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 allthat ever passed between my father and mother, for after theirmarriage they were never separated, it seemed to me that my onlyalternatives were to allow them to be published or to destroy them. Imight, indeed, have left the matter to the decision of others after mydeath, but that would be evading a responsibility which I feel that Iought to accept. Ever since my mother's death these letters were kept by my father in acertain inlaid box, into which they exactly fitted, and where theyhave always rested, letter beside letter, each in its consecutiveorder and numbered on the envelope by his own hand. My father destroyed all the rest of his correspondence, and not longbefore 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 omissionwould have saved only a few pages, and I think it well that thecorrespondence 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 indeciphering some words which had become scarcely legible owing tofaded ink. R. B. B. 1898. ADVERTISEMENT The correspondence contained in these volumes is printed exactly as itappears in the original letters, without alteration, except in respectof obvious slips of the pen. Even the punctuation, with itscharacteristic dots and dashes, has for the most part been preserved. The notes in square brackets [] have been added mainly in order totranslate the Greek phrases, and to give the references to Greekpoets. For these, thanks are due to Mr. F. G. Kenyon, who has revisedthe proofs with the assistance of Mr. Roger Ingpen, the latter beingresponsible 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 isno off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write, --whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there agraceful and natural end of the thing. Since the day last week when Ifirst read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have beenturning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell youof their effect upon me, for in the first flush of delight I thought Iwould this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, whenI do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration--perhaps even, as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you somelittle good to be proud of hereafter!--but nothing comes of it all--sointo me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great livingpoetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew--Oh, howdifferent that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat, and prizedhighly, 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 reasonfor my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new bravethought; but in this addressing myself to you--your own self, and forthe first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, lovethese books with all my heart--and I love you too. Do you know I wasonce not very far from seeing--really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said tome one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' then he went toannounce me, --then he returned ... You were too unwell, and now it isyears ago, and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels, as ifI 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 someslight, 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 pridewith 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 theenvelopes are given; for all subsequent letters the addresses are thesame. 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 meantto give me pleasure by your letter--and even if the object had notbeen answered, I ought still to thank you. But it is thoroughlyanswered. Such a letter from such a hand! Sympathy is dear--very dearto me: but the sympathy of a poet, and of such a poet, is thequintessence of sympathy to me! Will you take back my gratitude forit?--agreeing, too, that of all the commerce done in the world, fromTyre to Carthage, the exchange of sympathy for gratitude is the mostprincely thing! For the rest you draw me on with your kindness. It is difficult to getrid 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 goingto say--after a little natural hesitation--is, that if ever you emergewithout inconvenient effort from your 'passive state, ' and will _tell_me of such faults as rise to the surface and strike you as importantin my poems, (for of course, I do not think of troubling you withcriticism in detail) you will confer a lasting obligation on me, andone which I shall value so much, that I covet it at a distance. I donot pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism and it ispossible enough that I might not be altogether obedient to yours. Butwith my high respect for your power in your Art and for yourexperience as an artist, it would be quite impossible for me to hear ageneral observation of yours on what appear to you my master-faults, without being the better for it hereafter in some way. I ask for onlya 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 soexcellent a thing in women--particularly when they go a-begging! Themost frequent general criticism I receive, is, I think, upon thestyle, --'if I _would_ but change my style'! But _that_ is an objection(isn't it?) to the writer bodily? Buffon says, and every sincerewriter 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 ofmaking your acquaintance? and can it be true that you look back uponthe lost opportunity with any regret? _But_--you know--if you hadentered the 'crypt, ' you might have caught cold, or been tired todeath, and _wished_ yourself 'a thousand miles off;' which would havebeen worse than travelling them. It is not my interest, however, toput such thoughts in your head about its being 'all for the best'; andI would rather hope (as I do) that what I lost by one chance I mayrecover by some future one. Winters shut me up as they do dormouse'seyes; in the spring, _we shall see_: and I am so much better that Iseem turning round to the outward world again. And in the meantime Ihave learnt to know your voice, not merely from the poetry but fromthe kindness in it. Mr. Kenyon often speaks of you--dear Mr. Kenyon!--who most unspeakably, or only speakably with tears in myeyes, --has been my friend and helper, and my book's friend and helper!critic and sympathiser, true friend of all hours! You know him wellenough, I think, to understand that I must be grateful to him. I am writing too much, --and notwithstanding that I am writing toomuch, I will write of one thing more. I will say that I am yourdebtor, not only for this cordial letter and for all the pleasurewhich came with it, but in other ways, and those the highest: and Iwill say that while I live to follow this divine art of poetry, inproportion to my love for it and my devotion to it, I must be a devoutadmirer and student of your works. This is in my heart to say toyou--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, thatyou make me very happy, and that, now the beginning is over, I daresay I shall do better, because my poor praise, number one, was nearlyas felicitously brought out, as a certain tribute to no less apersonage than Tasso, which I was amused with at Rome some weeks ago, in a neat pencilling on the plaister-wall by his tomb atSant'Onofrio--'Alla cara memoria--di--(please fancy solemn interspacesand grave capital letters at the new lines) di--Torquato Tasso--ilDottore Bernardini--offriva--il seguente Carme--_O tu_'--and nomore, --the good man, it should seem, breaking down with the overloadof love here! But my 'O tu'--was breathed out most sincerely, and nowyou 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 introducedsome phrase or other about 'your faults' so cleverly as to giveexactly the opposite meaning to what I meant, which was, that in myfirst ardour I had thought to tell you of _everything_ which impressedme in your verses, down, even, to whatever 'faults' I could find, --agood earnest, when I had got to _them_, that I had left out not muchbetween--as if some Mr. Fellows were to say, in the overflow of hisfirst enthusiasm of rewarded adventure: 'I will describe you all theouter life and ways of these Lycians, down to their verysandal-thongs, ' whereto the be-corresponded one rejoins--'Shall I getnext week, then, your dissertation on sandal-thongs'? Yes, and alittle 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 anyartist, in many of the cases there would be a positive loss of time, peculiar artist's pleasure--for an instructed eye loves to see wherethe brush has dipped twice in a lustrous colour, has lain insistinglyalong a favourite outline, dwelt lovingly in a grand shadow; for these'too muches' for the everybody's picture are so many helps to themaking out the real painter's picture as he had it in his brain. Andall of the Titian's Naples Magdalen must have once been golden in itsdegree to justify that heap of hair in her hands--the _only_ goldeffected 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 itto you, I think) that your poetry must be, cannot but be, infinitelymore to me than mine to you--for you _do_ what I always wanted, hopedto do, and only seem now likely to do for the first time. You speakout, _you_, --I only make men and women speak--give you truth brokeninto prismatic hues, and fear the pure white light, even if it is inme, but I am going to try; so it will be no small comfort to have yourcompany just now, seeing that when you have your men and womenaforesaid, you are busied with them, whereas it seems bleak, melancholy work, this talking to the wind (for I have begun)--yet Idon't think I shall let _you_ hear, after all, the savage things aboutPopes and imaginative religions that I must say. See how I go on and on to you, I who, whenever now and then pulled, bythe head and hair, into letter-writing, get sorrowfully on for a lineor two, as the cognate creature urged on by stick and string, and thencome down 'flop' upon the sweet haven of page one, line last, asserene as the sleep of the virtuous! You will never more, I hope, talkof 'the honour of my acquaintance, ' but I will joyfully wait for thedelight of your friendship, and the spring, and my Chapel-sight afterall! Ever yours most faithfully, R. BROWNING. For Mr. Kenyon--I have a convenient theory about _him_, and hisotherwise quite unaccountable kindness to me; but 'tis quite nightnow, 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 anunpronounceable English word which absolutely expressed me, and whichhe would say in his own tongue, as he could not in mine--'_testalunga_. ' Of course, the signor meant _headlong_!--and now I have hadenough 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 Icontinue--precipitously rushing forward through all manner of nettlesand briars instead of keeping the path; guessing at the meaning ofunknown words instead of looking into the dictionary--tearing openletters, and never untying a string, --and expecting everything to bedone in a minute, and the thunder to be as quick as the lightning. Andso, at your half word I flew at the whole one, with all its possibleconsequences, and wrote what you read. Our common friend, as I thinkhe is, Mr. Horne, is often forced to entreat me into patience andcoolness of purpose, though his only intercourse with me has been byletter. And, by the way, you will be sorry to hear that during hisstay in Germany _he_ has been 'headlong' (out of a metaphor) twice;once, in falling from the Drachenfels, when he only just saved himselfby catching at a vine; and once quite lately, at Christmas, in a fallon the ice of the Elbe in skating, when he dislocated his leftshoulder 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, butpatient and laborious--and there is a love strong enough, even in me, to overcome nature. I apprehend what you mean in the criticism youjust intimate, and shall turn it over and over in my mind until I getpractical good from it. What no mere critic sees, but what you, anartist, know, is the difference between the thing desired and thething 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 thebreath and beating of the heart in pursuit, which is ruffling andinjurious 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. Thegreat chasm between the thing I say, and the thing I would say, wouldbe quite dispiriting to me, in spite even of such kindnesses as yours, if the desire did not master the despondency. 'Oh for a horse withwings!' It is wrong of me to write so of myself--only you put yourfinger on the root of a fault, which has, to my fancy, been a littlemisapprehended. I do not _say everything I think_ (as has been said ofme 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 fullmeasure of my delight and benefit from your writings? I could tell youwhy you should not. You have in your vision two worlds, or to use thelanguage of the schools of the day, you are both subjective andobjective in the habits of your mind. You can deal both with abstractthought and with human passion in the most passionate sense. Thus, youhave an immense grasp in Art; and no one at all accustomed to considerthe usual forms of it, could help regarding with reverence andgladness the gradual expansion of your powers. Then you are'masculine' to the height--and I, as a woman, have studied some ofyour gestures of language and intonation wistfully, as a thing beyondme far! and the more admirable for being beyond. Of your new work I hear with delight. How good of you to tell me. Andit is not dramatic in the strict sense, I am to understand--(am Iright in understanding so?) and you speak, in your own person 'to thewinds'? no--but to the thousand living sympathies which will awake tohear you. A great dramatic power may develop itself otherwise than inthe formal drama; and I have been guilty of wishing, before this hour(for reasons which I will not thrust upon you after all my tediouswriting), that you would give the public a poem unassociated directlyor indirectly with the stage, for a trial on the popular heart. Ireverence the drama, but-- _But_ I break in on myself out of consideration for you. I might havedone it, you will think, before. I vex your 'serene sleep of thevirtuous' like a nightmare. Do not say 'No. ' I am _sure_ I do! As tothe vain parlance of the world, I did not talk of the 'honour of youracquaintance' without a true sense of honour, indeed; but I shallwillingly exchange it all (and _now_, if you please, at this moment, for fear of worldly mutabilities) for the 'delight of yourfriendship. ' 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. Iclass 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 lengthfrom me, in this old room where I sit all day: and when my head achesor wanders or strikes work, as it now or then will, I take my chancefor either green-covered volume, as if it were so much fresh trefoilto 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' ofmine, read, read, read, and just as I have shut up the book and walkedto 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 daysgo by (the whitethroat is come and sings now) and as I would not haveyou '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 andcontrite, you may find it in your heart to write to me again--whoknows?--I shall say at once that the said faults cannot be lost, mustbe _somewhere_, and shall be faithfully brought you back whenever theyturn up, --as people tell one of missing matters. I am rather exacting, myself, with my own gentle audience, and get to say spiteful thingsabout them when they are backward in their dues of appreciation--butreally, _really_--could I be quite sure that anybody as good as--Imust go on, I suppose, and say--as myself, even, were honestly to feeltowards me as I do, towards the writer of 'Bertha, ' and the 'Drama, 'and the 'Duchess, ' and the 'Page' and--the whole two volumes, I shouldbe paid after a fashion, I know. One thing I can do--pencil, if you like, and annotate, and dissertateupon 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 aservice to a sonnet-writing somebody, gave him a taste of his qualityin a side-column of short criticisms on sonnet the First, and startingoff the beginning three lines with, of course, 'bad, worse, worst'--made by a generous mintage of words to meet the sudden run ofhis epithets, 'worser, worserer, worserest' pay off the second terzetin 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 and14, my friend (slapping his forehead like an emptied strong-box)frankly declared himself bankrupt, and honourably incompetent, tosatisfy the reasonable expectations of the rest of the series! What an illustration of the law by which opposite ideas suggestopposite, and contrary images come together! See now, how, of that 'Friendship' you offer me (and here Juliet'sword rises to my lips)--I feel sure once and for ever. I have gotalready, I see, into this little pet-handwriting of mine (not anyoneelse's) which scratches on as if theatrical copyists (ah me!) andBRADBURY AND EVANS' READER were not! But you shall get somethingbetter than this nonsense one day, if you will have patience withme--hardly better, though, because this does me real good, gives realrelief, 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, Ipray you never write--if you do, as you say, care for anything I havedone. I will simply assure you, that meaning to begin work in deepearnest, _begin_ without affectation, God knows, --I do not know whatwill help me more than hearing from you, --and therefore, if you do notso very much hate it, I know I _shall_ hear from you--and very littlemore 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 youbelieve in such a thing? If nobody likes writing to everybody (exceptsuch professional letter writers as you and I are _not_), yeteverybody likes writing to somebody, and it would be strange andcontradictory if I were not always delighted both to hear from _you_and to write to _you_, this talking upon paper being as good a socialpleasure as another, when our means are somewhat straitened. As forme, I have done most of my talking by post of late years--as peopleshut up in dungeons take up with scrawling mottoes on the walls. Notthat I write to many in the way of regular correspondence, as ourfriend Mr. Horne predicates of me in his romances (which is mereromancing!), but that there are a few who will write and be written toby me without a sense of injury. Dear Miss Mitford, for instance. Youdo not know her, I think, personally, although she was the first totell me (when I was very ill and insensible to all the glories of theworld except poetry), of the grand scene in 'Pippa Passes. ' _She_ hasfilled a large drawer in this room with delightful letters, heart-warmand soul-warm, ... Driftings of nature (if sunshine could drift likesnow), and which, if they should ever fall the way of all writing, into print, would assume the folio shape as a matter of course, andtake rank on the lowest shelf of libraries, with Benedictine editionsof the Fathers, [Greek: k. T. L. ]. I write this to you to show how I canhave pleasure in letters, and never think them too long, nor toofrequent, nor too illegible from being written in little 'pet hands. 'I can read any MS. Except the writing on the pyramids. And if you willonly promise to treat me _en bon camarade_, without reference to theconventionalities of 'ladies and gentlemen, ' taking no thought foryour sentences (nor for mine), nor for your blots (nor for mine), norfor your blunt speaking (nor for mine), nor for your badd speling (norfor mine), and if you agree to send me a blotted thought whenever youare in the mind for it, and with as little ceremony and lesslegibility than you would think it necessary to employ towards yourprinter--why, _then_, I am ready to sign and seal the contract, and torejoice in being 'articled' as your correspondent. Only _don't_ let ushave any constraint, any ceremony! _Don't_ be civil to me when youfeel rude, --nor loquacious when you incline to silence, --nor yieldingin the manners when you are perverse in the mind. See how out of theworld I am! Suffer me to profit by it in almost the only profitablecircumstance, 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 fromprejudice at the worst. And we have great sympathies in common, and Iam inclined to look up to you in many things, and to learn as much ofeverything as you will teach me. On the other hand you must prepareyourself to forbear and to forgive--will you? While I throw off theceremony, I hold the faster to the kindness. Is it true, as you say, that I 'know so "little"' of you? And is ittrue, as others say, that the productions of an artist do not partakeof his real nature, ... That in the minor sense, man is not made inthe image of God? It is _not_ true, to my mind--and therefore it isnot 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 assureyou that I shall always hear with the deepest interest every word youwill 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 youmay guess at, perhaps. And when you tell me besides, of _my poemsbeing there_, and of your caring for them so much beyond the tide-markof my hopes, the pleasure rounds itself into a charm, and prevents itsown expression. Overjoyed I am with this cordial sympathy--but it isbetter, I feel, to try to justify it by future work than to thank youfor it now. I think--if I may dare to name myself with you in thepoetic 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 castingof any Atalanta-ball of speedy popularity. But I do not know, I cannotguess, whether you are liable to be pained deeply by hard criticismand cold neglect, such as original writers like yourself are too oftenexposed to--or whether the love of Art is enough for you, and theexercise of Art the filling joy of your life. Not that praise must notalways, of necessity, be delightful to the artist, but that it may beredundant to his content. Do you think so? or not? It appears to methat poets who, like Keats, are highly susceptible to criticism, mustbe jealous, in their own persons, of the future honour of their works. Because, if a work is worthy, honour must follow it, though the workershould not live to see that following overtaking. Now, is it notenough that the work be honoured--enough I mean, for the worker? Andis it not enough to keep down a poet's ordinary wearing anxieties, tothink, that if his work be worthy it will have honour, and, if not, that 'Sparta must have nobler sons than he'? I am writing nothingapplicable, I see, to anything in question, but when one falls into afavourite train of thought, one indulges oneself in thinking on. Ibegan in thinking and wondering what sort of artistic constitution youhad, being determined, as you may observe (with a sarcastic smile atthe impertinence), to set about knowing as much as possible of youimmediately. Then you spoke of your 'gentle audience' (_you began_), and I, who know that you have not one but many enthusiasticadmirers--the 'fit and few' in the intense meaning--yet not the_diffused_ fame which will come to you presently, wrote on, down themargin of the subject, till I parted from it altogether. But, afterall, we are on the proper matter of sympathy. And after all, and afterall 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 greatjoy? For my part, I wonder sometimes--I surprise myself wondering--howwithout such an object and purpose of life, people find it worth whileto live at all. And, for happiness--why, my only idea of happiness, asfar as my personal enjoyment is concerned, (but I have beenstraightened in some respects and in comparison with the majority oflivers!) lies deep in poetry and its associations. And then, theescape from pangs of heart and bodily weakness--when you throw off_yourself_--what you feel to be _yourself_--into another atmosphereand into other relations where your life may spread its wings out new, and gather on every separate plume a brightness from the sun of thesun! Is it possible that imaginative writers should be so fond ofdepreciating and lamenting over their own destiny? Possible, certainly--but reasonable, not at all--and grateful, less thananything! My faults, my faults--Shall I help you? Ah--you see them too well, Ifear. And do you know that _I_ also have something of your feelingabout 'being about to _begin_, ' or I should dare to praise you forhaving it. But in you, it is different--it is, in you, a virtue. WhenPrometheus 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 maywell (to take 'the opposite idea, ' as you write) rejoice and clap ourhands. Yet I believe that, whatever you may have done, you _will_ dowhat is greater. It is my faith for you. And how I should like to know what poets have been your sponsors, 'topromise and vow' for you, --and whether you have held true to earlytastes, or leapt violently from them, and what books you read, andwhat hours you write in. How curious I could prove myself!--(if itisn't proved already). But this is too much indeed, past all bearing, I suspect. Well, but ifI ever write to you again--I mean, if you wish it--it may be in theother extreme of shortness. So do not take me for a born heroine ofRichardson, or think that I sin always to this length, else, --youmight indeed repent your quotation from Juliet--which I guessed atonce--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 amatter, if they had been let tell truth in the beginning, for it ishard 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 ifby the devil's help he _would_, reproduce or mimic them with anyeffect to anybody else that was to be won over--and so, if 'I loveyou' were always outspoken when it might be, there would, I suppose, be no fear of its desecration at any after time. But lo! only lastnight, I had to write, on the part of Mr. Carlyle, to a certainungainly, foolish gentleman who keeps back from him, with all thefussy impotence of stupidity (not bad feeling, alas! for _that_ wecould deal with) a certain MS. Letter of Cromwell's which completesthe collection now going to press; and this long-ears had to be 'dearSir'd and obedient servanted' till I _said_ (to use a mild word)'commend me to the sincerities of this kind of thing. '! When I spokeof you knowing little of me, one of the senses in which I meant so wasthis--that I would not well vowel-point my common-place letters andsyllables with a masoretic _other_ sound and sense, make my 'dear'something intenser than 'dears' in ordinary, and 'yours ever' athought more significant than the run of its like. And all this cameof your talking of 'tiring me, ' 'being too envious, ' &c. &c. , which Ishould never have heard of had the plain truth looked out of my letterwith its unmistakable eyes. _Now_, what you say of the 'bowing, ' andconvention 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 mightif I chose to think a little, and for still other reasons, which, mostlikely, all the choosing and thinking in the world would not make meknow, I had rather hear from you than see anybody else. Never youcare, 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'tyou answer this, please, but, mind it is on record, and now then, witha lighter conscience I shall begin replying to your questions. Butthen--what I have printed gives _no_ knowledge of me--it evidencesabilities of various kinds, if you will--and a dramatic sympathy withcertain modifications of passion ... _that_ I think--But I never havebegun, even, what I hope I was born to begin and end--'R. B. Apoem'--and next, if I speak (and, God knows, feel), as if what youhave read were sadly imperfect demonstrations of even mere ability, itis from no absurd vanity, though it might seem so--these scenes andsong-scraps _are_ such mere and very escapes of my inner power, whichlives in me like the light in those crazy Mediterranean phares I havewatched at sea, wherein the light is ever revolving in a dark gallery, bright and alive, and only after a weary interval leaps out, for amoment, from the one narrow chink, and then goes on with the blindwall between it and you; and, no doubt, _then_, precisely, does thepoor drudge that carries the cresset set himself most busily to trimthe wick--for don't think I want to say I have not worked hard--(thishead of mine knows better)--but the work has been _inside_, and notwhen at stated times I held up my light to you--and, that there is noself-delusion here, I would prove to you (and nobody else), even byopening this desk I write on, and showing what stuff, in the way ofwood, I _could_ make a great bonfire with, if I might only knock thewhole clumsy top off my tower! Of course, every writing body says thesame, so I gain nothing by the avowal; but when I remember how I havedone what was published, and half done what may never be, I say withsome right, you can know but little of me. Still, I _hope_ sometimes, though phrenologists will have it that I _cannot_, and am doingbetter with this darling 'Luria'--so safe in my head, and a tiny slipof paper I cover with my thumb! Then you inquire about my 'sensitiveness to criticism, ' and I shall beglad to tell you exactly, because I have, more than once, taken acourse you might else not understand. I shall live always--that is forme--I am living here this 1845, that is for London. I write from athorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the beliefthat, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all thingsconsidered--that is for _me_, and, so being, the not being listened toby one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me. But ofcourse I must, if for merely scientific purposes, know all about this1845, its ways and doings, and something I do know, as that for adozen cabbages, if I pleased to grow them in the garden here, I mightdemand, say, a dozen pence at Covent Garden Market, --and that for adozen scenes, of the average goodness, I may challenge as manyplaudits at the theatre close by; and a dozen pages of verse, broughtto the Rialto where verse-merchants most do congregate, ought to bringme a fair proportion of the Reviewers' gold currency, seeing the othertraders pouch their winnings, as I do see. Well, when they won't payme 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, ' inGreek phrase, and _yet_ go very lighthearted back to a garden-full ofrose-trees, and a soul-full of comforts. If they had bought my greensI should have been able to buy the last number of _Punch_, and gothrough the toll-gate of Waterloo Bridge, and give the blindclarionet-player a trifle, and all without changing my gold. If theyhad taken to my books, my father and mother would have been proud ofthis and the other 'favourable critique, ' and--at least so folkshold--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, inthe 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 togin and the newspaper, for what _you_ would care!' So I don't quitelay open my resources to everybody. But it does so happen, that I havemet with much more than I could have expected in this matter of kindlyand prompt recognition. I never wanted a real set of good heartypraisers--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 realadmirers have of admiring at the wrong place--enough to make anapostle swear. _That_ does make me savage--_never_ the other kind ofpeople; 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 yourdoor to-day and after--of whom the first five are the Postman, theseller of cheap sealing-wax, Mr. Hawkins Junr, the Butcher for orders, and the Tax-gatherer--will you let me, by Cornelius Agrippa'sassistance, force these five and these fellows to read, and report on, this 'Drama'--and, when I have put these faithful reports into fairEnglish, do you believe they would be better than, if as good, as, thegeneral run of Periodical criticisms? Not they, I will venture toaffirm. But then--once again, I get these people together and givethem your book, and persuade them, moreover, that by praising it, thePostman 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 redcollar, --that a sealing-wax vendor will see red wafers brought intovogue, 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 esteemit a perfectly providential and miraculous thing that they are sowell-behaved in ordinary, these critics; and for Keats and Tennyson to'go softly all their days' for a gruff word or two is quiteinexplicable to me, and always has been. Tennyson reads the_Quarterly_ and does as they bid him, with the most solemn face in theworld--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 thatthis story of the Critic and Poet, 'the Bear and the Fiddle, ' should'begin but break off in the middle'; yet I doubt--nor will youhenceforth, I know, say, 'I vex you, I am sure, by this lengthywriting. ' Mind that spring is coming, for all this snow; and know mefor 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 asyou do now! _E. B. B. To R. B. _ 50 Wimpole Street, February 17, 1845. Dear Mr. Browning, --To begin with the end (which is onlycharacteristic of the perverse like myself), I assure you I read yourhandwriting as currently as I could read the clearest type from font. If I had practised the art of reading your letters all my life, Icouldn'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 themaking of those immense sweeping handwritings achieved by some persons... Mr. Landor, for instance, who writes as if he had the sky for acopybook and dotted his _i_'s in proportion. People who do such thingsshould wear gauntlets; yes, and have none to wear; or they wouldn'twaste their time so. People who write--by profession--shall Isay?--never should do it, or what will become of them when most oftheir strength retires into their head and heart, (as is the case withsome of us and may be the case with all) and when they have to write apoem twelve times over, as Mr. Kenyon says I should do if I werevirtuous? 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 imaginenot. And besides, one may be laborious as a writer, without copyingtwelve times over. I believe there are people who will tell you in amoment 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 aslaboriously as on paper--I maintain it. I consider myself a verypatient, laborious writer--though dear Mr. Kenyon laughs me to scornwhen I say so. And just see how it could be otherwise. If I werenetting a purse I might be thinking of something else and drop mystitches; 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 bythe 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. Icannot conceive of a sincere artist who is also a careless one--thoughone may have a quicker hand than another, in general, --and though allare liable to vicissitudes in the degree of facility--and toentanglements in the machinery, notwithstanding every degree offacility. You may write twenty lines one day--or even three likeEuripides in three days--and a hundred lines in one more day--and yeton the hundred, may have been expended as much good work, as on thetwenty and the three. And also, as you say, the lamp is trimmed behindthe wall--and the act of utterance is the evidence of foregone studystill more than it is the occasion to study. The deep interest withwhich 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 sympathyin one way, and interest every way! And now, see! Although you provedto me with admirable logic that, for reasons which you know andreasons which you don't know, I couldn't possibly know anything aboutyou; though that is all true--and proven (which is better thantrue)--I really did understand of you before I was told, exactly whatyou told me. Yes, I did indeed. I felt sure that as a poet you frontedthe future--and that your chief works, in your own apprehension, wereto come. Oh--I take no credit of sagacity for it; as I did not longago to my sisters and brothers, when I professed to have knowledge ofall their friends whom I never saw in my life, by the image comingwith the name; and threw them into shouts of laughter by giving outall the blue eyes and black eyes and hazel eyes and noses Roman andGothic ticketed aright for the Mr. Smiths and Miss Hawkinses, --and hitthe bull's eye and the true features of the case, ten times out oftwelve! But _you_ are different. _You_ are to be made out by thecomparative anatomy system. You have thrown out fragments of _os_ ... _sublime_ ... Indicative of soul-mammothism--and you live to developyour nature, --_if_ you live. That is easy and plain. You have taken agreat range--from those high faint notes of the mystics which arebeyond personality ... To dramatic impersonations, gruff with nature, 'gr-r-r- you swine'; and when these are thrown into harmony, as in amanner they are in 'Pippa Passes' (which I could find in my heart tocovet the authorship of, more than any of your works--), thecombinations of effect must always be striking and noble--and you mustfeel yourself drawn on to such combinations more and more. But I donot, you say, know yourself--you. I only know abilities and faculties. Well, then, teach me yourself--you. I will not insist on theknowledge--and, in fact, you have not written the R. B. Poem yet--yourrays fall obliquely rather than directly straight. I see you only inyour moon. Do tell me all of yourself that you can and will ... Beforethe 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 yousometimes, not for daring, but for bearing to trust your noble worksinto the great mill of the 'rank, popular' playhouse, to be ground topieces between the teeth of vulgar actors and actresses. I, for one, would as soon have 'my soul among lions. ' 'There is a fascination init, ' says Miss Mitford, and I am sure there must be, to account forit. Publics in the mass are bad enough; but to distil the dregs of thepublic and baptise oneself in that acrid moisture, where can be thetemptation? I could swear by Shakespeare, as was once sworn 'by thosedead at Marathon, ' that I do not see where. I love the drama too. Ilook to our old dramatists as to our Kings and princes in poetry. Ilove them through all the deeps of their abominations. But the theatrein those days was a better medium between the people and the poet; andthe press in those days was a less sufficient medium than now. Still, the poet suffered by the theatre even then; and the reasons are veryobvious. How true--how true ... Is all you say about critics. My convictionsfollow you in every word. And I delighted to read your views of thepoet's right aspect towards criticism--I read them with the mostcomplete appreciation and sympathy. I have sometimes thought that itwould be a curious and instructive process, as illustrative of thewisdom and apprehensiveness of critics, if anyone would collect thecritical soliloquies of every age touching its own literature, (as faras such may be extant) and _confer_ them with the literary product ofthe said ages. Professor Wilson has begun something of the kindapparently, in his initiatory paper of the last _Blackwood_ number oncritics, beginning with Dryden--but he seems to have no design in hisnotice--it is a mere critique on the critic. And then, he should havebegun earlier than Dryden--earlier even than Sir Philip Sydney, who inthe noble 'Discourse on Poetry, ' gives such singular evidence of beingstone-critic-blind to the gods who moved around him. As far as I canremember, he saw even Shakespeare but indifferently. Oh, it was in hiseyes quite an unillumed age, that period of Elizabeth which _we_ seefull of suns! and few can see what is close to the eyes though theyrun their heads against it; the denial of contemporary genius is therule 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 wespeak of understanding men, such as the Sydneys and the Drydens. Ofthe great body of critics you observe rightly, that they are betterthan might be expected of their badness, only the fact of their_influence_ is no less undeniable than the reason why they should notbe influential. The brazen kettles will be taken for oracles all theworld over. But the influence is for to-day, for this hour--not forto-morrow and the day after--unless indeed, as you say, the poet dohimself perpetuate the influence by submitting to it. Do you knowTennyson?--that is, with a face to face knowledge? I have greatadmiration for him. In execution, he is exquisite, --and, in music, amost subtle weigher out to the ear of fine airs. That such a poetshould submit blindly to the suggestions of his critics, (I do not saythat suggestions from without may not be accepted with discriminationsometimes, to the benefit of the acceptor), blindly and implicitly tothe suggestions of his critics, is much as if Babbage were to take myopinion and undo his calculating machine by it. Napoleon called poetry_science creuse_--which, although he was not scientific in poetryhimself, is true enough. But anybody is qualified, according toeverybody, for giving opinions upon poetry. It is not so in chymistryand mathematics. Nor is it so, I believe, in whist and the polka. Butthen these are more serious things. Yes--and it does delight me to hear of your garden full of roses andsoul full of comforts! You have the right to both--you have the key toboth. You have written enough to live by, though only beginning towrite, as you say of yourself. And this reminds me to remind you thatwhen I talked of coveting most the authorship of your 'Pippa, ' I didnot mean to call it your finest work (you might reproach me for_that_), but just to express a personal feeling. Do you know what itis to covet your neighbour's poetry?--not his fame, but his poetry?--Idare 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 thecoming of it! _I_, besides, feel _that_. And yet--and yet, I have beenaware of a feeling within me which has spoken two or three times tothe effect of a wish, that I had been visited with the vision of'Pippa, ' before you--and _confiteor tibi_--I confess the baseness ofit. The conception is, to my mind, most exquisite and altogetheroriginal--and the contrast in the working out of the plan, singularlyexpressive of various faculty. Is the poem under your thumb, emerging from it? and in what metre? MayI ask such questions? And does Mr. Carlyle tell you that he has forbidden all 'singing' tothis perverse and froward generation, which should work and not sing?And have you told Mr. Carlyle that song is work, and also thecondition of work? I am a devout sitter at his feet--and it is aneffort to me to think him wrong in anything--and once when he told meto write prose and not verse, I fancied that his opinion was I hadmistaken my calling, --a fancy which in infinite kindness andgentleness he stooped immediately to correct. I never shall forget thegrace 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 Godknows. 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 mythoughts ever since. I do not know him personally at all. But as hisdisciple I ventured (by an exceptional motive) to send him my poems, and I heard from him as a consequence. 'Dear and noble' he isindeed--and a poet unaware of himself; all but the sense of music. Youfeel 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 theupper-handism of the stupidity. The geese are in the Capitol, and theRomans in the farmyard--and it seems all quite natural that it shouldbe so, both to geese and Romans! But there are things you say, which seem to me supernatural, forreasons which I know and for reasons which I don't know. You will letme 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 yourdesk--as I do your death's heads and the spider-webs appertaining; butthe 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 inSpring I shall see you, surely see you--for when did I once fail toget whatever I had set my heart upon? As I ask myself sometimes, witha strange fear. I took up this paper to write a great deal--now, I don't think I shallwrite much--'I shall see you, ' I say! That 'Luria' you enquire about, shall be my last play--for it is but aplay, woe's me! I have one done here, 'A Soul's Tragedy, ' as it isproperly enough called, but _that_ would not do to end with (end Iwill), and Luria is a Moor, of Othello's country, and devotes himselfto something he thinks Florence, and the old fortune follows--all inmy brain yet, but the bright weather helps and I will soon loosen myBraccio and Puccio (a pale discontented man), and Tiburzio (the Pisan, good true fellow, this one), and Domizia the Lady--loosen all these ondear foolish (ravishing must his folly be), golden-hearted Luria, allthese with their worldly-wisdom and Tuscan shrewd ways; and, for me, the misfortune is, I sympathise just as much with these as withhim, --so there can no good come of keeping this wild company anylonger, and 'Luria' and the other sadder ruin of one Chiappino--thesegot rid of, I will do as you bid me, and--say first I have someRomances and Lyrics, all dramatic, to dispatch, and _then_, I shallstoop of a sudden under and out of this dancing ring of men and womenhand in hand, and stand still awhile, should my eyes dazzle, and whenthat'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 andlove him--know him so well, that I would have told you he had shakenthat grand head of his at 'singing, ' so thoroughly does he love andlive by it. When I last saw him, a fortnight ago, he turned, from Idon't know what other talk, quite abruptly on me with, 'Did you nevertry to write a _Song_? Of all things in the world, _that_ I should beproudest to do. ' Then came his definition of a song--then, with anappealing look to Mrs. C. , 'I always say that some day in _spite ofnature and my stars_, I shall burst into a song' (he is notmechanically 'musical, ' he meant, and the music is the poetry, heholds, and should enwrap the thought as Donne says 'an amber-dropenwraps a bee'), and then he began to recite an old Scotch song, stopping at the first rude couplet, 'The beginning words are merely toset 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 mylass, I care not for my cogie. ' '_He says_, ' quoth Carlylemagisterially, 'that if you allow him the love of his lass, you maytake away all else, even his cogie, his cup or can, and he cares not, 'just as a professor expounds Lycophron. And just before I leftEngland, six months ago, did not I hear him croon, if not certainlysing, 'Charlie is my darling' ('my _darling_' with an adoringemphasis), and then he stood back, as it were, from the song, to lookat it better, and said 'How must that notion of ideal wondrousperfection have impressed itself in this old Jacobite's "youngCavalier"--("They go to save their land, and the _youngCavalier_!!")--when I who care nothing about such a rag of a man, cannot but feel as he felt, in speaking his words after him!' Aftersaying which, he would be sure to counsel everybody to get their headsclear of all singing! Don't let me forget to clap hands, we got theletter, dearly bought as it was by the 'Dear Sirs, ' &c. , andinsignificant scrap as it proved, but still it is got, to myencouragement in diplomacy. Who told you of my sculls and spider webs--Horne? Last year I pettedextraordinarily a fine fellow, (a _garden_ spider--there was thesingularity, --the thin clever-even-for-a-spider-sort, and they are_so_ 'spirited and sly, ' all of them--this kind makes a long cone ofweb, with a square chamber of vantage at the end, and there he sitsloosely and looks about), a great fellow that housed himself, withreal gusto, in the jaws of a great scull, whence he watched me as Iwrote, 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 looksquietly, now, out at the green little hill behind. I have no littleinsight to the feelings of furniture, and treat books and prints witha reasonable consideration. How some people use their pictures, forinstance, is a mystery to me; very revolting all the same--portraitsobliged to face each other for ever, --prints put together inportfolios. My Polidoro's perfect Andromeda along with 'BoorsCarousing, ' by Ostade, --where I found her, --my own father's doing, orI would say more. And when I have said I like 'Pippa' better than anything else I havedone 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 thatyou do but write. I never was without good, kind, generous friends andlovers, so they say--so they were and are, --perhaps they came at thewrong time--I never wanted them--though that makes no difference in mygratitude I trust, --but I know myself--surely--and always have doneso, for is there not somewhere the little book I first printed when aboy, with John Mill, the metaphysical head, _his_ marginal note that'the writer possesses a deeper self-consciousness than I ever knew ina sane human being. ' So I never deceived myself much, nor called myfeelings 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. Praytell me, too, of your present doings and projects, and never writeyourself 'grateful' to me, who _am_ grateful, very grateful toyou, --for none of your words but I take in earnest--and tell me ifSpring _be not_ coming, come, and I will take to writing the gravestof letters, because this beginning is for gladness' sake, likeCarlyle's song couplet. My head aches a little to-day too, and, aspoor dear Kirke White said to the moon, from his heap of mathematicalpapers, '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 feelsas cold underfoot--and I have grown sceptical about 'the voice of theturtle, ' 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_ ismy idea of what you call spring; mine, in the _new style_! A littlelater comes my spring; and indeed after such severe weather, fromwhich I have just escaped with my life, I may thank it for coming atall. How happy you are, to be able to listen to the 'birds' withoutthe commentary of the east wind, which, like other commentaries, spoils the music. And how happy I am to listen to you, when you writesuch kind open-hearted letters to me! I am delighted to hear all yousay to me of yourself, and 'Luria, ' and the spider, and to do him nodishonour in the association, of the great teacher of the age, Carlyle, who is also yours and mine. He fills the office of apoet--does he not?--by analysing humanity back into its elements, tothe destruction of the conventions of the hour. That is--strictlyspeaking--the office of the poet, is it not?--and he discharges itfully, and with a wider intelligibility perhaps as far as thecontemporary period is concerned, than if he did forthwith 'burst intoa song. ' But how I do wander!--I meant to say, and I will call myself back tosay, that spring will really come some day I hope and believe, and thewarm settled weather with it, and that then I shall be probably fitterfor certain pleasures than I can appear even to myself now. And, in the meantime, I seem to see 'Luria' instead of you; I havevisions and dream dreams. And the 'Soul's Tragedy, ' which sounds to melike the step of a ghost of an old Drama! and you are not to thinkthat I blaspheme the Drama, dear Mr. Browning; or that I ever thoughtof exhorting you to give up the 'solemn robes' and tread of thebuskin. It is the theatre which vulgarises these things; the moderntheatre in which we see no altar! where the thymelé is replaced by thecaprice of a popular actor. And also, I have a fancy that your greatdramatic power would work more clearly and audibly in the lessdefinite mould--but you ride your own faculty as Oceanus did hissea-horse, 'directing it by your will'; and woe to the impertinence, which would dare to say 'turn this way' or 'turn from that way'--itshould not be _my_ impertinence. Do not think I blaspheme the Drama. Ihave gone through 'all such reading as should never be read' (that is, by women!), through my love of it on the contrary. And the dramaticfaculty 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 beendoing, and what I am about to do. Some years ago, as perhaps you mayhave heard, (but I hope not, for the fewer who hear of it thebetter)--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 ofthe class. It was completed (in the first place) in thirteen days--theiambics thrown into blank verse, the lyrics into rhymed octosyllabicsand the like, --and the whole together as cold as Caucasus, and as flatas 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 havemade still more haste and done it better. Well, --the comfort is, thatthe little book was unadvertised and unknown, and that most of thecopies (through my entreaty of my father) are shut up in the wardrobeof his bedroom. If ever I get well I shall show my joy by making abonfire of them. In the meantime, the recollection of this sin of minehas been my nightmare and daymare too, and the sin has been the 'Bloton my escutcheon. ' I could look in nobody's face, with a 'Thou canstnot say I did it'--I know, I did it. And so I resolved to wash awaythe transgression, and translate the tragedy over again. It was anhonest straightforward proof of repentance--was it not? and I havecompleted it, except the transcription and last polishing. IfÆschylus stands at the foot of my bed now, I shall have a littlebreath to front him. I have done my duty by him, not indeed accordingto his claims, but in proportion to my faculty. Whether I shall everpublish or not (remember) remains to be considered--that is adifferent side of the subject. If I do, it _may_ be in amagazine--or--but this is another ground. And then, I have in my headto associate with the version, a monodrama of my own, --not a longpoem, but a monologue of Æschylus as he sate a blind exile on theflats of Sicily and recounted the past to his own soul, just beforethe eagle cracked his great massy skull with a stone. But my chief _intention_ just now is the writing of a sort ofnovel-poem--a poem as completely modern as 'Geraldine's Courtship, 'running into the midst of our conventions, and rushing intodrawing-rooms and the like, 'where angels fear to tread'; and so, meeting face to face and without mask the Humanity of the age, andspeaking the truth as I conceive of it out plainly. That is myintention. It is not mature enough yet to be called a plan. I amwaiting 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 libertieswith them in the treatment. Who told me of your skulls and spiders? Why, couldn't I know itwithout being told? Did Cornelius Agrippa know nothing without beingtold? Mr. Horne never spoke it to my ears--(I never saw him face toface in my life, although we have corresponded for long and long), andhe 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_, howwould you answer? _And it was so. _ Why, are you not aware that theseare the days of mesmerism and clairvoyance? Are you an infidel? I havebelieved in your skulls for the last year, for my part. And I have some sympathy in your habit of feeling for chairs andtables. I remember, when I was a child and wrote poems in littleclasped books, I used to kiss the books and put them away tenderlybecause I had been happy near them, and take them out by turns when Iwas going from home, to cheer them by the change of air and thepleasure of the new place. This, not for the sake of the verseswritten 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 likemanner--and to talk to the trees and the flowers, was a naturalinclination--but between me and that time, the cypresses grow thickand dark. Is it true that your wishes fulfil themselves? And when they _do_, arethey 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 almostbelieve--but the brightest place in the house, is the leaning out ofthe 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, orwhat? _R. B. To E. B. B. _ Saturday Night, March 1 [1845]. Dear Miss Barrett, --I seem to find of a sudden--surely I knewbefore--anyhow, I _do_ find now, that with the octaves on octaves ofquite new golden strings you enlarged the compass of my life's harpwith, there is added, too, such a tragic chord, that which youtouched, so gently, in the beginning of your letter I got thismorning, 'just escaping' &c. But if my truest heart's wishes avail, asthey 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 itout, _must_, and you might give me great, the greatest pleasure foryears 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, Ifind the old theory of the uselessness of communicating thecircumstances of it, singularly untenable. I have been 'spoiled' inthis world--to such an extent, indeed, that I often _reason_ out--makeclear to myself--that I might very properly, so far as myself amconcerned, take any step that would peril the whole of my futurehappiness--because the past is gained, secure, and on record; and, though not another of the old days should dawn on me, I shall not havelost my life, no! Out of all which you are--please--to make a sort ofsense, if you can, so as to express that I have been deeply struck tofind a new real unmistakable sorrow along with these as real but notso new joys you have given me. How strangely this connects itself inmy mind with another subject in your note! I looked at thattranslation for a minute, not longer, years ago, knowing nothing aboutit or you, and I _only_ looked to see what rendering a passage hadreceived that was often in my thoughts. [1] I forget your version (itwas not _yours_, my _'yours' then_; I mean I had no extraordinaryinterest about it), but the original makes Prometheus (telling overhis bestowments towards human happiness) say, as something [Greek:peraiterô tônde], that he stopped mortals [Greek: mê proderkesthaimoron--to poion eurôn], asks the Chorus, [Greek: têsde pharmakonnosou]? Whereto he replies, [Greek: tuphlas en autois elpidaskatôkisa] (what you hear men dissertate upon by the hour, as provingthe immortality of the soul apart from revelation, undying yearnings, restless longings, instinctive desires which, unless to be eventuallyindulged, it were cruel to plant in us, &c. &c. ). But, [Greek: meg'ôphelêma tout' edôrêsô brotois]! concludes the chorus, like a sighfrom the admitted Eleusinian Æschylus was! You cannot think how thisfoolish circumstance struck me this evening, so I thought I would e'entell you at once and be done with it. Are you not my dear friendalready, and shall I not use you? And pray you not to 'lean out of thewindow' 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 theoriginal): _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'smirth, --the world goes round, you know--and I suppose that in thatletter of mine the melancholy took the turn. As to 'escaping with mylife, ' it was just a phrase--at least it did not signify more thanthat the sense of mortality, and discomfort of it, is peculiarlystrong with me when east winds are blowing and waters freezing. Forthe rest, I am _essentially better_, and have been for severalwinters; 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, forall that I sit by the window. By the way, did the chorus utter scornin the [Greek: meg' ôphelêma]. I think not. It is well to fly towardsthe light, even where there may be some fluttering and bruising ofwings against the windowpanes, is it not? There is an obscurer passage, on which I covet your thoughts, wherePrometheus, after the sublime declaration that, with a full knowledgeof the penalty reserved for him, he had sinned of free will andchoice--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, andthe friendless desolation. See v. 275. The intention of the poetmight have been to magnify to his audience the torment of themartyrdom--but the heroism of the martyr diminishes in proportion--andthere appears to be a contradiction, and oversight. Or is my viewwrong? Tell me. And tell me too, if Æschylus not the divinest of allthe divine Greek souls? People say after Quintilian, that he is savageand rude; a sort of poetic Orson, with his locks all wild. But I willnot hear it of my master! He is strong as Zeus is--and not as aboxer--and tender as Power itself, which always is tenderest. But to go back to the view of Life with the blind Hopes; you are notto think--whatever I may have written or implied--that I lean eitherto the philosophy or affectation which beholds the world throughdarkness instead of light, and speaks of it wailingly. Now, may Godforbid that it should be so with me. I am not desponding by nature, and after a course of bitter mental discipline and long bodilyseclusion, I come out with two learnt lessons (as I sometimes say andoftener feel), --the wisdom of cheerfulness--and the duty of socialintercourse. Anguish has instructed me in joy, and solitude insociety; it has been a wholesome and not unnatural reaction. Andaltogether, I may say that the earth looks the brighter to me inproportion to my own deprivations. The laburnum trees and rose treesare plucked up by the roots--but the sunshine is in their places, andthe root of the sunshine is above the storms. What we call Life is acondition of the soul, and the soul must improve in happiness andwisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, thesefaintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement. And I do like to hear testimonies like yours, to _happiness_, and Ifeel 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 oweyour unscathed joy to God, you should pay it back to His world. And Ithank you for some of it already. Also, writing as from friend to friend--as you say rightly that weare--I ought to confess that of one class of griefs (which has beencalled too the bitterest), I know as little as you. The cruelty of theworld, and the treason of it--the unworthiness of the dearest; ofthese griefs I have scanty knowledge. It seems to me from my personalexperience that there is kindness everywhere in different proportions, and more goodness and tenderheartedness than we read of in themoralists. People have been kind to _me_, even without understandingme, and pitiful to me, without approving of me:--nay, have not thevery critics tamed their beardom for me, and roared delicately assucking 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 yourfriendship, and a little more, and I do not envy much the milkers ofthe cows. How kind you are!--how kindly and gently you speak to me! Some thingsyou say are very touching, and some, surprising; and although I amaware that you unconsciously exaggerate what I can be to you, yet itis 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 keptquiet this while; is it too great a shame if I begin to want moregood news of you, and to say so? Because there has been a bitter windever 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 Iwish 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 beundertaken now by you or anyone that _is_ a Poet at all; the onlyreality, 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 bemuch, 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 tobe jealous of your stopping in the way even to translate thePrometheus; though the accompanying monologue will make amends too. Orshall I set you a task I meant for myself once upon a time?--which, oh, how you would fulfil! Restore the Prometheus [Greek: purphoros] asShelley did the [Greek: Lyomenos]; when I say 'restore, ' I know, orvery much fear, that the [Greek: purphoros] was the same with the[Greek: purkaeus] which, by a fragment, we sorrowfully ascertain tohave been a Satyric Drama; but surely the capabilities of the subjectare much greater than in this, we now wonder at; nay, they include allthose of this last--for just see how magnificently the story unrollsitself. The beginning of Jupiter's dynasty, the calm in Heaven afterthe storm, the ascending--(stop, I will get the book and give thewords), [Greek: opôs tachista ton patrôon eis thronon kathezet', euthus daimosin nemei gera alloisin alla--k. T. L. ], [1] all the whilePrometheus being the first among the first in honour, as [Greek:kaitoi theoisi tois neois toutois gera tis allos, ê 'gô, pantelôsdiôrise]?[2] then the one black hand-cloudlet storming the joyousblue and gold everywhere, [Greek: brotôn de tôn talaipôrôn logon oukeschen 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, fromannihilation. Then comes the darkening brow of Zeus, and estrangementfrom the benign circle of grateful gods, and the dissuasion of oldconfederates, and all the Right that one may fancy in Might, thestrongest reasons [Greek: pauesthai tropou philanthrôpou][5] comingfrom the own mind of the Titan, if you will, and all the while heshall be proceeding steadily in the alleviation of the sufferings ofmortals whom, [Greek: nêpious ontas to prin, ennous kai phrenônepêbolous ethêke], [6] while still, in proportion, shall the doom he isabout to draw on himself, manifest itself more and more distinctly, till at the last, he shall achieve the salvation of man, body (by thegift of fire) and soul (by even those [Greek: tuphlai elpides], [7]hopes of immortality), and so having rendered him utterly, accordingto the mythos here, _independent_ of Jove--for observe, Prometheus inthe play never talks of helping mortals more, of fearing for themmore, of even benefiting them more by his sufferings. The rest isbetween Jove and himself; he will reveal the master-secret to Jovewhen he shall have released him, &c. There is no stipulation that thegifts to mortals shall be continued; indeed, by the fact that it isPrometheus 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 offinto the darkness passes in calm triumphant grandeur the Titan, withStrength and Violence, and Vulcan's silent and downcast eyes, and thenthe gold clouds and renewed flushings of felicity shut up the sceneagain, with Might in his old throne again, yet with a new element ofmistrust, and conscious shame, and fear, that writes significantlyenough 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 whatcannot help striking one at first glance, and would not such a Dramago well before your translation? Do think of this and tell me--itnearly 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 thinkthe 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 iscut clean away, and what had he left? I do not find it take away from my feeling of the magnanimity ofPrometheus that he should, in truth, complain (as he does frombeginning to end) of what he finds himself suffering. He could haveprevented all, and can stop it now--of that he never thinks for amoment. That was the old Greek way--they never let an antagonisticpassion neutralise the other which was to influence the man to hispraise 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 orhate makes him see no danger or feel no pain. Æschylus from first wordto last ([Greek: idesthe me, oia paschô][9] to [Greek: esoras me, hôsekdika paschô][10]) insists on the unmitigated reality of thepunishment which only the sun, and divine ether, and the godhead ofhis mother can comprehend; still, still that is only what I supposeÆschylus 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 lookat books I loved once)--it was your mention of the translation thatbrought out the old fast fading outlines of the Poem in my brain--theGreek poem, that is. You think--for I must get to _you_--that I'unconsciously exaggerate what you are to me. ' Now, you don't knowwhat _that_ is, nor can I very well tell you, because the languagewith which I talk to myself of these matters is spiritual Attic, and'loves contractions, ' as grammarians say; but I read it myself, andwell know what it means, that's why I told you I was self-conscious--Imeant that I never yet mistook my own feelings, one foranother--there! Of what use is talking? Only do you stay here with mein the 'House' these few short years. Do you think I shall see you intwo months, three months? I may travel, perhaps. So you have got tolike society, and would enjoy it, you think? For me, I always hatedit--have put up with it these six or seven years past, lest byforegoing it I should let some unknown good escape me, in the truetime of it, and only discover my fault when too late; and now that Ihave done most of what is to be done, _any_ lodge in a garden ofcucumbers for me! I don't even care about reading now--the world, andpictures of it, rather than writings about the world! But you mustread 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 nopleasure in writing myself--none, in the mere act--though all pleasurein the sense of fulfilling a duty, whence, if I have done my realbest, judge how heart-breaking a matter must it be to be pronounced apoor creature by critic this and acquaintance the other! But I thinkyou like the operation of writing as I should like that of painting ormaking music, do you not? After all, there is a great delight in theheart of the thing; and use and forethought have made me ready at alltimes to set to work--but--I don't know why--my heart sinks whenever Iopen this desk, and rises when I shut it. Yet but for what I havewritten you would never have heard of me--and _through_ what you havewritten, not properly _for_ it, I love and wish you well! Now, willyou remember what I began my letter by saying--how you have promisedto let me know if my wishing takes effect, and if you still continuebetter? And not even ... (since we are learned in magnanimity) don'teven tell me that or anything else, if it teases you, --but wait yourown good time, and know me for ... If these words were but my own, andfresh-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, besure, 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 tosuspend my answer to your question--for indeed I have not been verywell, 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 bewell in such a wind? Yet for me, I should not grumble. There has beennothing very bad the matter with me, as there used to be--I only growweaker than usual, and learn my lesson of being mortal, in acorner--and then all this must end! April is coming. There will beboth 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 youdistrust me, and that perhaps you penetrate my morbidity and guess howwhen the moment comes to see a living human face to which I am notaccustomed, I shrink and grow pale in the spirit. Do you? You arelearned in human nature, and you know the consequences of leading sucha secluded life as mine--notwithstanding all my fine philosophy aboutsocial duties and the like--well--if you have such knowledge or if youhave it not, I cannot say, but I do say that I will indeed see youwhen the warm weather has revived me a little, and put the earth 'torights' again so as to make pleasures of the sort possible. For if youthink that I shall not _like_ to see you, you are wrong, for all yourlearning. But I shall be afraid of you at first--though I am not, inwriting thus. You are Paracelsus, and I am a recluse, with nerves thathave been all broken on the rack, and now hang loosely--quivering at astep and breath. And what you say of society draws me on to many comparative thoughtsof your life and mine. You seem to have drunken of the cup of lifefull, with the sun shining on it. I have lived only inwardly; or with_sorrow_, for a strong emotion. Before this seclusion of my illness, Iwas secluded still, and there are few of the youngest women in theworld who have not seen more, heard more, known more, of society, thanI, who am scarcely to be called young now. I grew up in thecountry--had no social opportunities, had my heart in books andpoetry, and my experience in reveries. My sympathies drooped towardsthe ground like an untrained honeysuckle--and but for _one_, in my ownhouse--but of this I cannot speak. It was a lonely life, growing greenlike the grass around it. Books and dreams were what I lived in--anddomestic life only seemed to buzz gently around, like the bees aboutthe grass. And so time passed, and passed--and afterwards, when myillness came and I seemed to stand at the edge of the world with alldone, and no prospect (as appeared at one time) of ever passing thethreshold of one room again; why then, I turned to thinking with somebitterness (after the greatest sorrow of my life had given me room andtime to breathe) that I had stood blind in this temple I was about toleave--that I had seen no Human nature, that my brothers and sistersof the earth were _names_ to me, that I had beheld no great mountainor river, nothing in fact. I was as a man dying who had not readShakespeare, and it was too late! do you understand? And do you alsoknow what a disadvantage this ignorance is to my art? Why, if I liveon and yet do not escape from this seclusion, do you not perceive thatI labour under signal disadvantages--that I am, in a manner, as a_blind poet_? Certainly, there is a compensation to a degree. I havehad much of the inner life, and from the habit of self-consciousnessand 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 lifeand man, for some.... But all grumbling is a vile thing. We should all thank God for ourmeasures 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 mayunderstand what I mean fully when I say, that I have lived all mychief _joys_, and indeed nearly all emotions that go warmly by thatname 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 Iwrite--it is life, for me. Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drinkand breathe, --but to feel the life in you down all the fibres ofbeing, passionately and joyfully. And thus, one lives in compositionsurely--not always--but when the wheel goes round and the processionis uninterrupted. Is it not so with you? oh--it must be so. For therest, there will be necessarily a reaction; and, in my own particularcase, whenever I see a poem of mine in print, or even smoothlytranscribed, the reaction is most painful. The pleasure, the sense ofpower, without which I could not write a line, is gone in a moment;and nothing remains but disappointment and humiliation. I never wrotea poem which you could not persuade me to tear to pieces if you tookme at the right moment! I have a _seasonable_ humility, I do assureyou. How delightful to talk about oneself; but as you 'tempted me and I dideat, ' I entreat your longsuffering of my sin, and ah! if you wouldbut sin back so in turn! You and I seem to meet in a mild contrariousharmony ... As in the 'si no, si no' of an Italian duet. I want to seemore 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 itpossible? And I am as 'fresh' about reading, as ever I was--as long asI keep out of the shadow of the dictionaries and of theologicalcontroversies, and the like. Shall I whisper it to you under thememory 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, forthe sake of the eloquence here and the sentiment there, and thegraphic intermixtures here and there, but for the story! just aslittle children would, sitting on their papa's knee. My childish loveof a story never wore out with my love of plum cake, and now there isnot a hole in it. I make it a rule, for the most part, to read all theromances that other people are kind enough to write--and woe to themiserable wight who tells me how the third volume endeth. Have you inyou any surviving innocence of this sort? or do you call it idiocy? Ifyou do, I will forgive you, only smiling to myself--I give younotice, --with a smile of superior pleasure! Mr. Chorley made me quitelaugh the other day by recommending Mary Hewitt's 'Improvisatore, 'with a sort of deprecating reference to the _descriptions_ in thebook, just as if I never read a novel--_I!_ I wrote a confession backto 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 noteven 'see the better part, ' I am so silly. Ah! you tempt me with a grand vision of Prometheus! _I_, who have justescaped with my life, after treading Milton's ground, you would sendme to Æschylus's. No, _I do not dare_. And besides ... I am inclinedto think that we want new _forms_, as well as thoughts. The old godsare dethroned. Why should we go back to the antique moulds, classicalmoulds, as they are so improperly called? If it is a necessity of Artto do so, why then those critics are right who hold that Art isexhausted and the world too worn out for poetry. I do not, for mypart, believe this: and I believe the so-called necessity of Art to bethe 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 theseconventions, to touch this low ground, we shall take strength from itinstead of losing it; and of that, I am intimately persuaded. Forthere is poetry _everywhere_; the 'treasure' (see the old fable) liesall over the field. And then Christianity is a worthy _myth_, andpoetically 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 'totravel, ' why, I shall have to miss you. Do you really mean it? How isthe 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 noticethat flower of an incident of good fellowship where the friendlySquire 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)--aplump wine-skin, --and do you admire dear brave Miguel's knowledge ofthirsty nature when he tells you that the Drinker, having seriouslyconsidered for a space the Pleiads, or place where they should be, fell, as he slowly returned the shrivelled bottle to its donor, into adeep musing of an hour's length, or thereabouts, and then ... Mark ... Only _then_, fetching a profound sigh, broke silence with ... Such apiece of praise as turns pale the labours in that way of Rabelais andthe Teian (if he wasn't a Byzantine monk, alas!) and our Mr. Kenyon'sstately self--(since my own especial poet _à moi_, that can do allwith anybody, only 'sips like a fly, ' she says, and so cares not tocompete with these behemoths that drink up Jordan)--Well, then ... (oh, I must get quick to the sentence's end, and be brief as anoracle-explainer!)--the giver is you and the taker is I, and theletter is the wine, and the star-gazing is the reading the same, andthe brown study is--how shall I deserve and be grateful enough to thisnew strange friend of my own, that has taken away my reproach amongmen, that have each and all their friend, so they say (... Not that Ibelieve all they say--they boast too soon sometimes, no doubt, --I oncewas shown a letter wherein the truth stumbled out after this fashion'Dere Smith, --I calls you "_dere_" ... Because you are so in yourshop!')--and the great sigh is, --there is no deserving nor beinggrateful 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 foryou--10 strikes by the clock now--tell me if at 10 this morning youfeel any good from my heart's wishes for you--I would give you all youwant out of my own life and gladness and yet keep twice the stock thatshould by right have sufficed the thin white face that is laughing atme in the glass yonder at the fancy of its making anyone afraid ... And now, with another kind of laugh, at the thought that when itsowner 'travels' next, he will leave off Miss Barrett along with portwine--_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 theother evening, of Mr. Kenyon--how this wind must hurt you! Andyesterday I had occasion to go your way--past, that is, WimpoleStreet, the end of it, --and, do you know, I did not seem to have leavefrom you to go down it yet, much less count number after number till Icame 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, ratherloves me she does so hate me, and we talked over the chances ofcertain 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 suchlittle purpose' said my friend--'for he is so inoffensive--now, if onewere to style _you_ that--' 'Or you'--I said--and so we huggedourselves in our grimness like tiger-cats. Then there is a deal in thepapers to-day about Maynooth, and a meeting presided over by LordMayor Gibbs, and the Reverend Mr. Somebody's speech. And Mrs. Nortonhas 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 putoff till his mother's time;--altogether, I should dearly like to hearfrom you, but not till the wind goes, and sun comes--because I shallsee 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 roomfull of real London people you go among you will fancy to be lightedup 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 toyou, such writing as you have seen--strange! The proper time andseason for good sound sensible and profitable forms of speech--whenought it to have occurred, and how did I evade it in these letters ofmine? For people begin with a graceful skittish levity, lest youshould be struck all of a heap with what is to come, and _that_ issure to be the stuff and staple of the man, full of wisdom andsorrow, --and then again comes the fringe of reeds and pink littlestones on the other side, that you may put foot on land, and drawbreath, and think what a deep pond you have swum across. But _you_ arethe real deep wonder of a creature, --and I sail these paper-boats onyou rather impudently. But I always mean to be very grave oneday, --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 gainby travel is the discovery that you have gained nothing, and have donerightly in trusting to your innate ideas--or not rightly indistrusting 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, --butnot a grain Troy-weight do you get of new gold, silver or brass. Afterthis, you go boldly on your own resources, and are justified toyourself, that's all. Three scratches with a pen, [1] even with thispen, --and you have the green little Syrenusa where I have sate andheard the quails sing. One of these days I shall describe a country Ihave 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 ... Notthis 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 thatthe east wind, with all the harm it does to me, is able to do thegreat 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 onceto write; and why it fell out, I cannot tell you. And you see, ... Allyour writing will not change the wind! You wished all manner of goodto me one day as the clock struck ten; yes, and I assure you I wasbetter that day--and I must not forget to tell you so though it is solong since. And _therefore_, I was logically bound to believe that youhad 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 notbeen for the supernatural conviction, I had above all, of yourkindness, 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 wasconclusive. 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 saythat, when all is done, we must come home to place our engines, andact by our own strength. I do not want material as material; no onedoes--but every life requires a full experience, a variousexperience--and I have a profound conviction that where a poet hasbeen shut from most of the outward aspects of life, he is at alamentable disadvantage. Can you, speaking for yourself, separate theresults in you from the external influences at work around you, thatyou say so boldly that you get nothing from the world? You do not_directly_, I know--but you do indirectly and by a rebound. Whateveracts upon you, becomes _you_--and whatever you love or hate, whatevercharms you or is scorned by you, acts on you and becomes _you_. Haveyou 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 hissoul. 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 ... Butwhat a strange world you seem to have, to me at a distance--what astrange husk of a world! How it looks to me like mandarin-life orsomething as remote; nay, not mandarin-life but mandarin _manners_, ... Life, even the outer life, meaning something deeper, in my accountof it. As to dear Mr. Kenyon I do not make the mistake of fancyingthat many can look like him or talk like him or _be_ like him. I knowenough to know otherwise. When he spoke of me he should have said thatI was better notwithstanding the east wind. It is really true--I amgetting slowly up from the prostration of the severe cold, and feelstronger in myself. But Mrs. Norton discourses excellent music--and for the rest, thereare fruits in the world so over-ripe, that they will fall, ... Withoutbeing gathered. Let Maynooth witness to it! _if you think it worthwhile_! Ever yours, ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. And _is it_ nothing to be 'justified to one's self in one'sresources?' '_That's all_, ' indeed! For the 'soul's country' we willhave it also--and I know how well the birds sing in it. How glad I wasby 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 howfor about a quarter of an hour since the ink dried I have beenreasoning 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 traveland sightseeing do not effect this and that for one, ' and 'what I amdevising--play or poem, '--and I shall not say I could not answer atall manner of lengths--but, let me only begin some good piece ofwriting of the kind, and ... No, you shall have it, have what I wasgoing to tell you stops such judicious beginnings, --in a parallelcase, out of which your ingenuity shall, please, pick themeaning--There is a story of D'Israeli's, an old one, with an episodeof strange interest, or so I found it years ago, --well, you gobreathlessly on with the people of it, page after page, till at lastthe 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, helpsthem, the people, wonderfully on, --and, lo, dinner is done, and VivianGrey is here, and Violet Fane there, --and a detachment of the party isdrafted off to go catch butterflies, and only two or three stopbehind. At this moment, Mr. Somebody, a good man and rather the lady'suncle, 'in answer to a question from Violet, drew from his pocket asmall neatly written manuscript, and, seating himself on an invertedwine-cooler, proceeded to read the following brief remarks upon thecharacteristics of the Moeso-gothic literature'--this ends thepage, --which you don't turn at once! But when you _do_, in bitternessof soul, turn it, you read--'On consideration, I' (Ben, himself)'shall keep them for Mr. Colburn's _New Magazine_'--and deeply youdraw thankful breath! (Note this 'parallel case' of mine is prettysure to meet the usual fortune of my writings--you will ask what itmeans--and this it means, or should mean, all of it, instance andreasoning and all, --that I am naturally earnest, in earnest aboutwhatever thing I do, and little able to write about one thing while Ithink of another)-- I think I will really write verse to you some day--_this_ day, it isquite clear I had better give up trying. No, spite of all the lines in the world, I will make an end of it, asOphelia with her swan's-song, --for it grows too absurd. But rememberthat I write letters to nobody but you, and that I want method andmuch more. That book you like so, the Danish novel, must be full oftruth and beauty, to judge from the few extracts I have seen inReviews. That a Dane should write so, confirms me in an oldbelief--that Italy is stuff for the use of the North, and nomore--pure Poetry there is none, nearly as possible none, in Danteeven--material for Poetry in the pitifullest romancist of theirthousands, on the contrary--strange that those great wide black eyesshould stare nothing out of the earth that lies before them! Alfieri, with even grey eyes, and a life of travel, writes you some fifteentragedies as colourless as salad grown under a garden glass withmatting over it--as free, that is, from local colouring, touches ofthe soil they are said to spring from, --think of 'Saulle, ' and hisGreek attempts! I expected to see Mr. Kenyon, at a place where I was last week, but hekept away. Here is the bad wind back again, and the black sky. I amsure I never knew till now whether the East or West or South were thequarter to pray for--But surely the weather was a little better lastweek, and you, were you not better? And do you know--but it's allself-flattery I believe, --still I cannot help fancying the East winddoes 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 thedarkness and use a sphinxine idiom in our talk; and really you do talka little like a sphinx in your argument drawn from 'Vivian Grey. ' OnceI sate up all night to read 'Vivian Grey'; but I never drew such anargument from him. Not that I give it up (nor _you_ up) for a meremystery. Nor that I can '_see what you have got in you_, ' from a mereguess. But just observe! If I ask questions about novels, is it notbecause I want to know how much elbow-room there may be for oursympathies ... And whether there is room for my loose sleeves, and thelace 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; andbecause I am willing for you to know _me_ from the beginning, with allmy weaknesses and foolishnesses, ... As they are accounted by peoplewho say to me 'no one would ever think, without knowing you, that youwere so and so. ' Now if I send all my idle questions to _Colburn'sMagazine_, with other Gothic literature, and take to standing up in aperpendicular personality like the angel on the schoolman's needle, inmy letters to come, without further leaning to the left or theright--why the end would be that _you_ would take to 'running afterthe butterflies, ' for change of air and exercise. And then ... Oh ... Then, my 'small neatly written manuscripts' might fall back into mydesk... ! (_Not_ a 'full stop'!. ) Indeed ... I do assure you ... I never for a moment thought of 'makingconversation' about the 'Improvisatore' or novels in general, when Iwrote what I did to you. I might, to other persons ... Perhaps. Certainly not to _you_. I was not dealing round from one pack of cardsto you and to others. That's what you meant to reproach me for youknow, --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 topartake of the nature of children--and my brothers call me 'absurdlychildish' 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 asyou pay visits, ... And one has to 'make conversation' in turn, ofcourse. _But_--give me something to vow by--whatever you meant in the'Vivian Grey' argument, you were wrong in it! and you never can bemuch more wrong--which is a comfortable reflection. Yet you leap very high at Dante's crown--or you do not leap, ... Yousimply extend your hand to it, and make a rustling among the laurelleaves, which is somewhat prophane. Dante's poetry only materials forthe 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 onehailstone! Oh! the 'Flight of the Duchess'--do let us hear more ofher! Are you (I wonder) ... Not a 'self-flatterer, ' ... But ... Aflatterer. 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 notto be reproved, '--for this morning you are to know that the soul of mehas it all her own way, dear Miss Barrett, this green coolnine-in-the-morning time for my chestnut tree over there, and for mewho only coaxed my good-natured--(really)--body up, after itsthree-hours' night-rest on condition it should lounge, or creep about, incognito and without consequences--and so it shall, all but myright-hand which is half-spirit and 'cuts' its poor relation, andpasses itself off for somebody (that is, some soul) and is doublyactive 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, thenthat for some reason, that looked like an instinct, I thought I oughtnot to send shaft on shaft, letter-plague on letter, with such anuninterrupted clanging ... That I ought to wait, say a week at leasthaving killed all your mules for you, before I shot down yourdogs--but not being exactly Phoibos Apollon, you are to know furtherthat when I _did_ think I might go modestly on, ... [Greek: ômoi], letme get out of this slough of a simile, never mind with whatdislocation 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 grownformidable somehow--though that's not the word, --nor are you theperson, either, --it was my fortune, my privilege of being your friendthis one way, that it seemed a shame for me to make no better use ofthan taking it up with talk about books and I don't know what. Writewhat I will, you would read for once, I think--well, then, --what Ishall write shall be--something on this book, and the other book, andmy 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 thethought of what I should find in my heart to say, and the contrastwith what I suppose I ought to say ... All these things are againstme. But this is very foolish, all the same, I need not be told--and ispart and parcel of an older--indeed primitive body of mine, which Ishall never wholly get rid of, of desiring to do nothing when I cannotdo all; seeing nothing, getting, enjoying nothing, where there is noseeing and getting and enjoying _wholly_--and in this case, moreover, you are _you_, and know something about me, if not much, and have readBos on the art of supplying Ellipses, and (after, particularly, I haveconfessed all this, why and how it has been) you will _subaudire_ whenI pull out my Mediæval-Gothic-Architectural-Manuscript (so it was, Iremember now, ) and instruct you about corbeils and ogives ... Though, after all, it was none of Vivian's doing, that, --all the uncle kind orman's, which I never professed to be. Now you see how I came to saysome nonsense (I very vaguely think _what_) about Dante--somedesperate splash I know I made for the beginning of my picture, aswhen a painter at his wits' end and hunger's beginning says 'Hereshall the figure's hand be'--and spots _that_ down, meaning to reachit naturally from the other end of his canvas, --and leaving off tired, there you see the spectral disjoined thing, and nothing between it andrationality. I intended to shade down and soften off and put in andleave out, and, before I had done, bring Italian Poets round to theirold place again in my heart, giving new praise if I took old, --anyhowDante is out of it all, as who knows but I, with all of him in my headand heart? But they do fret one, those tantalizing creatures, of finepassionate class, with such capabilities, and such a facility of beingmade pure mind of. And the special instance that vexed me, was that aman of sands and dog-roses and white rock and green sea-water justunder, should come to Italy where my heart lives, and discover thesights and sounds ... Certainly discover them. And so do all Northernwriters; for take up handfuls of sonetti, rime, poemetti, doings ofthose who never did anything else, --and try and make out, foryourself, what ... Say, what flowers they tread on, or trees they walkunder, --as you might bid _them_, those tree and flower lovingcreatures, pick out of _our_ North poetry a notion of what _our_daisies and harebells and furze bushes and brambles are--'Odorosifioretti, rose porporine, bianchissimi gigli. ' And which of youeternal triflers was it called yourself 'Shelley' and so told me yearsago 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 sheerover Monte Calvano, and I felt the fruit against my face, the littleragged bare-legged guide fairly laughed at my knowing them sowell--'Niursi--sorbi!' No, no, --does not all Naples-bay and halfSicily, shore and inland, come flocking once a year to the Piedigrottafête only to see the blessed King's Volanti, or livery servants all intheir best; as though heaven opened; and would not I engage to bringthe whole of the Piano (of Sorrento) in likeness to a red velvetdressing gown properly spangled over, before the priest that held itout on a pole had even begun his story of how Noah's son Shem, thefounder of Sorrento, threw it off to swim thither, as the world knowshe did? Oh, it makes one's soul angry, so enough of it. But neverenough of telling you--bring all your sympathies, come with loosestsleeves and longest lace-lappets, and you and yours shall find 'elbowroom, ' 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 stirof its fellow, so that I don't go about now wanting the fixed starsbefore my time; this world has not escaped me, thank God; and--whatother 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 withoutit;--perhaps, on that account, and to make fair amends to otherpeople, who, I have no right to say, complain without cause. I havebeen surprised, rather, with something not unlike illness of late--Ihave had a constant pain in the head for these two months, which onlyvery rough exercise gets rid of, and which stops my 'Luria' and muchbesides. I thought I never could be unwell. Just now all of it isgone, thanks to polking all night and walking home by broad daylightto the surprise of the thrushes in the bush here. And do you know Isaid 'this must _go_, cannot mean to stay, so I will not tell MissBarrett 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 eyeswidened again! I, and in what? And of whom, pray? not of _you_, at allevents, --of whom then? _Do_ tell me, because I want to stand withyou--and am quite in earnest there. And 'The Flight of the Duchess, 'to leave nothing out, is only the beginning of a story written sometime ago, and given to poor Hood in his emergency at a day'snotice, --the true stuff and story is all to come, the 'Flight, ' andwhat you allude to is the mere introduction--but the Magazine haspassed into other hands and I must put the rest in some 'Bell' orother--it is one of my Dramatic Romances. So is a certain 'Saul' Ishould like to show you one day--an ominous liking--for nobody eversees what I do till it is printed. But as you _do_ know the printedlittle part of me, I should not be sorry if, in justice, you knew allI have _really_ done, --written in the portfolio there, --though thatwould be far enough from _this_ me, that wishes to you now. I shouldlike to write something in concert with you, how I would try! I have read your letter through again. Does this clear up all thedifficulty, and do you see that I never dreamed of 'reproaching youfor 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. Iwill tell you--Sydney Smith laughs somewhere at some Methodist orother whose wont was, on meeting an acquaintance in the street, toopen at once on him with some enquiry after the state of hissoul--Sydney knows better now, and sees that one might quite as wiselyask such questions as the price of Illinois stock or condition ofglebe-land, --and I _could_ say such--'could, '--the plague of it! So nomore at present from your loving.... Or, let me tell you I am going tosee 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 shallnot see you--not--not--not--what 'knots' to untie! Surely the windthat sets my chestnut-tree dancing, all its baby-cone-blossoms, greennow, rocking like fairy castles on a hill in an earthquake, --that isSouth West, surely! God bless you, and me in that--and do write to mesoon, 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 inthe morning and get up again at nine? Do tell me how Lurias can everbe made out of such ungodly imprudences. If the wind blows east orwest, where can any remedy be, while such evil deeds are beingcommitted? And what is to be the end of it? And what is thereasonableness of it in the meantime, when we all know that thinking, dreaming, creating people like yourself, have two lives to bearinstead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others, ... Throwing over and buckling in that fold of death, to stroke thelife-purple smoother. You have to live your own personal life, andalso Luria's life--and therefore you should sleep for both. It islogical indeed--and rational, ... Which logic is not always ... And ifI had 'the tongue of men and of angels, ' I would use it to persuadeyou. Polka, for the rest, may be good; but sleep is better. I thinkbetter of sleep than I ever did, now that she will not easily comenear 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 andsmiling for a few short years, and then ... Out with a cold steel; andthe _soul has it_, 'with a vengeance, ' ... According to the phrase!You will not persist, (will you?) in this experimental homicide. Ortell 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 byit--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. _Whatdo you mean about your manuscripts ... About 'Saul' and theportfolio?_ for I am afraid of hazardously supplying ellipses--andyour 'Bos' comes to [Greek: bous epi glôssê]. [1] I get half bribed tosilence by the very pleasure of fancying. But if it could be possiblethat you should mean to say you would show me.... Can it be? or am Ireading this 'Attic contraction' quite the wrong way? You see I amafraid of the difference between flattering myself and beingflattered; the fatal difference. And now will you understand that Ishould be too overjoyed to have revelations from the 'Portfolio, ' ... However incarnated with blots and pen-scratches, ... To be able to askimpudently of them now? Is that plain? It must be, ... At any rate, ... That if _you_ would like to 'writesomething together' with me, _I_ should like it still better. I shouldlike it for some ineffable reasons. And I should not like it a bit theless for the grand supply of jests it would administer to the criticalBoard of Trade, about visible darkness, multiplied by two, mountinginto palpable obscure. We should not mind ... Should we? _you_ wouldnot mind, if you had got over certain other considerationsdeconsiderating to your coadjutor. Yes--but I dare not do it, ... Imean, think of it, ... Just now, if ever: and I will tell you why in aMediæval-Gothic-architectural manuscript. The only poet by profession (if I may say so, ) except yourself, withwhom 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 ofone of Miss Mitford's annual editorships; and ever since, he has hadthe habit of writing to me occasionally; and when I was too ill towrite at all, in my dreary Devonshire days, I was his debtor forvarious little kindnesses, ... For which I continue his debtor. In myopinion 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 theGreek model; that is, for me to write the choruses, and for him to dothe dialogue. Just then it was quite doubtful in my own mind, andworse than doubtful, whether I ever should write again; and the verydoubtfulness made me speak my 'yes' more readily. Then I was desiredto 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, adreadful, beautiful Psyche)--the man being haunted and terrifiedthrough all the turns of life by her. Did you ever feel afraid of yourown soul, as I have done? I think it is a true wonder of ourhumanity--and fit subject enough for a wild lyrical drama. I shouldlike to write it by myself at least, well enough. But with him I willnot 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 workon--and there it lies. Nothing more was done. It all lies in onesheet--and I have offered to give up my copyright of idea in it--if helikes to use it alone--or I should not object to work it out alone onmy 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 wellunderstood, in Mr. Horne's disfavour, --for I think of him as well atthis moment, and the same in all essential points, as I ever did. Heis a man of fine imagination, and is besides good and generous. In thecourse of our acquaintance (on paper--for I never saw him) I never wasangry with him except once; and then, _I_ was quite wrong and had toconfess it. But this is being too 'mediæval. ' Only you will see fromit that I am a little entangled on the subject of compound works, andmust look where I tread ... And you will understand (if you ever hearfrom Mr. Kenyon or elsewhere that I am going to write a compound-poemwith 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 brotherand sister are going to meet you and your sister there one day todinner. 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 Mayafter all! If a south-west wind sate in your chestnut tree, it was butfor a few hours--the east wind 'came up this way' by the earliestopportunity of succession. As the old 'mysteries' showed 'Beelzebubwith a bearde, ' even so has the east wind had a 'bearde' of late, in afull growth of bristling exaggerations--the English spring-winds haveexcelled themselves in evil this year; and I have not been down-stairsyet. --_But_ I am certainly stronger and better than I was--that isundeniable--and I _shall_ be better still. You are not going awaysoon--are you? In the meantime you do not know what it is to be ... Alittle 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 mustring the Bell. That poem has a strong heart in it, to begin _so_strongly. Poor Hood! And all those thoughts fall mixed together. MayGod bless you. [Footnote 1: Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_ 36: 'An ox hath trodden on mytongue'--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 hereto-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 questionas this, dear Mr. Browning. Let me hear how you are--Will you? and let me hear (if I can) that itwas prudence or some unchristian virtue of the sort, and not a drearynecessity, which made you put aside the engagement for Tuesday--forMonday. I had been thinking so of seeing you on Tuesday ... With mysister's eyes--for the first sight. And now if you have done killing the mules and the dogs, let me havea straight quick arrow for myself, if you please. Just a word, to sayhow you are. I ask for no more than a word, lest the writing should behurtful 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 ishow it was, --I have gone out a great deal of late, and my head took toringing 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 dinnersomewhere, I got really bad of a sudden, and kept at home to myfriend's heartrending disappointment. Next morning I was nobetter--and it struck me that I should be really disappointing dearkind Mr. Kenyon, and wasting his time, if that engagement, too, werebroken with as little warning, --so I thought it best to forego allhopes of seeing him, at such a risk. And that done, I got rid of everyother promise to pay visits for next week and next, and toldeverybody, with considerable dignity, that my London season was overfor this year, as it assuredly is--and I shall be worried no more, andlet walk in the garden, and go to bed at ten o'clock, and get donewith what is most expedient to do, and my 'flesh shall come again likea little child's, ' and one day, oh the day, I shall see you with myown, own eyes ... For, how little you understand me; or rather, yourself, --if you think I would dare see you, without your leave, thatway! Do you suppose that your power of giving and refusing ends whenyou have shut your room-door? Did I not tell you I turned down anotherstreet, even, the other day, and why not down yours? And often as Isee Mr. Kenyon, have I ever dreamed of asking any but the merestconventional questions about you; your health, and no more? I will answer your letter, the last one, to-morrow--I have saidnothing 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, dearMiss Barrett? I know I felt most thankful, and, of course, beganreasoning myself into the impropriety of allowing a 'more' or a 'most'in feelings of that sort towards you. I am thankful for you, all aboutyou--as, do you not know? Thank you, from my soul. Now, let me never pass occasion of speaking well of Horne, whodeserves your opinion of him, --it is my own, too. --He has unmistakablegenius, and is a fine, honest, enthusiastic chivalrous fellow--it isthe fashion to affect to sneer at him, of late, I think--the people hehas praised fancying that they 'pose' themselves sculpturesquely inplaying the Greatly Indifferent, and the other kind shaking eachother's hands in hysterical congratulations at having escaped such adishonour: _I_ feel grateful to him, I know, for his generouscriticism, and glad and proud of in any way approaching such a man'sstandard of poetical height. And he might be a disappointed mantoo, --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 doneover 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 quitean actor ... I forget in what way, but the upshot is, he bates not ajot in that rouged, wigged, padded, empty-headed, heartless tribe ofgrimacers that came and canted me; not I, them;--a thing he cannotunderstand--_so_, I am not the one he would have picked out topraise, had he not been _loyal_. I know he admires your poetryproperly. 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 thepart of Cosmo, or Gregory, or what shall most soothe his spirit! Thesubject of your play is tempting indeed--and reminds one of that wildDrama of Calderon's which frightened Shelley just before hisdeath--also, of Fuseli's theory with reference to his own Picture ofMacbeth in the witches' cave ... Wherein the apparition of the armedhead from the cauldron is Macbeth's own. 'If you ask me, I must ask myself'--that is, when I am to see you--Iwill _never_ ask you! You do _not_ know what I shall estimate thatpermission at, --nor do I, quite--but you do--do not you? know so muchof me as to make my 'asking' worse than a form--I do not 'ask' you towrite 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 menot be only writing myself Yours R. B. A kind, so kind, note from Mr. Kenyon came. We, I and my sister, areto go in June instead.... I shall go nowhere till then; I am nearlywell--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 andLyrics, and Lays and Plays, and read them and heed them and end themand 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 ordone, _I_, who am not apt to _be_ mistrustful of anybody and should bea miraculous monster if I began with _you_! What can I have said, Isay to myself again and again. One thing, at any rate, I have done, 'that way' or this way! I havemade what is vulgarly called a 'piece of work' about little; or seemedto make it. Forgive me. I am shy by nature:--and by position andexperience, ... By having had my nerves shaken to excess, and byleading a life of such seclusion, ... By these things together and byothers besides, I have appeared shy and ungrateful to you. Only notmistrustful. You could not mean to judge me so. Mistrustful people donot write as I write, surely! for wasn't it a Richelieu or Mazarin (orwho?) who said that with five lines from anyone's hand, he could takeoff 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 mygain (as I feel it to be) and not yours, whenever you do come. Youwill 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 ageneral way--and putting the question of health quite aside, it wouldbe unbecoming to lie here on the sofa and make a company-show of aninfirmity, and hold a beggar's hat for sympathy. I should blame it inanother woman--and the sense of it has had its weight with mesometimes. For the rest, ... When you write, that _I_ do not know how you wouldvalue, &c. _nor yourself quite_, you touch very accurately on thetruth ... 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 fromknowing me otherwise than on this paper--and I, for my part, 'quiteknow' my own honest impression, dear Mr. Browning, that none is likelyto go to you. There is nothing to see in me; nor to hear in me--Inever learnt to talk as you do in London; although I can admire thatbrightness of carved speech in Mr. Kenyon and others. If my poetry isworth anything to any eye, it is the flower of me. I have lived mostand been most happy in it, and so it has all my colours; the rest ofme is nothing but a root, fit for the ground and the dark. And if Iwrite all this egotism, ... It is for shame; and because I feelashamed of having made a fuss about what is not worth it; and becauseyou are extravagant in caring so for a permission, which will benothing to you afterwards. Not that I am not touched by your caring soat all! I am deeply touched now; and presently, ... I shallunderstand. Come then. There will be truth and simplicity for you inany case; and a friend. And do not answer this--I do not write it as afly 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 cannotbe good for you to do anything but be quiet and keep away thatdreadful musical note in the head. I entreat you not to think ofcoming until _that_ is all put to silence satisfactorily. When it isdone, ... 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 justtell me on what day, and I will see you on any day unless there shouldbe an unforeseen obstacle, ... Any day after two, or before six. Andmy 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 asyou 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 Mondayand is not likely immediately to return--no, on Saturday, to-morrow. In the meantime, why I should be '_thanked_, ' is an absolute mysteryto me--but I leave it! You are generous and impetuous; _that_, I can see and feel; and so farfrom being of an inclination to mistrust you or distrust you, I doprofess to have as much faith in your full, pure loyalty, as if I hadknown 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 yetI was glad to hear you severe--it is a happy excess, I think. When menof intense reality, as all great poets must be, give their hearts tobe trodden on and tied up with ribbons in turn, by men of masks, therewill be torture if there is not desecration. Not that I know much ofsuch things--but I have _heard_. Heard from Mr. Kenyon; heard fromMiss Mitford; who however is passionately fond of the theatre as awriter's medium--_not at all_, from Mr. Horne himself, ... Except whathe has printed on the subject. Yes--he has been infamously used on the point of the 'NewSpirit'--only he should have been prepared for the infamy--it wasleaping into a gulph, ... Not to 'save the republic, ' but '_pourrire_': it was not merely putting one's foot into a hornet's nest, buttaking off a shoe and stocking to do it. And to think of Dickens beingdissatisfied! To think of Tennyson's friends grumbling!--he himselfdid not, I hope and trust. For you, you certainly were not adequatelytreated--and above all, you were not placed with your _peers_ in thatchapter--but that there was an intention to do you justice, and thatthere _is_ a righteous appreciation of you in the writer, I know andam sure, --and that _you_ should be sensible to this, is only what Ishould 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 itcannot 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 Ishall make mainprize of the stray cloaks and umbrellas down-stairs, orturn an article for _Colburn's_ on her sayings and doingsup-stairs, --but spite of that, she does mistrust ... _so_ mistrust mycommon sense, --nay, uncommon and dramatic-poet's sense, if I am put onasserting it!--all which pieces of mistrust I could detect, and catchstruggling, and pin to death in a moment, and put a label in, withname, genus and species, just like a horrible entomologist; only Iwon't, because the first visit of the Northwind will carry the wholetribe into the Red Sea--and those horns and tails and scalewings arebest forgotten altogether. And now will I say a cutting thing and havedone. Have I trusted _my_ friend so, --or said even to myself, muchless to her, she is even as--'Mr. Simpson' who desireth the honour ofthe acquaintance of Mr. B. Whose admirable works have long been his, Simpson's, especial solace in private--and who accordingly is led tothat personage by a mutual friend--Simpson blushing as only adorableingenuousness can, and twisting the brim of his hat like a sailorgiving evidence. Whereupon Mr. B. Beginneth by remarking that therooms are growing hot--or that he supposes Mr. S. Has not heard ifthere will be another adjournment of the House to-night--whereupon Mr. S. Looketh up all at once, brusheth the brim smooth again with hissleeve, and takes to his assurance once more, in something of a huff, and after staying his five minutes out for decency's sake, noddethfamiliarly an adieu, and spinning round on his heel ejaculatethmentally--'Well, I _did_ expect to see something different from thatlittle yellow commonplace man ... And, now I come to think, there_was_ some precious trash in that book of his'--Have _I_ said 'so willMiss Barrett ejaculate?' Dear Miss Barrett, I thank you for the leave you give me, and for theinfinite kindness of the way of giving it. I will call at 2 onTuesday--not sooner, that you may have time to write should anyadverse circumstances happen ... Not that they need inconvenience you, because ... What I want particularly to tell you for now andhereafter--do not mind my coming in the least, but--should you beunwell, for instance, --just send or leave word, and I will come again, and again, and again--my time is of _no_ importance, and I haveacquaintances 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 writtenmyself _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 againstyour horrible 'entomology. ' Beginning to explain, would thrust melower and lower down the circles of some sort of an 'Inferno'; onlywith my dying breath I would maintain that I never could, consciouslyor unconsciously, mean to distrust you; or, the least in the world, toSimpsonize you. What I said, ... It was _you_ that put it into my headto say it--for certainly, in my usual disinclination to receivevisitors, such a feeling does not enter. There, now! There, I am awhole '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 'cuttingthings' with resignation! _that_ is certain. Still I must really say, under this dreadful incubus-charge ofSimpsonism, ... That you, who know everything, or at least make awfulguesses at everything in one's feelings and motives, and profess to beable to pin them down in a book of classified inscriptions, ... Shouldhave been able to understand better, or misunderstand less, in amatter like this--Yes! I think so. I think you should have made outthe case in some such way as it was in nature--viz. That you hadlashed yourself up to an exorbitant wishing to see me, ... (you whocould see, any day, people who are a hundredfold and to all socialpurposes, my superiors!) because I was unfortunate enough to be shutup 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. Howdifferent from a distrust of _you_! how different! Ah--if, after this day, you ever see any interpretable sign ofdistrustfulness in me, you may be 'cutting' again, and I will not cryout. In the meantime here is a fact for your 'entomology. ' I have notso much _distrust_, as will make a _doubt_, as will make a _curiosity_for next Tuesday. Not the simplest modification of _curiosity_ entersinto the state of feeling with which I wait for Tuesday:--and if youare 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 toyourself. ) Before you come, try to forgive me for my 'infinite kindness' in themanner of consenting to see you. Is it 'the cruellest cut of all' whenyou 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 ismy 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 nottired, if I did wrong in any thing, --or, if you please, _right_ in anything--(only, not one more word about my 'kindness, ' which, to getdone with, I will grant is exceptive)--but, let us so arrange mattersif possible, --and why should it not be--that my great happiness, suchas it will be if I see you, as this morning, from time to time, may beobtained at the cost of as little inconvenience to you as we cancontrive. For an instance--just what strikes me--they all say here Ispeak very loud--(a trick caught from having often to talk with a deafrelative of mine). And did I stay too long? I will tell _you_ unhesitatingly of such 'corrigenda'--nay, I willagain 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 blessyou! 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 waseverything right--as how should there not be? And as for the 'loudspeaking, ' I did not hear any--and, instead of being worse, I ought tobe 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 ourvocabulary, as to be ominous of silence in a full sense, presently. First, one word is not to be spoken--and then, another is not. Andwhy? Why deny me the use of such words as have natural feelingsbelonging to them--and how can the use of such be 'humiliating' to_you_? If my heart were open to you, you could see nothing offensiveto you in any thought there or trace of thought that has beenthere--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 ofsome poems by some Mr. Gurney where he speaks of 'the reflectivewisdom of a Wordsworth and the profound psychological utterances of aBrowning') it is hard for you to understand what my mental position isafter the peculiar experience I have suffered, and what [Greek: tiemoi 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 youdid 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 leavethe subject with the words--because we perceive in it from differentpoints 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 cantogether--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 bedelightful to me to receive you here when you like to come, and itcannot 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 wasdestroyed, 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 couldnot, --you do not know what pain you give me in speaking so wildly. Andif I disobey you, my dear friend, in speaking, (I for my part) of yourwild speaking, I do it, not to displease you, but to be in my owneyes, and before God, a little more worthy, or less unworthy, of agenerosity from which I recoil by instinct and at the first glance, yet conclusively; and because my silence would be the most disloyal ofall means of expression, in reference to it. Listen to me then inthis. You have said some intemperate things ... Fancies, --which youwill not say over again, nor unsay, but _forget at once_, and _forever, having said at all_; and which (so) will die out between _youand me alone_, like a misprint between you and the printer. And thisyou will do _for my sake_ who am your friend (and you have nonetruer)--and this I ask, because it is a condition necessary to ourfuture liberty of intercourse. You remember--surely you do--that I amin 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 tolisten to 'unconscious exaggerations, ' is as unbecoming to thehumilities of my position, as unpropitious (which is of moreconsequence) to the prosperities of yours. Now, if there should be oneword 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 methe sadness of having to break through an intercourse just as it ispromising pleasure to me; to me who have so many sadnesses and so fewpleasures. You will!--and I need not be uneasy--and I shall owe youthat tranquillity, as one gift of many. For, that I have much toreceive from you in all the free gifts of thinking, teaching, master-spirits, ... _that_, I know!--it is my own praise that Iappreciate you, as none can more. Your influence and help in poetrywill be full of good and gladness to me--for with many to love me inthis house, there is no one to judge me ... _now_. Your friendship andsympathy will be dear and precious to me all my life, if you indeedleave them with me so long or so little. Your mistakes in me ... Which_I_ cannot mistake (--and which have humbled me by too muchhonouring--) 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, --shallyou care much? For the relations I named to you, are to be in Londonnext week; and I am to see one of my aunts whom I love, and have notmet since my great affliction--and it will all seem to come overagain, and I shall be out of spirits and nerves. On Tuesday week youcan bring a tomahawk and do the criticism, and I shall try to have mycourage ready for it--Oh, you will do me so much good--and Mr. Kenyoncalls me 'docile' sometimes I assure you; when he wants to flatter meout of being obstinate--and in good earnest, I believe I shall doeverything you tell me. The 'Prometheus' is done--but the monodrama iswhere it was--and the novel, not at all. But I think of some halfpromises 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 lightningtogether--I do not write as I might, of some words of yours--but youknow 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 hadto say it--and for the rest, may God bless you far beyond the reach ofvexation 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 nothingof me'? whereat you demurred--but I meant what I said, and knew it wasso. To be grand in a simile, for every poor speck of a Vesuvius or aStromboli in my microcosm there are huge layers of ice and pits ofblack 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--andthe ice grows and grows--still this last is true part of me, mostcharacteristic part, _best_ part perhaps, and I disownnothing--only, --when you talked of '_knowing_ me'! Still, I am utterlyunused, of these late years particularly, to dream of communicatinganything about _that_ to another person (all my writings are purelydramatic as I am always anxious to say) that when I make never solittle an attempt, no wonder if I _bungle_ notably--'language, ' too isan organ that never studded this heavy heavy head of mine. Will younot think me very brutal if I tell you I could almost smile at yourmisapprehension of what I meant to write?--Yet I _will_ tell you, because it will undo the bad effect of my thoughtlessness, and at thesame time exemplify the point I have all along been honestly earnestto set you right upon ... My real inferiority to you; just that and nomore. I wrote to you, in an unwise moment, on the spur of being again'thanked, ' and, unwisely writing just as if thinking to myself, saidwhat must have looked absurd enough as seen apart from the horriblecounterbalancing never-to-be-written _rest of me_--by the side ofwhich, could it be written and put before you, my note would sink toits proper and relative place, and become a mere 'thank you' for yourgood opinion--which I assure you is far too generous--for I reallybelieve you to be my superior in many respects, and feel uncomfortabletill _you_ see that, too--since I hope for your sympathy andassistance, and 'frankness is everything in such a case. ' I do assureyou, that had you read my note, _only_ having '_known_' so much of meas is implied in having inspected, for instance, the contents, merely, of that fatal and often-referred-to 'portfolio' there (_Dii meliorapiis!_), you would see in it, (the note not the portfolio) theblandest utterance ever mild gentleman gave birth to. But I forgotthat one may make too much noise in a silent place by playing the fewnotes on the 'ear-piercing fife' which in Othello's regimental bandmight have been thumped into decent subordination by his'spirit-stirring drum'--to say nothing of gong and ophicleide. Willyou forgive me, on promise to remember for the future, and be moreconsiderate? Not that you must too much despise me, neither; nor, ofall things, apprehend I am attitudinizing à la Byron, and giving youto understand unutterable somethings, longings for Lethe and allthat--far from it! I never committed murders, and sleep the soundestof sleeps--but 'the heart is desperately wicked, ' that is true, andthough I dare not say 'I know' mine, yet I have had signalopportunities, I who began life from the beginning, and can forgetnothing (but names, and the date of the battle of Waterloo), and haveknown good and wicked men and women, gentle and simple, shaking handswith Edmund Kean and Father Mathew, you and--Ottima! Then, I had acertain faculty of self-consciousness, years and years ago, at whichJohn Mill wondered, and which ought to be improved by this time, ifconstant 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 domyself justice, and dare call things by their names to myself, and sayboldly, this I love, this I hate, this I would do, this I would notdo, under all kinds of circumstances, --and talking (thinking) in thisstyle _to myself_, and beginning, however tremblingly, in spite ofconviction, to write in this style _for myself_--on the top of thedesk which contains my 'Songs of the Poets--NO. I M. P. ', Iwrote, --what you now forgive, I know! Because I am, from my heart, sorry that by a foolish fit of inconsideration I should have givenpain for a minute to you, towards whom, on every account, I wouldrather soften and 'sleeken every word as to a bird' ... (and, not sucha bird as my black self that go screeching about the world for 'deadhorse'--corvus (picus)--mirandola!) I, too, who have been at suchpains to acquire the reputation I enjoy in the world, --(ask Mr. Kenyon, ) and who dine, and wine, and dance and enhance the company'spleasure 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 muddymetaphysical poetry! And so it shall strike you--for though I am gladthat, since you _did_ misunderstand me, you said so, and have given mean 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 youshould not, you would have certainly understood _something_ of itsdrift when you found me next Tuesday precisely the same quiet (no, forI feel I speak too loudly, in spite of your kind disclaimer, but--)the same mild man-about-town you were gracious to, the othermorning--for, indeed, my own way of worldly life is marked out longago, 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 myeyes, to say nothing of an instinctive dread I have that a certainwhip-lash is vibrating somewhere in the neighbourhood in playfulreadiness! So 'I hope here be proofs, ' Dogberry's satisfaction that, first, I am but a very poor creature compared to you and entitled bymy wants to look up to you, --all I meant to say from the first of thefirst--and that, next, I shall be too much punished if, for this pieceof mere inconsideration, you deprive me, more or less, or sooner orlater, of the pleasure of seeing you, --a little over boisterousgratitude for which, perhaps, caused all the mischief! The reasons yougive for deferring my visits next week are too cogent for me todispute--that is too true--and, being now and henceforward 'on my goodbehaviour, ' I will at once cheerfully submit to them, if needsmust--but should your mere kindness and forethought, as I halfsuspect, have induced you to take such a step, you will now smile withme, at this new and very unnecessary addition to the 'fears of me' Ihave got so triumphantly over in your case! Wise man, was I not, toclench my first favourable impression so adroitly ... Like a recentCambridge 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 ofIsrael?'--'Saul' answered the trembling youth. 'Good!' noddedapprovingly the Tutor. 'Otherwise called _Paul_, ' subjoined the youthin 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_ allthe while, (Paul or no Paul), the veritable son of Kish, he that ownedthe asses, and found listening to the harp the best of all things foran 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'sstupidity) and let me not for one fault, (and that the only one thatshall be), lose _any pleasure_ ... For your friendship I am sure Ihave not lost--God bless you, my dear friend! R. BROWNING. And by the way, will it not be better, as co-operating with you moreeffectually in your kind promise to forget the 'printer's error' in myblotted proof, to send me back that same 'proof, ' if you have notinflicted proper and summary justice on it? When Mephistopheles lastcame 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 shallnext ask a servant for my paste in the 'high fantastical' style of myown 'Luria. ' _E. B. B. To R. B. _ Sunday [May 25, 1845]. I owe you the most humble of apologies dear Mr. Browning, for havingspent 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 asmuch ashamed of myself as I ought to be, which is not a little. Youwill find it difficult to believe me perhaps when I assure you that Inever made such a mistake (I mean of over-seriousness to indefinitecompliments), no, never in my life before--indeed my sisters haveoften jested with me (in matters of which they were cognizant) on mysupernatural indifference to the superlative degree in general, as ifit meant nothing in grammar. I usually know well that 'boots' may becalled for in this world of ours, just as you called for yours; andthat to bring '_Bootes_, ' were the vilest of mal-à-pro-pos-ities. Also, I should have understood 'boots' where you wrote it, in theletter in question; if it had not been for _the relation of twothings_ in it--and now I perfectly seem to see _how_ I mistook thatrelation; ('_seem to see_'; because I have not looked into the letteragain since your last night's commentary, and will not--) inasmuch asI have observed before in my own mind, that a good deal of what iscalled obscurity in you, arises from a habit of very subtleassociation; so subtle, that you are probably unconscious of it, ... And the effect of which is to throw together on the same level and inthe same light, things of likeness and unlikeness--till the readergrows 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 sounfortunately, _through reverence for you_, and not at all from vanityin my own account ... Although I do feel palpably while I write thesewords here and now, that I might as well leave them unwritten; forthat 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, whichperhaps you do mean, my superiority in _simplicity_--and, verily, tosome of the 'adorable ingenuousness, ' sacred to the shade of Simpson, I may put in a modest claim, ... 'and have my claim allowed. ' 'Pray donot mock me' I quote again from your Shakespeare to you who are adramatic poet; ... And I will admit anything that you like, (beinghumble just now)--even that I _did not know you_. I was certainlyinnocent of the knowledge of the 'ice and cold water' you introduce meto, and am only just shaking my head, as Flush would, after a firstwholesome plunge. Well--if I do not know you, I shall learn, Isuppose, in time. I am ready to try humbly to learn--and I mayperhaps--if you are not done in Sanscrit, which is too hard for me, ... Notwithstanding that I had the pleasure yesterday to hear, fromAmerica, of my profound skill in 'various languages less known thanHebrew'!--a liberal paraphrase on Mr. Horne's large fancies on thelike subject, and a satisfactory reputation in itself--as long as itis not necessary to deserve it. So I here enclose to you your letterback again, as you wisely desire; although you never could doubt, Ihope, for a moment, of its safety with me in the completest of senses:and then, from the heights of my superior ... Stultity, and otherqualities of the like order, ... I venture to advise you ... However(to speak of the letter critically, and as the dramatic composition itis) it is to be admitted to be very beautiful, and well worthy of therest of its kin in the portfolio, ... 'Lays of the Poets, ' orotherwise, ... 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 timethe letter I was fortunate enough to write to you on Friday, and thispresent one--don't send them back to me; I hate to have letters sentback--but burn them for me and never mind Mephistopheles. After whichfriendly turn, you will do me the one last kindness of forgetting allthis exquisite nonsense, and of refraining from mentioning it, bybreath or pen, _to me or another_. Now I trust you so far:--you willput it with the date of the battle of Waterloo--and I, with every datein chronology; seeing that I can remember none of them. And we willshuffle the cards and take patience, and begin the game again, if youplease--and I shall bear in mind that you are a dramatic poet, whichis not the same thing, by any means, with _us_ of the primitivesimplicities, who don't tread on cothurns nor shift the mask in thescene. 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 whichthose who live longest, will see justified to the uttermost.... In themeantime I need not ask Mr. Kenyon if you have any sense, because Ihave no doubt that you have quite sense enough--and even if I had adoubt, I shall prefer judging for myself without interposition; whichI can do, you know, as long as you like to come and see me. And youcan come this week if you do like it--because our relations don't cometill the end of it, it appears--not that I made a pretence 'out ofkindness'--pray don't judge me so outrageously--but if you like tocome ... Not on Tuesday ... But on Wednesday at three o'clock, I shallbe very glad to see you; and I, for one, shall have forgotteneverything by that time; being quick at forgetting my own faultsusually. 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 thinkyourself _obliged_ to come on Wednesday. You know I _began_ byentreating you to be open and sincere with me--and no more--I_require_ no 'sleekening of every word. ' I love the truth and can bearit--whether in word or deed--and those who have known me longest wouldtell you so fullest. Well!--May God bless you. We shall know eachother 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 tohave--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 youchoose or can! But _before_ your former letter came, I saw thepre-ordained uselessness of mine. Speaking is to some _end_, (apartfrom foolish self-relief, which, after all, I can do without)--andwhere there is _no_ end--you see! or, to finishcharacteristically--since the offering to cut off one's right-hand tosave 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, --howmuch worse to really make the ugly chop, and afterwards comesheepishly in, one's arm in a black sling, and find that thedelectable gift had changed aching to nausea! There! And now, 'exit, prompt-side, nearest door, Luria'--and enter R. B. --next Wednesday, --asboldly as he suspects most people do just after they have been soundlyfrightened! I shall be most happy to see you on the day and at the hour youmention. 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; butindeed it is _not_ my fault that I cannot, as I wished, receive you onWednesday. There was a letter this morning; and our friends not onlycome to London but come to this house on Tuesday (to-morrow) to passtwo or three days, until they settle in an hotel for the rest of theseason. Therefore you see, it is doubtful whether the two days may notbe three, and the three days four; but if they go away in time, andif Saturday should suit you, I will let you know by a word; and youcan answer by a yea or nay. While they are in the house, I must givethem 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 andcomplete certificate, ... That you may know ... Quite _know_, ... Whatthe real and only reason of the obstacle to Wednesday is. On Saturdayperhaps, or on Monday more certainly, there is likely to be noopposition, ... At least not on the 'côté gauche' (_my_ side!) to ourmeeting--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 sufferme to say as one other last word, (and _quite, quite the last thistime_!) in case there should have been anything approaching, howeverremotely, to a distrustful or unkind tone in what I wrote on Sunday, (and I have a sort of consciousness that in the process of myself-scorning I was not in the most sabbatical of moods perhaps--)that I do recall and abjure it, and from my heart entreat your pardonfor it, and profess, notwithstanding it, neither to 'choose' nor 'tobe 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 toread, addressed to her by 'R. B. Haydon historical painter' which hasmade me quite laugh; and would make _you_; expressing his righteousindignation at the 'great fact' and gross impropriety of any man whohas 'thoughts too deep for tears' agreeing to wear a 'bag-wig' ... Thecase of poor Wordsworth's going to court, you know. --Mr. Haydon beinginfinitely serious all the time, and yet holding the doctrine of thedivine 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 shallcome by the three o'clock train; if on Wednesday, _early_ in themorning, as I shall be anxious to secure rooms ... So that your Uncleand 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 mythanks--but this note troubles you, out of my bounden duty to helpyou, or Miss Mitford, to make the Painter run violently down a steepplace 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 atleast, the more important of his court-habiliments, were consideratelyfurnished for the nonce by _Mr. Rogers_ from his own wardrobe, to themanifest advantage of the Laureate's pocket, but more problematicimprovement of his person, when one thinks on the astoundingdifference of 'build' in the two Poets:--the fact should be put onrecord, if only as serving to render less chimerical a promisesometimes figuring in the columns of provincial newspapers--that thetwo apprentices, some grocer or other advertises for, will be 'boardedand _clothed_ like _one_ of the family. ' May not your unfinished(really good) head of the great man have been happily kept waiting forthe body which can now be added on, with all this picturesqueness ofcircumstances. Precept on precept ... But then, _line upon line_, isallowed by as good authority, and may I not draw _my_ confirming blackline after yours, yet not break pledge? I am most grateful to you fordoing me justice--doing yourself, your own judgment, justice, sinceeven the play-wright of Theseus and the Amazon found it one of hishardest 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 mightrefer 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 befine--because in the case of its raining I _shall not expect you_; youwill 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 alsothat the Laureate, so equipped, fell down upon both knees in thesuperfluity of etiquette, and had to be picked up by twolords-in-waiting. It is a large exaggeration I do not doubt--and thenI never sympathised with the sighing kept up by people about thatacceptance of the Laureateship which drew the bag-wig as a corollaryafter it. Not that the Laureateship honoured _him_, but that hehonoured it; and that, so honouring it, he preserves a symbolinstructive to the masses, who are children and to be taught bysymbols now as formerly. Isn't it true? or at least may it not betrue? And won't the court laurel (such as it is) be all the worthierof _you_ for Wordsworth's having worn it first? And in the meantime I shall see you to-morrow perhaps? or if it shouldrain, 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 morethan half ashamed both of it and of me for using your time so, andforced to say in my own defence (not to you but myself) that I neverthought of meaning to inflict such work on you who might be doing somuch better things in the meantime both for me and forothers--because, you see, it is not the mere reading of the MS. , butthe 'comparing' of the text, and the melancholy comparisons betweenthe English and the Greek, ... Quite enough to turn you from your[Greek: philanthrôpou tropou][1] that I brought upon you; and indeed Idid not mean so much, nor so soon! Yet as you have done it for me--forme who expected a few jottings down with a pencil and a generalopinion; it is of course of the greatest value, besides the pleasureand pride which come of it; and I must say of the translation, (beforeputting it aside for the nonce), that the circumstance of your payingit so much attention and seeing any good in it, is quite enough rewardfor the writer and quite enough motive for self-gratulation, if itwere all torn to fragments at this moment--which is a foolish thing tosay because it is so obvious, and because you would know it if I saidit or not. And while you were doing this for me, you thought it unkind of me notto write to you; yes, and you think me at this moment the veryprincess of apologies and excuses and depreciations and all the restof the small family of distrust--or of hypocrisy ... Who knows? Well!but you are wrong ... Wrong ... To think so; and you will let me sayone word to show where you are wrong--not for you to controvert, ... Because it must relate to myself especially, and lies beyond yourcognizance, and is something which I _must know best_ after all. Andit is, ... That you persist in putting me into a false position, withrespect to _fixing days_ and the like, and in making me feel somewhatas I did when I was a child, and Papa used to put me up on thechimney-piece and exhort me to stand up straight like a hero, which Idid, straighter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as wesay in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me andextending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice tothe rug, where the dog lay ... Dear old Havannah, ... And where he andI were likely to be dashed to pieces together and mix our uncanonisedbones. Now my present false position ... Which is not thechimney-piece's, ... Is the necessity you provide for me in the shapeof my having to name this day, or that day, ... And of your comingbecause I name it, and of my having to think and remember that youcome because I name it. Through a weakness, perhaps, or morbidness, orone knows not how to define it, I _cannot help_ being uncomfortable inhaving to do this, --it is impossible. Not that I distrust _you_--youare the last in the world I could distrust: and then (although you maybe sceptical) I am naturally given to trust ... To a fault ... As somesay, or to a sin, as some reproach me:--and then again, if I were eversuch a distruster, it could not be of _you_. But if you knew me--! Iwill tell you! if one of my brothers omits coming to this room for twodays, ... I never ask why it happened! if my own father omits comingup-stairs to say 'good night, ' I never say a word; and not fromindifference. Do try to make out these readings of me as a _dixitCasaubonus_; and don't throw me down as a corrupt text, nor convict mefor an infidel which I am not. On the contrary I am grateful and happyto believe that you like to come here; and even if you came here as apure act of charity and pity to me, as long as you _chose to come_ Ishould not be too proud to be grateful and happy still. I could not beproud 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 bewholly generous and leave off such an interpreting philosophy as youmade use of yesterday, and forgive me when I beg you to fix your owndays for coming for the future. Will you? It is the same thing in oneway. If you like to come really every week, there is no hindrance toit--you can do it--and the privilege and obligation remain equallymine:--and if you name a day for coming on any week, where there is anobstacle on my side, you will learn it from me in a moment. Why Imight as well charge _you_ with distrusting _me_, because you persistin making me choose the days. And it is not for me to do it, but foryou--I must feel that--and I cannot help chafing myself against thethought that for me to begin to fix days in this way, just because youhave quick impulses (like all imaginative persons), and wish me to doit now, may bring me to the catastrophe of asking you to come when youwould rather not, ... Which, as you say truly, would not be animportant vexation to you; but to me would be worse than vexation; to_me_--and therefore I shrink from the very imagination of thepossibility of such a thing, and ask you to bear with me and let it beas I prefer ... Left to your own choice of the moment. And bear withme above all--because this shows no want of faith in you ... None ... But comes from a simple fact (with its ramifications) ... That youknow little of me personally yet, and that _you guess_, even, but verylittle of the influence of a peculiar experience over me and out ofme; and if I wanted a proof of this, we need not seek further than thevery point of discussion, and the hard worldly thoughts you thought Iwas thinking of you yesterday, --I, who thought not one of them! But Iam so used to discern the correcting and ministering angels by thesame footsteps on the ground, that it is not wonderful I should lookdown there at any approach of a [Greek: philia taxis] whatever to thispersonal _me_. Have I not been ground down to browns and blacks? andis it my fault if I am not green? Not that it is my _complaint_--Ishould not be justified in complaining; I believe, as I told you, thatthere 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 thefurnace (the less genial ones) both means are to be recognised as_good_, ... However different in pleasurableness and painfulness, andthough furnace-fire leaves scorched streaks upon the fruit. I assuredyou 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 Ihad the occasion granted. It is a multitude of words about nothing at all, ... This--but I amlike Mariana in the moated grange and sit listening too often to themouse in the wainscot. Be as forbearing as you can--and believe howprofoundly 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 asyou half asked, it was just because I failed at the moment to get upenough pomp and circumstance to write on purpose to certify theimportant fact of my being a little stronger or a little weaker on oneparticular morning. That I am always ready and rejoiced to write toyou, you know perfectly well, and I have proved, by 'superfluity ofnaughtiness' and prolixity through some twenty posts:--and this, andtherefore, you will agree altogether to attribute no more to me onthese counts, and determine to read me no more backwards with yourHebrew, putting in your own vowel points without my leave! Shall it beso? Here is a letter grown from a note which it meant to be--and I havebeen interrupted in the midst of it, or it should have gone to youearlier. Let what I have said in it of myself pass unquestioned andunnoticed, because it is of _me_ and not of _you_, ... And, if in anywise lunatical, all the talking and writing in the world will not putthe implied moon into another quarter. Only be patient with me alittle, ... And let us have a smooth ground for the poems which I amforeseeing the sight of with such pride and delight--Such pride anddelight! 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 muchbetter directly? It cannot be prudent or even _safe_ to let a pain inthe head go on so long, and no remedy be attempted for it, ... And youcannot be sure that it is a merely nervous pain and that it may nothave consequences; and this, quite apart from the consideration ofsuffering. So you will see some one with an opinion to give, and takeit? _Do_, I beseech you. You will not say 'no'? Also ... If onWednesday you should be less well than usual, you will come onThursday instead, I hope, ... Seeing that it must be right for you tobe quiet and silent when you suffer so, and a journey into London canlet you be neither. Otherwise, I hold to my day, ... Wednesday. Andmay God bless you my dear friend. Ever yours, E. B. B. You are right I see, nearly everywhere, if not quite everywhere in thecriticisms--but of course I have not looked very closely--that is, Ihave read your papers but not in connection with a _my_ side of theargument--but I shall lose the post after all. [Footnote 1: Aeschylus, _Prometheus_ II. : 'trick of loving men, ' seenote 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--FirstEast-winds on you, then myself, then those criticisms!--I do assureyou I am properly apprehensive. How are you? May I go on Wednesdaywithout too much [Greek: anthadia]. Pray remember what I said and wrote, to the effect that my exceptionswere, in almost every case, to the 'reading'--not to your version ofit: but I have not specified the particular ones--not written down theGreek, of my suggested translations--have I? And if you do not findthem in the margin of your copy, how you must wonder! Thus, in thelast speech but one, of Hermes, I prefer Porson and Blomfield's[Greek: ei mêd' atychôn ti chala maniôn];--to the old combinationsthat include [Greek: eutychê]--though there is no MS. Authority foremendation, it seems. But in what respect does Prometheus 'fare_well_, ' or 'better' even, since the beginning? And is it not the oldargument over again, that when a man _fails_ he should repent of hisways?--And while thinking of Hermes, let me say that '[Greek: mêde moidiplas odous prosbalês]' is surely--'Don't subject me to the troubleof a second journey ... By paying no attention to the first. ' So saysScholiast A, and so backs him Scholiast B, especially created, itshould appear, to show there could be _in rerum naturâ_ such anotheras his predecessor. A few other remarks occur to me, which I will tellyou if you please; _now_, I really want to know how you are, and writefor 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 toplease you; and I begin by promising cheerfully to do all you bid meabout naming days &c. I do believe we are friends now and for ever. There can be no reason, therefore, that I should cling tenaciously toany one or other time of meeting, as if, losing that, I losteverything--and, for the future, I will provide against suddenengagements, outrageous weather &c. , to your heart's content. Nor am Igoing 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 dearfriend--for I seem sure I shall have quite, quite time enough to domyself justice in your eyes--Let time show! Perhaps I feel none the less sorely, when you 'thank' me for suchcompany as mine, that I cannot avoid confessing to myself that itwould not be so absolutely out of my power, perhaps, to contrivereally and deserve thanks in a certain acceptation--I _might_ really_try_, at all events, and amuse you a little better, when I do havethe opportunity, --and I _do not_--but there is the thing! It is all ofa piece--I _do not_ seek your friendship in order to do you good--anygood--only to do myself good. Though I _would_, God knows, do thattoo. Enough of this. I am much better, indeed, --but will certainly follow your adviceshould the pain return. And you--you have tried a new journey fromyour room, have you not? Do recollect, at any turn, any chance so far in my favour, --that I amhere and yours should you want any fetching and carrying in thisoutside London world. Your brothers may have their own business tomind, Mr. Kenyon is at New York, we will suppose; here am I--whatelse, _what else_ makes me count my cleverness to you, as I know Ihave done more than once, by word and letter, but the real wish to beset at work? I should have, I hope, better taste than to tell anyeveryday acquaintance, who could not go out, one single morning even, on account of a headache, that the weather was delightful, much lessthat I had been walking five miles and meant to run ten--yet to you Iboasted once of polking and waltzing and more--but then would it notbe a very superfluous piece of respect in the four-footed bird to keephis wings to himself because his Master Oceanos could fly forsooth?Whereas he begins to wave a flap and show how ready they are to beoff--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, therest--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 Ireceived a letter two days ago, from the contriver of some literarysociety or other who had before written to get me to belong to it, protesting _against_ my reasons for refusing, and begging that 'at allevents 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 expressfrom the Drachenfels for just that, he is returned no doubt--and as heis your friend, I take the opportunity of mentioning the course Ishall pursue with him or any other friend of yours I may meet, --(andeverybody 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 beknown that I see, or have seen you. This I just remind you of, lestany occasion of embarrassment should arise, for a moment, from yournot being quite sure how _I_ had acted in any case. --Con che, le baciole 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 andconsideration--which could not be greater; nor more felt by me. In thefirst place, afterwards (if that should not be Irish dialect) dounderstand 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 onlyhumbly hope to have been cross enough about it (having conscientiouslytried) to secure a little more accuracy another time. --And then, ... If ever I should want anything done or found, ... (a roc's egg or thelike) you may believe me that I shall not scruple to ask you to be thefinder; but at this moment I want nothing, indeed, except your poems;and that is quite the truth. Now do consider and think what I couldpossibly want in your 'outside London world'; you, who are the 'Geniusof 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 foranother? Only I shall remember what you say, gratefully and seriously;and if ever I should have a good fair opportunity of giving youtrouble (as if I had not done it already!), you may rely upon my evilintentions; even though dear Mr. Kenyon should not actually be at NewYork, ... 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_ wouldnot. --Thank you! Also there was an especial reason which constrainedme, on pain of appearing a great hypocrite, to tell Miss Mitford thebare fact of my having seen you--and reluctantly I did it, thoughplacing some hope in her promise of discretion. And how necessary thediscretion is, will appear in the awful statistical fact of our havingat this moment, as my sisters were calculating yesterday, some fortyrelations 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_, ... Orrather 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, Iwent 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 givenin colleges, (when all the pure parsley goes naturally to therabbits), and has a great deal of beauty here and there in image andexpression. Still I do not quite agree with you that it reaches theTennyson standard any wise; and for the blank verse, I cannot for amoment 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 latterblank verse than you do, ... To hear not only a 'mighty line' as inMarlowe, but a noble full orbicular wholeness in completepassages--which always struck me as the mystery of music and greatpeculiarity in Tennyson's versification, inasmuch as he attains tothese complete effects without that shifting of the pause practised bythe masters, ... Shelley and others. A 'linked music' in which thereare no links!--_that_, you would take to be a contradiction--and yetsomething like that, my ear has always seemed to perceive; and I havewondered curiously again and again how there could be so much unionand no fastening. Only of course it is not model versification--andfor dramatic purposes, it must be admitted to be bad. Which reminds me to be astonished for the second time how you couldthink such a thing of me as that I wanted to read only your lyrics, ... Or that I 'preferred the lyrics' ... Or something barbarous inthat way? You don't think me 'ambidexter, ' or 'either-handed' ... Andboth hands open for what poems you will vouchsafe to me; and yet ifyou 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'sTragedy, ' ... I shall be so glad and grateful to you! Oh--if youchange your mind and choose to be _bien prié_, I will grant it is yourright, and begin my liturgy directly. But this is not teazing (in theintention of it!) and I understand all about the transcription, andthe inscrutableness of rough copies, --that is, if you write as I do, so that my guardian angel or M. Champollion cannot read what iswritten. Only whatever they can, (remember!) _I_ can: and you are notto mind trusting me with the cacistography possible to mortal readers. The sun shines so that nobody dares complain of the east wind--andindeed 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 prizefor their quoter--then, the good epithet of 'Green Europe' contrastingwith Africa--then, deep in the piece, a picture of a Vestal in avault, where I see a dipping and winking lamp plainest, and last ofall the ominous 'all was dark' that dismisses you. I read the poemmany years ago, and never since, though I have an impression that theversification is good, yet from your commentary I see I must have saida good deal more in its praise than that. But have you not discoveredby this time that I go on talking with my thoughts away? I know, I have always been jealous of my own musical faculty (I canwrite music). --Now that I see the uselessness of such jealousy, and amfor loosing and letting it go, it may be cramped possibly. Your musicis more various and exquisite than any modern writer's to my ear. Oneshould study the mechanical part of the art, as nearly all that thereis to be studied--for the more one sits and thinks over the creativeprocess, the more it confirms itself as 'inspiration, ' nothing morenor less. Or, at worst, you write down old inspirations, what youremember of them ... But with _that_ it begins. 'Reflection' isexactly what it names itself--a _re_-presentation, in scattered raysfrom every angle of incidence, of what first of all became present ina great light, a whole one. So tell me how these lights are born, ifyou can! But I can tell anybody how to make melodious verses--let himdo it therefore--it should be exacted of all writers. You do not understand what a new feeling it is for me to have someonewho is to like my verses or I shall not ever like them after! So fardifferently was I circumstanced of old, that I used rather to go aboutfor a subject of offence to people; writing ugly things in order towarn the ungenial and timorous off my grounds at once. I shall neverdo so again at least! As it is, I will bring all I dare, in as greatquantities as I can--if not next time, after then--certainly. I mustmake 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 ownPoem--indeed, I have just resolved not to begin any new song, even, till this grand clearance is made--I will get the Tragedy transcribedto bring-- 'To bring!' Next Wednesday--if you know how happy you make me! may Inot say _that_, my dear friend, when I feel it from my soul? I thank God that you are better: do pray make fresh endeavours toprofit by this partial respite of the weather! All about you must urgethat: 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 thishot 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 'creativeprocess' in works of Art, is just inspiration and no less--which madesomebody say to me not long since; And so you think that Shakespeare's'Othello' was of the effluence of the Holy Ghost?'--rather a startlingdeduction, ... Only not quite as final as might appear to somebodiesperhaps. At least it does not prevent my going on to agree with thesaying of _Spiridion_, ... Do you remember?... 'Tout ce que l'hommeappelle inspiration, je l'appelle aussi revelation, ' ... If there isnot something too self-evident in it after all--my sole objection! Andis it not true that your inability to analyse the mental process inquestion, is one of the proofs of the fact of inspiration?--as thegods were known of old by not being seen to move their feet, --comingand going in an equal sweep of radiance. --And still more wonderfulthan the first transient great light you speak of, ... And far beyondany work of _re_flection, except in the pure analytical sense in whichyou use the word, ... Appears that gathering of light on light uponparticular points, as you go (in composition) step by step, till youget intimately near to things, and see them in a fullness andclearness, and an intense trust in the truth of them which you havenot in any sunshine of noon (called _real_!) but which you have _then_... And struggle to communicate:--an ineffectual struggle with mostwriters (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 ownmusic? You said once that you had had a false notion of music, or hadpractised it according to the false notions of other people: but didyou mean besides that you ever had meant to despise musicaltogether--because _that_, it is hard to set about trying to believeof you indeed. And then, you _can_ praise my verses for music?--Why, are you aware that people blame me constantly for wantingharmony--from Mr. Boyd who moans aloud over the indisposition of my'trochees' ... And no less a person than Mr. Tennyson, who said tosomebody who repeated it, that in the want of harmony lay the chiefdefect of the poems, 'although it might verily be retrieved, as hecould fancy that I had an ear by nature. ' Well--but I am pleased thatyou should praise me--right or wrong--I mean, whether I am right orwrong in being pleased! and I say so to you openly, although my beliefis that you are under a vow to our Lady of Loretto to make giddy withall manner of high vanities, some head, ... Not too strong for suchthings, but too low for them, ... Before you see again the embroideryon 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 scarcelya lawful weapon; and see if the Madonna may not signify so much toyou!--Seriously, you will not hurry too uncomfortably, oruncomfortably at all, about the transcribing? Another day, you know, will do as well--and patience is possible to me, if not 'native to thesoil. ' Also I am behaving very well in going out into the noise; not quiteout 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 littledeceitful; and people are apt to be heated and flushed in thisweather, 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?) andyour rose came quite alive and fresh, though in act of dropping itsbeautiful leaves, because of having to come to me instead of living onin your garden, as it intended. But I thank you--for this, and all, mydear 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 aboutmatters I am more or less ignorant of, but always ignorant. I tellyou plainly I only trench on them, and intrench in them, fromgaucherie, pure and respectable ... I should certainly growinstructive on the prospects of hay-crops and pasture-land, ifdeprived of this resource. And now here is a week to wait before Ishall have any occasion to relapse into Greek literature when I amthinking all the while, 'now I will just ask simply, what flatterythere was, ' &c. &c. , which, as I had not courage to say then, I keepto myself for shame now. This I will say, then--wait and know mebetter, as you will one long day at the end. Why I write now, is because you did not promise, as before, to let meknow how you are--this morning is miserably cold again--Will you tellme, 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 tocultivate a reputation for ignorance, I will respect your desire--andindeed the point of the deficiency in question being far above mysight 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 alittle having ever used such a word ... As far as I can recollect, andI have been trying to recollect, ... As that word of flattery. PerhapsI said something about your having vowed to make me vain by writingthis or that of my liking your verses and so on--and perhaps I said ittoo lightly ... Which happened because when one doesn't know whetherto laugh or to cry, it is far best, as a general rule, to laugh. Butthe serious truth is that it was all nonsense together what I wrote, and that, instead of talking of your making me vain, I should havetalked (if it had been done sincerely) of your humbling me--inasmuchas nothing does humble anybody so much as being lifted up too high. You know what vaulting Ambition did once for himself? and when it isdone for him by another, his fall is still heavier. And one moral ofall this general philosophy is, that if when your poems come, youpersist in giving too much importance to what I may have courage tosay of this or of that in them, you will make me a dumb critic and Ishall have no help for my dumbness. So I tell you beforehand--nothingextenuating nor exaggerating nor putting down in malice. I know somuch 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 ... Seemsgradually going and going--and really it would not be very strange(without that) if _I_ who was born a hero worshipper and have socontinued, and who always recognised your genius, should find itimpossible to bring out critical doxies on the workings of it. Well--Ishall 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 theweather. As long as the thermometer keeps above sixty I am content forone; and the roses are not quite dead yet, which they would have beenin the heat. And last and not least--may I ask if you were told thatthe pain in the head was not important (or was) in the causes, ... Andwas 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 littlesuspicious 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 tookexception to what I said about higher and lower, and I consented tothis much--that you should help seeing, if you could, our trueintellectual and moral relation each to the other, so long as youwould allow _me_ to see what _is_ there, fronting me. 'Is my eye evilbecause yours is not good?' My own friend, if I wished to 'make youvain, ' if having 'found the Bower' I did really address myself to thewise business of spoiling its rose-roof, --I think that at least wherethere was such a will, there would be also something not unlike away, --that I should find a proper hooked stick to tear down flowerswith, and write you other letters than these--quite, quite others, Ifeel--though I am far from going to imagine, even for a moment, whatmight 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 beingpositive when my Doctor is dubious; as for the causes, they areneither superfluity of study, nor fancy, nor care, nor any specialnaughtiness that I know how to amend. So if I bring you 'nothing tosignify' on Wednesday ... Though I hope to do more than that ... Youwill 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 isodd, --infinitely most of all, _sleeping_ do me the harm, --never anyvery 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 questionsanswered; and I was afraid of asking them over again. But it is worseto be afraid that you are not better at all in any essential manner(after all your assurances) and that the medical means have failed sofar. Did you go to somebody who knows anything?--because there is noexcuse, you see, in common sense, for not having the best and mostexperienced opinion when there is a choice of advice--and I amconfident that that pain should not be suffered to go on withoutsomething being done. What I said about _nerves_, related to what youhad told me of your mother's suffering and what you had fancied of therelation of it to your own, and not that I could be thinking aboutimaginary complaints--I wish I could. Not (either) that I believe inthe relation ... Because such things are not hereditary, are they? andthe bare coincidence is improbable. Well, but, I wanted particularlyto say this--_Don't bring the 'Duchess' with you on Wednesday. _ Ishall not expect anything, I write distinctly to tell you--and I wouldfar far rather that you did not bring it. You see it is just as Ithought--for that whether too much thought or study did or did notbring on the illness, ... Yet you admit that reading and writingincrease it ... As they would naturally do any sort of pain in thehead--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 fora whole peal of them, I hope and trust, before the winter. Now doadmit that this is reasonable, and agree reasonably to it. And if itdoes 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 littlechange of air--or even of a great change of air--if it should benecessary, or even expedient? Anything is better, you know ... Or ifyou don't know, _I_ know--than to be ill, really, seriously--I meanfor _you_ to be ill, who have so much to do and to enjoy in the worldyet ... And all those bells waiting to be hung! So that if you willagree to be well first, I will promise to be ready afterwards to helpyou in any thing I can do ... Transcribing or anything ... To get thebooks through the press in the shortest of times--and I am capable ofa great deal of that sort of work without being tired, having thehabit 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 (orscarcely 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 justthat one sheet--if one should be written--which is finished? ... Up tothis moment, you understand? finished _now_. And if I have tired and teazed you with all these words it is a badopportunity to take--and yet I will persist in saying through good andbad opportunities that I never did 'give cause' as you say, to yourbeing 'suspicious of my suspiciousness' as I believe I said before. Ideny my 'suspiciousness' altogether--it is not one of my faults. Noris it quite my fault that you and I should always be quarrelling aboutover-appreciations and under-appreciations--and after all I have nointerest nor wish, I do assure you, to depreciate myself--and you arenot to think that I have the remotest claim to the Monthyon prize forgood deeds in the way of modesty of self-estimation. Only when I knowyou better, as you talk of ... And when _you_ know _me_ too well, ... The right and the wrong of these conclusions will appear in a fullerlight than ever so much arguing can produce now. Is it unkindlywritten of me? _no_--I _feel_ it is not!--and that 'now and ever weare friends, ' (just as you think) _I_ think besides and am happy inthinking so, and could not be distrustful of you if I tried. So mayGod bless you, my ever dear friend--and mind to forget the 'Duchess'and to remember every good counsel!--Not that I do particularlyconfide in the medical oracles. They never did much more for _me_than, when my pulse was above a hundred and forty with fever, to giveme digitalis to make me weak--and, when I could not move withoutfainting (with weakness), to give me quinine to make me feverishagain. Yes--and they could tell from the stethoscope, how very littlewas really wrong in me ... If it were not on a vital organ--and how Ishould certainly live ... If I didn't die sooner. But then, nothing_has_ power over affections of the chest, except God and hiswinds--and I do hope that an obvious quick remedy may be found foryour 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 itoff to Thursday:--and if you should hear from Mr. Chorley that he iscoming to see _her and me together on any day_, do understand that itwas entirely her proposition and not mine, and that certainly it won'tbe acceded to, as far as _I_ am concerned; as I have explained to herfinally. I have been vexed about it--but she can see him down-stairsas she has done before--and if she calls me perverse and capricious(which she will do) I shall stop the reflection by thanking her againand again (as I can do sincerely) for her kindness and goodness incoming 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 minutesafter, its natural fate accordingly. Then on Saturday I thought totake health by storm, and walked myself half dead all themorning--about town too: last post-hour from this Thule of asuburb--4 P. M. On Saturdays, next expedition of letters, 8 A. M. OnMondays;--and then my real letter set out with the others--and, itshould seem, set at rest a 'wonder whether thy friend's questionsdeserved answering'--de-served--answer-ing--!) Parenthetically so much--I want most, though, to tell you--(leavingout any slightest attempt at thanking you) that I am much better, quite well to-day--that my doctor has piloted me safely through two orthree illnesses, and knows all about me, I do think--and that he talksconfidently of getting rid of all the symptoms complained of--and_has_ made a good beginning if I may judge by to-day. As for goingabroad, that is just the thing I most want to avoid (for a reason notso 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 thatshe would agree to take Thursday in change for Wednesday, --and just asI begin to wonder whether she can have received my letter at all, orwhether she may not have been vexed by it into taking a vengeance andadhering to her own devices; (for it appealed to her esprit de sexe onthe undeniable axiom of women having their way ... And she mightchoose to act it out!) just as I wonder over all this, and considerwhat a confusion of the elements it would be if you came and found herhere, and Mr. Chorley at the door perhaps, waiting for some of thelight of her countenance;--comes a note from Mr. Kenyon, to theeffect that _he_ will be here at four o'clock P. M. --and comes a finalnote from my aunt Mrs. Hedley (supposed to be at Brighton for severalmonths) 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 takeaway the doubt about Miss Mitford, and Mr. Kenyon remains--and takeaway Mr. Kenyon, and there is Mrs. Hedley--and thus it _must be forFriday_ ... Which will learn to be a fortunate day for thenonce--unless Saturday should suit you better. I do not speak ofThursday, because of the doubt about Miss Mitford--and if any harmshould happen to Friday, I will write again; but if you do not hearagain, 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 isreally, really to be trusted in--but you know, you have said so oftenthat you were better and better, without being really better, that itmakes people ... 'suspicious. ' Yet it is full amends for thedisappointment to hope ... Here I must break off or be too late. MayGod 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 nothearts, --so why should I try and speak? Friday is best day because nearest, but Saturday is next best--it isnext 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 onFriday, to-morrow, from _New Cross_, --or just beyond it, ElthamPark--to London for a few days, on account of the illness of one ofher children. I write in the greatest haste after Miss Mitford hasleft me ... And _so_ tired! to say this, that if you can and will comeon Saturday, ... Or if not on Monday or Tuesday, there is no reasonagainst 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 abetter feeling that tells me you must be far too tired for anothervisitor this week. What shall I decide on? Well--Saturday is said--but I will stay not quite so long, nor talknearly so loud as of old-times; nor will you, if you understandanything of me, fail to send down word should you be at allindisposed. I should not have the heart to knock at the door unless Ireally believed you would do that. Still saying this and providingagainst the other does not amount, I well know, to the generosity, orjustice 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 longto 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 goodreason against your coming to-morrow--so come, if it should not rain. If it rains, it _concludes_ for Monday ... Or Tuesday; whichever maybe clear of rain. I was tired on Wednesday by the confoundingconfusion of more voices than usual in this room; but the effectpassed off, and though Miss Mitford was with me for hours yesterday Iam not unwell to-day. And pray speak _bona verba_ about the awfulthings which are possible between this now and Wednesday. You continueto be better, I do hope? I am forced to the brevity you see, by thepost on one side, and my friends on the other, who have so longoverstayed the coming of your note--but it is enough to assure youthat 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 ifI do not make excuses for the keeping--but our sins are not always tobe measured by our repentance for them. Then I am well enough thismorning to have thought of going out till they told me it was not atall a right day for it ... Too windy ... Soft and delightful as theair seems to be--particularly after yesterday, when we had some winterback again in an episode. And the roses do not die; which is quitemagnanimous of them considering their reverses; and their buds arecoming out in most exemplary resignation--like birds singing in acage. Now that the windows may be open, the flowers take heart to livea little in this room. And think of my forgetting to tell you on Saturday that I had known ofa letter being received by somebody from Miss Martineau, who is atAmbleside at this time and so entranced with the lakes and mountainsas to be dreaming of taking or making a house among them, to live infor the rest of her life. Mrs. Trollope, you may have heard, hadsomething of the same nympholepsy--no, her daughter was 'settled' inthe neighbourhood--_that_ is the more likely reason for Mrs. Trollope!and the spirits of the hills conspired against her the first winterand almost slew her with a fog and drove her away to your Italy wherethe Oreadocracy has gentler manners. And Miss Martineau is practisingmesmerism and miracles on all sides she says, and counts on ArchbishopWhately as a new adherent. I even fancy that he has been to see her inthe character of a convert. All this from Mr. Kenyon. There's a strange wild book called the Autobiography of HeinrichStilling ... One of those true devout deep-hearted Germans who believeeverything, and so are nearer the truth, I am sure, than the wise whobelieve nothing; but rather over-German sometimes, and redolent ofsauerkraut--and _he_ gives a tradition ... Somewhere between mesmerismand mysticism, ... Of a little spirit with gold shoebuckles, who washis familiar spirit and appeared only in the sunshine I think ... Mottling it over with its feet, perhaps, as a child might snow. Takeaway the shoebuckles and I believe in the little spirit--don't _you_?But these English mesmerists make the shoebuckles quite conspicuousand insist on them broadly; and the Archbishops Whately may be drawnby _them_ (who can tell?) more than by the little spirit itself. Howis your head to-day? now really, and nothing extenuating? I will notask of poems, till the 'quite well' is _authentic_. May God bless youalways! 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 offas Saturday--as it was said, however, so let it be. And I will bringthe rest of the 'Duchess'--four or five hundred lines, --'heu, herbamala crescit'--(as I once saw mournfully pencilled on a white wall atAsolo)--but will you tell me if you quite remember the main of the_first_ part--(_parts_ there are none except in the necessary processof chopping up to suit the limits of a magazine--and I gave them asmuch as I could transcribe at a sudden warning)--because, if youplease, I can bring the whole, of course. After seeing _you_, that Saturday, I was caught up by a friend andcarried to see Vidocq--who did the honours of his museum of knives andnails and hooks that have helped great murderers to their purposes--hescarcely admits, I observe, an implement with only one attestation toits efficacy; but the one or two exceptions rather justify hislatitude in their favour--thus one little sort of dessert knife _did_only take _one_ life.... 'But then, ' says Vidocq, 'it was the man'sown mother's life, with fifty-two blows, and all for' (I think)'fifteen francs she had got?' So prattles good-naturedly Vidocq--oneof his best stories of that Lacénaire--'jeune homme d'un caractèrefort 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 fornothing! An old French friend of mine, a dear foolish, very French heart andsoul, is coming presently--his poor brains are whirling with mesmerismin which he believes, as in all other unbelief. He and I are to dinealone (I have not seen him these two years)--and I shall never be ableto keep from driving the great wedge right through his breast anddescending lower, from riveting his two foolish legs to the wintrychasm; for I that stammer and answer hap-hazard with you, getproportionately valiant and voluble with a mere cupful of Diderot'srinsings, and a man into the bargain. If you were prevented from leaving the house yesterday, assuredlyto-day you will never attempt such a thing--the wind, rain--all isagainst it: I trust you will not make the first experiment exceptunder really favourable auspices ... For by its success you willnaturally be induced to go on or leave off--Still you are _better_! Ifully believe, dare to believe, _that_ will continue. As for me, sinceyou ask--find me but something _to do_, and see if I shall not bewell!--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 nowwitness in the garden--I gathered at Rome, close to the fountain ofEgeria, a handful of _fennel_-seeds from the most indisputable plantof fennel I ever chanced upon--and, lo, they are come up ... Hemlock, or something akin! In two places, moreover. Wherein does hemlockresemble fennel? How could I mistake? No wonder that a stone's castoff from that Egeria's fountain is the Temple of the God Ridiculus. Well, on Saturday then--at three: and I will certainly bring theverses 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 forthe rest of the poem, don't mind about being very legible, or evenlegible in the usual sense; and remember how it is my boast to be ableto read all such manuscript writing as never is read by people whodon't like caviare. Now you won't mind? really I rather like blotsthan otherwise--being a sort of patron-saint of all manner ofuntidyness ... If Mr. Kenyon's reproaches (of which there's astereotyped edition) are justified by the fact--and he has a greatorgan 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 notparticular, I am afraid you are not well enough to be troubled bywriting, and writing and the thinking that comes with it--it would bewiser to wait till you are quite well--now wouldn't it?--and my fearis that the 'almost well' means 'very little better. ' And why, whenthere is no motive for hurrying, run any risk? Don't think that I willhelp you to make yourself ill. That I refuse to do even so much workas the 'little dessert-knife' in the way of murder, ... _do_ think! Soupon the whole, I expect nothing on Saturday from this distance--andif 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 amdelighted in the meanwhile to hear of the quantity of 'mala herba';and hemlock does not come up from every seed you sow, though you callit by ever such bad names. Talking of poetry, I had a newspaper 'in help of social and politicalprogress' sent to me yesterday from America--addressed to--just myname ... _poetess, London_! Think of the simplicity of those wildAmericans in 'calculating' that 'people in general' here in Englandknow what a poetess is!--Well--the post office authorities, afterdeep meditation, I do not doubt, on all probable varieties of thechimpanzee, and a glance to the Surrey Gardens on one side, and theZoological department of Regent's Park on the other, thought of'Poet's Corner, ' perhaps, and wrote at the top of the parcel, 'Enquireat 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 quitetouched me ... From Mr. Hemans--Charles, the son of Felicia--writtenwith so much feeling, that it was with difficulty I could say myperpetual 'no' to his wish about coming to see me. His mother's memoryis surrounded to him, he says, 'with almost a divine lustre'--and 'asit cannot be to those who knew the writer alone and not the woman. ' Doyou not like to hear such things said? and is it not better than yourtradition about Shelley's son? and is it not pleasant to know thatthat poor noble pure-hearted woman, the Vittoria Colonna of ourcountry, should be so loved and comprehended by some ... By one atleast ... Of her own house? Not that, in naming Shelley, I meant for amoment to make a comparison--there is not equal ground for it. Vittoria Colonna does not walk near Dante--no. And if you promisednever to tell Mrs. Jameson ... Nor Miss Martineau ... I would confideto you perhaps my secret profession of faith--which is ... Which is... That let us say and do what we please and can ... There _is_ anatural inferiority of mind in women--of the intellect ... Not by anymeans, of the moral nature--and that the history of Art and of geniustestifies to this fact openly. Oh--I would not say so to Mrs. Jamesonfor the world. I believe I was a coward to her altogether--for whenshe denounced carpet work as 'injurious to the mind, ' because it ledthe workers into 'fatal habits of reverie, ' I defended the carpet workas if I were striving _pro aris et focis_, (_I_, who am so innocent ofall that knowledge!) and said not a word for the poor reveries whichhave frayed away so much of silken time for me ... And let her goaway repeating again and again ... 'Oh, but _you_ may do carpet workwith impunity--yes! _because_ you can be writing poems all thewhile. '! Think of people making poems and rugs at once. There's complexmachinery for you! I told you that I had a sensation of cold blue steel from hereyes!--And yet I really liked and like and shall like her. She is verykind I believe--and it was my mistake--and I correct my impressions ofher more and more to perfection, as _you_ tell me who know more of herthan I. Only I should not dare, ... _ever_, I think ... To tell her that Ibelieve women ... All of us in a mass ... To have minds of quickermovement, but less power and depth ... And that we are under yourfeet, because we can't stand upon our own. Not that we should eitherbe quite under your feet! so you are not to be too proud, if youplease--and there is certainly some amount of wrong--: but it neverwill be righted in the manner and to the extent contemplated bycertain of our own prophetesses ... Nor ought to be, I hold inintimate persuasion. One woman indeed now alive ... And only _that_one down all the ages of the world--seems to me to justify for amoment an opposite opinion--that wonderful woman George Sand; who hassomething monstrous in combination with her genius, there is nodenying at moments (for she has written one book, Leila, which I couldnot read, though I am not easily turned back, ) but whom, in her goodand evil together, I regard with infinitely more admiration than allother women of genius who are or have been. Such a colossal nature inevery way, --with all that breadth and scope of faculty which womenwant--magnanimous, and loving the truth and loving the people--andwith that 'hate of hate' too, which you extol--so eloquent, and yetearnest as if she were dumb--so full of a living sense of beauty, andof noble blind instincts towards an ideal purity--and so proving aright even in her wrong. By the way, what you say of the Vidocq museumreminds 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 iswritten! And all because I kept my letter back ... From a _doubt aboutSaturday_--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--todo it justice--now is it? It may be super-belief as well. Not thatthere is not something ghastly and repelling to me in the thought ofDr. Elliotson's great bony fingers seeming to 'touch the stops' of awhole soul's harmonies--as in phreno-magnetism. And I should haveliked far better than hearing and seeing _that_, to have heard _you_pour the 'cupful of Diderot's rinsings, ' out, --and indeed I can fancya little that you and how you could do it--and break the cup tooafterwards! Another sheet--and for what? What is written already, if you read, you do so meritoriously--andit's an example of bad writing, if you want one in the poems. I amashamed, 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, forthe day is very fine, perhaps all the better for the wind: yet I gotup this morning sure of bad weather. I shall not try to tell you howanxious I am for the result and to know it. You will of course feelfatigued at first--but persevering, as you mean to do, do younot?--persevering, the event must be happy. I thought, and still think, to write to you about George Sand, andthe vexed question, a very Bermoothes of the 'Mental Claims of theSexes Relatively Considered' (so was called the, ... I do believe, ... Worst poem I ever read in my life), and Mrs. Hemans, and all and someof the points referred to in your letter--but 'by my fay, I cannotreason, ' to-day: and, by a consequence, I feel the more--so I say howI want news of you ... Which, when they arrive, I shall read'meritoriously'--do you think? My friend, what ought I to tell you onthat head (or the reverse rather)--of your discourse? I should like tomatch you at a fancy-flight; if I could, give you nearly as pleasantan assurance that 'there's no merit in the case, ' but the hot weatherand lack of wit get the better of my good will--besides, I rememberonce to have admired a certain enticing simplicity in the avowal ofthe Treasurer of a Charitable Institution at a Dinner got up in itsbehalf--the Funds being at lowest, Debt at highest ... In fact, thisDinner was the last chance of the Charity, and this Treasurer's speechthe main feature in the chance--and our friend, inspired by theemergency, went so far as to say, with a bland smile--'Do not let itbe supposed that we--_despise_ annual contributors, --we_rather_--solicit their assistance. ' All which means, do not thinkthat 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: soit should be, for you and me--and as it was in the beginning so it isstill. You are the--But you know and why should I tease myself withwords? Let me send this off now--and to-morrow some more, because I trust tohear 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 ismore surprising still--alive enough I mean, to write even _so_, to-night. But perhaps I say so with more emphasis, to console myselffor failing in my great ambition of getting into the Park and ofreaching Mr. Kenyon's door just to leave a card there vaingloriously, ... All which I did fail in, and was forced to turn back from thegates of Devonshire Place. The next time it will be betterperhaps--and this time there was no fainting nor anything very wrong... Not even cowardice on the part of the victim (be it recorded!) forone of my sisters was as usual in authority and ordered the turningback just according to her own prudence and not my selfwill. Only youwill not, any of you, ask me to admit that it was alldelightful--pleasanter work than what you wanted to spare me in takingcare of your roses on Saturday! don't ask _that_, and I will try itagain presently. I ought to be ashamed of writing this I and me-ism--but since yourkindness made it worth while asking about I must not be over-wise andsilent on my side. _Tuesday. _--Was it fair to tell me to write though, and be silent ofthe 'Duchess, ' and when I was sure to be so delighted--and _you knewit_? _I_ think not indeed. And, to make the obedience possible, I goon 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. Towhich I have answered that I believe you to be in England--thinking itstrange about the envelope; which, as far as I remember, was one ofthose long ones, used, the more conveniently to enclose to him backagain a MS. Of his own I had offered with another of his, by hisdesire, to _Colburn's Magazine_, as the productions of a friend ofmine, when he was in Germany and afraid of his proper fatalonymousness, yet in difficulty how to approach the magazines as anameless writer (you will not mention this of course). And when he wasin Germany, I remember, ... Writing just as your first letter came ... That I mentioned it to him, and was a little frankly proud of it! butsince, your name has not occurred once--not once, certainly!--and itis strange.... Only he _can't_ have heard of your having been here, and it _must_ have been a chance-remark--altogether! taking animaginary emphasis from my evil conscience perhaps. Talking of evils, how wrong of you to make that book for me! and how ill I thanked youafter all! Also, I couldn't help feeling more grateful still for theDuchess ... 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 thebeginning (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 youmean to try again: God bless you, all to be said or done--but, as Isay it, no vain word. No doubt it was a mere chance-thought, and _àpropos de bottes_ of Horne--neither he or any other _can_ know or evenfancy how it is. Indeed, though on other grounds I should be all soproud of being known for your friend by everybody, yet there's nodenying the deep delight of playing the Eastern Jew's part here inthis London--they go about, you know by travel-books, with the tokensof extreme destitution and misery, and steal by blind ways andby-paths to some blank dreary house, one obscure door in it--whichbeing well shut behind them, they grope on through a dark corridor orso, and then, a blaze follows the lifting a curtain or the like, forthey are in a palace-hall with fountains and light, and marble andgold, of which the envious are never to dream! And I, too, love tohave 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? thatdelights me, too--for every reason. But I fear I shall not be able tobring you the rest to-morrow--Thursday, my day--because I have beenbroken in upon more than one morning; nor, though much better in myhead, can I do anything at night just now. All will come righteventually, I hope, and I shall transcribe the other things you are tojudge. To-morrow then--only (and that is why I would write) do, do _know_ mefor what I am and treat me as I deserve in that _one_ respect, and _goout_, without a moment's thought or care, if to-morrow should suityou--leave word to that effect and I shall be as glad as if I saw youor more--_reasoned_ gladness, you know. Or you can write--though thatis 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 offormality, when I said what I did yesterday about not going out at thetime you were coming--surely you do; whatever you might signify to adifferent effect. If it were necessary for me to go out every day, ormost days even, it would be otherwise; but as it is, I may certainlykeep the day you come, free from the fear of carriages, let the sunshine its best or worst, without doing despite to you or injury tome--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 deliverme--one evil for another! for I confess with shame and contrition, that I never wait to enquire whether it thunders to the left or theright, to be frightened most ingloriously. Isn't it a disgrace toanyone with a pretension to poetry? Dr. Chambers, a part of whoseoffice it is, Papa says, 'to reconcile foolish women to theirfollies, ' used to take the side of my vanity, and discourse at lengthon the passive obedience of some nervous systems to electricalinfluences; but perhaps my faint-heartedness is besides traceable to ahalf-reasonable terror of a great storm in Herefordshire, where greatstorms 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 fatherbuilt himself, crowded with minarets and domes, and crowned with metalspires and crescents, to the provocation (as people used to observe)of every lightning of heaven. Once a storm of storms happened, and weall thought the house was struck--and a tree was so really, within twohundred yards of the windows while I looked out--the bark, rent fromthe top to the bottom ... Torn into long ribbons by the dreadful fieryhands, and dashed out into the air, over the heads of other trees, orleft twisted in their branches--torn into shreds in a moment, as aflower might be, by a child! Did you ever see a tree after it has beenstruck by lightning? The whole trunk of that tree was bare andpeeled--and up that new whiteness of it, ran the finger-mark of thelightning in a bright beautiful rose-colour (none of your rosesbrighter or more beautiful!) the fever-sign of the certaindeath--though the branches themselves were for the most partuntouched, and spread from the peeled trunk in their full summerfoliage; and birds singing in them three hours afterwards! And, inthat same storm, two young women belonging to a festive party werekilled on the Malvern Hills--each sealed to death in a moment with asign on the chest which a common seal would cover--only the sign onthem 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--andoh!--how amusing and instructive all this is to you! When my fathercame into the room to-day and found me hiding my eyes from thelightning, he was quite angry and called 'it disgraceful to anybodywho had ever learnt the alphabet'--to which I answered humbly that 'Iknew it was'--but if I had been impertinent, I _might_ have added thatwisdom does not come by the alphabet but in spite of it? Don't youthink so in a measure? _non obstantibus_ Bradbury and Evans? There's aprofane question--and ungrateful too ... After the Duchess--I exceptthe Duchess and her peers--and be sure she will be the world's Duchessand received as one of your most striking poems. Full of various powerthe poem is.... I cannot say how deeply it has impressed me--butthough I want the conclusion, I don't _wish_ for it; and in this, amreasonable for once! You will not write and make yourself ill--willyou? 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 anypiece of formality on your part that I deprecated; nor even yourover-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 youmust understand this much in me, how you can lay me under deepestobligation. I daresay you think you have some, perhaps many, to whomyour well-being is of deeper interest than to me. Well, if that beso, do for their sakes make every effort with the remotest chance ofproving serviceable to you; nor _set yourself against_ any littleirksomeness these carriage-drives may bring with them just at thebeginning; and you may say, if you like, 'how I shall delight thosefriends, if I can make this newest one grateful'--and, as from theknown quantity one reasons out the unknown, this newest friend will beone glow of gratitude, he knows that, if you can warm your finger-tipsand 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 beenlooking through a poem-book just now, and was told, under the head ofAlbum-verses alone, that for A. The writer would die, and for B. Dietoo but a crueller death, and for C. Too, and D. And so on. I wonderwhether they have since wanted to borrow money of him on the strengthof his professions. But you must remember we are in July; the 13th itis, and summer will go and cold weather stay ('_come_' forsooth!)--andnow is the time of times. Still I feared the rain would hinder you onFriday--but the thunder did not frighten me--for you: your father mustpardon me for holding most firmly with Dr. Chambers--his theory isquite borne out by my own experience, for I have seen a man it werefoolish to call a coward, a great fellow too, all but die away in athunderstorm, though he had quite science enough to explain why therewas no immediate danger at all--whereupon his younger brothersuggested that he should just go out and treat us to a repetition ofFranklin's experiment with the cloud and the kite--a well-timedproposition which sent the Explainer down with a white face into thecellar. What a grand sight your tree was--_is_, for I see it. Myfather has a print of a tree so struck--torn to ribbons, as youdescribe--but the rose-mark is striking and new to me. We had a goodstorm on our last voyage, but I went to bed at the end, as Ithought--and only found there had been lightning next day by the barepoles under which we were riding: but the finest mountain fit of thekind I ever saw has an unfortunately ludicrous association. It was atPossagno, among the Euganean Hills, and I was at a poor house in thetown--an old woman was before a little picture of the Virgin, and atevery fresh clap she lighted, with the oddest sputtering mutteringmouthful of prayer imaginable, an inch of guttery candle, which, theinstant the last echo had rolled away, she as constantly blew outagain for saving's sake--having, of course, to _light the smoke_ ofit, about an instant after that: the expenditure in wax at which theelements might be propitiated, you see, was a matter for curiouscalculation. I suppose I ought to have bought the whole taper for somefour or five centesimi (100 of which make 8d. English) and so kept thecountryside safe for about a century of bad weather. Leigh Hunt tellsyou a story he had from Byron, of kindred philosophy in a Jew who wassurprised by a thunderstorm while he was dining on bacon--he tried toeat between-whiles, but the flashes were as pertinacious as he, so atlast he pushed his plate away, just remarking with a compassionateshrug, 'all this fuss about a piece of pork!' By the way, what acharacteristic of an Italian _late_ evening is Summer-lightning--ithangs in broad slow sheets, dropping from cloud to cloud, so long indropping 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 allthe laughter and screaming and singing, the loud clink of the spoonsagainst the glasses, the way of calling for fresh 'sorbetti'--for allthe world is at open-coffee-house at such an hour--when suddenly thereis a stop in the sunshine, a blackness drops down, then a great whitecolumn of dust drives straight on like a wedge, and you see the acaciaheads snap off, now one, then another--and all the people scream 'labora, la bora!' and you are caught up in their whirl and landed insome interior, the man with the guitar on one side of you, and the boywith a cageful of little brown owls for sale, on the other--meanwhile, the thunder claps, claps, with such a persistence, and the rain, for afinale, falls in a mass, as if you had knocked out the whole bottom ofa huge tank at once--then there is a second stop--out comes thesun--somebody clinks at his glass, all the world bursts out laughing, and prepares to pour out again, --but _you_, the stranger, _do_ makethe best of your way out, with no preparation at all; whereupon youinfallibly put your foot (and half your leg) into a river, reallythat, of rainwater--that's a _Bora_ (and that comment of yours, ajustifiable 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 shallsee you on Wednesday, please remember, and bring you the rest of thepoem--that you should like it, gratifies me more than I will try tosay, but then, do not you be tempted by that pleasure of pleasingwhich I think is your besetting sin--may it not be?--and so cut me offfrom the other pleasure of being profited. As I told you, I like somuch 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, evenif they thought it worth while to want--but when I try and build agreat building I shall want you to come with me and judge it andcounsel me before the scaffolding is taken down, and while you have tomake your way over hods and mortar and heaps of lime, and tremblingtubs of size, and those thin broad whitewashing brushes I always had adesire to take up and bespatter with. And now goodbye--I am to see youon Wednesday I trust--and to hear you say you are better, stillbetter, much better? God grant that, and all else good for you, dearfriend, 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 'besettingsin'--it would be unnatural--and therefore you will not be surprisedto hear me deny the one imputed to me for mine. I deny it quite anddirectly. 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 afirst witness; this letter, I had yesterday, which calls me ... Let mesee how many hard names ... 'unbending, ' ... 'disdainful, ' ... 'coldhearted, ' ... 'arrogant, ' ... Yes, 'arrogant, as women always are whenmen grow humble' ... There's a charge against all possible andprobable petticoats beyond mine and through it! Not that either theyor mine deserve the charge--we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for Idon't pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins 'overthe way' and in antithesis. It's an undeserved charge, and unprovoked!and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented into illtemper; and shall remain unanswered, for _me_, ... And _should_, ... Even if I could write mortal epigrams, as your Lamia speaks them. Onlyit serves to help my assertion that people in general who knowsomething of me, my dear friend, are not inclined to agree with you inparticular, about my having an 'over-pleasure in pleasing, ' for abesetting sin. If you had spoken of my sister Henrietta indeed, youwould have been right--_so_ right! but for _me_, alas, my sins are nothalf as amiable, nor given to lean to virtue's side with half such agrace. And then I have a pretension to speak the truth like a Roman, even in matters of literature, where Mr. Kenyon says falseness is afashion--and really and honestly I should not be afraid ... I shouldhave no reason to be afraid, ... If all the notes and letters writtenby my hand for years and years about presentation copies of poems andother sorts of books were brought together and 'conferred, ' as theysay of manuscripts, before my face--I should not shrink and beashamed. Not that I always tell the truth as I see it--_but_ I _neverdo_ speak falsely with intention and consciousness--never--and I donot find that people of letters are sooner offended than others are, by the truth told in gentleness;--I do not remember to have offendedanyone in this relation, and by these means. Well!--but _from me toyou_; it is all different, you know--you must know how different itis. I can tell you truly what I think of this thing and of that thingin your 'Duchess'--but I must of a necessity hesitate and fall intomisgiving of the adequacy of my truth, so called. To judge at all of awork of yours, I must _look up to it_, and _far up_--because whateverfaculty _I_ have is included in your faculty, and with a great rim allround it besides! And thus, it is not at all from an over-pleasure inpleasing _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 simplythe consequence of a true comprehension of you and of me--and apartfrom it, I should not be abler, I think, but less able, to assist youin anything. I do wish you would consider all this reasonably, andunderstand it as a third person would in a moment, and consent not tospoil the real pleasure I have and am about to have in your poetry, bynailing me up into a false position with your gold-headed nails ofchivalry, which won't hold to the wall through this summer. Now youwill not answer this?--you will only understand it and me--and that Iam not servile but sincere, but earnest, but meaning what I say--andwhen I say I am afraid, you will believe that I am afraid; and when Isay I have misgivings, you will believe that I have misgivings--youwill _trust_ me so far, and give me liberty to breathe and feelnaturally ... According to my own nature. Probably, or certainlyrather, I have one advantage over you, ... One, of which women are notfond of boasting--that of _being older by years_--for the 'Essay onMind, ' which was the first poem published by me (and rather moreprinted than published after all), the work of my earliest youth, halfchildhood, half womanhood, was published in 1826 I see. And if I toldMr. Kenyon not to let you see that book, it was not for the date, butbecause Coleridge's daughter was right in calling it a mere 'girl'sexercise'; because it is just _that_ and no more, ... No expressionwhatever of my nature as it ever was, ... Pedantic, and in some thingspert, ... And such as altogether, and to do myself justice (which Iwould fain do of course), I was not in my whole life. Bad books arenever like their writers, you know--and those under-age books aregenerally bad. Also I have found it hard work to _get intoexpression_, though I began rhyming from my very infancy, much as youdid (and this, with no sympathy near to me--I have had to do withoutsympathy in the full sense--), and even in my 'Seraphim' days, mytongue clove to the roof of my mouth, --from leading so conventualrecluse a life, perhaps--and all my better poems were written lastyear, the very best thing to come, if there should be any life orcourage to come; I scarcely know. Sometimes--it is the real truth--Ihave haste to be done with it all. It is the real truth; however tosay 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 mistakesabout besetting sins and even besetting virtues--to such a set ofsmall delusions, that are sure to break one by one, like otherbubbles, as you draw in your breath, ... As I see by the law of my ownstar, my own particular star, the star I was born under, the star_Wormwood_, ... On the opposite side of the heavens from theconstellations of 'the Lyre and the Crown. ' In the meantime, it isdifficult to thank you, or _not_ to thank you, for all yourkindnesses--[Greek: algos de sigan]. Only Mrs. Jameson told me of LadyByron's saying 'that she knows she is burnt every day in effigy byhalf the world, but that the effigy is so unlike herself as to beinoffensive to her, ' and just so, or rather just in the converse of_so_, is it with me and your kindnesses. They are meant for quiteanother than I, and are too far to be so near. The comfort is ... Inseeing you throw all those ducats out of the window, (and how manyducats go in a figure to a 'dozen Duchesses, ' it is profane tocalculate) the comfort is that you will not be the poorer for it inthe end; since the people beneath, are honest enough to push them backunder the door. Rather a bleak comfort and occupation though!--and youmay find better work for your friends, who are (some of them) wearyeven unto death of the uses of this life. And now, you who aregenerous, _be_ generous, and take no notice of all this. I speak ofmyself, not of you so there is nothing for you to contradict ordiscuss--and if there were, you would be really kind and give me myway in it. Also you may take courage; for I promise not to vex you bythanking you against _your_ will, --more than may be helped. Some of this letter was written before yesterday and in reply ofcourse to yours--so it is to pass for two letters, being long enoughfor just six. Yesterday you must have wondered at me for being in sucha maze altogether about the poems--and so now I rise to explain thatit 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? Becausewhat I referred to was the exquisite page or two or three on thatsubject in the 'Pentameron. ' I do not remember anything else ofLandor's with the same bearing--do you? As to Montaigne, with thethreads of my thoughts smoothly disentangled, I can see nothingcoloured by him ... Nothing. Do bring all the _Hood_ poems of yourown--inclusive of the 'Tokay, ' because I read it in such haste as towhirl 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 amdelighted. And we must make speed--only taking care of your head--forI heard to-day that Papa and my aunt are discussing the question ofsending me off either to Alexandria or Malta for the winter. Oh--itis 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, Isuppose, _I_ should not be much consulted ... And all cases and placeswould seem better to me (if I were) than Madeira which the physiciansused to threaten me with long ago. So take care of your headache andlet us have the 'Bells' rung out clear before the summer ends ... Andpray don't say again anything about clear consciences or unclear ones, in granting me the privilege of reading your manuscripts--which is allclear privilege to me, with pride and gladness waiting on it. May Godbless you always my dear friend! E. B. B. You left behind your sister's little basket--but I hope you did notforget 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 breathbreaks bubbles, --ought you to write thus having restricted me as youonce did, and do still? You tie me like a Shrove-Tuesday fowl to astake and then pick the thickest cudgel out of your lot, and at myhead it goes--I wonder whether you remembered having predicted exactlythe same horror once before. 'I was to see you--and you were tounderstand'--_Do_ you? do you understand--my own friend--with thatsuperiority in years, too! For I confess to that--you need not throwthat in my teeth ... As soon as I read your 'Essay on Mind'--(which ofcourse I managed to do about 12 hours after Mr. K's positive refusalto keep his promise, and give me the book) from preface to the 'Visionof 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 inyears--what then? I have got nearer you considerably--(if onlynearer)--since then--and prove it by the remarks I make at favourabletimes--such as this, for instance, which occurs in a poem you are tosee--written some time ago--which advises nobody who thinks nobly ofthe Soul, to give, if he or she can help, such a good argument to thematerialist as the owning that any great choice of that Soul, which itis born to make and which--(in its determining, as it must, the wholefuture course and impulses of that soul)--which must endure for ever, even though the object that induced the choice shoulddisappear--owning, I say, that such a choice may be scientificallydetermined and produced, at any operator's pleasure, by a definitenumber of ingredients, so much youth, so much beauty, so much talent&c. &c. , with the same certainty and precision that another kind ofoperator will construct you an artificial volcano with so much steelfilings and flower of sulphur and what not. There is more in the soulthan rises to the surface and meets the eye; whatever does _that_, isfor this world's immediate uses; and were this world _all, all_ in uswould be producible and available for use, as it _is_ with the bodynow--but with the soul, what is to be developed _afterward_ is themain thing, and instinctively asserts its rights--so that when youhate (or love) you shall not be so able to explain 'why' ('You' is theordinary creature enough of my poem--_he_ might not be so able. ) There, I will write no more. You will never drop _me_ off the goldenhooks, I dare believe--and the rest is with God--whose finger I seeevery minute of my life. Alexandria! Well, and may I not as easily askleave 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 itcosts me pains, great pains to avoid writing better, astruthfuller--this you get is not the first begun. Come, you shall nothave the heart to blame me; for, see, I will send all my sins ofcommission with _Hood_, --blame _them_, tell me about them, andmeantime 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 earnestin the complaint you make--and this is really all I am going to sayto-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 godeepest, and which sometimes it becomes impossible, or over-hard tobear without deprecation:--as when, for instance, you talk of being'grateful' to _me_!!--Well! I will try that there shall be no more ofit--no more provocation of generosities--and so, (this once) as youexpress it, I 'will not have the heart to blame' you--except forreading my books against my will, which was very wrong indeed. Mr. Kenyon asked me, I remember, (he had a mania of sending my copybookliterature round the world to this person and that person, and I wasroused at last into binding him by a vow to do so no more) I rememberhe asked me ... 'Is Mr. Browning to be excepted?'; to which I answeredthat nobody was to be excepted--and thus he was quite right inresisting to the death ... Or to dinner-time ... Just as you werequite 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 sinsand yours gladly, to get into the _Hood_ poems which have delighted meso--and first to the St. Praxed's which is of course the finest andmost powerful ... And indeed full of the power of life ... And ofdeath. It has impressed me very much. Then the 'Angel and Child, ' withall its beauty and significance!--and the 'Garden Fancies' ... Some ofthe stanzas about the name of the flower, with such exquisite music inthem, and grace of every kind--and with that beautiful and musical useof the word 'meandering, ' which I never remember having seen used inrelation to _sound_ before. It does to mate with your '_simmering_quiet' in Sordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sureas you read it. Then I like your burial of the pedant so much!--youhave quite the damp smell of funguses and the sense of creeping thingsthrough and through it. And the 'Laboratory' is hideous as you meantto make it:--only I object a little to your tendency ... Which isalmost a habit, and is very observable in this poem I think, ... Ofmaking lines difficult for the reader to read ... See the openinglines of this poem. Not that music is required everywhere, nor in_them_ certainly, but that the uncertainty of rhythm throws thereader's mind off the _rail_ ... And interrupts his progress with youand your influence with him. Where we have not direct pleasure fromrhythm, and where no peculiar impression is to be produced by thechanges in it, we should be encouraged by the poet to _forget italtogether_; should we not? I am quite wrong perhaps--but you see howI do not conceal my wrongnesses where they mix themselves up with mysincere impressions. And how could it be that no one within my hearingever spoke of these poems? Because it is true that I never saw one ofthem--never!--except the 'Tokay, ' which is inferior to all; and that Iwas quite unaware of your having printed so much with Hood--or at all, except this 'Tokay, ' and this 'Duchess'! The world is very deaf anddumb, I think--but in the end, we need not be afraid of its notlearning its lesson. Could you come--for I am going out in the carriage, and will not stayto write of your poems even, any more to-day--could you come onThursday or Friday (the day left to your choice) instead of onWednesday? 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 Alexandriaseems discredited just now for Malta--and 'anything but Madeira, ' I goon 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 anythingelse without your leave). The temptation of reading the 'Essay' was more than I could bear: anda wonderful work it is every way; the other poems and theirmusic--wonderful! And you go out still--so continue better! I cannot write this morning--I should say too much and have to besorry 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? andnot attempt to do any of the writing which does harm--nor of thereading even, which may do harm--and something does harm to you, yousee--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 youdid not avoid, and which made you so unwell? Beseech you not to thinkthat I am going to aid and abet in this wronging of yourself, for Iwill not indeed--and I am only sorry to have given you my querulousqueries yesterday ... And to have omitted to say in relation to them, too, how they were to be accepted in any case as just passing thoughtsof 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) tostrike 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 bewhat I meant to strike out_--(there's ingenuity for you!). The poemdid, for the rest, as will be suggested to you, give me the verygreatest pleasure, and astonish me in two ways ... By theversification, mechanically considered; and by the successfulevolution of pure beauty from all that roughness and rudeness of thesin of the boar-pinner--successfully evolved, without softening onehoarse accent of his voice. But there is to be a pause now--you willnot write any more--no, nor come here on Wednesday, if coming into theroar of this London should make the pain worse, as I cannot helpthinking it must--and you were not well yesterday morning, youadmitted. You _will_ take care? And if there should be a wisdom ingoing away... ! Was it very wrong of me, doing what I told you of yesterday? Veryimprudent, I am afraid--but I never knew how to be prudent--and then, there is not a sharing of responsibility in any sort of imaginablemeasure; but a mere going away of so many thoughts, apart from thethinker, or of words, apart from the speaker, ... Just as I might giveaway a pocket-handkerchief to be newly marked and mine no longer. Idid 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 awriting of notes ... Of slips of paper ... Now on one subject, and nowon another ... Which were thrown into the great cauldron and boiled upwith other matter, and re-translated from my idiom where there seemeda need for it. And I am not much afraid of being ever guessedat--except by those Oedipuses who astounded me once for a moment andwere after all, I hope, baffled by the Sphinx--or ever betrayed;because besides the black Stygian oaths and indubitable honour of theeditor, he has some interest, even as I have the greatest, in beingsilent and secret. And nothing _is mine_ ... If something is _of me_... Or _from_ me, rather. Yet it was wrong and foolish, I seeplainly--wrong in all but the motives. How dreadful to write againsttime, and with a side-ways running conscience! And then the literatureof the day was wider than his knowledge, all round! And thebooksellers were barking distraction on every side!--I had some of themottos to find too! But the paper relating to you I never wasconsulted about--or in _one particular way_ it would have beenbetter, --as easily it might have been. May God bless you, my dearfriend, 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--yetsuch is my jealousy in these matters--so do I hate the material whenit 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 wayI could make you see the substantiality of those other favours yourefuse to recognise, and reality of the other gratitude you will notadmit. But truth is truth, and you are all generosity, and will drawnone 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 therewere another _you_ in the world, who had done all you have done andwhom I merely admired for that; if such an one had sent me such acriticism, so exactly what I want and can use and turn to good; youknow how I would have told you, my _you_ I saw yesterday, all aboutit, 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--allthe suggestions are to be adopted, the improvements accepted. I sothoroughly understand your spirit in this, that, just in thisbeginning, I should really like to have found some point in which Icould coöperate with your intention, and help my work by disputing theeffect of any alteration proposed, if it ought to be disputed--_that_would answer your purpose exactly as well as agreeing with you, --sothat the benefit to me were apparent; but this time I cannot disputeone point. All is for best. So much for this 'Duchess'--which I shall ever rejoice in--whereverwas a bud, even, in that strip of May-bloom, a live musical bee hangsnow. I shall let it lie (my poem), till just before I print it; andthen go over it, alter at the places, and do something for the placeswhere I (really) wrote anyhow, almost, to get done. It is an odd fact, yet characteristic of my accomplishings one and all in this kind, thatof _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 thoughindirect reflexes of the original idea, and so supersede properlyenough the necessity of its personal appearance, so to speak. But, asI conceived the poem, it consisted entirely of the Gipsy's descriptionof 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 towrite it, all their wild adventures would have come out and theinsignificance of the former vegetation have been deducible only--asthe 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 asnot to write if you can work for yourself, or save yourself fatigue. I_think_ before writing--or just after writing--such a sentence--butreflection only justifies my first feeling; I _would_ rather gowithout your letters, without seeing you at all, if that advantagedyou--my dear, first and last friend; my friend! And now--surely Imight dare say you may if you please get well through God'sgoodness--with persevering patience, surely--and this next winterabroad--which you must get ready for now, every sunny day, will younot? If I venture to weary you again with all this, is there not thecause of causes, and did not the prophet write that 'there was a tidein the affairs of men, which taken at the E. B. B. ' led on to thefortune of Your R. B. Oh, let me tell you in the bitterness of my heart, that it was only 4o'clock--that clock I enquired about--and that, ... No, I shall neversay with any grace what I want to say ... And now dare not ... Thatyou all but owe me an extra quarter of an hour next time: as in theEast you give a beggar something for a few days running--then you misshim; and next day he looks indignant when the regular dole falls andmurmurs--'And, for yesterday?'--Do I stay too long, I _want_ toknow, --too long for the voice and head and all but the spirit that maynot 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--andparticularly as there is not a word in it of what I most wanted toknow and want to know ... _how you are_--for you must observe, if youplease, that the very paper you pour such kindness on, was writtenafter your own example and pattern, when, in the matter of my'Prometheus' (such different wearying matter!), you took trouble forme and did me good. Judge from this, if even in inferior things, therecan be gratitude from you to me!--or rather, do not judge--but listenwhen I say that I am delighted to have met your wishes in writing as Iwrote; only that you are surely wrong in refusing to see a singlewrongness in all that heap of weedy thoughts, and that when you lookagain, you must come to the admission of it. One of the thistles isthe 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 wereright, and that there should be and must be no 'or' to disturb thelistening pause. Now _should_ there? And there was something else, which I forget at this moment--and something more than the somethingelse. Your account of the production of the poem interests me verymuch--and proves just what I wanted to make out from your statementsthe other day, and they refused, I thought, to let me, ... That youare more faithful to your first _Idea_ than to your first _plan_. Isit so? or not? 'Orange' is orange--but _which half_ of the orange isnot predestinated from all eternity--: is it _so_? _Sunday. _--I wrote so much yesterday and then went out, not knowingvery well how to speak or how to be silent (is it better to-day?) ofsome expressions of yours ... And of your interest in me--which aredeeply affecting to my feelings--whatever else remains to be said ofthem. And you know that you make great mistakes, ... Of fennel forhemlock, of four o'clocks for five o'clocks, and of other things ofmore consequence, one for another; and may not be quite right besidesas to my getting well '_if I please_!' ... Which reminds me a littleof what Papa says sometimes when he comes into this room unexpectedlyand convicts me of having dry toast for dinner, and declares angrilythat obstinacy and dry toast have brought me to my present condition, and that if I _pleased_ to have porter and beefsteaks instead, Ishould be as well as ever I was, in a month!... But where is the needof talking of it? What I wished to say was this--that if I get betteror worse ... As long as I live and to the last moment of life, I shallremember with an emotion which cannot change its character, all thegenerous interest and feeling you have spent on me--_wasted_ on me Iwas going to write--but I would not provoke any answering--and in oneobvious sense, it need not be so. I never shall forget these things, my dearest friend; nor remember them more coldly. God's goodness!--Ibelieve in it, as in His sunshine here--which makes my head ache alittle, while it comes in at the window, and makes most other peoplegayer--it does _me_ good too in a different way. And so, may God blessyou! and me in this ... Just this, ... That I may never have thesense, ... Intolerable in the remotest apprehension of it ... Ofbeing, in any way, directly or indirectly, the means of ruffling yoursmooth path by so much as one of my flint-stones!--In the meantime youdo not tire me indeed even when you go later for sooner ... And I donot tire myself even when I write longer and duller letters to you (ifthe last is possible) than the one I am ending now ... As the mostgrateful (leave me that word) of your friends. E. B. B. How could you think that I should speak to Mr. Kenyon of the book? AllI ever said to him has been that you had looked through my'Prometheus' for me--and that I was _not disappointed in you_, thesetwo 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 sayall? I am most grateful, most happy--most happy, come what will! Will you let me try and answer your note to-morrow--before Wednesdaywhen 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 thesame, 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 toyour understanding me almost beyond the warrant of any humancapacity--but as I began, so I shall end. I shall believe you rememberwhat I am forced to remember--you who do me the superabundant justiceon every possible occasion, --you will never do me injustice when I sitby you and talk about Italy and the rest. --To-day I cannot write--though I am very well otherwise--but I shallsoon get into my old self-command and write with as much 'ineffectualfire' as before: but meantime, _you_ will write to me, I hope--tellingme how you are? I have but one greater delight in the world than inhearing 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 isby no means heavily _on_ it; but lest I should forget to write it atall by not writing it at once. What could you mean, ... I have beenthinking since you went away ... By applying such a grave expressionas having a thing 'off your mind' to that foolish subject of thestupid book (mine), and by making it worth your while to accountlogically for your wish about my not mentioning it to Mr. Kenyon? Youcould not fancy for one moment that I was vexed in the matter of thebook? or in the other matter of your wish? Now just hear me. Iexplained to you that I had been silent to Mr. Kenyon, first becausethe fact was so; and next and a little, because I wanted to show how Ianticipated your wish by a wish of my own ... Though from a differentmotive. _Your_ motive I really did take to be (never suspecting mydear kind cousin of treason) to be a natural reluctancy of beingconvicted (forgive me!) of such an arch-womanly curiosity. For my ownmotive ... Motives ... They are more than one ... You must trust me;and refrain as far as you can from accusing me of an over-love ofEleusinian mysteries when I ask you to say just as little about yourvisits here and of me as you find possible ... _even to Mr. Kenyon_... As _to every other person whatever_. As you know ... And yet morethan you know ... I am in a peculiar position--and it does not followthat you should be ashamed of my friendship or that I should not beproud of yours, if we avoid making it a subject of conversation inhigh places, or low places. There! _that_ is my request to you--orcommentary on what you put 'off your mind' yesterday--probably quiteunnecessary as either request or commentary; yet said on the chance ofits 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 andright on that account of your health, to go with Mr. Chorley? You canneither work nor enjoy while you are subject to attacks of thekind--and besides, and without reference to your present suffering andinconvenience, you _ought not_ to let them master you and gatherstrength from time and habit; I am sure you ought not. Worse last weekthan 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 deliveredfrom you; by these sixteen heads of the discourse of one of us, written before your letter came. Ah, but I am serious--and you willconsider--will you not? what is best to be done? and do it. You couldwrite to me, you know, from the end of the world; if you could takethe thought of me so far. And _for_ me, no, and yet yes, --I _will_ say this much; that I am notinclined to do you injustice, but justice, when you come here--thejustice of wondering to myself how you can possibly, possibly, care tocome. Which is true enough to be _unanswerable_, if you please--or Ishould not say it. '_As I began, so I shall end_--' Did you, as I hopeyou did, thank your sister for Flush and for me? When you were gone, he graciously signified his intention of eating the cakes--brought thebag to me and emptied it without a drawback, from my hand, cake aftercake. And I forgot the basket once again. And talking of Italy and the cardinals, and thinking of some cardinalpoints 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 theBaptists, instead of the Independents, the holders of the Independentchurch principle. No--not '_schismatical_, ' I hope, hating as I dofrom 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 thisChristianity so called--and caring very little for most dogmas anddoxies in themselves--too little, as people say to me sometimes, (whenthey send me 'New Testaments' to learn from, with very kindintentions)--and believing that there is only one church in heaven andearth, with one divine High Priest to it; let exclusive religionistsbuild what walls they please and bring out what chrisms. But I used togo with my father always, when I was able, to the nearest dissentingchapel of the Congregationalists--from liking the simplicity of thatpraying and speaking without books--and a little too from dislikingthe theory of state churches. There is a narrowness among thedissenters which is wonderful; an arid, grey Puritanism in the cleftsof their souls: but it seems to me clear that they know what the'liberty of Christ' _means_, far better than those do who callthemselves 'churchmen'; and stand altogether, as a body, on higherground. And so, you see, when I talked of the sixteen points of mydiscourse, it was the foreshadowing of a coming event, and you havehad it at last in the whole length and breadth of it. But it is not myfault if the wind began to blow so that I could not go out--as Iintended--as I shall do to-morrow; and that you have received mydulness in a full libation of it, in consequence. My sisters said ofthe roses you blasphemed, yesterday, that they 'never saw such flowersanywhere--anywhere here in London--' and therefore if I had thought somyself 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 forgetwhat 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 tocommunicate the whole story (though it would at once clear me from thecharge of over-curiosity ... If I much cared for _that_!)--I made myfirst request in order to prevent your getting at any part of it from_him_ which should make my withholding seem disingenuous for themoment--that is, till my explanation came, if it had an opportunity ofcoming. And then, when I fancied you were misunderstanding the reasonof that request--and supposing I was ambitious of making a higherfigure in _his_ eyes than your own, --I then felt it 'on my mind' andso 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 Ithought it pedantry and worse to hold by my words and increase theirfault. You have forgiven me that one mistake, and I only refer to itnow because if you should ever make _that_ a precedent, and put anyleast, most trivial word of mine under the same category, you wouldwrong me as you never wronged human being:--and that is done with. Forthe other matter, --the talk of my visits, it is impossible that anyhint of them can ooze out of the only three persons in the world towhom I ever speak of them--my father, mother and sister--to whom myappreciation of your works is no novelty since some years, and whom Imade comprehend exactly your position and the necessity for theabsolute silence I enjoined respecting the permission to see you. Youmay depend on them, --and Miss Mitford is in your keeping, mind, --anddear Mr. Kenyon, if there should be never so gentle a touch of'garrulous God-innocence' about those kind lips of his. Come, let mesnatch at _that_ clue out of the maze, and say how perfect, absolutelyperfect, are those three or four pages in the 'Vision' which presentthe Poets--a line, a few words, and the man there, --one twang of thebow and the arrowhead in the white--Shelley's 'white ideal allstatue-blind' is--perfect, --how can I coin words? And dear deaf oldHesiod--and--all, all are perfect, perfect! But 'the Moon's regalitywill 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 ofIndependent Dissenting Chapels? And you confess this to _me_--whosefather and mother went this morning to the very Independent Chapelwhere they took me, all those years back, to be baptised--and wherethey heard, this morning, a sermon preached by the very minister whoofficiated on that other occasion! Now will you be particularlyencouraged by this successful instance to bring forward any otherpoint of disunion between us that may occur to you? Please do not--forso sure as you begin proving that there is a gulf fixed between us, sosure shall I end proving that ... Anne Radcliffe avert it!... That youare just my sister: not that I am much frightened, but there are suchsurprises in novels!--Blame the next, --yes, now this _is_ to be realblame!--And I meant to call your attention to it before. Why, why, doyou blot out, in that unutterably provoking manner, whole lines, notto say words, in your letters--(and in the criticism on the'Duchess')--if it is a fact that you have a second thought, does itcease to be as genuine a fact, that first thought you please toefface? Why give a thing and take a thing? Is there no significance inputting on record that your first impression was to a certain effectand your next to a certain other, perhaps completely opposite one? Ifany proceeding of yours could go near to deserve that harsh word'impertinent' which you have twice, in speech and writing, beenpleased to apply to your observations on me; certainly _this_ does goas near as can be--as there is but one step to take from Southamptonpier to New York quay, for travellers Westward. Now will you lay thisto heart and perpend--lest in my righteous indignation I [some wordseffaced here]! For my own health--it improves, thank you! And I shallgo abroad all in good time, never fear. For my 'Bells, ' Mr. Chorleytells me there is no use in the world of printing them before Novemberat earliest--and by that time I shall get done with these Romances andcertainly one Tragedy (_that_ could go to press next week)--in proofof which I will bring you, if you let me, a few more hundreds of linesnext Wednesday. But, 'my poet, ' if I would, as is true, sacrifice allmy works to do your fingers, even, good--what would I not offer up toprevent you staying ... Perhaps to correct my very verses ... Perhapsread and answer my very letters ... Staying the production of more'Berthas' and 'Caterinas' and 'Geraldines, ' more great and beautifulpoems of which I shall be--how proud! Do not be punctual in payingtithes of thyme, mint, anise and cummin, and leaving unpaid the realweighty dues of the Law; nor affect a scrupulous acknowledgment of'what you owe me' in petty manners, while you leave me to settle sucha charge, as accessory to the hiding the Talent, as best I can! I havethought 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 meand 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 yourbest things' you said, I think? Yet you are better now than then. Dearest friend, _I_ intend to write more, and very likely be praisedmore, now I care less than ever for it, but still more do I look tohave you ever before me, in your place, and with more poetry and morepraise still, and my own heartfelt praise ever on the top, like aflower 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 thehand 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 thestory of the one in the 'Duchess'--and in fact it is almost worthtelling to a metaphysician like you, on other grounds, that you maydraw perhaps some psychological good from the absurdity of it. Hear, then. When I had done writing the sheet of annotations and reflectionson your poem I took up my pencil to correct the passages reflected onwith the reflections, by the crosses you may observe, just glancingover the writing as I did so. Well! and, where that erasure is, Ifound a line purporting to be extracted from your 'Duchess, ' withsundry acute criticisms and objections quite undeniably strong, following after it; only, to my amazement, as I looked and looked, theline so acutely objected to and purporting, as I say, to, be takenfrom 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 amystery, both poet and critic together--and one so neutralizing theother, that I took all that pains you remark upon to cross myself outin my double capacity, ... And am now telling the story of itnotwithstanding. And there's an obvious moral to the myth, isn'tthere? for critics who bark the loudest, commonly bark at their ownshadow in the glass, as my Flush used to do long and loud, before hegained experience and learnt the [Greek: gnôthi seauton] in theapparition of the brown dog with the glittering dilating eyes, ... Andas _I_ did, under the erasure. And another moral springs up of itselfin this productive ground; for, you see, ... '_quand je m'efface iln'ya pas grand mal_. ' And I am to be made to work very hard, am I? But you should rememberthat if I did as much writing as last summer, I should not be able todo much else, ... I mean, to go out and walk about ... For really Ithink I _could_ manage to read your poems and write as I am writingnow, 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 thenovelty of living more in the outer life for the last few months thanI have done for years before, make me idle and inclined to beidle--and everybody is idle sometimes--even _you_ perhaps--are younot? For me, you know, I do carpet-work--ask Mrs. Jameson--and I neverpretend to be in a perpetual motion of mental industry. Still it maynot 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 ofthe romance-poem which is to be some day if I live for it--lyrics forthe most part, which lie written illegibly in pure Egyptian--oh, thereis time enough, and too much perhaps! and so let me be idle a littlenow, and enjoy your poems while I can. It is pure enjoyment and mustbe--but you do not know how much, or you would not talk as you dosometimes ... So wide of any possible application. And do _not_ talk again of what you would 'sacrifice' for _me_. If youaffect me by it, which is true, you cast me from you farther than everin the next thought. _That_ is true. The poems ... Yours ... Which you left with me, --are full of variouspower and beauty and character, and you must let me have my owngladness from them in my own way. Now I must end this letter. Did you go to Chelsea and hear the divinephilosophy? _Tell me the truth always_ ... Will you? I mean such truths as may bepainful 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 withyou as with _me_--not remembering how different are the causes thatoperate against us; different in kind as in degree:--_so_ much readinghurts me, for instance, --whether the reading be light or heavy, fiction or fact, and _so_ much writing, whether my own, such as youhave seen, or the merest compliment-returning to the weary tribe thatexact it of one. But your health--that before all!... As assuring alleventually ... And on the other accounts you must know! Never, pray, _pray_, never lose one sunny day or propitious hour to 'go out or walkabout. ' But do not surprise _me_, one of these mornings, by 'walking'up to me when I am introduced' ... Or I shall infallibly, in spite ofall the after repentance and begging pardon--I shall [words effaced]. So here you learn the first 'painful truth' I have it in my power totell you! I sent you the last of our poor roses this morning--considering that Ifairly owed that kindness to them. Yes, I went to Chelsea and found dear Carlyle alone--his wife is inthe country where he will join her as soon as his book's last sheetreturns corrected and fit for press--which will be at the month's endabout. He was all kindness and talked like his own self while he mademe tea--and, afterward, brought chairs into the little yard, ratherthan garden, and smoked his pipe with apparent relish; at night hewould walk as far as Vauxhall Bridge on my way home. If I used the word 'sacrifice, ' you do well to object--I can imaginenothing 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. Ilooked down into the heart of the roses and turned the carnations overand over to the peril of their leaves, and in vain! Not a word do Ideserve to-day, I suppose! And yet if I don't, I don't deserve theflowers either. There should have been an equal justice done to mydemerits, O Zeus with the scales! After all I do thank you for these flowers--and they arebeautiful--and they came just in a right current of time, just when Iwanted them, or something like them--so I confess _that_ humbly, anddo thank you, at last, rather as I ought to do. Only you ought not togive away all the flowers of your garden to _me_; and your sisterthinks so, be sure--if as silently as you sent them. Now I shall notwrite any more, not having been written to. What with the Wednesday'sflowers and these, you may think how I in this room, look down on thegardens of Damascus, let _your Jew_[1] say what he pleases of_them_--and the Wednesday's flowers are as fresh and beautiful, I mustexplain, as the new ones. They were quite supererogatory ... The newones ... In the sense of being flowers. Now, the sense of what I amwriting seems questionable, does it not?--at least, more so, than thenonsense of it. Not a word, even under the little blue flowers!!!-- E. B. B. [Footnote 1: 'R. Benjamin of Tudela' added in Robert Browning'shandwriting. ] _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 anyhope such poor efforts as I am restricted to, can please you orought. ) And that you should care for the note that was not there!--ButI was surprised by the summons to seal and deliver, since time and thecarrier were peremptory--and so, I dared divine, almost, I should hearfrom 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 toHolborn, of all places, --not to pluck strawberries in the Bishop'sGarden like Richard Crouchback, but to get a book--and there I carriedmy note, thinking to expedite its delivery: this notelet of yours, quite as little in its kind as my blue flowers, --this came lastevening--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 youto account for--that where it confesses to having done 'somework--only nothing worth speaking of. ' Just see, --will you be firstand only compact-breaker? Nor misunderstand me here, please, ... As Isaid, I am quite rejoiced that you go out now, 'walk about' now, andput off the writing that will follow thrice as abundantly, all becauseof the stopping to gather strength ... So I want no new word, not tosay poem, not to say the romance-poem--let the 'finches in theshrubberies grow restless in the dark'--_I_ am inside with the lightsand music: but what is done, is done, _pas vrai_? And 'worth' is, dearmy friend, pardon me, not in your arbitration quite. Let me tell you an odd thing that happened at Chorley's the othernight. I must have mentioned to you that I forget my own verses sosurely after they are once on paper, that I ought, withoutaffectation, to mend them infinitely better, able as I am to bringfresh eyes to bear on them--(when I say 'once on paper' that is justwhat I mean and no more, for after the sad revising begins they doleave their mark, distinctly or less so according to circumstances). Well, Miss Cushman, the new American actress (clever andtruthful-looking) was talking of a new novel by the Dane Andersen, heof the 'Improvisatore, ' which will reach us, it should seem, intranslation, _viâ_ America--she had looked over two or three proofs ofthe work in the press, and Chorley was anxious to know something aboutits character. The title, she said, was capital--'Only aFiddler!'--and she enlarged on that word, 'Only, ' and itssignificance, so put: and I quite agreed with her for several minutes, till first one reminiscence flitted to me, then another and at last Iwas 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, Ibelieve--yes, and in five acts--'Only an Actress'--and from thattime, some two years or more ago to this, I have been every wayrelieved of it'!--And when I got home, next morning, I made a darkpocket in my russet horror of a portfolio give up its dead, and therefronted me 'Only a Player-girl' (the real title) and the sayings anddoings of her, and the others--such others! So I made haste and justtore out one sample-page, being Scene the First, and sent it to ourfriend as earnest and proof I had not been purely dreaming, as mightseem to be the case. And what makes me recall it now is, that it wasRussian, and about a fair on the Neva, and booths and droshkies andfish-pies and so forth, with the Palaces in the back ground. And inChorley's _Athenæum_ of yesterday you may read a paper of _very_simple moony stuff about the death of Alexander, and that Sir JamesWylie I have seen at St. Petersburg (where he chose to mistake me foran Italian--'M. L'Italien' he said another time, looking up from hiscards).... So I think to tell you. Now I may leave off--I shall see you start, on Tuesday--hear perhapssomething definite about your travelling. Do you know, 'Consuelo' wearies me--oh, wearies--and the fourth volumeI have all but stopped at--there lie the three following, but whocares about Consuelo after that horrible evening with the Venetianscamp, (where he bullies her, and it does answer, after all she says)as we say? And Albert wearies too--it seems all false, allwriting--not the first part, though. And what easy work thesenovelists have of it! a Dramatic poet has to _make_ you love or admirehis men and women, --they must _do_ and _say_ all that you are to seeand hear--really do it in your face, say it in your ears, and it iswholly for _you_, in _your_ power, to _name_, characterize and sopraise or blame, _what_ is so said and done ... If you don't perceiveof yourself, there is no standing by, for the Author, and telling you. But with these novelists, a scrape of the pen--out blurting of aphrase, and the miracle is achieved--'Consuelo possessed to perfectionthis and the other gift'--what would you more? Or, to leave dearGeorge Sand, pray think of Bulwer's beginning a 'character' byinforming you that lone, or somebody in 'Pompeii, ' 'was endowed with_perfect_ genius'--'genius'! What though the obliging informer mightwrite his fingers off before he gave the pitifullest proof that thepoorest spark of that same, that genius, had ever visited _him_?_Ione_ has it '_perfectly_'--perfectly--and that is enough! Zeus withthe scales? with the false weights! And now--till Tuesday good-bye, and be willing to get well as (lettingme send _porter_ instead of flowers--and beefsteaks too!) soon as maybe! 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 Ibe asked to write ... For instance ... 'before Tuesday?' And I didmean to say before to-day, that I wish you never would write to mewhen you are not _quite well_, as once or twice you have done if notmuch oftener; because there is not a necessity, ... And I do notchoose that there should ever be, or _seem_ a necessity, ... Do youunderstand? And as a matter of personal preference, it is natural forme to like the silence that does not hurt you, better than the speechthat does. And so, remember. And talking of what may 'hurt' you and me, you would smile, as I haveoften done in the midst of my vexation, if you knew the persecution Ihave been subjected to by the people who call themselves (_lucus a nonlucendo_) 'the faculty, ' and set themselves against the exercise ofother people's faculties, as a sure way to death and destruction. Themodesty and simplicity with which one's physicians tell one not tothink 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 hadcarried the inkstand out of the room--'Now, ' he said, 'you will havesuch a pulse to-morrow. ' He gravely thought poetry a sort ofdisease--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--whichwas true (he maintained) even of men--he had studied the physiology ofpoets, 'quotha'--but that for women, it was a mortal malady andincompatible with any common show of health under any circumstances. And then came the damnatory clause in his experience ... That he hadnever known 'a system' approaching mine in 'excitability' ... ExceptMiss Garrow's ... A young lady who wrote verses for Lady Blessington'sannuals ... And who was the only other female rhymer he had had themisfortune of attending. And she was to die in two years, though shewas dancing quadrilles then (and has lived to do the same by thepolka), and _I_, of course, much sooner, if I did not ponder thesethings, 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 waspersecuted and pestered ... Vexed thoroughly sometimes ... My ownfamily, instructed to sing the burden out all day long--until the timewhen the subject was suddenly changed by my heart being broken by thatgreat stone that fell out of Heaven. Afterwards I was let do anythingI could best ... Which was very little, until last year--and theworking, last year, did much for me in giving me stronger roots downinto life, ... Much. But think of that absurd reasoning that wentbefore!--the _niaiserie_ of it! For, granting all the premises allround, it is not the _utterance_ of a thought that _can_ hurt anybody;while only the utterance is dependent on the will; and so, what canthe taking away of an inkstand do? Those physicians are suchmetaphysicians! It's curious to listen to them. And it's wise to leaveoff 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, onpurpose to make room for the divine philosophy. Which reminds me (thegoing to Chelsea) that my brother Henry confessed to me yesterday, with shame and confusion of face, to having mistaken and taken yourumbrella 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 Marianain 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 fatheris out all day and my brothers and sisters are in and out, and withtoo large a public of noisy friends for me to bear, ... And I see themonly at certain hours, ... Except, of course, my sisters. And then asyou have 'a reputation' and are opined to talk generally in blankverse, it is not likely that there should be much irreverent rushinginto this room when you are known to be in it. The flowers are ... So beautiful! Indeed it was wrong, though, to sendme the last. It was not just to the lawful possessors and enjoyers ofthem. That it was kind to _me_ I do not forget. You are too teachable a pupil in the art of obliterating--and _omneignotum pro terrifico_ ... And therefore I won't frighten you bywalking to meet you for fear of being frightened myself. So good-bye until Tuesday. I ought not to make you read all this, Iknow, whether you like to read it or not: and I ought not to havewritten it, having no better reason than because I like to write onand 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 andnecessary 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 thegreat, great good I get by your kindness strikes me less than thatkindness. 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: theplains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters--and thePriests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from twolines of a legend that delighted my infancy, and now instruct mymaturer years in pretty nearly all they boast of the semi-mythologicera referred to--'In London town, when reigned King Lud, His lordswent stomping thro' the mud'--would all historic records were half aspicturesque!) But you know, yes, _you_ know you are too indulgent by far--and treatthese roughnesses as if they were advanced to many a stage! Meantimethe 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 thoughtthere was a mistake somewhere, but that it was _yours_, who hadwritten one word, meaning to write another. 'Cower' puts it all rightof course. But is there an English word of a significance differentfrom 'stamp, ' in 'stomp?' Does not the old word King Lud's menstomped withal, claim identity with our 'stamping. ' The _a_ and _o_used to 'change about, ' you know, in the old English writers--seeChaucer for it. Still the 'stomp' with the peculiar significance, isbetter of course than the 'stamp' even with a rhyme ready for it, andI dare say you are justified in daring to put this old wine into thenew 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 understoodperfectly, through it all, that it is _unfinished_, and in a roughstate round the edges. I could not help seeing _that_, even if I werestill blinder than when I read 'Lower' for 'Cower. ' But do not, I ask of you, speak of my 'kindness' ... Mykindness!--mine! It is 'wasteful and ridiculous excess' andmis-application to use such words of me. And therefore, talking of'compacts' and the 'fas' and 'nefas' of them, I entreat you to knowfor the future that whatever I write of your poetry, if it isn't to becalled 'impertinence, ' isn't to be called 'kindness, ' any more, ... _afortiori_, as people say when they are sure of an argument. Now, willyou 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 breakinginto russet portfolios unobserved! Only a god for the Epicurean, atbest, can you be? That Miss Cushman went to Three Mile Cross the otherday, and visited Miss Mitford, and pleased her a good deal, I fanciedfrom what she said, ... And with reason, from what _you_ say. And'Only a Fiddler, ' as I forgot to tell you yesterday, is announced, youmay see in any newspaper, as about to issue from the English press byMary Howitt's editorship. So we need not go to America for it. But ifyou complain of George Sand for want of art, how could you bearAndersen, 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 abook by putting so many pages together, ... Just so!--For the rest, there can be no disagreeing with you about the comparative difficultyof novel-writing and drama-writing. I disagree a little, lower down inyour letter, because I could not deny (in my own convictions) acertain proportion of genius to the author of 'Ernest Maltravers, ' and'Alice' (did you ever read those books?), even if he had moreimpotently tried (supposing it to be possible) for the dramaticlaurel. In fact his poetry, dramatic or otherwise, is 'nought'; butfor the prose romances, and for 'Ernest Maltravers' above all, I mustlift up my voice and cry. And I read the _Athenæum_ about your SirJames 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 thevents 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 ofcorrecting my verses, as in many other points--but on such points, youlift a finger to me and I am dumb.... Am I not to be allowed a wordhere 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 bestof the last chorus--get its oneness which you do--and, while perchedthere an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormousenthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought, --I and a cousin ofmine)--whose whole body broke out in billow, heaved and swayed in theperfection of his delight, hands, head, feet, all tossing and strivingto utter what possessed him. Well--next week, we went again to theOpera, and again mounted at the proper time, but the crowd was_greater_, and our mild great faced white haired red cheeked Germanwas not to be seen, not at first--for as the glory was at its full, mycousin twisted me round and made me see an arm, only an arm, all thebody of its owner being amalgamated with a dense crowd on each side, before, and--not behind, because they, the crowd, occupied the lastbenches, over which we looked--and this arm waved and exulted as if'for the dignity of the whole body, '--relieved it of its dangerousaccumulation of repressed excitability. When the crowd broke up allthe rest of the man disengaged itself by slow endeavours, and therestood 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 inconventional language with the customary silliness is styled a_woman's_ book, in its merits and defects, --and supremely timid in allthe points where one wants, and has a right to expect, some _fruit_ ofall the pretence and George Sand_ism_. These are occasions when onedoes say, in the phrase of her school, 'que la Femme parle!' or whatis better, let her act! and how does Consuelo comfort herself on suchan emergency? Why, she bravely lets the uninspired people throw downone by one their dearest prejudices at her feet, and then, like avery actress, picks them up, like so many flowers, returning them tothe breast of the owners with a smile and a courtesy and trips off thestage with a glance at the Pit. Count Christian, Baron Frederic, Baroness--what is her name--all open their arms, and Consuelo will notconsent to entail disgrace &c. &c. No, you say--she leaves them inorder to solve the problem of her true feeling, whether she can reallylove Albert; but remember that this is done, (that is, so much of itas ever _is_ done, and as determines her to accept his hand at thevery last)--this is solved sometime about the next morning--orearlier--I forget--and in the meantime, Albert gets that 'benefit ofthe doubt' of which chapter the last informs you. As for thehesitation and self examination on the matter of that Anzoleto--thewriter is turning over the leaves of a wrong dictionary, seeking helpfrom Psychology, and pretending to forget there is such a thing asPhysiology. Then, that horrible Porpora:--if George Sand gives _him_to a Consuelo for an absolute master, in consideration of his servicesspecified, and is of opinion that _they_ warrant his conduct, or atleast, oblige submission to it, --then, I find her objections to thefatherly rule of Frederic perfectly impertinent--he having a fewclaims upon the gratitude of Prussia also, in his way, I believe! Ifthe strong ones _will make_ the weak ones lead them--then, forHeaven's sake, let this dear old all-abused world keep on its coursewithout these outcries and tearings of hair, and don't be for evergoading the Karls and other trodden-down creatures till they get theircarbines in order (very rationally) to abate the nuisance--when youmake the man a long speech against some enormity he is about tocommit, and adjure and beseech and so forth, till he throws down theaforesaid carbine, falls on his knees, and lets the Frederic goquietly on his way to keep on killing his thousands after the fashionthat moved your previous indignation. Now is that right, consequential--that is, _inferential_; logically deduced, goingstraight to the end--_manly_? The accessories are not the Principal, the adjuncts--the essence, northe ornamental incidents the book's self, so what matters it if theportraits are admirable, the descriptions eloquent, (eloquent, thereit 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 shesays nothing)--but all _that_, another could do, as others havedone--but 'la femme qui parle'--Ah, that, is _this_ all? So I am notGeorge 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! ButTuesday--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! Forto bring your case into point, somebody should have been playing on aJew's harp for the whole of the orchestra; and the elderly Germanshould have quoted something about 'Harp of Judah' to the Venetianbehind him! And there, you would have proved your analogy!--Becauseyou see, my dear friend, it was not the expression, but the thingexpressed, I cried out against--the exaggeration in your mind. I amsorry when I write what you do not like--but I have instincts andimpulses too strong for me when you say things which put me into sucha miserably false position in respect to you--as for instance, when inthis 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 thathappily imagined phrase in my thoughts, I should be able to tell youone word of my impressions from your poetry, ever, ever again? Do younot see at once what a disqualifying and paralysing phrase it must be, of simple necessity? So it is _I_ who have reason to complain, ... Itappears to _me_, ... And by no means _you_--and in your 'secondconsideration' you become aware of it, I do not at all doubt. As to 'Consuelo' I agree with nearly all that you say of it--thoughGeorge Sand, we are to remember, is greater than 'Consuelo, ' and notto be depreciated according to the defects of that book, norclassified as 'femme qui parle' ... She who is man and woman together, ... Judging her by the standard of even that book in the noblerportions of it. For the inconsequency of much in the book, I admit itof course--and _you_ will admit that it is the rarest of phenomenawhen men ... Men of logic ... Follow their own opinions into theirobvious 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 othercompany. So the want of practical logic shall be a human fault ratherthan a womanly one, if you please: and you must please also toremember that 'Consuelo' is only 'half the orange'; and that when youcomplain of its not being a whole one, you overlook that hand which isholding to you the 'Comtesse de Rudolstadt' in three volumes! Not thatI, who have read the whole, profess a full satisfaction about Albertand the rest--and Consuelo is made to be happy by a mere clap-trap atlast: and Mme. Dudevant has her specialities, --in which, other women, I fancy, have neither part nor lot, ... Even _here_!--Altogether, thebook 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 theavenue of palms--quite out of sight and out of hearing!--Oh, I havefelt something like _that_ so often--so often! and _you_ never feltit, 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 itpossible now? It is his most impotent struggling into poetry, whichsets about proving a negative of genius on him--_that_, which the_Athenæum praises_ as 'respectable attainment in various walks ofliterature'--! _like_ the _Athenæum_, isn't it? and worthy praise, tobe administered by professed judges of art? What is to be expected ofthe public, when the teachers of the public teach _so_?-- When you come on Tuesday, do not forget the MS. If any is done--onlydon't let it be done so as to tire and hurt you--mind! And good-byeuntil 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 yourchoice of two or three other days, say Friday, or Saturday, orto-morrow ... Monday. Mr. Kenyon was here to-day and talked of leavingLondon on Friday, and of visiting me again on 'Tuesday' ... He said, ... But that is an uncertainty, and it may be Tuesday or Wednesday orThursday. So I thought (wrong or right) that out of the threeremaining days you would not mind choosing one. And if you do choosethe Monday, there will be no need to write--nor time indeed--; but ifthe Friday or Saturday, I shall hear from you, perhaps. Above allthings remember, my dear friend, that I shall not expect youto-morrow, except as by a _bare possibility_. In great haste, signedand 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 earlymorning--and I must write just to catch the post. You are purekindness and considerateness, _no_ thanks to you!--(since you willhave it so--). I choose Friday, then, --but I shall hear from youbefore Thursday, I dare hope? I have all but passed your houseto-day--with an Italian friend, from Rome, whom I must go about with alittle 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 onMonday. Not that you were expected particularly--but that you wouldhave written your own negative, it appeared to me, by some post in theday, if you had received my note in time. It happened well too, altogether, as you have a friend with you, though Mr. Kenyon does notcome, and will not come, I dare say; for he spoke like a doubter atthe moment; and as this Tuesday wears on, I am not likely to have anyvisitors 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 atthat proposition when I speak it loud out. And I am to write to youbefore 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 turnto write, ... Did you think it was? Not a word of Malta! except from Mr. Kenyon who talked homilies of itlast Sunday and wanted to speak them to Papa--but it would not do inany way--now especially--and in a little time there will be adecision for or against; and I am afraid of _both_ ... Which is ahappy state of preparation. Did I not tell you that early in thesummer I did some translations for Miss Thomson's 'Classical Album, 'from Bion and Theocritus, and Nonnus the author of that large (notgreat) poem in some forty books of the 'Dionysiaca' ... And theparaphrases from Apuleius? Well--I had a letter from her the otherday, full of compunction and ejaculation, and declaring the fact thatMr. Burges had been correcting all the proofs of the poems; leavingout and emending generally, according to his own particular idea ofthe pattern in the mount--is it not amusing? I have been wicked enoughto write in reply that it is happy for her and all readers ... _sua sibona norint_ ... If during some half hour which otherwise might havebeen dedicated by Mr. Burges to patting out the lights of Sophoclesand his peers, he was satisfied with the humbler devastation of E. B. B. Upon Nonnus. You know it is impossible to help being amused. Thiscorrecting is a mania with that man! And then I, who wrote what I didfrom the 'Dionysiaca, ' with no respect for 'my author, ' and anarbitrary will to 'put the case' of Bacchus and Ariadne as well as Icould, for the sake of the art-illustrations, ... Those subjects MissThomson sent me, ... And did it all with full liberty and persuasionof soul that nobody would think it worth while to compare English withGreek and refer me back to Nonnus and detect my wanderings from thetext!! But the critic was not to be cheated so! And I do not doubtthat he has set me all 'to rights' from beginning to end; and combedAriadne's hair close to her cheeks for me. Have _you_ known Nonnus, ... _you_ who forget nothing? and have known everything, I think? Forit is quite startling, I must tell you, quite startling andhumiliating, to observe how you combine such large tracts ofexperience of outer and inner life, of books and men, of the world andthe arts of it; curious knowledge as well as general knowledge ... Anddeep thinking as well as wide acquisition, ... And you, looking nonethe older for it all!--yes, and being besides a man of genius andworking your faculty and not wasting yourself over a surface or awayfrom an end. Dugald Stewart said that genius made naturally alop-sided mind--did he not? He ought to have known _you_. And _I_ whodo ... A little ... (for I grow more loth than I was to assume theknowledge 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_, youknow, --never could ... Never did ... Except indeed when you have overpraised me, which forced another personal feeling in. Otherwise it hasalways been quite pleasant to me to be 'startled and humiliated'--andmore 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 toyou. But the rain which keeps one in, gives one an example of pouringon ... And you must endure as you can or will. Also ... As you have afriend 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 thevisit-day to next week? mind, you let it be as you like it best tobe--I mean, as is most convenient 'for the nonce' to you and yourfriend--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, thatyour 'kindness and considerateness' consisted, not in putting offTuesday for another day, but in caring for my coming at all; for mycoming and being told at the door that you were engaged, and _I_ mightcall another time! And you are NOT, NOT my 'other friend, ' any morethan this head of mine is my _other_ head, seeing that I have got aviolin which has a head too! All which, beware lest you get fully toldin the letter I will write this evening, when I have done with myRomans--who are, it so happens, here at this minute; that is, haveleft the house for a few minutes with my sister--but are not 'withme, ' as you seem to understand it, --in the house to stay. They werekind to me in Rome, (husband and wife), and I am bound to be of whatuse I may during their short stay. Let me lose no time in begging andpraying you to cry 'hands off' to that dreadful Burgess; have not Igot 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 Idone? 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 afew more hours of 'social joy, ' 'kindly intercourse, ' &c. , fall to myportion. My friend the Countess began proceedings (when I first sawher, not yesterday) by asking 'if I had got as much money as Iexpected by any works published of late?'--to which I answered, ofcourse, 'exactly as much'--_è grazioso_! (All the same, if you were toask her, or the like of her, 'how much the stone-work of the Coliseumwould fetch, properly burned down to lime?'--she would shudder fromhead to foot and call you 'barbaro' with good Trojan heart. ) Now yousuppose--(watch my rhetorical figure here)--you suppose I am going tocongratulate myself on being so much for the better, _en pays deconnaissance_, with my 'other friend, ' E. B. B. , number 2--or 200, whynot?--whereas I mean to 'fulmine over Greece, ' since thunder frightensyou, for all the laurels, --and to have reason for your taking my ownpart and lot to yourself--I do, will, must, and _will_, again, wonderat _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. Butif to talk you once begin, 'the King shall enjoy (or receive quietly)his own again'--I wear no bright weapon out of that Panoply ... OrPanoplite, as I think you call Nonnus, nor ever, like Leigh Hunt's'Johnny, ever blythe and bonny, went singing Nonny, nonny' and seeto-morrow, what a vengeance I will take for your 'mere suspicion inthat kind'! But to the serious matter ... Nay, I said yesterday, Ibelieve--keep off that Burgess--he is stark staring mad--mad, do youknow? The last time I met him he told me he had recovered I forget howmany of the lost books of Thucydides--found them imbedded in Suidas (Ithink), and had disengaged them from _his_ Greek, without loss of aletter, 'by an instinct he, Burgess, had'--(I spell his name wronglyto help the proper _hiss_ at the end). Then, once on a time, he foundin the 'Christus Patiens, ' an odd dozen of lines, clearly dropped outof the 'Prometheus, ' and proving that Æschylus was aware of theinvention 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 MissThomson 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 canalter at sufficient warrant, profit by suggestion, I should think! Butit is all Miss Thomson's shame and fault: because she is quite in herpropriety, saying to such intermeddlers, gently for the sake of theirpoor 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 nomore alter it without her leave, than alter this sketch, thisillustration, because you think you could mend Ariadne's face orfigure, --Fecit Tizianus, scripsit E. B. B. ' Dear friend, you will tellMiss 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 tocatch our first post ... (this phrase I ought to get stereotyped--Ineed it so constantly). The day is fine ... You will profit by it, Itrust. 'Flush, wag your tail and grow restless and scratch at thedoor!' 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? Ihave not brought any accusation, have I ... No, nor _thought_ any, Iam sure--and it was only the 'kindness and considerateness'--argumentthat was irresistible as a thing to be retorted, when your thanks cameso naturally and just at the corner of an application. And then, youknow, it is gravely true, seriously true, sadly true, that I am alwaysexpecting to hear or to see how tired you are at last of me!--sooneror later, you know!--But I did not mean any seriousness in thatletter. No, nor did I mean ... (to pass to another question ... ) toprovoke 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 treatgrammatically as a thing common to _me_ and you, inasmuch as everyonewho has known me for half a day, may know that, if there is anythingpeculiar in me, it lies for the most part in an extraordinarydeficiency in this and this and this, ... There is no need to describewhat. Only nuns of the strictest sect of the nunneries are ratherwiser in some points, and have led less restricted lives than I havein 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 quiteto despise book-knowledge and its effect on the mind--I mean whenpeople _live by it_ as most readers by profession do, ... Cloisteringtheir souls under these roofs made with heads, when they might beunder the sky. Such people grow dark and narrow and low, with alltheir pains. _Friday. _--I was writing you see before you came--and now I go on inhaste to speak 'off my mind' some things which are on it. First ... Ofyourself; how can it be that you are unwell again, ... And that youshould talk (now did you not?--did I not hear you say so?) of being'weary in your soul' ... _you_? What should make _you_, dearestfriend, weary in your soul; or out of spirits in any way?--Do ... Tellme.... 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 aminclined to think most probable) that you are tired of a same life andwant change? It may happen to anyone sometimes, and is independent ofyour 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 yourlife new again and go abroad at once? What can make you weary in yoursoul, is a problem to me. You are the last from whom I should haveexpected such a word. And you did say so, I _think_. I _think_ that itwas not a mistake of mine. And _you_, ... With a full liberty, and theworld in your hand for every purpose and pleasure of it!--Or is itthat, being unwell, your spirits are affected by _that_? But then youmight be more unwell than you like to admit--. And I am teasing youwith talking of it ... Am I not?--and being disagreeable is only onethird 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 havebeen uncomfortable since, lest you should--and perhaps it would havebeen 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 andseeing what so lies on the surface. But then, ... As far as I amconcerned, ... No one cares less for a 'will' than I do (and thisthough I never had one, ... In clear opposition to your theory whichholds generally nevertheless) for a will in the common things of life. Every now and then there must of course be a crossing andvexation--but in one's mere pleasures and fantasies, one would ratherbe crossed and vexed a little than vex a person one loves ... And itis 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 mustsee ... Real liberty which is never enquired into--and it has happenedthroughout my life by an accident (as far as anything is accident)that my own sense of right and happiness on any important point ofovert action, has never run contrariwise to the way of obediencerequired of me ... While in things not exactly _overt_, I and all ofus are apt to act sometimes up to the limit of our means of acting, with shut doors and windows, and no waiting for cognisance orpermission. Ah--and that last is the worst of it all perhaps! to beforced into concealments from the heart naturally nearest to us; andforced away from the natural source of counsel and strength!--andthen, the disingenuousness--the cowardice--the 'vices ofslaves'!--and everyone you see ... All my brothers, ... Constrained_bodily_ into submission ... Apparent submission at least ... By thatworst and most dishonouring of necessities, the necessity of _living_, everyone of them all, except myself, being dependent in money-matterson the inflexible will ... Do you see? But what you do _not_ see, whatyou _cannot_ see, is the deep tender affection behind and below allthose patriarchal ideas of governing grown up children 'in the waythey _must_ go!' and there never was (under the strata) a trueraffection in a father's heart ... No, nor a worthier heart in itself... A heart loyaller and purer, and more compelling to gratitude andreverence, than his, as I see it! The evil is in the system--and hesimply takes it to be his duty to rule, and to make happy according tohis own views of the propriety of happiness--he takes it to be hisduty to rule like the Kings of Christendom, by divine right. But heloves us through and through it--and _I_, for one, love _him_! andwhen, five years ago, I lost what I loved best in the world beyondcomparison and rivalship ... Far better than himself as he knew ... For everyone who knew _me_ could not choose but know what was my firstand chiefest affection ... When I lost _that_, ... I felt that hestood the nearest to me on the closed grave ... Or by the unclosingsea ... I do not know which nor could ask. And I will tell you thatnot only he has been kind and patient and forbearing to me through thetedious trial of this illness (far more trying to standers by than youhave an idea of perhaps) but that he was generous and forbearing inthat hour of bitter trial, and never reproached me as he might havedone and as my own soul has not spared--never once said to me then orsince, that if it had not been for _me_, the crown of his house wouldnot have fallen. He _never did_ ... And he might have said it, andmore--and I could have answered nothing. Nothing, except that I hadpaid 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 butheart, ' I was the cause or occasion of that misery--and though notwith 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 Icould not live a winter in London. The worst--what people call theworst--was apprehended for me at that time. So I was sent down with mysister to my aunt there--and he, my brother whom I loved so, was senttoo, to take us there and return. And when the time came for him toleave me, _I_, to whom he was the dearest of friends and brothers inone ... The only one of my family who ... Well, but I cannot write ofthese 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 camefor him to leave me _I_, weakened by illness, could not master myspirits or drive back my tears--and my aunt kissed them away insteadof reproving me as she should have done; and said that _she_ wouldtake care that I should not be grieved ... _she_! ... And so she satedown and wrote a letter to Papa to tell him that he would 'break myheart' if he persisted in calling away my brother--As if hearts werebroken _so_! I have thought bitterly since that my heart did not breakfor a good deal more than _that_! And Papa's answer was--burnt intome, as with fire, it is--that 'under such circumstances he did notrefuse to suspend his purpose, but that he considered it to be _verywrong in me to exact such a thing_. ' So there was no separation_then_: and month after month passed--and sometimes I was better andsometimes worse--and the medical men continued to say that they wouldnot answer for my life ... They! if I were agitated--and so there wasno more talk of a separation. And once _he_ held my hand, ... How Iremember! 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 whichnever returned; never--and he _had_ left me! gone! For three days wewaited--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 thannow; and the sea under the windows was like this paper forsmoothness--and my sisters drew the curtains back that I might see formyself how smooth the sea was, and how it could hurt nobody--and otherboats 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, byyour genius, and not by such proof as mine--I, who could not speak orshed a tear, but lay for weeks and months half conscious, halfunconscious, with a wandering mind, and too near to God under thecrushing of His hand, to pray at all. I expiated all my weak tearsbefore, by not being able to shed then one tear--and yet they wereforbearing--and no voice said 'You have done this. ' Do not notice what I have written to you, my dearest friend. I havenever said so much to a living being--I never _could_ speak or writeof it. I asked no question from the moment when my last hope went: andsince then, it has been impossible for me to speak what was in me. Ihave borne to do it to-day and to you, but perhaps if you were towrite--so do not let this be noticed between us again--_do not_! Andbesides there is no need! I do not reproach myself with such acridthoughts as I had once--I _know_ that I would have died ten times overfor _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_ isnot precisely the word for me--not at least in its full sense. Stillyou will comprehend from what I have told you how the spring of lifemust have seemed to break within me _then_; and how natural it hasbeen for me to loathe the living on--and to lose faith (even withoutthe loathing), to lose faith in myself ... Which I have done on somepoints utterly. It is not from the cause of illness--no. And you willcomprehend too that I have strong reasons for being grateful to theforbearance.... It would have been _cruel_, you think, to reproach me. Perhaps so! yet the kindness and patience of the desisting fromreproach, are positive things all the same. Shall I be too late for the post, I wonder? Wilson tells me that youwere followed up-stairs yesterday (I write on Saturday this latterpart) by somebody whom you probably took for my father. Which isWilson's idea--and I hope not yours. No--it was neither father norother relative of mine, but an old friend in rather an ill temper. And so good-bye until Tuesday. Perhaps I shall ... Not ... Hear fromyou to-night. Don't let the tragedy or aught else do you harm--willyou? and try not to be 'weary in your soul' any more--and forgive methis 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 init--I would not have dared speak; now, at least. But I may permitmyself, perhaps, to say I am _most_ grateful, _most grateful_, dearestfriend, for this admission to participate, in my degree, in thesefeelings. 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 betired of you &c. , '--though I _could_ blot that out of your mind forever by a very few words _now_, --for you _would believe_ me at thismoment, close on the other subject:--but I will take no suchadvantage--I will wait. I have many things (indifferent things, after those) to say; will youwrite, if but a few lines, to change the associations for thatpurpose? Then I will write too. -- May God bless you, --in what is past and to come! I pray that from myheart, 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 dearfriend. He was tormented by an evil spirit--but how, we are not told... And the consolation is not obliged to be definite, ... Is it? Asinger was sent for as a singer--and all that you are called upon tobe true to, are the general characteristics of David the chosen, standing between his sheep and his dawning hereafter, betweeninnocence and holiness, and with what you speak of as the 'graciousgold locks' besides the chrism of the prophet, on his own head--andsurely 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 theright and beauty, they are more obvious--and I cannot tell you how thepoem 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 whoforget nothing, ... To remember them directly, and to go on with therest ... _as_ directly (be it understood) as is not injurious to yourhealth. The whole conception of the poem, I like ... And the executionis exquisite up to this point--and the sight of Saul in the tent, juststruck out of the dark by that sunbeam, 'a thing to see, ' ... Not tosay that afterwards when he is visibly 'caught in his fangs' like theking serpent, ... The sight is grander still. How could you doubtabout this poem.... At the moment of writing which, I receive your note. Do _you_ receivemy assurances from the deepest of my heart that I never did otherwisethan _'believe' you_ ... Never did nor shall do ... And that youcompletely misinterpreted my words if you drew another meaning fromthem. Believe _me_ in this--will you? I could not believe _you_ anymore for anything you could say, now or hereafter--and so do notavenge yourself on my unwary sentences by remembering them against mefor evil. I did not mean to vex you ... Still less to suspectyou--indeed I did not! and moreover it was quite your fault that I didnot blot it out after it was written, whatever the meaning was. So youforgive me (altogether) for your own sins: you must:-- For my part, though I have been sorry since to have written you such agloomy letter, the sorrow unmakes itself in hearing you speak sokindly. Your sympathy is precious to me, I may say. May God bless you. Write and tell me among the 'indifferent things' something notindifferent, how you are yourself, I mean ... For I fear you are notwell 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 notso much exactingness on my part, as that you spoke of meaning to writeas soon as you received a note of mine ... Which went to you fiveminutes afterwards ... Which is three days ago, or will be when youread 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 alittle 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 'yourfault' ... 'your own fault, ' viz. In having to read sentences which, but for your commands, would have been blotted out. You could not verywell take _that_ for serious blame! from _me_ too, who have so muchreason and provocation for blaming the archangel Gabriel. --No--youcould not misinterpret so, --and if you could not, and if you are notdispleased with me, you must be unwell, I think. I took for grantedyesterday that you had gone out as before--but to-night it isdifferent--and so I come to ask you to be kind enough to write oneword for me by some post to-morrow. Now remember ... I am not askingfor 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 andmakes 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 notround 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 seeme--when I am away, or with you--'taking offence' at words, 'beingvexed' at words, or deeds of yours, even if I could not immediatelytrace them to their source of entire, pure kindness; as I havehitherto done in every smallest instance? I believe in _you_ absolutely, utterly--I believe that when you bademe, that time, be silent--that such was your bidding, and I wassilent--dare I say I think you did not know at that time the power Ihave over myself, that I could sit and speak and listen as I have donesince? Let me say now--_this only once_--that I loved you from mysoul, and gave you my life, so much of it as you would take, --and allthat is _done_, not to be altered now: it was, in the nature of theproceeding, wholly independent of any return on your part. I will notthink on extremes you might have resorted to; as it is, the assuranceof your friendship, the intimacy to which you admit me, _now_, makethe truest, deepest joy of my life--a joy I can never think fugitivewhile we are in life, because I KNOW, as to me, I _could_ notwillingly displease you, --while, as to you, your goodness andunderstanding will always see to the bottom of involuntary or ignorantfaults--always help me to correct them. I have done now. If I thoughtyou were like other women I have known, I should say somuch!--but--(my first and last word--I _believe_ in you!)--what youcould and would give me, of your affection, you would give nobly andsimply and as a giver--you would not need that I tell you--(_tell_you!)--what would be supreme happiness to me in the event--howeverdistant-- I repeat ... I call on your justice to remember, on your intelligenceto believe ... That this is merely a more precise stating the _first_subject; to put an end to any possible misunderstanding--to preventyour henceforth believing that because I _do not write_, from thinkingtoo deeply of you, I am offended, vexed &c. &c. I will never recur tothis, nor shall you see the least difference in my manner next Monday:it is indeed, always before me ... How I know nothing of you andyours. But I think I ought to have spoken when I did--and to speakclearly ... Or more clearly what I do, as it is my pride and duty tofall back, now, on the feeling with which I have been in themeantime--Yours--God bless you-- R. B. Let me write a few words to lead into Monday--and say, you haveprobably received my note. I am much better--with a little headache, which is all, and fast going this morning. Of yours you say nothing--Itrust you see your ... Dare I say your _duty_ in the Pisa affair, asall else _must_ see it--shall I hear on Monday? And my 'Saul' that youare 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 mightreasonably have been wounded a little, if you had suspected me ofblaming you for any bearing of yours towards myself; and this was theamount of my fear--or rather hope ... Since I conjectured most thatyou were not well. And after all you did think ... Do think ... Thatin 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? andwill you believe me that if for the past's sake you sent it, it wasunnecessary, and if for the future's, irrelevant? Which I say from nowant of sensibility to the words of it--your words always makethemselves felt--but in fulness of purpose not to suffer you to holdto words because they have been said, nor to say them as if to beholden by them. Why, if a thousand more such words were said by you tome, how could they operate upon the future or present, supposing me tochoose to keep the possible modification of your feelings, as aprobability, in my sight and yours? Can you help my sitting with thedoors all open if I think it right? I do attest to you--while I trustyou, as you must see, in word and act, and while I am confident thatno human being ever stood higher or purer in the eyes of another, thanyou do in mine, --that you would still stand high and remainunalterably my friend, if the probability in question became a fact, as now at this moment. And this I must say, since you have said otherthings: and this alone, which _I_ have said, concerns the future, Iremind you earnestly. My dearest friend--you have followed the most _generous_ of impulsesin your whole bearing to me--and I have recognised and called by itsname, in my heart, each one of them. Yet I cannot help adding that, ofus two, yours has not been quite the hardest part ... I mean, to agenerous nature like your own, to which every sort of nobleness comeseasily. Mine has been more difficult--and I have sunk under it againand again: and the sinking and the effort to recover the duty of alost position, may have given me an appearance of vacillation andlightness, unworthy at least of _you_, and perhaps of both of us. Notwithstanding which appearance, it was right and just (only just) ofyou, to believe in me--in my truth--because I have never failed to youin it, nor been capable of _such_ failure: the thing I have said, Ihave meant ... Always: and in things I have not said, the silence hashad a reason somewhere different perhaps from where you looked for it. And this brings me to complaining that you, who profess to believe inme, do yet obviously believe that it was only merely silence, which Irequired of you on one occasion--and that if I had 'known your powerover yourself, ' I should not have minded ... No! In other words youbelieve of me that I was thinking just of my own (what shall I call itfor a motive base and small enough?) my own scrupulousness ... Freedomfrom embarrassment! of myself in the least of me; in the tying of myshoestrings, say!--so much and no more! Now this is so wrong, as tomake me impatient sometimes in feeling it to be your impression: Iasked for silence--but _also_ and chiefly for the putting away of ... You know very well what I asked for. And this was sincerely done, Iattest to you. You wrote once to me ... Oh, long before May and theday we met: that you 'had been so happy, you should be now justifiedto yourself in taking any step most hazardous to the happiness of yourlife'--but if you were justified, could _I_ be therefore justified inabetting such a step, --the step of wasting, in a sense, your bestfeelings ... Of emptying your water gourds into the sand? What Ithought then I think now--just what any third person, knowing you, would think, I think and feel. I thought too, at first, that thefeeling on your part was a mere generous impulse, likely to expanditself in a week perhaps. It affects me and has affected me, verydeeply, more than I dare attempt to say, that you should persist_so_--and if sometimes I have felt, by a sort of instinct, that afterall you would not go on to persist, and that (being a man, you know)you might mistake, a little unconsciously, the strength of your ownfeeling; you ought not to be surprised; when I felt it was moreadvantageous 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, andyour friendship will be dear to me to the last. You know I told youso--not long since. And as to what you say otherwise, you are right inthinking that I would not hold by unworthy motives in avoiding tospeak what you had any claim to hear. But what could I speak thatwould not be unjust to you? Your life! if you gave it to me and I putmy whole heart into it; what should I put but anxiety, and moresadness than you were born to? What could I give you, which it wouldnot be ungenerous to give? Therefore we must leave this subject--and Imust trust you to leave it without one word more; (too many have beensaid 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, asthe grateful remember; and to feel, as those do who have felt sorrow(for where these pits are dug, the water will stand), the full priceof your regard. May God bless you, my dearest friend. I shall sendthis letter after I have seen you, and hope you may not have expectedto 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 tolet you have the American edition of my poems ... Famous for allmanner of blunders, you know; what is to be done but have recourse tothe parcel-medium? You were in jest about being at Pisa _before or assoon as we were_?--oh no--that must not be indeed--we must wait alittle!--even if you determine to go at all, which is a question ofdoubtful expediency. Do take more exercise, this week, and make waragainst 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 thismorning or afternoon--to know how you are--that, 'how are you, ' thereis no use disguising, is, --vary it how one may--my own life'squestion. -- I had better write no more, now. Will you not tell me something aboutyou--the head; and that too, _too_ warm hand ... Or was it my fancy?Surely the report of Dr. Chambers is most satisfactory, --all seems torest 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 becomposed, ' &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 attemptsend in nothing now-- Dearest friend--I am yours ever R. B. But meantime, you will tell me about yourself, will you not? Theparcel came a few minutes after my note left--Well, I can thank youfor _that_; for the Poems, --though I cannot wear them round myneck--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 arenot of the slightest consequence, and seldom survive the remedy of acup of coffee. I only wish it were the same with everybody--I mean, with every _head_! Also there is nothing the matter otherwise--and Iam going to prove my right to a 'clean bill of health' by going intothe park in ten minutes. Twice round the inner enclosure is what I cancompass 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. Thereason why I sent you the poems was that I had a few copies to give tomy personal friends, and so, wished you to have one; and it was quiteto please myself and not to please _you_ that I made you have it; andif you put it into the 'plum-tree' to hide the errata, I shall bepleased still, if not rather more. Only let me remember to tell youthis time in relation to those books and the question asked ofyourself by your noble Romans, that just as I was enclosing mysixty-pounds debt to Mr. Moxon, I did actually and miraculouslyreceive a remittance of fourteen pounds from the selfsame booksellerof New York who agreed last year to print my poems at his own risk andgive me 'ten per cent on the profit. ' Not that I ever asked for such athing! They were the terms offered. And I always considered the 'percentage' as quite visionary ... Put in for the sake of effect, to makethe 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 redIndians, 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?--ofselling cabbages and buying _Punches_? People complain of Dr. Chambers and call him rough andunfeeling--neither of which _I_ ever found him for a moment--and Ilike him for his truthfulness, which is the nature of the man, thoughit is essential to medical morality never to let a patient thinkhimself mortal while it is possible to prevent it, and even Dr. Chambers may incline to this on occasion. Still he need not have saidall the good he said to me on Saturday--he _used_ not to say any ofit; and he must have thought some of it: and, any way, the Pisa-caseis strengthened all round by his opinion and injunction, so that allmy horror and terror at the thoughts of his visit, (and it's reallytrue that I would rather _suffer_ to a certain extent than be _cured_by means of those doctors!) had some compensation. How are you? do notforget to say! I found among some papers to-day, a note of yours whichI 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 theanswer! _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, andall I venture to infer; this makes me most happy and thankful. Do youuse to attach our old [Greek: tuphlas elpidas] (and the practice ofinstilling them) to that medical science in which Prometheus boastedhimself proficient? I had thought the 'faculty' dealt in fears, on thecontrary, and scared you into obedience: but I know most about thedoctors in Molière. However the joyous truth is--must be, that you arebetter, and if one could transport you quietly to Pisa, save you allworry, --what might one not expect! When I know your own intentions--measures, I should say, respectingyour 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 yettaken to read it, though--for it does not, each volume of it, openobediently 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 wordhenceforth and for ever ... For when you calculate, there must havebeen a really extraordinary circulation; and in a few months: it iswhat 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--headachesproper they are not--but the noise and slight turning are lesstroublesome--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 ofa flower-holder as are consistent with my dismay at finding you _only_return _them_ ... And not the costly brown paper wrappages also ... Tosay nothing of the inestimable pins with which my sister uses tofasten 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 alittle for me and tell me what is best to do? It appears that thedirect Leghorn steamer will not sail on the third, and may not untilthe middle of October, and if forced to still further delay, which ispossible, will not at all. One of my brothers has been to Mr. Andrewsof St. Mary Axe and heard as much as this. What shall I do? The middleof October, say my sisters ... And I half fear that it may prove so... Is too late for me--to say nothing for the uncertainty whichcompletes 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 steamerthere to proceed by. Is there an objection to this--except the changeof steamers ... Repeated ... For I must get down to Southampton--andthe leaving England so soon? Is any better to be done? Do think for mea little. And now that the doing comes so near ... And in this deadsilence of Papa's ... It all seems impossible, ... And I seem to seethe stars _constellating_ against me, and give it as my seriousopinion to you that I shall not go. Now, mark. But I have had the kindest of letters from dear Mr. Kenyon, urgingit--. Well--I have no time for writing any more--and this is only a note ofbusiness to bespeak your thoughts about the steamers. My wisdom looksback regretfully ... Only rather too late ... On the Leghorn vesselof 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 notfault in your not walking, by your own confession? Think of thisfirst--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 wellenough for the necessary work connected with them, ... A sure reasonand strong ... Nay, chiefest of all. Plainly you are unfit for worknow--and even to complete the preparation of the lyrics, and take themthrough 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, --orat least be satisfied for this, with bringing out a number of the oldsize, consisting of such poems as are fairly finished and require noretouching. 'Saul' for instance, you might leave--! You will not letme hear when I am gone, of your being ill--you will take care ... Willyou 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 forthat, you should and must care to consider how unavailing it will befor you to hold those golden keys of the future with a more resolutehand than your contemporaries, should you suffer yourself to be struckdown before the gate ... Should you lose the physical power whilekeeping the heart and will. Heart and will are great things, andsufficient things in your case--but after all we carry a barrow-fullof clay about with us, and we must carry it a little carefully if wemean to keep to the path and not run zigzag into the border of thegarden. A figure which reminds me ... And I wanted no figure to remindme ... To ask you to thank your sister for me and from me for all herkindness 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 verykind--and I take the liberty of saying so moreover ... _as I am notthanking you_. Also these flowers of yesterday, which yesterday youdisdained so, look full of summer and are full of fragrance, and whenthey seem to say that it is not September, I am willing to be lied tojust _so_. For I wish it were not September. I wish it were July ... Or November ... Two months before or after: and that this journey werethrown behind or in front ... Anywhere to be out of sight. You do notknow the courage it requires to hold the intention of it fast throughwhat I feel sometimes. If it (the courage) had been prophesied to meonly 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 unhesitatingcounsel. Burn it when you have read it. It is addressed to me ... Which you will doubt from the address of it perhaps ... Seeing that itgoes [Greek: ba ... Rbarizôn]. We are famous in this house for whatare called nick-names ... Though a few of us have escaped rather by acaprice than a reason: and I am never called anything else (never atall) except by the nom de _paix_ which you find written in theletter:--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 inthese enclosed 'sonnets' which were written a few weeks ago, andthough only pretending to be 'sketches, ' pretend to be like, as far asthey go, and _are_ like--my brothers thought--when I 'showed themagainst' a profile drawn in pencil by Alfred, on the same subjects. Iwas laughing and maintaining that mine should be as like as his--andhe yielded the point to me. So it is mere portrait-painting--and youwho are in 'high art, ' must not be too scornful. Henrietta is theelder, 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 myillness and is the least wanted in the house here, ... And perhaps ... Perhaps--is my favourite--though my heart smites me while I write thatunlawful word. They are both affectionate and kind to me in allthings, and good and lovable in their own beings--very unlike, for therest; one, most caring for the Polka, ... And the other for the sermonpreached at Paddington Chapel, ... _that_ is Arabel ... So if ever youhappen to know her you must try not to say before her how 'much youhate &c. ' Henrietta always 'managed' everything in the house evenbefore I was ill, ... Because she liked it and I didn't, and I waivedmy right to the sceptre of dinner-ordering. I have been thinking much of your 'Sordello' since you spoke ofit--and even, I _had_ thought much of it before you spoke of ityesterday; feeling that it might be thrown out into the light by yourhand, and greatly justify the additional effort. It is like a noblepicture with its face to the wall just now--or at least, in theshadow. And so worthy as it is of you in all ways! individual allthrough: you have _made_ even the darkness of it! And such a work asit might become if you chose ... If you put your will to it! What Imeant to say yesterday was not that it wanted more additional versesthan the 'ten per cent' you spoke of ... Though it does perhaps ... Somuch as that (to my mind) it wants drawing together and fortifying inthe connections and associations ... Which hang as loosely every hereand there, as those in a dream, and confound the reader who persistsin thinking himself awake. How do you mean that I am 'lenient'? Do you not believe that I tellyou what I think, and as I think it? I may _think wrong_, to besure--but _that_ is not my fault:--and so there is no use reproachingme generally, unless you can convict me definitely at the sametime:--is there, now? And I have been reading and admiring these letters of Mr. Carlyle, andreceiving 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 heexpects from you--notwithstanding that prodigious advice of his, towrite your next work in prose! Also Mrs. Carlyle's letter--thank youfor letting me see it. I admire _that_ too! It is as ingenious 'acase' against poor Keats, as could well be drawn--but nobody who knewvery deeply what poetry _is_, _could_, you know, draw any case againsthim. A poet of the senses, he may be and is, just as she says--butthen 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'tit?... What she observes of the want of thought as thought. He was a_seer_ strictly speaking. And what noble oppositions--(to go back toCarlyle's letters) ... He writes to the things you were speaking ofyesterday! These letters are as good as Milton's picture forconvicting and putting to shame. Is not the difference between the menof 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 inwhat we can do, but in what we are. We should write poems like Miltonif [we] lived them like Milton. I write all this just to show, I suppose, that I am not industrious asyou did me the honour of apprehending that I was going to be ... Packing trunks perhaps ... Or what else in the way of 'activeusefulness. ' Say how you are--will you? And do take care, and walk and do what isgood 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 looktrue--I remember the light hair, I find. And who paints, and daresexhibit, E. B. B. 's self? And surely 'Alfred's' pencil has not foregoneits best privilege, not left _the_ face unsketched? Italians call suchan 'effect defective'--'l'andar a Roma senza vedere il Papa. ' He musthave begun by seeing his Holiness, I know, and ... _he_ will not trustme with the result, that my sister may copy it for me, because we arestrangers, he and I, and I could give him nothing, nothing like theproper price for it--but _you_ would lend it to me, I think, nor needI do more than thank you in my usual effective and very eloquentway--for I have already been allowed to visit you seventeen times, doyou know; and this last letter of yours, fiftieth is the same! So allmy pride is gone, pride in that sense--and I mean to take of you forever, 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 eversince I knew you if nothing in the way of _good_ portrait existed--andthis occasion bids me speak out, I dare believe: the more, that youhave also quieted--have you not?--another old obstinate and verylikely impertinent questioning of mine--as to the little name whichwas neither Orinda, nor Sacharissa (for which thank providence) and isnever to appear in books, though you write them. Now I know it andwrite it--'Ba'--and thank you, and your brother George, and onlyburned his kind letter because you bade me who know best. So, wish bywish, one gets one's wishes--at least I do--for one instance, you willgo 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' withthe brown eyes, and Godwin's daughter and Shelley's wife, and whosurely was something better once upon a time--and to go through Romeand Florence and the rest, after what I suppose to be LadyLondonderry's fashion: the intrepidity of the commonplace quiteastounds me. And then that way, when she and the like of her are putin a new place, with new flowers, new stones, faces, walls, allnew--of looking wisely up at the sun, clouds, evening star, ormountain 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 theyeat roasted chestnuts, and put the shells into their aprons, the womendo, and calmly empty the whole on the heads of the passengers in thestreet below; and that at Padua when a man drives his waggon up to ahouse and stops, all the mouse-coloured oxen that pull it from a beamagainst their foreheads sit down in a heap and rest. But once shetravelled the country with Shelley on arm; now she plods it, Rogers inhand--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, forinstance, only painted Martyrs, Virgins &c. , she had no eyes for thedivine _bon-bourgeoisie_ of his pictures; the dear common folk of hiscrowds, those who sit and listen (spectacle at nose and bent into acomfortable heap to hear better) at the sermon of the Saint--and thechildren, and women, --divinely pure they all are, but fresh from thestreets and market place--but she is wrong every where, that is, notright, not seeing what is to see, speaking what one expects to hear--Iquarrel with her, for ever, I think. I am much better, and mean to be well as you desire--shall correct theverses 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 itbe the same thing? Because I have heard from Mr. Kenyon, who is to bein London on Friday evening he says, and therefore may mean to visitme on Saturday I imagine. So let it be Friday--if you should not, forany 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, inreply to your letter of last week--and first of all I have to entreatyou, now more than ever, to help me and understand from the few wordsthe feelings behind them--(should _speak_ rather more easily, Ithink--but I dare not run the risk: and I know, after all, you will bejust and kind where you can. ) I have read your letter again andagain. 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 mostsincerely there is not a particle of fatuity, shall I call it, in thatavowal; cannot be, seeing that from the beginning and at this moment Inever dreamed of winning your _love_. I can hardly write this word, soincongruous and impossible does it seem; such a change of our placesdoes 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 havetaken root in you--_that_ great and solemn one, for instance. I feelthat if I could get myself _remade_, as if turned to gold, I WOULD noteven 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, isall I can take and all too embarrassing, using _all_ my gratitude. Andyet, with that contented pride in being infinitely your debtor as itis, bound to you for ever as it is; when I read your letter with allthe determination to be just to us both; I dare not so far withstandthe light I am master of, as to refuse seeing that whatever isrecorded as an objection to your disposing of that life of mine Iwould give you, has reference to some supposed good in that life whichyour accepting it would destroy (of which fancy I shall speakpresently)--I say, wonder as I may at this, I cannot but find itthere, surely there. I could no more 'bind _you_ by words, ' than youhave bound me, as you say--but if I misunderstand you, one assuranceto that effect will be but too intelligible to me--but, as it _is_, Ihave difficulty in imagining that while one of so many reasons, whichI am not obliged to repeat to myself, but which any one easilyconceives; 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 'moresadness than I was born to, ' into my life?--that you 'could give meonly what it were ungenerous to give'? Have I your meaning here? In so many words, is it on my account thatyou bid me 'leave this subject'? I think if it were so, I would foronce call my advantages round me. I am not what your generousself-forgetting appreciation would sometimes make me out--but it isnot since yesterday, nor ten nor twenty years before, that I began tolook into my own life, and study its end, and requirements, what wouldturn 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. Mywhole suit to you is, in that sense, _selfish_--not that I am ignorantthat _your_ nature would most surely attain happiness in beingconscious that it made another happy--but _that best, best end ofall_, would, like the rest, come from yourself, be a reflection ofyour own gift. Dearest, I will end here--words, persuasion, arguments, if they wereat my service I would not use them--I believe in you, altogether havefaith in you--in you. I will not think of insulting by trying toreassure you on one point which certain phrases in your letter mightat first glance seem to imply--you do not understand me to be livingand labouring and writing (and _not_ writing) in order to besuccessful in the world's sense? I even convinced the people _here_what was my true 'honourable position in society, ' &c. &c. Therefore Ishall not have to inform _you_ that I desire to be very rich, verygreat; but not in reading Law gratis with dear foolish old BasilMontagu, as he ever and anon bothers me to do;--much less--enough ofthis nonsense. 'Tell me what I have a claim to hear': I can hear it, and be asgrateful as I was before and am now--your friendship is my pride andhappiness. If you told me your love was bestowed elsewhere, and thatit was in my power to serve you _there_, to serve you there wouldstill be my pride and happiness. I look on and on over the prospect ofmy love, it is all _on_wards--and all possible forms of unkindness ... I quite laugh to think how they are _behind_ ... Cannot be encounteredin the route we are travelling! I submit to you and will obey youimplicitly--obey what I am able to conceive of your least desire, muchmore of your expressed wish. But it was necessary to make this avowal, among other reasons, for one which the world would recognize too. Mywhole scheme of life (with its wants, material wants at least, closelycut down) was long ago calculated--and it supposed _you_, the findingsuch an one as you, utterly impossible--because in calculating onegoes upon _chances_, not on providence--how could I expect you? So formy own future way in the world I have always refused to care--any onewho can live a couple of years and more on bread and potatoes as I didonce on a time, and who prefers a blouse and a blue shirt (such as Inow write in) to all manner of dress and gentlemanly appointment, andwho can, if necessary, groom a horse not so badly, or at all eventswould rather do it all day long than succeed Mr. Fitzroy Kelly in theSolicitor-Generalship, --such an one need not very much concern himselfbeyond considering the lilies how they grow. But now I see you nearthis life, all changes--and at a word, I will do all that ought to bedone, that every one used to say could be done, and let 'all my powersfind sweet employ' as Dr. Watts sings, in getting whatever is to begot--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 whereone 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 thosepounds for any play that might suit him--to say nothing of Mr. Colburnsaying confidentially that he wanted more than his dinner 'a novel onthe subject of _Napoleon_'! So may one make money, if one does notlive in a house in a row, and feel impelled to take the Princess'sTheatre for a laudable development and exhibition of one's faculty. Take the sense of all this, I beseech you, dearest--all you shall saywill be best--I am yours-- Yes, Yours ever. God bless you for all you have been, and are, andwill 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 itis to be written and to what end. I have tried in vain--and you arewaiting to hear from me. I am unhappy enough even where I amhappy--but ungrateful nowhere--and I thank you from myheart--profoundly from the depths of my heart ... Which is nearly allI can do. One letter I began to write and asked in it how it could become me tospeak at all if '_from the beginning and at this moment you neverdreamed of_' ... And there, I stopped and tore the paper; because Ifelt that you were too loyal and generous, for me to bear to take amoment's advantage of the same, and bend down the very floweringbranch of your generosity (as it might be) to thicken a little thefence of a woman's caution and reserve. You will not say that you havenot acted as if you 'dreamed'--and I will answer therefore to thegeneral sense of your letter and former letters, and admit at oncethat I _did_ state to you the difficulties most difficult to myself... Though not all ... And that if I had been worthier of you I shouldhave been proportionably less in haste to 'bid you leave thatsubject. ' I do not understand how you can seem at the same moment tohave faith in my integrity and to have doubt whether all this time Imay not have felt a preference for another ... Which you are ready'to serve, ' you say. Which is generous in you--but in _me_, where werethe integrity? Could you really hold me to be blameless, and do youthink that truehearted women act usually so? Can it be necessary forme to tell you that I could not have acted so, and did not? And shallI shrink from telling you besides ... You, who have been generous tome and have a right to hear it ... And have spoken to me in the nameof an affection and memory most precious and holy to me, in this sameletter ... That neither now nor formerly has any man been to myfeelings what you are ... And that if I were different in somerespects and free in others by the providence of God, I would acceptthe 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; onlymeaning that I am not all stone--only proving that I am not likely toconsent to help you in wrong against yourself. You see in me what isnot:--_that_, I know: and you overlook in me what is unsuitable to you... _that_ I know, and have sometimes told you. Still, because astrong feeling from some sources is self-vindicating and ennobling tothe object of it, I will not say that, if it were proved to me thatyou felt this for me, I would persist in putting the sense of my ownunworthiness between you and me--not being heroic, you know, norpretending to be so. But something worse than even a sense ofunworthiness, _God_ has put between us! and judge yourself if to beatyour thoughts against the immovable marble of it, can be anything butpain and vexation of spirit, waste and wear of spirit to you ... Judge! The present is here to be seen ... Speaking for itself! and thebest 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-dayin his smiling kindness ... 'In ten years you may be strongperhaps'--or 'almost strong'! that being the encouragement of my bestfriends! What would he say, do you think, if he could know orguess... ! 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 excellentpractical sense after all and should exercise it) you must leaveme--these thoughts of me, I mean ... For if we might not be truefriends for ever, I should have less courage to say the other truth. But we may be friends always ... And cannot be so separated, that yourhappiness, in the knowledge of it, will not increase mine. And if youwill be persuaded by me, as you say, you will be persuaded _thus_ ... And consent to take a resolution and force your mind at once intoanother channel. Perhaps I might bring you reasons of the class whichyou tell me 'would silence you for ever. ' I might certainly tell youthat my own father, if he knew that you had written to me _so_, andthat I had answered you--_so_, even, would not forgive me at the endof ten years--and this, from none of the causes mentioned by me hereand in no disrespect to your name and your position ... Though he doesnot over-value poetry even in his daughter, and is apt to take theworld's measures of the means of life ... But for the singular reasonthat he never _does_ tolerate in his family (sons or daughters) thedevelopment of one class of feelings. Such an objection I could notbring to you of my own will--it rang hollow in my ears--perhaps Ithought even too little of it:--and I brought to you what I thoughtmuch 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 theheart 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 Ido, and should do even if I found a use for them. And if I _wished_ tobe very poor, in the world's sense of poverty, I _could not_, withthree or four hundred a year of which no living will can dispossessme. And is it not the chief good of money, the being free from theneed of thinking of it? It seems so to me. The obstacles then are of another character, and the stronger forbeing so. Believe that I am grateful to you--_how_ grateful, cannot beshown in words nor even in tears ... Grateful enough to be truthful inall ways. You know I might have hidden myself from you--but I wouldnot: and by the truth told of myself, you may believe in theearnestness with which I tell the other truths--of you ... And of thissubject. The subject will not bear consideration--it breaks in ourhands. But that God is stronger than we, cannot be a bitter thought toyou but a holy thought ... While He lets me, as much as I can beanyone'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 onme--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 anyfear--though only for a moment and on the outset--that you have beenmisunderstood, that the goodness _outside_, and round and over all, hides all or any thing. I understand you to signify to me that yousee, at this present, insurmountable obstacles to that--can I speakit--entire gift, which I shall own, was, while I dared ask it, abovemy hopes--and wishes, even, so it seems to me ... And yet could notbut be asked, so plainly was it dictated to me, by something quite outof those hopes and wishes. Will it help me to say that once in thisAladdin-cavern I knew I ought to stop for no heaps of jewel-fruit onthe 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 atpresent you believe this gift impossible--and I acquiesce entirely--Isubmit wholly to you; repose on you in all the faith of which I amcapable. Those obstacles are solely for _you_ to see and to declare... Had _I_ seen them, be sure I should never have mocked you ormyself by affecting to pass them over ... What _were_ obstacles, Imean: but you _do_ see them, I must think, --and perhaps they strike methe more from my true, honest unfeigned inability to imagine what theyare, --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 whatyou now consider them, you who see now _for me_, whom I implicitlytrust in to see for me; you will _then_, too, see and remember me, andhow 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 involvethe vilest of implications. I thank God--I _do_ thank him, that inthis whole matter I have been, to the utmost of my power, not unworthyof his introducing you to me, in this respect that, being no longer inthe first freshness of life, and having for many years now made up mymind to the impossibility of loving any woman ... Having wondered atthis in the beginning, and fought not a little against it, havingacquiesced in it at last, and accounted for it all to myself, andbecome, if anything, rather proud of it than sorry ... I say, whenreal love, making itself at once recognized as such, _did_ revealitself to me at last, I _did_ open my heart to it with a cry--nor carefor its overturning all my theory--nor mistrust its effect upon a mindset in ultimate order, so I fancied, for the few years more--norapprehend in the least that the new element would harm what wasalready organized without its help. Nor have I, either, been guilty ofthe more pardonable folly, of treating the new feeling after thepedantic 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, afterall, 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, Ishould 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 anot unreasonable anxiety lest by too sudden a silence, too complete anacceptance of your will; the earnestness and endurance andunabatedness ... The _truth_, in fact, of what had already beenprofessed, should get to be questioned--But I believe that you believeme--And now that all is clear between us I will say, what you willhear, without fearing for me or yourself, that I am utterly contented... ('grateful' I have done with ... It must go--) I accept what yougive 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 bestsense, that I deserve. That phrase in my letter which you objected to, and the other--may stand, too--I never attempted to declare, describemy feeling for you--one word of course stood for it all ... But havingto put down some one _point_, so to speak, of it--you could not wonderif I took any extreme one _first_ ... Never minding all the untoldportion 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 horriblenotion away from never so flitting a visit to you, that you were thusand thus to me _on condition_ of my proving just the same to you--justas if we had waited to acknowledge that the moon lighted us till weascertained within these two or three hundred years that the earthhappens to light the moon as well! But I felt that, and so saidit:--now you have declared what I should never have presumed tohope--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 ... Whichis no doubt, the natural and inevitable feeling, could one always seeclearly. Your regard for me is _all_ success--let the rest come, ornot come. In my heart's thankfulness I would ... I am sure I wouldpromise anything that would gratify you ... But it would _not_ dothat, to agree, in words, to change my affections, put them elsewhere&c. &c. That would be pure foolish talking, and quite foreign to thepractical results which you will attain in a better way from a highermotive. I will cheerfully promise you, however, to be 'bound by nowords, ' blind to no miracle; in sober earnest, it is not because Irenounced once for all oxen and the owning and having to do with them, that I will obstinately turn away from any unicorn when such anapparition blesses me ... But meantime I shall walk at peace on ourhills 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 ismine, my pride and joy prevent in no manner my taking the wholeconsolation of it at once, _now_--I will be confident that, if I obeyyou, I shall get no wrong for it--if, endeavouring to spare youfruitless 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 beexpected' &c. &c. You will be the first to say to me 'such an obstaclehas ceased to exist ... Or is now become one palpable to _you_, one_you_ may try and overcome'--and I shall be there, and ready--tenyears hence as now--if alive. One final word on the other matters--the 'worldly matters'--I shallown I alluded to them rather ostentatiously, because--because _thatwould be_ the _one_ poor sacrifice I could make you--one I wouldcheerfully 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 whichI have fought so many good battles to preserve--for that hashappened, too--this light rational life I lead, and know so well thatI lead; this I could give up for nothing less than--what you know--butI _would_ give it up, not for you merely, but for those whosedisappointment might re-act on you--and I should break no promise tomyself--the money getting would not be for the sake of _it_; 'thelabour not for that which is nought'--indeed the necessity of doingthis, if at all, _now_, was one of the reasons which make me go on tothat _last request of all_--at once; one must not be too old, theysay, to begin their ways. But, in spite of all the babble, I feel surethat whenever I make up my mind to that, I can be rich enough and tospare--because along with what you have thought _genius_ in me, iscertainly talent, what the world recognizes as such; and I have triedit in various ways, just to be sure that I _was_ a little magnanimousin never intending to use it. Thus, in more than one of the reviewsand newspapers that laughed my 'Paracelsus' to scorn ten years ago--inthe same column, often, of these reviews, would follow a mostlaudatory notice of an Elementary French book, on a new plan, which I'_did_' for my old French master, and he published--'_that_ was reallyan useful work'!--So that when the only obstacle is only that there isso much _per annum_ to be producible, you will tell me. After all itwould be unfair in me not to confess that this was always intended tobe _my_ own single stipulation--'an objection' which I could see, certainly, --but meant to treat myself to the little luxury ofremoving. So, now, dearest--let me once think of that, and of you as my own, mydearest--this once--dearest, I have done with words for the present. Iwill wait. God bless you and reward you--I kiss your hands _now_. Thisis my comfort, that if you accept my feeling as all but _un_expressednow, more and more will become spoken--or understood, that is--we bothlive 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 uncertaintyabout the vessel's sailing again for Leghorn--it could not sail beforethe middle of the month--and only then _if_ &c. But if I would leavemy 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 wasa probable evil when I wrote last, and which I foresaw from thebeginning--being a prophetess, you know. I cannot tell you now how ithas all happened--_only do not blame me_, for I have kept my ground tothe last, and only yield when Mr. Kenyon and all the world see thatthere is no standing. I am ashamed almost of having put so muchearnestness into a personal matter--and I spoke face to face and quitefirmly--so as to pass with my sisters for the 'bravest person in thehouse' without contestation. Sometimes it seems to me as if it _could not_ end so--I mean, that theresponsibility of such a negative must be reconsidered ... And you seehow 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 havea headache and am weary at heart with all this vexation--and besidesthere is no haste now: and when you do come, _if you do_, I will trustto 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 hadforgotten to give you your MSS. Which were lying ready for you ... The_Hood_ poems. Would it not be desirable that you made haste to seethem through the press, and went abroad with your Roman friends atonce, to try to get rid of that uneasiness in the head? Do think ofit--and more than think. For me, you are not to fancy me unwell. Only, not to be worn a littlewith the last week's turmoil, were impossible--and Mr. Kenyon said tome yesterday that he quite wondered how I could bear it at all, doanything reasonable at all, and confine my misdoings to sendingletters addressed to him at Brighton, when he was at Dover! Ifanything changes, you shall hear from-- E. B. B. Mr. Kenyon returns to Dover immediately. His kindness is impotent inthe 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 itfinally; but I cannot let you go on to fancy a mystery anywhere, inobstacles or the rest. You deserve at least a full frankness; and inmy letter I meant to be fully frank. I even told you what was anabsurdity, so absurd that I should far rather not have told you atall, only that I felt the need of telling you all: and no mystery isinvolved in that, except as an 'idiosyncrasy' is a mystery. But the'insurmountable' difficulty is for you and everybody to see; and forme to feel, who have been a very byword among the talkers, for aconfirmed invalid through months and years, and who, even if I weregoing to Pisa and had the best prospects possible to me, should yetremain liable to relapses and stand on precarious ground to the end ofmy life. Now that is no mystery for the trying of 'faith'; but a plainfact, 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 andrepeat in words for which I gratefully thank you--and which are _not_'ostentatious' though unnecessary words--for, if I were in a positionto accept sacrifices from you, I would not accept _such_ a sacrifice... Amounting to a sacrifice of duty and dignity as well as of easeand satisfaction ... To an exchange of higher work for lower work ... And of the special work you are called to, for that which is work foranybody. I am not so ignorant of the right uses and destinies of whatyou have and are. You will leave the Solicitor-Generalships to theFitzroy Kellys, and justify your own nature; and besides, do me thelittle right, (_over_ the _over_-right you are always doing me) ofbelieving that I would not bear or dare to do _you_ so much wrong, ifI were in the position to do it. And for all the rest I thank you--believe that I thank you ... Andthat the feeling is not so weak as the word. That _you_ should care atall for _me_ has been a matter of unaffected wonder to me from thefirst hour until now--and I cannot help the pain I feel sometimes, inthinking that it would have been better for you if you never had knownme. May God turn back the evil of me! Certainly I admit that I cannotexpect 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 asaccessible to the 'unicorn' now as you ever could be at any formerperiod of your life. And here I have done. I had done _living_, Ithought, 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 foryou--which were a sufficient end. If you come on Saturday I trust youto 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 anypurpose. I will not say one word here--very well knowing neither wordnor deed avails--from me. My letter will have reassured you on the point you seem undecidedabout--whether I would speak &c. I will come whenever you shall signify that I may ... Whenever, actingin my best interests, you feel that it will not hurt you (weary you inany way) to see me--but I fear that on Saturday I must beotherwhere--I enclose the letter from my old foe. Which could not butmelt me for all my moroseness and I can hardly go and return for mysister 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 willbe '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 thoughtfullyand talking leisurely--and every moment I have expected I confess, some word (that did not come) about Pisa. Mr. Kenyon thinks it cannotend so--and I do sometimes--and in the meantime I do confess to alittle 'savageness' also--at heart! All I asked him to say the otherday, was that he was not displeased with me--_and he wouldn't_; andfor me to walk across his displeasure spread on the threshold of thedoor, and moreover take a sister and brother with me, and do such athing for the sake of going to Italy and securing a personaladvantage, were altogether impossible, obviously impossible! So poorPapa 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 seeyou on Thursday any way, for Mr. Kenyon is here every day ... Stayingin town just on account of this Pisa business, in his abundantkindness.... 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 bepure madness, I think. It _is_ just 'what I see' that I _do_ see, --orrather it has proved, since I first visited you, that the reality wasinfinitely worse than I know it to be ... For at, and after thewriting of _that first letter_, on my first visit, I believed--throughsome silly or misapprehended talk, collected at second hand too--thatyour complaint was of quite another nature--a spinal injuryirremediable 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 orneutralize what you _were_, what I wished to associate with myself inyou? 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 piousduty, ' I suppose, in enduring what could not be amended--a pattern togood people in not running away ... For where were _now_ the use andthe good and the profit and-- I desire in this life (with very little fluctuation for a man and tooweak 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 Ilived quietly with myself and with you. That you cannot dance likeCerito 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 andunexpected happiness of being allowed when not working to ratheroccupy myself with watching you, than with certain other pursuits Imight be otherwise addicted to--_this_, also, does not constitute anobstacle, as I see obstacles. But _you_ see them--and I see _you_, and know my first duty and do itresolutely 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 bemisunderstood--because I studiously cut out all vain words, protesting&c. :--No--will it? I said, unadvisedly, that Saturday was taken from me ... But it wasdark and I had not looked at the tickets: the hour of the performanceis 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 allwill 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 generousand loyal of all in the world--you overwhelm me with yourgenerosity--only while you see from above and I from below, we cannotsee the same thing in the same light. Moreover, if we _did_, I shouldbe more beneath you in one sense, than I am. Do me the justice ofremembering this whenever you recur in thought to the subject whichends here in the words of it. I began to write last Saturday to thank you for all the delight I hadhad in Shelley, though you beguiled me about the pencil-marks, whichare few. Besides the translations, some of the original poems were notin my copy and were, so, quite new to me. 'Marianne's Dream' I hadbeen 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 sayit) about _you_, who do what is wrong by your own confession and areill because of it and make people uneasy--now _is_ it rightaltogether? is it right to do wrong?... For it comes to _that_:--andis 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 thatyou will be ill in a serious way, if you do not take care and takeexercise; and so you must consent to be teazed a little into takingboth. And if you will not take them here ... Or not so effectually asin other places; _why not go with your Italian friends_? Have youthought of it at all? _I_ have been thinking since yesterday that itmight be best for you to go at once, now that the probability hasturned quite against me. If I were going, I should ask you not to doso immediately ... But you see how unlikely it is!--although I meanstill to speak my whole thoughts--I _will do that_ ... Even thoughfor the mere purpose of self-satisfaction. George came last night--butthere is an adverse star this morning, and neither of us has theopportunity necessary. Only both he and I _will speak_--that iscertain. And Arabel had the kindness to say yesterday that if I likedto go, she would go with me at whatever hazard--which is verykind--but you know I could not--it would not be right of me. Andperhaps after all we may gain the point lawfully; and if not ... Atthe worst ... The winter may be warm (it is better to fall into thehands of God, as the Jew said) and I may lose less strength thanusual, ... Having more than usual to lose ... And altogether it maynot be so bad an alternative. As to being the cause of any angeragainst my sister, you would not advise me into such a position, I amsure--it would be untenable for one moment. But _you_ ... In that case, ... Would it not be good for your head ifyou went at once? I praise myself for saying so to you--yet if itreally is good for you, I don't deserve the praising at all. And howwas it on Saturday--that question I did not ask yesterday--with BenJonson and the amateurs? I thought of you at the time--I mean, on thatSaturday 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 foundyour note on my return, and knew what you had been enjoining me in theway of exercise, I seemed as if I knew, too, why that energetic fithad possessed me and why I succumbed to it so readily. You shall neverhave to intimate twice to me that such an insignificant thing, even, as the taking exercise should be done. Besides, I have many motivesnow for wishing to continue well. But Italy _just now_--Oh, no! Myfriends would go through Pisa, too. On that subject I must not speak. And you have 'more strength tolose, ' and are so well, evidently so well; that is, so much better, sosure 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 thethanks? But you know what I feel, and shall feel--ever feel--for theseand for all. The notes would be beyond price to me if they came fromsome dear Phemius of a teacher--but from you! The Theatricals 'went off' with great éclat, and the performance wasreally good, really clever or better. Forster's 'Kitely' was veryemphatic and earnest, and grew into great interest, quite up to thepoet's allotted tether, which is none of the longest. He pitched thecharacter's key note too gravely, I thought; _beginning_ withcertainty, rather than mere suspicion, of evil. Dickens' 'Bobadil'_was_ capital--with perhaps a little too much of the consciousness ofentire cowardice ... Which I don't so willingly attribute to the noblewould-be pacificator of Europe, besieger of Strigonium &c. --but theend of it all was really pathetic, as it should be, for Bobadil isonly too clever for the company of fools he makes wonderment for:having once the misfortune to relish their society, and to need buttoo pressingly their 'tobacco-money, ' what can he do but suit himselfto their capacities?--And D. Jerrold was very amusing and clever inhis 'Country Gull'--And Mr. Leech superb in the Town Master Mathew. All were good, indeed, and were voted good, and called on, and cheeredoff, and praised heartily behind their backs and before the curtain. Stanfield's function had exercise solely in the touching up (veryeffectively) sundry 'Scenes'--painted scenes--and the dresses, whichwere perfect, had the advantage of Mr. Maclise's experience. And--allis told! And now; I shall hear, you promise me, if anything occurs--with whatfeeling, I wait and hope, you know. If there is _no_ best of reasonsagainst 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 thesame position; only with bitterer feelings on one side. If I go orstay they _must_ be bitter: words have been said that I cannot easilyforget, nor remember without pain; and yet I really do almost smile inthe midst of it all, to think how I was treated this morning as anundutiful daughter because I tried to put on my gloves ... For therewas no worse provocation. At least he complained of the undutifulnessand rebellion (!!!) of everyone in the house--and when I asked if hemeant that reproach for _me_, the answer was that he meant it for allof us, one with another. And I could not get an answer. He would noteven grant me the consolation of thinking that I sacrificed what Isupposed to be good, to _him_. I told him that my prospects of healthseemed to me to depend on taking this step, but that through myaffection for him, I was ready to sacrifice those to his pleasure ifhe exacted it--only it was necessary to my self-satisfaction in futureyears, to understand definitely that the sacrifice _was_ exacted byhim and _was_ made to him, ... And not thrown away blindly and by amisapprehension. And he would not answer _that_. I might do my ownway, he said--_he_ would not speak--_he_ would not say that he was notdispleased with me, nor the contrary:--I had better do what Iliked:--for his part, he washed his hands of me altogether. And so I have been very wise--witness how my eyes are swelled withannotations and reflections on all this! The best of it is that nowGeorge himself admits I can do no more in the way of speaking, ... Ihave no spell for charming the dragons, ... And allows me to bepassive and enjoins me to be tranquil, and not 'make up my mind' toany dreadful exertion for the future. Moreover he advises me to go onwith the preparations for the voyage, and promises to state the casehimself at the last hour to the 'highest authority'; and judge finallywhether 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 upthe whole? Tell me. I feel aggrieved of course and wounded--andwhether I go or stay that feeling must last--I cannot help it. But myspirits sink altogether at the thought of leaving England _so_--andthen 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 theadvantage is merely personal to myself. On the other side, Georgeholds that if I give up and stay even, there will be displeasure justthe same, ... And that, when once gone, the irritation will exhaustand smooth itself away--which however does not touch my chiefobjection. 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 bethrown off--_that_ is my conviction. But ... Shall I give up _atonce_? Do think for me. And I have thought that if you like to come on Friday instead ofSaturday ... As there is the uncertainty about next week, ... It woulddivide the time more equally: but let it be as you like and accordingto circumstances as you see them. Perhaps you have decided to go atonce with your friends--who knows? I wish I could know that you werebetter 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 knowcertain feelings _you_ had been forced to endure. I suppose all of ushave the proper place where a blow should fall to be felt most--and Itruly wish _you_ may never feel what I have to bear in looking on, quite powerless, and silent, while you are subjected to thistreatment, which I refuse to characterize--so blind is it _for_blindness. I think I ought to understand what a father may exact, anda child should comply with; and I respect the most ambiguous of love'scaprices if they give never so slight a clue to their all-justifyingsource. Did I, when you signified to me the probable objections--youremember 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 vigilancethey entail--but now, and here, the jewel is not being over guarded, but ruined, cast away. And whoever is privileged to interfere shoulddo so in the possessor's own interest--all common senseinterferes--all rationality against absolute no-reason at all. And youask whether you ought to obey this no-reason? I will tell you: allpassive obedience and implicit submission of will and intellect is byfar too easy, if well considered, to be the course prescribed by Godto Man in this life of probation--for they _evade_ probationaltogether, though foolish people think otherwise. Chop off your legs, you will never go astray; stifle your reason altogether and you willfind it is difficult to reason ill. 'It is hard to make thesesacrifices!'--not so hard as to lose the reward or incur the penaltyof an Eternity to come; 'hard to effect them, then, and go throughwith them'--_not_ hard, when the leg is to be _cut off_--that it israther harder to keep it quiet on a stool, I know very well. Thepartial indulgence, the proper exercise of one's faculties, there isthe difficulty and problem for solution, set by that Providence whichmight have made the laws of Religion as indubitable as those ofvitality, and revealed the articles of belief as certainly as thatcondition, for instance, by which we breathe so many times in a minuteto support life. But there is no reward proposed for the feat ofbreathing, and a great one for that of believing--consequently theremust go a great deal more of voluntary effort to this latter than isimplied in the getting absolutely rid of it at once, by adopting thedirection of an infallible church, or private judgment of another--forall 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 theless. In your case I do think you are called upon to do your duty toyourself; that is, to God in the end. Your own reason should examinethe whole matter in dispute by every light which can be put inrequisition; and every interest that appears to be affected by yourconduct should have its utmost claims considered--your father's in thefirst place; and that interest, not in the miserable limits of a fewdays' pique or whim in which it would seem to express itself; but inits whole extent ... The _hereafter_ which all momentary passionprevents him seeing ... Indeed, the _present_ on either side whicheveryone else must see. And this examination made, with whateverearnestness you will, I do think and am sure that on its conclusionyou should act, in confidence that a duty has been performed ... _difficult_, or how were it a duty? Will it _not_ be infinitely harderto act so than to blindly adopt his pleasure, and die under it? Whocan _not_ do that? I fling these hasty rough words over the paper, fast as they willfall--knowing to whom I cast them, and that any sense they may containor point to, will be caught and understood, and presented in a betterlight. The hard thing ... This is all I want to say ... Is to act onone'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. Isupposed you to labour under an incurable complaint--and, of course, to be completely dependent on your father for its commonestalleviations; the moment after that inconsiderate letter, I reproachedmyself bitterly with the selfishness apparently involved in anyproposition I might then have made--for though I have never been atall frightened of the world, nor mistrustful of my power to deal withit, and get my purpose out of it if once I thought it worth while, yetI 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 butmyself 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 couldcheerfully and confidently undertake the removing _that_ obstacle. Nowagain the circumstances shift--and you are in what I should wonder atas the veriest slavery--and I who _could_ free you from it, I am herescarcely daring to write ... Though I know you must feel for me andforgive what forces itself from me ... What retires so mutely into myheart at your least word ... What _shall not_ be again written orspoken, if you so will ... That I should be made happy beyond all hopeof expression by. Now while I _dream_, let me once dream! I wouldmarry you now and thus--I would come when you let me, and go when youbade me--I would be no more than one of your brothers--'_nomore_'--that is, instead of getting to-morrow for Saturday, I shouldget Saturday as well--two hours for one--when your head ached Ishould be _here_. I deliberately choose the realization of that dream(--of sitting simply by you for an hour every day) rather than anyother, excluding you, I am able to form for this world, or any world Iknow--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 thehouse by an accident, so that it was left in the letter-box, and if Ihad wished to answer it before I saw you, it had scarcely beenpossible. But it will be the same thing--for you know as well as if you saw myanswer, what it must be, what it cannot choose but be, on pain ofsinking me so infinitely below not merely your level but my own, thatthe depth cannot bear a glance down. Yet, though I am not made of suchclay as to admit of my taking a base advantage of certain nobleextravagances, (and that I am not I thank God for your sake) I willsay, I must say, that your words in this letter have done me good andmade me happy, ... That I thank and bless you for them, ... And thatto receive such a proof of attachment from _you_, not only overpowersevery present evil, but seems to me a full and abundant amends for themerely personal sufferings of my whole life. When I had read thatletter last night I _did_ think so. I looked round and round for thesmall bitternesses which for several days had been bitter to me, and Icould not find one of them. The tear-marks went away in the moistureof new, happy tears. Why, how else could I have felt? how else do youthink I could? How would any woman have felt ... Who could feel at all... Hearing such words said (though 'in a dream' indeed) by such aspeaker? And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly thanI thought even _you_ could have touched me--my heart was full when youcame here to-day. Henceforward I am yours for everything but to do youharm--and I am yours too much, in my heart, ever to consent to do youharm in that way. If I could consent to do it, not only should I beless loyal ... But in one sense, less yours. I say this to you withoutdrawback and reserve, because it is all I am able to say, and perhapsall I _shall_ be able to say. However this may be, a promise goes toyou in it that none, except God and your will, shall interpose betweenyou and me, ... I mean, that if He should free me within a moderatetime from the trailing chain of this weakness, I will then be to youwhatever at that hour you shall choose ... Whether friend or more thanfriend ... A friend to the last in any case. So it rests with God andwith you--only in the meanwhile you are most absolutely free ... 'unentangled' (as they call it) by the breadth of a thread--and if Idid not know that you considered yourself so, I would not see you anymore, 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 downon the stone-pavement of the logicians. And now if I ask a boon of you, will you forget afterwards that itever was asked? I have hesitated a great deal; but my face is down onthe stone-pavement--no--I will not ask to-day--It shall be for anotherday--and may God bless you on this and on those that come after, mydearest 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 allgreat-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_ hadbeen the plain one--but now ... When I have better experience of--No, now I have BEST experience of how you understand my interests; that atlast 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 isloose on my head, not nailed there--my pearl lies in my hand--I mayreturn 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 donot ... No, we do not ... Agree (but disagree) as to 'what is yourtrue good' ... But disagree, and as widely as ever indeed. The other asking shall come in its season ... Some day before I go, ifI go. It only relates to a restitution--and you cannot guess it if youtry ... So don't try!--and perhaps you can't grant it if you try--andI cannot guess. Cabins and berths all taken in the Malta steamer for both third andtwentieth of October! see what dark lanterns the stars hold out, andhow I shall stay in England after all as I think! And thus we arethrown back on the old Gibraltar scheme with its shifting of steamers... Unless we take the dreary alternative of Madeira!--or Cadiz! Evensuppose Madeira, ... Why it were for a few months alone--and therewould be no temptation to loiter as in Italy. _Don't_ think too hardly of poor Papa. You have his wrong side ... Hisside of peculiar wrongness ... To you just now. When you have walkedround 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 totake one more besides--for there is no going until the fourth orseventh, ... And the seventh is the more probable of those two. Butnow 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 scepticismgrew and grew through Hume's process of doubtful doubts, and at lastrose to the full stature of incredulity ... For I never could believeShelley capable of such a book (call it a book!), not even with aflood of boarding-school idiocy dashed in by way of dilution. Altogether it roused me to deny myself so far as to look at the dateof the book, and to get up and travel to the other end of the room toconfront it with other dates in the 'Letters from Abroad' ... (I, whonever think of a date except the 'A. D. , ' and am inclined every now andthen to write _that_ down as 1548 ... ) well! and on comparing thesedates in these two volumes before my eyes, I find that yourRosicrucian was 'printed for Stockdale' in _1822_, and that Shelley_died in the July of the same year_!!--There, is a vindicating factfor you! And unless the 'Rosicrucian' went into more editions thanone, and dates here from a later one, ... Which is not ascertainablefrom this fragment of a titlepage, ... The innocence of the great poetstands proved--now doesn't it? For nobody will say that he publishedsuch a book in the last year of his life, in the maturity of hisgenius, and that Godwin's daughter helped him in it! That 'drippingdew' from the skeleton is the only living word in the book!--whichreally amused me notwithstanding, from the intense absurdity of thewhole composition ... Descriptions ... Sentiments ... And morals. Judge yourself if I had not better say 'No' about the cloak! I wouldtake it if you wished such a kindness to me--and although you mightfind 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 themantle of the prophet might bring me down something of his spirit! butdo you remember ... Do you consider ... How many talkers there are inthis house, and what would be talked--or that it is not worth while toprovoke it all? And Papa, knowing it, would not like it--andaltogether it is far better, believe me, that you should keep your owncloak, and I, the thought of the kindness you meditated in respect toit. I have heard nothing more--nothing. I was asked the other day by a very young friend of mine ... Thedaughter of an older friend who once followed you up-stairs in thishouse ... Mr. Hunter, an Independent minister ... For 'Mr. Browning'sautograph. ' 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 asyou write for the printers ... And let me keep my promise and send itto her? I forgot to ask you before. Or one verse will do ... Anythingwill do ... And don't let me be bringing you into vexation. It neednot be of MS. Rarity. You are not better ... Really ... I fear. And your mother's being illaffects 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 inShelley's own library at Marlow once, to the writer's horror andshame--'He snatched it out of my hands'--said H. Yet I thrust it intoyours ... So much for the subtle fence of friends who reach your heartby a side-thrust, as I told you on Tuesday, after the enemy has fallenback breathless and baffled. As for the date, that Stockdale was anotorious pirate and raker-up of rash publications ... And, do youknow, I suspect the _title-page_ is all that boasts such novelty, --seeif the _book_, the inside leaves, be not older evidently!--a commontrick 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 Iconfess the whole story grows monstrous and even the froth of winestrings itself in bright bubbles, --ah, but this was the scum of thefermenting vat, do you see? I am happy to say I forget the novelentirely, or almost--and only keep the exact impression which you havegained ... Through me! 'The fair cross of gold _he dashed on thefloor_'--(_that_ is my pet-line ... Because the 'chill dew' of a placenot commonly supposed to favour humidity is a plagiarism from Lewis's'Monk, ' it now flashes on me! Yes, Lewis, too, puts the phrase intointense italics. ) And now, please read a chorus in the 'PrometheusUnbound' or a scene from the 'Cenci'--and join company with Shelleyagain! --From 'chill dew' I come to the _cloak_--you are quite right--and Igive up that fancy. Will you, then, take one more precaution when_all_ proper safe-guards have been adopted; and, when _everything_ issure, contrive some one sureness besides, against cold or wind orsea-air; and say '_this_--for the cloak which is not here, and to helpthe heart's wish which is, '--so I shall be there _palpably_. Will youdo 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 littlebetter--certainly better. I am better too, in my unimportant way. Now I will write you the verses ... Some easy ones out of a paper-fullmeant to go between poem and poem in my next number, and break theshock of collision. Let me kiss your hand--dearest! My heart and life--all is yours, andforever--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 inhis head to beguile the Duke of Palmella out of a smaller cabin, sothat I might sail from the Thames on the twentieth--and whether hesucceeds or not, I humbly confess that one of the chief advantages ofthe 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'sthe wise thrush, ' so characteristic of you (and of the thrush too)that I was sorely tempted to ask you to write it 'twice over, ' ... Andnot send the first copy to Mary Hunter notwithstanding my promise toher. And now when you come to print these fragments, would it not bewell if you were to stoop to the vulgarism of prefixing some word ofintroduction, as other people do, you know, ... A title ... A name?You perplex your readers often by casting yourself on theirintelligence in these things--and although it is true that readers ingeneral are stupid and can't understand, it is still more true thatthey are lazy and won't understand ... And they don't catch your pointof sight at first unless you think it worth while to push them by theshoulders and force them into the right place. Now these fragments ... You mean to print them with a line between ... And not one word at thetop 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 yourlyrics have suffered just from your disdain of the usual tactics ofwriters in this one respect. And you are not better, still--you are worse instead of better ... Areyou not? Tell me--And what can you mean about 'unimportance, ' when youwere worse last week ... This expiring week ... Than ever before, byyour own confession? And now?--And your mother? Yes--I promise! And so, ... _Elijah_ will be missed instead of hismantle ... Which will be a losing contract after all. But it shall beas 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 ofit is prodigious--far beyond Mr. Smythe. Not that I can settle upon abook 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, andwith no great difficulty, to give up a cabin under thecircumstances--and _then_ the plan becomes really objection-proof, sofar as mortal plans go. But now you must think all the boldlier aboutwhatever difficulties remain, just because they are so much the fewer. It _is_ cold already in the mornings and evenings--cold and (thismorning) foggy--I did not ask if you continue to go out from time totime.... I am sure you _should_, --you would so prepare yourselfproperly for the fatigue and change--yesterday it was very warm andfine in the afternoon, nor is this noontime so bad, if the requisiteprecautions are taken. And do make 'journeys across the room, ' and outof it, meanwhile, and _stand_ when possible--get all the strengthready, 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 forefforts and beginnings) looking over and correcting what you read--topress 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_ bethere!... I am much better to-day; and my mother better--and to-morrowI shall see you--So come good things together! Dearest--till to-morrow and ever I am yours, wholly yours--May Godbless 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 shallperhaps 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 lettercomes I am driven to asking you to leave Tuesday for Wednesday. On Tuesday Mr. Kenyon is to be here or not to be here, hesays--there's a doubt; and you would rather go to a clear day. So ifyou do not hear from me again I shall expect you on _Wednesday_ unlessI hear to the contrary from you:--and if anything happens to Wednesdayyou shall hear. Mr. Kenyon is in town for only two days, or three. Inever could grumble against him, so good and kind as he is--but he maynot come after all to-morrow--so it is not grudging the obolus toBelisarius, but the squandering of the last golden days at the bottomof the purse. Do I 'stand'--Do I walk? Yes--most uprightly. I 'walk upright everyday. ' 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 theeast wind; and perhaps if I had breathed a breath of it ... FarewellPisa. People who can walk don't always walk into the lion's den as aconsequence--do they? should they? Are you 'sure that they should?' Iwrite 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 seeyou, 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 itsinstructions, why, first, it _is_ such a note and such a gain, andnext it makes a great day out of to-morrow that was to have been solittle of a day, that is all. Only, only, I am suspicious, now, of areal loss to me in the end; for, _putting_ off yesterday, I dared putoff (on your part) Friday to Saturday ... While _now_ ... What shallbe said to that? Dear Mr. Kenyon to be the smiling inconscious obstacle to any pleasureof mine, if it were merely pleasure! But I want to catch our next post--to-morrow, then, excepting what isto 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 hadbeen 'detained all day in the city and would certainly be hereto-morrow, ' Wednesday! And so you see what has happened to Wednesday!Moreover he may come besides on Thursday, ... I can answer fornothing. 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 itis not (in the meantime) my fault--now is it? I have been quite enoughvexed about it, indeed. Did the Monday work work harm to the head, I wonder? I do fear so thatyou won't get through those papers with impunity--especially if theplays are to come after ... Though ever so 'gently. ' And if you are tosuffer, it would be right to tongue-tie that silver Bell, and leavethe congregations to their selling of cabbages. Which isunphilanthropic of me perhaps, ... [Greek: ô philtate]. Be sure that I shall be 'bold' when the time for going comes--and bothbold and capable of the effort. I am desired to keep to the respiratorand the cabin for a day or two, while the cold can reach us; andmidway in the bay of Biscay some change of climate may be felt, theysay. There is no sort of danger for me; except that I shall _stay inEngland_. And why is it that I feel to-night more than ever almost, asif 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--_thatwill_ not be--_shall_ not be. Yes--and Mr. Kenyon and I agreed theother day that there was something of the tigress-nature verydistinctly cognisable under what he is pleased to call my'Ba-lambishness. ' Then, on Thursday!... Unless something happens to _Thursday_ ... And Ishall write in that case. And I trust to you (as always) to attend toyour own convenience--just as you may trust to me to remember my own'boon. ' Ah--you are curious, I think! Which is scarcely wise ofyou--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 itwas a 'restitution, ' which limits the guesses if it does not put anend to them. Unguessable, I choose it to be. And now I feel as if I should _not_ stay in England. Which is thedifference 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 kindnesstoo) about the probabilities as to Pisa being against me ... About alldepending 'on one throw' and the 'dice being loaded' &c. ... That Ilooked at him aghast as if he looked at the future through the foldedcurtain and was licensed to speak oracles:--and ever since I have beenout of spirits ... Oh, out of spirits--and must write myself backagain, or try. After all he may be wrong like another--and I shouldtell you that he reasons altogether from the delay ... And that 'thecabins 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 willbe on Monday! and now that the hour approaches, I do feel as if thehouse stood upon gunpowder, and as if I held Guy Fawkes's lantern inmy right hand. And no: I shall not go. The obstacles will not be thoseof Mr. Kenyon's finding--and what their precise character will be I donot see distinctly. Only that they will be sufficient, and thrown byone hand just where the wheel should turn, ... _that_, I see--and youwill, in a few days. Did you go to Moxon's and settle the printing matter? Tell me. Andwhat was the use of telling Mr. Kenyon that you were 'quite well' whenyou know you are not? Will you say to me how you are, saying thetruth? and also how your mother is? To show the significance of the omission of those evening or rathernight visits of Papa's--for they came sometimes at eleven, andsometimes at twelve--I will tell you that he used to sit and talk inthem, and then _always_ kneel and pray with me and for me--which Iused of course to feel as a proof of very kind and affectionatesympathy on his part, and which has proportionably pained me in thewithdrawing. They were no ordinary visits, you observe, ... And hecould not well throw me further from him than by ceasing to paythem--the thing is quite expressively significant. Not that I pretendto complain, nor to have reason to complain. One should not begrateful for kindness, only while it lasts: _that_ would be ashort-breathed gratitude. I just tell you the fact, proving that itcannot be accidental. Did you ever, ever tire me? Indeed no--you never did. And dounderstand that I am not to be tired 'in that way, ' though as Mr. Boydsaid once of his daughter, one may be so 'far too effeminate. ' No--ifI were put into a crowd I should be tired soon--or, apart from thecrowd, if you made me discourse orations De Coronâ ... Concerning yourbag even ... I should be tired soon--though peradventure not very muchsooner than you who heard. But on the smooth ground of quietconversation (particularly when three people don't talk at once as mybrothers do ... To say the least!) I last for a long while:--not tosay that I have the pretension of being as good and inexhaustible alistener to your own speaking as you could find in the world. Soplease not to accuse me of being tired again. I can't be tired, andwon't be tired, you see. And now, since I began to write this, there is a new evil andanxiety--a worse anxiety than any--for one of my brothers is ill; hadbeen unwell for some days and we thought nothing of it, till to-daySaturday: and the doctors call it a fever of the typhoid character ... Not typhus yet ... But we are very uneasy. You must not come onWednesday if an infectious fever be in the house--_that_ must be outof 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 ofyour regard; the illness of your brother is worst ... That _would_stay you, and is the first proper obstacle. I shall not attempt tospeak and prove my feelings, --you know what even Flush is to methrough you: I wait in anxiety for the next account. If after all you do _not_ go to Pisa; why, we must be cheerful andwise, and take courage and hope. I cannot but see with your eyes andfrom your place, you know, --and will let this all be one surprizingand deplorable mistake of mere love and care ... But no such anothermistake ought to be suffered, if you escape the effects of this. Iwill not cease to believe in a better event, till the very last, however, and it is a deep satisfaction that all has been made plainand straight up to this strange and sad interposition like a bar. Youhave done _your_ part, at least--with all that forethought and counselfrom friends and adequate judges of the case--so, if the bar _will_not move, you will consider--will you not, dearest?--where one maybest encamp in the unforbidden country, and wait the spring and fineweather. Would it be advisable to go where Mr. Kenyon suggested, orelsewhere? Oh, these vain wishes ... The will here, and no means! My life is bound up with yours--my own, first and last love. Whatwonder if I feared to tire you--I who, knowing you as I do, admiringwhat 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 somuch of you; I, who, for all this, neither come to admire, nor feelproud, nor be taught, --but only, only to live with you and be byyou--that is love--for I _know_ the rest, as I say. I know thosequalities are in you ... But at them I could get in so many ways.... Ihave your books, here are my letters you give me; you would answer myquestions 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 youand see you.... I can stop at that, but not before. And it seemsstrange to me how little ... Less than little I have laid open of myfeelings, the nature of them to you--I smile to think how if all thiswhile I had been acting with the profoundest policy in intention, soas to pledge myself to nothing I could not afterwards perform with themost perfect ease and security, I should have done not much unlikewhat I _have_ done--to be sure, one word includes many or all ... ButI 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 amuseyou to write on)--to Moxon's. First let me tell you that when I calledthere the Saturday before, his brother (in his absence) informed me, replying to the question when it came naturally in turn with a roundof like enquiries, that your poems continued to sell 'singularlywell'--they would 'end in bringing a clear profit, ' he said. I thoughtto catch him, and asked if they _had_ done so ... 'Oh; not at thebeginning ... It takes more time--he answered. On Thursday I sawMoxon--he spoke rather encouragingly of my own prospects. I send him asheetful to-morrow, I believe, and we are 'out' on the 1st of nextmonth. Tennyson, by the way, has got his pension, £200 per annum--bythe other way, Moxon has bought the MSS. Of Keats in the possession ofTaylor 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 mecharacteristic quaintnesses of Carlyle's father and mother over thetea she gave me. And all yesterday, you are to know, I was in apermanent mortal fright--for my uncle came in the morning to intreatme to go to Paris in _the evening_ about some urgent business ofhis, --a five-minutes matter with his brother there, --and the affairbeing really urgent and material to his and the brother's interest, and no substitute being to be thought of, I was forced to promise togo--in case a letter, which would arrive in Town at noon, should notprove satisfactory. So I calculated times, and found I could be atParis to-morrow, and back again, _certainly_ by Wednesday--and so notlose you on that day--oh, the fear I had!--but I was sure then andnow, that the 17th would not see you depart. But night came, and thelast Dover train left, and I drew breath freely--this morning I findthe letter was all right--so may it be with all worse apprehensions!What you fear, precisely that, never happens, as Napoleon observed andthereon grew bold. I had stipulated for an hour's notice, if go Imust--and that was to be wholly spent in writing to you--for in quietconsternation 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, withthe kindest intentions, 'of fever-contagion' and keeping away onWednesday on _that_ account, it is indeed 'out of the question, '--fora first reason (which dispenses with any second) because I disbelievealtogether in contagion from fevers, and especially from typhusfevers--as do much better-informed men than myself--I speak quiteadvisedly. If there should be only _that_ reason, therefore, you willnot deprive me of the happiness of seeing you next Wednesday. I am not well--have a cold, influenza or some unpleasant thing, but ambetter than yesterday--My mother is much better, I think (she and mysister 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 restas I did to-day, just as if it could do any good, all the wringing ofhands in the world. And there is no typhus _yet_ ... And no danger ofany sort I hope and trust!--and how weak it is that habit of spreadingthe cloud which is in you all around you, how weak and selfish ... Andunlike what _you_ would do ... Just as you are unlike Mr. Kenyon. Andyou _are_ unlike him--and you were right on Thursday when you saidso, and I was wrong in setting up a phrase on the other side ... Onlywhat I said came by an instinct because you seemed to be giving himall the sunshine to use and carry, which should not be after all. Butyou are unlike him and must be ... Seeing that the producers mustdiffer from the 'nati consumere fruges' in the intellectual as in thematerial. You create and he enjoys, and the work makes you pale andthe pleasure makes him ruddy, and it is so of a necessity. So differsthe man of genius from the man of letters--and then dear Mr. Kenyon isnot even a man of letters in a full sense ... He is rather a Sybariteof letters. Do you think he ever knew what mental labour is? I fancynot. Not more than he has known what mental inspiration is! And notmore than he has known what the strife of the heart is ... With allhis tenderness and sensibility. He seems to me to _evade_ pain, andwhere 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 ablow: the secret of all being that he has a certain latitudinarianism(not indifferentism) in his life and affections, and has no capacityfor concentration and intensity. Partly by temperament and partly byphilosophy he contrives to keep the sunny side of the street--thoughnever inclined to forget the blind man at the corner. Ah, dear Mr. Kenyon: he is magnanimous in toleration, and excellent insympathy--and he has the love of beauty and the reverence ofgenius--but the faculty of _worship_ he has not: he will not worshiparight 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 heardof 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 ofthose very same 'loaded dice, ' and no otherwise. Yet he reveres geniusin 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 tothink what I please of him, holding him as I do, in such trueaffection. One of the kindest and most indulgent of human beings hashe been to me, and I am happy to be grateful to him. _Sunday. _--The Duke of Palmella takes the whole vessel for the 20thand therefore if I go it must be on the 17th. Therefore (besides) asGeorge must be on sessions to-morrow, he will settle the question withPapa to-night. In the meantime our poor Occy is not much better, though a little, and is ordered leeches on his head, and is confinedto his bed and attended by physician and surgeon. It is not decidedtyphus, but they will not answer for its not being infectious; andalthough he is quite at the top of the house, two stories above me, Ishall not like you to come indeed. And then there will be only roomfor 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 hereto-morrow, he says) let us agree to throw away Wednesday. I willwrite, ... You will write perhaps--and above all things you willpromise to write by the 'Star' on Monday, that the captain may give meyour letter at Gibraltar. You promise? But I shall hear from youbefore then, and oftener than once, and you will acquiesce aboutWednesday and grant at once that there can be no gain, no good, inthat miserable good-bye-ing. I do not want the pain of it to rememberyou by--I shall remember very well without it, be sure. Still it shallbe 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 thatthere's no risk of infection. _Monday. _--All this I had written yesterday--and to-day it all isworse than vain. Do not be angry with me--do not think it myfault--but _I do not go to Italy_ ... It has ended as I feared. Whatpassed between George and Papa there is no need of telling: only thelatter said that I 'might go if I pleased, but that going it would beunder his heaviest displeasure. ' George, in great indignation, pressed the question fully: but all was vain ... And I am left in thisposition ... To go, if I please, with his displeasure over me, (whichafter what you have said and after what Mr. Kenyon has said, and afterwhat my own conscience and deepest moral convictions say aloud, Iwould unhesitatingly do at this hour!) and necessarily run the risk ofexposing my sister and brother to that same displeasure ... From whichrisk 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 seeswhat I see ... That I am justified in going myself, but not inbringing others into difficulty. The very kindness and goodness withwhich 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 notwrong in taking up my chain again and acquiescing in this hardnecessity. The bitterest 'fact' of all is, that I had believed Papa tohave loved me more than he obviously does: but I never regretknowledge ... I mean I never would _un_know anything ... Even were itthe taste of the apples by the Dead sea--and this must be acceptedlike the rest. In the meantime your letter comes--and if I could seemto 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 makethem almost unregarded--the shadows of the life behind. Moreover dearOccy is somewhat better--with a pulse only at ninety: and the doctorsdeclare that visitors may come to the house without any manner ofdanger. Or I should not trust to your theories--no, indeed: it was notthat I expected you to be afraid, but that _I_ was afraid--and if I amnot ashamed for _that_, why at least I am, for being _lâche_ aboutWednesday, when you thought of hurrying back from Paris only for it!You _could_ think _that_!--You _can_ care for me so much!--(I come toit again!) When I hold some words to my eyes ... Such as these inthis letter ... I can see nothing beyond them ... No evil, no want. There _is_ no evil and no want. Am I wrong in the decision aboutItaly? Could I do otherwise? I had courage and to spare--but thequestion, you see, did not regard myself wholly. For the rest, the'unforbidden country' lies within these four walls. Madeira wasproposed in vain--and any part of England would be as objectionable asItaly, and not more advantageous to _me_ than Wimpole Street. To takecourage 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 ofman: _and I shall be here for your November, remember_. And now that you are not well, will you take care? and not come onWednesday unless you are better? and never again bring me _wetflowers_, which probably did all the harm on Thursday? I was afraidfor 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? andthe heat diminishes, and his spirits are better--and we are all mucheasier ... 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 seenfor the best in the end. It is hard to bear now--but _you_ have tobear it; any other person could not, and you will, I know, knowingyou--_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, --Idesire, more earnestly than I ever knew what desiring was, to be yoursand with you and, as far as may be in this life and world, YOU--andno hindrance to that, but one, gives me a moment's care or fear; butthat one is just your little hand, as I could fancy it raised in anyleast 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 notspeak _now_; not seem to take advantage of your present feelings, --wewill be rational, and all-considering and weighing consequences, andforeseeing 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 anyrate it is forced to ask you to take Thursday for Wednesday, inasmuchas Mr. Kenyon in his exceeding kindness has put off his journey justfor _me_, he says, because he saw me depressed about the decision, andwished to come and see me again to-morrow and talk the spirits up, Isuppose. It is all so kind and good, that I cannot find a voice togrumble about the obligation it brings of writing thus. And then, ifyou suffer from cold and influenza, it will be better for you not tocome for another day, ... I think _that_, for comfort. Shall I hearhow you are to-night, I wonder? Dear Occy 'turned the corner, ' thephysician said, yesterday evening, and, although a little fluctuatingto-day, remains on the whole considerably better. They were just intime to keep the fever from turning to typhus. How fast you print your book, for it is to be out on the first ofNovember! Why it comes out suddenly like the sun. Mr. Kenyon asked meif I had seen anything you were going to print; and when I mentionedthe second part of the 'Duchess' and described how your perfectrhymes, perfectly new, and all clashing together as by naturalattraction, had put me at once to shame and admiration, he began topraise the first part of the same poem (which I had heard him dobefore, by the way) and extolled it as one of your most strikingproductions. 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 tobe glad about something--is is it not? about something out ofourselves. And (_in_ myself) I shall be most glad, if I have a letterto-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 isgood, 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 isall kindness, and one gets to take it as not so purely natural athing, the showing kindness to those it concerns, and belongsto, --well! On Thursday, then, --to-morrow! Did you not get a note ofmine, a hurried note, which was meant for yesterday-afternoon'sdelivery? Mr. Forster came yesterday and was very profuse of graciosities: hemay have, or must have meant well, so we will go on again with thefriendship, 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 inlines and words, just a morning's business; but one does not writeplays so. You may like some of my smaller things, which stopinterstices, better than what you have seen; I shall wonder to know. Iam to receive a _proof_ at the end of the week--will you help me andover-look it. ('Yes'--she says ... My thanks I do not say!--) While writing this, the _Times_ catches my eye (it just came in) andsomething from the _Lancet_ is extracted, a long article againstquackery--and, as I say, this is the first and only sentence Iread--'There is scarcely a peer of the realm who is not the patron ofsome quack pill or potion: and the literati too, are deeply tainted. We have heard of barbarians who threw quacks and their medicines intothe sea: but here in England we have Browning, a prince of poets, touching the pitch which defiles and making Paracelsus the hero of apoem. Sir E. L. Bulwer writes puffs for the water doctors in a styleworthy of imitation by the scribe that does the poetical for Moses andSon. Miss Martineau makes a finessing servant girl herphysician-general: and Richard Howitt and the Lady aforesaid standGod-father and mother to the contemptible mesmeric vagaries of SpencerHall. '--Even the sweet incense to me fails of its effect if Paracelsusis to figure on a level with Priessnitz, and 'Jane'! What weather, now at last! Think for yourself and for me--could younot go out on such days? I am quite well now--cold, over and gone. Did I tell you my Unclearrived from Paris on Monday, as they hoped he would--so my travelwould 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 theeccentricity of our new postman whose good pleasure it is to make useof the letter-box without knocking; and partly from the confusion inthe house, of illness in different ways ... The very servants beingill, ... One of them breaking a blood-vessel--for there is no new caseof fever; ... And for dear Occy, he grows better slowly day by day. And just so late last night, five letters were found in theletter-box, and mine ... Yours ... Among them--which accounts for mybeginning to answer it only now. What am I to say but this ... That I know what you are ... And that Iknow also what you are to _me_, --and that I should accept thatknowledge as more than sufficient recompense for worse vexations thanthese 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 endgood, as I believe with you. You may be quite sure that I shall bewell 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 happenedquite _so_!), I should certainly have been beaten down--and how it isdifferent now, ... And how it is only gratitude to you, to _say_ thatit is different now. My cage is not worse but better since you broughtthe green groundsel to it--and to dash oneself against the wires of itwill not open the door. We shall see ... And God will oversee. And inthe meantime you will not talk of extravagances; and then nobody needhold up the hand--because, as I said and say, I am yours, yourown--only not to _hurt you_. So now let us talk of the first ofNovember and of the poems which are to come out then, and of the poemswhich are to come after then--and of the new avatar of 'Sordello, ' forinstance, which you taught me to look for. And let us both be busy andcheerful--and you will come and see me throughout the winter, ... Ifyou do not decide rather on going abroad, which may be better ... Better for your health's sake?--in which case I shall have yourletters. And here is another ... Just arrived. How I thank you. Think of the_Times_! Still it was very well of them to recognise yourprincipality. Oh yes--do let me see the proof--I understand too aboutthe 'making and spoiling. ' Almost you forced me to smile by thinking it worth while to say thatyou are '_not selfish_. ' Did Sir Percival say so to Sir Gawaine acrossthe Round Table, in those times of chivalry to which you belong by thesoul? 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 afortnight--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 priestlygarment--but Mr. Kenyon held against me the other day that yourreference was different, though he had not the remotest idea how. Andyesterday I forgot to ask, for not the first time. Tell me too why youshould not in the new number satisfy, by a note somewhere, the Davusesof the world who are in the majority ('Davi sumus, non Oedipi') with asolution of this one Sphinx riddle. Is there a reason against it? Occy continues to make progress--with a pulse at only eighty-four thismorning. Are you learned in the pulse that I should talk as if youwere? _I_, who have had my lessons? He takes scarcely anything yet butwater, and his head is very hot still--but the progress is quitesure, though it may be a lingering case. Your beautiful flowers!--none the less beautiful for waiting for wateryesterday. As fresh as ever, they were; and while I was putting theminto the water, I thought that your visit went on all the time. Otherthoughts too I had, which made me look down blindly, quite blindly, onthe little blue flowers, ... While I thought what I could not havesaid an hour before without breaking into tears which would have runfaster then. To say now that I never can forget; that I feel myselfbound to you as one human being cannot be more bound to another;--andthat 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 'thirdperson, ' ... It would be monstrous to assume it to be necessary tovindicate my trust of you--_I trust you implicitly_--and am not tooproud to owe all things to you. But now let us wait and see what thiswinter does or undoes--while God does His part for good, as we know. Iwill never fail to you from any human influence whatever--_that_ Ihave promised--but you must let it be different from the other sort ofpromise 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 seewhy there should be a 'no' to that. Judge from your own convenience. Only we must be wise in the general practice, and abstain from toofrequent meetings, for fear of difficulties. I am Cassandra you know, and smell the slaughter in the bath-room. It would make no differencein 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, --theproper phrases _will not_ come, --so let them stay, while you care formy best interests in their best, only way, and say for _me_ what Iwould say if I could--dearest, --say it, as I feel it! I am thankful to hear of the continued improvement of your brother. Somay it continue with him! Pulses I know very little about--I go byyour own impressions which are evidently favourable. I will make a note as you suggest--or, perhaps, keep it for theclosing number (the next), when it will come fitly in with two orthree parting words I shall have to say. The Rabbis make Bells andPomegranates symbolical of Pleasure and Profit, the gay and the grave, the Poetry and the Prose, Singing and Sermonizing--such a mixture ofeffects as in the original hour (that is quarter of an hour) ofconfidence and creation. I meant the whole should prove at last. Well, it _has_ succeeded beyond my most adventurous wishes in onerespect--'Blessed eyes mine eyes have been, if--' if there was anysweetness in the tongue or flavour in the seeds to _her_. But I shalldo quite other and better things, or shame on me! The proof has notyet come.... I should go, I suppose, and enquire this afternoon--andprobably I will. I weigh all the words in your permission to come on Monday ... Do notthink _I_ have not seen _that_ contingency from the first! Let it beTuesday--no sooner! Meanwhile you are never away--never from yourplace 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 ourfirst post--will it do, the new matter? I can take it to-morrow--whenI 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 toleave for the presumable 'motto'--'they but remind me of mine ownconception' ... 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, thatthere may be no misunderstanding between us--and this, before I sleepto-night. To-day and before to-day you surprised me by your manner ofreceiving my remark about your visits, for I believed I hadsufficiently made clear to you long ago how certain questions wereordered in this house and how no exception was to be expected for mysake 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 ... (fearingin the case of your wishing to come oftener that you might think itunkind in me not to seem to wish the same) ... That if you came toooften and it was _observed_, difficulties and vexations would followas 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 onevisit is a thing established and may go on as long as you please--andthere 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 thehouse is not equally prudent!--but I did shrink from running any riskwith that calm and comfort of the winter as it seemed to come on. Andwas 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 orold, what it _involves_ may well be unpleasant to you--and that(however old) it may be apt to recur to your mind with a newincreasing unpleasantness. We have both been carried too far perhaps, by late events and impulses--but it is never too late to come back toa right place, and I for my part come back to mine, and entreat you mydearest friend, first, _not to answer this_, and next, to weigh andconsider thoroughly 'that particular contingency' which (I tell youplainly, I who know) the tongue of men and of angels would not modifyso as to render less full of vexations to you. Let Pisa prove theexcellent hardness of some marbles! Judge. From motives ofself-respect, you may well walk an opposite way ... _you_.... When Itold you once ... Or twice ... That 'no human influence should' &c. &c. , ... I spoke for myself, quite over-looking you--and now that Iturn and see you, I am surprised that I did not see you before ... _there_. I ask you therefore to consider 'that contingency' well--notforgetting the other obvious evils, which the late decision about Pisahas aggravated beyond calculation ... For as the smoke rolls off wesee the harm done by the fire. And so, and now ... Is it not advisablefor 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? Ileave it to you. In any case _I entreat you not to answerthis_--neither let your thoughts be too hard on me for what you maycall perhaps vacillation--only that I stand excused (I do not sayjustified) before my own moral sense. May God bless you. If you go, Ishall wait to see you till your return, and have letters in themeantime. I write all this as fast as I can to have it over. What Iask of you is, to consider alone and decide advisedly ... For both oursakes. If it should be your choice not to make an end now, ... Why Ishall understand _that_ by your not going ... Or you may say '_no_' ina word ... For I require no '_protestations_' indeed--and _you_ maytrust to _me_ ... It shall be as you choose. _You will consider myhappiness most by considering your own_ ... And that is my last word. _Wednesday morning. _--I did not say half I thought about the poemsyesterday--and their various power and beauty will be striking andsurprising to your most accustomed readers. 'St. Praxed'--'PictorIgnotus'--'The Ride'--'The Duchess'!--Of the new poems I likesupremely the first and last ... That 'Lost Leader' which strikes sobroadly and deep ... Which nobody can ever forget--and which is worthall the journalizing and pamphleteering in the world!--and then, thelast 'Thought' which is quite to be grudged to that place of fragments... Those grand sea-sights in the long lines. Should not thesefragments be severed otherwise than by numbers? The last stanza butone of the 'Lost Mistress' seemed obscure to me. Is it so really? Theend you have put to 'England in Italy' gives unity to the whole ... Just what the poem wanted. Also you have given some nobler lines tothe middle than met me there before. 'The Duchess' appears to me morethan ever a new-minted golden coin--the rhythm of it answering to yourown description, 'Speech half asleep, or song half awake?' You haveright of trove to these novel effects of rhythm. Now if people do notcry 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 (tobegin at the beginning) surely not '_startled_' ... Only properlyaware of the deep blessing I have been enjoying this while, and notdisposed to take its continuance as pure matter of course, and sotreat with indifference the first shadow of a threatening intimationfrom without, the first hint of a possible abstraction from thequarter to which so many hopes and fears of mine have gone of late. Inthis case, knowing you, I was sure that if any imaginable form ofdispleasure could touch you without reaching me, I should not hear ofit 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 thestrange exalting way you will persist to think of me; now, once forall, I _will_ not pass for what I make no least pretence to. I quiteunderstand the grace of your imaginary self-denial, and fidelity to agiven word, and noble constancy; but it all happens to be none ofmine, 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 youall day long, because I most certainly could not think of you once anhour 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 tosuppose you have in some way interfered with. Do, for this once, think, and never after, on the impossibility of your ever (you know Imust talk your own language, so I shall say--) hindering any scheme ofmine, stopping any supposable advancement of mine. Do you really thinkthat before I found you, I was going about the world seeking whom Imight devour, that is, be devoured by, in the shape of a wife ... Doyou suppose I ever dreamed of marrying? What would it mean for me, with my life I am hardened in--considering the rational chances; howthe land is used to furnish its contingent of Shakespeare's women: orby 'success, ' 'happiness' &c. &c. You never never can be seeing for amoment 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 arehunting about in the dusk to catch my good, but yourself? _I_ know who has got it, caught it, and means to keep it on hisheart--the person most concerned--_I_, dearest, who cannot play thedisinterested part of bidding _you_ forget your 'protestation' ... What should I have to hold by, come what will, through years, throughthis life, if God shall so determine, if I were not sure, _sure_ thatthe first moment when you can suffer me with you 'in that relation, 'you will remember and act accordingly. I will, as you know, conform mylife to _any_ imaginable rule which shall render it possible for yourlife to move with it and possess it, all the little it is worth. For your friends ... Whatever can be 'got over, ' whatever oppositionmay be rational, will be easily removed, I suppose. You know when Ispoke lately about the 'selfishness' I dared believe I was free from, I hardly meant the low faults of ... I shall say, a differentorganization to mine--which has vices in plenty, but not those. Besides half a dozen scratches with a pen make one stand up anapparent angel of light, from the lawyer's parchment; and Doctors'Commons is one bland smile of applause. The selfishness I deprecate isone which a good many women, and men too, call 'real passion'--underthe 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 allthis letter, which is no doubt in me, I feel, but dear entire goodnessand affection, of which God knows whether I am proud or not--and nowyou 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 tothank you worthily and as I feel ... Only that I do not know it, andcannot say it. And it was not indeed 'doubt' of you--oh no--that mademe write as I did write; it was rather because I felt you to be surelynoblest, ... And therefore fitly dearest, ... That it seemed to medetestable and intolerable to leave you on this road where the mudmust splash up against you, and never cry 'gare. ' Yet I was quiteenough unhappy yesterday, and before yesterday ... I will confessto-day, ... To be too gratefully glad to 'let you be' ... To 'let youhave your way'--you who overcome always! Always, but where you tell menot 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 thinkof you just so. 'Let me be'--Let me have my way. ' I am unworthy of youperhaps 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 aboutsquares being not round, and of _you_ being not 'selfish'! You know itis foolish to talk such superfluities, and not a compliment. I won't say to my knowledge of you and faith in you ... But to myunderstanding generally. Why should you say to me at all ... Muchless for this third or fourth time ... 'I am not selfish?' to _me_ whonever ... When I have been deepest asleep and dreaming, ... Neverdreamed of attributing to you any form of such a fault? Promise not tosay so again--now promise. Think how it must sound to my ears, whenreally and truly I have sometimes felt jealous of myself ... Of my owninfirmities, ... And thought that you cared for me only because yourchivalry touched them with a silver sound--and that, without them, youwould pass by on the other side:--why twenty times I have thought_that_ and been vexed--ungrateful vexation! In exchange for which toofrank confession, I will ask for another silent promise ... A silentpromise--no, but first I will say another thing. First I will say that you are not to fancy any the least danger of myfalling under displeasure through your visits--there is no sort ofrisk of it _for the present_--and if I ran the risk of making youuncomfortable about _that_, I did foolishly, and what I meant to dowas different. I wish you also to understand that _even if you camehere every day_, my brothers and sisters would simply care to know ifI liked it, and then be glad if I was glad:--the caution referred toone person alone. In relation to _whom_, however, there will be no'getting over'--you might as well think to sweep off a third of thestars of Heaven with the motion of your eyelashes--this, for matter offact and certainty--and this, as I said before, the keeping of ageneral rule and from no disrespect towards individuals: a greatpeculiarity _in the individual_ of course. But ... Though I have beena submissive daughter, and this from no effort, but for love's sake... Because I loved him tenderly (and love him), ... And hoped that heloved me back again even if the proofs came untenderly sometimes--yetI have reserved for myself _always_ that right over my own affectionswhich is the most strictly personal of all things, and which involvesprinciples and consequences of infinite importance and scope--eventhough I _never_ thought (except perhaps when the door of life wasjust about to open ... Before it opened) never thought it probable orpossible that I should have occasion for the exercise; from withoutand 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 asympathy will draw me sometimes--or even the least look of kind eyesover a dyspathy--'Cela se peut facilement. ' But for anotherrelation--it was all different--and rightly so--and so verydifferent--'Cela ne se peut nullement'--as in Malherbe. And now we must agree to 'let all this be, ', and set ourselves to getas much good and enjoyment from the coming winter (better spent atPisa!) as we can--and I begin my joy by being glad that you are notgoing since I am not going, and by being proud of these new greenleaves in your bay which came out with the new number. And then willcome the tragedies--and then, ... What beside? We shall have a happywinter after all ... _I_ shall at least; and if Pisa had been better, London might be worse: and for _me_ to grow pretentious and fastidiousand critical about various sorts of _purple_ ... I, who have been usedto the _brun foncé_ of Mme. De Sévigné, (_foncé_ and _enfoncé_... )--would be too absurd. But why does not the proof come all thistime? 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 thoseprose papers of mine in the _Athenæum_, with additional matter onAmerican literature, in a volume by itself--to be published at thesame time both in America and England by Wiley and Putnam in WaterlooPlace, and meaning to offer liberal terms, they said. Now what shall Ido? Those papers are not fit for separate publication, and I am notinclined to the responsibility of them; and in any case, they mustgive as much trouble as if they were re-written (trouble and notpoetry!), before I could consent to such a thing. Well!--and if I donot ... 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 pressedfor an answer by return of packet--and now it is past six ... Eightweeks; and I must say something. Am I not 'femme qui parle' to-day? And let me talk on ever so, theproof 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 youshould leave me, it shall be (though you are not 'selfish') for yoursake--and not for mine: for your good, and not for mine. I ask it--notbecause I am disinterested; but because one class of motives would bevalid, and the other void--simply for that reason. Then the _femme qui parle_ (looking back over the parlance) did notmean to say on the first page of this letter that she was ever for amoment _vexed in her pride_ that she should owe anything to heradversities. It was only because adversities are accidents and notessentials. If it had been prosperities, it would have been the samething--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 makerof them communicate that fact to whomsoever it may concern? I know, there have been many, very many unutterable vows and promisesmade, --that is, _thought_ down upon--the white slip at the top of mynotes, --such as of this note; and not trusted to the pen, that alwayscomes in for the shame, --but given up, and replaced by the poor formsto which a pen is equal; and a glad minute I should account _that_, inwhich you collected and accepted _those_ 'promises'--because theywould not be all so unworthy of me--much less you! I would receive, invirtue of _them_, the ascription of whatever worthiness is supposed tolie in deep, truest love, and gratitude-- Read my silent answer there too! All your letter is one comfort: we will be happy this winter, andafter, do not fear. I am most happy, to begin, that your brother is somuch 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, tobeg you to detach those papers from the _Athenæum's gâchis_. Certainlythis opportunity is _most_ favourable, for every reason: you cannothesitate, surely. At present those papers are lost--_lost_ forpractical purposes. Do pray reply without fail to the proposers; no, no harm of these really fine fellows, who _could_ do harm (by printingincorrect copies, and perhaps eking out the column by suppositiousmatter ... 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 meas Dickens' best work!)--and who _do_ really a good straightforwardun-American thing. You will encourage 'the day of smallthings'--though this is not small, nor likely to have small results. Ishall be impatient to hear that you have decided. I like the progressof these Americans in taste, their amazing leaps, like grasshoppers upto the sun--from ... What is the '_from_, ' what depth, do youremember, say, ten or twelve years back?--_to_--Carlyle, and Tennyson, and you! So children leave off Jack of Cornwall and go on just toHomer. I can't conceive why my proof does not come--I must go to-morrow andsee. In the other, I have corrected all the points you noted, to theirevident improvement. Yesterday I took out 'Luria' and read itthrough--the skeleton--I shall hope to finish it soon now. It is for apurely 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 thismorning, and send it that time may not be lost. Faults, faults; but Idon'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 onthe papers here my doubtfulnesses such as they are--but silenceswallows 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 hisfull royalty some day. Would it not be well, by the way, to print itin the meanwhile as a fragment confessed ... Sowing asterisks at theend. Because as a poem of yours it stands there and wants unity, andpeople can't be expected to understand the difference betweenincompleteness and defect, unless you make a sign. For the newpoems--they are full of beauty. You throw largesses out on all sideswithout 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, inthis fresh shower of music on his old grave ... Though the chivalry ofthe interpretation, as well as much beside, is so plainly yours, ... Could only be yours perhaps. And even _you_ are forced to let in athird 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, withwhat a 'curious felicity' you turn the subject 'glove' to another useand strike De Lorge's blow back on him with it, in the last paragraphof your story! And the versification! And the lady's speech--(toreturn!) 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 wereto be told twice about walking. Gone the way of all promises, is thatpromise? 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 troubleand correcting, --and it is my proper office now, by this time, to sitstill and receive, by right _Human_ (as opposed to Divine). When yousee the pamphlet's self, you will find your own doing, --but where willyou find the proofs of the best of all helping and counselling andinciting, unless in new works which shall justify the_unsatisfaction_, if I may not say shame, at these, these writtenbefore your time, my best love? Are you doing well to-day? For I feel well, have walked some eight ornine miles--and my mother is very much better ... Is singularlybetter. You know whether you rejoiced me or no by that informationabout the exercise _you_ had taken yesterday. Think what telling onethat 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 fromthe usual proportion of &c. &c. --' but truth is still more right, andincludes the highest prudence besides, and I do believe that we shallbe happy; that is, that _you_ will be happy: you see I dareconfidently expect _the_ end to it all ... So it has always been withme in my life of wonders--absolute wonders, with God's hand overall.... And this last and best of all would never have begun so, andgone on so, to break off abruptly even here, in this world, for thelittle time. So try, try, dearest, every method, take every measure of hasteningsuch a consummation. Why, we shall see Italy together! I could, would, _will_ shut myself in four walls of a room with you and never leaveyou and be most of all _then_ 'a lord of infinite space'--but, totravel with you to Italy, or Greece. Very vain, I know that, all suchday dreaming! And ungrateful, too; with the real sufficing happinesshere of being, and knowing that you know me to be, and suffer me totell 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 andwent away at seven--and I feel as if I had been making a five-hourspeech on the corn laws in Harriet Martineau's parliament; ... Sotired I am. Not that dear Miss Mitford did not talk both for me andherself, ... For that, of course she did. But I was forced to answeronce every ten minutes at least--and Flush, my usual companion, doesnot exact so much--and so I am tired and come to rest myself on thispaper. Your name was not once spoken to-day; a little from my goodfencing: when I saw you at the end of an alley of associations, Ipushed the conversation up the next--because I was afraid of questionssuch as every moment I expected, with a pair of woman's eyes behindthem; and those are worse than Mr. Kenyon's, when he puts on hisspectacles. So your name was not once spoken--not thought of, I do notsay--perhaps when I once lost her at Chevy Chase and found hersuddenly with Isidore the queen's hairdresser, my thoughts might havewandered off to you and your unanswered letter while she passedgradually from that to this--I am not sure of the contrary. AndIsidore, they say, reads Béranger, and is supposed to be the mostliterary person at court--and wasn't at Chevy Chase one must needsthink. One must needs write nonsense rather--for I have written it there. Thesense and the truth is, that your letter went to the bottom of myheart, and that my thoughts have turned round it ever since andthrough all the talking to-day. Yes indeed, dreams! But what _is_ notdreaming is this and this--this reading of these words--this proof ofthis regard--all this that you are to me in fact, and which you cannotguess 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 yourwonders, ... I who sate here alone but yesterday, so weary of my ownbeing that to take interest in my very poems I had to lift them up byan effort and separate them from myself and cast them out from me intothe sunshine where I was not--feeling nothing of the light which fellon them even--making indeed a sort of pleasure and interest about thatfactitious personality associated with them ... But knowing it to beall far on the outside of _me_ ... _myself_ ... Not seeming to touchit with the end of my finger ... And receiving it as a mockery and abitterness when people persisted in confounding one with another. Morbid it was if you like it--perhaps very morbid--but all these heapsof 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 tothe letter-writers of your sex to write and see 'what will come ofit, ' ... Some, from kind good motives I know, ... Well, ... How couldit all make for me even such a narrow strip of sunshine as Flush findson the floor sometimes, and lays his nose along, with both ears out inthe shadow? It was not for _me_ ... _me_ ... In any way: it was notwithin my reach--I did not seem to touch it as I said. Flush camenearer, and I was grateful to him ... Yes, grateful ... For not beingtired! I have felt grateful and flattered ... Yes flattered ... Whenhe 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 notletting me see that I was a burthen. These are facts. And now how am Ito feel when you tell me what you have told me--and what you 'couldwould 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 befreer than free--just as every one makes me happier and richer--toorich by you, to claim any debt. May God bless you always. When I wrotethat letter to let you come the first time, do you know, the tears randown my cheeks.... I could not tell why: partly it might be merenervousness. And then, I was vexed with you for wishing to come asother people did, and vexed with myself for not being able to refuseyou 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 stillbetter. Occy's worst symptom now is too great an appetite ... Amonster-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, sineme 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 absorbedevery other, greater or smaller--but as one cannot well, --or shouldnot, --sit quite silently, the words go on, about Horne, or whatchances--while you are in my thought. But when I have you ... So it seems ... _in_ my very heart; when youare entirely with me--oh, the day--then it will all go better, talkand writing too. Love me, my own love; not as I love you--not for--but I cannot writethat. Nor do I ask anything, with all your gifts here, except for theluxury 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 trueliving breathing book, let the writer say of it what he will. Alsowhen 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 simplerestitution--may I have my letter back?... I mean the letter which ifyou 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 myown? must I not?--that letter I was made to return and now turn to askfor again in further expiation. Now do I ask humbly enough? And sendit at once, if undestroyed--do not wait till Saturday. I have considered about Mr. Kenyon and it seems best, in the event ofa question or of a remark equivalent to a question, to confess to thevisits 'generally once a week' ... Because he may hear, one, two, three different ways, ... Not to say the other reasons and Chaucer'scharge against 'doubleness. ' I fear ... I fear that he (not Chaucer)will wonder a little--and he has looked at me with scanning spectaclesalready and talked of its being a mystery to him how you made your wayhere; and _I_, who though I can _bespeak_ self-command, have no sortof presence of mind (not so much as one would use to play at Jackstraws) did not help the case at all. Well--it cannot be helped. Did Iever tell you what he said of you once--'_that you deserved to be apoet_--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 canfeel is for you--and perhaps it is not less, for not being simmeredaway in too much sunshine as with women accounted happier. _I_ amhappy 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 clearstill. _R. B. To E. B. B. _ _Just_ arrived!--(mind, the _silent writing_ overflows the page, andlaughs at the black words for Mr. Kenyon to read!)--But your notearrived earlier--more of that, when I write after this dreadfuldispatching-business that falls on me--friend A. And B. And C. Mustget their copy, and word of regard, all by next post!-- Could you think _that_ that untoward letter lived one _moment_ afterit returned to me? I burned it and cried 'serve it right'! Poorletter, --yet I should have been vexed and offended _then_ to be told I_could_ love you better than I did already. 'Live and _learn_!' Liveand love you--dearest, as loves you R. B. You will write to reassure me about Saturday, if not for otherreasons. See your corrections ... And understand that in one or twoinstances in which they would seem not to be adopted, they _are_ so, by some modification of the previous, or following line ... As in oneof the Sorrento lines ... About a 'turret'--see! (Can you give meHorne'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 bymy meddling; and lose the sense of it all in the sense of beauty andpower everywhere, which nobody could kill, if they took to meddlingmore even. And now, what will people say to this and this and this--or'O seclum insipiens et inficetum!' or rather, O ungrateful right handwhich does not thank you first! I do thank you. I have been readingeverything with new delight; and at intervals remembering ininglorious complacency (for which you must try to forgive me) that Mr. Forster is no longer anything like an enemy. And yet (just see whatcontradiction!) the _British Quarterly_ has been abusing me so atlarge, that I can only take it to be the achievement of a veryparticular friend indeed, --of someone who positively never reviewedbefore and tries his new sword on me out of pure friendship. Only Isuppose it is not the general rule, and that there are friends 'with adifference. ' Not that you are to fancy me pained--oh no!--merelysurprised. I was prepared for anything almost from the quarter inquestion, but scarcely for being hung 'to the crows' so publicly ... Though within the bounds of legitimate criticisms, mind. But oh--thecreatures of your sex are not always magnanimous--_that_ is true. Andto put _you_ between me and all ... The thought of _you_ ... In agreat eclipse of the world ... _that_ is happy ... Only, too happy forsuch 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 safetyof that letter so much that I finished by persuading myself of theprobability of it: but 'serve _me_ right' quite clearly. And yet--butno 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 thatnobody with an ordinary understanding has the slightest pretence forattaching a charge of obscurity to this new number--there are lightsenough for the critics to scan one another's dull blank of visage by. One verse indeed in that expressive lyric of the 'Lost Mistress, ' doesstill seem questionable to me, though you have changed a word since Isaw it; and still I fancy that I rather leap at the meaning than reachit--but it is my own fault probably ... I am not sure. With that oneexception I _am quite_ sure that people who shall complain of darknessare blind ... I mean, that the construction is clear and unembarrassedeverywhere. Subtleties of thought which are not directly apprehensibleby minds of a common range, are here as elsewhere in yourwritings--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 bidthem put away their inspirations. You must descend to the level ofcritic A or B, that he may look into your face.... Ah well!--'Let themrave. ' You will live when all _those_ are under the willows. In themeantime there is something better, as you said, even than yourpoetry--as the giver is better than the gift, and the maker than thecreature, and _you_ than _yours_. Yes--_you_ than _yours_.... (I didnot mean it so when I wrote it first ... But I accept the 'bonaverba, ' and use the phrase for the end of my letter) ... As _you_ arebetter 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 comesto-morrow, Friday, and therefore--!--and if Saturday should becomeimpracticable, 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 neveris a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with, and wish toreturn to you with some ... Not to say, all ... The thoughts andfancies it is sure to call out of me. There is nothing in you thatdoes not draw out all of me. You possess me, dearest ... And there isno help for the expressing it all, no voice nor hand, but these ofmine 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, andI will console myself, to the full extent, with yourknowledge--penetration, intuition--_somehow_ I must believe you canget to what is here, in me, without the pretence of my telling orwriting it. But, because I give up the great achievements, there is noreason I should not secure any occasion of making clear one of theless important points that arise in our intercourse ... If I fancy Ican do it with the least success. For instance, it is on my mind toexplain what I meant yesterday by trusting that the entire happiness Ifeel in the letters, and the help in the criticising might not be hurtby the surmise, even, that those labours to which you were born, mightbe suspended, in any degree, through such generosity to _me_. Dearest, I believed in your glorious genius and knew it for a true star fromthe moment I saw it; long before I had the blessing of knowing it wasMY star, with my fortune and futurity in it. And, when I draw backfrom myself, and look better and more clearly, then I _do_ feel, withyou, that the writing a few letters more or less, reading many or fewrhymes of any other person, would not interfere in any material degreewith that power of yours--that you might easily make one so happy andyet go on writing 'Geraldines' and 'Berthas'--but--how can I, dearest, leave my heart's treasures long, even to look at your genius?... Andwhen I come back and find all safe, find the comfort of you, thetraces of you ... _will_ it do--tell me--to trust all that as a lighteffort, an easy matter? Yet, if you can lift me with one hand, while the other suffices tocrown you--there is queenliness in _that_, too! Well, I have spoken. As I told you, your turn comes now. How have youdetermined respecting the American Edition? You tell me nothing ofyourself! It is all ME you help, me you do good to ... And I take itall! Now see, if this goes on! I have not had _every_ love-luxury, Inow find out ... Where is the proper, rationallyto-be-expected--'_lovers' quarrel_'? _Here_, as you will find! 'Iræ;amantium'.... I am no more 'at a loss with my Naso, ' than PeterRonsard. Ah, but then they are to be _reintegratio amoris_--and to getback 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? Theconsistent inference ... The 'self-denying ordinance'? Why--do youdoubt? even this, --you must just put aside the Romance, and tell theAmericans to wait, and make my heart start up when the letter is laidto it; the letter full of your news, telling me you are well andwalking, 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'sreason, in addition to the others ... That--No, I will _tell_ youthat--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, (butit isn't) it would be possible, not through writing letters andreading manuscripts, but because of a reason to be drawn from your owngreat line What man is strong until he stands alone? What man ... What woman? For have I not felt twenty times the desolateadvantage of being insulated here and of not minding anybody when Imade my poems?--of living a little like a disembodied spirit, andcaring less for suppositious criticism than for the black fly buzzingin the pane?--_That_ made me what dear Mr. Kenyon calls'insolent, '--untimid, and unconventional in my degree; and not so muchby strength, you see, as by separation. _You_ touch your greater endsby mere strength; breaking with your own hands the hampering threadswhich, in your position would have hampered _me_. Still ... When all is changed for me now, and different, it is notpossible, ... For all the changing, nor for all your line and myspeculation, ... That I should not be better and stronger for beingwithin your influences and sympathies, in this way of writing as inother ways. We shall see--you will see. Yet I have been idle lately Iconfess; leaning half out of some turret-window of the castle ofIndolence and watching the new sunrise--as why not?--Do I mean to beidle always?--no!--and am I not an industrious worker on the averageof days? Indeed yes! Also I have been less idle than you thinkperhaps, even this last year, though the results seem so liketrifling: and I shall set about the prose papers for the New Yorkpeople, and the something rather better besides we may hope ... May_I_ not hope, if _you_ wish it? Only there is no 'crown' for me, besure, except what grows from this letter and such letters ... Thissense 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 mineis 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 easymatter?' Now let me remember to tell you that the line of yours I have justquoted, and which has been present with me since you wrote it, Mr. Chorley has quoted too in his new novel of 'Pomfret. ' You were rightin your identifying of servant and waistcoat--and Wilson waited onlytill you had gone on Saturday, to give me a parcel and note; the novelitself in fact, which Mr. Chorley had the kindness to send me 'somedays or weeks, ' said the note, 'previous to the publication. ' Verygoodnatured of him certainly: and the book seems to me his best workin point of sustainment and vigour, and I am in process of beinginterested in it. Not that he is a _maker_, even for this prose. Afeeler ... An observer ... A thinker even, in a certain sphere--but amaker ... No, as it seems to me--and if I were he, I would rather herdwith the essayists than the novelists where he is too good to takeinferior rank and not strong enough to 'go up higher. ' Only it wouldbe 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 ... Aletter I have liked to read (so it was kind and good in you to letme!)--and he was with me to-day and praising the 'Ride to Ghent, ' andpraising the 'Duchess, ' and praising you altogether as I liked to hearhim. 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, mostcharacteristic and individual ... Though some of the rhymes ... Oh, some of the rhymes did not find grace in his ears--but theincantation-scene, 'just trenching on the supernatural, ' _that_ wastaken to be 'wonderful, ' ... 'showing extraordinary power, ... Asindeed other things did ... Works of a highly original writer and ofsuch various faculty!'--Am I not tired of writing your praises as hesaid then? So I shall tell you, instead of any more, that I went downto the drawing-room yesterday (because it was warm enough) by an actof supererogatory virtue for which you may praise _me_ in turn. Whatweather it is! and how the year seems to have forgotten itself intoApril. But after all, how have I answered your letter? and how _are_ suchletters to be answered? Do we answer the sun when he shines? May Godbless you ... It is my answer--with one word besides ... That I amwholly and ever your E. B. B. On Thursday as far as I know yet--and you shall hear if there shouldbe an obstacle. _Will you walk?_ If you will not, you know, you mustbe forgetting me a little. Will you remember me too in the act of theplay?--but above all things in taking the right exercise, and in notoverworking 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 toread 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 letterwhich were of a better silver in the sound than even your praise couldbe; and now that at last I come to hear them in their extravagance (ohsuch pure extravagance about 'glorious geniuses'--) I can't helptelling you they were heard last, and deserved it. Shall I tell you besides?--The first moment in which I seemed to admitto myself in a flash of lightning the _possibility_ of your affectionfor me being more than dream-work ... The first moment was _that_ whenyou intimated (as you have done since repeatedly) that you cared forme not for a reason, but because you cared for me. Now such a'parceque' which reasonable people would take to be irrational, wasjust the only one fitted to the uses of my understanding on theparticular question we were upon ... Just the 'woman's reason'suitable to the woman ... ; for I could understand that it might be asyou said, and, if so, that it was altogether unanswerable ... Do yousee? If a fact includes its own cause ... Why there it stands forever--one of 'earth's immortalities'--_as long as it includes it_. And when unreasonableness stands for a reason, it is a promising stateof things, we may both admit, and proves what it would be as well nottoo curiously to enquire into. But then ... To look at it in abrighter aspect, ... I do remember how, years ago, when talking thefoolishnesses which women will talk when they are by themselves, andnot forced to be sensible, ... One of my friends thought it 'safest tobegin with a little aversion, ' and another, wisest to begin with agreat deal of esteem, and how the best attachments were produced soand so, ... I took it into my head to say that the best was wherethere was no cause at all for it, and the more wholly unreasonable, the better still; that the motive should lie in the feeling itself andnot in the object of it--and that the affection which could (if itcould) throw itself out on an idiot with a goître would be moreadmirable than Abelard's. Whereupon everybody laughed, and someonethought it affected of me and no true opinion, and others said plainlythat it was immoral, and somebody else hoped, in a sarcasm, that Imeant to act out my theory for the advantage of the world. To which Ireplied quite gravely that I had not virtue enough--and so, peoplelaughed as it is fair to laugh when other people are esteemed to talknonsense. 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 ofnatural pleasure in your praises and like you to like my poetry justas I should, and perhaps more than I should; yet _why_ it is allbehind ... And in its place--and _why_ I have a tendency moreover tosift and measure any praise of yours and to separate it from thesuperfluities, far more than with any other person's praise in theworld. _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--butafter 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, andfeel just as a bullet might feel, not because of the lead of it butbecause shot into the air and suddenly arrested and suspended. It('Luria') is all life, and we know (that is, the reader knows) thatthere must be results here and here. How fine that sight of Luria isupon the lynx hides--how you see the Moor in him just in the glimpseyou have by the eyes of another--and that laugh when the horse dropsthe 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 opento the morning sun. The construction seems to me very cleareverywhere--and the rhythm, even over-smooth in a few verses, whereyou invert a little artificially--but that shall be set down on aseparate 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 areader 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 yourhead _demand_ repose; and it must be so injurious to you to beperpetually 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 byheart. 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 thatas far as construction goes, you never put together so muchunquestionable, smooth glory before, ... Not a single entanglement forthe understanding ... Unless 'the snowdrops' make an exception--whilefor the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before yourreaders more plainly than in that same number! Also you have extendedyour 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 fewmore waves will cover the brown stones and float the sight up awaythrough the fissure of the rocks. The rhythm (to touch one of thevarious things) the rhythm of that 'Duchess' does more and more strikeme as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greekscalled pedestrian-metre, ... Between metre and prose ... The difficultrhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of thegeneral measure. Then 'The Ride'--with that touch of natural feelingat the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that thepoor horse was driven through all that suffering ... Yes, and how thatone touch of softness acts back upon the energy and resolution andexalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have beenexpected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then 'Saul'--and ina first place 'St. Praxed'--and for pure description, 'Fortú' and thedeep 'Pictor Ignotus'--and the noble, serene 'Italy in England, ' whichgrows on you the more you know of it--and that delightful 'Glove'--andthe short lyrics ... For one comes to _'select' everything_ at last, and certainly I do like these poems better and better, as your poemsare made to be liked. But you will be tired to hear it said over andover 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 professionof equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits werealways given to rock a little, up and down) yet that I did not mean tobe so ungrateful and wicked as to complain of low spirits now and toyou. It would not be true either: and I said 'low' to express a merelybodily state. My opium comes in to keep the pulse from fluttering andfainting ... To give the right composure and point of balance to thenervous 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 memade me take it the other day when he was in the room, before theright hour and when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the needhe observed in the pulse. 'It was a necessity of my position, ' hesaid. Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually dowho take opium. I am not even subject to an opium-headache. As to thelow spirits I will not say that mine _have not_ been low enough andwith cause enough; but _even then_, ... Why if you were to ask thenearest witnesses, ... Say, even my own sisters, ... Everybody wouldtell you, I think, that the 'cheerfulness' even _then_, was theremarkable thing in me--certainly it has been remarked about me againand 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 ignoblegroaning aloud of the 'groans of Testy and Sensitude'--yet I may saythat for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasurein 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 seeat noon--which would simply prove that I was very blind. And you, whoare 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 longenough for three) and to send you only the latter half. But you willunderstand--you will not think that there is a contradiction betweenthe first and last ... You _cannot_. One is a truth of me--and theother a truth of you--and we two are different, you know. You are not over-working in 'Luria'? That you _should not_, is atruth, too. I observed that Mr. Kenyon put in '_Junior_' to your address. Oughtthat to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you withouthesitation? 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 toanalyse my own feelings, and be sober in giving distinctive names totheir varieties; this is _deep_ joy, )--the true love with which Itake this much of you into my heart, ... _that_ proves what it is Iwanted so long, and find at last, and am happy for ever. I must havemore than 'intimated'--I must have spoken plainly out the truth, if Ido myself the barest justice, and told you long ago that theadmiration at your works went _away_, quite another way and afar fromthe love of you. If I could fancy some method of what I shall sayhappening without all the obvious stumbling-blocks of falseness, &c. Which no foolish fancy dares associate with you ... If you COULD tellme when I next sit by you--'I will undeceive you, --I am not _the_ MissB. --she is up-stairs and you shall see her--I only wrote thoseletters, and am what you see, that is all now left you' (all themisapprehension having arisen from _me_, in some inexplicable way) ... I should not begin by _saying_ anything, dear, dearest--but _afterthat_, I should assure you--soon make you believe that I did not muchwonder at the event, for I have been all my life asking whatconnection there is between the satisfaction at the display of power, and the sympathy with--ever-increasing sympathy with--all imaginableweakness? Look now: Coleridge writes on and on, --at last he writes anote to his 'War-Eclogue, ' in which he avers himself to have beenactuated by a really--on the whole--_benevolent_ feeling to Mr. Pittwhen he wrote that stanza in which 'Fire' means to 'cling to himeverlastingly'--where is the long line of admiration now that the endsnaps? And now--here I refuse to fancy--you KNOW whether, if you neverwrite another line, speak another intelligible word, recognize me by alook again--whether I shall love you less or _more_ ... MORE; having aright to expect more strength with the strange emergency. And it isbecause I know this, build upon this entirely, that as a reasonablecreature, I am bound to look first to what hangs farthest and mostloosely from me ... What _might_ go from you to your loss, and so tomine, to say the least ... Because I want ALL of you, not just so muchas I could not live without--and because I see the danger of yourentirely generous disposition and cannot quite, yet, bring myself toprofit by it in the quiet way you recommend. Always remember, I neverwrote to you, all the years, on the strength of your poetry, though Iconstantly heard of you through Mr. K. And was near seeing you once, and might have easily availed myself of his intervention to commendany letter to your notice, so as to reach you out of the foolish crowdof rushers-in upon genius ... Who come and eat their bread and cheeseon the high-altar, and talk of reverence without one of its surestinstincts--never quiet till they cut their initials on the cheek ofthe Medicean Venus to prove they worship her. My admiration, as Isaid, went its natural way in silence--but when on my return toEngland in December, late in the month, Mr. K. Sent those Poems to mysister, and I read my name there--and when, a day or two after, I methim and, beginning to speak my mind on them, and getting on no betterthan 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 Iwill tell you all, in this, in everything--when he wrote me a notesoon after to reassure me on that point ... THEN I _did_ write, on_account of my purely personal obligation_, though of course takingthat occasion to allude to the general and customary delight in yourworks: I did write, on the whole, UNWILLINGLY ... With consciousnessof having to _speak_ on a subject which I _felt_ thoroughlyconcerning, and could not be satisfied with an imperfect expressionof. As for expecting THEN what has followed ... I shall only say I wasscheming how to get done with England and go to my heart in Italy. Andnow, my love--I am round you ... My whole life is wound up and downand over you.... I feel you stir everywhere. I am not conscious ofthinking or feeling but _about_ you, with some reference to you--so Iwill 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 believedme from the first ... What you call 'dream-work' _was_ real of itskind, did you not think? and now you believe me, _I_ believe and amhappy, in what I write with my heart full of love for you. Why do youtell me of a doubt, as now, and bid me not clear it up, 'not answeryou?' 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--orwhat predominates in your poetry and is most distinct from yourheart--better, or as well as you--did you not? and I have told youevery thing, --explained everything ... Have I not? And now I will dare... Yes, dearest, kiss you back to my heart again; my own. There--andthere! And since I wrote what is above, I have been reading among other poemsthat sonnet--'Past and Future'--which affects me more than any poem Iever read. How can I put your poetry away from you, even in theseineffectual attempts to concentrate myself upon, and better applymyself to what remains?--poor, poor work it is; for is not that sonnetto be loved as a true utterance of yours? I cannot attempt to put downthe thoughts that rise; may God bless me, as you pray, by letting thatbeloved hand shake the less ... I will only ask, _the less_ ... Forbeing laid on mine through this life! And, indeed, you write down, forme to calmly read, that I make you happy! Then it is--as with allpower--God through the weakest instrumentality ... And I am pastexpression proud and grateful--My love, I am your R. B. I must answer your questions: I am better--and will certainly haveyour injunction before my eyes and work quite moderately. Your letterscome _straight_ to me--my father's go to Town, except on extraordinaryoccasions, so that _all_ come for my first looking-over. I saw Mr. K. Last night at the Amateur Comedy--and heaps of old acquaintances--andcame home tired and savage--and _yearned_ literally, for a letter thismorning, and so it came and I was well again. So, I am not even tohave your low spirits leaning on mine? It was just because I alwaysfind you alike, and _ever_ like yourself, that I seemed to discern adepth, when you spoke of 'some days' and what they made uneven whereall 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 withme--I have universal sympathy and can show you a SIDE of me, a trueface, turn as you may. If you _are_ cheerful ... So will I be ... Ifsad, my cheerfulness will be all the while _behind_, and propping up, any sadness that meets yours, if that should be necessary. As for myquestion 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 orprospectively, affects me--how it affects me! Will you write again?_Wednesday_, remember! Mr. K. Wants me to go to him one of the threenext 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. Howyou 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 toanything except too deep down in the heart for even the pearl-divers?But understand ... What you do not quite ... That I did not mistakeyou as far even as you say here and even 'for a moment. ' I did notwrite any of that letter in a 'doubt' of you--not a word.... I wassimply looking back in it on my own states of feeling, ... Lookingback from that point of your praise to what was better ... (or Ishould not have looked back)--and so coming to tell you, by a naturalassociation, how the completely opposite point to that of any praisewas the one which struck me first and most, viz. The no-reason of yourreasoning ... Acknowledged to be yours. Of course I acknowledge it tobe yours, ... That high reason of no reason--I acknowledged it to beyours (didn't I?) in acknowledging that it made an impression on me. And then, referring to the traditions of my experience such as I toldthem to you, I meant, so, farther to acknowledge that I would ratherbe cared for in _that_ unreasonable way, than for the best reason inthe world. But all _that_ was history and philosophy simply--was itnot?--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 thebeginning so sure of the nobility and integrity in you that I wouldhave trusted you to make a path for my soul--_that_, you _know_. Ifelt certain that you believed of yourself every word you spoke orwrote--and you must not blame me if I thought besides sometimes (itwas the extent of my thought) that you were self-deceived as to thenature of your own feelings. If you could turn over every page of myheart like the pages of a book, you would see nothing there offensiveto the least of your feelings ... Not even to the outside fringes ofyour 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 ... Ithank 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 thissort of feelings. 'Self-deceived, ' it was so possible for you to be, and while I thought it possible, could I help thinking it _best_ foryou that it should be so--and was it not right in me to persist inthinking it possible? It was my reverence for you that made mepersist! What was _I_ that I should think otherwise? I had been shutup 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 Ihad ever known could not make your stature among them. So it was notdistrust, but reverence rather. I sate by while the angel stirred thewater, 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--itis not possible:--and though I have said _that_ before, I must say itagain ... For it comes again to be said. It is something to me betweendream and miracle, all of it--as if some dream of my earliestbrightest dreaming-time had been lying through these dark years tosteep 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, youexercise it, I do think--for although I cannot promise to be verysorrowful when you come, (how could that be?) yet from differentmotives it seems to me that I have written to you quite superfluitiesabout my 'abomination of desolation, '--yes indeed, and blamed myselfafterwards. And now I must say this besides. When grief came upongrief, I never was tempted to ask 'How have I deserved this of God, 'as sufferers sometimes do: I always felt that there must be causeenough ... Corruption enough, needing purification ... Weaknessenough, needing strengthening ... _nothing_ of the chastisement couldcome to me without cause and need. But in this different hour, whenjoy follows joy, and God makes me happy, as you say, _through_ you ... I cannot repress the ... 'How have I deserved _this_ of Him?'--I knowI have not--I know I do not. Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room foryou?--If so, it was well done, --dearest! They leave the ground fallowbefore the wheat. 'Were you wrong in answering?' Surely not ... Unless it is wrong toshow all this goodness ... And too much, it may be for _me_. When theplants droop for drought and the copious showers fall suddenly, silverupon silver, they die sometimes of the reverse of their adversities. But no--_that_, even, shall not be a danger! And if I said 'Do notanswer, ' 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 forgolden 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 suchthings be' in one of the best reviews of the day? Mr. Kenyon was hereon Sunday and talking of the poems with real living tears in his eyesand on his cheeks. But I will tell you. 'Luria' is to climb to theplace of a great work, I see. And if I write too long letters, is itnot because you spoil me, and because (being spoilt) I cannot helpit?--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-naturedletters, desperate praise and all? Not, _not_ out of the least vanityin the world--nor to help myself in your sight with such testimony:would it seem very extravagant, on the contrary, if I said thatperhaps I laid them before your eyes in a real fit of compunction atnot being, in my heart, thankful enough for the evident motive of thewriters, --and so was determined to give them the 'last honours' ifnot the first, and not make them miss _you_ because, through my fault, they had missed _me_? Does this sound too fantastical? Because it isstrictly true: the most laudatory of all, I _skimmed_ once over withmy flesh _creeping_--it seemed such a death-struggle, that of goodnature over--well, it is fresh ingratitude of me, so here it shallend. I am not ungrateful to _you_--but you must wait to know that:--I canspeak 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 vasefrom King Hiram; beside he has plenty of conscious rejoicing in hisown riches, and is not left painfully poor by what he sends away. _That_ is the unpleasant point with some others--they spread you aboard and want to gird up their loins and wait on you there. Landorsays '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 feelingto _you_, ... For poetry is not the thing given or taken betweenus--it is heart and life and _my_self, not _mine_, I give--give? Thatyou 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'sverses for _me_ as well as for you, thank _her_ from me for anotherkindness, ... Not the second nor the third? For my own part, be surethat if I did not fall on the right subtle interpretation about theletters, at least I did not 'think it vain' of you! vain: when, supposing you really to have been over-gratified by such letters, itcould have proved only an excess of humility!--But ... Besides thesubtlety, --you meant to be kind to _me_, you know, --and I had apleasure and an interest in reading them--only that ... Mind. Sir JohnHanmer's, I was half angry with! Now _is_ he not cold?--and is it noteasy to see _why_ he is forced to write his own scenes five times overand over? He might have mentioned the 'Duchess' I think; and he apoet! Mr. Chorley speaks some things very well--but what does he meanabout 'execution, ' _en revanche_? but I liked his letter and hiscandour in the last page of it. Will Mr. Warburton review you? does hemean _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 yougive for being gratified by it, it is well that one prophet shouldopen his mouth and prophesy and give his witness to the inspiration ofanother. See what he says in the letter.... '_You may stand quitealone if you will--and I think you will. ' That_ is a noble testimonyto a _truth_. And he discriminates--he understands and discerns--theyare not words thrown out into the air. The 'profusion of imagerycovering the depth of thought' is a true description. And, in theverses, he lays his finger just on your characteristics--just on thosewhich, when you were only a poet to me, (only a poet: does it soundirreverent? almost, I think!) which, when you were only a poet to me, I used to study, characteristic by characteristic, and turn myselfround and round in despair of being ever able to approach, taking themto be so essentially and intensely masculine that like effects wereunattainable, even in a lower degree, by any female hand. Did I nottell you so once before? or oftener than once? And must not theseverses of Landor's be printed somewhere--in the _Examiner_? and againin the _Athenæum_? if in the _Examiner_, certainly again in the_Athenæum_--it would be a matter of course. Oh those verses: how theyhave pleased me! It was an act worthy of him--and of _you_. George has been properly 'indoctrinated, ' and, we must hope, will docredit to my instructions. Just now ... Just as I was writing ... Hecame in to say good-morning and good-night (he goes to chambersearlier than I receive visitors generally), and to ask with a smile, if I had 'a message for my friend' ... _that_ was you ... And so hewas indoctrinated. He is good and true, honest and kind, but a littleover-grave and reasonable, as I and my sisters complain continually. The great Law lime-kiln dries human souls all to one colour--and he isan industrious reader among law books and knows a good deal aboutthem, I have heard from persons who can judge; but with a sacrifice ofimpulsiveness and liberty of spirit, which _I_ should regret for himif he sate on the Woolsack even. Oh--that law! how I do detest it! Ihate it and think ill of it--I tell George so sometimes--and he isgood-natured and only thinks to himself (a little audibly now andthen) 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 wholehost of barristers looks down on the attorneys and the rest of theworld!--how long are these things to last! Theodosia Garrow, I have seen face to face once or twice. She is veryclever--very accomplished--with talents and tastes of various kinds--amusician and linguist, in most modern languages I believe--and awriter of fluent graceful melodious verses, ... You cannot say anymore. At least _I_ cannot--and though I have not seen this last poemin the 'Book of Beauty, ' I have no more trust ready for it than forits predecessors, of which Mr. Landor said as much. It is the personalfeeling which speaks in him, I fancy--simply the personalfeeling--and, _that_ being the case, it does not spoil thediscriminating appreciation on the other page of this letter. I mighthave the modesty to admit besides that I may be wrong and he, right, all through. But ... 'more intense than Sappho'!--more intense thanintensity itself!--to think of _that_!--Also the word 'poetry' has aclear meaning to me, and all the fluency and facility and quickear-catching of a tune which one can find in the world, do not answerto it--no. How is the head? will you tell me? I have written all this without aword of it, and yet ever since yesterday I have been uneasy, ... Icannot help it. You see you are not better but worse. 'Since you werein Italy'--Then is it England that disagrees with you? and is itchange away from England that you want? ... _require_, I mean. Ifso--why what follows and ought to follow? You must not be illindeed--_that_ is the first necessity. Tell me how you are, exactlyhow you are; and remember to walk, and not to work too much--for mysake--if you care for me--if it is not too bold of me to say so. I hadfancied you were looking better rather than otherwise: but thosesensations in the head are frightful and ought to be stopped bywhatever means; even by the worst, as they would seem to _me_. Well--it was bad news to hear of the increase of pain; for theamendment was a 'passing show' I fear, and not caused even by thoughtsof mine or it would have appeared before; while on the other side (thesunny side of the way) I heard on that same yesterday, what made meglad as good news, a whole gospel of good news, and from _you_ too whoprofess to say 'less than nothing, ' and _that_ was that '_the timesseemed longer to you_':--do you remember saying it? And it made meglad ... Happy--perhaps too glad and happy--and surprised: yes, surprised!--for if you had told me (but you would not have told me) ifyou had let me guess ... Just the contrary, ... '_that the timesseemed shorter_, ' ... Why it would have seemed to _me_ as natural asnature--oh, believe me it would, and I could not have thought hardlyof you for it in the most secret or silent of my thoughts. How am Ito feel towards you, do you imagine, ... Who have the world round youand yet make me this to you? I never can tell you how, and you nevercan know it without having my heart in you with all its experiences:we measure by those weights. May God bless you! and save _me_ frombeing 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 failwillingly to you in the least thing? But I _never will_, and you knowit. I will not move, nor speak, nor breathe, so as willingly andconsciously to touch, with one shade of wrong, that precious depositof '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 thesame parcel--but my letter goes by the post as you see. Is therecontrast enough between the two rival female personages of 'Pomfret. '_I_ fancy not. Helena should have been more 'demonstrative' than sheappeared in Italy, to secure the 'new modulation' with Walter. But youwill not think it a strong book, I am sure, with all the good and pureintention of it. The best character ... Most life-like ... Asconventional life goes ... Seems to _me_ 'Mr. Rose' ... Beyond allcomparison--and the best point, the noiseless, unaffected manner inwhich the acting out of the 'private judgment' in Pomfret himself ismade no heroic virtue but simply an integral part of the love oftruth. As to Grace she is too good to be interesting, I am afraid--andpeople say of her more than she expresses--and as to 'generosity, ' shecould 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 mygenerosity is like Grace's, and could not help itself. There were theletters to write of, and the verses! and then, you know, 'femme quiparle' never has done. _Let_ me hear! and I will be as brisk as amonument 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 nothingof, according to convention: if I wrote down 'best and kindest' ... Oh, what poorest words!) I shall tell you all about 'Pomfret, ' besure. Chorley talked of it, as we walked homewards together lastnight, --modestly and well, and spoke of having given away two copiesonly ... To his mother one, and the other to--Miss Barrett, and 'sheseemed interested in the life of it, entered into his purpose in it, 'and I listened to it all, loving Chorley for his loveability which isconsiderable at other times, and saying to myself what might runbetter in the child's couplet--'Not more than others I deserve, ThoughGod has given me more'!--Given me the letter which expresses surprisethat I shall feel these blanks between the days when I see you longerand longer! So am _I_ surprised--that I should have mentioned soobvious a matter at all; or leave unmentioned a hundred others itscorrelatives which I cannot conceive you to be ignorant of, you! WhenI spread out my riches before me, and think _what_ the hour and moremeans that you endow one with, I _do_--not to say _could_--I _do_ formresolutions, and say to myself--'If next time I am bidden stay away aFORTNIGHT, I will not reply by a word beyond the grateful assent. ' I_do_, God knows, lay up in my heart these priceless treasures, --shallI 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 ofpaper a few dates, that I might remember in England, on such a day Iwas on Vesuvius, in Pompeii, at Shelley's grave; all that should bekept 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 ofevery visit to you; the numbers of minutes you have given me ... And Iput them together till they make ... Nearly two days now;four-and-twenty-hour-long-days, that I have been _by you_--and I enterthe room determining to get up and go sooner ... And I go away intothe light street repenting that I went so soon by I don't know howmany minutes--for, love, what is it all, this love for you, but anearnest desiring to include you in myself, if that might be; to feelyou in my very heart and hold you there for ever, through all chanceand earthly changes! There, I had better leave off; the words! I was very glad to find myself with your brother yesterday; I like himvery much and mean to get a friend in him--(to supply the loss of myfriend ... Miss Barrett--which is gone, the friendship, so gone!) ButI did not ask after you because I heard Moxon do it. Now of Landor'sverses: 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 thenote to make you smile! I shall reply that I felt in duty bound toapprise you; as I did. You will observe that I go to that too facilegate of his on Tuesday, _my day_ ... From your house directly. Theworst is that I have got entangled with invitations already, and mustgo 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 hoardup your words and get remote and imperfect ideas of what ... Shall itbe 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 goldpieces! I rather think if Warburton reviews me it will be in the _Quarterly_, which I know he writes for. Hanmer is a very sculpturesque passionlesshigh-minded and amiable man ... This coldness, as you see it, is partof him. I like his poems, I think, better than you--'the Sonnets, ' doyou know them? Not 'Fra Cipolla. ' See what is here, since you will notlet me have only you to look at--this is Landor's firstopinion--expressed to Forster--see the date! and last of all, see meand 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 thoseverses and spoke his preface and I understood what was to follow, Ihad a temptation from my familiar Devil not to say I had read thembefore--I had the temptation strong and clear. For he (Mr. K. ) told methat your sister let him see them--. But no--My 'vade retro' prevailed, and I spoke the truth and shamedthe devil and surprised Mr. Kenyon besides, as I could observe. Not anobservation did he make till he was just going away half an hourafterwards, and then he said rather dryly ... 'And now may I ask howlong ago it was when you first read these verses?--was it a fortnightago?' It was better, I think, that I should not have made a mystery ofsuch a simple thing, ... And yet I felt half vexed with myself andwith him besides. But the verses, --how he praised them! more than Ithought of doing ... As verses--though there is beauty and music andall that ought to be. Do you see clearly now that the latter linesrefer to the combination in you, --the qualities over and above thoseheld in common with Chaucer? And I have heard this morning from two orthree of the early readers of the _Chronicle_ (I never care to see ittill the evening) that the verses are there--so that my wishes havefulfilled themselves _there_ at least--strangely, for wishes of mine... Which generally 'go by contraries' as the soothsayers declare ofdreams. How kind of you to send me the fragment to Mr. Forster! andhow 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 Itook for granted, at first hearing, that you would come on Wednesdayperhaps to me--and afterwards I saw the possibility of the two endsbeing joined without much difficulty. Still, I was not sure, beforeyour letter came, how it might be. That you really are better is the best news of all--thank you fortelling me. It will be wise not to go out _too_ much--'aequam servarementem' as Landor quotes, ... In this as in the rest. Perhaps thatworst pain was a sort of crisis ... The sharp turn of the road aboutto 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 criticallythe opinion entertained of you by all who could judge, nor becausethey praised a book with which his own name was associated ... But forthe abstract beauty of those verses ... For _that_ reason he could nothelp naming them to Mr. Landor. All of which was repeated to meyesterday. Also I heard of you from George, who admired you--admired you ... Asif you were a chancellor in _posse_, a great lawyer in _esse_--andthen he thought you ... What he never could think a lawyer ... '_unassuming_. ' And _you_ ... You are so kind! Only _that_ makes methink 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, andhe sending so few--very! George who admires _you_, does not tolerateMr. Chorley ... (did I tell ever?) declares that the affectation is'bad, ' and that there is a dash of vulgarity ... Which I positivelyrefuse to believe, and _should_, I fancy, though face to face with themost vainglorious of waistcoats. How can there be vulgarity even ofmanners, with so much mental refinement? I never could believe inthose 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 Ithink directly, 'So little'! so dreadfully little! What shallow earthfor a deep root! What can be known of me in that time? 'So _there_, isthe only good, you see, that comes from making calculations on a slipof paper! It is not and it cannot come to good. ' I would rather lookat my seventy-five letters--there is room to breathe in them. And thisis 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 towrite a long letter to my friend at New Zealand, and now I want to sitand think of you and get well--but I must not quite lose the word Icounted 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_ hadbeen planted then--and might not a good heart and hand drop acornsenough to grow up into a complete Dodona-grove, --when the very rook, say farmers, hides and forgets whole navies of ship-wood one day tobe, in his summer storing-journeys? But this shall do--I am not goingto prove what _may_ be, when here it _is_, to my everlastinghappiness. --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, andtake from my faculties here what you give them, spite of myprotesting, in other directions. So I could not when I first saw youadmire you very much, and wish for your friendship, and be willing togive you mine, and desirous of any opportunity of serving you, benefiting you; I could not think the finding myself in a position tofeel 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'send, --should simply spoil, in its explosion and departure, all thereal and sufficing elements of an honest life-long attachment andaffections! that I should do this, and think it a piece of kindnessdoes.... Now, I'll tell you what it _does_ deserve, and what it shall get. Giveme, dearest beyond expression, what I have always dared to think Iwould 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 foryour 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--allprecious that you are--as may be given in a lock of your hair--I willlive 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 ... WhenI leave you, I will not speak a word. If you do not, I will not thinkyou unjust, for all my light words, but I will pray you to wait andremember me one day--when the power to deserve more may be greater ... Never the will. God supplies all things: may he bless you, beloved! SoI 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 theverses to Forster at the same time as to me, yet they do not appear. Inever 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 wouldstand as high as I could in the eyes of all about you--yet not, afterall, at poor Chorley's expense whom your brother, I am sure, unintentionally, is rather hasty in condemning; I have told you of myown much rasher opinion and how I was ashamed and sorry when Icorrected it after. C. Is of a different species to your brother, differently trained, looking different ways--and for some of thepeculiarities that strike at first sight, C. Himself gives a goodreason to the enquirer on better acquaintance. For 'Vulgarity'--NO!But your kind brother will alter his view, I know, on furtheracquaintance ... And, --woe's me--will find that 'assumption's' pertestself 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 helpedonward 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 thefoolish comment, that there was no blotting out--made it some four orfive years ago, when I could read what I only guess at now, through myidle opening the hand and letting the caught bird go--but there usedto be a real satisfaction to me in writing those grand Hebrewcharacters--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 meanany harm--no, indeed! And as to thinking ... As to having everthought, that you could 'imitate' (can this word be 'imitate'?) anunfelt feeling or a feeling unsupposed to be felt ... I may solemnlyassure you that I never, never did so. 'Get up'--'imitate'!! But itwas the contrary ... _all_ the contrary! From the beginning, now _did_I not believe you too much? Did I not believe you even in yourcontradiction of yourself ... In your _yes_ and _no_ on the samesubject, ... And take the world to be turning round backwards andmyself to have been shut up here till I grew mad, ... Rather thandisbelieve you either way? Well!--You know it as well as I can tellyou, 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 twiceor thrice to female friends, ... Never, though reproached for it; andit is just three weeks since I said last to an asker that I was 'toogreat a prude for such a thing'! it was best to anticipate theaccusation!--And, prude or not, I could not--I nevercould--_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 Isuppose ... _yes_. I suppose that 'for my own sense of justice and inorder to show that I was wrong' (which is wrong--you wrote a wrongword there ... 'right, ' you meant!) 'to show that I was _right_ and amno longer so, ' ... I suppose you must have it, 'Oh, _You_, ' ... Whohave your way in everything! Which does not mean ... Oh, vous, quiavez 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 (withothers 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, asyou 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 yourheadache has begun again--the headache again: the worse than headache!See what good my wishes do! And try to understand that if I speak ofmy 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 whoseplace is by the waters of Damascus. But I need not tell you overagain--you _know_. May God bless you till to-morrow and past it forever. 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? Itenrages me to think of Mr. Forster; publishing too as he does, at amoment, the very sweepings of Landor's desk! Is the motive of thereticence to be looked for somewhere among the cinders?--Too bad itis. 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 admiredthe _writing_[1] ... Worthy of the reeds of Jordan! [Footnote 1: Mr. Browning's letter is written in an unusually boldhand. ] _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. 'sto-day--(He told me he should see you this morning--and _I_ shall passclose by, having to be in town and near you, --but only the thoughtwill reach you and be with you--) tell me all this, dearest. How kind Mr. Kenyon was last night and the day before! He neitherwonders nor is much vexed, I dare believe--and I write now these fewwords to say so--My heart is set on next Thursday, remember ... Andthe prize of Saturday! Oh, dearest, believe for truth's sake, that IWOULD most frankly own to any fault, any imperfection in the beginningof my love of you; in the pride and security of this present stage ithas reached--I _would_ gladly learn, by the full lights now, what aninsufficient glimmer it grew from, ... But there _never has beenchange_, only development and increased knowledge and strengthenedfeeling--I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you andbecome yours for ever. God bless you, and make me thankful! And you _will_ give me _that_? What shall save me from wreck: buttruly? 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 onething, and to keep it, quite another: and the conclusion you see 'asfrom a tower. ' Suppose I had an oath in heaven somewhere ... Near to'coma Berenices, ' ... Never to give you what you ask for! ... Wouldnot such an oath be stronger than a mere half promise such as I sentyou a few hours ago? Admit that it would--and that I am not to blamefor saying now ... (listen!) that I _never can_ nor _will give youthis thing_;--only that I will, if you please, exchange it for anotherthing--you understand. _I_ too will avoid being 'assuming'; I will notpretend to be generous, no, nor 'kind. ' It shall be pure merchandiseor nothing at all. Therefore determine!--remembering always how our'ars poetica, ' after Horace, recommends 'dare et peterevicissim'--which is making a clatter of pedantry to take advantage ofthe noise ... Because perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say this toyou, 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 youthink?... Think! Then there is another reason for me, entirely mine. You have come tome as a dream comes, as the best dreams come ... Dearest--and so thereis need to me of 'a sign' to know the difference between dream andvision--and _that_ is my completest reason, my own reason--you havenone 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 youanything, and if possible by that Lewisham post which was the mostfrequent bringer of your letters until these last few came, and whichreaches me at eight in the evening when all the world is at dinner andmy solitude most certain. Everything is so still then, that I haveheard the footsteps of a letter of yours ten doors off ... Or more, perhaps. Now beware of imagining from this which I say, that there isa strict police for my correspondence ... (it is not so--) nor that Ido not like hearing from you at any and every hour: it _is_ so. Only Iwould 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: andit 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 giftwill remain with me while _I_ remain ... They need not be said--justas _it_ need not have been so beautiful, for that. The beauty drops'full fathom five' into the deep thought which covers it. So I studymy Machiavelli to contrive the possibility of wearing it, withoutbeing put to the question violently by all the curiosity of all mybrothers;--the questions 'how' ... 'what' ... 'why' ... Put round andedgeways. They are famous, some of them, for asking questions. I sayto them--'well: how many more questions?' And now ... For _me_--_have_I said a word?--_have_ I not been obedient? And by rights and injustice, there should have been a reproach ... If there could!Because, friendship or more than friendship, Pisa or no Pisa, it wasunnecessary altogether from you to me ... But I have done, and youshall 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 beingqualified for disproving a dream, is the beautiful image of a dream initself ... _so_ beautiful: and with the very shut eyelids, and the"little folding of the hands to sleep. " You see at a glance it willnot do. And so-- Just as one might be interrupted while telling a fairy-tale, ... Inthe midst of the "and so's" ... Just _so_, I have been interrupted bythe coming in of Miss Bayley, and here she has been sitting for nearlytwo hours, from twelve to two nearly, and I like her, do you know. Notonly she talks well, which was only a thing to expect, but she seemsto _feel_ ... To have great sensibility--_and_ her kindness to me ... Kindness of manner and words and expression, all together ... Quitetouched me. --I did not think of her being so loveable a person. Yet itwas kind and generous, her proposition about Italy; (did I tell youhow she made it to me through Mr. Kenyon long ago--when I was a merestranger to her?) the proposition to go there with me herself. It wasquite a grave, earnest proposal of hers--which was one of the reasonswhy I could not even _wish_ not to see her to-day. Because you see, itwas a tremendous degree of experimental generosity, to think of goingto Italy by sea with an invalid stranger, "seule _à_ seule. " And shewas wholly in earnest, wholly. Is there not good in the world afterall? Tell me how you are, for I am not at ease about you--You were not welleven yesterday, I thought. If this goes on ... But it mustn't goon--oh, it must not. May God bless us more! Do not fancy, in the meantime, that you stay here 'too long' for anyobservation that can be made. In the first place there is nobody to'observe'--everybody is out till seven, except the one or two who willnot 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 greatdeal of liberty, to have so many chains; we all have, in this house:and though the liberty has melancholy motives, it saves some dailytorment, and _I_ do not complain of it for one. May God bless you! Do not forget me. Say how you are. What good can Ido you with all my thoughts, when you keep unwell? See!--Facts areagainst fancies. As when I would not have the lamp lighted yesterdaybecause it seemed to make it later, and you proved directly that itwould 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 _nomore_ with it--for I gave all to give long ago--I am all yours--andnow, _mine_; give me _mine_ to be happy with! You will have received my note of yesterday. --I am glad you aresatisfied with Miss Bayley, whom I, too, thank ... That is, sympathizewith, ... (not wonder at, though)--for her intention.... Well, may itall 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 thisreach you at 8? I shall be with you then, in thought. 'Forgetyou!'--_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 thecold water--ONLY ... Ah, _that_ too is no more a merit than any otherthing 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 iswholly grateful, conscious of you. But another time, do not let me wrong myself _so_! Say, 'one minutemore. ' On Monday?--I am _much_ better--and, having got free from anengagement for Saturday, shall stay quietly here and think the postnever 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 theletter, 'I do not look so well'--and sometimes, I 'look better' ... _how do you know_? When I first saw you--_I saw your eyes_--sincethen, _you_, it should appear, see mine--but I only _know_ yours arethere, and have to use that memory as if one carried dried flowersabout when fairly inside the garden-enclosure. And while I resolve, and hesitate, and resolve again to complain of this--(kissing yourfoot ... Not boldly complaining, nor rudely)--while I have this on mymind, 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, thatword! Shall I _see_ you on Monday? God bless you my dearest--I see her now--and _here_ and _now_ the eyesopen, 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 halfpast eight ... It _comes_--and I thank you, thank you, as I can. Doyou remember the purple lock of a king on which hung the fate of acity? _I_ do! And I need not in conscience--because this one here didnot come to me by treason--'ego et rex meus, ' on the contrary, dofairly give and take. I meant at first only to send you what is in the ring ... Which, bythe way, will not fit you I know--(not certainly in the finger whichit was meant for ... ) as it would not Napoleon before you--but caneasily be altered to the right size.... I meant at first to send youonly what was in the ring: but your fashion is best so you shall haveit both ways. Now don't say a word on Monday ... Nor at all. As forthe ring, recollect that I am forced to feel blindfold into the outerworld, and take what is nearest ... By chance, not choice ... Or itmight have been better--a little better--perhaps. The _best_ of it isthat it's the colour of your blue flowers. Now you will not say aword--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 myselffifty times for being so like a little girl, ... For seeming to have'affectations'; and all in vain: 'it was stronger than I, ' as theFrench say. And for _you_ to complain! As if Haroun Alraschid aftercutting off a head, should complain of the want of anobeisance!--Well!--I smile notwithstanding. Nobody can helpsmiling--both for my foolishness which is great, I confess, thoughsomewhat exaggerated in your statement--(because if it was quite asbad as you say, you know, I never should have _seen you_ ... And _Ihave_!) and also for yours ... Because you take such a verypreposterously wrong way for overcoming anybody's shyness. Do youknow, I have laughed ... Really laughed at your letter. No--it has notbeen so bad. I have seen you at every visit, as well as I could withboth eyes wide open--only that by a supernatural influence they won'tstay open with _you_ as they are used to do with other people ... Sonow I tell you. And for the rest I promise nothing at all--as how canI, when it is quite beyond my control--and you have not improved mycapabilities ... Do you think you have? Why what nonsense we have cometo--we, who ought to be 'talking Greek!' said Mr. Kenyon. Yes--he came and talked of you, and told me how you had been speakingof ... Me; and I have been thinking how I should have been proud of ita year ago, and how I could half scold you for it now. Ah yes--and Mr. Kenyon told me that you had spoken exaggerations--suchexaggerations!--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 alwayshave 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 havingread it through with shame and confusion of face ... Not able to helpa smile though notwithstanding, ... I send it to you to show how youhave made me behave!--to say nothing of my other offences to the kindpeople at Boston--and to a stray gentleman in Philadelphia who is toperform a pilgrimage next year, he says, ... To visit the Holy Landand your E. B. B. I was naughty enough to take _that_ letter to be acircular ... 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--Imean as to Mr. Mathews, who has been an earnest, kind friend tome--and I do mean to behave better. I say _that_ to prevent yourscolding, you know. And think of Mr. Poe, with that great Romanjustice of his (if not rather American!), dedicating a book to one andabusing one in the preface of the same. He wrote a review of me injust that spirit--the two extremes of laudation and reprehension, folded in on one another. You would have thought that it had beenwritten by a friend and foe, each stark mad with love and hate, andwriting the alternate paragraphs--a most curious production indeed. And here I shall end. I have been waiting ... Waiting for what doesnot come ... The ring ... Sent to have the hair put in; but it won'tcome (now) until too late for the post, and you must hear from mebefore Monday ... You ought to have heard to-day. It has not been myfault--I have waited. Oh these people--who won't remember that it ispossible to be out of patience! So I send you my letter now ... Andwhat is in the paper now ... And the rest, you shall have afterMonday. And you _will not say a word_ ... Not then ... Not at all!--Itrust you. And may God bless you. If ever you care less for me--I do not say it in distrust of you ... Itrust you wholly--but you are a man, and free to care less, ... And ifever you _do_ ... Why in that case you will destroy, burn, ... Do allbut send back ... Enough is said for you to understand. May God bless you. You are _best_ to me--best ... As I see ... In theworld--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 andshall 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 afew 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 silkif I please, to make that knot with, ... For want of which, two locksmeant for you, have been devoted to the infernal gods already ... Fallen into a tangle and thrown into the fire ... And all the hair ofmy head might have followed, for I was losing my patience and temperfast, ... And the post to boot. So wisely I shut my letter, (afterunwisely having driven everything to the last moment!)--and now I havesilk to tie fast with ... To tie a 'nodus' ... 'dignus' of thecelestial interposition--and a new packet shall be ready to go to youdirectly. At last I remember to tell you that the first letter you had from methis week, was forgotten, (not by _me_) forgotten, and detained, so, from the post--a piece of carelessness which Wilson came to confess tome 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 tostay. In the first place you were keeping your father 'in a maze, ' asyou said yourself--and then, even without that, I never know whato'clock it is ... Never. Mr. Kenyon tells me that I must live in adream--which I do--time goes ... Seeming to go round rather than goforward. The watch I have, broke its spring two years ago, and there Ileave it in the drawer--and the clocks all round strike out ofhearing, or at best, when the wind brings the sound, one upon anotherin 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 ... Ofmine. It is a touching story--and there is an impracticable noblenessfrom 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. YetDante made it for action, and Machiavelli's prose can walk and strikeas 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 toremember me by, while I had this and this and this and this ... Howmuch 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. Mylove--no words could serve here, but there is life before us, and tothe end of it the vibration now struck will extend--I will live anddie 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 tome, on the wonder of it and the deliciousness, it makes the paperwords 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 oneis less liable to observation and comment. Was not that Mr. Kenyon last evening? And did he ask, or hear, or sayanything? _R. B. To E. B. B. _ [Post-mark, December 3, 1845. ] See, dearest, what the post brings me this minute! Now, is it not agood omen, a pleasant inconscious prophecy of what is to be? Be itwell done, or badly--there are you, leading me up and onward, in hisreview as everywhere, at every future time! And our names will gotogether--be read together. In itself this is nothing to _you_, dearpoet--but the unexpectedness, unintended significance of it haspleased me very much--_does_ it not please you?--I thought I was tofigure in that cold _Quarterly_ all by myself, (for he writes forit)--but here you are close by me; it cannot but be for good. He hasno knowledge whatever that I am even a friend of yours. Say you arepleased! 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 whatyou say ... And find fault with you to your surprise--at others, Irest on you, and feel _all_ well, all _best_ ... Now, for oneinstance, even that phrase of the _possibility_ 'and what is tofollow, '--even _that_ I cannot except against--I am happy, contented;too well, too prodigally blessed to be even able to murmur justsufficiently loud to get, in addition to it all, a sweetest stoppingof the mouth! I will say quietly and becomingly 'Yes--I do promiseyou'--yet it is some solace to--No--I will _not_ even couple thepromise with an adjuration that you, at the same time, see that theycare 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 ofit had been _my_ work, my own ... Distrust and foreboding had pursuedme from the beginning; but all is _yours_--you crust me round withgold and jewelry like the wood of a sceptre; and why should youtransfer your own work? Wood enough to choose from in the firstinstance, but the choice once made!... So I rest on you, for life, fordeath, beloved--beside you do stand, in my solemn belief, the directmiraculous gift of God to me--that is my solemn belief; may I bethankful! I am anxious to hear from you ... When am I not?--but _not_ before theAmerican letter is written and sent. Is that done? And who was thevisitor on Monday--and if &c. _what_ did he remark?--And what isright or wrong with Saturday--is it to be mine? Bless you, dearest--now and for ever--words cannot say how much I amyour 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 atthe door belonged perhaps to the post, which brought me a kind letterfrom Mrs. Jameson to ask how I was, and if she might come--but shewon't come on Saturday.... I shall 'provide'--she may as well (andbetter) 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 todine with you, you said), or that some new engagement may not start upsuddenly 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 shouldunderstand at a word, or apart from a word. Just as _you_ understand how to 'take me with guile, ' when you tell methat anything in me can have any part in making you happy ... You, whocan say such words and call them 'vain words. ' Ah, well! If I onlyknew certainly, ... More certainly than the thing may be known byeither me or you, ... That nothing in me could have any part in makingyou _un_happy, ... Ah, would it not be enough ... _that_ knowledge ... To content me, to overjoy me? but _that_ lies too high and out ofreach, you see, and one can't hope to get at it except by the ladderJacob saw, and which an archangel helped to hide away behind the gateof Heaven afterwards. _Wednesday. _--In the meantime I had a letter from you yesterday, andam promised another to-day. How ... I was going to say 'kind' andpull down the thunders ... How _un_kind ... Will _that_ do? ... Howgood you are to me--how dear you must be! Dear--dearest--if I feelthat you love me, can I help it if, without any other sort of certainknowledge, 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 understandyou, ... Comprehend you in what you are and in what you possess andcombine; and that, if doing this better than others who are betterotherwise than I, I am, so far, worthier of the ... I mean that tounderstand you is something, and that I account it something in my ownfavour ... 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 bythe roadside [Greek: apedilos] like the startled sea nymph inÆschylus, but never dares to put one unsandalled foot, unbidden, on acertain tract of ground--never takes a step there unled! and never (Iwrite the simple truth) even as the alternative of the probability ofyour ceasing to care for me, have I touched (untold) on thepossibility 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 listenedwith my heart--judge! 'Luria' is very great. You will avenge him with the sympathies of theworld; that, I foresee.... And for the rest, it is a magnanimity whichgrows and grows, and which will, of a worldly necessity, fall by itsown weight at last; nothing less being possible. The scene withTiburzio and the end of the act with its great effects, are morepathetic than professed pathos. When I come to criticise, it will bechiefly on what I take to be a little occasional flatness in theversification, which you may remove if you please, by knotting up afew lines here and there. But I shall write more of 'Luria, '--andwell 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 inevery way. I lean on you and trust to you, and am always, as to one who is all tome, 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, forthe vanity's sake of being reviewed in your company. Now, as far asthat vice of vanity goes ... Shall I tell you?... I would infinitelyprefer 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 myvice of vanity goes, ... And because, vainer I am of my poet than ofmy poems ... _pour cause_. But since, according to the _Quarterly_régime, you were to be not apart but with somebody of my degree, I amglad, pleased, that it should be with myself:--and since I was to bethere 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 'namesshould be read together' as you say, ... And am happily safe from theapprehension of that ingenious idea of yours about 'my leading _you_'&c. ... Quite happily safe from the apprehension of that idea'soccurring to any mind in the world, except just your own. Now if I'find fault' with you for writing down such an extravagance, such anungainly absurdity, (oh, I shall abuse it just as I shall choose!)_can_ it be 'to your surprise?' _can_ it? Ought you to say suchthings, when in the first place they are unfit in themselves andinapplicable, and in the second place, abominable in my eyes? Thequalification for Hanwell Asylum is different peradventure from whatyou take it to be--we had better not examine it too nearly. You neverwill say such words again? It is your promise to me? Not thosewords--and not any in their likeness. Also ... Nothing is _my_ work ... If you please! What an omen you takein calling anything my work! If it is my work, woe on it--foreverything turns to evil which I touch. Let it be God's work andyours, and I may take breath and wait in hope--and indeed I exclaim tomyself about the miracle of it far more even than you can do. It seemsto me (as I say over and over ... I say it to my own thoughtsoftenest) 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 andonly you? Can I tell? no, not a word. Last year I had such an escape of seeing Mr. Horne; and in this way itwas. He was going to Germany, he said, for an indefinite time, andtook the trouble of begging me to receive him for ten minutes beforehe went. I answered with my usual 'no, ' like a wild Indian--whereuponhe wrote me a letter so expressive of mortification and vexation ... 'mortification' was one of the words used, I remember, ... That I grewashamed of myself and told him to come any day (of the last five orsix days he had to spare) between two and five. Well!--he never came. Either he was overcome with work and engagements of various sorts andhad not a moment, (which was his way of explaining the matter andquite true I dare say) or he was vexed and resolved on punishing mefor my caprices. If the latter was the motive, I cannot call thepunishment effective, ... For I clapped my hands for joy when I feltmy danger to be passed--and now of course, I have no scruples.... Imay 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 withMr. Horne, and Mr. Horne with Mr. Chorley, and the rest of the worldwith those two. Only the miracle is that _you_ should be behind theenclosure--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' ... Whichis 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 thegoodness to send me all those portraits, and I selected the headswhich, in right hero-worship, were anything to me, and had them framedafter a rough fashion and hung up before my eyes; Harriet Martineau's... Because she was a woman and admirable, and had written me somekind letters--and for the rest, Wordsworth's, Carlyle's, Tennyson'sand yours. The day you paid your first visit here, I, in a fit ofshyness not quite unnatural, ... Though I have been cordially laughedat for it by everybody in the house ... Pulled down your portrait, ... (there is the nail, under Wordsworth--) and then pulled downTennyson's in a fit of justice, --because I would not have his hung upand yours away. It was the delight of my brothers to open all thedrawers and the boxes, and whatever they could get access to, and findand 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, beingobstinate; and finally settled the question one morning by fasteningthe print of you inside your Paracelsus. Oh no, it is not like--and Iknew it was not, before I saw you, though Mr. Kenyon said, 'Ratherlike!' By the way Mr. Kenyon does not come. It is strange that he should notcome: when he told me that he could not see me 'for a week or afortnight, ' he meant it, I suppose. So it is to be on Saturday? And I will write directly to America--theletter 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 thathead, as of _expression by intention_. Several people have said of itwhat nobody would say of you ... 'How affected-looking. ' Which is toostrong--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 neitherspoke nor kept silence in the proper degree, but said that 'I hopedyou were well'--from the sudden feeling that I must say _something_ ofyou--not pretend indifference about you _now_ ... And from theimpossibility of saying the _full_ of what I might; because otherpeople were by--and after, in the evening, when I should have remediedthe first imperfect expression, I had not altogether the heart. So, you, dearest, will clear me with him if he wonders, will you not? Butit all hangs together; speaking of you, --to you, --writing to you--allis helpless and sorrowful work by the side of what is in my soul tosay and to write--or is it not the natural consequence? If thesevehicles of feelings sufficed--_there_ would be the end!--And that myfeeling for you should end!... For the rest, the headache which keptaway while I sate with you, made itself amends afterward, and as it isunkind to that warm Talfourd to look blank at his hospitableendeavours, 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 onthe 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 soghastly a visitation. There was the utterly _forgotten_ letter, in theas thoroughly disused hand-writing, in the ... I fear ... Still ascompletely obsolete feeling--no, not so bad as that--but at firstthere was all the novelty, and social admiration at the friend--it istruly not right to pluck all the rich soil from the roots and holdthem up clean and dry as if they came _so_ from all you now see, whichis nothing at all ... Like the Chinese Air-plant! Do you understandthis? And surely 'Ion' is a _very_, very beautiful and nobleconception, and finely executed, --a beautiful work--what has comeafter, has lowered it down by grade after grade ... It don't standapart on the hill, like a wonder, now it is _built up_ to by otherattempts; but the great difference is in myself. Another maker ofanother 'Ion, ' finding me out and behaving as Talfourd did, would notfind _that me_, so to be behaved to, so to be honoured--though heshould 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 oftheir pain and burden. I have _known_ what that ends in--a handful ofanything may be as sufficient a sample, serve your purposes and teachyou its nature, as well as whole heaps--and I know what most of thepleasures of this world are--so that I _can_ be surer of myself, andmake you surer, on calm demonstrated grounds, than if I had a host ofobjects of admiration or ambition _yet_ to become acquainted with. Yousay, 'I am a man and may change'--I answer, yes--but, while I hold mysenses, only change for the _presumable_ better ... Not for the_experienced worst_. Here is my Uncle's foot on the stair ... His knock hurried the lastsentence--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 forthe exertions of last night. After you left me yesterday I consideredhow we might have managed it more conveniently for you, and had thelamp in, and arranged matters so as to interpose less time between thegoing 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 beunnecessarily 'perplext in the extreme' where to spend the time before... _five_, ... Shall I say, at any rate? We will have the lamp, and Ican easily explain if an observation should be made ... Only it willnot be, because our goers-out here never come home until six, and thehead of the house, not until seven ... As I told you. George thoughtit worth while going to Mr. Talfourd's yesterday, just to see theauthor of 'Paracelsus' dance the Polka ... Should I not tell you? I am vexed by another thing which he tells _me_--vexed, if amused alittle by the absurdity of it. I mean that absurd affair of the'Autography'--now _isn't_ it absurd? And for neither you nor George tohave the chivalry of tearing out that letter of mine, which was absurdtoo in its way, and which, knowing less of the world than I know now, I wrote as if writing for my private conscience, and privatelyrepented writing in a day, and have gone on repenting ever since whenI happened to think enough of it for repentance! Because if Mr. Serjeant Talfourd sent then his 'Ion' to _me_, he did it in meregood-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 inme to say more than the briefest word of thanks in return, even if Ihad been competent to say it. Ah well!--you see how it is, and that Iam vexed _you_ should have read it, ... As George says you did ... Helaughing to see me so vexed. So I turn round and avenge myself bycrying aloud against the editor of the 'Autography'! Surely such athing was never done before ... Even by an author in the last stage ofa mortal disease of self-love. To edit the common parlance ofconventional flatteries, ... Lettered in so many volumes, bound ingreen morocco, and laid on the drawing-room table for one's ownparticular private public, --is it not a miracle of vanity ... Neithermore 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 theywill be in the American papers.... I know Mr. Mathews. I was speakingto him of your last number of 'Bells and Pomegranates, ' and the versescame in naturally; just as my speaking did, for it is not the firsttime nor the second nor the third even that I have written to him ofyou, though I admire how in all those previous times I did it in puredisinterestedness, ... Purely because your name belonged to my countryand to her literature, ... And how I have a sort of reward at thispresent, 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 withoutknowledge' for poetry. There is more love for _verse_ among them thanamong the English. But they suffer themselves to be led in theirchoice of poets by English critics of average discernment; this issaid of them by their own men of letters. Tennyson is idolized deepdown in the bush woods (to their honour be it said), but tounderstand _you_ sufficiently, they wait for the explanations of thecritics. So I wanted them to see what Landor says of you. The comfortin these questions is, that there can be _no_ question, except betweenthe sooner and the later--a little sooner, and a little later: butwhen there is real love and zeal it becomes worth while to try toripen the knowledge. They love Tennyson so much that the colour of hiswaistcoats is a sort of minor Oregon question ... And I like that--donot _you_? _Monday. _--Now I have your letter: and you will observe, without afinger post from me, how busily we have both been preoccupied indisavowing our own letters of old on 'Ion'--Mr. Talfourd's collectiongoes to prove too much, I think--and you, a little too much, when youdraw inferences of no-changes, from changes like these. Oh yes--Iperfectly understand that every sort of inconstancy of purpose regardsa 'presumably better' thing--but I do not so well understand how anypresumable doubt is to be set to rest by that fact, ... I do notindeed. Have you seen all the birds and beasts in the world? have youseen the 'unicorns'?--Which is only a pebble thrown down into yoursmooth logic; and we need not stand by to watch the bubbles born ofit. And as to the 'Ion' letters, I am delighted that you have anythingto repent, as I have everything. Certainly it is a noble play--thereis the moral sublime in it: but it is not the work of a poet, ... Andif he had never written another to show what was _not_ in him, thismight have been 'predicated' of it as surely, I hold. Still, it is anoble work--and even if you over-praised it, (I did not read yourletter, though you read mine, alas!) you, under the circumstances, would have been less noble yourself not to have done so--only, how Iagree with you in what you say against the hanging up of these dryroots, 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 havesomething 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 notbeen suffering probably from some legal distraction at the moment, inasmuch as _he knew perfectly that you had just left me_. My sisterstold him down-stairs and he came into this room just before he set offon Saturday, with a, ... '_So_ I am to meet Mr. Browning?' But he madeno 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 thepapers when I have read through the play. How different this livingpoetry is from the polished rhetoric of 'Ion. ' The man and the statueare not more different. After all poetry is a distinct thing--it ishere or it is not here ... It is not a matter of '_taste_, ' but ofsight and feeling. As to the 'Venice' it gives proof (does it not?) rather of poeticalsensibility than of poetical faculty? or did you expect me to saymore?--of the perception of the poet, rather than of his conception. Do you think more than this? There are fine, eloquent expressions, andthe tone of sentiment is good and high everywhere. Do not write 'Luria' if your head is uneasy--and you cannot say thatit is not ... Can you? Or will you if you can? In any case you will dowhat you can ... Take care of yourself and not suffer yourself to betired either by writing or by too much going out, and take thenecessary exercise ... This, you will do--I entreat you to do it. May God bless and make you happy, as ... You will lose nothing if Isay ... 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_ ofyour letters ... For there were two in the collection. I did not readone word of them--and hear why. When your brother and I took the bookbetween us in wonderment at the notion--we turned to the index, inlarge 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 myshort-sighted eye--all _I_ saw was the _faint_ small characters--and, do you know ... I neither trusted myself to ask a nearer look ... Nora second look ... As if I were studying unduly what I had just saidwas most unfairly exposed to view!--so I was silent, and lost you (inthat)--then, and for ever, I promise you, now that you speak ofvexation it would give you. _All_ I know of the notes, that _one_ isaddressed to Talfourd in the third person--and when I had run throughmy 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 rememberedthe most justifying circumstance in my case ... Which was, that my own'Paracelsus, ' printed a few months before, had been as dead a failureas 'Ion' a brilliant success--for, until just before.... Ah, really Iforget!--but I know that until Forster's notice in the _Examiner_appeared, _every_ journal that thought worth while to allude to thepoem at all, treated it with entire contempt ... Beginning, I think, with the _Athenæum_ which _then_ made haste to say, a few days afterits publication, 'that it was not without talent but spoiled byobscurity and only an imitation of--Shelley'!--something to thiseffect, in a criticism of about three lines among their 'LibraryTable' notices. And that first taste was a most flattering sample ofwhat the 'craft' had in store for me--since my publisher and I hadfairly to laugh at _his_ 'Book'--(quite of another kind than theSerjeant's)--in which he was used to paste extracts from newspapersand the like--seeing that, out of a long string of notices, one viedwith its predecessor in disgust at my 'rubbish, ' as their word went:but Forster's notice altered a good deal--which I have to recollectfor his good. Still, the contrast between myself and Talfourd was so_utter_--you remember the world's-wonder 'Ion' made, --that I wasdetermined not to pass for the curious piece of neglected merit Ireally _was not_--and so!-- But, dearest, why should you leave your own especial sphere of doingme good for another than yours? Does the sun rake and hoe about the garden as well as thine steadilyover it? _Why_ must you, who give me heart and power, as nothing elsedid or could, to do well--concern yourself with what might be done byany 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? Donot, dear, dearest, care for making me known: _you_ know me!--and_they_ know so little, after all your endeavour, who are ignorant ofwhat _you_ are to me--if you ... Well, but that _will_ follow; if I dogreater things one day--what shall they serve for, what rangethemselves under of right?-- Mr. Mathews sent me two copies of his poems--and, I believe, anewspaper, 'when time was, ' about the 'Blot in the Scutcheon'--andalso, through Moxon--(I _believe_ it was Mr. M. )--a proposition forreprinting--to which I assented of course--and there was an end to thematter. And might I have stayed _till five_?--dearest, I will never ask formore than you give--but I feel every single sand of the gold showers... Spite of what I say above! I _have_ an invitation for Thursdaywhich I had no intention of remembering (it admitted of suchliberty)--but _now_.... Something I will _say_! 'Polka, ' forsooth!--one lady whose _head_could not, and another whose feet could not, dance!--But I talked alittle to your brother whom I like more and more: it comforts me thathe is yours. So, _Thursday_, --thank you from the heart! I am well, and about to goout. This week I have done nothing to 'Luria'--is it that my _ring_ isgone? There surely _is_ something to forgive in me--for that shamefulbusiness--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 nondescriptwonder of a coin. I just remember he described it as Rhomboid inshape--cut, I fancy, out of church-plate in troubled times. What didmy friend do but get ready a box, lined with velvet, and properly_compartmented_, to have always about him, so that the _next such coinhe picked_ up, say in Cheapside, he might at once transfer to a placeof safety ... His waistcoat pocket being no happy receptacle for thesame. 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 formore--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 notusing the fit words.... I said 'right, ' not to say 'kind') ... Rightof you to write to me to-day--and I had begun to be disappointedalready because the post _seemed_ to be past, when suddenly the knockbrought 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--andI, I answered at random ... 'at the end of the week--Thursday orFriday'--which did not prevent another question about 'what we wereconsulting about. ' He said that he 'must have you, ' and had written tobeg you to go to his door on days when you came here; only murmuringsomething besides of neither Thursday nor Friday being disengaged dayswith him. Oh, my disingenuousness!--Then he talked again of 'Saul. ' Atrue impression the poem has made on him! He reads it every night, hesays, when he comes home and just before he goes to sleep, to put hisdreams into order, and observed very aptly, I thought, that itreminded him of Homer's shield of Achilles, thrown into lyrical whirland life. Quite ill he took it of me the 'not expecting him to like itso much' and retorted on me with most undeserved severity (as I feltit), that I 'never understood anybody to have any sensibility exceptmyself. ' Wasn't it severe, to come from dear Mr. Kenyon? But he hascaught some sort of evil spirit from your 'Saul' perhaps; thoughadmiring 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, andthat the next parts must certainly follow and complete what will be agreat lyrical work--now remember. And forget 'Luria' ... If you arebetter forgetting. And forget _me_ ... _when_ you are happierforgetting. I say _that_ too. So your idea of an unicorn is--one horn broken off. And you apoet!--one horn broken off--or hid in the blackthorn hedge!-- Such a mistake, as our enlightened public, on their part, made, whenthey magnified the divinity of the brazen chariot, just under thethunder-cloud! I don't remember the _Athenæum_, but can well believethat it said what you say. The _Athenæum_ admires only what gods, menand columns reject. It applauds nothing but mediocrity--mark it, as ageneral rule! The good, they see--the great escapes them. Dare tobreathe a breath above the close, flat conventions of literature, andyou are 'put down' and instructed how to be like other people. By theway, see by the very last number, that you never think to write'peoples, ' on pain of writing what is obsolete--and these the teachersof the public! If the public does not learn, where is the marvel ofit? An imitation of Shelley!--when if 'Paracelsus' was anything it wasthe expression of a new mind, as all might see--as _I_ saw, let me beproud to remember, and I was not overdazzled by 'Ion. ' Ah, indeed if I could 'rake and hoe' ... Or even pick up weeds alongthe walk, ... Which is the work of the most helpless children, ... IfI 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 todo 'carpet work' by, why let anyone in the world, _except you_, tellme to shine, and it will just be a mockery! But you have studiedastronomy with your favourite snails, who are apt to take adark-lanthorn for the sun, and so. -- And so, you come on Thursday, and I only hope that Mrs. Jameson willnot come too, (the carpet work makes me think of her; and, not havingcome yet, she may come on Thursday by a fatal cross-stitch!) for I donot hear from her, and my precautions are 'watched out, ' May God blessyou always. Your own-- But no--I did not forgive. Where was the fault to be forgiven, exceptin _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 thememory.... I know that even such imperfect, poorest of words _must_have come _from_ thence if not bearing up to you all that isthere--and I know you are ever above me to receive, and help, andforgive, and _wait_ for the one day which I will never say to myselfcannot come, when I shall speak what I feel--more of it--or _some_ ofit--for now nothing is spoken. My all-beloved-- Ah, you opposed very rightly, I dare say, the writing that paper Ispoke of! The process should be so much simpler! I most earnestly_expect_ of you, my love, that in the event of any such necessity aswas then alluded to, you accept at once in my name _any_ conditionspossible for a human will to submit to--there is no imaginablecondition to which you allow me to accede that I will not joyfullybend all my faculties to comply with. And you know this--but so, alsodo 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 thethings I must say, will be, that with my love, I cannot lose my pridein you--that nothing _but_ that love could balance that pride--andthat, blessing the love so divinely, you must minister to the pride aswell; 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 bemine--as your hand, as your eyes-- I will write and pray it from you into a promise ... And your promisesI 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 aday before, or think perhaps on the dark side of some other days whenI cannot help it ... Always when I cannot help it--you could notblame me if you saw the full motives as I feel them. If it isdistrust, it is not of _you_, dearest of all!--but of myselfrather:--it is not doubt _of_ you, but _for_ you. From the beginning Ihave been subject to the too reasonable fear which rises as my spiritsfall, that your happiness might suffer in the end through your havingknown me:--it is for _you_ I fear, whenever I fear:--and if you wereless to me, ... _should_ I fear do you think?--if you were to me onlywhat I am to myself for instance, ... If your happiness were only asprecious 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 goin smoother words.... I could prove the truth of _that_ out of myheart. And for the rest, you need not fear any fear of mine--my fear will notcross a wish of yours, be sure! Neither does it prevent your being allto me ... All: more than I used to take for all when I looked roundthe 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 forthis sometimes, and, so, ask you not to blame me for a differentthing. As to unfavourable influences, ... I can speak of them quietly, havingforeseen them from the first, ... And it is true, I have been thinkingsince yesterday, that I might be prevented from receiving you here, and _should_, if all were known: but with that act, the adverse powerwould end. It is not my fault if I have to choose between twoaffections; 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, youdo not see, you do not understand. The danger does not come from theside to which a reason may go. Only one person holds the thunder--andI shall be thundered at; I shall not be reasoned with--it isimpossible. I could tell you some dreary chronicles made for laughingand crying over; and you know that if I once thought I might be lovedenough to be spared above others, I cannot think so now. In themeanwhile we need not for the present be afraid. Let there be ever somany suspectors, there will be no informers. I suspect the suspectors, but the informers are out of the world, I am very sure:--and then, theone person, by a curious anomaly, _never_ draws an inference of thisorder, 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 withyour letter, could I thank you for it, I wonder, at all worthily? Icannot believe that I could. Yet in life and in death I shall begrateful to you. -- But for the paper--no. Now, observe, that it would seem like aprepared apology for something wrong. And besides--the apology wouldbe nothing but the offence in another form--unless you said it was alla mistake--(_will_ you, again?)--that it was all a mistake and youwere only calling for your boots! Well, if you said _that_, it wouldbe worth writing, but anything less would be something worse thannothing: and would not save me--which you were thinking of, Iknow--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 linealdescent from some signory in the moon in one hand, and a ticket ofgood-behaviour from the nearest Independent chapel, in the other'--? 'Why even _then_, ' said my sister Arabel, 'it would not _do_. ' And shewas right, and we all agreed that she was right. It is an obliquity ofthe will--and one laughs at it till the turn comes for crying. PoorHenrietta has suffered silently, with that softest of possiblenatures, which hers is indeed; beginning with implicit obedience, andending with something as unlike it as possible: but, you see, wheremoney is wanted, and where the dependence is total--see! And whenonce, in the case of the one dearest to me; when just at the last hewas involved in the same grief, and I attempted to make over myadvantages to him; (it could be no sacrifice, you know--_I_ did notwant the money, and could buy nothing with it so good as hishappiness, --) why then, my hands were seized and tied--and then andthere, in the midst of the trouble, came the end of all! I tell youall this, just to make you understand a little. Did I not tell youbefore? But there is no danger at present--and why ruffle this presentwith disquieting thoughts? Why not leave that future to itself? Forme, I sit in the track of the avalanche quite calmly ... So calmly asto surprise myself at intervals--and yet I know the reason of thecalmness 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 Iam 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, whichis often in my mind to ask you of--but there will be time for suchquestions--let us leave the winter to its own peace. If I should beill again you will be reasonable and we both must submit to God'snecessity. Not, you know, that I have the least intention of beingill, if I can help it--and in the case of a tolerably mild winter, andwith all this strength to use, there are probabilities for me--andthen 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 tome that I do both, or why all this wonder and gratitude? If thedevotion 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 tome when I was a child by my favourite uncle, Papa's only brother, whoused to tell me that he loved me better than my own father did, andwas jealous when I was not glad. It is through him in part, that I amricher than my sisters--through him and his mother--and a great griefit was and trial, when he died a few years ago in Jamaica, proving byhis last act that I was unforgotten. And now I remember how he oncesaid to me: 'Do you beware of ever loving!--If you do, you will not doit half: it will be for life and death. ' So I put the hair into his locket, which I wear habitually, and whichnever had hair before--the natural use of it being for perfume:--andthis is the best perfume for all hours, besides the completing of aprophecy. 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 youwhat 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 inthat jeweller's management of the ring. The divided gold must havebeen exposed to fire--heated thoroughly, perhaps, --and what became ofthe contents then! Well, all is safe now, and I go to work again ofcourse. My next act is just done--that is, _being_ done--but, what Idid not foresee, I cannot bring it, copied, by Wednesday, as my sisterwent this morning on a visit for the week. On the matters, the others, I will not think, as you bid me, --if I canhelp, at least. But your kind, gentle, good sisters! and the provokingsorrow of the _right_ meaning at bottom of the wrong doing--wrong toitself and its plain purpose--and meanwhile, the real tragedy andsacrifice of a life! If you should see Mr. Kenyon, and can find if he will be disengaged onWednesday evening, I shall be glad to go in that case. But I have been writing, as I say, and will leave off this, for thebetter communing with you. Don't imagine I am unwell; I feel quitewell, but a little tired, and the thought of you waits in suchreadiness! 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 itmight be as well, do you not think? to go to him next week. Will itnot seem frequent, otherwise? But if you did _not_ tell him ofThursday distinctly (_I_ did not--remember!), he might take theWednesday's visit to be the substitute for rather than the successorof Thursday's: and in that case, why not write a word to him yourselfto propose dining with him as he suggested? He really wishes to seeyou--of that, I am sure. But you will know what is best to do, and hemay come here to-morrow perhaps, and ask a whole set of questionsabout you; so my right hand may forget its cunning for any good itdoes. 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 nothelp smiling to do so, that I had totally forgotten the great subjectof my 'fame, ' and the oath you administered about it--totally! Now howdo you read that omen? If I forget myself, who is to remember me, doyou think?--except _you_?--which brings me where I would stay. Yes--'yours' it must be, but _you_, it had better be! But, to leavethe vain superstitions, let me go on to assure you that I did mean toanswer that part of your former letter, and do mean to behave well andbe obedient. Your wish would be enough, even if there could belikelihood without it of my doing nothing ever again. Oh, certainly Ihave been idle--it comes of lotus-eating--and, besides, of sitting toolong 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 lettersand reading manuscripts' filling all my time, why I must lack 'vitalenergy' 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 apostlePaul saw the unspeakable things, being snatched up into the thirdHeavens 'whether in the body or out of the body he could nottell, '--is it your opinion that, all the week after, he workedparticularly hard at the tent-making? For my part, I doubt it. I would not speak profanely or extravagantly--it is not the best wayto thank God. But to say only that I was in the desert and that I amamong the palm-trees, is to say nothing ... Because it is easy to_understand how_, after walking straight on ... On ... Furlong afterfurlong ... Dreary day after dreary day, ... One may come to the endof the sand and within sight of the fountain:--there is nothingmiraculous 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! nowwould 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 nottire yourself perhaps the next week. What gladness it is that youshould 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 'comingto see _Ba_' to-day if in any way he found it possible. Now he has notcome--and the inference is that he will come to-morrow--in which caseyou 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 amoment--and _before_ you come here? Think of it. You know it would notdo 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 andget none, there is my own fault besides, and the less consolation. Aletter from you would light up this sad day. Shall I fancy how, if aletter lay _there_ where I look, rain might fall and winds blow whileI listened to you, long after the _words_ had been laid to heart? Buthere you are in your place--with me who am your own--your own--and sothe 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 holdsmy 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 thelaughing wine-_mark_ into a 'stain' in that perfectly beautifultriplet--nor am I to be indifferent to his good word for myself(though not very happily connected with the criticism on the epithetin that 'Yorkshire Tragedy'--which has better things, by theway--seeing that 'white boy, ' in old language, meant just 'good boy, 'a general epithet, as Johnson notices in the life of Dryden, whom theschoolmaster Busby was used to class with his 'white boys'--this ishypercriticism, however). But these American books should not bereprinted here--one asks, what and where is the class to which theyaddress themselves? for, no doubt, we have our congregations ofignoramuses that enjoy the profoundest ignorance imaginable on thesubjects treated of; but _these_ are evidently not the audience Mr. Lowell reckons on; rather, if one may trust the manner of his settingto work, he would propound his doctrine to the class. Always to befound, of spirits instructed up to a certain height and thereresting--vines that run up a prop and there tangle and grow to aknot--which want supplying with fresh poles; so the provident manbrings his bundle into the grounds, and sticks them in laterally ora-top of the others, as the case requires, and all the old stocks goon growing again--but here, with us, whoever _wanted_ Chaucer, orChapman, or Ford, got him long ago--what else have Lamb, andColeridge, and Hazlitt and Hunt and so on to the end of theirgenerations ... What else been doing this many a year? What onepassage of all these, cited with the very air of a Columbus, but hasbeen 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 beendissertated on by Wordsworth and Coleridge, then by Lamb and Hazlitt, then worked to death by Hunt, who printed them entire and quoted themto pieces again, in every periodical he was ever engaged upon; and yetafter all, here 'Philip'--'must read' (out of a roll of droppingpapers with yellow ink tracings, so old!) something at which 'John'claps his hands and says 'Really--that these ancients should own somuch wit &c. '! The _passage_ no longer looks its fresh self after thisveritable passage from hand to hand: as when, in old dances, the bellebegan the figure with her own partner, and by him was transferred tothe next, and so to the next--_they_ ever _beginning_ with all the oldalacrity and spirit; but she bearing a still-accumulating weight oftokens of gallantry, and none the better for every fresh pushing andshoving and pulling and hauling--till, at the bottom of the room-- To which Mr. Lowell might say, that--No, I will say the true thingagainst 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 Ilove and love and love again my own, dearest love--because of thecuckoo-song of it, --_then_, I shall be in no better humour with thatbook than with Mr. Lowell's! But I _have_ a new thing to say or sing--you never before heard melove and bless and send my heart after--'Ba'--did you? Ba ... Andthat is you! I TRIED ... (more than _wanted_) to call you _that_, onWednesday! I have a flower here--rather, a tree, a mimosa, which mustbe turned and turned, the side to the light changing in a little timeto the _leafy_ side, where all the fans lean and spread ... So I turnyour name to me, that side I have not last seen: you cannot tell how Ifeel glad that you will not part with the name--Barrett--seeing youhave 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 aprocedure would draw the kind sure letter in return, with theinvitation &c. , as if I had asked for it! I had perhaps better call onhim 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 neverthink, you say, of making me happy! For my part I do not think of iteither; I simply understand that you _are_ my happiness, and thattherefore you could not make another happiness for me, such as wouldbe worth having--not even _you_! Why, how could you? _That_ was in mymind to speak yesterday, but I could not speak it--to write it, iseasier. Talking of happiness--shall I tell you? Promise not to be angry and Iwill tell you. I have thought sometimes that, if I considered myselfwholly, I should choose to die this winter--now--before I haddisappointed you in anything. But because you are better and dearerand 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 lesspain, a less evil, than what may follow perhaps (who can say?), if Ishould prove the burden of your life. For if you make me happy with some words, you frighten me withothers--as with the extravagance yesterday--and seriously--_too_seriously, when the moment for smiling at them is past--I amfrightened, I tremble! When you come to know me as well as I knowmyself, what can save me, do you think, from disappointing anddispleasing you? I ask the question, and find no answer. It is a poor answer, to say that I can do one thing well ... That Ihave one capacity largely. On points of the general affections, I havein thought applied to myself the words of Mme. De Stael, notfretfully, I hope, not complainingly, I am sure (I can thank God formost affectionate friends!) not complainingly, yet mournfully and inprofound conviction--those words--'_jamais je n'ai pas été aimée commej'aime_. ' The capacity of loving is the largest of my powers Ithink--I thought so before knowing you--and one form of feeling. Andalthough any woman might love you--_every_ woman, --with understandingenough to discern you by--(oh, do not fancy that I am undulymagnifying mine office) yet I persist in persuading myself that!Because I have the capacity, as I said--and besides I owe more to youthan others could, it seems to me: let me boast of it. To many, youmight be better than all things while one of all things: to me you areinstead of all--to many, a crowning happiness--to me, the happinessitself. From out of the deep dark pits men see the stars moregloriously--and _de profundis amavi_-- It is a very poor answer! Almost as poor an answer as yours could beif I were to ask you to teach me to please you always; or rather, hownot to displease you, disappoint you, vex you--what if all thosethings were in my fate? And--(to begin!)--_I_ am disappointed to-night. I expected a letterwhich does not come--and I had felt so sure of having a letterto-night ... Unreasonably sure perhaps, which means doubly sure. _Friday. _--Remember you have had two notes of mine, and that it iscertainly not my turn to write, though I am writing. Scarcely you had gone on Wednesday when Mr. Kenyon came. It seemedbest to me, you know, that you should go--I had the presentiment ofhis footsteps--and so near they were, that if you had looked up thestreet in leaving the door, you must have seen him! Of course I toldhim of your having been here and also at his house; whereupon heenquired eagerly if you meant to dine with him, seeming disappointedby my negative. 'Now I had told him, ' he said ... And murmured on tohimself loud enough for me to hear, that 'it would have been apeculiar pleasure &c. ' The reason I have not seen him lately is theeternal 'business, ' just as you thought, and he means to come 'oftenernow, ' so nothing is wrong as I half thought. As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking whatsort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you mostparticularly admire--sulkiness?--the divine gift of sitting aloof in acloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps--pettishness? ... Which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight oneeither? obstinacy?--which is an agreeable form of temper I can assureyou, and describes itself--or the good open passion which lies on thefloor 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 theborn weakness of my own nature--though I humbly confess (to _you_, whoseem to think differently of these things) that never since I was achild have I upset all the chairs and tables and thrown the booksabout the room in a fury--I am afraid I do not even 'kick, ' like mycousin, now. Those demonstrations were all done by the 'light of otherdays'--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 theworld are less so through sensibility than selfishness--they sparenobody'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 butgenerosity in trifles--and what, without it, is the happiness of life?We have only to look round us. I _saw_ a woman, once, burst intotears, because her husband cut the bread and butter too thick. I saw_that_ with my own eyes. Was it _sensibility_, I wonder! They were atleast real tears and ran down her cheeks. 'You _always_ do it'! shesaid. Why how you must sympathize with the heroes and heroines of the Frenchromances (_do_ you sympathize with them very much?) when at theslightest provocation they break up the tables and chairs, (a degreebeyond the deeds of my childhood!--_I_ only used to upset them) breakup the tables and chairs and chiffoniers, and dash the china to atoms. The men _do_ the furniture, and the women the porcelain: and prayobserve that they always set about this as a matter of course! Whenthey have broken everything in the room, they sink down quite (andvery naturally) _abattus_. I remember a particular case of a hero ofFrederic Soulié's, who, in the course of an 'emotion, ' takes up achair _unconsciously_, and breaks it into very small pieces, and thenproceeds with his soliloquy. Well!--the clearest idea this excites in_me_, is of the low condition in Paris, of moral government and ofupholstery. Because--just consider for yourself--how _you_ wouldsucceed in breaking to pieces even a three-legged stool if it wereproperly put together--as stools are in England--just yourself, without a hammer and a screw! You might work at it _comme quatre_, andfind it hard to finish, I imagine. And then as a demonstration, achild of six years old might demonstrate just so (in his sphere) andbe 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 isjust the time to select for writing a panegyric upon good temper) thatI am glad you do not despise my own right name too much, because Inever was called Elizabeth by any one who loved me at all, and Iaccept the omen. So little it seems my name that if a voice saidsuddenly 'Elizabeth, ' I should as soon turn round as my sisters would... No sooner. Only, my own right name has been complained of for wantof euphony ... _Ba_ ... Now and then it has--and Mr. Boyd makes acompromise and calls me _Elibet_, because nothing could induce him todesecrate his organs accustomed to Attic harmonies, with a _Ba_. So Iam 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 forgetto _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'--Ican imagine no way of working that end, which does not go straight tomy own truest, only true happiness--yet in every such effort there isimplied some distinction, some supererogatory grace, or why speak ofit 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 revertto _that_ frightful wish. 'Disappoint me?' 'I speak what I know andtestify what I have seen'--you shall 'mystery' again and again--I donot dispute that, but do not _you_ dispute, neither, that mysteriesare. But it is simply because I do most justice to the mystical partof what I feel for you, because I consent to lay most stress on thatfact of facts that I love you, beyond admiration, and respect, andesteem and affection even, and do not adduce any reason which stopsshort of accounting for _that_, whatever else it would account for, because I do this, in pure logical justice--_you_ are able to turn andwonder (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 mysweetest--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 wrotethat you had 'forgotten to write, ' I did not mean it; not a word! If Ihad meant it I should not have written it. But it would have beenbetter for every reason to have waited just a little longer beforewriting at all. A besetting sin of mine is an impatience which makespeople laugh when it does not entangle their silks, pull their knotstighter, and tear their books in cutting them open. How right you are about Mr. Lowell! He has a refined fancy and isgraceful for an American critic, but the truth is, otherwise, that heknows nothing of English poetry or the next thing to nothing, and hasmerely had a dream of the early dramatists. The amount of his readingin that direction is an article in the _Retrospective Review_ whichcontains extracts; and he re-extracts the extracts, re-quotes thequotations, and, 'a pede Herculem, ' from the foot infers the man, orrather from the sandal-string of the foot, infers and judges the soulof the man--it is comparative anatomy under the most speculativeconditions. How a writer of his talents and pretensions could make uphis mind to make up a book on such slight substratum, is a curiousproof of the state of literature in America. Do you not think so? Whya lecturer on the English Dramatists for a 'Young Ladies' academy'here in England, might take it to be necessary to have betterinformation than he could gather from an odd volume of an old review!And then, Mr. Lowell's naïveté in showing his authority, --as if theElizabethan poets lay mouldering in inaccessible manuscript somewherebelow the lowest deep of Shakespeare's grave, --is curious beyond therest! Altogether, the fact is an epigram on the surface-literature ofAmerica. As you say, their books do not suit us:--Mrs. Markham mightas well send her compendium of the History of France to M. Thiers. Ifthey _knew_ more they could not give parsley crowns to their ownnative poets when there is greater merit among the rabbits. Mrs. Sigourney has just sent me--just this morning--her 'Scenes in myNative Land' and, peeping between the uncut leaves, I read of the poetHillhouse, of 'sublime spirit and Miltonic energy, ' standing in 'thetemple of Fame' as if it were built on purpose for him. I suppose heis like most of the American poets, who are shadows of the true, asflat as a shadow, as colourless as a shadow, as lifeless and astransitory. Mr. Lowell himself is, in his verse-books, poetical, ifnot a poet--and certainly this little book we are talking of isgrateful enough in some ways--you would call it a _pretty book_--wouldyou not? Two or three letters I have had from him ... All verykind!--and _that_ reminds me, alas! of some ineffable ingratitude onmy own part! When one's conscience grows too heavy, there is nothingfor it but to throw it away!-- Do you remember how I tried to tell you what he said of you, and howyou would not let me? Mr. Mathews said of _him_, having met him once in society, that he wasthe concentration of conceit in appearance and manner. But since thenthey 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 shortone, being Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett!--there's a full lengthto take away one's breath!--Christian name ... ElizabethBarrett:--surname, Moulton Barrett. So long it is, that to make itportable, I fell into the habit of doubling it up and packing itclosely, ... And of forgetting that I was a _Moulton_, altogether. Onemight as well write the alphabet as all four initials. Yet ourfamily-name is _Moulton Barrett_, and my brothers reproach mesometimes for sacrificing the governorship of an old town in Norfolkwith a little honourable verdigris from the Heralds' Office. As if Icared for the _Retrospective Review_! Nevertheless it is true that Iwould give ten towns in Norfolk (if I had them) to own some purerlineage than that of the blood of the slave! Cursed we are fromgeneration 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 considerablebeauty, is extravagant. It does not appear to me by any means one ofhis most successful productions, though quite free from what wasreproached as bitterness and one-sidedness, last year. You do not say how you are--not a word! And you are wrong in sayingthat you 'ought to have written'--as if 'ought' could be in place_so_! You _never 'ought' to write to me you know_! or rather ... Ifyou ever think you ought, you ought not! Which is a speaking ofmysteries 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, andmakes me so happy--so happy--can you bring yourself to turn round andtell one you have so blessed with your bounty that there was amistake, and you meant only half that largess? If you are not sensiblethat you _do_ make me most happy by such letters, and do not warm inthe reflection of your own rays, then I _do_ give up indeed the lastchance of procuring _you_ happiness. My own 'ought, ' which you objectto, 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 itdown by one of mine, --if I had begged never so gently, the gold wouldhave fallen--_there_ was my omitted duty to myself which you properlyblame. I should stand silently and wait and be sure of theever-remembering goodness. Let me count my gold now--and rub off any speck that stays the fullshining. First--_that thought_ ... I told you; I pray you, pray you, sweet--never that again--or what leads never so remotely or indirectlyto it! On _your own fancied ground_, the fulfilment would be ofnecessity fraught with every woe that can fall in this life. I amyours for ever--if you are not _here_, with me--what then? Say, youtake all of yourself away but just enough to live on; then, _that_defeats every kind purpose ... As if you cut away all the ground frommy 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 knowledgeof you, the idea of you printed into my heart and brain, --on that, Ican live my life--but it is for you, the dear, utterly generouscreature I know you, to give me more and more beyond mere life--toextend life and deepen it--as you do, and will do. Oh, _how_ I loveyou when I think of the entire truthfulness of your generosity tome--how, meaning and willing to _give_, you gave _nobly_! Do you thinkI have not seen in this world how women who _do_ love will manage toconfer that gift on occasion? And shall I allow myself to fancy howmuch alloy such pure gold as _your_ love would have renderedendurable? Yet it came, virgin ore, to complete my fortune! And whatbut this makes me confident and happy? _Can_ I take a lesson by yourfancies, and begin frightening myself with saying ... 'But if she sawall 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 myown arts or cleverness in the matter ... So what pretence have the_more_ artful or more clever for:--but I cannot write out thisfolly--I am yours for ever, with the utmost sense of gratitude--to sayI would give you my life joyfully is little.... I would, I hope, dothat for two or three other people--but I am not conscious of anyimaginable point in which I would not implicitly devote my whole selfto you--be disposed of by you as for the best. There! It is not to bespoken of--let me _live_ it into proof, beloved! And for 'disappointment and a burden' ... Now--let us get quite awayfrom 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 deeppassion for society? 'Have they common sympathy in each other'spursuits?'--always asks Mrs. Tomkins! Well, here was I when you knewme, fixed in my way of life, meaning with God's help to write whatmay be written and so die at peace with myself so far. Can you help meor no? Do you _not_ help me so much that, if you saw the more likelyperil for poor human nature, you would say, 'He will be jealous of allthe help coming from me, --none from him to me!'--And _that would_ be aconsequence of the help, all-too-great for hope of return, with anyone 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 ofother things. When we are together one day--the days I believe in--Imean to set about that reconsidering 'Sordello'--it has always beenrather on my mind--but yesterday I was reading the 'Purgatorio' andthe first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one struck mewith a new significance, as well describing the man and his purposeand fate in my own poem--see; one of the burthened, contorted soulstells 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, Iwonder-- 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 thatsubject--thus, quite at the end, I found out there _was printed_ andnot published, a little historical tract by a Count V---- something, called 'Sordello'--with the motto 'Post fata resurgam'! I hope heprophesied. The main of this--biographical notices--is extracted byMuratori, I think. Last year when I set foot in Naples I found after afew minutes that at some theatre, that night, the opera was to be 'oneact of Sordello' and I never looked twice, nor expended a couple ofcarlines on the _libretto_! I wanted to tell you, in last letter, that when I spoke of people'stempers _you_ have no concern with 'people'--I do not glance obliquelyat _your_ temper--either to discover it, or praise it, or adapt myselfto it. I speak of the relation one sees in other cases--how oneopposes passionate foolish people, but hates cold clever people whotake quite care enough of themselves. I myself am born supremelypassionate--so I was born with light yellow hair: all changes--that isthe passion changes its direction and, taking a channel large enough, looks calmer, perhaps, than it should--and all my sympathies go withquiet strength, of course--but I know what the other kind is. As forthe breakages of chairs, and the appreciation of Parisian _meubles_;manibus, pedibusque descendo in tuam sententiam, Ba, mi ocelle! ('Whatwas 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 togo on to D, or E, for instance). And so, love, Tuesday is to be our day--one day more--and then! Andmeanwhile '_care_' for me! a good word for you--but _my_ care, what isthat! One day I aspire to _care_, though! I shall not go away at anydear Mr. K. 's coming! They call me down-stairs to supper--and my fireis 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 blessyou--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 Imay do, and be afraid sometimes notwithstanding, and when youoverpraise 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 behappy and safe _so_; but when my 'personal merits' come into questionin 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 inturn! Do not keep repeating that 'after long years' I shall knowyou--know you!--as if I did not without the years. If you are forcedto 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 maydoubt 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 Idoubt of you whenever I make an interjection!--now do you not? And isit reasonable?--Of _you_, I mean? _Monday. _--For my part, you must admit it to be too possible that youmay be, as I say, 'disappointed' in me--it _is_ too possible. And ifit does me good to say so, even now perhaps ... If it is mere weaknessto say so and simply torments you, why do _you_ be magnanimous andforgive _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 mesuch a letter, when I expected scarcely the shadow of one!--this makesup for the other letter which I expected unreasonably and which you'_ought not_' to have written, as was proved afterwards. And now whyshould I go on with that sentence? What had I to say of 'painfulthings, ' I wonder? all the painful things seem gone ... Vanished. Iforget what I had to say. Only do you still think of this, dearestbeloved; that I sit here in the dark but for _you_, and that the lightyou bring me (from _my_ fault!--from the nature of _my_ darkness!) isnot a settled light as when you open the shutters in the morning, buta light made by candles which burn some of them longer and someshorter, and some brighter and briefer, at once--being 'double-wicks, 'and that there is an intermission for a moment now and then betweenthe dropping of the old light into the socket and the lighting of thenew. 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 youlike ... Too wise or too foolish. 'If the light of the body isdarkness, 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 amnever so much too foolish as to wish to be worthier for my ownsake--only for yours:--not for my own sake, since I am content to oweall 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! Asif _that_ were possible! Do you remember what you said once of theflowers?--that you 'felt a respect for them when they had passed outof your hands. ' And must it not be so with my life, which if youchoose 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 ofthe grave, feel that it is otherwise with me now--quite otherwise. Idid not like it at first to be so much otherwise. And I could not havehad any such thought through a weariness of life or any of my oldmotives, but simply to escape the 'risk' I told you of. Should I havesaid 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 onwith the fancy, I perfectly understand that it will be as good asdeeds. We _have_ sympathy too--we walk one way--oh, I do not forgetthe advantages. Only Mrs. Tomkins's ideas of happiness are below myambition for you. So often as I have said (it reminds me) that in this situation Ishould 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 isaltogether for _you_--you understand _that_, dearest of all ... It isfor _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 otherquestion 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 Iexpected 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 seemedclearly incompatible to my understanding. And now when it comes in a miracle, you wonder at me for lookingtwice, thrice, four times, to see if it comes through ivory or _horn_. You wonder that it should seem to me at first all illusion--illusionfor you, --illusion for me as a consequence. But how natural. It is true of me--very true--that I have not a high appreciation ofwhat passes in the world (and not merely the Tomkins-world!) under thename of love; and that a distrust of the thing had grown to be a habitof mind with me when I knew you first. It has appeared to me, throughall the seclusion of my life and the narrow experience it admittedof, that in nothing men--and women too--were so apt to mistake theirown feelings, as in this one thing. Putting _falseness_ quite on oneside, quite out of sight and consideration, an honest mistaking offeeling appears wonderfully common, and no mistake has such frightfulresults--none can. Self-love and generosity, a mistake may come fromeither--from pity, from admiration, from any blind impulse--oh, when Ilook 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 seethe marriages which are made every day! worse than solitudes and moredesolate! In the case of the two happiest I ever knew, one of thehusbands said in confidence to a brother of mine--not much inconfidence or I should not have heard it, but in a sort of smokingfrankness, --that he had 'ruined his prospects by marrying'; and theother said to himself at the very moment of professing anextraordinary happiness, ... 'But I should have done as well if I hadnot 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 anotherwoman I was at that _time her confidante_. I was bound so to silencefor her sake, that I could not even speak the scorn that was inme--and in fact my uppermost feeling was a sort of horror ... Aterror--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 istowards them, --and of men not ungenerous otherwise? Why are women tobe blamed if they act as if they had to do with swindlers?--is it notthe mere instinct of preservation which makes them do it? These makewomen what they are. And your 'honourable men, ' the most loyal ofthem, (for instance) is it not a rule with them (unless when takenunaware through a want of self-government) to force a woman (tryingall means) to force a woman to stand committed in her affections ... (they with their feet lifted all the time to trample on her for wantof delicacy) before _they_ risk the pin-prick to their own personalpitiful 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 anembroidered vanity to keep it quite safe from the wet, will contriveto tell you in so many words that he ... Might love you if the sunshone! And women are to be blamed! Why there are, to be sure, cold andheartless, light and changeable, ungenerous and calculating women inthe world!--that is sure. But for the most part, they are only whatthey are made ... And far better than the nature of the making ... Ofthat I am confident. The loyal make the loyal, the disloyal thedisloyal. 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 couldbe disloyal with _you_ ... With whatever corrupt inclination? _you_, who are the noblest of all? If you judge me so, ... It is my privilegerather than my merit ... As I feel of myself. _Wednesday. _--All but the last few lines of all this was writtenbefore I saw you yesterday, ever dearest--and since, I have beenreading your third act which is perfectly noble and worthy of you bothin the conception and expression, and carries the reader ontriumphantly ... To speak for one reader. It seems to me too that thelanguage is freer--there is less inversion and more breadth of rhythm. It just strikes me so for the first impression. At any rate theinterest grows and grows. You have a secret about Domizia, Iguess--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. Iwill go on with my notes, and those, you shall have at once ... I meantogether ... Presently. And don't hurry and chafe yourself for thefourth act--now that you are better! To be ill again--think what thatwould 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 fancythat you were talking at _me_ in the temper-observations--never. Itwas the most unprovoked egotism, all that I told you of my temper; forcertainly I never suspected you of asking questions so. I was simplyamused a little by what you said, and thought to myself (if you _will_know my thoughts on that serious subject) that you had probably livedamong very good-tempered persons, to hold such an opinion about theinnocuousness of ill-temper. It was all I thought, indeed. Now tofancy that I was capable of suspecting you of such a manoeuvre! Whyyou would have _asked_ me directly;--if you had wished 'curiously toenquire. ' 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 ofassociation is too subtly in movement throughout it--so that _while_you are going straight forward you go at the same time round andround, until the progress involved in the motion is lost sight of bythe lookers on. Or did I tell you that before? You have heard, I suppose, how Dickens's 'Cricket' sells by nineteenthousand copies at a time, though he takes Michael Angelo to be 'ahumbug'--or for 'though' read 'because. ' Tell me of Mr. Kenyon'sdinner 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 youalways. 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, --certainlyduring our mortal 'forever'--mix my love for you, and, as you sufferme to say, your love for me ... Dearest! ... These shall be mixed withthe 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 inreading, and in writing, and in stopping from either ... As I havejust 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 thedefence of the women I _seemed_ to speak against; and onlyseemed--because that is a way of mine which you must have observed;that foolish concentrating of thought and feeling, for a moment, onsome one little spot of a character or anything else indeed, and inthe attempt to do justice and develop whatever may seem ordinarily tobe overlooked in it, --that over vehement _insisting_ on, and giving anundue prominence to, the same--which has the effect of taking awayfrom the importance of the rest of the related objects which, intruth, are not considered at all ... Or they would also riseproportionally when subjected to the same (that is, correspondinglymagnified and dilated) light and concentrated feeling. So, youremember, the old divine, preaching on 'small sins, ' in his zeal toexpose the tendencies and consequences usually made little account of, was led to maintain the said small sins to be 'greater than greatones. ' _But then_ ... If you look on the world _altogether_, andaccept 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_ beno more than the claims of the occasion justify (wait and hear) incertain other cases where the thing sought for and granted is avowedlyless by a million degrees. It shall all be traffic, exchange (countingspiritual gifts as only coin, for our purpose), but surely theformalities and policies and decencies all vary with the nature of thething trafficked for. If a man makes up his mind during half his lifeto acquire a Pitt-diamond or a Pilgrim-pearl--[he] gets witnesses andtestimony and so forth--but, surely, when I pass a shop where orangesare ticketed up seven for sixpence I offend no law by sparing allwords and putting down the piece with a certain authoritative ring onthe counter. If instead of diamonds you want--(being a king orqueen)--provinces with live men on them ... There is so much morediplomacy required; new interests are appealed to--high motives_supposed_, at all events--whereas, when, in Naples, a man asks leaveto black your shoe in the dusty street 'purely for the honour ofserving your Excellency' you laugh and would be sorry to find yourselfwithout a 'grano' or two--(six of which, about, make a farthing)--Nowdo you not see! Where so little is to be got, why offer much more? Ifa man knows that ... But I am teaching you! All I mean is, that, inBenedick's phrase, 'the world must go on. ' He who honestly wants hiswife 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 girlof his degree who wants the table to sit at; and some dear friend tomortify, who _would_ be glad of such a piece of fortune; and if thatman offers that woman a bunch of orange-flowers and a sonnet, insteadof a buck-horn-handled sabre-shaped knife, sheathed in a 'Every LadyHer Own _Market-Woman_, Being a Table of' &c. &c. --_then_, I say heis-- Bless you, dearest--the clock strikes--and time is none--but--blessyou! 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 Ihave but a few minutes before our inexorable post leaves. I hoped toreturn from Town earlier. But I can say something--and Monday willmake amends. 'For ever' and for ever I _do_ love you, dearest--love you with mywhole heart--in life, in death-- Yes; I did go to Mr. Kenyon's--who had a little to forgive in my slackjustice to his good dinner, but was for the rest his own kindself--and I went, also, to Moxon's--who said something about mynumber's going off 'rather heavily'--so let it! Too good, too, too indulgent you are, my own Ba, to 'acts' first orlast; but all the same, I am glad and encouraged. _Let_ me get donewith these, and better things will follow. Now, bless you, ever, my sweetest--I have you ever in my thoughts--Andon 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 makeyou laugh! [Footnote 1: The cutting enclosed is:--'A Few Rhymes for the PresentChristmas' by J. Purchas, Esq. , B. A. It is headed by severalquotations, 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 nottwice, and not twenty times, but oftener than any, --and almost everytime ... Do you know, ... With an uncomfortable feeling from thereflection that _that_ is the way for making all sorts of mistakesdependent on and issuing in exaggeration. It is the very way!--thehighway. For what you say in the letter here otherwise, I do not deny thetruth--as partial truth:--I was speaking generally quite. Admit that Iam not apt to be extravagant in my _esprit de sexe_: the Martineaudoctrines of intellectual equality &c. , I gave them up, you remember, like a woman--most disgracefully, as Mrs. Jameson would tell me. Butwe are not on that ground now--we are on ground worth holding a brieffor!--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 thirdact, of the worth of a woman's sympathy, --indeed of the exquisitedouble-analysis of unlearned and learned sympathies. Nothing could bebetter, 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 comesafterwards in its fine subtle truth. What would these critics do toyou, to what degree undo you, who would deprive you of the exercise ofthe discriminative faculty of the metaphysicians? As if a poet couldbe great without it! They might as well recommend a watchmaker to dealonly 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, ... Howfine 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 thatprocess of doubt ... And that reference to the friends at home (whichat once proves him a stranger, and intimates, by just a stroke, thathe will not look home for comfort out of the new foreign treason) ismanaged 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 lowground as reader. The whole breaking round him of the cloud, and themanner in which he _stands_, facing it, ... I admire it allthoroughly. Braccio's vindication of Florence strikes me as almost too_poetically_ subtle for the man--but nobody could have the heart towish a line of it away--_that_ would be too much for critical virtue! I had your letter yesterday morning early. The post-office people wereso resolved on keeping their Christmas, that they would not let mekeep mine. No post all day, after that general post before noon, whichnever brings me anything worth the breaking of a seal! Am I to see you on Monday? If there should be the least, leastcrossing of that day, ... Anything to do, anything to see, anything tolisten to, --remember how Tuesday stands close by, and that anotherMonday comes on the following week. Now I need not say _that_ everytime, 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'spoetry, and they are now very numerous, will be glad to hear of theissue by Mr. Moxon of a seventh series of the renowned "Bells" anddelicious "Pomegranates, " under the title of "Dramatic Romances andLyrics. "' _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 norshowed them to me--so instead of yesterday I thank you to-day--thankyou. Count among the miracles that your flowers live with me--I accept_that_ for an omen, dear--dearest! Flowers in general, all otherflowers, die of despair when they come into the same atmosphere ... Used to do it so constantly and observably that it made me melancholyand I left off for the most part having them here. Now you see howthey put up with the close room, and condescend to me and the dust--itis true and no fancy! To be sure they know that I care for them andthat I stand up by the table myself to change their water and cuttheir stalk freshly at intervals--_that_ may make a differenceperhaps. Only the great reason must be that they are yours, and thatyou teach them to bear with me patiently. Do not pretend even to misunderstand what I meant to say yesterday ofdear Mr. Kenyon. His blame would fall as my blame of myself hasfallen: he would say--will say--'it is ungenerous of her to let such arisk be run! I thought she would have been more generous. ' There, isMr. Kenyon's opinion as I foresee it! Not that it would be spoken, youknow! 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 towonder at any extreme of foolishness produced by--_love_. ' He will ofcourse think you very very foolish, but not ungenerously foolish likeother people. Never mind. I do not mind indeed. I mean, that, having said to myselfworse than the worst perhaps of what can be said against me by any whoregard 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 toall, --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 theninth day you should not exactly wish never to have known me, thebetter reason will be demonstrated to stand with us. On this one pointthe wise man cannot judge for the fool his neighbour. If you _do_ loveme, the inference is that you would be happier with than withoutme--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 beingafraid of dear Mr. Kenyon, I just meant that he makes me nervous withhis all-scrutinizing spectacles, put on for great occasions, and hisquestions which seem to belong to the spectacles, they go togetherso:--and then I have no presence of mind, as you may see without thespectacles. My only way of hiding (when people set themselves to lookfor me) would be the old child's way of getting behind the windowcurtains or under the sofa:--and even _that_ might not be effectual ifI had recourse to it now. Do you think it would? Two or three times Ifancied that Mr. Kenyon suspected something--but if he ever _did_, hisonly reproof was a reduplicated praise of _you_--he praises you alwaysand in relation to every sort of subject. What a _misomonsism_ you fell into yesterday, you who have much greatwork 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 everso under the heel of a faithless and unbelieving generation--yes, thatit will live like one of your toads, for a thousand years in the heartof 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 ownsong, to be the means of any wisdom or any music, and therefore havestricter 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 'mutefishes, ' precisely as I do. And are you not my 'good'--all my good now--my only good ever? TheItalians would say it better without saying more. I had a letter from Miss Martineau this morning who accounts for herlong silence by the supposition, --put lately to an end by scarcelycredible information from Mr. Moxon, she says--that I was out ofEngland; gone to the South from the 20th of September. She callsherself the strongest of women, and talks of 'walking fifteen milesone day and writing fifteen pages another day without fatigue, '--alsoof mesmerizing and of being infinitely happy except in the continuedalienation of two of her family who cannot forgive her for gettingwell by such unlawful means. And she is to write again to tell me ofWordsworth, and promises to send me her new work in the meanwhile--allvery kind. So here is my letter to you, which you asked for so 'against theprinciples of universal justice. ' Yes, very unjust--very unfair itwas--only, you make me do just as you like in everything. Now confessto your own conscience that even if I had not a lawful claim of a debtagainst 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_ havethan you can have; and that if you have a giant's power, ''tistyrannous to use it like a giant. ' Who would take tribute from thedesert? How I grumble. _Do_ let me have a letter directly! rememberthat no other light comes to my windows, and that I wait 'as those whowatch for the morning'--'lux mea!' May God bless you--and mind to say how you are _exactly_, and don'tneglect the walking, _pray_ do not. Your own And after all, those women! A great deal of doctrine commends anddiscommends itself by the delivery: and an honest thing may be said sofoolishly as to disprove its very honesty. Now after all, what did shemean by that very silly expression about books, but that she did notfeel as she considered herself capable of feeling--and that else but_that_ was the meaning of the other woman? Perhaps it should have beenspoken earlier--nay, clearly it should--but surely it was betterspoken even in the last hour than not at all ... Surely it is alwaysand under all circumstances, better spoken at whatever cost--I havethought so steadily since I could think or feel at all. An entireopenness to the last moment of possible liberty, at whatever cost andconsequence, is the most honourable and most merciful way, both formen and women! perhaps for men in an especial manner. But I shall sendthis 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 thatre-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 whichshould do its best to thank you: but see, the punishment! At home Ifound 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 seeme before leaving London, and with only Tuesday or to-day to allow theopportunity of it, if I should choose to go and find him out. So Iconsidered all things and determined to go--but not till so late did Idetermine on Tuesday, that there was barely time to get toHighgate--wherefore no letter reached you to beg pardon ... And nowthis undeserved--beyond the usual undeservedness--thislast-day-of-the-Year's gift--do you think or not think my gratitudeweighs on me? When I lay this with the others, and remember what youhave done for me--I do bless you--so as I cannot but believe mustreach the all-beloved head all my hopes and fancies and cares flystraight to. Dearest, whatever change the new year brings with it, weare together--I can give you no more of myself--indeed, you give menow (back again if you choose, but changed and renewed by yourpossession) the powers that seemed most properly mine. I could onlymean that, by the expressions to which you refer--only could mean thatyou were my crown and palm branch, now and for ever, and so, that itwas a very indifferent matter to me if the world took notice of thatfact or no. Yes, dearest, that _is_ the meaning of the prophecy, whichI 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 'songfor song. ' And this is my first song, my true song--this love I bearyou--I look into my heart and then let it go forth under thatname--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 allthe flower of my life which you call forth and which lies at yourfeet. Now let me say it--what you are to remember. That if I had theslightest doubt, or fear, I would utter it to you on theinstant--secure in the incontested stability of the main _fact_, eventhough the heights at the verge in the distance should tremble andprove vapour--and there would be a deep consolation in yourforgiveness--indeed, yes; but I tell you, on solemn consideration, itdoes seem to me that--once take away the broad and general words thatadmit in their nature of any freight they can be charged with, --putaside 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 blessingand infinite reward beyond possible desert in intention, --my life hasbeen crowned by you, as I said! May God bless you ever--through you I shall be blessed. May I kissyour cheek and pray this, my own, all-beloved? I must add a word or two of other things. I am very well now, quitewell--am walking and about to walk. Horne, or rather his friends, reside in the very lane Keats loved so much--Millfield Lane. Hunt lentme once the little copy of the first Poems dedicated to him--and onthe title-page was recorded in Hunt's delicate characters that 'Keatsmet him with this, the presentation-copy, or whatever was the odiousname, in M---- Lane--called Poets' Lane by the gods--Keats camerunning, holding it up in his hand. ' Coleridge had an affection forthe place, and Shelley '_knew_' it--and I can testify it is green andsilent, with pleasant openings on the grounds and ponds, through theold trees that line it. But the hills here are far more open and wildand hill-like; not with the eternal clump of evergreens and thatchedsummer house--to say nothing of the 'invisible railing' miserablyvisible everywhere. You very well know _what_ a vision it is you give me--when you speakof _standing up by the table_ to care for my flowers--(which I willnever 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 bystanding to meet me unawares, as visions do, some day--but now--_omneignotum_? No, dearest! Ought I to say there will be two days more? till Saturday--and if oneword 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 totake up the thought of what you were to me (to my mind gazing!) yearsago, as the poet in an abstraction--then the thoughts of you, a littleclearer, in concrete personality, as Mr. Kenyon's friend, who haddined with him on such a day, or met him at dinner on such another, and said some great memorable thing 'on Wednesday last, ' and enquiredkindly about _me_ perhaps on Thursday, --till I was proud! and so, thethoughts 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 didwrite; and who asked me once in a letter (does he remember?) 'not tolean out of the window while his foot was on the stair!'--to take upall those thoughts, and more than those, one after another, and tiethem together with all _these_, which cannot be named so easily--whichcannot be classed in botany and Greek. It is a nosegay of mysticalflowers, looking strangely and brightly, and keeping their May-dewthrough 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 notpretend to have read such a suggestion in my letter certainly. _That_would have been most exemplarily modest of me! would it not, OUlysses? And you meant to write, ... You _meant_! and went to walk in 'Poet'slane' instead, (in the 'Aonius of Highgate') which I remember to haveread of--does not Hunt speak of it in his Memoirs?--and so now thereis another track of light in the traditions of the place, and peoplemay talk of the pomegranate-smell between the hedges. So you reallyhave _hills_ at New Cross, and not hills by courtesy? I was atHampstead once--and there was something attractive to me in thatfragment of heath with its wild smell, thrown down ... Like a Sicilianrose from Proserpine's lap when the car drove away, ... Into all thatarid civilization, 'laurel-clumps and invisible visible fences, ' asyou say!--and the grand, eternal smoke rising up in the distance, withits witness against nature! People grew severely in jest about cockneylandscape--but is it not true that the trees and grass in the closeneighbourhood of great cities must of necessity excite deeper emotionthan the woods and valleys will, a hundred miles off, where humancreatures ruminate stupidly as the cows do, the 'county families'es-_chewing_ all men who are not 'landed proprietors, ' and the farmersnever looking higher than to the fly on the uppermost turnip-leaf! Doyou know at all what English country-life is, which the English praiseso, and 'moralize upon into a thousand similes, ' as that one greatest, purest, noblest thing in the world--the purely English and excellentthing? It is to my mind simply and purely abominable, and I wouldrather live in a street than be forced to live it out, --that Englishcountry-life; for I don't mean life in the country. The socialexigencies--why, nothing _can_ be so bad--nothing! That is the way bywhich Englishmen grow up to top the world in their peculiar line ofrespectable 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 oneanother, or visit each of them his nearest neighbour whom he hates, three times a week, because 'the distance is so convenient, ' and givegreat dinners in noble rivalship (venison from the Lord Lieutenantagainst turbot from London!), and talk popularity and game-law byturns to the tenantry, and beat down tithes to the rector. Thisglorious England of ours; with its peculiar glory of the ruraldistricts! And _my_ glory of patriotic virtue, who am so happy inspite of it all, and make a pretence of talking--talking--while Ithink the whole time of your letter. I think of your letter--I am nomore a patriot than _that_! May God bless you, best and dearest! You say things to me which I amnot worthy to listen to for a moment, even if I was deaf dust the nextmoment.... I confess it humbly and earnestly as before God. Yet He knows, --if the entireness of a gift means anything, --that Ihave 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 ratherthan _against_ you! and that unspeakable, immeasurable grief offeeling myself a stone in your path, a cloud in your sky, may I besaved 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 tome, 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 wonderif you could misunderstand me in that?--As if my words or actions orany of my ineffectual outside-self _should_ be thought of, unless tobe forgiven! But I do, dearest, feel confident that while I am in yourmind--cared for, rather than thought about--no great harm can happento 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 tosee that fresh beautiful things are there--I suppose 'Delora' willstand alone still--but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd showerof wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story; cup-masses and fern andspotty yellow leaves, --all that, I love heartily--and there is goodsailor-speech in the 'Ben Capstan'--though he does knock a man downwith a 'crow-bar'--instead of a marling-spike or, even, abelaying-pin! The first tale, though good, seems least new andindividual, but I must know more. At one thing I wonder--his notreprinting 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 whichwas this line: 'When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold, '--good, isit not? Oh, while it strikes me, good, too, _is_ that 'SwinesheadMonk' ballad! Only I miss the old chronicler's touch on the method ofconcocting the poison: 'Then stole this Monk into the Garden and undera certain herb found out a Toad, which, squeezing into a cup, ' &c. Something to that effect. I suspect, _par parenthèse_, you have foundout by this time my odd liking for 'vermin'--you once wrote '_your_snails'--and certainly snails are old clients of mine--but efts! Hornetraced a line to me--in the rhymes of a ''prentice-hand' I used tolook over and correct occasionally--taxed me (last week) with havingaltered 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 aboutnewts?' he asked of the author--who thereupon confessed. But never tryand catch a speckled gray lizard when we are in Italy, love, and yousee his tail hang out of the chink of a wall, hiswinter-house--because the strange tail will snap off, drop from himand stay in your fingers--and though you afterwards learn that thereis more desperation in it and glorious determination to be free, thanpositive pain (so people say who have no tails to be twisted off)--andthough, moreover, the tail grows again after a sort--_yet_ ... Don'tdo it, for it will give you a thrill! What a fine fellow our Englishwater-eft is; 'Triton paludis Linnaei'--_e come guizza_ (_that_ youcan't say in another language; cannot preserve the little in-and-outmotion along with the straightforwardness!)--I always loved all thosewild creatures God '_sets up for themselves_' so independently of us, so successfully, with their strange happy minute inch of a candle, asit were, to light them; while we run about and against each other withour great cressets and fire-pots. I once saw a solitary bee nipping aleaf round till it exactly fitted the front of a hole; his nest, nodoubt; or tomb, perhaps--'Safe as Oedipus's grave-place, 'mid Colone'solives swart'--(Kiss me, my Siren!)--Well, it seemed awful to watchthat bee--he seemed so _instantly_ from the teaching of God! Æliansays that ... A _frog_, does he say?--some animal, having to swimacross the Nile, never fails to provide himself with a bit of reed, which he bites off and holds in his mouth transversely and so putsfrom shore gallantly ... Because when the water-serpent comes swimmingto meet him, there is the reed, wider than his serpent's jaws, and nohopes of a swallow that time--now fancy the two meeting heads, thefrog's wide eyes and the vexation of the snake! Now, see! do I deceive you? Never say I began by letting down mydignity 'that with no middle flight intends to soar above the AonianMount'!-- My best, dear, dear one, --may you be better, less _depressed_, ... Ican hardly imagine frost reaching you if I could be by you. Think whathappiness you mean to give me, --what a life; what a death! 'I maychange'--too true; yet, you see, as an eft was to me at the beginningso it continues--I _may_ take up stones and pelt the next Isee--but--do you much fear that?--Now, _walk_, move, _guizza, animamia dolce_. Shall I not know one day how far your mouth will be frommine 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 amwell and _with you_. I just say that, very needlessly, but for strictfrankness' sake. Now, you are to write to me soon, and tell me allabout your self, and to love me ever, as I love you ever, and blessyou, 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 reachyou 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 readingjust the first and the last poems, I could not help speaking coldly alittle 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 thefirst 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 'ThreeKnights of Camelott' and 'Bedd Gelert' and found them all of differentstuff, better, stronger, more consistent, and read them with pleasureand admiration. Do you remember this application, among the countlessones of shadow to the transiency of life? I give the first two linesfor 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 andbeautiful I think. Think how the shadow of the windmill-sail justtouches the ground on a bright windy day! the shadow of a bird flyingis not faster! Then the 'Three Knights' has beautiful things, withmore definite and distinct images than he is apt to show--for hischaracter is a vague grand massiveness, --like Stonehenge--or at least, if 'towers and battlements he sees' they are 'bosomed high' in duskyclouds ... It is a 'passion-created imagery' which has no clearoutline. In this ballad of the 'Knights, ' and in the Monk's too, wemay _look at_ things, as on the satyr who swears by his horns andmates not with his kind afterwards, 'While, _holding beards_, theydance in pairs--and that is all excellent and reminds one of thosefine sylvan festivals, 'in Orion. ' But now tell me if you likealtogether 'Ben Capstan' and if you consider the sailor-idiom to belawful in poetry, because I do not indeed. On the same principle wemay have Yorkshire and Somersetshire 'sweet Doric'; and do recollectwhat it ended in of old, in the Blowsibella heroines. Then for the Elfstory ... Why should such things be written by men like Mr. Horne? Iam vexed at it. Shakespeare and Fletcher did not write so aboutfairies:--Drayton did not. Look at the exquisite 'Nymphidia, ' with itssubtle sylvan consistency, and then at the lumbering coarse ... '_machina intersit_' ... Grandmama Grey!--to say nothing of the 'smalldog' that isn't the 'small boy. ' Mr. Horne succeeds better on a largercanvass, and with weightier material; with blank verse rather thanlyrics. He cannot make a fine stroke. He wants subtlety and elasticityin the thought and expression. Remember, I admire him honestly andearnestly. 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 youcan accept with the same stretched out hand all these lyrical poems? Iam going to write to him as much homage as can come truly. Whocombines different faculties as you do, striking the whole octave? Noone, at present in the world. Dearest, after you went away yesterday and I began to consider, Ifound that there was nothing to be so over-glad about in the matterof the letters, for that, Sunday coming next to Saturday, the best nowis only as good as the worst before, and I can't hear from you, untilMonday ... Monday! Did you think of _that_--you who took the credit ofacceding so meekly! I shall not praise you in return at any rate. Ishall have to wait ... Till what o'clock on Monday, tempted in themeanwhile to fall into controversy against the 'new moons and sabbathdays' and the pausing of the post in consequence. You never guessed perhaps, what I look back to at this moment in thephysiology of our intercourse, the curious double feeling I had aboutyou--you personally, and you as the writer of these letters, and thecrisis of the feeling, when I was positively vexed and jealous ofmyself for not succeeding better in making a unity of the two. I couldnot! And moreover I could not help but that the writer of the lettersseemed nearer to me, long ... Long ... And in spite of the postmark, than did the personal visitor who confounded me, and left meconstantly under such an impression of its being all dream-work on hisside, that I have stamped my feet on this floor with impatience tothink of having to wait so many hours before the 'candid' closingletter could come with its confessional of an illusion. 'People say, 'I used to think, 'that women _always_ know, and certainly I do notknow, and therefore ... Therefore. '--The logic crushed on likeJuggernaut's car. But in the letters it was different--the dearletters took me on the side of my own ideal life where I was able tostand a little upright and look round. I could read such letters forever and answer them after a fashion ... That, I felt from thebeginning. But _you_--! _Monday. _--Never too early can the light come. Thank you for myletter! Yet you look askance at me over 'newt and toad, ' and praise sothe Elf-story that I am ashamed to send you my ill humour on the samehead. And you really like _that_? admire it? Grandmama Grey and thenight cap and all? and 'shoetye and blue sky?' and is it really wrongof 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 andconsistency, as it seems to me!--the elf is no elf and speaks noelf-tongue: it is not the right key to touch, ... This, ... Forsupernatural music. So I fancy at least--but I will try the poem againpresently. You must be right--unless it should be your over-goodnessopposed to my over-badness--I will not be sure. Or you wrote perhapsin an accidental mood of most excellent critical smoothness, such asMr. Forster did his last _Examiner_ in, when he gave the all-hail toMr. Harness as one of the best dramatists of the age!! Ah no!--notsuch as Mr. Forster's. Your soul does not enter into his secret--Therecan be nothing in common between you. For him to say such a word--hewho knows--or ought to know!--And now let us agree and admire thebowing 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 forthe fairies. I have this moment a parcel of books via Mr. Moxon--Miss Martineau'stwo volumes--and Mr. Bailey sends his 'Festus, ' very kindly, ... And'Woman in the Nineteenth Century' from America from a Mrs. Or a MissFuller--how I hate those 'Women of England, ' 'Women and their Mission'and the rest. As if any possible good were to be done by suchexpositions 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 buzzingwriggling cold-blooded warm-blooded creatures ... As all alive as yourown pedant's book in the tree. And do you know, I think I like frogstoo--particularly the very little leaping frogs, which are sohigh-hearted as to emulate the birds. I remember being scolded by mynurses for taking them up in my hands and letting them leap from onehand to the other. But for the toad!--why, at the end of the row ofnarrow beds which we called our gardens when we were children, grew anold thorn, and in the hollow of the root of the thorn, lived a toad, agreat 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 mustsee it glitter if you stooped and looked steadily into the hole. Andon days when he came out and sate swelling his black sides, I neverlooked steadily; I would run a hundred yards round through the shrubs, deeper than knee-deep in the long wet grass and nettles, rather thango past him where he sate; being steadily of opinion, in theprofundity of my natural history-learning, that if he took it into histoad'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 mysisters 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!): andblue-bottle flies I used to feed, and hated your spiders for them; yetno, not much. My aversion proper ... Call it horror rather ... Was forthe silent, cold, clinging, gliding _bat_; and even now, I think, Icould not sleep in the room with that strange bird-mouse-creature, asit glides round the ceiling silently, silently as its shadow does onthe floor. If you listen or look, there is not a wave of the wing--thewing never waves! A bird without a feather! a beast that flies! and socold! as cold as a fish! It is the most supernatural-seeming ofnatural things. And then to see how when the windows are open at nightthose bats come sailing ... Without a sound--and go ... You cannotguess where!--fade with the night-blackness! You have not been well--which is my first thought if not my firstword. Do walk, and do not work; and think ... What I could be thinkingof, if I did not think of _you_ ... Dear--dearest! 'As the doves flyto 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 upstraight to God ... Nothing, no one, used to intercept me--now thereis _you_--only you under him! Do not use such words as those thereforeany more, nor say that you are not to be thought of so and so. You areto be thought of every way. You must know what you are to me if youknow 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 thelizards! love me as you love the efts--and I will believe in _you_ asyou 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 areason for a man's wits dwindling the moment he gets into a criticalHigh-place to hold forth?--I have only glanced over the articlehowever. Well, one day _I_ am to write of you, dearest, and it mustcome 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 inthe _New Quarterly_ 'Mr. Browning' figures pleasantly as 'one withoutany sympathy for a human being!'--Then, for newts and efts at allevents! _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 younot see? In the letter, one may go to the utmost limit of one'ssupposed tether without danger--there is the distance so palpablybetween the most audacious step _there_, and the next ... Which isnowhere, seeing it is not in the letter. Quite otherwise in personalintercourse, where any indication of turning to a certain path, even, might possibly be checked not for its own fault but lest, the pathonce reached and proceeded in, some other forbidden turning might comeinto sight, we will say. In the letter, all ended _there_, just there... And you may think of that, and forgive; at all events, may avoidspeaking irrevocable words--and when, as to me, those words areintensely _true, doom-words_--think, dearest! Because, as I told youonce, what most characterizes my feeling for you is the perfect_respect_ in it, the full _belief_ ... (I shall get presently to poorRobert's very avowal of 'owing you all esteem'!). It is on that Ibuild, and am secure--for how should I know, of myself, how to serveyou and be properly yours if it all was to be learnt by my owninterpreting, and what you professed to dislike you were to beconsidered as wishing for, and what liking, as it seemed, you wereloathing at your heart, and if so many 'noes' made a 'yes, ' and 'onerefusal no rebuff' and all that horrible bestiality which stoutgentlemen turn up the whites of their eyes to, when they rise afterdinner and pressing the right hand to the left side say, 'The toast bedear woman!' Now, love, with this feeling in me from the beginning, --Ido 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 butbelieve, I say, that had you given me once a 'refusal'--clearlyderived from your own feelings, and quite apart from any fanciedconsideration for my interests; had this come upon me, whether slowlybut inevitably in the course of events, or suddenly as precipitated byany step of mine; I should, _believing you_, have never again reneweddirectly or indirectly such solicitation; I should have begun to counthow many other ways were yet open to serve you and devote myself toyou ... But from _the outside_, now, and not in your livery! Now, if Ishould have acted thus under _any_ circumstances, how could I butredouble my endeavours at precaution after my own foolish--you know, and forgave long since, and I, too, am forgiven in my own eyes, forthe cause, though not the manner--but could I do other than keep'farther from you' than in the letters, dearest? For your own part inthat 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 yourfeet, kiss every letter in your name, bless you with my whole heartand soul if I could pour them out, from me, before you, to stay and beyours; when I think on your motives and pure perfect generosity. Itwas the plainness of _that_ which determined me to wait and be patientand grateful and your own for ever in any shape or capacity you mightplease to accept. Do you think that because I am so rich now, I couldnot have been most rich, too, _then_--in what would seem little onlyto _me_, only with this great happiness? I should have been proudbeyond measure--happy past all desert, to call and be allowed to seeyou simply, speak with you and be spoken to--what am I more thanothers? Don't think this mock humility--_it is not_--you take me inyour mantle, and we shine together, but I know my part in it! All thisis written breathlessly on a sudden fancy that you _might_--if notnow, at some future time--give other than this, the true reason, forthat discrepancy you see, that nearness in the letters, that earlyfarness in the visits! And, love, all love is but a passionate_drawing closer_--I would be one with you, dearest; let my soul pressclose to you, as my lips, dear life of my life. _Wednesday. _--You are entirely right about those poems of Horne's--Ispoke only of the effect of the first glance, and it is a principlewith me to begin by welcoming any strangeness, intention oforiginality in men--the other way of safe copying precedents being_so_ safe! So I began by praising all that was at all questionable inthe form ... Reserving the ground-work for after consideration. TheElf-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 writingfor children and miss them and the others too, --with that detestableirreverence and plain mocking all the time at the very wonder theyprofess to want to excite. All obvious bending down to the lowercapacity, determining not to be the great complete man one is, byhalf; any patronizing minute to be spent in the nursery over the booksand work and healthful play, of a visitor who will presently bidgood-bye and betake himself to the Beefsteak Club--keep us from allthat! The Sailor Language is good in its way; but as wrongly used inArt as real clay and mud would be, if one plastered them in theforeground of a landscape in order to attain to so much truth, at allevents--the true thing to endeavour is the making a golden colourwhich 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_! Notaltogether, --for first it was but the stranger's welcome I gave, theright of every new comer who must stand or fall by his behaviour onceadmitted within the door. And then--when I know what Horne thinksof--you, dearest; how he knew you first, and from the soul admiredyou; and how little he thinks of my good fortune ... I _could_ NOTbegin by giving you a bad impression of anything he sends--he has suchvery few rewards for a great deal of hard excellent enduring work, and_none_, no reward, I do think, would he less willingly forego thanyour praise and sympathy. But your opinion once expressed--truthremains the truth--so, at least, I excuse myself ... And quite as muchfor what I say _now_ as for what was said _then_! 'King John' is veryfine and full of purpose; 'The Noble Heart, ' sadly faint anduncharacteristic. The chief incident, too, turns on that poorconventional fallacy about what constitutes a proper wrong toresist--a piece of morality, after a different standard, is introducedto complete another fashioned morality--a segment of a circle oflarger dimensions is fitted into a smaller one. Now, you may have yourown standard of morality in this matter of resistance to wrong, howand when if at all. And you may quite understand and sympathize withquite different standards innumerable of other people; but go from oneto the other abruptly, you cannot, I think. 'Bear patiently allinjuries--revenge in no case'--that is plain. 'Take what you conceiveto be God's part, do his evident work, stand up for good and destroyevil, and co-operate with this whole scheme here'--_that_ is plain, too, --but, call Otto's act _no_ wrong, or being one, not such asshould be avenged--and then, call the remark of a stranger that one isa 'recreant'--just what needs the slight punishment of instant deathto 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 shallsee you to-morrow, I trust. Bless you, my own--I have not half saidwhat was to say even in the letter I thought to write, and whichproves only what you see! But at a thought I fly off with you, 'at acock-crow from the Grange. '--Ever your own. Last night, I received a copy of the _New Quarterly_--now here ispopular praise, a sprig of it! Instead of the attack I supposed it tobe, from my foolish friend's account, the notice is outrageouslyeulogistical, a stupidly extravagant laudation from first to last--andin _three other_ articles, as my sister finds by diligent fishing, they introduce my name with the same felicitous praise (except oneinstance, though, in a good article by Chorley I am certain); and_with_ me I don't know how many poetical _crétins_ are praised asnoticeably--and, in the turning of a page, somebody is abused in therichest style of scavengering--only Carlyle! And I love him enough notto envy him nor wish to change places, and giving him mine, mount intohis. All which, let me forget in the thoughts of to-morrow! Bless you, myBa. _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 readthem--of _you_, I mean of course, --though I quite understand that itis doing no manner of good to go back so to 'Paracelsus, ' heading thearticle 'Paracelsus and other poems, ' as if the other poems could notfront 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 thestiffnecked public (such good as critics can do in their degree) wouldhave been to hold fast and conspicuously the gilded horn of the lastliving 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 analyticalcriticism--or a failure, at the least attempt! all slack and insentences! Still these are right things to say, true things, worthythings, 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 yourgreat world--the outermost temple of divinest consecration. I likethat figure and association, and none the worse for its being asufficient refutation of what he dared to impute, of your poeticalsectarianism, in another place--_yours_! For me, it is all quite kind enough--only I object, on my own partalso, to being reviewed in the 'Seraphim, ' when my better books arenearer: and also it always makes me a little savage when people talkof Tennysonianisms! I have faults enough as the Muses know, --but letthem be _my_ faults! When I wrote the 'Romaunt of Margret, ' I had notread a line of Tennyson. I came from the country with my eyes onlyhalf open, and he had not penetrated where I had been living andsleeping: and in fact when I afterwards tried to reach him here inLondon, nothing could be found except one slim volume, so that, tillthe collected works appeared ... _favente_ Moxon, ... I was ignorantof his best _early_ productions; and not even for the rhythmeticalform of my 'Vision of the Poets, ' was I indebted to the 'TwoVoices, '--three pages of my 'Vision' having been written several yearsago--at the beginning of my illness--and thrown aside, and taken upagain in the spring of 1844. Ah, well! there's no use talking! In asolitary 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'--therepulsion was too strong. Yet the 'young lady imitated Darwin' ofcourse, 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 'threepoets in three distant ages born' may well stare amazed! After all you shall not by any means say that I upset the inkstand onyour review in a passion--because pray mark that the ink has over-runsome of your praises, and that if I had been angry to the overthrow ofan inkstand, it would not have been precisely _there_. It is thesecond book spoilt by me within these two days--and my fingers were sodabbled in blackness yesterday that to wring my hands would only havemade matters worse. Holding them up to Mr. Kenyon they looked dirtyenough to befit a poetess--as black 'as bard beseemed'--and he tookthe 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 havereached you, I thought, on Monday evening, or on Tuesday at the veryvery earliest?--and how is it that I did not hear from you last nightagain 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 theletter which I enclose to show you how it accounts reasonably for theink--I did it 'in a pet, ' he thinks! And I ought to buy you a newbook--certainly I ought--only it is not worth doing justice for--and Ishall therefore send it back to you spoilt as it is; and you mustforgive 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 ofcourse, _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 finethings 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 touse! You never could _think_ such a word for a moment! If you were toleave me even, --to decide that it is best for you to do it, and doit, --I should accede at once of course, but never should I nor could I'repent' ... Regret anything ... Be sorry for having known you andloved you ... No! Which I say simply to prove that, in _no_ extremecase, could I repent for my own sake. For yours, it might bedifferent. _Not_ out of 'generosity' certainly, but from the veriest selfishness, I choose here, before God, any possible present evil, rather than thefuture consciousness of feeling myself less to you, on the whole, thananother woman might have been. Oh, these vain and most heathenish repetitions--do I not vex you bythem, _you_ whom I would always please, and never vex? Yet they forcetheir 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 mehappy, _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, thatif I were _vacillating_, I should not be so weak as to tease you withthe process of the vacillation: I should wait till my pendulum ceasedswinging. It is precisely because I am your own, past any retractionor 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 ofyours, --it is precisely for this, that I remind you too often of thenecessity of using this right of yours, not to your injury, of beingwise and strong for both of us, and of guarding your happiness whichis mine. I have said these things ninety and nine times over, and overand over have you replied to them, --as yesterday!--and now, do notspeak any more. It is only my preachment for general use, and not forparticular application, --only to be _ready_ for application. I loveyou from the deepest of my nature--the whole world is nothing to mebeside 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 forto-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 havea sort of instinct by which I seem to know your views of such subjectsas we have never looked at together. I know _you_ so well (yes, Iboast to myself of that intimate knowledge), that I seem to know alsothe _idola_ of all things as they are in your eyes--so that never, scarcely, I am curious, --never anxious, to learn what your opinionsmay be. Now, _have_ I been curious or anxious? It was enough for me toknow _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 tohold at the bottom of it just the drop of Heaven dew mingling with theabsinthus, --has overflowed all this wine: and _that_ makes me look outfor the vases, which would have held it better, had you stretched outyour 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 moreprecision than I could say it. Art without an ideal is neither naturenor art. The question involves the whole difference between MadameTussaud and Phidias. I have just received Mr. Edgar Poe's book--and I see that thedeteriorating preface which was to have saved me from the vanity-feverproduceable by the dedication, is cut down and away--perhaps in thisparticular copy only! Tuesday is so near, as men count, that I caught myself just now beingafraid 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 wasfoolish to mind your seeing it at all. But now, may I stipulate?--Youshall not send it back--but on your table I shall find and take itnext Tuesday--_c'est convenu_! The other precious volume has not yetcome to hand (nor to foot) all through your being so sure that tocarry it home would have been the death of me last evening! I cannot write my feelings in this large writing, begun on such ascale for the Review's sake; and just now--there is no denying it, andspite of all I have been incredulous about--it does seem that the fact_is_ achieved and that I _do_ love you, plainly, surely, more thanever, 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 theheart'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 beglad to have the words you sent with the book, --which I should haveseen at all events be sure, whether you had sent it or not. Should Inot, do you think? And considering what the present generation ofcritics really is, the remarks on you may stand, although it is thedreariest impotency to complain of the want of flesh and blood and ofhuman sympathy in general. Yet suffer them to say on--it is the stampon the critical knife. There must be something eminently stupid, orfarewell criticdom! And if anything more utterly untrue could be saidthan another, it is precisely that saying, which Mr. Mackay stands upto catch the reversion of! Do you indeed suppose that Heraud couldhave done this? I scarcely can believe it, though some things are saidrightly as about the 'intellectuality, ' and how you stand first by thebrain, --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 thatname, seems indeed to be Mr. Chorley's, and is one of his very bestpapers, I think. There is to me a want of colour and thinness abouthis writings in general, with a grace and _savoir faire_ nevertheless, and always a rightness and purity of intention. Observe what he saysof 'many-sidedness' seeming to trench on opinion and principle. That, he means for himself I know, for he has said to me that through havingsuch largeness of sympathy he has been charged with want ofprinciple--yet 'many-sidedness' is certainly no word for him. Theeffect of general sympathies may be evolved both from an elastic fancyand from breadth of mind, and it seems to me that he rather _bends_ toa phase of humanity and literature than contains it--than comprehendsit. Every part of a truth implies the whole; and to accept truth allround, does not mean the recognition of contradictory things:universal sympathies cannot make a man inconsistent, but, on thecontrary, sublimely consistent. A church tower may stand between themountains and the sea, looking to either, and stand fast: but thewillow-tree at the gable-end, blown now toward the north and nowtoward the south while its natural leaning is due east or west, isdifferent altogether ... _as_ different as a willow-tree from a churchtower. Ah, what nonsense! There is only one truth for me all this time, whileI talk about truth and truth. And do you know, when you have told meto think of you, I have been feeling ashamed of thinking of you somuch, of thinking of only you--which _is_ too much, perhaps. Shall Itell you? it seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before toany woman what you are to me--the fulness must be in proportion, youknow, to the vacancy ... And only _I_ know what was behind--the longwilderness _without_ the blossoming rose ... And the capacity forhappiness, like a black gaping hole, before this silver flooding. Isit wonderful that I should stand as in a dream, and disbelieve--not_you_--but my own fate? Was ever any one taken suddenly from alampless dungeon and placed upon the pinnacle of a mountain, withoutthe head turning round and the heart turning faint, as mine do? Andyou love me _more_, you say?--Shall I thank you or God?Both, --indeed--and there is no possible return from me to either ofyou! I thank you as the unworthy may ... And as we all thank God. Howshall I ever prove what my heart is to you? How will you ever see itas I feel it? I ask myself in vain. Have so much faith in me, my only beloved, as to use me simply foryour own advantage and happiness, and to your own ends without athought of any others--_that_ is all I could ask you with any disquietas 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 havenot yet looked at the paper myself. The _Athenæum_, still abominablydumb!-- _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 willwrite. For here has a friend been calling and consuming my verydestined time, and every minute seemed the last that was to be; and anold, old friend he is, beside--so--you must understand my defection, when only this scrap reaches you to-night! Ah, love, --you are myunutterable blessing, --I discover you, more of you, day by day, --hourby hour, I do think!--I am entirely yours, --one gratitude, all my soulbecomes 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 belooked narrowly for or it escapes me, but then the increase it shows_can_ only be little, so very little now--and as the fine FrenchChemical Analysts bring themselves to appreciate matter in its refinedstages 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 hoursthat must come--I shall grow old with you, and die with you--as far asI can look into the night I see the light with me. And surely withthat provision of comfort one should turn with fresh joy and renewedsense of security to the sunny middle of the day. I am in the fullsunshine now; and _after_, all seems cared for, --is it too homely anillustration if I say the day's visit is not crossed by uncertaintiesas to the return through the wild country at nightfall?--Now Keatsspeaks of 'Beauty, that must _die_--and Joy whose hand is ever at hislips, bidding farewell!' And _who_ spoke of--looking up into the eyesand asking 'And _how long_ will you love us'?--There is a Beauty thatwill not die, a Joy that bids no farewell, dear dearest eyes that willlove 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 andjustly; hardly more. I do not pretend to say I have chosen to put myfancy to such an experiment, and consider how _that_ is to happen, andwhat measures ought to be taken in the emergency--because in the'universality of my sympathies' I certainly number a very lively onewith my own heart and soul, and cannot amuse myself by such aspectacle as their supposed extinction or paralysis. There is no doubtI should be an object for the deepest commiseration of you or any morefortunate human being. And I hope that because such a calamity doesnot obtrude itself on me as a thing to be prayed against, it is noless duly implied with all the other visitations from which nohumanity can be altogether exempt--just as God bids us ask for thecontinuance of the 'daily bread'!--'battle, murder and sudden death'lie behind doubtless. I repeat, and perhaps in so doing only give onemore example of the instantaneous conversion of that indignation webestow in another's case, into wonderful lenity when it becomes ourown, ... That I only contemplate the _possibility_ you make merecognize, with pity, and fear ... No anger at all; and imprecationsof vengeance, _for what_? Observe, I only speak of cases _possible_;of sudden impotency of mind; that _is_ possible--there _are_ otherways of '_changing_, ' 'ceasing to love' &c. Which it is safest not tothink of nor believe in. A man _may_ never leave his writing deskwithout seeing safe in one corner of it the folded slip which directsthe disposal of his papers in the event of his reason suddenly leavinghim--or he may never go out into the street without a card in hispocket to signify his address to those who may have to pick him up inan apoplectic fit--but if he once begins to fear he is growing a glassbottle, 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, asI, received already so much; much, past expression! It is but--if youwill so please--at worst, forestalling the one or two years, for mysake; but you _will_ be as sure of me _one_ day as I can be now ofmyself--and why not _now_ be sure? See, love--a year is gone by--wewere in one relation when you wrote at the end of a letter 'Do not sayI do not tire you' (by writing)--'_I am sure I do_. ' A year has goneby--_Did you tire me then?_ _Now_, you tell me what is told; for mysake, sweet, let the few years go by; we are married, and my arms areround you, and my face touches yours, and I am asking you, '_Were younot_ to me, in that dim beginning of 1846, a joy behind all joys, alife added to and transforming mine, the good I choose from all thepossible gifts of God on this earth, for which I seemed to have lived;which accepting, I thankfully step aside and let the rest get whatthey can; what, it is very likely, they esteem more--for why should myeye be evil because God's is good; why should I grudge that, givingthem, I do believe, infinitely less, he gives them a content in theinferior good and belief in its worth? I should have wished _that_further concession, that illusion as I believe it, for theirsakes--but I cannot undervalue my own treasure and so scant the onlytribute 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; tocorrect the misprints which affect the sense, and to write you thehistory of it; what is necessary you should know before you see it. That article I suppose to be by Heraud--about two thirds--and therest, or a little less, by that Mr. Powell--whose unimaginable, impudent vulgar stupidity you get some inkling of in the 'Story fromBoccaccio'--of which the _words_ quoted were _his_, I am sure--as sureas that he knows not whether Boccaccio lived before or afterShakspeare, whether Florence or Rome be the more northern city, --oneword 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 asort of grammar and sense, I did not think he was a _buyer_ of othermen's verses, to be printed as his own; thus he _bought_ twomodernisations of Chaucer--'Ugolino' and another story from LeighHunt--and one, 'Sir Thopas' from Horne, and printed them as his own, as I learned only last week. He paid me extravagant court and, seeingno 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 hadwritten an article for the Review--(which is as good as _his_, hebeing a large proprietor of the delectable property, and influencingthe voices of his co-mates in council)--well, he insulted my friend, who had written that article at my special solicitation, and did allhe could to avoid paying the price of it--Why?--Because the poorcreature had actually taken the article to the Editor _as one by hisfriend Serjeant Talfourd contributed for pure love of him, Powell theaforesaid_, --cutting, in consequence, no inglorious figure in the eyesof Printer and Publisher! Now I was away all this time in Italy or hewould 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 aproper application, which Mr. Powell treated with all the insolence inthe world--because, as the event showed, the having to write a chequefor 'the Author of _the_ Article'--that author's name _not_ beingTalfourd's ... _there_ was certain disgrace! Since then (ten monthsago) 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 ofthis Mr. Powell, or ever knew. For he, (being profoundly versed inevery sort of untruth, as every fresh experience shows me, and therest of his acquaintance) he told me long ago, 'he used to correspondwith you, and that he quarrelled with you'--which I supposed to meanthat he began by sending you his books (as with one and everybody) andthat, in return to your note of acknowledgment, he had chosen to writeagain, and perhaps, again--is it so? Do not write one word in answerto me--the name of such a miserable nullity, and husk of a man, oughtnot to have a place in your letters--and _that way_ he would get nearto me again; near indeed this time!--So _tell_ me, in a word--or donot tell me. How I never say what I sit down to say! How saying the little makes mewant to say the more! How the least of little things, once taken up asa thing to be imparted to you, seems to need explanations andcommentaries; 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 bringthe _Act_ you must forgive me--yet I shall, I think; the roughnessmatters little in this stage. Chorley says very truly that a tragedyimplies as much power _kept back_ as brought out--very true that is. Ido not, on the whole, feel dissatisfied--as was to be butexpected--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 atthe very last you may pass off into a plain and so away--not come to astop like your horse against a church wall. It is all in longspeeches--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 Ithought 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 blowingnow here now there--precisely! I wish he minded the _Athenæum_, itssilence or eloquence, no more nor less than I--but he goes onpainfully 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. Seethe absurd position of us both; he asks more of my presence than hecan 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 toprove my belief in that same! For myself--if I have vanity which suchJournals can raise; would the praise of them raise it, they whopraised Mr. Mackay's own, own 'Dead Pan, ' quite his own, the otherday?--By the way, Miss Cushman informed me the other evening that thegentleman had written a certain 'Song of the Bell' ... 'singularlylike Schiller's; _considering that Mr. M. Had never_ seen it!' I amtold he writes for the _Athenæum_, but don't know. Would that sort ofpraise be flattering, or his holding the tongue--which Forster, deepin the mysteries of the craft, corroborated my own notion about--aspure willingness to hurt, and confessed impotence and little cleverspite, and enforced sense of what may be safe at the last? You shallsee they will not notice--unless a fresh publication alters thecircumstances--until some seven or eight months--as before; and thenthey _will_ notice, and _praise_, and tell anybody who cares toenquire, '_So_ we noticed the work. ' So do not you go expectingjustice or injustice till I tell you. It answers me to be foundwriting so, so anxious to prove I understand the laws of the game, when that game is only 'Thimble-rig' and for prizes ofgingerbread-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 tothat poor Frances Brown--let us forget him. And now, my Audience, my crown-bearer, my path-preparer--I am with youagain and out of them all--there, _here_, in my arms, is my _provedpalpable success_! My life, my poetry, gained nothing, oh no!--butthis found them, and blessed them. On Tuesday I shall see you, dearest--am much better; well to-day--are you well--or 'scarcely to becalled an invalid'? Oh, when I _have_ you, am by you-- Bless you, dearest--And be very sure you have your wish about thelength 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 daysbefore, and to come just at the wrong time after all! It was betterfor you, I suppose--believe--to go with him down-stairs--yes, itcertainly was better: it was disagreeable enough to be very wise! YetI, being addicted to every sort of superstition turning to melancholy, did hate so breaking off in the middle of that black thread ... (doyou remember what we were talking of when they opened the door?) thatI was on the point of saying 'Stay one moment, ' which I should haverepented afterwards for the best of good reasons. Oh, I _should_ haveliked to have 'fastened off' that black thread, and taken one stitchwith a blue or a green one! You do not remember what we were talking of? what _you_, rather, weretalking of? And what _I_ remember, at least, because it is exactly themost unkind and hard thing you ever said to me--ever dearest, so Iremember 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 wouldbe worse than Mr. Powell! Only the foolishness of it (I mean, thefoolishness of it alone) saves it, smooths it to a degree!--thefoolishness being the same as if you asked a man where he would walkwhen 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 beingsuch an example in the way of believing and trusting--it appears, after all, that you have an imagination apprehensive (orcomprehensive) of 'glass bottles' like other sublunary creatures, andworse than some of them. For mark, that I never went any farther thanto the stone-wall hypothesis of your forgetting me!--_I_ alwaysstopped there--and never climbed, to the top of it over thebroken-bottle fortification, to see which way you meant to walkafterwards. 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 toyou whether I would go to the south for my health's sake!--And Ianswered quite a common 'no' I believe--for you bewildered me for themoment--and I have had tears in my eyes two or three times since, justthrough 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 outof the window? True, _that_ was--I was tired of living ... Unaffectedly tired. All I cared to live for was to do better some ofthe work which, after all, was out of myself, and which I had to reachacross to do. But I told you. Then, last year, for duty's sake I wouldhave _consented_ to go to Italy! but if you really fancy that I wouldhave struggled in the face of all that difficulty--or struggled, indeed, anywise, to compass such an object as _that_--except for themotive of your caring for it and me--why you know nothing of me afterall--nothing! And now, take away the motive, and I am where Iwas--leaning out of the window again. To put it in plainer words (asyou really require information), I should let them do what they likedto me till I was dead--only I _wouldn't go to Italy_--if anybodyproposed Italy out of contradiction. In the meantime I do entreat younever to talk of such a thing to me any more. You know, if you were to leave me by your choice and for yourhappiness, it would be another thing. It would be very lawful to talkof _that_. And observe! I perfectly understand that you did not think of_doubting me_--so to speak! But you thought, all the same, that ifsuch a thing happened, I should be capable of doing so and so. Well--I am not quarrelling--I am uneasy about your head rather. Thatpain in it--what can it mean? I do beseech you to think of me just somuch as will lead you to take regular exercise every day, nevermissing a day; since to walk till you are tired on Tuesday and thennot to walk at all until Friday is _not_ taking exercise, nor thething required. Ah, if you knew how dreadfully natural every sort ofevil seems to my mind, you would not laugh at me for being afraid. Ido beseech you, dearest! And then, Sir John Hanmer invited you, besides Mr. Warburton, and suppose you went to _him_ for a very littletime--just for the change of air? or if you went to the coastsomewhere. Will you consider, and do what is right, _for me_? I do notpropose that you should go to Italy, observe, nor any great thing atwhich you might reasonably hesitate. And--did you ever try smoking asa remedy? If the nerves of the head chiefly are affected it might doyou good, I have been thinking. Or without the smoking, to breathewhere tobacco is burnt, --_that_ calms the nervous system in awonderful manner, as I experienced once myself when, recovering froman illness, I could not sleep, and tried in vain all sorts ofnarcotics and forms of hop-pillow and inhalation, yet wastranquillized in one half hour by a _pinch_ of _tobacco_ being burntin 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 thepoint of sending for the book to the booksellers--then suddenly Ithought to myself that I should wait and hear whether you very, verymuch would dislike my reading it. See now! Many readers have donevirtuously, but _I_, (in this virtue I tell you of) surpassed themall!--And now, because I may, I '_must_ read it':--and as there aremisprints to be corrected, will you do what is necessary, or what youthink is necessary, and bring me the book on Monday? Do notsend--bring it. In the meanwhile I send back the review which I forgotto give to you yesterday in the confusion. Perhaps you have not readit 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 notkeep you well! And, ever since you have known me, you have beenworse--_that_, you confess!--and what if it should be the crossing ofmy bad star? _You_ of the 'Crown' and the 'Lyre, ' to seek influencesfrom the 'chair of Cassiopeia'! I hope she will forgive me for usingher name so! I might as well have compared her to a professorship ofpoetry 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 ofspherical tune, through the damp weather, perhaps, and that scarletsun was a sign! First Mr. Chorley!--and last, dear Mr. Kenyon; who_will_ say tiresome things without any provocation. Did you walk withhim his way, or did he walk with you yours? or did you only walkdown-stairs together? Write to me! Remember that it is a month to Monday. Think of your veryown, 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 haveMiss Martineau's books when I can lend them to you? Just at thismoment I _dare_ not, because they are reading them here. Let Mr. Mackay have his full proprietary in his 'Dead Pan'--which isquite a different conception of the subject, and executed in blankverse too. I have no claims against him, I am sure! But for the _man_!--To call him a poet! A prince and potentate ofCommonplaces, such as he is!--I have seen his name in the _Athenæum_attached to a lyric or two ... Poems, correctly called fugitive, --morethan usually fugitive--but I never heard before that his hand was inthe 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 knewand felt_ the price I was about to pay--but the thought _did_ occurthat he might have been informed my probable time of departure wasthat 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 leastembarrassment in the world, I got--just that shake of the hand, justthat look--and no more! And was it all for nothing, all needless afterall? So I said to myself all the way home. When I am away from you--a crowd of things press on me forutterance--'I will say them, not write them, ' I think:--when I seeyou--all to be said seems insignificant, irrelevant, --'they can bewritten, at all events'--I think _that_ too. So, feeling so much, Isay so little! I have just returned from Town and write for the Post--but _you_ meanto 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 giveyou pain, God knows. No one can more readily consent to let a fewyears more or less of life go out of account, --be lost--but as I sateby you, you so full of the truest life, for this world as for thenext, --and was struck by the possibility, all that might happen were Iaway, in the case of your continuing to acquiesce--dearest, it _is_horrible--could not but speak. If in drawing you, all of you, closerto my heart, I hurt you whom I would--_outlive_ ... Yes, --cannot speakhere--forgive me, Ba. My Ba, you are to consider now for me. Your health, your strength, itis 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 meas 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, --oras 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 firstspeech. _I_ stipulate, too, and require to say my own speech in my ownwords or by letter--remember! But this living without you is tootormenting 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 thetruth; and--you heard the playful words which had a meaning all thesame. 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 stillmakes me ungrateful to the previous one; but I remember. We are tolive 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 meantto 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 Ishall walk, beside seeing Chorley. And certainly, certainly I would goaway for a week, if so I might escape being ill (and away from you) afortnight; 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 crazyReview! Now, you should not!--I will consider about your goodness. Ihardly 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 revokethat decision! For it is altogether foolish and _not_ boylike--and Ishall, I confess, hate the notion of running over it--yet commentedit 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 thisambiguous, feverish--Why not wait? When you speak of the'Bookseller'--I smile, in glorious security--having a whole bale ofsheets at the house-top. He never knew my name even!--and I withdrewthese after a very little time. And now--here is a vexation. May I be with you (for this once) nextMonday, at _two_ instead of _three_ o'clock? Forster's business withthe 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 fiftyForsters--now, sweet, mind that! Monday is no common day, but leads toa _Saturday_--and if, as I ask, I get leave to call at 2--and to staytill 3-1/2--though I then lose nearly half an hour--yet all will becomparatively well. If there is any difficulty--one word and Ire-appoint our party, his and mine, for the day the paper breaksdown--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 rightto expect another directly, I think. I have been calculating: and itseems to me--now what I am going to say may take its place among theparadoxes, --that I gain most by the short letters. Last week the onlylong 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 ofthe single one I looked for: it was a clear gain, the little shortnote, and the letter arrived all the same. I remember, when I was achild, liking to have two shillings and sixpence better than half acrown--and now it is the same with this fairy money, which will neverturn all into pebbles, or beans, whatever the chronicles may say ofprecedents. Arabel did tell Mr. Kenyon (she told me) that 'Mr. Browning would soongo away'--in reply to an observation of his, that 'he would not stayas I had company'; and altogether it was better, --the lamp made itlook late. But you do not appear in the least remorseful for beingtempted of my black devil, my familiar, to ask such questions andleave me under such an impression--'mens conscia recti' too!!-- And Mr. Kenyon will not come until next Monday perhaps. How am I? ButI am too well to be asked about. Is it not a warm summer? The weatheris as 'miraculous' as the rest, I think. It is you who are unwell andmake people uneasy, dearest. Say how you are, and promise me to dowhat is right and try to be better. The walking, the changing of theair, the leaving off Luria ... Do what is right, I earnestly beseechyou. The other day, I heard of Tennyson being ill again, ... Too illto write a simple note to his friend Mr. Venables, who told George. Alittle more than a year ago, it would have been no worse a thing to meto hear of your being ill than to hear of his being ill!--How theworld has changed since then! To _me_, I mean. Did I say _that_ ever ... That 'I knew you must be tired?' And it wasnot even so true as that the coming event threw its shadow before? _Thursday night. _--I have begun on another sheet--I could not writehere what was in my heart--yet I send you this paper besides to showhow I was writing to you this morning. In the midst of it came afemale friend of mine and broke the thread--the visible thread, thatis. And now, even now, at this safe eight o'clock, I could not be safefrom somebody, who, in her goodnature and my illfortune, must come andsit by me--and when my letter was come--'why wouldn't I read it? Whatwonderful politeness on my part. ' She would not and could not consentto keep me from reading my letter. She would stand up by the firerather. No, no, three times no. Brummel got into the carriage before theRegent, ... (didn't he?) but I persisted in not reading my letter inthe presence of my friend. A notice on my punctiliousness may be putdown to-night in her 'private diary. ' I kept the letter in my hand andonly read it with those sapient ends of the fingers which themesmerists make so much ado about, and which really did seem to toucha little of what was inside. Not _all_, however, happily for me! Or myfriend 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 theverses at six years old--or see the drawings either? I am reasonable, you observe! Only, 'Pauline, ' I must have _some day_--why not withoutthe emendations? But if you insist on them, I will agree to wait alittle--if you promise _at last_ to let me see the book, which I willnot show. Some day, then! you shall not be vexed nor hurried for theday--some day. Am I not generous? And _I_ was 'precocious' too, andused 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 nothingof mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. Iused 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 'anepic'--and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which weused to act in the nursery. There was a French 'hexameter' tragedy onthe subject of Regulus--but I cannot even smile to think of it now, there are so many grave memories--which time has made grave--hungaround 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 beenaltogether? And these were my 'maturer works, ' you are to understand, ... And 'the moon was bright at ten o'clock at night' years before. Asto the gods and goddesses, I believed in them all quite seriously, andreconciled them to Christianity, which I believed in too after afashion, as some greater philosophers have done--and went out one daywith my pinafore full of little sticks (and a match from thehousemaid's cupboard) to sacrifice to the blue-eyed Minerva who was myfavourite goddess on the whole because she cared for Athens. As soonas I began to doubt about my goddesses, I fell into a vague sort ofgeneral scepticism, ... And though I went on saying 'the Lord'sprayer' at nights and mornings, and the 'Bless all my kind friends'afterwards, by the childish custom ... Yet I ended this liturgy with asupplication which I found in 'King's Memoirs' and which took my fancyand met my general views exactly.... 'O God, if there be a God, savemy soul if I have a soul. ' Perhaps the theology of many thoughtfulchildren is scarcely more orthodox than this: but indeed it iswonderful to myself sometimes how I came to escape, on the whole, aswell as I have done, considering the commonplaces of education inwhich I was set, with strength and opportunity for breaking the bondsall round into liberty and license. Papa used to say ... 'Don't readGibbon's history--it's not a proper book. Don't read "Tom Jones"--andnone of the books on _this_ side, mind!' So I was very obedient andnever touched the books on _that_ side, and only read instead TomPaine's 'Age of Reason, ' and Voltaire's 'Philosophical Dictionary, 'and Hume's 'Essays, ' and Werther, and Rousseau, and MaryWollstonecraft ... Books, which I was never suspected of lookingtowards, and which were not 'on _that_ side' certainly, but which didas well. How I am writing!--And what are the questions you did not answer? Ishall remember them by the answers I suppose--but your letters alwayshave 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 mywhole being vibrates, as a string, to these! How have I deserved fromGod 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, ' itwas what you _supposed_, rather! It was a mistake of yours. And now wewill not talk of it any more. _Friday morning. _--For the rest, I will think as you desire: but Ihave thought a great deal, and there are certainties which I know; andI hope we _both_ are aware that nothing can be more hopeless than ourposition in some relations and aspects, though you do not guessperhaps that the very approach to the subject is shut up by dangers, and that from the moment of a suspicion entering _one_ mind, we shouldbe able to meet never again in this room, nor to have intercourse byletter through the ordinary channel. I mean, that letters of yours, addressed to me here, would infallibly be stopped and destroyed--ifnot opened. Therefore it is advisable to hurry on nothing--on thesegrounds it is advisable. What should I do if I did not see you norhear from you, without being able to feel that it was for yourhappiness? What should I do for a month even? And then, I might bethrown out of the window or its equivalent--I look back shuddering tothe dreadful scenes in which poor Henrietta was involved who neveroffended as I have offended ... Years ago which seem as present asto-day. She had forbidden the subject to be referred to until thatconsent was obtained--and at a word she gave up all--at a word. Infact she had no true attachment, as I observed to Arabel at thetime--a child never submitted more meekly to a revoked holiday. Yethow she was made to suffer. Oh, the dreadful scenes! and only becauseshe had seemed to feel a little. I told you, I think, that there wasan obliquity--an eccentricity, or something beyond--on one class ofsubjects. 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 roseup to follow her, though I was quite well at that time and sufferedonly 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 throughoutour intercourse _I have remembered_. It is necessary to remember somuch as to avoid such evils as are inevitable, and for this reason Iwould conceal nothing from you. Do _you_ remember, besides, that therecan 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 youplease to have it done. But there is time for considering! Only ... As you speak of 'counsel, ' I will take courage to tell youthat my _sisters know_, Arabel is in most of my confidences, and beingoften in the room with me, taxed me with the truth long ago--she sawthat I was affected from some cause--and I told her. We are as safewith both of them as possible ... And they thoroughly understand that_if there should be any change it would not be your fault_.... I madethem understand that thoroughly. From themselves I have receivednothing but the most smiling words of kindness and satisfaction (Ithought I might tell you so much), they have too much tenderness forme to fail in it now. My brothers, it is quite necessary not to drawinto a dangerous responsibility. I have felt that from the beginning, and shall continue to feel it--though I hear and can observe that theyare full of suspicions and conjectures, which are never unkindlyexpressed. I told you once that we held hands the faster in this housefor the weight over our heads. But the absolute _knowledge_ would bedangerous for my brothers: with my sisters it is different, and Icould not continue to conceal from _them_ what they had under theireyes; and then, Henrietta is in a like position. It was not wrong ofme 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 suchpure gratitude. But we need not talk of these things now. Only youhave 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 andconsider. Tuesday is almost as near as the day before it; and onMonday, I shall be hurried at first, lest Papa should be still in thehouse, (no harm, but an excuse for nervousness: and I can't quote anoble 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 _DailyNews_, ... No, nor to the _Examiner_. Come on Tuesday, then, insteadof Monday, and let us have the usual hours in a peaceable way, --and ifthere is no obstacle, --that is, if Mr. Kenyon or some equivalentauthority should not take note of your being here on Tuesday, why youcan come again on the Saturday afterwards--I do not see thedifficulty. 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. Noton my account, not on yours! Think of me on Monday instead, and write before. Are not these twolawful letters? And do not they deserve an answer? My life was ended when I knew you, and if I survive myself it is foryour sake:--_that_ resumes all my feelings and intentions in respectto you. No 'counsel' could make the difference of a grain of dust inthe 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 wasbefore. While you do _not_ change, I look to you for my firstaffections and my first duty--and nothing but your bidding me, couldmake me look away. In the midst of this, Mr. Kenyon came and I felt as if I could nottalk to him. No--he does not 'see how it is. ' He may have passingthoughts sometimes, but they do not stay long enough to produce--evenan opinion. He asked if you had been here long. It may be wrong and ungrateful, but I do wish sometimes that the worldwere 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 theforb--no, _un_forbidden shelf--wherein Voltaire pleases to say that'si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer'? I feel, afterreading these letters, --as ordinarily after seeing you, sweetest, orhearing from you, --that if _marriage_ did not exist, I shouldinfallibly _invent_ it. I should say, no words, no _feelings_ even, do justice to the whole conviction and _religion_ of my soul--andthough they may be suffered to represent some one minute's phase ofit, yet, in their very fulness and passion they do injustice to the_unrepresented, other minute's_, depth and breadth of love ... Whichlet my whole life (I would say) be devoted to telling and proving andexemplifying, if not in one, then in another way--let me have theplain palpable power of this; the assured time for this ... Somethingof the satisfaction ... (but for the fantasticalness of theillustration) ... Something like the earnestness of some suitor inChancery if he could once get Lord Lyndhurst into a room with him, andlock the door on them both, and know that his whole story _must_ belistened to now, and the 'rights of it, '--dearest, the love unspokennow you are to hear 'in all time of our tribulation, in all time ofour wealth ... At the hour of death, and'-- If I did not _know_ this was so, --nothing would have been said, orsought 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 believeno human being could love you more--that thought consoles me for myown 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 claimthen, what is in Her, demanded rationally, equitably, in return forwhat were in you--do you like _that_ way!'--And I do _not_, Ba--you, even, might not--when people everyday buy improveable ground, andeligible sites for building, and don't want every inch filled up, covered over, done to their hands! So take me, and make me what youcan 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 thatcrowning comfort; it is 'miraculous, ' too, if you please--for _you_shall know me by finger-tip intelligence or any art magic of old ornew times--but they do not see me, know me--and must moreover bejealous of you, chary of you, as the daughters of Hesperus, ofwonderers and wistful lookers up at the gold apple--yet instead of'rapidly levelling eager eyes'--they are indulgent? Then--shall I wishcapriciously they were _not_ your sisters, not so near you, that theremight be a kind of grace in loving them for it'--but what grace canthere be when ... Yes, I will tell you--_no_, I will not--it isfoolish!--and it is _not_ foolish in me to love the table and chairsand vases in your room. Let me finish writing to-morrow; it would not become me to utter aword against the arrangement--and Saturday promised, too--but thoughall concludes against the early hour on Monday, yet--but this iswrong--on Tuesday it shall be, then, --thank you, dearest! you let mekeep 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 mydisposal to cut a generous figure with on occasion! And so, now, foryour kind considerateness thank _you ... That I say_, which, Godknows, _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 goout to-day--to-night. My Act is done, and copied--I will bring it. Doyou 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 thePowers that Be ... Because he might tell me that and much more withhis 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 longextracts 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 ina 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 theletter--but I shall do very little with it now. To be sure, a fewwords will serve, because you understand me, and believe in _enough_of me. First, then, I am wholly satisfied, thoroughly made happy inyour assurance. I would build up an infinity of lives, if I could planthem, one on the other, and all resting on you, on your word--I fullybelieve in it, --of my feeling, the gratitude, let there be no attemptto speak. And for 'waiting'; 'not hurrying', --I leave all with youhenceforth--all you say is most wise, most convincing. On the saddest part of all, --silence. You understand, and I canunderstand through you. Do you know, that I never _used_ to dreamunless indisposed, and rarely then--(of late I dream of you, but quiteof late)--and _those_ nightmare dreams have invariably been of _one_sort. I stand by (powerless to interpose by a word even) and see theinfliction of tyranny on the unresisting man or beast (generally thelast)--and I wake just in time not to die: let no one try this kind ofexperiment on me or mine! Though I have observed that by a felicitousarrangement, the man with the whip puts it into use with an old horsecommonly. I once knew a fine specimen of the boilingly passionate, desperately respectable on the Eastern principle that reverences amadman--and this fellow, whom it was to be death to oppose, (somebloodvessel was to break)--he, once at a dinner party at which I waspresent, insulted his wife (a young pretty simple believer in hisawful immunities from the ordinary terms that keep men inorder)--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 aword and return'--and no sooner was his back to the door than thebiggest, stupidest of the company began to remark 'what a fortunatething it was that Mr. So-and-so had such a submissive wife--not one ofthe women who would resist--that is, attempt to resist--and soexasperate 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 givehim his desert, I thought--'Oh, indeed?' No--_this_ man was not to beopposed--wait, you might, till the fit was over, and then try whatkind argument would do--and so forth to unspeakable nausea. Presentlywe went up-stairs--there sate the wife with dried eyes, and a smile atthe tea-table--and by her, in all the pride of conquest, with her handin his, our friend--disposed to be very good-natured of course. Ilistened _arrectis auribus_, and in a minute he said he did not knowsomebody I mentioned. I told him, _that_ I easily conceived--such aperson would never condescend to know _him_, &c. , and treated him toevery consequence ingenuity could draw from that text--and at the endmarched out of the room; and the valorous man, who had sate like apost, got up, took a candle, followed me to the door, and only said inunfeigned wonder, 'What _can_ have possessed you, my _dear_ B?'--Allwhich I as much expected beforehand, as that the above mentioned manof 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 ridof the thought altogether. But I do hold it the most stringent duty ofall who can, to stop a condition, a relation of one human being toanother which God never allowed to exist between Him and ourselves. _Trees_ live and die, if you please, and accept will for a law--butwith us, all commands surely refer to a previously-implantedconviction in ourselves of their rationality and justice. Or whydeclare that 'the Lord _is_ holy, just and good' unless there isrecognised and independent conception of holiness and goodness, towhich 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 converseis demonstrated, this, too, follows, and may be urged for practicalpurposes. All God's urgency, so to speak, is on the _justice_ of hisjudgments, _rightness_ of his rule: yet why? one might ask--if onedoes believe that the rule _is_ his; why ask further?--Because, his isa 'reasonable service, ' once for all. Understand why I turn my thoughts in this direction. If it is indeedas you fear, and no endeavour, concession, on my part will avail, under any circumstances--(and by endeavour, I mean all heart and soulcould bring the flesh to perform)--in that case, you will not come tome with a shadow past hope of chasing. The likelihood is, I over frighten myself for you, by the involuntarycontrast with those here--you allude to them--if I went with thisletter downstairs and said simply 'I want this taken to the directionto-night, and am unwell and unable to go, will you take it now?' myfather would not say a word, or rather would say a dozen cheerfulabsurdities about his 'wanting a walk, ' 'just having been wishing togo out' &c. At night he sits studying my works--illustrating them (Iwill bring you drawings to make you laugh)--and _yesterday_ I pickedup a crumpled bit of paper ... 'his notion of what a criticism on thislast number ought to be, --none, that have appeared, satisfyinghim!'--So judge of what he will say! And my mother loves me just asmuch more as must of necessity be. Once more, understand all this ... For the clock scares me of asudden--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 latestSaturday post had gone, they said, and I was beginning to be as vexedas possible, looking into the long letterless Sunday. Then, suddenlycame the knock--the postman redivivus--just when it seemed so beyondhoping for--it was half past eight, observe, and there had been a postat nearly eight--suddenly came the knock, and your letter with it. WasI not glad, do you think? And you call the _Athenæum_ 'kind and satisfactory'? Well--I was angryinstead. To make us wait so long for an 'article' like _that_, was notover-kind certainly, nor was it 'satisfactory' to class your peculiarqualities with other contemporary ones, as if they were not peculiar. It seemed to me cold and cautious, from the causes perhaps which youmention, but the extracts will work their own way with everybody whoknows what poetry is, and for others, let the critic do his worst withthem. For what is said of 'mist' I have no patience because I who knowwhen you are obscure and never think of denying it in some of yourformer works, do hold that this last number is as clear andself-sufficing to a common understanding, as far as the expression andmedium goes, as any book in the world, and that Mr. Chorley was boundin verity to say so. If I except that one stanza, you know, it is tomake the general observation stronger. And then 'mist' is an infamousword 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 andthoughts, from the midst of which, crossing each other infinitely, thegeneral significance seems to escape. So that to talk of a 'mist, 'when you are obscurest, is an impotent thing to do. Indeed it makes meangry. But the suggested virtue of 'self-renunciation' only made me smile, because it is simply nonsense ... Nonsense which proves itself to benonsense at a glance. So genius is to renounce itself--_that_ is thenew critical doctrine, is it? Now is it not foolish? To recognize thepoetical faculty of a man, and then to instruct him in'self-renunciation' in that very relation--or rather, to hint thevirtue of it, and hesitate the dislike of his doing otherwise? Whatatheists these critics are after all--and how the old heathensunderstood the divinity of gifts better, beyond any comparison. We maytake 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 tocall it April instead of January, and put on a cloak and walkeddown-stairs into the drawing-room--walked, mind! Before, I was carriedby one of my brothers, --even to the last autumn-day when I went out--Inever walked a step for fear of the cold in the passages. Butyesterday it was so wonderfully warm, and I so strong besides--it wasa feat worthy of the day--and I surprised them all as much as if I hadwalked out of the window instead. That kind dear Stormie, who with allhis shyness and awkwardness has the most loving of hearts in him, saidthat he was '_so_ glad to see me'! Well!--setting aside the glory of it, it would have been as wiseperhaps if I had abstained; our damp detestable climate reaches usotherwise than by cold, and I am not quite as well as usual thismorning 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 aninvalid, ' say the complimenters. What a way I am from your letter--that letter--or seem to berather--for one may think of one thing and yet go on writingdistrustedly of other things. So you are 'grateful' to my sisters ... _you_! Now I beseech you not to talk such extravagances; I mean suchextravagances as words like these _imply_--and there are far worsewords than these, in the letter ... Such as I need not put my fingeron; 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 thatsort, is the want of continuity common to such. When Joshua caused thesun 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 gladderstill 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 letterto-morrow--dearest! May God bless you! To-morrow too, at half past three o'clock, how joyful I shall be thatmy 'kind considerateness' decided not to receive you until Tuesday. Myvery 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'sHundred Days--did you know _that_? So much better I am to-night: it was nothing but a little chill fromthe 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 mynote left last night; how angry with the unnecessary harshness intowhich some of the phrases might be construed--you would forgive me, indeed. But, when all is confessed and forgiven, the factremains--that it would be the one trial I _know_ I should not be ableto bear; the repetition of these 'scenes'--intolerable--not to bewritten of, even my mind _refuses_ to form a clear conception of them. My own loved letter is come--and the news; of which the reassuringpostscript lets the interrupted joy flow on again. Well, and I am notto be grateful for that; nor that you _do_ 'eat your dinner'? Indeedyou will be ingenious to prevent me! I fancy myself meeting you on'the stairs'--stairs and passages generally, and galleries (ah, thouindeed!) all, with their picturesque _accidents_, of landing-places, and spiral heights and depths, and sudden turns and visions of halfopen doors into what Quarles calls 'mollitious chambers'--and aboveall, _landing-places_--they are my heart's delight--I would come uponyou unaware in a landing-place in my next dream! One day we may walkon the galleries round and over the inner court of the Doges' Palaceat Venice; and read, on tablets against the wall, how such an one wasbanished for an 'enormous dig (intacco) into the publictreasure'--another for ... What you are not to know because hisfriends have got chisels and chipped away the record of it--underneaththe 'giants' on their stands, and in the midst of the _cortile_ thebronze fountains whence the girls draw water. So _you_ too wrote French verses?--Mine were of less loftyargument--one couplet makes me laugh now for the reason of its falsequantity--I translated the Ode of Alcæus; and the last couplet ranthus.... 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'sfeelings--who inveterately maltreated 'ai's and oi's' and in thisinstance, an 'ei. ' But 'Pauline' is altogether of a different sort ofprecocity--you shall see it when I can master resolution to transcribethe explanation which I know is on the fly-leaf of a copy here. Ofthat work, the _Athenæum_ said [several words erased] now, whatoutrageous folly! I care, and you care, precisely nothing about itssayings and doings--yet here I talk! Now to you--Ba! When I go through sweetness to sweetness, at 'Ba' Istop last of all, and lie and rest. That is the quintessence of themall, --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 everysuch day, --I do not believe that one of the _forty_ is confounded withanother in my memory. So, _that_ is gained and sure for ever. And ofletters, 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 thenote to you, perhaps! I put that to your charity for construction. Bythe way, let the foolish and needless story about my whilome friend beof this use, that it records one of the traits in that same generouslove, of me, I once mentioned, I remember--one of the points in hischaracter which, I told you, _would_ account, if you heard them, formy 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 Motheris 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 atlast. Yet the new act is powerful and subtle, and very affecting, itseems to me, after a grave, suggested pathos; the reasoning is done onevery hand with admirable directness and adroitness, and poor Luria'siron baptism under such a bright crossing of swords, most miserablycomplete. Still ... Is he to die _so_? can you mean it? Oh--indeed Iforesaw _that_--not a guess of mine ever touched such an end--and Ican 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 ofsuicide being so unheroical. But you are a dramatic poet and rightperhaps, where, as a didactic poet, you would have been wrong, ... And, after the first shock, I begin to see that your Luria is the manLuria and that his 'sun' lights him so far and not farther than so, and to understand the natural reaction of all that generous trust andhopefulness, what naturally it would be. Also, it is satisfactory thatDomizia, having put her woman's part off to the last, should be toolate with it--it will be a righteous retribution. I had fancied thather object was to isolate him, ... To make his military glory andnational 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 Luriahigher in the mind of your readers, by the very means used to pulldown his fortunes--you show what a man he is by the very talk of hisrivals ... By his 'natural godship' over Puccio. Then Husain is noblycharacteristic--I like those streaks of Moorish fire in his speeches. 'Why 'twas all fighting' &c. ... _that_ passage perhaps is over-subtlefor a Husain--but too nobly right in the abstract to be altered, if itis so or not. Domizia talks philosophically besides, and howeloquently;--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 differentassociation by custom? 'Spirits' is quite short enough, it seems tome, for a last word--it sounds like a monosyllable that trembles--orthrills, rather. And, do you know, I agree with yourself a little whenyou say (as did you _not_ say?) that some of the speeches--Domizia'sfor instance--are too lengthy. I think I should like them to coil uptheir strength, here and there, in a few passages. Luria ... PoorLuria ... Is great and pathetic when he stands alone at last, and 'allhis waves have gone over him. ' Poor Luria!--And now, I wonder whereMr. Chorley will look, in this work, --along all the edges of thehills, --to find, or prove, his favourite 'mist!' On the glass of hisown 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 along time, but it might as well have been in a box--and indeed if ithad been in the box with your letters, I should have remembered tospeak of it long ago. So now, at last, tell me--how do you write, O mypoet? with steel pens, or Bramah pens, or goose-quills orcrow-quills?--Because I have a penholder which was given to me when Iwas a child, and which I have used both then and since in theproduction of various great epics and immortal 'works, ' until in theselatter years it has seemed to me too heavy, and I have taken intoservice, instead of it, another two-inch-long instrument which makesMr. Kenyon laugh to look at--and so, my fancy has run upon your havingthe heavier holder, which is not very heavy after all, and which willmake you think of me whether you choose it or not, besides being madeof a splinter from the ivory gate of old, and therefore not unworthyof a true prophet. Will you have it, dearest? Yes--because you can'thelp it. When you come ... On Saturday!-- And for 'Pauline, ' ... I am satisfied with the promise to see it someday ... When we are in the isle of the sirens, or ready for wanderingin the Doges' galleries. I seem to understand that you would reallyrather 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 anypoetical justice in 'the seven worlds, ' I shall have a letterto-night. By the way, you owe me two letters by your confession. A hundred andfour 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 letterswould take two hundred and eight at least, from the other side, tojustify them. Well--I feel inclined to wring out the legal per centageto the uttermost farthing; but fall into a fit of gratitude, notwithstanding, thinking of Monday, and how the second letter camebeyond hope. Always better, you are, than I guess you to be, --and itwas being _best_, to write, as you did, for me to hear twice on oneday!--best and dearest! But the first letter was not what you feared--I know you too well notto know how that letter was written and with what intention. _Doyou_, on the other hand, endeavour to comprehend how there may be aneccentricity and obliquity in certain relations and on certainsubjects, while the general character stands up worthily of esteem andregard--even of yours. Mr. Kenyon says broadly that it ismonomania--neither more nor less. Then the principle of passive filialobedience is held--drawn (and quartered) from Scripture. He _sees_ thelaw and the gospel on his side. Only the other day, there was asetting forth of the whole doctrine, I hear, down-stairs--'passiveobedience, and particularly in respect to marriage. ' One after theother, my brothers all walked out of the room, and there was left forsole auditor, Captain Surtees Cook, who had especial reasons forsitting it out against his will, --so he sate and asked 'if childrenwere to be considered slaves' as meekly as if he were asking forinformation. I could not help smiling when I heard of it. He is just_succeeding_ in obtaining what is called an 'adjutancy, ' which, withthe 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 afancy, to talk of it so! because you would have had the glory andadvantage, and privilege, of seeing me on my feet twenty times beforenow, if you had not impressed on me, in some ineffable manner, that tostand on my head would scarcely be stranger. Nevertheless you shallhave 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, Ithought ... And nothing stronger from Ireland:--but enoughadvertisements to promise a long future. What do you think? or haveyou not seen the paper? No broad principles laid down. A merenewspaper-support of the 'League. ' May God bless you. Say how you are--and _do_ walk, and 'care' foryourself, and, so, for your own _Ba_. Have I expressed to you at all how 'Luria' impresses _me_ more andmore? You shall see the 'remarks' with the other papers--the detailsof 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 goodintentions--because somebody came over in the morning and forced me togo out ... And, perhaps, I _knew_ what was coming, and had all mythoughts _there_, that is, _here_ now, with my own letters from you. Ithink so--for this punishment, I will tell you, came for some sin orother last night. I woke--late, or early--and, in one of those lucidmoments when all things are thoroughly _perceived_, --whether suggestedby some forgotten passage in the past sleep itself, I don't know--butI seem to _apprehend_, comprehend entirely, for the first time, whatwould happen if I lost you--the whole sense of that _closed door_ ofCatarina's came on me at once, and it was _I_ who said--not as quotingor adapting another's words, but spontaneously, unavoidably, '_In thatdoor, 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 Istrengthened 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 theordinary cases, where so much less is known, explained, possessed, aswith us. Understand for me, my dearest-- And do you think, sweet, that there _is_ any free movement of my soulwhich your penholder is to secure? Well, try, --it will be yours byevery right of discovery--and I, for my part, will religiously reportto you the first time I think of you 'which, but for your present Ishould not have done'--or is it not a happy, most happy way ofensuring a better fifth act to Luria than the foregoing? See theabsurdity I write--when it will be more probably the ruin of thewhole--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 hadends of his own to serve in it, --that he set to work somewhat afterthis fashion: 'Scene 1st. A breakfast chamber--Lord and Lady A. Attable--Lady A. / No more coffee my dear?--Lord A. / One more cup!(_Embracing her_). Lady A. / I was thinking of trying the ponies in thePark--are you engaged? Lord A. / Why, there's that bore of a Committeeat the House till 2. (_Kissing her hand_). ' And so forth, to theastonishment 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 businessof the piece. And though I must smile at your notion of securing_that_ by any fresh appliance, mechanical or spiritual, yet I do thankyou, dearest, thank you from my heart indeed--(and I write withBramahs _always_--not being able to make a pen!) If you have gone so far with 'Luria, ' I fancy myself nearly oraltogether safe. I must not tell you, but I wished just these feelingsto be in your mind about Domizia, and the death of Luria: the last actthrows light back on all, I hope. Observe only, that Luria _would_stand, if I have plied him effectually with adverse influences, insuch a position as to render any other end impossible without the hurtto Florence which his religion is, to avoid inflicting--passivelyawaiting, for instance, the sentence and punishment to come at night, would as surely inflict it as taking part with her foes. His aim is toprevent the harm she will do herself by striking him, so he movesaside from the blow. But I know there is very much to improve andheighten in this fourth act, as in the others--but the right aspect ofthings 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 Iopen the window to the east and wait for it--a little less gladly thanfor _you_ on Saturday, dearest. In the meanwhile you have 'lucidmoments, ' and 'strengthen' yourself into the wisdom of learning tolove me--and, upon consideration, it does not seem to be so hard afterall ... There is 'less for the future to take away' than you hadsupposed--so _that_ is the way? Ah, 'these lucid moments, in which allthings are thoroughly _perceived_';--what harm they do me!--And I amto '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 theivory and horn gates, the gates of false and true visions, as I am aptto do--and my penholder belongs to the ivory gate, ... As you willperceive in your lucid moments--poor holder! But, as you forget me onWednesdays, the post testifying, ... The sinecure may not be quite socertain as the Thursday's letter says. And _I_ too, in the meanwhile, grow wiser, ... Having learnt something which you cannot do, --you ofthe 'Bells and Pomegranates': _You cannot make a pen. _ Yesterday Ilooked round the world in vain for it. Mr. Kenyon does not come--_will_ not perhaps until Saturday! Whichreminds me--Mr. Kenyon told me about a year ago that he had beenpainfully employed that morning in _parting_ two--dearer thanfriends--and he had done it he said, by proving to either, that he orshe was likely to mar the prospects of the other. 'If I had spoken toeach, of himself or herself, ' he said, 'I _never could have done it_. ' Was not _that_ an ingenious cruelty? The remembrance rose up in melike a ghost, and made me ask you once to promise what you promised... (you recollect?) because I could not bear to be stabbed with myown dagger by the hand of a third person ... _so_! When people havelucid moments themselves, you know, it is different. And _shall_ I indeed have a letter to-morrow? Or, not having thepenholder 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 tohave been, commend me to this of Ba's--after I bade her generosity'understand me, ' too!--which meant, 'let her pick out of my disjointedsentences a general meaning, if she can, --which I very well know theirimperfect utterance would not give to one unsupplied with the key ofmy whole heart's-mystery'--and Ba, with the key in her hand, topretend and poke feathers and penholders into the key-hole, andcomplain that the wards are wrong! So--when the poor scholar, one hasread of, uses not very dissimilar language and argument--who beingthreatened with the deprivation of his Virgil learnt the Æneid byheart and then said 'Take what you can now'!--_that_ Ba calls'feeling the loss would not be so hard after all'!--_I_ do not, atleast. And if at any future moment I should again be visited--as Iearnestly desire may never be the case--with a sudden consciousness ofthe entire inutility of all earthly love (since of _my_ love) to holdits object back from the decree of God, if such should call it away;one of those known facts which, for practical good, we treat assupremely common-place, but which, like those of the uncertainty oflife--the very existence of God, I may say--if they were _not_common-place, and could they be thoroughly apprehended (except in thechance minutes which make one grow old, not the mere years)--thebusiness of the world would cease; but when you find Chaucer's graverat his work of 'graving smale seles' by the sun's light, you know thatthe 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 orwalking--and perfectly happy in the sunshine of you, I very well knowI am no wiser than is good for me and that there seems no harm infeeling it impossible this should change, or fail to go on increasingtill this world ends and we are safe, I with you, for ever. Butwhen--if only _once_, as I told you, recording it for its verystrangeness, I _do_ feel--in a flash--that words are words, and couldnot alter _that_ decree ... Will you tell me how, after all, thatconviction and the true woe of it are better met than by the asthorough conviction that, for one blessing, the extreme woe is_impossible_ now--that you _are_, and have been, _mine_, and _me_--onewith me, never to be parted--so that the complete separation not beingto be thought of, such an incomplete one as is yet in Fate's power maybe the less likely to attract her notice? And, dearest, in allemergencies, see, I go to you for help; for your gift of bettercomfort than is found in myself. Or ought I, if I could, to add onemore proof to the Greek proverb 'that the half is greater than thewhole'--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, andgood (not in _your_ will and good, as I now see them and shall eversee) ... Should you say I _did_ love you then? Perhaps. And it wouldhave been better for me, I know--I should not have _written_ this orthe 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 Baexpects or ought to expect; that I say with a flounce 'Catch meblotting down on paper, again, the first vague impressions in theweakest words and being sure I have only to bid her"understand"!--when I can get "Blair on Rhetoric, " and the additionalchapter on the proper conduct of a letter'! On the contrary I tellyou, Ba, my own heart's dearest, I will provoke you tenfold worse;will tell you all that comes uppermost, and what frightens me orreassures me, in moments lucid or opaque--and when all the pen-stumpsand holders refuse to open the lock, out will come the key perforce;and once put that knowledge--of the entire love and worship of myheart and soul--to its proper use, and all will be clear--tell meto-morrow that it will be clear when I call you to account and exactstrict payment for every word and phrase and full-stop and partialstop, and no stop at all, in this wicked little note which got sotreacherously the kisses and the thankfulness--written with nopenholder that is to belong to me, I hope--but with the feather, possibly, which Sycorax wiped the dew from, as Caliban remembered whenhe 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 atfirst ... And so, pays for all! Wherefore, all is right again, is itnot? and you are my own priceless Ba, my very own--and I will haveyou, if you like that style, and want you, and must have you every dayand all day long--much less see you to-morrow _stand_-- ... Now, there breaks down my new spirit--and, shame or no, I mustpray you, in the old way, _not_ to _receive me standing_--I should notremain master of myself I do believe! You have put out of my head all I intended to write--and now I slowlybegin to remember the matters they seem strangely unimportant--thatpoor impotency of a Newspaper! No--nothing of that for the present. To-morrow my dearest! Ba's first comment--'_To-morrow?_ _To-day_ istoo 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 fitpunishment? _E. B. B. To R. B. _ [Post-mark, January 26, 1846. ] I must begin by invoking my own stupidity! To forget after all thepenholder! I had put it close beside me too on the table, and neveronce thought of it afterwards from first to last--just as I should doif I had a common-place book, the memoranda all turning toobliviscenda as by particular contact. So I shall send the holder withMiss Martineau's books which you can read or not as you like ... Theyhave beauty in passages ... But, trained up against the wall of a setdesign, 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 betoo young and too old for nobody. Oh, and I send you besides a mostfrightful extract from an American magazine sent to me yesterday ... No, the day before ... On the subject of mesmerism--and you are tounderstand, if you please, that the Mr. Edgar Poe who stands committedin it, is my dedicator ... Whose dedication I forgot, by the way, withthe rest--so, while I am sending, you shall have his poems with hismesmeric experience and decide whether the outrageous compliment toE. B. B. Or the experiment on M. Vandeleur [Valdemar] goes furthest toprove him mad. There is poetry in the man, though, now and then, seenbetween the great gaps of bathos.... 'Politian' will make youlaugh--as the 'Raven' made _me_ laugh, though with something in itwhich 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 quartersbesides the author himself, before its publication in this form, andwhen it had only a newspaper life. Some of the other lyrics have powerof a less questionable sort. For the author, I do not know him atall--never heard from him nor wrote to him--and in my opinion, thereis more faculty shown in the account of that horrible mesmericexperience (mad or not mad) than in his poems. Now do read it from thebeginning to the end. That '_going out_' of the hectic, struck me verymuch ... And the writhing _away_ of the upper lip. Mosthorrible!--Then I believe so much of mesmerism, as to give room forthe full acting of the story on me ... Without absolutely giving fullcredence to it, understand. Ever dearest, you could not think me in earnest in that letter? It wasbecause I understood you so perfectly that I felt at liberty for thejesting a little--for had I not thought of _that_ before, myself, andwas 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 havesaid 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 ordinarycases. ' So much less! All the happiness I have known has come to methrough you, and it is enough to live for or die in--therefore livingor dying I would thank God, and use that word '_enough_' ... Beingyours in life and death. And always understanding that if either of usshould go, you must let it be this one here who was nearly gone whenshe knew you, since I could not bear-- Now see if it is possible to write on this subject, unless one laughsto stop the tears. I was more wise on Friday. Let me tell you instead of my sister's affairs, which are so publiclytalked of in this house that there is no confidence to be broken inrespect to them--yet my brothers only see and hear, and are toldnothing, to keep them as clear as possible from responsibility. I maysay of Henrietta that her only fault is, her virtues being written inwater--I know not of one other fault. She has too much softness to beable to say 'no' in the right place--and thus, without the slightestlevity ... Perfectly blameless in that respect, ... She says half ayes or a quarter of a yes, or a yes in some sort of form, toooften--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 ofinterpretations, one of them consoled himself by giving nick-names tohis rivals. Perseverance and Despair he called them, and so, went upto 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 andhad 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 violentre-iterations, --insisted that she loved him without knowing it, or_should_--elbowed poor Despair into the open streets, who being agentleman wouldn't elbow again--swore that 'if she married another hewould wait till she became a widow, trusting to Providence' ... _did_wait every morning till the head of the house was out, and sate day byday, in spite of the disinclination of my sisters and the rudeness ofall my brothers, four hours in the drawing-room ... Let himself berefused once a week and sate all the longer ... Allowed everybody inthe house (and a few visitors) to see and hear him in fits ofhysterical sobbing, and sate on unabashed, the end being that he sitsnow sole regnant, my poor sister saying softly, with a few tears ofremorse for her own instability, that she is 'taken by storm andcannot help it. ' I give you only the _résumé_ of this militarymovement--and though I seem to smile, which it was impossible to avoidat some points of the evidence as I heard it from first one person andthen another, yet I am woman enough rather to be glad that thedecision is made _so_. He is sincerely attached to her, I believe; andthe want of refinement and sensibility (for he understood heraffections to be engaged to another at one time) is covered in ameasure by the earnestness, --and justified too by the event--everybodybeing quite happy and contented, even to Despair, who has a new horseand takes lessons in music. That's love--is it not? And that's my answer (if you look for it) tothe question you asked me yesterday. Yet do not think that I am turning it all to game. I could not do sowith any real earnest sentiment ... I never could ... And now least, and with my own sister whom I love so. One may smile to oneself andyet wish another well--and so I smile to _you_--and it is all safewith you I know. He is a second or third cousin of ours and has goldenopinions from all his friends and fellow-officers--and for the rest, most of these men are like one another.... I never could see thedifference between fuller's earth and common clay, among them all. What do you think he has said since--to _her_ too?--'I alwayspersevere about everything. Once I began to write a farce--which theytold me was as bad as could be. Well!--I persevered!--_I finishedit_. ' Perfectly unconscious, both he and she were of there beinganything mal à propos in _that_--and no kind of harm was meant, --onlyit expresses the man. Dearest--it had better be Thursday I think--_our_ day! I was showingto-day your father's drawings, --and my brothers, and Arabel besides, admired them very much on the right grounds. Say how you are. You didnot seem to me to answer frankly this time, and I was more than halfuneasy when you went away. Take exercise, dear, dearest ... Think ofme 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 alittle warning--and I have so much to think of!--spite of my penholderbeing 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 acharacteristic reason, seeing that I reproached myself with feeling_too_ grateful for the 'special symbol'--the 'essential meaning' ofwhich was already in my soul. Well then, I will--I do pray forit--next time; and I will keep it for that one yesterday and all itsmemories--and it shall bear witness against me, if, on the Siren'sisle, I grow forgetful of Wimpole Street. And when is 'next time' tobe--Wednesday or Thursday? When I look back on the strangely steadywidening of my horizon--how no least interruption has occurred tovisits or letters--oh, care _you_, sweet--care for us both! That remark of your sister's delights me--you remember?--that theanger would not be so formidable. I have exactly the fear ofencountering _that_, which the sense of having to deal with a ghostwould induce: there's no striking at it with one's partizan. Well, Godis above all! It is not my fault if it so happens that by returning mylove 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 knowit--that is, my love for you was in the first instance its ownreward--if one must use such phrases--and if it were possible forthat ... Not _anger_, which is of no good, but that _opposition_--thatadverse 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--inthe very last letter, indeed. But with me, or any _man_, the instinctsof happiness develop themselves too unmistakably where there isanything like a freedom of will. The man whose heart is set on beingrich or influential after the worldly fashion, may be found far enoughfrom the attainment of either riches or influence--but he will be inthe presumed way to them--pumping at the pump, if he is really anxiousfor water, even though the pump be dry--but not sitting still by thedusty roadside. I believe--first of all, you--but when that is done, and I am allowedto call your heart _mine_, --I cannot think you would be happy ifparted 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 wellalready! It is so slight a thing, that I make such an ado about! Donot reply to these bodings--they are gone--they seem absurd! All stepssecured but the last, and that last the easiest! Yes--far easiest! Forfirst you had to be created, only that; and then, in my time; andthen, not in Timbuctoo but Wimpole Street, and then ... The strangehedge round the sleeping Palace keeping the world off--and then ... All was to begin, all the difficulty only _begin_:--and now ... Seewhere is reached! And I kiss you, and bless you, my dearest, inearnest 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 unduemagnifying of everything that comes from me, and I am alwayscomplaining of it outwardly and inwardly. That suddenly I should setabout desiring you to be more grateful, --even for so great a boon asan old penholder, --would be a more astounding change than any to besought or seen in a prime minister. Another mistake you made concerning Henrietta and her opinion--andthere's no use nor comfort in leaving you in it. Henrietta says thatthe 'anger would not be so formidable after all'! Poor dearestHenrietta, who trembles at the least bending of the brows ... Who hasless courage than I, and the same views of the future! What shereferred to, was simply the infrequency of the visits. 'Why was Iafraid, ' she said--'where was the danger? who would be the_informer_?'--Well! I will not say any more. It is just natural thatyou, in your circumstances and associations, should be unable to seewhat I have seen from the beginning--only you will not hereafterreproach me, in the most secret of your thoughts, for not having toldyou plainly. If I could have told you with greater plainness I shouldblame myself (and I do not) because it is not an opinion I have, but aperception. I see, I know. The result ... The end of all ... Perhapsnow and then I see _that_ too ... In the 'lucid moments' which are notthe happiest for anybody. Remember, in all cases, that I shall notrepent of any part of our past intercourse; and that, therefore, whenthe time for decision comes, you will be free to look at the questionas if you saw it then for the first moment, without being hampered byconsiderations about 'all those yesterdays. ' For _him_ ... He would rather see me dead at his foot than yield thepoint: 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 havewritten others so different? _I have thought that in myself veryoften. _ Insincerity and injustice may seem the two ends, while Ioccupy the straight betwixt two--and I should not like you to doubthow this may be! Sometimes I have begun to show you the truth, andtorn the paper; I _could_ not. Yet now again I am borne on to tellyou, ... To save you from some thoughts which you cannot help perhaps. There has been no insincerity--nor is there injustice. I believe, I amcertain, I have loved him better than the rest of his children. I haveheard the fountain within the rock, and my heart has struggled intowards him through the stones of the rock ... Thrust off ... Droppingoff ... Turning in again and clinging! Knowing what is excellent inhim well, loving him as my only parent left, and for himself dearly, notwithstanding that hardness and the miserable 'system' which madehim appear harder still, I have loved him and been proud of him forhis high qualities, for his courage and fortitude when he bore up sobravely years ago under the worldly reverses which he yet feltacutely--more than you and I could feel them--but the fortitude wasadmirable. Then came the trials of love--then, I was repulsed toooften, ... Made to suffer in the suffering of those by my side ... Depressed by petty daily sadnesses and terrors, from which it ispossible however for an elastic affection to rise again as past. Yetmy friends used to say 'You look broken-spirited'--and it was true. Inthe midst, came my illness, --and when I was ill he grew gentler andlet me draw nearer than ever I had done: and after that great stroke... You _know_ ... Though _that_ fell in the middle of a storm ofemotion and sympathy on my part, which drove clearly against him, Godseemed to strike our hearts together by the shock; and I was gratefulto him for not saying aloud what I said to myself in my agony, '_If ithad not been for you_'... ! And comparing my self-reproach to what Iimagined his self-reproach must certainly be (for if _I_ had lovedselfishly, _he_ had not been kind), I felt as if I could love andforgive him for two ... (I knowing that serene generous departedspirit, and seeming left to represent it) ... And I did love himbetter than all those left to _me_ to love in the world here. I proveda little my affection for him, by coming to London at the risk of mylife rather than diminish the comfort of his home by keeping a part ofmy family away from him. And afterwards for long and long he spoke tome kindly and gently, and of me affectionately and with too muchpraise; and God knows that I had as much joy as I imagined myselfcapable of again, in the sound of his footstep on the stairs, and ofhis voice when he prayed in this room; my best hope, as I have toldhim since, being, to die beneath his eyes. Love is so much to menaturally--it is, to all women! and it was so much to _me_ to feelsure at last that _he_ loved me--to forget all blame--to pull theweeds up from that last illusion of life:--and this, till thePisa-business, which threw me off, far as ever, again--farther thanever--when George said 'he could not flatter me' and I dared notflatter myself. But do _you_ believe that I never wrote what I did notfeel: I never did. And I ask one kindness more ... Do not notice whatI have written here. Let it pass. We can alter nothing by ever so manywords. After all, he is the victim. He isolates himself--and now andthen he feels it ... The cold dead silence all round, which is theeffect 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!--soupright and honourable--you would esteem him, you would like him, Ithink. And so ... Dearest ... Let _that_ be the last word. I dare say you have asked yourself sometimes, why it was that I nevermanaged to draw you into the house here, so that you might make yourown way. Now _that_ is one of the things impossible to me. I have notinfluence enough for _that_. George can never invite a friend of hiseven. Do you see? The people who do come here, come by particularlicense and association ... Capt. Surtees Cook being one of them. Once ... When I was in high favour too ... I asked for Mr. Kenyon tobe invited to dinner--he an old college friend, and living close byand so affectionate to me always--I felt that he must be hurt by theneglect, and asked. _It was in vain. _ Now, you see-- May God bless you always! I wrote all my spirits away in this letteryesterday, 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 notleave the books for me to take away, at all events? No--you must foldup, and tie round, and seal over, and be at all the pains in the worldwith those hands I see now. But you only threaten; say you 'shallsend'--as yet, and nothing having come, I do pray you, if not toolate, to save me the shame--add to the gratitude you never can now, Ithink ... Only _think_, for you are a siren, and I don't knowcertainly to what your magic may not extend. Thus, in not so importanta matter, I should have said, the day before yesterday, that no letterfrom 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-outmeasure should be just a note of Mr. Kenyon's, for instance! Butyesterday the very seal began with 'Ba'--Now, always seal with thatseal my letters, dearest! Do you recollect Donne's pretty lines aboutseals? 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-likepursuit of love under difficulties; and the _sobbing_ proves somethingsurely! Serjt. Talfourd says--is it not he who says it?--'All tearsare not for sorrow. ' I should incline to say, from my own feeling, that no tears were. They only express joy in me, or sympathy withjoy--and so is it with you too, I should think. Understand that I do _not_ disbelieve in Mesmerism--I only object toinsufficient evidence being put forward as quite irrefragable. I keepan open sense on the subject--ready to be instructed; and should haverefused such testimony as Miss Martineau's if it had been adduced insupport of something I firmly believed--'non _tali_ auxilio'--indeed, so has truth been harmed, and only so, from the beginning. So, I shallread what you bid me, and learn all I can. I am not quite so well this week--yesterday some friends came earlyand 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 thewhirring ... Which is all the mighty ailment. As for 'Luria' I havenot 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 ... Howthe farewell is to be returned? Ah, my dearest, sweetest Ba; howentirely 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 ityou again in our Isle, and meantime keep it where my other treasuresare--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--butthis strictly for myself: you engaged me to consult my own good in thekeeping or breaking our engagement; not _your_ good as it might evenseem to me; much less seem to another. My only good in thisworld--that against which all the world goes for nothing--is to spendmy 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 myown account--so, in that feeling, I dare claim, once for all, and inall possible cases (except that dreadful one of your becoming worseagain ... In which case I wait till life ends with both of us), Iclaim your promise's fulfilment--say, at the summer's end: it cannotbe for your good that this state of things should continue. We can goto Italy for a year or two and be happy as day and night are long. Forme, I adore you. This is all unnecessary, I feel as I write: but youwill think of the main fact as _ordained_, granted by God, will younot, dearest?--so, not to be put in doubt _ever again_--then, we cango 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 amnot ill, ... _then_ ... _not now_ ... You shall decide, and yourdecision shall be duty and desire to me, both--I will make nodifficulties. Remember, in the meanwhile, that I _have_ decided to letit be as you shall choose ... _shall_ choose. That I love you enoughto give you up 'for your good, ' is proof (to myself at least) that Ilove you enough for any other end:--but you thought _too much of me inthe last letter_. Do not mistake me. I believe and trust in all yourwords--only you are generous unawares, as other men are selfish. More, I meant to say of this; but you moved me as usual yesterday intothe sunshine, and then I am dazzled and cannot see clearly. Still Isee that you love me and that I am bound to you:--and 'what more needI see, ' you may ask; while I cannot help looking out to the future, tothe blue ridges of the hills, to the _chances_ of your being happywith 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 'theliberty of leaping out of the window, ' unless you are sure of thehouse being on fire! Nobody shall push you out of the window--least ofall, _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 greatstorm of gossiping, when 'scirocco is loose. ' Even if you liked tolive altogether abroad, coming to England at intervals, it would be nosacrifice for me--and whether in Italy or England, we should havesufficient or more than sufficient means of living, without modifyingby a line that 'good free life' of yours which you reasonablypraise--which, if it had been necessary to modify, _we must haveparted_, ... 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 hadbeen here long. I reproached him with what they had been doing at hisclub (the Athenæum) in blackballing Douglas Jerrold, for want ofsomething better to say--and he had not heard of it. There were moreblack than white balls, and Dickens was so enraged at the repulse ofhis friend that he gave in his own resignation like a privycouncillor. But the really bad news is of poor Tennyson--I forgot to tell you--Iforget everything. He is seriously ill with an internal complaint andconfined to his bed, as George heard from a common friend. Which doesnot prevent his writing a new poem--he has finished the second book ofit--and it is in blank verse and a fairy tale, and called the'University, ' the university-members being all females. If George hasnot diluted the scheme of it with some law from the Inner Temple, Idon't know what to think--it makes me open my eyes. Now isn't theworld too old and fond of steam, for blank verse poems, in ever somany 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 accountwent. And you? how are you? Mind to tell me. May God bless you. Is Monday orTuesday to be _our_ day? If it were not for Mr. Kenyon I should takecourage and say Monday--but Tuesday and Saturday would do aswell--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 furtherremark on _that_ subject till by and bye. And, whereas some people, Isuppose, have to lash themselves up to the due point of passion, andchoose the happy minutes to be as loving in as they possibly can ... (that is, in _expression_; the just correspondency of word to fact andfeeling: 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 haveto guard my tongue and set a watch on my pen ... That so I may say aslittle as can well be likely to be excepted to by your generosity. Dearest, _love_ means _love_, certainly, and adoration carries itssense with it--and _so_, you may have received my feeling in thatshape--but when I begin to hint at the merest putting into practiceone or the other profession, you 'fly out'--instead of keeping yourthrone. So let this letter lie awhile, till my heart is more used toit, and after some days or weeks I will find as cold and quiet amoment 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, silentor 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 heknows, in a manner, what you are ... Like your American; and, early inour intercourse, he asked me (did I tell you?) 'what I thought of hisyoung relative'--and I considered half a second to this effect--'if heasked me what I thought of the Queen-diamond they showed me in thecrown of the Czar--and I answered truly--he would not return; "then ofcourse you mean to try and get it to keep. "' So I _did_ tell the truthin a very few words. Well, it is no matter. I am sorry to hear of poor Tennyson's condition. The projectedbook--title, scheme, all of it, --_that_ is astounding;--and fairies?If 'Thorpes and barnes, sheep-pens and dairies--_this_ maketh thatthere ben no fairies'--locomotives and the broad or narrow gauge mustkeep the very ghosts of them away. But how the fashion of this worldpasses; the forms its beauty and truth take; if _we_ have the makingof such! I went last night, out of pure shame at a broken promise, tohear Miss Cushman and her sister in 'Romeo and Juliet. ' The whole playgoes ... Horribly; 'speak' bids the Poet, and so M. Walladmir[Valdemar] moves his tongue and dispenses with his jaws. Whatever isslightly touched in, indicated, to give relief to something actuallyinsisted upon and drawn boldly ... _here_, you have it gone over withan unremitting burnt-stick, till it stares black forever! Romeo goeswhining about Verona by broad daylight. Yet when a schoolfellow ofmine, I remember, began translating in class Virgil after this mode, 'Sic fatur--so said Æneas; lachrymans--_a-crying_' ... Our pedagogueturned 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 nearerafterward. I am singularly well to-day--head quite quiet--andyesterday your penholder began its influence and I wrote about half mylast act. Writing is nothing, nor praise, nor blame, nor living, nordying, 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 medid 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 yourfire-eyes, ' and of having at intervals 'deep black pits of coldwater'!--and the lava of that letter has kept running down into mythoughts of you too much, until quite of late--while even yesterday Iwas not too well instructed to be 'happy, ' you see! Do not reproachme! 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 manof genius, in the mystery of his nature, should find his feelingssometimes like dumb notes in a piano ... Should care for people athalf past eleven on Tuesday, and on Wednesday at noon prefer a blackbeetle. How you frightened me with your 'fire-eyes'! 'making the mostof them' too! and the 'black pits, ' which gaped ... _where_ did theygape? who could tell? Oh--but lately I have not been crossed so, ofcourse, with those fabulous terrors--lately that horror of the burningmountain has grown more like a superstition than a rational fear!--andif I was glad ... Happy ... Yesterday, it was but as a tolerablysensible nervous man might be glad of a clearer moonlight, showing himthat what he had half shuddered at for a sheeted ghoule, was only awhite 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 seemsso to me! the reason being that my feelings were near to overflow, andthat I had to hold the cup straight to prevent the possible droppingon your purple underneath. _Your_ letter, the letter I answered, wasin my heart ... _is_ in my heart--and all the yeses in the world wouldnot 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 thesame thing practically without any doubt! but I shrank, with a sort ofinstinct, from appearing (to myself, mind) to take a security fromyour words now (said too on an obvious impulse) for what should, would, _must_, depend on your deliberate wishes hereafter. Youunderstand--you will not accuse me of over-cautiousness and the like. On the contrary, you are all things to me, ... Instead of all andbetter than all! You have fallen like a great luminous blot on thewhole leaf of the world ... Of life and time ... And I can see nothingbeyond you, nor wish to see it. As to all that was evil and sadness tome, I do not feel it any longer--it may be raining still, but I am inthe shelter and can scarcely tell. If you _could_ be _too dear_ to meyou would be now--but you could not--I do not believe in thosesupposed excesses of pure affections--God cannot be too great. Therefore it is a conditional engagement still--all the conditionsbeing in your hands, except the necessary one, of my health. And shallI tell you what is 'not to be put in doubt _ever_'?--your goodness, _that_ is ... And every tie that binds me to you. 'Ordained, grantedby 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 itat 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 insome 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 momentsof starry centrifugal motion. So you think that dear Mr. Kenyon's opinion of his 'youngrelative'--(neither young nor his relative--not very much of either!)is to the effect that you couldn't possibly 'escape' her--? It lookslike the sign of the Red Dragon, put _so_ ... And your burningmountain is not too awful for the scenery. Seriously ... Gravely ... If it makes me three times happy that youshould love me, yet I grow uneasy and even saddened when you sayinfatuated things such as this and this ... Unless after all you meana philosophical sarcasm on the worth of Czar diamonds. No--do not saysuch things! If you do, I shall end by being jealous of some idealCzarina who must stand between you and me.... I shall think that it isnot _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 ungratefulof human beings lately, and find myself almost glad when he does notcome, certainly uncomfortable when he does--yes, _really_ I wouldrather not see him at all, and when you are not here. The sense ofwhich and the sorrow for which, turn me to a hypocrite, and make meask why he does not come &c. ... Questions which never came to my lipsbefore ... Till I am more and more ashamed and sorry. Will it end, Iwonder, 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 histoo great penetration or too great unconsciousness, both beingoverwhelming things from him to me. From a similar cause I hatewriting letters to any of my old friends--I feel as if it were themerest swindling to attempt to give the least account of myself toanybody, and when their letters come and I know that nothing veryfatal has happened to them, scarcely I can read to an end afterwardsthrough the besetting care of having to answer it all. Then I amignoble 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 ofunderstanding, I have a distaste for _them_ ... Cannot help it--andyou 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 canthink 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 andleft, and round the corner a little way. Because, you know, ... If Ishould be ill _before_ ... Why there, is a conclusion!--but if_afterward_ ... What? You who talk wildly of my generosity, whereas Ionly and most impotently tried to be generous, must see how bothsuppositions have their possibility. Nevertheless you are the masterto run the latter risk. You have overcome ... To your lossperhaps--unless the judgment is revised. As to taking the half of myprison ... 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 andbelieve--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 youare singularly well the day _after_ so much writing. Yet do not hurrythat 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 youunderstand that I had said there was nothing in him but _manner_ ... Ithought he said so--and I am confident that he never heard such anopinion from me, for good or for evil, ever at all. I may haveobserved upon those vulgar attacks on account of the so-called_mannerism_, the obvious fact, that an individuality, carried into themedium, the expression, is a feature in all men of genius, as Buffonteaches ... 'Le style, c'est _l'homme_. ' But if the _whole man_ werestyle, if all Carlyleism were manner--why there would be no man, noCarlyle worth talking of. I wonder that Mr. Kenyon should misrepresentme so. Euphuisms there may be to the end of the world--affectedparlances--just as a fop at heart may go without shoestrings to mimicthe distractions of some great wandering soul--although _that_ is abad comparison, seeing that what is called Carlyle's mannerism, is nothis dress, but his physiognomy--or more than _that_ even. But I do not forgive him for talking here against the 'ideals ofpoets' ... Opposing their ideal by a mis-called _reality_, which isanother sort, a baser sort, of ideal after all. He sees things inbroad blazing lights--but he does not analyse them like aphilosopher--do you think so? Then his praise for dumb heroic actionas opposed to speech and singing, what is _that_--when all earnestthought, passion, belief, and their utterances, are as much actionssurely as the cutting off of fifty heads by one right hand. As ifShakespeare'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 anyexpression in it; I had--and _have_, I trust--your forgiveness forwhat I wrote, meaning to be generous or at least just, God knows. That, and the other like exaggerations were there to serve the purposeof what you properly call a _crisis_. I _did_ believe, --taking anexpression, in the note that occasioned mine, in connection with anexcuse which came in the postscript for not seeing me on the daypreviously appointed, I did fully believe that you were about to denyme admittance again unless I blotted out--not merely softeneddown--the past avowal. All was wrong, foolish, but from a good notion, I dare to say. And then, that particular exaggeration you bring mostpainfully to my mind--_that_ does not, after all, disagree with what Isaid 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, ' andthat my love for you _did not_, and that is true; the first clause asthe last of the sentence, for my sympathies are very wide andgeneral, --always have been--and the natural problem has been thegiving unity to their object, concentrating them instead ofdispersing. I seem to have foretold, _foreknown_ you in other likingsof mine--now here ... When the liking '_came_' ... And now elsewhere... When as surely the liking '_went_': and if they had stayed beforethe 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 sawthe plain truth without one mistake, and 'looked to like, if lookingliking 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 tohave 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 joycannot last, seeing that --it is so baseless a fear that no illustration will serve! Is it gonenow, dearest, ever-dearest? And as you amuse me sometimes, as now, by seeming surprised at somechance expression of a truth which is grown a veriest commonplace to_me_--like Charles Lamb's 'letter to an elderly man whose educationhad been neglected'--when he finds himself involuntarily communicatingtruths above the capacity and acquirements of his friend, and stopshimself after this fashion--'If you look round the world, my dearSir--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 experimentwith the opium. I never dared, nor shall dare inquire into your use ofthat--for, knowing you utterly as I do, I know you only bend to themost absolute necessity in taking more or less of it--so that increaseof the quantity must mean simply increased weakness, illness--anddiminution, diminished illness. And now there _is_ diminution! Dear, dear Ba--you speak of my silly head and its ailments ... Well, andwhat brings on the irritation? A wet day or two spent at home; andwhat 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 beliefin perpetual miraculousness ... I bless God with my whole heart thatit is thus with you! And so, I will not even venture to say--sosuperfluous it were, though with my most earnest, most loving breath(I who _do_ love you more at every breath I draw; indeed, yesdearest, )--I _will not_ bid you--that is, pray you--to persevere! Youhave all my life bound to yours--save me from _my 'seven years'_--andGod 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 aboutthe letter. I wanted to show you how you had given me pleasure--andso, --did I give you pain? was _that_ my ingenuity? Forgive myunhappiness in it, and let it be as if it had not been. Only I willjust say that what made me talk about 'the thorn in the flesh' fromthat letter so long, was a sort of conviction of your having put intoit as much of the truth, _your_ truth, as admitted of the ultimatepurpose of it, and not the least, slightest doubt of the key you gaveme to the purpose in question. And so forgive me. Why did you setabout explaining, as if I were doubting you? When you said once thatit 'did not come and go, '--was it not enough? enough to make me feelhappy 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 beginningto these latter days and through all possible degrees of crisis, youhave been to my apprehension and gratitude, the best, most consistent, most noble ... The words falter that would speak of it all. In nothingand at no moment have you--I will not say--failed to _me_, but spokenor acted unworthily of yourself at the highest. What have you everbeen to me except too generous? Ah--if I had been only half asgenerous, it is true that I never could have seen you again after thatfirst meeting--it was the straight path perhaps. But I had notcourage--I shrank from the thought of it--and then ... Besides ... Icould not believe that your mistake was likely to last, --I concludedthat 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 thatevery remembered separate thing has brought me nearer to you, and mademe yours with a deeper trust and love. And for that letter ... Do you fancy that in _my_ memory the sting isnot gone from it?--and that I do not carry the thought of it, as theRoman maidens, you speak of, their cool harmless snakes, at my heartalways? So let the poor letter be forgiven, for the sake of the dearletter that was burnt, forgiven by _you_--until you grow angry with meinstead--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 goodnessand indulgence (a very little way on the other side) it might strikeyou as strange that I who have had no pain--no acute suffering to keepdown from its angles--should need opium in any shape. But I have hadrestlessness till it made me almost mad: at one time I lost the powerof sleeping quite--and even in the day, the continual aching sense ofweakness has been intolerable--besides palpitation--as if one's life, instead of giving movement to the body, were imprisoned undiminishedwithin it, and beating and fluttering impotently to get out, at allthe doors and windows. So the medical people gave me opium--apreparation of it, called morphine, and ether--and ever since I havebeen calling it my amreeta draught, my elixir, --because thetranquillizing power has been wonderful. Such a nervous system Ihave--so irritable naturally, and so shattered by various causes, thatthe need has continued in a degree until now, and it would bedangerous to leave off the calming remedy, Mr. Jago says, except veryslowly and gradually. But slowly and gradually something may bedone--and you are to understand that I never _increased_ upon theprescribed quantity ... Prescribed in the first instance--no! Nowthink 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 Ihave a letter to make me glad? She will talk, talk, talk ... And Ishall be hoping all day that not a word may be talked of ... _you_:--aforlorn hope indeed! There's a hope for a day like Thursday which isjust in the middle between a Tuesday and a Saturday! Your head ... Is it ... _how_ is it? tell me. And consider again if itcould be possible that I could ever desire to reproach _you_ ... Inwhat 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 beforeGod. 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 everpossible for you, my dearest--by giving _yourself_, in me, pain--beingunjust to your own right and power as I feel them at my heart: and inthat way, I see you will go on to the end, I getting called--in thisvery letter--'generous' &c. Well, let me fancy you see very, very deepinto future chances and how I should behave on occasion. I shallhardly imitate you, I whose sense of the present and its claims ofgratitude already is beyond expression. All the kind explaining about the opium makes me happier. 'Slowly andgradually' what may _not_ be done? Then see the bright weather while Iwrite--lilacs, hawthorn, plum-trees all in bud; elders in leaf, rose-bushes with great red shoots; thrushes, whitethroats, hedgesparrows in full song--there can, let us hope, be nothing worse instore than a sharp wind, a week of it perhaps--and then comes whatshall come-- And Miss Mitford yesterday--and has she fresh fears for you of my evilinfluence and Origenic power of 'raying out darkness' like a swartstar? Why, the common sense of the world teaches that there is nothingpeople at fault in any faculty of expression are so intolerant of asthe like infirmity in others--whether they are unconscious of, orindulgent to their own obscurity and fettered organ, the hindrancefrom the fettering of their neighbours' is redoubled. A man may thinkhe is not deaf, or, at least, that you need not be so much annoyed byhis deafness as you profess--but he will be quite aware, to say theleast of it, when another man can't hear _him_; he will certainly notencourage him to stop his ears. And so with the converse; a writer whofails to make himself understood, as presumably in my case, may eitherbelieve in his heart that it is _not_ so ... That only as muchattention and previous instructedness as the case calls for, wouldquite avail to understand him; or he may open his eyes to the fact andbe trying hard to overcome it: but on which supposition is he led toconfirm another in his unintelligibility? By the proverbial tendernessof the eye with the mote for the eye with the beam? If that beam werejust such another mote--_then_ one might sympathize and feel no suchinconvenience--but, because I have written a 'Sordello, ' do I turn tojust its _double_, Sordello the second, in your books, and so perforcesee nothing wrong? 'No'--it is supposed--'but something _as_ obscurein its way. ' Then down goes the bond of union at once, and I stand nonearer to view your work than the veriest proprietor of one thoughtand the two words that express it without obscurity at all--'bricksand mortar. ' Of course an artist's whole problem must be, as Carlylewrote to me, 'the expressing with articulate clearness the thought inhim'--I am almost inclined to say that _clear expression_ should behis only work and care--for he is born, ordained, such as he is--andnot 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 veryeasily said--and some of the thoughts in 'Sordello' not so readilyeven if Miss Mitford were to try her hand on them. I look forward to a real life's work for us both. _I_ shall doall, --under your eyes and with your hand in mine, --all I was intendedto do: may but _you_ as surely go perfecting--by continuing--the workbegun 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 yoursister 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 stillelsewhere and occupied. Now let me write out that--no--I will send theold ballad I told you of, for the strange coincidence--and it is verycharming beside, is it not? Now goodbye, my sweetest, dearest--andtell me good news of yourself to-morrow, and be but half a quarter asglad to see me as I shall be blessed in seeing you. God bless youever. 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 seeingyou this morning. I went out unwell yesterday, and a long noisy dinnerwith speech-making, with a long tiresome walk at the end of it--thesehave given me such a bewildering headache that I really see somereason in what they say here about keeping the house. Will you forgiveme--and let me forget it all on Monday? On _Monday_--unless I am toldotherwise 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 Ihad been so really unhappy for half an hour, that your letter whichcomes now at four, seems a little better, with all its bad news, thanmy fancies took upon themselves to be, without instruction. Now _was_it right to go out yesterday when you were unwell, and to a greatdinner?--but I shall not reproach you, dearest, dearest--I have noheart 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 wiseof you to come to London through the noise ... If ... You understandall the _ifs_ ... And among them the greatest if of all, ... For ifyou do love me ... _care_ for me even, you will not do yourself harmor 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, whetheryou come on Monday or not. _Let_ me have a single line by the nearestpost to say how you are. Perhaps for to-night it is not possible--ohno, it is nearly five now! but a word written on Sunday would be withme early on Monday morning, and I know you will let me have it, tosave some of the anxious thoughts ... To break them in their coursewith some sort of certainty! May God bless you dearest of all!--Ithought of you on Thursday, but did not speak of you, not even whenMiss Mitford called Hood the greatest poet of the age ... She had beendepreciating 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, thatshe did not speak of you; and, under cover of her speech of others, Ihad my thoughts of you deeply and safely. When she had gone at halfpast six, moreover, I grew over-hopeful, and made up my fancy to havea letter at eight! The branch she had pulled down, sprang upwardskyward ... To that high possibility of a letter! Which did not comethat day ... No!--and I revenged myself by writing a letter to _you_, which was burnt afterwards because I would not torment you forletters. Last night, came a real one--dearest! So we could not keepour sabbath to-day! It is a fast day instead, ... On my part. Howshould I feel (I have been thinking to myself), if I did not see youon Saturday, and could not hope to see you on Monday, nor on Tuesday, nor on Wednesday, nor Thursday nor Friday, nor Saturday again--if allthe sabbaths were gone out of the world for me! May God bless you!--ithas 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 anundivided attention, that at this present you are waiting for me, andsoon will be wondering--and it would be so easy now to dress myselfand walk or run or ride--do anything that led to you ... But by nohaste in the world could I reach you, I am forced to see, before aquarter 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--thisis absurd, of course. The cause of it all was my going out lastnight--yet that, neither, was to be helped, the party having beentwice 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, stillI 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 inthe 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 changebegan--I think I took too violent a shower bath, with a notion ofgetting better in as little time as possible, --and the stimulus turnedmere feverishness to headache. However, it was no sooner gone, in adegree, than a worse plague came. I sate thinking of you--but I knewmy note would arrive at about four o'clock or a little later--and Ithought the visit for the quarter of an hour would as effectuallyprevent to-morrow's meeting as if the whole two hours' blessing hadbeen laid to heart--to-morrow I shall see you, Ba--my sweetest. Butthere 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, ifGod shall please, and bless me as no man ever was blessed! Now I kissyou, and will begin a new thinking of you--and end, and begin, goinground 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'stranslation--all wrong--'_che non si sente_, ' being--'that one doesnot _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 Ireally told Hunt and got his praise for. Poor dear wonderfulpersecuted Pietro d'Abano wrote this quatrain on the people's plaguinghim about his mathematical studies and wanting to burn him--he helpedto build Padua Cathedral, wrote a Treatise on Magic still extant, andpasses for a conjuror in his country to this day--when there is astorm the mothers tell the children that he is in the air; his pactwith the evil one obliged him to drink no _milk_; no natural humanfood! You know Tieck's novel about him? Well, this quatrain is said, Ibelieve truly, to have been discovered in a well near Padua some fiftyyears 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 Iremember, 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 wouldhave me, and I should like you to understand, not simply how fine aconception the whole work seems to me, so developed, but how it hasmoved and affected me, without the ordinary means and dialect ofpathos, by that calm attitude of moral grandeur which it has--it isvery fine. For the execution, _that_ too is worthily done--although Iagree with you, that a little quickening and drawing in closer hereand there, especially towards the close where there is no time tolose, the reader feels, would make the effect stronger--but you willlook to it yourself--and such a conception _must_ come in thunder andlightning, as a chief god would--_must_ make its own way ... And willnot let its poet go until he speaks it out to the ultimate syllable. Domizia disappoints me rather. You might throw a flash more of lighton her face--might you not? But what am I talking? I think it amagnificent work--a noble exposition of the ingratitude of men againsttheir 'heroes, ' and (what is peculiar) an _humane_ exposition ... Notmisanthropical, after the usual fashion of such things: for thereturn, the remorse, saves it--and the 'Too late' of the repentanceand compensation covers with its solemn toll the fate of persecutorsand victim. We feel that Husain himself could only say afterward ... '_That is done. _' And now--surely you think well of the work as awhole? You cannot doubt, I fancy, of the grandeur of it--and of the_subtilty_ too, for it is subtle--too subtle perhaps for stagepurposes, 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 andhalf-disdain of Domizia. Ah--Domizia! would it hurt her to make hermore 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 Ishall dun you for it presently. Because you told me it was finished, otherwise I would not speak a word, feeling that you want rest, andthat I, who am anxious about you, would be crossing my own purposesby driving you into work. It is the overwork, the overwear of mind andheart (for the feelings come as much into use as the thoughts in theseproductions), that makes you so pale, dearest, that distracts yourhead, and does all the harm on Saturdays and so many other daysbesides. To-day--how are you? It _was_ right and just for me to write thistime, after the two dear notes ... The one on Saturday night whichmade me praise you to myself and think you kinder than kindest, andthe 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 meanother after those two others, --yet I was very near doing it--yet Ishould like infinitely to hear to-day how youare--unreasonable!--Well! you will write now--you will answer what Iam writing, and mention yourself particularly and sincerely--Remember!Above all, you will care for your head. I have been thinking sinceyesterday that, coming out of the cold, you might not have refused asusual to take something ... Hot wine and water, or coffee? Will youhave coffee with me on Saturday? 'Shunning the salt, ' will you havethe sugar? And do tell me, for I have been thinking, are you carefulas to diet--and will such sublunary things as coffee and tea and cocoaaffect your head--_for_ or _against_! Then you do not touch wine--andperhaps you ought. Surely something may be found or done to do yougood. If it had not been for me, you would be travelling in Italy bythis time and quite well perhaps. This morning I had a letter from Miss Martineau and really read it tothe end without thinking it too long, which is extraordinary for mejust now, and scarcely ordinary in the letter, and indeed it is adelightful letter, as letters go, which are not yours! You shall takeit with you on Saturday to read, and you shall see that it is worthreading, and interesting for Wordsworth's sake and her own. Mr. Kenyon has it now, because he presses on to have her letters, and Ishould not like to tell him that you had it first from me.... AlsoSaturday will be time enough. Oh--poor Mr. Horne! shall I tell you some of his offences? That hedesires to be called at four in the morning, and does not get up tilleight. That he pours libations on his bare head out of thewater-glasses at great dinners. That being in the midst ofsportsmen--rural aristocrats--lords of soil--and all talking learnedlyof pointers' noses and spaniels' ears; he has exclaimed aloud in amocking paraphrase--'If I were to hold up a horse by the tail. ' Thewit is certainly doubtful!--That being asked to dinner on Tuesday, hewill go on Wednesday instead. --That he throws himself at full lengthwith a gesture approaching to a 'summerset' on satin sofas. That hegiggles. That he only _thinks_ he can talk. That his ignorance on allsubjects is astounding. That he never read the old ballads, nor sawPercy's collection. That he asked _who_ wrote 'Drink to me only withthine eyes. ' That after making himself ridiculous in attempting tospeak at a public meeting, he said to a compassionate friend 'I gotvery well out of _that_. ' That, in writing his work on Napoleon, heemployed a man to study the subject for him. That he cares fornobody's poetry or fame except his own, and considers Tennyson chieflyillustrious as being his contemporary. That, as to politics, hedoesn't care '_which_ side. ' That he is always talking of 'my shares, ''my income, ' as if he were a Kilmansegg. Lastly (and understand, thisis _my_ 'lastly' and not Miss Mitford's, who is far from being out ofbreath so soon) that he has a mania for heiresses--that he has goneout at half past five and 'proposed' to Miss M or N with fiftythousand pounds, and being rejected (as the lady thought fit to reportherself) came back to tea and the same evening 'fell in love' withMiss O or P ... With forty thousand--went away for a few months, andupon his next visit, did as much to a Miss Q or W, on the promise offour 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--andas 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 afine poetical compliment was turned into a serious thing by thelistener, and then the poor poet had critics as well as listeners allround him. Also, he rather 'wears his heart on his sleeve, ' there isno denying--and in other respects he is not much better, perhaps, thanother men. But for the base traffic of the affair--I do not believe aword. He is too generous--has too much real sensibility. I fought hisbattle, poor Orion. 'And so, ' she said 'you believe it possible for adisinterested 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 thebusiness--while Miss O or P confessed herself, said Miss Mitford. ButI persisted in doubting, notwithstanding the lady's confessions, orconvictions, as they might be. And just think of Mr. Horne not havingtact enough to keep out of these multitudinous scrapes, for those fewdays which on three separate occasions he paid Miss Mitford in aneighbourhood where all were strangers to him, --and never outstayinghis 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 notcare for it--yet you asked me, and it may make you smile, thoughWordsworth's tea-kettle outsings it all. When your Monday letter came, I was reading the criticism on Hunt andhis Italian poets, in the _Examiner_. How I liked to be pulled by thesleeve 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 outthat you may read it-- 'However it' (the headache) 'was no sooner gone in a degree, than aworse 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 coldmakes me _languid_, as heat is apt to make everybody; but I am notunwell, 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 longletter' _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, withoutgloss or comment in close vicinity? I can hardly think it--but youknow well, well where the real plague lay, --that I thought of you asthinking, in your infinite goodness, of untoward chances which hadkept me from you--and if I did not dwell more particularly on thatthinking of _yours_, which became as I say, in the knowledge of it, aplague when brought before me _with_ the thought of you, --if I passedthis slightly over it was for pure unaffected shame that I should takeup the care and stop the 'reverie serene' of--ah, the rhyme _lets_ mesay--'sweetest eyes were ever seen'--were _ever_ seen! And yourselfconfess, in the Saturday's note, to having been 'unhappy for half anhour till' &c. &c. --and do not I feel _that_ here, and am not Iplagued by it? Well, having begun at the end of your letter, dearest, I will go backgently (that is backwards) and tell you I 'sate thinking' too, andwith no greater comfort, on the cold yesterday. The pond before thewindow was frozen ('so as to bear sparrows' somebody said) and I knewyou would feel it--'but you are not unwell'--really? thank God--andthe month wears on. Beside I have got a reassurance--you asked me onceif I were superstitious, I remember (as what do I forget that yousay?). However that may be, yesterday morning as I turned to look fora book, an old fancy seized me to try the 'sortes' and dip into thefirst page of the first I chanced upon, for my fortune; I said 'whatwill be the event of my love for Her'--in so many words--and my bookturned out to be--'Cerutti's Italian Grammar!'--a propitious source ofinformation ... The best to be hoped, what could it prove but someassurance that you were in the Dative Case, or I, not in the ablativeabsolute? I do protest that, with the knowledge of so many horriblepitfalls, or rather spring guns with wires on every bush ... Suchdreadful possibilities of stumbling on 'conditional moods, ' 'imperfecttenses, ' 'singular numbers, '--I should have been too glad to put upwith the safe spot for the sole of my foot though no larger thanafforded by such a word as 'Conjunction, ' 'possessive pronoun--, 'secure so far from poor Tippet's catastrophe. Well, I ventured, andwhat did I find? _This_--which I copy from the book now--'_If we lovein the other world as we do in this, I shall love thee toeternity_'--from 'Promiscuous Exercises, ' to be translated intoItalian, at the end. And now I reach Horne and his characteristics--of which I can tell youwith confidence that they are grossly misrepresented where notaltogether false--whether it proceed from inability to see what onemay 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 ofthose charges: for instance, he talked a good deal about horses, meaning to ride in Ireland, and described very cleverly an old hunterhe had hired once, --how it galloped and could not walk; also hepropounded a theory of the true method of behaving in the saddle whena horse rears, which I besought him only to practise in fancy on thesofa, where he lay telling it. So much for professing his ignorance inthat matter! On a sofa he does throw himself--but when thrown there, he can talk, with Miss Mitford's leave, admirably, --I never heardbetter stories than Horne's--some Spanish-American incidents of travelwant printing--or have been printed, for aught I know. That he caresfor nobody's poetry is _false_, he praises more unregardingly of hisown retreat, more unprovidingly for his own fortune, --(do I speakclearly?)--less like a man who himself has written somewhat in the'line' of the other man he is praising--which 'somewhat' has to beguarded in its interests, &c. , less like the poor professional praiseof the 'craft' than any other I ever met--instance after instancestarting into my mind as I write. To his income I never heard himallude--unless one should so interpret a remark to me this last timewe met, that he had been on some occasion put to inconvenience bysomebody's withholding ten or twelve pounds due to him for an article, and promised in the confidence of getting them to a tradesman, whichdoes not look like 'boasting of his income'! As for the heiresses--Idon't believe one word of it, of the succession and transition andtrafficking. Altogether, what miserable 'set-offs' to the achievementof an 'Orion, ' a 'Marlowe, ' a 'Delora'! Miss Martineau understands himbetter. Now I come to myself and my health. I am quite well now--at allevents, much better, just a little turning in the head--since youappeal to my sincerity. For the coffee--thank you, indeed thank you, but nothing after the '_oenomel_' and before half past six. _I_ knowall about that song and its Greek original if Horne does not--and cantell 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 ofwine, 'that I do not touch it'--not habitually, nor so as to feel theloss 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 isdiscernible, all will be well yet. I shall not look at it, nor thinkof it, for a week or two, and then see what I have forgotten. Domiziais all wrong; I told you I knew that her special colour had faded, --itwas but a bright line, and the more distinctly deep that it was sonarrow. 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 beeffected, though.... I meant that she should propose to go to Pisawith him, and begin a new life. But there is no hurry--I suppose it isno use publishing much before Easter--I will try and remember what mywhole character _did_ mean--it was, in two words, understood at thetime by 'panther's-beauty'--on which hint I ought to have spoken! Butthe work grew cold, and you came between, and the sun put out the fireon the hearth _nec vult panthera domari_! For the 'Soul's Tragedy'--_that_ will surprise you, I think. There isno trace of you there, --you have not put out the black face of_it_--it is all sneering and _disillusion_--and shall not be printedbut burned if you say the word--now wait and see and then say! I willbring the first of the two parts next Saturday. And now, dearest, I am with you--and the other matters are forgottenalready. God bless you, I am ever your own R. You will write to me Itrust? 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 youthink? or do my eyes see double, dazzled by the light of it? 'I shalllove thee to eternity'--I _shall_. And as for the wine, I did not indeed misunderstand you 'as my wontis, ' because I understood simply that 'habitually' you abstained fromwine, and I meant exactly that perhaps it would be better for yourhealth to take it habitually. It _might_, you know--not that I pretendto advise. Only when you look so much too pale sometimes, it comesinto one's thoughts that you ought not to live on cresses and coldwater. Strong coffee, which is the nearest to a stimulant that I dareto 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 readyour 'Luria, ' the grander it looks, and it will make its own road withall understanding men, you need not doubt, and still less need you tryto make me uneasy about the harm I have done in 'coming between, ' andall 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 toeternity!... Dearest! You have made a golden work out of your'golden-hearted Luria'--as once you called him to me, and I hold it inthe highest admiration--_should_, if you were precisely nothing to me. And still, the fifth act _rises_! That is certain. Nevertheless I seemto agree with you that your hand has vacillated in your Domizia. We donot know her with as full a light on her face, as the otherpersons--we do not see the _panther_, --no, certainly we do not--butyou will do a very little for her which will be everything, after atime ... And I assure you that if you were to ask for the manuscriptbefore, 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 Iread, the more I think of it, the greater it grows--and as to 'fadedlines, ' 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 areat 'words of one syllable' may be puzzled by you and Wordsworthtogether this time ... As far as the expression goes. Subtle thoughtsyou always must have, in and out of 'Sordello'--and the objectorswould find even Plato (though his medium is as lucid as the water thatran beside the beautiful plane-tree!) a little difficult perhaps. To-day Mr. Kenyon came, and do you know, he has made a beatificconfusion between last Saturday and next Saturday, and said to me hehad told Miss Thomson to mind to come on Friday if she wished to seeme ... 'remembering' (he added) 'that Mr. Browning took _Saturday_!!'So I let him mistake the one week for the other--'Mr. Browning tookSaturday, ' it was true, both ways. Well--and then he went on to tellme 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 enquirebesides--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 twofoldsafety. That is, if you are not ill again. Dearest, you will not thinkof coming if you are ill ... Unwell even. I shall not be frightenednext time, as I told you--I shall have the precedent. Before, I had tothink! 'It has never happened _so_--there must be a cause--and if itis a very, very, bad cause, why no one will tell _me_ ... It will notseem _my_ concern'--_that_ was my thought on Saturday. But anothertime ... 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 foryour suffering ... My waiting is nothing. I shall remember for thefuture that you may have the headache--and do you remember it too! For Mr. Horne I take your testimony gladly and believingly. _Sheblots_ with her _eyes_ sometimes. She hates ... And loves, in extremedegrees. We have, once or twice or thrice, been on the border ofmutual displeasure, on this very subject, for I grew really vexed toobserve the trust on one side and the _dyspathy_ on the other--usingthe mildest of words. You see, he found himself, down in Berkshire, inquite a strange element of society, --he, an artist in his good and hisevil, --and the people there, 'county families, ' smoothly plumed intheir conventions, and classing the ringlets and the aboriginal way ofusing water-glasses among offences against the Moral Law. Then, meaning to be agreeable, or fascinating perhaps, made it twenty timesworse. Writing in albums about the graces, discoursing meditatedimpromptus at picnics, playing on the guitar in fancy dresses, --allthese things which seemed to poor Orion as natural as his own stars Idare say, and just the things suited to the _genus_ poet, and tohimself specifically, --were understood by the natives and their 'ruraldeities' to signify, that he intended to marry one half the county, and to run away with the other. But Miss Mitford should have knownbetter--_she_ should. And she _would_ have known better, if she hadliked 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 bewithout an effort; and I have had much affection from her--and accusemyself 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 therewere not a few points which still struck me as successful in designand execution, yet on the whole I came to a decided opinion, that itwill be better to postpone the publication of it for the present. Itis 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 thatprivilege to display and parade an ignorance which the other isaltogether unconscious of--so that, if 'Luria' is _clearish_, the'Tragedy' would be an unnecessary troubling the waters. Whereas, if Iprinted it first in order, my readers, according to custom, would makethe (comparatively) little they did not see into, a full excuse forshutting their eyes at the rest, and we may as well part friends, soas not to meet enemies. But, at bottom, I believe the proper objectionis to the immediate, _first_ effect of the whole--its moraleffect--which is dependent on the contrary supposition of its beingreally understood, in the main drift of it. Yet I don't know; for Iwrote it with the intention of producing the best of alleffects--perhaps the truth is, that I am tired, rather, and desirousof getting done, and 'Luria' will answer my purpose so far. Will notthe best way be to reserve this unlucky play and in the event of asecond edition--as Moxon seems to think such an apparitionpossible--might not this be quietly inserted?--in its place, too, forit was written two or three years ago. I have lost, of late, interestin dramatic writing, as you know, and, perhaps, occasion. And, dearest, I mean to take your advice and be quiet awhile and let mymind get used to its new medium of sight; seeing all things, as itdoes, through you: and then, let all I have done be the prelude andthe real work begin. I felt it would be so before, and told you at thevery 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 orwhat?--something depresses me a little--to-morrow brings the remedyfor it all. I don't know why I mention such a matter; except that Itell you everything without a notion of after-consequence; and becauseyour dearest, dearest presence seems under any circumstances as ifcreated 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 withyou, 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 displeasingto you to-day, I had not courage to say two instead ... Which I mighthave done indeed and indeed! For I am capable of thinking boththoughts of 'next year, ' as you suggested them:--because while you arewith me I see only _you_, and you being you, I cannot doubt a power ofyours nor measure the deep loving nature which I feel to be sodeep--so that there may be ever so many 'mores, ' and no 'more' wonderof 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 theshadows at sunset, --and _then_, the 'less, less, less' grows to seemas 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 neverbeyond, except for your sake and in reference to that view of thequestion which I have vexed you with so often, in fearing for yourhappiness. Once it was a habit of mind with me to live altogether inwhat I called the future--but the tops of the trees that lookedtowards Troy were broken off in the great winds, and falling down intothe river beneath, where now after all this time they grow greenagain, I let them float along the current gently and pleasantly. Canit be better I wonder! And if it becomes worse, can I help it? Alsothe future never seemed to belong to me so little--never! It mightappear wonderful to most persons, it is startling even to myselfsometimes, to observe how free from anxiety I am--from the sort ofanxiety which might be well connected with my own position _here_, andwhich is personal to myself. _That_ is all thrown behind--into thebushes--long ago it was, and I think I told you of it before. Agitation comes from indecision--and _I_ was decided from the firsthour 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 ifit was given ... Beloved.... So you see! Then I will confess to you that all my life long I have had a ratherstrange sympathy and dyspathy--the sympathy having concerned the genus_jilt_ (as vulgarly called) male and female--and the dyspathy--thewhole class of heroically virtuous persons who make sacrifices of whatthey call 'love' to what they call 'duty. ' There are exceptional casesof course, but, for the most part, I listen incredulously or else witha little contempt to those latter proofs of strength--or weakness, asit may be:--people are not usually praised for giving up theirreligion, for unsaying their oaths, for desecrating their 'holythings'--while believing them still to be religious and sacramental!On the other side I have always and shall always understand how it ispossible for the most earnest and faithful of men and even of womenperhaps, to err in the convictions of the heart as well as of themind, to profess an affection which is an illusion, and to recant andretreat loyally at the eleventh hour, on becoming aware of the truthwhich is in them. Such men are the truest of men, and the mostcourageous for the truth's sake, and instead of blaming them I holdthem 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 hadtossed about restlessly for ever so long, I was wise enough to askWilson how _she_ thought you were looking, ... And she 'did not know'... She 'had not observed' ... 'only certainly Mr. Browning ranup-stairs instead of walking as he did the time before. ' Now promise me dearest, dearest--not to trifle with your health. Notto neglect yourself ... Not to tire yourself ... And besides to takethe advice of your medical friend as to diet and generaltreatment:--because there must be a wrong and a right in everything, and the right is very important under your circumstances ... If youhave a tendency to illness. It may be right for you to have wine forinstance. Did you ever try the putting your feet into hot water atnight, to prevent the recurrence of the morning headache--for theaffection of the head comes on early in the morning, does it not? justas if the sleeping did you harm. Now I have heard of such a remedydoing good--and could it _increase_ the evil?--mustard mixed with thewater, remember. Everything approaching to _congestion_ is full offear--I tremble to think of it--and I bring no remedy by this teazingneither! But you will not be 'wicked' nor 'unkind, ' nor provoke theevil consciously--you will keep quiet and forswear the going out atnights, the excitement and noise of parties, and the worse excitementof composition--you promise. If you knew how I keep thinking of you, and at intervals grow so frightened! Think _you_, that you are threetimes as much to me as I can be to you at best and greatest, --becauseyou are more than three times the larger planet--and because too, youhave known other sources of light and happiness ... But I need not saythis--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 ownhealth. May God bless you, dear, dearest. If the first part of the 'Soul'sTragedy' should be written out, I can read _that_ perhaps, withoutdrawing you in to think of the second. Still it may be safer to keepoff altogether for the present--and let it be as you incline. I do notspeak 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 myselfabout the looks and spirits, only it would not do if he found you hereon Wednesday. Let him come to-morrow or on Tuesday, and Wednesday willbe 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 samepleasure, in reading, as you--and Mr. K. As me, and anybody else ashim; if all the correspondence which was claimed again and burnt onsome principle or other some years ago be at all of the nature of thissample, 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 theexperience of two persons only--_there_ is the standard, and to _that_the appeal--how should a third person know? His presence breaks theline, so to speak, and lets in a whole tract of country on theoriginally inclosed spot--so that its trees, which were from side toside there, seem left alone and wondering at their sudden unimportancein the broad land; while its 'ferns such as I never saw before' andwhich have been petted proportionably, look extravagant enough amidthe new spread of good honest grey grass that is now the earth'sgeneral wear. So that the significance is lost at once, and wholevalue of such letters--the cypher changed, the vowel-points removed:but how can that affect clever writing like this? What do you, to whomit is addressed, see in it more than the world that wants to see itand shan't have it? One understands shutting an unprivileged eye tothe ineffable mysteries of those 'upper-rooms, ' now that the broom anddust pan, stocking-mending and gingerbread-making are invested withsuch unforeseen reverence ... But the carriage-sweep and quarry, together with Jane and our baskets, and a pleasant shadow ofWordsworth's Sunday hat preceding his own rapid strides in thedirection of Miss Fenwick's house--surely, 'men's eyes were made tosee, so let them gaze' at all _this_! And so I, gazing with a clearconscience, am very glad to hear so much good of a very good personand so well told. She plainly sees the proper use and advantage of acountry-life; and _that_ knowledge gets to seem a high point ofattainment 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 ruralinnocence--alternation of 'vulgar trifles' with dissertating withstyle of 'the utmost grandeur that _even you_ can conceive' (speak foryourself, Miss M. !)--and that amiable transition from two o'clock'sgrief at the death of one's brother to three o'clock's happiness inthe 'extraordinary mesmeric discourse' of one's friend. All this, andthe rest of the serene and happy inspired daily life which a piece of'unpunctuality' can ruin, and to which the guardian 'angel' brings ascrowning qualification the knack of poking the fire adroitly--ofthis--what can one say but that--no, best hold one's tongue and readthe 'Lyrical Ballads' with finger in ear. Did not Shelley say long ago'He had no more _imagination_ than a pint-pot'--though in those dayshe 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 ownheart--and when one presses in to see the result of the rareexperiment ... What the _one_ alchemist whom fortune has allowed toget all his coveted materials and set to work at last in earnest withfire and melting-pot--what _he_ produces after all the talk of him andthe like of him; why, you get _pulvis et cinis_--a man at the mercy ofthe tongs and shovel! Well! Let us despair at nothing, but, wishing success to the neweraspirant, expect better things from Miss M. When the 'knoll, ' and'paradise, ' and their facilities, operate properly; and that she willmake a truer estimate of the importance and responsibilities of'authorship' than she does at present, if I understand rightly thesense in which she describes her own life as it means to be; for inone sense it is all good and well, and quite natural that she shouldlike 'that sort of strenuous handwork' better than book-making; likethe play better than the labour, as we are apt to do. If she realisesa very ordinary scheme of literary life, planned under the eye of Godnot 'the public, ' and prosecuted under the constant sense of thenight'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 glovesand making delicate visitors comfortable--so much more rational aresource is the worst of them than gin-and-water, for instance. Butif, 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 ofthe innocence and utility of such occupations) with the book-makingaforesaid--always supposing _that_ to be of the right kind--_then_ Irespect Miss M. Just as I should an Archbishop of Canterbury whosebusiness was the teaching A. B. C. At an infant-school--he who might seton the Tens to instruct the Hundreds how to convince the Thousands ofthe propriety of doing that and many other things. Of course one willrespect him only the more if when _that_ matter is off his mind herelaxes at such a school instead of over a chess-board; as it willincrease our love for Miss M. To find that making 'my good Jane (fromTyne-mouth)'--'happier and--I hope--wiser' is an amusement, or more, after the day's progress towards the 'novel for next year' which is toinspire thousands, beyond computation, with the ardour of makinginnumerable other Janes and delicate relatives happier and wiser--whoknows but as many as Burns did, and does, so make happier and wiser?Only, _his quarry_ and after-solace was that 'marble bowl oftenreplenished with whiskey' on which Dr. Curry discourses mournfully, 'Oh, be wiser Thou!'--and remember it was only _after_ Lord Bacon hadwritten to an end _his_ Book--given us for ever the Art ofInventing--whether steam-engine or improved dust-pan--that he took onhimself 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 gotinto 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 hisyouth 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 downsolely on the pleasant assurance contained in that postscript, of theone way of never quarrelling with Miss M. --'by joining in her planand 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 knowwhat Chorley's desperate utterance amounted to! Did you ever hear ofthe plain speaking of some of the continental lottery-projectors? Anestate on the Rhine, for instance, is to be disposed of, and theholder of the lucky ticket will find himself suddenly owner of amediæval castle with an unlimited number of dependencies--vineyards, woods, pastures, and so forth--all only waiting the new master'sarrival--while inside, all is swept and garnished (not to say, varnished)--the tables are spread, the wines on the board, all isready for the reception _but_ ... Here 'plain speaking' becomesnecessary--it prevents quarrels, and, could the projector get peopleto practise it as he does all would be well; so he, at least, willspeak plainly--you hear what _is_ provided but, he cannot, dares notwithhold what is _not_--there is then, to speak plainly, --no nightcap! You _will_ have to bring your own night cap. The projectorfurnishes somewhat, as you hear, but not _all_--and now--the worst isheard, --will you quarrel with him? Will my own dear, dearest Ba pleaseand help me here, and fancy Chorley's concessions, and tributes, andrecognitions, and then, at the very end, the 'plain words, ' tocounterbalance all, that have been to overlook and pardon? Oh, my own Ba, hear _my_ plain speech--and how this is _not_ anattempt 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. Blessyou, 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_, thatI 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 illnesswas 'while you wrote': unless you find that letter too foolish, as Ido on twice thinking--or at all events a most superfluous bestowmentof handwork while the heart was elsewhere, and with you--never moreso! Dear, dear Ba, your adorable goodness sinks into me till it nearlypains, --so exquisite and strange is the pleasure: _so_ you care forme, and think of me, and write to me!--I shall never die for you, andif it could be so, what would death prove? But I can live on, your ownas now, --utterly your own. Dear Ba, do you suppose we differ on so plain a point as that of thesuperior wisdom, and generosity, too, of announcing such a change &c. At the eleventh hour? There can be no doubt of it, --and now, what ofit 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 stillyou, for a whole week--so all will come right, I hope! _May_ I takeWednesday? And do you say that, --hint at the possibility of that, because you have been reached by my own remorse at feeling that if Ihad kept my appointment _last_ Saturday (but one)--Thursday would havebeen my day this past week, and this very Monday had been gained?Shall I not lose a day for ever unless I get Wednesday andSaturday?--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 thefamous letter--is there any grammar in _that_ concatenation, can youtell me, now that you are in an arch-critical humour? And remember(turning back to the subject) that personally she and I are strangersand that therefore what she writes for me is naturally scene-paintingto be looked at from a distance, done with a masterly hand and mostamiable intention, but quite a different thing of course from theintimate revelations of heart and mind which make a living thing of aletter. 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. Whatshe _has_ sent me might be a chapter in a book and has the life properto itself, and I shall not let you try it by another standard, even ifyou wished, but you don't--for I am not so _bête_ as not to understandhow 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 ofWordsworth's in exchange for the loan, and whom I cannot refusebecause he is an intimate friend of Miss Martineau's and once allowedme to read a whole packet of letters from her to him. She does notobject (as I have read under her hand) to her letters being shownabout in MS. , notwithstanding the anathema against all printers of thesame (which completes the extravagance of the unreason, I think) andpeople are more anxious to see them from their presumed nearness toannihilation. I, for my part, value letters (to talk literature) asthe most vital part of biography, and for any rational human being toput 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 ofthose multitudinous volumes, even, which stereotype Voltaire'swrinkles of wit--even Voltaire? I can read book after book of suchreading--or could! And if her principle were carried out, there wouldbe an end! Death would be deader from henceforth. Also it is a wrongselfish principle and unworthy of her whole life and profession, because we should all be ready to say that if the secrets of our dailylives and inner souls may instruct other surviving souls, let them beopen to men hereafter, even as they are to God now. Dust to dust, andsoul-secrets to humanity--there are natural heirs to all these things. Not that I do not intimately understand the shrinking back from theidea of publicity on any terms--not that I would not myself destroypapers of mine which were sacred to _me_ for personal reasons--butthen I never would call this natural weakness, virtue--nor would I, asa teacher of the public, announce it and attempt to justify it as anexample to other minds and acts, I hope. How hard you are on the mending of stockings and the rest of it! Whynot agree with me and like that sort of homeliness and simplicity incombination with such large faculty as we must admit _there_? LordBacon did a great deal of trifling besides the stuffing of the fowlyou mention--which I did not remember: and in fact, all the great workdone in the world, is done just by the people who know how totrifle--do you not think so? When a man makes a principle of 'neverlosing a moment, ' he is a lost man. Great men are eager to find anhour, and not to avoid losing a moment. 'What are you doing' saidsomebody once (as I heard the tradition) to the beautiful Lady Oxfordas she sate in her open carriage on the race-ground--'Only a littlealgebra, ' said she. People who do a little algebra on the race-groundare not likely to do much of anything with ever so many hours formeditation. Why, you must agree with me in all this, so I shall not besententious any longer. Mending stockings is not exactly the sort ofpastime _I_ should choose--who do things quite as trifling without theutility--and even your Seigneurie peradventure.... I stop there forfear of growing impertinent. The _argumentum ad hominem_ is apt tobring down the _argumentum ad baculum_, it is as well to remember intime. For Wordsworth ... You are right in a measure and by a standard--but Ihave heard such really desecrating things of him, of his selfishness, his love of money, his worldly _cunning_ (rather than prudence) that Ifelt a relief and gladness in the new chronicle;--and you canunderstand how _that_ was. Miss Mitford's doctrine is that everythingput 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 sayit too strongly. And knowing that such opinions are held by minds notfeeble, it is very painful (as it would be indeed in any case) to seethem apparently justified by royal poets like Wordsworth. Ah, but Iknow an answer--I see one in my mind! So again for the letters. Now ought I not to know about letters, I whohave had so many ... From chief minds too, as society goes in Englandand America? And _your_ letters began by being first to my intellect, before they were first to my heart. All the letters in the world arenot like yours ... And I would trust them for that verdict with anyjury in Europe, if they were not so far too dear! Mr. Kenyon wanted tomake me show him your letters--I did show him the first, and resistedgallantly afterwards, which made him say what vexed me at the moment, ... 'oh--you let me see only _women's_ letters, '--till I observed thatit was a breach of confidence, except in some cases, ... And that _I_should complain very much, if anyone, man or woman, acted so bymyself. But nobody in the world writes like you--not so _vitally_--andI have a right, if you please, to praise my letters, besides thereason of it which is as good. Ah--you made me laugh about Mr. Chorley's free speaking--and, withoutthe personal knowledge, I can comprehend how it could be nothing veryferocious ... Some 'pardonnez moi, vous êtes un ange. ' The amusingpart is that by the same post which brought me the Ambleside document, I heard from Miss Mitford 'that it was an admirable thing of Chorleyto have persisted in not allowing Harriet Martineau to quarrel withhim' ... So that there are laurels on both sides, it appears. And I am delighted to hear from you to-day just _so_, though Ireproach you in turn just _so_ ... Because you were not 'depressed' inwriting all this and this and this which has made me laugh--you werenot, dearest--and you call yourself better, 'much better, ' which meansa 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 Mondayand 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 adviceand follow it _without further delay_. I like to have recourse tothese medical people quite as little as you can--but I am persuadedthat it is necessary--that it is at least _wise_, for you to do sonow, and, you see, you were 'not quite so well' again last night! Sowill you, for me? Would _I_ not, if you wished it? And on Wednesday, yes, on Wednesday, come--that is, if coming on Wednesday should reallybe not bad for you, for you _must_ do what is right and kind, and Idoubt whether the omnibus-driving and the noises of every sort betwixtus, should not keep you away for a little while--I trust you to dowhat is best for both of us. And it is not best ... It is not good even, to talk about 'dying forme' ... Oh, I do beseech you never to use such words. You make me feelas if I were choking. Also it is nonsense--because nobody puts out acandle for the light's sake. Write _one line_ to me to-morrow--literally so little--just to say howyou are. I know by the writing here, what _is_. Let me have the oneline by the eight o'clock post to-morrow, Tuesday. For the rest it may be my 'goodness' or my badness, but the worldseems to have sunk away beneath my feet and to have left only you tolook to and hold by. Am I not to _feel_, then, any trembling of thehand? the least trembling? May God bless both of us--which is a double blessing for menotwithstanding my badness. _I trust you about Wednesday_--and if it should be wise and kind notto come quite so soon, we will take it out of other days and lose notone of them. And as for anything 'horrible' being likely to happen, donot think of that either, --there can be nothing horrible while you arenot 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 foolishletter I wrote to-day in answer to your too long one--too long, was itnot, as you felt? And I, the writer of the foolish one, amtwice-foolish, and push poor 'Luria' out of sight, and refuse tofinish my notes on him till the harm he has done shall have passedaway. In my badness I bring false accusation, perhaps, against poorLuria. 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 thepostman. 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 shallbe 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 ofyou--I am yours just as much as those flowers; and you may pluck thoseflowers to pieces or put them in your breast; it is not because you sobless me now that you may not if you please one day--you will stop mehere; but it is the truth and I live in it. I am quite well; indeed, this morning, _noticeably_ well, they tellme, 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, atHarley Street--thereby insinuating that other reasons _may_ bring meinto the neighbourhood than _the_ reason--but I shall either not gothere, or only for an hour at most. I also found a note headed'Strictly private and confidential'--so here it goes from my mouth tomy heart--pleasantly proposing that I should start in a few days forSt. Petersburg, as secretary to somebody going there on a 'mission ofhumanity'--_grazie tante_! Did you hear of my meeting someone at the door whom I take to havebeen 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 ofhaving _no_ merit. If I caught myself trying to write finely, graphically &c. &c. , nay, if I found myself conscious of having in myown opinion, so written, all would be over! yes, over! I should berespecting you inordinately, paying a proper tribute to your genius, summoning the necessary collectedness, --plenty of all that! But thefeeling with which I write to you, not knowing that it iswriting, --with _you_, face and mouth and hair and eyes opposite me, touching me, knowing that all _is_ as I say, and helping out theimperfect phrases from your own intuition--_that_ would be gone--and_what_ in its place? 'Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we write toAmbleside. ' No, no, love, nor can it ever be so, nor should it ever beso if--even if, preserving all that intimate relation, with thecarelessness, _still_, somehow, was obtained with no effort in theworld, graphic writing and philosophic and what you please--for I_will_ be--_would_ be, better than my works and words with an infinitestock beyond what I put into convenient circulation whether in finespeeches fit to remember, or fine passages to quote. For the rest, Ihad 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. Iknow, sometimes I seem to give the matter up in despair, I take outpaper and fall thinking on you, and bless you with my whole heart andthen begin: 'What a fine day this is?' I distinctly remember havingdone that repeatedly--but the converse is not true by any means, that(when the expression may happen to fall more consentaneously to themind's motion) that less is felt, oh no! But the particular thought atthe time has not been of the _insufficiency_ of expression, as in theother 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 sleepmore? 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, andwondered at and loved out of them, you are indeed! I cannot make youfeel how I felt that night when I knew that to save me an anxiousthought 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 soagain, ever dearest--you shall not. If the post sins, why leave thesin to the post; and I will remember for the future, will be ready toremember, how postmen are fallible and how you live at the end of alane--and not be uneasy about a silence if there should be oneunaccounted for. For the Tuesday coming, I shall remember thattoo--who could forget it?... I put it in the niche of the wall, onegolden lamp more of your giving, to throw light purely down to the endof my life--I do thank you. And the truth is, I _should_ have been ina panic, had there been no letter that evening--I was frightened theday before, then reasoned the fears back and waited: and if there hadbeen no letter after all--. But you are supernaturally good and kind. How can I ever 'return' as people say (as they might say in theirledgers) ... Any of it all? How indeed can I who have not even a heartleft of my own, to love you with? I quite trust to your promise in respect to the medical advice, ifwalking and rest from work do not prevent at once the recurrence ofthose sensations--it was a promise, remember. And you will tell me thevery truth of how you are--and you will try the music, and not benervous, dearest. Would not _riding_ be good for you--consider. Andwhy should you be 'alone' when your sister is in the house? How I keepthinking of you all day--you cannot really be alone with so manythoughts ... Such swarms of thoughts, if you could but see them, drones and bees together! George came in from Westminster Hall after we parted yesterday andsaid that he had talked with the junior counsel of the wretchedplaintiffs in the Ferrers case, and that the belief was in the motherbeing implicated, although not from the beginning. It was believed toothat the miserable girl had herself taken step after step into themire, involved herself gradually, the first guilt being anextravagance in personal expenses, which she lied and lied to accountfor in the face of her family. 'Such a respectable family, ' saidGeorge, 'the grandfather in court looking venerable, and everyoneindignant upon being so disgraced by her!' But for the respectabilityin the best sense, I do not quite see. That all those people shouldacquiesce in the indecency (according to every standard of Englishmanners in any class of society) of thrusting the personal expenses ofa member of their family on Lord Ferrers, she still bearing theirname--and in those peculiar circumstances of her supposed positiontoo--where is the respectability? And they are furious with her, whichis not to be wondered at after all. Her counsel had an interview withher 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 thejuniors that if anyone could suggest a means of explanation, he wouldbe eager to carry forward the case, ... But for him he saw no way ofescaping from the fact of the guilt of their client. Not a voice couldspeak for her. So George was told. There is no ground for aprosecution for a conspiracy, he says, but she is open to the chargefor _forgery_, of course, and to the dreadful consequences, though itis not considered at all likely that Lord Ferrers could wish todisturb her beyond the ruin she has brought on her own life. Think of Miss Mitford's growing quite cold about Mr. Chorley who hasspent two days with her lately, and of her saying in a letter to methis morning that he is very much changed and grown to be 'apresumptuous coxcomb. ' He has displeased her in some way--that isclear. 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 thatpossibility. May God bless you, dear dearest. It is another miracle(beside the many) that I get nearer to the mountains yet still theyseem 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 youplease--as if I had not the right! Still, you shall not, shall notfancy that I meant to praise them in the way you seem to think--bycalling them 'graphic, ' 'philosophic, '--why, did I ever use suchwords? 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 Isaid I went back to my first impressions--and they were _vital_letters, I said--which was the résumé of my thoughts upon the earlyones you sent me, because I felt your letters to be _you_ from thevery first, and I began, from the beginning, to read every one severaltimes over. Nobody, I felt, nobody of all these writers, did write asyou did. Well!--and had I not a right to say _that_ now at last, andwas it not natural to say just _that_, when I was talking of otherpeople's letters and how it had grown almost impossible for me to readthem; and do I deserve to be scolded? No indeed. And if I had the misfortune to think now, when you say it is a fineday, that _that_ is said in more music than it could be said in byanother--where is the sin against _you_, I should like to ask. It isyourself who is the critic, I think, after all. But over all thebrine, I hold my letters--just as Camoens did his poem. They are _bestto me_--and they are _best_. I knew what _they_ were, before I knewwhat _you_ were--all of you. And I like to think that I never fanciedanyone on a level with you, even in a letter. What makes you take them to be so bad, I suppose, is just feeling inthem how near we are. _You say that!_--not I. Bad or good, you _are_ better--yes, 'better than the works andwords'!--though it was very shameful of you to insinuate that I talkedof fine speeches and passages and graphical and philosophicalsentences, as if I had proposed a publication of 'Elegant Extracts'from your letters. See what blasphemy one falls into through abeginning of light speech! It is wiser to talk of St. Petersburg; forall Voltaire's ... '_ne disons pas de mal de Nicolas_. ' Wiser--because you will not go. If you were going ... Well!--but thereis no danger--it would not do you good to go, I am so happy this timeas to be able to think--and your 'mission of humanity' liesnearer--'strictly private and confidential'? but not in HarleyStreet--so if you go _there_, dearest, keep to the 'one hour' and donot suffer yourself to be tired and stunned in those hot rooms andmade unwell again--it is plain that you cannot bear that sort ofexcitement. For Mr. Kenyon's note, ... It was a great temptation tomake a day of Friday--but I resist both for Monday's sake and foryours, because it seems to me safer not to hurry you from one house toanother till you are tired completely. I shall think of you so muchthe nearer for Mr. Kenyon's note--which is something gained. In themeanwhile you are better, which is everything, or seems so. Everdearest, 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 frombeing worse--be wise ... And do not stay long in those hot HarleyStreet rooms. Ah--now you will think that I am afraid of theunicorns!-- Through your being ill the other day I forgot, and afterwards went onforgetting, to speak of and to return the ballad--which is delightful;I have an unspeakable delight in those suggestive ballads, which seemto make you touch with the end of your finger the full warm life ofother times ... So near they bring you, yet so suddenly all passes inthem. Certainly there is a likeness to your Duchess--it is a curiouscrossing. And does it not strike you that a verse or two must bewanting in the ballad--there is a gap, I fancy. Tell Mr. Kenyon (if he enquires) that you come here on Monday insteadof Saturday--and if you can help it, do not mention Wednesday--it willbe as well, not. You met Alfred at the door--he came up to meafterwards and observed that 'at last he had seen you!' 'Virgiliumtantum 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 init.... And now there is no time, if I am to sleep to-night. May God blessyou, 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 thesecond, with '_Mis-sent to Mitcham_' written on its face as areason, --one more proof of the negligence of somebody! But I _do_ haveit at last--what should I say? what do you expect me to say? And thefirst note seemed quite as much too kind as usual! Let me write to-morrow, sweet? I am quite well and sure to mind allyou bid me. I shall do no more than look in at that place (they arethe 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, Ifear--to pay the ordinary compliment for an invitation to the R. S. 's_soirée_ at Lord Northampton's. And then comes Monday--and to-nightany unicorn I may see I will not find myself at liberty to catch. (N. B. --should you meditate really an addition to the 'ElegantExtracts'--mind this last joke is none of mine but my father's; whenwalking with me when a child, I remember, he bade a little urchin wefound fishing with a stick and a string for sticklebacks in aditch--'to mind that he brought any sturgeon he might catch to theking'--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 uglythings. 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 suchjudgments argue, or rather, want of knowledge what true self-respectis: '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 timepresses a little--so bless you my ever ever dearest--I love youwholly. 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 inthe evening, I never heard till just now and _from Papa himself_, that'George was invited to meet Mr. Browning and Mr. Procter. ' Howsurprised 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 youthen a letter all but ... Insolent ... Which, do you know, I feel halfashamed to look back upon this morning--particularly what I wroteabout 'missions of humanity'--now was it not insolent of me to writeso? If I could take my letter again I would dip it into Lethe betweenthe lilies, instead of the post office:--but I can't--so if youwondered, you must forget as far as possible, and understand how itwas, and that I was in brimming spirits when I wrote, from two causes... First, because I had your letter which was a pure goodness ofyours, and secondly because you were 'noticeably' better you said, or'noticeably well' rather, to mind my quotations. So I wrote what Iwrote, and gave it to Arabel when she came in at midnight, to give itto Henrietta who goes out before eight in the morning and often takescharge of my letters, and it was too late, at the earliest thismorning, to feel a little ashamed. Miss Thomson told me that she haddetermined to change the type of the few pages of her letterpresswhich had been touched, and that therefore Mr. Burges's revisions ofmy translations should be revised back again. She appears to be a veryacute person, full of quick perceptions--naturally quick, andcarefully trained--a little over anxious perhaps about mental lights, and opening her eyes still more than she sees, which is a common faultof clever people, if one must call it a fault. I like her, and she iskind and cordial. Will she ask you to help her book with a translationor two, I wonder. Perhaps--if the courage should come. Dearest, how Ishall think of you this evening, and how near you will seem, not to behere. I had a letter from Mr. Mathews the other day, and smiled toread in it just what I had expected, that he immediately sent Landor'sverses on you to a _few editors_, friends of his, in order to theircommunication to the public. He received my apology for myself withthe 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 beenwrong, if it seemed so to you, I fancy now. Only I really did no moremean to try your letters ... Mine ... Such as they are to me now, bythe common critical measure, than the shepherds praised the pure tenorof the angels who sang 'Peace upon earth' to them. It was enough thatthey knew it for angels' singing. So do _you_ forgive me, beloved, andput away from you the thought that I have let in between us anymiserable stuff 'de métier, ' which I hate as you hate. And I will notsay 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 tosay yesterday and stopped. Do not try it again. What may be quite goodsense from me, is from _you_ very much the reverse, and pray observethat difference. Or did you think that I was making my own road clearin the the thing I said about--'jilts'? No, you did not. Yet I amready 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 animpossible 'if' to my nature, supposing the conditions of it otherwiseto be probable. I never loved anyone much and ceased to love thatperson. Ask every friend of mine, if I am given to change even infriendship! _And to you... !_ Ah, but you never think of such a thingseriously--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 apologuein exchange for your Wednesday's stories which I liked so, and mineperhaps may make you 'a little wiser'--who knows? It befell that there stood in hall a bold baron, and out he spake toone of his serfs ... 'Come thou; and take this baton of my baronie, and give me instead thereof that sprig of hawthorn thou holdest inthine hand. ' Now the hawthorn-bough was no larger a thing than mightbe carried by a wood-pigeon to the nest, when she flieth low, and thebaronial baton was covered with fine gold, and the serf, turning itin his hands, marvelled greatly. And he answered and said, 'Let not my lord be in haste, nor jest withhis servant. Is it verily his will that I should keep his goldenbaton? 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 onceagain--'shall it be lawful for me to keep this sprig of hawthorn, andwill it not repent thee of thy gift?' Then all the servants who stood in hall, laughed, and the serf's handstrembled till they dropped the baton into the rushes, knowing that hislord 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 verymuch pleased!) to '_let_ you write to-morrow. ' How you spoil me withgoodness, which makes one 'insolent' as I was saying, now and then. The worst is, that I write 'too kind' letters--I!--and what does thatcriticism mean, pray? It reminds me, at least, of ... Now I will tellyou 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, andit might be taken ill. 'Are _you_ ever uncomfortable, Ba, after youhave sent letters to the post?' she asked me. 'Yes, ' I said, 'sometimes, but from a reason just the very reverse ofyour reason, _my_ letters, when they get into the post, seem tookind, --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 _disfaventibus_, though it will be difficult. Mr. Kenyon's dinner is a riddle which I cannot read. _You_ areinvited to meet Miss Thomson and Mr. Bayley and '_no one else_. 'George is invited to meet Mr. Browning and Mr. Procter and '_no oneelse_'--just those words. The '_absolu_' (do you remember Balzac'sbeautiful story?) is just _you_ and 'no one else, ' the other elementsbeing 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 youhour 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 herway. I feel very affectionately towards her, love her sincerely. Sheis affectionate to _me_ beyond measure. Still, always I feel that if Iwere to vex her, the lower deep below the lowest deep would not be lowenough for _me_. I always feel _that_. She would advertise me directlyfor a wretch proper. Then, for all I said about never changing, I have ice enough over mejust 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 otherfriend, I had your brother and Procter--to my great pleasure. After, Iwent to that place, and soon got away, and am very well this morningin the sunshine; which I feel with you, do I not? Yesterday afterdinner we spoke of Mrs. Jameson, and, as my wont is--(Here your letterreaches me--let me finish this sentence now I have finished kissingyou, dearest beyond all dearness--My own heart's Ba!)--oh, as I amused, I left the talking to go on by itself, with the thought busiedelsewhere, till at last my own voice startled me for I heard my tongueutter '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 canput so much pure felicity into an envelope so as that I shall get itas from the fount head. This to-day, those yesterday--there is, I see, and know, thus much goodness in line after line, goodness to bescientifically appreciated, _proved there_--but over and above, is itin the writing, the dots and traces, the seal, the paper--here doesthe subtle charm lie beyond all rational accounting for? The other dayI stumbled on a quotation from J. Baptista Porta--wherein he aversthat any musical instrument made out of wood possessed of medicinalproperties retains, being put to use, such virtues undiminished, --andthat, for instance, a sick man to whom you should pipe on a pipe ofelder-tree would so receive all the advantage derivable from adecoction of its berries. From whence, by a parity of reasoning, I maydiscover, I think, that the very ink and paper were--ah, what werethey? Curious thinking won't do for me and the wise head which ismine, so I will lie and rest in my ignorance of content and understandthat without any magic at all you simply wish to make oneperson--which of your free goodness proves to be your R. B. --to make mesupremely happy, and that you have your wish--you _do_ bless me! Moreand more, for the old treasure is piled undiminished and still the newcomes 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 livethis to the end? Then, dearest, care also for the life beyond, and putin my mind how to testify here that I have felt, if I could notdeserve that a gift beyond all gifts! I hope to work hard, to prove Ido feel, as I say--it would be terrible to accomplish nothing now. With which conviction--renewed conviction time by time, of yourextravagance of kindness to me unworthy, --will it seemcharacteristically consistent when I pray you not to begin frighteningme, all the same, with threats of writing _less_ kindly? That must notbe, love, for _your_ sake now--if you had not thrown open thosewindows of heaven I should have no more imagined than that Syrian lordon whom the King leaned 'how such things might be'--but, once theirinfluence showered, I should know, too soon and easily, if they shutup again! You have committed your dear, dearest self to that course ofblessing, and blessing on, on, for ever--so let all be as it is, pray, _pray_! No--not _all_. No more, ever, of that strangesuspicion--'insolent'--oh, what a word!--nor suppose I shallparticularly wonder at its being fancied applicable to _that_, of allother passages of your letter! It is quite as reasonable to suspectthe existence of such a quality _there_ as elsewhere: how _can_ such athing, _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 besure it was a golden sanative, Machaon's touch, for my entire good, that I was opening my heart to receive! As for words, written orspoken--I, who sin forty times in a day by light words, and untrue tothe thought, I am certainly not used to be easily offended by otherpeoples' 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 havebegun, as I did--as you felt I did. I know now, what I only suspectedthen, and will tell you all the matter on Monday if you care to hear. The 'humanity' however, would have been unquestionable if I had chosento 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--forthe baron knew well enough it was a spray of the magical tree whichonce planted in his domain would shoot up, and out, and all round, andbe glorious with leaves and musical with birds' nests, and a fairysafeguard and blessing thenceforward and for ever, when the foolishbaton had been broken into ounces of gold, even if gold it _were_, andspent and vanished: for, he said, such gold lies in the highway, menpick it up, more of it or less; but this one slip of the floweringtree is all of it on this side Paradise. Whereon he laid it to hisheart and was happy--in spite of his disastrous chase the nightbefore, when so far from catching an unicorn, he saw not even arespectable prize-heifer, worth the oil-cake and rape-seed it haddoubtless cost to rear her--'insolence!' I found no opportunity of speaking to Mr. K. About Monday, but nothingwas said of last Wednesday, and he must know I did not go yesterday. So, Monday is laughing in sunshine surely! Bless you, my sweetest. Ilove 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, andwith the right gratitude of your flowers. Such beautiful flowers youbrought me this time too! looking like summer itself, and smelling!Doing the 'honour due' to the flowers, makes your presence a littlelonger 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 onSunday--no, I should still have had to write first. Now you understand that I do not object to the writing first, but onlyto the hearing second. I would rather write than not--I! But to bewritten to is the chief gladness of course; and with all you say ofliking 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 lookanother way for shame of measuring joys with him! Because as I havesaid before, and as he says now, you are all to me, all the light, allthe life; I am living for you now. And before I knew you, what was Iand where? What was the world to me, do you think? and the meaning oflife? And now, when you come and go, and write and do not write, allthe hours are chequered accordingly in so many squares of white andblack, 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 anyrate. Mr. Fox said on Sunday that I was a 'religious hermit' who wrote'poems which ought to be read in a Gothic alcove'; and religioushermits, 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 yourSir 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 ... Thinkhow it is the one light, seen without distractions. _I_ was thinking the other day that certainly and after all (or ratherbefore all) I had loved you all my life unawares, that is, the idea ofyou. Women begin for the most part, (if ever so very little given toreverie) by meaning, in an aside to themselves, to love such and suchan ideal, seen sometimes in a dream and sometimes in a book, andforswearing their ancient faith as the years creep on. I say a book, because I remember a friend of mine who looked everywhere for theoriginal of Mr. Ward's 'Tremaine, ' because nothing would do for _her_, she insisted, except just _that_ excess of so-called refinement, withthe book-knowledge and the conventional manners, (_loue qui peut_, Tremaine), and ended by marrying a lieutenant in the Navy who couldnot spell. Such things happen every day, and cannot be otherwise, saythe wise:--and _this_ being otherwise with _me_ is miraculouscompensation 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 thedegree in which I am raised up you are let down, for us two to find alevel to meet on. One's ideal must be above one, as a matter ofcourse, 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 tellyou? ... Even to the visible outward sign of the black hair and thecomplexion (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 hairquite, it had been the same thing, only I prove the coincidence outfully and make you smile half. Yet indeed I did not fancy that I was to love _you_ when you came tosee me--no indeed ... Any more than I did your caring on your side. Myambition when we began our correspondence, was simply that you shouldforget I was a woman (being weary and _blasée_ of the empty writtengallantries, of which I have had my share and all the more perhapsfrom my peculiar position which made them so without consequence), that you should forget _that_ and let us be friends, and consent toteach me what you knew better than I, in art and human nature, andgive me your sympathy in the meanwhile. I am a great hero-worshipperand had admired your poetry for years, and to feel that you liked towrite to me and be written to was a pleasure and a pride, as I usedto tell you I am sure, and then your letters were not like otherletters, as I must not tell you again. Also you _influenced_ me, in away in which no one else did. For instance, by two or three half wordsyou made me see you, and other people had delivered orations on thesame subject quite without effect. I surprised everybody in this houseby consenting to see you. Then, when you came, you never went away. Imean I had a sense of your presence constantly. Yes ... And to provehow free that feeling was from the remotest presentiment of what hasoccurred, I said to Papa in my unconsciousness the next morning ... 'it is most extraordinary how the idea of Mr. Browning does besetme--I suppose it is not being used to see strangers, in somedegree--but it haunts me ... It is a persecution. ' On which he smiledand 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 inthis 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 youchose to make me. As to my thoughts, I had it in my head somehow thatyou read _them_ as you read the newspaper--examined them, and fastenedthem down writhing under your long entomological pins--ah, do youremember the entomology of it all? But the power was used upon _me_--and I never doubted that you hadmistaken your own mind, the strongest of us having some exceptionalweakness. Turning the wonder round in all lights, I came to what youadmitted yesterday ... Yes, I saw _that_ very early ... That you hadcome here with the intention of trying to love whomever you shouldfind, ... And also that what I had said about exaggerating the amountof what I could be to you, had just operated in making you moredetermined to justify your own presentiment in the face of mine. Well--and if that last clause was true a little, too ... Why should Ibe sorry now ... And why should you have fancied for a moment, thatthe first could make me sorry. At first and when I did not believethat you really loved me, when I thought you deceived yourself, _then_, it was different. But now ... Now ... When I see and believeyour attachment for me, do you think that any cause in the world(except what diminished it) could render it less a source of joy tome? I mean as far as I myself am considered. Now if you ever fancythat I am _vain_ of your love for me, you will be unjust, remember. Ifit were less dear, and less above me, I might be vain perhaps. But Imay say _before_ God and you, that of all the events of my life, inclusive of its afflictions, nothing has humbled me so much as yourlove. Right or wrong it may be, but true it _is_, and I tell you. Yourlove has been to me like God's own love, which makes the receivers ofit kneelers. Why all this should be written, I do not know--but you set me thinkingyesterday in that backward line, which I lean back to very often, andfor once, as you made me write directly, why I wrote, as my thoughtswent, 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 seeit for a month at least. And take exercise and keep well--and rememberhow many letters I must have before Saturday. May God bless you. Doyou 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 loveyou, but it does not sound right, even _so_, does it? I know what itought to be, and will put it into the 'seal' and the 'paper' with theineffable other things. Dearest, do not go to St. Petersburg. Do not think of going, for fearit should come true and you should go, and while you were helping theJews 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 soughtnot to go, but must--because, if there is no speaking of Mrs. Jamesonsand 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, thoughpossessed with the love of it no more than usual, yet _may_ speak, andto a hearer? And I have to thank you with all my heart for the goodnews of the increasing strength and less need for the opium--how I dothank you, my dearest--and desire to thank God through whose goodnessit all is! This I could not but say now, to-morrow I will write atlength, having been working a little this morning, with whatevereffect. So now I will go out and see your elm-trees and gate, andthink the thoughts over again, and coming home I shall perhaps find aletter. 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 Iwould. ' I am quite sure, you make me _speak_ as you would, and not atall as I mean--and for one instance, I never surely spoke anythinghalf so untrue as that 'I came with the intention of loving whomever Ishould find'--No! wreathed shells and hollows in ruins, and roofs ofcaves may transform a voice wonderfully, make more of it or less, orso change it as to almost alter, but turn a 'no' into a 'yes' can noecho (except the Irish one), and I said 'no' to such a charge, andstill say 'no. ' I _did_ have a presentiment--and though it is hardlypossible for me to look back on it now without lending it the truecolours given to it by the event, yet I _can_ put them aside, if Iplease, 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 inanticipation, certainly I did not hope _that_, but that it would rangeitself with the old feelings of simple reverence and sympathy andfriendship, that I should love you as much as I supposed I _could_love, and no more) but in the confidence that nothing could occur todivert me from my intended way of life, I made--went on makingarrangements to return to Italy. You know--did I not tell you--Iwished to see you before I returned? And I had heard of you just somuch 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 easilybring them to bear a sense in parts, more agreeable to your own theorythan 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 hadnow seen you--was no continuation of the conduct, as influenced by thefeeling, of the letters--else, they, if _near_, should have enabledhim, if but in the natural course of time and with increase offamiliarity, to become _nearer_--but it was not so! The letters beganby loving you after their way--but what a world-wide differencebetween _that_ love and the true, the love from seeing and hearing andfeeling, since you make me resolve, what now lies blended soharmoniously, into its component parts. Oh, I know what is old fromwhat is new, and how chrystals may surround and glorify other vesselsmeant for ordinary service than Lord N's! But I _don't_ know thathandling may not snap them off, some of the more delicate ones; and ifyou let me, love, I will not again, ever again, consider how it cameand whence, and when, so curiously, so pryingly, but believe that itwas always so, and that it all came at once, all the same; the moreunlikelinesses the better, for they set off the better the truth oftruths that here, ('how begot? how nourished?')--here is the wholewondrous 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. Atthe same time, because all is so wondrous and so sweet, do you thinkthat it would be _so_ difficult for me to analyse it, and give causesto the effects in sufficiently numerous instances, even to 'justify mypresentiment?' Ah, dear, dearest Ba, I could, could indeed, couldaccount for all, or enough! But you are unconscious, I do believe, ofyour 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 adifferent sense. You shall think I love you for--(tell me, you must, what for) while in my secret heart I know what my 'mission ofhumanity' means, and what telescopic and microscopic views it procuresme. Enough--Wait, one word about the 'too kind letters'--could not thesame Montefiore understand that though he deserved not one of histhousand guineas, yet that he is in disgrace if they bate him of hisnext gift by merely _ten_? It _is_ all too kind--but I shall feel thediminishing of the kindness, be very sure! Of that there is, however, not too alarming a sign in this dearest, because last of all--dearestletter 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 nexttime, and 'Luria' take away, if you let me, so all will be off mymind, and April and May be the welcomer? Don't think I am going totake any extraordinary pains. There are some things in the 'Tragedy' Ishould like to preserve and print now, leaving the future to springas it likes, in any direction, and these half-dead, half-alive worksfetter it, if left behind. Yet one thing will fetter it worse, only one thing--if _you_, in anyrespect, 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, Baherself to be _quite_ Ba, and my own Siren singing song for song. Dearlove, will that be kind, and right, and like the rest? Write andpromise that all shall be resumed, the romance-poem chiefly, and Iwill try and feel more yours than ever now. Am I not with you in theworld, proud of you--and _vain_, too, very likely, which is all thesweeter if it is a sin as you teach me. Indeed dearest, I have set myheart 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 Iwalk, especially near the elms and stile--and mean to walk, and bevery 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 thatthey were not quite yours as you said them. Still it comes tosomething in their likeness, but we will not talk of it and break offthe 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' asa riddle long ago. Let there be 'analysis' even, and it will not besolution. I have my own thoughts of course, and you have yours, andthe worst is that a third person looking down on us from somesnow-capped height, and free from personal influences, would have_his_ thoughts too, and _he_ would think that if you had beenreasonable as usual you would have gone to Italy. I have by heart (orby head at least) what the third person would think. The third personthundered to me in an abstraction for ever so long, and at intervals Ihear him still, only you shall not to-day, because he talks 'damnableiterations' and teazes you. Nay, the first person is teazing you nowperhaps, without going any further, and yet I must go a littlefurther, just to say (after accepting all possible unlikelinesses andmiracles, because everything was miraculous and impossible) that itwas agreed between us long since that you did not love me foranything--your having no reason for it is the only way of your notseeming unreasonable. Also _for my own sake_. I like it to be so--Icannot have peace with the least change from it. Dearest, take thebaron's hawthorn bough which, in spite of his fine dream of it is deadsince the other day, and so much the worse than when I despised itlast--take that dead stick and push it upright into the sand as thetide rises, and the whole blue sea draws up its glittering breadth andlength towards and around it. But what then? What does _that prove_?... As the philosopher said of the poem. So we ought not to talk ofsuch things; and we get warned off even in the accidentalillustrations taken up to light us. Still, the stick certainly did notdraw the sea. Dearest and best you were yesterday, to write me the little note! Youare better than the imaginations of my heart, and _they_, as far asthey relate to you (not further) are _not_ desperately wicked, Ithink. I always expect the kindest things from you, and you always aredoing some kindness beyond what is expected, and this is a miracletoo, like the rest, now isn't it? When the knock came last night, Iknew it was your letter, and not another's. Just another little leafof my Koran! How I thank you ... Thank you! If I write too kindletters, as you say, why they may be too kind for me to send, but notfor 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 veryoften--as that exegetical third person might expound to you clearlyout of the ninety-sixth volume of the 'Code of Conventions, ' only youare not like another, nor have you been to me like another--you beganwith most improvident and (will you let me say?) _unmasculine_generosity, and Queen Victoria does not sit upon a mat after thefashion of Queen Pomare, nor should. But ... But ... You know very fully that you are breaking faith in thematter of the 'Tragedy' and 'Luria'--you promised to rest--and _yourest 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, Ido beseech you--be careful. There is time for a pause, and the workswill 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 muchas you please ... Though I hear about the shower bath with a littlesuspicion. Why, if it did you harm before, should it not again? andwhy should you use it, if it threatens harm? Now tell me if it hasn'tmade 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. Confessthat _that_ was the only meaning of the exhortation. But no, you arequite serious, you say. You even threaten me in a sort of undergroundmurmur, which sounds like a nascent earthquake; and if I do not writeso much a day directly, your stipendiary magistrateship will take awaymy license to be loved ... I am not to be Ba to you any longer ... Yousay! And is _this_ right? now I ask you. Ever so many chrystals felloff by that stroke of the baton, I do assure you. Only you did notmean 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 havecertainly been more loitering and distracted than usual in what I havedone, which is not my fault--nor yours directly--and I feel anindisposition to setting about the romance, the hand of the soulshakes. I am too happy and not calm enough, I suppose, to have theright inclination. Well--it will come. But all in blots and fragmentsthere 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 shouldbe 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 thebeginning; and in our case he will say, turning to me--'the lateRobert Hall--when a friend admired that one with so high an estimateof the value of intellectuality in woman should yet marry some kind ofcook-maid animal, as did the said Robert; wisely answered, "you can'tkiss Mind"! May _you_ not discover eventually, ' (this is to me) 'thatmere intellectual endowments--though incontestably of the loftiestcharacter--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 usdied, 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 wisean air 'True, mere personal affections may be warm enough, but does itaugur well for the durability of an attachment that it should be_wholly, exclusively_ based on such perishable attractions as thesweetness of a mouth, the beauty of an eye? I could wish, rather, toknow that there was something of less transitory nature co-existentwith this--some congeniality of Mental pursuit, some--' Would he notsay that? But I can't do his platitudes justice because here is ourpost going out and I have been all the morning walking in the perfectjoy 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-morrowwhen 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 deviceswithout losing much in the way of good counsel. But you are unlucky inyour third person as far as the wits go, he talks a great deal ofnonsense, and Flush, who is sensible, will have nothing to do withhim, he says, any more than you will with Sir Moses:--he is quite athird person _singular_ for the nonsense he talks! So, instead of him, you shall hear what I have been doing to-day. Thesun, which drew out you and the hawthorns, persuaded me that it waswarm enough to go down-stairs--and I put on my cloak as if I weregoing into the snow, and went into the drawing-room and tookHenrietta by surprise as she sate at the piano singing. Well, I meantto stay half an hour and come back again, for I am upon 'Tinkler'sground' in the drawing-room and liable to whole droves of morningvisitors--and Henrietta kept me, kept me, because she wanted me, besought me, to stay and see the great sight of Capt. SurteesCook--_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 ofcousin. So, though I hated it as you may think, ... Not liking to beunkind to my sister, I stayed and stayed one ten minutes afteranother, till it seemed plain that he wasn't coming at all (as I toldher) and that Victoria had kept him to dinner, enchanted with theregimentals. And half laughing and half quarrelling, still she kept meby force, until a knock came most significantly ... And '_There_ isSurtees' said she ... 'now you must and shall stay! So foolish, ' (Ihad my hand on the door-handle to go out) 'he, your own cousin too!who always calls you Ba, except before Papa. ' Which might haveencouraged me perhaps, but I can't be sure of it, as the very nextmoment apprized us both that no less a person than Mrs. Jameson wasstanding out in the passage. The whole 36th. Regiment could scarcelyhave been more astounding to me. As to staying to see her in thatroom, with the prospect of the military descent in combination, Icouldn't have done it for the world! so I made Henrietta, who haddrawn me into the scrape, take her up-stairs, and followed myself in aminute or two--and the corollary of this interesting history is, thatbeing able to talk at all after all that 'fuss, ' and after walking'up-stairs and down-stairs' like the ancestor of your spider, provesmy gigantic strength--now doesn't it? For the rest, 'here be proofs' that the first person can be as foolishas any third person in the world. What do you think? And Mrs. Jameson was kind beyond speaking of, and talked of taking meto Italy. What do you say? It is somewhere about the fifth or sixthproposition of the sort which has come to me. I shall be embarrassed, it seems to me, by the multitude of escorts to Italy. But thekindness, one cannot laugh at so much kindness. I wanted to hear her speak of you, and was afraid. I _could not_ nameyou. Yet I _did_ want to hear the last 'Bell' praised. She goes to Ireland for two months soon, but prints a book first, acollection of essays. I have not seen Mr. Kenyon, with whom she dinedyesterday. The Macreadys were to be there, and he told me a week agothat he very nearly committed himself in a 'social mistake' byinviting you to meet them. Ah my hawthorn spray! Do you know, I caught myself pitying it forbeing gathered, with that green promise of leaves on it! There is roomtoo on it for the feet of a bird! Still I shall keep it longer than itwould have stayed in the hedge, _that_ is certain! The first you ever gave me was a yellow rose sent in a letter, andshall I tell you what _that_ means--the yellow rose? '_Infidelity_, 'says the dictionary of flowers. You see what an omen, ... To beginwith! 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'son _me_. And I shall hear to-morrow again, really? I '_let_' you. And you arebest, kindest, dearest, every day. Did I ever tell you that you mademe do what you choose? I fancied that I only _thought_ so. May Godbless you. I am your own. Shall I have the 'Soul's Tragedy' on Saturday?--any of it? But _do notwork_--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 respectmade speak properly, I hope, only he was cut short in the middle ofhis performance by the exigencies of the post. So, never mind whatsuch persons say, my sweetest, because they know nothing at all--_quoderat demonstrandum_. But you, love, you speak roses, andhawthorn-blossoms when you tell me of the cloak put on, and thedescent, and the entry, and staying and delaying. I will have had ahand in all that; I know what I wished all the morning, and now thismuch came true! But you should have seen the regimentals, if I couldhave so contrived it, for I confess to a Chinese love for brightred--the very names 'vermilion' 'scarlet' warm me, yet in this coldclimate nobody wears red to comfort one's eye save soldiers and foxhunters, and old women fresh from a Parish Christmas Distribution ofcloaks. To dress in floating loose crimson silk, I almost understandbeing a Cardinal! Do you know anything of Nat Lee's Tragedies? In oneof 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 androar!' Think of thy scarlet sins! Of the justice of all which, you will judge with no Mrs. Jameson forguide when we see the Sistina together, I trust! By the way, yesterdayI went to Dulwich to see some pictures, by old Teniers, Murillo, Gainsborough, Raphael!--then twenty names about, and last but one, asif just thought of, 'Correggio. ' The whole collection, including 'a_divine_ picture by Murillo, ' and Titian's Daughter (hitherto supposedto be in the Louvre)--the whole I would, I think, have cheerfullygiven a pound or two for the privilege of not possessing--so execrableas sign-paintings even! 'Are there worse poets in their way thanpainters?' Yet the melancholy business is here--that the bad poet goesout of his way, writes his verses in the language he learned in orderto do a hundred other things with it, all of which he can go on and doafterwards--but the painter has spent the best of his life in learningeven how to produce such monstrosities as these, and to what othergood do his acquisitions go? This short minute of life our one chance, an eternity on either side! and a man does not walk whistling andruddy by the side of hawthorn hedges in spring, but shuts himself upand 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 tosee you so well--did she not wonder? Ah, to-morrow! There is a lessonfrom all this writing and mistaking and correcting and beingcorrected; and what, but that a word goes safely only from lip to lip, dearest? See how the cup slipped from the lip and snapped thechrystals, you say! But the writing is but for a time--'a time andtimes and half a time!'--would I knew when the prophetic weeks end!Still, one day, as I say, no more writing, (and great scandalizationof the third person, peeping through the fringes of Flush's ears!)meanwhile, I wonder whether if I meet Mrs. Jameson I may practisediplomacy and say carelessly 'I should be glad to know what Miss B. Islike--' No, that I must not do, something tells me, 'for reasons, forreasons'-- 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 thepages, but--in fact my wise head does ache a little--it isinconceivable! 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, whichwould hardly bend the hawthorn spray, may set it trembling! The achingbegins with reading the presentation-list at the Drawing-room quitenaturally, and with no shame at all! But it is gentle, well-behavedaching now, so I _do_ care, as you bid me, Ba, my Ba, whom I call Bato 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 aword of what was said yesterday, or that I sought or am likely to seeka 'security'! do you know it was not right of you to use such anexpression--indeed no. You were angry with me for just one minute, oryou would not have used it--and why? Now what did I say that was wrongor unkind even by construction? If I did say anything, it was threetimes wrong, and unjust as well as unkind, and wronged my own heartand 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 underthe same circumstances (you remember what you said), and then _I_, remembering that all the men in the world would laugh such an idea toscorn, said something to that effect, you _know_. I once was incompany with a man, however, who valued himself very much on hisconstancy to a woman who was so deeply affected by it that she becamehis wife at last ... And the whole neighbourhood came out to stare athim on that ground as a sort of monster. And can you guess what theconstancy meant? Seven years before, he loved that woman, he said, andshe repulsed him. 'And in the meantime, _how many_?' I had theimpertinence to ask a female friend who told me the tale. 'Why, ' sheanswered with the utmost simplicity, 'I understand that Miss A. AndMiss B. And Mrs. C. Would not listen to him, but he took Miss D. 'srejection most to heart. ' That was the head and front of his'constancy' to Miss E. , who had been loved, she boasted, for sevenyears ... That is, once at the beginning and once at the end. It wasjust a coincidence of the 'premier pas' and the 'pis aller. ' Beloved, I could not mean this for you; you are not made of suchstuff, as we both know. And for myself, it was my compromise with my own scruples, that youshould not be 'chained' to me, not in the merest metaphor, that youshould not seem to be bound, in honour or otherwise, so that if youstayed with me it should be your free choice to stay, not the_consequence_ of a choice so many months before. That was mycompromise with my scruples, and not my doubt of your affection--andleast of all, was it an intention of trifling with you sooner or laterthat made me wish to suspend all _decisions_ as long as possible. Ihave decided (for me) to let it be as you shall please--now I told youthat before. Either we will live on as we are, until an obstaclearises, --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 Iwill be yours in the obvious way, to go out of England the nexthalf-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 theonly question is about a _form_. Virtually the evil is the same allround, whatever we do. Dearest, it was plain to see yesterday eveningwhen he came into this room for a moment at seven o'clock, beforegoing to his own to dress for dinner ... Plain to see, that he was notaltogether pleased at finding you here in the morning. There was nopretext for objecting gravely--but it was plain that he was notpleased. Do not let this make you uncomfortable, he will forget allabout it, and I was not _scolded_, do you understand. It was moremanner, but my sisters thought as I did of the significance:--and itwas enough to prove to me (if I had not known) what a desperate gamewe should be playing if we depended on a yielding nerve _there_. And to-day I went down-stairs (to prove how my promises stand) thoughI could find at least ten good excuses for remaining in my own room, for our cousin, Sam Barrett, who brought the interruption yesterdayand put me out of humour (it wasn't the fault of the dear littlecousin, Lizzie ... My 'portrait' ... Who was '_so_ sorry, ' she said, dear child, to have missed Papa somewhere on the stairs!) the cousinwho should have been in Brittany yesterday instead of here, sate inthe drawing-room all this morning, and had visitors there, and so Ihad excellent excuses for never moving from my chair. Yet, the fieldbeing clear at _half-past two_! I went for half an hour, just--justfor _you_. Did you think of me, I wonder? It was to meet your thoughtsthat I went, dear dearest. How clever these sketches are. The expression produced by suchapparently inadequate means is quite striking; and I have been makingmy brothers admire them, and they 'wonder you don't think of employingthem 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 haveit!--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 lettingit make you ill. Beware too of the shower-bath--it plainly does notanswer 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 speakto you of the Dulwich Gallery. I never saw those pictures, but amastonished that the whole world should be wrong in praising them. 'Divine' is a bad word for Murillo in any case--because he isintensely human in his most supernatural subjects. His beautifulTrinity in the National Gallery, which I saw the last time I went outto look at pictures, has no deity in it--and I seem to see it now. Anddo you remember the visitation of the angels to Abraham (the Duke ofSutherland's picture--is it not?) where the mystic visitors look likeshepherds who had not even dreamt of God? But I always understood thatthat Dulwich Gallery was famous for great works--you surprise me! Andfor painters ... Their badness is more ostentatious than that ofpoets--they stare idiocy out of the walls, and set the eyes ofsensitive men on edge. For the rest, however, I very much doubtwhether they wear their lives more to rags, than writers who mistaketheir vocation in poetry do. There is a mechanism in poetry as in theother art--and, to men not native to the way of it, it runs hard andheavily. The 'cudgelling of the brain' is as good labour as thegrinding 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 ismusic, 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 themasters in it, has been the mere sign and suggestion, such as theprivate piano may give. I never heard an oratorio, for instance, in mylife--judge by _that_! It is a guess, I make, at all the greatness anddivinity ... Feeling in it, though, distinctly and certainly, that acomposer like Beethoven _must_ stand above the divinest painter insoul-godhead, and nearest to the true poet, of all artists. And thisI felt in my guess, long before I knew you. But observe how, if I haddied 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 owninstincts. And apart from those--and _you_, ... It was right for me tobe melancholy, in the consciousness of passing blindfolded under allthe 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 ofMr. Russell's (the singer's) friends, about his setting to music my'Cry of the Children. ' His programme exhibits all the horrors of theworld, I see! Lifeboats ... Madhouses ... Gamblers' wives ... All doneto the right sort of moaning. His audiences must go home delightfullymiserable, I should fancy. He has set the 'Song of the Shirt' ... Andmy 'Cry of the Children' will be acceptable, it is supposed, as aclimax of agony. Do you know this Mr. Russell, and what sort of musiche suits to his melancholy? But to turn my 'Cry' to a 'Song, ' aburden, 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 tellme. May God bless you, very dearest! Let me hear how you are--and thinkhow 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 whyyou have _no_ note ... To-morrow I will write ... So much there is tosay 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 youinto! The 'Dulwich Gallery'!--!!!--oh, no. Only some pictures to besold at the Greyhound Inn, Dulwich--'the genuine property of agentleman 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 nightwould go down in double blackness if I had neither written nor beenwritten to! So here is another piece of 'kindness' on my part, such asI have received praise for of late! My own sweetest, there is justthis good in such praise, that by it one comes to something pleasantlydefinite amid the hazy uncertainties of mere wishes andpossibilities--while my whole heart does, _does_ so yearn, love, to dosomething to prove its devotion for you; and, now and then, amusesitself with foolish imaginings of real substantial services to whichit should be found equal if fortune so granted; suddenly you interposewith thanks, in such terms as would all too much reward the highest ofeven those services which are never to be; and for what?--for a note, a going to Town, a ----! Well, there are definite beginningscertainly, if you will recognise them--I mean, that since you _do_accept, far from 'despising this day of small things, ' then I maytake heart, and be sure that even though none of the greatachievements should fall to my happy chance, still the barrenest, flattest life will--_must_ of needs produce in its season betterfruits than these poor ones--I keep it, value it, now, that it mayproduce such. Also I determine never again to 'analyse, ' nor let you analyse if thesweet mouth can be anyway stopped: the love shall be one andindivisible--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 whatyour father said? And if anybody else said or wondered ... How shouldI 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 thetelescope 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 andprevented from writing what you call 'much' to me. Because in thefirst place, the little from _you_, is always much to _me_--and then, besides, _the letter comes_, and with it the promise of another! Twoletters have I had from you to-day, ever dearest! How I thankyou!--yes, _indeed_! It was like yourself to write yesterday ... Toremember what a great gap there would have been otherwise, as itlooked on this side--here. The worst of Saturday is (when you come onit) that Sunday follows--Saturday night bringing no letter. Well, itwas very good of you, best of you! For the 'analyzing' I give it up willingly, only that I must say whataltogether I forgot to say in my last letter, that it was not _I_, ifyou please, who spoke of the chrystals breaking away! And you, toquote me with that certainty! "The chrystals are broken off, " _yousay_. ' _I_ say!! When it was in your letter, and not at all in mine!! The truth is that I was stupid, rather, about the Dulwichcollection--it was my fault. I caught up the idea of the gallery outof a heap of other thoughts, and really might have known better if Ihad 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 yourlearning'--and that, to complete the circle, you discoursed asscientifically on the training of greyhounds and breeding of ducks asif you had never done anything else all your life. Then dear Mr. Kenyon talked of the poems; and hoped, very earnestly I am sure, thatyou would finish 'Saul'--which you ought to do, must do--_only notnow_. By the way Mrs. Coleridge had written to him to enquire whetheryou had authority for the 'blue lilies, ' rather than white. Then heasked about 'Luria' and 'whether it was obscure'; and I said, notunless the people, who considered it, began by blindfoldingthemselves. And where do you think Mr. Kenyon talks of going next February--a longwhile off to be sure? To Italy of course. Everybody I ever heard ofseems to be going to Italy next winter. He visits his brother atVienna, and 'may cross the Alps and get to Pisa'--it is the shadow ofa scheme--nothing certain, so far. I did not go down-stairs to-day because the wind blew and thethermometer fell. To-morrow, perhaps I may. And _you_, dearestdearest, might have put into the letters how you were when you wrotethem. You might--but you did not feel well and would not say so. Confess that that was the reason. Reason or no reason, mentionyourself to-morrow, and for the rest, do not write a long letter so asto increase the evil. There was nothing which I can remember asrequiring an answer in what I wrote to you, and though I _will_ havemy letter of course, it shall be as brief as possible, if briefness isgood for you--_now always remember that_. Why if I, who talk against'Luria, ' should work the mischief myself, what should I deserve? Ishould be my own jury directly and not recommend to mercy ... Not tomine. Do take care--care for _me_ just so much. And, except that taking care of your health, what would you do for methat you have not done? You have given me the best of the possiblegifts of one human soul to another, you have made my life new, and amI 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 asyour 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 Iso love and so am grateful to--having been used to go there when achild, far under the age allowed by the regulations--those two Guidos, the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob's vision, such a Watteau, thetriumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group, all the Poussins with the 'Armida' and 'Jupiter's nursing'--and--noend to 'ands'--I have sate before one, some _one_ of those pictures Ihad predetermined to see, a good hour and then gone away ... It usedto 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 potencyattributed to the _form_, with all its solemnity, because it _is_ aform, and no more--yet you frankly agree with me that _that_ formcomplied 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 forcomparatively nothing'? Here it is written down--you 'wish to_suspend_ all decisions as long as possible'--_that_ form effects thedecision, then, --till then, 'where am I'? Which is just what LordChesterfield 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 isdeducible. A very old Unitarian minister met a still older evangelicalbrother--John Clayton (from whose son's mouth I heard what you shallhear)--the two fell to argument about the true faith to be held--afterwords enough, 'Well, ' said the Unitarian, as winding up thecontroversy with an amicable smile--'at least let us hope we are bothengaged in the _pursuit_ of Truth!'--'_Pursuit_ do you say?' cried theother, '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 notalready _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'sgood by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is thereany parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of inthe street--a labourer talking with his friends about '_wishes_'--andthis one wished, if he might get his wish, 'to have a nine gallon caskof 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 securityupon 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 inthe '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 Iwill _never_ speak, if it pain you; but just this much truth I oughtto say, I think. I always give myself to you for the worst I am, --fullof 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 callthat conduct other than intolerable--_there_, in my conviction of_that_, is your real 'security' and mine for the future as thepresent. That a father choosing to give out of his whole day some fiveminutes to a daughter, supposed to be prevented from participating inwhat he, probably, in common with the whole world of sensible men, asdistinguished from poets and dreamers, consider _every_ pleasure oflife, by a complete foregoing of society--that he, after the Pisabusiness and the enforced continuance, and as he must believe, permanence of this state in which any other human being would gomad--I do dare say, for the justification of God, who gave the mind tobe _used_ in this world, --where it saves us, we are taught, ordestroys us, --and not to be sunk quietly, overlooked, and forgotten;that, under these circumstances, finding ... What, you say, unless hethinks he _does_ find, he would close the door of his house instantly;a mere sympathizing man, of the same literary tastes, who comesgood-naturedly, on a proper and unexceptionable introduction, to chatwith and amuse a little that invalid daughter, once a month, so far asis known, for an hour perhaps, --that such a father should showhimself '_not pleased_ plainly, ' at such a circumstance ... My Ba, itis SHOCKING! See, I go _wholly_ on the supposition that the realrelation is not imagined to exist between us. I so completely couldunderstand a repugnance to trust you to me were the truth known, that, I will confess, I have several times been afraid the very reverse ofthis occurrence would befall; that your father would have at some timeor other thought himself obliged, by the usual feeling of people insuch cases, to see me for a few minutes and express some commonplacethanks after the customary mode (just as Capt. Domett sent a heap ofunnecessary thanks to me not long ago for sending now a letter now abook to his son in New Zealand--keeping up the spirits of poor dearAlfred now he is cut off from the world at large)--and if _this_ hadbeen done, I shall not deny that my heart would have accusedme--unreasonably I _know_ but still, suppression, and reserve, andapprehension--the whole of _that is_ horrible always! But this way oflooking on the endeavour of anybody, however humble, to just preserveyour 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 ableto do as I shall be done by; to take up the arms furnished by theworld, 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 youmay understand why I keep _such_ entire silence henceforth. Get but well, keep but _as_ well, and all is easy now. This wonderfulwinter--the spring--the summer--you will take exercise, go up and downstairs, get strong. _I pray you, at your feet, to do this, dearest!_Then comes Autumn, with the natural expectations, as after _rouge_ oneexpects _noir_: the _likelihood_ of a _severe_ winter after this mildone, which to prevent, you reiterate your demand to go and save yourlife in Italy, ought you not to do that? And the matters brought toissue, (with even, if possible, less shadow of ground for a refusalthan before, if you are _well_, plainly well enough to bear thevoyage) _there_ I _will_ bid you 'be mine in the obvious way'--if youshall preserve your belief in me--and you _may_ in much, in allimportant to you. Mr. Kenyon's praise is undeserved enough, butyesterday Milnes said I was the only literary man he ever knew, _tenaxpropositi_, able to make out a life for himself and abide init--'for, ' he went on, 'you really do live without any of this_titillation_ and fussy dependence upon adventitious excitement of allkinds, 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 wholeenergies in reducing to practice the feeling which occupies me, and inthe practical operation of which, the other work I had proposed to dowill be found included, facilitated--I shall be able--but of thisthere is plenty time to speak hereafter--I shall, I believe, be ableto do this without even allowing the world to _very much_misinterpret--against pure lying there is no defence, but all up tothat I hope to hinder or render unimportant--as you shall know in timeand place. I have written myself grave, but write to _me_, dear, dearest, and Iwill answer in a lighter mood--even now I can say how it wasyesterday's hurry happened. I called on Milnes--who told me Hanmer hadbroken a bone in his leg and was laid up, so I called on him too--onMoxon, 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 withsomebody, then on Mrs. Montagu who was out walking all the time, andhome too. I found a letter from Mr. Kenyon, perfectly kind, asking meto go on Monday to meet friends, and with yours to-day comes anotherconfirming the choice of the day. How entirely kind he is! I am very well, much better, indeed--taking that bath with sensiblygood effect, to-night I go to Montagu's again; for shame, having keptaway too long. And the rest shall answer _yours_--dear! Not 'much to answer?' AndBeethoven, and Painting and--what _is_ the rest and shall be answered!Bless you, now, my darling--I love you, ever shall love you, ever beyour 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 sureI do not over-care for forms--it is not my way to do it--and in thiscase ... 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 themildest word) if too hastily entered on. I deny altogether lookingfor, or 'seeing' any 'security' in it for myself--it is a mere formfor 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 standfree to act according to the wide-awakeness of your eyes, and toreform your choice ... See! whereas afterward you could not carry outsuch a reformation while I was alive, even if I helped you. All Icould do for you would be to walk away. And you pretend not to seethis 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 anhour, or a word, that stringency of the legal obligation from whichthere _is_ in a certain sense no redemption. Tie up your drinker underthe pour of his nine gallons, and in two minutes he will moan andwrithe (as you perfectly know) like a Brinvilliers under thewater-torture. That he _asked_ to be tied up, was unwise on his ownprinciple of loving ale. And _you_ sha'n't be 'chained' up, if youwere to ask twenty times: if you have found truth or not in thewater-well. You do not see aright what I meant to tell you on another subject. Ifhe was displeased, (and it was expressed by a shadow a mere negationof pleasure) it was not with you as a visitor and my friend. You mustnot fancy such a thing. It was a sort of instinctive indispositiontowards seeing you here--unexplained to himself, I have no doubt--ofcourse unexplained, or he would have desired me to receive you neveragain, _that_ would have been done at once and unscrupulously. Butwithout defining his own feeling, he rather disliked seeing youhere--it just touched one of his vibratory wires, brushed by andtouched it--oh, we understand in this house. He is not a niceobserver, but, at intervals very wide, he is subject tolightnings--call them fancies, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Certainly it was not in the character of a 'sympathising friend' thatyou made him a very little cross on Monday. And yet you never were norwill be in danger of being _thanked_, he would not think of it. Forthe reserve, the apprehension--dreadful those things are, anddesecrating to one's own nature--but we did not make this position, weonly endure it. The root of the evil is the miserable misconception ofthe limits and character of parental rights--it is a mistake of theintellect rather than of the heart. Then, after using one's childrenas one's chattels for a time, the children drop lower and lower towardthe level of the chattels, and the duties of human sympathy to thembecome difficult in proportion. And (it seems strange to say it, yetit is true) _love_, he does not conceive of at all. He has feeling, hecan 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 thatI never would? Oh no, no--yet there is time to think of this, asuperfluity of time, ... 'time, times and half a time' and to makeone's head swim with leaning over a precipice is not wise. The roarof the world comes up too, as you hear and as I heard from thebeginning. There will be no lack of 'lying, ' be sure--'pure lying'too--and nothing you can do, dearest dearest, shall hinder my beingtorn to pieces by most of the particularly affectionate friends I havein 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 effectof being poets! 'Till when, where are you?'--why in the very deepestof 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, itseems, --what your 'faults' are, these immense multitudinous faults ofyours, 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 likeit, I think. In the meantime they seem to be faults of obscurity, thatis, invisible faults, like those in the poetry which do not keep itfrom selling as I am _so, so_ glad to understand. I am glad too thatMr. Milnes knows you a little. Now I must end, there is no more time to-night. God bless you, verydearest! Keep better ... Try to be well--as _I_ do for you since youask me. Did I ever think that _you_ would think it worth while to askme _that_? What a dream! reaching out into the morning! To-day howeverI did not go down-stairs, because it was colder and the wind blew itsway 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 andthe South to-day ... The Fens, and Golden Square. Somebody asked fora verse, ... From either 'Catarina' or 'Flush' ... 'those poems' &c. &c. ! Such a concatenation of criticisms. So I preferred Flush ofcourse--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'--youwill not 'drop dead, ' I warrant. All the same, if one may make acircuit through a flower-bed and see the less of his toad-habits andgeneral ugliness, so much the better--no words can express my entireindifference (far below _contempt_) for what can be said or done. Butone thing, only one, I choose to hinder being said, if I can--theothers I would not if I could--why prevent the toad's puffing himselfout 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 allfaults are such inasmuch as they are 'mistakes of theintellect'--toads may spit or leave it alone, --but if I ever see itright, exercising my intellect, to treat any human beings like my'chattels'--I shall pay for that mistake one day or another, I amconvinced--and I very much fear that you would soon discover what onefault of mine is, if you were to hear anyone assert such a right in mypresence. Well, I shall see you to-morrow--had I better come a little later, Iwonder?--half-past three, for instance, staying, as last time, till... Ah, it is ill policy to count my treasure aloud! Or shall I comeat the usual time to-morrow? If I do _not_ hear, at the usualtime!--because, I think you would--am sure you would have consideredand suggested it, were it necessary. Bless you, dearest--ever your own. I said nothing about that Mr. Russell and his proposition--by allmeans, yes--let him do more good with that noble, pathetic 'lay'--anddo not mind the 'burthen, ' if he is peremptory--so that he dulyspecify '_by the singer_'--with _that_ precaution nothing but good cancome 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 writtento at the soonest--and there is another reason which makes me hastento write ... It is not all mercantile calculation. I want you tounderstand me. Now listen! I seem to understand myself: it seems to me that everyword I ever said to you on one subject, is plainly referable to aclass of feelings of which you could not complain ... Could not. Butthis is _my_ impression; and yours is different:--you do notunderstand, you do not see by my light, and perhaps it is natural thatyou should not, as we stand on different steps of the argument. StillI, who said what I did, _for you_, and from an absorbing considerationof what was best _for you_, cannot consent, even out of anxiety foryour futurity, to torment you now, to vex you by a form of speechwhich you persist in translating into a want of trust in you ... (_I_, want trust in you!!) into a need of more evidence about you fromothers ... (_could_ you say so?) and even into an indisposition on mypart to fulfil my engagement--no, dearest dearest, it is not right ofyou. And therefore, as you have these thoughts reasonably orunreasonably, 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 thelittle fine chain twists round and round you? do you hear the strokeof the riveting? and you may _feel that_ too. Now, it is done--now, you are chained--_Bia_ has finished the work--I, _Ba_! (observe theanagram!) and not a word do you say, of Prometheus, though you havethe 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 nowyou believe, perhaps, that I trust you, love you, and look to you overthe heads of the whole living world, without any one head needing tostoop; you _must_, if you please, because you belong to me now andshall 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, ifnot whole said, to-day. If all men were to speak evil of you, my heartwould 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 ofthem could know you as I know you? Then for the rest, I am not afraidof 'toads' now, not being a child any longer. I am not inclined tomind, if _you_ do not mind, what may be said about us by thebenevolent world, nor will other reasons of a graver kind affect meotherwise than by the necessary pain. Therefore the whole rests withyou--unless illness should intervene--and you will be kind and good(will you not?) and not think hard thoughts of me ever again--no. Itwasn'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 mysisters have come up-stairs and I must close my letter quickly. Beloved, take care of your head! Ah, do not write poems, nor read, norneglect the walking, nor take that shower-bath. _Will_ you, instead, try the warm bathing? Surely the experiment is worth making for alittle 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 theplayful feelings were play--while the _fact_ has always been soirresistibly obvious as to make them _break_ on and off it, fantastically like water turning to spray and spurts of foam on agreat solid rock. _Now_ you call the rock, a rock, but you must haveknown what chance you had of pushing it down when you sent all thoselight fancies and free-leaves, and refusals-to-hold-responsible, to dowhat they could. It _is_ a rock; and may be quite barren of good toyou, --not large enough to build houses on, not small enough to make amantelpiece of, much less a pedestal for a statue, but it is realrock, that is all. It is always _I_ who 'torment' _you_--instead of taking the presentand blessing you, and leaving the future to its own cares. I certainlyam not apt to look curiously into what next week is to bring, muchless next month or six months, but you, the having you, my own, dearest beloved, _that_ is as different in kind as in degree from anyother happiness or semblance of it that even seemed possible ofrealization. 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 thosecircumstances, and should not have done so, but for theirinsignificance--for I knew that if you ever _did_ hear of them, allany body _would_ say would not amount to enough to be repeated to meand so get explained at once. Now that the purpose is gained, it seemslittle 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 filosofidell'antichità. ' He sets out by enlarging on the horror of it--thendescribes the character of Socrates, then tells the story of therepresentation of the 'Clouds, 'and thus gets to his 'symbol'--'lepazzie fatte spacciare a Socrate in quella commedia ... Il misero intanto scherno e derisione del pubblico, che perfino i vasaidipingevano il suo ritratto sopra gli orci, i fiaschi, i boccali, eogni vasellamento da più vile servigio. Così quel sommo filosofo ... Fu condotto a far di se par le case d'Atene una continua commedia, consolamente vederlo comparir così scontraffatto e ridicolo, come i vasaisel formavano d'invenzione'-- There you have what a very clever man can say in choice Tuscan on apassage in Ælian which he takes care not to quote nor allude to, butwhich is the sole authority for the fact. Ælian, speaking of Socrates'magnanimity, says that on the first representation, a good manyforeigners being present who were at a loss to know 'who could be thisSocrates'--the sage himself stood up that he might be pointed out tothem by the auditory at large ... 'which' says Ælian--'was nodifficulty for them, to whom his features were most familiar, --_thevery potters being in the habit of decorating their vessels with hislikeness_'--no doubt out of a pleasant and affectionate admiration. Yet see how 'people' can turn this out of its sense, --'say' their sayon 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 ourleave-taking? Bless you, my ever dearest, --remember to walk, to go down-stairs--andbe sure that I will endeavour to get well for my part. To-day I amvery 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 tobear the torments as Socrates his persecution by the potters:--and bythe way he liked those potters, as Plato shows, and was fain to go tothem 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 yourBartoli ... His 'choice Tuscan' filled one of my pages, in the placeof 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 theprodigalities of your goodness to me ... Not thrown away, in onesense, however superfluous. Do you ever think how I must feel when youovercome me with all this generous tenderness, only beloved! I cannotsay it. Because it is colder to-day I have not been down-stairs but letto-morrow be warm enough--_facilis descensus_. There's somethinginfernal to me really, in the going down, and now too that our cousinis 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 yourfather. And as to _him_, I don't blame you--he never will consent tothe marriage of son or daughter. Only you should consider, you know, because he won't leave you a shilling, &c. &c.... ' You hear the sortof 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 suchnonsense?' 'Oh, my authority is very good, --perfectly unnecessary foryou to tell any stories, Arabel, --a literary friendship, is it?' ... And so on ... After that fashion! This comes from my brothers ofcourse, 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 andhave been in cousinly anxiety ever since to get our Orestes safe awayfrom those Furies his creditors, into Brittany again. He is anintimate friend of my brothers besides the relationship, and they talkto him as to each other, only they oughtn't to have talked _that_, andwithout knowledge too. I forgot to tell you that Mr. Kenyon was in an immoderate joy the dayI 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, andtook 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 tohim for dinner at six. Who 'looked in at the door?' Nobody. But Arabel a little way openedit, and hearing your voice, went back. There was no harm--_is_ no fearof harm. Nobody in the house would find his or her pleasure in runningthe 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. Andkeep from that 'Soul's Tragedy' which did so much harm--oh, that I hadbound you by some Stygian oath not to touch it. So my rock ... May the birds drop into your crevices the seeds of allthe flowers of the world--only it is not for _those_, that I cling toyou 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 suchnames--I told you, did I not once? that 'Ba' had got to conveyinfinitely more of you to my sense than 'dearest, ' 'sweetest, ' all orany epithets that break down with their load of honey like bees--tosay you are 'kind, ' you that so entirely and unintermittingly blessme, --it will never do now, 'Ba. ' All the same, one way there is tomake even 'Ba' dearer, --'_my_ Ba, ' I say to myself! About my _fears_--whether of opening doors or entering people--onething is observable and prevents the possibility of anymisconception--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 theworld. Put your well-being out of the question, so far as I canunderstand it to be involved, --and the pleasure and pride I shouldimmediately choose would be that the whole world knew our position. What pleasure, what pride! But I endeavour to remember on alloccasions--and perhaps succeed in too few--that it is very easy for meto go away and leave you who cannot go. I only allude to this becausesome people are 'naturally nervous' and all that--and I am quite ofanother kind. Last evening I went out--having been kept at home in the afternoon tosee 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, youare perhaps making the perilous descent now, while I write--oh, tomeet 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 getto go between our days! For music, I made myself melancholy just nowwith some 'Concertos for the Harpsichord by Mr. Handel'--brought homeby my father the day before yesterday;--what were light, modern thingsonce! Now I read not very long ago a French memoir of 'Claude leJeune' called in his time the Prince of Musicians, --no, '_Phoenix_'--the unapproachable wonder to all time--that is, twentyyears after his death about--and to this pamphlet was prefixed asmotto this startling axiom--'In Music, the Beau Ideal changes everythirty years'--well, is not that _true_? The _Idea_, mind, changes--the general standard ... So that it is no answer that asingle air, such as many one knows, may strike as freshly asever--they were _not_ according to the Ideal of their own time--justnow, they drop into the ready ear, --next hundred years, who will bethe Rossini? who is no longer the Rossini even I remember--his earlyovertures are as purely Rococo as Cimarosa's or more. The soundsremain, keep their character perhaps--the scale's proportioned notesaffect the same, that is, --the major third, or minor seventh--but thearrangement of these, the sequence the law--for them, if it _should_change every thirty years! To Corelli nothing seemed so conclusive inHeaven or earth as this [Illustration: Music] I don't believe there is one of his sonatas wherein that formula doesnot do duty. In these things of Handel that seems replaced by [Illustration: Music] --that was the only true consummation! Then, --to go over the hundredyears, --came Rossini's unanswerable coda: [Illustration: Music] which serves as base to the infinity of songs, gone, gone--_so_ goneby! From all of which Ba draws _this_ 'conclusion' that these may beworse things than Bartoli's Tuscan to cover a page with!--yet, yet thepity of it! Le Jeune, the Phoenix, and Rossini who directed hisletters to his mother as 'mother of the famous composer'--and HenryLawes, and Dowland's Lute, ah me! Well, my conclusion is the best, the everlasting, here and I trustelsewhere--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 veryindifferent doings of yours. Dearest, I read your 'Soul's Tragedy'last night and was quite possessed with it, and fell finally into amute wonder how you could for a moment doubt about publishing it. Itis very vivid, I think, and vital, and impressed me more than thefirst act of 'Luria' did, though I do not mean to compare suchdissimilar things, and for pure nobleness 'Luria' isunapproachable--will prove so, it seems to me. But this 'Tragedy'shows more heat from the first, and then, the words beat down moreclosely ... Well! I am struck by it all as you see. If you keep it upto this passion, if you justify this high key-note, it is a greatwork, and worthy of a place next 'Luria. ' Also do observe howexcellently balanced the two will be, and how the tongue of this nextsilver Bell will swing from side to side. And _you_ to frighten meabout it. Yes, and the worst is (because it was stupid in me) theworst is that I half believed you and took the manuscript to besomething inferior--for _you_--and the adviseableness of itspublication, a doubtful case. And yet, after all, the really worst is, that you should prove yourself such an adept at deceiving! For can itbe possible that the same 'Robert Browning' who (I heard the other day) said once that he could 'wait threehundred years, ' should not feel the life of centuries in this worktoo--can it be? Why all the pulses of the life of it are beating ineven _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 tovisit people to whom your being unwell falls in at best among thesecondary evils!--makes me discontented--which is one shade more tothe uneasiness I feel. Will you take care, and not give away your lifeto these people? Because I have a better claim than they ... And shallput it in, if provoked ... _shall_. Then you will not use theshower-bath again--you promise? I dare say Mr. Kenyon observedyesterday how unwell you were looking--tell me if he didn't! Now donot work, dearest! Do not think of Chiappino, leave him behind ... Hehas a good strong life of his own, and can wait for you. Oh--but letme remember to say of him, that he and the other personages appear tome to articulate with perfect distinctness and clearness ... You neednot be afraid of having been obscure in this first part. It is all aslucid 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 sunbrightens and brightens, and the wind has gone round to the west. George had come home yesterday before you left me, but the stars werefavourable to us and kept him out of this room. Now he is atWorcester--went this morning, on those never ending 'rounds, ' poorfellow, 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 theage, modifying itself after a fashion and _to_ one? Because it changesmore, perhaps. Yet all the Arts are mediators between the soul and theInfinite, ... Shifting always like a mist, between the Breath on thisside, and the Light on that side ... Shifted and coloured; mediators, messengers, projected from the Soul, to go and feel, for Her, _outthere_! 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 notin 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 payyou. 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, notat first--nor, indeed, at last, --but as it is, sitting alone, onlywords can be spoken, or (worse) written, and, oh how different to lookinto 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 imaginewho looks above me, looks down, understanding and pardoning all! Mylove, my Ba, the fault you found once with some expressions of mineabout the amount of imperishable pleasures already hoarded in my mind, the indestructible memories of you; that fault, which I refused toacquiesce under the imputation of, at first, you remember--well, _what_ a fault it was, by this better light! If all stopped here andnow; 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 dieyours. And you are doing your utmost to advance the event ofevents, --the exercise, and consequently (is it not?) necessarilyimproved sleep, and the projects for the fine days, the walking ... Apure bliss to think of! Well, now--I think I shall show seamanship ofa sort, and 'try another tack'--do not be over bold, my sweetest; thecold _is_ considerable, --taken into account the previous mildness. Oneill-advised (I, the _adviser_, I should remember!) too early, or toolate descent to the drawing-room, and all might be ruined, --thrownback so far ... Seeing that our flight is to be prayed for 'not in thewinter'--and one would be called on to wait, wait--in this world wherenothing waits, rests, as can be counted on. Now think of this, too, dearest, and never mind the slowness, for the sureness' sake! Howperfectly happy I am as you stand by me, as yesterday you stood, asyou seem to stand now! I will write to-morrow more: I came home last night with a head ratherworse; which in the event was the better, for I took a little medicineand all is very much improved to-day. I shall go out presently, andreturn very early and take as much care as is proper--for I thought ofBa, and the sublimities of Duty, and that gave myself airs ofimportance, in short, as I looked at my mother's inevitable arrow-rootthis morning. So now I am well; so now, is dearest Ba well? I shallhear to-night ... Which will have its due effect, that circumstance, in quickening my retreat from Forster's Rooms. All was very pleasantlast evening--and your letter &c. Went _à qui de droit_, and Mr. W. _Junior_ had to smile good-naturedly when Mr. Burges began laying downthis general law, that the sons of all men of genius were poorcreatures--and Chorley and I exchanged glances after the fashion oftwo 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 awooing'!--no, a dinner--my wooing ends never, never; and so prepareto 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, mydearest, 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 minutesearlier, when you never ought to have left home--no, indeed! I knewhow 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 lightsand talk and listen, and have the knives and forks to rattle all thewhile 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 hadquite gone. You would laugh to see me at my dinner--Flush andme--Flush placing in me such an heroic confidence, that, after he hascast one discriminating glance on the plate, and, in the case of'chicken, ' wagged his tail with an emphasis, ... He goes off to thesofa, shuts his eyes and allows a full quarter of an hour to passbefore he returns to take his share. Did you ever hear of a dog beforewho did not persecute one with beseeching eyes at mealtimes? Andremember, this is not the effect of _discipline_. Also if another thanmyself happens to take coffee or break bread in the room here, heteazes straightway with eyes and paws, ... Teazes like a common dogand is put out of the door before he can be quieted by scolding. Butwith _me_ he is sublime! Moreover he has been a very useful dog in histime (in the point of capacity), causing to disappear supererogatorydinners and impossible breakfasts which, to do him justice, is a feataccomplished 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, asto fancy that I _could say how_ it is felt ... This letter! Only whenyou spoke last of breaking off with such and such recollections, itwas the melancholy of the breaking off which I protested against, wasit not? and _not_ the insufficiency of the recollections. There mighthave been something besides in jest. Ah, but _you_ remember, if youplease, that _I_ was the first to wish (wishing for my own part, if Icould wish exclusively) to break off in the middle the silken thread, and you told me, not--you forbade me--do you remember? For, ashappiness goes, the recollections were enough, ... _are_ enough for_me_! I mean that I should acknowledge them to be full compensationfor the bitter gift of life, _such as it was_, to me! if thatsubject-matter were broken off here! 'Bona verba' let me speaknevertheless. You mean, you say, to run all risks with me, and I don'tmean to draw back from my particular risk of ... What am I to do toyou hereafter to make you vexed with me? What is there in marriage tomake 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 silkenmask ... And virtually hate one another through the tyranny of thestronger and the hypocrisy of the weaker party. It never could be sowith _us_--_I know that_. But you grow awful to me sometimes with thevery excess of your goodness and tenderness, and still, I think tomyself, if you do not keep lifting me up quite off the ground by thestrong faculty of love in you, I shall not help falling short of thehope you have placed in me--it must be 'supernatural' of you, to theend! or I fall short and disappoint you. Consider this, beloved. Nowif I could put my soul out of my body, just to stand up before youand make it clear. I did go to the drawing-room to-day ... Would ... Should ... Did. Thesun came out, the wind changed ... Where was the obstacle? I spent aquarter of an hour in a fearful solitude, listening for knocks at thedoor, as a ghost-fearer might at midnight, and 'came home' none theworse 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! Ifsome 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 _onlythose_ ... 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 threegood hours than the night before--and to find _no_ letter, --none ofyours! _That_ was reserved for this morning early, and then a restcame, a silence, over the thoughts of you--and now again, comes thislast 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 veryunfit that you should thus punish yourself, and that, sinning by yourown 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 risethe 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, thequalities I have _known_ (for you will stop me, if I do not stopmyself) what I have evidence of in every letter, in every word, everylook. Keeping these, if it be God's will that the body passes, --whatis that? Write no new letters, speak no new words, look no newlooks, --only tell me, years hence that the present is alive, that whatwas once, still is--and I am, must needs be, blessed as ever! Youspeak 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 tosee somewhere or other--where bdellium is found, the onyx-stone may belooked 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 tofind! But what is that to you? I _offer_ for the _bdellium_--the othermay 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 mustforgive half-sheets, instead of a whole celestial quire to my love andpraise. Are you so well? So adventurous? Thank you from my heart ofhearts. And I am quite well to-day (and have received a note fromProcter _just_ this _minute_ putting off his dinner on account of thedeath of his wife's sister's husband abroad). Observe _this_ sheet Itake as I find--I mean, that the tear tells of no improper speechrepented of--what English, what sense, what a soul's tragedy! butthen, what real, realest love and more than love for my ever dearestBa 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 mistakeabout onyxes--there is more true onyx in this letter of his that Ihave 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 yellowmetal sparks found in the Malvern Hills, and how we used to laughyears ago at one of our geological acquaintances, who lookedmole-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 thePennyless_? Dearest, best you are nevertheless, and it is a sorry jest which I canbreak upon your poverty, with that golden heart of yours soapprehended of mine! Why if I am 'ambitious'--is it not because youlove me as if I were worthier of your love, and that, _so_, I getfrightened of the opening of your eyelids to the _un_worthiness? 'Alittle sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands tosleep'--_there_, is my 'ambition for afterward. ' Oh--you do notunderstand how with an unspeakable wonder, an astonishment which keepsme from drawing breath, I look to this Dream, and 'see your face asthe face of an angel, ' and fear for the vanishing, ... Because dreamsand angels _do_ pass away in this world. But _you_, _I_ understand_you_, and all your goodness past expression, past belief of mine, ifI had not known you ... Just _you_. If it will satisfy you that Ishould know you, love you, love you--why then indeed--because I neverbowed 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 couldmake you stand higher. Yet you shall not call me 'ambitious. ' To-day I went down-stairs again, and wished to know whether you werewalking 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 lasttime! 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 howMr. Burges's 'apt remark' did amuse me. And Mr. Kenyon who said muchthe same words to me last week in relation to this very Wordsworthjunior, writhed, I am sure, and wished the ingenious observer with thelost plays of Æschylus--oh, I seem to see Mr. Kenyon's face! He was tohave come to tell me how you all behaved at dinner that day, but hekeeps 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 endin respect to the theatre, and (I must tell you) she praises himwarmly for his philosophy and fortitude under the disappointment. Howmuch philosophy does it take, --please to instruct me, --in order to thedecent bearing of such disasters? Can I fancy one, shorter than you bya 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, Isend and send in vain to have more envelopes 'after my kind, ' and thelast answer is, that a 'fresh supply will arrive in eight days fromParis, and that in the meanwhile they are quite _out_ in the article. 'An awful sign of the times, is this famine of envelopes ... Not tospeak of the scarcity of little sheets:--and the augurs look to it allof 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, whichyou sent me! I thank you for it with ever so much dumbness. May Godbless 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 isnine points of it! Just because your infinite adroitness got firsthold 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 isoftenest in my thought; whereas the dear, miraculous dream _you_ were, and are, my Ba! Only, _vanish_--_that_ you will never! My own, and forever! 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 tobe instructed in the new age of gold! I _heard_ two days ago preciselywhat I told you--that there was a quarrel, &c. Which this service wasto smooth over, no doubt. Chorley told me, in a hasty word only, thatall 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 Chorleywas certainly forewarned, forearmed I will hope him to have beenlikewise--still it is very disappointing--he was apparently nearerthan most aspirants to the prize, --having the best will of theactresses on whose shoulder the burthen was to lie. I hope they havebeen quite honest with him--knowing as I do the easy process oftransferring all sorts of burthens, in that theatrical world, fromresponsible to irresponsible members of it, actors to manager, managerto actors, as the case requires. And it is a 'hope deferred' withChorley; not for the second or third time. I am very glad that hecares no more than you tell me. Still you go down-stairs, and still return safely, and every stepleads us nearer to _my_ 'hope. ' How unremittingly you bless me--avisit promises a letter, a letter brings such news, crowns me withsuch words, and speaks of another visit--and so the golden linksextend. Dearest words, dearest letters--as I add each to my heap, Isay--I _do_ say--'I was _poor_, it now seems, a minute ago, when I hadnot _this_!' Bless you, dear, dear Ba. On Saturday I shall be withyou, 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 shouldforget it afterward, of the two or three words which you saidyesterday and so passingly that you probably forget to-day having saidthem at all. We were speaking of Mr. Chorley and his house, and yousaid that you did not care for such and such things for yourself, butthat for others--now you remember the rest. And I just want to saywhat it would have been simpler to have said at the time--only not soeasy--(I _couldn't_ say it at the time) that you are not if you pleaseto fancy that because I am a woman I have not the pretension to dowith as little in any way as you yourself ... No, it is not _that_ Imean 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 wishnor regret in your thoughts to be able or not to be able to care thisand this for _me_; for while you are thinking so, our thoughts godifferent ways, which is wrong. Mr. Fox did me a great deal too muchhonour in calling me 'a religious hermit'; he was 'curiously' infault, as you saw. It is not my vocation to sit on a stone in acave--I was always too fond of lolling upon sofas or in chairs nearlyas large, --and this, which I sit in, was given to me when I was achild by my uncle, the uncle I spoke of to you once, and has beenlolled 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, asa habit, and I do believe that it is the 'head and foot of myoffending' in that matter. Yes--'confiteor tibi' besides, that I dohate white dimity curtains, which is highly improper for a religioushermit of course, but excusable in _me_ who would accept brown sergeas a substitute with ever so much indifference. It is the white lightwhich comes in the dimity which is so hateful to me. To 'go mad inwhite dimity' seems perfectly natural, and consequential even. Setaside these foibles, and one thing is as good as another with me, andthe more simplicity in the way of living, the better. If I saw Mr. Chorley's satin sofas and gilded ceilings I should call them verypretty I dare say, but never covet the possession of the like--itwould never enter my mind to do so. Then Papa has not kept a carriagesince I have been grown up (they grumble about it here in the house, but when people have once had great reverses they get nervous aboutspending money) so I shall not miss the Clarence and greys ... And Ido entreat you _not_ to put those two ideas together again of _me_ andthe finery which has nothing to do with me. I have talked a great dealtoo much of all this, you will think, but I want you, once for all, toapply it broadly to the whole of the future both in the general viewand the details, so that we need not return to the subject. Judge forme as for yourself--_what is good for you is good for me_. Otherwise Ishall 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--twogreat events! He was in brilliant spirits and sate talking ever solong, and named you as he always does. Something he asked, and thensaid suddenly ... 'But I don't see why I should ask _you_, when Iought to know him better than you can. ' On which I was wise enough tochange colour, as I felt, to the roots of my hair. There is theeffect of a bad conscience! and it has happened to me before, with Mr. Kenyon, three times--once particularly, when I could have cried withvexation (to complete the effects!), he looked at me with suchinfinite surprise in a dead pause of any speaking. _That_ was in thesummer; 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 theblue lilies. ) He asked of 'Saul' and whether it would be finished inthe new number. He hangs on the music of your David. Did you read inthe _Athenæum_ how Jules Janin--no, how the critic on Jules Janin (wasit the critic? was it Jules Janin? the glorious confusion is gainingon me I think) has magnificently confounded places and persons inRobert Southey's urn by the Adriatic and devoted friendship for LordByron? And immediately the English observer of the phenomenon, aftermoralizing a little on the crass ignorance of Frenchmen in respect toour literature, goes on to write like an ignoramus himself, on Mme. Charles Reybaud, encouraging that pure budding novelist, who is infact a hack writer of romances third and fourth rate, of questionablepurity enough, too. It does certainly appear wonderful that we shouldnot sufficiently stand abreast here in Europe, to justify andnecessitate the establishment of an European review--journalrather--(the 'Foreign Review, ' so called, touching only the summits ofthe hills) a journal which might be on a level with the intelligentreaders of all the countries of Europe, and take all the risingreputations of each, with the national light on them as they rise, into observation and judgment. If nobody can do this, it is a pity Ithink to do so much less--both in France and England--to snatch up aFrench book from over the Channel as ever and anon they do in the_Athenæum_, and say something prodigiously absurd of it, till peoplecry 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 allthe evening how you said that you would come 'to see a candle held upat the window. ' Well! but I do not mean to love you any more justnow--so I tell you plainly. Certainly I will not. I love you alreadytoo much perhaps. I feel like the turning Dervishes turning in the sunwhen 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 willtell 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--thespeaker had _tried_ words, and if they fail, hereafter he needs notreflect 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 widewondering gratitude and veneration, I press close to you to say so, inthis imperfect way, my dear dearest beloved! Why do you not help me, rather than take my words, my proper word, from me and call themyours, when yours they are not? You said lately love of you 'made youhumble'--just as if to hinder _me_ from saying that earnesttruth!--entirely true it is, as I feel ever more convincingly. You donot choose to understand it should be so, nor do I much care, for theone thing you must believe, must resolve to believe in its length andbreadth, 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_ bythis that it is no shadowy image of you and _not_ you, which havingattached myself to in the first instance, I afterward compelled myfancy to see reproduced, so to speak, with tolerable exactness to theoriginal 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, formy part, know _now_, while fresh from seeing you, certainly _know_, whatever I may have said a short time since, that _you_ will go on tothe end, that the arm round me will not let me go, --over such a blindabyss--I refuse to think, to fancy, _towards_ what it would be toloose you now! So I give my life, my soul into your hand--the givingis a mere form too, it is yours, ever yours from the first--but everas I see you, sit with you, and come away to think over it all, I findmore that seems mine to give; you give me more life and it goes backto you. I shall hear from you to-morrow--then, I will go out early and getdone 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, thesemerest attempts at getting to talk with you through the distance--yetalways with the consolation of feeling that you will know all, interpret all and forgive it and put it right--can such things becared for, expected, as you say? Then, Ba, my life _must_ be better... With the closeness to help, and the 'finding out the way' forwhich love was always noted. If you begin making in fancy a lover toyour mind, I am lost at once--but the one quality of _affection_ foryou, which would sooner or later have to be placed on his list ofcomponent graces; _that_ I will dare start supply--the entire love youcould dream of _is_ here. You think you see some of the otheradornments, and only too many; and you will see plainer one day, butwith that I do not concern myself--you shall admire the trueheroes--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 alight 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 knowyou, my own sweetest! For me, if I had set those matters to heart, Ishould have turned into the obvious way of getting them--not _out_ ofit, as I did resolutely from the beginning. All I meant was, toexpress a very natural feeling--if one could give you diamonds forflowers, and if you liked diamonds, --then, indeed! As it is, whereverwe are found shall be, if you please, 'For the love's sake foundtherein--sweetest _house_ was ever seen!' Mr. Kenyon must be merciful. Lilies are of all colours inPalestine--one sort is particularized as _white_ with a dark blue spotand 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 theynot, when _you_ think all will go well in the end, when you write tome that you go down-stairs and are stronger--and when the rest iswritten? Not more now, dearest, for time is pressing, but you will answerthis, --the love that is not here, --not the idle words, and I willreply 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 besome masculine ones 'rari nantes, ' I fancy, (though we may not findthem in unquestionable authorities like your Ælian!) to justify thisvoice I hear. Ah, how you speak, with that pretension, too, todumbness! 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 theSistine Chapel, keep the piercing danger from their ears? Being tiedup a good deal tighter than Ulysses did not save _me_. Dearestdearest: I laugh, you see, as usual, not to cry! But deep down, deeperthan the Sirens go, deep underneath the tides, _there_, I bless andlove you with the voice that makes no sound. Other human creatures (how often I do think it to myself!) have theirgood things scattered over their lives, sown here and sown there, downthe slopes, and by the waysides. But with me ... I have mine allpoured down on one spot in the midst of the sands!--if you knew what Ifeel at moments, and at half-hours, when I give myself up to thefeeling freely and take no thought of red eyes. A woman once waskilled with gifts, crushed with the weight of golden bracelets thrownat her: and, knowing myself, I have wondered more than a little, howit was that I could _bear_ this strange and unused gladness, withoutsinking as the emotion rose. Only I was incredulous at first, and theday broke slowly ... And the gifts fell like the rain ... Softly; andGod gives strength, by His providence, for sustaining blessings aswell as stripes. Dearest-- For the rest I understand you perfectly--perfectly. It was simply toyour _thoughts_, that I replied ... And that you need not say toyourself any more, as you did once to me when you brought me flowers, that you wished they were diamonds. It was simply to prevent theaccident of such a _thought_, that I spoke out mine. You would notwish accidentally that you had a double-barrelled gun to give me, or acardinal's hat, or a snuff box, and I meant to say that you _might aswell_--as diamonds and satin sofas à la Chorley. Thoughts aresomething, and _your_ thoughts are something more. To be sure theyare! You are better you say, which makes me happy of course. And you willnot make the 'better' worse again by doing wrong things--_that_ is mypetition. It was the excess of goodness to write those two letters forme 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 (formy 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 endwell?' Was _that_ in the dream, when we two met on the stairs? I didnot really say so I think. And 'well' is how you understand it. If youjump out of the window you succeed in getting to the ground, somehow, dead or alive ... But whether _that_ means 'ending well, ' depends onyour way of considering matters. I am seriously of opinionnevertheless, that if 'the arm, ' you talk of, _drops_, it will not befor weariness nor even for weakness, but because it is cut off at theshoulder. _I_ will not fail to you, --may God so deal with me, so blessme, 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 wouldsay ... But I do not think it 'too well' myself, ... Knowing _you_. Your BA. Here is a gossip which Mr. Kenyon brought me on Sunday--disbelievingit himself, he asseverated, though Lady Chantrey said it 'withauthority, '--that Mr. Harness had offered his hand heart andecclesiastical dignities to Miss Burdett Coutts. It is Lady Chantrey'sand Mr. Kenyon's _secret_, remember. And ... Will you tell me? How can a man spend four or five successivemonths on the sea, most cheaply--at the least pecuniary expense, Imean? Because Miss Mitford's friend Mr. Buckingham is ordered by hismedical adviser to complete his cure by these means; and he is notrich. Could he go with sufficient comfort by a merchant's vessel tothe Mediterranean ... And might he drift about among the Greekislands? _R. B. To E. B. B. _ Tuesday. 'Out of window' would be well, as I see the leap, if it ended (_so faras I am concerned_) in the worst way imaginable--I would I 'run therisk' (Ba's other word) rationally, deliberately, --knowing what theordinary law of chances in this world justifies in such a case; and ifthe result after all _was_ unfortunate, it would be far easier toundergo the extremest penalty with so little to reproach myselffor, --than to put aside the adventure, --waive the wondrous probabilityof such best fortune, in a fear of the barest possibility of anadverse event, and so go to my grave, Walter the Penniless, with aneternal recollection that Miss Burdett Coutts once offered to wagersundry millions with me that she could throw double-sixes a dozentimes running--which wager I wisely refused to accept because it wasnot written in the stars that such a sequence might never be. I hadrather, rather a thousand-fold lose my paltry stake, and be the onerecorded victim to such an unexampled unluckiness that half a dozenmad comets, suns gone wrong, and lunatic moons must have comelaboriously 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, andhappiness with you, runs over and froths if it don'tsparkle--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 changealtogether my dear, dearest love, and I will be happy to the lastminute 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 bedifferent, sadly different--But saying what you do say, promising 'thestrength of arm'--do not wonder that I call it an assurance of allbeing 'well'! All is _best_, as you promise--dear, darling Ba!--and Isay, 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 solelyfit for me, fit by position--are not you my 'mistress?' Come, somegood out of those old conventions, in which you lost faith after theBower's disappearance, (it was carried by the singing angels, like thehouse at Loretto, to the Siren's isle where we shall find it preservedin a beauty 'very rare and absolute')--is it not right you should bemy Lady, my Queen? and you are, and ever must be, dear Ba. Because Iam 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 Godbless you-- Ever your own, R. It would be easy for Mr. Buckingham to find a Merchant-ship bound forsome Mediterranean port, after a week or two in harbour, to anotherand 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, andsoon get deep into their friendship, but another has other ways ofviewing matters. No one article provided by the ship in the way ofprovisions can anybody touch. Mr. B. Must lay in his own stock, andthe horrors of dirt and men's ministry are portentous, yet by a littlearrangement beforehand much might be done. Still, I only know my ownpowers of endurance, and counsel nobody to gain my experience. On theother 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 anyother imaginable way, --except Balloon-travelling. Do you think they meant Landor's 'Count Julian'--the 'subject of histragedy' sure enough, --and that _he_ was the friend of Southey? So itstruck 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 Ithrow the double sixes, and if you, on [_some sun-shiny_ day, (a daytoo late to help yourself) stand face to face with a milkwhiteunicorn. ][1] Ah--do not be angry. It is ungrateful of me to writeso--I put a line through it to prove I have a conscience after all. Iknow that you love me, and I know it so well that I was reproachingmyself severely not long ago, for seeming to love your love more thanyou. 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 yourgood 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 youup for your good'--_but_ when I pressed upon myself the questionwhether (if I had the power) I would consent to make you willing to begiven up, by throwing away your love into the river, in a ring likeCharlemagne's, ... Why I found directly that I would throw myselfthere sooner. I could not do it in fact--I shrank from the test. Avery pitiful virtue of generosity, is your Ba's! Still, it is notpossible, 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 yetthe steamers will be found expensive beyond his means. Thesugar-vessels, which I hear most about, give out an insufferable smelland 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 thatthose Parisians should know anything of Landor, even by a mistake. Doyou not suppose that the play is founded (confounded) on Shelley'spoem, as the French use materials ... By distraction, into confusion?The 'urn by the Adriatic' (which all the French know how to turnupside down) fixes the reference to Shelley--does it not? Not a word of the head--what does _that_ mean, I wonder. I have notbeen 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 mylast word till Thursday's first. A fine queen you have, by the way!--aqueen Log, whom you had better leave in the bushes! Witness ourhand.... 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, throwambs-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 theunicorn and grieve proportionately, do you mean to say you are notgoing to grieve too, for my sake? And if so--why, _you_ clearly runexactly the same risk, --_must_, --unless you mean to rejoice in mysorrow! 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 asecond or two? You write 'Let us talk on Thursday ... Monday Iforgot'--which I read, --'no, not on Thursday--I had forgotten! It isto 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 reliefcame. So till to-morrow--my all-beloved! Bless you. I am rather hazy in thehead as Archer Gurney will find in due season--(he comes, I toldyou)--but all the morning I have been going for once and for everthrough the 'Tragedy, ' and it is _done_--(done _for_). Perhaps I maybring it to-morrow--if my sister can copy all; I cut out a huge kindof sermon from the middle and reserve it for a better time--still itis very long; so long! So, if I ask, may I have 'Luria' back tomorrow? So shall printing begin, and headache end--and 'no more forthe 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 havebeen here talking, talking ... And I did not like to say exactly 'Goaway that I may write. ' Mr. Kenyon shortened our time yesterday too bya whole half-hour or three quarters--the stars are against us. He iscoming on Sunday, however, he says, and if so, Monday will be safe andclear--and not a word was said after you went, about you: he was in agood joyous humour, as you saw, and the letter he brought was, oh! socomplimentary to me--I will tell you. The writer doesn't see anything'in Browning and Turner, ' she confesses--'_may_ perhaps with time andstudy, ' but for the present sees nothing, --only has wide-open eyes ofadmiration for E. B. B. ... Now isn't it satisfactory to _me_? Do youunderstand the full satisfaction of just that sort of thing ... To bepraised by somebody who sees nothing in Shakespeare?--to be found onthe 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 godlikesimplicity ('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 toplay with, should I have a right to talk proudly of 'my stakes?' andwould any reasonable person say of both of us playing together aspartners, 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 andnoir into 'one red' of glorious confusion. What had I to lose on thepoint of happiness when you knew me first?--and if now I lose (as Icertainly may according to your calculation) the happiness you havegiven me, why still I am your debtor for _the gift_ ... Now see! Yetto bring you down into my ashes ... _that_ has been so intolerable apossibility to me from the first. Well, perhaps I run _more_ risk thanyou, under that one aspect. Certainly I never should forgive myselfagain if you were unhappy. 'What had _I_ to do, ' I should think, 'withtouching your life?' And if ever I am to think so, I would rather thatI never had known you, seen your face, heard your voice--which is theuttermost sacrifice and abnegation. I could not say or sacrifice anymore--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 theheadache worse than ever, through the agreement with Moxon. I do, dobeseech you to spare yourself, and let 'Luria' go as he is, and aboveall things not to care for my infinite foolishnesses as you see themin those notes. Remember that if you are ill, it is not so easy tosay, 'Now I will be well again. ' Ever dearest, care for me inyourself--say how you are.... I am not unwell to-day, but feel flaggedand weak rather with the cold ... And look at your flowers for courageand 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 thankhim for his dedication. Just now I have the book. As to Mr. Buckingham, he will go, Constantinople and back, before we talk ofhim. _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 intown this morning--(having to go to Milnes' breakfast there)--so asnot to find the note I venture to expect, in time for an answer by ourlast post to-night. But I will try--this only is a precaution againstthe possibility. Dear, dear Ba! I cannot thank you, know not how tothank you for the notes! I adopt every one, of course, not as Ba'snotes but as Miss Barrett's, not as Miss Barrett's but as anybody's, everybody's--such incontestable improvements they suggest. When shallI 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 onMonday I am to be with Moxon early, you know--and no letters arrivebefore 11-1/2 or 12. I was not very well yesterday, but to-day am muchbetter--and you, --I say how _I_ am precisely to have a double right toknow _all_ about you, dearest, in this snow and cold! How do you bearit? And Mr. K. Spoke of '_that_ being your worst day. ' Oh, deardearest Ba, remember how I live in you--on the hopes, with the memoryof 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 theyought with the feathers I give them, and how you did not receive lastnight, nor even early this morning, what left me at two o'clockyesterday. But I understand _now_ the not hearing from you--you werenot well. Not well, not well ... _that_ is always 'happening' atleast. And Mr. Moxon, who is to have his first sheet, whether you arewell or ill! It is wrong ... Yes, very wrong--and if one point ofwrongness is touched, we shall not easily get right again--as I thinkmournfully, feeling confident (call me Cassandra, but I cannot jestabout it) feeling certain that it will end (the means being sopersisted in) by some serious illness--serious sorrow, --on yours andmy part. As to Monday, Mr. Kenyon said he would come again on Sunday--in whichcase, Monday will be clear. If he should not come on Sunday, he willor may on Monday, --yet--oh, in every case, perhaps you can come onMonday--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 theday. For myself I am well enough, and the wind has changed, which willmake me better--this cold weather oppresses and weakens me, but it isclose 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, norEBB's--because of the carelessness. If I had known, moreover, that youwere going to Moxon's on Monday, they should have gone to the firerather 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 notwell, and you _must never_ write when you are not well. But if you hadbeen quite well, should I have heard?--_I doubt it_. You meant me tohear from you only once, from Thursday to Monday. Is it not the truthnow that you hate writing to me? The _Athenæum_ takes up the 'Tales from Boccaccio' as if they wereworth it, and imputes in an underground way the authorship to themembers of the 'coterie' so called--do you observe _that_? There is animplication 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 ofthe song-writers! The perfection of commonplace it seems to me. Itmight 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 tillSunday unless I am more fortunate than usual. On Monday then! And noword before? No--I shall be sure not to hear to-night. Now do try notto suffer through 'Luria. ' Let Mr. Moxon wait a week rather. There istime 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_ hatewriting? See when presently I _only_ write to you daily, hourly if youlet me? Just this _now_--I will be with you to-morrow in any case--Ican go away _at once_, if need be, or stay--if you like you can stopme by sending a note for me _to Moxon's before_ 10 o'clock--ifanything 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 worsethan I thought--it is a pure exercise of _cleverness_, even where mostsuccessful; clever attempted reproduction of what was conceived byanother faculty, and foolishly let pass away. If I go on, even hurrythe more to get on, with the printing, --it is to throw out and awayfrom me the irritating obstruction once and forever. I have correctedit, cut it down, and it may stand and pledge me to doing betterhereafter. I say, too, in excuse to myself, _unlike_ the woman at herspinning-wheel, 'He thought of his _flax_ on the whole far more thanof his singing'--more of his life's sustainment, of dear, dear Ba hehates writing to, than of these wooden figures--no wonder all is as itis? Here is a pure piece of the old Chorley leaven for you, just as itreappears ever and anon and throws one back on the mistrust all butabandoned! Chorley _knows_ I have not seen that Powell for nearlyfifteen months--that I never heard of the book till it reached me in ablank cover--that I never contributed a line or word to it directly orindirectly--and I should think he _also knows_ that all the shamlearning, notes &c. , all that saves the book from the deepest deep ofcontempt, was contributed by Heraud (_a regular critic in the'Athenæum'_), who received his pay for the same: he knows I neverspoke in my life to 'Jones or Stephens'--that there is no 'coterie' ofwhich I can, by any extension of the word, form a part--that I am inthis case at the mercy of a wretched creature who to get into myfavour again (to speak the plain truth) put in the gross, disgustingflattery in the notes--yet Chorley, knowing this, none so well, andwhat the writer's end is--(to have it supposed I, and the othersnamed--Talfourd, for instance--ARE his friends and helpers)--hecondescends to _further_ it by such a notice, written with thatobservable and characteristic duplicity, that to poor gross stupidPowell 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 hisreaders, a few depreciatory epithets--slight sneers convey his realsentiments, he trusts! And this he does, just because Powell buys anarticle of him once a quarter and would _expect_ notice. I think Ihear Chorley--'You know, I _cannot_ praise such a book--it _is_ toobad'--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 foolishnotice without believing as he and Powell desire! Bless you, my ownBa--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 themnor praising them till they were put away, and yourself gone away--and_that_ was _your_ fault, be it remembered, because you began to tellme of the good news from Moxon's, and, in the joy of it, I missed theflowers ... For the nonce, you know. Afterward they had their due, andall the more that you were not there. My first business when you areout of the room and the house, and the street perhaps, is to arrangethe flowers and to gather out of them all the thoughts you leavebetween the leaves and at the end of the stalks. And shall I tell youwhat happened, not yesterday, but the Thursday before? no, it was theFriday morning, when I found, or rather Wilson found and held up frommy chair, a bunch of dead blue violets. Quite dead they seemed! Youhad dropped them and I had sate on them, and where we murdered themthey had lain, poor things, all the night through. And Wilson thoughtit the vainest of labours when she saw me set about reviving them, cutting the stalks afresh, and dipping them head and ears intowater--but then she did not know how you, and I, and ours, live undera miraculous dispensation, and could only simply be astonished whenthey took to blowing again as if they never had wanted the dew of thegarden, ... Yes, and when at last they outlived all the prosperity ofthe contemporary white violets which flourished in water from thebeginning, and were free from the disadvantage of having been sateupon. Now you shall thank me for this letter, it is at once so amusingand instructive. After all, too, it teaches you what the great eventsof my life are, not that the resuscitation of your violets would notreally 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 mylife!--and what remains? The only greenness I used to have (before youbrought your flowers) was as the grass growing in deserted streets, ... Which brings a proof, in every increase, of the extendingdesolation. Dearest, I persist in thinking that you ought not to be too disdainfulto explain your meaning in the Pomegranates. Surely you might say in aword or two that, your title having been doubted about (to yoursurprise, you _might_ say!), you refer the doubters to the Jewishpriest's robe, and the Rabbinical gloss ... For I suppose it is agloss on the robe ... Do you not think so? Consider that Mr. Kenyonand I may fairly represent the average intelligence of yourreaders, --and that _he_ was altogether in the clouds as to yourmeaning ... Had not the most distant notion of it, --while I, takinghold of the priest's garment, missed the Rabbins and the distinctivesignificance, as completely as he did. Then for Vasari, it is not thehandbook of the whole world, however it may be Mrs. Jameson's. Now whyshould you be too proud to teach such persons as only desire to betaught? I persist--I shall teaze you. This morning my brothers have been saying ... 'Ah you had Mr. Browningwith you yesterday, I see by the flowers, ' ... Just as if they said 'Isee queen Mab has been with you. ' Then Stormie took the opportunity ofswearing to me by all his gods that your name was mentioned lately inthe House of Commons--_is_ that true? or untrue? He forgot to tell meat the time, he says, --and you were named with others and in relationto copyright matters. _Is_ it true? Mr. Hornblower Gill is the author of a Hymn to Passion week, and wroteto me as the 'glorifier of pain!' to remind me that the best glory ofa soul is shown in the joy of it, and that all chief poets exceptDante have seen, felt, and written it so. Thus and therefore wasmatured his purpose of writing an 'ode to joy, ' as I told you. The manseems to have very good thoughts, ... But he writes like a colderCowley still ... No impulse, no heat for fusing ... No inspiration, infact. Though I have scarcely done more than glance at his 'Passionweek, ' and have little right to give an opinion. If you have killed Luria as you helped to kill my violets, what shallI say, do you fancy? Well--we shall see! Do not kill yourself, beloved, in any case! The [Greek: iostephanoi Mousai] had better diethemselves first! Ah--what am I writing? What nonsense? I mean, indeep earnest, the deepest, that you should take care and exercise, andnot 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 fromavowing? If I never had you before me except when writing letters toyou--then! Why, we do not even _talk_ much now! witness Mr. Buckinghamand his voyage that ought to have been discussed!--Oh, how coldly Ishould write, --how the bleak-looking paper would seem unpropitious tocarry 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 thewalking my head aches--and I have the conviction that presently when Iresign myself to think of you wholly, with only the pretext, --themake-believe of occupation, in the shape of some book to turn over theleaves 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 byupholsterers--with an emphasized o)--which occupies the precise place, stands just in the same relation to this chair I sit on now, thatyours 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! Doyou think the kindness has missed its due effect? _No, no_, I amglad, --(_knowing what I_ now _know_, --what you meant _should be_, anddid all in your power to prevent) that I have _not_ received thepicture, 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 willwrite a longer letter--the clock stops it this afternoon--it is laterthan I thought, and our poor crazy post! This morning, hoping againsthope, 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 mosthypothetical state of the conscience? And in brief, I beg you tostand convinced of one thing, that whenever the 'certain time' comesfor to 'hate writing to me' confessedly, 'avowedly, ' (oh what words!)_I shall not like it at all_--not for all the explanations ... And thesights in gondola chairs, which the person seen is none the betterfor! The [Greek: eidôlon] sits by the fire--the real Ba is cold atheart through wanting her letter. And that's the doctrine to bepreached now, ... Is it? I 'shrink, ' shrink from it. That's yourword!--and mine! Dearest, I began by half a jest and end byhalf-gravity, which is the fault of your doctrine and not of me Ithink. Yet it is ungrateful to be grave, when practically you are goodand just about the letters, and generous too sometimes, and I couldnot bear the idea of obliging you to write to me, even once ... When.... Now do not fancy that I do not understand. I understandperfectly, on the contrary. Only do _you_ try not to dislike writingwhen you write, or not to write when you dislike it ... _that_, I askof you, dear dearest--and forgive me for all this over-writing andteazing and vexing which is foolish and womanish in the bad sense. Itis a way of meeting, ... The meeting in letters, ... And next toreceiving a letter from you, I like to write one to you ... And, so, revolt from thinking it lawful for you to dislike.... Well! theGoddess 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 spoiltFlush. Flush looks at me sometimes with reproachful eyes 'a fendre lecoeur, ' 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 afterall, and yet is set up there to do away with the necessity 'at certaintimes' of writing to her. Which is worse than Flush. For Flush, thoughhe began by shivering with rage and barking and howling and gnashinghis teeth at the brown dog in the glass, has learnt by experience whatthat image means, ... And now contemplates it, serene in naturalphilosophy. 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 andtrust--and the proofs, in the meanwhile, will do somewhat less harmthan the manuscript. You will take heart again about 'Luria' ... WhichI agree with you, is more diffuse ... That is, less close, than any ofyour works, not diffuse in any bad sense, but round, copious, andanother proof of that wonderful variety of faculty which is sostriking in you, and which signalizes itself both in the thought andin the medium of the thought. You will appreciate 'Luria' in time--orothers 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 oneof your early letters? Little I thought that ever, ever, I should feelso, while 'Luria' went to be printed! A long trail of thoughts, likethe rack in the sky, follows his going. Can it be the same 'Luria, ' Ithink, that 'golden-hearted Luria, ' whom you talked of to me, when youcomplained of keeping 'wild company, ' in the old dear letter? And Ihave 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 tolive 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 scenefrom the 'Iliad' for her book; and I am going to try it. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME _Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London_