Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) Part 40

_A farewell letter_

Devons.h.i.+re Lodge, New Finchley Road, [1845].

DEAR SIR,

We are not to meet in the flesh. Given over by my physicians and by myself, I am only kept alive by frequent instalments of mulled port wine. In this extremity I feel a comfort, for which I cannot refrain from again thanking you, with all the sincerity of a dying man,--and, at the same time, bidding you a respectful farewell.

Thank G.o.d my mind is composed and my reason undisturbed, but my race as an author is run. My physical debility finds no tonic virtue in a steel pen, otherwise I would have written one more paper--a forewarning one--against an evil, or the danger of it, arising from a literary movement in which I have had some share, a one-sided humanity, opposite to that Catholic Shakespearian sympathy, which felt with King as well as Peasant, and duly estimated the mortal temptations of both stations. Certain cla.s.ses at the poles of Society are already too far asunder; it should be the duty of our writers to draw them nearer by kindly attraction, not to aggravate the existing repulsion, and place a wider moral gulf between Rich and Poor, with Hate on the one side and Fear on the other. But I am too weak for this task, the last I had set myself; it is death that stops my pen, you see, and not the pension.

G.o.d bless you, Sir, and prosper all your measures for the benefit of my beloved country.

ROBERT BROWNING

1812-1889

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

1806-1861

To LEIGH HUNT

_A joint epistle_

Bagni di Lucca, 6 _Oct_. 1857.

DEAR LEIGH HUNT,

(It is hard to write, but you bade me do so; yet I had better say 'Master Hunt', as they used to call Webster or Ford.) A nine months'

silence after such a letter as yours seems too strange even to you perhaps. So understand that you gave us more delight at once than we could bear, that was the beginning of the waiting to recover spirit and try and do one's feeling a little less injustice. But soon followed unexpected sorrows to us and to you, and the expression of even grat.i.tude grew hard again. Certainly all this while your letter has been laid before our very eyes, and we have waited for a brighter day than ever came till we left Florence two months ago and more, then we brought it to 'answer' among the chestnut trees; but immediately on our arrival a friend was attacked by fever, and we were kept in anxiety about him for six weeks. At last he recovered sufficiently to leave for Florence, and (just think) our little boy became ill, for the first time in his life, and gave us solicitude enough for a fortnight: it is nothing now that it is over; he is going about now almost as well as before, and we go away to-morrow, as I said. But I will try and get one, at least, of the joys I came to find here, and really write to you from this place, as I meant to do. '_I_'--you know it is my wife that I write for, though you entangle and distract either of us by the reverberations (so to speak) of pleasures over and above the pleasure you give us. I intend to say, that you praise that poem, and mix it up with praise of her very self, and then give it to me directly, and then give it to _her_ with the pride you have just given me, and then it somehow comes back to me increased so far, till the effect is just as you probably intended. I wish my wife may know you more: I wish you may see and know her more, but you cannot live by her eleven years, as I have done--or yes, what cannot you do, being the man, the poet you are? This last word, I dare think, I have a right to say; I _have_ always venerated you as a poet; I believe your poetry to be sure of its eventual reward; other people, not unlikely, may feel like me, that there has been no need of getting into feverish haste to cry out on what is; yet you, who wrote it, can leave it and look at other poetry, and speak so of it: how well of you!

I am still too near the production of _Aurora Leigh_ to be quite able to see it all; my wife used to write it, and lay it down to hear our child spell, or when a visitor came,--it was thrust under the cus.h.i.+on then. At Paris, a year ago last March, she gave me the first six books to read, I having never seen a line before. She then wrote the rest, and transcribed them in London, where I read them also. I wish, in one sense, that I had written and she had read it.... I shall commend myself to you by telling you this. Indeed, the proper acknowledgement of your letter seems to be that one should do something, not say something. If you were here, I might quite naturally begin repeating _Giaffar_ or _Solomon_, and the rest. You would see whether I was not capable of getting all the good out of your praise.

While I write, there is a strange thing that happened last night impossible to get out of my thoughts. It may give you pain to tell you of it, yet if with the pain come triumphant memories and hopes, as I expect there will, you may choose the pain with them. What decides me to tell it is that I heard you years ago allude to the destruction of a volume of _Lamia, Isabella, &c., to be restored to you yet_--now you remember; also, I think, of your putting my name near Sh.e.l.ley's in the end of your letter, where you say 'since I lost Sh.e.l.ley'. Is it not strange that I should have transcribed for the first time, last night, the _Indian Serenade_ that, together with some verses of Metastasio, accompanied that book? That I should have been reserved to tell the present possessor of them--to whom they were given by Captain Roberts--_what_ the poem _was, and that it had been published_! It is preserved religiously; but the characters are all but illegible, and I needed a good magnifying-gla.s.s to be quite sure of such of them as remain. The end is that I have rescued three or four variations in the reading of that divine little poem, as one reads it, at least, in the _Posthumous Poems_. It is headed the _Indian_ _Serenade_ (not _Lines to an Indian Air_). In the first stanza the seventh line is 'Hath led me'; in the second, the third line is 'And the champak's odours fail'; and the eighth, 'O! Beloved as thou art!' In the last stanza, the seventh line was, 'Oh, press it to thine own again.' Are not all these better readings? (even to the 'Hath' for 'Has'.) There, I give them you as you gave us Milton's hair. If I have mistaken in telling you, you will understand and forgive.

I think I will ask my wife to say a word or two so I shall be sure that you forgive. Now let my wife say the remainder. All I have wished to do--know how little likely it was that I should succeed in that--was to a.s.sure you of my pride and affectionate grat.i.tude.--G.o.d bless you ever,

R.B.

Dear friend, I will say; for I feel it must be something as good as friends.h.i.+p that can forgive and understand this silence, so much like the veriest human kind of ingrat.i.tude. When I look back and think--all this time after that letter, and not a sign made--I wonder. Yet, if you knew! First of all, we were silent because we waited for information which you seemed to desire.... Then there were sadder reasons. Poor _Aurora_, that you were so more than kind to (oh, how can I think of it?), has been steeped in tears, and some of them of a very bitter sort. Your letter was addressed to my husband, you knowing by your delicate true instinct where your praise would give most pleasure; but I believe Robert had not the heart to write when I felt that I should not have the spirits to add a word in the proper key.

When we came here from Florence a few months ago to get repose and cheerfulness from the sight of the mountains, we said to ourselves that we would speak to you at ease--instead of which the word was taken from our own mouth, and we have done little but sit by sick beds and meditate on gastric fevers. So disturbed we have been--so sad! our darling precious child the last victim. To see him lying still on his golden curls, with cheeks too scarlet to suit the poor patient eyes, looking so frightfully like an angel! It was very hard. But this is over, I do thank G.o.d, and we are on the point of carrying back our treasure with us to Florence to-morrow, quite recovered, if a little thinner and weaker, and the young voice as merry as ever. You are aware that that child I am more proud of than twenty _Auroras_, even after Leigh Hunt has praised them. He is eight years old, has never been '_crammed_', but reads English, Italian, French, German, and plays the piano--then, is the sweetest child! sweeter than he looks.

When he was ill, he said to me, 'You pet! don't be unhappy about _me_. Think it's a boy in the street, and be a little sorry, but not unhappy.' Who could not be unhappy, I wonder?

I never saw your book called the _Religion of the Heart._ It's the only book of yours I never saw, and I mean to wipe out that reproach on the soonest day possible. I receive more dogmas, perhaps (my 'perhaps' being in the dark rather), than you do. I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ in the intensest sense--that he was G.o.d absolutely. But for the rest, I am very unorthodox--about the spirit, the flesh, and the devil, and if you would not let me sit by you, a great many churchmen wouldn't; in fact, churches do all of them, as at present const.i.tuted, seem too narrow and low to hold true Christianity in its proximate developments. I, at least, cannot help believing them so.

My dear friend, can we dare, after our sins against you--can we dare _wish_ for a letter from you sometimes? Ask, we dare not. May G.o.d bless you. Even if you had not praised me and made me so grateful, I should be grateful to you for three things--for your poetry (that first), then for Milton's hair, and then for the memory I have of our visit to you, when you sat in that chair and spoke so mildly and deeply at once.

Let me be ever affectionately yours,

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

CHARLOTTE BRONTe

1816-1855

TO A FRIEND

_Trials of a governess_

_July_ 1839.

I cannot procure ink, without going into the drawing-room, where I do not wish to go.... I should have written to you long since, and told you every detail of the utterly new scene into which I have lately been cast, had I not been daily expecting a letter from yourself, and wondering and lamenting that you did not write; for you will remember it was your turn. I must not bother you too much with my sorrows, of which, I fear, you have heard an exaggerated account. If you were near me, perhaps I might be tempted to tell you all, to grow egotistical, and pour out the long history of a private governess's trials and crosses in her first situation. As it is, I will only ask you to imagine the miseries of a reserved wretch like me, thrown at once into the midst of a large family--proud as peac.o.c.ks and wealthy as Jews--at a time when they were particularly gay--when the house was filled with company--all strangers--people whose faces I had never seen before.

In this state I had charge given me of a set of pampered, spoilt, turbulent children, whom I was expected constantly to amuse, as well as to instruct. I soon found that the constant demand on my stock of animal spirits reduced them to the lowest state of exhaustion; at times I felt--and, I suppose, seemed--depressed. To my astonishment, I was taken to task on the subject by Mrs.----, with a sternness of manner and a harshness of language scarcely credible; like a fool, I cried most bitterly. I could not help it; my spirits quite failed me at first. I thought I had done my best--strained every nerve to please her; and to be treated in that way, merely because I was shy and sometimes melancholy, was too bad. At first I was for giving all up and going home. But, after a little reflection, I determined to summon what energy I had, and to weather the storm. I said to myself, 'I have never yet quitted a place without gaining a friend; adversity is a good school; the poor are born to labour, and the dependent to endure.' I resolved to be patient, to command my feelings, and to take what came; the ordeal, I reflected, would not last many weeks, and I trusted it would do me good. I recollected the fable of the willow and the oak; I bent quietly, and now, I trust, the storm is blowing over me. Mrs. ---- is generally considered an agreeable woman; so she is, I doubt not, in general society. Her health is sound, her animal spirits good, consequently she is cheerful in company; but oh! does this compensate for the absence of every fine feeling--of every gentle and delicate sentiment? She behaves somewhat more civilly to me now than she did at first, and the children are a little more manageable; but she does not know my character, and she does not wish to know it.

I have never had five minutes' conversation with her since I came, except while she was scolding me. I have no wish to be pitied, except by yourself; if I were talking to you I could tell you much more.

To WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

_Thanks for advice_

[1840.]

... Authors are generally very tenacious of their productions, but I am not so much attached to this but that I can give it up without much distress. No doubt, if I had gone on, I should have made quite a Richardsonian concern of it.... I had materials in my head for half-a-dozen volumes.... Of course, it is with considerable regret I relinquish any scheme so charming as the one I have sketched. It is very edifying and profitable to create a world out of your own brains, and people it with inhabitants, who are so many Melchisedecs, and have no father nor mother but your own imagination.... I am sorry I did not exist fifty or sixty years ago, when the _Ladies' Magazine_ was flouris.h.i.+ng like a green bay tree. In that case, I make no doubt, my aspirations after literary fame would have met with due encouragement, and I should have had the pleasure of introducing Messrs. Percy and West into the very best society, and recording all their sayings and doings in double-columned close-printed pages.... I recollect, when I was a child, getting hold of some antiquated volumes, and reading them by stealth with the most exquisite pleasure. You give a correct description of the patient Grisels of those days. My aunt was one of them; and to this day she thinks the tales of the _Ladies' Magazine_ infinitely superior to any trash of modern literature. So do I; for I read them in childhood, and childhood has a very strong faculty of admiration, but a very weak one of criticism.... I am pleased that you cannot quite decide whether I am an attorney's clerk or a novel-reading dressmaker. I will not help you at all in the discovery; and as to my handwriting, or the ladylike touches in my style and imagery, you must not draw any conclusion from that--I may employ an amanuensis. Seriously, sir, I am very much obliged to you for your kind and candid letter. I almost wonder you took the trouble to read and notice the novelette of an anonymous scribe, who had not even the manners to tell you whether he was a man or a woman, or whether his 'C.T.' meant Charles Timms or Charlotte Tomkins.

TO A FRIEND

_At school abroad_

Brussels [c. _May_ 1842].