speaking--the office of the poet, is it not?--and he discharges it fully, and with a wider intelligibility perhaps as far as the contemporary period is concerned, than if he did forthwith 'burst into a song.'
But how I do wander!--I meant to say, and I will call myself back to say, that spring will really come some day I hope and believe, and the warm settled weather with it, and that then I shall be probably fitter for certain pleasures than I can appear even to myself now.
And, in the meantime, I seem to see 'Luria' instead of you; I have visions and dream dreams. And the 'Soul's Tragedy,' which sounds to me like the step of a ghost of an old Drama! and you are not to think that I blaspheme the Drama, dear Mr. Browning; or that I ever thought of exhorting you to give up the 'solemn robes' and tread of the buskin. It is the theatre which vulgarises these things; the modern theatre in which we see no altar! where the thymelé is replaced by the caprice of a popular actor. And also, I have a fancy that your great dramatic power would work more clearly and audibly in the less definite mould--but you ride your own faculty as Oceanus did his sea-horse, 'directing it by your will'; and woe to the impertinence, which would dare to say 'turn this way' or 'turn from that way'--it should not be _my_ impertinence. Do not think I blaspheme the Drama. I have gone through 'all such reading as should never be read' (that is, by women!), through my love of it on the contrary. And the dramatic faculty is strong in you--and therefore, as 'I speak unto a wise man, judge what I say.'
For myself and my own doings, you shall hear directly what I have been doing, and what I am about to do. Some years ago, as perhaps you may have heard, (but I hope not, for the fewer who hear of it the better)--some years ago, I translated or rather _undid_ into English, the 'Prometheus' of Æschylus. To speak of this production moderately (not modestly), it is the most miserable of all miserable versions of the class. It was completed (in the first place) in thirteen days--the iambics thrown into blank verse, the lyrics into rhymed octosyllabics and the like,--and the whole together as cold as Caucasus, and as flat as the nearest plain. To account for this, the haste may be something; but if my mind had been properly awakened at the time, I might have made still more haste and done it better. Well,--the comfort is, that the little book was unadvertised and unknown, and that most of the copies (through my entreaty of my father) are shut up in the wardrobe of his bedroom. If ever I get well I shall show my joy by making a bonfire of them. In the meantime, the recollection of this sin of mine has been my nightmare and daymare too, and the sin has been the 'Blot on my escutcheon.' I could look in nobody's face, with a 'Thou canst not say I did it'--I know, I did it. And so I resolved to wash away the transgression, and translate the tragedy over again. It was an honest straightforward proof of repentance--was it not? and I have completed it, except the transcription and last polishing. If Æschylus stands at the foot of my bed now, I shall have a little breath to front him. I have done my duty by him, not indeed according to his claims, but in proportion to my faculty. Whether I shall ever publish or not (remember) remains to be considered--that is a different side of the subject. If I do, it _may_ be in a magazine--or--but this is another ground. And then, I have in my head to associate with the version, a monodrama of my own,--not a long poem, but a monologue of Æschylus as he sate a blind exile on the flats of Sicily and recounted the past to his own soul, just before the eagle cracked his great massy skull with a stone.
But my chief _intention_ just now is the writing of a sort of novel-poem--a poem as completely modern as 'Geraldine's Courtship,' running into the midst of our conventions, and rushing into drawing-rooms and the like, 'where angels fear to tread'; and so, meeting face to face and without mask the Humanity of the age, and speaking the truth as I conceive of it out plainly. That is my intention. It is not mature enough yet to be called a plan. I am waiting for a story, and I won't take one, because I want to make one, and I like to make my own stories, because then I can take liberties with them in the treatment.
Who told me of your skulls and spiders? Why, couldn't I know it without being told? Did Cornelius Agrippa know nothing without being told? Mr. Horne never spoke it to my ears--(I never saw him face to face in my life, although we have corresponded for long and long), and he never wrote it to my eyes. Perhaps he does not know that I know it. Well, then! if I were to say that _I heard it from you yourself_, how would you answer? _And it was so._ Why, are you not aware that these are the days of mesmerism and clairvoyance? Are you an infidel? I have believed in your skulls for the last year, for my part.
And I have some sympathy in your habit of feeling for chairs and tables. I remember, when I was a child and wrote poems in little clasped books, I used to kiss the books and put them away tenderly because I had been happy near them, and take them out by turns when I was going from home, to cheer them by the change of air and the pleasure of the new place. This, not for the sake of the verses written in them, and not for the sake of writing more verses in them, but from pure gratitude. Other books I used to treat in a like manner--and to talk to the trees and the flowers, was a natural inclination--but between me and that time, the cypresses grow thick and dark.
Is it true that your wishes fulfil themselves? And when they _do_, are they not bitter to your taste--do you not wish them _un_fulfilled? Oh, this life, this life! There is comfort in it, they say, and I almost believe--but the brightest place in the house, is the leaning out of the window--at least, for me.
Of course you are _self-conscious_--How could you be a poet otherwise? Tell me.
Ever faithfully yours,
E.B.B.
And was the little book written with Mr. Mill, pure metaphysics, or what?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday Night, March 1 [1845].
Dear Miss Barrett,--I seem to find of a sudden--surely I knew before--anyhow, I _do_ find now, that with the octaves on octaves of quite new golden strings you enlarged the compass of my life's harp with, there is added, too, such a tragic chord, that which you touched, so gently, in the beginning of your letter I got this morning, 'just escaping' &c. But if my truest heart's wishes avail, as they have hitherto done, you shall laugh at East winds yet, as I do! See now, this sad feeling is so strange to me, that I must write it out, _must_, and you might give me great, the greatest pleasure for years and yet find me as passive as a stone used to wine libations, and as ready in expressing my sense of them, but when I am pained, I find the old theory of the uselessness of communicating the circumstances of it, singularly untenable. I have been 'spoiled' in this world--to such an extent, indeed, that I often _reason_ out--make clear to myself--that I might very properly, so far as myself am concerned, take any step that would peril the whole of my future happiness--because the past is gained, secure, and on record; and, though not another of the old days should dawn on me, I shall not have lost my life, no! Out of all which you are--please--to make a sort of sense, if you can, so as to express that I have been deeply struck to find a new real unmistakable sorrow along with these as real but not so new joys you have given me. How strangely this connects itself in my mind with another subject in your note! I looked at that translation for a minute, not longer, years ago, knowing nothing about it or you, and I _only_ looked to see what rendering a passage had received that was often in my thoughts.[1] I forget your version (it was not _yours_, my _'yours' then_; I mean I had no extraordinary interest about it), but the original makes Prometheus (telling over his bestowments towards human happiness) say, as something [Greek: peraiterô tônde], that he stopped mortals [Greek: mê proderkesthai moron--to poion eurôn], asks the Chorus, [Greek: têsde pharmakon nosou]? Whereto he replies, [Greek: tuphlas en autois elpidas katôkisa] (what you hear men dissertate upon by the hour, as proving the immortality of the soul apart from revelation, undying yearnings, restless longings, instinctive desires which, unless to be eventually indulged, it were cruel to plant in us, &c. &c.). But, [Greek: meg' ôphelêma tout' edôrêsô brotois]! concludes the chorus, like a sigh from the admitted Eleusinian Æschylus was! You cannot think how this foolish circumstance struck me this evening, so I thought I would e'en tell you at once and be done with it. Are you not my dear friend already, and shall I not use you? And pray you not to 'lean out of the window' when my own foot is only on the stair; do wait a little for
Yours _ever_,
R.B.
[Footnote 1: The following is the version of the passage in Mrs. Browning's later translation of the 'Prometheus' (II. 247-251 of the original):
_Prom._ I did restrain besides My mortals from premeditating death.
_Cho._ How didst thou medicine the plague-fear of death?
_Prom._ I set blind hopes to inhabit in their house.
_Cho._ By that gift thou didst help thy mortals well.]
_E.B.B. to R.B._
March 5, 1845.
But I did not mean to strike a 'tragic chord'; indeed I did not! Sometimes one's melancholy will be uppermost and sometimes one's mirth,--the world goes round, you know--and I suppose that in that letter of mine the melancholy took the turn. As to 'escaping with my life,' it was just a phrase--at least it did not signify more than that the sense of mortality, and discomfort of it, is peculiarly strong with me when east winds are blowing and waters freezing. For the rest, I am _essentially better_, and have been for several winters; and I feel as if it were intended for me to live and not die, and I am reconciled to the feeling. Yes! I am satisfied to 'take up' with the blind hopes again, and have them in the house with me, for all that I sit by the window. By the way, did the chorus utter scorn in the [Greek: meg' ôphelêma]. I think not. It is well to fly towards the light, even where there may be some fluttering and bruising of wings against the windowpanes, is it not?
There is an obscurer passage, on which I covet your thoughts, where Prometheus, after the sublime declaration that, with a full knowledge of the penalty reserved for him, he had sinned of free will and choice--goes on to say--or to seem to say--that he had _not_, however, foreseen the extent and detail of the torment, the skiey rocks, and the friendless desolation. See v. 275. The intention of the poet might have been to magnify to his audience the torment of the martyrdom--but the heroism of the martyr diminishes in proportion--and there appears to be a contradiction, and oversight. Or is my view wrong? Tell me. And tell me too, if Æschylus not the divinest of all the divine Greek souls? People say after Quintilian, that he is savage and rude; a sort of poetic Orson, with his locks all wild. But I will not hear it of my master! He is strong as Zeus is--and not as a boxer--and tender as Power itself, which always is tenderest.
But to go back to the view of Life with the blind Hopes; you are not to think--whatever I may have written or implied--that I lean either to the philosophy or affectation which beholds the world through darkness instead of light, and speaks of it wailingly. Now, may God forbid that it should be so with me. I am not desponding by nature, and after a course of bitter mental discipline and long bodily seclusion, I come out with two learnt lessons (as I sometimes say and oftener feel),--the wisdom of cheerfulness--and the duty of social intercourse. Anguish has instructed me in joy, and solitude in society; it has been a wholesome and not unnatural reaction. And altogether, I may say that the earth looks the brighter to me in proportion to my own deprivations. The laburnum trees and rose trees are plucked up by the roots--but the sunshine is in their places, and the root of the sunshine is above the storms. What we call Life is a condition of the soul, and the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement.
And I do like to hear testimonies like yours, to _happiness_, and I feel it to be a testimony of a higher sort than the obvious one. Still, it is obvious too that you have been spared, up to this time, the great natural afflictions, against which we are nearly all called, sooner or later, to struggle and wrestle--or your step would not be 'on the stair' quite so lightly. And so, we turn to you, dear Mr. Browning, for comfort and gentle spiriting! Remember that as you owe your unscathed joy to God, you should pay it back to His world. And I thank you for some of it already.
Also, writing as from friend to friend--as you say rightly that we are--I ought to confess that of one class of griefs (which has been called too the bitterest), I know as little as you. The cruelty of the world, and the treason of it--the unworthiness of the dearest; of these griefs I have scanty knowledge. It seems to me from my personal experience that there is kindness everywhere in different proportions, and more goodness and tenderheartedness than we read of in the moralists. People have been kind to _me_, even without understanding me, and pitiful to me, without approving of me:--nay, have not the very critics tamed their beardom for me, and roared delicately as sucking doves, on behalf of me? I have no harm to say of your world, though I am not of it, as you see. And I have the cream of it in your friendship, and a little more, and I do not envy much the milkers of the cows.
How kind you are!--how kindly and gently you speak to me! Some things you say are very touching, and some, surprising; and although I am aware that you unconsciously exaggerate what I can be to you, yet it is delightful to be broad awake and think of you as my friend.
May God bless you!
Faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning. [Post-mark, March 12, 1845.]
Your letter made me so happy, dear Miss Barrett, that I have kept quiet this while; is it too great a shame if I begin to want more good news of you, and to say so? Because there has been a bitter wind ever since. Will you grant me a great favour? Always when you write, though about your own works, not Greek plays merely, put me in, _always_, a little official bulletin-line that shall say 'I am better' or 'still better,' will you? That is done, then--and now, what do I wish to tell you first? The poem you propose to make, for the times; the fearless fresh living work you describe, is the _only_ Poem to be undertaken now by you or anyone that _is_ a Poet at all; the only reality, only effective piece of service to be rendered God and man; it is what I have been all my life intending to do, and now shall be much, much nearer doing, since you will along with me. And you _can_ do it, I know and am sure--so sure, that I could find in my heart to be jealous of your stopping in the way even to translate the Prometheus; though the accompanying monologue will make amends too. Or shall I set you a task I meant for myself once upon a time?--which, oh, how you would fulfil! Restore the Prometheus [Greek: purphoros] as Shelley did the [Greek: Lyomenos]; when I say 'restore,' I know, or very much fear, that the [Greek: purphoros] was the same with the [Greek: purkaeus] which, by a fragment, we sorrowfully ascertain to have been a Satyric Drama; but surely the capabilities of the subject are much greater than in this, we now wonder at; nay, they include all those of this last--for just see how magnificently the story unrolls itself. The beginning of Jupiter's dynasty, the calm in Heaven after the storm, the ascending--(stop, I will get the book and give the words), [Greek: opôs tachista ton patrôon eis thronon kathezet', euthus daimosin nemei gera alloisin alla--k.t.l.],[1] all the while Prometheus being the first among the first in honour, as [Greek: kaitoi theoisi tois neois toutois gera tis allos, ê 'gô, pantelôs diôrise]?[2] then the one black hand-cloudlet storming the joyous blue and gold everywhere, [Greek: brotôn de tôn talaipôrôn logon ouk eschen oudena],[3] and the design of Zeus to blot out the whole race, and plant a new one. And Prometheus with his grand solitary [Greek: egô d' etolmêsa],[4] and his saving them, as the _first_ good, from annihilation. Then comes the darkening brow of Zeus, and estrangement from the benign circle of grateful gods, and the dissuasion of old confederates, and all the Right that one may fancy in Might, the strongest reasons [Greek: pauesthai tropou philanthrôpou][5] coming from the own mind of the Titan, if you will, and all the while he shall be proceeding steadily in the alleviation of the sufferings of mortals whom, [Greek: nêpious ontas to prin, ennous kai phrenôn epêbolous ethêke],[6] while still, in proportion, shall the doom he is about to draw on himself, manifest itself more and more distinctly, till at the last, he shall achieve the salvation of man, body (by the gift of fire) and soul (by even those [Greek: tuphlai elpides],[7] hopes of immortality), and so having rendered him utterly, according to the mythos here, _independent_ of Jove--for observe, Prometheus in the play never talks of helping mortals more, of fearing for them more, of even benefiting them more by his sufferings. The rest is between Jove and himself; he will reveal the master-secret to Jove when he shall have released him, &c. There is no stipulation that the gifts to mortals shall be continued; indeed, by the fact that it is Prometheus who hangs on Caucasus while 'the ephemerals possess fire,' one sees that somehow mysteriously _they_ are past Jove's harming now. Well, this wholly achieved, the price is as wholly accepted, and off into the darkness passes in calm triumphant grandeur the Titan, with Strength and Violence, and Vulcan's silent and downcast eyes, and then the gold clouds and renewed flushings of felicity shut up the scene again, with Might in his old throne again, yet with a new element of mistrust, and conscious shame, and fear, that writes significantly enough above all the glory and rejoicing that all is not as it was, nor will ever be. Such might be the framework of your Drama, just what cannot help striking one at first glance, and would not such a Drama go well before your translation? Do think of this and tell me--it nearly writes itself. You see, I meant the [Greek: meg' ôphelêma][8] to be a deep great truth; if there were no life beyond this, I think the hope in one would be an incalculable blessing _for_ this life, which is melancholy for one like Æschylus to feel, if he could _only_ hope, because the argument as to the ulterior good of those hopes is cut clean away, and what had he left?
I do not find it take away from my feeling of the magnanimity of Prometheus that he should, in truth, complain (as he does from beginning to end) of what he finds himself suffering. He could have prevented all, and can stop it now--of that he never thinks for a moment. That was the old Greek way--they never let an antagonistic passion neutralise the other which was to influence the man to his praise or blame. A Greek hero fears exceedingly and battles it out, cries out when he is wounded and fights on, does not say his love or hate makes him see no danger or feel no pain. Æschylus from first word to last ([Greek: idesthe me, oia paschô][9] to [Greek: esoras me, hôs ekdika paschô][10]) insists on the unmitigated reality of the punishment which only the sun, and divine ether, and the godhead of his mother can comprehend; still, still that is only what I suppose Æschylus to have done--in your poem you shall make Prometheus our way.
And now enough of Greek, which I am fast forgetting (for I never look at books I loved once)--it was your mention of the translation that brought out the old fast fading outlines of the Poem in my brain--the Greek poem, that is. You think--for I must get to _you_--that I 'unconsciously exaggerate what you are to me.' Now, you don't know what _that_ is, nor can I very well tell you, because the language with which I talk to myself of these matters is spiritual Attic, and 'loves contractions,' as grammarians say; but I read it myself, and well know what it means, that's why I told you I was self-conscious--I meant that I never yet mistook my own feelings, one for another--there! Of what use is talking? Only do you stay here with me in the 'House' these few short years. Do you think I shall see you in two months, three months? I may travel, perhaps. So you have got to like society, and would enjoy it, you think? For me, I always hated it--have put up with it these six or seven years past, lest by foregoing it I should let some unknown good escape me, in the true time of it, and only discover my fault when too late; and now that I have done most of what is to be done, _any_ lodge in a garden of cucumbers for me! I don't even care about reading now--the world, and pictures of it, rather than writings about the world! But you must read books in order to get words and forms for 'the public' if you _write_, and _that_ you needs must do, if you fear God. I have no pleasure in writing myself--none, in the mere act--though all pleasure in the sense of fulfilling a duty, whence, if I have done my real best, judge how heart-breaking a matter must it be to be pronounced a poor creature by critic this and acquaintance the other! But I think you like the operation of writing as I should like that of painting or making music, do you not? After all, there is a great delight in the heart of the thing; and use and forethought have made me ready at all times to set to work--but--I don't know why--my heart sinks whenever I open this desk, and rises when I shut it. Yet but for what I have written you would never have heard of me--and _through_ what you have written, not properly _for_ it, I love and wish you well! Now, will you remember what I began my letter by saying--how you have promised to let me know if my wishing takes effect, and if you still continue better? And not even ... (since we are learned in magnanimity) don't even tell me that or anything else, if it teases you,--but wait your own good time, and know me for ... if these words were but my own, and fresh-minted for this moment's use!...
Yours ever faithfully,
R. BROWNING.
[Footnote 1: Aeschylus, _Prometheus_, 228ff.:
'When at first He filled his father's throne, he instantly Made various gifts of glory to the gods.']
[Footnote 2: _Ib._ 439, 440:
'For see--their honours to these new-made gods, What other gave but I?']
[Footnote 3: _Ib._ 231, 232:
'Alone of men, Of miserable men, he took no count.']
[Footnote 4: _Ib._ 235: 'But I dared it.']
[Footnote 5: _Ib._ 11: 'Leave off his old trick of loving man.']
[Footnote 6: _Ib._ 443, 444:
'Being fools before, I made them wise and true in aim of soul.']
[Footnote 7: _Ib._ 250: 'Blind hopes.']
[Footnote 8: _Ib._ 251: 'A great benefit.']
[Footnote 9: _Ib._ 92: 'Behold what I suffer.']
[Footnote 10: _Ib._ 1093: 'Dost see how I suffer this wrong?']
_E.B.B. to R.B._
50 Wimpole Street: March 20, 1845.
Whenever I delay to write to you, dear Mr. Browning, it is not, be sure, that I take my 'own good time,' but submit to my own bad time. It was kind of you to wish to know how I was, and not unkind of me to suspend my answer to your question--for indeed I have not been very well, nor have had much heart for saying so. This implacable weather! this east wind that seems to blow through the sun and moon! who can be well in such a wind? Yet for me, I should not grumble. There has been nothing very bad the matter with me, as there used to be--I only grow weaker than usual, and learn my lesson of being mortal, in a corner--and then all this must end! April is coming. There will be both a May and a June if we live to see such things, and perhaps, after all, we may. And as to seeing _you_ besides, I observe that you distrust me, and that perhaps you penetrate my morbidity and guess how when the moment comes to see a living human face to which I am not accustomed, I shrink and grow pale in the spirit. Do you? You are learned in human nature, and you know the consequences of leading such a secluded life as mine--notwithstanding all my fine philosophy about social duties and the like--well--if you have such knowledge or if you have it not, I cannot say, but I do say that I will indeed see you when the warm weather has revived me a little, and put the earth 'to rights' again so as to make pleasures of the sort possible. For if you think that I shall not _like_ to see you, you are wrong, for all your learning. But I shall be afraid of you at first--though I am not, in writing thus. You are Paracelsus, and I am a recluse, with nerves that have been all broken on the rack, and now hang loosely--quivering at a step and breath.
And what you say of society draws me on to many comparative thoughts of your life and mine. You seem to have drunken of the cup of life full, with the sun shining on it. I have lived only inwardly; or with _sorrow_, for a strong emotion. Before this seclusion of my illness, I was secluded still, and there are few of the youngest women in the world who have not seen more, heard more, known more, of society, than I, who am scarcely to be called young now. I grew up in the country--had no social opportunities, had my heart in books and poetry, and my experience in reveries. My sympathies drooped towards the ground like an untrained honeysuckle--and but for _one_, in my own house--but of this I cannot speak. It was a lonely life, growing green like the grass around it. Books and dreams were what I lived in--and domestic life only seemed to buzz gently around, like the bees about the grass. And so time passed, and passed--and afterwards, when my illness came and I seemed to stand at the edge of the world with all done, and no prospect (as appeared at one time) of ever passing the threshold of one room again; why then, I turned to thinking with some bitterness (after the greatest sorrow of my life had given me room and time to breathe) that I had stood blind in this temple I was about to leave--that I had seen no Human nature, that my brothers and sisters of the earth were _names_ to me, that I had beheld no great mountain or river, nothing in fact. I was as a man dying who had not read Shakespeare, and it was too late! do you understand? And do you also know what a disadvantage this ignorance is to my art? Why, if I live on and yet do not escape from this seclusion, do you not perceive that I labour under signal disadvantages--that I am, in a manner, as a _blind poet_? Certainly, there is a compensation to a degree. I have had much of the inner life, and from the habit of self-consciousness and self-analysis, I make great guesses at Human nature in the main. But how willingly I would as a poet exchange some of this lumbering, ponderous, helpless knowledge of books, for some experience of life and man, for some....
But all grumbling is a vile thing. We should all thank God for our measures of life, and think them enough for each of us. I write so, that you may not mistake what I wrote before in relation to society, although you do not see from my point of view; and that you may understand what I mean fully when I say, that I have lived all my chief _joys_, and indeed nearly all emotions that go warmly by that name and relate to myself personally, in poetry and in poetry alone. Like to write? Of course, of course I do. I seem to live while I write--it is life, for me. Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,--but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully. And thus, one lives in composition surely--not always--but when the wheel goes round and the procession is uninterrupted. Is it not so with you? oh--it must be so. For the rest, there will be necessarily a reaction; and, in my own particular case, whenever I see a poem of mine in print, or even smoothly transcribed, the reaction is most painful. The pleasure, the sense of power, without which I could not write a line, is gone in a moment; and nothing remains but disappointment and humiliation. I never wrote a poem which you could not persuade me to tear to pieces if you took me at the right moment! I have a _seasonable_ humility, I do assure you.
How delightful to talk about oneself; but as you 'tempted me and I did eat,' I entreat your longsuffering of my sin, and ah! if you would but sin back so in turn! You and I seem to meet in a mild contrarious harmony ... as in the 'si no, si no' of an Italian duet. I want to see more of men, and you have seen too much, you say. I am in ignorance, and you, in satiety. 'You don't even care about reading now.' Is it possible? And I am as 'fresh' about reading, as ever I was--as long as I keep out of the shadow of the dictionaries and of theological controversies, and the like. Shall I whisper it to you under the memory of the last rose of last summer? _I am very fond of romances_; yes! and I read them not only as some wise people are known to do, for the sake of the eloquence here and the sentiment there, and the graphic intermixtures here and there, but for the story! just as little children would, sitting on their papa's knee. My childish love of a story never wore out with my love of plum cake, and now there is not a hole in it. I make it a rule, for the most part, to read all the romances that other people are kind enough to write--and woe to the miserable wight who tells me how the third volume endeth. Have you in you any surviving innocence of this sort? or do you call it idiocy? If you do, I will forgive you, only smiling to myself--I give you notice,--with a smile of superior pleasure! Mr. Chorley made me quite laugh the other day by recommending Mary Hewitt's 'Improvisatore,' with a sort of deprecating reference to the _descriptions_ in the book, just as if I never read a novel--_I!_ I wrote a confession back to him which made him shake his head perhaps, and now I confess to _you_, unprovoked. I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccio's stories; and I am not ashamed of it. I do not even 'see the better part,' I am so silly.
Ah! you tempt me with a grand vision of Prometheus! _I_, who have just escaped with my life, after treading Milton's ground, you would send me to Æschylus's. No, _I do not dare_. And besides ... I am inclined to think that we want new _forms_, as well as thoughts. The old gods are dethroned. Why should we go back to the antique moulds, classical moulds, as they are so improperly called? If it is a necessity of Art to do so, why then those critics are right who hold that Art is exhausted and the world too worn out for poetry. I do not, for my part, believe this: and I believe the so-called necessity of Art to be the mere feebleness of the artist. Let us all aspire rather to _Life_, and let the dead bury their dead. If we have but courage to face these conventions, to touch this low ground, we shall take strength from it instead of losing it; and of that, I am intimately persuaded. For there is poetry _everywhere_; the 'treasure' (see the old fable) lies all over the field. And then Christianity is a worthy _myth_, and poetically acceptable.
I had much to say to you, or at least something, of the 'blind hopes' &c., but am ashamed to take a step into a new sheet. If you mean 'to travel,' why, I shall have to miss you. Do you really mean it? How is the play going on? and the poem?
May God bless you!
Ever and truly yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Morning. [Post-mark, March 31, 1845.]
When you read Don Quixote, my dear romance-reader, do you ever notice that flower of an incident of good fellowship where the friendly Squire of Him of the Moon, or the Looking glasses, (I forget which) passes to Sancho's dry lips, (all under a cork-tree one morning)--a plump wine-skin,--and do you admire dear brave Miguel's knowledge of thirsty nature when he tells you that the Drinker, having seriously considered for a space the Pleiads, or place where they should be, fell, as he slowly returned the shrivelled bottle to its donor, into a deep musing of an hour's length, or thereabouts, and then ... mark ... only _then_, fetching a profound sigh, broke silence with ... such a piece of praise as turns pale the labours in that way of Rabelais and the Teian (if he wasn't a Byzantine monk, alas!) and our Mr. Kenyon's stately self--(since my own especial poet _à moi_, that can do all with anybody, only 'sips like a fly,' she says, and so cares not to compete with these behemoths that drink up Jordan)--Well, then ... (oh, I must get quick to the sentence's end, and be brief as an oracle-explainer!)--the giver is you and the taker is I, and the letter is the wine, and the star-gazing is the reading the same, and the brown study is--how shall I deserve and be grateful enough to this new strange friend of my own, that has taken away my reproach among men, that have each and all their friend, so they say (... not that I believe all they say--they boast too soon sometimes, no doubt,--I once was shown a letter wherein the truth stumbled out after this fashion 'Dere Smith,--I calls you "_dere_" ... because you are so in your shop!')--and the great sigh is,--there is no deserving nor being grateful at all,--and the breaking silence is, and the praise is ... ah, there, enough of it! This sunny morning is as if I wished it for you--10 strikes by the clock now--tell me if at 10 this morning you feel any good from my heart's wishes for you--I would give you all you want out of my own life and gladness and yet keep twice the stock that should by right have sufficed the thin white face that is laughing at me in the glass yonder at the fancy of its making anyone afraid ... and now, with another kind of laugh, at the thought that when its owner 'travels' next, he will leave off Miss Barrett along with port wine--_Dii meliora piis_, and, among them to
Yours every where, and at all times yours
R. BROWNING.
I have all to say yet--next letter. R.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Night. [Post-mark, April 16, 1845.]
I heard of you, dear Miss Barrett, between a Polka and a Cellarius the other evening, of Mr. Kenyon--how this wind must hurt you! And yesterday I had occasion to go your way--past, that is, Wimpole Street, the end of it,--and, do you know, I did not seem to have leave from you to go down it yet, much less count number after number till I came to yours,--much least than less, look up when I did come there. So I went on to a viperine she-friend of mine who, I think, rather loves me she does so hate me, and we talked over the chances of certain other friends who were to be balloted for at the 'Athenæum' last night,--one of whom, it seems, was in a fright about it--'to such little purpose' said my friend--'for he is so inoffensive--now, if one were to style _you_ that--' 'Or you'--I said--and so we hugged ourselves in our grimness like tiger-cats. Then there is a deal in the papers to-day about Maynooth, and a meeting presided over by Lord Mayor Gibbs, and the Reverend Mr. Somebody's speech. And Mrs. Norton has gone and book-made at a great rate about the Prince of Wales, pleasantly putting off till his time all that used of old to be put off till his mother's time;--altogether, I should dearly like to hear from you, but not till the wind goes, and sun comes--because I shall see Mr. Kenyon next week and get him to tell me some more. By the way, do you suppose anybody else looks like him? If you do, the first room full of real London people you go among you will fancy to be lighted up by a saucer of burning salt and spirits of wine in the back ground.
Monday--last night when I could do nothing else I began to write to you, such writing as you have seen--strange! The proper time and season for good sound sensible and profitable forms of speech--when ought it to have occurred, and how did I evade it in these letters of mine? For people begin with a graceful skittish levity, lest you should be struck all of a heap with what is to come, and _that_ is sure to be the stuff and staple of the man, full of wisdom and sorrow,--and then again comes the fringe of reeds and pink little stones on the other side, that you may put foot on land, and draw breath, and think what a deep pond you have swum across. But _you_ are the real deep wonder of a creature,--and I sail these paper-boats on you rather impudently. But I always mean to be very grave one day,--when I am in better spirits and can go _fuori di me_.
And one thing I want to persuade you of, which is, that all you gain by travel is the discovery that you have gained nothing, and have done rightly in trusting to your innate ideas--or not rightly in distrusting them, as the case may be. You get, too, a little ... perhaps a considerable, good, in finding the world's accepted _moulds_ everywhere, into which you may run and fix your own fused metal,--but not a grain Troy-weight do you get of new gold, silver or brass. After this, you go boldly on your own resources, and are justified to yourself, that's all. Three scratches with a pen,[1] even with this pen,--and you have the green little Syrenusa where I have sate and heard the quails sing. One of these days I shall describe a country I have seen in my soul only, fruits, flowers, birds and all.
Ever yours, dear Miss Barrett,
R. BROWNING.
[Footnote 1: A rough sketch follows in the original.]
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, April 18, 1845.]
If you did but know dear Mr. Browning how often I have written ... not this letter I am about to write, but another better letter to you, ... in the midst of my silence, ... you would not think for a moment that the east wind, with all the harm it does to me, is able to do the great harm of putting out the light of the thought of you to my mind; for this, indeed, it has no power to do. I had the pen in my hand once to write; and why it fell out, I cannot tell you. And you see, ... all your writing will not change the wind! You wished all manner of good to me one day as the clock struck ten; yes, and I assure you I was better that day--and I must not forget to tell you so though it is so long since. And _therefore_, I was logically bound to believe that you had never thought of me since ... unless you thought east winds of me! _That_ was quite clear; was it not? or would have been; if it had not been for the supernatural conviction, I had above all, of your kindness, which was too large to be taken in the hinge of a syllogism. In fact I have long left off thinking that logic proves anything--it _doesn't_, you know.
But your Lamia has taught you some subtle 'viperine' reasoning and _motiving_, for the turning down one street instead of another. It was conclusive.
Ah--but you will never persuade me that I am the better, or as well, for the thing that I have not. We look from different points of view, and yours is the point of attainment. Not that you do not truly say that, when all is done, we must come home to place our engines, and act by our own strength. I do not want material as material; no one does--but every life requires a full experience, a various experience--and I have a profound conviction that where a poet has been shut from most of the outward aspects of life, he is at a lamentable disadvantage. Can you, speaking for yourself, separate the results in you from the external influences at work around you, that you say so boldly that you get nothing from the world? You do not _directly_, I know--but you do indirectly and by a rebound. Whatever acts upon you, becomes _you_--and whatever you love or hate, whatever charms you or is scorned by you, acts on you and becomes _you_. Have you read the 'Improvisatore'? or will you? The writer seems to feel, just as I do, the good of the outward life; and he is a poet in his soul. It is a book full of beauty and had a great charm to me.
As to the Polkas and Cellariuses I do not covet them of course ... but what a strange world you seem to have, to me at a distance--what a strange husk of a world! How it looks to me like mandarin-life or something as remote; nay, not mandarin-life but mandarin _manners_, ... life, even the outer life, meaning something deeper, in my account of it. As to dear Mr. Kenyon I do not make the mistake of fancying that many can look like him or talk like him or _be_ like him. I know enough to know otherwise. When he spoke of me he should have said that I was better notwithstanding the east wind. It is really true--I am getting slowly up from the prostration of the severe cold, and feel stronger in myself.
But Mrs. Norton discourses excellent music--and for the rest, there are fruits in the world so over-ripe, that they will fall, ... without being gathered. Let Maynooth witness to it! _if you think it worth while_!
Ever yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
And _is it_ nothing to be 'justified to one's self in one's resources?' '_That's all_,' indeed! For the 'soul's country' we will have it also--and I know how well the birds sing in it. How glad I was by the way to see your letter!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, April 30, 1845.]
If you did but know, dear Miss Barrett, how the 'full stop' after 'Morning' just above, has turned out the fullest of stops,--and how for about a quarter of an hour since the ink dried I have been reasoning out the why and wherefore of the stopping, the wisdom of it, and the folly of it....
By this time you see what you have got in me--You ask me questions, 'if I like novels,' 'if the "Improvisatore" is not good,' 'if travel and sightseeing do not effect this and that for one,' and 'what I am devising--play or poem,'--and I shall not say I could not answer at all manner of lengths--but, let me only begin some good piece of writing of the kind, and ... no, you shall have it, have what I was going to tell you stops such judicious beginnings,--in a parallel case, out of which your ingenuity shall, please, pick the meaning--There is a story of D'Israeli's, an old one, with an episode of strange interest, or so I found it years ago,--well, you go breathlessly on with the people of it, page after page, till at last the end _must_ come, you feel--and the tangled threads draw to one, and an out-of-door feast in the woods helps you ... that is, helps them, the people, wonderfully on,--and, lo, dinner is done, and Vivian Grey is here, and Violet Fane there,--and a detachment of the party is drafted off to go catch butterflies, and only two or three stop behind. At this moment, Mr. Somebody, a good man and rather the lady's uncle, 'in answer to a question from Violet, drew from his pocket a small neatly written manuscript, and, seating himself on an inverted wine-cooler, proceeded to read the following brief remarks upon the characteristics of the Moeso-gothic literature'--this ends the page,--which you don't turn at once! But when you _do_, in bitterness of soul, turn it, you read--'On consideration, I' (Ben, himself) 'shall keep them for Mr. Colburn's _New Magazine_'--and deeply you draw thankful breath! (Note this 'parallel case' of mine is pretty sure to meet the usual fortune of my writings--you will ask what it means--and this it means, or should mean, all of it, instance and reasoning and all,--that I am naturally earnest, in earnest about whatever thing I do, and little able to write about one thing while I think of another)--
I think I will really write verse to you some day--_this_ day, it is quite clear I had better give up trying.
No, spite of all the lines in the world, I will make an end of it, as Ophelia with her swan's-song,--for it grows too absurd. But remember that I write letters to nobody but you, and that I want method and much more. That book you like so, the Danish novel, must be full of truth and beauty, to judge from the few extracts I have seen in Reviews. That a Dane should write so, confirms me in an old belief--that Italy is stuff for the use of the North, and no more--pure Poetry there is none, nearly as possible none, in Dante even--material for Poetry in the pitifullest romancist of their thousands, on the contrary--strange that those great wide black eyes should stare nothing out of the earth that lies before them! Alfieri, with even grey eyes, and a life of travel, writes you some fifteen tragedies as colourless as salad grown under a garden glass with matting over it--as free, that is, from local colouring, touches of the soil they are said to spring from,--think of 'Saulle,' and his Greek attempts!
I expected to see Mr. Kenyon, at a place where I was last week, but he kept away. Here is the bad wind back again, and the black sky. I am sure I never knew till now whether the East or West or South were the quarter to pray for--But surely the weather was a little better last week, and you, were you not better? And do you know--but it's all self-flattery I believe,--still I cannot help fancying the East wind does my head harm too!
Ever yours faithfully,
R. BROWNING.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday. [Post-mark, May 2, 1845.]
People say of you and of me, dear Mr. Browning, that we love the darkness and use a sphinxine idiom in our talk; and really you do talk a little like a sphinx in your argument drawn from 'Vivian Grey.' Once I sate up all night to read 'Vivian Grey'; but I never drew such an argument from him. Not that I give it up (nor _you_ up) for a mere mystery. Nor that I can '_see what you have got in you_,' from a mere guess. But just observe! If I ask questions about novels, is it not because I want to know how much elbow-room there may be for our sympathies ... and whether there is room for my loose sleeves, and the lace lappets, as well as for my elbows; and because I want to see _you_ by the refracted lights as well as by the direct ones; and because I am willing for you to know _me_ from the beginning, with all my weaknesses and foolishnesses, ... as they are accounted by people who say to me 'no one would ever think, without knowing you, that you were so and so.' Now if I send all my idle questions to _Colburn's Magazine_, with other Gothic literature, and take to standing up in a perpendicular personality like the angel on the schoolman's needle, in my letters to come, without further leaning to the left or the right--why the end would be that _you_ would take to 'running after the butterflies,' for change of air and exercise. And then ... oh ... then, my 'small neatly written manuscripts' might fall back into my desk...! (_Not_ a 'full stop'!.)
Indeed ... I do assure you ... I never for a moment thought of 'making conversation' about the 'Improvisatore' or novels in general, when I wrote what I did to you. I might, to other persons ... perhaps. Certainly not to _you_. I was not dealing round from one pack of cards to you and to others. That's what you meant to reproach me for you know,--and of that, I am not guilty at all. I never could think of 'making conversation' in a letter to _you_--never. Women are said to partake of the nature of children--and my brothers call me 'absurdly childish' sometimes: and I am capable of being childishly 'in earnest' about novels, and straws, and such 'puppydogs' tails' as my Flush's! Also I write more letters than you do, ... I write in fact almost as you pay visits, ... and one has to 'make conversation' in turn, of course. _But_--give me something to vow by--whatever you meant in the 'Vivian Grey' argument, you were wrong in it! and you never can be much more wrong--which is a comfortable reflection.
Yet you leap very high at Dante's crown--or you do not leap, ... you simply extend your hand to it, and make a rustling among the laurel leaves, which is somewhat prophane. Dante's poetry only materials for the northern rhymers! I must think of that ... if you please ... before I agree with you. Dante's poetry seems to come down in hail, rather than in rain--but count me the drops congealed in one hailstone! Oh! the 'Flight of the Duchess'--do let us hear more of her! Are you (I wonder) ... not a 'self-flatterer,' ... but ... a flatterer.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday Morning. [Post-mark, May 3, 1845.]
Now shall you see what you shall see--here shall be 'sound speech not to be reproved,'--for this morning you are to know that the soul of me has it all her own way, dear Miss Barrett, this green cool nine-in-the-morning time for my chestnut tree over there, and for me who only coaxed my good-natured--(really)--body up, after its three-hours' night-rest on condition it should lounge, or creep about, incognito and without consequences--and so it shall, all but my right-hand which is half-spirit and 'cuts' its poor relation, and passes itself off for somebody (that is, some soul) and is doubly
## active and ready on such occasions--Now I shall tell you all about it,
first what last letter meant, and then more. You are to know, then that for some reason, that looked like an instinct, I thought I ought not to send shaft on shaft, letter-plague on letter, with such an uninterrupted clanging ... that I ought to wait, say a week at least having killed all your mules for you, before I shot down your dogs--but not being exactly Phoibos Apollon, you are to know further that when I _did_ think I might go modestly on, ... [Greek: ômoi], let me get out of this slough of a simile, never mind with what dislocation of ancles! Plainly, from waiting and turning my eyes away (not from _you_, but from you in your special capacity of being _written_-to, not spoken-to) when I turned again you had grown formidable somehow--though that's not the word,--nor are you the person, either,--it was my fortune, my privilege of being your friend this one way, that it seemed a shame for me to make no better use of than taking it up with talk about books and I don't know what. Write what I will, you would read for once, I think--well, then,--what I shall write shall be--something on this book, and the other book, and my own books, and Mary Hewitt's books, and at the end of it--good bye, and I hope here is a quarter of an hour rationally spent. So the thought of what I should find in my heart to say, and the contrast with what I suppose I ought to say ... all these things are against me. But this is very foolish, all the same, I need not be told--and is part and parcel of an older--indeed primitive body of mine, which I shall never wholly get rid of, of desiring to do nothing when I cannot do all; seeing nothing, getting, enjoying nothing, where there is no seeing and getting and enjoying _wholly_--and in this case, moreover, you are _you_, and know something about me, if not much, and have read Bos on the art of supplying Ellipses, and (after, particularly, I have confessed all this, why and how it has been) you will _subaudire_ when I pull out my Mediæval-Gothic-Architectural-Manuscript (so it was, I remember now,) and instruct you about corbeils and ogives ... though, after all, it was none of Vivian's doing, that,--all the uncle kind or man's, which I never professed to be. Now you see how I came to say some nonsense (I very vaguely think _what_) about Dante--some desperate splash I know I made for the beginning of my picture, as when a painter at his wits' end and hunger's beginning says 'Here shall the figure's hand be'--and spots _that_ down, meaning to reach it naturally from the other end of his canvas,--and leaving off tired, there you see the spectral disjoined thing, and nothing between it and rationality. I intended to shade down and soften off and put in and leave out, and, before I had done, bring Italian Poets round to their old place again in my heart, giving new praise if I took old,--anyhow Dante is out of it all, as who knows but I, with all of him in my head and heart? But they do fret one, those tantalizing creatures, of fine passionate class, with such capabilities, and such a facility of being made pure mind of. And the special instance that vexed me, was that a man of sands and dog-roses and white rock and green sea-water just under, should come to Italy where my heart lives, and discover the sights and sounds ... certainly discover them. And so do all Northern writers; for take up handfuls of sonetti, rime, poemetti, doings of those who never did anything else,--and try and make out, for yourself, what ... say, what flowers they tread on, or trees they walk under,--as you might bid _them_, those tree and flower loving creatures, pick out of _our_ North poetry a notion of what _our_ daisies and harebells and furze bushes and brambles are--'Odorosi fioretti, rose porporine, bianchissimi gigli.' And which of you eternal triflers was it called yourself 'Shelley' and so told me years ago that in the mountains it was a feast
When one should find those globes of deep red gold-- Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear, Suspended in their emerald atmosphere.
so that when my Uncle walked into a sorb-tree, not to tumble sheer over Monte Calvano, and I felt the fruit against my face, the little ragged bare-legged guide fairly laughed at my knowing them so well--'Niursi--sorbi!' No, no,--does not all Naples-bay and half Sicily, shore and inland, come flocking once a year to the Piedigrotta fête only to see the blessed King's Volanti, or livery servants all in their best; as though heaven opened; and would not I engage to bring the whole of the Piano (of Sorrento) in likeness to a red velvet dressing gown properly spangled over, before the priest that held it out on a pole had even begun his story of how Noah's son Shem, the founder of Sorrento, threw it off to swim thither, as the world knows he did? Oh, it makes one's soul angry, so enough of it. But never enough of telling you--bring all your sympathies, come with loosest sleeves and longest lace-lappets, and you and yours shall find 'elbow room,' oh, shall you not! For never did man, woman or child, Greek, Hebrew, or as Danish as our friend, like a thing, not to say love it, but I liked and loved it, one liking neutralizing the rebellious stir of its fellow, so that I don't go about now wanting the fixed stars before my time; this world has not escaped me, thank God; and--what other people say is the best of it, may not escape me after all, though until so very lately I made up my mind to do without it;--perhaps, on that account, and to make fair amends to other people, who, I have no right to say, complain without cause. I have been surprised, rather, with something not unlike illness of late--I have had a constant pain in the head for these two months, which only very rough exercise gets rid of, and which stops my 'Luria' and much besides. I thought I never could be unwell. Just now all of it is gone, thanks to polking all night and walking home by broad daylight to the surprise of the thrushes in the bush here. And do you know I said 'this must _go_, cannot mean to stay, so I will not tell Miss Barrett why this and this is not done,'--but I mean to tell you all, or more of the truth, because you call me 'flatterer,' so that my eyes widened again! I, and in what? And of whom, pray? not of _you_, at all events,--of whom then? _Do_ tell me, because I want to stand with you--and am quite in earnest there. And 'The Flight of the Duchess,' to leave nothing out, is only the beginning of a story written some time ago, and given to poor Hood in his emergency at a day's notice,--the true stuff and story is all to come, the 'Flight,' and what you allude to is the mere introduction--but the Magazine has passed into other hands and I must put the rest in some 'Bell' or other--it is one of my Dramatic Romances. So is a certain 'Saul' I should like to show you one day--an ominous liking--for nobody ever sees what I do till it is printed. But as you _do_ know the printed little part of me, I should not be sorry if, in justice, you knew all I have _really_ done,--written in the portfolio there,--though that would be far enough from _this_ me, that wishes to you now. I should like to write something in concert with you, how I would try!
I have read your letter through again. Does this clear up all the difficulty, and do you see that I never dreamed of 'reproaching you for dealing out one sort of cards to me and everybody else'--but that ... why, '_that_' which I have, I hope, said, so need not resay. I will tell you--Sydney Smith laughs somewhere at some Methodist or other whose wont was, on meeting an acquaintance in the street, to open at once on him with some enquiry after the state of his soul--Sydney knows better now, and sees that one might quite as wisely ask such questions as the price of Illinois stock or condition of glebe-land,--and I _could_ say such--'could,'--the plague of it! So no more at present from your loving.... Or, let me tell you I am going to see Mr. Kenyon on the 12th inst.--that you do not tell me how you are, and that yet if you do not continue to improve in health ... I shall not see you--not--not--not--what 'knots' to untie! Surely the wind that sets my chestnut-tree dancing, all its baby-cone-blossoms, green now, rocking like fairy castles on a hill in an earthquake,--that is South West, surely! God bless you, and me in that--and do write to me soon, and tell me who was the 'flatterer,' and how he never was
Yours
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday--and Tuesday. [Post-mark, May 6, 1845.]
So when wise people happen to be ill, they sit up till six o'clock in the morning and get up again at nine? Do tell me how Lurias can ever be made out of such ungodly imprudences. If the wind blows east or west, where can any remedy be, while such evil deeds are being committed? And what is to be the end of it? And what is the reasonableness of it in the meantime, when we all know that thinking, dreaming, creating people like yourself, have two lives to bear instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others, ... throwing over and buckling in that fold of death, to stroke the life-purple smoother. You have to live your own personal life, and also Luria's life--and therefore you should sleep for both. It is logical indeed--and rational, ... which logic is not always ... and if I had 'the tongue of men and of angels,' I would use it to persuade you. Polka, for the rest, may be good; but sleep is better. I think better of sleep than I ever did, now that she will not easily come near me except in a red hood of poppies. And besides, ... praise your 'goodnatured body' as you like, ... it is only a seeming goodnature! Bodies bear malice in a terrible way, be very sure!--appear mild and smiling for a few short years, and then ... out with a cold steel; and the _soul has it_, 'with a vengeance,' ... according to the phrase! You will not persist, (will you?) in this experimental homicide. Or tell me if you will, that I may do some more tearing. It really, really is wrong. Exercise is one sort of rest and you feel relieved by it--and sleep is another: one being as necessary as the other.
This is the first thing I have to say. The next is a question. _What do you mean about your manuscripts ... about 'Saul' and the portfolio?_ for I am afraid of hazardously supplying ellipses--and your 'Bos' comes to [Greek: bous epi glôssê].[1] I get half bribed to silence by the very pleasure of fancying. But if it could be possible that you should mean to say you would show me.... Can it be? or am I reading this 'Attic contraction' quite the wrong way? You see I am afraid of the difference between flattering myself and being flattered; the fatal difference. And now will you understand that I should be too overjoyed to have revelations from the 'Portfolio,' ... however incarnated with blots and pen-scratches, ... to be able to ask impudently of them now? Is that plain?
It must be, ... at any rate, ... that if _you_ would like to 'write something together' with me, _I_ should like it still better. I should like it for some ineffable reasons. And I should not like it a bit the less for the grand supply of jests it would administer to the critical Board of Trade, about visible darkness, multiplied by two, mounting into palpable obscure. We should not mind ... should we? _you_ would not mind, if you had got over certain other considerations deconsiderating to your coadjutor. Yes--but I dare not do it, ... I mean, think of it, ... just now, if ever: and I will tell you why in a Mediæval-Gothic-architectural manuscript.
The only poet by profession (if I may say so,) except yourself, with whom I ever had much intercourse even on paper, (if this is near to 'much') has been Mr. Horne. We approached each other on the point of one of Miss Mitford's annual editorships; and ever since, he has had the habit of writing to me occasionally; and when I was too ill to write at all, in my dreary Devonshire days, I was his debtor for various little kindnesses, ... for which I continue his debtor. In my opinion he is a truehearted and generous man. Do you not think so? Well--long and long ago, he asked me to write a drama with him on the Greek model; that is, for me to write the choruses, and for him to do the dialogue. Just then it was quite doubtful in my own mind, and worse than doubtful, whether I ever should write again; and the very doubtfulness made me speak my 'yes' more readily. Then I was desired to make a subject, ... to conceive a plan; and my plan was of a man, haunted by his own soul, ... (making her a separate personal Psyche, a dreadful, beautiful Psyche)--the man being haunted and terrified through all the turns of life by her. Did you ever feel afraid of your own soul, as I have done? I think it is a true wonder of our humanity--and fit subject enough for a wild lyrical drama. I should like to write it by myself at least, well enough. But with him I will not now. It was delayed ... delayed. He cut the plan up into scenes ... I mean into a list of scenes ... a sort of ground-map to work on--and there it lies. Nothing more was done. It all lies in one sheet--and I have offered to give up my copyright of idea in it--if he likes to use it alone--or I should not object to work it out alone on my own side, since it comes from me: only I will not consent now to a _double work_ in it. There are objections--none, be it well understood, in Mr. Horne's disfavour,--for I think of him as well at this moment, and the same in all essential points, as I ever did. He is a man of fine imagination, and is besides good and generous. In the course of our acquaintance (on paper--for I never saw him) I never was angry with him except once; and then, _I_ was quite wrong and had to confess it. But this is being too 'mediæval.' Only you will see from it that I am a little entangled on the subject of compound works, and must look where I tread ... and you will understand (if you ever hear from Mr. Kenyon or elsewhere that I am going to write a compound-poem with Mr. Horne) how it _was_ true, and isn't true any more.
Yes--you are going to Mr. Kenyon's on the 12th--and yes--my brother and sister are going to meet you and your sister there one day to dinner. Shall I have courage to see you soon, I wonder! If you ask me, I must ask myself. But oh, this make-believe May--it can't be May after all! If a south-west wind sate in your chestnut tree, it was but for a few hours--the east wind 'came up this way' by the earliest opportunity of succession. As the old 'mysteries' showed 'Beelzebub with a bearde,' even so has the east wind had a 'bearde' of late, in a full growth of bristling exaggerations--the English spring-winds have excelled themselves in evil this year; and I have not been down-stairs yet.--_But_ I am certainly stronger and better than I was--that is undeniable--and I _shall_ be better still. You are not going away soon--are you? In the meantime you do not know what it is to be ... a little afraid of Paracelsus. So right about the Italians! and the 'rose porporine' which made me smile. How is the head?
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
Is the 'Flight of the Duchess' in the portfolio? Of course you must ring the Bell. That poem has a strong heart in it, to begin _so_ strongly. Poor Hood! And all those thoughts fall mixed together. May God bless you.
[Footnote 1: Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_ 36: 'An ox hath trodden on my tongue'--a Greek proverb implying silence.]
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday--in the last hour of it. [Post-mark, May 12, 1845.]
May I ask how the head is? just under the bag? Mr. Kenyon was here to-day and told me such bad news that I cannot sleep to-night (although I did think once of doing it) without asking such a question as this, dear Mr. Browning.
Let me hear how you are--Will you? and let me hear (if I can) that it was prudence or some unchristian virtue of the sort, and not a dreary necessity, which made you put aside the engagement for Tuesday--for Monday. I had been thinking so of seeing you on Tuesday ... with my sister's eyes--for the first sight.
And now if you have done killing the mules and the dogs, let me have a straight quick arrow for myself, if you please. Just a word, to say how you are. I ask for no more than a word, lest the writing should be hurtful to you.
May God bless you always.
Your friend,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, May 12, 1845.]
My dear, own friend, I am quite well now, or next to it--but this is how it was,--I have gone out a great deal of late, and my head took to ringing such a literal alarum that I wondered what was to come of it; and at last, a few evenings ago, as I was dressing for a dinner somewhere, I got really bad of a sudden, and kept at home to my friend's heartrending disappointment. Next morning I was no better--and it struck me that I should be really disappointing dear kind Mr. Kenyon, and wasting his time, if that engagement, too, were broken with as little warning,--so I thought it best to forego all hopes of seeing him, at such a risk. And that done, I got rid of every other promise to pay visits for next week and next, and told everybody, with considerable dignity, that my London season was over for this year, as it assuredly is--and I shall be worried no more, and let walk in the garden, and go to bed at ten o'clock, and get done with what is most expedient to do, and my 'flesh shall come again like a little child's,' and one day, oh the day, I shall see you with my own, own eyes ... for, how little you understand me; or rather, yourself,--if you think I would dare see you, without your leave, that way! Do you suppose that your power of giving and refusing ends when you have shut your room-door? Did I not tell you I turned down another street, even, the other day, and why not down yours? And often as I see Mr. Kenyon, have I ever dreamed of asking any but the merest conventional questions about you; your health, and no more?
I will answer your letter, the last one, to-morrow--I have said nothing of what I want to say.
Ever yours
R.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning. [Post-mark, May 13, 1845.]
Did I thank you with any effect in the lines I sent yesterday, dear Miss Barrett? I know I felt most thankful, and, of course, began reasoning myself into the impropriety of allowing a 'more' or a 'most' in feelings of that sort towards you. I am thankful for you, all about you--as, do you not know?
Thank you, from my soul.
Now, let me never pass occasion of speaking well of Horne, who deserves your opinion of him,--it is my own, too.--He has unmistakable genius, and is a fine, honest, enthusiastic chivalrous fellow--it is the fashion to affect to sneer at him, of late, I think--the people he has praised fancying that they 'pose' themselves sculpturesquely in playing the Greatly Indifferent, and the other kind shaking each other's hands in hysterical congratulations at having escaped such a dishonour: _I_ feel grateful to him, I know, for his generous criticism, and glad and proud of in any way approaching such a man's standard of poetical height. And he might be a disappointed man too,--for the players trifled with and teased out his very nature, which has a strange aspiration for the horrible tin-and-lacquer 'crown' they give one from their clouds (of smooth shaven deal done over blue)--and he don't give up the bad business yet, but thinks a 'small' theatre would somehow not be a theatre, and an actor not quite an actor ... I forget in what way, but the upshot is, he bates not a jot in that rouged, wigged, padded, empty-headed, heartless tribe of grimacers that came and canted me; not I, them;--a thing he cannot understand--_so_, I am not the one he would have picked out to praise, had he not been _loyal_. I know he admires your poetry properly. God help him, and send some great artist from the country, (who can read and write beside comprehending Shakspeare, and who 'exasperates his H's' when the feat is to be done)--to undertake the part of Cosmo, or Gregory, or what shall most soothe his spirit! The subject of your play is tempting indeed--and reminds one of that wild Drama of Calderon's which frightened Shelley just before his death--also, of Fuseli's theory with reference to his own Picture of Macbeth in the witches' cave ... wherein the apparition of the armed head from the cauldron is Macbeth's own.
'If you ask me, I must ask myself'--that is, when I am to see you--I will _never_ ask you! You do _not_ know what I shall estimate that permission at,--nor do I, quite--but you do--do not you? know so much of me as to make my 'asking' worse than a form--I do not 'ask' you to write to me--not _directly_ ask, at least.
I will tell you--I ask you _not_ to see me so long as you are unwell, or mistrustful of--
No, no, that is being too grand! Do see me when you can, and let me not be only writing myself
Yours
R.B.
A kind, so kind, note from Mr. Kenyon came. We, I and my sister, are to go in June instead.... I shall go nowhere till then; I am nearly well--all save one little wheel in my head that keeps on its
[Illustration: Music: bass clef, B-flat, _Sostenuto_]
That you are better I am most thankful.
'Next letter' to say how you must help me with all my new Romances and Lyrics, and Lays and Plays, and read them and heed them and end them and mend them!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday. [Post-mark, May 16, 1845.]
But how 'mistrustfulness'? And how 'that way?' What have I said or done, _I_, who am not apt to _be_ mistrustful of anybody and should be a miraculous monster if I began with _you_! What can I have said, I say to myself again and again.
One thing, at any rate, I have done, 'that way' or this way! I have made what is vulgarly called a 'piece of work' about little; or seemed to make it. Forgive me. I am shy by nature:--and by position and experience, ... by having had my nerves shaken to excess, and by leading a life of such seclusion, ... by these things together and by others besides, I have appeared shy and ungrateful to you. Only not mistrustful. You could not mean to judge me so. Mistrustful people do not write as I write, surely! for wasn't it a Richelieu or Mazarin (or who?) who said that with five lines from anyone's hand, he could take off his head for a corollary? I think so.
Well!--but this is to prove that I am not mistrustful, and to say, that if you care to come to see me you can come; and that it is my gain (as I feel it to be) and not yours, whenever you do come. You will not talk of having come afterwards I know, because although I am 'fast bound' to see one or two persons this summer (besides yourself, whom I receive of choice and willingly) I _cannot_ admit visitors in a general way--and putting the question of health quite aside, it would be unbecoming to lie here on the sofa and make a company-show of an infirmity, and hold a beggar's hat for sympathy. I should blame it in another woman--and the sense of it has had its weight with me sometimes.
For the rest, ... when you write, that _I_ do not know how you would value, &c. _nor yourself quite_, you touch very accurately on the truth ... and _so_ accurately in the last clause, that to read it, made me smile 'tant bien que mal.' Certainly you cannot 'quite know,' or know at all, whether the least straw of pleasure can go to you from knowing me otherwise than on this paper--and I, for my part, 'quite know' my own honest impression, dear Mr. Browning, that none is likely to go to you. There is nothing to see in me; nor to hear in me--I never learnt to talk as you do in London; although I can admire that brightness of carved speech in Mr. Kenyon and others. If my poetry is worth anything to any eye, it is the flower of me. I have lived most and been most happy in it, and so it has all my colours; the rest of me is nothing but a root, fit for the ground and the dark. And if I write all this egotism, ... it is for shame; and because I feel ashamed of having made a fuss about what is not worth it; and because you are extravagant in caring so for a permission, which will be nothing to you afterwards. Not that I am not touched by your caring so at all! I am deeply touched now; and presently, ... I shall understand. Come then. There will be truth and simplicity for you in any case; and a friend. And do not answer this--I do not write it as a fly trap for compliments. Your spider would scorn me for it too much. Also, ... as to the how and when. You are not well now, and it cannot be good for you to do anything but be quiet and keep away that dreadful musical note in the head. I entreat you not to think of coming until _that_ is all put to silence satisfactorily. When it is done, ... you must choose whether you would like best to come with Mr. Kenyon or to come alone--and if you would come alone, you must just tell me on what day, and I will see you on any day unless there should be an unforeseen obstacle, ... any day after two, or before six. And my sister will bring you up-stairs to me; and we will talk; or _you_ will talk; and you will try to be indulgent, and like me as well as you can. If, on the other hand, you would rather come with Mr. Kenyon, you must wait, I imagine, till June,--because he goes away on Monday and is not likely immediately to return--no, on Saturday, to-morrow.
In the meantime, why I should be '_thanked_,' is an absolute mystery to me--but I leave it!
You are generous and impetuous; _that_, I can see and feel; and so far from being of an inclination to mistrust you or distrust you, I do profess to have as much faith in your full, pure loyalty, as if I had known you personally as many years as I have appreciated your genius. Believe this of me--for it is spoken truly.
In the matter of Shakespeare's 'poor players' you are severe--and yet I was glad to hear you severe--it is a happy excess, I think. When men of intense reality, as all great poets must be, give their hearts to be trodden on and tied up with ribbons in turn, by men of masks, there will be torture if there is not desecration. Not that I know much of such things--but I have _heard_. Heard from Mr. Kenyon; heard from Miss Mitford; who however is passionately fond of the theatre as a writer's medium--_not at all_, from Mr. Horne himself, ... except what he has printed on the subject.
Yes--he has been infamously used on the point of the 'New Spirit'--only he should have been prepared for the infamy--it was leaping into a gulph, ... not to 'save the republic,' but '_pour rire_': it was not merely putting one's foot into a hornet's nest, but taking off a shoe and stocking to do it. And to think of Dickens being dissatisfied! To think of Tennyson's friends grumbling!--he himself did not, I hope and trust. For you, you certainly were not adequately treated--and above all, you were not placed with your _peers_ in that chapter--but that there was an intention to do you justice, and that there _is_ a righteous appreciation of you in the writer, I know and am sure,--and that _you_ should be sensible to this, is only what I should know and be sure of _you_. Mr. Horne is quite above the narrow, vicious, hateful jealousy of contemporaries, which we hear reproached, too justly sometimes, on men of letters.
I go on writing as if I were not going to see you--soon perhaps. Remember that the how and the when rest with you--except that it cannot be before next week at the soonest. You are to decide.
Always your friend,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Night. [Post-mark, May 17, 1845.]
My friend is not 'mistrustful' of me, no, because she don't fear I shall make mainprize of the stray cloaks and umbrellas down-stairs, or turn an article for _Colburn's_ on her sayings and doings up-stairs,--but spite of that, she does mistrust ... _so_ mistrust my common sense,--nay, uncommon and dramatic-poet's sense, if I am put on asserting it!--all which pieces of mistrust I could detect, and catch struggling, and pin to death in a moment, and put a label in, with name, genus and species, just like a horrible entomologist; only I won't, because the first visit of the Northwind will carry the whole tribe into the Red Sea--and those horns and tails and scalewings are best forgotten altogether. And now will I say a cutting thing and have done. Have I trusted _my_ friend so,--or said even to myself, much less to her, she is even as--'Mr. Simpson' who desireth the honour of the acquaintance of Mr. B. whose admirable works have long been his, Simpson's, especial solace in private--and who accordingly is led to that personage by a mutual friend--Simpson blushing as only adorable ingenuousness can, and twisting the brim of his hat like a sailor giving evidence. Whereupon Mr. B. beginneth by remarking that the rooms are growing hot--or that he supposes Mr. S. has not heard if there will be another adjournment of the House to-night--whereupon Mr. S. looketh up all at once, brusheth the brim smooth again with his sleeve, and takes to his assurance once more, in something of a huff, and after staying his five minutes out for decency's sake, noddeth familiarly an adieu, and spinning round on his heel ejaculateth mentally--'Well, I _did_ expect to see something different from that little yellow commonplace man ... and, now I come to think, there _was_ some precious trash in that book of his'--Have _I_ said 'so will Miss Barrett ejaculate?'
Dear Miss Barrett, I thank you for the leave you give me, and for the infinite kindness of the way of giving it. I will call at 2 on Tuesday--not sooner, that you may have time to write should any adverse circumstances happen ... not that they need inconvenience you, because ... what I want particularly to tell you for now and hereafter--do not mind my coming in the least, but--should you be unwell, for instance,--just send or leave word, and I will come again, and again, and again--my time is of _no_ importance, and I have acquaintances thick in the vicinity.
Now if I do not seem grateful enough to you, _am_ I so much to blame? You see it is high time you _saw_ me, for I have clearly written myself _out_!
Ever yours,
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, May 17, 1845.]
I shall be ready on Tuesday I hope, but I hate and protest against your horrible 'entomology.' Beginning to explain, would thrust me lower and lower down the circles of some sort of an 'Inferno'; only with my dying breath I would maintain that I never could, consciously or unconsciously, mean to distrust you; or, the least in the world, to Simpsonize you. What I said, ... it was _you_ that put it into my head to say it--for certainly, in my usual disinclination to receive visitors, such a feeling does not enter. There, now! There, I am a whole 'giro' lower! Now, you will say perhaps that I distrust _you_, and nobody else! So it is best to be silent, and bear all the 'cutting things' with resignation! _that_ is certain.
Still I must really say, under this dreadful incubus-charge of Simpsonism, ... that you, who know everything, or at least make awful guesses at everything in one's feelings and motives, and profess to be able to pin them down in a book of classified inscriptions, ... should have been able to understand better, or misunderstand less, in a matter like this--Yes! I think so. I think you should have made out the case in some such way as it was in nature--viz. that you had lashed yourself up to an exorbitant wishing to see me, ... (you who could see, any day, people who are a hundredfold and to all social purposes, my superiors!) because I was unfortunate enough to be shut up in a room and silly enough to make a fuss about opening the door; and that I grew suddenly abashed by the consciousness of this. How different from a distrust of _you_! how different!
Ah--if, after this day, you ever see any interpretable sign of distrustfulness in me, you may be 'cutting' again, and I will not cry out. In the meantime here is a fact for your 'entomology.' I have not so much _distrust_, as will make a _doubt_, as will make a _curiosity_ for next Tuesday. Not the simplest modification of _curiosity_ enters into the state of feeling with which I wait for Tuesday:--and if you are angry to hear me say so, ... why, you are more unjust than ever.
(Let it be three instead of two--if the hour be as convenient to yourself.)
Before you come, try to forgive me for my 'infinite kindness' in the manner of consenting to see you. Is it 'the cruellest cut of all' when you talk of infinite kindness, yet attribute such villainy to me? Well! but we are friends till Tuesday--and after perhaps.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
If on Tuesday you should be not well, _pray do not come_--Now, that is my request to your kindness.[1]
[Footnote 1: Envelope endorsed by Robert Browning:--Tuesday, May 20, 1845, 3-4-1/2 p.m.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, May 21, 1845.]
I trust to you for a true account of how you are--if tired, if not tired, if I did wrong in any thing,--or, if you please, _right_ in any thing--(only, not one more word about my 'kindness,' which, to get done with, I will grant is exceptive)--but, let us so arrange matters if possible,--and why should it not be--that my great happiness, such as it will be if I see you, as this morning, from time to time, may be obtained at the cost of as little inconvenience to you as we can contrive. For an instance--just what strikes me--they all say here I speak very loud--(a trick caught from having often to talk with a deaf relative of mine). And did I stay too long?
I will tell _you_ unhesitatingly of such 'corrigenda'--nay, I will again say, do not humiliate me--_do not_ again,--by calling me 'kind' in that way.
I am proud and happy in your friendship--now and ever. May God bless you!
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, May 22, 1845.]
Indeed there was nothing wrong--how could there be? And there was everything right--as how should there not be? And as for the 'loud speaking,' I did not hear any--and, instead of being worse, I ought to be better for what was certainly (to speak it, or be silent of it,) happiness and honour to me yesterday.
Which reminds me to observe that you are so restricting our vocabulary, as to be ominous of silence in a full sense, presently. First, one word is not to be spoken--and then, another is not. And why? Why deny me the use of such words as have natural feelings belonging to them--and how can the use of such be 'humiliating' to _you_? If my heart were open to you, you could see nothing offensive to you in any thought there or trace of thought that has been there--but it is hard for you to understand, with all your psychology (and to be reminded of it I have just been looking at the preface of some poems by some Mr. Gurney where he speaks of 'the reflective wisdom of a Wordsworth and the profound psychological utterances of a Browning') it is hard for you to understand what my mental position is after the peculiar experience I have suffered, and what [Greek: ti emoi kai soi][1] a sort of feeling is irrepressible from me to you, when, from the height of your brilliant happy sphere, you ask, as you did ask, for personal intercourse with me. What words but 'kindness' ... but 'gratitude'--but I will not in any case be _un_kind and _un_grateful, and do what is displeasing to you. And let us both leave the subject with the words--because we perceive in it from different points of view; we stand on the black and white sides of the shield; and there is no coming to a conclusion.
But you will come really on Tuesday--and again, when you like and can together--and it will not be more 'inconvenient' to me to be pleased, I suppose, than it is to people in general--will it, do you think? Ah--how you misjudge! Why it must obviously and naturally be delightful to me to receive you here when you like to come, and it cannot be necessary for me to say so in set words--believe it of
Your friend,
E.B.B.
[Mr. Browning's letter, to which the following is in answer was destroyed, see page 268 of the present volume.]
[Footnote 1: 'What have I to do with thee?']
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening. [Post-mark, May 24, 1845.]
I intended to write to you last night and this morning, and could not,--you do not know what pain you give me in speaking so wildly. And if I disobey you, my dear friend, in speaking, (I for my part) of your wild speaking, I do it, not to displease you, but to be in my own eyes, and before God, a little more worthy, or less unworthy, of a generosity from which I recoil by instinct and at the first glance, yet conclusively; and because my silence would be the most disloyal of all means of expression, in reference to it. Listen to me then in this. You have said some intemperate things ... fancies,--which you will not say over again, nor unsay, but _forget at once_, and _for ever, having said at all_; and which (so) will die out between _you and me alone_, like a misprint between you and the printer. And this you will do _for my sake_ who am your friend (and you have none truer)--and this I ask, because it is a condition necessary to our future liberty of intercourse. You remember--surely you do--that I am in the most exceptional of positions; and that, just _because of it_, I am able to receive you as I did on Tuesday; and that, for me to listen to 'unconscious exaggerations,' is as unbecoming to the humilities of my position, as unpropitious (which is of more consequence) to the prosperities of yours. Now, if there should be one word of answer attempted to this; or of reference; _I must not_ ... I _will not see you again_--and you will justify me later in your heart. So for my sake you will not say it--I think you will not--and spare me the sadness of having to break through an intercourse just as it is promising pleasure to me; to me who have so many sadnesses and so few pleasures. You will!--and I need not be uneasy--and I shall owe you that tranquillity, as one gift of many. For, that I have much to receive from you in all the free gifts of thinking, teaching, master-spirits, ... _that_, I know!--it is my own praise that I appreciate you, as none can more. Your influence and help in poetry will be full of good and gladness to me--for with many to love me in this house, there is no one to judge me ... _now_. Your friendship and sympathy will be dear and precious to me all my life, if you indeed leave them with me so long or so little. Your mistakes in me ... which _I_ cannot mistake (--and which have humbled me by too much honouring--) I put away gently, and with grateful tears in my eyes; because _all that hail_ will beat down and spoil crowns, as well as 'blossoms.'
If I put off next Tuesday to the week after--I mean your visit,--shall you care much? For the relations I named to you, are to be in London next week; and I am to see one of my aunts whom I love, and have not met since my great affliction--and it will all seem to come over again, and I shall be out of spirits and nerves. On Tuesday week you can bring a tomahawk and do the criticism, and I shall try to have my courage ready for it--Oh, you will do me so much good--and Mr. Kenyon calls me 'docile' sometimes I assure you; when he wants to flatter me out of being obstinate--and in good earnest, I believe I shall do everything you tell me. The 'Prometheus' is done--but the monodrama is where it was--and the novel, not at all. But I think of some half promises half given, about something I read for 'Saul'--and the 'Flight of the Duchess'--where is she?
You are not displeased with me? _no, that_ would be hail and lightning together--I do not write as I might, of some words of yours--but you know that I am not a stone, even if silent like one. And if in the _un_silence, I have said one word to vex you, pity me for having had to say it--and for the rest, may God bless you far beyond the reach of vexation from my words or my deeds!
Your friend in grateful regard,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday Morning. [Post-mark, May 24, 1845.]
Don't you remember I told you, once on a time that you 'knew nothing of me'? whereat you demurred--but I meant what I said, and knew it was so. To be grand in a simile, for every poor speck of a Vesuvius or a Stromboli in my microcosm there are huge layers of ice and pits of black cold water--and I make the most of my two or three fire-eyes, because I know by experience, alas, how these tend to extinction--and the ice grows and grows--still this last is true part of me, most characteristic part, _best_ part perhaps, and I disown nothing--only,--when you talked of '_knowing_ me'! Still, I am utterly unused, of these late years particularly, to dream of communicating anything about _that_ to another person (all my writings are purely dramatic as I am always anxious to say) that when I make never so little an attempt, no wonder if I _bungle_ notably--'language,' too is an organ that never studded this heavy heavy head of mine. Will you not think me very brutal if I tell you I could almost smile at your misapprehension of what I meant to write?--Yet I _will_ tell you, because it will undo the bad effect of my thoughtlessness, and at the same time exemplify the point I have all along been honestly earnest to set you right upon ... my real inferiority to you; just that and no more. I wrote to you, in an unwise moment, on the spur of being again 'thanked,' and, unwisely writing just as if thinking to myself, said what must have looked absurd enough as seen apart from the horrible counterbalancing never-to-be-written _rest of me_--by the side of which, could it be written and put before you, my note would sink to its proper and relative place, and become a mere 'thank you' for your good opinion--which I assure you is far too generous--for I really believe you to be my superior in many respects, and feel uncomfortable till _you_ see that, too--since I hope for your sympathy and assistance, and 'frankness is everything in such a case.' I do assure you, that had you read my note, _only_ having '_known_' so much of me as is implied in having inspected, for instance, the contents, merely, of that fatal and often-referred-to 'portfolio' there (_Dii meliora piis!_), you would see in it, (the note not the portfolio) the blandest utterance ever mild gentleman gave birth to. But I forgot that one may make too much noise in a silent place by playing the few notes on the 'ear-piercing fife' which in Othello's regimental band might have been thumped into decent subordination by his 'spirit-stirring drum'--to say nothing of gong and ophicleide. Will you forgive me, on promise to remember for the future, and be more considerate? Not that you must too much despise me, neither; nor, of all things, apprehend I am attitudinizing à la Byron, and giving you to understand unutterable somethings, longings for Lethe and all that--far from it! I never committed murders, and sleep the soundest of sleeps--but 'the heart is desperately wicked,' that is true, and though I dare not say 'I know' mine, yet I have had signal opportunities, I who began life from the beginning, and can forget nothing (but names, and the date of the battle of Waterloo), and have known good and wicked men and women, gentle and simple, shaking hands with Edmund Kean and Father Mathew, you and--Ottima! Then, I had a certain faculty of self-consciousness, years and years ago, at which John Mill wondered, and which ought to be improved by this time, if constant use helps at all--and, meaning, on the whole, to be a Poet, if not _the_ Poet ... for I am vain and ambitious some nights,--I do myself justice, and dare call things by their names to myself, and say boldly, this I love, this I hate, this I would do, this I would not do, under all kinds of circumstances,--and talking (thinking) in this style _to myself_, and beginning, however tremblingly, in spite of conviction, to write in this style _for myself_--on the top of the desk which contains my 'Songs of the Poets--NO. I M.P.', I wrote,--what you now forgive, I know! Because I am, from my heart, sorry that by a foolish fit of inconsideration I should have given pain for a minute to you, towards whom, on every account, I would rather soften and 'sleeken every word as to a bird' ... (and, not such a bird as my black self that go screeching about the world for 'dead horse'--corvus (picus)--mirandola!) I, too, who have been at such pains to acquire the reputation I enjoy in the world,--(ask Mr. Kenyon,) and who dine, and wine, and dance and enhance the company's pleasure till they make me ill and I keep house, as of late: Mr. Kenyon, (for I only quote where you may verify if you please) _he_ says my common sense strikes him, and its contrast with my muddy metaphysical poetry! And so it shall strike you--for though I am glad that, since you _did_ misunderstand me, you said so, and have given me an opportunity of doing by another way what I wished to do in _that_,--yet, if you had _not_ alluded to my writing, as I meant you should not, you would have certainly understood _something_ of its drift when you found me next Tuesday precisely the same quiet (no, for I feel I speak too loudly, in spite of your kind disclaimer, but--) the same mild man-about-town you were gracious to, the other morning--for, indeed, my own way of worldly life is marked out long ago, as precisely as yours can be, and I am set going with a hand, winker-wise, on each side of my head, and a directing finger before my eyes, to say nothing of an instinctive dread I have that a certain whip-lash is vibrating somewhere in the neighbourhood in playful readiness! So 'I hope here be proofs,' Dogberry's satisfaction that, first, I am but a very poor creature compared to you and entitled by my wants to look up to you,--all I meant to say from the first of the first--and that, next, I shall be too much punished if, for this piece of mere inconsideration, you deprive me, more or less, or sooner or later, of the pleasure of seeing you,--a little over boisterous gratitude for which, perhaps, caused all the mischief! The reasons you give for deferring my visits next week are too cogent for me to dispute--that is too true--and, being now and henceforward 'on my good behaviour,' I will at once cheerfully submit to them, if needs must--but should your mere kindness and forethought, as I half suspect, have induced you to take such a step, you will now smile with me, at this new and very unnecessary addition to the 'fears of me' I have got so triumphantly over in your case! Wise man, was I not, to clench my first favourable impression so adroitly ... like a recent Cambridge worthy, my sister heard of; who, being on his theological (or rather, scripture-historical) examination, was asked by the Tutor, who wished to let him off easily, 'who was the first King of Israel?'--'Saul' answered the trembling youth. 'Good!' nodded approvingly the Tutor. 'Otherwise called _Paul_,' subjoined the youth in his elation! Now I have begged pardon, and blushingly assured you _that_ was only a slip of the tongue, and that I did really _mean_ all the while, (Paul or no Paul), the veritable son of Kish, he that owned the asses, and found listening to the harp the best of all things for an evil spirit! Pray write me a line to say, 'Oh ... if _that's_ all!' and remember me for good (which is very compatible with a moment's stupidity) and let me not for one fault, (and that the only one that shall be), lose _any pleasure_ ... for your friendship I am sure I have not lost--God bless you, my dear friend!
R. BROWNING.
And by the way, will it not be better, as co-operating with you more effectually in your kind promise to forget the 'printer's error' in my blotted proof, to send me back that same 'proof,' if you have not inflicted proper and summary justice on it? When Mephistopheles last came to see us in this world outside here, he counselled sundry of us 'never to write a letter,--and never to burn one'--do you know that? But I never mind what I am told! Seriously, I am ashamed.... I shall next ask a servant for my paste in the 'high fantastical' style of my own 'Luria.'
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday [May 25, 1845].
I owe you the most humble of apologies dear Mr. Browning, for having spent so much solemnity on so simple a matter, and I hasten to pay it; confessing at the same time (as why should I not?) that I am quite as much ashamed of myself as I ought to be, which is not a little. You will find it difficult to believe me perhaps when I assure you that I never made such a mistake (I mean of over-seriousness to indefinite compliments), no, never in my life before--indeed my sisters have often jested with me (in matters of which they were cognizant) on my supernatural indifference to the superlative degree in general, as if it meant nothing in grammar. I usually know well that 'boots' may be called for in this world of ours, just as you called for yours; and that to bring '_Bootes_,' were the vilest of mal-à-pro-pos-ities. Also, I should have understood 'boots' where you wrote it, in the letter in question; if it had not been for _the relation of two things_ in it--and now I perfectly seem to see _how_ I mistook that relation; ('_seem to see_'; because I have not looked into the letter again since your last night's commentary, and will not--) inasmuch as I have observed before in my own mind, that a good deal of what is called obscurity in you, arises from a habit of very subtle association; so subtle, that you are probably unconscious of it, ... and the effect of which is to throw together on the same level and in the same light, things of likeness and unlikeness--till the reader grows confused as I did, and takes one for another. I may say however, in a poor justice to myself, that I wrote what I wrote so unfortunately, _through reverence for you_, and not at all from vanity in my own account ... although I do feel palpably while I write these words here and now, that I might as well leave them unwritten; for that no man of the world who ever lived in the world (not even _you_) could be expected to believe them, though said, sung, and sworn.
For the rest, it is scarcely an apposite moment for you to talk, even 'dramatically,' of my 'superiority' to you, ... unless you mean, which perhaps you do mean, my superiority in _simplicity_--and, verily, to some of the 'adorable ingenuousness,' sacred to the shade of Simpson, I may put in a modest claim, ... 'and have my claim allowed.' 'Pray do not mock me' I quote again from your Shakespeare to you who are a dramatic poet; ... and I will admit anything that you like, (being humble just now)--even that I _did not know you_. I was certainly innocent of the knowledge of the 'ice and cold water' you introduce me to, and am only just shaking my head, as Flush would, after a first wholesome plunge. Well--if I do not know you, I shall learn, I suppose, in time. I am ready to try humbly to learn--and I may perhaps--if you are not done in Sanscrit, which is too hard for me, ... notwithstanding that I had the pleasure yesterday to hear, from America, of my profound skill in 'various languages less known than Hebrew'!--a liberal paraphrase on Mr. Horne's large fancies on the like subject, and a satisfactory reputation in itself--as long as it is not necessary to deserve it. So I here enclose to you your letter back again, as you wisely desire; although you never could doubt, I hope, for a moment, of its safety with me in the completest of senses: and then, from the heights of my superior ... stultity, and other qualities of the like order, ... I venture to advise you ... however (to speak of the letter critically, and as the dramatic composition it is) it is to be admitted to be very beautiful, and well worthy of the rest of its kin in the portfolio, ... 'Lays of the Poets,' or otherwise, ... I venture to advise you to burn it at once. And then, my dear friend, I ask you (having some claim) to burn at the same time the letter I was fortunate enough to write to you on Friday, and this present one--don't send them back to me; I hate to have letters sent back--but burn them for me and never mind Mephistopheles. After which friendly turn, you will do me the one last kindness of forgetting all this exquisite nonsense, and of refraining from mentioning it, by breath or pen, _to me or another_. Now I trust you so far:--you will put it with the date of the battle of Waterloo--and I, with every date in chronology; seeing that I can remember none of them. And we will shuffle the cards and take patience, and begin the game again, if you please--and I shall bear in mind that you are a dramatic poet, which is not the same thing, by any means, with _us_ of the primitive simplicities, who don't tread on cothurns nor shift the mask in the scene. And I will reverence you both as 'a poet' and as '_the_ poet'; because it is no false 'ambition,' but a right you have--and one which those who live longest, will see justified to the uttermost.... In the meantime I need not ask Mr. Kenyon if you have any sense, because I have no doubt that you have quite sense enough--and even if I had a doubt, I shall prefer judging for myself without interposition; which I can do, you know, as long as you like to come and see me. And you can come this week if you do like it--because our relations don't come till the end of it, it appears--not that I made a pretence 'out of kindness'--pray don't judge me so outrageously--but if you like to come ... not on Tuesday ... but on Wednesday at three o'clock, I shall be very glad to see you; and I, for one, shall have forgotten everything by that time; being quick at forgetting my own faults usually. If Wednesday does not suit you, I am not sure that I _can_ see you this week--but it depends on circumstances. Only don't think yourself _obliged_ to come on Wednesday. You know I _began_ by entreating you to be open and sincere with me--and no more--I _require_ no 'sleekening of every word.' I love the truth and can bear it--whether in word or deed--and those who have known me longest would tell you so fullest. Well!--May God bless you. We shall know each other some day perhaps--and I am
Always and faithfully your friend,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, May 26, 1845.]
Nay--I _must_ have last word--as all people in the wrong desire to have--and then, no more of the subject. You said I had given you _great pain_--so long as I stop _that_, think anything of me you choose or can! But _before_ your former letter came, I saw the pre-ordained uselessness of mine. Speaking is to some _end_, (apart from foolish self-relief, which, after all, I can do without)--and where there is _no_ end--you see! or, to finish characteristically--since the offering to cut off one's right-hand to save anybody a headache, is in vile taste, even for our melodramas, seeing that it was never yet believed in on the stage or off it,--how much worse to really make the ugly chop, and afterwards come sheepishly in, one's arm in a black sling, and find that the delectable gift had changed aching to nausea! There! And now, 'exit, prompt-side, nearest door, Luria'--and enter R.B.--next Wednesday,--as boldly as he suspects most people do just after they have been soundly frightened!
I shall be most happy to see you on the day and at the hour you mention.
God bless you, my dear friend,
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Morning. [Post-mark, May 27, 1845.]
You will think me the most changeable of all the changeable; but indeed it is _not_ my fault that I cannot, as I wished, receive you on Wednesday. There was a letter this morning; and our friends not only come to London but come to this house on Tuesday (to-morrow) to pass two or three days, until they settle in an hotel for the rest of the season. Therefore you see, it is doubtful whether the two days may not be three, and the three days four; but if they go away in time, and if Saturday should suit you, I will let you know by a word; and you can answer by a yea or nay. While they are in the house, I must give them what time I can--and indeed, it is something to dread altogether.
Tuesday.
I send you the note I had begun before receiving yours of last night, and also a fragment[1] from Mrs. Hedley's herein enclosed, a full and complete certificate, ... that you may know ... quite _know_, ... what the real and only reason of the obstacle to Wednesday is. On Saturday perhaps, or on Monday more certainly, there is likely to be no opposition, ... at least not on the 'côté gauche' (_my_ side!) to our meeting--but I will let you know more.
For the rest, we have both been a little unlucky, there's no denying, in overcoming the embarrassments of a first acquaintance--but suffer me to say as one other last word, (and _quite, quite the last this time_!) in case there should have been anything approaching, however remotely, to a distrustful or unkind tone in what I wrote on Sunday, (and I have a sort of consciousness that in the process of my self-scorning I was not in the most sabbatical of moods perhaps--) that I do recall and abjure it, and from my heart entreat your pardon for it, and profess, notwithstanding it, neither to 'choose' nor 'to be able' to think otherwise of you than I have done, ... as of one _most_ generous and _most_ loyal; for that if I chose, I could not; and that if I could, I should not choose.
Ever and gratefully your friend,
E.B.B.
--And now we shall hear of 'Luria,' shall we not? and much besides. And Miss Mitford has sent me the most high comical of letters to read, addressed to her by 'R.B. Haydon historical painter' which has made me quite laugh; and would make _you_; expressing his righteous indignation at the 'great fact' and gross impropriety of any man who has 'thoughts too deep for tears' agreeing to wear a 'bag-wig' ... the case of poor Wordsworth's going to court, you know.--Mr. Haydon being infinitely serious all the time, and yet holding the doctrine of the divine right of princes in his left hand.
How is your head? may I be hoping the best for it? May God bless you.
[Footnote 1: ... me on Tuesday, or Wednesday? if on Tuesday, I shall come by the three o'clock train; if on Wednesday, _early_ in the morning, as I shall be anxious to secure rooms ... so that your Uncle and Arabel may come up on Thursday.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, May 28, 1845.]
Saturday, Monday, as you shall appoint--no need to say that, or my thanks--but this note troubles you, out of my bounden duty to help you, or Miss Mitford, to make the Painter run violently down a steep place into the sea, if that will amuse you, by further informing him, what I know on the best authority, that Wordsworth's 'bag-wig,' or at least, the more important of his court-habiliments, were considerately furnished for the nonce by _Mr. Rogers_ from his own wardrobe, to the manifest advantage of the Laureate's pocket, but more problematic improvement of his person, when one thinks on the astounding difference of 'build' in the two Poets:--the fact should be put on record, if only as serving to render less chimerical a promise sometimes figuring in the columns of provincial newspapers--that the two apprentices, some grocer or other advertises for, will be 'boarded and _clothed_ like _one_ of the family.' May not your unfinished (really good) head of the great man have been happily kept waiting for the body which can now be added on, with all this picturesqueness of circumstances. Precept on precept ... but then, _line upon line_, is allowed by as good authority, and may I not draw _my_ confirming black line after yours, yet not break pledge? I am most grateful to you for doing me justice--doing yourself, your own judgment, justice, since even the play-wright of Theseus and the Amazon found it one of his hardest devices to 'write me a speech, lest the lady be frightened, wherein it shall be said that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but &c. &c.' God bless you--one thing more, but one--you _could never have_ misunderstood the _asking for the letter again_, I feared you might refer to it 'pour constater le fait'--
And now I am yours--
R.B.
My head is all but well now; thank you.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Morning. [Post-mark, May 30, 1845.]
Just one word to say that if Saturday, to-morrow, should be fine--because in the case of its raining I _shall not expect you_; you will find me at three o'clock.
Yes--the circumstances of the costume were mentioned in the letter; Mr. Rogers' bag-wig and the rest, and David Wilkie's sword--and also that the Laureate, so equipped, fell down upon both knees in the superfluity of etiquette, and had to be picked up by two lords-in-waiting. It is a large exaggeration I do not doubt--and then I never sympathised with the sighing kept up by people about that acceptance of the Laureateship which drew the bag-wig as a corollary after it. Not that the Laureateship honoured _him_, but that he honoured it; and that, so honouring it, he preserves a symbol instructive to the masses, who are children and to be taught by symbols now as formerly. Isn't it true? or at least may it not be true? And won't the court laurel (such as it is) be all the worthier of _you_ for Wordsworth's having worn it first?
And in the meantime I shall see you to-morrow perhaps? or if it should rain, on Monday at the same hour.
Ever yours, my dear friend,
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Morning. [Post-mark, June 7, 1845.]
When I see all you have done for me in this 'Prometheus,' I feel more than half ashamed both of it and of me for using your time so, and forced to say in my own defence (not to you but myself) that I never thought of meaning to inflict such work on you who might be doing so much better things in the meantime both for me and for others--because, you see, it is not the mere reading of the MS., but the 'comparing' of the text, and the melancholy comparisons between the English and the Greek, ... quite enough to turn you from your [Greek: philanthrôpou tropou][1] that I brought upon you; and indeed I did not mean so much, nor so soon! Yet as you have done it for me--for me who expected a few jottings down with a pencil and a general opinion; it is of course of the greatest value, besides the pleasure and pride which come of it; and I must say of the translation, (before putting it aside for the nonce), that the circumstance of your paying it so much attention and seeing any good in it, is quite enough reward for the writer and quite enough motive for self-gratulation, if it were all torn to fragments at this moment--which is a foolish thing to say because it is so obvious, and because you would know it if I said it or not.
And while you were doing this for me, you thought it unkind of me not to write to you; yes, and you think me at this moment the very princess of apologies and excuses and depreciations and all the rest of the small family of distrust--or of hypocrisy ... who knows? Well! but you are wrong ... wrong ... to think so; and you will let me say one word to show where you are wrong--not for you to controvert, ... because it must relate to myself especially, and lies beyond your cognizance, and is something which I _must know best_ after all. And it is, ... that you persist in putting me into a false position, with respect to _fixing days_ and the like, and in making me feel somewhat as I did when I was a child, and Papa used to put me up on the chimney-piece and exhort me to stand up straight like a hero, which I did, straighter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as we say in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me and extending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice to the rug, where the dog lay ... dear old Havannah, ... and where he and I were likely to be dashed to pieces together and mix our uncanonised bones. Now my present false position ... which is not the chimney-piece's, ... is the necessity you provide for me in the shape of my having to name this day, or that day, ... and of your coming because I name it, and of my having to think and remember that you come because I name it. Through a weakness, perhaps, or morbidness, or one knows not how to define it, I _cannot help_ being uncomfortable in having to do this,--it is impossible. Not that I distrust _you_--you are the last in the world I could distrust: and then (although you may be sceptical) I am naturally given to trust ... to a fault ... as some say, or to a sin, as some reproach me:--and then again, if I were ever such a distruster, it could not be of _you_. But if you knew me--! I will tell you! if one of my brothers omits coming to this room for two days, ... I never ask why it happened! if my own father omits coming up-stairs to say 'good night,' I never say a word; and not from indifference. Do try to make out these readings of me as a _dixit Casaubonus_; and don't throw me down as a corrupt text, nor convict me for an infidel which I am not. On the contrary I am grateful and happy to believe that you like to come here; and even if you came here as a pure act of charity and pity to me, as long as you _chose to come_ I should not be too proud to be grateful and happy still. I could not be proud to _you_, and I hope you will not fancy such a possibility, which is the remotest of all. Yes, and _I_ am anxious to ask you to be wholly generous and leave off such an interpreting philosophy as you made use of yesterday, and forgive me when I beg you to fix your own days for coming for the future. Will you? It is the same thing in one way. If you like to come really every week, there is no hindrance to it--you can do it--and the privilege and obligation remain equally mine:--and if you name a day for coming on any week, where there is an obstacle on my side, you will learn it from me in a moment. Why I might as well charge _you_ with distrusting _me_, because you persist in making me choose the days. And it is not for me to do it, but for you--I must feel that--and I cannot help chafing myself against the thought that for me to begin to fix days in this way, just because you have quick impulses (like all imaginative persons), and wish me to do it now, may bring me to the catastrophe of asking you to come when you would rather not, ... which, as you say truly, would not be an important vexation to you; but to me would be worse than vexation; to _me_--and therefore I shrink from the very imagination of the possibility of such a thing, and ask you to bear with me and let it be as I prefer ... left to your own choice of the moment. And bear with me above all--because this shows no want of faith in you ... none ... but comes from a simple fact (with its ramifications) ... that you know little of me personally yet, and that _you guess_, even, but very little of the influence of a peculiar experience over me and out of me; and if I wanted a proof of this, we need not seek further than the very point of discussion, and the hard worldly thoughts you thought I was thinking of you yesterday,--I, who thought not one of them! But I am so used to discern the correcting and ministering angels by the same footsteps on the ground, that it is not wonderful I should look down there at any approach of a [Greek: philia taxis] whatever to this personal _me_. Have I not been ground down to browns and blacks? and is it my fault if I am not green? Not that it is my _complaint_--I should not be justified in complaining; I believe, as I told you, that there is more gladness than sadness in the world--that is, generally: and if some natures have to be refined by the sun, and some by the furnace (the less genial ones) both means are to be recognised as _good_, ... however different in pleasurableness and painfulness, and though furnace-fire leaves scorched streaks upon the fruit. I assured you there was nothing I had any power of teaching you: and there _is_ nothing, except grief!--which I would not teach you, you know, if I had the occasion granted.
It is a multitude of words about nothing at all, ... this--but I am like Mariana in the moated grange and sit listening too often to the mouse in the wainscot. Be as forbearing as you can--and believe how profoundly it touches me that you should care to come here at all, much more, so often! and try to understand that if I did not write as you half asked, it was just because I failed at the moment to get up enough pomp and circumstance to write on purpose to certify the important fact of my being a little stronger or a little weaker on one
## particular morning. That I am always ready and rejoiced to write to
you, you know perfectly well, and I have proved, by 'superfluity of naughtiness' and prolixity through some twenty posts:--and this, and therefore, you will agree altogether to attribute no more to me on these counts, and determine to read me no more backwards with your Hebrew, putting in your own vowel points without my leave! Shall it be so?
Here is a letter grown from a note which it meant to be--and I have been interrupted in the midst of it, or it should have gone to you earlier. Let what I have said in it of myself pass unquestioned and unnoticed, because it is of _me_ and not of _you_, ... and, if in any wise lunatical, all the talking and writing in the world will not put the implied moon into another quarter. Only be patient with me a little, ... and let us have a smooth ground for the poems which I am foreseeing the sight of with such pride and delight--Such pride and delight!
And one thing ... which is chief, though it seems to come last!... you _will_ have advice (will you not?) if that pain does not grow much better directly? It cannot be prudent or even _safe_ to let a pain in the head go on so long, and no remedy be attempted for it, ... and you cannot be sure that it is a merely nervous pain and that it may not have consequences; and this, quite apart from the consideration of suffering. So you will see some one with an opinion to give, and take it? _Do_, I beseech you. You will not say 'no'? Also ... if on Wednesday you should be less well than usual, you will come on Thursday instead, I hope, ... seeing that it must be right for you to be quiet and silent when you suffer so, and a journey into London can let you be neither. Otherwise, I hold to my day, ... Wednesday. And may God bless you my dear friend.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
You are right I see, nearly everywhere, if not quite everywhere in the criticisms--but of course I have not looked very closely--that is, I have read your papers but not in connection with a _my_ side of the argument--but I shall lose the post after all.
[Footnote 1: Aeschylus, _Prometheus_ II.: 'trick of loving men,' see note 3, on p. 39 above.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday Morning, [Post-mark, June 7, 1845.]
I ventured to hope this morning might bring me news of you--First East-winds on you, then myself, then those criticisms!--I do assure you I am properly apprehensive. How are you? May I go on Wednesday without too much [Greek: anthadia].
Pray remember what I said and wrote, to the effect that my exceptions were, in almost every case, to the 'reading'--not to your version of it: but I have not specified the particular ones--not written down the Greek, of my suggested translations--have I? And if you do not find them in the margin of your copy, how you must wonder! Thus, in the last speech but one, of Hermes, I prefer Porson and Blomfield's [Greek: ei mêd' atychôn ti chala maniôn];--to the old combinations that include [Greek: eutychê]--though there is no MS. authority for emendation, it seems. But in what respect does Prometheus 'fare _well_,' or 'better' even, since the beginning? And is it not the old argument over again, that when a man _fails_ he should repent of his ways?--And while thinking of Hermes, let me say that '[Greek: mêde moi diplas odous prosbalês]' is surely--'Don't subject me to the trouble of a second journey ... by paying no attention to the first.' So says Scholiast A, and so backs him Scholiast B, especially created, it should appear, to show there could be _in rerum naturâ_ such another as his predecessor. A few other remarks occur to me, which I will tell you if you please; _now_, I really want to know how you are, and write for that.
Ever yours,
R.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, June 9, 1845.]
Just after my note left, yours came--I will try so to answer it as to please you; and I begin by promising cheerfully to do all you bid me about naming days &c. I do believe we are friends now and for ever. There can be no reason, therefore, that I should cling tenaciously to any one or other time of meeting, as if, losing that, I lost everything--and, for the future, I will provide against sudden engagements, outrageous weather &c., to your heart's content. Nor am I going to except against here and there a little wrong I could get up, as when you _imply_ from my quick impulses and the like. No, my dear friend--for I seem sure I shall have quite, quite time enough to do myself justice in your eyes--Let time show!
Perhaps I feel none the less sorely, when you 'thank' me for such company as mine, that I cannot avoid confessing to myself that it would not be so absolutely out of my power, perhaps, to contrive really and deserve thanks in a certain acceptation--I _might_ really _try_, at all events, and amuse you a little better, when I do have the opportunity,--and I _do not_--but there is the thing! It is all of a piece--I _do not_ seek your friendship in order to do you good--any good--only to do myself good. Though I _would_, God knows, do that too.
Enough of this.
I am much better, indeed,--but will certainly follow your advice should the pain return. And you--you have tried a new journey from your room, have you not?
Do recollect, at any turn, any chance so far in my favour,--that I am here and yours should you want any fetching and carrying in this outside London world. Your brothers may have their own business to mind, Mr. Kenyon is at New York, we will suppose; here am I--what else, _what else_ makes me count my cleverness to you, as I know I have done more than once, by word and letter, but the real wish to be set at work? I should have, I hope, better taste than to tell any everyday acquaintance, who could not go out, one single morning even, on account of a headache, that the weather was delightful, much less that I had been walking five miles and meant to run ten--yet to you I boasted once of polking and waltzing and more--but then would it not be a very superfluous piece of respect in the four-footed bird to keep his wings to himself because his Master Oceanos could fly forsooth? Whereas he begins to wave a flap and show how ready they are to be off--for what else were the good of him? Think of this--and
Know me for yours
R.B.
For good you are, to those notes--you shall have more,--that is, the rest--on Wednesday then, at 3, except as you except. God bless you.
Oh, let me tell you--I suppose Mr. Horne must be in town--as I received a letter two days ago, from the contriver of some literary society or other who had before written to get me to belong to it, protesting _against_ my reasons for refusing, and begging that 'at all events I would suspend my determination till I had been visited by Mr. H. on the subject'--and, as they can hardly mean to bring him express from the Drachenfels for just that, he is returned no doubt--and as he is your friend, I take the opportunity of mentioning the course I shall pursue with him or any other friend of yours I may meet,--(and everybody else, I may add--) the course I understand you to desire, with respect to our own intimacy. While I may acknowledge, I believe, that I correspond with you, I shall not, in any case, suffer it to be known that I see, or have seen you. This I just remind you of, lest any occasion of embarrassment should arise, for a moment, from your not being quite sure how _I_ had acted in any case.--Con che, le bacio le mani--a rivederla!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Morning. [Post-mark, June 10, 1845.]
I must thank you by one word for all your kindness and consideration--which could not be greater; nor more felt by me. In the first place, afterwards (if that should not be Irish dialect) do understand that my letter passed from my hands to go to yours on _Friday_, but was thrown aside carelessly down stairs and 'covered up' they say, so as not to be seen until late on Saturday; and I can only humbly hope to have been cross enough about it (having conscientiously tried) to secure a little more accuracy another time.--And then, ... if ever I should want anything done or found, ... (a roc's egg or the like) you may believe me that I shall not scruple to ask you to be the finder; but at this moment I want nothing, indeed, except your poems; and that is quite the truth. Now do consider and think what I could possibly want in your 'outside London world'; you, who are the 'Genius of the lamp'!--Why if you light it and let me read your romances, &c., by it, is not that the best use for it, and am I likely to look for another? Only I shall remember what you say, gratefully and seriously; and if ever I should have a good fair opportunity of giving you trouble (as if I had not done it already!), you may rely upon my evil intentions; even though dear Mr. Kenyon should not actually be at New York, ... which he is not, I am glad to say, as I saw him on Saturday.
Which reminds me that _he_ knows of your having been here, of course! and will not mention it; as he understood from me that _you_ would not.--Thank you! Also there was an especial reason which constrained me, on pain of appearing a great hypocrite, to tell Miss Mitford the bare fact of my having seen you--and reluctantly I did it, though placing some hope in her promise of discretion. And how necessary the discretion is, will appear in the awful statistical fact of our having at this moment, as my sisters were calculating yesterday, some forty relations in London--to say nothing of the right wing of the enemy. For Mr. Horne, I could have told you, and really I thought I _had_ told you of his being in England.
Last paragraph of all is, that I _don't want to be amused_, ... or rather that I _am_ amused by everything and anything. Why surely, surely, you have some singular ideas about me! So, till to-morrow,
E.B.B.
Instead of writing this note to you yesterday, as should have been, I went down-stairs--or rather was carried--and am not the worse.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday. [Post-mark, June 14, 1845.]
Yes, the poem _is_ too good in certain respects for the prizes given in colleges, (when all the pure parsley goes naturally to the rabbits), and has a great deal of beauty here and there in image and expression. Still I do not quite agree with you that it reaches the Tennyson standard any wise; and for the blank verse, I cannot for a moment think it comparable to one of the grand passages in 'Oenone,' and 'Arthur' and the like. In fact I seem to hear more in that latter blank verse than you do, ... to hear not only a 'mighty line' as in Marlowe, but a noble full orbicular wholeness in complete passages--which always struck me as the mystery of music and great peculiarity in Tennyson's versification, inasmuch as he attains to these complete effects without that shifting of the pause practised by the masters, ... Shelley and others. A 'linked music' in which there are no links!--_that_, you would take to be a contradiction--and yet something like that, my ear has always seemed to perceive; and I have wondered curiously again and again how there could be so much union and no fastening. Only of course it is not model versification--and for dramatic purposes, it must be admitted to be bad.
Which reminds me to be astonished for the second time how you could think such a thing of me as that I wanted to read only your lyrics, ... or that I 'preferred the lyrics' ... or something barbarous in that way? You don't think me 'ambidexter,' or 'either-handed' ... and both hands open for what poems you will vouchsafe to me; and yet if you would let me see anything you may have in a readable state by you, ... 'The Flight of the Duchess' ... or act or scene of 'The Soul's Tragedy,' ... I shall be so glad and grateful to you! Oh--if you change your mind and choose to be _bien prié_, I will grant it is your right, and begin my liturgy directly. But this is not teazing (in the intention of it!) and I understand all about the transcription, and the inscrutableness of rough copies,--that is, if you write as I do, so that my guardian angel or M. Champollion cannot read what is written. Only whatever they can, (remember!) _I_ can: and you are not to mind trusting me with the cacistography possible to mortal readers.
The sun shines so that nobody dares complain of the east wind--and indeed I am better altogether. May God bless you, my dear friend.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, June 14, 1845.]
When I ask my wise self what I really do remember of the Prize poem, the answer is--both of Chapman's lines a-top, quite worth any prize for their quoter--then, the good epithet of 'Green Europe' contrasting with Africa--then, deep in the piece, a picture of a Vestal in a vault, where I see a dipping and winking lamp plainest, and last of all the ominous 'all was dark' that dismisses you. I read the poem many years ago, and never since, though I have an impression that the versification is good, yet from your commentary I see I must have said a good deal more in its praise than that. But have you not discovered by this time that I go on talking with my thoughts away?
I know, I have always been jealous of my own musical faculty (I can write music).--Now that I see the uselessness of such jealousy, and am for loosing and letting it go, it may be cramped possibly. Your music is more various and exquisite than any modern writer's to my ear. One should study the mechanical part of the art, as nearly all that there is to be studied--for the more one sits and thinks over the creative process, the more it confirms itself as 'inspiration,' nothing more nor less. Or, at worst, you write down old inspirations, what you remember of them ... but with _that_ it begins. 'Reflection' is exactly what it names itself--a _re_-presentation, in scattered rays from every angle of incidence, of what first of all became present in a great light, a whole one. So tell me how these lights are born, if you can! But I can tell anybody how to make melodious verses--let him do it therefore--it should be exacted of all writers.
You do not understand what a new feeling it is for me to have someone who is to like my verses or I shall not ever like them after! So far differently was I circumstanced of old, that I used rather to go about for a subject of offence to people; writing ugly things in order to warn the ungenial and timorous off my grounds at once. I shall never do so again at least! As it is, I will bring all I dare, in as great quantities as I can--if not next time, after then--certainly. I must make an end, print this Autumn my last four 'Bells,' Lyrics, Romances, 'The Tragedy,' and 'Luna,' and then go on with a whole heart to my own Poem--indeed, I have just resolved not to begin any new song, even, till this grand clearance is made--I will get the Tragedy transcribed to bring--
'To bring!' Next Wednesday--if you know how happy you make me! may I not say _that_, my dear friend, when I feel it from my soul?
I thank God that you are better: do pray make fresh endeavours to profit by this partial respite of the weather! All about you must urge that: but even from my distance some effect might come of such wishes. But you _are_ better--look so and speak so! God bless you.
R.B.
You let 'flowers be sent you in a letter,' every one knows, and this hot day draws out our very first yellow rose.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, June 17, 1845.]
Yes, I quite believe as you do that what is called the 'creative process' in works of Art, is just inspiration and no less--which made somebody say to me not long since; And so you think that Shakespeare's 'Othello' was of the effluence of the Holy Ghost?'--rather a startling deduction, ... only not quite as final as might appear to somebodies perhaps. At least it does not prevent my going on to agree with the saying of _Spiridion_, ... do you remember?... 'Tout ce que l'homme appelle inspiration, je l'appelle aussi revelation,' ... if there is not something too self-evident in it after all--my sole objection! And is it not true that your inability to analyse the mental process in question, is one of the proofs of the fact of inspiration?--as the gods were known of old by not being seen to move their feet,--coming and going in an equal sweep of radiance.--And still more wonderful than the first transient great light you speak of, ... and far beyond any work of _re_flection, except in the pure analytical sense in which you use the word, ... appears that gathering of light on light upon
## particular points, as you go (in composition) step by step, till you
get intimately near to things, and see them in a fullness and clearness, and an intense trust in the truth of them which you have not in any sunshine of noon (called _real_!) but which you have _then_ ... and struggle to communicate:--an ineffectual struggle with most writers (oh, how ineffectual!) and when effectual, issuing in the 'Pippa Passes,' and other master-pieces of the world.
You will tell me what you mean exactly by being jealous of your own music? You said once that you had had a false notion of music, or had practised it according to the false notions of other people: but did you mean besides that you ever had meant to despise music altogether--because _that_, it is hard to set about trying to believe of you indeed. And then, you _can_ praise my verses for music?--Why, are you aware that people blame me constantly for wanting harmony--from Mr. Boyd who moans aloud over the indisposition of my 'trochees' ... and no less a person than Mr. Tennyson, who said to somebody who repeated it, that in the want of harmony lay the chief defect of the poems, 'although it might verily be retrieved, as he could fancy that I had an ear by nature.' Well--but I am pleased that you should praise me--right or wrong--I mean, whether I am right or wrong in being pleased! and I say so to you openly, although my belief is that you are under a vow to our Lady of Loretto to make giddy with all manner of high vanities, some head, ... not too strong for such things, but too low for them, ... before you see again the embroidery on her divine petticoat. Only there's a flattery so far beyond praise ... even _your_ praise--as where you talk of your verses being liked &c., and of your being happy to bring them here, ... that is scarcely a lawful weapon; and see if the Madonna may not signify so much to you!--Seriously, you will not hurry too uncomfortably, or uncomfortably at all, about the transcribing? Another day, you know, will do as well--and patience is possible to me, if not 'native to the soil.'
Also I am behaving very well in going out into the noise; not quite out of doors yet, on account of the heat--and I am better as you say, without any doubt at all, and stronger--only my looks are a little deceitful; and people are apt to be heated and flushed in this weather, one hour, to look a little more ghastly an hour or two after. Not that it _is_ not true of me that I am better, mind! Because I am.
The 'flower in the letter' was from one of my sisters--from Arabel (though many of these poems are _ideal_ ... will you understand?) and your rose came quite alive and fresh, though in act of dropping its beautiful leaves, because of having to come to me instead of living on in your garden, as it intended. But I thank you--for this, and all, my dear friend.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, June 19, 1845.]
When I next see you, do not let me go on and on to my confusion about matters I am more or less ignorant of, but always ignorant. I tell you plainly I only trench on them, and intrench in them, from gaucherie, pure and respectable ... I should certainly grow instructive on the prospects of hay-crops and pasture-land, if deprived of this resource. And now here is a week to wait before I shall have any occasion to relapse into Greek literature when I am thinking all the while, 'now I will just ask simply, what flattery there was,' &c. &c., which, as I had not courage to say then, I keep to myself for shame now. This I will say, then--wait and know me better, as you will one long day at the end.
Why I write now, is because you did not promise, as before, to let me know how you are--this morning is miserably cold again--Will you tell me, at your own time?
God bless you, my dear friend.
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening. [Post-mark, June 20, 1845.]
If on Greek literature or anything else it is your pleasure to cultivate a reputation for ignorance, I will respect your desire--and indeed the point of the deficiency in question being far above my sight I am not qualified either to deny or assert the existence of it; so you are free to have it all your own way.
About the 'flattery' however, there is a difference; and I must deny a little having ever used such a word ... as far as I can recollect, and I have been trying to recollect, ... as that word of flattery. Perhaps I said something about your having vowed to make me vain by writing this or that of my liking your verses and so on--and perhaps I said it too lightly ... which happened because when one doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry, it is far best, as a general rule, to laugh. But the serious truth is that it was all nonsense together what I wrote, and that, instead of talking of your making me vain, I should have talked (if it had been done sincerely) of your humbling me--inasmuch as nothing does humble anybody so much as being lifted up too high. You know what vaulting Ambition did once for himself? and when it is done for him by another, his fall is still heavier. And one moral of all this general philosophy is, that if when your poems come, you persist in giving too much importance to what I may have courage to say of this or of that in them, you will make me a dumb critic and I shall have no help for my dumbness. So I tell you beforehand--nothing extenuating nor exaggerating nor putting down in malice. I know so much of myself as to be sure of it. Even as it is, the 'insolence' which people blame me for and praise me for, ... the 'recklessness' which my friends talk of with mitigating countenances ... seems gradually going and going--and really it would not be very strange (without that) if _I_ who was born a hero worshipper and have so continued, and who always recognised your genius, should find it impossible to bring out critical doxies on the workings of it. Well--I shall do what I can--as far as _impressions_ go, you understand--and _you_ must promise not to attach too much importance to anything said. So that is a covenant, my dear friend!--
And I am really gaining strength--and I will not complain of the weather. As long as the thermometer keeps above sixty I am content for one; and the roses are not quite dead yet, which they would have been in the heat. And last and not least--may I ask if you were told that the pain in the head was not important (or was) in the causes, ... and was likely to be well soon? or was not? I am at the end.
E.B.B.
Upon second or third thoughts, isn't it true that you are a little suspicious of me? suspicious at least of suspiciousness?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Afternoon. [Post-mark, June 23, 1845.]
And if I am 'suspicious of your suspiciousness,' who gives cause, pray? The matter was long ago settled, I thought, when you first took exception to what I said about higher and lower, and I consented to this much--that you should help seeing, if you could, our true intellectual and moral relation each to the other, so long as you would allow _me_ to see what _is_ there, fronting me. 'Is my eye evil because yours is not good?' My own friend, if I wished to 'make you vain,' if having 'found the Bower' I did really address myself to the wise business of spoiling its rose-roof,--I think that at least where there was such a will, there would be also something not unlike a way,--that I should find a proper hooked stick to tear down flowers with, and write you other letters than these--quite, quite others, I feel--though I am far from going to imagine, even for a moment, what might be the precise prodigy--like the notable Son of Zeus, that _was_ to have been, and done the wonders, only he did not, because &c. &c.
But I have a restless head to-day, and so let you off easily. Well, you ask me about it, that head, and I am not justified in being positive when my Doctor is dubious; as for the causes, they are neither superfluity of study, nor fancy, nor care, nor any special naughtiness that I know how to amend. So if I bring you 'nothing to signify' on Wednesday ... though I hope to do more than that ... you will know exactly why it happens. I will finish and transcribe the 'Flight of the Duchess' since you spoke of that first.
I am truly happy to hear that your health improves still.
For me, going out does me good--reading, writing, and, what is odd,--infinitely most of all, _sleeping_ do me the harm,--never any very great harm. And all the while I am yours
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, June 24, 1845.]
I had begun to be afraid that I did not deserve to have my questions answered; and I was afraid of asking them over again. But it is worse to be afraid that you are not better at all in any essential manner (after all your assurances) and that the medical means have failed so far. Did you go to somebody who knows anything?--because there is no excuse, you see, in common sense, for not having the best and most experienced opinion when there is a choice of advice--and I am confident that that pain should not be suffered to go on without something being done. What I said about _nerves_, related to what you had told me of your mother's suffering and what you had fancied of the relation of it to your own, and not that I could be thinking about imaginary complaints--I wish I could. Not (either) that I believe in the relation ... because such things are not hereditary, are they? and the bare coincidence is improbable. Well, but, I wanted particularly to say this--_Don't bring the 'Duchess' with you on Wednesday._ I shall not expect anything, I write distinctly to tell you--and I would far far rather that you did not bring it. You see it is just as I thought--for that whether too much thought or study did or did not bring on the illness, ... yet you admit that reading and writing increase it ... as they would naturally do any sort of pain in the head--therefore if you will but be in earnest and try to get well _first_, we will do the 'Bells' afterwards, and there will be time for a whole peal of them, I hope and trust, before the winter. Now do admit that this is reasonable, and agree reasonably to it. And if it does you good to go out and take exercise, why not go out and take it? nay, why not go _away_ and take it? Why not try the effect of a little change of air--or even of a great change of air--if it should be necessary, or even expedient? Anything is better, you know ... or if you don't know, _I_ know--than to be ill, really, seriously--I mean for _you_ to be ill, who have so much to do and to enjoy in the world yet ... and all those bells waiting to be hung! So that if you will agree to be well first, I will promise to be ready afterwards to help you in any thing I can do ... transcribing or anything ... to get the books through the press in the shortest of times--and I am capable of a great deal of that sort of work without being tired, having the habit of writing in any sort of position, and the long habit, ... since, before I was ill even, I never used to write at a table (or scarcely ever) but on the arm of a chair, or on the seat of one, sitting myself on the floor, and calling myself a Lollard for dignity. So you will put by your 'Duchess' ... will you not? or let me see just that one sheet--if one should be written--which is finished? ... up to this moment, you understand? finished _now_.
And if I have tired and teazed you with all these words it is a bad opportunity to take--and yet I will persist in saying through good and bad opportunities that I never did 'give cause' as you say, to your being 'suspicious of my suspiciousness' as I believe I said before. I deny my 'suspiciousness' altogether--it is not one of my faults. Nor is it quite my fault that you and I should always be quarrelling about over-appreciations and under-appreciations--and after all I have no interest nor wish, I do assure you, to depreciate myself--and you are not to think that I have the remotest claim to the Monthyon prize for good deeds in the way of modesty of self-estimation. Only when I know you better, as you talk of ... and when _you_ know _me_ too well, ... the right and the wrong of these conclusions will appear in a fuller light than ever so much arguing can produce now. Is it unkindly written of me? _no_--I _feel_ it is not!--and that 'now and ever we are friends,' (just as you think) _I_ think besides and am happy in thinking so, and could not be distrustful of you if I tried. So may God bless you, my ever dear friend--and mind to forget the 'Duchess' and to remember every good counsel!--Not that I do particularly confide in the medical oracles. They never did much more for _me_ than, when my pulse was above a hundred and forty with fever, to give me digitalis to make me weak--and, when I could not move without fainting (with weakness), to give me quinine to make me feverish again. Yes--and they could tell from the stethoscope, how very little was really wrong in me ... if it were not on a vital organ--and how I should certainly live ... if I didn't die sooner. But then, nothing _has_ power over affections of the chest, except God and his winds--and I do hope that an obvious quick remedy may be found for your head. But _do_ give up the writing and all that does harm!--
Ever yours, my dear friend,
E.B.B.
Miss Mitford talked of spending Wednesday with me--and I have put it off to Thursday:--and if you should hear from Mr. Chorley that he is coming to see _her and me together on any day_, do understand that it was entirely her proposition and not mine, and that certainly it won't be acceded to, as far as _I_ am concerned; as I have explained to her finally. I have been vexed about it--but she can see him down-stairs as she has done before--and if she calls me perverse and capricious (which she will do) I shall stop the reflection by thanking her again and again (as I can do sincerely) for her kindness and goodness in coming to see me herself, so far!--
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning, [Post-mark, June 24, 1845.]
(So my friend did not in the spirit see me write that _first_ letter, on Friday, which was too good and true to send, and met, five minutes after, its natural fate accordingly. Then on Saturday I thought to take health by storm, and walked myself half dead all the morning--about town too: last post-hour from this Thule of a suburb--4 P.M. on Saturdays, next expedition of letters, 8 A.M. on Mondays;--and then my real letter set out with the others--and, it should seem, set at rest a 'wonder whether thy friend's questions deserved answering'--de-served--answer-ing--!)
Parenthetically so much--I want most, though, to tell you--(leaving out any slightest attempt at thanking you) that I am much better, quite well to-day--that my doctor has piloted me safely through two or three illnesses, and knows all about me, I do think--and that he talks confidently of getting rid of all the symptoms complained of--and _has_ made a good beginning if I may judge by to-day. As for going abroad, that is just the thing I most want to avoid (for a reason not so hard to guess, perhaps, as why my letter was slow in arriving).
So, till to-morrow,--my light through the dark week.
God ever bless you, dear friend,
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, June 25, 1845.]
What will you think when I write to ask you _not_ to come to-morrow, Wednesday; but ... on Friday perhaps, instead? But do see how it is; and judge if it is to be helped.
I have waited hour after hour, hoping to hear from Miss Mitford that she would agree to take Thursday in change for Wednesday,--and just as I begin to wonder whether she can have received my letter at all, or whether she may not have been vexed by it into taking a vengeance and adhering to her own devices; (for it appealed to her esprit de sexe on the undeniable axiom of women having their way ... and she might choose to act it out!) just as I wonder over all this, and consider what a confusion of the elements it would be if you came and found her here, and Mr. Chorley at the door perhaps, waiting for some of the light of her countenance;--comes a note from Mr. Kenyon, to the effect that _he_ will be here at four o'clock P.M.--and comes a final note from my aunt Mrs. Hedley (supposed to be at Brighton for several months) to the effect that _she_ will be here at twelve o'clock, M.!! So do observe the constellation of adverse stars ... or the covey of 'bad birds,' as the Romans called them, and that there is no choice, but to write as I am writing. It can't be helped--can it? For take away the doubt about Miss Mitford, and Mr. Kenyon remains--and take away Mr. Kenyon, and there is Mrs. Hedley--and thus it _must be for Friday_ ... which will learn to be a fortunate day for the nonce--unless Saturday should suit you better. I do not speak of Thursday, because of the doubt about Miss Mitford--and if any harm should happen to Friday, I will write again; but if you do not hear again, and are able to come then, you _will_ come perhaps then.
In the meantime I thank you for the better news in your note--if it is really, really to be trusted in--but you know, you have said so often that you were better and better, without being really better, that it makes people ... 'suspicious.' Yet it is full amends for the disappointment to hope ... here I must break off or be too late. May God bless you my dear friend.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
12. Wednesday. [Post-mark, June 25, 1845.]
Pomegranates you may cut deep down the middle and see into, but not hearts,--so why should I try and speak?
Friday is best day because nearest, but Saturday is next best--it is next near, you know: if I get no note, therefore, Friday is my day.
Now is Post-time,--which happens properly.
God bless you, and so your own
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening. [Post-mark, June 27, 1845.]
After all it must be for Saturday, as Mrs. Hedley comes again on Friday, to-morrow, from _New Cross_,--or just beyond it, Eltham Park--to London for a few days, on account of the illness of one of her children. I write in the greatest haste after Miss Mitford has left me ... and _so_ tired! to say this, that if you can and will come on Saturday, ... or if not on Monday or Tuesday, there is no reason against it.
Your friend always,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning. [Post-mark, June 27, 1845.]
Let me make haste and write down _To-morrow_, Saturday, and not later, lest my selfishness be thoroughly got under in its struggle with a better feeling that tells me you must be far too tired for another visitor this week.
What shall I decide on?
Well--Saturday is said--but I will stay not quite so long, nor talk nearly so loud as of old-times; nor will you, if you understand anything of me, fail to send down word should you be at all indisposed. I should not have the heart to knock at the door unless I really believed you would do that. Still saying this and providing against the other does not amount, I well know, to the generosity, or justice rather, of staying away for a day or two altogether. But--what 'a day or two' may not bring forth! Change to you, change to me--
Not all of me, however, can change, thank God--
Yours ever
R.B.
Or, write, as last night, if needs be: Monday, Tuesday is not so long to wait. Will you write?
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening. [Post-mark, June 28, 1845.]
You are very kind and always--but really _that_ does not seem a good reason against your coming to-morrow--so come, if it should not rain. If it rains, it _concludes_ for Monday ... or Tuesday; whichever may be clear of rain. I was tired on Wednesday by the confounding confusion of more voices than usual in this room; but the effect passed off, and though Miss Mitford was with me for hours yesterday I am not unwell to-day. And pray speak _bona verba_ about the awful things which are possible between this now and Wednesday. You continue to be better, I do hope? I am forced to the brevity you see, by the post on one side, and my friends on the other, who have so long overstayed the coming of your note--but it is enough to assure you that you will do no harm by coming--only give pleasure.
Ever yours, my dear friend,
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [June 30, 1845.]
I send back the prize poems which have been kept far too long even if I do not make excuses for the keeping--but our sins are not always to be measured by our repentance for them. Then I am well enough this morning to have thought of going out till they told me it was not at all a right day for it ... too windy ... soft and delightful as the air seems to be--particularly after yesterday, when we had some winter back again in an episode. And the roses do not die; which is quite magnanimous of them considering their reverses; and their buds are coming out in most exemplary resignation--like birds singing in a cage. Now that the windows may be open, the flowers take heart to live a little in this room.
And think of my forgetting to tell you on Saturday that I had known of a letter being received by somebody from Miss Martineau, who is at Ambleside at this time and so entranced with the lakes and mountains as to be dreaming of taking or making a house among them, to live in for the rest of her life. Mrs. Trollope, you may have heard, had something of the same nympholepsy--no, her daughter was 'settled' in the neighbourhood--_that_ is the more likely reason for Mrs. Trollope! and the spirits of the hills conspired against her the first winter and almost slew her with a fog and drove her away to your Italy where the Oreadocracy has gentler manners. And Miss Martineau is practising mesmerism and miracles on all sides she says, and counts on Archbishop Whately as a new adherent. I even fancy that he has been to see her in the character of a convert. All this from Mr. Kenyon.
There's a strange wild book called the Autobiography of Heinrich Stilling ... one of those true devout deep-hearted Germans who believe everything, and so are nearer the truth, I am sure, than the wise who believe nothing; but rather over-German sometimes, and redolent of sauerkraut--and _he_ gives a tradition ... somewhere between mesmerism and mysticism, ... of a little spirit with gold shoebuckles, who was his familiar spirit and appeared only in the sunshine I think ... mottling it over with its feet, perhaps, as a child might snow. Take away the shoebuckles and I believe in the little spirit--don't _you_? But these English mesmerists make the shoebuckles quite conspicuous and insist on them broadly; and the Archbishops Whately may be drawn by _them_ (who can tell?) more than by the little spirit itself. How is your head to-day? now really, and nothing extenuating? I will not ask of poems, till the 'quite well' is _authentic_. May God bless you always! my dear friend!
E.B.B.
After all the book must go another day. I live in chaos do you know? and I am too hurried at this moment ... yes it is here.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning.
How are you--may I hope to hear soon?
I don't know exactly what possessed me to set my next day so far off as Saturday--as it was said, however, so let it be. And I will bring the rest of the 'Duchess'--four or five hundred lines,--'heu, herba mala crescit'--(as I once saw mournfully pencilled on a white wall at Asolo)--but will you tell me if you quite remember the main of the _first_ part--(_parts_ there are none except in the necessary process of chopping up to suit the limits of a magazine--and I gave them as much as I could transcribe at a sudden warning)--because, if you please, I can bring the whole, of course.
After seeing _you_, that Saturday, I was caught up by a friend and carried to see Vidocq--who did the honours of his museum of knives and nails and hooks that have helped great murderers to their purposes--he scarcely admits, I observe, an implement with only one attestation to its efficacy; but the one or two exceptions rather justify his latitude in their favour--thus one little sort of dessert knife _did_ only take _one_ life.... 'But then,' says Vidocq, 'it was the man's own mother's life, with fifty-two blows, and all for' (I think) 'fifteen francs she had got?' So prattles good-naturedly Vidocq--one of his best stories of that Lacénaire--'jeune homme d'un caractère fort avenant--mais c'était un poète,' quoth he, turning sharp on _me_ out of two or three other people round him.
Here your letter breaks in, and sunshine too.
Why do you send me that book--not let me take it? What trouble for nothing!
An old French friend of mine, a dear foolish, very French heart and soul, is coming presently--his poor brains are whirling with mesmerism in which he believes, as in all other unbelief. He and I are to dine alone (I have not seen him these two years)--and I shall never be able to keep from driving the great wedge right through his breast and descending lower, from riveting his two foolish legs to the wintry chasm; for I that stammer and answer hap-hazard with you, get proportionately valiant and voluble with a mere cupful of Diderot's rinsings, and a man into the bargain.
If you were prevented from leaving the house yesterday, assuredly to-day you will never attempt such a thing--the wind, rain--all is against it: I trust you will not make the first experiment except under really favourable auspices ... for by its success you will naturally be induced to go on or leave off--Still you are _better_! I fully believe, dare to believe, _that_ will continue. As for me, since you ask--find me but something _to do_, and see if I shall not be well!--Though I _am_ well now almost.
How good you are to my roses--they are not of my making, to be sure. Never, by the way, did Miss Martineau work such a miracle as I now witness in the garden--I gathered at Rome, close to the fountain of Egeria, a handful of _fennel_-seeds from the most indisputable plant of fennel I ever chanced upon--and, lo, they are come up ... hemlock, or something akin! In two places, moreover. Wherein does hemlock resemble fennel? How could I mistake? No wonder that a stone's cast off from that Egeria's fountain is the Temple of the God Ridiculus.
Well, on Saturday then--at three: and I will certainly bring the verses you mention--and trust to find you still better.
Vivi felice--my dear friend, God bless you!
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday-Thursday Evening [Post-mark, July 4, 1845.]
Yes--I know the first part of the 'Duchess' and have it here--and for the rest of the poem, don't mind about being very legible, or even legible in the usual sense; and remember how it is my boast to be able to read all such manuscript writing as never is read by people who don't like caviare. Now you won't mind? really I rather like blots than otherwise--being a sort of patron-saint of all manner of untidyness ... if Mr. Kenyon's reproaches (of which there's a stereotyped edition) are justified by the fact--and he has a great organ of order, and knows 'disorderly persons' at a glance, I suppose. But you won't be particular with _me_ in the matter of transcription? _that_ is what I want to make sure of. And even if you are not
## particular, I am afraid you are not well enough to be troubled by
writing, and writing and the thinking that comes with it--it would be wiser to wait till you are quite well--now wouldn't it?--and my fear is that the 'almost well' means 'very little better.' And why, when there is no motive for hurrying, run any risk? Don't think that I will help you to make yourself ill. That I refuse to do even so much work as the 'little dessert-knife' in the way of murder, ... _do_ think! So upon the whole, I expect nothing on Saturday from this distance--and if it comes unexpectedly (I mean the Duchess and not Saturday) _let_ it be at no cost, or at the least cost possible, will you? I am delighted in the meanwhile to hear of the quantity of 'mala herba'; and hemlock does not come up from every seed you sow, though you call it by ever such bad names.
Talking of poetry, I had a newspaper 'in help of social and political progress' sent to me yesterday from America--addressed to--just my name ... _poetess, London_! Think of the simplicity of those wild Americans in 'calculating' that 'people in general' here in England know what a poetess is!--Well--the post office authorities, after deep meditation, I do not doubt, on all probable varieties of the chimpanzee, and a glance to the Surrey Gardens on one side, and the Zoological department of Regent's Park on the other, thought of 'Poet's Corner,' perhaps, and wrote at the top of the parcel, 'Enquire at Paternoster Row'! whereupon the Paternoster Row people wrote again, 'Go to Mr. Moxon'--and I received my newspaper.
And talking of poetesses, I had a note yesterday (again) which quite touched me ... from Mr. Hemans--Charles, the son of Felicia--written with so much feeling, that it was with difficulty I could say my perpetual 'no' to his wish about coming to see me. His mother's memory is surrounded to him, he says, 'with almost a divine lustre'--and 'as it cannot be to those who knew the writer alone and not the woman.' Do you not like to hear such things said? and is it not better than your tradition about Shelley's son? and is it not pleasant to know that that poor noble pure-hearted woman, the Vittoria Colonna of our country, should be so loved and comprehended by some ... by one at least ... of her own house? Not that, in naming Shelley, I meant for a moment to make a comparison--there is not equal ground for it. Vittoria Colonna does not walk near Dante--no. And if you promised never to tell Mrs. Jameson ... nor Miss Martineau ... I would confide to you perhaps my secret profession of faith--which is ... which is ... that let us say and do what we please and can ... there _is_ a natural inferiority of mind in women--of the intellect ... not by any means, of the moral nature--and that the history of Art and of genius testifies to this fact openly. Oh--I would not say so to Mrs. Jameson for the world. I believe I was a coward to her altogether--for when she denounced carpet work as 'injurious to the mind,' because it led the workers into 'fatal habits of reverie,' I defended the carpet work as if I were striving _pro aris et focis_, (_I_, who am so innocent of all that knowledge!) and said not a word for the poor reveries which have frayed away so much of silken time for me ... and let her go away repeating again and again ... 'Oh, but _you_ may do carpet work with impunity--yes! _because_ you can be writing poems all the while.'!
Think of people making poems and rugs at once. There's complex machinery for you!
I told you that I had a sensation of cold blue steel from her eyes!--And yet I really liked and like and shall like her. She is very kind I believe--and it was my mistake--and I correct my impressions of her more and more to perfection, as _you_ tell me who know more of her than I.
Only I should not dare, ... _ever_, I think ... to tell her that I believe women ... all of us in a mass ... to have minds of quicker movement, but less power and depth ... and that we are under your feet, because we can't stand upon our own. Not that we should either be quite under your feet! so you are not to be too proud, if you please--and there is certainly some amount of wrong--: but it never will be righted in the manner and to the extent contemplated by certain of our own prophetesses ... nor ought to be, I hold in intimate persuasion. One woman indeed now alive ... and only _that_ one down all the ages of the world--seems to me to justify for a moment an opposite opinion--that wonderful woman George Sand; who has something monstrous in combination with her genius, there is no denying at moments (for she has written one book, Leila, which I could not read, though I am not easily turned back,) but whom, in her good and evil together, I regard with infinitely more admiration than all other women of genius who are or have been. Such a colossal nature in every way,--with all that breadth and scope of faculty which women want--magnanimous, and loving the truth and loving the people--and with that 'hate of hate' too, which you extol--so eloquent, and yet earnest as if she were dumb--so full of a living sense of beauty, and of noble blind instincts towards an ideal purity--and so proving a right even in her wrong. By the way, what you say of the Vidocq museum reminds me of one of the chamber of masonic trial scenes in 'Consuelo.' Could you like to see those knives?
I began with the best intentions of writing six lines--and see what is written! And all because I kept my letter back ... from a _doubt about Saturday_--but it has worn away, and the appointment stands good ... for me: I have nothing to say against it.
But belief in mesmerism is not the same thing as general unbelief--to do it justice--now is it? It may be super-belief as well. Not that there is not something ghastly and repelling to me in the thought of Dr. Elliotson's great bony fingers seeming to 'touch the stops' of a whole soul's harmonies--as in phreno-magnetism. And I should have liked far better than hearing and seeing _that_, to have heard _you_ pour the 'cupful of Diderot's rinsings,' out,--and indeed I can fancy a little that you and how you could do it--and break the cup too afterwards!
Another sheet--and for what?
What is written already, if you read, you do so meritoriously--and it's an example of bad writing, if you want one in the poems. I am ashamed, you may see, of having written too much, (besides)--which is _much_ worse--but one writes and writes: _I_ do at least--for _you_ are irreproachable. Ever yours my dear friend, as if I had not written ... or _had_!
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Afternoon. [Post-mark July 7, 1845.]
While I write this,--3 o'clock you may be going out, I will hope, for the day is very fine, perhaps all the better for the wind: yet I got up this morning sure of bad weather. I shall not try to tell you how anxious I am for the result and to know it. You will of course feel fatigued at first--but persevering, as you mean to do, do you not?--persevering, the event must be happy.
I thought, and still think, to write to you about George Sand, and the vexed question, a very Bermoothes of the 'Mental Claims of the Sexes Relatively Considered' (so was called the, ... I do believe, ... worst poem I ever read in my life), and Mrs. Hemans, and all and some of the points referred to in your letter--but 'by my fay, I cannot reason,' to-day: and, by a consequence, I feel the more--so I say how I want news of you ... which, when they arrive, I shall read 'meritoriously'--do you think? My friend, what ought I to tell you on that head (or the reverse rather)--of your discourse? I should like to match you at a fancy-flight; if I could, give you nearly as pleasant an assurance that 'there's no merit in the case,' but the hot weather and lack of wit get the better of my good will--besides, I remember once to have admired a certain enticing simplicity in the avowal of the Treasurer of a Charitable Institution at a Dinner got up in its behalf--the Funds being at lowest, Debt at highest ... in fact, this Dinner was the last chance of the Charity, and this Treasurer's speech the main feature in the chance--and our friend, inspired by the emergency, went so far as to say, with a bland smile--'Do not let it be supposed that we--_despise_ annual contributors,--we _rather_--solicit their assistance.' All which means, do not think that I take any 'merit' for making myself supremely happy, I rather &c. &c.
Always rather mean to deserve it a little better--but never shall: so it should be, for you and me--and as it was in the beginning so it is still. You are the--But you know and why should I tease myself with words?
Let me send this off now--and to-morrow some more, because I trust to hear you have made the first effort and with success.
Ever yours, my dear friend,
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, July 8, 1845.]
Well--I have really been out; and am really alive after it--which is more surprising still--alive enough I mean, to write even _so_, to-night. But perhaps I say so with more emphasis, to console myself for failing in my great ambition of getting into the Park and of reaching Mr. Kenyon's door just to leave a card there vaingloriously, ... all which I did fail in, and was forced to turn back from the gates of Devonshire Place. The next time it will be better perhaps--and this time there was no fainting nor anything very wrong ... not even cowardice on the part of the victim (be it recorded!) for one of my sisters was as usual in authority and ordered the turning back just according to her own prudence and not my selfwill. Only you will not, any of you, ask me to admit that it was all delightful--pleasanter work than what you wanted to spare me in taking care of your roses on Saturday! don't ask _that_, and I will try it again presently.
I ought to be ashamed of writing this I and me-ism--but since your kindness made it worth while asking about I must not be over-wise and silent on my side.
_Tuesday._--Was it fair to tell me to write though, and be silent of the 'Duchess,' and when I was sure to be so delighted--and _you knew it_? _I_ think not indeed. And, to make the obedience possible, I go on fast to say that I heard from Mr. Horne a few days since and that _he_ said--'your envelope reminds me of'--_you_, he said ... and so, asked if you were in England still, and meant to write to you. To which I have answered that I believe you to be in England--thinking it strange about the envelope; which, as far as I remember, was one of those long ones, used, the more conveniently to enclose to him back again a MS. of his own I had offered with another of his, by his desire, to _Colburn's Magazine_, as the productions of a friend of mine, when he was in Germany and afraid of his proper fatal onymousness, yet in difficulty how to approach the magazines as a nameless writer (you will not mention this of course). And when he was in Germany, I remember, ... writing just as your first letter came ... that I mentioned it to him, and was a little frankly proud of it! but since, your name has not occurred once--not once, certainly!--and it is strange.... Only he _can't_ have heard of your having been here, and it _must_ have been a chance-remark--altogether! taking an imaginary emphasis from my evil conscience perhaps. Talking of evils, how wrong of you to make that book for me! and how ill I thanked you after all! Also, I couldn't help feeling more grateful still for the Duchess ... who is under ban: and for how long I wonder?
My dear friend, I am ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, July 9, 1845.]
You are all that is good and kind: I am happy and thankful the beginning (and worst of it) is over and so well. The Park and Mr. Kenyon's all in good time--and your sister was most prudent--and you mean to try again: God bless you, all to be said or done--but, as I say it, no vain word. No doubt it was a mere chance-thought, and _à propos de bottes_ of Horne--neither he or any other _can_ know or even fancy how it is. Indeed, though on other grounds I should be all so proud of being known for your friend by everybody, yet there's no denying the deep delight of playing the Eastern Jew's part here in this London--they go about, you know by travel-books, with the tokens of extreme destitution and misery, and steal by blind ways and by-paths to some blank dreary house, one obscure door in it--which being well shut behind them, they grope on through a dark corridor or so, and then, a blaze follows the lifting a curtain or the like, for they are in a palace-hall with fountains and light, and marble and gold, of which the envious are never to dream! And I, too, love to have few friends, and to live alone, and to see you from week to week. Do you not suppose I am grateful?
And you do like the 'Duchess,' as much as you have got of it? that delights me, too--for every reason. But I fear I shall not be able to bring you the rest to-morrow--Thursday, my day--because I have been broken in upon more than one morning; nor, though much better in my head, can I do anything at night just now. All will come right eventually, I hope, and I shall transcribe the other things you are to judge.
To-morrow then--only (and that is why I would write) do, do _know_ me for what I am and treat me as I deserve in that _one_ respect, and _go out_, without a moment's thought or care, if to-morrow should suit you--leave word to that effect and I shall be as glad as if I saw you or more--_reasoned_ gladness, you know. Or you can write--though that is not necessary at all,--do think of all this!
I am yours ever, dear friend,
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, July 12, 1845.]
You understand that it was not a resolution passed in favour of formality, when I said what I did yesterday about not going out at the time you were coming--surely you do; whatever you might signify to a different effect. If it were necessary for me to go out every day, or most days even, it would be otherwise; but as it is, I may certainly keep the day you come, free from the fear of carriages, let the sun shine its best or worst, without doing despite to you or injury to me--and that's all I meant to insist upon indeed and indeed. You see, Jupiter Tonans was good enough to come to-day on purpose to deliver me--one evil for another! for I confess with shame and contrition, that I never wait to enquire whether it thunders to the left or the right, to be frightened most ingloriously. Isn't it a disgrace to anyone with a pretension to poetry? Dr. Chambers, a part of whose office it is, Papa says, 'to reconcile foolish women to their follies,' used to take the side of my vanity, and discourse at length on the passive obedience of some nervous systems to electrical influences; but perhaps my faint-heartedness is besides traceable to a half-reasonable terror of a great storm in Herefordshire, where great storms most do congregate, (such storms!) round the Malvern Hills, those mountains of England. We lived four miles from their roots, through all my childhood and early youth, in a Turkish house my father built himself, crowded with minarets and domes, and crowned with metal spires and crescents, to the provocation (as people used to observe) of every lightning of heaven. Once a storm of storms happened, and we all thought the house was struck--and a tree was so really, within two hundred yards of the windows while I looked out--the bark, rent from the top to the bottom ... torn into long ribbons by the dreadful fiery hands, and dashed out into the air, over the heads of other trees, or left twisted in their branches--torn into shreds in a moment, as a flower might be, by a child! Did you ever see a tree after it has been struck by lightning? The whole trunk of that tree was bare and peeled--and up that new whiteness of it, ran the finger-mark of the lightning in a bright beautiful rose-colour (none of your roses brighter or more beautiful!) the fever-sign of the certain death--though the branches themselves were for the most part untouched, and spread from the peeled trunk in their full summer foliage; and birds singing in them three hours afterwards! And, in that same storm, two young women belonging to a festive party were killed on the Malvern Hills--each sealed to death in a moment with a sign on the chest which a common seal would cover--only the sign on them was not rose-coloured as on our tree, but black as charred wood. So I get 'possessed' sometimes with the effects of these impressions, and so does one, at least, of my sisters, in a lower degree--and oh!--how amusing and instructive all this is to you! When my father came into the room to-day and found me hiding my eyes from the lightning, he was quite angry and called 'it disgraceful to anybody who had ever learnt the alphabet'--to which I answered humbly that 'I knew it was'--but if I had been impertinent, I _might_ have added that wisdom does not come by the alphabet but in spite of it? Don't you think so in a measure? _non obstantibus_ Bradbury and Evans? There's a profane question--and ungrateful too ... after the Duchess--I except the Duchess and her peers--and be sure she will be the world's Duchess and received as one of your most striking poems. Full of various power the poem is.... I cannot say how deeply it has impressed me--but though I want the conclusion, I don't _wish_ for it; and in this, am reasonable for once! You will not write and make yourself ill--will you? or read 'Sybil' at unlawful hours even? Are you better at all? What a letter! and how very foolishly to-day
I am yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Morning. [Post-mark, July 14, 1845.]
Very well--I shall say no more on the subject--though it was not any piece of formality on your part that I deprecated; nor even your over-kindness exactly--I rather wanted you to be really, wisely kind, and do me a greater favour then the next great one in degree; but you must understand this much in me, how you can lay me under deepest obligation. I daresay you think you have some, perhaps many, to whom your well-being is of deeper interest than to me. Well, if that be so, do for their sakes make every effort with the remotest chance of proving serviceable to you; nor _set yourself against_ any little irksomeness these carriage-drives may bring with them just at the beginning; and you may say, if you like, 'how I shall delight those friends, if I can make this newest one grateful'--and, as from the known quantity one reasons out the unknown, this newest friend will be one glow of gratitude, he knows that, if you can warm your finger-tips and so do yourself that much real good, by setting light to a dozen 'Duchesses': why ought I not to say this when it is so true? Besides, people profess as much to their merest friends--for I have been looking through a poem-book just now, and was told, under the head of Album-verses alone, that for A. the writer would die, and for B. die too but a crueller death, and for C. too, and D. and so on. I wonder whether they have since wanted to borrow money of him on the strength of his professions. But you must remember we are in July; the 13th it is, and summer will go and cold weather stay ('_come_' forsooth!)--and now is the time of times. Still I feared the rain would hinder you on Friday--but the thunder did not frighten me--for you: your father must pardon me for holding most firmly with Dr. Chambers--his theory is quite borne out by my own experience, for I have seen a man it were foolish to call a coward, a great fellow too, all but die away in a thunderstorm, though he had quite science enough to explain why there was no immediate danger at all--whereupon his younger brother suggested that he should just go out and treat us to a repetition of Franklin's experiment with the cloud and the kite--a well-timed proposition which sent the Explainer down with a white face into the cellar. What a grand sight your tree was--_is_, for I see it. My father has a print of a tree so struck--torn to ribbons, as you describe--but the rose-mark is striking and new to me. We had a good storm on our last voyage, but I went to bed at the end, as I thought--and only found there had been lightning next day by the bare poles under which we were riding: but the finest mountain fit of the kind I ever saw has an unfortunately ludicrous association. It was at Possagno, among the Euganean Hills, and I was at a poor house in the town--an old woman was before a little picture of the Virgin, and at every fresh clap she lighted, with the oddest sputtering muttering mouthful of prayer imaginable, an inch of guttery candle, which, the instant the last echo had rolled away, she as constantly blew out again for saving's sake--having, of course, to _light the smoke_ of it, about an instant after that: the expenditure in wax at which the elements might be propitiated, you see, was a matter for curious calculation. I suppose I ought to have bought the whole taper for some four or five centesimi (100 of which make 8d. English) and so kept the countryside safe for about a century of bad weather. Leigh Hunt tells you a story he had from Byron, of kindred philosophy in a Jew who was surprised by a thunderstorm while he was dining on bacon--he tried to eat between-whiles, but the flashes were as pertinacious as he, so at last he pushed his plate away, just remarking with a compassionate shrug, 'all this fuss about a piece of pork!' By the way, what a characteristic of an Italian _late_ evening is Summer-lightning--it hangs in broad slow sheets, dropping from cloud to cloud, so long in dropping and dying off. The 'bora,' which you only get at Trieste, brings wonderful lightning--you are in glorious June-weather, fancy, of an evening, under green shock-headed acacias, so thick and green, with the cicalas stunning you above, and all about you men, women, rich and poor, sitting standing and coming and going--and through all the laughter and screaming and singing, the loud clink of the spoons against the glasses, the way of calling for fresh 'sorbetti'--for all the world is at open-coffee-house at such an hour--when suddenly there is a stop in the sunshine, a blackness drops down, then a great white column of dust drives straight on like a wedge, and you see the acacia heads snap off, now one, then another--and all the people scream 'la bora, la bora!' and you are caught up in their whirl and landed in some interior, the man with the guitar on one side of you, and the boy with a cageful of little brown owls for sale, on the other--meanwhile, the thunder claps, claps, with such a persistence, and the rain, for a finale, falls in a mass, as if you had knocked out the whole bottom of a huge tank at once--then there is a second stop--out comes the sun--somebody clinks at his glass, all the world bursts out laughing, and prepares to pour out again,--but _you_, the stranger, _do_ make the best of your way out, with no preparation at all; whereupon you infallibly put your foot (and half your leg) into a river, really that, of rainwater--that's a _Bora_ (and that comment of yours, a justifiable pun!) Such things you get in Italy, but better, better, the best of all things you do not (_I_ do not) get those. And I shall see you on Wednesday, please remember, and bring you the rest of the poem--that you should like it, gratifies me more than I will try to say, but then, do not you be tempted by that pleasure of pleasing which I think is your besetting sin--may it not be?--and so cut me off from the other pleasure of being profited. As I told you, I like so much to fancy that you see, and will see, what I do as _I_ see it, while it is doing, as nobody else in the world should, certainly, even if they thought it worth while to want--but when I try and build a great building I shall want you to come with me and judge it and counsel me before the scaffolding is taken down, and while you have to make your way over hods and mortar and heaps of lime, and trembling tubs of size, and those thin broad whitewashing brushes I always had a desire to take up and bespatter with. And now goodbye--I am to see you on Wednesday I trust--and to hear you say you are better, still better, much better? God grant that, and all else good for you, dear friend, and so for R.B.
ever yours.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, July 18, 1845.]
I suppose nobody is ever expected to acknowledge his or her 'besetting sin'--it would be unnatural--and therefore you will not be surprised to hear me deny the one imputed to me for mine. I deny it quite and directly. And if my denial goes for nothing, which is but reasonable, I might call in a great cloud of witnesses, ... a thundercloud, ... (talking of storms!) and even seek no further than this table for a first witness; this letter, I had yesterday, which calls me ... let me see how many hard names ... 'unbending,' ... 'disdainful,' ... 'cold hearted,' ... 'arrogant,' ... yes, 'arrogant, as women always are when men grow humble' ... there's a charge against all possible and probable petticoats beyond mine and through it! Not that either they or mine deserve the charge--we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for I don't pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins 'over the way' and in antithesis. It's an undeserved charge, and unprovoked! and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented into ill temper; and shall remain unanswered, for _me_, ... and _should_, ... even if I could write mortal epigrams, as your Lamia speaks them. Only it serves to help my assertion that people in general who know something of me, my dear friend, are not inclined to agree with you in
## particular, about my having an 'over-pleasure in pleasing,' for a
besetting sin. If you had spoken of my sister Henrietta indeed, you would have been right--_so_ right! but for _me_, alas, my sins are not half as amiable, nor given to lean to virtue's side with half such a grace. And then I have a pretension to speak the truth like a Roman, even in matters of literature, where Mr. Kenyon says falseness is a fashion--and really and honestly I should not be afraid ... I should have no reason to be afraid, ... if all the notes and letters written by my hand for years and years about presentation copies of poems and other sorts of books were brought together and 'conferred,' as they say of manuscripts, before my face--I should not shrink and be ashamed. Not that I always tell the truth as I see it--_but_ I _never do_ speak falsely with intention and consciousness--never--and I do not find that people of letters are sooner offended than others are, by the truth told in gentleness;--I do not remember to have offended anyone in this relation, and by these means. Well!--but _from me to you_; it is all different, you know--you must know how different it is. I can tell you truly what I think of this thing and of that thing in your 'Duchess'--but I must of a necessity hesitate and fall into misgiving of the adequacy of my truth, so called. To judge at all of a work of yours, I must _look up to it_, and _far up_--because whatever faculty _I_ have is included in your faculty, and with a great rim all round it besides! And thus, it is not at all from an over-pleasure in pleasing _you_, not at all from an inclination to depreciate myself, that I speak and feel as I do and must on some occasions; it is simply the consequence of a true comprehension of you and of me--and apart from it, I should not be abler, I think, but less able, to assist you in anything. I do wish you would consider all this reasonably, and understand it as a third person would in a moment, and consent not to spoil the real pleasure I have and am about to have in your poetry, by nailing me up into a false position with your gold-headed nails of chivalry, which won't hold to the wall through this summer. Now you will not answer this?--you will only understand it and me--and that I am not servile but sincere, but earnest, but meaning what I say--and when I say I am afraid, you will believe that I am afraid; and when I say I have misgivings, you will believe that I have misgivings--you will _trust_ me so far, and give me liberty to breathe and feel naturally ... according to my own nature. Probably, or certainly rather, I have one advantage over you, ... one, of which women are not fond of boasting--that of _being older by years_--for the 'Essay on Mind,' which was the first poem published by me (and rather more printed than published after all), the work of my earliest youth, half childhood, half womanhood, was published in 1826 I see. And if I told Mr. Kenyon not to let you see that book, it was not for the date, but because Coleridge's daughter was right in calling it a mere 'girl's exercise'; because it is just _that_ and no more, ... no expression whatever of my nature as it ever was, ... pedantic, and in some things pert, ... and such as altogether, and to do myself justice (which I would fain do of course), I was not in my whole life. Bad books are never like their writers, you know--and those under-age books are generally bad. Also I have found it hard work to _get into expression_, though I began rhyming from my very infancy, much as you did (and this, with no sympathy near to me--I have had to do without sympathy in the full sense--), and even in my 'Seraphim' days, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth,--from leading so conventual recluse a life, perhaps--and all my better poems were written last year, the very best thing to come, if there should be any life or courage to come; I scarcely know. Sometimes--it is the real truth--I have haste to be done with it all. It is the real truth; however to say so may be an ungrateful return for your kind and generous words, ... which I _do_ feel gratefully, let me otherwise feel as I will, ... or must. But then you know you are liable to such prodigious mistakes about besetting sins and even besetting virtues--to such a set of small delusions, that are sure to break one by one, like other bubbles, as you draw in your breath, ... as I see by the law of my own star, my own particular star, the star I was born under, the star _Wormwood_, ... on the opposite side of the heavens from the constellations of 'the Lyre and the Crown.' In the meantime, it is difficult to thank you, or _not_ to thank you, for all your kindnesses--[Greek: algos de sigan]. Only Mrs. Jameson told me of Lady Byron's saying 'that she knows she is burnt every day in effigy by half the world, but that the effigy is so unlike herself as to be inoffensive to her,' and just so, or rather just in the converse of _so_, is it with me and your kindnesses. They are meant for quite another than I, and are too far to be so near. The comfort is ... in seeing you throw all those ducats out of the window, (and how many ducats go in a figure to a 'dozen Duchesses,' it is profane to calculate) the comfort is that you will not be the poorer for it in the end; since the people beneath, are honest enough to push them back under the door. Rather a bleak comfort and occupation though!--and you may find better work for your friends, who are (some of them) weary even unto death of the uses of this life. And now, you who are generous, _be_ generous, and take no notice of all this. I speak of myself, not of you so there is nothing for you to contradict or discuss--and if there were, you would be really kind and give me my way in it. Also you may take courage; for I promise not to vex you by thanking you against _your_ will,--more than may be helped.
Some of this letter was written before yesterday and in reply of course to yours--so it is to pass for two letters, being long enough for just six. Yesterday you must have wondered at me for being in such a maze altogether about the poems--and so now I rise to explain that it was assuredly the wine song and no other which I read of yours in _Hood's_. And then, what did I say of the Dante and Beatrice? Because what I referred to was the exquisite page or two or three on that subject in the 'Pentameron.' I do not remember anything else of Landor's with the same bearing--do you? As to Montaigne, with the threads of my thoughts smoothly disentangled, I can see nothing coloured by him ... nothing. Do bring all the _Hood_ poems of your own--inclusive of the 'Tokay,' because I read it in such haste as to whirl up all the dust you saw, from the wheels of my chariot. The 'Duchess' is past speaking of here--but you will see how I am delighted. And we must make speed--only taking care of your head--for I heard to-day that Papa and my aunt are discussing the question of sending me off either to Alexandria or Malta for the winter. Oh--it is quite a passing talk and thought, I dare say! and it would not _be_ in any case, until September or October; though in every case, I suppose, _I_ should not be much consulted ... and all cases and places would seem better to me (if I were) than Madeira which the physicians used to threaten me with long ago. So take care of your headache and let us have the 'Bells' rung out clear before the summer ends ... and pray don't say again anything about clear consciences or unclear ones, in granting me the privilege of reading your manuscripts--which is all clear privilege to me, with pride and gladness waiting on it. May God bless you always my dear friend!
E.B.B.
You left behind your sister's little basket--but I hope you did not forget to thank her for my carnations.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[no date]
I shall just say, at the beginning of a note as at the end, I am yours _ever_, and not till summer ends and my nails fall out, and my breath breaks bubbles,--ought you to write thus having restricted me as you once did, and do still? You tie me like a Shrove-Tuesday fowl to a stake and then pick the thickest cudgel out of your lot, and at my head it goes--I wonder whether you remembered having predicted exactly the same horror once before. 'I was to see you--and you were to understand'--_Do_ you? do you understand--my own friend--with that superiority in years, too! For I confess to that--you need not throw that in my teeth ... as soon as I read your 'Essay on Mind'--(which of course I managed to do about 12 hours after Mr. K's positive refusal to keep his promise, and give me the book) from preface to the 'Vision of Fame' at the end, and reflected on my own doings about that time, 1826--I did indeed see, and wonder at, your advance over me in years--what then? I have got nearer you considerably--(if only nearer)--since then--and prove it by the remarks I make at favourable times--such as this, for instance, which occurs in a poem you are to see--written some time ago--which advises nobody who thinks nobly of the Soul, to give, if he or she can help, such a good argument to the materialist as the owning that any great choice of that Soul, which it is born to make and which--(in its determining, as it must, the whole future course and impulses of that soul)--which must endure for ever, even though the object that induced the choice should disappear--owning, I say, that such a choice may be scientifically determined and produced, at any operator's pleasure, by a definite number of ingredients, so much youth, so much beauty, so much talent &c. &c., with the same certainty and precision that another kind of operator will construct you an artificial volcano with so much steel filings and flower of sulphur and what not. There is more in the soul than rises to the surface and meets the eye; whatever does _that_, is for this world's immediate uses; and were this world _all, all_ in us would be producible and available for use, as it _is_ with the body now--but with the soul, what is to be developed _afterward_ is the main thing, and instinctively asserts its rights--so that when you hate (or love) you shall not be so able to explain 'why' ('You' is the ordinary creature enough of my poem--_he_ might not be so able.)
There, I will write no more. You will never drop _me_ off the golden hooks, I dare believe--and the rest is with God--whose finger I see every minute of my life. Alexandria! Well, and may I not as easily ask leave to come 'to-morrow at the Muezzin' as next Wednesday at three?
God bless you--do not be otherwise than kind to this letter which it costs me pains, great pains to avoid writing better, as truthfuller--this you get is not the first begun. Come, you shall not have the heart to blame me; for, see, I will send all my sins of commission with _Hood_,--blame _them_, tell me about them, and meantime let me be, dear friend, yours,
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, July 21, 1845.]
But I never _did_ strike you or touch you--and you are not in earnest in the complaint you make--and this is really all I am going to say to-day. What I said before was wrung from me by words on your part, while you know far too well how to speak so as to make them go deepest, and which sometimes it becomes impossible, or over-hard to bear without deprecation:--as when, for instance, you talk of being 'grateful' to _me_!!--Well! I will try that there shall be no more of it--no more provocation of generosities--and so, (this once) as you express it, I 'will not have the heart to blame' you--except for reading my books against my will, which was very wrong indeed. Mr. Kenyon asked me, I remember, (he had a mania of sending my copybook literature round the world to this person and that person, and I was roused at last into binding him by a vow to do so no more) I remember he asked me ... 'Is Mr. Browning to be excepted?'; to which I answered that nobody was to be excepted--and thus he was quite right in resisting to the death ... or to dinner-time ... just as you were quite wrong after dinner. Now, could a woman have been more curious? Could the very author of the book have done worse? But I leave my sins and yours gladly, to get into the _Hood_ poems which have delighted me so--and first to the St. Praxed's which is of course the finest and most powerful ... and indeed full of the power of life ... and of death. It has impressed me very much. Then the 'Angel and Child,' with all its beauty and significance!--and the 'Garden Fancies' ... some of the stanzas about the name of the flower, with such exquisite music in them, and grace of every kind--and with that beautiful and musical use of the word 'meandering,' which I never remember having seen used in relation to _sound_ before. It does to mate with your '_simmering_ quiet' in Sordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sure as you read it. Then I like your burial of the pedant so much!--you have quite the damp smell of funguses and the sense of creeping things through and through it. And the 'Laboratory' is hideous as you meant to make it:--only I object a little to your tendency ... which is almost a habit, and is very observable in this poem I think, ... of making lines difficult for the reader to read ... see the opening lines of this poem. Not that music is required everywhere, nor in _them_ certainly, but that the uncertainty of rhythm throws the reader's mind off the _rail_ ... and interrupts his progress with you and your influence with him. Where we have not direct pleasure from rhythm, and where no peculiar impression is to be produced by the changes in it, we should be encouraged by the poet to _forget it altogether_; should we not? I am quite wrong perhaps--but you see how I do not conceal my wrongnesses where they mix themselves up with my sincere impressions. And how could it be that no one within my hearing ever spoke of these poems? Because it is true that I never saw one of them--never!--except the 'Tokay,' which is inferior to all; and that I was quite unaware of your having printed so much with Hood--or at all, except this 'Tokay,' and this 'Duchess'! The world is very deaf and dumb, I think--but in the end, we need not be afraid of its not learning its lesson.
Could you come--for I am going out in the carriage, and will not stay to write of your poems even, any more to-day--could you come on Thursday or Friday (the day left to your choice) instead of on Wednesday? If I could help it I would not say so--it is not a caprice. And I leave it to you, whether Thursday or Friday. And Alexandria seems discredited just now for Malta--and 'anything but Madeira,' I go on saying to myself. These _Hood_ poems are all to be in the next 'Bells' of course--of necessity?
May God bless you my dear friend, my ever dear friend!--
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning. [Post-mark, July 22, 1845.]
I will say, with your leave, Thursday (nor attempt to say anything else without your leave).
The temptation of reading the 'Essay' was more than I could bear: and a wonderful work it is every way; the other poems and their music--wonderful!
And you go out still--so continue better!
I cannot write this morning--I should say too much and have to be sorry and afraid--let me be safely yours ever, my own dear friend--
R.B.
I am but too proud of your praise--when will the blame come--at Malta?
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, July 25, 1845.]
Are you any better to-day? and will you say just the truth of it? and not attempt to do any of the writing which does harm--nor of the reading even, which may do harm--and something does harm to you, you see--and you told me not long ago that you knew how to avoid the harm ... now, did you not? and what could it have been last week which you did not avoid, and which made you so unwell? Beseech you not to think that I am going to aid and abet in this wronging of yourself, for I will not indeed--and I am only sorry to have given you my querulous queries yesterday ... and to have omitted to say in relation to them, too, how they were to be accepted in any case as just passing thoughts of mine for _your_ passing thoughts, ... some right, it may be ... some wrong, it must be ... and none, insisted on even by the thinker! just impressions, and by no means pretending to be judgments--now _will_ you understand? Also, I intended (as a proof of my fallacy) to strike out one or two of my doubts before I gave the paper to you--so _whichever strikes you as the most foolish of them, of course must be what I meant to strike out_--(there's ingenuity for you!). The poem did, for the rest, as will be suggested to you, give me the very greatest pleasure, and astonish me in two ways ... by the versification, mechanically considered; and by the successful evolution of pure beauty from all that roughness and rudeness of the sin of the boar-pinner--successfully evolved, without softening one hoarse accent of his voice. But there is to be a pause now--you will not write any more--no, nor come here on Wednesday, if coming into the roar of this London should make the pain worse, as I cannot help thinking it must--and you were not well yesterday morning, you admitted. You _will_ take care? And if there should be a wisdom in going away...!
Was it very wrong of me, doing what I told you of yesterday? Very imprudent, I am afraid--but I never knew how to be prudent--and then, there is not a sharing of responsibility in any sort of imaginable measure; but a mere going away of so many thoughts, apart from the thinker, or of words, apart from the speaker, ... just as I might give away a pocket-handkerchief to be newly marked and mine no longer. I did not do--and would not have done, ... one of those papers singly. It would have been unbecoming of me in every way. It was simply a writing of notes ... of slips of paper ... now on one subject, and now on another ... which were thrown into the great cauldron and boiled up with other matter, and re-translated from my idiom where there seemed a need for it. And I am not much afraid of being ever guessed at--except by those Oedipuses who astounded me once for a moment and were after all, I hope, baffled by the Sphinx--or ever betrayed; because besides the black Stygian oaths and indubitable honour of the editor, he has some interest, even as I have the greatest, in being silent and secret. And nothing _is mine_ ... if something is _of me_ ... or _from_ me, rather. Yet it was wrong and foolish, I see plainly--wrong in all but the motives. How dreadful to write against time, and with a side-ways running conscience! And then the literature of the day was wider than his knowledge, all round! And the booksellers were barking distraction on every side!--I had some of the mottos to find too! But the paper relating to you I never was consulted about--or in _one particular way_ it would have been better,--as easily it might have been. May God bless you, my dear friend,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning. [Post-mark, July 25, 1845.]
You would let me _now_, I dare say, call myself grateful to you--yet such is my jealousy in these matters--so do I hate the material when it puts down, (or tries) the immaterial in the offices of friendship; that I could almost tell you I was _not_ grateful, and try if that way I could make you see the substantiality of those other favours you refuse to recognise, and reality of the other gratitude you will not admit. But truth is truth, and you are all generosity, and will draw none but the fair inference, so I thank you as well as I can for this _also_--this last kindness. And you know its value, too--how if there were another _you_ in the world, who had done all you have done and whom I merely admired for that; if such an one had sent me such a criticism, so exactly what I want and can use and turn to good; you know how I would have told you, my _you_ I saw yesterday, all about it, and been sure of your sympathy and gladness:--but the two in one!
For the criticism itself, it is all true, except the over-eating--all the suggestions are to be adopted, the improvements accepted. I so thoroughly understand your spirit in this, that, just in this beginning, I should really like to have found some point in which I could coöperate with your intention, and help my work by disputing the effect of any alteration proposed, if it ought to be disputed--_that_ would answer your purpose exactly as well as agreeing with you,--so that the benefit to me were apparent; but this time I cannot dispute one point. All is for best.
So much for this 'Duchess'--which I shall ever rejoice in--wherever was a bud, even, in that strip of May-bloom, a live musical bee hangs now. I shall let it lie (my poem), till just before I print it; and then go over it, alter at the places, and do something for the places where I (really) wrote anyhow, almost, to get done. It is an odd fact, yet characteristic of my accomplishings one and all in this kind, that of _the poem_, the real conception of an evening (two years ago, fully)--of _that_, not a line is written,--though perhaps after all, what I am going to call the accessories in the story are real though indirect reflexes of the original idea, and so supersede properly enough the necessity of its personal appearance, so to speak. But, as I conceived the poem, it consisted entirely of the Gipsy's description of the life the Lady was to lead with her future Gipsy lover--a _real_ life, not an unreal one like that with the Duke. And as I meant to write it, all their wild adventures would have come out and the insignificance of the former vegetation have been deducible only--as the main subject has become now; of course it comes to the same thing, for one would never show half by half like a cut orange.--
Will you write to me? caring, though, so much for my best interests as not to write if you can work for yourself, or save yourself fatigue. I _think_ before writing--or just after writing--such a sentence--but reflection only justifies my first feeling; I _would_ rather go without your letters, without seeing you at all, if that advantaged you--my dear, first and last friend; my friend! And now--surely I might dare say you may if you please get well through God's goodness--with persevering patience, surely--and this next winter abroad--which you must get ready for now, every sunny day, will you not? If I venture to weary you again with all this, is there not the cause of causes, and did not the prophet write that 'there was a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the E.B.B.' led on to the fortune of
Your R.B.
Oh, let me tell you in the bitterness of my heart, that it was only 4 o'clock--that clock I enquired about--and that, ... no, I shall never say with any grace what I want to say ... and now dare not ... that you all but owe me an extra quarter of an hour next time: as in the East you give a beggar something for a few days running--then you miss him; and next day he looks indignant when the regular dole falls and murmurs--'And, for yesterday?'--Do I stay too long, I _want_ to know,--too long for the voice and head and all but the spirit that may not so soon tire,--knowing the good it does. If you would but tell me.
God bless you--
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, July 28, 1845]
You say too much indeed in this letter which has crossed mine--and
## particularly as there is not a word in it of what I most wanted to
know and want to know ... _how you are_--for you must observe, if you please, that the very paper you pour such kindness on, was written after your own example and pattern, when, in the matter of my 'Prometheus' (such different wearying matter!), you took trouble for me and did me good. Judge from this, if even in inferior things, there can be gratitude from you to me!--or rather, do not judge--but listen when I say that I am delighted to have met your wishes in writing as I wrote; only that you are surely wrong in refusing to see a single wrongness in all that heap of weedy thoughts, and that when you look again, you must come to the admission of it. One of the thistles is the suggestion about the line
Was it singing, was it saying,
which you wrote so, and which I proposed to amend by an intermediate 'or.' Thinking of it at a distance, it grows clear to me that you were right, and that there should be and must be no 'or' to disturb the listening pause. Now _should_ there? And there was something else, which I forget at this moment--and something more than the something else. Your account of the production of the poem interests me very much--and proves just what I wanted to make out from your statements the other day, and they refused, I thought, to let me, ... that you are more faithful to your first _Idea_ than to your first _plan_. Is it so? or not? 'Orange' is orange--but _which half_ of the orange is not predestinated from all eternity--: is it _so_?
_Sunday._--I wrote so much yesterday and then went out, not knowing very well how to speak or how to be silent (is it better to-day?) of some expressions of yours ... and of your interest in me--which are deeply affecting to my feelings--whatever else remains to be said of them. And you know that you make great mistakes, ... of fennel for hemlock, of four o'clocks for five o'clocks, and of other things of more consequence, one for another; and may not be quite right besides as to my getting well '_if I please_!' ... which reminds me a little of what Papa says sometimes when he comes into this room unexpectedly and convicts me of having dry toast for dinner, and declares angrily that obstinacy and dry toast have brought me to my present condition, and that if I _pleased_ to have porter and beefsteaks instead, I should be as well as ever I was, in a month!... But where is the need of talking of it? What I wished to say was this--that if I get better or worse ... as long as I live and to the last moment of life, I shall remember with an emotion which cannot change its character, all the generous interest and feeling you have spent on me--_wasted_ on me I was going to write--but I would not provoke any answering--and in one obvious sense, it need not be so. I never shall forget these things, my dearest friend; nor remember them more coldly. God's goodness!--I believe in it, as in His sunshine here--which makes my head ache a little, while it comes in at the window, and makes most other people gayer--it does _me_ good too in a different way. And so, may God bless you! and me in this ... just this, ... that I may never have the sense, ... intolerable in the remotest apprehension of it ... of being, in any way, directly or indirectly, the means of ruffling your smooth path by so much as one of my flint-stones!--In the meantime you do not tire me indeed even when you go later for sooner ... and I do not tire myself even when I write longer and duller letters to you (if the last is possible) than the one I am ending now ... as the most grateful (leave me that word) of your friends.
E.B.B.
How could you think that I should speak to Mr. Kenyon of the book? All I ever said to him has been that you had looked through my 'Prometheus' for me--and that I was _not disappointed in you_, these two things on two occasions. I do trust that your head is better.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, July 28, 1845.]
How must I feel, and what can, or could I say even if you let me say all? I am most grateful, most happy--most happy, come what will!
Will you let me try and answer your note to-morrow--before Wednesday when I am to see you? I will not hide from you that my head aches now; and I have let the hours go by one after one--I am better all the same, and will write as I say--'Am I better' you ask!
Yours I am, ever yours my dear friend R.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday. [Post-mark, July 31, 1845.]
In all I say to you, write to you, I know very well that I trust to your understanding me almost beyond the warrant of any human capacity--but as I began, so I shall end. I shall believe you remember what I am forced to remember--you who do me the superabundant justice on every possible occasion,--you will never do me injustice when I sit by you and talk about Italy and the rest.
--To-day I cannot write--though I am very well otherwise--but I shall soon get into my old self-command and write with as much 'ineffectual fire' as before: but meantime, _you_ will write to me, I hope--telling me how you are? I have but one greater delight in the world than in hearing from you.
God bless you, my best, dearest friend--think what I would speak--
Ever yours
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday. [Post-mark, August 2, 1845.]
Let me write one word ... not to have it off my mind ... because it is by no means heavily _on_ it; but lest I should forget to write it at all by not writing it at once. What could you mean, ... I have been thinking since you went away ... by applying such a grave expression as having a thing 'off your mind' to that foolish subject of the stupid book (mine), and by making it worth your while to account logically for your wish about my not mentioning it to Mr. Kenyon? You could not fancy for one moment that I was vexed in the matter of the book? or in the other matter of your wish? Now just hear me. I explained to you that I had been silent to Mr. Kenyon, first because the fact was so; and next and a little, because I wanted to show how I anticipated your wish by a wish of my own ... though from a different motive. _Your_ motive I really did take to be (never suspecting my dear kind cousin of treason) to be a natural reluctancy of being convicted (forgive me!) of such an arch-womanly curiosity. For my own motive ... motives ... they are more than one ... you must trust me; and refrain as far as you can from accusing me of an over-love of Eleusinian mysteries when I ask you to say just as little about your visits here and of me as you find possible ... _even to Mr. Kenyon_ ... as _to every other person whatever_. As you know ... and yet more than you know ... I am in a peculiar position--and it does not follow that you should be ashamed of my friendship or that I should not be proud of yours, if we avoid making it a subject of conversation in high places, or low places. There! _that_ is my request to you--or commentary on what you put 'off your mind' yesterday--probably quite unnecessary as either request or commentary; yet said on the chance of its not being so, because you seemed to mistake my remark about Mr. Kenyon.
And your head, how is it? And do consider if it would not be wise and right on that account of your health, to go with Mr. Chorley? You can neither work nor enjoy while you are subject to attacks of the kind--and besides, and without reference to your present suffering and inconvenience, you _ought not_ to let them master you and gather strength from time and habit; I am sure you ought not. Worse last week than ever, you see!--and no prospect, perhaps, of bringing out your "Bells" this autumn, without paying a cost too heavy!--Therefore ... the _therefore_ is quite plain and obvious!--
_Friday._--Just as it is how anxious Flush and I are, to be delivered from you; by these sixteen heads of the discourse of one of us, written before your letter came. Ah, but I am serious--and you will consider--will you not? what is best to be done? and do it. You could write to me, you know, from the end of the world; if you could take the thought of me so far.
And _for_ me, no, and yet yes,--I _will_ say this much; that I am not inclined to do you injustice, but justice, when you come here--the justice of wondering to myself how you can possibly, possibly, care to come. Which is true enough to be _unanswerable_, if you please--or I should not say it. '_As I began, so I shall end_--' Did you, as I hope you did, thank your sister for Flush and for me? When you were gone, he graciously signified his intention of eating the cakes--brought the bag to me and emptied it without a drawback, from my hand, cake after cake. And I forgot the basket once again.
And talking of Italy and the cardinals, and thinking of some cardinal points you are ignorant of, did you ever hear that I was one of
'those schismatiques of Amsterdam'
whom your Dr. Donne would have put into the dykes? unless he meant the Baptists, instead of the Independents, the holders of the Independent church principle. No--not '_schismatical_,' I hope, hating as I do from the roots of my heart all that rending of the garment of Christ, which Christians are so apt to make the daily week-day of this Christianity so called--and caring very little for most dogmas and doxies in themselves--too little, as people say to me sometimes, (when they send me 'New Testaments' to learn from, with very kind intentions)--and believing that there is only one church in heaven and earth, with one divine High Priest to it; let exclusive religionists build what walls they please and bring out what chrisms. But I used to go with my father always, when I was able, to the nearest dissenting chapel of the Congregationalists--from liking the simplicity of that praying and speaking without books--and a little too from disliking the theory of state churches. There is a narrowness among the dissenters which is wonderful; an arid, grey Puritanism in the clefts of their souls: but it seems to me clear that they know what the 'liberty of Christ' _means_, far better than those do who call themselves 'churchmen'; and stand altogether, as a body, on higher ground. And so, you see, when I talked of the sixteen points of my discourse, it was the foreshadowing of a coming event, and you have had it at last in the whole length and breadth of it. But it is not my fault if the wind began to blow so that I could not go out--as I intended--as I shall do to-morrow; and that you have received my dulness in a full libation of it, in consequence. My sisters said of the roses you blasphemed, yesterday, that they 'never saw such flowers anywhere--anywhere here in London--' and therefore if I had thought so myself before, it was not so wrong of me. I put your roses, you see, against my letter, to make it seem less dull--and yet I do not forget what you say about caring to hear from me--I mean, I do not _affect_ to forget it.
May God bless you, far longer than I can say so.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Evening. [Post-mark, August 4, 1845.]
I said what you comment on, about Mr. Kenyon, because I feel I _must_ always tell you the simple truth--and not being quite at liberty to communicate the whole story (though it would at once clear me from the charge of over-curiosity ... if I much cared for _that_!)--I made my first request in order to prevent your getting at any part of it from _him_ which should make my withholding seem disingenuous for the moment--that is, till my explanation came, if it had an opportunity of coming. And then, when I fancied you were misunderstanding the reason of that request--and supposing I was ambitious of making a higher figure in _his_ eyes than your own,--I then felt it 'on my mind' and so spoke ... a natural mode of relief surely! For, dear friend, I have _once_ been _untrue_ to you--when, and how, and why, you know--but I thought it pedantry and worse to hold by my words and increase their fault. You have forgiven me that one mistake, and I only refer to it now because if you should ever make _that_ a precedent, and put any least, most trivial word of mine under the same category, you would wrong me as you never wronged human being:--and that is done with. For the other matter,--the talk of my visits, it is impossible that any hint of them can ooze out of the only three persons in the world to whom I ever speak of them--my father, mother and sister--to whom my appreciation of your works is no novelty since some years, and whom I made comprehend exactly your position and the necessity for the absolute silence I enjoined respecting the permission to see you. You may depend on them,--and Miss Mitford is in your keeping, mind,--and dear Mr. Kenyon, if there should be never so gentle a touch of 'garrulous God-innocence' about those kind lips of his. Come, let me snatch at _that_ clue out of the maze, and say how perfect, absolutely perfect, are those three or four pages in the 'Vision' which present the Poets--a line, a few words, and the man there,--one twang of the bow and the arrowhead in the white--Shelley's 'white ideal all statue-blind' is--perfect,--how can I coin words? And dear deaf old Hesiod--and--all, all are perfect, perfect! But 'the Moon's regality will hear no praise'--well then, will she hear blame? Can it be you, my own you past putting away, _you_ are a schismatic and frequenter of Independent Dissenting Chapels? And you confess this to _me_--whose father and mother went this morning to the very Independent Chapel where they took me, all those years back, to be baptised--and where they heard, this morning, a sermon preached by the very minister who officiated on that other occasion! Now will you be particularly encouraged by this successful instance to bring forward any other point of disunion between us that may occur to you? Please do not--for so sure as you begin proving that there is a gulf fixed between us, so sure shall I end proving that ... Anne Radcliffe avert it!... that you are just my sister: not that I am much frightened, but there are such surprises in novels!--Blame the next,--yes, now this _is_ to be real blame!--And I meant to call your attention to it before. Why, why, do you blot out, in that unutterably provoking manner, whole lines, not to say words, in your letters--(and in the criticism on the 'Duchess')--if it is a fact that you have a second thought, does it cease to be as genuine a fact, that first thought you please to efface? Why give a thing and take a thing? Is there no significance in putting on record that your first impression was to a certain effect and your next to a certain other, perhaps completely opposite one? If any proceeding of yours could go near to deserve that harsh word 'impertinent' which you have twice, in speech and writing, been pleased to apply to your observations on me; certainly _this_ does go as near as can be--as there is but one step to take from Southampton pier to New York quay, for travellers Westward. Now will you lay this to heart and perpend--lest in my righteous indignation I [some words effaced here]! For my own health--it improves, thank you! And I shall go abroad all in good time, never fear. For my 'Bells,' Mr. Chorley tells me there is no use in the world of printing them before November at earliest--and by that time I shall get done with these Romances and certainly one Tragedy (_that_ could go to press next week)--in proof of which I will bring you, if you let me, a few more hundreds of lines next Wednesday. But, 'my poet,' if I would, as is true, sacrifice all my works to do your fingers, even, good--what would I not offer up to prevent you staying ... perhaps to correct my very verses ... perhaps read and answer my very letters ... staying the production of more 'Berthas' and 'Caterinas' and 'Geraldines,' more great and beautiful poems of which I shall be--how proud! Do not be punctual in paying tithes of thyme, mint, anise and cummin, and leaving unpaid the real weighty dues of the Law; nor affect a scrupulous acknowledgment of 'what you owe me' in petty manners, while you leave me to settle such a charge, as accessory to the hiding the Talent, as best I can! I have thought of this again and again, and would have spoken of it to you, had I ever felt myself fit to speak of any subject nearer home and me and you than Rome and Cardinal Acton. For, observe, you have not done ... yes, the 'Prometheus,' no doubt ... but with that exception _have_ you written much lately, as much as last year when 'you wrote all your best things' you said, I think? Yet you are better now than then. Dearest friend, _I_ intend to write more, and very likely be praised more, now I care less than ever for it, but still more do I look to have you ever before me, in your place, and with more poetry and more praise still, and my own heartfelt praise ever on the top, like a flower on the water. I have said nothing of yesterday's storm ... _thunder_ ... may you not have been out in it! The evening draws in, and I will walk out. May God bless you, and let you hold me by the hand till the end--Yes, dearest friend!
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]
Just to show what may be lost by my crossings out, I will tell you the story of the one in the 'Duchess'--and in fact it is almost worth telling to a metaphysician like you, on other grounds, that you may draw perhaps some psychological good from the absurdity of it. Hear, then. When I had done writing the sheet of annotations and reflections on your poem I took up my pencil to correct the passages reflected on with the reflections, by the crosses you may observe, just glancing over the writing as I did so. Well! and, where that erasure is, I found a line purporting to be extracted from your 'Duchess,' with sundry acute criticisms and objections quite undeniably strong, following after it; only, to my amazement, as I looked and looked, the line so acutely objected to and purporting, as I say, to, be taken from the 'Duchess,' was by no means to be found in the 'Duchess,' ... nor anything like it, ... and I am certain indeed that, in the 'Duchess' or out of it, you never wrote such a bad line in your life. And so it became a proved thing to me that I had been enacting, in a mystery, both poet and critic together--and one so neutralizing the other, that I took all that pains you remark upon to cross myself out in my double capacity, ... and am now telling the story of it notwithstanding. And there's an obvious moral to the myth, isn't there? for critics who bark the loudest, commonly bark at their own shadow in the glass, as my Flush used to do long and loud, before he gained experience and learnt the [Greek: gnôthi seauton] in the apparition of the brown dog with the glittering dilating eyes, ... and as _I_ did, under the erasure. And another moral springs up of itself in this productive ground; for, you see, ... '_quand je m'efface il n'ya pas grand mal_.'
And I am to be made to work very hard, am I? But you should remember that if I did as much writing as last summer, I should not be able to do much else, ... I mean, to go out and walk about ... for really I think I _could_ manage to read your poems and write as I am writing now, with ever so much head-work of my own going on at the same time. But the bodily exercise is different, and I do confess that the novelty of living more in the outer life for the last few months than I have done for years before, make me idle and inclined to be idle--and everybody is idle sometimes--even _you_ perhaps--are you not? For me, you know, I do carpet-work--ask Mrs. Jameson--and I never pretend to be in a perpetual motion of mental industry. Still it may not be quite as bad as you think: I have done some work since 'Prometheus'--only it is nothing worth speaking of and not a part of the romance-poem which is to be some day if I live for it--lyrics for the most part, which lie written illegibly in pure Egyptian--oh, there is time enough, and too much perhaps! and so let me be idle a little now, and enjoy your poems while I can. It is pure enjoyment and must be--but you do not know how much, or you would not talk as you do sometimes ... so wide of any possible application.
And do _not_ talk again of what you would 'sacrifice' for _me_. If you affect me by it, which is true, you cast me from you farther than ever in the next thought. _That_ is true.
The poems ... yours ... which you left with me,--are full of various power and beauty and character, and you must let me have my own gladness from them in my own way.
Now I must end this letter. Did you go to Chelsea and hear the divine philosophy?
_Tell me the truth always_ ... will you? I mean such truths as may be painful to me _though_ truths....
May God bless you, ever dear friend.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Afternoon. [Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]
Then there is one more thing 'off my mind': I thought it might be with you as with _me_--not remembering how different are the causes that operate against us; different in kind as in degree:--_so_ much reading hurts me, for instance,--whether the reading be light or heavy, fiction or fact, and _so_ much writing, whether my own, such as you have seen, or the merest compliment-returning to the weary tribe that exact it of one. But your health--that before all!... as assuring all eventually ... and on the other accounts you must know! Never, pray, _pray_, never lose one sunny day or propitious hour to 'go out or walk about.' But do not surprise _me_, one of these mornings, by 'walking' up to me when I am introduced' ... or I shall infallibly, in spite of all the after repentance and begging pardon--I shall [words effaced]. So here you learn the first 'painful truth' I have it in my power to tell you!
I sent you the last of our poor roses this morning--considering that I fairly owed that kindness to them.
Yes, I went to Chelsea and found dear Carlyle alone--his wife is in the country where he will join her as soon as his book's last sheet returns corrected and fit for press--which will be at the month's end about. He was all kindness and talked like his own self while he made me tea--and, afterward, brought chairs into the little yard, rather than garden, and smoked his pipe with apparent relish; at night he would walk as far as Vauxhall Bridge on my way home.
If I used the word 'sacrifice,' you do well to object--I can imagine nothing ever to be done by me worthy such a name.
God bless you, dearest friend--shall I hear from you before Tuesday?
Ever your own
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday. [Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]
It is very kind to send these flowers--too kind--why are they sent? and without one single word ... which is not too kind certainly. I looked down into the heart of the roses and turned the carnations over and over to the peril of their leaves, and in vain! Not a word do I deserve to-day, I suppose! And yet if I don't, I don't deserve the flowers either. There should have been an equal justice done to my demerits, O Zeus with the scales!
After all I do thank you for these flowers--and they are beautiful--and they came just in a right current of time, just when I wanted them, or something like them--so I confess _that_ humbly, and do thank you, at last, rather as I ought to do. Only you ought not to give away all the flowers of your garden to _me_; and your sister thinks so, be sure--if as silently as you sent them. Now I shall not write any more, not having been written to. What with the Wednesday's flowers and these, you may think how I in this room, look down on the gardens of Damascus, let _your Jew_[1] say what he pleases of _them_--and the Wednesday's flowers are as fresh and beautiful, I must explain, as the new ones. They were quite supererogatory ... the new ones ... in the sense of being flowers. Now, the sense of what I am writing seems questionable, does it not?--at least, more so, than the nonsense of it.
Not a word, even under the little blue flowers!!!--
E.B.B.
[Footnote 1: 'R. Benjamin of Tudela' added in Robert Browning's handwriting.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Afternoon. [Post-mark, August 11, 1845.]
How good you are to the smallest thing I try and do--(to show I _would_ please you for an instant if I could, rather than from any hope such poor efforts as I am restricted to, can please you or ought.) And that you should care for the note that was not there!--But I was surprised by the summons to seal and deliver, since time and the carrier were peremptory--and so, I dared divine, almost, I should hear from you by our mid-day post--which happened--and the answer to _that_, you received on Friday night, did you not? I had to go to Holborn, of all places,--not to pluck strawberries in the Bishop's Garden like Richard Crouchback, but to get a book--and there I carried my note, thinking to expedite its delivery: this notelet of yours, quite as little in its kind as my blue flowers,--this came last evening--and here are my thanks, dear E.B.B.--dear friend.
In the former note there is a phrase I must not forget to call on you to account for--that where it confesses to having done 'some work--only nothing worth speaking of.' Just see,--will you be first and only compact-breaker? Nor misunderstand me here, please, ... as I said, I am quite rejoiced that you go out now, 'walk about' now, and put off the writing that will follow thrice as abundantly, all because of the stopping to gather strength ... so I want no new word, not to say poem, not to say the romance-poem--let the 'finches in the shrubberies grow restless in the dark'--_I_ am inside with the lights and music: but what is done, is done, _pas vrai_? And 'worth' is, dear my friend, pardon me, not in your arbitration quite.
Let me tell you an odd thing that happened at Chorley's the other night. I must have mentioned to you that I forget my own verses so surely after they are once on paper, that I ought, without affectation, to mend them infinitely better, able as I am to bring fresh eyes to bear on them--(when I say 'once on paper' that is just what I mean and no more, for after the sad revising begins they do leave their mark, distinctly or less so according to circumstances). Well, Miss Cushman, the new American actress (clever and truthful-looking) was talking of a new novel by the Dane Andersen, he of the 'Improvisatore,' which will reach us, it should seem, in translation, _viâ_ America--she had looked over two or three proofs of the work in the press, and Chorley was anxious to know something about its character. The title, she said, was capital--'Only a Fiddler!'--and she enlarged on that word, 'Only,' and its significance, so put: and I quite agreed with her for several minutes, till first one reminiscence flitted to me, then another and at last I was obliged to stop my praises and say 'but, now I think of it, _I_ seem to have written something with a similar title--nay, a play, I believe--yes, and in five acts--'Only an Actress'--and from that time, some two years or more ago to this, I have been every way relieved of it'!--And when I got home, next morning, I made a dark pocket in my russet horror of a portfolio give up its dead, and there fronted me 'Only a Player-girl' (the real title) and the sayings and doings of her, and the others--such others! So I made haste and just tore out one sample-page, being Scene the First, and sent it to our friend as earnest and proof I had not been purely dreaming, as might seem to be the case. And what makes me recall it now is, that it was Russian, and about a fair on the Neva, and booths and droshkies and fish-pies and so forth, with the Palaces in the back ground. And in Chorley's _Athenæum_ of yesterday you may read a paper of _very_ simple moony stuff about the death of Alexander, and that Sir James Wylie I have seen at St. Petersburg (where he chose to mistake me for an Italian--'M. l'Italien' he said another time, looking up from his cards).... So I think to tell you.
Now I may leave off--I shall see you start, on Tuesday--hear perhaps something definite about your travelling.
Do you know, 'Consuelo' wearies me--oh, wearies--and the fourth volume I have all but stopped at--there lie the three following, but who cares about Consuelo after that horrible evening with the Venetian scamp, (where he bullies her, and it does answer, after all she says) as we say? And Albert wearies too--it seems all false, all writing--not the first part, though. And what easy work these novelists have of it! a Dramatic poet has to _make_ you love or admire his men and women,--they must _do_ and _say_ all that you are to see and hear--really do it in your face, say it in your ears, and it is wholly for _you_, in _your_ power, to _name_, characterize and so praise or blame, _what_ is so said and done ... if you don't perceive of yourself, there is no standing by, for the Author, and telling you. But with these novelists, a scrape of the pen--out blurting of a phrase, and the miracle is achieved--'Consuelo possessed to perfection this and the other gift'--what would you more? Or, to leave dear George Sand, pray think of Bulwer's beginning a 'character' by informing you that lone, or somebody in 'Pompeii,' 'was endowed with _perfect_ genius'--'genius'! What though the obliging informer might write his fingers off before he gave the pitifullest proof that the poorest spark of that same, that genius, had ever visited _him_? _Ione_ has it '_perfectly_'--perfectly--and that is enough! Zeus with the scales? with the false weights!
And now--till Tuesday good-bye, and be willing to get well as (letting me send _porter_ instead of flowers--and beefsteaks too!) soon as may be! and may God bless you, ever dear friend.
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, August 11, 1845.]
But if it 'hurts' you to read and write ever so little, why should I be asked to write ... for instance ... 'before Tuesday?' And I did mean to say before to-day, that I wish you never would write to me when you are not _quite well_, as once or twice you have done if not much oftener; because there is not a necessity, ... and I do not choose that there should ever be, or _seem_ a necessity, ... do you understand? And as a matter of personal preference, it is natural for me to like the silence that does not hurt you, better than the speech that does. And so, remember.
And talking of what may 'hurt' you and me, you would smile, as I have often done in the midst of my vexation, if you knew the persecution I have been subjected to by the people who call themselves (_lucus a non lucendo_) 'the faculty,' and set themselves against the exercise of other people's faculties, as a sure way to death and destruction. The modesty and simplicity with which one's physicians tell one not to think or feel, just as they would tell one not to walk out in the dew, would be quite amusing, if it were not too tryingly stupid sometimes. I had a doctor once who thought he had done everything because he had carried the inkstand out of the room--'Now,' he said, 'you will have such a pulse to-morrow.' He gravely thought poetry a sort of disease--a sort of fungus of the brain--and held as a serious opinion, that nobody could be properly well who exercised it as an art--which was true (he maintained) even of men--he had studied the physiology of poets, 'quotha'--but that for women, it was a mortal malady and incompatible with any common show of health under any circumstances. And then came the damnatory clause in his experience ... that he had never known 'a system' approaching mine in 'excitability' ... except Miss Garrow's ... a young lady who wrote verses for Lady Blessington's annuals ... and who was the only other female rhymer he had had the misfortune of attending. And she was to die in two years, though she was dancing quadrilles then (and has lived to do the same by the polka), and _I_, of course, much sooner, if I did not ponder these things, and amend my ways, and take to reading 'a course of history'!! Indeed I do not exaggerate. And just so, for a long while I was persecuted and pestered ... vexed thoroughly sometimes ... my own family, instructed to sing the burden out all day long--until the time when the subject was suddenly changed by my heart being broken by that great stone that fell out of Heaven. Afterwards I was let do anything I could best ... which was very little, until last year--and the working, last year, did much for me in giving me stronger roots down into life, ... much. But think of that absurd reasoning that went before!--the _niaiserie_ of it! For, granting all the premises all round, it is not the _utterance_ of a thought that _can_ hurt anybody; while only the utterance is dependent on the will; and so, what can the taking away of an inkstand do? Those physicians are such metaphysicians! It's curious to listen to them. And it's wise to leave off listening: though I have met with excessive kindness among them, ... and do not refer to Dr. Chambers in any of this, of course.
I am very glad you went to Chelsea--and it seemed finer afterwards, on purpose to make room for the divine philosophy. Which reminds me (the going to Chelsea) that my brother Henry confessed to me yesterday, with shame and confusion of face, to having mistaken and taken your umbrella for another belonging to a cousin of ours then in the house. He saw you ... without conjecturing, just at the moment, who you were. Do _you_ conjecture sometimes that I live all alone here like Mariana in the moated Grange? It is not quite so--: but where there are many, as with us, every one is apt to follow his own devices--and my father is out all day and my brothers and sisters are in and out, and with too large a public of noisy friends for me to bear, ... and I see them only at certain hours, ... except, of course, my sisters. And then as you have 'a reputation' and are opined to talk generally in blank verse, it is not likely that there should be much irreverent rushing into this room when you are known to be in it.
The flowers are ... so beautiful! Indeed it was wrong, though, to send me the last. It was not just to the lawful possessors and enjoyers of them. That it was kind to _me_ I do not forget.
You are too teachable a pupil in the art of obliterating--and _omne ignotum pro terrifico_ ... and therefore I won't frighten you by walking to meet you for fear of being frightened myself.
So good-bye until Tuesday. I ought not to make you read all this, I know, whether you like to read it or not: and I ought not to have written it, having no better reason than because I like to write on and on. _You_ have better reasons for thinking me very weak--and I, too good ones for not being able to reproach you for that natural and necessary opinion.
May God bless you my dearest friend.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]
What can I say, or hope to say to you when I see what you do for me?
_This_--for myself, (nothing for _you_!)--_this_, that I think the great, great good I get by your kindness strikes me less than that kindness.
All is right, too--
Come, I WILL have my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my _utterest_ hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters--and the Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from two lines of a legend that delighted my infancy, and now instruct my maturer years in pretty nearly all they boast of the semi-mythologic era referred to--'In London town, when reigned King Lud, His lords went stomping thro' the mud'--would all historic records were half as picturesque!)
But you know, yes, _you_ know you are too indulgent by far--and treat these roughnesses as if they were advanced to many a stage! Meantime the pure gain is mine, and better, the kind generous spirit is mine, (mine to profit by)--and best--best--best, the dearest friend is mine,
So be happy
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]
Yes, I admit that it was stupid to read that word so wrong. I thought there was a mistake somewhere, but that it was _yours_, who had written one word, meaning to write another. 'Cower' puts it all right of course. But is there an English word of a significance different from 'stamp,' in 'stomp?' Does not the old word King Lud's men stomped withal, claim identity with our 'stamping.' The _a_ and _o_ used to 'change about,' you know, in the old English writers--see Chaucer for it. Still the 'stomp' with the peculiar significance, is better of course than the 'stamp' even with a rhyme ready for it, and I dare say you are justified in daring to put this old wine into the new bottle; and we will drink to the health of the poem in it. It _is_ 'Italy in England'--isn't it? But I understand and understood perfectly, through it all, that it is _unfinished_, and in a rough state round the edges. I could not help seeing _that_, even if I were still blinder than when I read 'Lower' for 'Cower.'
But do not, I ask of you, speak of my 'kindness' ... my kindness!--mine! It is 'wasteful and ridiculous excess' and mis-application to use such words of me. And therefore, talking of 'compacts' and the 'fas' and 'nefas' of them, I entreat you to know for the future that whatever I write of your poetry, if it isn't to be called 'impertinence,' isn't to be called 'kindness,' any more, ... _a fortiori_, as people say when they are sure of an argument. Now, will you try to understand?
And talking still of compacts, how and where did I break any compact? I do not see.
It was very curious, the phenomenon about your 'Only a Player-Girl.' What an un-godlike indifference to your creatures though--your worlds, breathed away from you like soap bubbles, and dropping and breaking into russet portfolios unobserved! Only a god for the Epicurean, at best, can you be? That Miss Cushman went to Three Mile Cross the other day, and visited Miss Mitford, and pleased her a good deal, I fancied from what she said, ... and with reason, from what _you_ say. And 'Only a Fiddler,' as I forgot to tell you yesterday, is announced, you may see in any newspaper, as about to issue from the English press by Mary Howitt's editorship. So we need not go to America for it. But if you complain of George Sand for want of art, how could you bear Andersen, who can see a thing under his eyes and place it under yours, and take a thought separately into his soul and express it insularly, but has no sort of instinct towards wholeness and unity; and writes a book by putting so many pages together, ... just so!--For the rest, there can be no disagreeing with you about the comparative difficulty of novel-writing and drama-writing. I disagree a little, lower down in your letter, because I could not deny (in my own convictions) a certain proportion of genius to the author of 'Ernest Maltravers,' and 'Alice' (did you ever read those books?), even if he had more impotently tried (supposing it to be possible) for the dramatic laurel. In fact his poetry, dramatic or otherwise, is 'nought'; but for the prose romances, and for 'Ernest Maltravers' above all, I must lift up my voice and cry. And I read the _Athenæum_ about your Sir James Wylie who took you for an Italian....
'Poi vi dirò Signor, che ne fu causa Ch' avio fatto al scriver debita pausa.'--
Ever your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning. [Post-mark, August 15, 1845.]
Do you know, dear friend, it is no good policy to stop up all the vents of my feeling, nor leave one for safety's sake, as you will do, let me caution you never so repeatedly. I know, quite well enough, that your 'kindness' is not _so_ apparent, even, in this instance of correcting my verses, as in many other points--but on such points, you lift a finger to me and I am dumb.... Am I not to be allowed a word here neither?
I remember, in the first season of German Opera here, when 'Fidelio's' effects were going, going up to the gallery in order to get the best of the last chorus--get its oneness which you do--and, while perched there an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormous enthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought,--I and a cousin of mine)--whose whole body broke out in billow, heaved and swayed in the perfection of his delight, hands, head, feet, all tossing and striving to utter what possessed him. Well--next week, we went again to the Opera, and again mounted at the proper time, but the crowd was _greater_, and our mild great faced white haired red cheeked German was not to be seen, not at first--for as the glory was at its full, my cousin twisted me round and made me see an arm, only an arm, all the body of its owner being amalgamated with a dense crowd on each side, before, and--not behind, because they, the crowd, occupied the last benches, over which we looked--and this arm waved and exulted as if 'for the dignity of the whole body,'--relieved it of its dangerous accumulation of repressed excitability. When the crowd broke up all the rest of the man disengaged itself by slow endeavours, and there stood our friend confessed--as we were sure!
--Now, you would have bade him keep his arm quiet? 'Lady Geraldine, you _would_!'
I have read those novels--but I must keep that word of words, 'genius'--for something different--'talent' will do here surely.
There lies 'Consuelo'--done with!
I shall tell you frankly that it strikes me as precisely what in conventional language with the customary silliness is styled a _woman's_ book, in its merits and defects,--and supremely timid in all the points where one wants, and has a right to expect, some _fruit_ of all the pretence and George Sand_ism_. These are occasions when one does say, in the phrase of her school, 'que la Femme parle!' or what is better, let her act! and how does Consuelo comfort herself on such an emergency? Why, she bravely lets the uninspired people throw down one by one their dearest prejudices at her feet, and then, like a very actress, picks them up, like so many flowers, returning them to the breast of the owners with a smile and a courtesy and trips off the stage with a glance at the Pit. Count Christian, Baron Frederic, Baroness--what is her name--all open their arms, and Consuelo will not consent to entail disgrace &c. &c. No, you say--she leaves them in order to solve the problem of her true feeling, whether she can really love Albert; but remember that this is done, (that is, so much of it as ever _is_ done, and as determines her to accept his hand at the very last)--this is solved sometime about the next morning--or earlier--I forget--and in the meantime, Albert gets that 'benefit of the doubt' of which chapter the last informs you. As for the hesitation and self examination on the matter of that Anzoleto--the writer is turning over the leaves of a wrong dictionary, seeking help from Psychology, and pretending to forget there is such a thing as Physiology. Then, that horrible Porpora:--if George Sand gives _him_ to a Consuelo for an absolute master, in consideration of his services specified, and is of opinion that _they_ warrant his conduct, or at least, oblige submission to it,--then, I find her objections to the fatherly rule of Frederic perfectly impertinent--he having a few claims upon the gratitude of Prussia also, in his way, I believe! If the strong ones _will make_ the weak ones lead them--then, for Heaven's sake, let this dear old all-abused world keep on its course without these outcries and tearings of hair, and don't be for ever goading the Karls and other trodden-down creatures till they get their carbines in order (very rationally) to abate the nuisance--when you make the man a long speech against some enormity he is about to commit, and adjure and beseech and so forth, till he throws down the aforesaid carbine, falls on his knees, and lets the Frederic go quietly on his way to keep on killing his thousands after the fashion that moved your previous indignation. Now is that right, consequential--that is, _inferential_; logically deduced, going straight to the end--_manly_?
The accessories are not the Principal, the adjuncts--the essence, nor the ornamental incidents the book's self, so what matters it if the portraits are admirable, the descriptions eloquent, (eloquent, there it is--that is her characteristic--what she _has_ to speak, she _speaks out_, speaks volubly _forth_, too well, inasmuch as you say, advancing a step or two, 'And now speak as completely _here_'--and she says nothing)--but all _that_, another could do, as others have done--but 'la femme qui parle'--Ah, that, is _this_ all? So I am not George Sand's--she teaches me nothing--I look to her for nothing.
I am ever yours, dearest friend. How I write to you--page on page! But Tuesday--who could wait till then! Shall I not hear from you?
God bless you ever
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, August 16, 1845.]
But what likeness is there between opposites; and what has 'M. l'Italien' to do with the said 'elderly German'? See how little! For to bring your case into point, somebody should have been playing on a Jew's harp for the whole of the orchestra; and the elderly German should have quoted something about 'Harp of Judah' to the Venetian behind him! And there, you would have proved your analogy!--Because you see, my dear friend, it was not the expression, but the thing expressed, I cried out against--the exaggeration in your mind. I am sorry when I write what you do not like--but I have instincts and impulses too strong for me when you say things which put me into such a miserably false position in respect to you--as for instance, when in this very last letter (oh, I _must_ tell you!) you talk of my 'correcting your verses'! My correcting your verses!!!--Now is _that_ a thing for you to say?--And do you really imagine that if I kept that happily imagined phrase in my thoughts, I should be able to tell you one word of my impressions from your poetry, ever, ever again? Do you not see at once what a disqualifying and paralysing phrase it must be, of simple necessity? So it is _I_ who have reason to complain, ... it appears to _me_, ... and by no means _you_--and in your 'second consideration' you become aware of it, I do not at all doubt.
As to 'Consuelo' I agree with nearly all that you say of it--though George Sand, we are to remember, is greater than 'Consuelo,' and not to be depreciated according to the defects of that book, nor classified as 'femme qui parle' ... she who is man and woman together, ... judging her by the standard of even that book in the nobler portions of it. For the inconsequency of much in the book, I admit it of course--and _you_ will admit that it is the rarest of phenomena when men ... men of logic ... follow their own opinions into their obvious results--nobody, you know, ever thinks of doing such a thing: to pursue one's own inferences is to rush in where angels ... perhaps ... do _not_ fear to tread, ... but where there will not be much other company. So the want of practical logic shall be a human fault rather than a womanly one, if you please: and you must please also to remember that 'Consuelo' is only 'half the orange'; and that when you complain of its not being a whole one, you overlook that hand which is holding to you the 'Comtesse de Rudolstadt' in three volumes! Not that I, who have read the whole, profess a full satisfaction about Albert and the rest--and Consuelo is made to be happy by a mere clap-trap at last: and Mme. Dudevant has her specialities,--in which, other women, I fancy, have neither part nor lot, ... even _here_!--Altogether, the
## book is a sort of rambling 'Odyssey,' a female 'Odyssey,' if you like,
but full of beauty and nobleness, let the faults be where they may. And then, I like those long, long books, one can live away into ... leaving the world and above all oneself, quite at the end of the avenue of palms--quite out of sight and out of hearing!--Oh, I have felt something like _that_ so often--so often! and _you_ never felt it, and never will, I hope.
But if Bulwer had written nothing but the 'Ernest Maltravers' books, you would think perhaps more highly of him. Do you _not_ think it possible now? It is his most impotent struggling into poetry, which sets about proving a negative of genius on him--_that_, which the _Athenæum praises_ as 'respectable attainment in various walks of literature'--! _like_ the _Athenæum_, isn't it? and worthy praise, to be administered by professed judges of art? What is to be expected of the public, when the teachers of the public teach _so_?--
When you come on Tuesday, do not forget the MS. if any is done--only don't let it be done so as to tire and hurt you--mind! And good-bye until Tuesday, from
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday. [Post-mark, August 18, 1845.]
I am going to propose to you to give up Tuesday, and to take your choice of two or three other days, say Friday, or Saturday, or to-morrow ... Monday. Mr. Kenyon was here to-day and talked of leaving London on Friday, and of visiting me again on 'Tuesday' ... he said, ... but that is an uncertainty, and it may be Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. So I thought (wrong or right) that out of the three remaining days you would not mind choosing one. And if you do choose the Monday, there will be no need to write--nor time indeed--; but if the Friday or Saturday, I shall hear from you, perhaps. Above all things remember, my dear friend, that I shall not expect you to-morrow, except as by a _bare possibility_. In great haste, signed and sealed this Sunday evening by
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday, 7 P.M. [Post-mark, August 19, 1845.]
I this moment get your note--having been out since the early morning--and I must write just to catch the post. You are pure kindness and considerateness, _no_ thanks to you!--(since you will have it so--). I choose Friday, then,--but I shall hear from you before Thursday, I dare hope? I have all but passed your house to-day--with an Italian friend, from Rome, whom I must go about with a little on weariful sight seeing, so I shall earn Friday.
Bless you
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday. [Post-mark, August 20, 1845.]
I fancied it was just _so_--as I did not hear and did not see you on Monday. Not that you were expected particularly--but that you would have written your own negative, it appeared to me, by some post in the day, if you had received my note in time. It happened well too, altogether, as you have a friend with you, though Mr. Kenyon does not come, and will not come, I dare say; for he spoke like a doubter at the moment; and as this Tuesday wears on, I am not likely to have any visitors on it after all, and may as well, if the rain quite ceases, go and spend my solitude on the park a little. Flush wags his tail at that proposition when I speak it loud out. And I am to write to you before Friday, and so, am writing, you see ... which I should not, should not have done if I had not been told; because it is not my turn to write, ... did you think it was?
Not a word of Malta! except from Mr. Kenyon who talked homilies of it last Sunday and wanted to speak them to Papa--but it would not do in any way--now especially--and in a little time there will be a decision for or against; and I am afraid of _both_ ... which is a happy state of preparation. Did I not tell you that early in the summer I did some translations for Miss Thomson's 'Classical Album,' from Bion and Theocritus, and Nonnus the author of that large (not great) poem in some forty books of the 'Dionysiaca' ... and the paraphrases from Apuleius? Well--I had a letter from her the other day, full of compunction and ejaculation, and declaring the fact that Mr. Burges had been correcting all the proofs of the poems; leaving out and emending generally, according to his own particular idea of the pattern in the mount--is it not amusing? I have been wicked enough to write in reply that it is happy for her and all readers ... _sua si bona norint_ ... if during some half hour which otherwise might have been dedicated by Mr. Burges to patting out the lights of Sophocles and his peers, he was satisfied with the humbler devastation of E.B.B. upon Nonnus. You know it is impossible to help being amused. This correcting is a mania with that man! And then I, who wrote what I did from the 'Dionysiaca,' with no respect for 'my author,' and an arbitrary will to 'put the case' of Bacchus and Ariadne as well as I could, for the sake of the art-illustrations, ... those subjects Miss Thomson sent me, ... and did it all with full liberty and persuasion of soul that nobody would think it worth while to compare English with Greek and refer me back to Nonnus and detect my wanderings from the text!! But the critic was not to be cheated so! And I do not doubt that he has set me all 'to rights' from beginning to end; and combed Ariadne's hair close to her cheeks for me. Have _you_ known Nonnus, ... _you_ who forget nothing? and have known everything, I think? For it is quite startling, I must tell you, quite startling and humiliating, to observe how you combine such large tracts of experience of outer and inner life, of books and men, of the world and the arts of it; curious knowledge as well as general knowledge ... and deep thinking as well as wide acquisition, ... and you, looking none the older for it all!--yes, and being besides a man of genius and working your faculty and not wasting yourself over a surface or away from an end. Dugald Stewart said that genius made naturally a lop-sided mind--did he not? He ought to have known _you_. And _I_ who do ... a little ... (for I grow more loth than I was to assume the knowledge of you, my dear friend)--_I_ do not mean to use that word 'humiliation' in the sense of having felt the thing myself in any _painful_ way, ... because I never for a moment did, or _could_, you know,--never could ... never did ... except indeed when you have over praised me, which forced another personal feeling in. Otherwise it has always been quite pleasant to me to be 'startled and humiliated'--and more so perhaps than to be startled and exalted, if I might choose....
Only I did not mean to write all this, though you told me to write to you. But the rain which keeps one in, gives one an example of pouring on ... and you must endure as you can or will. Also ... as you have a friend with you 'from Italy' ... 'from Rome,' and commended me for my 'kindness and considerateness' in changing Tuesday to Friday ... (wasn't it?...) shall I still be more considerate and put off the visit-day to next week? mind, you let it be as you like it best to be--I mean, as is most convenient 'for the nonce' to you and your friend--because all days are equal, as to that matter of convenience, to your other friend of this ilk,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, August 20, 1845.]
Mauvaise, mauvaise, mauvaise, you know as I know, just as much, that your 'kindness and considerateness' consisted, not in putting off Tuesday for another day, but in caring for my coming at all; for my coming and being told at the door that you were engaged, and _I_ might call another time! And you are NOT, NOT my 'other friend,' any more than this head of mine is my _other_ head, seeing that I have got a violin which has a head too! All which, beware lest you get fully told in the letter I will write this evening, when I have done with my Romans--who are, it so happens, here at this minute; that is, have left the house for a few minutes with my sister--but are not 'with me,' as you seem to understand it,--in the house to stay. They were kind to me in Rome, (husband and wife), and I am bound to be of what use I may during their short stay. Let me lose no time in begging and praying you to cry 'hands off' to that dreadful Burgess; have not I got a ... but I will tell you to-night--or on Friday which is my day, please--Friday. Till when, pray believe me, with respect and esteem,
Your most obliged and disobliged at these blank endings--what have I done? God bless you ever dearest friend.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday, 7 o'clock. [Post-mark, August 21, 1845.]
I feel at home, this blue early morning, now that I sit down to write (or, _speak_, as I try and fancy) to you, after a whole day with those 'other friends'--dear good souls, whom I should be so glad to serve, and to whom service must go by way of last will and testament, if a few more hours of 'social joy,' 'kindly intercourse,' &c., fall to my portion. My friend the Countess began proceedings (when I first saw her, not yesterday) by asking 'if I had got as much money as I expected by any works published of late?'--to which I answered, of course, 'exactly as much'--_è grazioso_! (All the same, if you were to ask her, or the like of her, 'how much the stone-work of the Coliseum would fetch, properly burned down to lime?'--she would shudder from head to foot and call you 'barbaro' with good Trojan heart.) Now you suppose--(watch my rhetorical figure here)--you suppose I am going to congratulate myself on being so much for the better, _en pays de connaissance_, with my 'other friend,' E.B.B., number 2--or 200, why not?--whereas I mean to 'fulmine over Greece,' since thunder frightens you, for all the laurels,--and to have reason for your taking my own part and lot to yourself--I do, will, must, and _will_, again, wonder at _you_ and admire _you_, and so on to the climax. It is a fixed, immovable thing: so fixed that I can well forego talking about it. But if to talk you once begin, 'the King shall enjoy (or receive quietly) his own again'--I wear no bright weapon out of that Panoply ... or Panoplite, as I think you call Nonnus, nor ever, like Leigh Hunt's 'Johnny, ever blythe and bonny, went singing Nonny, nonny' and see to-morrow, what a vengeance I will take for your 'mere suspicion in that kind'! But to the serious matter ... nay, I said yesterday, I believe--keep off that Burgess--he is stark staring mad--mad, do you know? The last time I met him he told me he had recovered I forget how many of the lost books of Thucydides--found them imbedded in Suidas (I think), and had disengaged them from _his_ Greek, without loss of a letter, 'by an instinct he, Burgess, had'--(I spell his name wrongly to help the proper _hiss_ at the end). Then, once on a time, he found in the 'Christus Patiens,' an odd dozen of lines, clearly dropped out of the 'Prometheus,' and proving that Æschylus was aware of the invention of gunpowder. He wanted to help Dr. Leonhard Schmitz in his 'Museum'--and scared him, as Schmitz told me. What business has he, Burges, with English verse--and what on earth, or under it, has Miss Thomson to do with _him_. If she must displease one of two, why is Mr. B. not to be thanked and 'sent to feed,' as the French say prettily? At all events, do pray see what he has presumed to alter ... you can alter at sufficient warrant, profit by suggestion, I should think! But it is all Miss Thomson's shame and fault: because she is quite in her propriety, saying to such intermeddlers, gently for the sake of their poor weak heads, 'very good, I dare say, very desirable emendations, only the work is not mine, you know, but my friend's, and you must no more alter it without her leave, than alter this sketch, this illustration, because you think you could mend Ariadne's face or figure,--Fecit Tizianus, scripsit E.B.B.' Dear friend, you will tell Miss Thomson to stop further proceedings, will you not? There! only, do mind what I say?
And now--till to-morrow! It seems an age since I saw you. I want to catch our first post ... (this phrase I ought to get stereotyped--I need it so constantly). The day is fine ... you will profit by it, I trust. 'Flush, wag your tail and grow restless and scratch at the door!'
God bless you,--my one friend, without an 'other'--bless you ever--
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday. [Post-mark, August 25, 1845.]
But what have _I_ done that you should ask what have _you_ done? I have not brought any accusation, have I ... no, nor _thought_ any, I am sure--and it was only the 'kindness and considerateness'--argument that was irresistible as a thing to be retorted, when your thanks came so naturally and just at the corner of an application. And then, you know, it is gravely true, seriously true, sadly true, that I am always expecting to hear or to see how tired you are at last of me!--sooner or later, you know!--But I did not mean any seriousness in that letter. No, nor did I mean ... (to pass to another question ...) to provoke you to the
Mister Hayley ... so are _you_....
reply complimentary. All I observed concerning yourself, was the _combination_--which not an idiom in chivalry could treat grammatically as a thing common to _me_ and you, inasmuch as everyone who has known me for half a day, may know that, if there is anything peculiar in me, it lies for the most part in an extraordinary deficiency in this and this and this, ... there is no need to describe what. Only nuns of the strictest sect of the nunneries are rather wiser in some points, and have led less restricted lives than I have in others. And if it had not been for my 'carpet-work'--
Well--and do you know that I have, for the last few years, taken quite to despise book-knowledge and its effect on the mind--I mean when people _live by it_ as most readers by profession do, ... cloistering their souls under these roofs made with heads, when they might be under the sky. Such people grow dark and narrow and low, with all their pains.
_Friday._--I was writing you see before you came--and now I go on in haste to speak 'off my mind' some things which are on it. First ... of yourself; how can it be that you are unwell again, ... and that you should talk (now did you not?--did I not hear you say so?) of being 'weary in your soul' ... _you_? What should make _you_, dearest friend, weary in your soul; or out of spirits in any way?--Do ... tell me.... I was going to write without a pause--and almost I might, perhaps, ... even as one of the two hundred of your friends, ... almost I might say out that 'Do tell me.' Or is it (which I am inclined to think most probable) that you are tired of a same life and want change? It may happen to anyone sometimes, and is independent of your will and choice, you know--and I know, and the whole world knows: and would it not therefore be wise of you, in that case, to fold your life new again and go abroad at once? What can make you weary in your soul, is a problem to me. You are the last from whom I should have expected such a word. And you did say so, I _think_. I _think_ that it was not a mistake of mine. And _you_, ... with a full liberty, and the world in your hand for every purpose and pleasure of it!--Or is it that, being unwell, your spirits are affected by _that_? But then you might be more unwell than you like to admit--. And I am teasing you with talking of it ... am I not?--and being disagreeable is only one third of the way towards being useful, it is good to remember in time.
And then the next thing to write off my mind is ... that you must not, you must not, make an unjust opinion out of what I said to-day. I have been uncomfortable since, lest you should--and perhaps it would have been better if I had not said it apart from all context in that way; only that you could not long be a friend of mine without knowing and seeing what so lies on the surface. But then, ... as far as I am concerned, ... no one cares less for a 'will' than I do (and this though I never had one, ... in clear opposition to your theory which holds generally nevertheless) for a will in the common things of life. Every now and then there must of course be a crossing and vexation--but in one's mere pleasures and fantasies, one would rather be crossed and vexed a little than vex a person one loves ... and it is possible to get used to the harness and run easily in it at last; and there is a side-world to hide one's thoughts in, and 'carpet-work' to be immoral on in spite of Mrs. Jameson, ... and the word 'literature' has, with me, covered a good deal of liberty as you must see ... real liberty which is never enquired into--and it has happened throughout my life by an accident (as far as anything is accident) that my own sense of right and happiness on any important point of overt action, has never run contrariwise to the way of obedience required of me ... while in things not exactly _overt_, I and all of us are apt to act sometimes up to the limit of our means of acting, with shut doors and windows, and no waiting for cognisance or permission. Ah--and that last is the worst of it all perhaps! to be forced into concealments from the heart naturally nearest to us; and forced away from the natural source of counsel and strength!--and then, the disingenuousness--the cowardice--the 'vices of slaves'!--and everyone you see ... all my brothers, ... constrained _bodily_ into submission ... apparent submission at least ... by that worst and most dishonouring of necessities, the necessity of _living_, everyone of them all, except myself, being dependent in money-matters on the inflexible will ... do you see? But what you do _not_ see, what you _cannot_ see, is the deep tender affection behind and below all those patriarchal ideas of governing grown up children 'in the way they _must_ go!' and there never was (under the strata) a truer affection in a father's heart ... no, nor a worthier heart in itself ... a heart loyaller and purer, and more compelling to gratitude and reverence, than his, as I see it! The evil is in the system--and he simply takes it to be his duty to rule, and to make happy according to his own views of the propriety of happiness--he takes it to be his duty to rule like the Kings of Christendom, by divine right. But he loves us through and through it--and _I_, for one, love _him_! and when, five years ago, I lost what I loved best in the world beyond comparison and rivalship ... far better than himself as he knew ... for everyone who knew _me_ could not choose but know what was my first and chiefest affection ... when I lost _that_, ... I felt that he stood the nearest to me on the closed grave ... or by the unclosing sea ... I do not know which nor could ask. And I will tell you that not only he has been kind and patient and forbearing to me through the tedious trial of this illness (far more trying to standers by than you have an idea of perhaps) but that he was generous and forbearing in that hour of bitter trial, and never reproached me as he might have done and as my own soul has not spared--never once said to me then or since, that if it had not been for _me_, the crown of his house would not have fallen. He _never did_ ... and he might have said it, and more--and I could have answered nothing. Nothing, except that I had paid my own price--and that the price I paid was greater than his _loss_ ... his!! For see how it was; and how, 'not with my hand but heart,' I was the cause or occasion of that misery--and though not with the intention of my heart but with its weakness, yet the _occasion_, any way!
They sent me down you know to Torquay--Dr. Chambers saying that I could not live a winter in London. The worst--what people call the worst--was apprehended for me at that time. So I was sent down with my sister to my aunt there--and he, my brother whom I loved so, was sent too, to take us there and return. And when the time came for him to leave me, _I_, to whom he was the dearest of friends and brothers in one ... the only one of my family who ... well, but I cannot write of these things; and it is enough to tell you that he was above us all, better than us all, and kindest and noblest and dearest to _me_, beyond comparison, any comparison, as I said--and when the time came for him to leave me _I_, weakened by illness, could not master my spirits or drive back my tears--and my aunt kissed them away instead of reproving me as she should have done; and said that _she_ would take care that I should not be grieved ... _she_! ... and so she sate down and wrote a letter to Papa to tell him that he would 'break my heart' if he persisted in calling away my brother--As if hearts were broken _so_! I have thought bitterly since that my heart did not break for a good deal more than _that_! And Papa's answer was--burnt into me, as with fire, it is--that 'under such circumstances he did not refuse to suspend his purpose, but that he considered it to be _very wrong in me to exact such a thing_.' So there was no separation _then_: and month after month passed--and sometimes I was better and sometimes worse--and the medical men continued to say that they would not answer for my life ... they! if I were agitated--and so there was no more talk of a separation. And once _he_ held my hand, ... how I remember! and said that he 'loved me better than them all and that he _would not_ leave me ... till I was well,' he said! how I remember _that_! And ten days from that day the boat had left the shore which never returned; never--and he _had_ left me! gone! For three days we waited--and I hoped while I could--oh--that awful agony of three days! And the sun shone as it shines to-day, and there was no more wind than now; and the sea under the windows was like this paper for smoothness--and my sisters drew the curtains back that I might see for myself how smooth the sea was, and how it could hurt nobody--and other boats came back one by one.
Remember how you wrote in your 'Gismond'
What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it? No more says the soul,
and you never wrote anything which _lived_ with me more than _that_. It is such a dreadful truth. But you knew it for truth, I hope, by your genius, and not by such proof as mine--I, who could not speak or shed a tear, but lay for weeks and months half conscious, half unconscious, with a wandering mind, and too near to God under the crushing of His hand, to pray at all. I expiated all my weak tears before, by not being able to shed then one tear--and yet they were forbearing--and no voice said 'You have done this.'
Do not notice what I have written to you, my dearest friend. I have never said so much to a living being--I never _could_ speak or write of it. I asked no question from the moment when my last hope went: and since then, it has been impossible for me to speak what was in me. I have borne to do it to-day and to you, but perhaps if you were to write--so do not let this be noticed between us again--_do not_! And besides there is no need! I do not reproach myself with such acrid thoughts as I had once--I _know_ that I would have died ten times over for _him_, and that therefore though it was wrong of me to be weak, and I have suffered for it and shall learn by it I hope; _remorse_ is not precisely the word for me--not at least in its full sense. Still you will comprehend from what I have told you how the spring of life must have seemed to break within me _then_; and how natural it has been for me to loathe the living on--and to lose faith (even without the loathing), to lose faith in myself ... which I have done on some points utterly. It is not from the cause of illness--no. And you will comprehend too that I have strong reasons for being grateful to the forbearance.... It would have been _cruel_, you think, to reproach me. Perhaps so! yet the kindness and patience of the desisting from reproach, are positive things all the same.
Shall I be too late for the post, I wonder? Wilson tells me that you were followed up-stairs yesterday (I write on Saturday this latter part) by somebody whom you probably took for my father. Which is Wilson's idea--and I hope not yours. No--it was neither father nor other relative of mine, but an old friend in rather an ill temper.
And so good-bye until Tuesday. Perhaps I shall ... not ... hear from you to-night. Don't let the tragedy or aught else do you harm--will you? and try not to be 'weary in your soul' any more--and forgive me this gloomy letter I half shrink from sending you, yet will send.
May God bless you.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Morning, [Post-mark, August 27, 1845.]
On the subject of your letter--quite irrespective of the injunction in it--I would not have dared speak; now, at least. But I may permit myself, perhaps, to say I am _most_ grateful, _most grateful_, dearest friend, for this admission to participate, in my degree, in these feelings. There is a better thing than being happy in your happiness; I feel, now that you teach me, it is so. I will write no more now; though that sentence of 'what you are _expecting_,--that I shall be tired of you &c.,'--though I _could_ blot that out of your mind for ever by a very few words _now_,--for you _would believe_ me at this moment, close on the other subject:--but I will take no such advantage--I will wait.
I have many things (indifferent things, after those) to say; will you write, if but a few lines, to change the associations for that purpose? Then I will write too.--
May God bless you,--in what is past and to come! I pray that from my heart, being yours
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Morning, [Post-mark, August 27, 1845.]
But your 'Saul' is unobjectionable as far as I can see, my dear friend. He was tormented by an evil spirit--but how, we are not told ... and the consolation is not obliged to be definite, ... is it? A singer was sent for as a singer--and all that you are called upon to be true to, are the general characteristics of David the chosen, standing between his sheep and his dawning hereafter, between innocence and holiness, and with what you speak of as the 'gracious gold locks' besides the chrism of the prophet, on his own head--and surely you have been happy in the tone and spirit of these lyrics ... broken as you have left them. Where is the wrong in all this? For the right and beauty, they are more obvious--and I cannot tell you how the poem holds me and will not let me go until it blesses me ... and so, where are the 'sixty lines' thrown away? I do beseech you ... you who forget nothing, ... to remember them directly, and to go on with the rest ... _as_ directly (be it understood) as is not injurious to your health. The whole conception of the poem, I like ... and the execution is exquisite up to this point--and the sight of Saul in the tent, just struck out of the dark by that sunbeam, 'a thing to see,' ... not to say that afterwards when he is visibly 'caught in his fangs' like the king serpent, ... the sight is grander still. How could you doubt about this poem....
At the moment of writing which, I receive your note. Do _you_ receive my assurances from the deepest of my heart that I never did otherwise than _'believe' you_ ... never did nor shall do ... and that you completely misinterpreted my words if you drew another meaning from them. Believe _me_ in this--will you? I could not believe _you_ any more for anything you could say, now or hereafter--and so do not avenge yourself on my unwary sentences by remembering them against me for evil. I did not mean to vex you ... still less to suspect you--indeed I did not! and moreover it was quite your fault that I did not blot it out after it was written, whatever the meaning was. So you forgive me (altogether) for your own sins: you must:--
For my part, though I have been sorry since to have written you such a gloomy letter, the sorrow unmakes itself in hearing you speak so kindly. Your sympathy is precious to me, I may say. May God bless you. Write and tell me among the 'indifferent things' something not indifferent, how you are yourself, I mean ... for I fear you are not well and thought you were not looking so yesterday.
Dearest friend, I remain yours,
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening. [Post-mark, August 30, 1845].
I do not hear; and come to you to ask the alms of just one line, having taken it into my head that something is the matter. It is not so much exactingness on my part, as that you spoke of meaning to write as soon as you received a note of mine ... which went to you five minutes afterwards ... which is three days ago, or will be when you read this. Are you not well--or what? Though I have tried and _wished_ to remember having written in the last note something very or even a little offensive to you, I failed in it and go back to the worse fear. For you could not be vexed with me for talking of what was 'your fault' ... 'your own fault,' viz. in having to read sentences which, but for your commands, would have been blotted out. You could not very well take _that_ for serious blame! from _me_ too, who have so much reason and provocation for blaming the archangel Gabriel.--No--you could not misinterpret so,--and if you could not, and if you are not displeased with me, you must be unwell, I think. I took for granted yesterday that you had gone out as before--but to-night it is different--and so I come to ask you to be kind enough to write one word for me by some post to-morrow. Now remember ... I am not asking for a letter--but for a _word_ ... or line strictly speaking.
Ever yours, dear friend,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, August 30, 1845.]
This sweet Autumn Evening, Friday, comes all golden into the room and makes me write to you--not think of you--yet what shall I write?
It must be for another time ... after Monday, when I am to see you, you know, and hear if the headache be gone, since your note would not round to the perfection of kindness and comfort, and tell me so.
God bless my dearest friend.
R.B.
I am much better--well, indeed--thank you.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, August 30, 1845.]
Can you understand me _so_, dearest friend, after all? Do you see me--when I am away, or with you--'taking offence' at words, 'being vexed' at words, or deeds of yours, even if I could not immediately trace them to their source of entire, pure kindness; as I have hitherto done in every smallest instance?
I believe in _you_ absolutely, utterly--I believe that when you bade me, that time, be silent--that such was your bidding, and I was silent--dare I say I think you did not know at that time the power I have over myself, that I could sit and speak and listen as I have done since? Let me say now--_this only once_--that I loved you from my soul, and gave you my life, so much of it as you would take,--and all that is _done_, not to be altered now: it was, in the nature of the proceeding, wholly independent of any return on your part. I will not think on extremes you might have resorted to; as it is, the assurance of your friendship, the intimacy to which you admit me, _now_, make the truest, deepest joy of my life--a joy I can never think fugitive while we are in life, because I KNOW, as to me, I _could_ not willingly displease you,--while, as to you, your goodness and understanding will always see to the bottom of involuntary or ignorant faults--always help me to correct them. I have done now. If I thought you were like other women I have known, I should say so much!--but--(my first and last word--I _believe_ in you!)--what you could and would give me, of your affection, you would give nobly and simply and as a giver--you would not need that I tell you--(_tell_ you!)--what would be supreme happiness to me in the event--however distant--
I repeat ... I call on your justice to remember, on your intelligence to believe ... that this is merely a more precise stating the _first_ subject; to put an end to any possible misunderstanding--to prevent your henceforth believing that because I _do not write_, from thinking too deeply of you, I am offended, vexed &c. &c. I will never recur to this, nor shall you see the least difference in my manner next Monday: it is indeed, always before me ... how I know nothing of you and yours. But I think I ought to have spoken when I did--and to speak clearly ... or more clearly what I do, as it is my pride and duty to fall back, now, on the feeling with which I have been in the meantime--Yours--God bless you--
R.B.
Let me write a few words to lead into Monday--and say, you have probably received my note. I am much better--with a little headache, which is all, and fast going this morning. Of yours you say nothing--I trust you see your ... dare I say your _duty_ in the Pisa affair, as all else _must_ see it--shall I hear on Monday? And my 'Saul' that you are so lenient to.
Bless you ever--
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday. [August 31, 1845.]
I did not think you were angry--I never said so. But you might reasonably have been wounded a little, if you had suspected me of blaming you for any bearing of yours towards myself; and this was the amount of my fear--or rather hope ... since I conjectured most that you were not well. And after all you did think ... do think ... that in some way or for some moment I blamed you, disbelieved you, distrusted you--or why this letter? How have I provoked this letter? Can I forgive myself for having even seemed to have provoked it? and will you believe me that if for the past's sake you sent it, it was unnecessary, and if for the future's, irrelevant? Which I say from no want of sensibility to the words of it--your words always make themselves felt--but in fulness of purpose not to suffer you to hold to words because they have been said, nor to say them as if to be holden by them. Why, if a thousand more such words were said by you to me, how could they operate upon the future or present, supposing me to choose to keep the possible modification of your feelings, as a probability, in my sight and yours? Can you help my sitting with the doors all open if I think it right? I do attest to you--while I trust you, as you must see, in word and act, and while I am confident that no human being ever stood higher or purer in the eyes of another, than you do in mine,--that you would still stand high and remain unalterably my friend, if the probability in question became a fact, as now at this moment. And this I must say, since you have said other things: and this alone, which _I_ have said, concerns the future, I remind you earnestly.
My dearest friend--you have followed the most _generous_ of impulses in your whole bearing to me--and I have recognised and called by its name, in my heart, each one of them. Yet I cannot help adding that, of us two, yours has not been quite the hardest part ... I mean, to a generous nature like your own, to which every sort of nobleness comes easily. Mine has been more difficult--and I have sunk under it again and again: and the sinking and the effort to recover the duty of a lost position, may have given me an appearance of vacillation and lightness, unworthy at least of _you_, and perhaps of both of us. Notwithstanding which appearance, it was right and just (only just) of you, to believe in me--in my truth--because I have never failed to you in it, nor been capable of _such_ failure: the thing I have said, I have meant ... always: and in things I have not said, the silence has had a reason somewhere different perhaps from where you looked for it. And this brings me to complaining that you, who profess to believe in me, do yet obviously believe that it was only merely silence, which I required of you on one occasion--and that if I had 'known your power over yourself,' I should not have minded ... no! In other words you believe of me that I was thinking just of my own (what shall I call it for a motive base and small enough?) my own scrupulousness ... freedom from embarrassment! of myself in the least of me; in the tying of my shoestrings, say!--so much and no more! Now this is so wrong, as to make me impatient sometimes in feeling it to be your impression: I asked for silence--but _also_ and chiefly for the putting away of ... you know very well what I asked for. And this was sincerely done, I attest to you. You wrote once to me ... oh, long before May and the day we met: that you 'had been so happy, you should be now justified to yourself in taking any step most hazardous to the happiness of your life'--but if you were justified, could _I_ be therefore justified in abetting such a step,--the step of wasting, in a sense, your best feelings ... of emptying your water gourds into the sand? What I thought then I think now--just what any third person, knowing you, would think, I think and feel. I thought too, at first, that the feeling on your part was a mere generous impulse, likely to expand itself in a week perhaps. It affects me and has affected me, very deeply, more than I dare attempt to say, that you should persist _so_--and if sometimes I have felt, by a sort of instinct, that after all you would not go on to persist, and that (being a man, you know) you might mistake, a little unconsciously, the strength of your own feeling; you ought not to be surprised; when I felt it was more advantageous and happier for you that it should be so. _In any case_, I shall never regret my own share in the events of this summer, and your friendship will be dear to me to the last. You know I told you so--not long since. And as to what you say otherwise, you are right in thinking that I would not hold by unworthy motives in avoiding to speak what you had any claim to hear. But what could I speak that would not be unjust to you? Your life! if you gave it to me and I put my whole heart into it; what should I put but anxiety, and more sadness than you were born to? What could I give you, which it would not be ungenerous to give? Therefore we must leave this subject--and I must trust you to leave it without one word more; (too many have been said already--but I could not let your letter pass quite silently ... as if I had nothing to do but to receive all as matter of course _so_!) while you may well trust _me_ to remember to my life's end, as the grateful remember; and to feel, as those do who have felt sorrow (for where these pits are dug, the water will stand), the full price of your regard. May God bless you, my dearest friend. I shall send this letter after I have seen you, and hope you may not have expected to hear sooner.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_Monday, 6 p.m._--I send in _dis_obedience to your commands, Mrs. Shelley's book--but when books accumulate and when besides, I want to let you have the American edition of my poems ... famous for all manner of blunders, you know; what is to be done but have recourse to the parcel-medium? You were in jest about being at Pisa _before or as soon as we were_?--oh no--that must not be indeed--we must wait a little!--even if you determine to go at all, which is a question of doubtful expediency. Do take more exercise, this week, and make war against those dreadful sensations in the head--now, will you?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, September 3, 1845.]
I rather hoped ... with no right at all ... to hear from you this morning or afternoon--to know how you are--that, 'how are you,' there is no use disguising, is,--vary it how one may--my own life's question.--
I had better write no more, now. Will you not tell me something about you--the head; and that too, _too_ warm hand ... or was it my fancy? Surely the report of Dr. Chambers is most satisfactory,--all seems to rest with yourself: you know, in justice to me, you _do_ know that _I_ know the all but mockery, the absurdity of anyone's counsel 'to be composed,' &c. &c. But try, dearest friend!
God bless you--
I am yours
R.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Night. [Post-mark, September 3, 1845.]
Before you leave London, I will answer your letter--all my attempts end in nothing now--
Dearest friend--I am yours ever
R.B.
But meantime, you will tell me about yourself, will you not? The parcel came a few minutes after my note left--Well, I can thank you for _that_; for the Poems,--though I cannot wear them round my neck--and for the too great trouble. My heart's friend! Bless you--
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, September 4, 1845.]
Indeed my headaches are not worth enquiring about--I mean, they are not of the slightest consequence, and seldom survive the remedy of a cup of coffee. I only wish it were the same with everybody--I mean, with every _head_! Also there is nothing the matter otherwise--and I am going to prove my right to a 'clean bill of health' by going into the park in ten minutes. Twice round the inner enclosure is what I can compass now--which is equal to once round the world--is it not?
I had just time to be afraid that the parcel had not reached you. The reason why I sent you the poems was that I had a few copies to give to my personal friends, and so, wished you to have one; and it was quite to please myself and not to please _you_ that I made you have it; and if you put it into the 'plum-tree' to hide the errata, I shall be pleased still, if not rather more. Only let me remember to tell you this time in relation to those books and the question asked of yourself by your noble Romans, that just as I was enclosing my sixty-pounds debt to Mr. Moxon, I did actually and miraculously receive a remittance of fourteen pounds from the selfsame bookseller of New York who agreed last year to print my poems at his own risk and give me 'ten per cent on the profit.' Not that I ever asked for such a thing! They were the terms offered. And I always considered the 'per centage' as quite visionary ... put in for the sake of effect, to make the agreement look better! But no--you see! One's poetry has a real 'commercial value,' if you do but take it far away enough from the 'civilization of Europe.' When you get near the backwoods and the red Indians, it turns out to be nearly as good for something as 'cabbages,' after all! Do you remember what you said to me of cabbages _versus_ poems, in one of the first letters you ever wrote to me?--of selling cabbages and buying _Punches_?
People complain of Dr. Chambers and call him rough and unfeeling--neither of which _I_ ever found him for a moment--and I like him for his truthfulness, which is the nature of the man, though it is essential to medical morality never to let a patient think himself mortal while it is possible to prevent it, and even Dr. Chambers may incline to this on occasion. Still he need not have said all the good he said to me on Saturday--he _used_ not to say any of it; and he must have thought some of it: and, any way, the Pisa-case is strengthened all round by his opinion and injunction, so that all my horror and terror at the thoughts of his visit, (and it's really true that I would rather _suffer_ to a certain extent than be _cured_ by means of those doctors!) had some compensation. How are you? do not forget to say! I found among some papers to-day, a note of yours which I asked Mr. Kenyon to give me for an autograph, two years ago.
May God bless you, dearest friend. And I have a dispensation from 'beef and porter' [Greek: eis tous aiônas]. 'On no account' was the answer!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Afternoon. [Post-mark, September 5, 1845.]
What you tell me of Dr. Chambers, 'all the good of you' he said, and all I venture to infer; this makes me most happy and thankful. Do you use to attach our old [Greek: tuphlas elpidas] (and the practice of instilling them) to that medical science in which Prometheus boasted himself proficient? I had thought the 'faculty' dealt in fears, on the contrary, and scared you into obedience: but I know most about the doctors in Molière. However the joyous truth is--must be, that you are better, and if one could transport you quietly to Pisa, save you all worry,--what might one not expect!
When I know your own intentions--measures, I should say, respecting your journey--mine will of course be submitted to you--it will just be 'which day next--month'?--Not week, alas.
I can thank you now for this edition of your poems--I have not yet taken to read it, though--for it does not, each volume of it, open obediently to a thought, here, and here, and here, like my green books ... no, my Sister's they are; so these you give me are really mine. And America, with its ten per cent., shall have my better word henceforth and for ever ... for when you calculate, there must have been a really extraordinary circulation; and in a few months: it is what newspapers call 'a great fact.' Have they reprinted the 'Seraphim'? Quietly, perhaps!
I shall see you on Monday, then--
And my all-important headaches are tolerably kept under--headaches proper they are not--but the noise and slight turning are less troublesome--will soon go altogether.
Bless you ever--ever dearest friend.
R.B.
_Oh, oh, oh!_ As many thanks for that precious card-box and jewel of a flower-holder as are consistent with my dismay at finding you _only_ return _them_ ... and not the costly brown paper wrappages also ... to say nothing of the inestimable pins with which my sister uses to fasten the same!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, September 8, 1845.]
I am in the greatest difficulty about the steamers. Will you think a little for me and tell me what is best to do? It appears that the direct Leghorn steamer will not sail on the third, and may not until the middle of October, and if forced to still further delay, which is possible, will not at all. One of my brothers has been to Mr. Andrews of St. Mary Axe and heard as much as this. What shall I do? The middle of October, say my sisters ... and I half fear that it may prove so ... is too late for me--to say nothing for the uncertainty which completes the difficulty.
On the 20th of September (on the other hand) sails the Malta vessel; and I hear that I may go in it to Gibraltar and find a French steamer there to proceed by. Is there an objection to this--except the change of steamers ... repeated ... for I must get down to Southampton--and the leaving England so soon? Is any better to be done? Do think for me a little. And now that the doing comes so near ... and in this dead silence of Papa's ... it all seems impossible, ... and I seem to see the stars _constellating_ against me, and give it as my serious opinion to you that I shall not go. Now, mark.
But I have had the kindest of letters from dear Mr. Kenyon, urging it--.
Well--I have no time for writing any more--and this is only a note of business to bespeak your thoughts about the steamers. My wisdom looks back regretfully ... only rather too late ... on the Leghorn vessel of the third of September. It would have been wise if I had gone _then_.
May God bless you, dearest friend.
E.B.B.
But if your head turns still, ... _do_ you walk enough? Is there not fault in your not walking, by your own confession? Think of this first--and then, if you please, of the steamers.
So, till Monday!--
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday. [Post-mark, September 9, 1845.]
One reason against printing the tragedies now, is your not being well enough for the necessary work connected with them, ... a sure reason and strong ... nay, chiefest of all. Plainly you are unfit for work now--and even to complete the preparation of the lyrics, and take them through the press, may be too much for you, I am afraid; and if so, why you will not do it--will you?--you will wait for another year,--or at least be satisfied for this, with bringing out a number of the old size, consisting of such poems as are fairly finished and require no retouching. 'Saul' for instance, you might leave--! You will not let me hear when I am gone, of your being ill--you will take care ... will you not? Because you see ... or rather _I_ see ... you are _not_ looking well at all--no, you are not! and even if you do not care for that, you should and must care to consider how unavailing it will be for you to hold those golden keys of the future with a more resolute hand than your contemporaries, should you suffer yourself to be struck down before the gate ... should you lose the physical power while keeping the heart and will. Heart and will are great things, and sufficient things in your case--but after all we carry a barrow-full of clay about with us, and we must carry it a little carefully if we mean to keep to the path and not run zigzag into the border of the garden. A figure which reminds me ... and I wanted no figure to remind me ... to ask you to thank your sister for me and from me for all her kindness about the flowers. Now you will not forget? you must not. When I think of the repeated trouble she has taken week after week, and all for a stranger, I must think again that it has been very kind--and I take the liberty of saying so moreover ... _as I am not thanking you_. Also these flowers of yesterday, which yesterday you disdained so, look full of summer and are full of fragrance, and when they seem to say that it is not September, I am willing to be lied to just _so_. For I wish it were not September. I wish it were July ... or November ... two months before or after: and that this journey were thrown behind or in front ... anywhere to be out of sight. You do not know the courage it requires to hold the intention of it fast through what I feel sometimes. If it (the courage) had been prophesied to me only a year ago, the prophet would have been laughed to scorn. Well!--but I want you to see. George's letter, and how he and Mrs. Hedley, when she saw Papa's note of consent to me, give unhesitating counsel. Burn it when you have read it. It is addressed to me ... which you will doubt from the address of it perhaps ... seeing that it goes [Greek: ba ... rbarizôn]. We are famous in this house for what are called nick-names ... though a few of us have escaped rather by a caprice than a reason: and I am never called anything else (never at all) except by the nom de _paix_ which you find written in the letter:--proving as Mr. Kenyon says, that I am just 'half a Ba-by' ... no more nor less;--and in fact the name has that precise definition. Burn the note when you have read it.
And then I take it into my head, as you do not distinguish my sisters, you say, one from the other, to send you my own account of them in these enclosed 'sonnets' which were written a few weeks ago, and though only pretending to be 'sketches,' pretend to be like, as far as they go, and _are_ like--my brothers thought--when I 'showed them against' a profile drawn in pencil by Alfred, on the same subjects. I was laughing and maintaining that mine should be as like as his--and he yielded the point to me. So it is mere portrait-painting--and you who are in 'high art,' must not be too scornful. Henrietta is the elder, and the one who brought you into this room first--and Arabel, who means to go with me to Pisa, has been the most with me through my illness and is the least wanted in the house here, ... and perhaps ... perhaps--is my favourite--though my heart smites me while I write that unlawful word. They are both affectionate and kind to me in all things, and good and lovable in their own beings--very unlike, for the rest; one, most caring for the Polka, ... and the other for the sermon preached at Paddington Chapel, ... _that_ is Arabel ... so if ever you happen to know her you must try not to say before her how 'much you hate &c.' Henrietta always 'managed' everything in the house even before I was ill, ... because she liked it and I didn't, and I waived my right to the sceptre of dinner-ordering.
I have been thinking much of your 'Sordello' since you spoke of it--and even, I _had_ thought much of it before you spoke of it yesterday; feeling that it might be thrown out into the light by your hand, and greatly justify the additional effort. It is like a noble picture with its face to the wall just now--or at least, in the shadow. And so worthy as it is of you in all ways! individual all through: you have _made_ even the darkness of it! And such a work as it might become if you chose ... if you put your will to it! What I meant to say yesterday was not that it wanted more additional verses than the 'ten per cent' you spoke of ... though it does perhaps ... so much as that (to my mind) it wants drawing together and fortifying in the connections and associations ... which hang as loosely every here and there, as those in a dream, and confound the reader who persists in thinking himself awake.
How do you mean that I am 'lenient'? Do you not believe that I tell you what I think, and as I think it? I may _think wrong_, to be sure--but _that_ is not my fault:--and so there is no use reproaching me generally, unless you can convict me definitely at the same time:--is there, now?
And I have been reading and admiring these letters of Mr. Carlyle, and receiving the greatest pleasure from them in every way. He is greatly _himself always_--which is the hardest thing for a man to be, perhaps. And what his appreciation of you is, it is easy to see--and what he expects from you--notwithstanding that prodigious advice of his, to write your next work in prose! Also Mrs. Carlyle's letter--thank you for letting me see it. I admire _that_ too! It is as ingenious 'a case' against poor Keats, as could well be drawn--but nobody who knew very deeply what poetry _is_, _could_, you know, draw any case against him. A poet of the senses, he may be and is, just as she says--but then it is of the senses idealized; and no dream in a 'store-room' would ever be like the 'Eve of St. Agnes,' unless dreamed by some 'animosus infans,' like Keats himself. Still it is all true ... isn't it?... what she observes of the want of thought as thought. He was a _seer_ strictly speaking. And what noble oppositions--(to go back to Carlyle's letters) ... he writes to the things you were speaking of yesterday! These letters are as good as Milton's picture for convicting and putting to shame. Is not the difference between the men of our day and 'the giants which were on the earth,' less ... far less ... in the faculty ... in the gift, ... or in the general intellect, ... than in the stature of the soul itself? Our inferiority is not in what we can do, but in what we are. We should write poems like Milton if [we] lived them like Milton.
I write all this just to show, I suppose, that I am not industrious as you did me the honour of apprehending that I was going to be ... packing trunks perhaps ... or what else in the way of 'active usefulness.'
Say how you are--will you? And do take care, and walk and do what is good for you. I shall be able to see you twice before I go. And oh, this going! Pray for me, dearest friend. May God bless you.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, September 11, 1845.]
Here are your beautiful, and I am sure _true_ sonnets; they look true--I remember the light hair, I find. And who paints, and dares exhibit, E.B.B.'s self? And surely 'Alfred's' pencil has not foregone its best privilege, not left _the_ face unsketched? Italians call such an 'effect defective'--'l'andar a Roma senza vedere il Papa.' He must have begun by seeing his Holiness, I know, and ... _he_ will not trust me with the result, that my sister may copy it for me, because we are strangers, he and I, and I could give him nothing, nothing like the proper price for it--but _you_ would lend it to me, I think, nor need I do more than thank you in my usual effective and very eloquent way--for I have already been allowed to visit you seventeen times, do you know; and this last letter of yours, fiftieth is the same! So all my pride is gone, pride in that sense--and I mean to take of you for ever, and reconcile myself with my lot in this life. Could, and would, you give me such a sketch? It has been on my mind to ask you ever since I knew you if nothing in the way of _good_ portrait existed--and this occasion bids me speak out, I dare believe: the more, that you have also quieted--have you not?--another old obstinate and very likely impertinent questioning of mine--as to the little name which was neither Orinda, nor Sacharissa (for which thank providence) and is never to appear in books, though you write them. Now I know it and write it--'Ba'--and thank you, and your brother George, and only burned his kind letter because you bade me who know best. So, wish by wish, one gets one's wishes--at least I do--for one instance, you will go to Italy
[Illustration: Music followed by ?]
Why, 'lean and harken after it' as Donne says--
Don't expect Neapolitan Scenery at Pisa, quite in the North, remember. Mrs. Shelley found Italy for the first time, real Italy, at Sorrento, she says. Oh that book--does one wake or sleep? The 'Mary dear' with the brown eyes, and Godwin's daughter and Shelley's wife, and who surely was something better once upon a time--and to go through Rome and Florence and the rest, after what I suppose to be Lady Londonderry's fashion: the intrepidity of the commonplace quite astounds me. And then that way, when she and the like of her are put in a new place, with new flowers, new stones, faces, walls, all new--of looking wisely up at the sun, clouds, evening star, or mountain top and wisely saying 'who shall describe _that_ sight!'--Not _you_, we very well see--but why don't you tell us that at Rome they eat roasted chestnuts, and put the shells into their aprons, the women do, and calmly empty the whole on the heads of the passengers in the street below; and that at Padua when a man drives his waggon up to a house and stops, all the mouse-coloured oxen that pull it from a beam against their foreheads sit down in a heap and rest. But once she travelled the country with Shelley on arm; now she plods it, Rogers in hand--to such things and uses may we come at last! Her remarks on art, once she lets go of Rio's skirts, are amazing--Fra Angelico, for instance, only painted Martyrs, Virgins &c., she had no eyes for the divine _bon-bourgeoisie_ of his pictures; the dear common folk of his crowds, those who sit and listen (spectacle at nose and bent into a comfortable heap to hear better) at the sermon of the Saint--and the children, and women,--divinely pure they all are, but fresh from the streets and market place--but she is wrong every where, that is, not right, not seeing what is to see, speaking what one expects to hear--I quarrel with her, for ever, I think.
I am much better, and mean to be well as you desire--shall correct the verses you have seen, and make them do for the present.
Saturday, then! And one other time only, do you say?
God bless you, my own, best friend.
Yours ever
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday. [Post-mark, September 11, 1845.]
Will you come on Friday ... to-morrow ... instead of Saturday--will it be the same thing? Because I have heard from Mr. Kenyon, who is to be in London on Friday evening he says, and therefore may mean to visit me on Saturday I imagine. So let it be Friday--if you should not, for any reason, prove Monday to be better still.
May God bless you--
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday Morning. [Post-mark, September 13, 1845.]
Now, dearest, I will try and write the little I shall be able, in reply to your letter of last week--and first of all I have to entreat you, now more than ever, to help me and understand from the few words the feelings behind them--(should _speak_ rather more easily, I think--but I dare not run the risk: and I know, after all, you will be just and kind where you can.) I have read your letter again and again. I will tell you--no, not _you_, but any imaginary other person, who should hear what I am going to avow; I would tell that person most sincerely there is not a particle of fatuity, shall I call it, in that avowal; cannot be, seeing that from the beginning and at this moment I never dreamed of winning your _love_. I can hardly write this word, so incongruous and impossible does it seem; such a change of our places does it imply--nor, next to that, though long after, _would_ I, if I _could_, supplant one of any of the affections that I know to have taken root in you--_that_ great and solemn one, for instance. I feel that if I could get myself _remade_, as if turned to gold, I WOULD not even then desire to become more than the mere setting to _that_ diamond you must always wear. The regard and esteem you now give me, in this letter, and which I press to my heart and bow my head upon, is all I can take and all too embarrassing, using _all_ my gratitude. And yet, with that contented pride in being infinitely your debtor as it is, bound to you for ever as it is; when I read your letter with all the determination to be just to us both; I dare not so far withstand the light I am master of, as to refuse seeing that whatever is recorded as an objection to your disposing of that life of mine I would give you, has reference to some supposed good in that life which your accepting it would destroy (of which fancy I shall speak presently)--I say, wonder as I may at this, I cannot but find it there, surely there. I could no more 'bind _you_ by words,' than you have bound me, as you say--but if I misunderstand you, one assurance to that effect will be but too intelligible to me--but, as it _is_, I have difficulty in imagining that while one of so many reasons, which I am not obliged to repeat to myself, but which any one easily conceives; while _any one_ of those reasons would impose silence on me _for ever_ (for, as I observed, I love you as you now are, and _would_ not remove one affection that is already part of you,)--_would_ you, being able to speak _so_, only say _that you_ desire not to put 'more sadness than I was born to,' into my life?--that you 'could give me only what it were ungenerous to give'?
Have I your meaning here? In so many words, is it on my account that you bid me 'leave this subject'? I think if it were so, I would for once call my advantages round me. I am not what your generous self-forgetting appreciation would sometimes make me out--but it is not since yesterday, nor ten nor twenty years before, that I began to look into my own life, and study its end, and requirements, what would turn to its good or its loss--and I _know_, if one may know anything, that to make that life yours and increase it by union with yours, would render me _supremely happy_, as I said, and say, and feel. My whole suit to you is, in that sense, _selfish_--not that I am ignorant that _your_ nature would most surely attain happiness in being conscious that it made another happy--but _that best, best end of all_, would, like the rest, come from yourself, be a reflection of your own gift.
Dearest, I will end here--words, persuasion, arguments, if they were at my service I would not use them--I believe in you, altogether have faith in you--in you. I will not think of insulting by trying to reassure you on one point which certain phrases in your letter might at first glance seem to imply--you do not understand me to be living and labouring and writing (and _not_ writing) in order to be successful in the world's sense? I even convinced the people _here_ what was my true 'honourable position in society,' &c. &c. therefore I shall not have to inform _you_ that I desire to be very rich, very great; but not in reading Law gratis with dear foolish old Basil Montagu, as he ever and anon bothers me to do;--much less--enough of this nonsense.
'Tell me what I have a claim to hear': I can hear it, and be as grateful as I was before and am now--your friendship is my pride and happiness. If you told me your love was bestowed elsewhere, and that it was in my power to serve you _there_, to serve you there would still be my pride and happiness. I look on and on over the prospect of my love, it is all _on_wards--and all possible forms of unkindness ... I quite laugh to think how they are _behind_ ... cannot be encountered in the route we are travelling! I submit to you and will obey you implicitly--obey what I am able to conceive of your least desire, much more of your expressed wish. But it was necessary to make this avowal, among other reasons, for one which the world would recognize too. My whole scheme of life (with its wants, material wants at least, closely cut down) was long ago calculated--and it supposed _you_, the finding such an one as you, utterly impossible--because in calculating one goes upon _chances_, not on providence--how could I expect you? So for my own future way in the world I have always refused to care--any one who can live a couple of years and more on bread and potatoes as I did once on a time, and who prefers a blouse and a blue shirt (such as I now write in) to all manner of dress and gentlemanly appointment, and who can, if necessary, groom a horse not so badly, or at all events would rather do it all day long than succeed Mr. Fitzroy Kelly in the Solicitor-Generalship,--such an one need not very much concern himself beyond considering the lilies how they grow. But now I see you near this life, all changes--and at a word, I will do all that ought to be done, that every one used to say could be done, and let 'all my powers find sweet employ' as Dr. Watts sings, in getting whatever is to be got--not very much, surely. I would print these things, get them away, and do this now, and go to you at Pisa with the news--at Pisa where one may live for some £100 a year--while, lo, I seem to remember, I _do_ remember, that Charles Kean offered to give me 500 of those pounds for any play that might suit him--to say nothing of Mr. Colburn saying confidentially that he wanted more than his dinner 'a novel on the subject of _Napoleon_'! So may one make money, if one does not live in a house in a row, and feel impelled to take the Princess's Theatre for a laudable development and exhibition of one's faculty.
Take the sense of all this, I beseech you, dearest--all you shall say will be best--I am yours--
Yes, Yours ever. God bless you for all you have been, and are, and will certainly be to me, come what He shall please!
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, September 16, 1845.]
I scarcely know how to write what is to be written nor indeed why it is to be written and to what end. I have tried in vain--and you are waiting to hear from me. I am unhappy enough even where I am happy--but ungrateful nowhere--and I thank you from my heart--profoundly from the depths of my heart ... which is nearly all I can do.
One letter I began to write and asked in it how it could become me to speak at all if '_from the beginning and at this moment you never dreamed of_' ... and there, I stopped and tore the paper; because I felt that you were too loyal and generous, for me to bear to take a moment's advantage of the same, and bend down the very flowering branch of your generosity (as it might be) to thicken a little the fence of a woman's caution and reserve. You will not say that you have not acted as if you 'dreamed'--and I will answer therefore to the general sense of your letter and former letters, and admit at once that I _did_ state to you the difficulties most difficult to myself ... though not all ... and that if I had been worthier of you I should have been proportionably less in haste to 'bid you leave that subject.' I do not understand how you can seem at the same moment to have faith in my integrity and to have doubt whether all this time I may not have felt a preference for another ... which you are ready 'to serve,' you say. Which is generous in you--but in _me_, where were the integrity? Could you really hold me to be blameless, and do you think that truehearted women act usually so? Can it be necessary for me to tell you that I could not have acted so, and did not? And shall I shrink from telling you besides ... you, who have been generous to me and have a right to hear it ... and have spoken to me in the name of an affection and memory most precious and holy to me, in this same letter ... that neither now nor formerly has any man been to my feelings what you are ... and that if I were different in some respects and free in others by the providence of God, I would accept the great trust of your happiness, gladly, proudly, and gratefully; and give away my own life and soul to that end. I _would_ do it ... _not, I do_ ... observe! it is a truth without a consequence; only meaning that I am not all stone--only proving that I am not likely to consent to help you in wrong against yourself. You see in me what is not:--_that_, I know: and you overlook in me what is unsuitable to you ... _that_ I know, and have sometimes told you. Still, because a strong feeling from some sources is self-vindicating and ennobling to the object of it, I will not say that, if it were proved to me that you felt this for me, I would persist in putting the sense of my own unworthiness between you and me--not being heroic, you know, nor pretending to be so. But something worse than even a sense of unworthiness, _God_ has put between us! and judge yourself if to beat your thoughts against the immovable marble of it, can be anything but pain and vexation of spirit, waste and wear of spirit to you ... judge! The present is here to be seen ... speaking for itself! and the best future you can imagine for me, what a precarious thing it must be ... a thing for making burdens out of ... only not for your carrying, as I have vowed to my own soul. As dear Mr. Kenyon said to me to-day in his smiling kindness ... 'In ten years you may be strong perhaps'--or 'almost strong'! that being the encouragement of my best friends! What would he say, do you think, if he could know or guess...! what _could_ he say but that you were ... a poet!--and I ... still worse! _Never_ let him know or guess!
And so if you are wise and would be happy (and you have excellent practical sense after all and should exercise it) you must leave me--these thoughts of me, I mean ... for if we might not be true friends for ever, I should have less courage to say the other truth. But we may be friends always ... and cannot be so separated, that your happiness, in the knowledge of it, will not increase mine. And if you will be persuaded by me, as you say, you will be persuaded _thus_ ... and consent to take a resolution and force your mind at once into another channel. Perhaps I might bring you reasons of the class which you tell me 'would silence you for ever.' I might certainly tell you that my own father, if he knew that you had written to me _so_, and that I had answered you--_so_, even, would not forgive me at the end of ten years--and this, from none of the causes mentioned by me here and in no disrespect to your name and your position ... though he does not over-value poetry even in his daughter, and is apt to take the world's measures of the means of life ... but for the singular reason that he never _does_ tolerate in his family (sons or daughters) the development of one class of feelings. Such an objection I could not bring to you of my own will--it rang hollow in my ears--perhaps I thought even too little of it:--and I brought to you what I thought much of, and cannot cease to think much of equally. Worldly thoughts, these are not at all, nor have been: there need be no soiling of the heart with any such:--and I will say, in reply to some words of yours, that you cannot despise the gold and gauds of the world more than I do, and should do even if I found a use for them. And if I _wished_ to be very poor, in the world's sense of poverty, I _could not_, with three or four hundred a year of which no living will can dispossess me. And is it not the chief good of money, the being free from the need of thinking of it? It seems so to me.
The obstacles then are of another character, and the stronger for being so. Believe that I am grateful to you--_how_ grateful, cannot be shown in words nor even in tears ... grateful enough to be truthful in all ways. You know I might have hidden myself from you--but I would not: and by the truth told of myself, you may believe in the earnestness with which I tell the other truths--of you ... and of this subject. The subject will not bear consideration--it breaks in our hands. But that God is stronger than we, cannot be a bitter thought to you but a holy thought ... while He lets me, as much as I can be anyone's, be only yours.
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, September 17, 1845.]
I do not know whether you imagine the precise effect of your letter on me--very likely you do, and write it just for that--for I conceive _all_ from your goodness. But before I tell you what is that effect, let me say in as few words as possible what shall stop any fear--though only for a moment and on the outset--that you have been misunderstood, that the goodness _outside_, and round and over all, hides all or any thing. I understand you to signify to me that you see, at this present, insurmountable obstacles to that--can I speak it--entire gift, which I shall own, was, while I dared ask it, above my hopes--and wishes, even, so it seems to me ... and yet could not but be asked, so plainly was it dictated to me, by something quite out of those hopes and wishes. Will it help me to say that once in this Aladdin-cavern I knew I ought to stop for no heaps of jewel-fruit on the trees from the very beginning, but go on to the lamp, _the_ prize, the last and best of all? Well, I understand you to pronounce that at present you believe this gift impossible--and I acquiesce entirely--I submit wholly to you; repose on you in all the faith of which I am capable. Those obstacles are solely for _you_ to see and to declare ... had _I_ seen them, be sure I should never have mocked you or myself by affecting to pass them over ... what _were_ obstacles, I mean: but you _do_ see them, I must think,--and perhaps they strike me the more from my true, honest unfeigned inability to imagine what they are,--not that I shall endeavour. After what you _also_ apprise me of, I know and am joyfully confident that if ever they cease to be what you now consider them, you who see now _for me_, whom I implicitly trust in to see for me; you will _then_, too, see and remember me, and how I trust, and shall then be still trusting. And until you so see, and so inform me, I shall never utter a word--for that would involve the vilest of implications. I thank God--I _do_ thank him, that in this whole matter I have been, to the utmost of my power, not unworthy of his introducing you to me, in this respect that, being no longer in the first freshness of life, and having for many years now made up my mind to the impossibility of loving any woman ... having wondered at this in the beginning, and fought not a little against it, having acquiesced in it at last, and accounted for it all to myself, and become, if anything, rather proud of it than sorry ... I say, when real love, making itself at once recognized as such, _did_ reveal itself to me at last, I _did_ open my heart to it with a cry--nor care for its overturning all my theory--nor mistrust its effect upon a mind set in ultimate order, so I fancied, for the few years more--nor apprehend in the least that the new element would harm what was already organized without its help. Nor have I, either, been guilty of the more pardonable folly, of treating the new feeling after the pedantic fashions and instances of the world. I have not spoken when _it_ did not speak, because 'one' might speak, or has spoken, or _should_ speak, and 'plead' and all that miserable work which, after all, I may well continue proud that I am not called to attempt. _Here_ for instance, _now_ ... 'one' should despair; but 'try again' first, and work blindly at removing those obstacles (--if I saw them, I should be silent, and only speak when a month hence, ten years hence, I could bid you look where they _were_)--and 'one' would do all this, not for the _play-acting's_ sake, or to 'look the character' ... (_that_ would be something quite different from folly ...) but from a not unreasonable anxiety lest by too sudden a silence, too complete an acceptance of your will; the earnestness and endurance and unabatedness ... the _truth_, in fact, of what had already been professed, should get to be questioned--But I believe that you believe me--And now that all is clear between us I will say, what you will hear, without fearing for me or yourself, that I am utterly contented ... ('grateful' I have done with ... it must go--) I accept what you give me, what those words deliver to me, as--not all I asked for ... as I said ... but as more than I ever hoped for,--_all_, in the best sense, that I deserve. That phrase in my letter which you objected to, and the other--may stand, too--I never attempted to declare, describe my feeling for you--one word of course stood for it all ... but having to put down some one _point_, so to speak, of it--you could not wonder if I took any extreme one _first_ ... never minding all the untold portion that _led_ up to it, made it possible and natural--it is true, 'I could not dream of _that_'--that I was eager to get the horrible notion away from never so flitting a visit to you, that you were thus and thus to me _on condition_ of my proving just the same to you--just as if we had waited to acknowledge that the moon lighted us till we ascertained within these two or three hundred years that the earth happens to light the moon as well! But I felt that, and so said it:--now you have declared what I should never have presumed to hope--and I repeat to you that I, with all to be thankful for to God, am most of all thankful for this the last of his providences ... which is no doubt, the natural and inevitable feeling, could one always see clearly. Your regard for me is _all_ success--let the rest come, or not come. In my heart's thankfulness I would ... I am sure I would promise anything that would gratify you ... but it would _not_ do that, to agree, in words, to change my affections, put them elsewhere &c. &c. That would be pure foolish talking, and quite foreign to the practical results which you will attain in a better way from a higher motive. I will cheerfully promise you, however, to be 'bound by no words,' blind to no miracle; in sober earnest, it is not because I renounced once for all oxen and the owning and having to do with them, that I will obstinately turn away from any unicorn when such an apparition blesses me ... but meantime I shall walk at peace on our hills here nor go looking in all corners for the bright curved horn! And as for you ... if I did not dare 'to dream of that'--, now it is mine, my pride and joy prevent in no manner my taking the whole consolation of it at once, _now_--I will be confident that, if I obey you, I shall get no wrong for it--if, endeavouring to spare you fruitless pain, I do not eternally revert to the subject; do indeed 'quit' it just now, when no good can come of dwelling on it to you; you will never say to yourself--so I said--'the "generous impulse" _has_ worn itself out ... time is doing his usual work--this was to be expected' &c. &c. You will be the first to say to me 'such an obstacle has ceased to exist ... or is now become one palpable to _you_, one _you_ may try and overcome'--and I shall be there, and ready--ten years hence as now--if alive.
One final word on the other matters--the 'worldly matters'--I shall own I alluded to them rather ostentatiously, because--because _that would be_ the _one_ poor sacrifice I could make you--one I would cheerfully make, but a sacrifice, and the only one: this careless 'sweet habitude of living'--this absolute independence of mine, which, if I had it not, my heart would starve and die for, I feel, and which I have fought so many good battles to preserve--for that has happened, too--this light rational life I lead, and know so well that I lead; this I could give up for nothing less than--what you know--but I _would_ give it up, not for you merely, but for those whose disappointment might re-act on you--and I should break no promise to myself--the money getting would not be for the sake of _it_; 'the labour not for that which is nought'--indeed the necessity of doing this, if at all, _now_, was one of the reasons which make me go on to that _last request of all_--at once; one must not be too old, they say, to begin their ways. But, in spite of all the babble, I feel sure that whenever I make up my mind to that, I can be rich enough and to spare--because along with what you have thought _genius_ in me, is certainly talent, what the world recognizes as such; and I have tried it in various ways, just to be sure that I _was_ a little magnanimous in never intending to use it. Thus, in more than one of the reviews and newspapers that laughed my 'Paracelsus' to scorn ten years ago--in the same column, often, of these reviews, would follow a most laudatory notice of an Elementary French book, on a new plan, which I '_did_' for my old French master, and he published--'_that_ was really an useful work'!--So that when the only obstacle is only that there is so much _per annum_ to be producible, you will tell me. After all it would be unfair in me not to confess that this was always intended to be _my_ own single stipulation--'an objection' which I could see, certainly,--but meant to treat myself to the little luxury of removing.
So, now, dearest--let me once think of that, and of you as my own, my dearest--this once--dearest, I have done with words for the present. I will wait. God bless you and reward you--I kiss your hands _now_. This is my comfort, that if you accept my feeling as all but _un_expressed now, more and more will become spoken--or understood, that is--we both live on--you will know better _what_ it was, how much and manifold, what one little word had to give out.
God bless you--
Your R.B.
On Thursday,--you remember?
This is Tuesday Night--
I called on Saturday at the Office in St. Mary Axe--all uncertainty about the vessel's sailing again for Leghorn--it could not sail before the middle of the month--and only then _if_ &c. But if I would leave my card &c. &c.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, September 17, 1845.]
I write one word just to say that it is all over with Pisa; which was a probable evil when I wrote last, and which I foresaw from the beginning--being a prophetess, you know. I cannot tell you now how it has all happened--_only do not blame me_, for I have kept my ground to the last, and only yield when Mr. Kenyon and all the world see that there is no standing. I am ashamed almost of having put so much earnestness into a personal matter--and I spoke face to face and quite firmly--so as to pass with my sisters for the 'bravest person in the house' without contestation.
Sometimes it seems to me as if it _could not_ end so--I mean, that the responsibility of such a negative must be reconsidered ... and you see how Mr. Kenyon writes to me. Still, as the matter lies, ... no Pisa! And, as I said before, my prophetic instincts are not likely to fail, such as they have been from the beginning.
If you wish to come, it must not be until Saturday at soonest. I have a headache and am weary at heart with all this vexation--and besides there is no haste now: and when you do come, _if you do_, I will trust to you not to recur to one subject, which must lie where it fell ... must! I had begun to write to you on Saturday, to say how I had forgotten to give you your MSS. which were lying ready for you ... the _Hood_ poems. Would it not be desirable that you made haste to see them through the press, and went abroad with your Roman friends at once, to try to get rid of that uneasiness in the head? Do think of it--and more than think.
For me, you are not to fancy me unwell. Only, not to be worn a little with the last week's turmoil, were impossible--and Mr. Kenyon said to me yesterday that he quite wondered how I could bear it at all, do anything reasonable at all, and confine my misdoings to sending letters addressed to him at Brighton, when he was at Dover! If anything changes, you shall hear from--
E.B.B.
Mr. Kenyon returns to Dover immediately. His kindness is impotent in the case.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Evening. [Post-mark, September 18, 1845.]
But one word before we leave the subject, and then to leave it finally; but I cannot let you go on to fancy a mystery anywhere, in obstacles or the rest. You deserve at least a full frankness; and in my letter I meant to be fully frank. I even told you what was an absurdity, so absurd that I should far rather not have told you at all, only that I felt the need of telling you all: and no mystery is involved in that, except as an 'idiosyncrasy' is a mystery. But the 'insurmountable' difficulty is for you and everybody to see; and for me to feel, who have been a very byword among the talkers, for a confirmed invalid through months and years, and who, even if I were going to Pisa and had the best prospects possible to me, should yet remain liable to relapses and stand on precarious ground to the end of my life. Now that is no mystery for the trying of 'faith'; but a plain fact, which neither thinking nor speaking can make less a fact. But _don't_ let us speak of it.
I must speak, however, (before the silence) of what you said and repeat in words for which I gratefully thank you--and which are _not_ 'ostentatious' though unnecessary words--for, if I were in a position to accept sacrifices from you, I would not accept _such_ a sacrifice ... amounting to a sacrifice of duty and dignity as well as of ease and satisfaction ... to an exchange of higher work for lower work ... and of the special work you are called to, for that which is work for anybody. I am not so ignorant of the right uses and destinies of what you have and are. You will leave the Solicitor-Generalships to the Fitzroy Kellys, and justify your own nature; and besides, do me the little right, (_over_ the _over_-right you are always doing me) of believing that I would not bear or dare to do _you_ so much wrong, if I were in the position to do it.
And for all the rest I thank you--believe that I thank you ... and that the feeling is not so weak as the word. That _you_ should care at all for _me_ has been a matter of unaffected wonder to me from the first hour until now--and I cannot help the pain I feel sometimes, in thinking that it would have been better for you if you never had known me. May God turn back the evil of me! Certainly I admit that I cannot expect you ... just at this moment, ... to say more than you say, ... and I shall try to be at ease in the consideration that you are as accessible to the 'unicorn' now as you ever could be at any former period of your life. And here I have done. I had done _living_, I thought, when you came and sought me out! and why? and to what end? _That_, I cannot help thinking now. Perhaps just that I may pray for you--which were a sufficient end. If you come on Saturday I trust you to leave this subject untouched,--as it must be indeed henceforth.
I am yours,
E.B.B.
No word more of Pisa--I shall not go, I think.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, September 18, 1845.]
Words!--it was written I should hate and never use them to any purpose. I will not say one word here--very well knowing neither word nor deed avails--from me.
My letter will have reassured you on the point you seem undecided about--whether I would speak &c.
I will come whenever you shall signify that I may ... whenever, acting in my best interests, you feel that it will not hurt you (weary you in any way) to see me--but I fear that on Saturday I must be otherwhere--I enclose the letter from my old foe. Which could not but melt me for all my moroseness and I can hardly go and return for my sister in time. Will you tell me?
It is dark--but I want to save the post--
Ever yours
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday. [Post-mark, September 18, 1845.]
Of course you cannot do otherwise than go with your sister--or it will be 'Every man _out_ of his humour' perhaps--and you are not so very 'savage' after all.
On Monday then, if you do not hear--to the contrary.
Papa has been walking to and fro in this room, looking thoughtfully and talking leisurely--and every moment I have expected I confess, some word (that did not come) about Pisa. Mr. Kenyon thinks it cannot end so--and I do sometimes--and in the meantime I do confess to a little 'savageness' also--at heart! All I asked him to say the other day, was that he was not displeased with me--_and he wouldn't_; and for me to walk across his displeasure spread on the threshold of the door, and moreover take a sister and brother with me, and do such a thing for the sake of going to Italy and securing a personal advantage, were altogether impossible, obviously impossible! So poor Papa is quite in disgrace with me just now--if he would but care for _that_!
May God bless you. Amuse yourself well on Saturday. I could not see you on Thursday any way, for Mr. Kenyon is here every day ... staying in town just on account of this Pisa business, in his abundant kindness.... On Monday then.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, September 18, 1845.]
But you, too, will surely want, if you think me a rational creature, _my_ explanation--without which all that I have said and done would be pure madness, I think. It _is_ just 'what I see' that I _do_ see,--or rather it has proved, since I first visited you, that the reality was infinitely worse than I know it to be ... for at, and after the writing of _that first letter_, on my first visit, I believed--through some silly or misapprehended talk, collected at second hand too--that your complaint was of quite another nature--a spinal injury irremediable in the nature of it. Had it been _so_--now speak for _me_, for what you hope I am, and say how _that_ should affect or neutralize what you _were_, what I wished to associate with myself in you? But _as you now are_:--then if I had married you seven years ago, and this visitation came now first, I should be 'fulfilling a pious duty,' I suppose, in enduring what could not be amended--a pattern to good people in not running away ... for where were _now_ the use and the good and the profit and--
I desire in this life (with very little fluctuation for a man and too weak a one) to live and just write out certain things which are in me, and so save my soul. I would endeavour to do this if I were forced to 'live among lions' as you once said--but I should best do this if I lived quietly with myself and with you. That you cannot dance like Cerito does not materially disarrange this plan--nor that I might (beside the perpetual incentive and sustainment and consolation) get, over and above the main reward, the incidental, particular and unexpected happiness of being allowed when not working to rather occupy myself with watching you, than with certain other pursuits I might be otherwise addicted to--_this_, also, does not constitute an obstacle, as I see obstacles.
But _you_ see them--and I see _you_, and know my first duty and do it resolutely if not cheerfully.
As for referring again, till leave by word or letter--you will see--
And very likely, the tone of this letter even will be misunderstood--because I studiously cut out all vain words, protesting &c.:--No--will it?
I said, unadvisedly, that Saturday was taken from me ... but it was dark and I had not looked at the tickets: the hour of the performance is later than I thought. If to-morrow does not suit you, as I infer, let it be Saturday--at 3--and I will leave earlier, a little, and all will be quite right here. One hint will apprise me.
God bless you, dearest friend.
R.B.
Something else just heard, makes me reluctantly strike out _Saturday_--
_Monday_ then?
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Morning. [Post-mark, September 19, 1845.]
It is not 'misunderstanding' you to know you to be the most generous and loyal of all in the world--you overwhelm me with your generosity--only while you see from above and I from below, we cannot see the same thing in the same light. Moreover, if we _did_, I should be more beneath you in one sense, than I am. Do me the justice of remembering this whenever you recur in thought to the subject which ends here in the words of it.
I began to write last Saturday to thank you for all the delight I had had in Shelley, though you beguiled me about the pencil-marks, which are few. Besides the translations, some of the original poems were not in my copy and were, so, quite new to me. 'Marianne's Dream' I had been anxious about to no end--I only know it now.--
On Monday at the usual hour. As to coming twice into town on Saturday, that would have been quite foolish if it had been possible.
Dearest friend,
I am yours,
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, September 24, 1845.]
I have nothing to say about Pisa, ... but a great deal (if I could say it) about _you_, who do what is wrong by your own confession and are ill because of it and make people uneasy--now _is_ it right altogether? is it right to do wrong?... for it comes to _that_:--and is it kind to do so much wrong?... for it comes almost to _that_ besides. Ah--you should not indeed! I seem to see quite plainly that you will be ill in a serious way, if you do not take care and take exercise; and so you must consent to be teazed a little into taking both. And if you will not take them here ... or not so effectually as in other places; _why not go with your Italian friends_? Have you thought of it at all? _I_ have been thinking since yesterday that it might be best for you to go at once, now that the probability has turned quite against me. If I were going, I should ask you not to do so immediately ... but you see how unlikely it is!--although I mean still to speak my whole thoughts--I _will do that_ ... even though for the mere purpose of self-satisfaction. George came last night--but there is an adverse star this morning, and neither of us has the opportunity necessary. Only both he and I _will speak_--that is certain. And Arabel had the kindness to say yesterday that if I liked to go, she would go with me at whatever hazard--which is very kind--but you know I could not--it would not be right of me. And perhaps after all we may gain the point lawfully; and if not ... at the worst ... the winter may be warm (it is better to fall into the hands of God, as the Jew said) and I may lose less strength than usual, ... having more than usual to lose ... and altogether it may not be so bad an alternative. As to being the cause of any anger against my sister, you would not advise me into such a position, I am sure--it would be untenable for one moment.
But _you_ ... in that case, ... would it not be good for your head if you went at once? I praise myself for saying so to you--yet if it really is good for you, I don't deserve the praising at all. And how was it on Saturday--that question I did not ask yesterday--with Ben Jonson and the amateurs? I thought of you at the time--I mean, on that Saturday evening, nevertheless.
You shall hear when there is any more to say. May God bless you, dearest friend! I am ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Evening. [Post-mark, September 25, 1845.]
I walked to town, this morning, and back again--so that when I found your note on my return, and knew what you had been enjoining me in the way of exercise, I seemed as if I knew, too, why that energetic fit had possessed me and why I succumbed to it so readily. You shall never have to intimate twice to me that such an insignificant thing, even, as the taking exercise should be done. Besides, I have many motives now for wishing to continue well. But Italy _just now_--Oh, no! My friends would go through Pisa, too.
On that subject I must not speak. And you have 'more strength to lose,' and are so well, evidently so well; that is, so much better, so sure to be still better--can it be that you will not go!
Here are your new notes on my verses. Where are my words for the thanks? But you know what I feel, and shall feel--ever feel--for these and for all. The notes would be beyond price to me if they came from some dear Phemius of a teacher--but from you!
The Theatricals 'went off' with great éclat, and the performance was really good, really clever or better. Forster's 'Kitely' was very emphatic and earnest, and grew into great interest, quite up to the poet's allotted tether, which is none of the longest. He pitched the character's key note too gravely, I thought; _beginning_ with certainty, rather than mere suspicion, of evil. Dickens' 'Bobadil' _was_ capital--with perhaps a little too much of the consciousness of entire cowardice ... which I don't so willingly attribute to the noble would-be pacificator of Europe, besieger of Strigonium &c.--but the end of it all was really pathetic, as it should be, for Bobadil is only too clever for the company of fools he makes wonderment for: having once the misfortune to relish their society, and to need but too pressingly their 'tobacco-money,' what can he do but suit himself to their capacities?--And D. Jerrold was very amusing and clever in his 'Country Gull'--And Mr. Leech superb in the Town Master Mathew. All were good, indeed, and were voted good, and called on, and cheered off, and praised heartily behind their backs and before the curtain. Stanfield's function had exercise solely in the touching up (very effectively) sundry 'Scenes'--painted scenes--and the dresses, which were perfect, had the advantage of Mr. Maclise's experience. And--all is told!
And now; I shall hear, you promise me, if anything occurs--with what feeling, I wait and hope, you know. If there is _no_ best of reasons against it, Saturday, you remember, is my day--This fine weather, too!
May God bless my dearest friend--
Ever yours
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, September 25, 1845.]
I have spoken again, and the result is that we are in precisely the same position; only with bitterer feelings on one side. If I go or stay they _must_ be bitter: words have been said that I cannot easily forget, nor remember without pain; and yet I really do almost smile in the midst of it all, to think how I was treated this morning as an undutiful daughter because I tried to put on my gloves ... for there was no worse provocation. At least he complained of the undutifulness and rebellion (!!!) of everyone in the house--and when I asked if he meant that reproach for _me_, the answer was that he meant it for all of us, one with another. And I could not get an answer. He would not even grant me the consolation of thinking that I sacrificed what I supposed to be good, to _him_. I told him that my prospects of health seemed to me to depend on taking this step, but that through my affection for him, I was ready to sacrifice those to his pleasure if he exacted it--only it was necessary to my self-satisfaction in future years, to understand definitely that the sacrifice _was_ exacted by him and _was_ made to him, ... and not thrown away blindly and by a misapprehension. And he would not answer _that_. I might do my own way, he said--_he_ would not speak--_he_ would not say that he was not displeased with me, nor the contrary:--I had better do what I liked:--for his part, he washed his hands of me altogether.
And so I have been very wise--witness how my eyes are swelled with annotations and reflections on all this! The best of it is that now George himself admits I can do no more in the way of speaking, ... I have no spell for charming the dragons, ... and allows me to be passive and enjoins me to be tranquil, and not 'make up my mind' to any dreadful exertion for the future. Moreover he advises me to go on with the preparations for the voyage, and promises to state the case himself at the last hour to the 'highest authority'; and judge finally whether it be possible for me to go with the necessary companionship. And it seems best to go to Malta on the 3rd of October--if at all ... from steam-packet reasons ... without excluding Pisa ... remember ... by any means.
Well!--and what do you think? Might it be desirable for me to give up the whole? Tell me. I feel aggrieved of course and wounded--and whether I go or stay that feeling must last--I cannot help it. But my spirits sink altogether at the thought of leaving England _so_--and then I doubt about Arabel and Stormie ... and it seems to me that I _ought not_ to mix them up in a business of this kind where the advantage is merely personal to myself. On the other side, George holds that if I give up and stay even, there will be displeasure just the same, ... and that, when once gone, the irritation will exhaust and smooth itself away--which however does not touch my chief objection. Would it be better ... more _right_ ... to give it up? Think for me. Even if I hold on to the last, at the last I shall be thrown off--_that_ is my conviction. But ... shall I give up _at once_? Do think for me.
And I have thought that if you like to come on Friday instead of Saturday ... as there is the uncertainty about next week, ... it would divide the time more equally: but let it be as you like and according to circumstances as you see them. Perhaps you have decided to go at once with your friends--who knows? I wish I could know that you were better to-day. May God bless you
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, September 25, 1845.]
You have said to me more than once that you wished I might never know certain feelings _you_ had been forced to endure. I suppose all of us have the proper place where a blow should fall to be felt most--and I truly wish _you_ may never feel what I have to bear in looking on, quite powerless, and silent, while you are subjected to this treatment, which I refuse to characterize--so blind is it _for_ blindness. I think I ought to understand what a father may exact, and a child should comply with; and I respect the most ambiguous of love's caprices if they give never so slight a clue to their all-justifying source. Did I, when you signified to me the probable objections--you remember what--to myself, my own happiness,--did I once allude to, much less argue against, or refuse to acknowledge those objections? For I wholly sympathize, however it go against me, with the highest, wariest, pride and love for you, and the proper jealousy and vigilance they entail--but now, and here, the jewel is not being over guarded, but ruined, cast away. And whoever is privileged to interfere should do so in the possessor's own interest--all common sense interferes--all rationality against absolute no-reason at all. And you ask whether you ought to obey this no-reason? I will tell you: all passive obedience and implicit submission of will and intellect is by far too easy, if well considered, to be the course prescribed by God to Man in this life of probation--for they _evade_ probation altogether, though foolish people think otherwise. Chop off your legs, you will never go astray; stifle your reason altogether and you will find it is difficult to reason ill. 'It is hard to make these sacrifices!'--not so hard as to lose the reward or incur the penalty of an Eternity to come; 'hard to effect them, then, and go through with them'--_not_ hard, when the leg is to be _cut off_--that it is rather harder to keep it quiet on a stool, I know very well. The
## partial indulgence, the proper exercise of one's faculties, there is
the difficulty and problem for solution, set by that Providence which might have made the laws of Religion as indubitable as those of vitality, and revealed the articles of belief as certainly as that condition, for instance, by which we breathe so many times in a minute to support life. But there is no reward proposed for the feat of breathing, and a great one for that of believing--consequently there must go a great deal more of voluntary effort to this latter than is implied in the getting absolutely rid of it at once, by adopting the direction of an infallible church, or private judgment of another--for all our life is some form of religion, and all our action some belief, and there is but one law, however modified, for the greater and the less. In your case I do think you are called upon to do your duty to yourself; that is, to God in the end. Your own reason should examine the whole matter in dispute by every light which can be put in requisition; and every interest that appears to be affected by your conduct should have its utmost claims considered--your father's in the first place; and that interest, not in the miserable limits of a few days' pique or whim in which it would seem to express itself; but in its whole extent ... the _hereafter_ which all momentary passion prevents him seeing ... indeed, the _present_ on either side which everyone else must see. And this examination made, with whatever earnestness you will, I do think and am sure that on its conclusion you should act, in confidence that a duty has been performed ... _difficult_, or how were it a duty? Will it _not_ be infinitely harder to act so than to blindly adopt his pleasure, and die under it? Who can _not_ do that?
I fling these hasty rough words over the paper, fast as they will fall--knowing to whom I cast them, and that any sense they may contain or point to, will be caught and understood, and presented in a better light. The hard thing ... this is all I want to say ... is to act on one's own best conviction--not to abjure it and accept another will, and say '_there_ is my plain duty'--easy it is, whether plain or no!
How 'all changes!' When I first knew you--you know what followed. I supposed you to labour under an incurable complaint--and, of course, to be completely dependent on your father for its commonest alleviations; the moment after that inconsiderate letter, I reproached myself bitterly with the selfishness apparently involved in any proposition I might then have made--for though I have never been at all frightened of the world, nor mistrustful of my power to deal with it, and get my purpose out of it if once I thought it worth while, yet I could not but feel the consideration, of _what_ failure would _now_ be, paralyse all effort even in fancy. When you told me lately that 'you could never be poor'--all my solicitude was at an end--I had but myself to care about, and I told you, what I believed and believe, that I can at any time amply provide for that, and that I could cheerfully and confidently undertake the removing _that_ obstacle. Now again the circumstances shift--and you are in what I should wonder at as the veriest slavery--and I who _could_ free you from it, I am here scarcely daring to write ... though I know you must feel for me and forgive what forces itself from me ... what retires so mutely into my heart at your least word ... what _shall not_ be again written or spoken, if you so will ... that I should be made happy beyond all hope of expression by. Now while I _dream_, let me once dream! I would marry you now and thus--I would come when you let me, and go when you bade me--I would be no more than one of your brothers--'_no more_'--that is, instead of getting to-morrow for Saturday, I should get Saturday as well--two hours for one--when your head ached I should be _here_. I deliberately choose the realization of that dream (--of sitting simply by you for an hour every day) rather than any other, excluding you, I am able to form for this world, or any world I know--And it will continue but a dream.
God bless my dearest E.B.B.
R.B.
You understand that I see you to-morrow, Friday, as you propose.
I am better--thank you--and will go out to-day.
You know what I am, what I would speak, and all I would do.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening. [Post-mark, September 27, 1845.]
I had your letter late last night, everyone almost, being out of the house by an accident, so that it was left in the letter-box, and if I had wished to answer it before I saw you, it had scarcely been possible.
But it will be the same thing--for you know as well as if you saw my answer, what it must be, what it cannot choose but be, on pain of sinking me so infinitely below not merely your level but my own, that the depth cannot bear a glance down. Yet, though I am not made of such clay as to admit of my taking a base advantage of certain noble extravagances, (and that I am not I thank God for your sake) I will say, I must say, that your words in this letter have done me good and made me happy, ... that I thank and bless you for them, ... and that to receive such a proof of attachment from _you_, not only overpowers every present evil, but seems to me a full and abundant amends for the merely personal sufferings of my whole life. When I had read that letter last night I _did_ think so. I looked round and round for the small bitternesses which for several days had been bitter to me, and I could not find one of them. The tear-marks went away in the moisture of new, happy tears. Why, how else could I have felt? how else do you think I could? How would any woman have felt ... who could feel at all ... hearing such words said (though 'in a dream' indeed) by such a speaker?
And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even _you_ could have touched me--my heart was full when you came here to-day. Henceforward I am yours for everything but to do you harm--and I am yours too much, in my heart, ever to consent to do you harm in that way. If I could consent to do it, not only should I be less loyal ... but in one sense, less yours. I say this to you without drawback and reserve, because it is all I am able to say, and perhaps all I _shall_ be able to say. However this may be, a promise goes to you in it that none, except God and your will, shall interpose between you and me, ... I mean, that if He should free me within a moderate time from the trailing chain of this weakness, I will then be to you whatever at that hour you shall choose ... whether friend or more than friend ... a friend to the last in any case. So it rests with God and with you--only in the meanwhile you are most absolutely free ... 'unentangled' (as they call it) by the breadth of a thread--and if I did not know that you considered yourself so, I would not see you any more, let the effort cost me what it might. You may force me _feel_: ... but you cannot force me to _think_ contrary to my first thought ... that it were better for you to forget me at once in one relation. And if better for _you_, can it be bad for _me_? which flings me down on the stone-pavement of the logicians.
And now if I ask a boon of you, will you forget afterwards that it ever was asked? I have hesitated a great deal; but my face is down on the stone-pavement--no--I will not ask to-day--It shall be for another day--and may God bless you on this and on those that come after, my dearest friend.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, September 27, 1845.]
Think for me, speak for me, my dearest, _my own_! You that are all great-heartedness and generosity, do that one more generous thing?
God bless you for
R.B.
What can it be you ask of me!--'a boon'--once my answer to _that_ had been the plain one--but now ... when I have better experience of--No, now I have BEST experience of how you understand my interests; that at last we _both_ know what is my true good--so ask, ask! _My own_, now! For there it is!--oh, do not fear I am '_entangled_'--my crown is loose on my head, not nailed there--my pearl lies in my hand--I may return it to the sea, if I will!
What is it you ask of me, this first asking?
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, September 29, 1845.]
Then _first_, ... first, I ask you not to misunderstand. Because we do not ... no, we do not ... agree (but disagree) as to 'what is your true good' ... but disagree, and as widely as ever indeed.
The other asking shall come in its season ... some day before I go, if I go. It only relates to a restitution--and you cannot guess it if you try ... so don't try!--and perhaps you can't grant it if you try--and I cannot guess.
Cabins and berths all taken in the Malta steamer for both third and twentieth of October! see what dark lanterns the stars hold out, and how I shall stay in England after all as I think! And thus we are thrown back on the old Gibraltar scheme with its shifting of steamers ... unless we take the dreary alternative of Madeira!--or Cadiz! Even suppose Madeira, ... why it were for a few months alone--and there would be no temptation to loiter as in Italy.
_Don't_ think too hardly of poor Papa. You have his wrong side ... his side of peculiar wrongness ... to you just now. When you have walked round him you will have other thoughts of him.
Are you better, I wonder? and taking exercise and trying to be better? May God bless you! Tuesday need not be the last day if you like to take one more besides--for there is no going until the fourth or seventh, ... and the seventh is the more probable of those two. But now you have done with me until Tuesday.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday. [Post-mark, October 1, 1845.]
I have read to the last line of your 'Rosicrucian'; and my scepticism grew and grew through Hume's process of doubtful doubts, and at last rose to the full stature of incredulity ... for I never could believe Shelley capable of such a book (call it a book!), not even with a flood of boarding-school idiocy dashed in by way of dilution. Altogether it roused me to deny myself so far as to look at the date of the book, and to get up and travel to the other end of the room to confront it with other dates in the 'Letters from Abroad' ... (I, who never think of a date except the 'A.D.,' and am inclined every now and then to write _that_ down as 1548 ...) well! and on comparing these dates in these two volumes before my eyes, I find that your Rosicrucian was 'printed for Stockdale' in _1822_, and that Shelley _died in the July of the same year_!!--There, is a vindicating fact for you! And unless the 'Rosicrucian' went into more editions than one, and dates here from a later one, ... which is not ascertainable from this fragment of a titlepage, ... the innocence of the great poet stands proved--now doesn't it? For nobody will say that he published such a book in the last year of his life, in the maturity of his genius, and that Godwin's daughter helped him in it! That 'dripping dew' from the skeleton is the only living word in the book!--which really amused me notwithstanding, from the intense absurdity of the whole composition ... descriptions ... sentiments ... and morals.
Judge yourself if I had not better say 'No' about the cloak! I would take it if you wished such a kindness to me--and although you might find it very useful to yourself ... or to your mother or sister ... still if you _wished_ me to take it I should like to have it, and the mantle of the prophet might bring me down something of his spirit! but do you remember ... do you consider ... how many talkers there are in this house, and what would be talked--or that it is not worth while to provoke it all? And Papa, knowing it, would not like it--and altogether it is far better, believe me, that you should keep your own cloak, and I, the thought of the kindness you meditated in respect to it. I have heard nothing more--nothing.
I was asked the other day by a very young friend of mine ... the daughter of an older friend who once followed you up-stairs in this house ... Mr. Hunter, an Independent minister ... for 'Mr. Browning's autograph.' She wants it for a collection ... for her album--and so, will you write out a verse or two on one side of note paper ... not as you write for the printers ... and let me keep my promise and send it to her? I forgot to ask you before. Or one verse will do ... anything will do ... and don't let me be bringing you into vexation. It need not be of MS. rarity.
You are not better ... really ... I fear. And your mother's being ill affects you more than you like to admit, I fear besides. Will you, when you write, say how _both_ are ... nothing extenuating, you know. May God bless you, my dearest friend.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday. [Post-mark, October 2, 1845.]
Well, let us hope against hope in the sad matter of the novel--yet, yet,--it _is_ by Shelley, if you will have the truth--as I happen to _know_--proof _last_ being that Leigh Hunt told me he unearthed it in Shelley's own library at Marlow once, to the writer's horror and shame--'He snatched it out of my hands'--said H. Yet I thrust it into yours ... so much for the subtle fence of friends who reach your heart by a side-thrust, as I told you on Tuesday, after the enemy has fallen back breathless and baffled. As for the date, that Stockdale was a notorious pirate and raker-up of rash publications ... and, do you know, I suspect the _title-page_ is all that boasts such novelty,--see if the _book_, the inside leaves, be not older evidently!--a common trick of the 'trade' to this day. The history of this and 'Justrozzi,' as it is spelt,--the other novel,--may be read in Medwin's 'Conversations'--and, as I have been told, in Lady Ch. Bury's 'Reminiscences' or whatever she calls them ... the 'Guistrozzi' was _certainly_ 'written in concert with'--somebody or other ... for I confess the whole story grows monstrous and even the froth of wine strings itself in bright bubbles,--ah, but this was the scum of the fermenting vat, do you see? I am happy to say I forget the novel entirely, or almost--and only keep the exact impression which you have gained ... through me! 'The fair cross of gold _he dashed on the floor_'--(_that_ is my pet-line ... because the 'chill dew' of a place not commonly supposed to favour humidity is a plagiarism from Lewis's 'Monk,' it now flashes on me! Yes, Lewis, too, puts the phrase into intense italics.) And now, please read a chorus in the 'Prometheus Unbound' or a scene from the 'Cenci'--and join company with Shelley again!
--From 'chill dew' I come to the _cloak_--you are quite right--and I give up that fancy. Will you, then, take one more precaution when _all_ proper safe-guards have been adopted; and, when _everything_ is sure, contrive some one sureness besides, against cold or wind or sea-air; and say '_this_--for the cloak which is not here, and to help the heart's wish which is,'--so I shall be there _palpably_. Will you do this? Tell me you will, to-morrow--and tell me all good news.
My Mother suffers still.... I hope she is no worse--but a little better--certainly better. I am better too, in my unimportant way.
Now I will write you the verses ... some easy ones out of a paper-full meant to go between poem and poem in my next number, and break the shock of collision.
Let me kiss your hand--dearest! My heart and life--all is yours, and forever--God make you happy as I am through you--Bless you
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, October 6, 1845.]
Tuesday is given up in full council. The thing is beyond doubting of, as George says and as you thought yesterday. And then George has it in his head to beguile the Duke of Palmella out of a smaller cabin, so that I might sail from the Thames on the twentieth--and whether he succeeds or not, I humbly confess that one of the chief advantages of the new plan if not the very chief (as _I_ see it) is just in the _delay_.
Your spring-song is full of beauty as you know very well--and 'that's the wise thrush,' so characteristic of you (and of the thrush too) that I was sorely tempted to ask you to write it 'twice over,' ... and not send the first copy to Mary Hunter notwithstanding my promise to her. And now when you come to print these fragments, would it not be well if you were to stoop to the vulgarism of prefixing some word of introduction, as other people do, you know, ... a title ... a name? You perplex your readers often by casting yourself on their intelligence in these things--and although it is true that readers in general are stupid and can't understand, it is still more true that they are lazy and won't understand ... and they don't catch your point of sight at first unless you think it worth while to push them by the shoulders and force them into the right place. Now these fragments ... you mean to print them with a line between ... and not one word at the top of it ... now don't you! And then people will read
Oh, to be in England
and say to themselves ... 'Why who is this? ... who's out of England?' Which is an extreme case of course; but you will see what I mean ... and often I have observed how some of the very most beautiful of your lyrics have suffered just from your disdain of the usual tactics of writers in this one respect.
And you are not better, still--you are worse instead of better ... are you not? Tell me--And what can you mean about 'unimportance,' when you were worse last week ... this expiring week ... than ever before, by your own confession? And now?--And your mother?
Yes--I promise! And so, ... _Elijah_ will be missed instead of his mantle ... which will be a losing contract after all. But it shall be as you say. May you be able to say that you are better! God bless you.
Ever yours.
Never think of the 'White Slave.' I had just taken it up. The trash of it is prodigious--far beyond Mr. Smythe. Not that I can settle upon a book just now, in all this wind, to judge of it fairly.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Morning. [Post-mark, October 6, 1845.]
I should certainly think that the Duke of Palmella may be induced, and with no great difficulty, to give up a cabin under the circumstances--and _then_ the plan becomes really objection-proof, so far as mortal plans go. But now you must think all the boldlier about whatever difficulties remain, just because they are so much the fewer. It _is_ cold already in the mornings and evenings--cold and (this morning) foggy--I did not ask if you continue to go out from time to time.... I am sure you _should_,--you would so prepare yourself properly for the fatigue and change--yesterday it was very warm and fine in the afternoon, nor is this noontime so bad, if the requisite precautions are taken. And do make 'journeys across the room,' and out of it, meanwhile, and _stand_ when possible--get all the strength ready, now that so much is to be spent. Oh, if I were by you!
Thank you, thank you--I will devise titles--I quite see what you say, now you do say it. I am (this Monday morning, the prescribed day for efforts and beginnings) looking over and correcting what you read--to press they shall go, and then the plays can follow gently, and then ... 'Oh to be in Pisa. Now that E.B.B. is there!'--And I _shall_ be there!... I am much better to-day; and my mother better--and to-morrow I shall see you--So come good things together!
Dearest--till to-morrow and ever I am yours, wholly yours--May God bless you!
R.B.
You do not ask me that 'boon'--why is that?--Besides, I have my own _real_ boons to ask too, as you will inevitably find, and I shall perhaps get heart by your example.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, October 7, 1845.]
Ah but the good things do _not_ come together--for just as your letter comes I am driven to asking you to leave Tuesday for Wednesday.
On Tuesday Mr. Kenyon is to be here or not to be here, he says--there's a doubt; and you would rather go to a clear day. So if you do not hear from me again I shall expect you on _Wednesday_ unless I hear to the contrary from you:--and if anything happens to Wednesday you shall hear. Mr. Kenyon is in town for only two days, or three. I never could grumble against him, so good and kind as he is--but he may not come after all to-morrow--so it is not grudging the obolus to Belisarius, but the squandering of the last golden days at the bottom of the purse.
Do I 'stand'--Do I walk? Yes--most uprightly. I 'walk upright every day.' Do I go out? no, never. And I am not to be scolded for _that_, because when you were looking at the sun to-day, I was marking the east wind; and perhaps if I had breathed a breath of it ... farewell Pisa. People who can walk don't always walk into the lion's den as a consequence--do they? should they? Are you 'sure that they should?' I write in great haste. So Wednesday then ... perhaps!
And yours every day.
You understand. Wednesday--if nothing to the contrary.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
12--Wednesday. [Post-mark, October 8, 1845.]
Well, dearest, at all events I get up with the assurance I shall see you, and go on till the fatal 11-1/4 p.m. believing in the same, and _then_, if after all there _does_ come such a note as this with its instructions, why, first, it _is_ such a note and such a gain, and next it makes a great day out of to-morrow that was to have been so little of a day, that is all. Only, only, I am suspicious, now, of a real loss to me in the end; for, _putting_ off yesterday, I dared put off (on your part) Friday to Saturday ... while _now_ ... what shall be said to that?
Dear Mr. Kenyon to be the smiling inconscious obstacle to any pleasure of mine, if it were merely pleasure!
But I want to catch our next post--to-morrow, then, excepting what is to be excepted!
Bless you, my dearest--
Your own
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Evening. [Post-mark, October 8, 1845.]
Mr. Kenyon never came. My sisters met him in the street, and he had been 'detained all day in the city and would certainly be here to-morrow,' Wednesday! And so you see what has happened to Wednesday! Moreover he may come besides on Thursday, ... I can answer for nothing. Only if I do not write and if you find Thursday admissible, will you come then? In the case of an obstacle, you shall hear. And it is not (in the meantime) my fault--now is it? I have been quite enough vexed about it, indeed.
Did the Monday work work harm to the head, I wonder? I do fear so that you won't get through those papers with impunity--especially if the plays are to come after ... though ever so 'gently.' And if you are to suffer, it would be right to tongue-tie that silver Bell, and leave the congregations to their selling of cabbages. Which is unphilanthropic of me perhaps, ... [Greek: ô philtate].
Be sure that I shall be 'bold' when the time for going comes--and both bold and capable of the effort. I am desired to keep to the respirator and the cabin for a day or two, while the cold can reach us; and midway in the bay of Biscay some change of climate may be felt, they say. There is no sort of danger for me; except that I shall _stay in England_. And why is it that I feel to-night more than ever almost, as if I should stay in England? Who can tell? _I_ can tell one thing. _If_ I stay, it will not be from a failure in my resolution--_that will_ not be--_shall_ not be. Yes--and Mr. Kenyon and I agreed the other day that there was something of the tigress-nature very distinctly cognisable under what he is pleased to call my 'Ba-lambishness.'
Then, on Thursday!... unless something happens to _Thursday_ ... and I shall write in that case. And I trust to you (as always) to attend to your own convenience--just as you may trust to me to remember my own 'boon.' Ah--you are curious, I think! Which is scarcely wise of you--because it _may_, you know, be the roc's egg after all. But no, it _isn't_--I will say just so much. And besides I _did_ say that it was a 'restitution,' which limits the guesses if it does not put an end to them. Unguessable, I choose it to be.
And now I feel as if I should _not_ stay in England. Which is the difference between one five minutes and another. May God bless you.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, October 11, 1845.]
Dear Mr. Kenyon has been here again, and talking so (in his kindness too) about the probabilities as to Pisa being against me ... about all depending 'on one throw' and the 'dice being loaded' &c. ... that I looked at him aghast as if he looked at the future through the folded curtain and was licensed to speak oracles:--and ever since I have been out of spirits ... oh, out of spirits--and must write myself back again, or try. After all he may be wrong like another--and I should tell you that he reasons altogether from the delay ... and that 'the cabins will therefore be taken' and the 'circular bills' out of reach! He _said_ that one of his purposes in staying in town, was to '_knout_' me every day--didn't he?
Well--George will probably speak before _he_ leaves town, which will be on Monday! and now that the hour approaches, I do feel as if the house stood upon gunpowder, and as if I held Guy Fawkes's lantern in my right hand. And no: I shall not go. The obstacles will not be those of Mr. Kenyon's finding--and what their precise character will be I do not see distinctly. Only that they will be sufficient, and thrown by one hand just where the wheel should turn, ... _that_, I see--and you will, in a few days.
Did you go to Moxon's and settle the printing matter? Tell me. And what was the use of telling Mr. Kenyon that you were 'quite well' when you know you are not? Will you say to me how you are, saying the truth? and also how your mother is?
To show the significance of the omission of those evening or rather night visits of Papa's--for they came sometimes at eleven, and sometimes at twelve--I will tell you that he used to sit and talk in them, and then _always_ kneel and pray with me and for me--which I used of course to feel as a proof of very kind and affectionate sympathy on his part, and which has proportionably pained me in the withdrawing. They were no ordinary visits, you observe, ... and he could not well throw me further from him than by ceasing to pay them--the thing is quite expressively significant. Not that I pretend to complain, nor to have reason to complain. One should not be grateful for kindness, only while it lasts: _that_ would be a short-breathed gratitude. I just tell you the fact, proving that it cannot be accidental.
Did you ever, ever tire me? Indeed no--you never did. And do understand that I am not to be tired 'in that way,' though as Mr. Boyd said once of his daughter, one may be so 'far too effeminate.' No--if I were put into a crowd I should be tired soon--or, apart from the crowd, if you made me discourse orations De Coronâ ... concerning your bag even ... I should be tired soon--though peradventure not very much sooner than you who heard. But on the smooth ground of quiet conversation (particularly when three people don't talk at once as my brothers do ... to say the least!) I last for a long while:--not to say that I have the pretension of being as good and inexhaustible a listener to your own speaking as you could find in the world. So please not to accuse me of being tired again. I can't be tired, and won't be tired, you see.
And now, since I began to write this, there is a new evil and anxiety--a worse anxiety than any--for one of my brothers is ill; had been unwell for some days and we thought nothing of it, till to-day Saturday: and the doctors call it a fever of the typhoid character ... not typhus yet ... but we are very uneasy. You must not come on Wednesday if an infectious fever be in the house--_that_ must be out of the question. May God bless you--I am quite heavy-hearted to-day, but never less yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday. [Post-mark, October 13, 1845].
These are bad news, dearest--all bad, except the enduring comfort of your regard; the illness of your brother is worst ... that _would_ stay you, and is the first proper obstacle. I shall not attempt to speak and prove my feelings,--you know what even Flush is to me through you: I wait in anxiety for the next account.
If after all you do _not_ go to Pisa; why, we must be cheerful and wise, and take courage and hope. I cannot but see with your eyes and from your place, you know,--and will let this all be one surprizing and deplorable mistake of mere love and care ... but no such another mistake ought to be suffered, if you escape the effects of this. I will not cease to believe in a better event, till the very last, however, and it is a deep satisfaction that all has been made plain and straight up to this strange and sad interposition like a bar. You have done _your_ part, at least--with all that forethought and counsel from friends and adequate judges of the case--so, if the bar _will_ not move, you will consider--will you not, dearest?--where one may best encamp in the unforbidden country, and wait the spring and fine weather. Would it be advisable to go where Mr. Kenyon suggested, or elsewhere? Oh, these vain wishes ... the will here, and no means!
My life is bound up with yours--my own, first and last love. What wonder if I feared to tire you--I who, knowing you as I do, admiring what is so admirable (let me speak), loving what must needs be loved, fain to learn what you only can teach; proud of so much, happy in so much of you; I, who, for all this, neither come to admire, nor feel proud, nor be taught,--but only, only to live with you and be by you--that is love--for I _know_ the rest, as I say. I know those qualities are in you ... but at them I could get in so many ways.... I have your books, here are my letters you give me; you would answer my questions were _I_ in Pisa--well, and it all would amount to nothing, infinitely much as I know it is; to nothing if I could not sit by you and see you.... I can stop at that, but not before. And it seems strange to me how little ... less than little I have laid open of my feelings, the nature of them to you--I smile to think how if all this while I had been acting with the profoundest policy in intention, so as to pledge myself to nothing I could not afterwards perform with the most perfect ease and security, I should have done not much unlike what I _have_ done--to be sure, one word includes many or all ... but I have not said ... what I will not even now say ... you will _know_--in God's time to which I trust.
I will answer your note now--the questions. I did go--(it may amuse you to write on)--to Moxon's. First let me tell you that when I called there the Saturday before, his brother (in his absence) informed me, replying to the question when it came naturally in turn with a round of like enquiries, that your poems continued to sell 'singularly well'--they would 'end in bringing a clear profit,' he said. I thought to catch him, and asked if they _had_ done so ... 'Oh; not at the beginning ... it takes more time--he answered. On Thursday I saw Moxon--he spoke rather encouragingly of my own prospects. I send him a sheetful to-morrow, I believe, and we are 'out' on the 1st of next month. Tennyson, by the way, has got his pension, £200 per annum--by the other way, Moxon has bought the MSS. of Keats in the possession of Taylor the publisher, and is going to bring out a complete edition; which is pleasant to hear.
After settling with Moxon I went to Mrs. Carlyle's--who told me characteristic quaintnesses of Carlyle's father and mother over the tea she gave me. And all yesterday, you are to know, I was in a permanent mortal fright--for my uncle came in the morning to intreat me to go to Paris in _the evening_ about some urgent business of his,--a five-minutes matter with his brother there,--and the affair being really urgent and material to his and the brother's interest, and no substitute being to be thought of, I was forced to promise to go--in case a letter, which would arrive in Town at noon, should not prove satisfactory. So I calculated times, and found I could be at Paris to-morrow, and back again, _certainly_ by Wednesday--and so not lose you on that day--oh, the fear I had!--but I was sure then and now, that the 17th would not see you depart. But night came, and the last Dover train left, and I drew breath freely--this morning I find the letter was all right--so may it be with all worse apprehensions! What you fear, precisely that, never happens, as Napoleon observed and thereon grew bold. I had stipulated for an hour's notice, if go I must--and that was to be wholly spent in writing to you--for in quiet consternation my mother cared for my carpet bag.
And so, I shall hear from you to-morrow ... that is, you will write _then_, telling me _all_ about your brother. As for what you say, with the kindest intentions, 'of fever-contagion' and keeping away on Wednesday on _that_ account, it is indeed 'out of the question,'--for a first reason (which dispenses with any second) because I disbelieve altogether in contagion from fevers, and especially from typhus fevers--as do much better-informed men than myself--I speak quite advisedly. If there should be only _that_ reason, therefore, you will not deprive me of the happiness of seeing you next Wednesday.
I am not well--have a cold, influenza or some unpleasant thing, but am better than yesterday--My mother is much better, I think (she and my sister are resolute non-contagionists, mind you that!)
God bless you and all you love! dearest, I am your
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, October 14, 1845.]
It was the merest foolishness in me to write about fevers and the rest as I did to-day, just as if it could do any good, all the wringing of hands in the world. And there is no typhus _yet_ ... and no danger of any sort I hope and trust!--and how weak it is that habit of spreading the cloud which is in you all around you, how weak and selfish ... and unlike what _you_ would do ... just as you are unlike Mr. Kenyon. And you _are_ unlike him--and you were right on Thursday when you said so, and I was wrong in setting up a phrase on the other side ... only what I said came by an instinct because you seemed to be giving him all the sunshine to use and carry, which should not be after all. But you are unlike him and must be ... seeing that the producers must differ from the 'nati consumere fruges' in the intellectual as in the material. You create and he enjoys, and the work makes you pale and the pleasure makes him ruddy, and it is so of a necessity. So differs the man of genius from the man of letters--and then dear Mr. Kenyon is not even a man of letters in a full sense ... he is rather a Sybarite of letters. Do you think he ever knew what mental labour is? I fancy not. Not more than he has known what mental inspiration is! And not more than he has known what the strife of the heart is ... with all his tenderness and sensibility. He seems to me to _evade_ pain, and where he suffers at all to do so rather negatively than positively ... if you understand what I mean by that ... rather by a want than by a blow: the secret of all being that he has a certain latitudinarianism (not indifferentism) in his life and affections, and has no capacity for concentration and intensity. Partly by temperament and partly by philosophy he contrives to keep the sunny side of the street--though never inclined to forget the blind man at the corner. Ah, dear Mr. Kenyon: he is magnanimous in toleration, and excellent in sympathy--and he has the love of beauty and the reverence of genius--but the faculty of _worship_ he has not: he will not worship aright either your heroes or your gods ... and while you do it he only 'tolerates' the act in you. Once he said ... not to me ... but I heard of it: 'What, if genius should be nothing but scrofula?' and he doubts (I very much fear) whether the world is not governed by a throw of those very same 'loaded dice,' and no otherwise. Yet he reveres genius in the acting of it, and recognizes a God in creation--only it is but 'so far,' and not farther. At least I think not--and I have a right to think what I please of him, holding him as I do, in such true affection. One of the kindest and most indulgent of human beings has he been to me, and I am happy to be grateful to him.
_Sunday._--The Duke of Palmella takes the whole vessel for the 20th and therefore if I go it must be on the 17th. Therefore (besides) as George must be on sessions to-morrow, he will settle the question with Papa to-night. In the meantime our poor Occy is not much better, though a little, and is ordered leeches on his head, and is confined to his bed and attended by physician and surgeon. It is not decided typhus, but they will not answer for its not being infectious; and although he is quite at the top of the house, two stories above me, I shall not like you to come indeed. And then there will be only room for a farewell, and I who am a coward shrink from the saying of it. No--not being able to see you to-morrow, (Mr. Kenyon is to be here to-morrow, he says) let us agree to throw away Wednesday. I will write, ... you will write perhaps--and above all things you will promise to write by the 'Star' on Monday, that the captain may give me your letter at Gibraltar. You promise? But I shall hear from you before then, and oftener than once, and you will acquiesce about Wednesday and grant at once that there can be no gain, no good, in that miserable good-bye-ing. I do not want the pain of it to remember you by--I shall remember very well without it, be sure. Still it shall be as you like--as you shall chose--and if you are _disappointed_ about Wednesday (if it is not vain in me to talk of disappointments) why do with Wednesday as you think best ... always understanding that there's no risk of infection.
_Monday._--All this I had written yesterday--and to-day it all is worse than vain. Do not be angry with me--do not think it my fault--but _I do not go to Italy_ ... it has ended as I feared. What passed between George and Papa there is no need of telling: only the latter said that I 'might go if I pleased, but that going it would be under his heaviest displeasure.' George, in great indignation, pressed the question fully: but all was vain ... and I am left in this position ... to go, if I please, with his displeasure over me, (which after what you have said and after what Mr. Kenyon has said, and after what my own conscience and deepest moral convictions say aloud, I would unhesitatingly do at this hour!) and necessarily run the risk of exposing my sister and brother to that same displeasure ... from which risk I shrink and fall back and feel that to incur it, is impossible. Dear Mr. Kenyon has been here and we have been talking--and he sees what I see ... that I am justified in going myself, but not in bringing others into difficulty. The very kindness and goodness with which they desire me (both my sisters) 'not to think of them,' naturally makes me think more of them. And so, tell me that I am not wrong in taking up my chain again and acquiescing in this hard necessity. The bitterest 'fact' of all is, that I had believed Papa to have loved me more than he obviously does: but I never regret knowledge ... I mean I never would _un_know anything ... even were it the taste of the apples by the Dead sea--and this must be accepted like the rest. In the meantime your letter comes--and if I could seem to be very unhappy after reading it ... why it would be 'all pretence' on my part, believe me. Can you care for me so much ... _you_? Then _that_ is light enough to account for all the shadows, and to make them almost unregarded--the shadows of the life behind. Moreover dear Occy is somewhat better--with a pulse only at ninety: and the doctors declare that visitors may come to the house without any manner of danger. Or I should not trust to your theories--no, indeed: it was not that I expected you to be afraid, but that _I_ was afraid--and if I am not ashamed for _that_, why at least I am, for being _lâche_ about Wednesday, when you thought of hurrying back from Paris only for it! You _could_ think _that_!--You _can_ care for me so much!--(I come to it again!) When I hold some words to my eyes ... such as these in this letter ... I can see nothing beyond them ... no evil, no want. There _is_ no evil and no want. Am I wrong in the decision about Italy? Could I do otherwise? I had courage and to spare--but the question, you see, did not regard myself wholly. For the rest, the 'unforbidden country' lies within these four walls. Madeira was proposed in vain--and any part of England would be as objectionable as Italy, and not more advantageous to _me_ than Wimpole Street. To take courage and be cheerful, as you say, is left as an alternative--and (the winter may be mild!) to fall into the hands of God rather than of man: _and I shall be here for your November, remember_.
And now that you are not well, will you take care? and not come on Wednesday unless you are better? and never again bring me _wet flowers_, which probably did all the harm on Thursday? I was afraid for you then, though I said nothing. May God bless you.
Ever yours I am--your own.
Ninety is not a high pulse ... for a fever of this kind--is it? and the heat diminishes, and his spirits are better--and we are all much easier ... have been both to-day and yesterday indeed.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning, [Post-mark, October 14, 1845.]
Be sure, my own, dearest love, that this is for the best; will be seen for the best in the end. It is hard to bear now--but _you_ have to bear it; any other person could not, and you will, I know, knowing you--_will_ be well this one winter if you can, and then--since I am _not_ selfish in this love to you, my own conscience tells me,--I desire, more earnestly than I ever knew what desiring was, to be yours and with you and, as far as may be in this life and world, YOU--and no hindrance to that, but one, gives me a moment's care or fear; but that one is just your little hand, as I could fancy it raised in any least interest of yours--and before that, I am, and would ever be, still silent. But now--what is to make you raise that hand? I will not speak _now_; not seem to take advantage of your present feelings,--we will be rational, and all-considering and weighing consequences, and foreseeing them--but first I will prove ... if _that_ has to be done, why--but I begin speaking, and I should not, I know.
Bless you, love!
R.B.
To-morrow I see you, without fail. I am rejoiced as you can imagine, at your brother's improved state.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday, [Post-mark, October 15, 1845.]
Will this note reach you at the 'fatal hour' ... or sooner? At any rate it is forced to ask you to take Thursday for Wednesday, inasmuch as Mr. Kenyon in his exceeding kindness has put off his journey just for _me_, he says, because he saw me depressed about the decision, and wished to come and see me again to-morrow and talk the spirits up, I suppose. It is all so kind and good, that I cannot find a voice to grumble about the obligation it brings of writing thus. And then, if you suffer from cold and influenza, it will be better for you not to come for another day, ... I think _that_, for comfort. Shall I hear how you are to-night, I wonder? Dear Occy 'turned the corner,' the physician said, yesterday evening, and, although a little fluctuating to-day, remains on the whole considerably better. They were just in time to keep the fever from turning to typhus.
How fast you print your book, for it is to be out on the first of November! Why it comes out suddenly like the sun. Mr. Kenyon asked me if I had seen anything you were going to print; and when I mentioned the second part of the 'Duchess' and described how your perfect rhymes, perfectly new, and all clashing together as by natural attraction, had put me at once to shame and admiration, he began to praise the first part of the same poem (which I had heard him do before, by the way) and extolled it as one of your most striking productions.
And so until Thursday! May God bless you--
and as the heart goes, ever yours.
I am glad for Tennyson, and glad for Keats. It is well to be able to be glad about something--is is it not? about something out of ourselves. And (_in_ myself) I shall be most glad, if I have a letter to-night. Shall I?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, October 15, 1845.]
Thanks, my dearest, for the good news--of the fever's abatement--it is good, too, that you write cheerfully, on the whole: what is it to _me_ that you write is of _me_ ... I shall never say _that_! Mr. Kenyon is all kindness, and one gets to take it as not so purely natural a thing, the showing kindness to those it concerns, and belongs to,--well! On Thursday, then,--to-morrow! Did you not get a note of mine, a hurried note, which was meant for yesterday-afternoon's delivery?
Mr. Forster came yesterday and was very profuse of graciosities: he may have, or must have meant well, so we will go on again with the friendship, as the snail repairs his battered shell.
My poems went duly to press on Monday night--there is not much _correctable_ in them,--you make, or you spoil, one of these things; that is, _I_ do. I have adopted all your emendations, and thrown in lines and words, just a morning's business; but one does not write plays so. You may like some of my smaller things, which stop interstices, better than what you have seen; I shall wonder to know. I am to receive a _proof_ at the end of the week--will you help me and over-look it. ('Yes'--she says ... my thanks I do not say!--)
While writing this, the _Times_ catches my eye (it just came in) and something from the _Lancet_ is extracted, a long article against quackery--and, as I say, this is the first and only sentence I read--'There is scarcely a peer of the realm who is not the patron of some quack pill or potion: and the literati too, are deeply tainted. We have heard of barbarians who threw quacks and their medicines into the sea: but here in England we have Browning, a prince of poets, touching the pitch which defiles and making Paracelsus the hero of a poem. Sir E.L. Bulwer writes puffs for the water doctors in a style worthy of imitation by the scribe that does the poetical for Moses and Son. Miss Martineau makes a finessing servant girl her physician-general: and Richard Howitt and the Lady aforesaid stand God-father and mother to the contemptible mesmeric vagaries of Spencer Hall.'--Even the sweet incense to me fails of its effect if Paracelsus is to figure on a level with Priessnitz, and 'Jane'!
What weather, now at last! Think for yourself and for me--could you not go out on such days?
I am quite well now--cold, over and gone. Did I tell you my Uncle arrived from Paris on Monday, as they hoped he would--so my travel would have been to great purpose!
Bless my dearest--my own!
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday. [Post-mark, October 16, 1845.]
Your letter which should have reached me in the morning of yesterday, I did not receive until nearly midnight--partly through the eccentricity of our new postman whose good pleasure it is to make use of the letter-box without knocking; and partly from the confusion in the house, of illness in different ways ... the very servants being ill, ... one of them breaking a blood-vessel--for there is no new case of fever; ... and for dear Occy, he grows better slowly day by day. And just so late last night, five letters were found in the letter-box, and mine ... yours ... among them--which accounts for my beginning to answer it only now.
What am I to say but this ... that I know what you are ... and that I know also what you are to _me_,--and that I should accept that knowledge as more than sufficient recompense for worse vexations than these late ones. Therefore let no more be said of them: and no more _need_ be said, even if they were not likely to prove their own end good, as I believe with you. You may be quite sure that I shall be well this winter, if in any way it should be possible, and that I _will not_ be beaten down, if the will can do anything. I admire how, if all had happened so but a year ago, (yet it could not have happened quite _so_!), I should certainly have been beaten down--and how it is different now, ... and how it is only gratitude to you, to _say_ that it is different now. My cage is not worse but better since you brought the green groundsel to it--and to dash oneself against the wires of it will not open the door. We shall see ... and God will oversee. And in the meantime you will not talk of extravagances; and then nobody need hold up the hand--because, as I said and say, I am yours, your own--only not to _hurt you_. So now let us talk of the first of November and of the poems which are to come out then, and of the poems which are to come after then--and of the new avatar of 'Sordello,' for instance, which you taught me to look for. And let us both be busy and cheerful--and you will come and see me throughout the winter, ... if you do not decide rather on going abroad, which may be better ... better for your health's sake?--in which case I shall have your letters.
And here is another ... just arrived. How I thank you. Think of the _Times_! Still it was very well of them to recognise your principality. Oh yes--do let me see the proof--I understand too about the 'making and spoiling.'
Almost you forced me to smile by thinking it worth while to say that you are '_not selfish_.' Did Sir Percival say so to Sir Gawaine across the Round Table, in those times of chivalry to which you belong by the soul? Certainly you are not selfish! May God bless you.
Ever your
E.B.B.
The fever may last, they say, for a week longer, or even a fortnight--but it _decreases_. Yet he is hot still, and very weak.
To to-morrow!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday. [Post-mark, October 17, 1845.]
Do tell me what you mean precisely by your 'Bells and Pomegranates' title. I have always understood it to refer to the Hebraic priestly garment--but Mr. Kenyon held against me the other day that your reference was different, though he had not the remotest idea how. And yesterday I forgot to ask, for not the first time. Tell me too why you should not in the new number satisfy, by a note somewhere, the Davuses of the world who are in the majority ('Davi sumus, non Oedipi') with a solution of this one Sphinx riddle. Is there a reason against it?
Occy continues to make progress--with a pulse at only eighty-four this morning. Are you learned in the pulse that I should talk as if you were? _I_, who have had my lessons? He takes scarcely anything yet but water, and his head is very hot still--but the progress is quite sure, though it may be a lingering case.
Your beautiful flowers!--none the less beautiful for waiting for water yesterday. As fresh as ever, they were; and while I was putting them into the water, I thought that your visit went on all the time. Other thoughts too I had, which made me look down blindly, quite blindly, on the little blue flowers, ... while I thought what I could not have said an hour before without breaking into tears which would have run faster then. To say now that I never can forget; that I feel myself bound to you as one human being cannot be more bound to another;--and that you are more to me at this moment than all the rest of the world; is only to say in new words that it would be a wrong against _myself_, to seem to risk your happiness and abuse your generosity. For _me_ ... though you threw out words yesterday about the testimony of a 'third person,' ... it would be monstrous to assume it to be necessary to vindicate my trust of you--_I trust you implicitly_--and am not too proud to owe all things to you. But now let us wait and see what this winter does or undoes--while God does His part for good, as we know. I will never fail to you from any human influence whatever--_that_ I have promised--but you must let it be different from the other sort of promise which it would be a wrong to make. May God bless you--you, whose fault it is, to be too generous. You _are_ not like other men, as I could see from the beginning--no.
Shall I have the proof to-night, I ask myself.
And if you like to come on Monday rather than Tuesday, I do not see why there should be a 'no' to that. Judge from your own convenience. Only we must be wise in the general practice, and abstain from too frequent meetings, for fear of difficulties. I am Cassandra you know, and smell the slaughter in the bath-room. It would make no difference in fact; but in comfort, much.
Ever your own--
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, October 18, 1845.]
I must not go on tearing these poor sheets one after the other,--the proper phrases _will not_ come,--so let them stay, while you care for my best interests in their best, only way, and say for _me_ what I would say if I could--dearest,--say it, as I feel it!
I am thankful to hear of the continued improvement of your brother. So may it continue with him! Pulses I know very little about--I go by your own impressions which are evidently favourable.
I will make a note as you suggest--or, perhaps, keep it for the closing number (the next), when it will come fitly in with two or three parting words I shall have to say. The Rabbis make Bells and Pomegranates symbolical of Pleasure and Profit, the gay and the grave, the Poetry and the Prose, Singing and Sermonizing--such a mixture of effects as in the original hour (that is quarter of an hour) of confidence and creation. I meant the whole should prove at last. Well, it _has_ succeeded beyond my most adventurous wishes in one respect--'Blessed eyes mine eyes have been, if--' if there was any sweetness in the tongue or flavour in the seeds to _her_. But I shall do quite other and better things, or shame on me! The proof has not yet come.... I should go, I suppose, and enquire this afternoon--and probably I will.
I weigh all the words in your permission to come on Monday ... do not think _I_ have not seen _that_ contingency from the first! Let it be Tuesday--no sooner! Meanwhile you are never away--never from your place here.
God bless my dearest.
Ever yours
R.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Morning. [In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]
This arrived on Saturday night--I just correct it in time for this our first post--will it do, the new matter? I can take it to-morrow--when I am to see you--if you are able to glance through it by then.
The 'Inscription,' how does that read?
There is strange temptation, by the way, in the space they please to leave for the presumable 'motto'--'they but remind me of mine own conception' ... but one must give no clue, of a silk's breadth, to the '_Bower_,' _yet_, One day!
--Which God send you, dearest, and your
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, October 22, 1845.]
Even at the risk of teazing you a little I must say a few words, that there may be no misunderstanding between us--and this, before I sleep to-night. To-day and before to-day you surprised me by your manner of receiving my remark about your visits, for I believed I had sufficiently made clear to you long ago how certain questions were ordered in this house and how no exception was to be expected for my sake or even for yours. Surely I told you this quite plainly long ago. I only meant to say in my last letter, in the same track ... (fearing in the case of your wishing to come oftener that you might think it unkind in me not to seem to wish the same) ... that if you came too often and it was _observed_, difficulties and vexations would follow as a matter of course, and it would be wise therefore to run no risk. That was the head and front of what I meant to say. The weekly one visit is a thing established and may go on as long as you please--and there is no objection to your coming twice a week _now_ and _then_ ... if now and then merely ... if there is no habit ... do you understand? I may be prudent in an extreme perhaps--and certainly everybody in the house is not equally prudent!--but I did shrink from running any risk with that calm and comfort of the winter as it seemed to come on. And was it more than I said about the cloak? was there any newness in it? anything to startle you? Still I do perfectly see that whether new or old, what it _involves_ may well be unpleasant to you--and that (however old) it may be apt to recur to your mind with a new increasing unpleasantness. We have both been carried too far perhaps, by late events and impulses--but it is never too late to come back to a right place, and I for my part come back to mine, and entreat you my dearest friend, first, _not to answer this_, and next, to weigh and consider thoroughly 'that particular contingency' which (I tell you plainly, I who know) the tongue of men and of angels would not modify so as to render less full of vexations to you. Let Pisa prove the excellent hardness of some marbles! Judge. From motives of self-respect, you may well walk an opposite way ... _you_.... When I told you once ... or twice ... that 'no human influence should' &c. &c., ... I spoke for myself, quite over-looking you--and now that I turn and see you, I am surprised that I did not see you before ... _there_. I ask you therefore to consider 'that contingency' well--not forgetting the other obvious evils, which the late decision about Pisa has aggravated beyond calculation ... for as the smoke rolls off we see the harm done by the fire. And so, and now ... is it not advisable for you to go abroad at once ... as you always intended, you know ... now that your book is through the press? What if you go next week? I leave it to you. In any case _I entreat you not to answer this_--neither let your thoughts be too hard on me for what you may call perhaps vacillation--only that I stand excused (I do not say justified) before my own moral sense. May God bless you. If you go, I shall wait to see you till your return, and have letters in the meantime. I write all this as fast as I can to have it over. What I ask of you is, to consider alone and decide advisedly ... for both our sakes. If it should be your choice not to make an end now, ... why I shall understand _that_ by your not going ... or you may say '_no_' in a word ... for I require no '_protestations_' indeed--and _you_ may trust to _me_ ... it shall be as you choose. _You will consider my happiness most by considering your own_ ... and that is my last word.
_Wednesday morning._--I did not say half I thought about the poems yesterday--and their various power and beauty will be striking and surprising to your most accustomed readers. 'St. Praxed'--'Pictor Ignotus'--'The Ride'--'The Duchess'!--Of the new poems I like supremely the first and last ... that 'Lost Leader' which strikes so broadly and deep ... which nobody can ever forget--and which is worth all the journalizing and pamphleteering in the world!--and then, the last 'Thought' which is quite to be grudged to that place of fragments ... those grand sea-sights in the long lines. Should not these fragments be severed otherwise than by numbers? The last stanza but one of the 'Lost Mistress' seemed obscure to me. Is it so really? The end you have put to 'England in Italy' gives unity to the whole ... just what the poem wanted. Also you have given some nobler lines to the middle than met me there before. 'The Duchess' appears to me more than ever a new-minted golden coin--the rhythm of it answering to your own description, 'Speech half asleep, or song half awake?' You have right of trove to these novel effects of rhythm. Now if people do not cry out about these poems, what are we to think of the world?
May God bless you always--send me the next proof _in any case_.
Your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, October 23, 1845.]
But I _must_ answer you, and be forgiven, too, dearest. I was (to begin at the beginning) surely not '_startled_' ... only properly aware of the deep blessing I have been enjoying this while, and not disposed to take its continuance as pure matter of course, and so treat with indifference the first shadow of a threatening intimation from without, the first hint of a possible abstraction from the quarter to which so many hopes and fears of mine have gone of late. In this case, knowing you, I was sure that if any imaginable form of displeasure could touch you without reaching me, I should not hear of it too soon--so I spoke--so _you_ have spoken--and so now you get 'excused'? No--wondered at, with all my faculty of wonder for the strange exalting way you will persist to think of me; now, once for all, I _will_ not pass for what I make no least pretence to. I quite understand the grace of your imaginary self-denial, and fidelity to a given word, and noble constancy; but it all happens to be none of mine, none in the least. I love you because I _love_ you; I see you 'once a week' because I cannot see you all day long; I think of you all day long, because I most certainly could not think of you once an hour less, if I tried, or went to Pisa, or 'abroad' (in every sense) in order to 'be happy' ... a kind of adventure which you seem to suppose you have in some way interfered with. Do, for this once, think, and never after, on the impossibility of your ever (you know I must talk your own language, so I shall say--) hindering any scheme of mine, stopping any supposable advancement of mine. Do you really think that before I found you, I was going about the world seeking whom I might devour, that is, be devoured by, in the shape of a wife ... do you suppose I ever dreamed of marrying? What would it mean for me, with my life I am hardened in--considering the rational chances; how the land is used to furnish its contingent of Shakespeare's women: or by 'success,' 'happiness' &c. &c. you never never can be seeing for a moment with the world's eyes and meaning 'getting rich' and all that? Yet, put that away, and what do you meet at every turn, if you are hunting about in the dusk to catch my good, but yourself?
_I_ know who has got it, caught it, and means to keep it on his heart--the person most concerned--_I_, dearest, who cannot play the disinterested part of bidding _you_ forget your 'protestation' ... what should I have to hold by, come what will, through years, through this life, if God shall so determine, if I were not sure, _sure_ that the first moment when you can suffer me with you 'in that relation,' you will remember and act accordingly. I will, as you know, conform my life to _any_ imaginable rule which shall render it possible for your life to move with it and possess it, all the little it is worth.
For your friends ... whatever can be 'got over,' whatever opposition may be rational, will be easily removed, I suppose. You know when I spoke lately about the 'selfishness' I dared believe I was free from, I hardly meant the low faults of ... I shall say, a different organization to mine--which has vices in plenty, but not those. Besides half a dozen scratches with a pen make one stand up an apparent angel of light, from the lawyer's parchment; and Doctors' Commons is one bland smile of applause. The selfishness I deprecate is one which a good many women, and men too, call 'real passion'--under the influence of which, I ought to say 'be mine, what ever happens to _you_'--but I know better, and you know best--and you know me, for all this letter, which is no doubt in me, I feel, but dear entire goodness and affection, of which God knows whether I am proud or not--and now you will let me be, will not you. Let me have my way, live my life, love my love.
When I am, praying God to bless her ever,
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, October 24, 1845.]
'_And be forgiven_' ... yes! and be thanked besides--if I knew how to thank you worthily and as I feel ... only that I do not know it, and cannot say it. And it was not indeed 'doubt' of you--oh no--that made me write as I did write; it was rather because I felt you to be surely noblest, ... and therefore fitly dearest, ... that it seemed to me detestable and intolerable to leave you on this road where the mud must splash up against you, and never cry 'gare.' Yet I was quite enough unhappy yesterday, and before yesterday ... I will confess to-day, ... to be too gratefully glad to 'let you be' ... to 'let you have your way'--you who overcome always! Always, but where you tell me not to think of you so and so!--as if I could help thinking of you _so_, and as if I should not take the liberty of persisting to think of you just so. 'Let me be'--Let me have my way.' I am unworthy of you perhaps in everything except one thing--and _that_, you cannot guess. May God bless you--
Ever I am yours.
The proof does not come!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday. [Post-mark, October 25, 1845.]
I wrote briefly yesterday not to make my letter longer by keeping it; and a few last words which belong to it by right, must follow after it ... must--for I want to say that you need not indeed talk to me about squares being not round, and of _you_ being not 'selfish'! You know it is foolish to talk such superfluities, and not a compliment.
I won't say to my knowledge of you and faith in you ... but to my understanding generally. Why should you say to me at all ... much less for this third or fourth time ... 'I am not selfish?' to _me_ who never ... when I have been deepest asleep and dreaming, ... never dreamed of attributing to you any form of such a fault? Promise not to say so again--now promise. Think how it must sound to my ears, when really and truly I have sometimes felt jealous of myself ... of my own infirmities, ... and thought that you cared for me only because your chivalry touched them with a silver sound--and that, without them, you would pass by on the other side:--why twenty times I have thought _that_ and been vexed--ungrateful vexation! In exchange for which too frank confession, I will ask for another silent promise ... a silent promise--no, but first I will say another thing.
First I will say that you are not to fancy any the least danger of my falling under displeasure through your visits--there is no sort of risk of it _for the present_--and if I ran the risk of making you uncomfortable about _that_, I did foolishly, and what I meant to do was different. I wish you also to understand that _even if you came here every day_, my brothers and sisters would simply care to know if I liked it, and then be glad if I was glad:--the caution referred to one person alone. In relation to _whom_, however, there will be no 'getting over'--you might as well think to sweep off a third of the stars of Heaven with the motion of your eyelashes--this, for matter of fact and certainty--and this, as I said before, the keeping of a general rule and from no disrespect towards individuals: a great peculiarity _in the individual_ of course. But ... though I have been a submissive daughter, and this from no effort, but for love's sake ... because I loved him tenderly (and love him), ... and hoped that he loved me back again even if the proofs came untenderly sometimes--yet I have reserved for myself _always_ that right over my own affections which is the most strictly personal of all things, and which involves principles and consequences of infinite importance and scope--even though I _never_ thought (except perhaps when the door of life was just about to open ... before it opened) never thought it probable or possible that I should have occasion for the exercise; from without and from within at once. I have too much need to look up. For friends, I can look any way ... round, and _down_ even--the merest thread of a sympathy will draw me sometimes--or even the least look of kind eyes over a dyspathy--'Cela se peut facilement.' But for another relation--it was all different--and rightly so--and so very different--'Cela ne se peut nullement'--as in Malherbe.
And now we must agree to 'let all this be,', and set ourselves to get as much good and enjoyment from the coming winter (better spent at Pisa!) as we can--and I begin my joy by being glad that you are not going since I am not going, and by being proud of these new green leaves in your bay which came out with the new number. And then will come the tragedies--and then, ... what beside? We shall have a happy winter after all ... _I_ shall at least; and if Pisa had been better, London might be worse: and for _me_ to grow pretentious and fastidious and critical about various sorts of _purple_ ... I, who have been used to the _brun foncé_ of Mme. de Sévigné, (_foncé_ and _enfoncé_ ...)--would be too absurd. But why does not the proof come all this time? I have kept this letter to go back with it.
I had a proposition from the New York booksellers about six weeks ago (the booksellers who printed the poems) to let them re-print those prose papers of mine in the _Athenæum_, with additional matter on American literature, in a volume by itself--to be published at the same time both in America and England by Wiley and Putnam in Waterloo Place, and meaning to offer liberal terms, they said. Now what shall I do? Those papers are not fit for separate publication, and I am not inclined to the responsibility of them; and in any case, they must give as much trouble as if they were re-written (trouble and not poetry!), before I could consent to such a thing. Well!--and if I do not ... these people are just as likely to print them without leave ... and so without correction. What do you advise? What shall I do? All this time they think me sublimely indifferent, they who pressed for an answer by return of packet--and now it is past six ... eight weeks; and I must say something.
Am I not 'femme qui parle' to-day? And let me talk on ever so, the proof won't come. May God bless you--and me as I am
Yours,
E.B.B.
And the silent promise I would have you make is this--that if ever you should leave me, it shall be (though you are not 'selfish') for your sake--and not for mine: for your good, and not for mine. I ask it--not because I am disinterested; but because one class of motives would be valid, and the other void--simply for that reason.
Then the _femme qui parle_ (looking back over the parlance) did not mean to say on the first page of this letter that she was ever for a moment _vexed in her pride_ that she should owe anything to her adversities. It was only because adversities are accidents and not essentials. If it had been prosperities, it would have been the same thing--no, not the same thing!--but far worse.
Occy is up to-day and doing well.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, October 27, 1845.]
How does one make 'silent promises' ... or, rather, how does the maker of them communicate that fact to whomsoever it may concern? I know, there have been many, very many unutterable vows and promises made,--that is, _thought_ down upon--the white slip at the top of my notes,--such as of this note; and not trusted to the pen, that always comes in for the shame,--but given up, and replaced by the poor forms to which a pen is equal; and a glad minute I should account _that_, in which you collected and accepted _those_ 'promises'--because they would not be all so unworthy of me--much less you! I would receive, in virtue of _them_, the ascription of whatever worthiness is supposed to lie in deep, truest love, and gratitude--
Read my silent answer there too!
All your letter is one comfort: we will be happy this winter, and after, do not fear. I am most happy, to begin, that your brother is so much better: he must be weak and susceptible of cold, remember.
It was on my lip, I do think, _last_ visit, or the last but one, to beg you to detach those papers from the _Athenæum's gâchis_. Certainly this opportunity is _most_ favourable, for every reason: you cannot hesitate, surely. At present those papers are lost--_lost_ for practical purposes. Do pray reply without fail to the proposers; no, no harm of these really fine fellows, who _could_ do harm (by printing incorrect copies, and perhaps eking out the column by suppositious matter ... ex-gr. they strengthened and lengthened a book of Dickens', in Paris, by adding quant. suff. of Thackeray's 'Yellowplush Papers' ... as I discovered by a Parisian somebody praising the latter to me as Dickens' best work!)--and who _do_ really a good straightforward un-American thing. You will encourage 'the day of small things'--though this is not small, nor likely to have small results. I shall be impatient to hear that you have decided. I like the progress of these Americans in taste, their amazing leaps, like grasshoppers up to the sun--from ... what is the '_from_,' what depth, do you remember, say, ten or twelve years back?--_to_--Carlyle, and Tennyson, and you! So children leave off Jack of Cornwall and go on just to Homer.
I can't conceive why my proof does not come--I must go to-morrow and see. In the other, I have corrected all the points you noted, to their evident improvement. Yesterday I took out 'Luria' and read it through--the skeleton--I shall hope to finish it soon now. It is for a purely imaginary stage,--very simple and straightforward. Would you ... no, Act by Act, as I was about to propose that you should read it; that process would affect the oneness I most wish to preserve.
On Tuesday--at last, I am with you. Till when be with me ever, dearest--God bless you ever--
R.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday 9 a.m. [In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]
I got this on coming home last night--have just run through it this morning, and send it that time may not be lost. Faults, faults; but I don't know how I have got tired of this. The Tragedies will be better, at least the second--
At 3 this day! Bless you--
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
I write in haste, not to lose time about the proof. You will see on the papers here my doubtfulnesses such as they are--but silence swallows up the admirations ... and there is no time. 'Theocrite' overtakes that wish of mine which ran on so fast--and the 'Duchess' grows and grows the more I look--and 'Saul' is noble and must have his full royalty some day. Would it not be well, by the way, to print it in the meanwhile as a fragment confessed ... sowing asterisks at the end. Because as a poem of yours it stands there and wants unity, and people can't be expected to understand the difference between incompleteness and defect, unless you make a sign. For the new poems--they are full of beauty. You throw largesses out on all sides without counting the coins: how beautiful that 'Night and Morning' ... and the 'Earth's Immortalities' ... and the 'Song' too. And for your 'Glove,' all women should be grateful,--and Ronsard, honoured, in this fresh shower of music on his old grave ... though the chivalry of the interpretation, as well as much beside, is so plainly yours, ... could only be yours perhaps. And even _you_ are forced to let in a third person ... close to the doorway ... before you can do any good. What a noble lion you give us too, with the 'flash on his forehead,' and 'leagues in the desert already' as we look on him! And then, with what a 'curious felicity' you turn the subject 'glove' to another use and strike De Lorge's blow back on him with it, in the last paragraph of your story! And the versification! And the lady's speech--(to return!) so calm, and proud--yet a little bitter!
Am I not to thank you for all the pleasure and pride in these poems? while you stand by and try to talk them down, perhaps.
Tell me how your mother is--tell me how you are ... you who never were to be told twice about walking. Gone the way of all promises, is that promise?
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday Night. [Post-mark, October 30, 1845.]
Like your kindness--too, far too generous kindness,--all this trouble and correcting,--and it is my proper office now, by this time, to sit still and receive, by right _Human_ (as opposed to Divine). When you see the pamphlet's self, you will find your own doing,--but where will you find the proofs of the best of all helping and counselling and inciting, unless in new works which shall justify the _unsatisfaction_, if I may not say shame, at these, these written before your time, my best love?
Are you doing well to-day? For I feel well, have walked some eight or nine miles--and my mother is very much better ... is singularly better. You know whether you rejoiced me or no by that information about the exercise _you_ had taken yesterday. Think what telling one that you grow stronger would mean!
'Vexatious' with you! Ah, prudence is all very right, and one ought, no doubt, to say, 'of course, we shall not expect a life exempt from the usual proportion of &c. &c.--' but truth is still more right, and includes the highest prudence besides, and I do believe that we shall be happy; that is, that _you_ will be happy: you see I dare confidently expect _the_ end to it all ... so it has always been with me in my life of wonders--absolute wonders, with God's hand over all.... And this last and best of all would never have begun so, and gone on so, to break off abruptly even here, in this world, for the little time.
So try, try, dearest, every method, take every measure of hastening such a consummation. Why, we shall see Italy together! I could, would, _will_ shut myself in four walls of a room with you and never leave you and be most of all _then_ 'a lord of infinite space'--but, to travel with you to Italy, or Greece. Very vain, I know that, all such day dreaming! And ungrateful, too; with the real sufficing happiness here of being, and knowing that you know me to be, and suffer me to tell you I am yours, ever your own.
God bless you, my dearest--
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, November 1, 1845.]
All to-day, Friday, Miss Mitford has been here! She came at two and went away at seven--and I feel as if I had been making a five-hour speech on the corn laws in Harriet Martineau's parliament; ... so tired I am. Not that dear Miss Mitford did not talk both for me and herself, ... for that, of course she did. But I was forced to answer once every ten minutes at least--and Flush, my usual companion, does not exact so much--and so I am tired and come to rest myself on this paper. Your name was not once spoken to-day; a little from my good fencing: when I saw you at the end of an alley of associations, I pushed the conversation up the next--because I was afraid of questions such as every moment I expected, with a pair of woman's eyes behind them; and those are worse than Mr. Kenyon's, when he puts on his spectacles. So your name was not once spoken--not thought of, I do not say--perhaps when I once lost her at Chevy Chase and found her suddenly with Isidore the queen's hairdresser, my thoughts might have wandered off to you and your unanswered letter while she passed gradually from that to this--I am not sure of the contrary. And Isidore, they say, reads Béranger, and is supposed to be the most literary person at court--and wasn't at Chevy Chase one must needs think.
One must needs write nonsense rather--for I have written it there. The sense and the truth is, that your letter went to the bottom of my heart, and that my thoughts have turned round it ever since and through all the talking to-day. Yes indeed, dreams! But what _is_ not dreaming is this and this--this reading of these words--this proof of this regard--all this that you are to me in fact, and which you cannot guess the full meaning of, dramatic poet as you are ... cannot ... since you do not know what my life meant before you touched it, ... and my angel at the gate of the prison! My wonder is greater than your wonders, ... I who sate here alone but yesterday, so weary of my own being that to take interest in my very poems I had to lift them up by an effort and separate them from myself and cast them out from me into the sunshine where I was not--feeling nothing of the light which fell on them even--making indeed a sort of pleasure and interest about that factitious personality associated with them ... but knowing it to be all far on the outside of _me_ ... _myself_ ... not seeming to touch it with the end of my finger ... and receiving it as a mockery and a bitterness when people persisted in confounding one with another. Morbid it was if you like it--perhaps very morbid--but all these heaps of letters which go into the fire one after the other, and which, because I am a woman and have written verses, it seems so amusing to the letter-writers of your sex to write and see 'what will come of it,' ... some, from kind good motives I know, ... well, ... how could it all make for me even such a narrow strip of sunshine as Flush finds on the floor sometimes, and lays his nose along, with both ears out in the shadow? It was not for _me_ ... _me_ ... in any way: it was not within my reach--I did not seem to touch it as I said. Flush came nearer, and I was grateful to him ... yes, grateful ... for not being tired! I have felt grateful and flattered ... yes flattered ... when he has chosen rather to stay with me all day than go down-stairs. Grateful too, with reason, I have been and am to my own family for not letting me see that I was a burthen. These are facts. And now how am I to feel when you tell me what you have told me--and what you 'could would and will' do, and _shall not_ do?... but when you tell me?
Only remember that such words make you freer and freer--if you can be freer than free--just as every one makes me happier and richer--too rich by you, to claim any debt. May God bless you always. When I wrote that letter to let you come the first time, do you know, the tears ran down my cheeks.... I could not tell why: partly it might be mere nervousness. And then, I was vexed with you for wishing to come as other people did, and vexed with myself for not being able to refuse you as I did them.
When does the book come out? Not on the first, I begin to be glad.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
I trust that you go on to take exercise--and that your mother is still better. Occy's worst symptom now is too great an appetite ... a monster-appetite indeed.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday. [Post-mark, November 4, 1845.]
Only a word to tell you Moxon promises the books for to-morrow, Wednesday--so towards evening yours will reach you--'parve liber, sine me ibis' ... would I were by you, then and ever! You see, and know, and understand why I can neither talk to you, nor write to you _now_, as we are now;--from the beginning, the personal interest absorbed every other, greater or smaller--but as one cannot well,--or should not,--sit quite silently, the words go on, about Horne, or what chances--while you are in my thought.
But when I have you ... so it seems ... _in_ my very heart; when you are entirely with me--oh, the day--then it will all go better, talk and writing too.
Love me, my own love; not as I love you--not for--but I cannot write that. Nor do I ask anything, with all your gifts here, except for the luxury of asking. Withdraw nothing, then, dearest, from your
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday. [Post-mark, November 6, 1845.]
I had your note last night, and am waiting for the book to-day; a true living breathing book, let the writer say of it what he will. Also when it comes it won't certainly come 'sine te.' Which is my comfort.
And now--not to make any more fuss about a matter of simple restitution--may I have my letter back?... I mean the letter which if you did not destroy ... did not punish for its sins long and long ago ... belongs to me--which, if destroyed, I must lose for my sins, ... but, if undestroyed, which I may have back; may I not? is it not my own? must I not?--that letter I was made to return and now turn to ask for again in further expiation. Now do I ask humbly enough? And send it at once, if undestroyed--do not wait till Saturday.
I have considered about Mr. Kenyon and it seems best, in the event of a question or of a remark equivalent to a question, to confess to the visits 'generally once a week' ... because he may hear, one, two, three different ways, ... not to say the other reasons and Chaucer's charge against 'doubleness.' I fear ... I fear that he (not Chaucer) will wonder a little--and he has looked at me with scanning spectacles already and talked of its being a mystery to him how you made your way here; and _I_, who though I can _bespeak_ self-command, have no sort of presence of mind (not so much as one would use to play at Jack straws) did not help the case at all. Well--it cannot be helped. Did I ever tell you what he said of you once--'_that you deserved to be a poet_--being one in your heart and life:' he said _that_ of you to me, and I thought it a noble encomium and deserving its application.
For the rest ... yes: you know I do--God knows I do. Whatever I can feel is for you--and perhaps it is not less, for not being simmered away in too much sunshine as with women accounted happier. _I_ am happy besides now--happy enough to die now.
May God bless you, dear--dearest--
Ever I am yours--
The book does not come--so I shall not wait. Mr. Kenyon came instead, and comes again on _Friday_ he says, and Saturday seems to be clear still.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
_Just_ arrived!--(mind, the _silent writing_ overflows the page, and laughs at the black words for Mr. Kenyon to read!)--But your note arrived earlier--more of that, when I write after this dreadful dispatching-business that falls on me--friend A. and B. and C. must get their copy, and word of regard, all by next post!--
Could you think _that_ that untoward letter lived one _moment_ after it returned to me? I burned it and cried 'serve it right'! Poor letter,--yet I should have been vexed and offended _then_ to be told I _could_ love you better than I did already. 'Live and _learn_!' Live and love you--dearest, as loves you
R.B.
You will write to reassure me about Saturday, if not for other reasons. See your corrections ... and understand that in one or two instances in which they would seem not to be adopted, they _are_ so, by some modification of the previous, or following line ... as in one of the Sorrento lines ... about a 'turret'--see! (Can you give me Horne's address--I would send then.)
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening. [Post-mark, November 7, 1845.]
I see and know; read and mark; and only hope there is no harm done by my meddling; and lose the sense of it all in the sense of beauty and power everywhere, which nobody could kill, if they took to meddling more even. And now, what will people say to this and this and this--or 'O seclum insipiens et inficetum!' or rather, O ungrateful right hand which does not thank you first! I do thank you. I have been reading everything with new delight; and at intervals remembering in inglorious complacency (for which you must try to forgive me) that Mr. Forster is no longer anything like an enemy. And yet (just see what contradiction!) the _British Quarterly_ has been abusing me so at large, that I can only take it to be the achievement of a very
## particular friend indeed,--of someone who positively never reviewed
before and tries his new sword on me out of pure friendship. Only I suppose it is not the general rule, and that there are friends 'with a difference.' Not that you are to fancy me pained--oh no!--merely surprised. I was prepared for anything almost from the quarter in question, but scarcely for being hung 'to the crows' so publicly ... though within the bounds of legitimate criticisms, mind. But oh--the creatures of your sex are not always magnanimous--_that_ is true. And to put _you_ between me and all ... the thought of _you_ ... in a great eclipse of the world ... _that_ is happy ... only, too happy for such as I am; as my own heart warns me hour by hour.
'Serve _me_ right'--I do not dare to complain. I wished for the safety of that letter so much that I finished by persuading myself of the probability of it: but 'serve _me_ right' quite clearly. And yet--but no more 'and yets' about it. 'And yets' fray the silk.
I see how the 'turret' stands in the new reading, triumphing over the 'tower,' and unexceptionable in every respect. Also I do hold that nobody with an ordinary understanding has the slightest pretence for attaching a charge of obscurity to this new number--there are lights enough for the critics to scan one another's dull blank of visage by. One verse indeed in that expressive lyric of the 'Lost Mistress,' does still seem questionable to me, though you have changed a word since I saw it; and still I fancy that I rather leap at the meaning than reach it--but it is my own fault probably ... I am not sure. With that one exception I _am quite_ sure that people who shall complain of darkness are blind ... I mean, that the construction is clear and unembarrassed everywhere. Subtleties of thought which are not directly apprehensible by minds of a common range, are here as elsewhere in your writings--but if to utter things 'hard to understand' from _that_ cause be an offence, why we may begin with 'our beloved brother Paul,' you know, and go down through all the geniuses of the world, and bid them put away their inspirations. You must descend to the level of critic A or B, that he may look into your face.... Ah well!--'Let them rave.' You will live when all _those_ are under the willows. In the meantime there is something better, as you said, even than your poetry--as the giver is better than the gift, and the maker than the creature, and _you_ than _yours_. Yes--_you_ than _yours_.... (I did not mean it so when I wrote it first ... but I accept the 'bona verba,' and use the phrase for the end of my letter) ... as _you_ are better than _yours_; even when so much yours as your own
E.B.B.
May I see the first act first? Let me!--And you walk?
Mr. Horne's address is Hill Side, Fitzroy Park, Highgate.
There is no reason against Saturday so far. Mr. Kenyon comes to-morrow, Friday, and therefore--!--and if Saturday should become impracticable, I will write again.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Evening. [Post-mark, November 10, 1845.]
When I come back from seeing you, and think over it all, there never is a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with, and wish to return to you with some ... not to say, all ... the thoughts and fancies it is sure to call out of me. There is nothing in you that does not draw out all of me. You possess me, dearest ... and there is no help for the expressing it all, no voice nor hand, but these of mine which shrink and turn away from the attempt. So you must go on, patiently, knowing me more and more, and your entire power on me, and I will console myself, to the full extent, with your knowledge--penetration, intuition--_somehow_ I must believe you can get to what is here, in me, without the pretence of my telling or writing it. But, because I give up the great achievements, there is no reason I should not secure any occasion of making clear one of the less important points that arise in our intercourse ... if I fancy I can do it with the least success. For instance, it is on my mind to explain what I meant yesterday by trusting that the entire happiness I feel in the letters, and the help in the criticising might not be hurt by the surmise, even, that those labours to which you were born, might be suspended, in any degree, through such generosity to _me_. Dearest, I believed in your glorious genius and knew it for a true star from the moment I saw it; long before I had the blessing of knowing it was MY star, with my fortune and futurity in it. And, when I draw back from myself, and look better and more clearly, then I _do_ feel, with you, that the writing a few letters more or less, reading many or few rhymes of any other person, would not interfere in any material degree with that power of yours--that you might easily make one so happy and yet go on writing 'Geraldines' and 'Berthas'--but--how can I, dearest, leave my heart's treasures long, even to look at your genius?... and when I come back and find all safe, find the comfort of you, the traces of you ... _will_ it do--tell me--to trust all that as a light effort, an easy matter?
Yet, if you can lift me with one hand, while the other suffices to crown you--there is queenliness in _that_, too!
Well, I have spoken. As I told you, your turn comes now. How have you determined respecting the American Edition? You tell me nothing of yourself! It is all ME you help, me you do good to ... and I take it all! Now see, if this goes on! I have not had _every_ love-luxury, I now find out ... where is the proper, rationally to-be-expected--'_lovers' quarrel_'? _Here_, as you will find! 'Iræ; amantium'.... I am no more 'at a loss with my Naso,' than Peter Ronsard. Ah, but then they are to be _reintegratio amoris_--and to get back into a thing, one must needs get for a moment first out of it ... trust me, no! And now, the natural inference from all this? The consistent inference ... the 'self-denying ordinance'? Why--do you doubt? even this,--you must just put aside the Romance, and tell the Americans to wait, and make my heart start up when the letter is laid to it; the letter full of your news, telling me you are well and walking, and working for my sake towards _the time_--informing me, moreover, if Thursday or Friday is to be my day--.
May God bless you, my own love.
I will certainly bring you an Act of the Play ... for this serpent's reason, in addition to the others ... that--No, I will _tell_ you that--I can tell you now more than even lately!
Ever your own
R.B.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ROBERT BROWNING
(See Vol. I., p. 270)]
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, November 11, 1845.]
If it were possible that you could do me harm in the way of work, (but it isn't) it would be possible, not through writing letters and reading manuscripts, but because of a reason to be drawn from your own great line
What man is strong until he stands alone?
What man ... what woman? For have I not felt twenty times the desolate advantage of being insulated here and of not minding anybody when I made my poems?--of living a little like a disembodied spirit, and caring less for suppositious criticism than for the black fly buzzing in the pane?--_That_ made me what dear Mr. Kenyon calls 'insolent,'--untimid, and unconventional in my degree; and not so much by strength, you see, as by separation. _You_ touch your greater ends by mere strength; breaking with your own hands the hampering threads which, in your position would have hampered _me_.
Still ... when all is changed for me now, and different, it is not possible, ... for all the changing, nor for all your line and my speculation, ... that I should not be better and stronger for being within your influences and sympathies, in this way of writing as in other ways. We shall see--you will see. Yet I have been idle lately I confess; leaning half out of some turret-window of the castle of Indolence and watching the new sunrise--as why not?--Do I mean to be idle always?--no!--and am I not an industrious worker on the average of days? Indeed yes! Also I have been less idle than you think perhaps, even this last year, though the results seem so like trifling: and I shall set about the prose papers for the New York people, and the something rather better besides we may hope ... may _I_ not hope, if _you_ wish it? Only there is no 'crown' for me, be sure, except what grows from this letter and such letters ... this sense of being anything to _one_! there is no room for another crown. Have I a great head like Goethe's that there should be room? and mine is bent down already by the unused weight--and as to bearing it, ... 'Will it do,--tell me; to treat _that_ as a light effort, an easy matter?'
Now let me remember to tell you that the line of yours I have just quoted, and which has been present with me since you wrote it, Mr. Chorley has quoted too in his new novel of 'Pomfret.' You were right in your identifying of servant and waistcoat--and Wilson waited only till you had gone on Saturday, to give me a parcel and note; the novel itself in fact, which Mr. Chorley had the kindness to send me 'some days or weeks,' said the note, 'previous to the publication.' Very goodnatured of him certainly: and the book seems to me his best work in point of sustainment and vigour, and I am in process of being interested in it. Not that he is a _maker_, even for this prose. A feeler ... an observer ... a thinker even, in a certain sphere--but a maker ... no, as it seems to me--and if I were he, I would rather herd with the essayists than the novelists where he is too good to take inferior rank and not strong enough to 'go up higher.' Only it would be more right in me to be grateful than to talk so--now wouldn't it?
And here is Mr. Kenyon's letter back again--a kind good letter ... a letter I have liked to read (so it was kind and good in you to let me!)--and he was with me to-day and praising the 'Ride to Ghent,' and praising the 'Duchess,' and praising you altogether as I liked to hear him. The Ghent-ride was 'very fine'--and the
Into the midnight they galloped abreast
drew us out into the night as witnesses. And then, the 'Duchess' ... the conception of it was noble, and the vehicle, rhythm and all, most characteristic and individual ... though some of the rhymes ... oh, some of the rhymes did not find grace in his ears--but the incantation-scene, 'just trenching on the supernatural,' _that_ was taken to be 'wonderful,' ... 'showing extraordinary power, ... as indeed other things did ... works of a highly original writer and of such various faculty!'--Am I not tired of writing your praises as he said then? So I shall tell you, instead of any more, that I went down to the drawing-room yesterday (because it was warm enough) by an act of supererogatory virtue for which you may praise _me_ in turn. What weather it is! and how the year seems to have forgotten itself into April.
But after all, how have I answered your letter? and how _are_ such letters to be answered? Do we answer the sun when he shines? May God bless you ... it is my answer--with one word besides ... that I am wholly and ever your
E.B.B.
On Thursday as far as I know yet--and you shall hear if there should be an obstacle. _Will you walk?_ If you will not, you know, you must be forgetting me a little. Will you remember me too in the act of the play?--but above all things in taking the right exercise, and in not overworking the head. And this for no serpent's reason.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Two letters in one--Wednesday. [Post-mark, November 15, 1845.]
I shall see you to-morrow and yet am writing what you will have to read perhaps. When you spoke of 'stars' and 'geniuses' in that letter, I did not seem to hear; I was listening to those words of the letter which were of a better silver in the sound than even your praise could be; and now that at last I come to hear them in their extravagance (oh such pure extravagance about 'glorious geniuses'--) I can't help telling you they were heard last, and deserved it.
Shall I tell you besides?--The first moment in which I seemed to admit to myself in a flash of lightning the _possibility_ of your affection for me being more than dream-work ... the first moment was _that_ when you intimated (as you have done since repeatedly) that you cared for me not for a reason, but because you cared for me. Now such a 'parceque' which reasonable people would take to be irrational, was just the only one fitted to the uses of my understanding on the
## particular question we were upon ... just the 'woman's reason'
suitable to the woman ...; for I could understand that it might be as you said, and, if so, that it was altogether unanswerable ... do you see? If a fact includes its own cause ... why there it stands for ever--one of 'earth's immortalities'--_as long as it includes it_.
And when unreasonableness stands for a reason, it is a promising state of things, we may both admit, and proves what it would be as well not too curiously to enquire into. But then ... to look at it in a brighter aspect, ... I do remember how, years ago, when talking the foolishnesses which women will talk when they are by themselves, and not forced to be sensible, ... one of my friends thought it 'safest to begin with a little aversion,' and another, wisest to begin with a great deal of esteem, and how the best attachments were produced so and so, ... I took it into my head to say that the best was where there was no cause at all for it, and the more wholly unreasonable, the better still; that the motive should lie in the feeling itself and not in the object of it--and that the affection which could (if it could) throw itself out on an idiot with a goître would be more admirable than Abelard's. Whereupon everybody laughed, and someone thought it affected of me and no true opinion, and others said plainly that it was immoral, and somebody else hoped, in a sarcasm, that I meant to act out my theory for the advantage of the world. To which I replied quite gravely that I had not virtue enough--and so, people laughed as it is fair to laugh when other people are esteemed to talk nonsense. And all this came back to me in the south wind of your 'parceque,' and I tell it as it came ... now.
Which proves, if it proves anything, ... while I have every sort of natural pleasure in your praises and like you to like my poetry just as I should, and perhaps more than I should; yet _why_ it is all behind ... and in its place--and _why_ I have a tendency moreover to sift and measure any praise of yours and to separate it from the superfluities, far more than with any other person's praise in the world.
_Friday evening._--Shall I send this letter or not? I have been 'tra 'l si e 'l no,' and writing a new beginning on a new sheet even--but after all you ought to hear the remote echo of your last letter ... far out among the hills, ... as well as the immediate reverberation, and so I will send it,--and what I send is not to be answered, remember!
I read Luria's first act twice through before I slept last night, and feel just as a bullet might feel, not because of the lead of it but because shot into the air and suddenly arrested and suspended. It ('Luria') is all life, and we know (that is, the reader knows) that there must be results here and here. How fine that sight of Luria is upon the lynx hides--how you see the Moor in him just in the glimpse you have by the eyes of another--and that laugh when the horse drops the forage, what wonderful truth and character you have in _that_!--And then, when _he_ is in the scene--: 'Golden-hearted Luria' you called him once to me, and his heart shines already ... wide open to the morning sun. The construction seems to me very clear everywhere--and the rhythm, even over-smooth in a few verses, where you invert a little artificially--but that shall be set down on a separate strip of paper: and in the meantime I am snatched up into 'Luria' and feel myself driven on to the ends of the poet, just as a reader should.
But _you_ are not driven on to any ends? so as to be tired, I mean? You will not suffer yourself to be overworked because you are 'interested' in this work. I am so certain that the sensations in your head _demand_ repose; and it must be so injurious to you to be perpetually calling, calling these new creations, one after another, that you must consent to be called _to_, and not hurry the next act, no, nor any act--let the people have time to learn the last number by heart. And how glad I am that Mr. Fox should say what he did of it ... though it wasn't true, you know ... not exactly. Still, I do hold that as far as construction goes, you never put together so much unquestionable, smooth glory before, ... not a single entanglement for the understanding ... unless 'the snowdrops' make an exception--while for the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before your readers more plainly than in that same number! Also you have extended your sweep of power--the sea-weed is thrown farther (if not higher) than it was found before; and one may calculate surely now how a few more waves will cover the brown stones and float the sight up away through the fissure of the rocks. The rhythm (to touch one of the various things) the rhythm of that 'Duchess' does more and more strike me as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greeks called pedestrian-metre, ... between metre and prose ... the difficult rhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of the general measure. Then 'The Ride'--with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering ... yes, and how that one touch of softness acts back upon the energy and resolution and exalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have been expected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then 'Saul'--and in a first place 'St. Praxed'--and for pure description, 'Fortú' and the deep 'Pictor Ignotus'--and the noble, serene 'Italy in England,' which grows on you the more you know of it--and that delightful 'Glove'--and the short lyrics ... for one comes to _'select' everything_ at last, and certainly I do like these poems better and better, as your poems are made to be liked. But you will be tired to hear it said over and over so, ... and I am going to 'Luria,' besides.
When you write will you say exactly how you are? and will you write? And I want to explain to you that although I don't make a profession of equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits were always given to rock a little, up and down) yet that I did not mean to be so ungrateful and wicked as to complain of low spirits now and to you. It would not be true either: and I said 'low' to express a merely bodily state. My opium comes in to keep the pulse from fluttering and fainting ... to give the right composure and point of balance to the nervous system. I don't take it for 'my spirits' in the usual sense; you must not think such a thing. The medical man who came to see me made me take it the other day when he was in the room, before the right hour and when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the need he observed in the pulse. 'It was a necessity of my position,' he said. Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually do who take opium. I am not even subject to an opium-headache. As to the low spirits I will not say that mine _have not_ been low enough and with cause enough; but _even then_, ... why if you were to ask the nearest witnesses, ... say, even my own sisters, ... everybody would tell you, I think, that the 'cheerfulness' even _then_, was the remarkable thing in me--certainly it has been remarked about me again and again. Nobody has known that it was an effort (a habit of effort) to throw the light on the outside,--I do abhor so that ignoble groaning aloud of the 'groans of Testy and Sensitude'--yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in anything. Think if I could mean to complain of 'low spirits' now, and to you. Why it would be like complaining of not being able to see at noon--which would simply prove that I was very blind. And you, who are not blind, cannot make out what is written--so you _need not try_. May God bless you long after you have done blessing me!
Your own
E.B.B.
Now I am half tempted to tear this letter in two (and it is long enough for three) and to send you only the latter half. But you will understand--you will not think that there is a contradiction between the first and last ... you _cannot_. One is a truth of me--and the other a truth of you--and we two are different, you know.
You are not over-working in 'Luria'? That you _should not_, is a truth, too.
I observed that Mr. Kenyon put in '_Junior_' to your address. Ought that to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you without hesitation?
Mr. Kenyon asked me for Mr. Chorley's book, or you should have it. Shall I send it to you presently?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Morning. [Post-mark, November 17, 1845.]
At last your letter comes--and the deep joy--(I know and use to analyse my own feelings, and be sober in giving distinctive names to their varieties; this is _deep_ joy,)--the true love with which I take this much of you into my heart, ... _that_ proves what it is I wanted so long, and find at last, and am happy for ever. I must have more than 'intimated'--I must have spoken plainly out the truth, if I do myself the barest justice, and told you long ago that the admiration at your works went _away_, quite another way and afar from the love of you. If I could fancy some method of what I shall say happening without all the obvious stumbling-blocks of falseness, &c. which no foolish fancy dares associate with you ... if you COULD tell me when I next sit by you--'I will undeceive you,--I am not _the_ Miss B.--she is up-stairs and you shall see her--I only wrote those letters, and am what you see, that is all now left you' (all the misapprehension having arisen from _me_, in some inexplicable way) ... I should not begin by _saying_ anything, dear, dearest--but _after that_, I should assure you--soon make you believe that I did not much wonder at the event, for I have been all my life asking what connection there is between the satisfaction at the display of power, and the sympathy with--ever-increasing sympathy with--all imaginable weakness? Look now: Coleridge writes on and on,--at last he writes a note to his 'War-Eclogue,' in which he avers himself to have been actuated by a really--on the whole--_benevolent_ feeling to Mr. Pitt when he wrote that stanza in which 'Fire' means to 'cling to him everlastingly'--where is the long line of admiration now that the end snaps? And now--here I refuse to fancy--you KNOW whether, if you never write another line, speak another intelligible word, recognize me by a look again--whether I shall love you less or _more_ ... MORE; having a right to expect more strength with the strange emergency. And it is because I know this, build upon this entirely, that as a reasonable creature, I am bound to look first to what hangs farthest and most loosely from me ... what _might_ go from you to your loss, and so to mine, to say the least ... because I want ALL of you, not just so much as I could not live without--and because I see the danger of your entirely generous disposition and cannot quite, yet, bring myself to profit by it in the quiet way you recommend. Always remember, I never wrote to you, all the years, on the strength of your poetry, though I constantly heard of you through Mr. K. and was near seeing you once, and might have easily availed myself of his intervention to commend any letter to your notice, so as to reach you out of the foolish crowd of rushers-in upon genius ... who come and eat their bread and cheese on the high-altar, and talk of reverence without one of its surest instincts--never quiet till they cut their initials on the cheek of the Medicean Venus to prove they worship her. My admiration, as I said, went its natural way in silence--but when on my return to England in December, late in the month, Mr. K. sent those Poems to my sister, and I read my name there--and when, a day or two after, I met him and, beginning to speak my mind on them, and getting on no better than I should now, said quite naturally--'if I were to _write_ this, now?'--and he assured me with his perfect kindness, you would be even 'pleased' to hear from me under those circumstances ... nay,--for I will tell you all, in this, in everything--when he wrote me a note soon after to reassure me on that point ... THEN I _did_ write, on _account of my purely personal obligation_, though of course taking that occasion to allude to the general and customary delight in your works: I did write, on the whole, UNWILLINGLY ... with consciousness of having to _speak_ on a subject which I _felt_ thoroughly concerning, and could not be satisfied with an imperfect expression of. As for expecting THEN what has followed ... I shall only say I was scheming how to get done with England and go to my heart in Italy. And now, my love--I am round you ... my whole life is wound up and down and over you.... I feel you stir everywhere. I am not conscious of thinking or feeling but _about_ you, with some reference to you--so I will live, so may I die! And you have blessed me _beyond_ the _bond_, in more than in giving me yourself to love; inasmuch as you believed me from the first ... what you call 'dream-work' _was_ real of its kind, did you not think? and now you believe me, _I_ believe and am happy, in what I write with my heart full of love for you. Why do you tell me of a doubt, as now, and bid me not clear it up, 'not answer you?' Have I done wrong in thus answering? Never, never do _me_ direct _wrong_ and hide for a moment from me what a word can explain as now. You see, you thought, if but for a moment, I loved your intellect--or what predominates in your poetry and is most distinct from your heart--better, or as well as you--did you not? and I have told you every thing,--explained everything ... have I not? And now I will dare ... yes, dearest, kiss you back to my heart again; my own. There--and there!
And since I wrote what is above, I have been reading among other poems that sonnet--'Past and Future'--which affects me more than any poem I ever read. How can I put your poetry away from you, even in these ineffectual attempts to concentrate myself upon, and better apply myself to what remains?--poor, poor work it is; for is not that sonnet to be loved as a true utterance of yours? I cannot attempt to put down the thoughts that rise; may God bless me, as you pray, by letting that beloved hand shake the less ... I will only ask, _the less_ ... for being laid on mine through this life! And, indeed, you write down, for me to calmly read, that I make you happy! Then it is--as with all power--God through the weakest instrumentality ... and I am past expression proud and grateful--My love,
I am your
R.B.
I must answer your questions: I am better--and will certainly have your injunction before my eyes and work quite moderately. Your letters come _straight_ to me--my father's go to Town, except on extraordinary occasions, so that _all_ come for my first looking-over. I saw Mr. K. last night at the Amateur Comedy--and heaps of old acquaintances--and came home tired and savage--and _yearned_ literally, for a letter this morning, and so it came and I was well again. So, I am not even to have your low spirits leaning on mine? It was just because I always find you alike, and _ever_ like yourself, that I seemed to discern a depth, when you spoke of 'some days' and what they made uneven where all is agreeable to _me_. Do not, now, deprive me of a right--a right ... to find you as you _are_; get no habit of being cheerful with me--I have universal sympathy and can show you a SIDE of me, a true face, turn as you may. If you _are_ cheerful ... so will I be ... if sad, my cheerfulness will be all the while _behind_, and propping up, any sadness that meets yours, if that should be necessary. As for my question about the opium ... you do not misunderstand _that_ neither: I trust in the eventual consummation of my--shall I not say, _our_--hopes; and all that bears upon your health immediately or prospectively, affects me--how it affects me! Will you write again? _Wednesday_, remember! Mr. K. wants me to go to him one of the three next days after. I will bring you some letters ... one from Landor. Why should I trouble you about 'Pomfret.'
And Luria ... does it so interest you? Better is to come of it. How you lift me up!--
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, November 18, 1845.]
How you overcome me as always you do--and where is the answer to anything except too deep down in the heart for even the pearl-divers? But understand ... what you do not quite ... that I did not mistake you as far even as you say here and even 'for a moment.' I did not write any of that letter in a 'doubt' of you--not a word.... I was simply looking back in it on my own states of feeling, ... looking back from that point of your praise to what was better ... (or I should not have looked back)--and so coming to tell you, by a natural association, how the completely opposite point to that of any praise was the one which struck me first and most, viz. the no-reason of your reasoning ... acknowledged to be yours. Of course I acknowledge it to be yours, ... that high reason of no reason--I acknowledged it to be yours (didn't I?) in acknowledging that it made an impression on me. And then, referring to the traditions of my experience such as I told them to you, I meant, so, farther to acknowledge that I would rather be cared for in _that_ unreasonable way, than for the best reason in the world. But all _that_ was history and philosophy simply--was it not?--and not _doubt of you_.
The truth is ... since we really are talking truths in this world ... that I never have doubted you--ah, you _know_!--I felt from the beginning so sure of the nobility and integrity in you that I would have trusted you to make a path for my soul--_that_, you _know_. I felt certain that you believed of yourself every word you spoke or wrote--and you must not blame me if I thought besides sometimes (it was the extent of my thought) that you were self-deceived as to the nature of your own feelings. If you could turn over every page of my heart like the pages of a book, you would see nothing there offensive to the least of your feelings ... not even to the outside fringes of your man's vanity ... should you have any vanity like a man; which I _do_ doubt. I never wronged you in the least of things--never ... I thank God for it. But 'self-deceived,' it was so easy for you to be: see how on every side and day by day, men are--and women too--in this sort of feelings. 'Self-deceived,' it was so possible for you to be, and while I thought it possible, could I help thinking it _best_ for you that it should be so--and was it not right in me to persist in thinking it possible? It was my reverence for you that made me persist! What was _I_ that I should think otherwise? I had been shut up here too long face to face with my own spirit, not to know myself, and, so, to have lost the common illusions of vanity. All the men I had ever known could not make your stature among them. So it was not distrust, but reverence rather. I sate by while the angel stirred the water, and I called it _Miracle_. Do not blame me now, ... _my_ angel!
Nor say, that I 'do not lean' on you with all the weight of my 'past' ... because I do! You cannot guess what you are to me--you cannot--it is not possible:--and though I have said _that_ before, I must say it again ... for it comes again to be said. It is something to me between dream and miracle, all of it--as if some dream of my earliest brightest dreaming-time had been lying through these dark years to steep in the sunshine, returning to me in a double light. _Can_ it be, I say to myself, that _you_ feel for me _so_? can it be meant for me? this from _you_?
If it is your 'right' that I should be gloomy at will with you, you exercise it, I do think--for although I cannot promise to be very sorrowful when you come, (how could that be?) yet from different motives it seems to me that I have written to you quite superfluities about my 'abomination of desolation,'--yes indeed, and blamed myself afterwards. And now I must say this besides. When grief came upon grief, I never was tempted to ask 'How have I deserved this of God,' as sufferers sometimes do: I always felt that there must be cause enough ... corruption enough, needing purification ... weakness enough, needing strengthening ... _nothing_ of the chastisement could come to me without cause and need. But in this different hour, when joy follows joy, and God makes me happy, as you say, _through_ you ... I cannot repress the ... 'How have I deserved _this_ of Him?'--I know I have not--I know I do not.
Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room for you?--If so, it was well done,--dearest! They leave the ground fallow before the wheat.
'Were you wrong in answering?' Surely not ... unless it is wrong to show all this goodness ... and too much, it may be for _me_. When the plants droop for drought and the copious showers fall suddenly, silver upon silver, they die sometimes of the reverse of their adversities. But no--_that_, even, shall not be a danger! And if I said 'Do not answer,' I did not mean that I would not have a doubt removed--(having _no_ doubt!--) but I was simply unwilling to seem to be asking for golden words ... going down the aisles with that large silken purse, as _quêteuse_. Try to understand.
On Wednesday then!--George is invited to meet you on Thursday at Mr. Kenyon's.
The _Examiner_ speaks well, upon the whole, and with allowances ... oh, that absurdity about metaphysics apart from poetry!--'Can such things be' in one of the best reviews of the day? Mr. Kenyon was here on Sunday and talking of the poems with real living tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. But I will tell you. 'Luria' is to climb to the place of a great work, I see. And if I write too long letters, is it not because you spoil me, and because (being spoilt) I cannot help it?--May God bless you always--
Your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Morning.
Here is the copy of Landor's verses.
You know thoroughly, do you not, why I brought all those good-natured letters, desperate praise and all? Not, _not_ out of the least vanity in the world--nor to help myself in your sight with such testimony: would it seem very extravagant, on the contrary, if I said that perhaps I laid them before your eyes in a real fit of compunction at not being, in my heart, thankful enough for the evident motive of the writers,--and so was determined to give them the 'last honours' if not the first, and not make them miss _you_ because, through my fault, they had missed _me_? Does this sound too fantastical? Because it is strictly true: the most laudatory of all, I _skimmed_ once over with my flesh _creeping_--it seemed such a death-struggle, that of good nature over--well, it is fresh ingratitude of me, so here it shall end.
I am not ungrateful to _you_--but you must wait to know that:--I can speak less than nothing with my living lips.
I mean to ask your brother how you are to-night ... so quietly!
God bless you, my dearest, and reward you.
Your R.B.
Mrs. Shelley--with the 'Ricordi.'
Of course, Landor's praise is altogether a different gift; a gold vase from King Hiram; beside he has plenty of conscious rejoicing in his own riches, and is not left painfully poor by what he sends away. _That_ is the unpleasant point with some others--they spread you a board and want to gird up their loins and wait on you there. Landor says 'come up higher and let us sit and eat together.' Is it not that?
Now--you are not to turn on me because the first is my proper feeling to _you_, ... for poetry is not the thing given or taken between us--it is heart and life and _my_self, not _mine_, I give--give? That you glorify and change and, in returning then, give _me_!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday. [Post-mark, November 21, 1845.]
Thank you! and will you, if your sister made the copy of Landor's verses for _me_ as well as for you, thank _her_ from me for another kindness, ... not the second nor the third? For my own part, be sure that if I did not fall on the right subtle interpretation about the letters, at least I did not 'think it vain' of you! vain: when, supposing you really to have been over-gratified by such letters, it could have proved only an excess of humility!--But ... besides the subtlety,--you meant to be kind to _me_, you know,--and I had a pleasure and an interest in reading them--only that ... mind. Sir John Hanmer's, I was half angry with! Now _is_ he not cold?--and is it not easy to see _why_ he is forced to write his own scenes five times over and over? He might have mentioned the 'Duchess' I think; and he a poet! Mr. Chorley speaks some things very well--but what does he mean about 'execution,' _en revanche_? but I liked his letter and his candour in the last page of it. Will Mr. Warburton review you? does he mean _that_? Now do let me see any other letters you receive. _May_ I? Of course Landor's 'dwells apart' from all: and besides the reason you give for being gratified by it, it is well that one prophet should open his mouth and prophesy and give his witness to the inspiration of another. See what he says in the letter.... '_You may stand quite alone if you will--and I think you will.' That_ is a noble testimony to a _truth_. And he discriminates--he understands and discerns--they are not words thrown out into the air. The 'profusion of imagery covering the depth of thought' is a true description. And, in the verses, he lays his finger just on your characteristics--just on those which, when you were only a poet to me, (only a poet: does it sound irreverent? almost, I think!) which, when you were only a poet to me, I used to study, characteristic by characteristic, and turn myself round and round in despair of being ever able to approach, taking them to be so essentially and intensely masculine that like effects were unattainable, even in a lower degree, by any female hand. Did I not tell you so once before? or oftener than once? And must not these verses of Landor's be printed somewhere--in the _Examiner_? and again in the _Athenæum_? if in the _Examiner_, certainly again in the _Athenæum_--it would be a matter of course. Oh those verses: how they have pleased me! It was an act worthy of him--and of _you_.
George has been properly 'indoctrinated,' and, we must hope, will do credit to my instructions. Just now ... just as I was writing ... he came in to say good-morning and good-night (he goes to chambers earlier than I receive visitors generally), and to ask with a smile, if I had 'a message for my friend' ... _that_ was you ... and so he was indoctrinated. He is good and true, honest and kind, but a little over-grave and reasonable, as I and my sisters complain continually. The great Law lime-kiln dries human souls all to one colour--and he is an industrious reader among law books and knows a good deal about them, I have heard from persons who can judge; but with a sacrifice of impulsiveness and liberty of spirit, which _I_ should regret for him if he sate on the Woolsack even. Oh--that law! how I do detest it! I hate it and think ill of it--I tell George so sometimes--and he is good-natured and only thinks to himself (a little audibly now and then) that I am a woman and talking nonsense. But the morals of it, and the philosophy of it! And the manners of it! in which the whole host of barristers looks down on the attorneys and the rest of the world!--how long are these things to last!
Theodosia Garrow, I have seen face to face once or twice. She is very clever--very accomplished--with talents and tastes of various kinds--a musician and linguist, in most modern languages I believe--and a writer of fluent graceful melodious verses, ... you cannot say any more. At least _I_ cannot--and though I have not seen this last poem in the 'Book of Beauty,' I have no more trust ready for it than for its predecessors, of which Mr. Landor said as much. It is the personal feeling which speaks in him, I fancy--simply the personal feeling--and, _that_ being the case, it does not spoil the discriminating appreciation on the other page of this letter. I might have the modesty to admit besides that I may be wrong and he, right, all through. But ... 'more intense than Sappho'!--more intense than intensity itself!--to think of _that_!--Also the word 'poetry' has a clear meaning to me, and all the fluency and facility and quick ear-catching of a tune which one can find in the world, do not answer to it--no.
How is the head? will you tell me? I have written all this without a word of it, and yet ever since yesterday I have been uneasy, ... I cannot help it. You see you are not better but worse. 'Since you were in Italy'--Then is it England that disagrees with you? and is it change away from England that you want? ... _require_, I mean. If so--why what follows and ought to follow? You must not be ill indeed--_that_ is the first necessity. Tell me how you are, exactly how you are; and remember to walk, and not to work too much--for my sake--if you care for me--if it is not too bold of me to say so. I had fancied you were looking better rather than otherwise: but those sensations in the head are frightful and ought to be stopped by whatever means; even by the worst, as they would seem to _me_. Well--it was bad news to hear of the increase of pain; for the amendment was a 'passing show' I fear, and not caused even by thoughts of mine or it would have appeared before; while on the other side (the sunny side of the way) I heard on that same yesterday, what made me glad as good news, a whole gospel of good news, and from _you_ too who profess to say 'less than nothing,' and _that_ was that '_the times seemed longer to you_':--do you remember saying it? And it made me glad ... happy--perhaps too glad and happy--and surprised: yes, surprised!--for if you had told me (but you would not have told me) if you had let me guess ... just the contrary, ... '_that the times seemed shorter_,' ... why it would have seemed to _me_ as natural as nature--oh, believe me it would, and I could not have thought hardly of you for it in the most secret or silent of my thoughts. How am I to feel towards you, do you imagine, ... who have the world round you and yet make me this to you? I never can tell you how, and you never can know it without having my heart in you with all its experiences: we measure by those weights. May God bless you! and save _me_ from being the cause to you of any harm or grief!... I choose it for _my_ blessing instead of another. What should I be if I could fail willingly to you in the least thing? But I _never will_, and you know it. I will not move, nor speak, nor breathe, so as willingly and consciously to touch, with one shade of wrong, that precious deposit of 'heart and life' ... which may yet be recalled.
And, so, may God bless you and your
E.B.B.
Remember to say how you are.
I sent 'Pomfret'--and Shelley is returned, and the letters, in the same parcel--but my letter goes by the post as you see. Is there contrast enough between the two rival female personages of 'Pomfret.' _I_ fancy not. Helena should have been more 'demonstrative' than she appeared in Italy, to secure the 'new modulation' with Walter. But you will not think it a strong book, I am sure, with all the good and pure intention of it. The best character ... most life-like ... as conventional life goes ... seems to _me_ 'Mr. Rose' ... beyond all comparison--and the best point, the noiseless, unaffected manner in which the acting out of the 'private judgment' in Pomfret himself is made no heroic virtue but simply an integral part of the love of truth. As to Grace she is too good to be interesting, I am afraid--and people say of her more than she expresses--and as to 'generosity,' she could not do otherwise in the last scenes.
But I will not tell you the story after all.
At the beginning of this letter I meant to write just one page; but my generosity is like Grace's, and could not help itself. There were the letters to write of, and the verses! and then, you know, 'femme qui parle' never has done. _Let_ me hear! and I will be as brisk as a monument next time for variety.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Night. [Post-mark, November 22, 1845.]
How good and kind to send me these books! (The letter I say nothing of, according to convention: if I wrote down 'best and kindest' ... oh, what poorest words!) I shall tell you all about 'Pomfret,' be sure. Chorley talked of it, as we walked homewards together last night,--modestly and well, and spoke of having given away two copies only ... to his mother one, and the other to--Miss Barrett, and 'she seemed interested in the life of it, entered into his purpose in it,' and I listened to it all, loving Chorley for his loveability which is considerable at other times, and saying to myself what might run better in the child's couplet--'Not more than others I deserve, Though God has given me more'!--Given me the letter which expresses surprise that I shall feel these blanks between the days when I see you longer and longer! So am _I_ surprised--that I should have mentioned so obvious a matter at all; or leave unmentioned a hundred others its correlatives which I cannot conceive you to be ignorant of, you! When I spread out my riches before me, and think _what_ the hour and more means that you endow one with, I _do_--not to say _could_--I _do_ form resolutions, and say to myself--'If next time I am bidden stay away a FORTNIGHT, I will not reply by a word beyond the grateful assent.' I _do_, God knows, lay up in my heart these priceless treasures,--shall I tell you? I never in my life kept a journal, a register of sights, or fancies, or feelings; in my last travel I put down on a slip of paper a few dates, that I might remember in England, on such a day I was on Vesuvius, in Pompeii, at Shelley's grave; all that should be kept in memory is, with _me_, best left to the brain's own process. But I have, from the first, recorded the date and the duration of every visit to you; the numbers of minutes you have given me ... and I put them together till they make ... nearly two days now; four-and-twenty-hour-long-days, that I have been _by you_--and I enter the room determining to get up and go sooner ... and I go away into the light street repenting that I went so soon by I don't know how many minutes--for, love, what is it all, this love for you, but an earnest desiring to include you in myself, if that might be; to feel you in my very heart and hold you there for ever, through all chance and earthly changes!
There, I had better leave off; the words!
I was very glad to find myself with your brother yesterday; I like him very much and mean to get a friend in him--(to supply the loss of my friend ... Miss Barrett--which is gone, the friendship, so gone!) But I did not ask after you because I heard Moxon do it. Now of Landor's verses: I got a note from Forster yesterday telling me that he, too, had received a copy ... so that there is no injunction to be secret. So I got a copy for dear Mr. Kenyon, and, lo! what comes! I send the note to make you smile! I shall reply that I felt in duty bound to apprise you; as I did. You will observe that I go to that too facile gate of his on Tuesday, _my day_ ... from your house directly. The worst is that I have got entangled with invitations already, and must go out again, _hating_ it, to more than one place.
I am _very_ well--quite well; yes, dearest! The pain is quite gone; and the inconvenience, hard on its trace. You will write to me again, will you not? And be as brief as your heart lets you, to me who hoard up your words and get remote and imperfect ideas of what ... shall it be written?... anger at you could mean, when I see a line blotted out; a _second-thoughted_ finger-tip rapidly put forth upon one of my gold pieces!
I rather think if Warburton reviews me it will be in the _Quarterly_, which I know he writes for. Hanmer is a very sculpturesque passionless high-minded and amiable man ... this coldness, as you see it, is part of him. I like his poems, I think, better than you--'the Sonnets,' do you know them? Not 'Fra Cipolla.' See what is here, since you will not let me have only you to look at--this is Landor's first opinion--expressed to Forster--see the date! and last of all, see me and know me, beloved! May God bless you!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday. [Post-mark, November 22, 1845.]
Mr. Kenyon came yesterday--and do you know when he took out those verses and spoke his preface and I understood what was to follow, I had a temptation from my familiar Devil not to say I had read them before--I had the temptation strong and clear. For he (Mr. K.) told me that your sister let him see them--.
But no--My 'vade retro' prevailed, and I spoke the truth and shamed the devil and surprised Mr. Kenyon besides, as I could observe. Not an observation did he make till he was just going away half an hour afterwards, and then he said rather dryly ... 'And now may I ask how long ago it was when you first read these verses?--was it a fortnight ago?' It was better, I think, that I should not have made a mystery of such a simple thing, ... and yet I felt half vexed with myself and with him besides. But the verses,--how he praised them! more than I thought of doing ... as verses--though there is beauty and music and all that ought to be. Do you see clearly now that the latter lines refer to the combination in you,--the qualities over and above those held in common with Chaucer? And I have heard this morning from two or three of the early readers of the _Chronicle_ (I never care to see it till the evening) that the verses are there--so that my wishes have fulfilled themselves _there_ at least--strangely, for wishes of mine ... which generally 'go by contraries' as the soothsayers declare of dreams. How kind of you to send me the fragment to Mr. Forster! and how I like to read it. Was the Hebrew yours _then_ ... _written then_, I mean ... or written _now_?
Mr. Kenyon told me that you were to dine with him on Tuesday, and I took for granted, at first hearing, that you would come on Wednesday perhaps to me--and afterwards I saw the possibility of the two ends being joined without much difficulty. Still, I was not sure, before your letter came, how it might be.
That you really are better is the best news of all--thank you for telling me. It will be wise not to go out _too_ much--'aequam servare mentem' as Landor quotes, ... in this as in the rest. Perhaps that worst pain was a sort of crisis ... the sharp turn of the road about to end ... oh, I do trust it may be so.
Mr. K. wrote to Landor to the effect that it was not because he (Mr. K.) held you in affection, nor because the verses expressed critically the opinion entertained of you by all who could judge, nor because they praised a book with which his own name was associated ... but for the abstract beauty of those verses ... for _that_ reason he could not help naming them to Mr. Landor. All of which was repeated to me yesterday.
Also I heard of you from George, who admired you--admired you ... as if you were a chancellor in _posse_, a great lawyer in _esse_--and then he thought you ... what he never could think a lawyer ... '_unassuming_.' And _you_ ... you are so kind! Only _that_ makes me think bitterly what I have thought before, but cannot write to-day.
It was good-natured of Mr. Chorley to send me a copy of his book, and he sending so few--very! George who admires _you_, does not tolerate Mr. Chorley ... (did I tell ever?) declares that the affectation is 'bad,' and that there is a dash of vulgarity ... which I positively refuse to believe, and _should_, I fancy, though face to face with the most vainglorious of waistcoats. How can there be vulgarity even of manners, with so much mental refinement? I never could believe in those combinations of contradictions.
'An obvious matter,' you think! as obvious, as your 'green hill' ... which I cannot see. For the rest ... my thought upon your 'great _fact_' of the 'two days,' is quite different from yours ... for I think directly, 'So little'! so dreadfully little! What shallow earth for a deep root! What can be known of me in that time? 'So _there_, is the only good, you see, that comes from making calculations on a slip of paper! It is not and it cannot come to good.' I would rather look at my seventy-five letters--there is room to breathe in them. And this is my idea (_ecce_!) of monumental brevity--and _hic jacet_ at last
Your E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Night. [Post-mark, November 24, 1845.]
But a word to-night, my love--for my head aches a little,--I had to write a long letter to my friend at New Zealand, and now I want to sit and think of you and get well--but I must not quite lose the word I counted on.
So, _that_ way you will take my two days and turn them against me? _Oh, you!_ Did I say the 'root' had been striking then, or rather, that the seeds, whence the roots take leisure and grow, _they_ had been planted then--and might not a good heart and hand drop acorns enough to grow up into a complete Dodona-grove,--when the very rook, say farmers, hides and forgets whole navies of ship-wood one day to be, in his summer storing-journeys? But this shall do--I am not going to prove what _may_ be, when here it _is_, to my everlasting happiness.
--And 'I am kind'--there again! Do I not know what you mean by that? Well it is some comfort that you make all even in some degree, and take from my faculties here what you give them, spite of my protesting, in other directions. So I could not when I first saw you admire you very much, and wish for your friendship, and be willing to give you mine, and desirous of any opportunity of serving you, benefiting you; I could not think the finding myself in a position to feel this, just this and no more, a sufficiently fortunate event ... but I must needs get up, or imitate, or ... what is it you fancy I do? ... an utterly distinct, unnecessary, inconsequential regard for you, which should, when it got too hard for shamming at the week's end,--should simply spoil, in its explosion and departure, all the real and sufficing elements of an honest life-long attachment and affections! that I should do this, and think it a piece of kindness does....
Now, I'll tell you what it _does_ deserve, and what it shall get. Give me, dearest beyond expression, what I have always dared to think I would ask you for ... one day! Give me ... wait--for your own sake, not mine who never, never dream of being worth such a gift ... but for your own sense of justice, and to _say_, so as my heart shall hear, that you were wrong and are no longer so, give me so much of you--all precious that you are--as may be given in a lock of your hair--I will live and die with it, and with the memory of you--this _at_ the _worst_! If you give me what I beg,--shall I say next Tuesday ... when I leave you, I will not speak a word. If you do not, I will not think you unjust, for all my light words, but I will pray you to wait and remember me one day--when the power to deserve more may be greater ... never the will. God supplies all things: may he bless you, beloved! So I can but pray, kissing your hand.
R.B.
Now pardon me, dearest, for what is written ... what I cannot cancel, for the love's sake that it grew from.
The _Chronicle_ was through Moxon, I believe--Landor had sent the verses to Forster at the same time as to me, yet they do not appear. I never in my life less cared about people's praise or blame for myself, and never more for its influence on _other people_ than now--I would stand as high as I could in the eyes of all about you--yet not, after all, at poor Chorley's expense whom your brother, I am sure, unintentionally, is rather hasty in condemning; I have told you of my own much rasher opinion and how I was ashamed and sorry when I corrected it after. C. is of a different species to your brother, differently trained, looking different ways--and for some of the peculiarities that strike at first sight, C. himself gives a good reason to the enquirer on better acquaintance. For 'Vulgarity'--NO! But your kind brother will alter his view, I know, on further acquaintance ... and,--woe's me--will find that 'assumption's' pertest self would be troubled to exercise its quality at such a house as Mr. K.'s, where every symptom of a proper claim is met half way and helped onward far too readily.
Good night, now. Am I not yours--are you not mine? And can that make _you_ happy too?
Bless you once more and for ever.
That scrap of Landor's being for no other eye than mine--I made the foolish comment, that there was no blotting out--made it some four or five years ago, when I could read what I only guess at now, through my idle opening the hand and letting the caught bird go--but there used to be a real satisfaction to me in writing those grand Hebrew characters--the noble languages!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, November 24, 1845.]
But what unlawful things have I said about 'kindness'? I did not mean any harm--no, indeed! And as to thinking ... as to having ever thought, that you could 'imitate' (can this word be 'imitate'?) an unfelt feeling or a feeling unsupposed to be felt ... I may solemnly assure you that I never, never did so. 'Get up'--'imitate'!! But it was the contrary ... _all_ the contrary! From the beginning, now _did_ I not believe you too much? Did I not believe you even in your contradiction of yourself ... in your _yes_ and _no_ on the same subject, ... and take the world to be turning round backwards and myself to have been shut up here till I grew mad, ... rather than disbelieve you either way? Well!--You know it as well as I can tell you, and I will not, any more. If I have been 'wrong,' it was not _so_ ... nor indeed _then_ ... it is not _so_, though it is _now_, perhaps.
Therefore ... but wait! I never gave away what you ask me to give _you_, to a human being, except my nearest relatives and once or twice or thrice to female friends, ... never, though reproached for it; and it is just three weeks since I said last to an asker that I was 'too great a prude for such a thing'! it was best to anticipate the accusation!--And, prude or not, I could not--I never could--_something_ would not let me. And now ... what am I to do ... 'for my own sake and not yours?' Should you have it, or not? Why I suppose ... _yes_. I suppose that 'for my own sense of justice and in order to show that I was wrong' (which is wrong--you wrote a wrong word there ... 'right,' you meant!) 'to show that I was _right_ and am no longer so,' ... I suppose you must have it, 'Oh, _You_,' ... who have your way in everything! Which does not mean ... Oh, vous, qui avez toujours raison--far from it.
Also ... which does not mean that I shall give you what you ask for, _to-morrow_,--because I shall not--and one of my conditions is (with others to follow) that _not a word be said to-morrow_, you understand. Some day I will send it perhaps ... as you _knew_ I should ... ah, as you knew I should ... notwithstanding that 'getting up' ... that 'imitation' ... of humility: as you knew _too_ well I should!
Only I will not teaze you as I might perhaps; and now that your headache has begun again--the headache again: the worse than headache! See what good my wishes do! And try to understand that if I speak of my being 'wrong' now in relation to you ... of my being right before, and wrong now, ... I mean wrong for your sake, and not for mine ... wrong in letting you come out into the desert here to me, you whose place is by the waters of Damascus. But I need not tell you over again--you _know_. May God bless you till to-morrow and past it for ever. Mr. Kenyon brought me your note yesterday to read about the 'order in the button-hole'--ah!--or 'oh, _you_,' may I not re-echo? It enrages me to think of Mr. Forster; publishing too as he does, at a moment, the very sweepings of Landor's desk! Is the motive of the reticence to be looked for somewhere among the cinders?--Too bad it is. So, till to-morrow! and you shall not be 'kind' any more.
Your
E.B.B.
But how, 'a _foolish_ comment'? Good and true rather! And I admired the _writing_[1] ... worthy of the reeds of Jordan!
[Footnote 1: Mr. Browning's letter is written in an unusually bold hand.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Morning. [Post-mark, November 27, 1845.]
How are you? and Miss Bayley's visit yesterday, and Mr. K.'s to-day--(He told me he should see you this morning--and _I_ shall pass close by, having to be in town and near you,--but only the thought will reach you and be with you--) tell me all this, dearest.
How kind Mr. Kenyon was last night and the day before! He neither wonders nor is much vexed, I dare believe--and I write now these few words to say so--My heart is set on next Thursday, remember ... and the prize of Saturday! Oh, dearest, believe for truth's sake, that I WOULD most frankly own to any fault, any imperfection in the beginning of my love of you; in the pride and security of this present stage it has reached--I _would_ gladly learn, by the full lights now, what an insufficient glimmer it grew from, ... but there _never has been change_, only development and increased knowledge and strengthened feeling--I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours for ever. God bless you, and make me thankful!
And you _will_ give me _that_? What shall save me from wreck: but truly? How must I feel to you!
Yours R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Evening. [Post-mark, November 27, 1845.]
Now you must not blame me--you must not. To make a promise is one thing, and to keep it, quite another: and the conclusion you see 'as from a tower.' Suppose I had an oath in heaven somewhere ... near to 'coma Berenices,' ... never to give you what you ask for! ... would not such an oath be stronger than a mere half promise such as I sent you a few hours ago? Admit that it would--and that I am not to blame for saying now ... (listen!) that I _never can_ nor _will give you this thing_;--only that I will, if you please, exchange it for another thing--you understand. _I_ too will avoid being 'assuming'; I will not pretend to be generous, no, nor 'kind.' It shall be pure merchandise or nothing at all. Therefore determine!--remembering always how our 'ars poetica,' after Horace, recommends 'dare et petere vicissim'--which is making a clatter of pedantry to take advantage of the noise ... because perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say this to you, and perhaps I _am_! ... yet say it none the less.
And ... less lightly ... if you have right and reason on your side, may I not have a little on mine too? And shall I not care, do you think?... Think!
Then there is another reason for me, entirely mine. You have come to me as a dream comes, as the best dreams come ... dearest--and so there is need to me of 'a sign' to know the difference between dream and vision--and _that_ is my completest reason, my own reason--you have none like it; none. A ticket to know the horn-gate from the ivory, ... ought I not to have it? Therefore send it to me before I send you anything, and if possible by that Lewisham post which was the most frequent bringer of your letters until these last few came, and which reaches me at eight in the evening when all the world is at dinner and my solitude most certain. Everything is so still then, that I have heard the footsteps of a letter of yours ten doors off ... or more, perhaps. Now beware of imagining from this which I say, that there is a strict police for my correspondence ... (it is not so--) nor that I do not like hearing from you at any and every hour: it _is_ so. Only I would make the smoothest and sweetest of roads for ... and you _understand_, and do not _imagine_ beyond.
_Tuesday evening._--What is written is written, ... all the above: and it is forbidden to me to write a word of what I could write down here ... forbidden for good reasons. So I am silent on _conditions_ ... those being ... first ... that you never do such things again ... no, you must not and shall not.... I _will not let it be_: and secondly, that you try to hear the unspoken words, and understand how your gift will remain with me while _I_ remain ... they need not be said--just as _it_ need not have been so beautiful, for that. The beauty drops 'full fathom five' into the deep thought which covers it. So I study my Machiavelli to contrive the possibility of wearing it, without being put to the question violently by all the curiosity of all my brothers;--the questions 'how' ... 'what' ... 'why' ... put round and edgeways. They are famous, some of them, for asking questions. I say to them--'well: how many more questions?' And now ... for _me_--_have_ I said a word?--_have_ I not been obedient? And by rights and in justice, there should have been a reproach ... if there could! Because, friendship or more than friendship, Pisa or no Pisa, it was unnecessary altogether from you to me ... but I have done, and you shall not be teazed.
_Wednesday._--Only ... I persist in the view of the _other_ question. This will not do for the '_sign_,' ... this, which, so far from being qualified for disproving a dream, is the beautiful image of a dream in itself ... _so_ beautiful: and with the very shut eyelids, and the "little folding of the hands to sleep." You see at a glance it will not do. And so--
Just as one might be interrupted while telling a fairy-tale, ... in the midst of the "and so's" ... just _so_, I have been interrupted by the coming in of Miss Bayley, and here she has been sitting for nearly two hours, from twelve to two nearly, and I like her, do you know. Not only she talks well, which was only a thing to expect, but she seems to _feel_ ... to have great sensibility--_and_ her kindness to me ... kindness of manner and words and expression, all together ... quite touched me.--I did not think of her being so loveable a person. Yet it was kind and generous, her proposition about Italy; (did I tell you how she made it to me through Mr. Kenyon long ago--when I was a mere stranger to her?) the proposition to go there with me herself. It was quite a grave, earnest proposal of hers--which was one of the reasons why I could not even _wish_ not to see her to-day. Because you see, it was a tremendous degree of experimental generosity, to think of going to Italy by sea with an invalid stranger, "seule _à_ seule." And she was wholly in earnest, wholly. Is there not good in the world after all?
Tell me how you are, for I am not at ease about you--You were not well even yesterday, I thought. If this goes on ... but it mustn't go on--oh, it must not. May God bless us more!
Do not fancy, in the meantime, that you stay here 'too long' for any observation that can be made. In the first place there is nobody to 'observe'--everybody is out till seven, except the one or two who will not observe if I tell them not. My sisters are glad when you come, because it is a gladness of mine, ... they observe. I have a great deal of liberty, to have so many chains; we all have, in this house: and though the liberty has melancholy motives, it saves some daily torment, and _I_ do not complain of it for one.
May God bless you! Do not forget me. Say how you are. What good can I do you with all my thoughts, when you keep unwell? See!--Facts are against fancies. As when I would not have the lamp lighted yesterday because it seemed to make it later, and you proved directly that it would not make it _earlier_, by getting up and going away!
Wholly and ever your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, November 28, 1845.][1]
Take it, dearest; what I am forced to think you mean--and take _no more_ with it--for I gave all to give long ago--I am all yours--and now, _mine_; give me _mine_ to be happy with!
You will have received my note of yesterday.--I am glad you are satisfied with Miss Bayley, whom I, too, thank ... that is, sympathize with, ... (not wonder at, though)--for her intention.... Well, may it all be for best--here or at Pisa, you are my blessing and life.
... How all considerate you are, _you_ that are the kind, kind one! The post arrangement I will remember--to-day, for instance, will this reach you at 8? I shall be with you then, in thought. 'Forget you!'--_What_ does that mean, dearest?
And I might have stayed longer and you let me go. What does _that_ mean, also tell me? Why, I make up my mind to go, always, like a man, and praise myself as I get through it--as when one plunges into the cold water--ONLY ... ah, _that_ too is no more a merit than any other thing I do ... there is the reward, the last and best! Or is it the 'lure'?
I would not be ashamed of my soul if it might be shown you,--it is wholly grateful, conscious of you.
But another time, do not let me wrong myself _so_! Say, 'one minute more.'
On Monday?--I am _much_ better--and, having got free from an engagement for Saturday, shall stay quietly here and think the post never intending to come--for you will not let me wait longer?
Shall I dare write down a grievance of my heart, and not offend you? Yes, trusting in the right of my love--you tell me, sweet, here in the letter, 'I do not look so well'--and sometimes, I 'look better' ... _how do you know_? When I first saw you--_I saw your eyes_--since then, _you_, it should appear, see mine--but I only _know_ yours are there, and have to use that memory as if one carried dried flowers about when fairly inside the garden-enclosure. And while I resolve, and hesitate, and resolve again to complain of this--(kissing your foot ... not boldly complaining, nor rudely)--while I have this on my mind, on my heart, ever since that May morning ... can it be?
--No, nothing _can be_ wrong now--you will never call me 'kind' again, in that sense, you promise! Nor think 'bitterly' of my kindness, that word!
Shall I _see_ you on Monday?
God bless you my dearest--I see her now--and _here_ and _now_ the eyes open, wide _enough_, and I will kiss them--_how_ gratefully!
Your own
R.B.
[Footnote 1: Envelope endorsed by E.B.B. 'hair.']
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday. [Post-mark, December 1, 1845.]
It comes at eight o'clock--the post says eight ... _I_ say nearer half past eight ... it _comes_--and I thank you, thank you, as I can. Do you remember the purple lock of a king on which hung the fate of a city? _I_ do! And I need not in conscience--because this one here did not come to me by treason--'ego et rex meus,' on the contrary, do fairly give and take.
I meant at first only to send you what is in the ring ... which, by the way, will not fit you I know--(not certainly in the finger which it was meant for ...) as it would not Napoleon before you--but can easily be altered to the right size.... I meant at first to send you only what was in the ring: but your fashion is best so you shall have it both ways. Now don't say a word on Monday ... nor at all. As for the ring, recollect that I am forced to feel blindfold into the outer world, and take what is nearest ... by chance, not choice ... or it might have been better--a little better--perhaps. The _best_ of it is that it's the colour of your blue flowers. Now you will not say a word--I trust to you.
It is enough that you should have said these others, I think. Now _is_ it just of you? isn't it hard upon me? And if the charge is true, whose fault is it, pray? I have been ashamed and vexed with myself fifty times for being so like a little girl, ... for seeming to have 'affectations'; and all in vain: 'it was stronger than I,' as the French say. And for _you_ to complain! As if Haroun Alraschid after cutting off a head, should complain of the want of an obeisance!--Well!--I smile notwithstanding. Nobody can help smiling--both for my foolishness which is great, I confess, though somewhat exaggerated in your statement--(because if it was quite as bad as you say, you know, I never should have _seen you_ ... and _I have_!) and also for yours ... because you take such a very preposterously wrong way for overcoming anybody's shyness. Do you know, I have laughed ... really laughed at your letter. No--it has not been so bad. I have seen you at every visit, as well as I could with both eyes wide open--only that by a supernatural influence they won't stay open with _you_ as they are used to do with other people ... so now I tell you. And for the rest I promise nothing at all--as how can I, when it is quite beyond my control--and you have not improved my capabilities ... do you think you have? Why what nonsense we have come to--we, who ought to be 'talking Greek!' said Mr. Kenyon.
Yes--he came and talked of you, and told me how you had been speaking of ... me; and I have been thinking how I should have been proud of it a year ago, and how I could half scold you for it now. Ah yes--and Mr. Kenyon told me that you had spoken exaggerations--such exaggerations!--Now should there not be some scolding ... some?
But how did you expect Mr. Kenyon to 'wonder' at _you_, or be 'vexed' with _you_? That would have been strange surely. You are and always have been a chief favourite in that quarter ... appreciated, praised, loved, I think.
While I write, a letter from America is put into my hands, and having read it through with shame and confusion of face ... not able to help a smile though notwithstanding, ... I send it to you to show how you have made me behave!--to say nothing of my other offences to the kind people at Boston--and to a stray gentleman in Philadelphia who is to perform a pilgrimage next year, he says, ... to visit the Holy Land and your E.B.B. I was naughty enough to take _that_ letter to be a circular ... for the address of various 'Europ_a_ians.' In any case ... just see how I have behaved! and if it has not been worse than ... not opening one's eyes!--Judge. Really and gravely I am ashamed--I mean as to Mr. Mathews, who has been an earnest, kind friend to me--and I do mean to behave better. I say _that_ to prevent your scolding, you know. And think of Mr. Poe, with that great Roman justice of his (if not rather American!), dedicating a book to one and abusing one in the preface of the same. He wrote a review of me in just that spirit--the two extremes of laudation and reprehension, folded in on one another. You would have thought that it had been written by a friend and foe, each stark mad with love and hate, and writing the alternate paragraphs--a most curious production indeed.
And here I shall end. I have been waiting ... waiting for what does not come ... the ring ... sent to have the hair put in; but it won't come (now) until too late for the post, and you must hear from me before Monday ... you ought to have heard to-day. It has not been my fault--I have waited. Oh these people--who won't remember that it is possible to be out of patience! So I send you my letter now ... and what is in the paper now ... and the rest, you shall have after Monday. And you _will not say a word_ ... not then ... not at all!--I trust you. And may God bless you.
If ever you care less for me--I do not say it in distrust of you ... I trust you wholly--but you are a man, and free to care less, ... and if ever you _do_ ... why in that case you will destroy, burn, ... do all but send back ... enough is said for you to understand.
May God bless you. You are _best_ to me--best ... as I see ... in the world--and so, dearest aright to
Your
E.B.B.
Finished on Saturday evening. Oh--this thread of silk--And to post!! After all you must wait till Tuesday. I have no silk within reach and shall miss the post. Do forgive me.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday Evening.
This is the mere postscript to the letter I have just sent away. By a few minutes too late, comes what I have all day been waiting for, ... and besides (now it is just too late!) now I may have a skein of silk if I please, to make that knot with, ... for want of which, two locks meant for you, have been devoted to the infernal gods already ... fallen into a tangle and thrown into the fire ... and all the hair of my head might have followed, for I was losing my patience and temper fast, ... and the post to boot. So wisely I shut my letter, (after unwisely having driven everything to the last moment!)--and now I have silk to tie fast with ... to tie a 'nodus' ... 'dignus' of the celestial interposition--and a new packet shall be ready to go to you directly.
At last I remember to tell you that the first letter you had from me this week, was forgotten, (not by _me_) forgotten, and detained, so, from the post--a piece of carelessness which Wilson came to confess to me too frankly for me to grumble as I should have done otherwise.
For the staying longer, I did not mean to say you were wrong not to stay. In the first place you were keeping your father 'in a maze,' as you said yourself--and then, even without that, I never know what o'clock it is ... never. Mr. Kenyon tells me that I must live in a dream--which I do--time goes ... seeming to go round rather than go forward. The watch I have, broke its spring two years ago, and there I leave it in the drawer--and the clocks all round strike out of hearing, or at best, when the wind brings the sound, one upon another in a confusion. So you know more of time than I do or can.
Till Monday then! I send the 'Ricordi' to take care of the rest ... of mine. It is a touching story--and there is an impracticable nobleness from end to end in the spirit of it. How _slow_ (to the ear and mind) that Italian rhetoric is! a language for dreamers and declaimers. Yet Dante made it for action, and Machiavelli's prose can walk and strike as well as float and faint.
The ring is smaller than I feared at first, and may perhaps--
Now you will not say a word. My excuse is that you had nothing to remember me by, while I had this and this and this and this ... how much too much!
If I could be too much
Your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday. [Post-mark, December 2, 1845.]
I was happy, so happy before! But I am happier and richer now. My love--no words could serve here, but there is life before us, and to the end of it the vibration now struck will extend--I will live and die with your beautiful ring, your beloved hair--comforting me, blessing me.
Let me write to-morrow--when I think on all you have been and are to me, on the wonder of it and the deliciousness, it makes the paper words that come seem vainer than ever--To-morrow I will write.
May God bless you, my own, my precious--
I am all your own
R.B.
I have thought again, and believe it will be best to select the finger _you_ intended ... as the alteration will be simpler, I find; and one is less liable to observation and comment.
Was not that Mr. Kenyon last evening? And did he ask, or hear, or say anything?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
[Post-mark, December 3, 1845.]
See, dearest, what the post brings me this minute! Now, is it not a good omen, a pleasant inconscious prophecy of what is to be? Be it well done, or badly--there are you, leading me up and onward, in his review as everywhere, at every future time! And our names will go together--be read together. In itself this is nothing to _you_, dear poet--but the unexpectedness, unintended significance of it has pleased me very much--_does_ it not please you?--I thought I was to figure in that cold _Quarterly_ all by myself, (for he writes for it)--but here you are close by me; it cannot but be for good. He has no knowledge whatever that I am even a friend of yours. Say you are pleased!
There was no writing yesterday for me--nor will there be much to-day. In some moods, you know, I turn and take a thousand new views of what you say ... and find fault with you to your surprise--at others, I rest on you, and feel _all_ well, all _best_ ... now, for one instance, even that phrase of the _possibility_ 'and what is to follow,'--even _that_ I cannot except against--I am happy, contented; too well, too prodigally blessed to be even able to murmur just sufficiently loud to get, in addition to it all, a sweetest stopping of the mouth! I will say quietly and becomingly 'Yes--I do promise you'--yet it is some solace to--No--I will _not_ even couple the promise with an adjuration that you, at the same time, see that they care for me properly at Hanwell Asylum ... the best by all accounts: yet I feel so sure of _you_, so safe and confident in you! If any of it had been _my_ work, my own ... distrust and foreboding had pursued me from the beginning; but all is _yours_--you crust me round with gold and jewelry like the wood of a sceptre; and why should you transfer your own work? Wood enough to choose from in the first instance, but the choice once made!... So I rest on you, for life, for death, beloved--beside you do stand, in my solemn belief, the direct miraculous gift of God to me--that is my solemn belief; may I be thankful!
I am anxious to hear from you ... when am I not?--but _not_ before the American letter is written and sent. Is that done? And who was the visitor on Monday--and if &c. _what_ did he remark?--And what is right or wrong with Saturday--is it to be mine?
Bless you, dearest--now and for ever--words cannot say how much I am your own.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, December 4, 1845.]
No Mr. Kenyon after all--not yesterday, not to-day; and the knock at the door belonged perhaps to the post, which brought me a kind letter from Mrs. Jameson to ask how I was, and if she might come--but she won't come on Saturday.... I shall 'provide'--she may as well (and better) come on a free day. On the other side, are you sure that Mr. Procter may not stretch out his hand and seize on Saturday (he was to dine with you, you said), or that some new engagement may not start up suddenly in the midst of it? I trust to you, in such a case, to alter _our_ arrangement, without a second thought. Monday stands close by, remember, and there's a Saturday to follow Monday ... and I should understand at a word, or apart from a word.
Just as _you_ understand how to 'take me with guile,' when you tell me that anything in me can have any part in making you happy ... you, who can say such words and call them 'vain words.' Ah, well! If I only knew certainly, ... more certainly than the thing may be known by either me or you, ... that nothing in me could have any part in making you _un_happy, ... ah, would it not be enough ... _that_ knowledge ... to content me, to overjoy me? but _that_ lies too high and out of reach, you see, and one can't hope to get at it except by the ladder Jacob saw, and which an archangel helped to hide away behind the gate of Heaven afterwards.
_Wednesday._--In the meantime I had a letter from you yesterday, and am promised another to-day. How ... I was going to say 'kind' and pull down the thunders ... how _un_kind ... will _that_ do? ... how good you are to me--how dear you must be! Dear--dearest--if I feel that you love me, can I help it if, without any other sort of certain knowledge, the world grows lighter round me? being but a mortal woman, can I help it? no--certainly.
I comfort myself by thinking sometimes that I can at least understand you, ... comprehend you in what you are and in what you possess and combine; and that, if doing this better than others who are better otherwise than I, I am, so far, worthier of the ... I mean that to understand you is something, and that I account it something in my own favour ... mine.
Yet when you tell me that I ought to know some things, though untold, you are wrong, and speak what is impossible. My imagination sits by the roadside [Greek: apedilos] like the startled sea nymph in Æschylus, but never dares to put one unsandalled foot, unbidden, on a certain tract of ground--never takes a step there unled! and never (I write the simple truth) even as the alternative of the probability of your ceasing to care for me, have I touched (untold) on the possibility of your caring _more_ for me ... never! That you should _continue_ to care, was the utmost of what I saw in that direction. So, when you spoke of a 'strengthened feeling,' judge how I listened with my heart--judge!
'Luria' is very great. You will avenge him with the sympathies of the world; that, I foresee.... And for the rest, it is a magnanimity which grows and grows, and which will, of a worldly necessity, fall by its own weight at last; nothing less being possible. The scene with Tiburzio and the end of the act with its great effects, are more pathetic than professed pathos. When I come to criticise, it will be chiefly on what I take to be a little occasional flatness in the versification, which you may remove if you please, by knotting up a few lines here and there. But I shall write more of 'Luria,'--and well remember in the meanwhile, that you wanted smoothness, you said.
May God bless you. I shall have the letter to-night, I think gladly. Yes,--I thought of the greater safety from 'comment'--it is best in every way.
I lean on you and trust to you, and am always, as to one who is all to me,
Your own--
_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, December 4, 1845.]
Why of course I am pleased--I should have been pleased last year, for the vanity's sake of being reviewed in your company. Now, as far as that vice of vanity goes ... shall I tell you?... I would infinitely prefer to see you set before the public in your own right solitude, and supremacy, apart from me or any one else, ... this, as far as my vice of vanity goes, ... and because, vainer I am of my poet than of my poems ... _pour cause_. But since, according to the _Quarterly_ régime, you were to be not apart but with somebody of my degree, I am glad, pleased, that it should be with myself:--and since I was to be there at all, I am pleased, very much pleased that it should be with _you_,--oh, of course I am pleased!--I am pleased that the 'names should be read together' as you say, ... and am happily safe from the apprehension of that ingenious idea of yours about 'my leading _you_' &c. ... quite happily safe from the apprehension of that idea's occurring to any mind in the world, except just your own. Now if I 'find fault' with you for writing down such an extravagance, such an ungainly absurdity, (oh, I shall abuse it just as I shall choose!) _can_ it be 'to your surprise?' _can_ it? Ought you to say such things, when in the first place they are unfit in themselves and inapplicable, and in the second place, abominable in my eyes? The qualification for Hanwell Asylum is different peradventure from what you take it to be--we had better not examine it too nearly. You never will say such words again? It is your promise to me? Not those words--and not any in their likeness.
Also ... nothing is _my_ work ... if you please! What an omen you take in calling anything my work! If it is my work, woe on it--for everything turns to evil which I touch. Let it be God's work and yours, and I may take breath and wait in hope--and indeed I exclaim to myself about the miracle of it far more even than you can do. It seems to me (as I say over and over ... I say it to my own thoughts oftenest) it seems to me still a dream how you came here at all, ... the very machinery of it seems miraculous. Why did I receive you and only you? Can I tell? no, not a word.
Last year I had such an escape of seeing Mr. Horne; and in this way it was. He was going to Germany, he said, for an indefinite time, and took the trouble of begging me to receive him for ten minutes before he went. I answered with my usual 'no,' like a wild Indian--whereupon he wrote me a letter so expressive of mortification and vexation ... 'mortification' was one of the words used, I remember, ... that I grew ashamed of myself and told him to come any day (of the last five or six days he had to spare) between two and five. Well!--he never came. Either he was overcome with work and engagements of various sorts and had not a moment, (which was his way of explaining the matter and quite true I dare say) or he was vexed and resolved on punishing me for my caprices. If the latter was the motive, I cannot call the punishment effective, ... for I clapped my hands for joy when I felt my danger to be passed--and now of course, I have no scruples.... I may be as capricious as I please, ... may I not? Not that I ask you. It is a settled matter. And it is useful to keep out Mr. Chorley with Mr. Horne, and Mr. Horne with Mr. Chorley, and the rest of the world with those two. Only the miracle is that _you_ should be behind the enclosure--within it ... and so!--
_That_ is _my_ side of the wonder! of the machinery of the wonder, ... as _I_ see it!--But there are greater things than these.
Speaking of the portrait of you in the 'Spirit of the Age' ... which is not like ... no!--which has not your character, in a line of it ... something in just the forehead and eyes and hair, ... but even _that_, thrown utterly out of your order, by another bearing so unlike you...! speaking of that portrait ... shall I tell you?--Mr. Horne had the goodness to send me all those portraits, and I selected the heads which, in right hero-worship, were anything to me, and had them framed after a rough fashion and hung up before my eyes; Harriet Martineau's ... because she was a woman and admirable, and had written me some kind letters--and for the rest, Wordsworth's, Carlyle's, Tennyson's and yours. The day you paid your first visit here, I, in a fit of shyness not quite unnatural, ... though I have been cordially laughed at for it by everybody in the house ... pulled down your portrait, ... (there is the nail, under Wordsworth--) and then pulled down Tennyson's in a fit of justice,--because I would not have his hung up and yours away. It was the delight of my brothers to open all the drawers and the boxes, and whatever they could get access to, and find and take those two heads and hang them on the old nails and analyse my 'absurdity' to me, day after day; but at last I tired them out, being obstinate; and finally settled the question one morning by fastening the print of you inside your Paracelsus. Oh no, it is not like--and I knew it was not, before I saw you, though Mr. Kenyon said, 'Rather like!'
By the way Mr. Kenyon does not come. It is strange that he should not come: when he told me that he could not see me 'for a week or a fortnight,' he meant it, I suppose.
So it is to be on Saturday? And I will write directly to America--the letter will be sent by the time you get this. May God bless you ever.
It is not so much a look of 'ferocity,' ... as you say, ... in that head, as of _expression by intention_. Several people have said of it what nobody would say of you ... 'How affected-looking.' Which is too strong--but it is not like you, in any way, and there's the truth.
So until Saturday. I read 'Luria' and feel the life in him. But _walk_ and do not _work_! do you?
Wholly your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Night. [Post-mark, December 8, 1845.]
Well, I did see your brother last night ... and very wisely neither spoke nor kept silence in the proper degree, but said that 'I hoped you were well'--from the sudden feeling that I must say _something_ of you--not pretend indifference about you _now_ ... and from the impossibility of saying the _full_ of what I might; because other people were by--and after, in the evening, when I should have remedied the first imperfect expression, I had not altogether the heart. So, you, dearest, will clear me with him if he wonders, will you not? But it all hangs together; speaking of you,--to you,--writing to you--all is helpless and sorrowful work by the side of what is in my soul to say and to write--or is it not the natural consequence? If these vehicles of feelings sufficed--_there_ would be the end!--And that my feeling for you should end!... For the rest, the headache which kept away while I sate with you, made itself amends afterward, and as it is unkind to that warm Talfourd to look blank at his hospitable endeavours, all my power of face went _à qui de droit_--
Did your brother tell you ... yes, I think ... of the portentous book, lettered II, and thick as a law-book, of congratulatory letters on the appearance of 'Ion'?--But how under the B's in the Index came 'Miss Barrett' and, woe's me, 'R.B.'! I don't know when I have had so ghastly a visitation. There was the utterly _forgotten_ letter, in the as thoroughly disused hand-writing, in the ... I fear ... still as completely obsolete feeling--no, not so bad as that--but at first there was all the novelty, and social admiration at the friend--it is truly not right to pluck all the rich soil from the roots and hold them up clean and dry as if they came _so_ from all you now see, which is nothing at all ... like the Chinese Air-plant! Do you understand this? And surely 'Ion' is a _very_, very beautiful and noble conception, and finely executed,--a beautiful work--what has come after, has lowered it down by grade after grade ... it don't stand apart on the hill, like a wonder, now it is _built up_ to by other attempts; but the great difference is in myself. Another maker of another 'Ion,' finding me out and behaving as Talfourd did, would not find _that me_, so to be behaved to, so to be honoured--though he should have all the good will! Ten years ago!
And ten years hence!
Always understand that you do _not_ take me as I was at the beginning ... with a crowd of loves to give to _something_ and so get rid of their pain and burden. I have _known_ what that ends in--a handful of anything may be as sufficient a sample, serve your purposes and teach you its nature, as well as whole heaps--and I know what most of the pleasures of this world are--so that I _can_ be surer of myself, and make you surer, on calm demonstrated grounds, than if I had a host of objects of admiration or ambition _yet_ to become acquainted with. You say, 'I am a man and may change'--I answer, yes--but, while I hold my senses, only change for the _presumable_ better ... not for the _experienced worst_.
Here is my Uncle's foot on the stair ... his knock hurried the last sentence--here he is by me!--Understand what this would have led to, how you would have been _proved logically_ my own, best, extreme want, my life's end--YES; dearest! Bless you ever--
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday. [Post-mark, December 8, 1845.]
Let me hear how you are, and that you are better instead of worse for the exertions of last night. After you left me yesterday I considered how we might have managed it more conveniently for you, and had the lamp in, and arranged matters so as to interpose less time between the going and the dining, even if you and George did not go together, which might have been best, but which I did not like quite to propose. Now, supposing that on Thursday you dine in town, remember not to be unnecessarily 'perplext in the extreme' where to spend the time before ... _five_, ... shall I say, at any rate? We will have the lamp, and I can easily explain if an observation should be made ... only it will not be, because our goers-out here never come home until six, and the head of the house, not until seven ... as I told you. George thought it worth while going to Mr. Talfourd's yesterday, just to see the author of 'Paracelsus' dance the Polka ... should I not tell you?
I am vexed by another thing which he tells _me_--vexed, if amused a little by the absurdity of it. I mean that absurd affair of the 'Autography'--now _isn't_ it absurd? And for neither you nor George to have the chivalry of tearing out that letter of mine, which was absurd too in its way, and which, knowing less of the world than I know now, I wrote as if writing for my private conscience, and privately repented writing in a day, and have gone on repenting ever since when I happened to think enough of it for repentance! Because if Mr. Serjeant Talfourd sent then his 'Ion' to _me_, he did it in mere good-nature, hearing by chance of me through the publisher of my 'Prometheus' at the moment, and of course caring no more for my 'opinion' than for the rest of me--and it was excessively bad taste in me to say more than the briefest word of thanks in return, even if I had been competent to say it. Ah well!--you see how it is, and that I am vexed _you_ should have read it, ... as George says you did ... he laughing to see me so vexed. So I turn round and avenge myself by crying aloud against the editor of the 'Autography'! Surely such a thing was never done before ... even by an author in the last stage of a mortal disease of self-love. To edit the common parlance of conventional flatteries, ... lettered in so many volumes, bound in green morocco, and laid on the drawing-room table for one's own
## particular private public,--is it not a miracle of vanity ... neither
more nor less?
I took the opportunity of the letter to Mr. Mathews (talking of vanity ... _mine_!) to send Landor's verses to America ... yours--so they will be in the American papers.... I know Mr. Mathews. I was speaking to him of your last number of 'Bells and Pomegranates,' and the verses came in naturally; just as my speaking did, for it is not the first time nor the second nor the third even that I have written to him of you, though I admire how in all those previous times I did it in pure disinterestedness, ... purely because your name belonged to my country and to her literature, ... and how I have a sort of reward at this present, in being able to write what I please without anyone's saying 'it is a new fancy.' As for the Americans, they have 'a zeal without knowledge' for poetry. There is more love for _verse_ among them than among the English. But they suffer themselves to be led in their choice of poets by English critics of average discernment; this is said of them by their own men of letters. Tennyson is idolized deep down in the bush woods (to their honour be it said), but to understand _you_ sufficiently, they wait for the explanations of the critics. So I wanted them to see what Landor says of you. The comfort in these questions is, that there can be _no_ question, except between the sooner and the later--a little sooner, and a little later: but when there is real love and zeal it becomes worth while to try to ripen the knowledge. They love Tennyson so much that the colour of his waistcoats is a sort of minor Oregon question ... and I like that--do not _you_?
_Monday._--Now I have your letter: and you will observe, without a finger post from me, how busily we have both been preoccupied in disavowing our own letters of old on 'Ion'--Mr. Talfourd's collection goes to prove too much, I think--and you, a little too much, when you draw inferences of no-changes, from changes like these. Oh yes--I perfectly understand that every sort of inconstancy of purpose regards a 'presumably better' thing--but I do not so well understand how any presumable doubt is to be set to rest by that fact, ... I do not indeed. Have you seen all the birds and beasts in the world? have you seen the 'unicorns'?--Which is only a pebble thrown down into your smooth logic; and we need not stand by to watch the bubbles born of it. And as to the 'Ion' letters, I am delighted that you have anything to repent, as I have everything. Certainly it is a noble play--there is the moral sublime in it: but it is not the work of a poet, ... and if he had never written another to show what was _not_ in him, this might have been 'predicated' of it as surely, I hold. Still, it is a noble work--and even if you over-praised it, (I did not read your letter, though you read mine, alas!) you, under the circumstances, would have been less noble yourself not to have done so--only, how I agree with you in what you say against the hanging up of these dry roots, the soil shaken off! Such abominable taste--now isn't it? ... though you do not use that word.
I thought Mr. Kenyon would have come yesterday and that I might have something to tell you, of him at least.
And George never told me of the thing you found to say to him of me, and which makes me smile, and would have made him wonder if he had not been suffering probably from some legal distraction at the moment, inasmuch as _he knew perfectly that you had just left me_. My sisters told him down-stairs and he came into this room just before he set off on Saturday, with a, ... '_So_ I am to meet Mr. Browning?' But he made no observation afterwards--none: and if he heard what you said at all (which I doubt), he referred it probably to some enforced civility on 'Yorick's' part when the 'last chapter' was too much with him.
I have written about 'Luria' in another place--you shall have the papers when I have read through the play. How different this living poetry is from the polished rhetoric of 'Ion.' The man and the statue are not more different. After all poetry is a distinct thing--it is here or it is not here ... it is not a matter of '_taste_,' but of sight and feeling.
As to the 'Venice' it gives proof (does it not?) rather of poetical sensibility than of poetical faculty? or did you expect me to say more?--of the perception of the poet, rather than of his conception. Do you think more than this? There are fine, eloquent expressions, and the tone of sentiment is good and high everywhere.
Do not write 'Luria' if your head is uneasy--and you cannot say that it is not ... can you? Or will you if you can? In any case you will do what you can ... take care of yourself and not suffer yourself to be tired either by writing or by too much going out, and take the necessary exercise ... this, you will do--I entreat you to do it.
May God bless and make you happy, as ... you will lose nothing if I say ... as I am yours--
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday Morning. [Post-mark, December 9, 1845.]
Well, then, I am no longer sorry that I did _not_ read _either_ of your letters ... for there were two in the collection. I did not read one word of them--and hear why. When your brother and I took the book between us in wonderment at the notion--we turned to the index, in large text-hand, and stopped at 'Miss B.'--and _he_ indeed read them, or some of them, but holding the volume at a distance which defied my short-sighted eye--all _I_ saw was the _faint_ small characters--and, do you know ... I neither trusted myself to ask a nearer look ... nor a second look ... as if I were studying unduly what I had just said was most unfairly exposed to view!--so I was silent, and lost you (in that)--then, and for ever, I promise you, now that you speak of vexation it would give you. _All_ I know of the notes, that _one_ is addressed to Talfourd in the third person--and when I had run through my own ... not far off ... (BA-BR)--I was sick of the book altogether. You are generous to me--but, to say the truth, I might have remembered the most justifying circumstance in my case ... which was, that my own 'Paracelsus,' printed a few months before, had been as dead a failure as 'Ion' a brilliant success--for, until just before.... Ah, really I forget!--but I know that until Forster's notice in the _Examiner_ appeared, _every_ journal that thought worth while to allude to the poem at all, treated it with entire contempt ... beginning, I think, with the _Athenæum_ which _then_ made haste to say, a few days after its publication, 'that it was not without talent but spoiled by obscurity and only an imitation of--Shelley'!--something to this effect, in a criticism of about three lines among their 'Library Table' notices. And that first taste was a most flattering sample of what the 'craft' had in store for me--since my publisher and I had fairly to laugh at _his_ 'Book'--(quite of another kind than the Serjeant's)--in which he was used to paste extracts from newspapers and the like--seeing that, out of a long string of notices, one vied with its predecessor in disgust at my 'rubbish,' as their word went: but Forster's notice altered a good deal--which I have to recollect for his good. Still, the contrast between myself and Talfourd was so _utter_--you remember the world's-wonder 'Ion' made,--that I was determined not to pass for the curious piece of neglected merit I really _was not_--and so!--
But, dearest, why should you leave your own especial sphere of doing me good for another than yours?
Does the sun rake and hoe about the garden as well as thine steadily over it? _Why_ must you, who give me heart and power, as nothing else did or could, to do well--concern yourself with what might be done by any good, kind ministrant _only_ fit for such offices? Not that I _feel_, even, more bound to you for them--they have their weight, I _know_ ... but _what_ weight beside the divine gift of yourself? Do not, dear, dearest, care for making me known: _you_ know me!--and _they_ know so little, after all your endeavour, who are ignorant of what _you_ are to me--if you ... well, but that _will_ follow; if I do greater things one day--what shall they serve for, what range themselves under of right?--
Mr. Mathews sent me two copies of his poems--and, I believe, a newspaper, 'when time was,' about the 'Blot in the Scutcheon'--and also, through Moxon--(I _believe_ it was Mr. M.)--a proposition for reprinting--to which I assented of course--and there was an end to the matter.
And might I have stayed _till five_?--dearest, I will never ask for more than you give--but I feel every single sand of the gold showers ... spite of what I say above! I _have_ an invitation for Thursday which I had no intention of remembering (it admitted of such liberty)--but _now_....
Something I will _say_! 'Polka,' forsooth!--one lady whose _head_ could not, and another whose feet could not, dance!--But I talked a little to your brother whom I like more and more: it comforts me that he is yours.
So, _Thursday_,--thank you from the heart! I am well, and about to go out. This week I have done nothing to 'Luria'--is it that my _ring_ is gone? There surely _is_ something to forgive in me--for that shameful business--or I should not feel as I do in the matter: but you _did_ forgive me.
God bless my own, only love--ever--
Yours wholly
R.B.
N.B. An antiquarian friend of mine in old days picked up a nondescript wonder of a coin. I just remember he described it as Rhomboid in shape--cut, I fancy, out of church-plate in troubled times. What did my friend do but get ready a box, lined with velvet, and properly _compartmented_, to have always about him, so that the _next such coin he picked_ up, say in Cheapside, he might at once transfer to a place of safety ... his waistcoat pocket being no happy receptacle for the same. I saw the box--and encouraged the man to keep a vigilant eye.
_Parallel._ R.B. having found an unicorn....
Do you forgive these strips of paper? I could not wait to send for more--having exhausted my stock.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening [Post-mark, December 10, 1845.]
It was right of you to write ... (now see what jangling comes of not using the fit words.... I said 'right,' not to say 'kind') ... right of you to write to me to-day--and I had begun to be disappointed already because the post _seemed_ to be past, when suddenly the knock brought the letter which deserves all this praising. If not 'kind' ... then _kindest_ ... will that do better? Perhaps.
Mr. Kenyon was here to-day and asked when you were coming again--and I, I answered at random ... 'at the end of the week--Thursday or Friday'--which did not prevent another question about 'what we were consulting about.' He said that he 'must have you,' and had written to beg you to go to his door on days when you came here; only murmuring something besides of neither Thursday nor Friday being disengaged days with him. Oh, my disingenuousness!--Then he talked again of 'Saul.' A true impression the poem has made on him! He reads it every night, he says, when he comes home and just before he goes to sleep, to put his dreams into order, and observed very aptly, I thought, that it reminded him of Homer's shield of Achilles, thrown into lyrical whirl and life. Quite ill he took it of me the 'not expecting him to like it so much' and retorted on me with most undeserved severity (as I felt it), that I 'never understood anybody to have any sensibility except myself.' Wasn't it severe, to come from dear Mr. Kenyon? But he has caught some sort of evil spirit from your 'Saul' perhaps; though admiring the poem enough to have a good spirit instead. And do _you_ remember of the said poem, that it is there only as a first part, and that the next parts must certainly follow and complete what will be a great lyrical work--now remember. And forget 'Luria' ... if you are better forgetting. And forget _me_ ... _when_ you are happier forgetting. I say _that_ too.
So your idea of an unicorn is--one horn broken off. And you a poet!--one horn broken off--or hid in the blackthorn hedge!--
Such a mistake, as our enlightened public, on their part, made, when they magnified the divinity of the brazen chariot, just under the thunder-cloud! I don't remember the _Athenæum_, but can well believe that it said what you say. The _Athenæum_ admires only what gods, men and columns reject. It applauds nothing but mediocrity--mark it, as a general rule! The good, they see--the great escapes them. Dare to breathe a breath above the close, flat conventions of literature, and you are 'put down' and instructed how to be like other people. By the way, see by the very last number, that you never think to write 'peoples,' on pain of writing what is obsolete--and these the teachers of the public! If the public does not learn, where is the marvel of it? An imitation of Shelley!--when if 'Paracelsus' was anything it was the expression of a new mind, as all might see--as _I_ saw, let me be proud to remember, and I was not overdazzled by 'Ion.'
Ah, indeed if I could 'rake and hoe' ... or even pick up weeds along the walk, ... which is the work of the most helpless children, ... if I could do any of this, there would be some good of me: but as for 'shining' ... shining ... when there is not so much light in me as to do 'carpet work' by, why let anyone in the world, _except you_, tell me to shine, and it will just be a mockery! But you have studied astronomy with your favourite snails, who are apt to take a dark-lanthorn for the sun, and so.--
And so, you come on Thursday, and I only hope that Mrs. Jameson will not come too, (the carpet work makes me think of her; and, not having come yet, she may come on Thursday by a fatal cross-stitch!) for I do not hear from her, and my precautions are 'watched out,' May God bless you always.
Your own--
But no--I did not forgive. Where was the fault to be forgiven, except in _me_, for not being right in my meaning?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday. [Post-mark, December 12, 1845.]
And now, my heart's love, I am waiting to hear from you; my heart is _full_ of you. When I try to remember what I said yesterday, _that_ thought, of what fills my heart--only _that_ makes me bear with the memory.... I know that even such imperfect, poorest of words _must_ have come _from_ thence if not bearing up to you all that is there--and I know you are ever above me to receive, and help, and forgive, and _wait_ for the one day which I will never say to myself cannot come, when I shall speak what I feel--more of it--or _some_ of it--for now nothing is spoken.
My all-beloved--
Ah, you opposed very rightly, I dare say, the writing that paper I spoke of! The process should be so much simpler! I most earnestly _expect_ of you, my love, that in the event of any such necessity as was then alluded to, you accept at once in my name _any_ conditions possible for a human will to submit to--there is no imaginable condition to which you allow me to accede that I will not joyfully bend all my faculties to comply with. And you know this--but so, also do you know _more_ ... and yet 'I may tire of you'--'may forget you'!
I will write again, having the long, long week to wait! And one of the things I must say, will be, that with my love, I cannot lose my pride in you--that nothing _but_ that love could balance that pride--and that, blessing the love so divinely, you must minister to the pride as well; yes, my own--I shall follow your fame,--and, better than fame, the good you do--in the world--and, if you please, it shall all be mine--as your hand, as your eyes--
I will write and pray it from you into a promise ... and your promises I live upon.
May God bless you! your R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday. [Post-mark, December 13, 1845.]
Do not blame me in your thoughts for what I said yesterday or wrote a day before, or think perhaps on the dark side of some other days when I cannot help it ... always when I cannot help it--you could not blame me if you saw the full motives as I feel them. If it is distrust, it is not of _you_, dearest of all!--but of myself rather:--it is not doubt _of_ you, but _for_ you. From the beginning I have been subject to the too reasonable fear which rises as my spirits fall, that your happiness might suffer in the end through your having known me:--it is for _you_ I fear, whenever I fear:--and if you were less to me, ... _should_ I fear do you think?--if you were to me only what I am to myself for instance, ... if your happiness were only as precious as my own in my own eyes, ... should I fear, do you think, _then_? Think, and do not blame me.
To tell you to 'forget me when forgetting seemed happiest for you,' ... (was it not _that_, I said?) proved more affection than might go in smoother words.... I could prove the truth of _that_ out of my heart.
And for the rest, you need not fear any fear of mine--my fear will not cross a wish of yours, be sure! Neither does it prevent your being all to me ... all: more than I used to take for all when I looked round the world, ... almost more than I took for all in my earliest dreams. You stand in between me and not merely the living who stood closest, but between me and the closer graves, ... and I reproach myself for this sometimes, and, so, ask you not to blame me for a different thing.
As to unfavourable influences, ... I can speak of them quietly, having foreseen them from the first, ... and it is true, I have been thinking since yesterday, that I might be prevented from receiving you here, and _should_, if all were known: but with that act, the adverse power would end. It is not my fault if I have to choose between two affections; only my pain; and I have not to choose between two duties, I feel, ... since I am yours, while I am of any worth to you at all. For the plan of the sealed letter, it would correct no evil,--ah, you do not see, you do not understand. The danger does not come from the side to which a reason may go. Only one person holds the thunder--and I shall be thundered at; I shall not be reasoned with--it is impossible. I could tell you some dreary chronicles made for laughing and crying over; and you know that if I once thought I might be loved enough to be spared above others, I cannot think so now. In the meanwhile we need not for the present be afraid. Let there be ever so many suspectors, there will be no informers. I suspect the suspectors, but the informers are out of the world, I am very sure:--and then, the one person, by a curious anomaly, _never_ draws an inference of this order, until the bare blade of it is thrust palpably into his hand, point outwards. So it has been in other cases than ours--and so it is, at this moment in the house, with others than ourselves.
I have your letter to stop me. If I had my whole life in my hands with your letter, could I thank you for it, I wonder, at all worthily? I cannot believe that I could. Yet in life and in death I shall be grateful to you.--
But for the paper--no. Now, observe, that it would seem like a prepared apology for something wrong. And besides--the apology would be nothing but the offence in another form--unless you said it was all a mistake--(_will_ you, again?)--that it was all a mistake and you were only calling for your boots! Well, if you said _that_, it would be worth writing, but anything less would be something worse than nothing: and would not save me--which you were thinking of, I know--would not save me the least of the stripes. For 'conditions'--now I will tell you what I said once in a jest....
'If a prince of Eldorado should come, with a pedigree of lineal descent from some signory in the moon in one hand, and a ticket of good-behaviour from the nearest Independent chapel, in the other'--?
'Why even _then_,' said my sister Arabel, 'it would not _do_.' And she was right, and we all agreed that she was right. It is an obliquity of the will--and one laughs at it till the turn comes for crying. Poor Henrietta has suffered silently, with that softest of possible natures, which hers is indeed; beginning with implicit obedience, and ending with something as unlike it as possible: but, you see, where money is wanted, and where the dependence is total--see! And when once, in the case of the one dearest to me; when just at the last he was involved in the same grief, and I attempted to make over my advantages to him; (it could be no sacrifice, you know--_I_ did not want the money, and could buy nothing with it so good as his happiness,--) why then, my hands were seized and tied--and then and there, in the midst of the trouble, came the end of all! I tell you all this, just to make you understand a little. Did I not tell you before? But there is no danger at present--and why ruffle this present with disquieting thoughts? Why not leave that future to itself? For me, I sit in the track of the avalanche quite calmly ... so calmly as to surprise myself at intervals--and yet I know the reason of the calmness well.
For Mr. Kenyon--dear Mr. Kenyon--he will speak the softest of words, if any--only he will think privately that you are foolish and that I am ungenerous, but I will not say so any more now, so as to teaze you.
There is another thing, of more consequence than _his_ thoughts, which is often in my mind to ask you of--but there will be time for such questions--let us leave the winter to its own peace. If I should be ill again you will be reasonable and we both must submit to God's necessity. Not, you know, that I have the least intention of being ill, if I can help it--and in the case of a tolerably mild winter, and with all this strength to use, there are probabilities for me--and then I have sunshine from _you_, which is better than Pisa's.
And what more would you say? Do I not hear and understand! It seems to me that I do both, or why all this wonder and gratitude? If the devotion of the remainder of my life could prove that I hear, ... would it be proof enough? Proof enough perhaps--but not gift enough.
May God bless you always.
I have put _some_ of the hair into a little locket which was given to me when I was a child by my favourite uncle, Papa's only brother, who used to tell me that he loved me better than my own father did, and was jealous when I was not glad. It is through him in part, that I am richer than my sisters--through him and his mother--and a great grief it was and trial, when he died a few years ago in Jamaica, proving by his last act that I was unforgotten. And now I remember how he once said to me: 'Do you beware of ever loving!--If you do, you will not do it half: it will be for life and death.'
So I put the hair into his locket, which I wear habitually, and which never had hair before--the natural use of it being for perfume:--and this is the best perfume for all hours, besides the completing of a prophecy.
Your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Morning. [Post-mark, December 15, 1845.]
Every word you write goes to my heart and lives there: let us live so, and die so, if God will. I trust many years hence to begin telling you what I feel now;--that the beam of the light will have _reached_ you!--meantime it _is_ here. Let me kiss your forehead, my sweetest, dearest.
Wednesday I am waiting for--how waiting for!
After all, it seems probable that there was no intentional mischief in that jeweller's management of the ring. The divided gold must have been exposed to fire--heated thoroughly, perhaps,--and what became of the contents then! Well, all is safe now, and I go to work again of course. My next act is just done--that is, _being_ done--but, what I did not foresee, I cannot bring it, copied, by Wednesday, as my sister went this morning on a visit for the week.
On the matters, the others, I will not think, as you bid me,--if I can help, at least. But your kind, gentle, good sisters! and the provoking sorrow of the _right_ meaning at bottom of the wrong doing--wrong to itself and its plain purpose--and meanwhile, the real tragedy and sacrifice of a life!
If you should see Mr. Kenyon, and can find if he will be disengaged on Wednesday evening, I shall be glad to go in that case.
But I have been writing, as I say, and will leave off this, for the better communing with you. Don't imagine I am unwell; I feel quite well, but a little tired, and the thought of you waits in such readiness! So, may God bless you, beloved!
I am all your own
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday. [Post-mark, December 16, 1845.]
Mr. Kenyon has not come--he does not come so often, I think. Did he _know_ from _you_ that you were to see me last Thursday? If he did it might be as well, do you not think? to go to him next week. Will it not seem frequent, otherwise? But if you did _not_ tell him of Thursday distinctly (_I_ did not--remember!), he might take the Wednesday's visit to be the substitute for rather than the successor of Thursday's: and in that case, why not write a word to him yourself to propose dining with him as he suggested? He really wishes to see you--of that, I am sure. But you will know what is best to do, and he may come here to-morrow perhaps, and ask a whole set of questions about you; so my right hand may forget its cunning for any good it does. Only don't send messages by _me_, please!
How happy I am with your letter to-night.
When I had sent away my last letter I began to remember, and could not help smiling to do so, that I had totally forgotten the great subject of my 'fame,' and the oath you administered about it--totally! Now how do you read that omen? If I forget myself, who is to remember me, do you think?--except _you_?--which brings me where I would stay. Yes--'yours' it must be, but _you_, it had better be! But, to leave the vain superstitions, let me go on to assure you that I did mean to answer that part of your former letter, and do mean to behave well and be obedient. Your wish would be enough, even if there could be likelihood without it of my doing nothing ever again. Oh, certainly I have been idle--it comes of lotus-eating--and, besides, of sitting too long in the sun. Yet 'idle' may not be the word! silent I have been, through too many thoughts to speak just _that_!--As to writing letters and reading manuscripts' filling all my time, why I must lack 'vital energy' indeed--you do not mean seriously to fancy such a thing of me! For the rest.... Tell me--Is it your opinion that when the apostle Paul saw the unspeakable things, being snatched up into the third Heavens 'whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell,'--is it your opinion that, all the week after, he worked
## particularly hard at the tent-making? For my part, I doubt it.
I would not speak profanely or extravagantly--it is not the best way to thank God. But to say only that I was in the desert and that I am among the palm-trees, is to say nothing ... because it is easy to _understand how_, after walking straight on ... on ... furlong after furlong ... dreary day after dreary day, ... one may come to the end of the sand and within sight of the fountain:--there is nothing miraculous in _that_, you know!
Yet even in that case, to doubt whether it may not all be _mirage_, would be the natural first thought, the recurring dream-fear! now would it not? And you can reproach me for _my_ thoughts, as if _they_ were unnatural!
Never mind about the third act--the advantage is that you will not tire yourself perhaps the next week. What gladness it is that you should really seem better, and how much better _that_ is than even 'Luria.'
Mrs. Jameson came to-day--but I will tell you.
May God bless you now and always.
Your
E.B.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening. [Post-mark, December 17, 1845.]
Henrietta had a note from Mr. Kenyon to the effect that he was 'coming to see _Ba_' to-day if in any way he found it possible. Now he has not come--and the inference is that he will come to-morrow--in which case you will be convicted of not wishing to be with him perhaps. So ... would it not be advisable for you to call at his door for a moment--and _before_ you come here? Think of it. You know it would not do to vex him--would it?
Your
E.B.B.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning. [Post-mark, December 19, 1845.]
I ought to have written yesterday: so to-day when I need a letter and get none, there is my own fault besides, and the less consolation. A letter from you would light up this sad day. Shall I fancy how, if a letter lay _there_ where I look, rain might fall and winds blow while I listened to you, long after the _words_ had been laid to heart? But here you are in your place--with me who am your own--your own--and so the rhyme joins on,
She shall speak to me in places lone With a low and holy tone-- Ay: when I have lit my lamp at night She shall be present with my sprite: And I will say, whate'er it be, Every word she telleth me!
Now, is that taken from your book? No--but from _my_ book, which holds my verses as I write them; and as I open it, I read that.
And speaking of verse--somebody gave me a few days ago that Mr. Lowell's book you once mentioned to me. Anyone who 'admires' _you_ shall have my sympathy at once--even though he _do_ change the laughing wine-_mark_ into a 'stain' in that perfectly beautiful triplet--nor am I to be indifferent to his good word for myself (though not very happily connected with the criticism on the epithet in that 'Yorkshire Tragedy'--which has better things, by the way--seeing that 'white boy,' in old language, meant just 'good boy,' a general epithet, as Johnson notices in the life of Dryden, whom the schoolmaster Busby was used to class with his 'white boys'--this is hypercriticism, however). But these American books should not be reprinted here--one asks, what and where is the class to which they address themselves? for, no doubt, we have our congregations of ignoramuses that enjoy the profoundest ignorance imaginable on the subjects treated of; but _these_ are evidently not the audience Mr. Lowell reckons on; rather, if one may trust the manner of his setting to work, he would propound his doctrine to the class. Always to be found, of spirits instructed up to a certain height and there resting--vines that run up a prop and there tangle and grow to a knot--which want supplying with fresh poles; so the provident man brings his bundle into the grounds, and sticks them in laterally or a-top of the others, as the case requires, and all the old stocks go on growing again--but here, with us, whoever _wanted_ Chaucer, or Chapman, or Ford, got him long ago--what else have Lamb, and Coleridge, and Hazlitt and Hunt and so on to the end of their generations ... what else been doing this many a year? What one passage of all these, cited with the very air of a Columbus, but has been known to all who know anything of poetry this many, many a year? The others, who don't know anything, are the stocks that have got to _shoot_, not climb higher--_compost_, they want in the first place! Ford's and Crashaw's rival Nightingales--why they have been dissertated on by Wordsworth and Coleridge, then by Lamb and Hazlitt, then worked to death by Hunt, who printed them entire and quoted them to pieces again, in every periodical he was ever engaged upon; and yet after all, here 'Philip'--'must read' (out of a roll of dropping papers with yellow ink tracings, so old!) something at which 'John' claps his hands and says 'Really--that these ancients should own so much wit &c.'! The _passage_ no longer looks its fresh self after this veritable passage from hand to hand: as when, in old dances, the belle began the figure with her own partner, and by him was transferred to the next, and so to the next--_they_ ever _beginning_ with all the old alacrity and spirit; but she bearing a still-accumulating weight of tokens of gallantry, and none the better for every fresh pushing and shoving and pulling and hauling--till, at the bottom of the room--
To which Mr. Lowell might say, that--No, I will say the true thing against myself--and it is, that when I turn from what is in my mind, and determine to write about anybody's book to avoid writing that I love and love and love again my own, dearest love--because of the cuckoo-song of it,--_then_, I shall be in no better humour with that book than with Mr. Lowell's!
But I _have_ a new thing to say or sing--you never before heard me love and bless and send my heart after--'Ba'--did you? Ba ... and that is you! I TRIED ... (more than _wanted_) to call you _that_, on Wednesday! I have a flower here--rather, a tree, a mimosa, which must be turned and turned, the side to the light changing in a little time to the _leafy_ side, where all the fans lean and spread ... so I turn your name to me, that side I have not last seen: you cannot tell how I feel glad that you will not part with the name--Barrett--seeing you have two of the same--and must always, moreover, remain my EBB!
Dearest 'E.B.C.'--no, no! and so it will never be!
Have you seen Mr. Kenyon? I did not write ... knowing that such a procedure would draw the kind sure letter in return, with the invitation &c., as if I had asked for it! I had perhaps better call on him some morning very early.
Bless you, my own sweetest. You will write to me, I know in my heart!
Ever may God bless you!
R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening. [Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]
Dearest, you know how to say what makes me happiest, you who never think, you say, of making me happy! For my