The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 29

For your friends ... whatever can be 'got over,' whatever opposition may be rational, will be easily removed, I suppose. You know when I spoke lately about the 'selfishness' I dared believe I was free from, I hardly meant the low faults of ... I shall say, a different organization to mine--which has vices in plenty, but not those.

Besides half a dozen scratches with a pen make one stand up an apparent angel of light, from the lawyer's parchment; and Doctors'

Commons is one bland smile of applause. The selfishness I deprecate is one which a good many women, and men too, call 'real pa.s.sion'--under the influence of which, I ought to say 'be mine, what ever happens to _you_'--but I know better, and you know best--and you know me, for all this letter, which is no doubt in me, I feel, but dear entire goodness and affection, of which G.o.d knows whether I am proud or not--and now you will let me be, will not you. Let me have my way, live my life, love my love.

When I am, praying G.o.d to bless her ever,

R.B.

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

[Post-mark, October 24, 1845.]

'_And be forgiven_' ... yes! and be thanked besides--if I knew how to thank you worthily and as I feel ... only that I do not know it, and cannot say it. And it was not indeed 'doubt' of you--oh no--that made me write as I did write; it was rather because I felt you to be surely n.o.blest, ... and therefore fitly dearest, ... that it seemed to me detestable and intolerable to leave you on this road where the mud must splash up against you, and never cry 'gare.' Yet I was quite enough unhappy yesterday, and before yesterday ... I will confess to-day, ... to be too gratefully glad to 'let you be' ... to 'let you have your way'--you who overcome always! Always, but where you tell me not to think of you so and so!--as if I could help thinking of you _so_, and as if I should not take the liberty of persisting to think of you just so. 'Let me be'--Let me have my way.' I am unworthy of you perhaps in everything except one thing--and _that_, you cannot guess.

May G.o.d bless you--

Ever I am yours.

The proof does not come!

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

Friday.

[Post-mark, October 25, 1845.]

I wrote briefly yesterday not to make my letter longer by keeping it; and a few last words which belong to it by right, must follow after it ... must--for I want to say that you need not indeed talk to me about squares being not round, and of _you_ being not 'selfish'! You know it is foolish to talk such superfluities, and not a compliment.

I won't say to my knowledge of you and faith in you ... but to my understanding generally. Why should you say to me at all ... much less for this third or fourth time ... 'I am not selfish?' to _me_ who never ... when I have been deepest asleep and dreaming, ... never dreamed of attributing to you any form of such a fault? Promise not to say so again--now promise. Think how it must sound to my ears, when really and truly I have sometimes felt jealous of myself ... of my own infirmities, ... and thought that you cared for me only because your chivalry touched them with a silver sound--and that, without them, you would pa.s.s by on the other side:--why twenty times I have thought _that_ and been vexed--ungrateful vexation! In exchange for which too frank confession, I will ask for another silent promise ... a silent promise--no, but first I will say another thing.

First I will say that you are not to fancy any the least danger of my falling under displeasure through your visits--there is no sort of risk of it _for the present_--and if I ran the risk of making you uncomfortable about _that_, I did foolishly, and what I meant to do was different. I wish you also to understand that _even if you came here every day_, my brothers and sisters would simply care to know if I liked it, and then be glad if I was glad:--the caution referred to one person alone. In relation to _whom_, however, there will be no 'getting over'--you might as well think to sweep off a third of the stars of Heaven with the motion of your eyelashes--this, for matter of fact and certainty--and this, as I said before, the keeping of a general rule and from no disrespect towards individuals: a great peculiarity _in the individual_ of course. But ... though I have been a submissive daughter, and this from no effort, but for love's sake ... because I loved him tenderly (and love him), ... and hoped that he loved me back again even if the proofs came untenderly sometimes--yet I have reserved for myself _always_ that right over my own affections which is the most strictly personal of all things, and which involves principles and consequences of infinite importance and scope--even though I _never_ thought (except perhaps when the door of life was just about to open ... before it opened) never thought it probable or possible that I should have occasion for the exercise; from without and from within at once. I have too much need to look up. For friends, I can look any way ... round, and _down_ even--the merest thread of a sympathy will draw me sometimes--or even the least look of kind eyes over a dyspathy--'Cela se peut facilement.' But for another relation--it was all different--and rightly so--and so very different--'Cela ne se peut nullement'--as in Malherbe.

And now we must agree to 'let all this be,', and set ourselves to get as much good and enjoyment from the coming winter (better spent at Pisa!) as we can--and I begin my joy by being glad that you are not going since I am not going, and by being proud of these new green leaves in your bay which came out with the new number. And then will come the tragedies--and then, ... what beside? We shall have a happy winter after all ... _I_ shall at least; and if Pisa had been better, London might be worse: and for _me_ to grow pretentious and fastidious and critical about various sorts of _purple_ ... I, who have been used to the _brun fonce_ of Mme. de Sevigne, (_fonce_ and _enfonce_ ...)--would be too absurd. But why does not the proof come all this time? I have kept this letter to go back with it.

I had a proposition from the New York booksellers about six weeks ago (the booksellers who printed the poems) to let them re-print those prose papers of mine in the _Athenaeum_, with additional matter on American literature, in a volume by itself--to be published at the same time both in America and England by Wiley and Putnam in Waterloo Place, and meaning to offer liberal terms, they said. Now what shall I do? Those papers are not fit for separate publication, and I am not inclined to the responsibility of them; and in any case, they must give as much trouble as if they were re-written (trouble and not poetry!), before I could consent to such a thing. Well!--and if I do not ... these people are just as likely to print them without leave ... and so without correction. What do you advise? What shall I do?

All this time they think me sublimely indifferent, they who pressed for an answer by return of packet--and now it is past six ... eight weeks; and I must say something.

Am I not 'femme qui parle' to-day? And let me talk on ever so, the proof won't come. May G.o.d bless you--and me as I am

Yours,

E.B.B.

And the silent promise I would have you make is this--that if ever you should leave me, it shall be (though you are not 'selfish') for your sake--and not for mine: for your good, and not for mine. I ask it--not because I am disinterested; but because one cla.s.s of motives would be valid, and the other void--simply for that reason.

Then the _femme qui parle_ (looking back over the parlance) did not mean to say on the first page of this letter that she was ever for a moment _vexed in her pride_ that she should owe anything to her adversities. It was only because adversities are accidents and not essentials. If it had been prosperities, it would have been the same thing--no, not the same thing!--but far worse.

Occy is up to-day and doing well.

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

[Post-mark, October 27, 1845.]

How does one make 'silent promises' ... or, rather, how does the maker of them communicate that fact to whomsoever it may concern? I know, there have been many, very many unutterable vows and promises made,--that is, _thought_ down upon--the white slip at the top of my notes,--such as of this note; and not trusted to the pen, that always comes in for the shame,--but given up, and replaced by the poor forms to which a pen is equal; and a glad minute I should account _that_, in which you collected and accepted _those_ 'promises'--because they would not be all so unworthy of me--much less you! I would receive, in virtue of _them_, the ascription of whatever worthiness is supposed to lie in deep, truest love, and grat.i.tude--

Read my silent answer there too!

All your letter is one comfort: we will be happy this winter, and after, do not fear. I am most happy, to begin, that your brother is so much better: he must be weak and susceptible of cold, remember.

It was on my lip, I do think, _last_ visit, or the last but one, to beg you to detach those papers from the _Athenaeum's gachis_. Certainly this opportunity is _most_ favourable, for every reason: you cannot hesitate, surely. At present those papers are lost--_lost_ for practical purposes. Do pray reply without fail to the proposers; no, no harm of these really fine fellows, who _could_ do harm (by printing incorrect copies, and perhaps eking out the column by suppositious matter ... ex-gr. they strengthened and lengthened a book of d.i.c.kens', in Paris, by adding quant. suff. of Thackeray's 'Yellowplush Papers'

... as I discovered by a Parisian somebody praising the latter to me as d.i.c.kens' best work!)--and who _do_ really a good straightforward un-American thing. You will encourage 'the day of small things'--though this is not small, nor likely to have small results. I shall be impatient to hear that you have decided. I like the progress of these Americans in taste, their amazing leaps, like gra.s.shoppers up to the sun--from ... what is the '_from_,' what depth, do you remember, say, ten or twelve years back?--_to_--Carlyle, and Tennyson, and you! So children leave off Jack of Cornwall and go on just to Homer.

I can't conceive why my proof does not come--I must go to-morrow and see. In the other, I have corrected all the points you noted, to their evident improvement. Yesterday I took out 'Luria' and read it through--the skeleton--I shall hope to finish it soon now. It is for a purely imaginary stage,--very simple and straightforward. Would you ... no, Act by Act, as I was about to propose that you should read it; that process would affect the oneness I most wish to preserve.

On Tuesday--at last, I am with you. Till when be with me ever, dearest--G.o.d bless you ever--

R.B.

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

Tuesday 9 a.m.

[In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]

I got this on coming home last night--have just run through it this morning, and send it that time may not be lost. Faults, faults; but I don't know how I have got tired of this. The Tragedies will be better, at least the second--

At 3 this day! Bless you--

R.B.

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

I write in haste, not to lose time about the proof. You will see on the papers here my doubtfulnesses such as they are--but silence swallows up the admirations ... and there is no time. 'Theocrite'

overtakes that wish of mine which ran on so fast--and the 'd.u.c.h.ess'

grows and grows the more I look--and 'Saul' is n.o.ble and must have his full royalty some day. Would it not be well, by the way, to print it in the meanwhile as a fragment confessed ... sowing asterisks at the end. Because as a poem of yours it stands there and wants unity, and people can't be expected to understand the difference between incompleteness and defect, unless you make a sign. For the new poems--they are full of beauty. You throw largesses out on all sides without counting the coins: how beautiful that 'Night and Morning' ...

and the 'Earth's Immortalities' ... and the 'Song' too. And for your 'Glove,' all women should be grateful,--and Ronsard, honoured, in this fresh shower of music on his old grave ... though the chivalry of the interpretation, as well as much beside, is so plainly yours, ...

could only be yours perhaps. And even _you_ are forced to let in a third person ... close to the doorway ... before you can do any good.

What a n.o.ble lion you give us too, with the 'flash on his forehead,'

and 'leagues in the desert already' as we look on him! And then, with what a 'curious felicity' you turn the subject 'glove' to another use and strike De Lorge's blow back on him with it, in the last paragraph of your story! And the versification! And the lady's speech--(to return!) so calm, and proud--yet a little bitter!

Am I not to thank you for all the pleasure and pride in these poems?

while you stand by and try to talk them down, perhaps.