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diff --git a/16182-8.txt b/16182-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47fbced --- /dev/null +++ b/16182-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21257 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Letters of Robert Browning and +Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846, Edited by +Robert B. Browning + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 + +Author: Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett + +Editor: Robert B. Browning + +Release Date: July 2, 2005 [EBook #16182] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF BROWNING *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Linda Cantoni, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE LETTERS + +OF + +ROBERT BROWNING + +AND + +ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT + +1845-1846 + + +_WITH PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES_ + + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. I. + + +FOURTH IMPRESSION + +LONDON + +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE + +1900 + + +[Illustration: Robert Browning + +from an oil painting by Gordigiani] + + + + +NOTE + + +In considering the question of publishing these letters, which are all +that ever passed between my father and mother, for after their +marriage they were never separated, it seemed to me that my only +alternatives were to allow them to be published or to destroy them. I +might, indeed, have left the matter to the decision of others after my +death, but that would be evading a responsibility which I feel that I +ought to accept. + +Ever since my mother's death these letters were kept by my father in a +certain inlaid box, into which they exactly fitted, and where they +have always rested, letter beside letter, each in its consecutive +order and numbered on the envelope by his own hand. + +My father destroyed all the rest of his correspondence, and not long +before his death he said, referring to these letters: 'There they are, +do with them as you please when I am dead and gone!' + +A few of the letters are of little or no interest, but their omission +would have saved only a few pages, and I think it well that the +correspondence should be given in its entirety. + +I wish to express my gratitude to my father's friend and mine, Mrs. +Miller Morison, for her unfailing sympathy and assistance in +deciphering some words which had become scarcely legible owing to +faded ink. + + R.B.B. + +1898. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +The correspondence contained in these volumes is printed exactly as it +appears in the original letters, without alteration, except in respect +of obvious slips of the pen. Even the punctuation, with its +characteristic dots and dashes, has for the most part been preserved. +The notes in square brackets [] have been added mainly in order to +translate the Greek phrases, and to give the references to Greek +poets. For these, thanks are due to Mr. F.G. Kenyon, who has revised +the proofs with the assistance of Mr. Roger Ingpen, the latter being +responsible for the Index. + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BROWNING _Frontispiece_ + _After the picture by Gordigiani_ + +FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ROBERT BROWNING _To face p. 578_ + + + + +THE LETTERS OF + +ROBERT BROWNING + +AND + +ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT + +1845-1846 + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey. + [Post-mark, January 10, 1845.] + +I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,--and this is +no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write,--whatever else, +no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a +graceful and natural end of the thing. Since the day last week when I +first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been +turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you +of their effect upon me, for in the first flush of delight I thought I +would this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, when +I do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration--perhaps even, +as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some +little good to be proud of hereafter!--but nothing comes of it all--so +into me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great living +poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew--Oh, how +different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat, and prized +highly, and put in a book with a proper account at top and bottom, +and shut up and put away ... and the book called a 'Flora,' besides! +After all, I need not give up the thought of doing that, too, in time; +because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give a reason +for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, +the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave +thought; but in this addressing myself to you--your own self, and for +the first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love +these books with all my heart--and I love you too. Do you know I was +once not very far from seeing--really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to +me one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' then he went to +announce me,--then he returned ... you were too unwell, and now it is +years ago, and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels, as if +I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt, +only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some +slight, so it now seems, slight and just sufficient bar to admission, +and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, +and the sight was never to be? + +Well, these Poems were to be, and this true thankful joy and pride +with which I feel myself, + + Yours ever faithfully, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + +Miss Barrett,[1] + 50 Wimpole St. +R. Browning. + +[Footnote 1: With this and the following letter the addresses on the +envelopes are given; for all subsequent letters the addresses are the +same. The correspondence passed through the post.] + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + 50 Wimpole Street: Jan. 11, 1845. + +I thank you, dear Mr. Browning, from the bottom of my heart. You meant +to give me pleasure by your letter--and even if the object had not +been answered, I ought still to thank you. But it is thoroughly +answered. Such a letter from such a hand! Sympathy is dear--very dear +to me: but the sympathy of a poet, and of such a poet, is the +quintessence of sympathy to me! Will you take back my gratitude for +it?--agreeing, too, that of all the commerce done in the world, from +Tyre to Carthage, the exchange of sympathy for gratitude is the most +princely thing! + +For the rest you draw me on with your kindness. It is difficult to get +rid of people when you once have given them too much pleasure--_that_ +is a fact, and we will not stop for the moral of it. What I was going +to say--after a little natural hesitation--is, that if ever you emerge +without inconvenient effort from your 'passive state,' and will _tell_ +me of such faults as rise to the surface and strike you as important +in my poems, (for of course, I do not think of troubling you with +criticism in detail) you will confer a lasting obligation on me, and +one which I shall value so much, that I covet it at a distance. I do +not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism and it is +possible enough that I might not be altogether obedient to yours. But +with my high respect for your power in your Art and for your +experience as an artist, it would be quite impossible for me to hear a +general observation of yours on what appear to you my master-faults, +without being the better for it hereafter in some way. I ask for only +a sentence or two of general observation--and I do not ask even for +_that_, so as to tease you--but in the humble, low voice, which is so +excellent a thing in women--particularly when they go a-begging! The +most frequent general criticism I receive, is, I think, upon the +style,--'if I _would_ but change my style'! But _that_ is an objection +(isn't it?) to the writer bodily? Buffon says, and every sincere +writer must feel, that '_Le style c'est l'homme_'; a fact, however, +scarcely calculated to lessen the objection with certain critics. + +Is it indeed true that I was so near to the pleasure and honour of +making your acquaintance? and can it be true that you look back upon +the lost opportunity with any regret? _But_--you know--if you had +entered the 'crypt,' you might have caught cold, or been tired to +death, and _wished_ yourself 'a thousand miles off;' which would have +been worse than travelling them. It is not my interest, however, to +put such thoughts in your head about its being 'all for the best'; and +I would rather hope (as I do) that what I lost by one chance I may +recover by some future one. Winters shut me up as they do dormouse's +eyes; in the spring, _we shall see_: and I am so much better that I +seem turning round to the outward world again. And in the meantime I +have learnt to know your voice, not merely from the poetry but from +the kindness in it. Mr. Kenyon often speaks of you--dear Mr. +Kenyon!--who most unspeakably, or only speakably with tears in my +eyes,--has been my friend and helper, and my book's friend and helper! +critic and sympathiser, true friend of all hours! You know him well +enough, I think, to understand that I must be grateful to him. + +I am writing too much,--and notwithstanding that I am writing too +much, I will write of one thing more. I will say that I am your +debtor, not only for this cordial letter and for all the pleasure +which came with it, but in other ways, and those the highest: and I +will say that while I live to follow this divine art of poetry, in +proportion to my love for it and my devotion to it, I must be a devout +admirer and student of your works. This is in my heart to say to +you--and I say it. + +And, for the rest, I am proud to remain + + Your obliged and faithful + + ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. + +Robert Browning, Esq. + New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey. + Jan. 13, 1845. + +Dear Miss Barrett,--I just shall say, in as few words as I can, that +you make me very happy, and that, now the beginning is over, I dare +say I shall do better, because my poor praise, number one, was nearly +as felicitously brought out, as a certain tribute to no less a +personage than Tasso, which I was amused with at Rome some weeks ago, +in a neat pencilling on the plaister-wall by his tomb at +Sant'Onofrio--'Alla cara memoria--di--(please fancy solemn interspaces +and grave capital letters at the new lines) di--Torquato Tasso--il +Dottore Bernardini--offriva--il seguente Carme--_O tu_'--and no +more,--the good man, it should seem, breaking down with the overload +of love here! But my 'O tu'--was breathed out most sincerely, and now +you have taken it in gracious part, the rest will come after. +Only,--and which is why I write now--it looks as if I have introduced +some phrase or other about 'your faults' so cleverly as to give +exactly the opposite meaning to what I meant, which was, that in my +first ardour I had thought to tell you of _everything_ which impressed +me in your verses, down, even, to whatever 'faults' I could find,--a +good earnest, when I had got to _them_, that I had left out not much +between--as if some Mr. Fellows were to say, in the overflow of his +first enthusiasm of rewarded adventure: 'I will describe you all the +outer life and ways of these Lycians, down to their very +sandal-thongs,' whereto the be-corresponded one rejoins--'Shall I get +next week, then, your dissertation on sandal-thongs'? Yes, and a +little about the 'Olympian Horses,' and God-charioteers as well! + +What 'struck me as faults,' were not matters on the removal of which, +one was to have--poetry, or high poetry,--but the very highest poetry, +so I thought, and that, to universal recognition. For myself, or any +artist, in many of the cases there would be a positive loss of time, +peculiar artist's pleasure--for an instructed eye loves to see where +the brush has dipped twice in a lustrous colour, has lain insistingly +along a favourite outline, dwelt lovingly in a grand shadow; for these +'too muches' for the everybody's picture are so many helps to the +making out the real painter's picture as he had it in his brain. And +all of the Titian's Naples Magdalen must have once been golden in its +degree to justify that heap of hair in her hands--the _only_ gold +effected now! + +But about this soon--for night is drawing on and I go out, yet cannot, +quiet at conscience, till I report (to _myself_, for I never said it +to you, I think) that your poetry must be, cannot but be, infinitely +more to me than mine to you--for you _do_ what I always wanted, hoped +to do, and only seem now likely to do for the first time. You speak +out, _you_,--I only make men and women speak--give you truth broken +into prismatic hues, and fear the pure white light, even if it is in +me, but I am going to try; so it will be no small comfort to have your +company just now, seeing that when you have your men and women +aforesaid, you are busied with them, whereas it seems bleak, +melancholy work, this talking to the wind (for I have begun)--yet I +don't think I shall let _you_ hear, after all, the savage things about +Popes and imaginative religions that I must say. + +See how I go on and on to you, I who, whenever now and then pulled, by +the head and hair, into letter-writing, get sorrowfully on for a line +or two, as the cognate creature urged on by stick and string, and then +come down 'flop' upon the sweet haven of page one, line last, as +serene as the sleep of the virtuous! You will never more, I hope, talk +of 'the honour of my acquaintance,' but I will joyfully wait for the +delight of your friendship, and the spring, and my Chapel-sight after +all! + + Ever yours most faithfully, + + R. BROWNING. + +For Mr. Kenyon--I have a convenient theory about _him_, and his +otherwise quite unaccountable kindness to me; but 'tis quite night +now, and they call me. + + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + 50 Wimpole Street: Jan. 15, 1845. + +Dear Mr. Browning,--The fault was clearly with me and not with you. + +When I had an Italian master, years ago, he told me that there was an +unpronounceable English word which absolutely expressed me, and which +he would say in his own tongue, as he could not in mine--'_testa +lunga_.' Of course, the signor meant _headlong_!--and now I have had +enough to tame me, and might be expected to stand still in my stall. +But you see I do not. Headlong I was at first, and headlong I +continue--precipitously rushing forward through all manner of nettles +and briars instead of keeping the path; guessing at the meaning of +unknown words instead of looking into the dictionary--tearing open +letters, and never untying a string,--and expecting everything to be +done in a minute, and the thunder to be as quick as the lightning. And +so, at your half word I flew at the whole one, with all its possible +consequences, and wrote what you read. Our common friend, as I think +he is, Mr. Horne, is often forced to entreat me into patience and +coolness of purpose, though his only intercourse with me has been by +letter. And, by the way, you will be sorry to hear that during his +stay in Germany _he_ has been 'headlong' (out of a metaphor) twice; +once, in falling from the Drachenfels, when he only just saved himself +by catching at a vine; and once quite lately, at Christmas, in a fall +on the ice of the Elbe in skating, when he dislocated his left +shoulder in a very painful manner. He is doing quite well, I believe, +but it was sad to have such a shadow from the German Christmas tree, +and he a stranger. + +In art, however, I understand that it does not do to be headlong, but +patient and laborious--and there is a love strong enough, even in me, +to overcome nature. I apprehend what you mean in the criticism you +just intimate, and shall turn it over and over in my mind until I get +practical good from it. What no mere critic sees, but what you, an +artist, know, is the difference between the thing desired and the +thing attained, between the idea in the writer's mind and the [Greek: +eidôlon] cast off in his work. All the effort--the quick'ning of the +breath and beating of the heart in pursuit, which is ruffling and +injurious to the general effect of a composition; all which you call +'insistency,' and which many would call superfluity, and which _is_ +superfluous in a sense--_you_ can pardon, because you understand. The +great chasm between the thing I say, and the thing I would say, would +be quite dispiriting to me, in spite even of such kindnesses as yours, +if the desire did not master the despondency. 'Oh for a horse with +wings!' It is wrong of me to write so of myself--only you put your +finger on the root of a fault, which has, to my fancy, been a little +misapprehended. I do not _say everything I think_ (as has been said of +me by master-critics) but I _take every means to say what I think_, +which is different!--or I fancy so! + +In one thing, however, you are wrong. Why should you deny the full +measure of my delight and benefit from your writings? I could tell you +why you should not. You have in your vision two worlds, or to use the +language of the schools of the day, you are both subjective and +objective in the habits of your mind. You can deal both with abstract +thought and with human passion in the most passionate sense. Thus, you +have an immense grasp in Art; and no one at all accustomed to consider +the usual forms of it, could help regarding with reverence and +gladness the gradual expansion of your powers. Then you are +'masculine' to the height--and I, as a woman, have studied some of +your gestures of language and intonation wistfully, as a thing beyond +me far! and the more admirable for being beyond. + +Of your new work I hear with delight. How good of you to tell me. And +it is not dramatic in the strict sense, I am to understand--(am I +right in understanding so?) and you speak, in your own person 'to the +winds'? no--but to the thousand living sympathies which will awake to +hear you. A great dramatic power may develop itself otherwise than in +the formal drama; and I have been guilty of wishing, before this hour +(for reasons which I will not thrust upon you after all my tedious +writing), that you would give the public a poem unassociated directly +or indirectly with the stage, for a trial on the popular heart. I +reverence the drama, but-- + +_But_ I break in on myself out of consideration for you. I might have +done it, you will think, before. I vex your 'serene sleep of the +virtuous' like a nightmare. Do not say 'No.' I am _sure_ I do! As to +the vain parlance of the world, I did not talk of the 'honour of your +acquaintance' without a true sense of honour, indeed; but I shall +willingly exchange it all (and _now_, if you please, at this moment, +for fear of worldly mutabilities) for the 'delight of your +friendship.' + + Believe me, therefore, dear Mr. Browning, + + Faithfully yours, and gratefully, + + ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. + +For Mr. Kenyon's kindness, as _I_ see it, no theory will account. I +class it with mesmerism for that reason. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + New Cross, Hatcham, Monday Night. + [Post-mark, January 28, 1845.] + +Dear Miss Barrett,--Your books lie on my table here, at arm's length +from me, in this old room where I sit all day: and when my head aches +or wanders or strikes work, as it now or then will, I take my chance +for either green-covered volume, as if it were so much fresh trefoil +to feel in one's hands this winter-time,--and round I turn, and, +putting a decisive elbow on three or four half-done-with 'Bells' of +mine, read, read, read, and just as I have shut up the book and walked +to the window, I recollect that you wanted me to find faults there, +and that, in an unwise hour, I engaged to do so. Meantime, the days +go by (the whitethroat is come and sings now) and as I would not have +you 'look down on me from your white heights' as promise breaker, +evader, or forgetter, if I could help: and as, if I am very candid and +contrite, you may find it in your heart to write to me again--who +knows?--I shall say at once that the said faults cannot be lost, must +be _somewhere_, and shall be faithfully brought you back whenever they +turn up,--as people tell one of missing matters. I am rather exacting, +myself, with my own gentle audience, and get to say spiteful things +about them when they are backward in their dues of appreciation--but +really, _really_--could I be quite sure that anybody as good as--I +must go on, I suppose, and say--as myself, even, were honestly to feel +towards me as I do, towards the writer of 'Bertha,' and the 'Drama,' +and the 'Duchess,' and the 'Page' and--the whole two volumes, I should +be paid after a fashion, I know. + +One thing I can do--pencil, if you like, and annotate, and dissertate +upon that I love most and least--I think I can do it, that is. + +Here an odd memory comes--of a friend who,--volunteering such a +service to a sonnet-writing somebody, gave him a taste of his quality +in a side-column of short criticisms on sonnet the First, and starting +off the beginning three lines with, of course, 'bad, worse, +worst'--made by a generous mintage of words to meet the sudden run of +his epithets, 'worser, worserer, worserest' pay off the second terzet +in full--no 'badder, badderer, badderest' fell to the _Second's_ +allowance, and 'worser' &c. answered the demands of the Third; +'worster, worsterer, worsterest' supplied the emergency of the Fourth; +and, bestowing his last 'worserestest and worstestest' on lines 13 and +14, my friend (slapping his forehead like an emptied strong-box) +frankly declared himself bankrupt, and honourably incompetent, to +satisfy the reasonable expectations of the rest of the series! + +What an illustration of the law by which opposite ideas suggest +opposite, and contrary images come together! + +See now, how, of that 'Friendship' you offer me (and here Juliet's +word rises to my lips)--I feel sure once and for ever. I have got +already, I see, into this little pet-handwriting of mine (not anyone +else's) which scratches on as if theatrical copyists (ah me!) and +BRADBURY AND EVANS' READER were not! But you shall get something +better than this nonsense one day, if you will have patience with +me--hardly better, though, because this does me real good, gives real +relief, to write. After all, you know nothing, next to nothing of me, +and that stops me. Spring is to come, however! + +If you hate writing to me as I hate writing to nearly everybody, I +pray you never write--if you do, as you say, care for anything I have +done. I will simply assure you, that meaning to begin work in deep +earnest, _begin_ without affectation, God knows,--I do not know what +will help me more than hearing from you,--and therefore, if you do not +so very much hate it, I know I _shall_ hear from you--and very little +more about your 'tiring me.' + + Ever yours faithfully, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + 50 Walpole Street: Feb. 3, 1845. +[Transcriber's Note: So in original. Should be "Wimpole Street."] + +Why how could I hate to write to you, dear Mr. Browning? Could you +believe in such a thing? If nobody likes writing to everybody (except +such professional letter writers as you and I are _not_), yet +everybody likes writing to somebody, and it would be strange and +contradictory if I were not always delighted both to hear from _you_ +and to write to _you_, this talking upon paper being as good a social +pleasure as another, when our means are somewhat straitened. As for +me, I have done most of my talking by post of late years--as people +shut up in dungeons take up with scrawling mottoes on the walls. Not +that I write to many in the way of regular correspondence, as our +friend Mr. Horne predicates of me in his romances (which is mere +romancing!), but that there are a few who will write and be written to +by me without a sense of injury. Dear Miss Mitford, for instance. You +do not know her, I think, personally, although she was the first to +tell me (when I was very ill and insensible to all the glories of the +world except poetry), of the grand scene in 'Pippa Passes.' _She_ has +filled a large drawer in this room with delightful letters, heart-warm +and soul-warm, ... driftings of nature (if sunshine could drift like +snow), and which, if they should ever fall the way of all writing, +into print, would assume the folio shape as a matter of course, and +take rank on the lowest shelf of libraries, with Benedictine editions +of the Fathers, [Greek: k.t.l.]. I write this to you to show how I can +have pleasure in letters, and never think them too long, nor too +frequent, nor too illegible from being written in little 'pet hands.' +I can read any MS. except the writing on the pyramids. And if you will +only promise to treat me _en bon camarade_, without reference to the +conventionalities of 'ladies and gentlemen,' taking no thought for +your sentences (nor for mine), nor for your blots (nor for mine), nor +for your blunt speaking (nor for mine), nor for your badd speling (nor +for mine), and if you agree to send me a blotted thought whenever you +are in the mind for it, and with as little ceremony and less +legibility than you would think it necessary to employ towards your +printer--why, _then_, I am ready to sign and seal the contract, and to +rejoice in being 'articled' as your correspondent. Only _don't_ let us +have any constraint, any ceremony! _Don't_ be civil to me when you +feel rude,--nor loquacious when you incline to silence,--nor yielding +in the manners when you are perverse in the mind. See how out of the +world I am! Suffer me to profit by it in almost the only profitable +circumstance, and let us rest from the bowing and the courtesying, +you and I, on each side. You will find me an honest man on the whole, +if rather hasty and prejudging, which is a different thing from +prejudice at the worst. And we have great sympathies in common, and I +am inclined to look up to you in many things, and to learn as much of +everything as you will teach me. On the other hand you must prepare +yourself to forbear and to forgive--will you? While I throw off the +ceremony, I hold the faster to the kindness. + +Is it true, as you say, that I 'know so "little"' of you? And is it +true, as others say, that the productions of an artist do not partake +of his real nature, ... that in the minor sense, man is not made in +the image of God? It is _not_ true, to my mind--and therefore it is +not true that I know little of you, except in as far as it is true +(which I believe) that your greatest works are to come. Need I assure +you that I shall always hear with the deepest interest every word you +will say to me of what you are doing or about to do? I hear of the +'old room' and the '"Bells" lying about,' with an interest which you +may guess at, perhaps. And when you tell me besides, of _my poems +being there_, and of your caring for them so much beyond the tide-mark +of my hopes, the pleasure rounds itself into a charm, and prevents its +own expression. Overjoyed I am with this cordial sympathy--but it is +better, I feel, to try to justify it by future work than to thank you +for it now. I think--if I may dare to name myself with you in the +poetic relation--that we both have high views of the Art we follow, +and stedfast purpose in the pursuit of it, and that we should not, +either of _us_, be likely to be thrown from the course, by the casting +of any Atalanta-ball of speedy popularity. But I do not know, I cannot +guess, whether you are liable to be pained deeply by hard criticism +and cold neglect, such as original writers like yourself are too often +exposed to--or whether the love of Art is enough for you, and the +exercise of Art the filling joy of your life. Not that praise must not +always, of necessity, be delightful to the artist, but that it may be +redundant to his content. Do you think so? or not? It appears to me +that poets who, like Keats, are highly susceptible to criticism, must +be jealous, in their own persons, of the future honour of their works. +Because, if a work is worthy, honour must follow it, though the worker +should not live to see that following overtaking. Now, is it not +enough that the work be honoured--enough I mean, for the worker? And +is it not enough to keep down a poet's ordinary wearing anxieties, to +think, that if his work be worthy it will have honour, and, if not, +that 'Sparta must have nobler sons than he'? I am writing nothing +applicable, I see, to anything in question, but when one falls into a +favourite train of thought, one indulges oneself in thinking on. I +began in thinking and wondering what sort of artistic constitution you +had, being determined, as you may observe (with a sarcastic smile at +the impertinence), to set about knowing as much as possible of you +immediately. Then you spoke of your 'gentle audience' (_you began_), +and I, who know that you have not one but many enthusiastic +admirers--the 'fit and few' in the intense meaning--yet not the +_diffused_ fame which will come to you presently, wrote on, down the +margin of the subject, till I parted from it altogether. But, after +all, we are on the proper matter of sympathy. And after all, and after +all that has been said and mused upon the 'natural ills,' the anxiety, +and wearing out experienced by the true artist,--is not the _good_ +immeasurably greater than the _evil_? Is it not great good, and great +joy? For my part, I wonder sometimes--I surprise myself wondering--how +without such an object and purpose of life, people find it worth while +to live at all. And, for happiness--why, my only idea of happiness, as +far as my personal enjoyment is concerned, (but I have been +straightened in some respects and in comparison with the majority of +livers!) lies deep in poetry and its associations. And then, the +escape from pangs of heart and bodily weakness--when you throw off +_yourself_--what you feel to be _yourself_--into another atmosphere +and into other relations where your life may spread its wings out new, +and gather on every separate plume a brightness from the sun of the +sun! Is it possible that imaginative writers should be so fond of +depreciating and lamenting over their own destiny? Possible, +certainly--but reasonable, not at all--and grateful, less than +anything! + +My faults, my faults--Shall I help you? Ah--you see them too well, I +fear. And do you know that _I_ also have something of your feeling +about 'being about to _begin_,' or I should dare to praise you for +having it. But in you, it is different--it is, in you, a virtue. When +Prometheus had recounted a long list of sorrows to be endured by Io, +and declared at last that he was [Greek: mêdepô en prooimiois],[1] +poor Io burst out crying. And when the author of 'Paracelsus' and the +'Bells and Pomegranates' says that he is only 'going to begin' we may +well (to take 'the opposite idea,' as you write) rejoice and clap our +hands. Yet I believe that, whatever you may have done, you _will_ do +what is greater. It is my faith for you. + +And how I should like to know what poets have been your sponsors, 'to +promise and vow' for you,--and whether you have held true to early +tastes, or leapt violently from them, and what books you read, and +what hours you write in. How curious I could prove myself!--(if it +isn't proved already). + +But this is too much indeed, past all bearing, I suspect. Well, but if +I ever write to you again--I mean, if you wish it--it may be in the +other extreme of shortness. So do not take me for a born heroine of +Richardson, or think that I sin always to this length, else,--you +might indeed repent your quotation from Juliet--which I guessed at +once--and of course-- + + I have no joy in this contract to-day! + It is too unadvised, too rash and sudden. + + Ever faithfully yours, + + ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. + +[Footnote 1: 'Not yet reached the prelude' (Aesch. _Prom._ 741).] + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Hatcham, Tuesday. + [Post-mark, February 11, 1845.] + +Dear Miss Barrett,--People would hardly ever tell falsehoods about a +matter, if they had been let tell truth in the beginning, for it is +hard to prophane one's very self, and nobody who has, for instance, +used certain words and ways to a mother or a father _could_, even if +by the devil's help he _would_, reproduce or mimic them with any +effect to anybody else that was to be won over--and so, if 'I love +you' were always outspoken when it might be, there would, I suppose, +be no fear of its desecration at any after time. But lo! only last +night, I had to write, on the part of Mr. Carlyle, to a certain +ungainly, foolish gentleman who keeps back from him, with all the +fussy impotence of stupidity (not bad feeling, alas! for _that_ we +could deal with) a certain MS. letter of Cromwell's which completes +the collection now going to press; and this long-ears had to be 'dear +Sir'd and obedient servanted' till I _said_ (to use a mild word) +'commend me to the sincerities of this kind of thing.'! When I spoke +of you knowing little of me, one of the senses in which I meant so was +this--that I would not well vowel-point my common-place letters and +syllables with a masoretic _other_ sound and sense, make my 'dear' +something intenser than 'dears' in ordinary, and 'yours ever' a +thought more significant than the run of its like. And all this came +of your talking of 'tiring me,' 'being too envious,' &c. &c., which I +should never have heard of had the plain truth looked out of my letter +with its unmistakable eyes. _Now_, what you say of the 'bowing,' and +convention that is to be, and _tant de façons_ that are not to be, +helps me once and for ever--for have I not a right to say simply that, +for reasons I know, for other reasons I don't exactly know, but might +if I chose to think a little, and for still other reasons, which, most +likely, all the choosing and thinking in the world would not make me +know, I had rather hear from you than see anybody else. Never you +care, dear noble Carlyle, nor you, my own friend Alfred over the sea, +nor a troop of true lovers!--Are not their fates written? there! Don't +you answer this, please, but, mind it is on record, and now then, with +a lighter conscience I shall begin replying to your questions. But +then--what I have printed gives _no_ knowledge of me--it evidences +abilities of various kinds, if you will--and a dramatic sympathy with +certain modifications of passion ... _that_ I think--But I never have +begun, even, what I hope I was born to begin and end--'R.B. a +poem'--and next, if I speak (and, God knows, feel), as if what you +have read were sadly imperfect demonstrations of even mere ability, it +is from no absurd vanity, though it might seem so--these scenes and +song-scraps _are_ such mere and very escapes of my inner power, which +lives in me like the light in those crazy Mediterranean phares I have +watched at sea, wherein the light is ever revolving in a dark gallery, +bright and alive, and only after a weary interval leaps out, for a +moment, from the one narrow chink, and then goes on with the blind +wall between it and you; and, no doubt, _then_, precisely, does the +poor drudge that carries the cresset set himself most busily to trim +the wick--for don't think I want to say I have not worked hard--(this +head of mine knows better)--but the work has been _inside_, and not +when at stated times I held up my light to you--and, that there is no +self-delusion here, I would prove to you (and nobody else), even by +opening this desk I write on, and showing what stuff, in the way of +wood, I _could_ make a great bonfire with, if I might only knock the +whole clumsy top off my tower! Of course, every writing body says the +same, so I gain nothing by the avowal; but when I remember how I have +done what was published, and half done what may never be, I say with +some right, you can know but little of me. Still, I _hope_ sometimes, +though phrenologists will have it that I _cannot_, and am doing +better with this darling 'Luria'--so safe in my head, and a tiny slip +of paper I cover with my thumb! + +Then you inquire about my 'sensitiveness to criticism,' and I shall be +glad to tell you exactly, because I have, more than once, taken a +course you might else not understand. I shall live always--that is for +me--I am living here this 1845, that is for London. I write from a +thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief +that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things +considered--that is for _me_, and, so being, the not being listened to +by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me. But of +course I must, if for merely scientific purposes, know all about this +1845, its ways and doings, and something I do know, as that for a +dozen cabbages, if I pleased to grow them in the garden here, I might +demand, say, a dozen pence at Covent Garden Market,--and that for a +dozen scenes, of the average goodness, I may challenge as many +plaudits at the theatre close by; and a dozen pages of verse, brought +to the Rialto where verse-merchants most do congregate, ought to bring +me a fair proportion of the Reviewers' gold currency, seeing the other +traders pouch their winnings, as I do see. Well, when they won't pay +me for my cabbages, nor praise me for my poems, I may, if I please, +say 'more's the shame,' and bid both parties 'decamp to the crows,' in +Greek phrase, and _yet_ go very lighthearted back to a garden-full of +rose-trees, and a soul-full of comforts. If they had bought my greens +I should have been able to buy the last number of _Punch_, and go +through the toll-gate of Waterloo Bridge, and give the blind +clarionet-player a trifle, and all without changing my gold. If they +had taken to my books, my father and mother would have been proud of +this and the other 'favourable critique,' and--at least so folks +hold--I should have to pay Mr. Moxon less by a few pounds, +whereas--but you see! Indeed I force myself to say ever and anon, in +the interest of the market-gardeners regular, and Keatses proper, +'It's nothing to _you_, critics, hucksters, all of you, if I _have_ +this garden and this conscience--I might go die at Rome, or take to +gin and the newspaper, for what _you_ would care!' So I don't quite +lay open my resources to everybody. But it does so happen, that I have +met with much more than I could have expected in this matter of kindly +and prompt recognition. I never wanted a real set of good hearty +praisers--and no bad reviewers--I am quite content with my share. +No--what I laughed at in my 'gentle audience' is a sad trick the real +admirers have of admiring at the wrong place--enough to make an +apostle swear. _That_ does make me savage--_never_ the other kind of +people; why, think now--take your own 'Drama of Exile' and let _me_ +send it to the first twenty men and women that shall knock at your +door to-day and after--of whom the first five are the Postman, the +seller of cheap sealing-wax, Mr. Hawkins Junr, the Butcher for orders, +and the Tax-gatherer--will you let me, by Cornelius Agrippa's +assistance, force these five and these fellows to read, and report on, +this 'Drama'--and, when I have put these faithful reports into fair +English, do you believe they would be better than, if as good, as, the +general run of Periodical criticisms? Not they, I will venture to +affirm. But then--once again, I get these people together and give +them your book, and persuade them, moreover, that by praising it, the +Postman will be helping its author to divide Long Acre into two beats, +one of which she will take with half the salary and all the red +collar,--that a sealing-wax vendor will see red wafers brought into +vogue, and so on with the rest--and won't you just wish for your +_Spectators_ and _Observers_ and Newcastle-upon-Tyne--Hebdomadal +_Mercuries_ back again! You see the inference--I do sincerely esteem +it a perfectly providential and miraculous thing that they are so +well-behaved in ordinary, these critics; and for Keats and Tennyson to +'go softly all their days' for a gruff word or two is quite +inexplicable to me, and always has been. Tennyson reads the +_Quarterly_ and does as they bid him, with the most solemn face in the +world--out goes this, in goes that, all is changed and ranged. Oh me! + +Out comes the sun, in comes the _Times_ and eleven strikes (it _does_) +already, and I have to go to Town, and I have no alternative but that +this story of the Critic and Poet, 'the Bear and the Fiddle,' should +'begin but break off in the middle'; yet I doubt--nor will you +henceforth, I know, say, 'I vex you, I am sure, by this lengthy +writing.' Mind that spring is coming, for all this snow; and know me +for yours ever faithfully, + + R. BROWNING. + +I don't dare--yet I will--ask _can_ you read this? Because I _could_ +write a little better, but not so fast. Do you keep writing just as +you do now! + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + 50 Wimpole Street, February 17, 1845. + +Dear Mr. Browning,--To begin with the end (which is only +characteristic of the perverse like myself), I assure you I read your +handwriting as currently as I could read the clearest type from font. +If I had practised the art of reading your letters all my life, I +couldn't do it better. And then I approve of small MS. upon principle. +Think of what an immense quantity of physical energy must go to the +making of those immense sweeping handwritings achieved by some persons +... Mr. Landor, for instance, who writes as if he had the sky for a +copybook and dotted his _i_'s in proportion. People who do such things +should wear gauntlets; yes, and have none to wear; or they wouldn't +waste their time so. People who write--by profession--shall I +say?--never should do it, or what will become of them when most of +their strength retires into their head and heart, (as is the case with +some of us and may be the case with all) and when they have to write a +poem twelve times over, as Mr. Kenyon says I should do if I were +virtuous? Not that I do it. Does anybody do it, I wonder? Do _you_, +ever? From what you tell me of the trimming of the light, I imagine +not. And besides, one may be laborious as a writer, without copying +twelve times over. I believe there are people who will tell you in a +moment what three times six is, without 'doing it' on their fingers; +and in the same way one may work one's verses in one's head quite as +laboriously as on paper--I maintain it. I consider myself a very +patient, laborious writer--though dear Mr. Kenyon laughs me to scorn +when I say so. And just see how it could be otherwise. If I were +netting a purse I might be thinking of something else and drop my +stitches; or even if I were writing verses to please a popular taste, +I might be careless in it. But the pursuit of an Ideal acknowledged by +the mind, _will_ draw and concentrate the powers of the mind--and Art, +you know, is a jealous god and demands the whole man--or woman. I +cannot conceive of a sincere artist who is also a careless one--though +one may have a quicker hand than another, in general,--and though all +are liable to vicissitudes in the degree of facility--and to +entanglements in the machinery, notwithstanding every degree of +facility. You may write twenty lines one day--or even three like +Euripides in three days--and a hundred lines in one more day--and yet +on the hundred, may have been expended as much good work, as on the +twenty and the three. And also, as you say, the lamp is trimmed behind +the wall--and the act of utterance is the evidence of foregone study +still more than it is the occasion to study. The deep interest with +which I read all that you had the kindness to write to me of yourself, +you must trust me for, as I find it hard to express it. It is sympathy +in one way, and interest every way! And now, see! Although you proved +to me with admirable logic that, for reasons which you know and +reasons which you don't know, I couldn't possibly know anything about +you; though that is all true--and proven (which is better than +true)--I really did understand of you before I was told, exactly what +you told me. Yes, I did indeed. I felt sure that as a poet you fronted +the future--and that your chief works, in your own apprehension, were +to come. Oh--I take no credit of sagacity for it; as I did not long +ago to my sisters and brothers, when I professed to have knowledge of +all their friends whom I never saw in my life, by the image coming +with the name; and threw them into shouts of laughter by giving out +all the blue eyes and black eyes and hazel eyes and noses Roman and +Gothic ticketed aright for the Mr. Smiths and Miss Hawkinses,--and hit +the bull's eye and the true features of the case, ten times out of +twelve! But _you_ are different. _You_ are to be made out by the +comparative anatomy system. You have thrown out fragments of _os_ ... +_sublime_ ... indicative of soul-mammothism--and you live to develop +your nature,--_if_ you live. That is easy and plain. You have taken a +great range--from those high faint notes of the mystics which are +beyond personality ... to dramatic impersonations, gruff with nature, +'gr-r-r- you swine'; and when these are thrown into harmony, as in a +manner they are in 'Pippa Passes' (which I could find in my heart to +covet the authorship of, more than any of your works--), the +combinations of effect must always be striking and noble--and you must +feel yourself drawn on to such combinations more and more. But I do +not, you say, know yourself--you. I only know abilities and faculties. +Well, then, teach me yourself--you. I will not insist on the +knowledge--and, in fact, you have not written the R.B. poem yet--your +rays fall obliquely rather than directly straight. I see you only in +your moon. Do tell me all of yourself that you can and will ... before +the R.B. poem comes out. And what is 'Luria'? A poem and not a drama? +I mean, a poem not in the dramatic form? Well! I have wondered at you +sometimes, not for daring, but for bearing to trust your noble works +into the great mill of the 'rank, popular' playhouse, to be ground to +pieces between the teeth of vulgar actors and actresses. I, for one, +would as soon have 'my soul among lions.' 'There is a fascination in +it,' says Miss Mitford, and I am sure there must be, to account for +it. Publics in the mass are bad enough; but to distil the dregs of the +public and baptise oneself in that acrid moisture, where can be the +temptation? I could swear by Shakespeare, as was once sworn 'by those +dead at Marathon,' that I do not see where. I love the drama too. I +look to our old dramatists as to our Kings and princes in poetry. I +love them through all the deeps of their abominations. But the theatre +in those days was a better medium between the people and the poet; and +the press in those days was a less sufficient medium than now. Still, +the poet suffered by the theatre even then; and the reasons are very +obvious. + +How true--how true ... is all you say about critics. My convictions +follow you in every word. And I delighted to read your views of the +poet's right aspect towards criticism--I read them with the most +complete appreciation and sympathy. I have sometimes thought that it +would be a curious and instructive process, as illustrative of the +wisdom and apprehensiveness of critics, if anyone would collect the +critical soliloquies of every age touching its own literature, (as far +as such may be extant) and _confer_ them with the literary product of +the said ages. Professor Wilson has begun something of the kind +apparently, in his initiatory paper of the last _Blackwood_ number on +critics, beginning with Dryden--but he seems to have no design in his +notice--it is a mere critique on the critic. And then, he should have +begun earlier than Dryden--earlier even than Sir Philip Sydney, who in +the noble 'Discourse on Poetry,' gives such singular evidence of being +stone-critic-blind to the gods who moved around him. As far as I can +remember, he saw even Shakespeare but indifferently. Oh, it was in his +eyes quite an unillumed age, that period of Elizabeth which _we_ see +full of suns! and few can see what is close to the eyes though they +run their heads against it; the denial of contemporary genius is the +rule rather than the exception. No one counts the eagles in the nest, +till there is a rush of wings; and lo! they are flown. And here we +speak of understanding men, such as the Sydneys and the Drydens. Of +the great body of critics you observe rightly, that they are better +than might be expected of their badness, only the fact of their +_influence_ is no less undeniable than the reason why they should not +be influential. The brazen kettles will be taken for oracles all the +world over. But the influence is for to-day, for this hour--not for +to-morrow and the day after--unless indeed, as you say, the poet do +himself perpetuate the influence by submitting to it. Do you know +Tennyson?--that is, with a face to face knowledge? I have great +admiration for him. In execution, he is exquisite,--and, in music, a +most subtle weigher out to the ear of fine airs. That such a poet +should submit blindly to the suggestions of his critics, (I do not say +that suggestions from without may not be accepted with discrimination +sometimes, to the benefit of the acceptor), blindly and implicitly to +the suggestions of his critics, is much as if Babbage were to take my +opinion and undo his calculating machine by it. Napoleon called poetry +_science creuse_--which, although he was not scientific in poetry +himself, is true enough. But anybody is qualified, according to +everybody, for giving opinions upon poetry. It is not so in chymistry +and mathematics. Nor is it so, I believe, in whist and the polka. But +then these are more serious things. + +Yes--and it does delight me to hear of your garden full of roses and +soul full of comforts! You have the right to both--you have the key to +both. You have written enough to live by, though only beginning to +write, as you say of yourself. And this reminds me to remind you that +when I talked of coveting most the authorship of your 'Pippa,' I did +not mean to call it your finest work (you might reproach me for +_that_), but just to express a personal feeling. Do you know what it +is to covet your neighbour's poetry?--not his fame, but his poetry?--I +dare say not. You are too generous. And, in fact, beauty is beauty, +and, whether it comes by our own hand or another's, blessed be the +coming of it! _I_, besides, feel _that_. And yet--and yet, I have been +aware of a feeling within me which has spoken two or three times to +the effect of a wish, that I had been visited with the vision of +'Pippa,' before you--and _confiteor tibi_--I confess the baseness of +it. The conception is, to my mind, most exquisite and altogether +original--and the contrast in the working out of the plan, singularly +expressive of various faculty. + +Is the poem under your thumb, emerging from it? and in what metre? May +I ask such questions? + +And does Mr. Carlyle tell you that he has forbidden all 'singing' to +this perverse and froward generation, which should work and not sing? +And have you told Mr. Carlyle that song is work, and also the +condition of work? I am a devout sitter at his feet--and it is an +effort to me to think him wrong in anything--and once when he told me +to write prose and not verse, I fancied that his opinion was I had +mistaken my calling,--a fancy which in infinite kindness and +gentleness he stooped immediately to correct. I never shall forget the +grace of that kindness--but then! For _him_ to have thought ill of +_me_, would not have been strange--I often think ill of myself, as God +knows. But for Carlyle to think of putting away, even for a season, +the poetry of the world, was wonderful, and has left me ruffled in my +thoughts ever since. I do not know him personally at all. But as his +disciple I ventured (by an exceptional motive) to send him my poems, +and I heard from him as a consequence. 'Dear and noble' he is +indeed--and a poet unaware of himself; all but the sense of music. You +feel it so--do you not? And the 'dear sir' has let him have the +'letter of Cromwell,' I hope; and satisfied 'the obedient servant.' +The curious thing in this world is not the stupidity, but the +upper-handism of the stupidity. The geese are in the Capitol, and the +Romans in the farmyard--and it seems all quite natural that it should +be so, both to geese and Romans! + +But there are things you say, which seem to me supernatural, for +reasons which I know and for reasons which I don't know. You will let +me be grateful to you,--will you not? You must, if you will or not. +And also--I would not wait for more leave--if I could but see your +desk--as I do your death's heads and the spider-webs appertaining; but +the soul of Cornelius Agrippa fades from me. + + Ever faithfully yours, + + ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Wednesday Morning--Spring! + [Post-mark, February 26, 1845.] + +Real warm Spring, dear Miss Barrett, and the birds know it; and in +Spring I shall see you, surely see you--for when did I once fail to +get whatever I had set my heart upon? As I ask myself sometimes, with +a strange fear. + +I took up this paper to write a great deal--now, I don't think I shall +write much--'I shall see you,' I say! + +That 'Luria' you enquire about, shall be my last play--for it is but a +play, woe's me! I have one done here, 'A Soul's Tragedy,' as it is +properly enough called, but _that_ would not do to end with (end I +will), and Luria is a Moor, of Othello's country, and devotes himself +to something he thinks Florence, and the old fortune follows--all in +my brain yet, but the bright weather helps and I will soon loosen my +Braccio and Puccio (a pale discontented man), and Tiburzio (the Pisan, +good true fellow, this one), and Domizia the Lady--loosen all these on +dear foolish (ravishing must his folly be), golden-hearted Luria, all +these with their worldly-wisdom and Tuscan shrewd ways; and, for me, +the misfortune is, I sympathise just as much with these as with +him,--so there can no good come of keeping this wild company any +longer, and 'Luria' and the other sadder ruin of one Chiappino--these +got rid of, I will do as you bid me, and--say first I have some +Romances and Lyrics, all dramatic, to dispatch, and _then_, I shall +stoop of a sudden under and out of this dancing ring of men and women +hand in hand, and stand still awhile, should my eyes dazzle, and when +that's over, they will be gone and you will be there, _pas vrai_? For, +as I think I told you, I always shiver involuntarily when I look--no, +glance--at this First Poem of mine to be. '_Now_,' I call it, what, +upon my soul,--for a solemn matter it is,--what is to be done _now_, +believed _now_, so far as it has been revealed to me--solemn words, +truly--and to find myself writing them to any one else! Enough now. + +I know Tennyson 'face to face,'--no more than that. I know Carlyle and +love him--know him so well, that I would have told you he had shaken +that grand head of his at 'singing,' so thoroughly does he love and +live by it. When I last saw him, a fortnight ago, he turned, from I +don't know what other talk, quite abruptly on me with, 'Did you never +try to write a _Song_? Of all things in the world, _that_ I should be +proudest to do.' Then came his definition of a song--then, with an +appealing look to Mrs. C., 'I always say that some day in _spite of +nature and my stars_, I shall burst into a song' (he is not +mechanically 'musical,' he meant, and the music is the poetry, he +holds, and should enwrap the thought as Donne says 'an amber-drop +enwraps a bee'), and then he began to recite an old Scotch song, +stopping at the first rude couplet, 'The beginning words are merely to +set the tune, they tell me'--and then again at the couplet about--or, +to the effect that--'give me' (but in broad Scotch) 'give me but my +lass, I care not for my cogie.' '_He says_,' quoth Carlyle +magisterially, 'that if you allow him the love of his lass, you may +take away all else, even his cogie, his cup or can, and he cares not,' +just as a professor expounds Lycophron. And just before I left +England, six months ago, did not I hear him croon, if not certainly +sing, 'Charlie is my darling' ('my _darling_' with an adoring +emphasis), and then he stood back, as it were, from the song, to look +at it better, and said 'How must that notion of ideal wondrous +perfection have impressed itself in this old Jacobite's "young +Cavalier"--("They go to save their land, and the _young +Cavalier_!!")--when I who care nothing about such a rag of a man, +cannot but feel as he felt, in speaking his words after him!' After +saying which, he would be sure to counsel everybody to get their heads +clear of all singing! Don't let me forget to clap hands, we got the +letter, dearly bought as it was by the 'Dear Sirs,' &c., and +insignificant scrap as it proved, but still it is got, to my +encouragement in diplomacy. + +Who told you of my sculls and spider webs--Horne? Last year I petted +extraordinarily a fine fellow, (a _garden_ spider--there was the +singularity,--the thin clever-even-for-a-spider-sort, and they are +_so_ 'spirited and sly,' all of them--this kind makes a long cone of +web, with a square chamber of vantage at the end, and there he sits +loosely and looks about), a great fellow that housed himself, with +real gusto, in the jaws of a great scull, whence he watched me as I +wrote, and I remember speaking to Horne about his good points. +Phrenologists look gravely at that great scull, by the way, and hope, +in their grim manner, that its owner made a good end. He looks +quietly, now, out at the green little hill behind. I have no little +insight to the feelings of furniture, and treat books and prints with +a reasonable consideration. How some people use their pictures, for +instance, is a mystery to me; very revolting all the same--portraits +obliged to face each other for ever,--prints put together in +portfolios. My Polidoro's perfect Andromeda along with 'Boors +Carousing,' by Ostade,--where I found her,--my own father's doing, or +I would say more. + +And when I have said I like 'Pippa' better than anything else I have +done yet, I shall have answered all you bade me. And now may _I_ +begin questioning? No,--for it is all a pure delight to me, so that +you do but write. I never was without good, kind, generous friends and +lovers, so they say--so they were and are,--perhaps they came at the +wrong time--I never wanted them--though that makes no difference in my +gratitude I trust,--but I know myself--surely--and always have done +so, for is there not somewhere the little 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 part I do not think of it +either; I simply understand that you _are_ my happiness, and that +therefore you could not make another happiness for me, such as would +be worth having--not even _you_! Why, how could you? _That_ was in my +mind to speak yesterday, but I could not speak it--to write it, is +easier. + +Talking of happiness--shall I tell you? Promise not to be angry and I +will tell you. I have thought sometimes that, if I considered myself +wholly, I should choose to die this winter--now--before I had +disappointed you in anything. But because you are better and dearer +and more to be considered than I, I do _not_ choose it. I _cannot_ +choose to give you any pain, even on the chance of its being a less +pain, a less evil, than what may follow perhaps (who can say?), if I +should prove the burden of your life. + +For if you make me happy with some words, you frighten me with +others--as with the extravagance yesterday--and seriously--_too_ +seriously, when the moment for smiling at them is past--I am +frightened, I tremble! When you come to know me as well as I know +myself, what can save me, do you think, from disappointing and +displeasing you? I ask the question, and find no answer. + +It is a poor answer, to say that I can do one thing well ... that I +have one capacity largely. On points of the general affections, I have +in thought applied to myself the words of Mme. de Stael, not +fretfully, I hope, not complainingly, I am sure (I can thank God for +most affectionate friends!) not complainingly, yet mournfully and in +profound conviction--those words--'_jamais je n'ai pas été aimée comme +j'aime_.' The capacity of loving is the largest of my powers I +think--I thought so before knowing you--and one form of feeling. And +although any woman might love you--_every_ woman,--with understanding +enough to discern you by--(oh, do not fancy that I am unduly +magnifying mine office) yet I persist in persuading myself that! +Because I have the capacity, as I said--and besides I owe more to you +than others could, it seems to me: let me boast of it. To many, you +might be better than all things while one of all things: to me you are +instead of all--to many, a crowning happiness--to me, the happiness +itself. From out of the deep dark pits men see the stars more +gloriously--and _de profundis amavi_-- + +It is a very poor answer! Almost as poor an answer as yours could be +if I were to ask you to teach me to please you always; or rather, how +not to displease you, disappoint you, vex you--what if all those +things were in my fate? + +And--(to begin!)--_I_ am disappointed to-night. I expected a letter +which does not come--and I had felt so sure of having a letter +to-night ... unreasonably sure perhaps, which means doubly sure. + +_Friday._--Remember you have had two notes of mine, and that it is +certainly not my turn to write, though I am writing. + +Scarcely you had gone on Wednesday when Mr. Kenyon came. It seemed +best to me, you know, that you should go--I had the presentiment of +his footsteps--and so near they were, that if you had looked up the +street in leaving the door, you must have seen him! Of course I told +him of your having been here and also at his house; whereupon he +enquired eagerly if you meant to dine with him, seeming disappointed +by my negative. 'Now I had told him,' he said ... and murmured on to +himself loud enough for me to hear, that 'it would have been a +peculiar pleasure &c.' The reason I have not seen him lately is the +eternal 'business,' just as you thought, and he means to come 'oftener +now,' so nothing is wrong as I half thought. + +As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking what +sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most +particularly admire--sulkiness?--the divine gift of sitting aloof in a +cloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps--pettishness? ... +which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one +either? obstinacy?--which is an agreeable form of temper I can assure +you, and describes itself--or the good open passion which lies on the +floor and kicks, like one of my cousins?--Certainly I prefer the last, +and should, I think, prefer it (as an evil), even if it were not the +born weakness of my own nature--though I humbly confess (to _you_, who +seem to think differently of these things) that never since I was a +child have I upset all the chairs and tables and thrown the books +about the room in a fury--I am afraid I do not even 'kick,' like my +cousin, now. Those demonstrations were all done by the 'light of other +days'--not a very full light, I used to be accustomed to think:--but +_you_,--_you_ think otherwise, _you_ take a fury to be the opposite of +'indifference,' as if there could be no such thing as self-control! +Now for my part, I do believe that the worst-tempered persons in the +world are less so through sensibility than selfishness--they spare +nobody's heart, on the ground of being themselves pricked by a straw. +Now see if it isn't so. What, after all, is a good temper but +generosity in trifles--and what, without it, is the happiness of life? +We have only to look round us. I _saw_ a woman, once, burst into +tears, because her husband cut the bread and butter too thick. I saw +_that_ with my own eyes. Was it _sensibility_, I wonder! They were at +least real tears and ran down her cheeks. 'You _always_ do it'! she +said. + +Why how you must sympathize with the heroes and heroines of the French +romances (_do_ you sympathize with them very much?) when at the +slightest provocation they break up the tables and chairs, (a degree +beyond the deeds of my childhood!--_I_ only used to upset them) break +up the tables and chairs and chiffoniers, and dash the china to atoms. +The men _do_ the furniture, and the women the porcelain: and pray +observe that they always set about this as a matter of course! When +they have broken everything in the room, they sink down quite (and +very naturally) _abattus_. I remember a particular case of a hero of +Frederic Soulié's, who, in the course of an 'emotion,' takes up a +chair _unconsciously_, and breaks it into very small pieces, and then +proceeds with his soliloquy. Well!--the clearest idea this excites in +_me_, is of the low condition in Paris, of moral government and of +upholstery. Because--just consider for yourself--how _you_ would +succeed in breaking to pieces even a three-legged stool if it were +properly put together--as stools are in England--just yourself, +without a hammer and a screw! You might work at it _comme quatre_, and +find it hard to finish, I imagine. And then as a demonstration, a +child of six years old might demonstrate just so (in his sphere) and +be whipped accordingly. + +How I go on writing!--and you, who do not write at all!--two extremes, +one set against the other. + +But I must say, though in ever such an ill temper (which you know is +just the time to select for writing a panegyric upon good temper) that +I am glad you do not despise my own right name too much, because I +never was called Elizabeth by any one who loved me at all, and I +accept the omen. So little it seems my name that if a voice said +suddenly 'Elizabeth,' I should as soon turn round as my sisters would +... no sooner. Only, my own right name has been complained of for want +of euphony ... _Ba_ ... now and then it has--and Mr. Boyd makes a +compromise and calls me _Elibet_, because nothing could induce him to +desecrate his organs accustomed to Attic harmonies, with a _Ba_. So I +am glad, and accept the omen. + +But I give you no credit for not thinking that I may forget you ... I! +As if you did not see the difference! Why, _I_ could not even forget +to _write_ to _you_, observe!-- + +Whenever you write, say how you are. Were you wet on Wednesday? + + Your own-- + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, December 20, 1845.] + +I do not, nor will not think, dearest, of ever 'making you happy'--I +can imagine no way of working that end, which does not go straight to +my own truest, only true happiness--yet in every such effort there is +implied some distinction, some supererogatory grace, or why speak of +it at all? _You_ it is, are my happiness, and all that ever can be: +YOU--dearest! + +But never, if you would not, what you will not do I know, never revert +to _that_ frightful wish. 'Disappoint me?' 'I speak what I know and +testify what I have seen'--you shall 'mystery' again and again--I do +not dispute that, but do not _you_ dispute, neither, that mysteries +are. But it is simply because I do most justice to the mystical part +of what I feel for you, because I consent to lay most stress on that +fact of facts that I love you, beyond admiration, and respect, and +esteem and affection even, and do not adduce any reason which stops +short of accounting for _that_, whatever else it would account for, +because I do this, in pure logical justice--_you_ are able to turn and +wonder (if you _do ... now_) what causes it all! My love, only wait, +only believe in me, and it cannot be but I shall, little by little, +become known to you--after long years, perhaps, but still one day: I +_would_ say _this_ now--but I will write more to-morrow. God bless my +sweetest--ever, love, I am your + + R.B. + +But my letter came last night, did it not? + +Another thing--no, _to-morrow_--for time presses, and, in all cases, +_Tuesday_--remember! + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, December 20, 1845.] + +I have your letter now, and now I am sorry I sent mine. If I wrote +that you had 'forgotten to write,' I did not mean it; not a word! If I +had meant it I should not have written it. But it would have been +better for every reason to have waited just a little longer before +writing at all. A besetting sin of mine is an impatience which makes +people laugh when it does not entangle their silks, pull their knots +tighter, and tear their books in cutting them open. + +How right you are about Mr. Lowell! He has a refined fancy and is +graceful for an American critic, but the truth is, otherwise, that he +knows nothing of English poetry or the next thing to nothing, and has +merely had a dream of the early dramatists. The amount of his reading +in that direction is an article in the _Retrospective Review_ which +contains extracts; and he re-extracts the extracts, re-quotes the +quotations, and, 'a pede Herculem,' from the foot infers the man, or +rather from the sandal-string of the foot, infers and judges the soul +of the man--it is comparative anatomy under the most speculative +conditions. How a writer of his talents and pretensions could make up +his mind to make up a book on such slight substratum, is a curious +proof of the state of literature in America. Do you not think so? Why +a lecturer on the English Dramatists for a 'Young Ladies' academy' +here in England, might take it to be necessary to have better +information than he could gather from an odd volume of an old review! +And then, Mr. Lowell's naïveté in showing his authority,--as if the +Elizabethan poets lay mouldering in inaccessible manuscript somewhere +below the lowest deep of Shakespeare's grave,--is curious beyond the +rest! Altogether, the fact is an epigram on the surface-literature of +America. As you say, their books do not suit us:--Mrs. Markham might +as well send her compendium of the History of France to M. Thiers. If +they _knew_ more they could not give parsley crowns to their own +native poets when there is greater merit among the rabbits. Mrs. +Sigourney has just sent me--just this morning--her 'Scenes in my +Native Land' and, peeping between the uncut leaves, I read of the poet +Hillhouse, of 'sublime spirit and Miltonic energy,' standing in 'the +temple of Fame' as if it were built on purpose for him. I suppose he +is like most of the American poets, who are shadows of the true, as +flat as a shadow, as colourless as a shadow, as lifeless and as +transitory. Mr. Lowell himself is, in his verse-books, poetical, if +not a poet--and certainly this little book we are talking of is +grateful enough in some ways--you would call it a _pretty book_--would +you not? Two or three letters I have had from him ... all very +kind!--and _that_ reminds me, alas! of some ineffable ingratitude on +my own part! When one's conscience grows too heavy, there is nothing +for it but to throw it away!-- + +Do you remember how I tried to tell you what he said of you, and how +you would not let me? + +Mr. Mathews said of _him_, having met him once in society, that he was +the concentration of conceit in appearance and manner. But since then +they seem to be on better terms. + +Where is the meaning, pray, of E.B._C._? _your_ meaning, I mean? + +My true initials are E.B.M.B.--my long name, as opposed to my short +one, being Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett!--there's a full length +to take away one's breath!--Christian name ... Elizabeth +Barrett:--surname, Moulton Barrett. So long it is, that to make it +portable, I fell into the habit of doubling it up and packing it +closely, ... and of forgetting that I was a _Moulton_, altogether. One +might as well write the alphabet as all four initials. Yet our +family-name is _Moulton Barrett_, and my brothers reproach me +sometimes for sacrificing the governorship of an old town in Norfolk +with a little honourable verdigris from the Heralds' Office. As if I +cared for the _Retrospective Review_! Nevertheless it is true that I +would give ten towns in Norfolk (if I had them) to own some purer +lineage than that of the blood of the slave! Cursed we are from +generation to generation!--I seem to hear the 'Commination Service.' + +May God bless you always, always! beyond the always of this world!-- + + Your + + E.B.B. + +Mr. Dickens's 'Cricket' sings repetitions, and, with considerable +beauty, is extravagant. It does not appear to me by any means one of +his most successful productions, though quite free from what was +reproached as bitterness and one-sidedness, last year. + +You do not say how you are--not a word! And you are wrong in saying +that you 'ought to have written'--as if 'ought' could be in place +_so_! You _never 'ought' to write to me you know_! or rather ... if +you ever think you ought, you ought not! Which is a speaking of +mysteries on my part! + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday Night. + [Post-mark, December 22, 1845.] + +Now, '_ought_' you to be 'sorry you sent that letter,' which made, and +makes me so happy--so happy--can you bring yourself to turn round and +tell one you have so blessed with your bounty that there was a +mistake, and you meant only half that largess? If you are not sensible +that you _do_ make me most happy by such letters, and do not warm in +the reflection of your own rays, then I _do_ give up indeed the last +chance of procuring _you_ happiness. My own 'ought,' which you object +to, shall be withdrawn--being only a pure bit of selfishness; I felt, +in missing the letter of yours, next day, that I _might_ have drawn it +down by one of mine,--if I had begged never so gently, the gold would +have fallen--_there_ was my omitted duty to myself which you properly +blame. I should stand silently and wait and be sure of the +ever-remembering goodness. + +Let me count my gold now--and rub off any speck that stays the full +shining. First--_that thought_ ... I told you; I pray you, pray you, +sweet--never that again--or what leads never so remotely or indirectly +to it! On _your own fancied ground_, the fulfilment would be of +necessity fraught with every woe that can fall in this life. I am +yours for ever--if you are not _here_, with me--what then? Say, you +take all of yourself away but just enough to live on; then, _that_ +defeats every kind purpose ... as if you cut away all the ground from +my feet but so much as serves for bare standing room ... why still, I +_stand_ there--and is it the better that I have no broader space, +when off _that_ you cannot force me? I have your memory, the knowledge +of you, the idea of you printed into my heart and brain,--on that, I +can live my life--but it is for you, the dear, utterly generous +creature I know you, to give me more and more beyond mere life--to +extend life and deepen it--as you do, and will do. Oh, _how_ I love +you when I think of the entire truthfulness of your generosity to +me--how, meaning and willing to _give_, you gave _nobly_! Do you think +I have not seen in this world how women who _do_ love will manage to +confer that gift on occasion? And shall I allow myself to fancy how +much alloy such pure gold as _your_ love would have rendered +endurable? Yet it came, virgin ore, to complete my fortune! And what +but this makes me confident and happy? _Can_ I take a lesson by your +fancies, and begin frightening myself with saying ... 'But if she saw +all the world--the worthier, better men there ... those who would' &c. +&c. No, I think of the great, dear _gift_ that it was; how I '_won_' +NOTHING (the hateful word, and _French_ thought)--did nothing by my +own arts or cleverness in the matter ... so what pretence have the +_more_ artful or more clever for:--but I cannot write out this +folly--I am yours for ever, with the utmost sense of gratitude--to say +I would give you my life joyfully is little.... I would, I hope, do +that for two or three other people--but I am not conscious of any +imaginable point in which I would not implicitly devote my whole self +to you--be disposed of by you as for the best. There! It is not to be +spoken of--let me _live_ it into proof, beloved! + +And for 'disappointment and a burden' ... now--let us get quite away +from ourselves, and not see one of the filaments, but only the _cords_ +of love with the world's horny eye. Have we such jarring tastes, then? +Does your inordinate attachment to gay life interfere with my deep +passion for society? 'Have they common sympathy in each other's +pursuits?'--always asks Mrs. Tomkins! Well, here was I when you knew +me, fixed in my way of life, meaning with God's help to write what +may be written and so die at peace with myself so far. Can you help me +or no? Do you _not_ help me so much that, if you saw the more likely +peril for poor human nature, you would say, 'He will be jealous of all +the help coming from me,--none from him to me!'--And _that would_ be a +consequence of the help, all-too-great for hope of return, with any +one less possessed than I with the exquisiteness of being +_transcended_ and the _blest_ one. + +But--'here comes the Selah and the voice is hushed'--I will speak of +other things. When we are together one day--the days I believe in--I +mean to set about that reconsidering 'Sordello'--it has always been +rather on my mind--but yesterday I was reading the 'Purgatorio' and +the first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one struck me +with a new significance, as well describing the man and his purpose +and fate in my own poem--see; one of the burthened, contorted souls +tells Virgil and Dante-- + + Noi fummo già tutti per forza morti, + E _peccatori infin' all' ultim' ora_: + QUIVI--_lume del ciel ne fece accorti + Si chè, pentendo e perdonando, fora + Di vita uscimmo a Dio pacificati + Che del disio di se veder n'accora._[1] + +Which is just my Sordello's story ... could I '_do_' it off hand, I +wonder-- + + And sinners were we to the extreme hour; + _Then_, light from heaven fell, making us aware, + So that, repenting us and pardoned, out + Of life we passed to God, at peace with Him + Who fills the heart with yearning Him to see. + +There were many singular incidents attending my work on that +subject--thus, quite at the end, I found out there _was printed_ and +not published, a little historical tract by a Count V---- something, +called 'Sordello'--with the motto 'Post fata resurgam'! I hope he +prophesied. The main of this--biographical notices--is extracted by +Muratori, I think. Last year when I set foot in Naples I found after a +few minutes that at some theatre, that night, the opera was to be 'one +act of Sordello' and I never looked twice, nor expended a couple of +carlines on the _libretto_! + +I wanted to tell you, in last letter, that when I spoke of people's +tempers _you_ have no concern with 'people'--I do not glance obliquely +at _your_ temper--either to discover it, or praise it, or adapt myself +to it. I speak of the relation one sees in other cases--how one +opposes passionate foolish people, but hates cold clever people who +take quite care enough of themselves. I myself am born supremely +passionate--so I was born with light yellow hair: all changes--that is +the passion changes its direction and, taking a channel large enough, +looks calmer, perhaps, than it should--and all my sympathies go with +quiet strength, of course--but I know what the other kind is. As for +the breakages of chairs, and the appreciation of Parisian _meubles_; +manibus, pedibusque descendo in tuam sententiam, Ba, mi ocelle! ('What +was E.B. C?' why, the first letter after, and _not_, E.B. _B_, my own +_B_! There was no latent meaning in the C--but I had no inclination to +go on to D, or E, for instance). + +And so, love, Tuesday is to be our day--one day more--and then! And +meanwhile '_care_' for me! a good word for you--but _my_ care, what is +that! One day I aspire to _care_, though! I shall not go away at any +dear Mr. K.'s coming! They call me down-stairs to supper--and my fire +is out, and you keep me from feeling cold and yet ask if I am well? +Yes, well--yes, happy--and your own ever--I must bid God bless +you--dearest! + + R.B. + +[Footnote 1: 'Purg.' v. 52 7.] + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Sunday Night. + [Post-mark, December 24, 1845.] + +But did I dispute? Surely not. Surely I believe in you and in +'mysteries.' Surely I prefer the no-reason to ever so much rationalism +... (rationalism and infidelity go together they say!). All which I +may do, and be afraid sometimes notwithstanding, and when you +overpraise me (_not_ over_love_) I must be frightened as I told you. + +It is with me as with the theologians. I believe in you and can be +happy and safe _so_; but when my 'personal merits' come into question +in any way, even the least, ... why then the position grows untenable: +it is no more 'of grace.' + +Do I tease you as I tease myself sometimes? But do not wrong me in +turn! Do not keep repeating that 'after long years' I shall know +you--know you!--as if I did not without the years. If you are forced +to refer me to those long ears, I must deserve the thistles besides. +The thistles are the corollary. + +For it is obvious--manifest--that I cannot doubt of you, that I may +doubt of myself, of happiness, of the whole world,--but of +_you_--_not_: it is obvious that if I could doubt of you and _act so_ +I should be a very idiot, or worse indeed. And _you_ ... you think I +doubt of you whenever I make an interjection!--now do you not? And is +it reasonable?--Of _you_, I mean? + +_Monday._--For my part, you must admit it to be too possible that you +may be, as I say, 'disappointed' in me--it _is_ too possible. And if +it does me good to say so, even now perhaps ... if it is mere weakness +to say so and simply torments you, why do _you_ be magnanimous and +forgive _that_ ... let it pass as a weakness and forgive it _so_. +Often I think painful things which I do not tell you and.... + +While I write, your letter comes. Kindest of you it was, to write me +such a letter, when I expected scarcely the shadow of one!--this makes +up for the other letter which I expected unreasonably and which you +'_ought not_' to have written, as was proved afterwards. And now why +should I go on with that sentence? What had I to say of 'painful +things,' I wonder? all the painful things seem gone ... vanished. I +forget what I had to say. Only do you still think of this, dearest +beloved; that I sit here in the dark but for _you_, and that the light +you bring me (from _my_ fault!--from the nature of _my_ darkness!) is +not a settled light as when you open the shutters in the morning, but +a light made by candles which burn some of them longer and some +shorter, and some brighter and briefer, at once--being 'double-wicks,' +and that there is an intermission for a moment now and then between +the dropping of the old light into the socket and the lighting of the +new. Every letter of yours is a new light which burns so many hours +... and _then_!--I am morbid, you see--or call it by what name you +like ... too wise or too foolish. 'If the light of the body is +darkness, how great is that darkness.' Yet even when I grow too wise, +I admit always that while you love me it is an answer to all. And I am +never so much too foolish as to wish to be worthier for my own +sake--only for yours:--not for my own sake, since I am content to owe +all things to you. + +And it could be so much to you to lose me!--and you say so,--and +_then_ think it needful to tell me not to think the other thought! As +if _that_ were possible! Do you remember what you said once of the +flowers?--that you 'felt a respect for them when they had passed out +of your hands.' And must it not be so with my life, which if you +choose to have it, must be respected too? Much more with my life! +Also, see that I, who had my warmest affections on the other side of +the grave, feel that it is otherwise with me now--quite otherwise. I +did not like it at first to be so much otherwise. And I could not have +had any such thought through a weariness of life or any of my old +motives, but simply to escape the 'risk' I told you of. Should I have +said to you instead of it ... '_Love me for ever_'? Well then, ... I +_do_. + +As to my 'helping' you, my help is in your fancy; and if you go on +with the fancy, I perfectly understand that it will be as good as +deeds. We _have_ sympathy too--we walk one way--oh, I do not forget +the advantages. Only Mrs. Tomkins's ideas of happiness are below my +ambition for you. + +So often as I have said (it reminds me) that in this situation I +should be more exacting than any other woman--so often I have said it: +and so different everything is from what I thought it would be! +Because if I am exacting it is for _you_ and not for _me_--it is +altogether for _you_--you understand _that_, dearest of all ... it is +for _you wholly_. It never crosses my thought, in a lightning even, +the question whether I may be happy so and so--_I_. It is the other +question which comes always--too often for peace. + +People used to say to me, 'You expect too much--you are too romantic.' +And my answer always was that 'I could not expect too much when I +expected nothing at all' ... which was the truth--for I never thought +(and how often I have _said that_!) I never thought that anyone whom +_I_ could love, would stoop to love _me_ ... the two things seemed +clearly incompatible to my understanding. + +And now when it comes in a miracle, you wonder at me for looking +twice, thrice, four times, to see if it comes through ivory or _horn_. +You wonder that it should seem to me at first all illusion--illusion +for you,--illusion for me as a consequence. But how natural. + +It is true of me--very true--that I have not a high appreciation of +what passes in the world (and not merely the Tomkins-world!) under the +name of love; and that a distrust of the thing had grown to be a habit +of mind with me when I knew you first. It has appeared to me, through +all the seclusion of my life and the narrow experience it admitted +of, that in nothing men--and women too--were so apt to mistake their +own feelings, as in this one thing. Putting _falseness_ quite on one +side, quite out of sight and consideration, an honest mistaking of +feeling appears wonderfully common, and no mistake has such frightful +results--none can. Self-love and generosity, a mistake may come from +either--from pity, from admiration, from any blind impulse--oh, when I +look at the histories of my own female friends--to go no step further! +And if it is true of the _women_, what must the other side be? To see +the marriages which are made every day! worse than solitudes and more +desolate! In the case of the two happiest I ever knew, one of the +husbands said in confidence to a brother of mine--not much in +confidence or I should not have heard it, but in a sort of smoking +frankness,--that he had 'ruined his prospects by marrying'; and the +other said to himself at the very moment of professing an +extraordinary happiness, ... 'But I should have done as well if I had +not married _her_.' + +Then for the falseness--the first time I ever, in my own experience, +heard that word which rhymes to glove and comes as easily off and on +(on some hands!)--it was from a man of whose attentions to another +woman I was at that _time her confidante_. I was bound so to silence +for her sake, that I could not even speak the scorn that was in +me--and in fact my uppermost feeling was a sort of horror ... a +terror--for I was very young then, and the world did, at the moment, +look ghastly! + +The falseness and the calculations!--why how can you, who are _just_, +_blame women_ ... when you must know what the 'system' of man is +towards them,--and of men not ungenerous otherwise? Why are women to +be blamed if they act as if they had to do with swindlers?--is it not +the mere instinct of preservation which makes them do it? These make +women what they are. And your 'honourable men,' the most loyal of +them, (for instance) is it not a rule with them (unless when taken +unaware through a want of self-government) to force a woman (trying +all means) to force a woman to stand committed in her affections ... +(they with their feet lifted all the time to trample on her for want +of delicacy) before _they_ risk the pin-prick to their own personal +pitiful vanities? Oh--to see how these things are set about by _men_! +to see how a man carefully holding up on each side the skirts of an +embroidered vanity to keep it quite safe from the wet, will contrive +to tell you in so many words that he ... might love you if the sun +shone! And women are to be blamed! Why there are, to be sure, cold and +heartless, light and changeable, ungenerous and calculating women in +the world!--that is sure. But for the most part, they are only what +they are made ... and far better than the nature of the making ... of +that I am confident. The loyal make the loyal, the disloyal the +disloyal. And I give no more discredit to those women you speak of, +than I myself can take any credit in this thing--I. Because who could +be disloyal with _you_ ... with whatever corrupt inclination? _you_, +who are the noblest of all? If you judge me so, ... it is my privilege +rather than my merit ... as I feel of myself. + +_Wednesday._--All but the last few lines of all this was written +before I saw you yesterday, ever dearest--and since, I have been +reading your third act which is perfectly noble and worthy of you both +in the conception and expression, and carries the reader on +triumphantly ... to speak for one reader. It seems to me too that the +language is freer--there is less inversion and more breadth of rhythm. +It just strikes me so for the first impression. At any rate the +interest grows and grows. You have a secret about Domizia, I +guess--which will not be told till the last perhaps. And that poor, +noble Luria, who will be equal to the leap ... as it is easy to see. +It is full, altogether, of magnanimities;--noble, and nobly put. I +will go on with my notes, and those, you shall have at once ... I mean +together ... presently. And don't hurry and chafe yourself for the +fourth act--now that you are better! To be ill again--think what that +would be! Luria will be great now whatever you do--or whatever you do +_not_. Will he not? + +And never, never for a moment (I quite forgot to tell you) did I fancy +that you were talking at _me_ in the temper-observations--never. It +was the most unprovoked egotism, all that I told you of my temper; for +certainly I never suspected you of asking questions so. I was simply +amused a little by what you said, and thought to myself (if you _will_ +know my thoughts on that serious subject) that you had probably lived +among very good-tempered persons, to hold such an opinion about the +innocuousness of ill-temper. It was all I thought, indeed. Now to +fancy that I was capable of suspecting you of such a manoeuvre! Why +you would have _asked_ me directly;--if you had wished 'curiously to +enquire.' + +An excellent solemn chiming, the passage from Dante makes with your +'Sordello,' and the 'Sordello' _deserves_ the labour which it needs, +to make it appear the great work it is. I think that the principle of +association is too subtly in movement throughout it--so that _while_ +you are going straight forward you go at the same time round and +round, until the progress involved in the motion is lost sight of by +the lookers on. Or did I tell you that before? + +You have heard, I suppose, how Dickens's 'Cricket' sells by nineteen +thousand copies at a time, though he takes Michael Angelo to be 'a +humbug'--or for 'though' read 'because.' Tell me of Mr. Kenyon's +dinner and Moxon? + +Is not this an infinite letter? I shall hear from you, I hope.... I +_ask_ you to let me hear soon. I write all sorts of things to you, +rightly and wrongly perhaps; when wrongly forgive it. I think of you +always. May God bless you. 'Love me for ever,' as + + Your + + _Ba_ + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + 25th Dec. [1845.] + +My dear Christmas gift of a letter! I will write back a few lines, +(all I can, having to go out now)--just that I may forever,--certainly +during our mortal 'forever'--mix my love for you, and, as you suffer +me to say, your love for me ... dearest! ... these shall be mixed with +the other loves of the day and live therein--as I write, and trust, +and know--forever! While I live I will remember what was my feeling in +reading, and in writing, and in stopping from either ... as I have +just done ... to kiss you and bless you with my whole heart.--Yes, +yes, bless you, my own! + +All is right, all of your letter ... admirably right and just in the +defence of the women I _seemed_ to speak against; and only +seemed--because that is a way of mine which you must have observed; +that foolish concentrating of thought and feeling, for a moment, on +some one little spot of a character or anything else indeed, and in +the attempt to do justice and develop whatever may seem ordinarily to +be overlooked in it,--that over vehement _insisting_ on, and giving an +undue prominence to, the same--which has the effect of taking away +from the importance of the rest of the related objects which, in +truth, are not considered at all ... or they would also rise +proportionally when subjected to the same (that is, correspondingly +magnified and dilated) light and concentrated feeling. So, you +remember, the old divine, preaching on 'small sins,' in his zeal to +expose the tendencies and consequences usually made little account of, +was led to maintain the said small sins to be 'greater than great +ones.' _But then_ ... if you look on the world _altogether_, and +accept the small natures, in their usual proportion with the greater +... things do not look _quite_ so bad; because the conduct which _is_ +atrocious in those higher cases, of proposal and acceptance, _may_ be +no more than the claims of the occasion justify (wait and hear) in +certain other cases where the thing sought for and granted is avowedly +less by a million degrees. It shall all be traffic, exchange (counting +spiritual gifts as only coin, for our purpose), but surely the +formalities and policies and decencies all vary with the nature of the +thing trafficked for. If a man makes up his mind during half his life +to acquire a Pitt-diamond or a Pilgrim-pearl--[he] gets witnesses and +testimony and so forth--but, surely, when I pass a shop where oranges +are ticketed up seven for sixpence I offend no law by sparing all +words and putting down the piece with a certain authoritative ring on +the counter. If instead of diamonds you want--(being a king or +queen)--provinces with live men on them ... there is so much more +diplomacy required; new interests are appealed to--high motives +_supposed_, at all events--whereas, when, in Naples, a man asks leave +to black your shoe in the dusty street 'purely for the honour of +serving your Excellency' you laugh and would be sorry to find yourself +without a 'grano' or two--(six of which, about, make a farthing)--Now +do you not see! Where so little is to be got, why offer much more? If +a man knows that ... but I am teaching you! All I mean is, that, in +Benedick's phrase, 'the world must go on.' He who honestly wants his +wife to sit at the head of his table and carve ... that is be his +_help-meat_ (not 'help mete for him')--he shall assuredly find a girl +of his degree who wants the table to sit at; and some dear friend to +mortify, who _would_ be glad of such a piece of fortune; and if that +man offers that woman a bunch of orange-flowers and a sonnet, instead +of a buck-horn-handled sabre-shaped knife, sheathed in a 'Every Lady +Her Own _Market-Woman_, Being a Table of' &c. &c.--_then_, I say he +is-- + +Bless you, dearest--the clock strikes--and time is none--but--bless +you! + + Your own R.B. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday 4. p.m. + [Post-mark, December 27, 1845.] + +I was forced to leave off abruptly on Christmas Morning--and now I +have but a few minutes before our inexorable post leaves. I hoped to +return from Town earlier. But I can say something--and Monday will +make amends. + +'For ever' and for ever I _do_ love you, dearest--love you with my +whole heart--in life, in death-- + +Yes; I did go to Mr. Kenyon's--who had a little to forgive in my slack +justice to his good dinner, but was for the rest his own kind +self--and I went, also, to Moxon's--who said something about my +number's going off 'rather heavily'--so let it! + +Too good, too, too indulgent you are, my own Ba, to 'acts' first or +last; but all the same, I am glad and encouraged. _Let_ me get done +with these, and better things will follow. + +Now, bless you, ever, my sweetest--I have you ever in my thoughts--And +on Monday, remember, I am to see you. + + Your own R.B. + +See what I cut out of a _Cambridge Advertiser_[1] of the 24th--to make +you laugh! + +[Footnote 1: The cutting enclosed is:--'A Few Rhymes for the Present +Christmas' by J. Purchas, Esq., B.A. It is headed by several +quotations, the first of which is signed 'Elizabeth B. Barrett:' + + 'This age shows to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam, + Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.' + +This is followed by extracts from Pindar, 'Lear,' and the Hon. Mrs. +Norton.] + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, December 27, 1845.] + +Yes, indeed, I have 'observed that way' in you, and not once, and not +twice, and not twenty times, but oftener than any,--and almost every +time ... do you know, ... with an uncomfortable feeling from the +reflection that _that_ is the way for making all sorts of mistakes +dependent on and issuing in exaggeration. It is the very way!--the +highway. + +For what you say in the letter here otherwise, I do not deny the +truth--as partial truth:--I was speaking generally quite. Admit that I +am not apt to be extravagant in my _esprit de sexe_: the Martineau +doctrines of intellectual equality &c., I gave them up, you remember, +like a woman--most disgracefully, as Mrs. Jameson would tell me. But +we are not on that ground now--we are on ground worth holding a brief +for!--and when women fail _here_ ... it is not so much our fault. +Which was all I meant to say from the beginning. + +It reminds me of the exquisite analysis in your 'Luria,' this third +act, of the worth of a woman's sympathy,--indeed of the exquisite +double-analysis of unlearned and learned sympathies. Nothing could be +better, I think, than this:-- + + To the motive, the endeavour,--the heart's self-- + Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright + The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act, + Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king; + +except the characterizing of the 'learned praise,' which comes +afterwards in its fine subtle truth. What would these critics do to +you, to what degree undo you, who would deprive you of the exercise of +the discriminative faculty of the metaphysicians? As if a poet could +be great without it! They might as well recommend a watchmaker to deal +only in faces, in dials, and not to meddle with the wheels inside! +You shall tell Mr. Forster so. + +And speaking of 'Luria,' which grows on me the more I read, ... how +fine he is when the doubt breaks on him--I mean, when he begins ... +'Why then, all is very well.' It is most affecting, I think, all that +process of doubt ... and that reference to the friends at home (which +at once proves him a stranger, and intimates, by just a stroke, that +he will not look home for comfort out of the new foreign treason) is +managed by you with singular dramatic dexterity.... + + ... 'so slight, so slight, + And yet it tells you they are dead and gone'-- + +And then, the direct approach.... + + You now, so kind here, all you Florentines, + What is it in your eyes?-- + +Do you not feel it to be success, ... '_you_ now?' _I_ do, from my low +ground as reader. The whole breaking round him of the cloud, and the +manner in which he _stands_, facing it, ... I admire it all +thoroughly. Braccio's vindication of Florence strikes me as almost too +_poetically_ subtle for the man--but nobody could have the heart to +wish a line of it away--_that_ would be too much for critical virtue! + +I had your letter yesterday morning early. The post-office people were +so resolved on keeping their Christmas, that they would not let me +keep mine. No post all day, after that general post before noon, which +never brings me anything worth the breaking of a seal! + +Am I to see you on Monday? If there should be the least, least +crossing of that day, ... anything to do, anything to see, anything to +listen to,--remember how Tuesday stands close by, and that another +Monday comes on the following week. Now I need not say _that_ every +time, and you will please to remember it--Eccellenza!-- + + May God bless you-- + + Your + + E.B.B. + +From the _New Monthly Magazine_. 'The admirers of Robert Browning's +poetry, and they are now very numerous, will be glad to hear of the +issue by Mr. Moxon of a seventh series of the renowned "Bells" and +delicious "Pomegranates," under the title of "Dramatic Romances and +Lyrics."' + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday. + [Post-mark, December 30, 1845.] + +When you are gone I find your flowers; and you never spoke of nor +showed them to me--so instead of yesterday I thank you to-day--thank +you. Count among the miracles that your flowers live with me--I accept +_that_ for an omen, dear--dearest! Flowers in general, all other +flowers, die of despair when they come into the same atmosphere ... +used to do it so constantly and observably that it made me melancholy +and I left off for the most part having them here. Now you see how +they put up with the close room, and condescend to me and the dust--it +is true and no fancy! To be sure they know that I care for them and +that I stand up by the table myself to change their water and cut +their stalk freshly at intervals--_that_ may make a difference +perhaps. Only the great reason must be that they are yours, and that +you teach them to bear with me patiently. + +Do not pretend even to misunderstand what I meant to say yesterday of +dear Mr. Kenyon. His blame would fall as my blame of myself has +fallen: he would say--will say--'it is ungenerous of her to let such a +risk be run! I thought she would have been more generous.' There, is +Mr. Kenyon's opinion as I foresee it! Not that it would be spoken, you +know! he is too kind. And then, he said to me last summer, somewhere +_à propos_ to the flies or butterflies, that he had 'long ceased to +wonder at any extreme of foolishness produced by--_love_.' He will of +course think you very very foolish, but not ungenerously foolish like +other people. + +Never mind. I do not mind indeed. I mean, that, having said to myself +worse than the worst perhaps of what can be said against me by any who +regard me at all, and feeling it put to silence by the fact that you +_do_ feel so and so for me; feeling that fact to be an answer to +all,--I cannot mind much, in comparison, the railing at second remove. +There will be a nine days' railing of it and no more: and if on the +ninth day you should not exactly wish never to have known me, the +better reason will be demonstrated to stand with us. On this one point +the wise man cannot judge for the fool his neighbour. If you _do_ love +me, the inference is that you would be happier with than without +me--and whether you do, you know better than another: so I think of +_you_ and not of _them_--always of _you_! When I talked of being +afraid of dear Mr. Kenyon, I just meant that he makes me nervous with +his all-scrutinizing spectacles, put on for great occasions, and his +questions which seem to belong to the spectacles, they go together +so:--and then I have no presence of mind, as you may see without the +spectacles. My only way of hiding (when people set themselves to look +for me) would be the old child's way of getting behind the window +curtains or under the sofa:--and even _that_ might not be effectual if +I had recourse to it now. Do you think it would? Two or three times I +fancied that Mr. Kenyon suspected something--but if he ever _did_, his +only reproof was a reduplicated praise of _you_--he praises you always +and in relation to every sort of subject. + +What a _misomonsism_ you fell into yesterday, you who have much great +work to do which no one else can do except just yourself!--and you, +too, who have courage and knowledge, and must know that every work, +with the principle of life in it, _will_ live, let it be trampled ever +so under the heel of a faithless and unbelieving generation--yes, that +it will live like one of your toads, for a thousand years in the heart +of a rock. All men can teach at second or third hand, as you said ... +by prompting the foremost rows ... by tradition and translation:--all, +_except_ poets, who must preach their own doctrine and sing their own +song, to be the means of any wisdom or any music, and therefore have +stricter duties thrust upon them, and may not lounge in the [Greek: +stoa] like the conversation-teachers. So much I have to say to you, +till we are in the Siren's island--and _I_, jealous of the Siren!-- + + The Siren waits thee singing song for song, + +says Mr. Landor. A prophecy which refuses to class you with the 'mute +fishes,' precisely as I do. + +And are you not my 'good'--all my good now--my only good ever? The +Italians would say it better without saying more. + +I had a letter from Miss Martineau this morning who accounts for her +long silence by the supposition,--put lately to an end by scarcely +credible information from Mr. Moxon, she says--that I was out of +England; gone to the South from the 20th of September. She calls +herself the strongest of women, and talks of 'walking fifteen miles +one day and writing fifteen pages another day without fatigue,'--also +of mesmerizing and of being infinitely happy except in the continued +alienation of two of her family who cannot forgive her for getting +well by such unlawful means. And she is to write again to tell me of +Wordsworth, and promises to send me her new work in the meanwhile--all +very kind. + +So here is my letter to you, which you asked for so 'against the +principles of universal justice.' Yes, very unjust--very unfair it +was--only, you make me do just as you like in everything. Now confess +to your own conscience that even if I had not a lawful claim of a debt +against you, I might come to ask charity with another sort of claim, +oh 'son of humanity.' Think how much more need of a letter _I_ have +than you can have; and that if you have a giant's power, ''tis +tyrannous to use it like a giant.' Who would take tribute from the +desert? How I grumble. _Do_ let me have a letter directly! remember +that no other light comes to my windows, and that I wait 'as those who +watch for the morning'--'lux mea!' + +May God bless you--and mind to say how you are _exactly_, and don't +neglect the walking, _pray_ do not. + + Your own + +And after all, those women! A great deal of doctrine commends and +discommends itself by the delivery: and an honest thing may be said so +foolishly as to disprove its very honesty. Now after all, what did she +mean by that very silly expression about books, but that she did not +feel as she considered herself capable of feeling--and that else but +_that_ was the meaning of the other woman? Perhaps it should have been +spoken earlier--nay, clearly it should--but surely it was better +spoken even in the last hour than not at all ... surely it is always +and under all circumstances, better spoken at whatever cost--I have +thought so steadily since I could think or feel at all. An entire +openness to the last moment of possible liberty, at whatever cost and +consequence, is the most honourable and most merciful way, both for +men and women! perhaps for men in an especial manner. But I shall send +this letter away, being in haste to get change for it. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Wednesday, December 31, 1845. + +I have been properly punished for so much treachery as went to that +re-urging the prayer that _you_ would begin writing, when all the time +(after the first of those words had been spoken which bade _me_ write) +I was full of purpose to send my own note last evening; one which +should do its best to thank you: but see, the punishment! At home I +found a note from Mr. Horne--on the point of setting out for Ireland, +too unwell to manage to come over to me; anxious, so he said, to see +me before leaving London, and with only Tuesday or to-day to allow the +opportunity of it, if I should choose to go and find him out. So I +considered all things and determined to go--but not till so late did I +determine on Tuesday, that there was barely time to get to +Highgate--wherefore no letter reached you to beg pardon ... and now +this undeserved--beyond the usual undeservedness--this +last-day-of-the-Year's gift--do you think or not think my gratitude +weighs on me? When I lay this with the others, and remember what you +have done for me--I do bless you--so as I cannot but believe must +reach the all-beloved head all my hopes and fancies and cares fly +straight to. Dearest, whatever change the new year brings with it, we +are together--I can give you no more of myself--indeed, you give me +now (back again if you choose, but changed and renewed by your +possession) the powers that seemed most properly mine. I could only +mean that, by the expressions to which you refer--only could mean that +you were my crown and palm branch, now and for ever, and so, that it +was a very indifferent matter to me if the world took notice of that +fact or no. Yes, dearest, that _is_ the meaning of the prophecy, which +I was stupidly blind not to have read and taken comfort from long ago. +You ARE the veritable Siren--and you 'wait me,' and will sing 'song +for song.' And this is my first song, my true song--this love I bear +you--I look into my heart and then let it go forth under that +name--love. I am more than mistrustful of many other feelings in me: +they are not earnest enough; so far, not true enough--but this is all +the flower of my life which you call forth and which lies at your +feet. + +Now let me say it--what you are to remember. That if I had the +slightest doubt, or fear, I would utter it to you on the +instant--secure in the incontested stability of the main _fact_, even +though the heights at the verge in the distance should tremble and +prove vapour--and there would be a deep consolation in your +forgiveness--indeed, yes; but I tell you, on solemn consideration, it +does seem to me that--once take away the broad and general words that +admit in their nature of any freight they can be charged with,--put +aside love, and devotion, and trust--and _then_ I seem to have said +_nothing_ of my feeling to you--nothing whatever. + +I will not write more now on this subject. Believe you are my blessing +and infinite reward beyond possible desert in intention,--my life has +been crowned by you, as I said! + +May God bless you ever--through you I shall be blessed. May I kiss +your cheek and pray this, my own, all-beloved? + +I must add a word or two of other things. I am very well now, quite +well--am walking and about to walk. Horne, or rather his friends, +reside in the very lane Keats loved so much--Millfield Lane. Hunt lent +me once the little copy of the first Poems dedicated to him--and on +the title-page was recorded in Hunt's delicate characters that 'Keats +met him with this, the presentation-copy, or whatever was the odious +name, in M---- Lane--called Poets' Lane by the gods--Keats came +running, holding it up in his hand.' Coleridge had an affection for +the place, and Shelley '_knew_' it--and I can testify it is green and +silent, with pleasant openings on the grounds and ponds, through the +old trees that line it. But the hills here are far more open and wild +and hill-like; not with the eternal clump of evergreens and thatched +summer house--to say nothing of the 'invisible railing' miserably +visible everywhere. + +You very well know _what_ a vision it is you give me--when you speak +of _standing up by the table_ to care for my flowers--(which I will +never be ashamed of again, by the way--I will say for the future; +'here are my best'--in this as in other things.) Now, do you remember, +that once I bade you not surprise me out of my good behaviour by +standing to meet me unawares, as visions do, some day--but now--_omne +ignotum_? No, dearest! + +Ought I to say there will be two days more? till Saturday--and if one +word comes, _one_ line--think! I am wholly yours--yours, beloved! + + R.B. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + January 1, 1845 [1846]. + +How good you are--how best! it is a favourite play of my memory to +take up the thought of what you were to me (to my mind gazing!) years +ago, as the poet in an abstraction--then the thoughts of you, a little +clearer, in concrete personality, as Mr. Kenyon's friend, who had +dined with him on such a day, or met him at dinner on such another, +and said some great memorable thing 'on Wednesday last,' and enquired +kindly about _me_ perhaps on Thursday,--till I was proud! and so, the +thoughts of you, nearer and nearer (yet still afar!) as the Mr. +Browning who meant to do me the honour of writing to me, and who did +write; and who asked me once in a letter (does he remember?) 'not to +lean out of the window while his foot was on the stair!'--to take up +all those thoughts, and more than those, one after another, and tie +them together with all _these_, which cannot be named so easily--which +cannot be classed in botany and Greek. It is a nosegay of mystical +flowers, looking strangely and brightly, and keeping their May-dew +through the Christmases--better than even _your_ flowers! And I am not +'ashamed' of mine, ... be very sure! no! + +For the siren, I never suggested to you any such thing--why you do not +pretend to have read such a suggestion in my letter certainly. _That_ +would have been most exemplarily modest of me! would it not, O +Ulysses? + +And you meant to write, ... you _meant_! and went to walk in 'Poet's +lane' instead, (in the 'Aonius of Highgate') which I remember to have +read of--does not Hunt speak of it in his Memoirs?--and so now there +is another track of light in the traditions of the place, and people +may talk of the pomegranate-smell between the hedges. So you really +have _hills_ at New Cross, and not hills by courtesy? I was at +Hampstead once--and there was something attractive to me in that +fragment of heath with its wild smell, thrown down ... like a Sicilian +rose from Proserpine's lap when the car drove away, ... into all that +arid civilization, 'laurel-clumps and invisible visible fences,' as +you say!--and the grand, eternal smoke rising up in the distance, with +its witness against nature! People grew severely in jest about cockney +landscape--but is it not true that the trees and grass in the close +neighbourhood of great cities must of necessity excite deeper emotion +than the woods and valleys will, a hundred miles off, where human +creatures ruminate stupidly as the cows do, the 'county families' +es-_chewing_ all men who are not 'landed proprietors,' and the farmers +never looking higher than to the fly on the uppermost turnip-leaf! Do +you know at all what English country-life is, which the English praise +so, and 'moralize upon into a thousand similes,' as that one greatest, +purest, noblest thing in the world--the purely English and excellent +thing? It is to my mind simply and purely abominable, and I would +rather live in a street than be forced to live it out,--that English +country-life; for I don't mean life in the country. The social +exigencies--why, nothing _can_ be so bad--nothing! That is the way by +which Englishmen grow up to top the world in their peculiar line of +respectable absurdities. + +Think of my talking so as if I could be vexed with any one of them! +_I!_--On the contrary I wish them all a happy new year to abuse one +another, or visit each of them his nearest neighbour whom he hates, +three times a week, because 'the distance is so convenient,' and give +great dinners in noble rivalship (venison from the Lord Lieutenant +against turbot from London!), and talk popularity and game-law by +turns to the tenantry, and beat down tithes to the rector. This +glorious England of ours; with its peculiar glory of the rural +districts! And _my_ glory of patriotic virtue, who am so happy in +spite of it all, and make a pretence of talking--talking--while I +think the whole time of your letter. I think of your letter--I am no +more a patriot than _that_! + +May God bless you, best and dearest! You say things to me which I am +not worthy to listen to for a moment, even if I was deaf dust the next +moment.... I confess it humbly and earnestly as before God. + +Yet He knows,--if the entireness of a gift means anything,--that I +have not given with a reserve, that I am yours in my life and soul, +for this year and for other years. Let me be used _for_ you rather +than _against_ you! and that unspeakable, immeasurable grief of +feeling myself a stone in your path, a cloud in your sky, may I be +saved from it!--pray it for _me_ ... for _my_ sake rather than +_yours_. For the rest, I thank you, I thank you. You will be always to +me, what to-day you are--and that is all!--! + + I am your own-- + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday Night. + [Post-mark, January 5, 1846.] + +Yesterday, nearly the last thing, I bade you 'think of me'--I wonder +if you could misunderstand me in that?--As if my words or actions or +any of my ineffectual outside-self _should_ be thought of, unless to +be forgiven! But I do, dearest, feel confident that while I am in your +mind--cared for, rather than thought about--no great harm can happen +to me; and as, for great harm to reach me, it must pass through you, +you will care for yourself; _my_self, best self! + +Come, let us talk. I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to +see that fresh beautiful things are there--I suppose 'Delora' will +stand alone still--but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower +of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story; cup-masses and fern and +spotty yellow leaves,--all that, I love heartily--and there is good +sailor-speech in the 'Ben Capstan'--though he does knock a man down +with a 'crow-bar'--instead of a marling-spike or, even, a +belaying-pin! The first tale, though good, seems least new and +individual, but I must know more. At one thing I wonder--his not +reprinting a quaint clever _real_ ballad, published before 'Delora,' +on the 'Merry Devil of Edmonton'--the first of his works I ever read. +No, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which +was this line: 'When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold,'--good, is +it not? Oh, while it strikes me, good, too, _is_ that 'Swineshead +Monk' ballad! Only I miss the old chronicler's touch on the method of +concocting the poison: 'Then stole this Monk into the Garden and under +a certain herb found out a Toad, which, squeezing into a cup,' &c. +something to that effect. I suspect, _par parenthèse_, you have found +out by this time my odd liking for 'vermin'--you once wrote '_your_ +snails'--and certainly snails are old clients of mine--but efts! Horne +traced a line to me--in the rhymes of a ''prentice-hand' I used to +look over and correct occasionally--taxed me (last week) with having +altered the wise line 'Cold as a _lizard_ in a _sunny_ stream' to +'Cold as a newt hid in a shady brook'--for 'what do _you_ know about +newts?' he asked of the author--who thereupon confessed. But never try +and catch a speckled gray lizard when we are in Italy, love, and you +see his tail hang out of the chink of a wall, his +winter-house--because the strange tail will snap off, drop from him +and stay in your fingers--and though you afterwards learn that there +is more desperation in it and glorious determination to be free, than +positive pain (so people say who have no tails to be twisted off)--and +though, moreover, the tail grows again after a sort--_yet_ ... don't +do it, for it will give you a thrill! What a fine fellow our English +water-eft is; 'Triton paludis Linnaei'--_e come guizza_ (_that_ you +can't say in another language; cannot preserve the little in-and-out +motion along with the straightforwardness!)--I always loved all those +wild creatures God '_sets up for themselves_' so independently of us, +so successfully, with their strange happy minute inch of a candle, as +it were, to light them; while we run about and against each other with +our great cressets and fire-pots. I once saw a solitary bee nipping a +leaf round till it exactly fitted the front of a hole; his nest, no +doubt; or tomb, perhaps--'Safe as Oedipus's grave-place, 'mid Colone's +olives swart'--(Kiss me, my Siren!)--Well, it seemed awful to watch +that bee--he seemed so _instantly_ from the teaching of God! Ælian +says that ... a _frog_, does he say?--some animal, having to swim +across the Nile, never fails to provide himself with a bit of reed, +which he bites off and holds in his mouth transversely and so puts +from shore gallantly ... because when the water-serpent comes swimming +to meet him, there is the reed, wider than his serpent's jaws, and no +hopes of a swallow that time--now fancy the two meeting heads, the +frog's wide eyes and the vexation of the snake! + +Now, see! do I deceive you? Never say I began by letting down my +dignity 'that with no middle flight intends to soar above the Aonian +Mount'!-- + +My best, dear, dear one,--may you be better, less _depressed_, ... I +can hardly imagine frost reaching you if I could be by you. Think what +happiness you mean to give me,--what a life; what a death! 'I may +change'--too true; yet, you see, as an eft was to me at the beginning +so it continues--I _may_ take up stones and pelt the next I +see--but--do you much fear that?--Now, _walk_, move, _guizza, anima +mia dolce_. Shall I not know one day how far your mouth will be from +mine as we walk? May I let that stay ... dearest, (the _line_ stay, +not the mouth)? + +I am not very well to-day--or, rather, have not been so--_now_, I am +well and _with you_. I just say that, very needlessly, but for strict +frankness' sake. Now, you are to write to me soon, and tell me all +about your self, and to love me ever, as I love you ever, and bless +you, and leave you in the hands of God--My own love!-- + +Tell me if I do wrong to send _this_ by a morning post--so as to reach +you earlier than the evening--when you will ... write to me? + +Don't let me forget to say that I shall receive the _Review_ +to-morrow, and will send it directly. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Sunday. + [Post-mark, January 6, 1846.] + +When you get Mr. Horne's book you will understand how, after reading +just the first and the last poems, I could not help speaking coldly a +little of it--and in fact, estimating his power as much as you can do, +I did think and do, that the last was unworthy of him, and that the +first might have been written by a writer of one tenth of his faculty. +But last night I read the 'Monk of Swineshead Abbey' and the 'Three +Knights of Camelott' and 'Bedd Gelert' and found them all of different +stuff, better, stronger, more consistent, and read them with pleasure +and admiration. Do you remember this application, among the countless +ones of shadow to the transiency of life? I give the first two lines +for clearness-- + + Like to the cloud upon the hill + We are a moment seen + Or the _shadow of the windmill-sail + Across yon sunny slope of green_. + +New or not, and I don't remember it elsewhere, it is just and +beautiful I think. Think how the shadow of the windmill-sail just +touches the ground on a bright windy day! the shadow of a bird flying +is not faster! Then the 'Three Knights' has beautiful things, with +more definite and distinct images than he is apt to show--for his +character is a vague grand massiveness,--like Stonehenge--or at least, +if 'towers and battlements he sees' they are 'bosomed high' in dusky +clouds ... it is a 'passion-created imagery' which has no clear +outline. In this ballad of the 'Knights,' and in the Monk's too, we +may _look at_ things, as on the satyr who swears by his horns and +mates not with his kind afterwards, 'While, _holding beards_, they +dance in pairs--and that is all excellent and reminds one of those +fine sylvan festivals, 'in Orion.' But now tell me if you like +altogether 'Ben Capstan' and if you consider the sailor-idiom to be +lawful in poetry, because I do not indeed. On the same principle we +may have Yorkshire and Somersetshire 'sweet Doric'; and do recollect +what it ended in of old, in the Blowsibella heroines. Then for the Elf +story ... why should such things be written by men like Mr. Horne? I +am vexed at it. Shakespeare and Fletcher did not write so about +fairies:--Drayton did not. Look at the exquisite 'Nymphidia,' with its +subtle sylvan consistency, and then at the lumbering coarse ... +'_machina intersit_' ... Grandmama Grey!--to say nothing of the 'small +dog' that isn't the 'small boy.' Mr. Horne succeeds better on a larger +canvass, and with weightier material; with blank verse rather than +lyrics. He cannot make a fine stroke. He wants subtlety and elasticity +in the thought and expression. Remember, I admire him honestly and +earnestly. No one has admired more than I the 'Death of Marlowe,' +scenes in 'Cosmo,' and 'Orion' in much of it. But now tell me if you +can accept with the same stretched out hand all these lyrical poems? I +am going to write to him as much homage as can come truly. Who +combines different faculties as you do, striking the whole octave? No +one, at present in the world. + +Dearest, after you went away yesterday and I began to consider, I +found that there was nothing to be so over-glad about in the matter +of the letters, for that, Sunday coming next to Saturday, the best now +is only as good as the worst before, and I can't hear from you, until +Monday ... Monday! Did you think of _that_--you who took the credit of +acceding so meekly! I shall not praise you in return at any rate. I +shall have to wait ... till what o'clock on Monday, tempted in the +meanwhile to fall into controversy against the 'new moons and sabbath +days' and the pausing of the post in consequence. + +You never guessed perhaps, what I look back to at this moment in the +physiology of our intercourse, the curious double feeling I had about +you--you personally, and you as the writer of these letters, and the +crisis of the feeling, when I was positively vexed and jealous of +myself for not succeeding better in making a unity of the two. I could +not! And moreover I could not help but that the writer of the letters +seemed nearer to me, long ... long ... and in spite of the postmark, +than did the personal visitor who confounded me, and left me +constantly under such an impression of its being all dream-work on his +side, that I have stamped my feet on this floor with impatience to +think of having to wait so many hours before the 'candid' closing +letter could come with its confessional of an illusion. 'People say,' +I used to think, 'that women _always_ know, and certainly I do not +know, and therefore ... therefore.'--The logic crushed on like +Juggernaut's car. But in the letters it was different--the dear +letters took me on the side of my own ideal life where I was able to +stand a little upright and look round. I could read such letters for +ever and answer them after a fashion ... that, I felt from the +beginning. But _you_--! + +_Monday._--Never too early can the light come. Thank you for my +letter! Yet you look askance at me over 'newt and toad,' and praise so +the Elf-story that I am ashamed to send you my ill humour on the same +head. And you really like _that_? admire it? Grandmama Grey and the +night cap and all? and 'shoetye and blue sky?' and is it really wrong +of me to like certainly some touches and images, but not the whole, +... not the poem as a whole? I can take delight in the fantastical, +and in the grotesque--but here there is a want of life and +consistency, as it seems to me!--the elf is no elf and speaks no +elf-tongue: it is not the right key to touch, ... this, ... for +supernatural music. So I fancy at least--but I will try the poem again +presently. You must be right--unless it should be your over-goodness +opposed to my over-badness--I will not be sure. Or you wrote perhaps +in an accidental mood of most excellent critical smoothness, such as +Mr. Forster did his last _Examiner_ in, when he gave the all-hail to +Mr. Harness as one of the best dramatists of the age!! Ah no!--not +such as Mr. Forster's. Your soul does not enter into his secret--There +can be nothing in common between you. For him to say such a word--he +who knows--or ought to know!--And now let us agree and admire the +bowing of the old ministrel over Bedd Gelert's unfilled grave-- + + The _long_ beard _fell_ like _snow_ into the grave + With solemn grace + +A poet, a friend, a generous man Mr. Horne is, even if no laureate for +the fairies. + +I have this moment a parcel of books via Mr. Moxon--Miss Martineau's +two volumes--and Mr. Bailey sends his 'Festus,' very kindly, ... and +'Woman in the Nineteenth Century' from America from a Mrs. or a Miss +Fuller--how I hate those 'Women of England,' 'Women and their Mission' +and the rest. As if any possible good were to be done by such +expositions of rights and wrongs. + +Your letter would be worth them all, if _you_ were less _you_! I mean, +just this letter, ... all alive as it is with crawling buzzing +wriggling cold-blooded warm-blooded creatures ... as all alive as your +own pedant's book in the tree. And do you know, I think I like frogs +too--particularly the very little leaping frogs, which are so +high-hearted as to emulate the birds. I remember being scolded by my +nurses for taking them up in my hands and letting them leap from one +hand to the other. But for the toad!--why, at the end of the row of +narrow beds which we called our gardens when we were children, grew an +old thorn, and in the hollow of the root of the thorn, lived a toad, a +great ancient toad, whom I, for one, never dared approach too nearly. +That he 'wore a jewel in his head' I doubted nothing at all. You must +see it glitter if you stooped and looked steadily into the hole. And +on days when he came out and sate swelling his black sides, I never +looked steadily; I would run a hundred yards round through the shrubs, +deeper than knee-deep in the long wet grass and nettles, rather than +go past him where he sate; being steadily of opinion, in the +profundity of my natural history-learning, that if he took it into his +toad's head to spit at me I should drop down dead in a moment, +poisoned as by one of the Medici. + +Oh--and I had a field-mouse for a pet once, and should have joined my +sisters in a rat's nest if I had not been ill at the time (as it was, +the little rats were tenderly smothered by over-love!): and +blue-bottle flies I used to feed, and hated your spiders for them; yet +no, not much. My aversion proper ... call it horror rather ... was for +the silent, cold, clinging, gliding _bat_; and even now, I think, I +could not sleep in the room with that strange bird-mouse-creature, as +it glides round the ceiling silently, silently as its shadow does on +the floor. If you listen or look, there is not a wave of the wing--the +wing never waves! A bird without a feather! a beast that flies! and so +cold! as cold as a fish! It is the most supernatural-seeming of +natural things. And then to see how when the windows are open at night +those bats come sailing ... without a sound--and go ... you cannot +guess where!--fade with the night-blackness! + +You have not been well--which is my first thought if not my first +word. Do walk, and do not work; and think ... what I could be thinking +of, if I did not think of _you_ ... dear--dearest! 'As the doves fly +to the windows,' so I think of you! As the prisoners think of liberty, +as the dying think of Heaven, so I think of you. When I look up +straight to God ... nothing, no one, used to intercept me--now there +is _you_--only you under him! Do not use such words as those therefore +any more, nor say that you are not to be thought of so and so. You are +to be thought of every way. You must know what you are to me if you +know at all what _I_ am,--and what I should be but for you. + +So ... love me a little, with the spiders and the toads and the +lizards! love me as you love the efts--and I will believe in _you_ as +you believe ... in Ælian--Will _that_ do? + + Your own-- + +Say how you are when you write--_and write_. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday Morning. + +I this minute receive the Review--a poor business, truly! Is there a +reason for a man's wits dwindling the moment he gets into a critical +High-place to hold forth?--I have only glanced over the article +however. Well, one day _I_ am to write of you, dearest, and it must +come to something rather better than _that_! + +I am forced to send now what is to be sent at all. Bless you, dearest. +I am trusting to hear from you-- + + Your R.B. + +And I find by a note from a fairer friend and favourer of mine that in +the _New Quarterly_ 'Mr. Browning' figures pleasantly as 'one without +any sympathy for a human being!'--Then, for newts and efts at all +events! + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday Night. + [Post-mark, January 7, 1846.] + +But, my sweet, there is safer going in letters than in visits, do you +not see? In the letter, one may go to the utmost limit of one's +supposed tether without danger--there is the distance so palpably +between the most audacious step _there_, and the next ... which is +nowhere, seeing it is not in the letter. Quite otherwise in personal +intercourse, where any indication of turning to a certain path, even, +might possibly be checked not for its own fault but lest, the path +once reached and proceeded in, some other forbidden turning might come +into sight, we will say. In the letter, all ended _there_, just there +... and you may think of that, and forgive; at all events, may avoid +speaking irrevocable words--and when, as to me, those words are +intensely _true, doom-words_--think, dearest! Because, as I told you +once, what most characterizes my feeling for you is the perfect +_respect_ in it, the full _belief_ ... (I shall get presently to poor +Robert's very avowal of 'owing you all esteem'!). It is on that I +build, and am secure--for how should I know, of myself, how to serve +you and be properly yours if it all was to be learnt by my own +interpreting, and what you professed to dislike you were to be +considered as wishing for, and what liking, as it seemed, you were +loathing at your heart, and if so many 'noes' made a 'yes,' and 'one +refusal no rebuff' and all that horrible bestiality which stout +gentlemen turn up the whites of their eyes to, when they rise after +dinner and pressing the right hand to the left side say, 'The toast be +dear woman!' Now, love, with this feeling in me from the beginning,--I +do believe,--_now_, when I am utterly blest in this gift of your love, +and least able to imagine what I should do without it,--I cannot but +believe, I say, that had you given me once a 'refusal'--clearly +derived from your own feelings, and quite apart from any fancied +consideration for my interests; had this come upon me, whether slowly +but inevitably in the course of events, or suddenly as precipitated by +any step of mine; I should, _believing you_, have never again renewed +directly or indirectly such solicitation; I should have begun to count +how many other ways were yet open to serve you and devote myself to +you ... but from _the outside_, now, and not in your livery! Now, if I +should have acted thus under _any_ circumstances, how could I but +redouble my endeavours at precaution after my own foolish--you know, +and forgave long since, and I, too, am forgiven in my own eyes, for +the cause, though not the manner--but could I do other than keep +'farther from you' than in the letters, dearest? For your own part in +that matter, seeing it with all the light you have since given me (and +_then_, not inadequately by my own light) I could, I do kiss your +feet, kiss every letter in your name, bless you with my whole heart +and soul if I could pour them out, from me, before you, to stay and be +yours; when I think on your motives and pure perfect generosity. It +was the plainness of _that_ which determined me to wait and be patient +and grateful and your own for ever in any shape or capacity you might +please to accept. Do you think that because I am so rich now, I could +not have been most rich, too, _then_--in what would seem little only +to _me_, only with this great happiness? I should have been proud +beyond measure--happy past all desert, to call and be allowed to see +you simply, speak with you and be spoken to--what am I more than +others? Don't think this mock humility--_it is not_--you take me in +your mantle, and we shine together, but I know my part in it! All this +is written breathlessly on a sudden fancy that you _might_--if not +now, at some future time--give other than this, the true reason, for +that discrepancy you see, that nearness in the letters, that early +farness in the visits! And, love, all love is but a passionate +_drawing closer_--I would be one with you, dearest; let my soul press +close to you, as my lips, dear life of my life. + +_Wednesday._--You are entirely right about those poems of Horne's--I +spoke only of the effect of the first glance, and it is a principle +with me to begin by welcoming any strangeness, intention of +originality in men--the other way of safe copying precedents being +_so_ safe! So I began by praising all that was at all questionable in +the form ... reserving the ground-work for after consideration. The +Elf-story turns out a pure mistake, I think--and a common mistake, +too. Fairy stories, the good ones, were written for men and women, +and, being true, pleased also children; now, people set about writing +for children and miss them and the others too,--with that detestable +irreverence and plain mocking all the time at the very wonder they +profess to want to excite. All obvious bending down to the lower +capacity, determining not to be the great complete man one is, by +half; any patronizing minute to be spent in the nursery over the books +and work and healthful play, of a visitor who will presently bid +good-bye and betake himself to the Beefsteak Club--keep us from all +that! The Sailor Language is good in its way; but as wrongly used in +Art as real clay and mud would be, if one plastered them in the +foreground of a landscape in order to attain to so much truth, at all +events--the true thing to endeavour is the making a golden colour +which shall do every good in the power of the dirty brown. Well, then, +what a veering weathercock am I, to write so and now, _so_! Not +altogether,--for first it was but the stranger's welcome I gave, the +right of every new comer who must stand or fall by his behaviour once +admitted within the door. And then--when I know what Horne thinks +of--you, dearest; how he knew you first, and from the soul admired +you; and how little he thinks of my good fortune ... I _could_ NOT +begin by giving you a bad impression of anything he sends--he has such +very few rewards for a great deal of hard excellent enduring work, and +_none_, no reward, I do think, would he less willingly forego than +your praise and sympathy. But your opinion once expressed--truth +remains the truth--so, at least, I excuse myself ... and quite as much +for what I say _now_ as for what was said _then_! 'King John' is very +fine and full of purpose; 'The Noble Heart,' sadly faint and +uncharacteristic. The chief incident, too, turns on that poor +conventional fallacy about what constitutes a proper wrong to +resist--a piece of morality, after a different standard, is introduced +to complete another fashioned morality--a segment of a circle of +larger dimensions is fitted into a smaller one. Now, you may have your +own standard of morality in this matter of resistance to wrong, how +and when if at all. And you may quite understand and sympathize with +quite different standards innumerable of other people; but go from one +to the other abruptly, you cannot, I think. 'Bear patiently all +injuries--revenge in no case'--that is plain. 'Take what you conceive +to be God's part, do his evident work, stand up for good and destroy +evil, and co-operate with this whole scheme here'--_that_ is plain, +too,--but, call Otto's act _no_ wrong, or being one, not such as +should be avenged--and then, call the remark of a stranger that one is +a 'recreant'--just what needs the slight punishment of instant death +to the remarker--and ... where is the way? What _is_ clear? + +--Not my letter! which goes on and on--'dear letters'--sweetest? +because they cost all the precious labour of making out? Well, I shall +see you to-morrow, I trust. Bless you, my own--I have not half said +what was to say even in the letter I thought to write, and which +proves only what you see! But at a thought I fly off with you, 'at a +cock-crow from the Grange.'--Ever your own. + +Last night, I received a copy of the _New Quarterly_--now here is +popular praise, a sprig of it! Instead of the attack I supposed it to +be, from my foolish friend's account, the notice is outrageously +eulogistical, a stupidly extravagant laudation from first to last--and +in _three other_ articles, as my sister finds by diligent fishing, +they introduce my name with the same felicitous praise (except one +instance, though, in a good article by Chorley I am certain); and +_with_ me I don't know how many poetical _crétins_ are praised as +noticeably--and, in the turning of a page, somebody is abused in the +richest style of scavengering--only Carlyle! And I love him enough not +to envy him nor wish to change places, and giving him mine, mount into +his. + +All which, let me forget in the thoughts of to-morrow! Bless you, my +Ba. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Wednesday. + [Post-mark, January 7, 1846.] + +But some things are indeed said very truly, and as I like to read +them--of _you_, I mean of course,--though I quite understand that it +is doing no manner of good to go back so to 'Paracelsus,' heading the +article 'Paracelsus and other poems,' as if the other poems could not +front the reader broadly by a divine right of their own. 'Paracelsus' +is a great work and will _live_, but the way to do you good with the +stiffnecked public (such good as critics can do in their degree) would +have been to hold fast and conspicuously the gilded horn of the last +living crowned creature led by you to the altar, saying 'Look _here_.' +What had he to do else, as a critic? Was he writing for the +_Retrospective Review_? And then, no attempt at analytical +criticism--or a failure, at the least attempt! all slack and in +sentences! Still these are right things to say, true things, worthy +things, said of you as a poet, though your poems do not find justice: +and I like, for my own part, the issuing from my cathedral into your +great world--the outermost temple of divinest consecration. I like +that figure and association, and none the worse for its being a +sufficient refutation of what he dared to impute, of your poetical +sectarianism, in another place--_yours_! + +For me, it is all quite kind enough--only I object, on my own part +also, to being reviewed in the 'Seraphim,' when my better books are +nearer: and also it always makes me a little savage when people talk +of Tennysonianisms! I have faults enough as the Muses know,--but let +them be _my_ faults! When I wrote the 'Romaunt of Margret,' I had not +read a line of Tennyson. I came from the country with my eyes only +half open, and he had not penetrated where I had been living and +sleeping: and in fact when I afterwards tried to reach him here in +London, nothing could be found except one slim volume, so that, till +the collected works appeared ... _favente_ Moxon, ... I was ignorant +of his best _early_ productions; and not even for the rhythmetical +form of my 'Vision of the Poets,' was I indebted to the 'Two +Voices,'--three pages of my 'Vision' having been written several years +ago--at the beginning of my illness--and thrown aside, and taken up +again in the spring of 1844. Ah, well! there's no use talking! In a +solitary review which noticed my 'Essay on Mind,' somebody wrote ... +'this young lady imitates Darwin'--and I never could _read_ Darwin, +... was stopped always on the second page of the 'Loves of the Plants' +when I tried to read him to 'justify myself in having an opinion'--the +repulsion was too strong. Yet the 'young lady imitated Darwin' of +course, as the infallible critic said so. + +And who are Mr. Helps and Miss Emma Fisher and the 'many others,' +whose company brings one down to the right plebeianism? The 'three +poets in three distant ages born' may well stare amazed! + +After all you shall not by any means say that I upset the inkstand on +your review in a passion--because pray mark that the ink has over-run +some of your praises, and that if I had been angry to the overthrow of +an inkstand, it would not have been precisely _there_. It is the +second book spoilt by me within these two days--and my fingers were so +dabbled in blackness yesterday that to wring my hands would only have +made matters worse. Holding them up to Mr. Kenyon they looked dirty +enough to befit a poetess--as black 'as bard beseemed'--and he took +the review away with him to read and save it from more harm. + +How could it be that you did not get my letter which would have +reached you, I thought, on Monday evening, or on Tuesday at the very +very earliest?--and how is it that I did not hear from you last night +again when I was unreasonable enough to expect it? is it true that you +_hate_ writing to me? + +At that word, comes the review back from dear Mr. Kenyon, and the +letter which I enclose to show you how it accounts reasonably for the +ink--I did it 'in a pet,' he thinks! And I ought to buy you a new +book--certainly I ought--only it is not worth doing justice for--and I +shall therefore send it back to you spoilt as it is; and you must +forgive me as magnanimously as you can. + +'Omne ignotum pro magnifico'--do you think _so_? I hope not indeed! +_vo quietando_--and everything else that I ought to do--except of +course, _that_ thinking of you which is so difficult. + +May God bless you. Till to-morrow! + + Your own always. + +Mr. Kenyon refers to 'Festus'--of which I had said that the fine +things were worth looking for, in the design manqué. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Friday Morning. + [Post-mark, January 9, 1846.] + +You never think, ever dearest, that I 'repent'--why what a word to +use! You never could _think_ such a word for a moment! If you were to +leave me even,--to decide that it is best for you to do it, and do +it,--I should accede at once of course, but never should I nor could I +'repent' ... regret anything ... be sorry for having known you and +loved you ... no! Which I say simply to prove that, in _no_ extreme +case, could I repent for my own sake. For yours, it might be +different. + +_Not_ out of 'generosity' certainly, but from the veriest selfishness, +I choose here, before God, any possible present evil, rather than the +future consciousness of feeling myself less to you, on the whole, than +another woman might have been. + +Oh, these vain and most heathenish repetitions--do I not vex you by +them, _you_ whom I would always please, and never vex? Yet they force +their way because you are the best noblest and dearest in the world, +and because your happiness is so precious a thing. + + Cloth of frieze, be not too bold, + Though thou'rt matched with cloth of gold! + +--_that_, beloved, was written for _me_. And you, if you would make me +happy, _always_ will look at yourself from my ground and by my light, +as I see you, and consent to be selfish in all things. Observe, that +if I were _vacillating_, I should not be so weak as to tease you with +the process of the vacillation: I should wait till my pendulum ceased +swinging. It is precisely because I am your own, past any retraction +or wish of retraction,--because I belong to you by gift and ownership, +and am ready and willing to prove it before the world at a word of +yours,--it is precisely for this, that I remind you too often of the +necessity of using this right of yours, not to your injury, of being +wise and strong for both of us, and of guarding your happiness which +is mine. I have said these things ninety and nine times over, and over +and over have you replied to them,--as yesterday!--and now, do not +speak any more. It is only my preachment for general use, and not for +particular application,--only to be _ready_ for application. I love +you from the deepest of my nature--the whole world is nothing to me +beside you--and what is so precious, is not far from being terrible. +'How _dreadful_ is this place.' + +To hear you talk yesterday, is a gladness in the thought for +to-day,--it was with such a full assent that I listened to every word. +It is true, I think, that we see things (things apart from ourselves) +under the same aspect and colour--and it is certainly true that I have +a sort of instinct by which I seem to know your views of such subjects +as we have never looked at together. I know _you_ so well (yes, I +boast to myself of that intimate knowledge), that I seem to know also +the _idola_ of all things as they are in your eyes--so that never, +scarcely, I am curious,--never anxious, to learn what your opinions +may be. Now, _have_ I been curious or anxious? It was enough for me to +know _you_. + +More than enough! You have 'left undone'--do you say? On the contrary, +you have done too much,--you _are_ too much. My cup,--which used to +hold at the bottom of it just the drop of Heaven dew mingling with the +absinthus,--has overflowed all this wine: and _that_ makes me look out +for the vases, which would have held it better, had you stretched out +your hand for them. + +Say how you are--and do take care and exercise--and write to me, +dearest! + + Ever your own-- + + BA. + +How right you are about 'Ben Capstan,'--and the illustration by the +_yellow clay_. That is precisely what I meant,--said with more +precision than I could say it. Art without an ideal is neither nature +nor art. The question involves the whole difference between Madame +Tussaud and Phidias. + +I have just received Mr. Edgar Poe's book--and I see that the +deteriorating preface which was to have saved me from the vanity-fever +produceable by the dedication, is cut down and away--perhaps in this +particular copy only! + +Tuesday is so near, as men count, that I caught myself just now being +afraid lest the week should have no chance of appearing long to you! +Try to let it be long to you--will you? My consistency is wonderful. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Friday Morning. + +As if I could deny you anything! Here is the Review--indeed it was +foolish to mind your seeing it at all. But now, may I stipulate?--You +shall not send it back--but on your table I shall find and take it +next Tuesday--_c'est convenu_! The other precious volume has not yet +come to hand (nor to foot) all through your being so sure that to +carry it home would have been the death of me last evening! + +I cannot write my feelings in this large writing, begun on such a +scale for the Review's sake; and just now--there is no denying it, and +spite of all I have been incredulous about--it does seem that the fact +_is_ achieved and that I _do_ love you, plainly, surely, more than +ever, more than any day in my life before. It is your secret, the why, +the how; the experience is mine. What are you doing to me?--in the +heart's heart. + +Rest--dearest--bless you-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, January 10, 1846.] + +Kindest and dearest you are!--that is 'my secret' and for the others, +I leave them to you!--only it is no secret that I should and must be +glad to have the words you sent with the book,--which I should have +seen at all events be sure, whether you had sent it or not. Should I +not, do you think? And considering what the present generation of +critics really is, the remarks on you may stand, although it is the +dreariest impotency to complain of the want of flesh and blood and of +human sympathy in general. Yet suffer them to say on--it is the stamp +on the critical knife. There must be something eminently stupid, or +farewell criticdom! And if anything more utterly untrue could be said +than another, it is precisely that saying, which Mr. Mackay stands up +to catch the reversion of! Do you indeed suppose that Heraud could +have done this? I scarcely can believe it, though some things are said +rightly as about the 'intellectuality,' and how you stand first by the +brain,--which is as true as truth can be. Then, I _shall have +'Pauline' in a day or two_--yes, I shall and must, and _will_. + +The 'Ballad Poems and Fancies,' the article calling itself by that +name, seems indeed to be Mr. Chorley's, and is one of his very best +papers, I think. There is to me a want of colour and thinness about +his writings in general, with a grace and _savoir faire_ nevertheless, +and always a rightness and purity of intention. Observe what he says +of 'many-sidedness' seeming to trench on opinion and principle. That, +he means for himself I know, for he has said to me that through having +such largeness of sympathy he has been charged with want of +principle--yet 'many-sidedness' is certainly no word for him. The +effect of general sympathies may be evolved both from an elastic fancy +and from breadth of mind, and it seems to me that he rather _bends_ to +a phase of humanity and literature than contains it--than comprehends +it. Every part of a truth implies the whole; and to accept truth all +round, does not mean the recognition of contradictory things: +universal sympathies cannot make a man inconsistent, but, on the +contrary, sublimely consistent. A church tower may stand between the +mountains and the sea, looking to either, and stand fast: but the +willow-tree at the gable-end, blown now toward the north and now +toward the south while its natural leaning is due east or west, is +different altogether ... _as_ different as a willow-tree from a church +tower. + +Ah, what nonsense! There is only one truth for me all this time, while +I talk about truth and truth. And do you know, when you have told me +to think of you, I have been feeling ashamed of thinking of you so +much, of thinking of only you--which _is_ too much, perhaps. Shall I +tell you? it seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before to +any woman what you are to me--the fulness must be in proportion, you +know, to the vacancy ... and only _I_ know what was behind--the long +wilderness _without_ the blossoming rose ... and the capacity for +happiness, like a black gaping hole, before this silver flooding. Is +it wonderful that I should stand as in a dream, and disbelieve--not +_you_--but my own fate? Was ever any one taken suddenly from a +lampless dungeon and placed upon the pinnacle of a mountain, without +the head turning round and the heart turning faint, as mine do? And +you love me _more_, you say?--Shall I thank you or God? +Both,--indeed--and there is no possible return from me to either of +you! I thank you as the unworthy may ... and as we all thank God. How +shall I ever prove what my heart is to you? How will you ever see it +as I feel it? I ask myself in vain. + +Have so much faith in me, my only beloved, as to use me simply for +your own advantage and happiness, and to your own ends without a +thought of any others--_that_ is all I could ask you with any disquiet +as to the granting of it--May God bless you!-- + + Your + + BA. + +But you have the review _now_--surely? + +The _Morning Chronicle_ attributes the authorship of 'Modern Poets' +(_our_ article) to Lord John Manners--so I hear this morning. I have +not yet looked at the paper myself. The _Athenæum_, still abominably +dumb!-- + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, January 10, 1846.] + +This is _no_ letter--love,--I make haste to tell you--to-morrow I will +write. For here has a friend been calling and consuming my very +destined time, and every minute seemed the last that was to be; and an +old, old friend he is, beside--so--you must understand my defection, +when only this scrap reaches you to-night! Ah, love,--you are my +unutterable blessing,--I discover you, more of you, day by day,--hour +by hour, I do think!--I am entirely yours,--one gratitude, all my soul +becomes when I see you over me as now--God bless my dear, dearest. + +My 'Act Fourth' is done--but too roughly this time! I will tell you-- + +One kiss more, dearest! + +Thanks for the Review. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday. + [Post-mark, January 12, 1846.] + +I have no words for you, my dearest,--I shall never have. + +You are mine, I am yours. Now, here is one sign of what I said ... +that I must love you more than at first ... a little sign, and to be +looked narrowly for or it escapes me, but then the increase it shows +_can_ only be little, so very little now--and as the fine French +Chemical Analysts bring themselves to appreciate matter in its refined +stages by _millionths_, so--! At first I only thought of being _happy_ +in you,--in your happiness: now I most think of you in the dark hours +that must come--I shall grow old with you, and die with you--as far as +I can look into the night I see the light with me. And surely with +that provision of comfort one should turn with fresh joy and renewed +sense of security to the sunny middle of the day. I am in the full +sunshine now; and _after_, all seems cared for,--is it too homely an +illustration if I say the day's visit is not crossed by uncertainties +as to the return through the wild country at nightfall?--Now Keats +speaks of 'Beauty, that must _die_--and Joy whose hand is ever at his +lips, bidding farewell!' And _who_ spoke of--looking up into the eyes +and asking 'And _how long_ will you love us'?--There is a Beauty that +will not die, a Joy that bids no farewell, dear dearest eyes that will +love for ever! + +And _I_--am to love no longer than I can. Well, dear--and when I _can_ +no longer--you will not blame me? You will do only as ever, kindly and +justly; hardly more. I do not pretend to say I have chosen to put my +fancy to such an experiment, and consider how _that_ is to happen, and +what measures ought to be taken in the emergency--because in the +'universality of my sympathies' I certainly number a very lively one +with my own heart and soul, and cannot amuse myself by such a +spectacle as their supposed extinction or paralysis. There is no doubt +I should be an object for the deepest commiseration of you or any more +fortunate human being. And I hope that because such a calamity does +not obtrude itself on me as a thing to be prayed against, it is no +less duly implied with all the other visitations from which no +humanity can be altogether exempt--just as God bids us ask for the +continuance of the 'daily bread'!--'battle, murder and sudden death' +lie behind doubtless. I repeat, and perhaps in so doing only give one +more example of the instantaneous conversion of that indignation we +bestow in another's case, into wonderful lenity when it becomes our +own, ... that I only contemplate the _possibility_ you make me +recognize, with pity, and fear ... no anger at all; and imprecations +of vengeance, _for what_? Observe, I only speak of cases _possible_; +of sudden impotency of mind; that _is_ possible--there _are_ other +ways of '_changing_,' 'ceasing to love' &c. which it is safest not to +think of nor believe in. A man _may_ never leave his writing desk +without seeing safe in one corner of it the folded slip which directs +the disposal of his papers in the event of his reason suddenly leaving +him--or he may never go out into the street without a card in his +pocket to signify his address to those who may have to pick him up in +an apoplectic fit--but if he once begins to fear he is growing a glass +bottle, and, _so_, liable to be smashed,--do you see? And now, love, +dear heart of my heart, my own, only Ba--see no more--see what I _am_, +what God in his constant mercy ordinarily grants to those who have, as +I, received already so much; much, past expression! It is but--if you +will so please--at worst, forestalling the one or two years, for my +sake; but you _will_ be as sure of me _one_ day as I can be now of +myself--and why not _now_ be sure? See, love--a year is gone by--we +were in one relation when you wrote at the end of a letter 'Do not say +I do not tire you' (by writing)--'_I am sure I do_.' A year has gone +by--_Did you tire me then?_ _Now_, you tell me what is told; for my +sake, sweet, let the few years go by; we are married, and my arms are +round you, and my face touches yours, and I am asking you, '_Were you +not_ to me, in that dim beginning of 1846, a joy behind all joys, a +life added to and transforming mine, the good I choose from all the +possible gifts of God on this earth, for which I seemed to have lived; +which accepting, I thankfully step aside and let the rest get what +they can; what, it is very likely, they esteem more--for why should my +eye be evil because God's is good; why should I grudge that, giving +them, I do believe, infinitely less, he gives them a content in the +inferior good and belief in its worth? I should have wished _that_ +further concession, that illusion as I believe it, for their +sakes--but I cannot undervalue my own treasure and so scant the only +tribute of mere gratitude which is in my power to pay. Hear this said +_now before_ the few years; and believe in it _now for then_, dearest! + + +Must you see 'Pauline'? At least then let me wait a few days; to +correct the misprints which affect the sense, and to write you the +history of it; what is necessary you should know before you see it. +That article I suppose to be by Heraud--about two thirds--and the +rest, or a little less, by that Mr. Powell--whose unimaginable, +impudent vulgar stupidity you get some inkling of in the 'Story from +Boccaccio'--of which the _words_ quoted were _his_, I am sure--as sure +as that he knows not whether Boccaccio lived before or after +Shakspeare, whether Florence or Rome be the more northern city,--one +word of Italian in general, or letter of Boccaccio's in particular. +When I took pity on him once on a time and helped his verses into a +sort of grammar and sense, I did not think he was a _buyer_ of other +men's verses, to be printed as his own; thus he _bought_ two +modernisations of Chaucer--'Ugolino' and another story from Leigh +Hunt--and one, 'Sir Thopas' from Horne, and printed them as his own, +as I learned only last week. He paid me extravagant court and, seeing +no harm in the mere folly of the man, I was on good terms with him, +till ten months ago he grossly insulted a friend of mine who had +written an article for the Review--(which is as good as _his_, he +being a large proprietor of the delectable property, and influencing +the voices of his co-mates in council)--well, he insulted my friend, +who had written that article at my special solicitation, and did all +he could to avoid paying the price of it--Why?--Because the poor +creature had actually taken the article to the Editor _as one by his +friend Serjeant Talfourd contributed for pure love of him, Powell the +aforesaid_,--cutting, in consequence, no inglorious figure in the eyes +of Printer and Publisher! Now I was away all this time in Italy or he +would never have ventured on such a piece of childish impertinence. +And my friend being a true gentleman, and quite unused to this sort of +'practice,' in the American sense, held his peace and went without his +'honorarium.' But on my return, I enquired, and made him make a +proper application, which Mr. Powell treated with all the insolence in +the world--because, as the event showed, the having to write a cheque +for 'the Author of _the_ Article'--that author's name _not_ being +Talfourd's ... _there_ was certain disgrace! Since then (ten months +ago) I have never seen him--and he accuses _himself_, observe, of +'sucking my plots while I drink his tea'--one as much as the other! +And now why do I tell you this, all of it? Ah,--now you shall hear! +Because, it has often been in my mind to ask you what _you_ know of +this Mr. Powell, or ever knew. For he, (being profoundly versed in +every sort of untruth, as every fresh experience shows me, and the +rest of his acquaintance) he told me long ago, 'he used to correspond +with you, and that he quarrelled with you'--which I supposed to mean +that he began by sending you his books (as with one and everybody) and +that, in return to your note of acknowledgment, he had chosen to write +again, and perhaps, again--is it so? Do not write one word in answer +to me--the name of such a miserable nullity, and husk of a man, ought +not to have a place in your letters--and _that way_ he would get near +to me again; near indeed this time!--So _tell_ me, in a word--or do +not tell me. + +How I never say what I sit down to say! How saying the little makes me +want to say the more! How the least of little things, once taken up as +a thing to be imparted to you, seems to need explanations and +commentaries; all is of importance to me--every breath you breathe, +every little fact (like this) you are to know! + +I was out last night--to see the rest of Frank Talfourd's theatricals; +and met Dickens and his set--so my evenings go away! If I do not bring +the _Act_ you must forgive me--yet I shall, I think; the roughness +matters little in this stage. Chorley says very truly that a tragedy +implies as much power _kept back_ as brought out--very true that is. I +do not, on the whole, feel dissatisfied--as was to be but +expected--with the effect of this last--the _shelve_ of the hill, +whence the end is seen, you continuing to go down to it, so that at +the very last you may pass off into a plain and so away--not come to a +stop like your horse against a church wall. It is all in long +speeches--the _action, proper_, is in them--they are no descriptions, +or amplifications--but here, in a drama of this kind, all the +_events_, (and interest), take place in the _minds_ of the actors ... +somewhat like 'Paracelsus' in that respect. You know, or don't know, +that the general charge against me, of late, from the few quarters I +thought it worth while to listen to, has been that of abrupt, +spasmodic writing--they will find some fault with this, of course. + +How you know Chorley! That is precisely the man, that willow blowing +now here now there--precisely! I wish he minded the _Athenæum_, its +silence or eloquence, no more nor less than I--but he goes on +painfully plying me with invitation after invitation, only to show me, +I feel confident, that _he_ has no part nor lot in the matter: I have +_two_ kind little notes asking me to go on Thursday and Saturday. See +the absurd position of us both; he asks more of my presence than he +can want, just to show his own kind feeling, of which I do not doubt; +and I must try and accept more hospitality than suits me, only to +prove my belief in that same! For myself--if I have vanity which such +Journals can raise; would the praise of them raise it, they who +praised Mr. Mackay's own, own 'Dead Pan,' quite his own, the other +day?--By the way, Miss Cushman informed me the other evening that the +gentleman had written a certain 'Song of the Bell' ... 'singularly +like Schiller's; _considering that Mr. M. had never_ seen it!' I am +told he writes for the _Athenæum_, but don't know. Would that sort of +praise be flattering, or his holding the tongue--which Forster, deep +in the mysteries of the craft, corroborated my own notion about--as +pure willingness to hurt, and confessed impotence and little clever +spite, and enforced sense of what may be safe at the last? You shall +see they will not notice--unless a fresh publication alters the +circumstances--until some seven or eight months--as before; and then +they _will_ notice, and _praise_, and tell anybody who cares to +enquire, '_So_ we noticed the work.' So do not you go expecting +justice or injustice till I tell you. It answers me to be found +writing so, so anxious to prove I understand the laws of the game, +when that game is only 'Thimble-rig' and for prizes of +gingerbread-nuts--Prize or no prize, Mr. Dilke _does_ shift the pea, +and so did from the beginning--as Charles Lamb's pleasant _sobriquet_ +(Mr. _Bilk_, he would have it) testifies. Still he behaved kindly to +that poor Frances Brown--let us forget him. + +And now, my Audience, my crown-bearer, my path-preparer--I am with you +again and out of them all--there, _here_, in my arms, is my _proved +palpable success_! My life, my poetry, gained nothing, oh no!--but +this found them, and blessed them. On Tuesday I shall see you, +dearest--am much better; well to-day--are you well--or 'scarcely to be +called an invalid'? Oh, when I _have_ you, am by you-- + +Bless you, dearest--And be very sure you have your wish about the +length of the week--still Tuesday must come! And with it your own, +happy, grateful + + R.B. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday Night. + [Post-mark, January 14, 1846.] + +Ah Mr. Kenyon!--how he vexed me to-day. To keep away all the ten days +before, and to come just at the wrong time after all! It was better +for you, I suppose--believe--to go with him down-stairs--yes, it +certainly was better: it was disagreeable enough to be very wise! Yet +I, being addicted to every sort of superstition turning to melancholy, +did hate so breaking off in the middle of that black thread ... (do +you remember what we were talking of when they opened the door?) that +I was on the point of saying 'Stay one moment,' which I should have +repented afterwards for the best of good reasons. Oh, I _should_ have +liked to have 'fastened off' that black thread, and taken one stitch +with a blue or a green one! + +You do not remember what we were talking of? what _you_, rather, were +talking of? And what _I_ remember, at least, because it is exactly the +most unkind and hard thing you ever said to me--ever dearest, so I +remember it by that sign! That you should say such a thing to me--! +think what it was, for indeed I will not write it down here--it would +be worse than Mr. Powell! Only the foolishness of it (I mean, the +foolishness of it alone) saves it, smooths it to a degree!--the +foolishness being the same as if you asked a man where he would walk +when he lost his head. Why, if you had asked St. Denis _beforehand_, +he would have thought it a foolish question. + +And you!--you, who talk so finely of never, never doubting; of being +such an example in the way of believing and trusting--it appears, +after all, that you have an imagination apprehensive (or +comprehensive) of 'glass bottles' like other sublunary creatures, and +worse than some of them. For mark, that I never went any farther than +to the stone-wall hypothesis of your forgetting me!--_I_ always +stopped there--and never climbed, to the top of it over the +broken-bottle fortification, to see which way you meant to walk +afterwards. And you, to ask me so coolly--think what you asked me. +That you should have the heart to ask such a question! + +And the reason--! and it could seem a reasonable matter of doubt to +you whether I would go to the south for my health's sake!--And I +answered quite a common 'no' I believe--for you bewildered me for the +moment--and I have had tears in my eyes two or three times since, just +through thinking back of it all ... of your asking me such questions. +Now did I not tell you when I first knew you, that I was leaning out +of the window? True, _that_ was--I was tired of living ... +unaffectedly tired. All I cared to live for was to do better some of +the work which, after all, was out of myself, and which I had to reach +across to do. But I told you. Then, last year, for duty's sake I would +have _consented_ to go to Italy! but if you really fancy that I would +have struggled in the face of all that difficulty--or struggled, +indeed, anywise, to compass such an object as _that_--except for the +motive of your caring for it and me--why you know nothing of me after +all--nothing! And now, take away the motive, and I am where I +was--leaning out of the window again. To put it in plainer words (as +you really require information), I should let them do what they liked +to me till I was dead--only I _wouldn't go to Italy_--if anybody +proposed Italy out of contradiction. In the meantime I do entreat you +never to talk of such a thing to me any more. + +You know, if you were to leave me by your choice and for your +happiness, it would be another thing. It would be very lawful to talk +of _that_. + +And observe! I perfectly understand that you did not think of +_doubting me_--so to speak! But you thought, all the same, that if +such a thing happened, I should be capable of doing so and so. + +Well--I am not quarrelling--I am uneasy about your head rather. That +pain in it--what can it mean? I do beseech you to think of me just so +much as will lead you to take regular exercise every day, never +missing a day; since to walk till you are tired on Tuesday and then +not to walk at all until Friday is _not_ taking exercise, nor the +thing required. Ah, if you knew how dreadfully natural every sort of +evil seems to my mind, you would not laugh at me for being afraid. I +do beseech you, dearest! And then, Sir John Hanmer invited you, +besides Mr. Warburton, and suppose you went to _him_ for a very little +time--just for the change of air? or if you went to the coast +somewhere. Will you consider, and do what is right, _for me_? I do not +propose that you should go to Italy, observe, nor any great thing at +which you might reasonably hesitate. And--did you ever try smoking as +a remedy? If the nerves of the head chiefly are affected it might do +you good, I have been thinking. Or without the smoking, to breathe +where tobacco is burnt,--_that_ calms the nervous system in a +wonderful manner, as I experienced once myself when, recovering from +an illness, I could not sleep, and tried in vain all sorts of +narcotics and forms of hop-pillow and inhalation, yet was +tranquillized in one half hour by a _pinch_ of _tobacco_ being burnt +in a shovel near me. Should you mind it very much? the trying I mean? + +_Wednesday._--For '_Pauline_'--when I had named it to you I was on the +point of sending for the book to the booksellers--then suddenly I +thought to myself that I should wait and hear whether you very, very +much would dislike my reading it. See now! Many readers have done +virtuously, but _I_, (in this virtue I tell you of) surpassed them +all!--And now, because I may, I '_must_ read it':--and as there are +misprints to be corrected, will you do what is necessary, or what you +think is necessary, and bring me the book on Monday? Do not +send--bring it. In the meanwhile I send back the review which I forgot +to give to you yesterday in the confusion. Perhaps you have not read +it in your house, and in any case there is no use in my keeping it. + +Shall I hear from you, I wonder! Oh my vain thoughts, that will not +keep you well! And, ever since you have known me, you have been +worse--_that_, you confess!--and what if it should be the crossing of +my bad star? _You_ of the 'Crown' and the 'Lyre,' to seek influences +from the 'chair of Cassiopeia'! I hope she will forgive me for using +her name so! I might as well have compared her to a professorship of +poetry in the university of Oxford, according to the latest election. +You know, the qualification, there, is,--_not to be a poet_. + +How vexatious, yesterday! The stars (talking of _them_) were out of +spherical tune, through the damp weather, perhaps, and that scarlet +sun was a sign! First Mr. Chorley!--and last, dear Mr. Kenyon; who +_will_ say tiresome things without any provocation. Did you walk with +him his way, or did he walk with you yours? or did you only walk +down-stairs together? + +Write to me! Remember that it is a month to Monday. Think of your very +own, who bids God bless you when she prays best for herself!-- + + E.B.B. + +Say particularly how you are--now do not omit it. And will you have +Miss Martineau's books when I can lend them to you? Just at this +moment I _dare_ not, because they are reading them here. + +Let Mr. Mackay have his full proprietary in his 'Dead Pan'--which is +quite a different conception of the subject, and executed in blank +verse too. I have no claims against him, I am sure! + +But for the _man_!--To call him a poet! A prince and potentate of +Commonplaces, such as he is!--I have seen his name in the _Athenæum_ +attached to a lyric or two ... poems, correctly called fugitive,--more +than usually fugitive--but I never heard before that his hand was in +the prose department. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Wednesday. + [Post-mark, January 14, 1846.] + +Was I in the wrong, dearest, to go away with Mr. Kenyon? I _well knew +and felt_ the price I was about to pay--but the thought _did_ occur +that he might have been informed my probable time of departure was +that of his own arrival--and that he would not know how very soon, +alas, I should be _obliged_ to go--so ... to save you any least +embarrassment in the world, I got--just that shake of the hand, just +that look--and no more! And was it all for nothing, all needless after +all? So I said to myself all the way home. + +When I am away from you--a crowd of things press on me for +utterance--'I will say them, not write them,' I think:--when I see +you--all to be said seems insignificant, irrelevant,--'they can be +written, at all events'--I think _that_ too. So, feeling so much, I +say so little! + +I have just returned from Town and write for the Post--but _you_ mean +to write, I trust. + +_That_ was not obtained, that promise, to be happy with, as last time! + +How are you?--tell me, dearest; a long week is to be waited now! + + Bless you, my own, sweetest Ba. + + I am wholly your + + R. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Thursday. + [Post-mark, January 15, 1846.] + +Dearest, dearer to my heart minute by minute, I had no wish to give +you pain, God knows. No one can more readily consent to let a few +years more or less of life go out of account,--be lost--but as I sate +by you, you so full of the truest life, for this world as for the +next,--and was struck by the possibility, all that might happen were I +away, in the case of your continuing to acquiesce--dearest, it _is_ +horrible--could not but speak. If in drawing you, all of you, closer +to my heart, I hurt you whom I would--_outlive_ ... yes,--cannot speak +here--forgive me, Ba. + +My Ba, you are to consider now for me. Your health, your strength, it +is all wonderful; that is not my dream, you know--but what all see. +Now, steadily care for us both--take time, take counsel if you choose; +but at the end tell me what you will do for your part--thinking of me +as utterly devoted, soul and body, to you, living wholly in your life, +seeing good and ill only as you see,--being yours as your hand is,--or +as your Flush, rather. Then I will, on my side, prepare. When I say +'take counsel'--I reserve my last right, the man's right of first +speech. _I_ stipulate, too, and require to say my own speech in my own +words or by letter--remember! But this living without you is too +tormenting now. So begin thinking,--as for Spring, as for a New Year, +as for a new life. + +I went no farther than the door with Mr. Kenyon. He must see the +truth; and--you heard the playful words which had a meaning all the +same. + +No more of this; only, think of it for me, love! + +One of these days I shall write a long letter--on the omitted matters, +unanswered questions, in your past letters. The present joy still +makes me ungrateful to the previous one; but I remember. We are to +live together one day, love! + +Will you let Mr. Poe's book lie on the table on Monday, if you please, +that I may read what he _does_ say, with my own eyes? _That_ I meant +to ask, too! + +How too, too kind you are--how you care for so little that affects me! +I am very much better--I went out yesterday, as you found: to-day I +shall walk, beside seeing Chorley. And certainly, certainly I would go +away for a week, if so I might escape being ill (and away from you) a +fortnight; but I am _not_ ill--and will care, as you bid me, beloved! +So, you will send, and take all trouble; and all about that crazy +Review! Now, you should not!--I will consider about your goodness. I +hardly know if I care to read that kind of book just now. + +Will you, and must you have 'Pauline'? If I could pray you to revoke +that decision! For it is altogether foolish and _not_ boylike--and I +shall, I confess, hate the notion of running over it--yet commented +it must be; more than mere correction! I was unluckily +_precocious_--but I had rather you _saw_ real infantine efforts +(verses at six years old, and drawings still earlier) than this +ambiguous, feverish--Why not wait? When you speak of the +'Bookseller'--I smile, in glorious security--having a whole bale of +sheets at the house-top. He never knew my name even!--and I withdrew +these after a very little time. + +And now--here is a vexation. May I be with you (for this once) next +Monday, at _two_ instead of _three_ o'clock? Forster's business with +the new Paper obliges him, he says, to restrict his choice of days to +_Monday_ next--and give up _my_ part of Monday I will never for fifty +Forsters--now, sweet, mind that! Monday is no common day, but leads to +a _Saturday_--and if, as I ask, I get leave to call at 2--and to stay +till 3-1/2--though I then lose nearly half an hour--yet all will be +comparatively well. If there is any difficulty--one word and I +re-appoint our party, his and mine, for the day the paper breaks +down--not so long to wait, it strikes me! + +Now, bless you, my precious Ba--I am your own-- + + --Your own R. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Thursday Morning. + [Post-mark, January 17, 1846.] + +Our letters have crossed; and, mine being the longest, I have a right +to expect another directly, I think. I have been calculating: and it +seems to me--now what I am going to say may take its place among the +paradoxes,--that I gain most by the short letters. Last week the only +long one came last, and I was quite contented that the 'old friend' +should come to see you on Saturday and make you send me two instead of +the single one I looked for: it was a clear gain, the little short +note, and the letter arrived all the same. I remember, when I was a +child, liking to have two shillings and sixpence better than half a +crown--and now it is the same with this fairy money, which will never +turn all into pebbles, or beans, whatever the chronicles may say of +precedents. + +Arabel did tell Mr. Kenyon (she told me) that 'Mr. Browning would soon +go away'--in reply to an observation of his, that 'he would not stay +as I had company'; and altogether it was better,--the lamp made it +look late. But you do not appear in the least remorseful for being +tempted of my black devil, my familiar, to ask such questions and +leave me under such an impression--'mens conscia recti' too!!-- + +And Mr. Kenyon will not come until next Monday perhaps. How am I? But +I am too well to be asked about. Is it not a warm summer? The weather +is as 'miraculous' as the rest, I think. It is you who are unwell and +make people uneasy, dearest. Say how you are, and promise me to do +what is right and try to be better. The walking, the changing of the +air, the leaving off Luria ... do what is right, I earnestly beseech +you. The other day, I heard of Tennyson being ill again, ... too ill +to write a simple note to his friend Mr. Venables, who told George. A +little more than a year ago, it would have been no worse a thing to me +to hear of your being ill than to hear of his being ill!--How the +world has changed since then! To _me_, I mean. + +Did I say _that_ ever ... that 'I knew you must be tired?' And it was +not even so true as that the coming event threw its shadow before? + +_Thursday night._--I have begun on another sheet--I could not write +here what was in my heart--yet I send you this paper besides to show +how I was writing to you this morning. In the midst of it came a +female friend of mine and broke the thread--the visible thread, that +is. + +And now, even now, at this safe eight o'clock, I could not be safe +from somebody, who, in her goodnature and my illfortune, must come and +sit by me--and when my letter was come--'why wouldn't I read it? What +wonderful politeness on my part.' She would not and could not consent +to keep me from reading my letter. She would stand up by the fire +rather. + +No, no, three times no. Brummel got into the carriage before the +Regent, ... (didn't he?) but I persisted in not reading my letter in +the presence of my friend. A notice on my punctiliousness may be put +down to-night in her 'private diary.' I kept the letter in my hand and +only read it with those sapient ends of the fingers which the +mesmerists make so much ado about, and which really did seem to touch +a little of what was inside. Not _all_, however, happily for me! Or my +friend would have seen in my eyes what _they_ did not see. + +May God bless you! Did I ever say that I had an objection to read the +verses at six years old--or see the drawings either? I am reasonable, +you observe! Only, 'Pauline,' I must have _some day_--why not without +the emendations? But if you insist on them, I will agree to wait a +little--if you promise _at last_ to let me see the book, which I will +not show. Some day, then! you shall not be vexed nor hurried for the +day--some day. Am I not generous? And _I_ was 'precocious' too, and +used to make rhymes over my bread and milk when I was nearly a baby +... only really it was mere echo-verse, that of mine, and had nothing +of mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. I +used to write of virtue with a large 'V,' and 'Oh Muse' with a harp, +and things of that sort. At nine years old I wrote what I called 'an +epic'--and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which we +used to act in the nursery. There was a French 'hexameter' tragedy on +the subject of Regulus--but I cannot even smile to think of it now, +there are so many grave memories--which time has made grave--hung +around it. How I remember sitting in 'my house under the sideboard,' +in the dining-room, concocting one of the soliloquies beginning + + Que suis je? autrefois un général Remain: + Maintenant esclave de Carthage je souffre en vain. + +Poor Regulus!--Can't you conceive how fine it must have been +altogether? And these were my 'maturer works,' you are to understand, +... and 'the moon was bright at ten o'clock at night' years before. As +to the gods and goddesses, I believed in them all quite seriously, and +reconciled them to Christianity, which I believed in too after a +fashion, as some greater philosophers have done--and went out one day +with my pinafore full of little sticks (and a match from the +housemaid's cupboard) to sacrifice to the blue-eyed Minerva who was my +favourite goddess on the whole because she cared for Athens. As soon +as I began to doubt about my goddesses, I fell into a vague sort of +general scepticism, ... and though I went on saying 'the Lord's +prayer' at nights and mornings, and the 'Bless all my kind friends' +afterwards, by the childish custom ... yet I ended this liturgy with a +supplication which I found in 'King's Memoirs' and which took my fancy +and met my general views exactly.... 'O God, if there be a God, save +my soul if I have a soul.' Perhaps the theology of many thoughtful +children is scarcely more orthodox than this: but indeed it is +wonderful to myself sometimes how I came to escape, on the whole, as +well as I have done, considering the commonplaces of education in +which I was set, with strength and opportunity for breaking the bonds +all round into liberty and license. Papa used to say ... 'Don't read +Gibbon's history--it's not a proper book. Don't read "Tom Jones"--and +none of the books on _this_ side, mind!' So I was very obedient and +never touched the books on _that_ side, and only read instead Tom +Paine's 'Age of Reason,' and Voltaire's 'Philosophical Dictionary,' +and Hume's 'Essays,' and Werther, and Rousseau, and Mary +Wollstonecraft ... books, which I was never suspected of looking +towards, and which were not 'on _that_ side' certainly, but which did +as well. + +How I am writing!--And what are the questions you did not answer? I +shall remember them by the answers I suppose--but your letters always +have a fulness to me and I never seem to wish for what is not in them. + +But this is the end _indeed_. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Thursday Night. + [In the same envelope with the preceding letter.] + +Ever dearest--how you can write touching things to me; and how my +whole being vibrates, as a string, to these! How have I deserved from +God and you all that I thank you for? Too unworthy I am of all! Only, +it was not, dearest beloved, what you feared, that was 'horrible,' it +was what you _supposed_, rather! It was a mistake of yours. And now we +will not talk of it any more. + +_Friday morning._--For the rest, I will think as you desire: but I +have thought a great deal, and there are certainties which I know; and +I hope we _both_ are aware that nothing can be more hopeless than our +position in some relations and aspects, though you do not guess +perhaps that the very approach to the subject is shut up by dangers, +and that from the moment of a suspicion entering _one_ mind, we should +be able to meet never again in this room, nor to have intercourse by +letter through the ordinary channel. I mean, that letters of yours, +addressed to me here, would infallibly be stopped and destroyed--if +not opened. Therefore it is advisable to hurry on nothing--on these +grounds it is advisable. What should I do if I did not see you nor +hear from you, without being able to feel that it was for your +happiness? What should I do for a month even? And then, I might be +thrown out of the window or its equivalent--I look back shuddering to +the dreadful scenes in which poor Henrietta was involved who never +offended as I have offended ... years ago which seem as present as +to-day. She had forbidden the subject to be referred to until that +consent was obtained--and at a word she gave up all--at a word. In +fact she had no true attachment, as I observed to Arabel at the +time--a child never submitted more meekly to a revoked holiday. Yet +how she was made to suffer. Oh, the dreadful scenes! and only because +she had seemed to feel a little. I told you, I think, that there was +an obliquity--an eccentricity, or something beyond--on one class of +subjects. I hear how her knees were made to ring upon the floor, now! +she was carried out of the room in strong hysterics, and I, who rose +up to follow her, though I was quite well at that time and suffered +only by sympathy, fell flat down upon my face in a fainting-fit. +Arabel thought I was dead. + +I have tried to forget it all--but now I must remember--and throughout +our intercourse _I have remembered_. It is necessary to remember so +much as to avoid such evils as are inevitable, and for this reason I +would conceal nothing from you. Do _you_ remember, besides, that there +can be no faltering on my 'part,' and that, if I should remain well, +which is not proved yet, I will do for you what you please and as you +please to have it done. But there is time for considering! + +Only ... as you speak of 'counsel,' I will take courage to tell you +that my _sisters know_, Arabel is in most of my confidences, and being +often in the room with me, taxed me with the truth long ago--she saw +that I was affected from some cause--and I told her. We are as safe +with both of them as possible ... and they thoroughly understand that +_if there should be any change it would not be your fault_.... I made +them understand that thoroughly. From themselves I have received +nothing but the most smiling words of kindness and satisfaction (I +thought I might tell you so much), they have too much tenderness for +me to fail in it now. My brothers, it is quite necessary not to draw +into a dangerous responsibility. I have felt that from the beginning, +and shall continue to feel it--though I hear and can observe that they +are full of suspicions and conjectures, which are never unkindly +expressed. I told you once that we held hands the faster in this house +for the weight over our heads. But the absolute _knowledge_ would be +dangerous for my brothers: with my sisters it is different, and I +could not continue to conceal from _them_ what they had under their +eyes; and then, Henrietta is in a like position. It was not wrong of +me to let them know it?--no? + +Yet of what consequence is all this to the other side of the question? +What, if _you_ should give pain and disappointment where you owe such +pure gratitude. But we need not talk of these things now. Only you +have more to consider than _I_, I imagine, while the future comes on. + +Dearest, let me have my way in one thing: let me see you on _Tuesday_ +instead of on Monday--on Tuesday at the old hour. Be reasonable and +consider. Tuesday is almost as near as the day before it; and on +Monday, I shall be hurried at first, lest Papa should be still in the +house, (no harm, but an excuse for nervousness: and I can't quote a +noble Roman as you can, to the praise of my conscience!) and _you_ +will be hurried at last, lest you should not be in time for Mr. +Forster. On the other hand, I will not let you be rude to the _Daily +News_, ... no, nor to the _Examiner_. Come on Tuesday, then, instead +of Monday, and let us have the usual hours in a peaceable way,--and if +there is no obstacle,--that is, if Mr. Kenyon or some equivalent +authority should not take note of your being here on Tuesday, why you +can come again on the Saturday afterwards--I do not see the +difficulty. Are we agreed? On Tuesday, at three o'clock. Consider, +besides, that the Monday arrangement would hurry you in every manner, +and leave you fagged for the evening--no, I will not hear of it. Not +on my account, not on yours! + +Think of me on Monday instead, and write before. Are not these two +lawful letters? And do not they deserve an answer? + +My life was ended when I knew you, and if I survive myself it is for +your sake:--_that_ resumes all my feelings and intentions in respect +to you. No 'counsel' could make the difference of a grain of dust in +the balance. It _is so_, and not otherwise. If you changed towards me, +it would be better for you I believe--and I should be only where I was +before. While you do _not_ change, I look to you for my first +affections and my first duty--and nothing but your bidding me, could +make me look away. + +In the midst of this, Mr. Kenyon came and I felt as if I could not +talk to him. No--he does not 'see how it is.' He may have passing +thoughts sometimes, but they do not stay long enough to produce--even +an opinion. He asked if you had been here long. + +It may be wrong and ungrateful, but I do wish sometimes that the world +were away--even the good Kenyon-aspect of the world. + +And so, once more--may God bless you! + + I am wholly yours-- + +_Tuesday_, remember! And say that you agree. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, January 17, 1846.] + +Did my own Ba, in the prosecution of her studies, get to a book on the +forb--no, _un_forbidden shelf--wherein Voltaire pleases to say that +'si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer'? I feel, after +reading these letters,--as ordinarily after seeing you, sweetest, or +hearing from you,--that if _marriage_ did not exist, I should +infallibly _invent_ it. I should say, no words, no _feelings_ even, +do justice to the whole conviction and _religion_ of my soul--and +though they may be suffered to represent some one minute's phase of +it, yet, in their very fulness and passion they do injustice to the +_unrepresented, other minute's_, depth and breadth of love ... which +let my whole life (I would say) be devoted to telling and proving and +exemplifying, if not in one, then in another way--let me have the +plain palpable power of this; the assured time for this ... something +of the satisfaction ... (but for the fantasticalness of the +illustration) ... something like the earnestness of some suitor in +Chancery if he could once get Lord Lyndhurst into a room with him, and +lock the door on them both, and know that his whole story _must_ be +listened to now, and the 'rights of it,'--dearest, the love unspoken +now you are to hear 'in all time of our tribulation, in all time of +our wealth ... at the hour of death, and'-- + +If I did not _know_ this was so,--nothing would have been said, or +sought for. Your friendship, the perfect pride in it, the wish for, +and eager co-operation in, your welfare, all that is different, and, +seen now, nothing. + +I will care for it no more, dearest--I am wedded to you now. I believe +no human being could love you more--that thought consoles me for my +own imperfection--for when _that_ does strike me, as so often it will, +I turn round on my pursuing self, and ask 'What if it were a claim +then, what is in Her, demanded rationally, equitably, in return for +what were in you--do you like _that_ way!'--And I do _not_, Ba--you, +even, might not--when people everyday buy improveable ground, and +eligible sites for building, and don't want every inch filled up, +covered over, done to their hands! So take me, and make me what you +can and will--and though never to be _more_ yours, yet more _like_ +you, I may and must be--Yes, indeed--best, only love! + +And am I not grateful to your sisters--entirely grateful for that +crowning comfort; it is 'miraculous,' too, if you please--for _you_ +shall know me by finger-tip intelligence or any art magic of old or +new times--but they do not see me, know me--and must moreover be +jealous of you, chary of you, as the daughters of Hesperus, of +wonderers and wistful lookers up at the gold apple--yet instead of +'rapidly levelling eager eyes'--they are indulgent? Then--shall I wish +capriciously they were _not_ your sisters, not so near you, that there +might be a kind of grace in loving them for it'--but what grace can +there be when ... yes, I will tell you--_no_, I will not--it is +foolish!--and it is _not_ foolish in me to love the table and chairs +and vases in your room. + +Let me finish writing to-morrow; it would not become me to utter a +word against the arrangement--and Saturday promised, too--but though +all concludes against the early hour on Monday, yet--but this is +wrong--on Tuesday it shall be, then,--thank you, dearest! you let me +keep up the old proper form, do you not?--I shall continue to thank, +and be gratified &c. as if I had some untouched fund of thanks at my +disposal to cut a generous figure with on occasion! And so, now, for +your kind considerateness thank _you ... that I say_, which, God +knows, _could_ not say, if I died ten deaths in one to do you good, +'you are repaid'-- + +To-morrow I will write, and answer more. I am pretty well, and will go +out to-day--to-night. My Act is done, and copied--I will bring it. Do +you see the _Athenæum_? By Chorley surely--and kind and satisfactory. +I did not expect any notice for a long time--all that about the +'mist,' 'unchanged manner' and the like is politic concession to the +Powers that Be ... because he might tell me that and much more with +his own lips or unprofessional pen, and be thanked into the bargain, +yet he does not. But I fancy he saves me from a rougher hand--the long +extracts answer every purpose-- + +There is all to say yet--to-morrow! + +And ever, ever your own; God bless you! + + R. + +Admire the clean paper.... I did not notice that I have been writing in +a desk where a candle fell! See the bottoms of the other pages! + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday Evening. + [Post-mark, January 19, 1846.] + +You may have seen, I put off all the weighty business part of the +letter--but I shall do very little with it now. To be sure, a few +words will serve, because you understand me, and believe in _enough_ +of me. First, then, I am wholly satisfied, thoroughly made happy in +your assurance. I would build up an infinity of lives, if I could plan +them, one on the other, and all resting on you, on your word--I fully +believe in it,--of my feeling, the gratitude, let there be no attempt +to speak. And for 'waiting'; 'not hurrying',--I leave all with you +henceforth--all you say is most wise, most convincing. + +On the saddest part of all,--silence. You understand, and I can +understand through you. Do you know, that I never _used_ to dream +unless indisposed, and rarely then--(of late I dream of you, but quite +of late)--and _those_ nightmare dreams have invariably been of _one_ +sort. I stand by (powerless to interpose by a word even) and see the +infliction of tyranny on the unresisting man or beast (generally the +last)--and I wake just in time not to die: let no one try this kind of +experiment on me or mine! Though I have observed that by a felicitous +arrangement, the man with the whip puts it into use with an old horse +commonly. I once knew a fine specimen of the boilingly passionate, +desperately respectable on the Eastern principle that reverences a +madman--and this fellow, whom it was to be death to oppose, (some +bloodvessel was to break)--he, once at a dinner party at which I was +present, insulted his wife (a young pretty simple believer in his +awful immunities from the ordinary terms that keep men in +order)--brought the tears into her eyes and sent her from the room ... +purely to 'show off' in the eyes of his guests ... (all males, +law-friends &c., he being a lawyer.) This feat accomplished, he, too, +left us with an affectation of compensating relentment, to 'just say a +word and return'--and no sooner was his back to the door than the +biggest, stupidest of the company began to remark 'what a fortunate +thing it was that Mr. So-and-so had such a submissive wife--not one of +the women who would resist--that is, attempt to resist--and so +exasperate our gentleman into ... Heaven only knew what!' I said it +_was_, in one sense, a fortunate thing; because one of these women, +without necessarily being the lion-tressed Bellona, would richly give +him his desert, I thought--'Oh, indeed?' No--_this_ man was not to be +opposed--wait, you might, till the fit was over, and then try what +kind argument would do--and so forth to unspeakable nausea. Presently +we went up-stairs--there sate the wife with dried eyes, and a smile at +the tea-table--and by her, in all the pride of conquest, with her hand +in his, our friend--disposed to be very good-natured of course. I +listened _arrectis auribus_, and in a minute he said he did not know +somebody I mentioned. I told him, _that_ I easily conceived--such a +person would never condescend to know _him_, &c., and treated him to +every consequence ingenuity could draw from that text--and at the end +marched out of the room; and the valorous man, who had sate like a +post, got up, took a candle, followed me to the door, and only said in +unfeigned wonder, 'What _can_ have possessed you, my _dear_ B?'--All +which I as much expected beforehand, as that the above mentioned man +of the whip keeps quiet in the presence of an ordinary-couraged dog. +All this is quite irrelevant to _the_ case--indeed, I write to get rid +of the thought altogether. But I do hold it the most stringent duty of +all who can, to stop a condition, a relation of one human being to +another which God never allowed to exist between Him and ourselves. +_Trees_ live and die, if you please, and accept will for a law--but +with us, all commands surely refer to a previously-implanted +conviction in ourselves of their rationality and justice. Or why +declare that 'the Lord _is_ holy, just and good' unless there is +recognised and independent conception of holiness and goodness, to +which the subsequent assertion is referable? 'You know what _holiness_ +is, what it is to be good? Then, He _is_ that'--not, '_that_ is +_so_--because _he_ is that'; though, of course, when once the converse +is demonstrated, this, too, follows, and may be urged for practical +purposes. All God's urgency, so to speak, is on the _justice_ of his +judgments, _rightness_ of his rule: yet why? one might ask--if one +does believe that the rule _is_ his; why ask further?--Because, his is +a 'reasonable service,' once for all. + +Understand why I turn my thoughts in this direction. If it is indeed +as you fear, and no endeavour, concession, on my part will avail, +under any circumstances--(and by endeavour, I mean all heart and soul +could bring the flesh to perform)--in that case, you will not come to +me with a shadow past hope of chasing. + +The likelihood is, I over frighten myself for you, by the involuntary +contrast with those here--you allude to them--if I went with this +letter downstairs and said simply 'I want this taken to the direction +to-night, and am unwell and unable to go, will you take it now?' my +father would not say a word, or rather would say a dozen cheerful +absurdities about his 'wanting a walk,' 'just having been wishing to +go out' &c. At night he sits studying my works--illustrating them (I +will bring you drawings to make you laugh)--and _yesterday_ I picked +up a crumpled bit of paper ... 'his notion of what a criticism on this +last number ought to be,--none, that have appeared, satisfying +him!'--So judge of what he will say! And my mother loves me just as +much more as must of necessity be. + +Once more, understand all this ... for the clock scares me of a +sudden--I meant to say more--far more. + +But may God bless you ever--my own dearest, my Ba-- + + I am wholly your R. + +_(Tuesday)_ + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Sunday. + [Post-mark, January 19, 1846.] + +Your letter came just after the hope of one had past--the latest +Saturday post had gone, they said, and I was beginning to be as vexed +as possible, looking into the long letterless Sunday. Then, suddenly +came the knock--the postman redivivus--just when it seemed so beyond +hoping for--it was half past eight, observe, and there had been a post +at nearly eight--suddenly came the knock, and your letter with it. Was +I not glad, do you think? + +And you call the _Athenæum_ 'kind and satisfactory'? Well--I was angry +instead. To make us wait so long for an 'article' like _that_, was not +over-kind certainly, nor was it 'satisfactory' to class your peculiar +qualities with other contemporary ones, as if they were not peculiar. +It seemed to me cold and cautious, from the causes perhaps which you +mention, but the extracts will work their own way with everybody who +knows what poetry is, and for others, let the critic do his worst with +them. For what is said of 'mist' I have no patience because I who know +when you are obscure and never think of denying it in some of your +former works, do hold that this last number is as clear and +self-sufficing to a common understanding, as far as the expression and +medium goes, as any book in the world, and that Mr. Chorley was bound +in verity to say so. If I except that one stanza, you know, it is to +make the general observation stronger. And then 'mist' is an infamous +word for your kind of obscurity. You never _are_ misty, not even in +'Sordello'--never vague. Your graver cuts deep sharp lines, +always--and there is an extra-distinctness in your images and +thoughts, from the midst of which, crossing each other infinitely, the +general significance seems to escape. So that to talk of a 'mist,' +when you are obscurest, is an impotent thing to do. Indeed it makes me +angry. + +But the suggested virtue of 'self-renunciation' only made me smile, +because it is simply nonsense ... nonsense which proves itself to be +nonsense at a glance. So genius is to renounce itself--_that_ is the +new critical doctrine, is it? Now is it not foolish? To recognize the +poetical faculty of a man, and then to instruct him in +'self-renunciation' in that very relation--or rather, to hint the +virtue of it, and hesitate the dislike of his doing otherwise? What +atheists these critics are after all--and how the old heathens +understood the divinity of gifts better, beyond any comparison. We may +take shame to ourselves, looking back. + +Now, shall I tell you what I did yesterday? It was so warm, so warm, +the thermometer at 68 in this room, that I took it into my head to +call it April instead of January, and put on a cloak and walked +down-stairs into the drawing-room--walked, mind! Before, I was carried +by one of my brothers,--even to the last autumn-day when I went out--I +never walked a step for fear of the cold in the passages. But +yesterday it was so wonderfully warm, and I so strong besides--it was +a feat worthy of the day--and I surprised them all as much as if I had +walked out of the window instead. That kind dear Stormie, who with all +his shyness and awkwardness has the most loving of hearts in him, said +that he was '_so_ glad to see me'! + +Well!--setting aside the glory of it, it would have been as wise +perhaps if I had abstained; our damp detestable climate reaches us +otherwise than by cold, and I am not quite as well as usual this +morning after an uncomfortable feverish night--not very unwell, mind, +nor unwell at all in the least degree of consequence--and I tell you, +only to show how susceptible I really am still, though 'scarcely an +invalid,' say the complimenters. + +What a way I am from your letter--that letter--or seem to be +rather--for one may think of one thing and yet go on writing +distrustedly of other things. So you are 'grateful' to my sisters ... +_you_! Now I beseech you not to talk such extravagances; I mean such +extravagances as words like these _imply_--and there are far worse +words than these, in the letter ... such as I need not put my finger +on; words which are sense on my lips, but no sense at all on yours, +and which make me disquietedly sure that you are under an illusion. +Observe!--_certainly_ I should not choose to have a '_claim_,' see! +Only, what I object to, in 'illusions,' 'miracles,' and things of that +sort, is the want of continuity common to such. When Joshua caused the +sun to stand still, it was not for a year even!--Ungrateful, I am! + +And 'pretty well' means 'not well' I am afraid--or I should be gladder +still of the new act. You will tell me on Tuesday what 'pretty well' +means, and if your mother is better--or I may have a letter +to-morrow--dearest! May God bless you! + +To-morrow too, at half past three o'clock, how joyful I shall be that +my 'kind considerateness' decided not to receive you until Tuesday. My +very kind considerateness, which made me eat my dinner to-day! + + Your own + + BA. + +A hundred letters I have, by this last, ... to set against Napoleon's +Hundred Days--did you know _that_? + +So much better I am to-night: it was nothing but a little chill from +the damp--the fog, you see! + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Monday Morning. + [Post-mark, January 19, 1846.] + +Love, if you knew but how vexed I was, so very few minutes after my +note left last night; how angry with the unnecessary harshness into +which some of the phrases might be construed--you would forgive me, +indeed. But, when all is confessed and forgiven, the fact +remains--that it would be the one trial I _know_ I should not be able +to bear; the repetition of these 'scenes'--intolerable--not to be +written of, even my mind _refuses_ to form a clear conception of them. + +My own loved letter is come--and the news; of which the reassuring +postscript lets the interrupted joy flow on again. Well, and I am not +to be grateful for that; nor that you _do_ 'eat your dinner'? Indeed +you will be ingenious to prevent me! I fancy myself meeting you on +'the stairs'--stairs and passages generally, and galleries (ah, thou +indeed!) all, with their picturesque _accidents_, of landing-places, +and spiral heights and depths, and sudden turns and visions of half +open doors into what Quarles calls 'mollitious chambers'--and above +all, _landing-places_--they are my heart's delight--I would come upon +you unaware in a landing-place in my next dream! One day we may walk +on the galleries round and over the inner court of the Doges' Palace +at Venice; and read, on tablets against the wall, how such an one was +banished for an 'enormous dig (intacco) into the public +treasure'--another for ... what you are not to know because his +friends have got chisels and chipped away the record of it--underneath +the 'giants' on their stands, and in the midst of the _cortile_ the +bronze fountains whence the girls draw water. + +So _you_ too wrote French verses?--Mine were of less lofty +argument--one couplet makes me laugh now for the reason of its false +quantity--I translated the Ode of Alcæus; and the last couplet ran +thus.... + + Harmodius, et toi, cher Aristogiton! + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + Comme l'astre du jour, brillera votre nom! + +The fact was, I could not bear to hurt my French Master's +feelings--who inveterately maltreated 'ai's and oi's' and in this +instance, an 'ei.' But 'Pauline' is altogether of a different sort of +precocity--you shall see it when I can master resolution to transcribe +the explanation which I know is on the fly-leaf of a copy here. Of +that work, the _Athenæum_ said [several words erased] now, what +outrageous folly! I care, and you care, precisely nothing about its +sayings and doings--yet here I talk! + +Now to you--Ba! When I go through sweetness to sweetness, at 'Ba' I +stop last of all, and lie and rest. That is the quintessence of them +all,--they all take colour and flavour from that. So, dear, dear Ba, +be glad as you can to see me to-morrow. God knows how I embalm every +such day,--I do not believe that one of the _forty_ is confounded with +another in my memory. So, _that_ is gained and sure for ever. And of +letters, this makes my 104th and, like Donne's Bride, + + ... I take, + My jewels from their boxes; call + My Diamonds, Pearls, and Emeralds, and make + Myself a constellation of them all! + +Bless you, my own Beloved! + +I am much better to-day--having been not so well yesterday--whence the +note to you, perhaps! I put that to your charity for construction. By +the way, let the foolish and needless story about my whilome friend be +of this use, that it records one of the traits in that same generous +love, of me, I once mentioned, I remember--one of the points in his +character which, I told you, _would_ account, if you heard them, for +my parting company with a good deal of warmth of attachment to myself. + +What a day! But you do not so much care for rain, I think. My Mother +is no worse, but still suffering sadly. + + Ever your own, dearest ever-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Wednesday. + [Post-mark, January 22, 1846.] + +Ever since I ceased to be with you--ever dearest,--have been with your +'Luria,' if _that_ is ceasing to be with you--which it _is_, I feel at +last. Yet the new act is powerful and subtle, and very affecting, it +seems to me, after a grave, suggested pathos; the reasoning is done on +every hand with admirable directness and adroitness, and poor Luria's +iron baptism under such a bright crossing of swords, most miserably +complete. Still ... is he to die _so_? can you mean it? Oh--indeed I +foresaw _that_--not a guess of mine ever touched such an end--and I +can scarcely resign myself to it as a necessity, even now ... I mean, +to the act, as Luria's act, whether it is final or not--the act of +suicide being so unheroical. But you are a dramatic poet and right +perhaps, where, as a didactic poet, you would have been wrong, ... +and, after the first shock, I begin to see that your Luria is the man +Luria and that his 'sun' lights him so far and not farther than so, +and to understand the natural reaction of all that generous trust and +hopefulness, what naturally it would be. Also, it is satisfactory that +Domizia, having put her woman's part off to the last, should be too +late with it--it will be a righteous retribution. I had fancied that +her object was to isolate him, ... to make his military glory and +national recompense ring hollowly to his ears, and so commend herself, +drawing back the veil. + +Puccio's scornful working out of the low work, is very finely given, +I think, ... and you have 'a cunning right hand,' to lift up Luria +higher in the mind of your readers, by the very means used to pull +down his fortunes--you show what a man he is by the very talk of his +rivals ... by his 'natural godship' over Puccio. Then Husain is nobly +characteristic--I like those streaks of Moorish fire in his speeches. +'Why 'twas all fighting' &c. ... _that_ passage perhaps is over-subtle +for a Husain--but too nobly right in the abstract to be altered, if it +is so or not. Domizia talks philosophically besides, and how +eloquently;--and very noble she is where she proclaims + + The angel in thee and rejects the sprites + That ineffectual crowd about his strength, + And mingle with his work and claim a share!-- + +But why not 'spirits' rather than 'sprites,' which has a different +association by custom? 'Spirits' is quite short enough, it seems to +me, for a last word--it sounds like a monosyllable that trembles--or +thrills, rather. And, do you know, I agree with yourself a little when +you say (as did you _not_ say?) that some of the speeches--Domizia's +for instance--are too lengthy. I think I should like them to coil up +their strength, here and there, in a few passages. Luria ... poor +Luria ... is great and pathetic when he stands alone at last, and 'all +his waves have gone over him.' Poor Luria!--And now, I wonder where +Mr. Chorley will look, in this work,--along all the edges of the +hills,--to find, or prove, his favourite 'mist!' On the glass of his +own opera-lorgnon, perhaps:--shall we ask him to try _that_? + +But first, I want to ask _you_ something--I have had it in my head a +long time, but it might as well have been in a box--and indeed if it +had been in the box with your letters, I should have remembered to +speak of it long ago. So now, at last, tell me--how do you write, O my +poet? with steel pens, or Bramah pens, or goose-quills or +crow-quills?--Because I have a penholder which was given to me when I +was a child, and which I have used both then and since in the +production of various great epics and immortal 'works,' until in these +latter years it has seemed to me too heavy, and I have taken into +service, instead of it, another two-inch-long instrument which makes +Mr. Kenyon laugh to look at--and so, my fancy has run upon your having +the heavier holder, which is not very heavy after all, and which will +make you think of me whether you choose it or not, besides being made +of a splinter from the ivory gate of old, and therefore not unworthy +of a true prophet. Will you have it, dearest? Yes--because you can't +help it. When you come ... on Saturday!-- + +And for 'Pauline,' ... I am satisfied with the promise to see it some +day ... when we are in the isle of the sirens, or ready for wandering +in the Doges' galleries. I seem to understand that you would really +rather wish me not to see it now ... and as long as I _do_ see it! So +_that shall_ be!--Am I not good now, and not a teazer? If there is any +poetical justice in 'the seven worlds,' I shall have a letter +to-night. + +By the way, you owe me two letters by your confession. A hundred and +four of mine you have, and I, only a hundred and two of yours ... +which is a 'deficit' scarcely creditable to me, (now is it?) when, +according to the law and ordinance, a woman's hundred and four letters +would take two hundred and eight at least, from the other side, to +justify them. Well--I feel inclined to wring out the legal per centage +to the uttermost farthing; but fall into a fit of gratitude, +notwithstanding, thinking of Monday, and how the second letter came +beyond hope. Always better, you are, than I guess you to be,--and it +was being _best_, to write, as you did, for me to hear twice on one +day!--best and dearest! + +But the first letter was not what you feared--I know you too well not +to know how that letter was written and with what intention. _Do +you_, on the other hand, endeavour to comprehend how there may be an +eccentricity and obliquity in certain relations and on certain +subjects, while the general character stands up worthily of esteem and +regard--even of yours. Mr. Kenyon says broadly that it is +monomania--neither more nor less. Then the principle of passive filial +obedience is held--drawn (and quartered) from Scripture. He _sees_ the +law and the gospel on his side. Only the other day, there was a +setting forth of the whole doctrine, I hear, down-stairs--'passive +obedience, and particularly in respect to marriage.' One after the +other, my brothers all walked out of the room, and there was left for +sole auditor, Captain Surtees Cook, who had especial reasons for +sitting it out against his will,--so he sate and asked 'if children +were to be considered slaves' as meekly as if he were asking for +information. I could not help smiling when I heard of it. He is just +_succeeding_ in obtaining what is called an 'adjutancy,' which, with +the half pay, will put an end to many anxieties. + +Dearest--when, in the next dream, you meet me in the 'landing-place,' +tell me why I am to stand up to be reviewed again. What a fancy, +_that_ is of yours, for 'full-lengths'--and what bad policy, if a +fancy, to talk of it so! because you would have had the glory and +advantage, and privilege, of seeing me on my feet twenty times before +now, if you had not impressed on me, in some ineffable manner, that to +stand on my head would scarcely be stranger. Nevertheless you shall +have it your own way, as you have everything--which makes you so very, +very, exemplarily submissive, you know! + +Mr. Kenyon does not come--puts it off to _Saturday_ perhaps. + +The _Daily News_ I have had a glance at. A weak leading article, I +thought ... and nothing stronger from Ireland:--but enough +advertisements to promise a long future. What do you think? or have +you not seen the paper? No broad principles laid down. A mere +newspaper-support of the 'League.' + +May God bless you. Say how you are--and _do_ walk, and 'care' for +yourself, + + and, so, for your own + + _Ba_. + +Have I expressed to you at all how 'Luria' impresses _me_ more and +more? You shall see the 'remarks' with the other papers--the details +of what strikes me. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Thursday Morning. + [Post-mark, January 22, 1846.] + +But you did _not_ get the letter last evening--no, for all my good +intentions--because somebody came over in the morning and forced me to +go out ... and, perhaps, I _knew_ what was coming, and had all my +thoughts _there_, that is, _here_ now, with my own letters from you. I +think so--for this punishment, I will tell you, came for some sin or +other last night. I woke--late, or early--and, in one of those lucid +moments when all things are thoroughly _perceived_,--whether suggested +by some forgotten passage in the past sleep itself, I don't know--but +I seem to _apprehend_, comprehend entirely, for the first time, what +would happen if I lost you--the whole sense of that _closed door_ of +Catarina's came on me at once, and it was _I_ who said--not as quoting +or adapting another's words, but spontaneously, unavoidably, '_In that +door, you will not enter, I have_'.... And, dearest, the + +Unwritten it must remain. + +What is on the other leaf, no ill-omen, after all,--because I +strengthened myself against a merely imaginary evil--as I do always; +and _thus_--I know I never can lose you,--you surely are more mine, +there is less for the future to give or take away than in the +ordinary cases, where so much less is known, explained, possessed, as +with us. Understand for me, my dearest-- + +And do you think, sweet, that there _is_ any free movement of my soul +which your penholder is to secure? Well, try,--it will be yours by +every right of discovery--and I, for my part, will religiously report +to you the first time I think of you 'which, but for your present I +should not have done'--or is it not a happy, most happy way of +ensuring a better fifth act to Luria than the foregoing? See the +absurdity I write--when it will be more probably the ruin of the +whole--for was it not observed in the case of a friend of mine once, +who wrote his own part in a piece for private theatricals, and had +ends of his own to serve in it,--that he set to work somewhat after +this fashion: 'Scene 1st. A breakfast chamber--Lord and Lady A. at +table--Lady A./ No more coffee my dear?--Lord A./ One more cup! +(_Embracing her_). Lady A./ I was thinking of trying the ponies in the +Park--are you engaged? Lord A./ Why, there's that bore of a Committee +at the House till 2. (_Kissing her hand_).' And so forth, to the +astonishment of the auditory, who did not exactly see the 'sequitur' +in either instance. Well, dearest, whatever comes of it, the 'aside,' +the bye-play, the digression, will be the best, and only true business +of the piece. And though I must smile at your notion of securing +_that_ by any fresh appliance, mechanical or spiritual, yet I do thank +you, dearest, thank you from my heart indeed--(and I write with +Bramahs _always_--not being able to make a pen!) + +If you have gone so far with 'Luria,' I fancy myself nearly or +altogether safe. I must not tell you, but I wished just these feelings +to be in your mind about Domizia, and the death of Luria: the last act +throws light back on all, I hope. Observe only, that Luria _would_ +stand, if I have plied him effectually with adverse influences, in +such a position as to render any other end impossible without the hurt +to Florence which his religion is, to avoid inflicting--passively +awaiting, for instance, the sentence and punishment to come at night, +would as surely inflict it as taking part with her foes. His aim is to +prevent the harm she will do herself by striking him, so he moves +aside from the blow. But I know there is very much to improve and +heighten in this fourth act, as in the others--but the right aspect of +things seems obtained and the rest of the work is plain and easy. + +I am obliged to leave off--the rest to-morrow--and then dear, +Saturday! I love you utterly, my own best, dearest-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Thursday Night. + [Post-mark, January 23, 1846.] + +Yes, I understand your 'Luria'--and there is to be more light; and I +open the window to the east and wait for it--a little less gladly than +for _you_ on Saturday, dearest. In the meanwhile you have 'lucid +moments,' and 'strengthen' yourself into the wisdom of learning to +love me--and, upon consideration, it does not seem to be so hard after +all ... there is 'less for the future to take away' than you had +supposed--so _that_ is the way? Ah, 'these lucid moments, in which all +things are thoroughly _perceived_';--what harm they do me!--And I am +to 'understand for you,' you say!--Am I? + +On the other side, and to make the good omen complete, I remembered, +after I had sealed my last letter, having made a confusion between the +ivory and horn gates, the gates of false and true visions, as I am apt +to do--and my penholder belongs to the ivory gate, ... as you will +perceive in your lucid moments--poor holder! But, as you forget me on +Wednesdays, the post testifying, ... the sinecure may not be quite so +certain as the Thursday's letter says. And _I_ too, in the meanwhile, +grow wiser, ... having learnt something which you cannot do,--you of +the 'Bells and Pomegranates': _You cannot make a pen._ Yesterday I +looked round the world in vain for it. + +Mr. Kenyon does not come--_will_ not perhaps until Saturday! Which +reminds me--Mr. Kenyon told me about a year ago that he had been +painfully employed that morning in _parting_ two--dearer than +friends--and he had done it he said, by proving to either, that he or +she was likely to mar the prospects of the other. 'If I had spoken to +each, of himself or herself,' he said, 'I _never could have done it_.' + +Was not _that_ an ingenious cruelty? The remembrance rose up in me +like a ghost, and made me ask you once to promise what you promised +... (you recollect?) because I could not bear to be stabbed with my +own dagger by the hand of a third person ... _so_! When people have +lucid moments themselves, you know, it is different. + +And _shall_ I indeed have a letter to-morrow? Or, not having the +penholder yet, will you.... + +Goodnight. May God bless you-- + + Ever and wholly your + + BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, January 23, 1846.] + +Now, of all perverse interpretations that ever were and never ought to +have been, commend me to this of Ba's--after I bade her generosity +'understand me,' too!--which meant, 'let her pick out of my disjointed +sentences a general meaning, if she can,--which I very well know their +imperfect utterance would not give to one unsupplied with the key of +my whole heart's-mystery'--and Ba, with the key in her hand, to +pretend and poke feathers and penholders into the key-hole, and +complain that the wards are wrong! So--when the poor scholar, one has +read of, uses not very dissimilar language and argument--who being +threatened with the deprivation of his Virgil learnt the Æneid by +heart and then said 'Take what you can now'!--_that_ Ba calls +'feeling the loss would not be so hard after all'!--_I_ do not, at +least. And if at any future moment I should again be visited--as I +earnestly desire may never be the case--with a sudden consciousness of +the entire inutility of all earthly love (since of _my_ love) to hold +its object back from the decree of God, if such should call it away; +one of those known facts which, for practical good, we treat as +supremely common-place, but which, like those of the uncertainty of +life--the very existence of God, I may say--if they were _not_ +common-place, and could they be thoroughly apprehended (except in the +chance minutes which make one grow old, not the mere years)--the +business of the world would cease; but when you find Chaucer's graver +at his work of 'graving smale seles' by the sun's light, you know that +the sun's self could not have been _created_ on that day--do you +'understand' that, Ba? And when I am with you, or here or writing or +walking--and perfectly happy in the sunshine of you, I very well know +I am no wiser than is good for me and that there seems no harm in +feeling it impossible this should change, or fail to go on increasing +till this world ends and we are safe, I with you, for ever. But +when--if only _once_, as I told you, recording it for its very +strangeness, I _do_ feel--in a flash--that words are words, and could +not alter _that_ decree ... will you tell me how, after all, that +conviction and the true woe of it are better met than by the as +thorough conviction that, for one blessing, the extreme woe is +_impossible_ now--that you _are_, and have been, _mine_, and _me_--one +with me, never to be parted--so that the complete separation not being +to be thought of, such an incomplete one as is yet in Fate's power may +be the less likely to attract her notice? And, dearest, in all +emergencies, see, I go to you for help; for your gift of better +comfort than is found in myself. Or ought I, if I could, to add one +more proof to the Greek proverb 'that the half is greater than the +whole'--and only love you for myself (it is absurd; but if I _could_ +disentwine you from my soul in that sense), only see my own will, and +good (not in _your_ will and good, as I now see them and shall ever +see) ... should you say I _did_ love you then? Perhaps. And it would +have been better for me, I know--I should not have _written_ this or +the like--there being no post in the Siren's isle, as you will see. + +And the end of the whole matter is--what? Not by any means what my Ba +expects or ought to expect; that I say with a flounce 'Catch me +blotting down on paper, again, the first vague impressions in the +weakest words and being sure I have only to bid her +"understand"!--when I can get "Blair on Rhetoric," and the additional +chapter on the proper conduct of a letter'! On the contrary I tell +you, Ba, my own heart's dearest, I will provoke you tenfold worse; +will tell you all that comes uppermost, and what frightens me or +reassures me, in moments lucid or opaque--and when all the pen-stumps +and holders refuse to open the lock, out will come the key perforce; +and once put that knowledge--of the entire love and worship of my +heart and soul--to its proper use, and all will be clear--tell me +to-morrow that it will be clear when I call you to account and exact +strict payment for every word and phrase and full-stop and partial +stop, and no stop at all, in this wicked little note which got so +treacherously the kisses and the thankfulness--written with no +penholder that is to belong to me, I hope--but with the feather, +possibly, which Sycorax wiped the dew from, as Caliban remembered when +he was angry! All but--(that is, all was wrong but)--to be just ... +the old, dear, so dear ending which makes my heart beat now as at +first ... and so, pays for all! Wherefore, all is right again, is it +not? and you are my own priceless Ba, my very own--and I will have +you, if you like that style, and want you, and must have you every day +and all day long--much less see you to-morrow _stand_-- + +... Now, there breaks down my new spirit--and, shame or no, I must +pray you, in the old way, _not_ to _receive me standing_--I should not +remain master of myself I do believe! + +You have put out of my head all I intended to write--and now I slowly +begin to remember the matters they seem strangely unimportant--that +poor impotency of a Newspaper! No--nothing of that for the present. +To-morrow my dearest! Ba's first comment--'_To-morrow?_ _To-day_ is +too soon, it seems--yet it is wise, perhaps, to avoid the satiety &c. +&c. &c. &c. &c.' + +Does she feel how I kissed that comment back on her dear self as fit +punishment? + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + [Post-mark, January 26, 1846.] + +I must begin by invoking my own stupidity! To forget after all the +penholder! I had put it close beside me too on the table, and never +once thought of it afterwards from first to last--just as I should do +if I had a common-place book, the memoranda all turning to +obliviscenda as by particular contact. So I shall send the holder with +Miss Martineau's books which you can read or not as you like ... they +have beauty in passages ... but, trained up against the wall of a set +design, want room for branching and blossoming, great as her skill is. +I like her 'Playfellow' stories twice as well. Do you know _them_? +Written for children, and in such a fine heroic child-spirit as to be +too young and too old for nobody. Oh, and I send you besides a most +frightful extract from an American magazine sent to me yesterday ... +no, the day before ... on the subject of mesmerism--and you are to +understand, if you please, that the Mr. Edgar Poe who stands committed +in it, is my dedicator ... whose dedication I forgot, by the way, with +the rest--so, while I am sending, you shall have his poems with his +mesmeric experience and decide whether the outrageous compliment to +E.B.B. or the experiment on M. Vandeleur [Valdemar] goes furthest to +prove him mad. There is poetry in the man, though, now and then, seen +between the great gaps of bathos.... 'Politian' will make you +laugh--as the 'Raven' made _me_ laugh, though with something in it +which accounts for the hold it took upon people such as Mr. N.P. +Willis and his peers--it was sent to me from _four_ different quarters +besides the author himself, before its publication in this form, and +when it had only a newspaper life. Some of the other lyrics have power +of a less questionable sort. For the author, I do not know him at +all--never heard from him nor wrote to him--and in my opinion, there +is more faculty shown in the account of that horrible mesmeric +experience (mad or not mad) than in his poems. Now do read it from the +beginning to the end. That '_going out_' of the hectic, struck me very +much ... and the writhing _away_ of the upper lip. Most +horrible!--Then I believe so much of mesmerism, as to give room for +the full acting of the story on me ... without absolutely giving full +credence to it, understand. + +Ever dearest, you could not think me in earnest in that letter? It was +because I understood you so perfectly that I felt at liberty for the +jesting a little--for had I not thought of _that_ before, myself, and +was I not reproved for speaking of it, when I said that I was content, +for my part, even _so_? Surely you remember--and I should not have +said it if I had not felt with you, felt and known, that 'there is, +with us, less for the future to give or take away than in the ordinary +cases.' So much less! All the happiness I have known has come to me +through you, and it is enough to live for or die in--therefore living +or dying I would thank God, and use that word '_enough_' ... being +yours in life and death. And always understanding that if either of us +should go, you must let it be this one here who was nearly gone when +she knew you, since I could not bear-- + +Now see if it is possible to write on this subject, unless one laughs +to stop the tears. I was more wise on Friday. + +Let me tell you instead of my sister's affairs, which are so publicly +talked of in this house that there is no confidence to be broken in +respect to them--yet my brothers only see and hear, and are told +nothing, to keep them as clear as possible from responsibility. I may +say of Henrietta that her only fault is, her virtues being written in +water--I know not of one other fault. She has too much softness to be +able to say 'no' in the right place--and thus, without the slightest +levity ... perfectly blameless in that respect, ... she says half a +yes or a quarter of a yes, or a yes in some sort of form, too +often--but I will tell you. Two years ago, three men were loving her, +as they called it. After a few months, and the proper quantity of +interpretations, one of them consoled himself by giving nick-names to +his rivals. Perseverance and Despair he called them, and so, went up +to the boxes to see out the rest of the play. Despair ran to a crisis, +was rejected in so many words, but appealed against the judgment and +had his claim admitted--it was all silence and mildness on each side +... a tacit gaining of ground,--Despair 'was at least a gentleman,' +said my brothers. On which Perseverance came on with violent +re-iterations,--insisted that she loved him without knowing it, or +_should_--elbowed poor Despair into the open streets, who being a +gentleman wouldn't elbow again--swore that 'if she married another he +would wait till she became a widow, trusting to Providence' ... _did_ +wait every morning till the head of the house was out, and sate day by +day, in spite of the disinclination of my sisters and the rudeness of +all my brothers, four hours in the drawing-room ... let himself be +refused once a week and sate all the longer ... allowed everybody in +the house (and a few visitors) to see and hear him in fits of +hysterical sobbing, and sate on unabashed, the end being that he sits +now sole regnant, my poor sister saying softly, with a few tears of +remorse for her own instability, that she is 'taken by storm and +cannot help it.' I give you only the _résumé_ of this military +movement--and though I seem to smile, which it was impossible to avoid +at some points of the evidence as I heard it from first one person and +then another, yet I am woman enough rather to be glad that the +decision is made _so_. He is sincerely attached to her, I believe; and +the want of refinement and sensibility (for he understood her +affections to be engaged to another at one time) is covered in a +measure by the earnestness,--and justified too by the event--everybody +being quite happy and contented, even to Despair, who has a new horse +and takes lessons in music. + +That's love--is it not? And that's my answer (if you look for it) to +the question you asked me yesterday. + +Yet do not think that I am turning it all to game. I could not do so +with any real earnest sentiment ... I never could ... and now least, +and with my own sister whom I love so. One may smile to oneself and +yet wish another well--and so I smile to _you_--and it is all safe +with you I know. He is a second or third cousin of ours and has golden +opinions from all his friends and fellow-officers--and for the rest, +most of these men are like one another.... I never could see the +difference between fuller's earth and common clay, among them all. + +What do you think he has said since--to _her_ too?--'I always +persevere about everything. Once I began to write a farce--which they +told me was as bad as could be. Well!--I persevered!--_I finished +it_.' Perfectly unconscious, both he and she were of there being +anything mal à propos in _that_--and no kind of harm was meant,--only +it expresses the man. + +Dearest--it had better be Thursday I think--_our_ day! I was showing +to-day your father's drawings,--and my brothers, and Arabel besides, +admired them very much on the right grounds. Say how you are. You did +not seem to me to answer frankly this time, and I was more than half +uneasy when you went away. Take exercise, dear, dearest ... think of +me enough for it,--and do not hurry 'Luria.' May God bless you! + + Your own + + _Ba._ + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday Evening. + [Post-mark, January 26, 1846.] + +I will not try and write much to-night, dearest, for my head gives a +little warning--and I have so much to think of!--spite of my penholder +being kept back from me after all! Now, ought I to have asked for it? +Or did I not seem grateful enough at the promise? This last would be a +characteristic reason, seeing that I reproached myself with feeling +_too_ grateful for the 'special symbol'--the 'essential meaning' of +which was already in my soul. Well then, I will--I do pray for +it--next time; and I will keep it for that one yesterday and all its +memories--and it shall bear witness against me, if, on the Siren's +isle, I grow forgetful of Wimpole Street. And when is 'next time' to +be--Wednesday or Thursday? When I look back on the strangely steady +widening of my horizon--how no least interruption has occurred to +visits or letters--oh, care _you_, sweet--care for us both! + +That remark of your sister's delights me--you remember?--that the +anger would not be so formidable. I have exactly the fear of +encountering _that_, which the sense of having to deal with a ghost +would induce: there's no striking at it with one's partizan. Well, God +is above all! It is not my fault if it so happens that by returning my +love you make me exquisitely blessed; I believe--more than hope, I am +_sure_ I should do all I ever _now_ can do, if you were never to know +it--that is, my love for you was in the first instance its own +reward--if one must use such phrases--and if it were possible for +that ... not _anger_, which is of no good, but that _opposition_--that +adverse will--to show that your good would be attained by the-- + +But it would need to be _shown_ to me. You have said thus to me--in +the very last letter, indeed. But with me, or any _man_, the instincts +of happiness develop themselves too unmistakably where there is +anything like a freedom of will. The man whose heart is set on being +rich or influential after the worldly fashion, may be found far enough +from the attainment of either riches or influence--but he will be in +the presumed way to them--pumping at the pump, if he is really anxious +for water, even though the pump be dry--but not sitting still by the +dusty roadside. + +I believe--first of all, you--but when that is done, and I am allowed +to call your heart _mine_,--I cannot think you would be happy if +parted from me--and _that_ belief, coming to add to my own feeling in +_that_ case. So, this will _be_--I trust in God. + +In life, in death, I am your own, _my_ own! My head has got well +already! It is so slight a thing, that I make such an ado about! Do +not reply to these bodings--they are gone--they seem absurd! All steps +secured but the last, and that last the easiest! Yes--far easiest! For +first you had to be created, only that; and then, in my time; and +then, not in Timbuctoo but Wimpole Street, and then ... the strange +hedge round the sleeping Palace keeping the world off--and then ... +all was to begin, all the difficulty only _begin_:--and now ... see +where is reached! And I kiss you, and bless you, my dearest, in +earnest of the end! + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Monday. + [Post-mark, January 27, 1846.] + +You have had my letter and heard about the penholder. Your fancy of +'not seeming grateful enough,' is not wise enough for _you_, dearest; +when you know that _I_ know your common fault to be the undue +magnifying of everything that comes from me, and I am always +complaining of it outwardly and inwardly. That suddenly I should set +about desiring you to be more grateful,--even for so great a boon as +an old penholder,--would be a more astounding change than any to be +sought or seen in a prime minister. + +Another mistake you made concerning Henrietta and her opinion--and +there's no use nor comfort in leaving you in it. Henrietta says that +the 'anger would not be so formidable after all'! Poor dearest +Henrietta, who trembles at the least bending of the brows ... who has +less courage than I, and the same views of the future! What she +referred to, was simply the infrequency of the visits. 'Why was I +afraid,' she said--'where was the danger? who would be the +_informer_?'--Well! I will not say any more. It is just natural that +you, in your circumstances and associations, should be unable to see +what I have seen from the beginning--only you will not hereafter +reproach me, in the most secret of your thoughts, for not having told +you plainly. If I could have told you with greater plainness I should +blame myself (and I do not) because it is not an opinion I have, but a +perception. I see, I know. The result ... the end of all ... perhaps +now and then I see _that_ too ... in the 'lucid moments' which are not +the happiest for anybody. Remember, in all cases, that I shall not +repent of any part of our past intercourse; and that, therefore, when +the time for decision comes, you will be free to look at the question +as if you saw it then for the first moment, without being hampered by +considerations about 'all those yesterdays.' + +For _him_ ... he would rather see me dead at his foot than yield the +point: and he will say so, and mean it, and persist in the meaning. + +Do you ever wonder at me ... that I should write such things, and have +written others so different? _I have thought that in myself very +often._ Insincerity and injustice may seem the two ends, while I +occupy the straight betwixt two--and I should not like you to doubt +how this may be! Sometimes I have begun to show you the truth, and +torn the paper; I _could_ not. Yet now again I am borne on to tell +you, ... to save you from some thoughts which you cannot help perhaps. + +There has been no insincerity--nor is there injustice. I believe, I am +certain, I have loved him better than the rest of his children. I have +heard the fountain within the rock, and my heart has struggled in +towards him through the stones of the rock ... thrust off ... dropping +off ... turning in again and clinging! Knowing what is excellent in +him well, loving him as my only parent left, and for himself dearly, +notwithstanding that hardness and the miserable 'system' which made +him appear harder still, I have loved him and been proud of him for +his high qualities, for his courage and fortitude when he bore up so +bravely years ago under the worldly reverses which he yet felt +acutely--more than you and I could feel them--but the fortitude was +admirable. Then came the trials of love--then, I was repulsed too +often, ... made to suffer in the suffering of those by my side ... +depressed by petty daily sadnesses and terrors, from which it is +possible however for an elastic affection to rise again as past. Yet +my friends used to say 'You look broken-spirited'--and it was true. In +the midst, came my illness,--and when I was ill he grew gentler and +let me draw nearer than ever I had done: and after that great stroke +... you _know_ ... though _that_ fell in the middle of a storm of +emotion and sympathy on my part, which drove clearly against him, God +seemed to strike our hearts together by the shock; and I was grateful +to him for not saying aloud what I said to myself in my agony, '_If it +had not been for you_'...! And comparing my self-reproach to what I +imagined his self-reproach must certainly be (for if _I_ had loved +selfishly, _he_ had not been kind), I felt as if I could love and +forgive him for two ... (I knowing that serene generous departed +spirit, and seeming left to represent it) ... and I did love him +better than all those left to _me_ to love in the world here. I proved +a little my affection for him, by coming to London at the risk of my +life rather than diminish the comfort of his home by keeping a part of +my family away from him. And afterwards for long and long he spoke to +me kindly and gently, and of me affectionately and with too much +praise; and God knows that I had as much joy as I imagined myself +capable of again, in the sound of his footstep on the stairs, and of +his voice when he prayed in this room; my best hope, as I have told +him since, being, to die beneath his eyes. Love is so much to me +naturally--it is, to all women! and it was so much to _me_ to feel +sure at last that _he_ loved me--to forget all blame--to pull the +weeds up from that last illusion of life:--and this, till the +Pisa-business, which threw me off, far as ever, again--farther than +ever--when George said 'he could not flatter me' and I dared not +flatter myself. But do _you_ believe that I never wrote what I did not +feel: I never did. And I ask one kindness more ... do not notice what +I have written here. Let it pass. We can alter nothing by ever so many +words. After all, he is the victim. He isolates himself--and now and +then he feels it ... the cold dead silence all round, which is the +effect of an incredible system. If he were not stronger than most men, +he could not bear it as he does. With such high qualities too!--so +upright and honourable--you would esteem him, you would like him, I +think. And so ... dearest ... let _that_ be the last word. + +I dare say you have asked yourself sometimes, why it was that I never +managed to draw you into the house here, so that you might make your +own way. Now _that_ is one of the things impossible to me. I have not +influence enough for _that_. George can never invite a friend of his +even. Do you see? The people who do come here, come by particular +license and association ... Capt. Surtees Cook being one of them. +Once ... when I was in high favour too ... I asked for Mr. Kenyon to +be invited to dinner--he an old college friend, and living close by +and so affectionate to me always--I felt that he must be hurt by the +neglect, and asked. _It was in vain._ Now, you see-- + +May God bless you always! I wrote all my spirits away in this letter +yesterday, and kept it to finish to-day ... being yours every day, +glad or sad, ever beloved!-- + + Your BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday. + [Post-mark, January 27, 1846.] + +Why will you give me such unnecessary proofs of your goodness? Why not +leave the books for me to take away, at all events? No--you must fold +up, and tie round, and seal over, and be at all the pains in the world +with those hands I see now. But you only threaten; say you 'shall +send'--as yet, and nothing having come, I do pray you, if not too +late, to save me the shame--add to the gratitude you never can now, I +think ... only _think_, for you are a siren, and I don't know +certainly to what your magic may not extend. Thus, in not so important +a matter, I should have said, the day before yesterday, that no letter +from you could make my heart rise within me, more than of old ... +unless it should happen to be of twice the ordinary thickness ... and +_then_ there's a fear at first lest the over-running of my dealt-out +measure should be just a note of Mr. Kenyon's, for instance! But +yesterday the very seal began with 'Ba'--Now, always seal with that +seal my letters, dearest! Do you recollect Donne's pretty lines about +seals? + + Quondam fessus Amor loquens Amato, + Tot et tanta loquens amica, scripsit: + Tandem et fessa manus dedit Sigillum. + +And in his own English, + + When love, being weary, made an end + Of kind expressions to his friend, + He writ; when hand could write no more, + He gave the seal--and so left o'er. + +(By the way, what a mercy that he never noticed the jingle _in posse_ +of ending 'expressions' and beginning 'impressions.') + +How your account of the actors in the 'Love's Labour Lost' amused me! +I rather like, though, the notion of that steady, business-like +pursuit of love under difficulties; and the _sobbing_ proves something +surely! Serjt. Talfourd says--is it not he who says it?--'All tears +are not for sorrow.' I should incline to say, from my own feeling, +that no tears were. They only express joy in me, or sympathy with +joy--and so is it with you too, I should think. + +Understand that I do _not_ disbelieve in Mesmerism--I only object to +insufficient evidence being put forward as quite irrefragable. I keep +an open sense on the subject--ready to be instructed; and should have +refused such testimony as Miss Martineau's if it had been adduced in +support of something I firmly believed--'non _tali_ auxilio'--indeed, +so has truth been harmed, and only so, from the beginning. So, I shall +read what you bid me, and learn all I can. + +I am not quite so well this week--yesterday some friends came early +and kept me at home--for which I seem to suffer a little; less, +already, than in the morning--so I will go out and walk away the +whirring ... which is all the mighty ailment. As for 'Luria' I have +not looked at it since I saw you--which means, saw you in the body, +because last night I saw you; as I wonder if you know! + +Thursday, and again I am with you--and you will forget nothing ... how +the farewell is to be returned? Ah, my dearest, sweetest Ba; how +entirely I love you! + + May God bless you ever-- + + R. + +2. p.m. Your parcel arrives ... the penholder; now what shall I say? +How am I to use so fine a thing even in writing to you? I will give it +you again in our Isle, and meantime keep it where my other treasures +are--my letters and my dear ringlet. + +Thank you--all I can thank. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Wednesday. + [Post-mark, January 28, 1846.] + +Ever dearest--I will say, as you desire, nothing on that subject--but +this strictly for myself: you engaged me to consult my own good in the +keeping or breaking our engagement; not _your_ good as it might even +seem to me; much less seem to another. My only good in this +world--that against which all the world goes for nothing--is to spend +my life with you, and be yours. You know that when I _claim_ anything, +it is really yourself in me--you _give_ me a right and bid me use it, +and I, in fact, am most obeying you when I appear most exacting on my +own account--so, in that feeling, I dare claim, once for all, and in +all possible cases (except that dreadful one of your becoming worse +again ... in which case I wait till life ends with both of us), I +claim your promise's fulfilment--say, at the summer's end: it cannot +be for your good that this state of things should continue. We can go +to Italy for a year or two and be happy as day and night are long. For +me, I adore you. This is all unnecessary, I feel as I write: but you +will think of the main fact as _ordained_, granted by God, will you +not, dearest?--so, not to be put in doubt _ever again_--then, we can +go quietly thinking of after matters. Till to-morrow, and ever after, +God bless my heart's own, own Ba. All my soul follows you, +love--encircles you--and I live in being yours. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Friday Morning. + [Post-mark, January 31, 1846.] + +Let it be this way, ever dearest. If in the time of fine weather, I am +not ill, ... _then_ ... _not now_ ... you shall decide, and your +decision shall be duty and desire to me, both--I will make no +difficulties. Remember, in the meanwhile, that I _have_ decided to let +it be as you shall choose ... _shall_ choose. That I love you enough +to give you up 'for your good,' is proof (to myself at least) that I +love you enough for any other end:--but you thought _too much of me in +the last letter_. Do not mistake me. I believe and trust in all your +words--only you are generous unawares, as other men are selfish. + +More, I meant to say of this; but you moved me as usual yesterday into +the sunshine, and then I am dazzled and cannot see clearly. Still I +see that you love me and that I am bound to you:--and 'what more need +I see,' you may ask; while I cannot help looking out to the future, to +the blue ridges of the hills, to the _chances_ of your being happy +with me. Well! I am yours as _you_ see ... and not yours to teaze you. +You shall decide everything when the time comes for doing anything ... +and from this to then, I do not, dearest, expect you to use 'the +liberty of leaping out of the window,' unless you are sure of the +house being on fire! Nobody shall push you out of the window--least of +all, _I_. + +For Italy ... you are right. We should be nearer the sun, as you say, +and further from the world, as I think--out of hearing of the great +storm of gossiping, when 'scirocco is loose.' Even if you liked to +live altogether abroad, coming to England at intervals, it would be no +sacrifice for me--and whether in Italy or England, we should have +sufficient or more than sufficient means of living, without modifying +by a line that 'good free life' of yours which you reasonably +praise--which, if it had been necessary to modify, _we must have +parted_, ... because I could not have borne to see you do it; though, +that you once offered it for my sake, I never shall forget. + +Mr. Kenyon stayed half an hour, and asked, after you went, if you had +been here long. I reproached him with what they had been doing at his +club (the Athenæum) in blackballing Douglas Jerrold, for want of +something better to say--and he had not heard of it. There were more +black than white balls, and Dickens was so enraged at the repulse of +his friend that he gave in his own resignation like a privy +councillor. + +But the really bad news is of poor Tennyson--I forgot to tell you--I +forget everything. He is seriously ill with an internal complaint and +confined to his bed, as George heard from a common friend. Which does +not prevent his writing a new poem--he has finished the second book of +it--and it is in blank verse and a fairy tale, and called the +'University,' the university-members being all females. If George has +not diluted the scheme of it with some law from the Inner Temple, I +don't know what to think--it makes me open my eyes. Now isn't the +world too old and fond of steam, for blank verse poems, in ever so +many books, to be written on the fairies? I hope they may cure him, +for the best deed they can do. He is not precisely in danger, +understand--but the complaint may _run_ into danger--so the account +went. + +And you? how are you? Mind to tell me. May God bless you. Is Monday or +Tuesday to be _our_ day? If it were not for Mr. Kenyon I should take +courage and say Monday--but Tuesday and Saturday would do as +well--would they not? + + Your own + + BA. + +Shall I have a letter? + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, January 31, 1846.] + +It is a relief to me this time to obey your wish, and reserve further +remark on _that_ subject till by and bye. And, whereas some people, I +suppose, have to lash themselves up to the due point of passion, and +choose the happy minutes to be as loving in as they possibly can ... +(that is, in _expression_; the just correspondency of word to fact and +feeling: for _it_--the love--may be very truly _there_, at the bottom, +when it is got at, and spoken out)--quite otherwise, I do really have +to guard my tongue and set a watch on my pen ... that so I may say as +little as can well be likely to be excepted to by your generosity. +Dearest, _love_ means _love_, certainly, and adoration carries its +sense with it--and _so_, you may have received my feeling in that +shape--but when I begin to hint at the merest putting into practice +one or the other profession, you 'fly out'--instead of keeping your +throne. So let this letter lie awhile, till my heart is more used to +it, and after some days or weeks I will find as cold and quiet a +moment as I can, and by standing as far off you as I shall be able, +see more--'si _minus propè_ stes, te capiet magis.' Meanwhile, silent +or speaking, I am yours to dispose of as that _glove_--not that hand. + +I must think that Mr. Kenyon sees, and knows, and ... in his goodness +... hardly disapproves--he knows I could not avoid--escape you--for he +knows, in a manner, what you are ... like your American; and, early in +our intercourse, he asked me (did I tell you?) 'what I thought of his +young relative'--and I considered half a second to this effect--'if he +asked me what I thought of the Queen-diamond they showed me in the +crown of the Czar--and I answered truly--he would not return; "then of +course you mean to try and get it to keep."' So I _did_ tell the truth +in a very few words. Well, it is no matter. + +I am sorry to hear of poor Tennyson's condition. The projected +book--title, scheme, all of it,--_that_ is astounding;--and fairies? +If 'Thorpes and barnes, sheep-pens and dairies--_this_ maketh that +there ben no fairies'--locomotives and the broad or narrow gauge must +keep the very ghosts of them away. But how the fashion of this world +passes; the forms its beauty and truth take; if _we_ have the making +of such! I went last night, out of pure shame at a broken promise, to +hear Miss Cushman and her sister in 'Romeo and Juliet.' The whole play +goes ... horribly; 'speak' bids the Poet, and so M. Walladmir +[Valdemar] moves his tongue and dispenses with his jaws. Whatever is +slightly touched in, indicated, to give relief to something actually +insisted upon and drawn boldly ... _here_, you have it gone over with +an unremitting burnt-stick, till it stares black forever! Romeo goes +whining about Verona by broad daylight. Yet when a schoolfellow of +mine, I remember, began translating in class Virgil after this mode, +'Sic fatur--so said Æneas; lachrymans--_a-crying_' ... our pedagogue +turned on him furiously--'D'ye think Æneas made such a noise--as _you_ +shall, presently?' How easy to conceive a boyish half-melancholy, +smiling at itself. + +Then _Tuesday_, and not Monday ... and Saturday will be the nearer +afterward. I am singularly well to-day--head quite quiet--and +yesterday your penholder began its influence and I wrote about half my +last act. Writing is nothing, nor praise, nor blame, nor living, nor +dying, but you are all my true life; May God bless you ever-- + + R. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Friday Evening. + [Post-mark, February 2, 1846.] + +Something, you said yesterday, made me happy--'that your liking for me +did not come and go'--do you remember? Because there was a letter, +written at a crisis long since, in which you showed yourself awfully, +as a burning mountain, and talked of 'making the most of your +fire-eyes,' and of having at intervals 'deep black pits of cold +water'!--and the lava of that letter has kept running down into my +thoughts of you too much, until quite of late--while even yesterday I +was not too well instructed to be 'happy,' you see! Do not reproach +me! I would not have 'heard your enemy say so'--it was your own word! +And the other long word _idiosyncrasy_ seemed long enough to cover it; +and it might have been a matter of temperament, I fancied, that a man +of genius, in the mystery of his nature, should find his feelings +sometimes like dumb notes in a piano ... should care for people at +half past eleven on Tuesday, and on Wednesday at noon prefer a black +beetle. How you frightened me with your 'fire-eyes'! 'making the most +of them' too! and the 'black pits,' which gaped ... _where_ did they +gape? who could tell? Oh--but lately I have not been crossed so, of +course, with those fabulous terrors--lately that horror of the burning +mountain has grown more like a superstition than a rational fear!--and +if I was glad ... happy ... yesterday, it was but as a tolerably +sensible nervous man might be glad of a clearer moonlight, showing him +that what he had half shuddered at for a sheeted ghoule, was only a +white horse on the moor. Such a great white horse!--call it the +'mammoth horse'--the '_real_ mammoth,' this time! + +Dearest, did I write you a cold letter the last time? Almost it seems +so to me! the reason being that my feelings were near to overflow, and +that I had to hold the cup straight to prevent the possible dropping +on your purple underneath. _Your_ letter, the letter I answered, was +in my heart ... _is_ in my heart--and all the yeses in the world would +not be too many for such a letter, as I felt and feel. Also, perhaps, +I gave you, at last, a merely formal distinction--and it comes to the +same thing practically without any doubt! but I shrank, with a sort of +instinct, from appearing (to myself, mind) to take a security from +your words now (said too on an obvious impulse) for what should, +would, _must_, depend on your deliberate wishes hereafter. You +understand--you will not accuse me of over-cautiousness and the like. +On the contrary, you are all things to me, ... instead of all and +better than all! You have fallen like a great luminous blot on the +whole leaf of the world ... of life and time ... and I can see nothing +beyond you, nor wish to see it. As to all that was evil and sadness to +me, I do not feel it any longer--it may be raining still, but I am in +the shelter and can scarcely tell. If you _could_ be _too dear_ to me +you would be now--but you could not--I do not believe in those +supposed excesses of pure affections--God cannot be too great. + +Therefore it is a conditional engagement still--all the conditions +being in your hands, except the necessary one, of my health. And shall +I tell you what is 'not to be put in doubt _ever_'?--your goodness, +_that_ is ... and every tie that binds me to you. 'Ordained, granted +by God' it is, that I should owe the only happiness in my life to you, +and be contented and grateful (if it were necessary) to stop with it +at this present point. Still I _do not_--there seems no necessity yet. + +May God bless you, ever dearest:-- + + Your own BA. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Saturday. + [In the same envelope with the preceding letter.] + +Well I have your letter--and I send you the postscript to my last one, +written yesterday you observe ... and being simply a postscript in +some parts of it, _so_ far it is not for an answer. Only I deny the +'flying out'--perhaps you may do it a little more ... in your moments +of starry centrifugal motion. + +So you think that dear Mr. Kenyon's opinion of his 'young +relative'--(neither young nor his relative--not very much of either!) +is to the effect that you couldn't possibly 'escape' her--? It looks +like the sign of the Red Dragon, put _so_ ... and your burning +mountain is not too awful for the scenery. + +Seriously ... gravely ... if it makes me three times happy that you +should love me, yet I grow uneasy and even saddened when you say +infatuated things such as this and this ... unless after all you mean +a philosophical sarcasm on the worth of Czar diamonds. No--do not say +such things! If you do, I shall end by being jealous of some ideal +Czarina who must stand between you and me.... I shall think that it is +not _I_ whom you look at ... and _pour cause_. 'Flying out,' _that_ +would be! + +And for Mr. Kenyon, I only know that I have grown the most ungrateful +of human beings lately, and find myself almost glad when he does not +come, certainly uncomfortable when he does--yes, _really_ I would +rather not see him at all, and when you are not here. The sense of +which and the sorrow for which, turn me to a hypocrite, and make me +ask why he does not come &c. ... questions which never came to my lips +before ... till I am more and more ashamed and sorry. Will it end, I +wonder, by my ceasing to care for any one in the world, except, +except...? or is it not rather that I feel trodden down by either his +too great penetration or too great unconsciousness, both being +overwhelming things from him to me. From a similar cause I hate +writing letters to any of my old friends--I feel as if it were the +merest swindling to attempt to give the least account of myself to +anybody, and when their letters come and I know that nothing very +fatal has happened to them, scarcely I can read to an end afterwards +through the besetting care of having to answer it all. Then I am +ignoble enough to revenge myself on people for their stupidities ... +which never in my life I did before nor felt the temptation to do ... +and when they have a distaste for your poetry through want of +understanding, I have a distaste for _them_ ... cannot help it--and +you need not say it is wrong, because I know the whole iniquity of it, +persisting nevertheless. As for dear Mr. Kenyon--with whom we began, +and who thinks of you as appreciatingly and admiringly as one man can +think of another,--do not imagine that, if he _should_ see anything, +he can 'approve' of either your wisdom or my generosity, ... _he_, +with his large organs of caution, and his habit of looking right and +left, and round the corner a little way. Because, you know, ... if I +should be ill _before_ ... why there, is a conclusion!--but if +_afterward_ ... what? You who talk wildly of my generosity, whereas I +only and most impotently tried to be generous, must see how both +suppositions have their possibility. Nevertheless you are the master +to run the latter risk. You have overcome ... to your loss +perhaps--unless the judgment is revised. As to taking the half of my +prison ... I could not even smile at _that_ if it seemed probable ... +I should recoil from your affection even under a shape so fatal to you +... dearest! No! There is a better probability before us I hope and +believe--in spite of the _possibility_ which it is impossible to deny. +And now we leave this subject for the present. + +_Sunday._--You are 'singularly well.' You are very seldom quite well, +I am afraid--yet 'Luria' seems to have done no harm this time, as you +are singularly well the day _after_ so much writing. Yet do not hurry +that last act.... I won't have it for a long while yet. + +Here I have been reading Carlyle upon Cromwell and he is very fine, +very much himself, it seems to me, everywhere. Did Mr. Kenyon make you +understand that I had said there was nothing in him but _manner_ ... I +thought he said so--and I am confident that he never heard such an +opinion from me, for good or for evil, ever at all. I may have +observed upon those vulgar attacks on account of the so-called +_mannerism_, the obvious fact, that an individuality, carried into the +medium, the expression, is a feature in all men of genius, as Buffon +teaches ... 'Le style, c'est _l'homme_.' But if the _whole man_ were +style, if all Carlyleism were manner--why there would be no man, no +Carlyle worth talking of. I wonder that Mr. Kenyon should misrepresent +me so. Euphuisms there may be to the end of the world--affected +parlances--just as a fop at heart may go without shoestrings to mimic +the distractions of some great wandering soul--although _that_ is a +bad comparison, seeing that what is called Carlyle's mannerism, is not +his dress, but his physiognomy--or more than _that_ even. + +But I do not forgive him for talking here against the 'ideals of +poets' ... opposing their ideal by a mis-called _reality_, which is +another sort, a baser sort, of ideal after all. He sees things in +broad blazing lights--but he does not analyse them like a +philosopher--do you think so? Then his praise for dumb heroic action +as opposed to speech and singing, what is _that_--when all earnest +thought, passion, belief, and their utterances, are as much actions +surely as the cutting off of fifty heads by one right hand. As if +Shakespeare's actions were not greater than Cromwell's!-- + +But I shall write no more. Once more, may God bless you. + + Wholly and only + + Your BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 4, 1846.] + +You ought hardly,--ought you, my Ba?--to refer to _that_ letter or any +expression in it; I had--and _have_, I trust--your forgiveness for +what I wrote, meaning to be generous or at least just, God knows. +That, and the other like exaggerations were there to serve the purpose +of what you properly call a _crisis_. I _did_ believe,--taking an +expression, in the note that occasioned mine, in connection with an +excuse which came in the postscript for not seeing me on the day +previously appointed, I did fully believe that you were about to deny +me admittance again unless I blotted out--not merely softened +down--the past avowal. All was wrong, foolish, but from a good notion, +I dare to say. And then, that particular exaggeration you bring most +painfully to my mind--_that_ does not, after all, disagree with what I +said and you repeat--does it, if you will think? I said my other +'_likings_' (as you rightly set it down) _used_ to 'come and go,' and +that my love for you _did not_, and that is true; the first clause as +the last of the sentence, for my sympathies are very wide and +general,--always have been--and the natural problem has been the +giving unity to their object, concentrating them instead of +dispersing. I seem to have foretold, _foreknown_ you in other likings +of mine--now here ... when the liking '_came_' ... and now elsewhere +... when as surely the liking '_went_': and if they had stayed before +the time would that have been a comfort to refer to? On the contrary, +I am as little likely to be led by delusions as can be,--for Romeo +_thinks_ he loves Rosaline, and is excused on all hands--whereas I saw +the plain truth without one mistake, and 'looked to like, if looking +liking moved--and no more deep _did_ I endart mine eye'--about which, +first I was very sorry, and after rather proud--all which I seem to +have told you before.--And now, when my whole heart and soul find you, +and fall on you, and fix forever, I am to be dreadfully afraid the joy +cannot last, seeing that + +--it is so baseless a fear that no illustration will serve! Is it gone +now, dearest, ever-dearest? + +And as you amuse me sometimes, as now, by seeming surprised at some +chance expression of a truth which is grown a veriest commonplace to +_me_--like Charles Lamb's 'letter to an elderly man whose education +had been neglected'--when he finds himself involuntarily communicating +truths above the capacity and acquirements of his friend, and stops +himself after this fashion--'If you look round the world, my dear +Sir--for it _is_ round!--so I will make you laugh at me, if you will, +for _my_ inordinate delight at hearing the success of your experiment +with the opium. I never dared, nor shall dare inquire into your use of +that--for, knowing you utterly as I do, I know you only bend to the +most absolute necessity in taking more or less of it--so that increase +of the quantity must mean simply increased weakness, illness--and +diminution, diminished illness. And now there _is_ diminution! Dear, +dear Ba--you speak of my silly head and its ailments ... well, and +what brings on the irritation? A wet day or two spent at home; and +what ends it all directly?--just an hour's walk! So with _me_: +now,--fancy me shut in a room for seven years ... it is--no, _don't_ +see, even in fancy, what is left of me then! But _you_, at the end; +this is _all_ the harm: I wonder ... I confirm my soul in its belief +in perpetual miraculousness ... I bless God with my whole heart that +it is thus with you! And so, I will not even venture to say--so +superfluous it were, though with my most earnest, most loving breath +(I who _do_ love you more at every breath I draw; indeed, yes +dearest,)--I _will not_ bid you--that is, pray you--to persevere! You +have all my life bound to yours--save me from _my 'seven years'_--and +God reward you! + + Your own R. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + [Post-mark, February 5, 1846.] + +But I did not--dear, dearest--no indeed, I did not mean any harm about +the letter. I wanted to show you how you had given me pleasure--and +so,--did I give you pain? was _that_ my ingenuity? Forgive my +unhappiness in it, and let it be as if it had not been. Only I will +just say that what made me talk about 'the thorn in the flesh' from +that letter so long, was a sort of conviction of your having put into +it as much of the truth, _your_ truth, as admitted of the ultimate +purpose of it, and not the least, slightest doubt of the key you gave +me to the purpose in question. And so forgive me. Why did you set +about explaining, as if I were doubting you? When you said once that +it 'did not come and go,'--was it not enough? enough to make me feel +happy as I told you? Did I require you to write a letter like this? +Now think for a moment, and know once for all, how from the beginning +to these latter days and through all possible degrees of crisis, you +have been to my apprehension and gratitude, the best, most consistent, +most noble ... the words falter that would speak of it all. In nothing +and at no moment have you--I will not say--failed to _me_, but spoken +or acted unworthily of yourself at the highest. What have you ever +been to me except too generous? Ah--if I had been only half as +generous, it is true that I never could have seen you again after that +first meeting--it was the straight path perhaps. But I had not +courage--I shrank from the thought of it--and then ... besides ... I +could not believe that your mistake was likely to last,--I concluded +that I might keep my friend. + +Why should any remembrance be painful to _you_? I do not understand. +Unless indeed I should grow painful to you ... I myself!--seeing that +every remembered separate thing has brought me nearer to you, and made +me yours with a deeper trust and love. + +And for that letter ... do you fancy that in _my_ memory the sting is +not gone from it?--and that I do not carry the thought of it, as the +Roman maidens, you speak of, their cool harmless snakes, at my heart +always? So let the poor letter be forgiven, for the sake of the dear +letter that was burnt, forgiven by _you_--until you grow angry with me +instead--just till then. + +And that you should care so much about the opium! Then _I_ must care, +and get to do with less--at least. On the other side of your goodness +and indulgence (a very little way on the other side) it might strike +you as strange that I who have had no pain--no acute suffering to keep +down from its angles--should need opium in any shape. But I have had +restlessness till it made me almost mad: at one time I lost the power +of sleeping quite--and even in the day, the continual aching sense of +weakness has been intolerable--besides palpitation--as if one's life, +instead of giving movement to the body, were imprisoned undiminished +within it, and beating and fluttering impotently to get out, at all +the doors and windows. So the medical people gave me opium--a +preparation of it, called morphine, and ether--and ever since I have +been calling it my amreeta draught, my elixir,--because the +tranquillizing power has been wonderful. Such a nervous system I +have--so irritable naturally, and so shattered by various causes, that +the need has continued in a degree until now, and it would be +dangerous to leave off the calming remedy, Mr. Jago says, except very +slowly and gradually. But slowly and gradually something may be +done--and you are to understand that I never _increased_ upon the +prescribed quantity ... prescribed in the first instance--no! Now +think of my writing all this to you!-- + +And after all the lotus-eaters are blessed beyond the opium-eaters; +and the best of lotuses are such thoughts as I know. + +Dear Miss Mitford comes to-morrow, and I am not glad enough. Shall I +have a letter to make me glad? She will talk, talk, talk ... and I +shall be hoping all day that not a word may be talked of ... _you_:--a +forlorn hope indeed! There's a hope for a day like Thursday which is +just in the middle between a Tuesday and a Saturday! + +Your head ... is it ... _how_ is it? tell me. And consider again if it +could be possible that I could ever desire to reproach _you_ ... in +what I said about the letter. + +May God bless you, best and dearest. If you are the _compensation_ +blessed is the evil that fell upon me: and _that_, I can say before +God. + + Your BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Friday. + [Post-mark, February 6, 1846.] + +If I said you 'gave me pain' in anything, it was in the only way ever +possible for you, my dearest--by giving _yourself_, in me, pain--being +unjust to your own right and power as I feel them at my heart: and in +that way, I see you will go on to the end, I getting called--in this +very letter--'generous' &c. Well, let me fancy you see very, very deep +into future chances and how I should behave on occasion. I shall +hardly imitate you, I whose sense of the present and its claims of +gratitude already is beyond expression. + +All the kind explaining about the opium makes me happier. 'Slowly and +gradually' what may _not_ be done? Then see the bright weather while I +write--lilacs, hawthorn, plum-trees all in bud; elders in leaf, +rose-bushes with great red shoots; thrushes, whitethroats, hedge +sparrows in full song--there can, let us hope, be nothing worse in +store than a sharp wind, a week of it perhaps--and then comes what +shall come-- + +And Miss Mitford yesterday--and has she fresh fears for you of my evil +influence and Origenic power of 'raying out darkness' like a swart +star? Why, the common sense of the world teaches that there is nothing +people at fault in any faculty of expression are so intolerant of as +the like infirmity in others--whether they are unconscious of, or +indulgent to their own obscurity and fettered organ, the hindrance +from the fettering of their neighbours' is redoubled. A man may think +he is not deaf, or, at least, that you need not be so much annoyed by +his deafness as you profess--but he will be quite aware, to say the +least of it, when another man can't hear _him_; he will certainly not +encourage him to stop his ears. And so with the converse; a writer who +fails to make himself understood, as presumably in my case, may either +believe in his heart that it is _not_ so ... that only as much +attention and previous instructedness as the case calls for, would +quite avail to understand him; or he may open his eyes to the fact and +be trying hard to overcome it: but on which supposition is he led to +confirm another in his unintelligibility? By the proverbial tenderness +of the eye with the mote for the eye with the beam? If that beam were +just such another mote--_then_ one might sympathize and feel no such +inconvenience--but, because I have written a 'Sordello,' do I turn to +just its _double_, Sordello the second, in your books, and so perforce +see nothing wrong? 'No'--it is supposed--'but something _as_ obscure +in its way.' Then down goes the bond of union at once, and I stand no +nearer to view your work than the veriest proprietor of one thought +and the two words that express it without obscurity at all--'bricks +and mortar.' Of course an artist's whole problem must be, as Carlyle +wrote to me, 'the expressing with articulate clearness the thought in +him'--I am almost inclined to say that _clear expression_ should be +his only work and care--for he is born, ordained, such as he is--and +not born learned in putting what was born in him into words--what ever +_can_ be clearly spoken, ought to be. But 'bricks and mortar' is very +easily said--and some of the thoughts in 'Sordello' not so readily +even if Miss Mitford were to try her hand on them. + +I look forward to a real life's work for us both. _I_ shall do +all,--under your eyes and with your hand in mine,--all I was intended +to do: may but _you_ as surely go perfecting--by continuing--the work +begun so wonderfully--'a rose-tree that beareth seven-times seven'-- + +I am forced to dine in town to-day with an old friend--'to-morrow' +always begins half the day before, like a Jewish sabbath. Did your +sister tell you that I met her on the stairs last time? She did _not_ +tell you that I had almost passed by her--the eyes being still +elsewhere and occupied. Now let me write out that--no--I will send the +old ballad I told you of, for the strange coincidence--and it is very +charming beside, is it not? Now goodbye, my sweetest, dearest--and +tell me good news of yourself to-morrow, and be but half a quarter as +glad to see me as I shall be blessed in seeing you. God bless you +ever. + + Your own + + R. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 7, 1846.] + +Dearest, to my sorrow I must, I fear, give up the delight of seeing +you this morning. I went out unwell yesterday, and a long noisy dinner +with speech-making, with a long tiresome walk at the end of it--these +have given me such a bewildering headache that I really see some +reason in what they say here about keeping the house. Will you forgive +me--and let me forget it all on Monday? On _Monday_--unless I am told +otherwise by the early post--And God bless you ever + + Your own-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Saturday. + [Post-mark, February 7, 1846.] + +I felt it must be so ... that something must be the matter, ... and I +had been so really unhappy for half an hour, that your letter which +comes now at four, seems a little better, with all its bad news, than +my fancies took upon themselves to be, without instruction. Now _was_ +it right to go out yesterday when you were unwell, and to a great +dinner?--but I shall not reproach you, dearest, dearest--I have no +heart for it at this moment. As to Monday, of course it is as you like +... if you are well enough on Monday ... if it should be thought wise +of you to come to London through the noise ... if ... you understand +all the _ifs_ ... and among them the greatest if of all, ... for if +you do love me ... _care_ for me even, you will not do yourself harm +or run any risk of harm by going out _anywhere too soon_. On Monday, +in case you are _considered well enough_, and otherwise Tuesday, +Wednesday--I leave it to you. Still I _will_ ask one thing, whether +you come on Monday or not. _Let_ me have a single line by the nearest +post to say how you are. Perhaps for to-night it is not possible--oh +no, it is nearly five now! but a word written on Sunday would be with +me early on Monday morning, and I know you will let me have it, to +save some of the anxious thoughts ... to break them in their course +with some sort of certainty! May God bless you dearest of all!--I +thought of you on Thursday, but did not speak of you, not even when +Miss Mitford called Hood the greatest poet of the age ... she had been +depreciating Carlyle, so I let you lie and wait on the same level, ... +that shelf of the rock which is above tide mark! I was glad even, that +she did not speak of you; and, under cover of her speech of others, I +had my thoughts of you deeply and safely. When she had gone at half +past six, moreover, I grew over-hopeful, and made up my fancy to have +a letter at eight! The branch she had pulled down, sprang upward +skyward ... to that high possibility of a letter! Which did not come +that day ... no!--and I revenged myself by writing a letter to _you_, +which was burnt afterwards because I would not torment you for +letters. Last night, came a real one--dearest! So we could not keep +our sabbath to-day! It is a fast day instead, ... on my part. How +should I feel (I have been thinking to myself), if I did not see you +on Saturday, and could not hope to see you on Monday, nor on Tuesday, +nor on Wednesday, nor Thursday nor Friday, nor Saturday again--if all +the sabbaths were gone out of the world for me! May God bless you!--it +has grown to be enough prayer!--as _you_ are enough (and all, besides) +for + + Your own + + BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, February 7, 1846.] + +The clock strikes--_three_; and I am here, not with you--and my +'fractious' headache at the very worst got suddenly better just now, +and is leaving me every minute--as if to make me aware, with an +undivided attention, that at this present you are waiting for me, and +soon will be wondering--and it would be so easy now to dress myself +and walk or run or ride--do anything that led to you ... but by no +haste in the world could I reach you, I am forced to see, before a +quarter to five--by which time I think my letter must arrive. Dear, +dearest Ba, did you but know how vexed I am--with myself, with--this +is absurd, of course. The cause of it all was my going out last +night--yet that, neither, was to be helped, the party having been +twice put off before--once solely on my account. And the sun shines, +and you would shine-- + +Monday is to make all the amends in its power, is it not? Still, still +I have lost my day. + + Bless you, my ever-dearest. + + Your R. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 9, 1846.] + +My dearest--there are no words,--nor will be to-morrow, nor even in +the Island--I know that! But I do love you. + +My arms have been round you for many minutes since the last word-- + +I am quite well now--my other note will have told you when the change +began--I think I took too violent a shower bath, with a notion of +getting better in as little time as possible,--and the stimulus turned +mere feverishness to headache. However, it was no sooner gone, in a +degree, than a worse plague came. I sate thinking of you--but I knew +my note would arrive at about four o'clock or a little later--and I +thought the visit for the quarter of an hour would as effectually +prevent to-morrow's meeting as if the whole two hours' blessing had +been laid to heart--to-morrow I shall see you, Ba--my sweetest. But +there are cold winds blowing to-day--how do you bear them, my Ba? +'_Care_' you, pray, pray, care for all _I_ care about--and be well, if +God shall please, and bless me as no man ever was blessed! Now I kiss +you, and will begin a new thinking of you--and end, and begin, going +round and round in my circle of discovery,--_My_ lotos-blossom! +because they _loved_ the lotos, were lotos-lovers,--[Greek: lôtou t' +erôtes], as Euripides writes in the [Greek: Trôades]. + + Your own + +P.S. See those lines in the _Athenæum_ on Pulci with Hunt's +translation--all wrong--'_che non si sente_,' being--'that one does +not _hear_ him' i.e. the ordinarily noisy fellow--and the rest, male, +pessime! Sic verte, meo periculo, mî ocelle! + + Where's Luigi Pulci, that one don't the man see? + He just now yonder in the copse has '_gone it_' (_n_'andò) + Because across his mind there came a fancy; + He'll wish to fancify, perhaps, a sonnet! + +Now Ba thinks nothing can be worse than that? Then read _this_ which I +really told Hunt and got his praise for. Poor dear wonderful +persecuted Pietro d'Abano wrote this quatrain on the people's plaguing +him about his mathematical studies and wanting to burn him--he helped +to build Padua Cathedral, wrote a Treatise on Magic still extant, and +passes for a conjuror in his country to this day--when there is a +storm the mothers tell the children that he is in the air; his pact +with the evil one obliged him to drink no _milk_; no natural human +food! You know Tieck's novel about him? Well, this quatrain is said, I +believe truly, to have been discovered in a well near Padua some fifty +years ago. + + Studiando le mie cifre, col compasso + Rilevo, che presto sarò sotterra-- + Perchè del mio saper si fa gran chiasso, + E gl'ignoranti m'hanno mosso guerra. + +Affecting, is it not, in its simple, child like plaining? Now so, if I +remember, I turned it--word for word-- + + Studying my ciphers, with the compass + I reckon--who soon shall be below ground, + Because of my lore they make great 'rumpus,' + And against me war makes each dull rogue round. + +Say that you forgive me to-morrow! + +[The following is in E.B.B.'s handwriting.] + + With my compass I take up my ciphers, poor scholar; + Who myself shall be taken down soon under the ground ... + Since the world at my learning roars out in its choler, + And the blockheads have fought me all round. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday. + [Post-mark, February 10, 1846.] + +Ever dearest, I have been possessed by your 'Luria' just as you would +have me, and I should like you to understand, not simply how fine a +conception the whole work seems to me, so developed, but how it has +moved and affected me, without the ordinary means and dialect of +pathos, by that calm attitude of moral grandeur which it has--it is +very fine. For the execution, _that_ too is worthily done--although I +agree with you, that a little quickening and drawing in closer here +and there, especially towards the close where there is no time to +lose, the reader feels, would make the effect stronger--but you will +look to it yourself--and such a conception _must_ come in thunder and +lightning, as a chief god would--_must_ make its own way ... and will +not let its poet go until he speaks it out to the ultimate syllable. +Domizia disappoints me rather. You might throw a flash more of light +on her face--might you not? But what am I talking? I think it a +magnificent work--a noble exposition of the ingratitude of men against +their 'heroes,' and (what is peculiar) an _humane_ exposition ... not +misanthropical, after the usual fashion of such things: for the +return, the remorse, saves it--and the 'Too late' of the repentance +and compensation covers with its solemn toll the fate of persecutors +and victim. We feel that Husain himself could only say afterward ... +'_That is done._' And now--surely you think well of the work as a +whole? You cannot doubt, I fancy, of the grandeur of it--and of the +_subtilty_ too, for it is subtle--too subtle perhaps for stage +purposes, though as clear, ... as to expression ... as to medium ... +as 'bricks and mortar' ... shall I say? + + 'A people is but the attempt of many + To rise to the completer life of one.' + +There is one of the fine thoughts. And how fine _he_ is, your Luria, +when he looks back to his East, through the half-pardon and +half-disdain of Domizia. Ah--Domizia! would it hurt her to make her +more a woman ... a little ... I wonder! + +So I shall begin from the beginning, from the first act, and read +_through_ ... since I have read the fifth twice over. And remember, +please, that I am to read, besides, the 'Soul's Tragedy,' and that I +shall dun you for it presently. Because you told me it was finished, +otherwise I would not speak a word, feeling that you want rest, and +that I, who am anxious about you, would be crossing my own purposes +by driving you into work. It is the overwork, the overwear of mind and +heart (for the feelings come as much into use as the thoughts in these +productions), that makes you so pale, dearest, that distracts your +head, and does all the harm on Saturdays and so many other days +besides. + +To-day--how are you? It _was_ right and just for me to write this +time, after the two dear notes ... the one on Saturday night which +made me praise you to myself and think you kinder than kindest, and +the other on Monday morning which took me unaware--such a note, _that_ +was! Oh it _was_ right and just that I should not teaze you to send me +another after those two others,--yet I was very near doing it--yet I +should like infinitely to hear to-day how you +are--unreasonable!--Well! you will write now--you will answer what I +am writing, and mention yourself particularly and sincerely--Remember! +Above all, you will care for your head. I have been thinking since +yesterday that, coming out of the cold, you might not have refused as +usual to take something ... hot wine and water, or coffee? Will you +have coffee with me on Saturday? 'Shunning the salt,' will you have +the sugar? And do tell me, for I have been thinking, are you careful +as to diet--and will such sublunary things as coffee and tea and cocoa +affect your head--_for_ or _against_! Then you do not touch wine--and +perhaps you ought. Surely something may be found or done to do you +good. If it had not been for me, you would be travelling in Italy by +this time and quite well perhaps. + +This morning I had a letter from Miss Martineau and really read it to +the end without thinking it too long, which is extraordinary for me +just now, and scarcely ordinary in the letter, and indeed it is a +delightful letter, as letters go, which are not yours! You shall take +it with you on Saturday to read, and you shall see that it is worth +reading, and interesting for Wordsworth's sake and her own. Mr. +Kenyon has it now, because he presses on to have her letters, and I +should not like to tell him that you had it first from me.... Also +Saturday will be time enough. + +Oh--poor Mr. Horne! shall I tell you some of his offences? That he +desires to be called at four in the morning, and does not get up till +eight. That he pours libations on his bare head out of the +water-glasses at great dinners. That being in the midst of +sportsmen--rural aristocrats--lords of soil--and all talking learnedly +of pointers' noses and spaniels' ears; he has exclaimed aloud in a +mocking paraphrase--'If I were to hold up a horse by the tail.' The +wit is certainly doubtful!--That being asked to dinner on Tuesday, he +will go on Wednesday instead.--That he throws himself at full length +with a gesture approaching to a 'summerset' on satin sofas. That he +giggles. That he only _thinks_ he can talk. That his ignorance on all +subjects is astounding. That he never read the old ballads, nor saw +Percy's collection. That he asked _who_ wrote 'Drink to me only with +thine eyes.' That after making himself ridiculous in attempting to +speak at a public meeting, he said to a compassionate friend 'I got +very well out of _that_.' That, in writing his work on Napoleon, he +employed a man to study the subject for him. That he cares for +nobody's poetry or fame except his own, and considers Tennyson chiefly +illustrious as being his contemporary. That, as to politics, he +doesn't care '_which_ side.' That he is always talking of 'my shares,' +'my income,' as if he were a Kilmansegg. Lastly (and understand, this +is _my_ 'lastly' and not Miss Mitford's, who is far from being out of +breath so soon) that he has a mania for heiresses--that he has gone +out at half past five and 'proposed' to Miss M or N with fifty +thousand pounds, and being rejected (as the lady thought fit to report +herself) came back to tea and the same evening 'fell in love' with +Miss O or P ... with forty thousand--went away for a few months, and +upon his next visit, did as much to a Miss Q or W, on the promise of +four blood horses--has a prospect now of a Miss R or S--with hounds, +perhaps. + +Too, too bad--isn't it? I would repeat none of it except to you--and +as to the worst part, the last, why some may be coincidence, and some, +exaggeration, for I have not the least doubt that every now and then a +fine poetical compliment was turned into a serious thing by the +listener, and then the poor poet had critics as well as listeners all +round him. Also, he rather 'wears his heart on his sleeve,' there is +no denying--and in other respects he is not much better, perhaps, than +other men. But for the base traffic of the affair--I do not believe a +word. He is too generous--has too much real sensibility. I fought his +battle, poor Orion. 'And so,' she said 'you believe it possible for a +disinterested man to become really attached to two women, heiresses, +on the same day?' I doubted the _fact_. And then she showed me a note, +an autograph note from the poet, confessing the M or N part of the +business--while Miss O or P confessed herself, said Miss Mitford. But +I persisted in doubting, notwithstanding the lady's confessions, or +convictions, as they might be. And just think of Mr. Horne not having +tact enough to keep out of these multitudinous scrapes, for those few +days which on three separate occasions he paid Miss Mitford in a +neighbourhood where all were strangers to him,--and never outstaying +his week! He must have been _foolish_, read it all how we may. + +And so am _I_, to write this 'personal talk' to you when you will not +care for it--yet you asked me, and it may make you smile, though +Wordsworth's tea-kettle outsings it all. + +When your Monday letter came, I was reading the criticism on Hunt and +his Italian poets, in the _Examiner_. How I liked to be pulled by the +sleeve to your translations!--How I liked everything!--Pulci, Pietro +... and you, best! + +Yet here's a naiveté which I found in your letter! I will write it out +that you may read it-- + +'However it' (the headache) 'was no sooner gone in a degree, than a +worse plague came--_I sate thinking of you_.' + +Very satisfactory _that_ is, and very clear. + +May God bless you dearest, dearest! Be careful of yourself. The cold +makes me _languid_, as heat is apt to make everybody; but I am not +unwell, and keep up the fire and the thoughts of you. + + Your worse ... worst plague + + Your own + + BA. + +I shall hear? yes! And admire my obedience in having written 'a long +letter' _to_ the letter! + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Wednesday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 11, 1846.] + +My sweetest 'plague,' _did_ I really write that sentence so, without +gloss or comment in close vicinity? I can hardly think it--but you +know well, well where the real plague lay,--that I thought of you as +thinking, in your infinite goodness, of untoward chances which had +kept me from you--and if I did not dwell more particularly on that +thinking of _yours_, which became as I say, in the knowledge of it, a +plague when brought before me _with_ the thought of you,--if I passed +this slightly over it was for pure unaffected shame that I should take +up the care and stop the 'reverie serene' of--ah, the rhyme _lets_ me +say--'sweetest eyes were ever seen'--were _ever_ seen! And yourself +confess, in the Saturday's note, to having been 'unhappy for half an +hour till' &c. &c.--and do not I feel _that_ here, and am not I +plagued by it? + +Well, having begun at the end of your letter, dearest, I will go back +gently (that is backwards) and tell you I 'sate thinking' too, and +with no greater comfort, on the cold yesterday. The pond before the +window was frozen ('so as to bear sparrows' somebody said) and I knew +you would feel it--'but you are not unwell'--really? thank God--and +the month wears on. Beside I have got a reassurance--you asked me once +if I were superstitious, I remember (as what do I forget that you +say?). However that may be, yesterday morning as I turned to look for +a book, an old fancy seized me to try the 'sortes' and dip into the +first page of the first I chanced upon, for my fortune; I said 'what +will be the event of my love for Her'--in so many words--and my book +turned out to be--'Cerutti's Italian Grammar!'--a propitious source of +information ... the best to be hoped, what could it prove but some +assurance that you were in the Dative Case, or I, not in the ablative +absolute? I do protest that, with the knowledge of so many horrible +pitfalls, or rather spring guns with wires on every bush ... such +dreadful possibilities of stumbling on 'conditional moods,' 'imperfect +tenses,' 'singular numbers,'--I should have been too glad to put up +with the safe spot for the sole of my foot though no larger than +afforded by such a word as 'Conjunction,' 'possessive pronoun--,' +secure so far from poor Tippet's catastrophe. Well, I ventured, and +what did I find? _This_--which I copy from the book now--'_If we love +in the other world as we do in this, I shall love thee to +eternity_'--from 'Promiscuous Exercises,' to be translated into +Italian, at the end. + +And now I reach Horne and his characteristics--of which I can tell you +with confidence that they are grossly misrepresented where not +altogether false--whether it proceed from inability to see what one +may see, or disinclination, I cannot say. I know very little of Horne, +but my one visit to him a few weeks ago would show the uncandidness of +those charges: for instance, he talked a good deal about horses, +meaning to ride in Ireland, and described very cleverly an old hunter +he had hired once,--how it galloped and could not walk; also he +propounded a theory of the true method of behaving in the saddle when +a horse rears, which I besought him only to practise in fancy on the +sofa, where he lay telling it. So much for professing his ignorance in +that matter! On a sofa he does throw himself--but when thrown there, +he can talk, with Miss Mitford's leave, admirably,--I never heard +better stories than Horne's--some Spanish-American incidents of travel +want printing--or have been printed, for aught I know. That he cares +for nobody's poetry is _false_, he praises more unregardingly of his +own retreat, more unprovidingly for his own fortune,--(do I speak +clearly?)--less like a man who himself has written somewhat in the +'line' of the other man he is praising--which 'somewhat' has to be +guarded in its interests, &c., less like the poor professional praise +of the 'craft' than any other I ever met--instance after instance +starting into my mind as I write. To his income I never heard him +allude--unless one should so interpret a remark to me this last time +we met, that he had been on some occasion put to inconvenience by +somebody's withholding ten or twelve pounds due to him for an article, +and promised in the confidence of getting them to a tradesman, which +does not look like 'boasting of his income'! As for the heiresses--I +don't believe one word of it, of the succession and transition and +trafficking. Altogether, what miserable 'set-offs' to the achievement +of an 'Orion,' a 'Marlowe,' a 'Delora'! Miss Martineau understands him +better. + +Now I come to myself and my health. I am quite well now--at all +events, much better, just a little turning in the head--since you +appeal to my sincerity. For the coffee--thank you, indeed thank you, +but nothing after the '_oenomel_' and before half past six. _I_ know +all about that song and its Greek original if Horne does not--and can +tell you--, how truly...! + + The thirst that from the soul doth rise + Doth ask a drink divine-- + But might I of Jove's nectar sup + I would not change for thine! _No, no, no!_ + + +And by the bye, I have misled you as my wont is, on the subject of +wine, 'that I do not touch it'--not habitually, nor so as to feel the +loss of it, that on a principle; but every now and then of course. + +And now, 'Luria', so long as the parts cohere and the whole is +discernible, all will be well yet. I shall not look at it, nor think +of it, for a week or two, and then see what I have forgotten. Domizia +is all wrong; I told you I knew that her special colour had faded,--it +was but a bright line, and the more distinctly deep that it was so +narrow. One of my half dozen words on my scrap of paper 'pro memoria' +was, under the 'Act V.' '_she loves_'--to which I could not bring it, +you see! Yet the play requires it still,--something may yet be +effected, though.... I meant that she should propose to go to Pisa +with him, and begin a new life. But there is no hurry--I suppose it is +no use publishing much before Easter--I will try and remember what my +whole character _did_ mean--it was, in two words, understood at the +time by 'panther's-beauty'--on which hint I ought to have spoken! But +the work grew cold, and you came between, and the sun put out the fire +on the hearth _nec vult panthera domari_! + +For the 'Soul's Tragedy'--_that_ will surprise you, I think. There is +no trace of you there,--you have not put out the black face of +_it_--it is all sneering and _disillusion_--and shall not be printed +but burned if you say the word--now wait and see and then say! I will +bring the first of the two parts next Saturday. + +And now, dearest, I am with you--and the other matters are forgotten +already. God bless you, I am ever your own R. You will write to me I +trust? And tell me how to bear the cold. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + [Post-mark, February 12, 1846.] + +Ah, the 'sortes'! Is it a double oracle--'swan and shadow'--do you +think? or do my eyes see double, dazzled by the light of it? 'I shall +love thee to eternity'--I _shall_. + +And as for the wine, I did not indeed misunderstand you 'as my wont +is,' because I understood simply that 'habitually' you abstained from +wine, and I meant exactly that perhaps it would be better for your +health to take it habitually. It _might_, you know--not that I pretend +to advise. Only when you look so much too pale sometimes, it comes +into one's thoughts that you ought not to live on cresses and cold +water. Strong coffee, which is the nearest to a stimulant that I dare +to take, as far as ordinary diet goes, will almost always deliver _me_ +from the worst of headaches, but there is no likeness, no comparison. +And your 'quite well' means that dreadful 'turning' still ... still! +Now do not think any more of the Domizias, nor 'try to remember,' +which is the most wearing way of thinking. The more I read and read +your 'Luria,' the grander it looks, and it will make its own road with +all understanding men, you need not doubt, and still less need you try +to make me uneasy about the harm I have done in 'coming between,' and +all the rest of it. I wish never to do you greater harm than just +_that_, and then with a white conscience 'I shall love thee to +eternity!... dearest! You have made a golden work out of your +'golden-hearted Luria'--as once you called him to me, and I hold it in +the highest admiration--_should_, if you were precisely nothing to me. +And still, the fifth act _rises_! That is certain. Nevertheless I seem +to agree with you that your hand has vacillated in your Domizia. We do +not know her with as full a light on her face, as the other +persons--we do not see the _panther_,--no, certainly we do not--but +you will do a very little for her which will be everything, after a +time ... and I assure you that if you were to ask for the manuscript +before, you should not have a page of it--_now_, you are only to rest. +What a work to rest upon! Do consider what a triumph it is! The more I +read, the more I think of it, the greater it grows--and as to 'faded +lines,' you never cut a pomegranate that was redder in the deep of it. +Also, no one can say 'This is not clearly written.' The people who are +at 'words of one syllable' may be puzzled by you and Wordsworth +together this time ... as far as the expression goes. Subtle thoughts +you always must have, in and out of 'Sordello'--and the objectors +would find even Plato (though his medium is as lucid as the water that +ran beside the beautiful plane-tree!) a little difficult perhaps. + +To-day Mr. Kenyon came, and do you know, he has made a beatific +confusion between last Saturday and next Saturday, and said to me he +had told Miss Thomson to mind to come on Friday if she wished to see +me ... 'remembering' (he added) 'that Mr. Browning took _Saturday_!!' +So I let him mistake the one week for the other--'Mr. Browning took +Saturday,' it was true, both ways. Well--and then he went on to tell +me that he had heard from Mrs. Jameson who was at Brighton and unwell, +and had written to say this and that to him, and to enquire +besides--now, what do you think, she enquired besides? 'how you and +... Browning were' said Mr. Kenyon--I write his words. He is coming, +perhaps to-morrow, or perhaps Sunday--Saturday is to have a twofold +safety. That is, if you are not ill again. Dearest, you will not think +of coming if you are ill ... unwell even. I shall not be frightened +next time, as I told you--I shall have the precedent. Before, I had to +think! 'It has never happened _so_--there must be a cause--and if it +is a very, very, bad cause, why no one will tell _me_ ... it will not +seem _my_ concern'--_that_ was my thought on Saturday. But another +time ... only, if it is possible to keep well, do keep well, beloved, +and think of me instead of Domizia, and let there be no other time for +your suffering ... my waiting is nothing. I shall remember for the +future that you may have the headache--and do you remember it too! + +For Mr. Horne I take your testimony gladly and believingly. _She +blots_ with her _eyes_ sometimes. She hates ... and loves, in extreme +degrees. We have, once or twice or thrice, been on the border of +mutual displeasure, on this very subject, for I grew really vexed to +observe the trust on one side and the _dyspathy_ on the other--using +the mildest of words. You see, he found himself, down in Berkshire, in +quite a strange element of society,--he, an artist in his good and his +evil,--and the people there, 'county families,' smoothly plumed in +their conventions, and classing the ringlets and the aboriginal way of +using water-glasses among offences against the Moral Law. Then, +meaning to be agreeable, or fascinating perhaps, made it twenty times +worse. Writing in albums about the graces, discoursing meditated +impromptus at picnics, playing on the guitar in fancy dresses,--all +these things which seemed to poor Orion as natural as his own stars I +dare say, and just the things suited to the _genus_ poet, and to +himself specifically,--were understood by the natives and their 'rural +deities' to signify, that he intended to marry one half the county, +and to run away with the other. But Miss Mitford should have known +better--_she_ should. And she _would_ have known better, if she had +liked him--for the liking could have been unmade by no such offences. +She is too fervent a friend--she can be. Generous too, she can be +without an effort; and I have had much affection from her--and accuse +myself for seeming to have less--but-- + +May God bless you!--I end in haste after this long lingering. + + Your + + BA. + +Not unwell--_I_ am not! I forgot it, which proves how I am not. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Friday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 13, 1846.] + +Two nights ago I read the 'Soul's Tragedy' once more, and though there +were not a few points which still struck me as successful in design +and execution, yet on the whole I came to a decided opinion, that it +will be better to postpone the publication of it for the present. It +is not a good ending, an auspicious wind-up of this series; +subject-matter and style are alike unpopular even for the literary +_grex_ that stands aloof from the purer _plebs_, and uses that +privilege to display and parade an ignorance which the other is +altogether unconscious of--so that, if 'Luria' is _clearish_, the +'Tragedy' would be an unnecessary troubling the waters. Whereas, if I +printed it first in order, my readers, according to custom, would make +the (comparatively) little they did not see into, a full excuse for +shutting their eyes at the rest, and we may as well part friends, so +as not to meet enemies. But, at bottom, I believe the proper objection +is to the immediate, _first_ effect of the whole--its moral +effect--which is dependent on the contrary supposition of its being +really understood, in the main drift of it. Yet I don't know; for I +wrote it with the intention of producing the best of all +effects--perhaps the truth is, that I am tired, rather, and desirous +of getting done, and 'Luria' will answer my purpose so far. Will not +the best way be to reserve this unlucky play and in the event of a +second edition--as Moxon seems to think such an apparition +possible--might not this be quietly inserted?--in its place, too, for +it was written two or three years ago. I have lost, of late, interest +in dramatic writing, as you know, and, perhaps, occasion. And, +dearest, I mean to take your advice and be quiet awhile and let my +mind get used to its new medium of sight; seeing all things, as it +does, through you: and then, let all I have done be the prelude and +the real work begin. I felt it would be so before, and told you at the +very beginning--do you remember? And you spoke of Io 'in the proem.' +How much more should follow now! + +And if nothing follows, I have _you_. + +I shall see you to-morrow and be happy. To-day--is it the weather or +what?--something depresses me a little--to-morrow brings the remedy +for it all. I don't know why I mention such a matter; except that I +tell you everything without a notion of after-consequence; and because +your dearest, dearest presence seems under any circumstances as if +created just to help me _there_; if my spirits rise they fly to you; +if they fall, they hold by you and cease falling--as now. Bless you, +Ba--my own best blessing that you are! But a few hours and I am with +you, beloved! + + Your own + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Saturday Evening. + [Post-mark, February 16, 1846.] + +Ever dearest, though you wanted to make me say one thing displeasing +to you to-day, I had not courage to say two instead ... which I might +have done indeed and indeed! For I am capable of thinking both +thoughts of 'next year,' as you suggested them:--because while you are +with me I see only _you_, and you being you, I cannot doubt a power of +yours nor measure the deep loving nature which I feel to be so +deep--so that there may be ever so many 'mores,' and no 'more' wonder +of mine!--but afterwards, when the door is shut and there is no 'more' +light nor speaking until Thursday, why _then_, that I do not see _you_ +but _me_,--_then_ comes the reaction,--the natural lengthening of the +shadows at sunset,--and _then_, the 'less, less, less' grows to seem +as natural to my fate, as the 'more' seemed to your nature--I being I! + +_Sunday._--Well!--you are to try to forgive it all! And the truth, +over and under all, is, that I scarcely ever do think of the future, +scarcely ever further than to your next visit, and almost never +beyond, except for your sake and in reference to that view of the +question which I have vexed you with so often, in fearing for your +happiness. Once it was a habit of mind with me to live altogether in +what I called the future--but the tops of the trees that looked +towards Troy were broken off in the great winds, and falling down into +the river beneath, where now after all this time they grow green +again, I let them float along the current gently and pleasantly. Can +it be better I wonder! And if it becomes worse, can I help it? Also +the future never seemed to belong to me so little--never! It might +appear wonderful to most persons, it is startling even to myself +sometimes, to observe how free from anxiety I am--from the sort of +anxiety which might be well connected with my own position _here_, and +which is personal to myself. _That_ is all thrown behind--into the +bushes--long ago it was, and I think I told you of it before. +Agitation comes from indecision--and _I_ was decided from the first +hour when I admitted the possibility of your loving me really. +Now,--as the Euphuists used to say,--I am 'more thine than my own' ... +it is a literal truth--and my future belongs to you; if it was mine, +it was mine to give, and if it was mine to give, it was given, and if +it was given ... beloved.... + +So you see! + +Then I will confess to you that all my life long I have had a rather +strange sympathy and dyspathy--the sympathy having concerned the genus +_jilt_ (as vulgarly called) male and female--and the dyspathy--the +whole class of heroically virtuous persons who make sacrifices of what +they call 'love' to what they call 'duty.' There are exceptional cases +of course, but, for the most part, I listen incredulously or else with +a little contempt to those latter proofs of strength--or weakness, as +it may be:--people are not usually praised for giving up their +religion, for unsaying their oaths, for desecrating their 'holy +things'--while believing them still to be religious and sacramental! +On the other side I have always and shall always understand how it is +possible for the most earnest and faithful of men and even of women +perhaps, to err in the convictions of the heart as well as of the +mind, to profess an affection which is an illusion, and to recant and +retreat loyally at the eleventh hour, on becoming aware of the truth +which is in them. Such men are the truest of men, and the most +courageous for the truth's sake, and instead of blaming them I hold +them in honour, for me, and always did and shall. + +And while I write, you are 'very ill'--very ill!--how it looks, +written down _so_! When you were gone yesterday and my thoughts had +tossed about restlessly for ever so long, I was wise enough to ask +Wilson how _she_ thought you were looking, ... and she 'did not know' +... she 'had not observed' ... 'only certainly Mr. Browning ran +up-stairs instead of walking as he did the time before.' + +Now promise me dearest, dearest--not to trifle with your health. Not +to neglect yourself ... not to tire yourself ... and besides to take +the advice of your medical friend as to diet and general +treatment:--because there must be a wrong and a right in everything, +and the right is very important under your circumstances ... if you +have a tendency to illness. It may be right for you to have wine for +instance. Did you ever try the putting your feet into hot water at +night, to prevent the recurrence of the morning headache--for the +affection of the head comes on early in the morning, does it not? just +as if the sleeping did you harm. Now I have heard of such a remedy +doing good--and could it _increase_ the evil?--mustard mixed with the +water, remember. Everything approaching to _congestion_ is full of +fear--I tremble to think of it--and I bring no remedy by this teazing +neither! But you will not be 'wicked' nor 'unkind,' nor provoke the +evil consciously--you will keep quiet and forswear the going out at +nights, the excitement and noise of parties, and the worse excitement +of composition--you promise. If you knew how I keep thinking of you, +and at intervals grow so frightened! Think _you_, that you are three +times as much to me as I can be to you at best and greatest,--because +you are more than three times the larger planet--and because too, you +have known other sources of light and happiness ... but I need not say +this--and I shall hear on Monday, and may trust to you every day ... +may I not? Yet I would trust my soul to you sooner than your own +health. + +May God bless you, dear, dearest. If the first part of the 'Soul's +Tragedy' should be written out, I can read _that_ perhaps, without +drawing you in to think of the second. Still it may be safer to keep +off altogether for the present--and let it be as you incline. I do not +speak of 'Luria.' + + Your own + + BA. + +If it were not for Mr. Kenyon, I should say, almost, Wednesday, +instead of Thursday--I want to see you so much, and to see for myself +about the looks and spirits, only it would not do if he found you here +on Wednesday. Let him come to-morrow or on Tuesday, and Wednesday will +be safe--shall we consider? what do you think? + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday Afternoon. + [Post-mark, February 16, 1846.] + +Here is the letter again, dearest: I suppose it gives me the same +pleasure, in reading, as you--and Mr. K. as me, and anybody else as +him; if all the correspondence which was claimed again and burnt on +some principle or other some years ago be at all of the nature of this +sample, the measure seems questionable. Burn anybody's _real_ +letters, well and good: they move and live--the thoughts, feelings, +and expressions even,--in a self-imposed circle limiting the +experience of two persons only--_there_ is the standard, and to _that_ +the appeal--how should a third person know? His presence breaks the +line, so to speak, and lets in a whole tract of country on the +originally inclosed spot--so that its trees, which were from side to +side there, seem left alone and wondering at their sudden unimportance +in the broad land; while its 'ferns such as I never saw before' and +which have been petted proportionably, look extravagant enough amid +the new spread of good honest grey grass that is now the earth's +general wear. So that the significance is lost at once, and whole +value of such letters--the cypher changed, the vowel-points removed: +but how can that affect clever writing like this? What do you, to whom +it is addressed, see in it more than the world that wants to see it +and shan't have it? One understands shutting an unprivileged eye to +the ineffable mysteries of those 'upper-rooms,' now that the broom and +dust pan, stocking-mending and gingerbread-making are invested with +such unforeseen reverence ... but the carriage-sweep and quarry, +together with Jane and our baskets, and a pleasant shadow of +Wordsworth's Sunday hat preceding his own rapid strides in the +direction of Miss Fenwick's house--surely, 'men's eyes were made to +see, so let them gaze' at all _this_! And so I, gazing with a clear +conscience, am very glad to hear so much good of a very good person +and so well told. She plainly sees the proper use and advantage of a +country-life; and _that_ knowledge gets to seem a high point of +attainment doubtless by the side of the Wordsworth she speaks of--for +_mine_ he shall not be as long as I am able! Was ever such a '_great_' +poet before? Put one trait with the other--the theory of rural +innocence--alternation of 'vulgar trifles' with dissertating with +style of 'the utmost grandeur that _even you_ can conceive' (speak for +yourself, Miss M.!)--and that amiable transition from two o'clock's +grief at the death of one's brother to three o'clock's happiness in +the 'extraordinary mesmeric discourse' of one's friend. All this, and +the rest of the serene and happy inspired daily life which a piece of +'unpunctuality' can ruin, and to which the guardian 'angel' brings as +crowning qualification the knack of poking the fire adroitly--of +this--what can one say but that--no, best hold one's tongue and read +the 'Lyrical Ballads' with finger in ear. Did not Shelley say long ago +'He had no more _imagination_ than a pint-pot'--though in those days +he used to walk about France and Flanders like a man? _Now_, he is +'most comfortable in his worldly affairs' and just this comes of it! +He lives the best twenty years of his life after the way of his own +heart--and when one presses in to see the result of the rare +experiment ... what the _one_ alchemist whom fortune has allowed to +get all his coveted materials and set to work at last in earnest with +fire and melting-pot--what _he_ produces after all the talk of him and +the like of him; why, you get _pulvis et cinis_--a man at the mercy of +the tongs and shovel! + +Well! Let us despair at nothing, but, wishing success to the newer +aspirant, expect better things from Miss M. when the 'knoll,' and +'paradise,' and their facilities, operate properly; and that she will +make a truer estimate of the importance and responsibilities of +'authorship' than she does at present, if I understand rightly the +sense in which she describes her own life as it means to be; for in +one sense it is all good and well, and quite natural that she should +like 'that sort of strenuous handwork' better than book-making; like +the play better than the labour, as we are apt to do. If she realises +a very ordinary scheme of literary life, planned under the eye of God +not 'the public,' and prosecuted under the constant sense of the +night's coming which ends it good or bad--then, she will be sure to +'like' the rest and sport--teaching her maids and sewing her gloves +and making delicate visitors comfortable--so much more rational a +resource is the worst of them than gin-and-water, for instance. But +if, as I rather suspect, these latter are to figure as a virtual +_half_ duty of the whole Man--as of equal importance (on the ground of +the innocence and utility of such occupations) with the book-making +aforesaid--always supposing _that_ to be of the right kind--_then_ I +respect Miss M. just as I should an Archbishop of Canterbury whose +business was the teaching A.B.C. at an infant-school--he who might set +on the Tens to instruct the Hundreds how to convince the Thousands of +the propriety of doing that and many other things. Of course one will +respect him only the more if when _that_ matter is off his mind he +relaxes at such a school instead of over a chess-board; as it will +increase our love for Miss M. to find that making 'my good Jane (from +Tyne-mouth)'--'happier and--I hope--wiser' is an amusement, or more, +after the day's progress towards the 'novel for next year' which is to +inspire thousands, beyond computation, with the ardour of making +innumerable other Janes and delicate relatives happier and wiser--who +knows but as many as Burns did, and does, so make happier and wiser? +Only, _his quarry_ and after-solace was that 'marble bowl often +replenished with whiskey' on which Dr. Curry discourses mournfully, +'Oh, be wiser Thou!'--and remember it was only _after_ Lord Bacon had +written to an end _his_ Book--given us for ever the Art of +Inventing--whether steam-engine or improved dust-pan--that he took on +himself to do a little exemplary 'hand work'; got out on that cold St. +Alban's road to stuff a fowl with snow and so keep it fresh, and got +into his bed and died of the cold in his hands ('strenuous _hand_ +work'--) before the snow had time to melt. He did not begin in his +youth by saying--'I have a horror of merely writing 'Novum Organums' +and shall give half my energies to the stuffing fowls'! + +All this it is _my_ amusement, of an indifferent kind, to put down +solely on the pleasant assurance contained in that postscript, of the +one way of never quarrelling with Miss M.--'by joining in her plan +and practice of plain speaking'--could she but 'get people to do it!' +Well, she gets me for a beginner: the funny thing would be to know +what Chorley's desperate utterance amounted to! Did you ever hear of +the plain speaking of some of the continental lottery-projectors? An +estate on the Rhine, for instance, is to be disposed of, and the +holder of the lucky ticket will find himself suddenly owner of a +mediæval castle with an unlimited number of dependencies--vineyards, +woods, pastures, and so forth--all only waiting the new master's +arrival--while inside, all is swept and garnished (not to say, +varnished)--the tables are spread, the wines on the board, all is +ready for the reception _but_ ... here 'plain speaking' becomes +necessary--it prevents quarrels, and, could the projector get people +to practise it as he does all would be well; so he, at least, will +speak plainly--you hear what _is_ provided but, he cannot, dares not +withhold what is _not_--there is then, to speak plainly,--no night +cap! You _will_ have to bring your own night cap. The projector +furnishes somewhat, as you hear, but not _all_--and now--the worst is +heard,--will you quarrel with him? Will my own dear, dearest Ba please +and help me here, and fancy Chorley's concessions, and tributes, and +recognitions, and then, at the very end, the 'plain words,' to +counterbalance all, that have been to overlook and pardon? + +Oh, my own Ba, hear _my_ plain speech--and how this is _not_ an +attempt to frighten you out of your dear wish to '_hear_ from me'--no, +indeed--but a whim, a caprice,--and now it is out! over, done with! +And now I am with you again--it is to _you_ I shall write next. Bless +you, ever--my beloved. I am much better, indeed--and mean to be well. +And you! But I will write--this goes for nothing--or only _this_, that +I am your very own-- + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Monday. + [Post-mark, February 16, 1846.] + +My long letter is with you, dearest, to show how serious my illness +was 'while you wrote': unless you find that letter too foolish, as I +do on twice thinking--or at all events a most superfluous bestowment +of handwork while the heart was elsewhere, and with you--never more +so! Dear, dear Ba, your adorable goodness sinks into me till it nearly +pains,--so exquisite and strange is the pleasure: _so_ you care for +me, and think of me, and write to me!--I shall never die for you, and +if it could be so, what would death prove? But I can live on, your own +as now,--utterly your own. + +Dear Ba, do you suppose we differ on so plain a point as that of the +superior wisdom, and generosity, too, of announcing such a change &c. +at the eleventh hour? There can be no doubt of it,--and now, what of +it to me? + +But I am not going to write to-day--only this--that I am better, +having not been quite so well last night--so I shut up books (that is, +of my own) and mean to think about nothing but you, and you, and still +you, for a whole week--so all will come right, I hope! _May_ I take +Wednesday? And do you say that,--hint at the possibility of that, +because you have been reached by my own remorse at feeling that if I +had kept my appointment _last_ Saturday (but one)--Thursday would have +been my day this past week, and this very Monday had been gained? +Shall I not lose a day for ever unless I get Wednesday and +Saturday?--yet ... care ... dearest--let nothing horrible happen. + +If I do not hear to the contrary to-morrow--or on Wednesday early-- + +But write and bless me dearest, most dear Ba. God bless you ever-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Monday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 17, 1846.] + +_Méchant comme quatre!_ you are, and not deserving to be let see the +famous letter--is there any grammar in _that_ concatenation, can you +tell me, now that you are in an arch-critical humour? And remember +(turning back to the subject) that personally she and I are strangers +and that therefore what she writes for me is naturally scene-painting +to be looked at from a distance, done with a masterly hand and most +amiable intention, but quite a different thing of course from the +intimate revelations of heart and mind which make a living thing of a +letter. If she had sent such to me, I should not have sent it to Mr. +Kenyon, but then, she would not have sent it to me in any case. What +she _has_ sent me might be a chapter in a book and has the life proper +to itself, and I shall not let you try it by another standard, even if +you wished, but you don't--for I am not so _bête_ as not to understand +how the jest crosses the serious all the way you write. Well--and Mr. +Kenyon wants the letter the second time, not for himself, but for Mr. +Crabb Robinson who promises to let me have a new sonnet of +Wordsworth's in exchange for the loan, and whom I cannot refuse +because he is an intimate friend of Miss Martineau's and once allowed +me to read a whole packet of letters from her to him. She does not +object (as I have read under her hand) to her letters being shown +about in MS., notwithstanding the anathema against all printers of the +same (which completes the extravagance of the unreason, I think) and +people are more anxious to see them from their presumed nearness to +annihilation. I, for my part, value letters (to talk literature) as +the most vital part of biography, and for any rational human being to +put his foot on the traditions of his kind in this particular class, +does seem to me as wonderful as possible. Who would put away one of +those multitudinous volumes, even, which stereotype Voltaire's +wrinkles of wit--even Voltaire? I can read book after book of such +reading--or could! And if her principle were carried out, there would +be an end! Death would be deader from henceforth. Also it is a wrong +selfish principle and unworthy of her whole life and profession, +because we should all be ready to say that if the secrets of our daily +lives and inner souls may instruct other surviving souls, let them be +open to men hereafter, even as they are to God now. Dust to dust, and +soul-secrets to humanity--there are natural heirs to all these things. +Not that I do not intimately understand the shrinking back from the +idea of publicity on any terms--not that I would not myself destroy +papers of mine which were sacred to _me_ for personal reasons--but +then I never would call this natural weakness, virtue--nor would I, as +a teacher of the public, announce it and attempt to justify it as an +example to other minds and acts, I hope. + +How hard you are on the mending of stockings and the rest of it! Why +not agree with me and like that sort of homeliness and simplicity in +combination with such large faculty as we must admit _there_? Lord +Bacon did a great deal of trifling besides the stuffing of the fowl +you mention--which I did not remember: and in fact, all the great work +done in the world, is done just by the people who know how to +trifle--do you not think so? When a man makes a principle of 'never +losing a moment,' he is a lost man. Great men are eager to find an +hour, and not to avoid losing a moment. 'What are you doing' said +somebody once (as I heard the tradition) to the beautiful Lady Oxford +as she sate in her open carriage on the race-ground--'Only a little +algebra,' said she. People who do a little algebra on the race-ground +are not likely to do much of anything with ever so many hours for +meditation. Why, you must agree with me in all this, so I shall not be +sententious any longer. Mending stockings is not exactly the sort of +pastime _I_ should choose--who do things quite as trifling without the +utility--and even your Seigneurie peradventure.... I stop there for +fear of growing impertinent. The _argumentum ad hominem_ is apt to +bring down the _argumentum ad baculum_, it is as well to remember in +time. + +For Wordsworth ... you are right in a measure and by a standard--but I +have heard such really desecrating things of him, of his selfishness, +his love of money, his worldly _cunning_ (rather than prudence) that I +felt a relief and gladness in the new chronicle;--and you can +understand how _that_ was. Miss Mitford's doctrine is that everything +put into the poetry, is taken out of the man and lost utterly by him. +Her general doctrine about poets, quite amounts to that--I do not say +it too strongly. And knowing that such opinions are held by minds not +feeble, it is very painful (as it would be indeed in any case) to see +them apparently justified by royal poets like Wordsworth. Ah, but I +know an answer--I see one in my mind! + +So again for the letters. Now ought I not to know about letters, I who +have had so many ... from chief minds too, as society goes in England +and America? And _your_ letters began by being first to my intellect, +before they were first to my heart. All the letters in the world are +not like yours ... and I would trust them for that verdict with any +jury in Europe, if they were not so far too dear! Mr. Kenyon wanted to +make me show him your letters--I did show him the first, and resisted +gallantly afterwards, which made him say what vexed me at the moment, +... 'oh--you let me see only _women's_ letters,'--till I observed that +it was a breach of confidence, except in some cases, ... and that _I_ +should complain very much, if anyone, man or woman, acted so by +myself. But nobody in the world writes like you--not so _vitally_--and +I have a right, if you please, to praise my letters, besides the +reason of it which is as good. + +Ah--you made me laugh about Mr. Chorley's free speaking--and, without +the personal knowledge, I can comprehend how it could be nothing very +ferocious ... some 'pardonnez moi, vous êtes un ange.' The amusing +part is that by the same post which brought me the Ambleside document, +I heard from Miss Mitford 'that it was an admirable thing of Chorley +to have persisted in not allowing Harriet Martineau to quarrel with +him' ... so that there are laurels on both sides, it appears. + +And I am delighted to hear from you to-day just _so_, though I +reproach you in turn just _so_ ... because you were not 'depressed' in +writing all this and this and this which has made me laugh--you were +not, dearest--and you call yourself better, 'much better,' which means +a very little perhaps, but is a golden word, let me take it as I may. +May God bless you. Wednesday seems too near (now that this is Monday +and you are better) to be _our_ day ... perhaps it does,--and Thursday +_is_ close beside it at the worst. + + Dearest I am your own + + BA. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Monday Evening. + [In the same envelope with the preceding letter.] + +Now forgive me, dearest of all, but I must teaze you just a little, +and entreat you, if only for the love of me, to have medical advice +and follow it _without further delay_. I like to have recourse to +these medical people quite as little as you can--but I am persuaded +that it is necessary--that it is at least _wise_, for you to do so +now, and, you see, you were 'not quite so well' again last night! So +will you, for me? Would _I_ not, if you wished it? And on Wednesday, +yes, on Wednesday, come--that is, if coming on Wednesday should really +be not bad for you, for you _must_ do what is right and kind, and I +doubt whether the omnibus-driving and the noises of every sort betwixt +us, should not keep you away for a little while--I trust you to do +what is best for both of us. + +And it is not best ... it is not good even, to talk about 'dying for +me' ... oh, I do beseech you never to use such words. You make me feel +as if I were choking. Also it is nonsense--because nobody puts out a +candle for the light's sake. + +Write _one line_ to me to-morrow--literally so little--just to say how +you are. I know by the writing here, what _is_. Let me have the one +line by the eight o'clock post to-morrow, Tuesday. + +For the rest it may be my 'goodness' or my badness, but the world +seems to have sunk away beneath my feet and to have left only you to +look to and hold by. Am I not to _feel_, then, any trembling of the +hand? the least trembling? + +May God bless both of us--which is a double blessing for me +notwithstanding my badness. + +_I trust you about Wednesday_--and if it should be wise and kind not +to come quite so soon, we will take it out of other days and lose not +one of them. And as for anything 'horrible' being likely to happen, do +not think of that either,--there can be nothing horrible while you are +not ill. So be well--try to be well--use the means and, well or ill, +let me have the one line to-morrow ... Tuesday. I send you the foolish +letter I wrote to-day in answer to your too long one--too long, was it +not, as you felt? And I, the writer of the foolish one, am +twice-foolish, and push poor 'Luria' out of sight, and refuse to +finish my notes on him till the harm he has done shall have passed +away. In my badness I bring false accusation, perhaps, against poor +Luria. + +So till Wednesday--or as you shall fix otherwise. + + Your + + BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + 6-1/2 Tuesday Evening. + +My dearest, your note reaches me only _now_, with an excuse from the +postman. The answer you expect, you shall have the only way possible. +I must make up a parcel so as to be able to knock and give it. I shall +be with you to-morrow, God willing--being quite well. + + Bless you ever-- + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Thursday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 19, 1846.] + +My sweetest, best, dearest Ba I _do_ love you less, much less already, +and adore you more, more by so much more as I see of you, think of +you--I am yours just as much as those flowers; and you may pluck those +flowers to pieces or put them in your breast; it is not because you so +bless me now that you may not if you please one day--you will stop me +here; but it is the truth and I live in it. + +I am quite well; indeed, this morning, _noticeably_ well, they tell +me, and well I mean to keep if I can. + +When I got home last evening I found this note--and I have _accepted_, +that I might say I could also keep an engagement, if so minded, at +Harley Street--thereby insinuating that other reasons _may_ bring me +into the neighbourhood than _the_ reason--but I shall either not go +there, or only for an hour at most. I also found a note headed +'Strictly private and confidential'--so here it goes from my mouth to +my heart--pleasantly proposing that I should start in a few days for +St. Petersburg, as secretary to somebody going there on a 'mission of +humanity'--_grazie tante_! + +Did you hear of my meeting someone at the door whom I take to have +been one of your brothers? + +One thing vexed me in your letter--I will tell you, the praise of +_my_ letters. Now, one merit they have--in language mystical--that of +having _no_ merit. If I caught myself trying to write finely, +graphically &c. &c., nay, if I found myself conscious of having in my +own opinion, so written, all would be over! yes, over! I should be +respecting you inordinately, paying a proper tribute to your genius, +summoning the necessary collectedness,--plenty of all that! But the +feeling with which I write to you, not knowing that it is +writing,--with _you_, face and mouth and hair and eyes opposite me, +touching me, knowing that all _is_ as I say, and helping out the +imperfect phrases from your own intuition--_that_ would be gone--and +_what_ in its place? 'Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we write to +Ambleside.' No, no, love, nor can it ever be so, nor should it ever be +so if--even if, preserving all that intimate relation, with the +carelessness, _still_, somehow, was obtained with no effort in the +world, graphic writing and philosophic and what you please--for I +_will_ be--_would_ be, better than my works and words with an infinite +stock beyond what I put into convenient circulation whether in fine +speeches fit to remember, or fine passages to quote. For the rest, I +had meant to tell you before now, that you often put me 'in a maze' +when you particularize letters of mine--'such an one was kind' &c. I +know, sometimes I seem to give the matter up in despair, I take out +paper and fall thinking on you, and bless you with my whole heart and +then begin: 'What a fine day this is?' I distinctly remember having +done that repeatedly--but the converse is not true by any means, that +(when the expression may happen to fall more consentaneously to the +mind's motion) that less is felt, oh no! But the particular thought at +the time has not been of the _insufficiency_ of expression, as in the +other instance. + +Now I will leave off--to begin elsewhere--for I am always with you, +beloved, best beloved! Now you will write? And walk much, and sleep +more? Bless you, dearest--ever-- + + Your own, + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + +[Post-marks, Mis-sent to Mitcham. February 19 and 20, 1846.] + +Best and kindest of all that ever were to be loved in dreams, and +wondered at and loved out of them, you are indeed! I cannot make you +feel how I felt that night when I knew that to save me an anxious +thought you had come so far so late--it was almost too much to feel, +and _is_ too much to speak. So let it pass. You will never act so +again, ever dearest--you shall not. If the post sins, why leave the +sin to the post; and I will remember for the future, will be ready to +remember, how postmen are fallible and how you live at the end of a +lane--and not be uneasy about a silence if there should be one +unaccounted for. For the Tuesday coming, I shall remember that +too--who could forget it?... I put it in the niche of the wall, one +golden lamp more of your giving, to throw light purely down to the end +of my life--I do thank you. And the truth is, I _should_ have been in +a panic, had there been no letter that evening--I was frightened the +day before, then reasoned the fears back and waited: and if there had +been no letter after all--. But you are supernaturally good and kind. +How can I ever 'return' as people say (as they might say in their +ledgers) ... any of it all? How indeed can I who have not even a heart +left of my own, to love you with? + +I quite trust to your promise in respect to the medical advice, if +walking and rest from work do not prevent at once the recurrence of +those sensations--it was a promise, remember. And you will tell me the +very truth of how you are--and you will try the music, and not be +nervous, dearest. Would not _riding_ be good for you--consider. And +why should you be 'alone' when your sister is in the house? How I keep +thinking of you all day--you cannot really be alone with so many +thoughts ... such swarms of thoughts, if you could but see them, +drones and bees together! + +George came in from Westminster Hall after we parted yesterday and +said that he had talked with the junior counsel of the wretched +plaintiffs in the Ferrers case, and that the belief was in the mother +being implicated, although not from the beginning. It was believed too +that the miserable girl had herself taken step after step into the +mire, involved herself gradually, the first guilt being an +extravagance in personal expenses, which she lied and lied to account +for in the face of her family. 'Such a respectable family,' said +George, 'the grandfather in court looking venerable, and everyone +indignant upon being so disgraced by her!' But for the respectability +in the best sense, I do not quite see. That all those people should +acquiesce in the indecency (according to every standard of English +manners in any class of society) of thrusting the personal expenses of +a member of their family on Lord Ferrers, she still bearing their +name--and in those peculiar circumstances of her supposed position +too--where is the respectability? And they are furious with her, which +is not to be wondered at after all. Her counsel had an interview with +her previous to the trial, to satisfy themselves of her good faith, +and she was quite resolute and earnest, persisting in every statement. +On the coming out of the anonymous letters, Fitzroy Kelly said to the +juniors that if anyone could suggest a means of explanation, he would +be eager to carry forward the case, ... but for him he saw no way of +escaping from the fact of the guilt of their client. Not a voice could +speak for her. So George was told. There is no ground for a +prosecution for a conspiracy, he says, but she is open to the charge +for _forgery_, of course, and to the dreadful consequences, though it +is not considered at all likely that Lord Ferrers could wish to +disturb her beyond the ruin she has brought on her own life. + +Think of Miss Mitford's growing quite cold about Mr. Chorley who has +spent two days with her lately, and of her saying in a letter to me +this morning that he is very much changed and grown to be 'a +presumptuous coxcomb.' He has displeased her in some way--that is +clear. What changes there are in the world. + +Should I ever change to _you_, do you think, ... even if you came to +'love me less'--not that I meant to reproach you with that +possibility. May God bless you, dear dearest. It is another miracle +(beside the many) that I get nearer to the mountains yet still they +seem more blue. Is not _that_ strange? + + Ever and wholly + + Your BA. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Thursday Evening. + [Post-mark, February 20, 1846.] + +And I offended you by praising your letters--or rather _mine_, if you +please--as if I had not the right! Still, you shall not, shall not +fancy that I meant to praise them in the way you seem to think--by +calling them 'graphic,' 'philosophic,'--why, did I ever use such +words? I agree with you that if I could play critic upon your letters, +it would be an end!--but no, no ... I did not, for a moment. In what I +said I went back to my first impressions--and they were _vital_ +letters, I said--which was the résumé of my thoughts upon the early +ones you sent me, because I felt your letters to be _you_ from the +very first, and I began, from the beginning, to read every one several +times over. Nobody, I felt, nobody of all these writers, did write as +you did. Well!--and had I not a right to say _that_ now at last, and +was it not natural to say just _that_, when I was talking of other +people's letters and how it had grown almost impossible for me to read +them; and do I deserve to be scolded? No indeed. + +And if I had the misfortune to think now, when you say it is a fine +day, that _that_ is said in more music than it could be said in by +another--where is the sin against _you_, I should like to ask. It is +yourself who is the critic, I think, after all. But over all the +brine, I hold my letters--just as Camoens did his poem. They are _best +to me_--and they are _best_. I knew what _they_ were, before I knew +what _you_ were--all of you. And I like to think that I never fancied +anyone on a level with you, even in a letter. + +What makes you take them to be so bad, I suppose, is just feeling in +them how near we are. _You say that!_--not I. + +Bad or good, you _are_ better--yes, 'better than the works and +words'!--though it was very shameful of you to insinuate that I talked +of fine speeches and passages and graphical and philosophical +sentences, as if I had proposed a publication of 'Elegant Extracts' +from your letters. See what blasphemy one falls into through a +beginning of light speech! It is wiser to talk of St. Petersburg; for +all Voltaire's ... '_ne disons pas de mal de Nicolas_.' + +Wiser--because you will not go. If you were going ... well!--but there +is no danger--it would not do you good to go, I am so happy this time +as to be able to think--and your 'mission of humanity' lies +nearer--'strictly private and confidential'? but not in Harley +Street--so if you go _there_, dearest, keep to the 'one hour' and do +not suffer yourself to be tired and stunned in those hot rooms and +made unwell again--it is plain that you cannot bear that sort of +excitement. For Mr. Kenyon's note, ... it was a great temptation to +make a day of Friday--but I resist both for Monday's sake and for +yours, because it seems to me safer not to hurry you from one house to +another till you are tired completely. I shall think of you so much +the nearer for Mr. Kenyon's note--which is something gained. In the +meanwhile you are better, which is everything, or seems so. Ever +dearest, do you remember what it is to me that you should be better, +and keep from being worse again--I mean, of course, _try_ to keep from +being worse--be wise ... and do not stay long in those hot Harley +Street rooms. Ah--now you will think that I am afraid of the +unicorns!-- + +Through your being ill the other day I forgot, and afterwards went on +forgetting, to speak of and to return the ballad--which is delightful; +I have an unspeakable delight in those suggestive ballads, which seem +to make you touch with the end of your finger the full warm life of +other times ... so near they bring you, yet so suddenly all passes in +them. Certainly there is a likeness to your Duchess--it is a curious +crossing. And does it not strike you that a verse or two must be +wanting in the ballad--there is a gap, I fancy. + +Tell Mr. Kenyon (if he enquires) that you come here on Monday instead +of Saturday--and if you can help it, do not mention Wednesday--it will +be as well, not. You met Alfred at the door--he came up to me +afterwards and observed that 'at last he had seen you!' 'Virgilium +tantum vidi!' + +As to the thing which you try to say in the first page of this letter, +and which you 'stop' yourself in saying ... _I_ need not stop you in +it.... + +And now there is no time, if I am to sleep to-night. May God bless +you, dearest, dearest. + +I must be your own while He blesses _me_. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Friday Afternoon. + [Post-mark, February 20, 1846.] + +Here is my Ba's dearest _first_ letter come four hours after the +second, with '_Mis-sent to Mitcham_' written on its face as a +reason,--one more proof of the negligence of somebody! But I _do_ have +it at last--what should I say? what do you expect me to say? And the +first note seemed quite as much too kind as usual! + +Let me write to-morrow, sweet? I am quite well and sure to mind all +you bid me. I shall do no more than look in at that place (they are +the cousins of a really good friend of mine, Dr. White--I go for +_him_) if even that--for to-morrow night I must go out again, I +fear--to pay the ordinary compliment for an invitation to the R.S.'s +_soirée_ at Lord Northampton's. And then comes Monday--and to-night +any unicorn I may see I will not find myself at liberty to catch. +(N.B.--should you meditate really an addition to the 'Elegant +Extracts'--mind this last joke is none of mine but my father's; when +walking with me when a child, I remember, he bade a little urchin we +found fishing with a stick and a string for sticklebacks in a +ditch--'to mind that he brought any sturgeon he might catch to the +king'--he having a claim on such a prize, by courtesy if not right). + +As for Chorley, he is neither the one nor the other of those ugly +things. One remembers Regan's 'Oh Heaven--so you will rail at _me_, +when you are in the mood.' But what a want of self-respect such +judgments argue, or rather, want of knowledge what true self-respect +is: 'So I believed yesterday, and _so_ now--and yet am neither hasty, +nor inapprehensive, nor malevolent'--what then? + +--But I will say more of my mind--(not of that)--to-morrow, for time +presses a little--so bless you my ever ever dearest--I love you +wholly. + + R.B. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Friday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 21, 1846.] + +As my sisters did not dine at home yesterday and I see nobody else in +the evening, I never heard till just now and _from Papa himself_, that +'George was invited to meet Mr. Browning and Mr. Procter.' How +surprised you will be. It must have been a sudden thought of Mr. +Kenyon's. + +And I have been thinking, thinking since last night that I wrote you +then a letter all but ... insolent ... which, do you know, I feel half +ashamed to look back upon this morning--particularly what I wrote +about 'missions of humanity'--now was it not insolent of me to write +so? If I could take my letter again I would dip it into Lethe between +the lilies, instead of the post office:--but I can't--so if you +wondered, you must forget as far as possible, and understand how it +was, and that I was in brimming spirits when I wrote, from two causes +... first, because I had your letter which was a pure goodness of +yours, and secondly because you were 'noticeably' better you said, or +'noticeably well' rather, to mind my quotations. So I wrote what I +wrote, and gave it to Arabel when she came in at midnight, to give it +to Henrietta who goes out before eight in the morning and often takes +charge of my letters, and it was too late, at the earliest this +morning, to feel a little ashamed. Miss Thomson told me that she had +determined to change the type of the few pages of her letterpress +which had been touched, and that therefore Mr. Burges's revisions of +my translations should be revised back again. She appears to be a very +acute person, full of quick perceptions--naturally quick, and +carefully trained--a little over anxious perhaps about mental lights, +and opening her eyes still more than she sees, which is a common fault +of clever people, if one must call it a fault. I like her, and she is +kind and cordial. Will she ask you to help her book with a translation +or two, I wonder. Perhaps--if the courage should come. Dearest, how I +shall think of you this evening, and how near you will seem, not to be +here. I had a letter from Mr. Mathews the other day, and smiled to +read in it just what I had expected, that he immediately sent Landor's +verses on you to a _few editors_, friends of his, in order to their +communication to the public. He received my apology for myself with +the utmost graciousness. A kind good man he is. + +After all, do you know, I am a little vexed that I should have even +_seemed_ to do wrong in my speech about the letters. It must have been +wrong, if it seemed so to you, I fancy now. Only I really did no more +mean to try your letters ... mine ... such as they are to me now, by +the common critical measure, than the shepherds praised the pure tenor +of the angels who sang 'Peace upon earth' to them. It was enough that +they knew it for angels' singing. So do _you_ forgive me, beloved, and +put away from you the thought that I have let in between us any +miserable stuff 'de métier,' which I hate as you hate. And I will not +say any more about it, not to run into more imprudences of mischief. + +On the other hand I warn you against saying again what you began to +say yesterday and stopped. Do not try it again. What may be quite good +sense from me, is from _you_ very much the reverse, and pray observe +that difference. Or did you think that I was making my own road clear +in the the thing I said about--'jilts'? No, you did not. Yet I am +ready to repeat of myself as of others, that if I ceased to love you, +I certainly would act out the whole consequence--but _that_ is an +impossible 'if' to my nature, supposing the conditions of it otherwise +to be probable. I never loved anyone much and ceased to love that +person. Ask every friend of mine, if I am given to change even in +friendship! _And to you...!_ Ah, but you never think of such a thing +seriously--and you are conscious that you did not say it very sagely. +You and I are in different positions. Now let me tell you an apologue +in exchange for your Wednesday's stories which I liked so, and mine +perhaps may make you 'a little wiser'--who knows? + +It befell that there stood in hall a bold baron, and out he spake to +one of his serfs ... 'Come thou; and take this baton of my baronie, +and give me instead thereof that sprig of hawthorn thou holdest in +thine hand.' Now the hawthorn-bough was no larger a thing than might +be carried by a wood-pigeon to the nest, when she flieth low, and the +baronial baton was covered with fine gold, and the serf, turning it +in his hands, marvelled greatly. + +And he answered and said, 'Let not my lord be in haste, nor jest with +his servant. Is it verily his will that I should keep his golden +baton? Let him speak again--lest it repent him of his gift.' + +And the baron spake again that it was his will. 'And I'--he said once +again--'shall it be lawful for me to keep this sprig of hawthorn, and +will it not repent thee of thy gift?' + +Then all the servants who stood in hall, laughed, and the serf's hands +trembled till they dropped the baton into the rushes, knowing that his +lord did but jest.... + +Which mine did not. Only, _de te fabula narratur_ up to a point. + +And I have your letter. 'What did I expect?' Why I expected just +_that_, a letter in turn. Also I am graciously pleased (yes, and very +much pleased!) to '_let_ you write to-morrow.' How you spoil me with +goodness, which makes one 'insolent' as I was saying, now and then. + +The worst is, that I write 'too kind' letters--I!--and what does that +criticism mean, pray? It reminds me, at least, of ... now I will tell +you what it reminds me of. + +A few days ago Henrietta said to me that she was quite uncomfortable. +She had written to somebody a not kind enough letter, she thought, and +it might be taken ill. 'Are _you_ ever uncomfortable, Ba, after you +have sent letters to the post?' she asked me. + +'Yes,' I said, 'sometimes, but from a reason just the very reverse of +your reason, _my_ letters, when they get into the post, seem too +kind,--rather.' And my sisters laughed ... laughed. + +But if _you_ think so beside, I must seriously set to work, you see, +to correct that flagrant fault, and shall do better in time _dis +faventibus_, though it will be difficult. + +Mr. Kenyon's dinner is a riddle which I cannot read. _You_ are +invited to meet Miss Thomson and Mr. Bayley and '_no one else_.' +George is invited to meet Mr. Browning and Mr. Procter and '_no one +else_'--just those words. The '_absolu_' (do you remember Balzac's +beautiful story?) is just _you_ and 'no one else,' the other elements +being mere uncertainties, shifting while one looks for them. + +Am I not writing nonsense to-night? I am not 'too _wise_' in any case, +which is some comfort. It puts one in spirits to hear of your being +'well,' ever and ever dearest. Keep so for _me_. May God bless you +hour by hour. In every one of mine I am your own + + BA. + +For Miss Mitford ... + + But people are not angels quite ... + +and she sees the whole world in stripes of black and white, it is her +way. I feel very affectionately towards her, love her sincerely. She +is affectionate to _me_ beyond measure. Still, always I feel that if I +were to vex her, the lower deep below the lowest deep would not be low +enough for _me_. I always feel _that_. She would advertise me directly +for a wretch proper. + +Then, for all I said about never changing, I have ice enough over me +just now to hold the sparrows!--in respect to a great crowd of people, +and she is among them--for reasons--for reasons. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 23, 1846.] + +So all was altered, my love--and, instead of Miss T. and the other +friend, I had your brother and Procter--to my great pleasure. After, I +went to that place, and soon got away, and am very well this morning +in the sunshine; which I feel with you, do I not? Yesterday after +dinner we spoke of Mrs. Jameson, and, as my wont is--(Here your letter +reaches me--let me finish this sentence now I have finished kissing +you, dearest beyond all dearness--My own heart's Ba!)--oh, as I am +used, I left the talking to go on by itself, with the thought busied +elsewhere, till at last my own voice startled me for I heard my tongue +utter 'Miss Barrett ... that is, Mrs. Jameson says' ... or 'does ... +or does not.' I forget which! And if anybody noticed the _gaucherie_ +it must have been just your brother! + +Now to these letters! I do solemnly, unaffectedly wonder how you can +put so much pure felicity into an envelope so as that I shall get it +as from the fount head. This to-day, those yesterday--there is, I see, +and know, thus much goodness in line after line, goodness to be +scientifically appreciated, _proved there_--but over and above, is it +in the writing, the dots and traces, the seal, the paper--here does +the subtle charm lie beyond all rational accounting for? The other day +I stumbled on a quotation from J. Baptista Porta--wherein he avers +that any musical instrument made out of wood possessed of medicinal +properties retains, being put to use, such virtues undiminished,--and +that, for instance, a sick man to whom you should pipe on a pipe of +elder-tree would so receive all the advantage derivable from a +decoction of its berries. From whence, by a parity of reasoning, I may +discover, I think, that the very ink and paper were--ah, what were +they? Curious thinking won't do for me and the wise head which is +mine, so I will lie and rest in my ignorance of content and understand +that without any magic at all you simply wish to make one +person--which of your free goodness proves to be your R.B.--to make me +supremely happy, and that you have your wish--you _do_ bless me! More +and more, for the old treasure is piled undiminished and still the new +comes glittering in. Dear, dear heart of my heart, life of my life, +_will this last_, let _me_ begin to ask? Can it be meant I shall live +this to the end? Then, dearest, care also for the life beyond, and put +in my mind how to testify here that I have felt, if I could not +deserve that a gift beyond all gifts! I hope to work hard, to prove I +do feel, as I say--it would be terrible to accomplish nothing now. + +With which conviction--renewed conviction time by time, of your +extravagance of kindness to me unworthy,--will it seem +characteristically consistent when I pray you not to begin frightening +me, all the same, with threats of writing _less_ kindly? That must not +be, love, for _your_ sake now--if you had not thrown open those +windows of heaven I should have no more imagined than that Syrian lord +on whom the King leaned 'how such things might be'--but, once their +influence showered, I should know, too soon and easily, if they shut +up again! You have committed your dear, dearest self to that course of +blessing, and blessing on, on, for ever--so let all be as it is, pray, +_pray_! + +No--not _all_. No more, ever, of that strange +suspicion--'insolent'--oh, what a word!--nor suppose I shall +particularly wonder at its being fancied applicable to _that_, of all +other passages of your letter! It is quite as reasonable to suspect +the existence of such a quality _there_ as elsewhere: how _can_ such a +thing, _could_ such a thing come from you to me? But, dear Ba, _do_ +you know me better! _Do_ feel that I know you, I am bold to believe, +and that if you were to run at me with a pointed spear I should be +sure it was a golden sanative, Machaon's touch, for my entire good, +that I was opening my heart to receive! As for words, written or +spoken--I, who sin forty times in a day by light words, and untrue to +the thought, I am certainly not used to be easily offended by other +peoples' words, people in the world. But _your_ words! And about the +'mission'; if it had not been a thing to jest at, I should not have +begun, as I did--as you felt I did. I know now, what I only suspected +then, and will tell you all the matter on Monday if you care to hear. +The 'humanity' however, would have been unquestionable if I had chosen +to exercise it towards the poor weak incapable creature that wants +_somebody_, and urgently, I can well believe. + +As for your apologue, it is naught--as you felt, and so broke off--for +the baron knew well enough it was a spray of the magical tree which +once planted in his domain would shoot up, and out, and all round, and +be glorious with leaves and musical with birds' nests, and a fairy +safeguard and blessing thenceforward and for ever, when the foolish +baton had been broken into ounces of gold, even if gold it _were_, and +spent and vanished: for, he said, such gold lies in the highway, men +pick it up, more of it or less; but this one slip of the flowering +tree is all of it on this side Paradise. Whereon he laid it to his +heart and was happy--in spite of his disastrous chase the night +before, when so far from catching an unicorn, he saw not even a +respectable prize-heifer, worth the oil-cake and rape-seed it had +doubtless cost to rear her--'insolence!' + +I found no opportunity of speaking to Mr. K. about Monday, but nothing +was said of last Wednesday, and he must know I did not go yesterday. +So, Monday is laughing in sunshine surely! Bless you, my sweetest. I +love you with my whole heart; ever shall love you. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + [Post-mark, February 24, 1846.] + +Ever dearest, it is only when you go away, when you are quite gone, +out of the house and the street, that I get up and think properly, and +with the right gratitude of your flowers. Such beautiful flowers you +brought me this time too! looking like summer itself, and smelling! +Doing the 'honour due' to the flowers, makes your presence a little +longer with me, the sun shines back over the hill just by that time, +and then drops, till the next letter. + +If I had had the letter on Saturday as ought to have been, no, I could +_not_ have answered it so that you should have my answer on +Sunday--no, I should still have had to write first. + +Now you understand that I do not object to the writing first, but only +to the hearing second. I would rather write than not--I! But to be +written to is the chief gladness of course; and with all you say of +liking to have my letters (which I like to hear quite enough indeed) +you cannot pretend to think that _yours_ are not more to _me_, most to +_me_! Ask my guardian-angel and hear what he says! Yours will look +another way for shame of measuring joys with him! Because as I have +said before, and as he says now, you are all to me, all the light, all +the life; I am living for you now. And before I knew you, what was I +and where? What was the world to me, do you think? and the meaning of +life? And now, when you come and go, and write and do not write, all +the hours are chequered accordingly in so many squares of white and +black, as if for playing at fox and goose ... only there is no fox, +and I will not agree to be goose for one ... _that_ is _you_ perhaps, +for being 'too easily' satisfied. + +So my claim is that you are more to me than I can be to you at any +rate. Mr. Fox said on Sunday that I was a 'religious hermit' who wrote +'poems which ought to be read in a Gothic alcove'; and religious +hermits, when they care to see visions, do it better, they all say, +through fasting and flagellation and seclusion in dark places. St. +Theresa, for instance, saw a clearer glory by such means, than your +Sir Moses Montefiore through his hundred-guinea telescope. Think then, +how every shadow of my life has helped to throw out into brighter, +fuller significance, the light which comes to me from you ... think +how it is the one light, seen without distractions. + +_I_ was thinking the other day that certainly and after all (or rather +before all) I had loved you all my life unawares, that is, the idea of +you. Women begin for the most part, (if ever so very little given to +reverie) by meaning, in an aside to themselves, to love such and such +an ideal, seen sometimes in a dream and sometimes in a book, and +forswearing their ancient faith as the years creep on. I say a book, +because I remember a friend of mine who looked everywhere for the +original of Mr. Ward's 'Tremaine,' because nothing would do for _her_, +she insisted, except just _that_ excess of so-called refinement, with +the book-knowledge and the conventional manners, (_loue qui peut_, +Tremaine), and ended by marrying a lieutenant in the Navy who could +not spell. Such things happen every day, and cannot be otherwise, say +the wise:--and _this_ being otherwise with _me_ is miraculous +compensation for the trials of many years, though such abundant, +overabundant compensation, that I cannot help fearing it is too much, +as I know that you are too good and too high for me, and that by the +degree in which I am raised up you are let down, for us two to find a +level to meet on. One's ideal must be above one, as a matter of +course, you know. It is as far as one can reach with one's eyes +(soul-eyes), not reach to touch. And here is mine ... shall I tell +you? ... even to the visible outward sign of the black hair and the +complexion (why you might ask my sisters!) yet I would not tell you, +if I could not tell you afterwards that, if it had been red hair +quite, it had been the same thing, only I prove the coincidence out +fully and make you smile half. + +Yet indeed I did not fancy that I was to love _you_ when you came to +see me--no indeed ... any more than I did your caring on your side. My +ambition when we began our correspondence, was simply that you should +forget I was a woman (being weary and _blasée_ of the empty written +gallantries, of which I have had my share and all the more perhaps +from my peculiar position which made them so without consequence), +that you should forget _that_ and let us be friends, and consent to +teach me what you knew better than I, in art and human nature, and +give me your sympathy in the meanwhile. I am a great hero-worshipper +and had admired your poetry for years, and to feel that you liked to +write to me and be written to was a pleasure and a pride, as I used +to tell you I am sure, and then your letters were not like other +letters, as I must not tell you again. Also you _influenced_ me, in a +way in which no one else did. For instance, by two or three half words +you made me see you, and other people had delivered orations on the +same subject quite without effect. I surprised everybody in this house +by consenting to see you. Then, when you came, you never went away. I +mean I had a sense of your presence constantly. Yes ... and to prove +how free that feeling was from the remotest presentiment of what has +occurred, I said to Papa in my unconsciousness the next morning ... +'it is most extraordinary how the idea of Mr. Browning does beset +me--I suppose it is not being used to see strangers, in some +degree--but it haunts me ... it is a persecution.' On which he smiled +and said that 'it was not grateful to my friend to use such a word.' +When the letter came.... + +Do you know that all that time I was frightened of you? frightened in +this way. I felt as if you had a power over me and meant to use it, +and that I could not breathe or speak very differently from what you +chose to make me. As to my thoughts, I had it in my head somehow that +you read _them_ as you read the newspaper--examined them, and fastened +them down writhing under your long entomological pins--ah, do you +remember the entomology of it all? + +But the power was used upon _me_--and I never doubted that you had +mistaken your own mind, the strongest of us having some exceptional +weakness. Turning the wonder round in all lights, I came to what you +admitted yesterday ... yes, I saw _that_ very early ... that you had +come here with the intention of trying to love whomever you should +find, ... and also that what I had said about exaggerating the amount +of what I could be to you, had just operated in making you more +determined to justify your own presentiment in the face of mine. +Well--and if that last clause was true a little, too ... why should I +be sorry now ... and why should you have fancied for a moment, that +the first could make me sorry. At first and when I did not believe +that you really loved me, when I thought you deceived yourself, +_then_, it was different. But now ... now ... when I see and believe +your attachment for me, do you think that any cause in the world +(except what diminished it) could render it less a source of joy to +me? I mean as far as I myself am considered. Now if you ever fancy +that I am _vain_ of your love for me, you will be unjust, remember. If +it were less dear, and less above me, I might be vain perhaps. But I +may say _before_ God and you, that of all the events of my life, +inclusive of its afflictions, nothing has humbled me so much as your +love. Right or wrong it may be, but true it _is_, and I tell you. Your +love has been to me like God's own love, which makes the receivers of +it kneelers. + +Why all this should be written, I do not know--but you set me thinking +yesterday in that backward line, which I lean back to very often, and +for once, as you made me write directly, why I wrote, as my thoughts +went, that way. + +Say how you are, beloved--and do not brood over that 'Soul's Tragedy,' +which I wish I had here with 'Luria,' because, so, you should not see +it for a month at least. And take exercise and keep well--and remember +how many letters I must have before Saturday. May God bless you. Do +you want to hear me say + + I cannot love you less...? + +_That_ is a doubtful phrase. And + + I cannot love you more + +is doubtful too, for reasons I could give. More or less, I really love +you, but it does not sound right, even _so_, does it? I know what it +ought to be, and will put it into the 'seal' and the 'paper' with the +ineffable other things. + +Dearest, do not go to St. Petersburg. Do not think of going, for fear +it should come true and you should go, and while you were helping the +Jews and teaching Nicholas, what (in that case) would become of your + + BA? + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday. + [Post-mark, February 24, 1846.] + +Ah, sweetest, in spite of our agreement, here is the note that sought +not to go, but must--because, if there is no speaking of Mrs. Jamesons +and such like without bringing in your dear name (not _dearest_ name, +my Ba!) what is the good of not writing it down, now, when I, though +possessed with the love of it no more than usual, yet _may_ speak, and +to a hearer? And I have to thank you with all my heart for the good +news of the increasing strength and less need for the opium--how I do +thank you, my dearest--and desire to thank God through whose goodness +it all is! This I could not but say now, to-morrow I will write at +length, having been working a little this morning, with whatever +effect. So now I will go out and see your elm-trees and gate, and +think the thoughts over again, and coming home I shall perhaps find a +letter. + + Dearest, dearest--my perfect blessing you are! + + May God continue his care for us. R. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Wednesday Morning. + [Post-mark, February 25, 1846.] + +Once you were pleased to say, my own Ba, that 'I made you do as I +would.' I am quite sure, you make me _speak_ as you would, and not at +all as I mean--and for one instance, I never surely spoke anything +half so untrue as that 'I came with the intention of loving whomever I +should find'--No! wreathed shells and hollows in ruins, and roofs of +caves may transform a voice wonderfully, make more of it or less, or +so change it as to almost alter, but turn a 'no' into a 'yes' can no +echo (except the Irish one), and I said 'no' to such a charge, and +still say 'no.' I _did_ have a presentiment--and though it is hardly +possible for me to look back on it now without lending it the true +colours given to it by the event, yet I _can_ put them aside, if I +please, and remember that I not merely hoped it would not be so (_not_ +that the effect I expected to be produced would be _less_ than in +anticipation, certainly I did not hope _that_, but that it would range +itself with the old feelings of simple reverence and sympathy and +friendship, that I should love you as much as I supposed I _could_ +love, and no more) but in the confidence that nothing could occur to +divert me from my intended way of life, I made--went on making +arrangements to return to Italy. You know--did I not tell you--I +wished to see you before I returned? And I had heard of you just so +much as seemed to make it impossible such a relation could ever exist. +I know very well, if you choose to refer to my letters you may easily +bring them to bear a sense in parts, more agreeable to your own theory +than to mine, the true one--but that was instinct, +Providence--anything rather than foresight. Now I will convince you! +yourself have noticed the difference between the _letters_ and the +_writer_; the greater 'distance of the latter from you,' why was that? +Why, if not because the conduct _began_ with _him_, with one who had +now seen you--was no continuation of the conduct, as influenced by the +feeling, of the letters--else, they, if _near_, should have enabled +him, if but in the natural course of time and with increase of +familiarity, to become _nearer_--but it was not so! The letters began +by loving you after their way--but what a world-wide difference +between _that_ love and the true, the love from seeing and hearing and +feeling, since you make me resolve, what now lies blended so +harmoniously, into its component parts. Oh, I know what is old from +what is new, and how chrystals may surround and glorify other vessels +meant for ordinary service than Lord N's! But I _don't_ know that +handling may not snap them off, some of the more delicate ones; and if +you let me, love, I will not again, ever again, consider how it came +and whence, and when, so curiously, so pryingly, but believe that it +was always so, and that it all came at once, all the same; the more +unlikelinesses the better, for they set off the better the truth of +truths that here, ('how begot? how nourished?')--here is the whole +wondrous Ba filling my whole heart and soul; and over-filling it, +because she is in all the world, too, where I look, where I fancy. At +the same time, because all is so wondrous and so sweet, do you think +that it would be _so_ difficult for me to analyse it, and give causes +to the effects in sufficiently numerous instances, even to 'justify my +presentiment?' Ah, dear, dearest Ba, I could, could indeed, could +account for all, or enough! But you are unconscious, I do believe, of +your power, and the knowledge of it would be no added grace, perhaps! +So let us go on--taking a lesson out of the world's book in a +different sense. You shall think I love you for--(tell me, you must, +what for) while in my secret heart I know what my 'mission of +humanity' means, and what telescopic and microscopic views it procures +me. Enough--Wait, one word about the 'too kind letters'--could not the +same Montefiore understand that though he deserved not one of his +thousand guineas, yet that he is in disgrace if they bate him of his +next gift by merely _ten_? It _is_ all too kind--but I shall feel the +diminishing of the kindness, be very sure! Of that there is, however, +not too alarming a sign in this dearest, because last of all--dearest +letter of all--till the next! I looked yesterday over the 'Tragedy,' +and think it will do after all. I will bring one part at least next +time, and 'Luria' take away, if you let me, so all will be off my +mind, and April and May be the welcomer? Don't think I am going to +take any extraordinary pains. There are some things in the 'Tragedy' I +should like to preserve and print now, leaving the future to spring +as it likes, in any direction, and these half-dead, half-alive works +fetter it, if left behind. + +Yet one thing will fetter it worse, only one thing--if _you_, in any +respect, stay behind? You that in all else help me and will help me, +beyond words--beyond dreams--if, because I find you, your own works +_stop_--'then comes the Selah and the voice is hushed.' Oh, no, no, +dearest, _so_ would the help cease to be help--the joy to be joy, Ba +herself to be _quite_ Ba, and my own Siren singing song for song. Dear +love, will that be kind, and right, and like the rest? Write and +promise that all shall be resumed, the romance-poem chiefly, and I +will try and feel more yours than ever now. Am I not with you in the +world, proud of you--and _vain_, too, very likely, which is all the +sweeter if it is a sin as you teach me. Indeed dearest, I have set my +heart on your fulfilling your mission--my heart is on it! Bless you, +my Ba-- + + Your R.B. + +I am so well as to have resumed the shower-bath (this morning)--and I +walk, especially near the elms and stile--and mean to walk, and be +very well--and you, dearest? + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + [Post-mark, February 26, 1846.] + +I confess that while I was writing those words I had a thought that +they were not quite yours as you said them. Still it comes to +something in their likeness, but we will not talk of it and break off +the chrystals--they _are_ so brittle, then? do you know _that_ by an +'instinct.' But I agree that it is best not to talk--I 'gave it up' as +a riddle long ago. Let there be 'analysis' even, and it will not be +solution. I have my own thoughts of course, and you have yours, and +the worst is that a third person looking down on us from some +snow-capped height, and free from personal influences, would have +_his_ thoughts too, and _he_ would think that if you had been +reasonable as usual you would have gone to Italy. I have by heart (or +by head at least) what the third person would think. The third person +thundered to me in an abstraction for ever so long, and at intervals I +hear him still, only you shall not to-day, because he talks 'damnable +iterations' and teazes you. Nay, the first person is teazing you now +perhaps, without going any further, and yet I must go a little +further, just to say (after accepting all possible unlikelinesses and +miracles, because everything was miraculous and impossible) that it +was agreed between us long since that you did not love me for +anything--your having no reason for it is the only way of your not +seeming unreasonable. Also _for my own sake_. I like it to be so--I +cannot have peace with the least change from it. Dearest, take the +baron's hawthorn bough which, in spite of his fine dream of it is dead +since the other day, and so much the worse than when I despised it +last--take that dead stick and push it upright into the sand as the +tide rises, and the whole blue sea draws up its glittering breadth and +length towards and around it. But what then? What does _that prove_? +... as the philosopher said of the poem. So we ought not to talk of +such things; and we get warned off even in the accidental +illustrations taken up to light us. Still, the stick certainly did not +draw the sea. + +Dearest and best you were yesterday, to write me the little note! You +are better than the imaginations of my heart, and _they_, as far as +they relate to you (not further) are _not_ desperately wicked, I +think. I always expect the kindest things from you, and you always are +doing some kindness beyond what is expected, and this is a miracle +too, like the rest, now isn't it? When the knock came last night, I +knew it was your letter, and not another's. Just another little leaf +of my Koran! How I thank you ... thank you! If I write too kind +letters, as you say, why they may be too kind for me to send, but not +for you to receive; and I suppose I think more of you than of me, +which accounts for my writing them, accounts and justifies. And _that_ +is my reflection not now for the first time. For we break rules very +often--as that exegetical third person might expound to you clearly +out of the ninety-sixth volume of the 'Code of Conventions,' only you +are not like another, nor have you been to me like another--you began +with most improvident and (will you let me say?) _unmasculine_ +generosity, and Queen Victoria does not sit upon a mat after the +fashion of Queen Pomare, nor should. + +But ... but ... you know very fully that you are breaking faith in the +matter of the 'Tragedy' and 'Luria'--you promised to rest--and _you +rest for three days_. Is it _so_ that people get well? or keep well? +Indeed I do not think I shall let you have 'Luria.' Ah--be careful, I +do beseech you--be careful. There is time for a pause, and the works +will profit by it themselves. And _you_! And I ... if you are ill!-- + +For the rest I will let you walk in my field, and see my elms as much +as you please ... though I hear about the shower bath with a little +suspicion. Why, if it did you harm before, should it not again? and +why should you use it, if it threatens harm? Now tell me if it hasn't +made you rather unwell since the new trial!--tell me, dear, dearest. + +As for myself, I believe that you set about exhorting me to be busy, +just that I might not reproach _you_ for the over-business. Confess +that _that_ was the only meaning of the exhortation. But no, you are +quite serious, you say. You even threaten me in a sort of underground +murmur, which sounds like a nascent earthquake; and if I do not write +so much a day directly, your stipendiary magistrateship will take away +my license to be loved ... I am not to be Ba to you any longer ... you +say! And is _this_ right? now I ask you. Ever so many chrystals fell +off by that stroke of the baton, I do assure you. Only you did not +mean quite what you said so too articulately, and you will unsay it, +if you please, and unthink it near the elms. + +As for the writing, I will write ... I have written ... I am writing. +You do not fancy that I have given up writing?--No. Only I have +certainly been more loitering and distracted than usual in what I have +done, which is not my fault--nor yours directly--and I feel an +indisposition to setting about the romance, the hand of the soul +shakes. I am too happy and not calm enough, I suppose, to have the +right inclination. Well--it will come. But all in blots and fragments +there are verses enough, to fill a volume done in the last year. + +And if there were not ... if there were none ... I hold that I should +be Ba, and also _your_ Ba ... which is 'insolence' ... will you say? + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Thursday. + [Post-mark, February 26, 1846.] + +As for the 'third person,' my sweet Ba, he was a wise speaker from the +beginning; and in our case he will say, turning to me--'the late +Robert Hall--when a friend admired that one with so high an estimate +of the value of intellectuality in woman should yet marry some kind of +cook-maid animal, as did the said Robert; wisely answered, "you can't +kiss Mind"! May _you_ not discover eventually,' (this is to me) 'that +mere intellectual endowments--though incontestably of the loftiest +character--mere Mind, though that Mind be Miss B's--cannot be +_kissed_--nor, repent too late the absence of those humbler qualities, +those softer affections which, like flowerets at the mountain's foot, +if not so proudly soaring as, as, as!...' and so on, till one of us +died, with laughing or being laughed at! So judges the third person! +and if, to help him, we let him into your room at Wimpole Street, +suffered him to see with Flush's eyes, he would say with just as wise +an air 'True, mere personal affections may be warm enough, but does it +augur well for the durability of an attachment that it should be +_wholly, exclusively_ based on such perishable attractions as the +sweetness of a mouth, the beauty of an eye? I could wish, rather, to +know that there was something of less transitory nature co-existent +with this--some congeniality of Mental pursuit, some--' Would he not +say that? But I can't do his platitudes justice because here is our +post going out and I have been all the morning walking in the perfect +joy of my heart, with your letter, and under its blessing--dearest, +dearest Ba--let me say more to-morrow--only this now, that you--ah, +what are you not to me! My dearest love, bless you--till to-morrow +when I will strengthen the prayer; (no, _lengthen_ it!) + + Ever your own. + +'Hawthorn'[1]--to show how Spring gets on! + +[Footnote 1: Sprig of Hawthorn enclosed with letter.] + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Thursday Evening. + [Post-mark, February 27, 1846.] + +If all third persons were as foolish as this third person of yours, +ever dearest, first and second persons might follow their own devices +without losing much in the way of good counsel. But you are unlucky in +your third person as far as the wits go, he talks a great deal of +nonsense, and Flush, who is sensible, will have nothing to do with +him, he says, any more than you will with Sir Moses:--he is quite a +third person _singular_ for the nonsense he talks! + +So, instead of him, you shall hear what I have been doing to-day. The +sun, which drew out you and the hawthorns, persuaded me that it was +warm enough to go down-stairs--and I put on my cloak as if I were +going into the snow, and went into the drawing-room and took +Henrietta by surprise as she sate at the piano singing. Well, I meant +to stay half an hour and come back again, for I am upon 'Tinkler's +ground' in the drawing-room and liable to whole droves of morning +visitors--and Henrietta kept me, kept me, because she wanted me, +besought me, to stay and see the great sight of Capt. Surtees +Cook--_plus_ his regimentals--fresh from the royal presence at St. +James's, and I never saw him in my life, though he is a sort of +cousin. So, though I hated it as you may think, ... not liking to be +unkind to my sister, I stayed and stayed one ten minutes after +another, till it seemed plain that he wasn't coming at all (as I told +her) and that Victoria had kept him to dinner, enchanted with the +regimentals. And half laughing and half quarrelling, still she kept me +by force, until a knock came most significantly ... and '_There_ is +Surtees' said she ... 'now you must and shall stay! So foolish,' (I +had my hand on the door-handle to go out) 'he, your own cousin too! +who always calls you Ba, except before Papa.' Which might have +encouraged me perhaps, but I can't be sure of it, as the very next +moment apprized us both that no less a person than Mrs. Jameson was +standing out in the passage. The whole 36th. regiment could scarcely +have been more astounding to me. As to staying to see her in that +room, with the prospect of the military descent in combination, I +couldn't have done it for the world! so I made Henrietta, who had +drawn me into the scrape, take her up-stairs, and followed myself in a +minute or two--and the corollary of this interesting history is, that +being able to talk at all after all that 'fuss,' and after walking +'up-stairs and down-stairs' like the ancestor of your spider, proves +my gigantic strength--now doesn't it? + +For the rest, 'here be proofs' that the first person can be as foolish +as any third person in the world. What do you think? + +And Mrs. Jameson was kind beyond speaking of, and talked of taking me +to Italy. What do you say? It is somewhere about the fifth or sixth +proposition of the sort which has come to me. I shall be embarrassed, +it seems to me, by the multitude of escorts to Italy. But the +kindness, one cannot laugh at so much kindness. + +I wanted to hear her speak of you, and was afraid. I _could not_ name +you. Yet I _did_ want to hear the last 'Bell' praised. + +She goes to Ireland for two months soon, but prints a book first, a +collection of essays. I have not seen Mr. Kenyon, with whom she dined +yesterday. The Macreadys were to be there, and he told me a week ago +that he very nearly committed himself in a 'social mistake' by +inviting you to meet them. + +Ah my hawthorn spray! Do you know, I caught myself pitying it for +being gathered, with that green promise of leaves on it! There is room +too on it for the feet of a bird! Still I shall keep it longer than it +would have stayed in the hedge, _that_ is certain! + +The first you ever gave me was a yellow rose sent in a letter, and +shall I tell you what _that_ means--the yellow rose? '_Infidelity_,' +says the dictionary of flowers. You see what an omen, ... to begin +with! + +Also you see that I am not tired with the great avatar to-day--the +'fell swoop' rather--mine, into the drawing-room, and Mrs. Jameson's +on _me_. + +And I shall hear to-morrow again, really? I '_let_' you. And you are +best, kindest, dearest, every day. Did I ever tell you that you made +me do what you choose? I fancied that I only _thought_ so. May God +bless you. I am your own. + +Shall I have the 'Soul's Tragedy' on Saturday?--any of it? But _do not +work_--I beseech you to take care. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, February 27, 1846.] + +To be sure my 'first person' was nonsensical, and, in that respect +made speak properly, I hope, only he was cut short in the middle of +his performance by the exigencies of the post. So, never mind what +such persons say, my sweetest, because they know nothing at all--_quod +erat demonstrandum_. But you, love, you speak roses, and +hawthorn-blossoms when you tell me of the cloak put on, and the +descent, and the entry, and staying and delaying. I will have had a +hand in all that; I know what I wished all the morning, and now this +much came true! But you should have seen the regimentals, if I could +have so contrived it, for I confess to a Chinese love for bright +red--the very names 'vermilion' 'scarlet' warm me, yet in this cold +climate nobody wears red to comfort one's eye save soldiers and fox +hunters, and old women fresh from a Parish Christmas Distribution of +cloaks. To dress in floating loose crimson silk, I almost understand +being a Cardinal! Do you know anything of Nat Lee's Tragedies? In one +of them a man angry with a Cardinal cries-- + + Stand back, and let me mow this poppy down, + This rank red weed that spoils the Churches' corn. + +Is not that good? and presently, when the same worthy is poisoned +(that is the Cardinal)--they bid him--'now, Cardinal, lie down and +roar!' + + Think of thy scarlet sins! + +Of the justice of all which, you will judge with no Mrs. Jameson for +guide when we see the Sistina together, I trust! By the way, yesterday +I went to Dulwich to see some pictures, by old Teniers, Murillo, +Gainsborough, Raphael!--then twenty names about, and last but one, as +if just thought of, 'Correggio.' The whole collection, including 'a +_divine_ picture by Murillo,' and Titian's Daughter (hitherto supposed +to be in the Louvre)--the whole I would, I think, have cheerfully +given a pound or two for the privilege of not possessing--so execrable +as sign-paintings even! 'Are there worse poets in their way than +painters?' Yet the melancholy business is here--that the bad poet goes +out of his way, writes his verses in the language he learned in order +to do a hundred other things with it, all of which he can go on and do +afterwards--but the painter has spent the best of his life in learning +even how to produce such monstrosities as these, and to what other +good do his acquisitions go? This short minute of life our one chance, +an eternity on either side! and a man does not walk whistling and +ruddy by the side of hawthorn hedges in spring, but shuts himself up +and conies out after a dozen years with 'Titian's Daughter' and, +there, gone is his life, let somebody else try! + +I have tried--my trial is made too! + +To-morrow you shall tell me, dearest, that Mrs. Jameson wondered to +see you so well--did she not wonder? Ah, to-morrow! There is a lesson +from all this writing and mistaking and correcting and being +corrected; and what, but that a word goes safely only from lip to lip, +dearest? See how the cup slipped from the lip and snapped the +chrystals, you say! But the writing is but for a time--'a time and +times and half a time!'--would I knew when the prophetic weeks end! +Still, one day, as I say, no more writing, (and great scandalization +of the third person, peeping through the fringes of Flush's ears!) +meanwhile, I wonder whether if I meet Mrs. Jameson I may practise +diplomacy and say carelessly 'I should be glad to know what Miss B. is +like--' No, that I must not do, something tells me, 'for reasons, for +reasons'-- + +I do not know--you may perhaps have to wait a little longer for my +'divine Murillo' of a Tragedy. My sister is copying it as I give the +pages, but--in fact my wise head does ache a little--it is +inconceivable! As if it took a great storm to topple over some stone, +and once the stone pushed from its right place, any bird's foot, which +would hardly bend the hawthorn spray, may set it trembling! The aching +begins with reading the presentation-list at the Drawing-room quite +naturally, and with no shame at all! But it is gentle, well-behaved +aching now, so I _do_ care, as you bid me, Ba, my Ba, whom I call Ba +to my heart but could not, I really believe, call so before another, +even your sister, if--if-- + +But Ba, I call you boldly here, and I dare kiss your dear, dear eyes, +till to-morrow--Bless you, my own. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Sunday. + [Post-mark, March 2, 1846.] + +You never could think that I meant any insinuation against you by a +word of what was said yesterday, or that I sought or am likely to seek +a 'security'! do you know it was not right of you to use such an +expression--indeed no. You were angry with me for just one minute, or +you would not have used it--and why? Now what did I say that was wrong +or unkind even by construction? If I did say anything, it was three +times wrong, and unjust as well as unkind, and wronged my own heart +and consciousness of all that you are to me, more than it could _you_. +But you began speaking of yourself just as a woman might speak under +the same circumstances (you remember what you said), and then _I_, +remembering that all the men in the world would laugh such an idea to +scorn, said something to that effect, you _know_. I once was in +company with a man, however, who valued himself very much on his +constancy to a woman who was so deeply affected by it that she became +his wife at last ... and the whole neighbourhood came out to stare at +him on that ground as a sort of monster. And can you guess what the +constancy meant? Seven years before, he loved that woman, he said, and +she repulsed him. 'And in the meantime, _how many_?' I had the +impertinence to ask a female friend who told me the tale. 'Why,' she +answered with the utmost simplicity, 'I understand that Miss A. and +Miss B. and Mrs. C. would not listen to him, but he took Miss D.'s +rejection most to heart.' That was the head and front of his +'constancy' to Miss E., who had been loved, she boasted, for seven +years ... that is, once at the beginning and once at the end. It was +just a coincidence of the 'premier pas' and the 'pis aller.' + +Beloved, I could not mean this for you; you are not made of such +stuff, as we both know. + +And for myself, it was my compromise with my own scruples, that you +should not be 'chained' to me, not in the merest metaphor, that you +should not seem to be bound, in honour or otherwise, so that if you +stayed with me it should be your free choice to stay, not the +_consequence_ of a choice so many months before. That was my +compromise with my scruples, and not my doubt of your affection--and +least of all, was it an intention of trifling with you sooner or later +that made me wish to suspend all _decisions_ as long as possible. I +have decided (for me) to let it be as you shall please--now I told you +that before. Either we will live on as we are, until an obstacle +arises,--for indeed I do not look for a 'security' where you suppose, +and the very appearance of it _there_, is what most rebuts me--or I +will be yours in the obvious way, to go out of England the next +half-hour if possible. As to the steps to be taken (or not taken) +before the last step, we must think of those. The worst is that the +only question is about a _form_. Virtually the evil is the same all +round, whatever we do. Dearest, it was plain to see yesterday evening +when he came into this room for a moment at seven o'clock, before +going to his own to dress for dinner ... plain to see, that he was not +altogether pleased at finding you here in the morning. There was no +pretext for objecting gravely--but it was plain that he was not +pleased. Do not let this make you uncomfortable, he will forget all +about it, and I was not _scolded_, do you understand. It was more +manner, but my sisters thought as I did of the significance:--and it +was enough to prove to me (if I had not known) what a desperate game +we should be playing if we depended on a yielding nerve _there_. + +And to-day I went down-stairs (to prove how my promises stand) though +I could find at least ten good excuses for remaining in my own room, +for our cousin, Sam Barrett, who brought the interruption yesterday +and put me out of humour (it wasn't the fault of the dear little +cousin, Lizzie ... my 'portrait' ... who was '_so_ sorry,' she said, +dear child, to have missed Papa somewhere on the stairs!) the cousin +who should have been in Brittany yesterday instead of here, sate in +the drawing-room all this morning, and had visitors there, and so I +had excellent excuses for never moving from my chair. Yet, the field +being clear at _half-past two_! I went for half an hour, just--just +for _you_. Did you think of me, I wonder? It was to meet your thoughts +that I went, dear dearest. + +How clever these sketches are. The expression produced by such +apparently inadequate means is quite striking; and I have been making +my brothers admire them, and they 'wonder you don't think of employing +them in an illustrated edition of your works.' Which might be, really! +Ah, you did not ask for 'Luria'! Not that I should have let you have +it!--I think I should not indeed. Dearest, you take care of the head +... and don't make that tragedy of the soul one for mine, by letting +it make you ill. Beware too of the shower-bath--it plainly does not +answer for you at this season. And walk, and think of me for _your_ +good, if such a combination should be possible. + +And _I_ think of _you_ ... if I do not of Italy. Yet I forget to speak +to you of the Dulwich Gallery. I never saw those pictures, but am +astonished that the whole world should be wrong in praising them. +'Divine' is a bad word for Murillo in any case--because he is +intensely human in his most supernatural subjects. His beautiful +Trinity in the National Gallery, which I saw the last time I went out +to look at pictures, has no deity in it--and I seem to see it now. And +do you remember the visitation of the angels to Abraham (the Duke of +Sutherland's picture--is it not?) where the mystic visitors look like +shepherds who had not even dreamt of God? But I always understood that +that Dulwich Gallery was famous for great works--you surprise me! And +for painters ... their badness is more ostentatious than that of +poets--they stare idiocy out of the walls, and set the eyes of +sensitive men on edge. For the rest, however, I very much doubt +whether they wear their lives more to rags, than writers who mistake +their vocation in poetry do. There is a mechanism in poetry as in the +other art--and, to men not native to the way of it, it runs hard and +heavily. The 'cudgelling of the brain' is as good labour as the +grinding of the colours, ... do you not think? + +If ever I am in the Sistine Chapel, it will not be with Mrs. +Jameson--no. If ever I should be there, what teaching I shall want, +_I_ who have seen so few pictures, and love them only as children do, +with an unlearned love, just for the sake of the thoughts they bring. +Wonderfully ignorant I am, to have had eyes and ears so long! There is +music, now, which lifts the hair on my head, I feel it so much, ... +yet all I know of it as art, all I have heard of the works of the +masters in it, has been the mere sign and suggestion, such as the +private piano may give. I never heard an oratorio, for instance, in my +life--judge by _that_! It is a guess, I make, at all the greatness and +divinity ... feeling in it, though, distinctly and certainly, that a +composer like Beethoven _must_ stand above the divinest painter in +soul-godhead, and nearest to the true poet, of all artists. And this +I felt in my guess, long before I knew you. But observe how, if I had +died in this illness, I should have left a sealed world behind me! +_you_, unknown too--unguessed at, _you_, ... in many respects, +wonderfully unguessed at! Lately I have learnt to despise my own +instincts. And apart from those--and _you_, ... it was right for me to +be melancholy, in the consciousness of passing blindfolded under all +the world-stars, and of going out into another side of the creation, +with a blank for the experience of this ... the last revelation, +unread! How the thought of it used to depress me sometimes! + +Talking of music, I had a proposition the other day from certain of +Mr. Russell's (the singer's) friends, about his setting to music my +'Cry of the Children.' His programme exhibits all the horrors of the +world, I see! Lifeboats ... madhouses ... gamblers' wives ... all done +to the right sort of moaning. His audiences must go home delightfully +miserable, I should fancy. He has set the 'Song of the Shirt' ... and +my 'Cry of the Children' will be acceptable, it is supposed, as a +climax of agony. Do you know this Mr. Russell, and what sort of music +he suits to his melancholy? But to turn my 'Cry' to a 'Song,' a +burden, it is said, is required--he can't sing it without a burden! +and behold what has been sent 'for my approval'.... I shall copy it +_verbatim_ for you.... + + And the threads twirl, twirl, twirl, + Before each boy and girl; + And the wheels, big and little, still whirl, whirl, whirl. + +... accompaniment _agitato_, imitating the roar of the machinery! + +This is not endurable ... ought not to be ... should it now? Do tell +me. + +May God bless you, very dearest! Let me hear how you are--and think +how I am + + Your own.... + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, March 2, 1846.] + +Dearest, I have been kept in town and just return in time to say why +you have _no_ note ... to-morrow I will write ... so much there is to +say on the subject of this letter I find. + + Bless you, all beloved-- + + R.B. + +Oh, do not sleep another night on that horrible error I have led you +into! The 'Dulwich Gallery'!--!!!--oh, no. Only some pictures to be +sold at the Greyhound Inn, Dulwich--'the genuine property of a +gentleman deceased.' + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 2, 1846.] + +One or two words, if no more, I must write to dearest Ba, the night +would go down in double blackness if I had neither written nor been +written to! So here is another piece of 'kindness' on my part, such as +I have received praise for of late! My own sweetest, there is just +this good in such praise, that by it one comes to something pleasantly +definite amid the hazy uncertainties of mere wishes and +possibilities--while my whole heart does, _does_ so yearn, love, to do +something to prove its devotion for you; and, now and then, amuses +itself with foolish imaginings of real substantial services to which +it should be found equal if fortune so granted; suddenly you interpose +with thanks, in such terms as would all too much reward the highest of +even those services which are never to be; and for what?--for a note, +a going to Town, a ----! Well, there are definite beginnings +certainly, if you will recognise them--I mean, that since you _do_ +accept, far from 'despising this day of small things,' then I may +take heart, and be sure that even though none of the great +achievements should fall to my happy chance, still the barrenest, +flattest life will--_must_ of needs produce in its season better +fruits than these poor ones--I keep it, value it, now, that it may +produce such. + +Also I determine never again to 'analyse,' nor let you analyse if the +sweet mouth can be anyway stopped: the love shall be one and +indivisible--and the Loves we used to know from + + One another huddled lie ... + Close beside Her tenderly-- + +(which is surely the next line). Now am I not anxious to know what +your father said? And if anybody else said or wondered ... how should +I know? Of all fighting--the warfare with shadows--what a work is +_there_. But tell me,--and, with you for me-- + +Bless me dearest ever, as the face above mine blesses me-- + + Your own + +Sir Moses set off this morning, I hear--somebody yesterday called the +telescope an 'optical delusion,' anticipating many more of the kind! +So much for this 'wandering Jew.' + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Monday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 3, 1846.] + +Upon the whole, I think, I am glad when you are kept in town and +prevented from writing what you call 'much' to me. Because in the +first place, the little from _you_, is always much to _me_--and then, +besides, _the letter comes_, and with it the promise of another! Two +letters have I had from you to-day, ever dearest! How I thank +you!--yes, _indeed_! It was like yourself to write yesterday ... to +remember what a great gap there would have been otherwise, as it +looked on this side--here. The worst of Saturday is (when you come on +it) that Sunday follows--Saturday night bringing no letter. Well, it +was very good of you, best of you! + +For the 'analyzing' I give it up willingly, only that I must say what +altogether I forgot to say in my last letter, that it was not _I_, if +you please, who spoke of the chrystals breaking away! And you, to +quote me with that certainty! "The chrystals are broken off," _you +say_.' _I_ say!! When it was in your letter, and not at all in mine!! + +The truth is that I was stupid, rather, about the Dulwich +collection--it was my fault. I caught up the idea of the gallery out +of a heap of other thoughts, and really might have known better if I +had given myself a chance, by considering. + +Mr. Kenyon came to-day, and has taken out a licence, it seems to me, +for praising you, for he praised and praised. Somebody has told him +(who had spent several days with you in a house with a large library) +that he came away 'quite astounded by the versatility of your +learning'--and that, to complete the circle, you discoursed as +scientifically on the training of greyhounds and breeding of ducks as +if you had never done anything else all your life. Then dear Mr. +Kenyon talked of the poems; and hoped, very earnestly I am sure, that +you would finish 'Saul'--which you ought to do, must do--_only not +now_. By the way Mrs. Coleridge had written to him to enquire whether +you had authority for the 'blue lilies,' rather than white. Then he +asked about 'Luria' and 'whether it was obscure'; and I said, not +unless the people, who considered it, began by blindfolding +themselves. + +And where do you think Mr. Kenyon talks of going next February--a long +while off to be sure? To Italy of course. Everybody I ever heard of +seems to be going to Italy next winter. He visits his brother at +Vienna, and 'may cross the Alps and get to Pisa'--it is the shadow of +a scheme--nothing certain, so far. + +I did not go down-stairs to-day because the wind blew and the +thermometer fell. To-morrow, perhaps I may. And _you_, dearest +dearest, might have put into the letters how you were when you wrote +them. You might--but you did not feel well and would not say so. +Confess that that was the reason. Reason or no reason, mention +yourself to-morrow, and for the rest, do not write a long letter so as +to increase the evil. There was nothing which I can remember as +requiring an answer in what I wrote to you, and though I _will_ have +my letter of course, it shall be as brief as possible, if briefness is +good for you--_now always remember that_. Why if I, who talk against +'Luria,' should work the mischief myself, what should I deserve? I +should be my own jury directly and not recommend to mercy ... not to +mine. Do take care--care for _me_ just so much. + +And, except that taking care of your health, what would you do for me +that you have not done? You have given me the best of the possible +gifts of one human soul to another, you have made my life new, and am +I to count these things as small and insufficient? Ah, you _know_, you +_know_ that I cannot, ought not, will not. + +May God bless you. He blesses me in letting me be grateful to you as +your Ba. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday. + [Post-mark, March 3, 1846.] + +First and most important of all,--dearest, 'angry'--with you, and for +_that_! It is just as if I had spoken contemptuously of that Gallery I +so love and so am grateful to--having been used to go there when a +child, far under the age allowed by the regulations--those two Guidos, +the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob's vision, such a Watteau, the +triumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group, +all the Poussins with the 'Armida' and 'Jupiter's nursing'--and--no +end to 'ands'--I have sate before one, some _one_ of those pictures I +had predetermined to see, a good hour and then gone away ... it used +to be a green half-hour's walk over the fields. So much for one error, +now for the second like unto it; what I meant by charging you with +_seeing_, (not, _not_ '_looking_ for')--_seeing_ undue 'security' in +_that_, in the form,--I meant to say 'you talk about me being 'free' +now, free till _then_, and I am rather jealous of the potency +attributed to the _form_, with all its solemnity, because it _is_ a +form, and no more--yet you frankly agree with me that _that_ form +complied with, there is no redemption; yours I am _then_ sure enough, +to repent at leisure &c. &c.' So I meant to ask, 'then, all _now_ +said, all short of that particular form of saying it, all goes for +comparatively nothing'? Here it is written down--you 'wish to +_suspend_ all decisions as long as possible'--_that_ form effects the +decision, then,--till then, 'where am I'? Which is just what Lord +Chesterfield cautions people against asking when they tell stories. +Love, Ba, my own heart's dearest, if all is _not_ decided +_now_--why--hear a story, à propos of storytelling, and deduce what is +deducible. A very old Unitarian minister met a still older evangelical +brother--John Clayton (from whose son's mouth I heard what you shall +hear)--the two fell to argument about the true faith to be held--after +words enough, 'Well,' said the Unitarian, as winding up the +controversy with an amicable smile--'at least let us hope we are both +engaged in the _pursuit_ of Truth!'--'_Pursuit_ do you say?' cried the +other, 'here am I with my years eighty and odd--if I haven't _found_ +Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?' My own Ba, if I have not +already _decided_, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help! +Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling, +beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one's heart's +good by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is there +any parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of in +the street--a labourer talking with his friends about '_wishes_'--and +this one wished, if he might get his wish, 'to have a nine gallon cask +of strong ale set running that minute and his own mouth to be _tied_ +under it'--the exquisiteness of the delight was to be in the security +upon security,--the being 'tied.' Now, Ba says I shall not be +'chained' if she can help! + +But now--here all the jesting goes. You tell me what was observed in +the 'moment's' visit; by you, and (after, I suppose) by your sisters. +First, I _will_ always see with your eyes _there_--next, what I see I +will _never_ speak, if it pain you; but just this much truth I ought +to say, I think. I always give myself to you for the worst I am,--full +of faults as you will find, if you have not found them. But I _will_ +not affect to be so bad, so wicked, as I count wickedness, as to call +that conduct other than intolerable--_there_, in my conviction of +_that_, is your real 'security' and mine for the future as the +present. That a father choosing to give out of his whole day some five +minutes to a daughter, supposed to be prevented from participating in +what he, probably, in common with the whole world of sensible men, as +distinguished from poets and dreamers, consider _every_ pleasure of +life, by a complete foregoing of society--that he, after the Pisa +business and the enforced continuance, and as he must believe, +permanence of this state in which any other human being would go +mad--I do dare say, for the justification of God, who gave the mind to +be _used_ in this world,--where it saves us, we are taught, or +destroys us,--and not to be sunk quietly, overlooked, and forgotten; +that, under these circumstances, finding ... what, you say, unless he +thinks he _does_ find, he would close the door of his house instantly; +a mere sympathizing man, of the same literary tastes, who comes +good-naturedly, on a proper and unexceptionable introduction, to chat +with and amuse a little that invalid daughter, once a month, so far as +is known, for an hour perhaps,--that such a father should show +himself '_not pleased_ plainly,' at such a circumstance ... my Ba, it +is SHOCKING! See, I go _wholly_ on the supposition that the real +relation is not imagined to exist between us. I so completely could +understand a repugnance to trust you to me were the truth known, that, +I will confess, I have several times been afraid the very reverse of +this occurrence would befall; that your father would have at some time +or other thought himself obliged, by the usual feeling of people in +such cases, to see me for a few minutes and express some commonplace +thanks after the customary mode (just as Capt. Domett sent a heap of +unnecessary thanks to me not long ago for sending now a letter now a +book to his son in New Zealand--keeping up the spirits of poor dear +Alfred now he is cut off from the world at large)--and if _this_ had +been done, I shall not deny that my heart would have accused +me--unreasonably I _know_ but still, suppression, and reserve, and +apprehension--the whole of _that is_ horrible always! But this way of +looking on the endeavour of anybody, however humble, to just preserve +your life, remedy in some degree the first, if it _was_ the first, +unjustifiable measure,--this being 'displeased'--is exactly what I did +_not_ calculate upon. Observe, that in this _only_ instance I am able +to do as I shall be done by; to take up the arms furnished by the +world, the usages of society--this is monstrous on the _world's_ +showing! I say this now that I may never need recur to it--that you +may understand why I keep _such_ entire silence henceforth. + +Get but well, keep but _as_ well, and all is easy now. This wonderful +winter--the spring--the summer--you will take exercise, go up and down +stairs, get strong. _I pray you, at your feet, to do this, dearest!_ +Then comes Autumn, with the natural expectations, as after _rouge_ one +expects _noir_: the _likelihood_ of a _severe_ winter after this mild +one, which to prevent, you reiterate your demand to go and save your +life in Italy, ought you not to do that? And the matters brought to +issue, (with even, if possible, less shadow of ground for a refusal +than before, if you are _well_, plainly well enough to bear the +voyage) _there_ I _will_ bid you 'be mine in the obvious way'--if you +shall preserve your belief in me--and you _may_ in much, in all +important to you. Mr. Kenyon's praise is undeserved enough, but +yesterday Milnes said I was the only literary man he ever knew, _tenax +propositi_, able to make out a life for himself and abide in +it--'for,' he went on, 'you really do live without any of this +_titillation_ and fussy dependence upon adventitious excitement of all +kinds, they all say they can do without.' That is _more_ true--and I +_intend_ by God's help to live wholly for you; to spend my whole +energies in reducing to practice the feeling which occupies me, and in +the practical operation of which, the other work I had proposed to do +will be found included, facilitated--I shall be able--but of this +there is plenty time to speak hereafter--I shall, I believe, be able +to do this without even allowing the world to _very much_ +misinterpret--against pure lying there is no defence, but all up to +that I hope to hinder or render unimportant--as you shall know in time +and place. + +I have written myself grave, but write to _me_, dear, dearest, and I +will answer in a lighter mood--even now I can say how it was +yesterday's hurry happened. I called on Milnes--who told me Hanmer had +broken a bone in his leg and was laid up, so I called on him too--on +Moxon, by the way, (his brother telling me strangely cheering news, +from the grimmest of faces, about my books selling and likely to sell +... your wishes, Ba!)--then in Bond Street about some business with +somebody, then on Mrs. Montagu who was out walking all the time, and +home too. I found a letter from Mr. Kenyon, perfectly kind, asking me +to go on Monday to meet friends, and with yours to-day comes another +confirming the choice of the day. How entirely kind he is! + +I am very well, much better, indeed--taking that bath with sensibly +good effect, to-night I go to Montagu's again; for shame, having kept +away too long. + +And the rest shall answer _yours_--dear! Not 'much to answer?' And +Beethoven, and Painting and--what _is_ the rest and shall be answered! +Bless you, now, my darling--I love you, ever shall love you, ever be +your own. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 4, 1846.] + +Yes, but, dearest, you mistake me, or you mistake yourself. I am sure +I do not over-care for forms--it is not my way to do it--and in this +case ... no. Still you must see that here is a fact as well as a form, +and involving a frightful quantity of social inconvenience (to use the +mildest word) if too hastily entered on. I deny altogether looking +for, or 'seeing' any 'security' in it for myself--it is a mere form +for the heart and the happiness: illusions may pass after as before. +Still the truth is that if they were to pass with you now, you stand +free to act according to the wide-awakeness of your eyes, and to +reform your choice ... see! whereas afterward you could not carry out +such a reformation while I was alive, even if I helped you. All I +could do for you would be to walk away. And you pretend not to see +this broad distinction?--ah. For me I have seen just this and no more, +and have felt averse to forestall, to seem to forestall even by an +hour, or a word, that stringency of the legal obligation from which +there _is_ in a certain sense no redemption. Tie up your drinker under +the pour of his nine gallons, and in two minutes he will moan and +writhe (as you perfectly know) like a Brinvilliers under the +water-torture. That he _asked_ to be tied up, was unwise on his own +principle of loving ale. And _you_ sha'n't be 'chained' up, if you +were to ask twenty times: if you have found truth or not in the +water-well. + +You do not see aright what I meant to tell you on another subject. If +he was displeased, (and it was expressed by a shadow a mere negation +of pleasure) it was not with you as a visitor and my friend. You must +not fancy such a thing. It was a sort of instinctive indisposition +towards seeing you here--unexplained to himself, I have no doubt--of +course unexplained, or he would have desired me to receive you never +again, _that_ would have been done at once and unscrupulously. But +without defining his own feeling, he rather disliked seeing you +here--it just touched one of his vibratory wires, brushed by and +touched it--oh, we understand in this house. He is not a nice +observer, but, at intervals very wide, he is subject to +lightnings--call them fancies, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. +Certainly it was not in the character of a 'sympathising friend' that +you made him a very little cross on Monday. And yet you never were nor +will be in danger of being _thanked_, he would not think of it. For +the reserve, the apprehension--dreadful those things are, and +desecrating to one's own nature--but we did not make this position, we +only endure it. The root of the evil is the miserable misconception of +the limits and character of parental rights--it is a mistake of the +intellect rather than of the heart. Then, after using one's children +as one's chattels for a time, the children drop lower and lower toward +the level of the chattels, and the duties of human sympathy to them +become difficult in proportion. And (it seems strange to say it, yet +it is true) _love_, he does not conceive of at all. He has feeling, he +can be moved deeply, he is capable of affection in a peculiar way, but +_that_, he does not understand, any more than he understands Chaldee, +respecting it less of course. + +And you fancy that I could propose Italy again? after saying too that +I never would? Oh no, no--yet there is time to think of this, a +superfluity of time, ... 'time, times and half a time' and to make +one's head swim with leaning over a precipice is not wise. The roar +of the world comes up too, as you hear and as I heard from the +beginning. There will be no lack of 'lying,' be sure--'pure lying' +too--and nothing you can do, dearest dearest, shall hinder my being +torn to pieces by most of the particularly affectionate friends I have +in the world. Which I do not think of much, any more than of Italy. +You will be mad, and I shall be bad ... and _that_ will be the effect +of being poets! 'Till when, where are you?'--why in the very deepest +of my soul--wherever in it is the fountain head of loving! beloved, +_there_ you are! + +Some day I shall ask you 'in form,'--as I care so much for forms, it +seems,--what your 'faults' are, these immense multitudinous faults of +yours, which I hear such talk of, and never, never, can get to see. +Will you give me a catalogue raisonnée of your faults? I should like +it, I think. In the meantime they seem to be faults of obscurity, that +is, invisible faults, like those in the poetry which do not keep it +from selling as I am _so, so_ glad to understand. I am glad too that +Mr. Milnes knows you a little. + +Now I must end, there is no more time to-night. God bless you, very +dearest! Keep better ... try to be well--as _I_ do for you since you +ask me. Did I ever think that _you_ would think it worth while to ask +me _that_? What a dream! reaching out into the morning! To-day however +I did not go down-stairs, because it was colder and the wind blew its +way into the passages:--if I can to-morrow without risk, I will, ... +be sure ... be sure. Till Thursday then!--till eternity! + +'Till when, where am I,' but with you? and what, but yours + + Your + + BA. + +I have been writing 'autographs' (save my _mark_) for the North and +the South to-day ... the Fens, and Golden Square. Somebody asked for +a verse, ... from either 'Catarina' or 'Flush' ... 'those poems' &c. +&c.! Such a concatenation of criticisms. So I preferred Flush of +course--i.e. gave him the preferment. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Wednesday Morning. + [Post-mark, March 4, 1846.] + +Ah, sweetest, don't mind people and their lies any more than I shall; +if the toad _does_ 'take it into his toad's head to spit at you'--you +will not 'drop dead,' I warrant. All the same, if one may make a +circuit through a flower-bed and see the less of his toad-habits and +general ugliness, so much the better--no words can express my entire +indifference (far below _contempt_) for what can be said or done. But +one thing, only one, I choose to hinder being said, if I can--the +others I would not if I could--why prevent the toad's puffing himself +out thrice his black bigness if it amuses him among those wet stones? +We shall be in the sun. + +I dare say I am unjust--hasty certainly, in the other matter--but all +faults are such inasmuch as they are 'mistakes of the +intellect'--toads may spit or leave it alone,--but if I ever see it +right, exercising my intellect, to treat any human beings like my +'chattels'--I shall pay for that mistake one day or another, I am +convinced--and I very much fear that you would soon discover what one +fault of mine is, if you were to hear anyone assert such a right in my +presence. + +Well, I shall see you to-morrow--had I better come a little later, I +wonder?--half-past three, for instance, staying, as last time, till +... ah, it is ill policy to count my treasure aloud! Or shall I come +at the usual time to-morrow? If I do _not_ hear, at the usual +time!--because, I think you would--am sure you would have considered +and suggested it, were it necessary. + +Bless you, dearest--ever your own. + +I said nothing about that Mr. Russell and his proposition--by all +means, yes--let him do more good with that noble, pathetic 'lay'--and +do not mind the 'burthen,' if he is peremptory--so that he duly +specify '_by the singer_'--with _that_ precaution nothing but good can +come of his using it. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Thursday. + [Post-mark, March 6, 1846.] + +Ever dearest I lose no time in writing, you see, so as to be written +to at the soonest--and there is another reason which makes me hasten +to write ... it is not all mercantile calculation. I want you to +understand me. + +Now listen! I seem to understand myself: it seems to me that every +word I ever said to you on one subject, is plainly referable to a +class of feelings of which you could not complain ... could not. But +this is _my_ impression; and yours is different:--you do not +understand, you do not see by my light, and perhaps it is natural that +you should not, as we stand on different steps of the argument. Still +I, who said what I did, _for you_, and from an absorbing consideration +of what was best _for you_, cannot consent, even out of anxiety for +your futurity, to torment you now, to vex you by a form of speech +which you persist in translating into a want of trust in you ... (_I_, +want trust in you!!) into a need of more evidence about you from +others ... (_could_ you say so?) and even into an indisposition on my +part to fulfil my engagement--no, dearest dearest, it is not right of +you. And therefore, as you have these thoughts reasonably or +unreasonably, I shall punish you for them at once, and 'chain' you ... +(as you wish to be chained), chain you, rivet you--do you feel how the +little fine chain twists round and round you? do you hear the stroke +of the riveting? and you may _feel that_ too. Now, it is done--now, +you are chained--_Bia_ has finished the work--I, _Ba_! (observe the +anagram!) and not a word do you say, of Prometheus, though you have +the conscience of it all, I dare say. Well! you must be pleased, ... +as it was 'the weight of too much liberty' which offended you: and now +you believe, perhaps, that I trust you, love you, and look to you over +the heads of the whole living world, without any one head needing to +stoop; you _must_, if you please, because you belong to me now and +shall believe as I choose. There's a ukase for you! Cry out ... repent +... and I will loose the links, and let you go again--_shall_ it be +'_My dear Miss Barrett_?' + +Seriously, you shall not think of me such things as you half said, if +not whole said, to-day. If all men were to speak evil of you, my heart +would speak of you the more good--_that_ would be the one result with +_me_. Do I not know you, soul to soul? should I believe that any of +them could know you as I know you? Then for the rest, I am not afraid +of 'toads' now, not being a child any longer. I am not inclined to +mind, if _you_ do not mind, what may be said about us by the +benevolent world, nor will other reasons of a graver kind affect me +otherwise than by the necessary pain. Therefore the whole rests with +you--unless illness should intervene--and you will be kind and good +(will you not?) and not think hard thoughts of me ever again--no. It +wasn't the sense of being less than you had a right to pretend to, +which made me speak what you disliked--for it is _I_ who am +'unworthy,' and not another--not certainly that other! + +I meant to write more to-night of subjects farther off us, but my +sisters have come up-stairs and I must close my letter quickly. +Beloved, take care of your head! Ah, do not write poems, nor read, nor +neglect the walking, nor take that shower-bath. _Will_ you, instead, +try the warm bathing? Surely the experiment is worth making for a +little while. Dearest beloved, do it for your own + + BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Friday Morning. + [Post-mark, March 6, 1846.] + +I am altogether your own, dearest--the words were only words and the +playful feelings were play--while the _fact_ has always been so +irresistibly obvious as to make them _break_ on and off it, +fantastically like water turning to spray and spurts of foam on a +great solid rock. _Now_ you call the rock, a rock, but you must have +known what chance you had of pushing it down when you sent all those +light fancies and free-leaves, and refusals-to-hold-responsible, to do +what they could. It _is_ a rock; and may be quite barren of good to +you,--not large enough to build houses on, not small enough to make a +mantelpiece of, much less a pedestal for a statue, but it is real +rock, that is all. + +It is always _I_ who 'torment' _you_--instead of taking the present +and blessing you, and leaving the future to its own cares. I certainly +am not apt to look curiously into what next week is to bring, much +less next month or six months, but you, the having you, my own, +dearest beloved, _that_ is as different in kind as in degree from any +other happiness or semblance of it that even seemed possible of +realization. Then, now, the health is all to stay, or retard us--oh, +be well, my Ba! + +Let me speak of that letter--I am ashamed at having mentioned those +circumstances, and should not have done so, but for their +insignificance--for I knew that if you ever _did_ hear of them, all +any body _would_ say would not amount to enough to be repeated to me +and so get explained at once. Now that the purpose is gained, it seems +little worth gaining. You bade me not send the letter: I will not. + +As for 'what people say'--ah--Here lies a book, Bartoli's 'Simboli' +and this morning I dipped into his Chapter XIX. His 'Symbol' is +'Socrate fatto ritrar su' Boccali' and the theme of his dissertating, +'L'indegnità del mettere in disprezzo i più degni filosofi +dell'antichità.' He sets out by enlarging on the horror of it--then +describes the character of Socrates, then tells the story of the +representation of the 'Clouds,'and thus gets to his 'symbol'--'le +pazzie fatte spacciare a Socrate in quella commedia ... il misero in +tanto scherno e derisione del pubblico, che perfino i vasai +dipingevano il suo ritratto sopra gli orci, i fiaschi, i boccali, e +ogni vasellamento da più vile servigio. Così quel sommo filosofo ... +fu condotto a far di se par le case d'Atene una continua commedia, con +solamente vederlo comparir così scontraffatto e ridicolo, come i vasai +sel formavano d'invenzione'-- + +There you have what a very clever man can say in choice Tuscan on a +passage in Ælian which he takes care not to quote nor allude to, but +which is the sole authority for the fact. Ælian, speaking of Socrates' +magnanimity, says that on the first representation, a good many +foreigners being present who were at a loss to know 'who could be this +Socrates'--the sage himself stood up that he might be pointed out to +them by the auditory at large ... 'which' says Ælian--'was no +difficulty for them, to whom his features were most familiar,--_the +very potters being in the habit of decorating their vessels with his +likeness_'--no doubt out of a pleasant and affectionate admiration. +Yet see how 'people' can turn this out of its sense,--'say' their say +on the simplest, plainest word or deed, and change it to its opposite! +'God's great gift of speech abused' indeed! + +But what shall we hear of it _there_, my Siren? + +On Monday--is it not? _Who_ was it looked into the room just at our +leave-taking? + +Bless you, my ever dearest,--remember to walk, to go down-stairs--and +be sure that I will endeavour to get well for my part. To-day I am +very well--with this letter! + + Your own. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Friday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 7, 1846.] + +Always _you_, is it, who torments me? always _you_? Well! I agree to +bear the torments as Socrates his persecution by the potters:--and by +the way he liked those potters, as Plato shows, and was fain to go to +them for his illustrations ... as I to you for all my light. Also, +while we are on the subject, I will tell you another fault of your +Bartoli ... his 'choice Tuscan' filled one of my pages, in the place +of my English better than Tuscan. + +For the letter you mentioned, I meant to have said in mine yesterday, +that I was grateful to you for telling me of it--_that_ was one of the +prodigalities of your goodness to me ... not thrown away, in one +sense, however superfluous. Do you ever think how I must feel when you +overcome me with all this generous tenderness, only beloved! I cannot +say it. + +Because it is colder to-day I have not been down-stairs but let +to-morrow be warm enough--_facilis descensus_. There's something +infernal to me really, in the going down, and now too that our cousin +is here! Think of his beginning to attack Henrietta the other day.... +'_So_ Mr. C. has retired and left the field to Surtees Cook. Oh ... +you needn't deny ... it's the news of all the world except your +father. And as to _him_, I don't blame you--he never will consent to +the marriage of son or daughter. Only you should consider, you know, +because he won't leave you a shilling, &c. &c....' You hear the sort +of man. And then in a minute after ... 'And what is this about Ba?' +'About Ba' said my sisters, 'why who has been persuading you of such +nonsense?' 'Oh, my authority is very good,--perfectly unnecessary for +you to tell any stories, Arabel,--a literary friendship, is it?' ... +and so on ... after that fashion! This comes from my brothers of +course, but we need not be afraid of its passing _beyond_, I think, +though I was a good deal vexed when I heard first of it last night and +have been in cousinly anxiety ever since to get our Orestes safe away +from those Furies his creditors, into Brittany again. He is an +intimate friend of my brothers besides the relationship, and they talk +to him as to each other, only they oughtn't to have talked _that_, and +without knowledge too. + +I forgot to tell you that Mr. Kenyon was in an immoderate joy the day +I saw him last, about Mr. Poe's 'Raven' as seen in the _Athenæum_ +extracts, and came to ask what I knew of the poet and his poetry, and +took away the book. It's the rhythm which has taken him with 'glamour' +I fancy. Now you will stay on Monday till the last moment, and go to +him for dinner at six. + +Who 'looked in at the door?' Nobody. But Arabel a little way opened +it, and hearing your voice, went back. There was no harm--_is_ no fear +of harm. Nobody in the house would find his or her pleasure in running +the risk of giving me pain. I mean my brothers and sisters would not. + +Are you trying the music to charm the brain to stillness? Tell me. And +keep from that 'Soul's Tragedy' which did so much harm--oh, that I had +bound you by some Stygian oath not to touch it. + +So my rock ... may the birds drop into your crevices the seeds of all +the flowers of the world--only it is not for _those_, that I cling to +you as the single rock in the salt sea. + + Ever I am + + Your own. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday Morning. + [Post-mark, March 7, 1846.] + +You call me 'kind'; and by this time I have no heart to call you such +names--I told you, did I not once? that 'Ba' had got to convey +infinitely more of you to my sense than 'dearest,' 'sweetest,' all or +any epithets that break down with their load of honey like bees--to +say you are 'kind,' you that so entirely and unintermittingly bless +me,--it will never do now, 'Ba.' All the same, one way there is to +make even 'Ba' dearer,--'_my_ Ba,' I say to myself! + +About my _fears_--whether of opening doors or entering people--one +thing is observable and prevents the possibility of any +misconception--I desire, have been in the habit of desiring, to +_increase_ them, far from diminishing--they relate, of course, +entirely to _you_--and only through _you_ affect me the least in the +world. Put your well-being out of the question, so far as I can +understand it to be involved,--and the pleasure and pride I should +immediately choose would be that the whole world knew our position. +What pleasure, what pride! But I endeavour to remember on all +occasions--and perhaps succeed in too few--that it is very easy for me +to go away and leave you who cannot go. I only allude to this because +some people are 'naturally nervous' and all that--and I am quite of +another kind. + +Last evening I went out--having been kept at home in the afternoon to +see somebody ... went walking for hours. I am quite well to-day and, +now your letter comes, my Ba, most happy. And, as the sun shines, you +are perhaps making the perilous descent now, while I write--oh, to +meet you on the stairs! And I shall really see you on Monday, dearest? +So soon, it ought to feel, considering the dreary weeks that now get +to go between our days! For music, I made myself melancholy just now +with some 'Concertos for the Harpsichord by Mr. Handel'--brought home +by my father the day before yesterday;--what were light, modern things +once! Now I read not very long ago a French memoir of 'Claude le +Jeune' called in his time the Prince of Musicians,--no, +'_Phoenix_'--the unapproachable wonder to all time--that is, twenty +years after his death about--and to this pamphlet was prefixed as +motto this startling axiom--'In Music, the Beau Ideal changes every +thirty years'--well, is not that _true_? The _Idea_, mind, +changes--the general standard ... so that it is no answer that a +single air, such as many one knows, may strike as freshly as +ever--they were _not_ according to the Ideal of their own time--just +now, they drop into the ready ear,--next hundred years, who will be +the Rossini? who is no longer the Rossini even I remember--his early +overtures are as purely Rococo as Cimarosa's or more. The sounds +remain, keep their character perhaps--the scale's proportioned notes +affect the same, that is,--the major third, or minor seventh--but the +arrangement of these, the sequence the law--for them, if it _should_ +change every thirty years! To Corelli nothing seemed so conclusive in +Heaven or earth as this + +[Illustration: Music] + +I don't believe there is one of his sonatas wherein that formula does +not do duty. In these things of Handel that seems replaced by + +[Illustration: Music] + +--that was the only true consummation! Then,--to go over the hundred +years,--came Rossini's unanswerable coda: + +[Illustration: Music] + +which serves as base to the infinity of songs, gone, gone--_so_ gone +by! From all of which Ba draws _this_ 'conclusion' that these may be +worse things than Bartoli's Tuscan to cover a page with!--yet, yet the +pity of it! Le Jeune, the Phoenix, and Rossini who directed his +letters to his mother as 'mother of the famous composer'--and Henry +Lawes, and Dowland's Lute, ah me! + +Well, my conclusion is the best, the everlasting, here and I trust +elsewhere--I am your own, my Ba, ever your + + R. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday Morning. + [Post-mark, March 10, 1846.] + +Now I shall know what to believe when you talk of very bad and very +indifferent doings of yours. Dearest, I read your 'Soul's Tragedy' +last night and was quite possessed with it, and fell finally into a +mute wonder how you could for a moment doubt about publishing it. It +is very vivid, I think, and vital, and impressed me more than the +first act of 'Luria' did, though I do not mean to compare such +dissimilar things, and for pure nobleness 'Luria' is +unapproachable--will prove so, it seems to me. But this 'Tragedy' +shows more heat from the first, and then, the words beat down more +closely ... well! I am struck by it all as you see. If you keep it up +to this passion, if you justify this high key-note, it is a great +work, and worthy of a place next 'Luria.' Also do observe how +excellently balanced the two will be, and how the tongue of this next +silver Bell will swing from side to side. And _you_ to frighten me +about it. Yes, and the worst is (because it was stupid in me) the +worst is that I half believed you and took the manuscript to be +something inferior--for _you_--and the adviseableness of its +publication, a doubtful case. And yet, after all, the really worst is, +that you should prove yourself such an adept at deceiving! For can it +be possible that the same + + 'Robert Browning' + +who (I heard the other day) said once that he could 'wait three +hundred years,' should not feel the life of centuries in this work +too--can it be? Why all the pulses of the life of it are beating in +even _my_ ears! + +Tell me, beloved, how you are--I shall hear it to-night--shall I not? +To think of your being unwell, and forced to go here and go there to +visit people to whom your being unwell falls in at best among the +secondary evils!--makes me discontented--which is one shade more to +the uneasiness I feel. Will you take care, and not give away your life +to these people? Because I have a better claim than they ... and shall +put it in, if provoked ... _shall_. Then you will not use the +shower-bath again--you promise? I dare say Mr. Kenyon observed +yesterday how unwell you were looking--tell me if he didn't! Now do +not work, dearest! Do not think of Chiappino, leave him behind ... he +has a good strong life of his own, and can wait for you. Oh--but let +me remember to say of him, that he and the other personages appear to +me to articulate with perfect distinctness and clearness ... you need +not be afraid of having been obscure in this first part. It is all as +lucid as noon. + +Shall I go down-stairs to-day? 'No' say the privy-councillors, +'because it is cold,' but I _shall_ go peradventure, because the sun +brightens and brightens, and the wind has gone round to the west. + +George had come home yesterday before you left me, but the stars were +favourable to us and kept him out of this room. Now he is at +Worcester--went this morning, on those never ending 'rounds,' poor +fellow, which weary him I am sure. + +And why should music and the philosophy of it make you 'melancholy,' +ever dearest, more than the other arts, which each has the seal of the +age, modifying itself after a fashion and _to_ one? Because it changes +more, perhaps. Yet all the Arts are mediators between the soul and the +Infinite, ... shifting always like a mist, between the Breath on this +side, and the Light on that side ... shifted and coloured; mediators, +messengers, projected from the Soul, to go and feel, for Her, _out +there_! + +You don't call me 'kind' I confess--but then you call me 'too kind' +which is nearly as bad, you must allow on your part. Only you were not +in earnest when you said _that_, as it appeared afterward. _Were_ you, +yesterday, in pretending to think that I owed you nothing ... _I_? + +May God bless you. He knows that to give myself to you, is not to pay +you. Such debts are not so paid. + + Yet I am your + + BA. + +_People's Journal_ for March 7th. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday Morning. + [Post-mark, March 10, 1846.] + +Dear, dear Ba, if you were here I should not much _speak_ to you, not +at first--nor, indeed, at last,--but as it is, sitting alone, only +words can be spoken, or (worse) written, and, oh how different to look +into the eyes and imagine what _might_ be said, what ought to be said, +though it never can be--and to sit and say and write, and only imagine +who looks above me, looks down, understanding and pardoning all! My +love, my Ba, the fault you found once with some expressions of mine +about the amount of imperishable pleasures already hoarded in my mind, +the indestructible memories of you; that fault, which I refused to +acquiesce under the imputation of, at first, you remember--well, +_what_ a fault it was, by this better light! If all stopped here and +now; horrible! complete oblivion were the thing to be prayed for, +rather! As it is, _now_, I must go on, must live the life out, and die +yours. And you are doing your utmost to advance the event of +events,--the exercise, and consequently (is it not?) necessarily +improved sleep, and the projects for the fine days, the walking ... a +pure bliss to think of! Well, now--I think I shall show seamanship of +a sort, and 'try another tack'--do not be over bold, my sweetest; the +cold _is_ considerable,--taken into account the previous mildness. One +ill-advised (I, the _adviser_, I should remember!) too early, or too +late descent to the drawing-room, and all might be ruined,--thrown +back so far ... seeing that our flight is to be prayed for 'not in the +winter'--and one would be called on to wait, wait--in this world where +nothing waits, rests, as can be counted on. Now think of this, too, +dearest, and never mind the slowness, for the sureness' sake! How +perfectly happy I am as you stand by me, as yesterday you stood, as +you seem to stand now! + +I will write to-morrow more: I came home last night with a head rather +worse; which in the event was the better, for I took a little medicine +and all is very much improved to-day. I shall go out presently, and +return very early and take as much care as is proper--for I thought of +Ba, and the sublimities of Duty, and that gave myself airs of +importance, in short, as I looked at my mother's inevitable arrow-root +this morning. So now I am well; so now, is dearest Ba well? I shall +hear to-night ... which will have its due effect, that circumstance, +in quickening my retreat from Forster's Rooms. All was very pleasant +last evening--and your letter &c. went _à qui de droit_, and Mr. W. +_Junior_ had to smile good-naturedly when Mr. Burges began laying down +this general law, that the sons of all men of genius were poor +creatures--and Chorley and I exchanged glances after the fashion of +two Augurs meeting at some street-corner in Cicero's time, as he says. +And Mr. Kenyon was kind, kinder, kindest, as ever, 'and thus ends a +wooing'!--no, a dinner--my wooing ends never, never; and so prepare +to be asked to give, and give, and give till all is given in Heaven! +And all I give _you_ is just my heart's blessing; God bless you, my +dearest, dearest Ba! + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 11, 1846.] + +You find my letter I trust, for it was written this morning in time; +and if these two lines should not be flattery ... oh, rank flattery! +... why happy letter is it, to help to bring you home ten minutes +earlier, when you never ought to have left home--no, indeed! I knew +how it would be yesterday, and how you would be worse and not better. +You are not fit to go out, dear dearest, to sit in the glare of lights +and talk and listen, and have the knives and forks to rattle all the +while and remind you of the chains of necessity. Oh--should I bear it, +do you think? I was thinking, when you went away--_after_ you had +quite gone. You would laugh to see me at my dinner--Flush and +me--Flush placing in me such an heroic confidence, that, after he has +cast one discriminating glance on the plate, and, in the case of +'chicken,' wagged his tail with an emphasis, ... he goes off to the +sofa, shuts his eyes and allows a full quarter of an hour to pass +before he returns to take his share. Did you ever hear of a dog before +who did not persecute one with beseeching eyes at mealtimes? And +remember, this is not the effect of _discipline_. Also if another than +myself happens to take coffee or break bread in the room here, he +teazes straightway with eyes and paws, ... teazes like a common dog +and is put out of the door before he can be quieted by scolding. But +with _me_ he is sublime! Moreover he has been a very useful dog in his +time (in the point of capacity), causing to disappear supererogatory +dinners and impossible breakfasts which, to do him justice, is a feat +accomplished without an objection on his side, always. + +So, when you write me such a letter, I write back to you about Flush. +Dearest beloved, but I have read the letter and felt it in my heart, +through and through! and it is as wise to talk of Flush foolishly, as +to fancy that I _could say how_ it is felt ... this letter! Only when +you spoke last of breaking off with such and such recollections, it +was the melancholy of the breaking off which I protested against, was +it not? and _not_ the insufficiency of the recollections. There might +have been something besides in jest. Ah, but _you_ remember, if you +please, that _I_ was the first to wish (wishing for my own part, if I +could wish exclusively) to break off in the middle the silken thread, +and you told me, not--you forbade me--do you remember? For, as +happiness goes, the recollections were enough, ... _are_ enough for +_me_! I mean that I should acknowledge them to be full compensation +for the bitter gift of life, _such as it was_, to me! if that +subject-matter were broken off here! 'Bona verba' let me speak +nevertheless. You mean, you say, to run all risks with me, and I don't +mean to draw back from my particular risk of ... what am I to do to +you hereafter to make you vexed with me? What is there in marriage to +make all these people on every side of us, (who all began, I suppose, +by talking of love,) look askance at one another from under the silken +mask ... and virtually hate one another through the tyranny of the +stronger and the hypocrisy of the weaker party. It never could be so +with _us_--_I know that_. But you grow awful to me sometimes with the +very excess of your goodness and tenderness, and still, I think to +myself, if you do not keep lifting me up quite off the ground by the +strong faculty of love in you, I shall not help falling short of the +hope you have placed in me--it must be 'supernatural' of you, to the +end! or I fall short and disappoint you. Consider this, beloved. Now +if I could put my soul out of my body, just to stand up before you +and make it clear. + +I did go to the drawing-room to-day ... would ... should ... did. The +sun came out, the wind changed ... where was the obstacle? I spent a +quarter of an hour in a fearful solitude, listening for knocks at the +door, as a ghost-fearer might at midnight, and 'came home' none the +worse in any way. Be sure that I shall 'take care' better than you do, +and there, is the worst of it all--for _you_ let people make you ill, +and do it yourself upon occasion. + +You know from my letter how I found you out in the matter of the +'Soul's Tragedy.' Oh! so bad ... so weak, so unworthy of your name! If +some other people were half a quarter as much the contrary! + +And so, good-night, dear dearest. In spite of my fine speeches about +'recollections,' I should be unhappy enough to please you, with _only +those_ ... without you beside! I could not take myself back from being + + Your own-- + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, March 11, 1846.] + +Dear, dear Ba, but indeed I _did_ return home earlier by two or three +good hours than the night before--and to find _no_ letter,--none of +yours! _That_ was reserved for this morning early, and then a rest +came, a silence, over the thoughts of you--and now again, comes this +last note! Oh, my love--why--what is it you think to do, or become +'afterward,' that you may fail in and so disappoint me? It is not very +unfit that you should thus punish yourself, and that, sinning by your +own ambition of growing something beyond my Ba even, you should 'fear' +as you say! For, sweet, why wish, why think to alter ever by a line, +change by a shade, turn better if that were possible, and so only rise +the higher above me, get further from instead of nearer to my heart? +What I expect, what I build my future on, am quite, quite prepared to +'risk' everything for,--is that one belief that you _will not alter_, +will just remain as you are--meaning by '_you_,' the love in you, the +qualities I have _known_ (for you will stop me, if I do not stop +myself) what I have evidence of in every letter, in every word, every +look. Keeping these, if it be God's will that the body passes,--what +is that? Write no new letters, speak no new words, look no new +looks,--only tell me, years hence that the present is alive, that what +was once, still is--and I am, must needs be, blessed as ever! You +speak of my feeling as if it were a pure speculation--as if because I +_see somewhat_ in you I make a calculation that there must be more to +see somewhere or other--where bdellium is found, the onyx-stone may be +looked for in the mystic land of the four rivers! And perhaps ... ah, +poor human nature!--perhaps I _do_ think at times on what _may_ be to +find! But what is that to you? I _offer_ for the _bdellium_--the other +may be found or not found ... what I see glitter on the ground, _that_ +will suffice to make me rich as--rich as-- + +So bless you my own Ba! I would not wait for paper, and you must +forgive half-sheets, instead of a whole celestial quire to my love and +praise. Are you so well? So adventurous? Thank you from my heart of +hearts. And I am quite well to-day (and have received a note from +Procter _just_ this _minute_ putting off his dinner on account of the +death of his wife's sister's husband abroad). Observe _this_ sheet I +take as I find--I mean, that the tear tells of no improper speech +repented of--what English, what sense, what a soul's tragedy! but +then, what real, realest love and more than love for my ever dearest +Ba possesses her own-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + [Post-mark, March 12, 1846.] + +When my Orpheus writes '[Greek: Peri lithôn]' he makes a great mistake +about onyxes--there is more true onyx in this letter of his that I +have just read, than he will ever find in the desert land he goes to. +And for what 'glitters on the ground,' it reminds me of the yellow +metal sparks found in the Malvern Hills, and how we used to laugh +years ago at one of our geological acquaintances, who looked +mole-hills up that mountain-range in the scorn of his eyes, saying ... +'Nothing but mica!!' Is anybody to be rich through 'mica', I wonder? +through 'Nothing but mica?' 'As rich as--as rich as' ... _Walter the +Pennyless_? + +Dearest, best you are nevertheless, and it is a sorry jest which I can +break upon your poverty, with that golden heart of yours so +apprehended of mine! Why if I am 'ambitious'--is it not because you +love me as if I were worthier of your love, and that, _so_, I get +frightened of the opening of your eyelids to the _un_worthiness? 'A +little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to +sleep'--_there_, is my 'ambition for afterward.' Oh--you do not +understand how with an unspeakable wonder, an astonishment which keeps +me from drawing breath, I look to this Dream, and 'see your face as +the face of an angel,' and fear for the vanishing, ... because dreams +and angels _do_ pass away in this world. But _you_, _I_ understand +_you_, and all your goodness past expression, past belief of mine, if +I had not known you ... just _you_. If it will satisfy you that I +should know you, love you, love you--why then indeed--because I never +bowed down to any of the false gods I know the gold from the mica, ... +I! 'My own beloved'--you should have my soul to stand on if it could +make you stand higher. Yet you shall not call me 'ambitious.' + +To-day I went down-stairs again, and wished to know whether you were +walking in your proportion--and your letter does call you 'better,' +whether you walked enough or not, and it bears the Deptford post-mark. +On Saturday I shall see how you are looking. So pale you were last +time! I know Mr. Kenyon must have observed it, (dear Mr. Kenyon ... +for being 'kinder and kindest') and that one of the 'augurs' +marvelled at the other! By the way I forgot yesterday to tell you how +Mr. Burges's 'apt remark' did amuse me. And Mr. Kenyon who said much +the same words to me last week in relation to this very Wordsworth +junior, writhed, I am sure, and wished the ingenious observer with the +lost plays of Æschylus--oh, I seem to see Mr. Kenyon's face! He was to +have come to tell me how you all behaved at dinner that day, but he +keeps away ... you have given him too much to think of perhaps. + +I heard from Miss Mitford to-day that Mr. Chorley's hope is at an end +in respect to the theatre, and (I must tell you) she praises him +warmly for his philosophy and fortitude under the disappointment. How +much philosophy does it take,--please to instruct me,--in order to the +decent bearing of such disasters? Can I fancy one, shorter than you by +a whole head of the soul, condescending to '_bear_' such things? No, +indeed. + +Be good and kind, and do not work at the 'Tragedy' ... do not. + +So you and I have written out all the paper in London! At least, I +send and send in vain to have more envelopes 'after my kind,' and the +last answer is, that a 'fresh supply will arrive in eight days from +Paris, and that in the meanwhile they are quite _out_ in the article.' +An awful sign of the times, is this famine of envelopes ... not to +speak of the scarcity of little sheets:--and the augurs look to it all +of course. + +For _my_ part I think more of Chiappino--Chiappino holds me fast. + +But I must let _you_ go--it is too late. This dearest letter, which +you sent me! I thank you for it with ever so much dumbness. May God +bless you and keep you, and make you happy for me. + + Your BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, March 12, 1846.] + +How I get to understand this much of Law--that prior possession is +nine points of it! Just because your infinite adroitness got first +hold of the point of view whence our connection looks like 'a dream' +... I find myself shut out of my very own, unable to say what is +oftenest in my thought; whereas the dear, miraculous dream _you_ were, +and are, my Ba! Only, _vanish_--_that_ you will never! My own, and for +ever! + +Yesterday I read the poor, inconceivably inadequate notice in the +_People's Journal_. How curiously wrong, too, in the personal guesses! +Sad work truly. For my old friend Mrs. Adams--no, I must be silent: +the lyrics seem doggerel in its utter purity. And so the people are to +be instructed in the new age of gold! I _heard_ two days ago precisely +what I told you--that there was a quarrel, &c. which this service was +to smooth over, no doubt. Chorley told me, in a hasty word only, that +all was over, Mr. Webster would not have anything to do with his play. +The said W. is one of the poorest of poor creatures, and as Chorley +was certainly forewarned, forearmed I will hope him to have been +likewise--still it is very disappointing--he was apparently nearer +than most aspirants to the prize,--having the best will of the +actresses on whose shoulder the burthen was to lie. I hope they have +been quite honest with him--knowing as I do the easy process of +transferring all sorts of burthens, in that theatrical world, from +responsible to irresponsible members of it, actors to manager, manager +to actors, as the case requires. And it is a 'hope deferred' with +Chorley; not for the second or third time. I am very glad that he +cares no more than you tell me. + +Still you go down-stairs, and still return safely, and every step +leads us nearer to _my_ 'hope.' How unremittingly you bless me--a +visit promises a letter, a letter brings such news, crowns me with +such words, and speaks of another visit--and so the golden links +extend. Dearest words, dearest letters--as I add each to my heap, I +say--I _do_ say--'I was _poor_, it now seems, a minute ago, when I had +not _this_!' Bless you, dear, dear Ba. On Saturday I shall be with +you, I trust--may God bless you! Ever your own + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Sunday. + [Post-mark, March 16, 1846.] + +Ever dearest I am going to say one word first of all lest I should +forget it afterward, of the two or three words which you said +yesterday and so passingly that you probably forget to-day having said +them at all. We were speaking of Mr. Chorley and his house, and you +said that you did not care for such and such things for yourself, but +that for others--now you remember the rest. And I just want to say +what it would have been simpler to have said at the time--only not so +easy--(I _couldn't_ say it at the time) that you are not if you please +to fancy that because I am a woman I have not the pretension to do +with as little in any way as you yourself ... no, it is not _that_ I +mean to say.... I mean that you are not, if you please, to fancy that, +because I am a woman, I look to be cared for in those outside things, +or should have the slightest pleasure in any of them. So never wish +nor regret in your thoughts to be able or not to be able to care this +and this for _me_; for while you are thinking so, our thoughts go +different ways, which is wrong. Mr. Fox did me a great deal too much +honour in calling me 'a religious hermit'; he was 'curiously' in +fault, as you saw. It is not my vocation to sit on a stone in a +cave--I was always too fond of lolling upon sofas or in chairs nearly +as large,--and this, which I sit in, was given to me when I was a +child by my uncle, the uncle I spoke of to you once, and has been +lolled in nearly ever since ... when I was well enough. Well--_that_ +is a sort of luxury, of course--but it is more idle than expensive, as +a habit, and I do believe that it is the 'head and foot of my +offending' in that matter. Yes--'confiteor tibi' besides, that I do +hate white dimity curtains, which is highly improper for a religious +hermit of course, but excusable in _me_ who would accept brown serge +as a substitute with ever so much indifference. It is the white light +which comes in the dimity which is so hateful to me. To 'go mad in +white dimity' seems perfectly natural, and consequential even. Set +aside these foibles, and one thing is as good as another with me, and +the more simplicity in the way of living, the better. If I saw Mr. +Chorley's satin sofas and gilded ceilings I should call them very +pretty I dare say, but never covet the possession of the like--it +would never enter my mind to do so. Then Papa has not kept a carriage +since I have been grown up (they grumble about it here in the house, +but when people have once had great reverses they get nervous about +spending money) so I shall not miss the Clarence and greys ... and I +do entreat you _not_ to put those two ideas together again of _me_ and +the finery which has nothing to do with me. I have talked a great deal +too much of all this, you will think, but I want you, once for all, to +apply it broadly to the whole of the future both in the general view +and the details, so that we need not return to the subject. Judge for +me as for yourself--_what is good for you is good for me_. Otherwise I +shall be humiliated, you know; just as far as I know your thoughts. + +Mr. Kenyon has been here to-day--and I have been down-stairs--two +great events! He was in brilliant spirits and sate talking ever so +long, and named you as he always does. Something he asked, and then +said suddenly ... 'But I don't see why I should ask _you_, when I +ought to know him better than you can.' On which I was wise enough to +change colour, as I felt, to the roots of my hair. There is the +effect of a bad conscience! and it has happened to me before, with Mr. +Kenyon, three times--once particularly, when I could have cried with +vexation (to complete the effects!), he looked at me with such +infinite surprise in a dead pause of any speaking. _That_ was in the +summer; and all to be said for it now, is, that it couldn't be helped: +couldn't! + +Mr. Kenyon asked of 'Saul.' (By the way, you never answered about the +blue lilies.) He asked of 'Saul' and whether it would be finished in +the new number. He hangs on the music of your David. Did you read in +the _Athenæum_ how Jules Janin--no, how the critic on Jules Janin (was +it the critic? was it Jules Janin? the glorious confusion is gaining +on me I think) has magnificently confounded places and persons in +Robert Southey's urn by the Adriatic and devoted friendship for Lord +Byron? And immediately the English observer of the phenomenon, after +moralizing a little on the crass ignorance of Frenchmen in respect to +our literature, goes on to write like an ignoramus himself, on Mme. +Charles Reybaud, encouraging that pure budding novelist, who is in +fact a hack writer of romances third and fourth rate, of questionable +purity enough, too. It does certainly appear wonderful that we should +not sufficiently stand abreast here in Europe, to justify and +necessitate the establishment of an European review--journal +rather--(the 'Foreign Review,' so called, touching only the summits of +the hills) a journal which might be on a level with the intelligent +readers of all the countries of Europe, and take all the rising +reputations of each, with the national light on them as they rise, +into observation and judgment. If nobody can do this, it is a pity I +think to do so much less--both in France and England--to snatch up a +French book from over the Channel as ever and anon they do in the +_Athenæum_, and say something prodigiously absurd of it, till people +cry out 'oh oh' as in the House of Commons. + +Oh--oh--and how wise I am to-day, as if I were a critic myself! +Yesterday I was foolish instead--for I couldn't get out of my head all +the evening how you said that you would come 'to see a candle held up +at the window.' Well! but I do not mean to love you any more just +now--so I tell you plainly. Certainly I will not. I love you already +too much perhaps. I feel like the turning Dervishes turning in the sun +when you say such words to me--and I _never shall_ love you any +'less,' because it is too much to be made less of. + +And you write to-morrow? and will tell me how you are? honestly will +tell me? May God bless you, most dear! + + I am yours--'Tota tua est' + + BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday. + [Post-mark, March 16, 1846.] + +How will the love my heart is full of for you, let me be silent? +Insufficient speech is better than no speech, in one regard--the +speaker had _tried_ words, and if they fail, hereafter he needs not +reflect that he did not even try--so with me now, that loving you, Ba, +with all my heart and soul, all my senses being lost in one wide +wondering gratitude and veneration, I press close to you to say so, in +this imperfect way, my dear dearest beloved! Why do you not help me, +rather than take my words, my proper word, from me and call them +yours, when yours they are not? You said lately love of you 'made you +humble'--just as if to hinder _me_ from saying that earnest +truth!--entirely true it is, as I feel ever more convincingly. You do +not choose to understand it should be so, nor do I much care, for the +one thing you must believe, must resolve to believe in its length and +breadth, is that I do love you and live only in the love of you. + +I will rest on the confidence that you do so believe! You _know_ by +this that it is no shadowy image of you and _not_ you, which having +attached myself to in the first instance, I afterward compelled my +fancy to see reproduced, so to speak, with tolerable exactness to the +original idea, in you, the dearest real _you_ I am blessed with--you +_know_ what the eyes are to me, and the lips and the hair. And I, for +my part, know _now_, while fresh from seeing you, certainly _know_, +whatever I may have said a short time since, that _you_ will go on to +the end, that the arm round me will not let me go,--over such a blind +abyss--I refuse to think, to fancy, _towards_ what it would be to +loose you now! So I give my life, my soul into your hand--the giving +is a mere form too, it is yours, ever yours from the first--but ever +as I see you, sit with you, and come away to think over it all, I find +more that seems mine to give; you give me more life and it goes back +to you. + +I shall hear from you to-morrow--then, I will go out early and get +done with some calls, in the joy and consciousness of what waits me, +and when I return I will write a few words. Are these letters, these +merest attempts at getting to talk with you through the distance--yet +always with the consolation of feeling that you will know all, +interpret all and forgive it and put it right--can such things be +cared for, expected, as you say? Then, Ba, my life _must_ be better +... with the closeness to help, and the 'finding out the way' for +which love was always noted. If you begin making in fancy a lover to +your mind, I am lost at once--but the one quality of _affection_ for +you, which would sooner or later have to be placed on his list of +component graces; _that_ I will dare start supply--the entire love you +could dream of _is_ here. You think you see some of the other +adornments, and only too many; and you will see plainer one day, but +with that I do not concern myself--you shall admire the true +heroes--but me you shall love for the love's sake. Let me kiss you, +you, my dearest, dearest--God bless you ever-- + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, March 16, 1846.] + +Indeed I would, dearest Ba, go with entire gladness and pride to see a +light that came from your room--why should that surprise you? Well, +you will _know_ one day. + +We understand each other too about the sofas and gilding--oh, I know +you, my own sweetest! For me, if I had set those matters to heart, I +should have turned into the obvious way of getting them--not _out_ of +it, as I did resolutely from the beginning. All I meant was, to +express a very natural feeling--if one could give you diamonds for +flowers, and if you liked diamonds,--then, indeed! As it is, wherever +we are found shall be, if you please, 'For the love's sake found +therein--sweetest _house_ was ever seen!' + +Mr. Kenyon must be merciful. Lilies are of all colours in +Palestine--one sort is particularized as _white_ with a dark blue spot +and streak--the water lily, lotos, which I think I meant, is _blue_ +altogether. + +I have walked this morning to town and back--I feel much better, +'honestly'! The head better--the spirits rising--as how should they +not, when _you_ think all will go well in the end, when you write to +me that you go down-stairs and are stronger--and when the rest is +written? + +Not more now, dearest, for time is pressing, but you will answer +this,--the love that is not here,--not the idle words, and I will +reply to-morrow. Thursday is so far away yet! + +Bless you, my very own, only dearest! + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Monday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 17, 1846.] + +Dearest, you are dearest always! Talk of Sirens, ... there must be +some masculine ones 'rari nantes,' I fancy, (though we may not find +them in unquestionable authorities like your Ælian!) to justify this +voice I hear. Ah, how you speak, with that pretension, too, to +dumbness! What should people be made of, in order to bear such words, +do you think? Will all the wax from all the altar-candles in the +Sistine Chapel, keep the piercing danger from their ears? Being tied +up a good deal tighter than Ulysses did not save _me_. Dearest +dearest: I laugh, you see, as usual, not to cry! But deep down, deeper +than the Sirens go, deep underneath the tides, _there_, I bless and +love you with the voice that makes no sound. + +Other human creatures (how often I do think it to myself!) have their +good things scattered over their lives, sown here and sown there, down +the slopes, and by the waysides. But with me ... I have mine all +poured down on one spot in the midst of the sands!--if you knew what I +feel at moments, and at half-hours, when I give myself up to the +feeling freely and take no thought of red eyes. A woman once was +killed with gifts, crushed with the weight of golden bracelets thrown +at her: and, knowing myself, I have wondered more than a little, how +it was that I could _bear_ this strange and unused gladness, without +sinking as the emotion rose. Only I was incredulous at first, and the +day broke slowly ... and the gifts fell like the rain ... softly; and +God gives strength, by His providence, for sustaining blessings as +well as stripes. Dearest-- + +For the rest I understand you perfectly--perfectly. It was simply to +your _thoughts_, that I replied ... and that you need not say to +yourself any more, as you did once to me when you brought me flowers, +that you wished they were diamonds. It was simply to prevent the +accident of such a _thought_, that I spoke out mine. You would not +wish accidentally that you had a double-barrelled gun to give me, or a +cardinal's hat, or a snuff box, and I meant to say that you _might as +well_--as diamonds and satin sofas à la Chorley. Thoughts are +something, and _your_ thoughts are something more. To be sure they +are! + +You are better you say, which makes me happy of course. And you will +not make the 'better' worse again by doing wrong things--_that_ is my +petition. It was the excess of goodness to write those two letters for +me in one day, and I thank you, thank you. Beloved, when you write, +_let_ it be, if you choose, ever so few lines. Do not suffer me (for +my own sake) to tire you, because two lines or three bring _you_ to me +... remember ... just as a longer letter would. + +But where, pray, did I say, and when, that 'everything would end +well?' Was _that_ in the dream, when we two met on the stairs? I did +not really say so I think. And 'well' is how you understand it. If you +jump out of the window you succeed in getting to the ground, somehow, +dead or alive ... but whether _that_ means 'ending well,' depends on +your way of considering matters. I am seriously of opinion +nevertheless, that if 'the arm,' you talk of, _drops_, it will not be +for weariness nor even for weakness, but because it is cut off at the +shoulder. _I_ will not fail to you,--may God so deal with me, so bless +me, so leave me, as I live only for you and _shall_. Do you doubt +_that_, my only beloved! Ah, you know well--_too well_, people would +say ... but I do not think it 'too well' myself, ... knowing _you_. + + Your + + BA. + +Here is a gossip which Mr. Kenyon brought me on Sunday--disbelieving +it himself, he asseverated, though Lady Chantrey said it 'with +authority,'--that Mr. Harness had offered his hand heart and +ecclesiastical dignities to Miss Burdett Coutts. It is Lady Chantrey's +and Mr. Kenyon's _secret_, remember. + +And ... will you tell me? How can a man spend four or five successive +months on the sea, most cheaply--at the least pecuniary expense, I +mean? Because Miss Mitford's friend Mr. Buckingham is ordered by his +medical adviser to complete his cure by these means; and he is not +rich. Could he go with sufficient comfort by a merchant's vessel to +the Mediterranean ... and might he drift about among the Greek +islands? + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday. + +'Out of window' would be well, as I see the leap, if it ended (_so far +as I am concerned_) in the worst way imaginable--I would I 'run the +risk' (Ba's other word) rationally, deliberately,--knowing what the +ordinary law of chances in this world justifies in such a case; and if +the result after all _was_ unfortunate, it would be far easier to +undergo the extremest penalty with so little to reproach myself +for,--than to put aside the adventure,--waive the wondrous probability +of such best fortune, in a fear of the barest possibility of an +adverse event, and so go to my grave, Walter the Penniless, with an +eternal recollection that Miss Burdett Coutts once offered to wager +sundry millions with me that she could throw double-sixes a dozen +times running--which wager I wisely refused to accept because it was +not written in the stars that such a sequence might never be. I had +rather, rather a thousand-fold lose my paltry stake, and be the one +recorded victim to such an unexampled unluckiness that half a dozen +mad comets, suns gone wrong, and lunatic moons must have come +laboriously into conjunction for my special sake to bring it to pass, +which were no slight honour, properly considered!--And this is _my_ +way of laughing, dearest Ba, when the excess of belief in you, and +happiness with you, runs over and froths if it don't +sparkle--underneath is a deep, a sea not to be moved. But chance, +chance! there is _no_ chance here! I _have_ gained enough for my life, +I can only put in peril the gaining more than enough. You shall change +altogether my dear, dearest love, and I will be happy to the last +minute on what I can remember of this past year--I _could_ do that. +_Now_, jump with me out, Ba! If you feared for yourself--all would be +different, sadly different--But saying what you do say, promising 'the +strength of arm'--do not wonder that I call it an assurance of all +being 'well'! All is _best_, as you promise--dear, darling Ba!--and I +say, in my degree, with all the energy of my nature, _as you say_, +promise as you promise--only meaning a worship of you that is solely +fit for me, fit by position--are not you my 'mistress?' Come, some +good out of those old conventions, in which you lost faith after the +Bower's disappearance, (it was carried by the singing angels, like the +house at Loretto, to the Siren's isle where we shall find it preserved +in a beauty 'very rare and absolute')--is it not right you should be +my Lady, my Queen? and you are, and ever must be, dear Ba. Because I +am suffered to kiss the lips, shall I ever refuse to embrace the feet? +and kiss lips, and embrace feet, love you _wholly_, my Ba! May God +bless you-- + + Ever your own, + + R. + +It would be easy for Mr. Buckingham to find a Merchant-ship bound for +some Mediterranean port, after a week or two in harbour, to another +and perhaps a third--Naples, Palermo, Syra, Constantinople, and so on. +The expense would be very trifling, but the want of comfort _enormous_ +for an invalid--the one advantage is the solitariness of the _one_ +passenger among all those rough new creatures. _I_ like it much, and +soon get deep into their friendship, but another has other ways of +viewing matters. No one article provided by the ship in the way of +provisions can anybody touch. Mr. B. must lay in his own stock, and +the horrors of dirt and men's ministry are portentous, yet by a little +arrangement beforehand much might be done. Still, I only know my own +powers of endurance, and counsel nobody to gain my experience. On the +other hand, were all to do again, I had rather have seen Venice _so_, +with the five or six weeks' absolute rest of the mind's eyes, than any +other imaginable way,--except Balloon-travelling. + +Do you think they meant Landor's 'Count Julian'--the 'subject of his +tragedy' sure enough,--and that _he_ was the friend of Southey? So it +struck me-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 18, 1846.] + +Ah well--we shall see. Only remember that it is not my fault if I +throw the double sixes, and if you, on [_some sun-shiny_ day, (a day +too late to help yourself) stand face to face with a milkwhite +unicorn.][1] Ah--do not be angry. It is ungrateful of me to write +so--I put a line through it to prove I have a conscience after all. I +know that you love me, and I know it so well that I was reproaching +myself severely not long ago, for seeming to love your love more than +you. Let me tell you how I proved _that_, or seemed. For ever so long, +you remember, I have been talking finely about giving you up for your +good and so on. Which was sincere as far as the words went--but oh, +the hypocrisy of our souls!--of mine, for instance! 'I would give you +up for your good'--_but_ when I pressed upon myself the question +whether (if I had the power) I would consent to make you willing to be +given up, by throwing away your love into the river, in a ring like +Charlemagne's, ... why I found directly that I would throw myself +there sooner. I could not do it in fact--I shrank from the test. A +very pitiful virtue of generosity, is your Ba's! Still, it is not +possible, I think, that she should '_love your love more than you_.' +There must be a mistake in the calculation somewhere--a figure dropt. +It would be too bad for her! + +Your account of your merchantmen, though with Venice in the distance, +will scarcely be attractive to a confirmed invalid, I fear--and yet +the steamers will be found expensive beyond his means. The +sugar-vessels, which I hear most about, give out an insufferable smell +and steam--let us talk of it a little on Thursday. On Monday I forgot. + +For Landor's 'Julian,' oh no, I cannot fancy it to be probable that +those Parisians should know anything of Landor, even by a mistake. Do +you not suppose that the play is founded (confounded) on Shelley's +poem, as the French use materials ... by distraction, into confusion? +The 'urn by the Adriatic' (which all the French know how to turn +upside down) fixes the reference to Shelley--does it not? + +Not a word of the head--what does _that_ mean, I wonder. I have not +been down-stairs to-day--the wind is too cold--but you have walked? +... there was no excuse for you. God bless you, ever dearest. It is my +last word till Thursday's first. A fine queen you have, by the way!--a +queen Log, whom you had better leave in the bushes! Witness our +hand.... + + BA--REGINA. + +[Footnote 1: The words in brackets are struck out.] + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + [Post-mark, March 18, 1846.] + +Indeed, dearest, you shall not have _last word_ as you think,--all the +'risk' shall not be mine, neither; how can I, in the event, throw +ambs-ace (is not that the old word?) and not peril _your_ stakes too, +when once we have common stock and are partners? When I see the +unicorn and grieve proportionately, do you mean to say you are not +going to grieve too, for my sake? And if so--why, _you_ clearly run +exactly the same risk,--_must_,--unless you mean to rejoice in my +sorrow! So your chance is my chance; my success your success, you say, +and my failure, your failure, will you not say? You see, you see, Ba, +my own--own! What do you think frightened me in your letter for a +second or two? You write 'Let us talk on Thursday ... Monday I +forgot'--which I read,--'no, not on Thursday--I had forgotten! It is +to be _Monday_ when we meet next'!--whereat + + ... as a goose + In death contracts his talons close, + +as Hudibras sings--I clutched the letter convulsively--till relief +came. + +So till to-morrow--my all-beloved! Bless you. I am rather hazy in the +head as Archer Gurney will find in due season--(he comes, I told +you)--but all the morning I have been going for once and for ever +through the 'Tragedy,' and it is _done_--(done _for_). Perhaps I may +bring it to-morrow--if my sister can copy all; I cut out a huge kind +of sermon from the middle and reserve it for a better time--still it +is very long; so long! So, if I ask, may I have 'Luria' back to +morrow? So shall printing begin, and headache end--and 'no more for +the present from your loving' + + R.B. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Friday. + [Post-mark, March 20, 1846.] + +I shall be late with my letter this morning because my sisters have +been here talking, talking ... and I did not like to say exactly 'Go +away that I may write.' Mr. Kenyon shortened our time yesterday too by +a whole half-hour or three quarters--the stars are against us. He is +coming on Sunday, however, he says, and if so, Monday will be safe and +clear--and not a word was said after you went, about you: he was in a +good joyous humour, as you saw, and the letter he brought was, oh! so +complimentary to me--I will tell you. The writer doesn't see anything +'in Browning and Turner,' she confesses--'_may_ perhaps with time and +study,' but for the present sees nothing,--only has wide-open eyes of +admiration for E.B.B. ... now isn't it satisfactory to _me_? Do you +understand the full satisfaction of just that sort of thing ... to be +praised by somebody who sees nothing in Shakespeare?--to be found on +the level of somebody so flat? Better the bad-word of the Britannia, +ten times over! And best, to take no thought of bad or good words! ... +except such as I shall have to-night, perhaps! Shall I? + +Will you be pleased to understand in the meanwhile a little about the +'risks' I am supposed to run, and not hold to such a godlike +simplicity ('gods and bulls,' dearest!) as you made show of yesterday? +If we two went to the gaming-table, and you gave me a purse of gold to +play with, should I have a right to talk proudly of 'my stakes?' and +would any reasonable person say of both of us playing together as +partners, that we ran 'equal risks'? I trow not--and so do _you_ ... +when you have not predetermined to be stupid, and mix up the rouge and +noir into 'one red' of glorious confusion. What had I to lose on the +point of happiness when you knew me first?--and if now I lose (as I +certainly may according to your calculation) the happiness you have +given me, why still I am your debtor for _the gift_ ... now see! Yet +to bring you down into my ashes ... _that_ has been so intolerable a +possibility to me from the first. Well, perhaps I run _more_ risk than +you, under that one aspect. Certainly I never should forgive myself +again if you were unhappy. 'What had _I_ to do,' I should think, 'with +touching your life?' And if ever I am to think so, I would rather that +I never had known you, seen your face, heard your voice--which is the +uttermost sacrifice and abnegation. I could not say or sacrifice any +more--not even for _you_! _You_, for _you_ ... is all I can! + +Since you left me I have been making up my mind to your having the +headache worse than ever, through the agreement with Moxon. I do, do +beseech you to spare yourself, and let 'Luria' go as he is, and above +all things not to care for my infinite foolishnesses as you see them +in those notes. Remember that if you are ill, it is not so easy to +say, 'Now I will be well again.' Ever dearest, care for me in +yourself--say how you are.... I am not unwell to-day, but feel flagged +and weak rather with the cold ... and look at your flowers for courage +and an assurance that the summer is within hearing. May God bless you +... blessing _us_, beloved! + + Your own + + BA. + +Mr. Poe has sent me his poems and tales--so now I must write to thank +him for his dedication. Just now I have the book. As to Mr. +Buckingham, he will go, Constantinople and back, before we talk of +him. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Saturday Morning. + [Post-mark, March 21, 1846.] + +Dearest,--it just strikes me that I _might_ by some chance be kept in +town this morning--(having to go to Milnes' breakfast there)--so as +not to find the note I venture to expect, in time for an answer by our +last post to-night. But I will try--this only is a precaution against +the possibility. Dear, dear Ba! I cannot thank you, know not how to +thank you for the notes! I adopt every one, of course, not as Ba's +notes but as Miss Barrett's, not as Miss Barrett's but as anybody's, +everybody's--such incontestable improvements they suggest. When shall +I tell you more ... on Monday or Tuesday? _That_ I _must_ +know--because you appointed Monday, 'if nothing happened--' and Mr. K. +happened--can you let me hear by our early post to-morrow--as on +Monday I am to be with Moxon early, you know--and no letters arrive +before 11-1/2 or 12. I was not very well yesterday, but to-day am much +better--and you,--I say how _I_ am precisely to have a double right to +know _all_ about you, dearest, in this snow and cold! How do you bear +it? And Mr. K. spoke of '_that_ being your worst day.' Oh, dear +dearest Ba, remember how I live in you--on the hopes, with the memory +of you. Bless you ever! + + R. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + [Post-mark, March 21, 1846.] + +I do not understand how my letters limp so instead of flying as they +ought with the feathers I give them, and how you did not receive last +night, nor even early this morning, what left me at two o'clock +yesterday. But I understand _now_ the not hearing from you--you were +not well. Not well, not well ... _that_ is always 'happening' at +least. And Mr. Moxon, who is to have his first sheet, whether you are +well or ill! It is wrong ... yes, very wrong--and if one point of +wrongness is touched, we shall not easily get right again--as I think +mournfully, feeling confident (call me Cassandra, but I cannot jest +about it) feeling certain that it will end (the means being so +persisted in) by some serious illness--serious sorrow,--on yours and +my part. + +As to Monday, Mr. Kenyon said he would come again on Sunday--in which +case, Monday will be clear. If he should not come on Sunday, he will +or may on Monday,--yet--oh, in every case, perhaps you can come on +Monday--there will be no time to let you know of Mr. Kenyon--and +_probably_ we shall be safe, and your being in town seems to fix the +day. For myself I am well enough, and the wind has changed, which will +make me better--this cold weather oppresses and weakens me, but it is +close to April and can't last and won't last--it is warmer already. +Beware of the notes! They are not Ba's--except for the insolence, nor +EBB's--because of the carelessness. If I had known, moreover, that you +were going to Moxon's on Monday, they should have gone to the fire +rather than provoked you into superfluous work for the short interval. +Just so much are they despised of both EBB and Ba. + +I am glad I did not hear from you yesterday because you were not +well, and you _must never_ write when you are not well. But if you had +been quite well, should I have heard?--_I doubt it_. You meant me to +hear from you only once, from Thursday to Monday. Is it not the truth +now that you hate writing to me? + +The _Athenæum_ takes up the 'Tales from Boccaccio' as if they were +worth it, and imputes in an underground way the authorship to the +members of the 'coterie' so called--do you observe _that_? There is an +implication that persons named in the poem wrote the poem themselves. +And upon _whom_ does the critic mean to fix the song of 'Constancy' +... the song which is 'not to puzzle anybody' who knows the tunes of +the song-writers! The perfection of commonplace it seems to me. It +might have been written by the 'poet Bunn.' Don't you think so? + +While I write this you are in town, but you will not read it till +Sunday unless I am more fortunate than usual. On Monday then! And no +word before? No--I shall be sure not to hear to-night. Now do try not +to suffer through 'Luria.' Let Mr. Moxon wait a week rather. There is +time enough. + + Ever your + + BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Sunday. + [Post-mark, March 23, 1846.] + +Oh, my Ba--how you shall hear of this to-morrow--that is all: _I_ hate +writing? See when presently I _only_ write to you daily, hourly if you +let me? Just this _now_--I will be with you to-morrow in any case--I +can go away _at once_, if need be, or stay--if you like you can stop +me by sending a note for me _to Moxon's before_ 10 o'clock--if +anything calls for such a measure. + +Now briefly,--I am unwell and entirely irritated with this sad +'Luria'--I thought it a failure at first, I find it infinitely worse +than I thought--it is a pure exercise of _cleverness_, even where most +successful; clever attempted reproduction of what was conceived by +another faculty, and foolishly let pass away. If I go on, even hurry +the more to get on, with the printing,--it is to throw out and away +from me the irritating obstruction once and forever. I have corrected +it, cut it down, and it may stand and pledge me to doing better +hereafter. I say, too, in excuse to myself, _unlike_ the woman at her +spinning-wheel, 'He thought of his _flax_ on the whole far more than +of his singing'--more of his life's sustainment, of dear, dear Ba he +hates writing to, than of these wooden figures--no wonder all is as it +is? + +Here is a pure piece of the old Chorley leaven for you, just as it +reappears ever and anon and throws one back on the mistrust all but +abandoned! Chorley _knows_ I have not seen that Powell for nearly +fifteen months--that I never heard of the book till it reached me in a +blank cover--that I never contributed a line or word to it directly or +indirectly--and I should think he _also knows_ that all the sham +learning, notes &c., all that saves the book from the deepest deep of +contempt, was contributed by Heraud (_a regular critic in the +'Athenæum'_), who received his pay for the same: he knows I never +spoke in my life to 'Jones or Stephens'--that there is no 'coterie' of +which I can, by any extension of the word, form a part--that I am in +this case at the mercy of a wretched creature who to get into my +favour again (to speak the plain truth) put in the gross, disgusting +flattery in the notes--yet Chorley, knowing this, none so well, and +what the writer's end is--(to have it supposed I, and the others +named--Talfourd, for instance--ARE his friends and helpers)--he +condescends to _further_ it by such a notice, written with that +observable and characteristic duplicity, that to poor gross stupid +Powell it shall look like an admiring 'Oh, fie--_so_ clever but _so_ +wicked'!--a kind of _D'Orsay's_ praise--while to the rest of his +readers, a few depreciatory epithets--slight sneers convey his real +sentiments, he trusts! And this he does, just because Powell buys an +article of him once a quarter and would _expect_ notice. I think I +hear Chorley--'You know, I _cannot_ praise such a book--it _is_ too +bad'--as if, as if--oh, it makes one sicker than having written +'Luria,' there's one comfort! I shall call on Chorley and ask for +_his_ account of the matter. Meantime nobody will read his foolish +notice without believing as he and Powell desire! Bless you, my own +Ba--to-morrow makes amends to R.B. + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday. + [Post-mark, March 24, 1846.] + +How ungrateful I was to your flowers yesterday, never looking at them +nor praising them till they were put away, and yourself gone away--and +_that_ was _your_ fault, be it remembered, because you began to tell +me of the good news from Moxon's, and, in the joy of it, I missed the +flowers ... for the nonce, you know. Afterward they had their due, and +all the more that you were not there. My first business when you are +out of the room and the house, and the street perhaps, is to arrange +the flowers and to gather out of them all the thoughts you leave +between the leaves and at the end of the stalks. And shall I tell you +what happened, not yesterday, but the Thursday before? no, it was the +Friday morning, when I found, or rather Wilson found and held up from +my chair, a bunch of dead blue violets. Quite dead they seemed! You +had dropped them and I had sate on them, and where we murdered them +they had lain, poor things, all the night through. And Wilson thought +it the vainest of labours when she saw me set about reviving them, +cutting the stalks afresh, and dipping them head and ears into +water--but then she did not know how you, and I, and ours, live under +a miraculous dispensation, and could only simply be astonished when +they took to blowing again as if they never had wanted the dew of the +garden, ... yes, and when at last they outlived all the prosperity of +the contemporary white violets which flourished in water from the +beginning, and were free from the disadvantage of having been sate +upon. Now you shall thank me for this letter, it is at once so amusing +and instructive. After all, too, it teaches you what the great events +of my life are, not that the resuscitation of your violets would not +really be a great event to me, even if I led the life of a pirate, +between fire and sea, otherwise. But take _you_ away ... out of my +life!--and what remains? The only greenness I used to have (before you +brought your flowers) was as the grass growing in deserted streets, +... which brings a proof, in every increase, of the extending +desolation. + +Dearest, I persist in thinking that you ought not to be too disdainful +to explain your meaning in the Pomegranates. Surely you might say in a +word or two that, your title having been doubted about (to your +surprise, you _might_ say!), you refer the doubters to the Jewish +priest's robe, and the Rabbinical gloss ... for I suppose it is a +gloss on the robe ... do you not think so? Consider that Mr. Kenyon +and I may fairly represent the average intelligence of your +readers,--and that _he_ was altogether in the clouds as to your +meaning ... had not the most distant notion of it,--while I, taking +hold of the priest's garment, missed the Rabbins and the distinctive +significance, as completely as he did. Then for Vasari, it is not the +handbook of the whole world, however it may be Mrs. Jameson's. Now why +should you be too proud to teach such persons as only desire to be +taught? I persist--I shall teaze you. + +This morning my brothers have been saying ... 'Ah you had Mr. Browning +with you yesterday, I see by the flowers,' ... just as if they said 'I +see queen Mab has been with you.' Then Stormie took the opportunity of +swearing to me by all his gods that your name was mentioned lately in +the House of Commons--_is_ that true? or untrue? He forgot to tell me +at the time, he says,--and you were named with others and in relation +to copyright matters. _Is_ it true? + +Mr. Hornblower Gill is the author of a Hymn to Passion week, and wrote +to me as the 'glorifier of pain!' to remind me that the best glory of +a soul is shown in the joy of it, and that all chief poets except +Dante have seen, felt, and written it so. Thus and therefore was +matured his purpose of writing an 'ode to joy,' as I told you. The man +seems to have very good thoughts, ... but he writes like a colder +Cowley still ... no impulse, no heat for fusing ... no inspiration, in +fact. Though I have scarcely done more than glance at his 'Passion +week,' and have little right to give an opinion. + +If you have killed Luria as you helped to kill my violets, what shall +I say, do you fancy? Well--we shall see! Do not kill yourself, +beloved, in any case! The [Greek: iostephanoi Mousai] had better die +themselves first! Ah--what am I writing? What nonsense? I mean, in +deep earnest, the deepest, that you should take care and exercise, and +not be vexed for Luria's sake--Luria will have his triumph presently! +May God bless you--prays your own + + BA. + + + +_R.B. to E.B.B._ + + Tuesday Afternoon. + [Post-mark, March 24, 1846.] + +My own dearest, if you _do_--(for I confess to nothing of the kind), +but if you _should_ detect an unwillingness to write at certain times, +what would that prove,--I mean, what that one need shrink from +avowing? If I never had you before me except when writing letters to +you--then! Why, we do not even _talk_ much now! witness Mr. Buckingham +and his voyage that ought to have been discussed!--Oh, how coldly I +should write,--how the bleak-looking paper would seem unpropitious to +carry my feeling--if all had to begin and try to find words _this_ +way! + +Now, this morning I have been out--to town and back--and for all the +walking my head aches--and I have the conviction that presently when I +resign myself to think of you wholly, with only the pretext,--the +make-believe of occupation, in the shape of some book to turn over the +leaves of,--I shall see you and soon be well; so soon! You must know, +there is a chair (one of the kind called gond_ó_la-chairs by +upholsterers--with an emphasized o)--which occupies the precise place, +stands just in the same relation to this chair I sit on now, that +yours stands in and occupies--to the left of the fire: and, how often, +how _always_ I turn in the dusk and _see_ the dearest real Ba with me. + +How entirely kind to take that trouble, give those sittings for me! Do +you think the kindness has missed its due effect? _No, no_, I am +glad,--(_knowing what I_ now _know_,--what you meant _should be_, and +did all in your power to prevent) that I have _not_ received the +picture, if anything short of an adequate likeness. 'Nil nisi--te!' +But I have set my heart on _seeing_ it--will you remember next time, +next Saturday? + +I will leave off now. To-morrow, dearest, only dearest Ba, I will +write a longer letter--the clock stops it this afternoon--it is later +than I thought, and our poor crazy post! This morning, hoping against +hope, I ran to meet our postman coming meditatively up the lane--with +_a_ letter, indeed!--but Ba's will come to-night--and I will be happy, +already _am_ happy, expecting it. Bless you, my own love, + + Ever your-- + + + +_E.B.B. to R.B._ + + Tuesday Evening. + [Post-mark, March 25, 1846.] + +Ah; if I '_do_' ... if I '_should_' ... if I _shall_ ... if I _will_ +... if I _must_ ... what can all the 'ifs' prove, but a most +hypothetical state of the conscience? And in brief, I beg you to +stand convinced of one thing, that whenever the 'certain time' comes +for to 'hate writing to me' confessedly, 'avowedly,' (oh what words!) +_I shall not like it at all_--not for all the explanations ... and the +sights in gondola chairs, which the person seen is none the better +for! The [Greek: eidôlon] sits by the fire--the real Ba is cold at +heart through wanting her letter. And that's the doctrine to be +preached now, ... is it? I 'shrink,' shrink from it. That's your +word!--and mine! Dearest, I began by half a jest and end by +half-gravity, which is the fault of your doctrine and not of me I +think. Yet it is ungrateful to be grave, when practically you are good +and just about the letters, and generous too sometimes, and I could +not bear the idea of obliging you to write to me, even once ... +when.... Now do not fancy that I do not understand. I understand +perfectly, on the contrary. Only do _you_ try not to dislike writing +when you write, or not to write when you dislike it ... _that_, I ask +of you, dear dearest--and forgive me for all this over-writing and +teazing and vexing which is foolish and womanish in the bad sense. It +is a way of meeting, ... the meeting in letters, ... and next to +receiving a letter from you, I like to write one to you ... and, so, +revolt from thinking it lawful for you to dislike.... Well! the +Goddess of Dulness herself couldn't have written _this_ better, +anyway, nor more characteristically. + +I will tell you how it is. You have spoilt me just as I have spoilt +Flush. Flush looks at me sometimes with reproachful eyes 'a fendre le +coeur,' because I refuse to give him my fur cuffs to tear to pieces. +And as for myself, I confess to being more than half jealous of the +[Greek: eidôlon] in the gondola chair, who isn't the real Ba after +all, and yet is set up there to do away with the necessity 'at certain +times' of writing to her. Which is worse than Flush. For Flush, though +he began by shivering with rage and barking and howling and gnashing +his teeth at the brown dog in the glass, has learnt by experience what +that image means, ... and now contemplates it, serene in natural +philosophy. Most excellent sense, all this is!--and dauntlessly +'delivered!' + +Your head aches, dearest. Mr. Moxon will have done his worst, however, +presently, and then you will be a little better I do hope and +trust--and the proofs, in the meanwhile, will do somewhat less harm +than the manuscript. You will take heart again about 'Luria' ... which +I agree with you, is more diffuse ... that is, less close, than any of +your works, not diffuse in any bad sense, but round, copious, and +another proof of that wonderful variety of faculty which is so +striking in you, and which signalizes itself both in the thought and +in the medium of the thought. You will appreciate 'Luria' in time--or +others will do it for you. It is a noble work under every aspect. Dear +'Luria'! Do you remember how you told me of 'Luria' last year, in one +of your early letters? Little I thought that ever, ever, I should feel +so, while 'Luria' went to be printed! A long trail of thoughts, like +the rack in the sky, follows his going. Can it be the same 'Luria,' I +think, that 'golden-hearted Luria,' whom you talked of to me, when you +complained of keeping 'wild company,' in the old dear letter? And I +have learnt since, that '_golden-hearted_' is not a word for him only, +or for him most. May God bless you, best and dearest! I am your own to +live and to die-- + + BA. + +_Say how you are._ I shall be down-stairs to-morrow if it keeps warm. + +Miss Thomson wants me to translate the Hector and Andromache scene +from the 'Iliad' for her book; and I am going to try it. + + +END OF THE FIRST VOLUME + + +_Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London_ + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Letters of Robert Browning and +Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846, Edited by Robert B.Browning + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF BROWNING *** + +***** This file should be named 16182-8.txt or 16182-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/1/8/16182/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Linda Cantoni, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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