The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 48

_(Tuesday)_

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

Sunday.

[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]

Your letter came just after the hope of one had past--the latest Sat.u.r.day post had gone, they said, and I was beginning to be as vexed as possible, looking into the long letterless Sunday. Then, suddenly came the knock--the postman redivivus--just when it seemed so beyond hoping for--it was half past eight, observe, and there had been a post at nearly eight--suddenly came the knock, and your letter with it. Was I not glad, do you think?

And you call the _Athenaeum_ 'kind and satisfactory'? Well--I was angry instead. To make us wait so long for an 'article' like _that_, was not over-kind certainly, nor was it 'satisfactory' to cla.s.s your peculiar qualities with other contemporary ones, as if they were not peculiar.

It seemed to me cold and cautious, from the causes perhaps which you mention, but the extracts will work their own way with everybody who knows what poetry is, and for others, let the critic do his worst with them. For what is said of 'mist' I have no patience because I who know when you are obscure and never think of denying it in some of your former works, do hold that this last number is as clear and self-sufficing to a common understanding, as far as the expression and medium goes, as any book in the world, and that Mr. Chorley was bound in verity to say so. If I except that one stanza, you know, it is to make the general observation stronger. And then 'mist' is an infamous word for your kind of obscurity. You never _are_ misty, not even in 'Sordello'--never vague. Your graver cuts deep sharp lines, always--and there is an extra-distinctness in your images and thoughts, from the midst of which, crossing each other infinitely, the general significance seems to escape. So that to talk of a 'mist,'

when you are obscurest, is an impotent thing to do. Indeed it makes me angry.

But the suggested virtue of 'self-renunciation' only made me smile, because it is simply nonsense ... nonsense which proves itself to be nonsense at a glance. So genius is to renounce itself--_that_ is the new critical doctrine, is it? Now is it not foolish? To recognize the poetical faculty of a man, and then to instruct him in 'self-renunciation' in that very relation--or rather, to hint the virtue of it, and hesitate the dislike of his doing otherwise? What atheists these critics are after all--and how the old heathens understood the divinity of gifts better, beyond any comparison. We may take shame to ourselves, looking back.

Now, shall I tell you what I did yesterday? It was so warm, so warm, the thermometer at 68 in this room, that I took it into my head to call it April instead of January, and put on a cloak and walked down-stairs into the drawing-room--walked, mind! Before, I was carried by one of my brothers,--even to the last autumn-day when I went out--I never walked a step for fear of the cold in the pa.s.sages. But yesterday it was so wonderfully warm, and I so strong besides--it was a feat worthy of the day--and I surprised them all as much as if I had walked out of the window instead. That kind dear Stormie, who with all his shyness and awkwardness has the most loving of hearts in him, said that he was '_so_ glad to see me'!

Well!--setting aside the glory of it, it would have been as wise perhaps if I had abstained; our damp detestable climate reaches us otherwise than by cold, and I am not quite as well as usual this morning after an uncomfortable feverish night--not very unwell, mind, nor unwell at all in the least degree of consequence--and I tell you, only to show how susceptible I really am still, though 'scarcely an invalid,' say the complimenters.

What a way I am from your letter--that letter--or seem to be rather--for one may think of one thing and yet go on writing distrustedly of other things. So you are 'grateful' to my sisters ...

_you_! Now I beseech you not to talk such extravagances; I mean such extravagances as words like these _imply_--and there are far worse words than these, in the letter ... such as I need not put my finger on; words which are sense on my lips, but no sense at all on yours, and which make me disquietedly sure that you are under an illusion.

Observe!--_certainly_ I should not choose to have a '_claim_,' see!

Only, what I object to, in 'illusions,' 'miracles,' and things of that sort, is the want of continuity common to such. When Joshua caused the sun to stand still, it was not for a year even!--Ungrateful, I am!

And 'pretty well' means 'not well' I am afraid--or I should be gladder still of the new act. You will tell me on Tuesday what 'pretty well'

means, and if your mother is better--or I may have a letter to-morrow--dearest! May G.o.d bless you!

To-morrow too, at half past three o'clock, how joyful I shall be that my 'kind considerateness' decided not to receive you until Tuesday. My very kind considerateness, which made me eat my dinner to-day!

Your own

BA.

A hundred letters I have, by this last, ... to set against Napoleon's Hundred Days--did you know _that_?

So much better I am to-night: it was nothing but a little chill from the damp--the fog, you see!

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

Monday Morning.

[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]

Love, if you knew but how vexed I was, so very few minutes after my note left last night; how angry with the unnecessary harshness into which some of the phrases might be construed--you would forgive me, indeed. But, when all is confessed and forgiven, the fact remains--that it would be the one trial I _know_ I should not be able to bear; the repet.i.tion of these 'scenes'--intolerable--not to be written of, even my mind _refuses_ to form a clear conception of them.

My own loved letter is come--and the news; of which the rea.s.suring postscript lets the interrupted joy flow on again. Well, and I am not to be grateful for that; nor that you _do_ 'eat your dinner'? Indeed you will be ingenious to prevent me! I fancy myself meeting you on 'the stairs'--stairs and pa.s.sages generally, and galleries (ah, thou indeed!) all, with their picturesque _accidents_, of landing-places, and spiral heights and depths, and sudden turns and visions of half open doors into what Quarles calls 'mollitious chambers'--and above all, _landing-places_--they are my heart's delight--I would come upon you unaware in a landing-place in my next dream! One day we may walk on the galleries round and over the inner court of the Doges' Palace at Venice; and read, on tablets against the wall, how such an one was banished for an 'enormous dig (intacco) into the public treasure'--another for ... what you are not to know because his friends have got chisels and chipped away the record of it--underneath the 'giants' on their stands, and in the midst of the _cortile_ the bronze fountains whence the girls draw water.

So _you_ too wrote French verses?--Mine were of less lofty argument--one couplet makes me laugh now for the reason of its false quant.i.ty--I translated the Ode of Alcaeus; and the last couplet ran thus....

Harmodius, et toi, cher Aristogiton!

Comme l'astre du jour, brillera votre nom!

The fact was, I could not bear to hurt my French Master's feelings--who inveterately maltreated 'ai's and oi's' and in this instance, an 'ei.' But 'Pauline' is altogether of a different sort of precocity--you shall see it when I can master resolution to transcribe the explanation which I know is on the fly-leaf of a copy here. Of that work, the _Athenaeum_ said [several words erased] now, what outrageous folly! I care, and you care, precisely nothing about its sayings and doings--yet here I talk!

Now to you--Ba! When I go through sweetness to sweetness, at 'Ba' I stop last of all, and lie and rest. That is the quintessence of them all,--they all take colour and flavour from that. So, dear, dear Ba, be glad as you can to see me to-morrow. G.o.d knows how I embalm every such day,--I do not believe that one of the _forty_ is confounded with another in my memory. So, _that_ is gained and sure for ever. And of letters, this makes my 104th and, like Donne's Bride,

... I take, My jewels from their boxes; call My Diamonds, Pearls, and Emeralds, and make Myself a constellation of them all!

Bless you, my own Beloved!

I am much better to-day--having been not so well yesterday--whence the note to you, perhaps! I put that to your charity for construction. By the way, let the foolish and needless story about my whilome friend be of this use, that it records one of the traits in that same generous love, of me, I once mentioned, I remember--one of the points in his character which, I told you, _would_ account, if you heard them, for my parting company with a good deal of warmth of attachment to myself.

What a day! But you do not so much care for rain, I think. My Mother is no worse, but still suffering sadly.

Ever your own, dearest ever--

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

Wednesday.

[Post-mark, January 22, 1846.]

Ever since I ceased to be with you--ever dearest,--have been with your 'Luria,' if _that_ is ceasing to be with you--which it _is_, I feel at last. Yet the new act is powerful and subtle, and very affecting, it seems to me, after a grave, suggested pathos; the reasoning is done on every hand with admirable directness and adroitness, and poor Luria's iron baptism under such a bright crossing of swords, most miserably complete. Still ... is he to die _so_? can you mean it? Oh--indeed I foresaw _that_--not a guess of mine ever touched such an end--and I can scarcely resign myself to it as a necessity, even now ... I mean, to the act, as Luria's act, whether it is final or not--the act of suicide being so unheroical. But you are a dramatic poet and right perhaps, where, as a didactic poet, you would have been wrong, ...

and, after the first shock, I begin to see that your Luria is the man Luria and that his 'sun' lights him so far and not farther than so, and to understand the natural reaction of all that generous trust and hopefulness, what naturally it would be. Also, it is satisfactory that Domizia, having put her woman's part off to the last, should be too late with it--it will be a righteous retribution. I had fancied that her object was to isolate him, ... to make his military glory and national recompense ring hollowly to his ears, and so commend herself, drawing back the veil.

Puccio's scornful working out of the low work, is very finely given, I think, ... and you have 'a cunning right hand,' to lift up Luria higher in the mind of your readers, by the very means used to pull down his fortunes--you show what a man he is by the very talk of his rivals ... by his 'natural G.o.ds.h.i.+p' over Puccio. Then Husain is n.o.bly characteristic--I like those streaks of Moorish fire in his speeches.

'Why 'twas all fighting' &c. ... _that_ pa.s.sage perhaps is over-subtle for a Husain--but too n.o.bly right in the abstract to be altered, if it is so or not. Domizia talks philosophically besides, and how eloquently;--and very n.o.ble she is where she proclaims

The angel in thee and rejects the sprites That ineffectual crowd about his strength, And mingle with his work and claim a share!--

But why not 'spirits' rather than 'sprites,' which has a different a.s.sociation by custom? 'Spirits' is quite short enough, it seems to me, for a last word--it sounds like a monosyllable that trembles--or thrills, rather. And, do you know, I agree with yourself a little when you say (as did you _not_ say?) that some of the speeches--Domizia's for instance--are too lengthy. I think I should like them to coil up their strength, here and there, in a few pa.s.sages. Luria ... poor Luria ... is great and pathetic when he stands alone at last, and 'all his waves have gone over him.' Poor Luria!--And now, I wonder where Mr. Chorley will look, in this work,--along all the edges of the hills,--to find, or prove, his favourite 'mist!' On the gla.s.s of his own opera-lorgnon, perhaps:--shall we ask him to try _that_?

But first, I want to ask _you_ something--I have had it in my head a long time, but it might as well have been in a box--and indeed if it had been in the box with your letters, I should have remembered to speak of it long ago. So now, at last, tell me--how do you write, O my poet? with steel pens, or Bramah pens, or goose-quills or crow-quills?--Because I have a penholder which was given to me when I was a child, and which I have used both then and since in the production of various great epics and immortal 'works,' until in these latter years it has seemed to me too heavy, and I have taken into service, instead of it, another two-inch-long instrument which makes Mr. Kenyon laugh to look at--and so, my fancy has run upon your having the heavier holder, which is not very heavy after all, and which will make you think of me whether you choose it or not, besides being made of a splinter from the ivory gate of old, and therefore not unworthy of a true prophet. Will you have it, dearest? Yes--because you can't help it. When you come ... on Sat.u.r.day!--

And for 'Pauline,' ... I am satisfied with the promise to see it some day ... when we are in the isle of the sirens, or ready for wandering in the Doges' galleries. I seem to understand that you would really rather wish me not to see it now ... and as long as I _do_ see it! So _that shall_ be!--Am I not good now, and not a teazer? If there is any poetical justice in 'the seven worlds,' I shall have a letter to-night.

By the way, you owe me two letters by your confession. A hundred and four of mine you have, and I, only a hundred and two of yours ...

which is a 'deficit' scarcely creditable to me, (now is it?) when, according to the law and ordinance, a woman's hundred and four letters would take two hundred and eight at least, from the other side, to justify them. Well--I feel inclined to wring out the legal per centage to the uttermost farthing; but fall into a fit of grat.i.tude, notwithstanding, thinking of Monday, and how the second letter came beyond hope. Always better, you are, than I guess you to be,--and it was being _best_, to write, as you did, for me to hear twice on one day!--best and dearest!

But the first letter was not what you feared--I know you too well not to know how that letter was written and with what intention. _Do you_, on the other hand, endeavour to comprehend how there may be an eccentricity and obliquity in certain relations and on certain subjects, while the general character stands up worthily of esteem and regard--even of yours. Mr. Kenyon says broadly that it is monomania--neither more nor less. Then the principle of pa.s.sive filial obedience is held--drawn (and quartered) from Scripture. He _sees_ the law and the gospel on his side. Only the other day, there was a setting forth of the whole doctrine, I hear, down-stairs--'pa.s.sive obedience, and particularly in respect to marriage.' One after the other, my brothers all walked out of the room, and there was left for sole auditor, Captain Surtees Cook, who had especial reasons for sitting it out against his will,--so he sate and asked 'if children were to be considered slaves' as meekly as if he were asking for information. I could not help smiling when I heard of it. He is just _succeeding_ in obtaining what is called an 'adjutancy,' which, with the half pay, will put an end to many anxieties.