The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 15

E.B.B.

How could you think that I should speak to Mr. Kenyon of the book? All I ever said to him has been that you had looked through my 'Prometheus' for me--and that I was _not disappointed in you_, these two things on two occasions. I do trust that your head is better.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

[Post-mark, July 28, 1845.]

How must I feel, and what can, or could I say even if you let me say all? I am most grateful, most happy--most happy, come what will!

Will you let me try and answer your note to-morrow--before Wednesday when I am to see you? I will not hide from you that my head aches now; and I have let the hours go by one after one--I am better all the same, and will write as I say--'Am I better' you ask!

Yours I am, ever yours my dear friend R.B.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Thursday.

[Post-mark, July 31, 1845.]

In all I say to you, write to you, I know very well that I trust to your understanding me almost beyond the warrant of any human capacity--but as I began, so I shall end. I shall believe you remember what I am forced to remember--you who do me the superabundant justice on every possible occasion,--you will never do me injustice when I sit by you and talk about Italy and the rest.

--To-day I cannot write--though I am very well otherwise--but I shall soon get into my old self-command and write with as much 'ineffectual fire' as before: but meantime, _you_ will write to me, I hope--telling me how you are? I have but one greater delight in the world than in hearing from you.

G.o.d bless you, my best, dearest friend--think what I would speak--

Ever yours

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Thursday.

[Post-mark, August 2, 1845.]

Let me write one word ... not to have it off my mind ... because it is by no means heavily _on_ it; but lest I should forget to write it at all by not writing it at once. What could you mean, ... I have been thinking since you went away ... by applying such a grave expression as having a thing 'off your mind' to that foolish subject of the stupid book (mine), and by making it worth your while to account logically for your wish about my not mentioning it to Mr. Kenyon? You could not fancy for one moment that I was vexed in the matter of the book? or in the other matter of your wish? Now just hear me. I explained to you that I had been silent to Mr. Kenyon, first because the fact was so; and next and a little, because I wanted to show how I antic.i.p.ated your wish by a wish of my own ... though from a different motive. _Your_ motive I really did take to be (never suspecting my dear kind cousin of treason) to be a natural reluctancy of being convicted (forgive me!) of such an arch-womanly curiosity. For my own motive ... motives ... they are more than one ... you must trust me; and refrain as far as you can from accusing me of an over-love of Eleusinian mysteries when I ask you to say just as little about your visits here and of me as you find possible ... _even to Mr. Kenyon_ ... as _to every other person whatever_. As you know ... and yet more than you know ... I am in a peculiar position--and it does not follow that you should be ashamed of my friends.h.i.+p or that I should not be proud of yours, if we avoid making it a subject of conversation in high places, or low places. There! _that_ is my request to you--or commentary on what you put 'off your mind' yesterday--probably quite unnecessary as either request or commentary; yet said on the chance of its not being so, because you seemed to mistake my remark about Mr.

Kenyon.

And your head, how is it? And do consider if it would not be wise and right on that account of your health, to go with Mr. Chorley? You can neither work nor enjoy while you are subject to attacks of the kind--and besides, and without reference to your present suffering and inconvenience, you _ought not_ to let them master you and gather strength from time and habit; I am sure you ought not. Worse last week than ever, you see!--and no prospect, perhaps, of bringing out your "Bells" this autumn, without paying a cost too heavy!--Therefore ...

the _therefore_ is quite plain and obvious!--

_Friday._--Just as it is how anxious Flush and I are, to be delivered from you; by these sixteen heads of the discourse of one of us, written before your letter came. Ah, but I am serious--and you will consider--will you not? what is best to be done? and do it. You could write to me, you know, from the end of the world; if you could take the thought of me so far.

And _for_ me, no, and yet yes,--I _will_ say this much; that I am not inclined to do you injustice, but justice, when you come here--the justice of wondering to myself how you can possibly, possibly, care to come. Which is true enough to be _unanswerable_, if you please--or I should not say it. '_As I began, so I shall end_--' Did you, as I hope you did, thank your sister for Flush and for me? When you were gone, he graciously signified his intention of eating the cakes--brought the bag to me and emptied it without a drawback, from my hand, cake after cake. And I forgot the basket once again.

And talking of Italy and the cardinals, and thinking of some cardinal points you are ignorant of, did you ever hear that I was one of

'those schismatiques of Amsterdam'

whom your Dr. Donne would have put into the d.y.k.es? unless he meant the Baptists, instead of the Independents, the holders of the Independent church principle. No--not '_schismatical_,' I hope, hating as I do from the roots of my heart all that rending of the garment of Christ, which Christians are so apt to make the daily week-day of this Christianity so called--and caring very little for most dogmas and doxies in themselves--too little, as people say to me sometimes, (when they send me 'New Testaments' to learn from, with very kind intentions)--and believing that there is only one church in heaven and earth, with one divine High Priest to it; let exclusive religionists build what walls they please and bring out what chrisms. But I used to go with my father always, when I was able, to the nearest dissenting chapel of the Congregationalists--from liking the simplicity of that praying and speaking without books--and a little too from disliking the theory of state churches. There is a narrowness among the dissenters which is wonderful; an arid, grey Puritanism in the clefts of their souls: but it seems to me clear that they know what the 'liberty of Christ' _means_, far better than those do who call themselves 'churchmen'; and stand altogether, as a body, on higher ground. And so, you see, when I talked of the sixteen points of my discourse, it was the foreshadowing of a coming event, and you have had it at last in the whole length and breadth of it. But it is not my fault if the wind began to blow so that I could not go out--as I intended--as I shall do to-morrow; and that you have received my dulness in a full libation of it, in consequence. My sisters said of the roses you blasphemed, yesterday, that they 'never saw such flowers anywhere--anywhere here in London--' and therefore if I had thought so myself before, it was not so wrong of me. I put your roses, you see, against my letter, to make it seem less dull--and yet I do not forget what you say about caring to hear from me--I mean, I do not _affect_ to forget it.

May G.o.d bless you, far longer than I can say so.

E.B.B.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Sunday Evening.

[Post-mark, August 4, 1845.]

I said what you comment on, about Mr. Kenyon, because I feel I _must_ always tell you the simple truth--and not being quite at liberty to communicate the whole story (though it would at once clear me from the charge of over-curiosity ... if I much cared for _that_!)--I made my first request in order to prevent your getting at any part of it from _him_ which should make my withholding seem disingenuous for the moment--that is, till my explanation came, if it had an opportunity of coming. And then, when I fancied you were misunderstanding the reason of that request--and supposing I was ambitious of making a higher figure in _his_ eyes than your own,--I then felt it 'on my mind' and so spoke ... a natural mode of relief surely! For, dear friend, I have _once_ been _untrue_ to you--when, and how, and why, you know--but I thought it pedantry and worse to hold by my words and increase their fault. You have forgiven me that one mistake, and I only refer to it now because if you should ever make _that_ a precedent, and put any least, most trivial word of mine under the same category, you would wrong me as you never wronged human being:--and that is done with. For the other matter,--the talk of my visits, it is impossible that any hint of them can ooze out of the only three persons in the world to whom I ever speak of them--my father, mother and sister--to whom my appreciation of your works is no novelty since some years, and whom I made comprehend exactly your position and the necessity for the absolute silence I enjoined respecting the permission to see you. You may depend on them,--and Miss Mitford is in your keeping, mind,--and dear Mr. Kenyon, if there should be never so gentle a touch of 'garrulous G.o.d-innocence' about those kind lips of his. Come, let me s.n.a.t.c.h at _that_ clue out of the maze, and say how perfect, absolutely perfect, are those three or four pages in the 'Vision' which present the Poets--a line, a few words, and the man there,--one tw.a.n.g of the bow and the arrowhead in the white--Sh.e.l.ley's 'white ideal all statue-blind' is--perfect,--how can I coin words? And dear deaf old Hesiod--and--all, all are perfect, perfect! But 'the Moon's regality will hear no praise'--well then, will she hear blame? Can it be you, my own you past putting away, _you_ are a schismatic and frequenter of Independent Dissenting Chapels? And you confess this to _me_--whose father and mother went this morning to the very Independent Chapel where they took me, all those years back, to be baptised--and where they heard, this morning, a sermon preached by the very minister who officiated on that other occasion! Now will you be particularly encouraged by this successful instance to bring forward any other point of disunion between us that may occur to you? Please do not--for so sure as you begin proving that there is a gulf fixed between us, so sure shall I end proving that ... Anne Radcliffe avert it!... that you are just my sister: not that I am much frightened, but there are such surprises in novels!--Blame the next,--yes, now this _is_ to be real blame!--And I meant to call your attention to it before. Why, why, do you blot out, in that unutterably provoking manner, whole lines, not to say words, in your letters--(and in the criticism on the 'd.u.c.h.ess')--if it is a fact that you have a second thought, does it cease to be as genuine a fact, that first thought you please to efface? Why give a thing and take a thing? Is there no significance in putting on record that your first impression was to a certain effect and your next to a certain other, perhaps completely opposite one? If any proceeding of yours could go near to deserve that harsh word 'impertinent' which you have twice, in speech and writing, been pleased to apply to your observations on me; certainly _this_ does go as near as can be--as there is but one step to take from Southampton pier to New York quay, for travellers Westward. Now will you lay this to heart and perpend--lest in my righteous indignation I [some words effaced here]! For my own health--it improves, thank you! And I shall go abroad all in good time, never fear. For my 'Bells,' Mr. Chorley tells me there is no use in the world of printing them before November at earliest--and by that time I shall get done with these Romances and certainly one Tragedy (_that_ could go to press next week)--in proof of which I will bring you, if you let me, a few more hundreds of lines next Wednesday. But, 'my poet,' if I would, as is true, sacrifice all my works to do your fingers, even, good--what would I not offer up to prevent you staying ... perhaps to correct my very verses ... perhaps read and answer my very letters ... staying the production of more 'Berthas' and 'Caterinas' and 'Geraldines,' more great and beautiful poems of which I shall be--how proud! Do not be punctual in paying t.i.thes of thyme, mint, anise and c.u.mmin, and leaving unpaid the real weighty dues of the Law; nor affect a scrupulous acknowledgment of 'what you owe me' in petty manners, while you leave me to settle such a charge, as accessory to the hiding the Talent, as best I can! I have thought of this again and again, and would have spoken of it to you, had I ever felt myself fit to speak of any subject nearer home and me and you than Rome and Cardinal Acton. For, observe, you have not done ... yes, the 'Prometheus,' no doubt ... but with that exception _have_ you written much lately, as much as last year when 'you wrote all your best things' you said, I think? Yet you are better now than then.

Dearest friend, _I_ intend to write more, and very likely be praised more, now I care less than ever for it, but still more do I look to have you ever before me, in your place, and with more poetry and more praise still, and my own heartfelt praise ever on the top, like a flower on the water. I have said nothing of yesterday's storm ...

_thunder_ ... may you not have been out in it! The evening draws in, and I will walk out. May G.o.d bless you, and let you hold me by the hand till the end--Yes, dearest friend!

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

[Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]

Just to show what may be lost by my crossings out, I will tell you the story of the one in the 'd.u.c.h.ess'--and in fact it is almost worth telling to a metaphysician like you, on other grounds, that you may draw perhaps some psychological good from the absurdity of it. Hear, then. When I had done writing the sheet of annotations and reflections on your poem I took up my pencil to correct the pa.s.sages reflected on with the reflections, by the crosses you may observe, just glancing over the writing as I did so. Well! and, where that erasure is, I found a line purporting to be extracted from your 'd.u.c.h.ess,' with sundry acute criticisms and objections quite undeniably strong, following after it; only, to my amazement, as I looked and looked, the line so acutely objected to and purporting, as I say, to, be taken from the 'd.u.c.h.ess,' was by no means to be found in the 'd.u.c.h.ess,' ...

nor anything like it, ... and I am certain indeed that, in the 'd.u.c.h.ess' or out of it, you never wrote such a bad line in your life.

And so it became a proved thing to me that I had been enacting, in a mystery, both poet and critic together--and one so neutralizing the other, that I took all that pains you remark upon to cross myself out in my double capacity, ... and am now telling the story of it notwithstanding. And there's an obvious moral to the myth, isn't there? for critics who bark the loudest, commonly bark at their own shadow in the gla.s.s, as my Flush used to do long and loud, before he gained experience and learnt the [Greek: gnothi seauton] in the apparition of the brown dog with the glittering dilating eyes, ... and as _I_ did, under the erasure. And another moral springs up of itself in this productive ground; for, you see, ... '_quand je m'efface il n'ya pas grand mal_.'

And I am to be made to work very hard, am I? But you should remember that if I did as much writing as last summer, I should not be able to do much else, ... I mean, to go out and walk about ... for really I think I _could_ manage to read your poems and write as I am writing now, with ever so much head-work of my own going on at the same time.

But the bodily exercise is different, and I do confess that the novelty of living more in the outer life for the last few months than I have done for years before, make me idle and inclined to be idle--and everybody is idle sometimes--even _you_ perhaps--are you not? For me, you know, I do carpet-work--ask Mrs. Jameson--and I never pretend to be in a perpetual motion of mental industry. Still it may not be quite as bad as you think: I have done some work since 'Prometheus'--only it is nothing worth speaking of and not a part of the romance-poem which is to be some day if I live for it--lyrics for the most part, which lie written illegibly in pure Egyptian--oh, there is time enough, and too much perhaps! and so let me be idle a little now, and enjoy your poems while I can. It is pure enjoyment and must be--but you do not know how much, or you would not talk as you do sometimes ... so wide of any possible application.

And do _not_ talk again of what you would 'sacrifice' for _me_. If you affect me by it, which is true, you cast me from you farther than ever in the next thought. _That_ is true.

The poems ... yours ... which you left with me,--are full of various power and beauty and character, and you must let me have my own gladness from them in my own way.

Now I must end this letter. Did you go to Chelsea and hear the divine philosophy?

_Tell me the truth always_ ... will you? I mean such truths as may be painful to me _though_ truths....

May G.o.d bless you, ever dear friend.

E.B.B.