Chapter XII: Part 12

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 your head _demand_ repose; and it must be so injurious to you to be perpetually 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 by heart. 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 that as far as construction goes, you never put together so much unquestionable, smooth glory before, ... not a single entanglement for the understanding ... unless 'the snowdrops' make an exception--while for the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before your readers more plainly than in that same number! Also you have extended your 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 few more waves will cover the brown stones and float the sight up away through the fissure of the rocks. The rhythm (to touch one of the various things) the rhythm of that 'Duchess' does more and more strike me as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greeks called pedestrian-metre, ... between metre and prose ... the difficult rhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of the general measure. Then 'The Ride'--with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering ... yes, and how that one touch of softness acts back upon the energy and resolution and exalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have been expected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then 'Saul'--and in a first place 'St. Praxed'--and for pure description, 'Fortú' and the deep 'Pictor Ignotus'--and the noble, serene 'Italy in England,' which grows on you the more you know of it--and that delightful 'Glove'--and the short lyrics ... for one comes to _'select' everything_ at last, and certainly I do like these poems better and better, as your poems are made to be liked. But you will be tired to hear it said over and over 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 profession of equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits were always given to rock a little, up and down) yet that I did not mean to be so ungrateful and wicked as to complain of low spirits now and to you. It would not be true either: and I said 'low' to express a merely bodily state. My opium comes in to keep the pulse from fluttering and fainting ... to give the right composure and point of balance to the nervous 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 me made me take it the other day when he was in the room, before the right hour and when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the need he observed in the pulse. 'It was a necessity of my position,' he said. Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually do who take opium. I am not even subject to an opium-headache. As to the low spirits I will not say that mine _have not_ been low enough and with cause enough; but _even then_, ... why if you were to ask the nearest witnesses, ... say, even my own sisters, ... everybody would tell you, I think, that the 'cheerfulness' even _then_, was the remarkable thing in me--certainly it has been remarked about me again and 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 ignoble groaning aloud of the 'groans of Testy and Sensitude'--yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in 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 see at noon--which would simply prove that I was very blind. And you, who are 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 long enough for three) and to send you only the latter half. But you will understand--you will not think that there is a contradiction between the first and last ... you _cannot_. One is a truth of me--and the other a truth of you--and we two are different, you know.

You are not over-working in 'Luria'? That you _should not_, is a truth, too.

I observed that Mr. Kenyon put in '_Junior_' to your address. Ought that to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you without hesitation?

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 to analyse my own feelings, and be sober in giving distinctive names to their varieties; this is _deep_ joy,)--the true love with which I take this much of you into my heart, ... _that_ proves what it is I wanted so long, and find at last, and am happy for ever. I must have more than 'intimated'--I must have spoken plainly out the truth, if I do myself the barest justice, and told you long ago that the admiration at your works went _away_, quite another way and afar from the love of you. If I could fancy some method of what I shall say happening without all the obvious stumbling-blocks of falseness, &c. which no foolish fancy dares associate with you ... if you COULD tell me when I next sit by you--'I will undeceive you,--I am not _the_ Miss B.--she is up-stairs and you shall see her--I only wrote those letters, and am what you see, that is all now left you' (all the misapprehension having arisen from _me_, in some inexplicable way) ... I should not begin by _saying_ anything, dear, dearest--but _after that_, I should assure you--soon make you believe that I did not much wonder at the event, for I have been all my life asking what connection there is between the satisfaction at the display of power, and the sympathy with--ever-increasing sympathy with--all imaginable weakness? Look now: Coleridge writes on and on,--at last he writes a note to his 'War-Eclogue,' in which he avers himself to have been actuated by a really--on the whole--_benevolent_ feeling to Mr. Pitt when he wrote that stanza in which 'Fire' means to 'cling to him everlastingly'--where is the long line of admiration now that the end snaps? And now--here I refuse to fancy--you KNOW whether, if you never write another line, speak another intelligible word, recognize me by a look again--whether I shall love you less or _more_ ... MORE; having a right to expect more strength with the strange emergency. And it is because I know this, build upon this entirely, that as a reasonable creature, I am bound to look first to what hangs farthest and most loosely from me ... what _might_ go from you to your loss, and so to mine, to say the least ... because I want ALL of you, not just so much as I could not live without--and because I see the danger of your entirely generous disposition and cannot quite, yet, bring myself to profit by it in the quiet way you recommend. Always remember, I never wrote to you, all the years, on the strength of your poetry, though I constantly heard of you through Mr. K. and was near seeing you once, and might have easily availed myself of his intervention to commend any letter to your notice, so as to reach you out of the foolish crowd of rushers-in upon genius ... who come and eat their bread and cheese on the high-altar, and talk of reverence without one of its surest instincts--never quiet till they cut their initials on the cheek of the Medicean Venus to prove they worship her. My admiration, as I said, went its natural way in silence--but when on my return to England in December, late in the month, Mr. K. sent those Poems to my sister, and I read my name there--and when, a day or two after, I met him and, beginning to speak my mind on them, and getting on no better than 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 I will tell you all, in this, in everything--when he wrote me a note soon after to reassure me on that point ... THEN I _did_ write, on _account of my purely personal obligation_, though of course taking that occasion to allude to the general and customary delight in your works: I did write, on the whole, UNWILLINGLY ... with consciousness of having to _speak_ on a subject which I _felt_ thoroughly concerning, and could not be satisfied with an imperfect expression of. As for expecting THEN what has followed ... I shall only say I was scheming how to get done with England and go to my heart in Italy. And now, my love--I am round you ... my whole life is wound up and down and over you.... I feel you stir everywhere. I am not conscious of thinking or feeling but _about_ you, with some reference to you--so I will 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 believed me from the first ... what you call 'dream-work' _was_ real of its kind, did you not think? and now you believe me, _I_ believe and am happy, in what I write with my heart full of love for you. Why do you tell me of a doubt, as now, and bid me not clear it up, 'not answer you?' 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--or what predominates in your poetry and is most distinct from your heart--better, or as well as you--did you not? and I have told you every thing,--explained everything ... have I not? And now I will dare ... yes, dearest, kiss you back to my heart again; my own. There--and there!

And since I wrote what is above, I have been reading among other poems that sonnet--'Past and Future'--which affects me more than any poem I ever read. How can I put your poetry away from you, even in these ineffectual attempts to concentrate myself upon, and better apply myself to what remains?--poor, poor work it is; for is not that sonnet to be loved as a true utterance of yours? I cannot attempt to put down the thoughts that rise; may God bless me, as you pray, by letting that beloved hand shake the less ... I will only ask, _the less_ ... for being laid on mine through this life! And, indeed, you write down, for me to calmly read, that I make you happy! Then it is--as with all power--God through the weakest instrumentality ... and I am past expression proud and grateful--My love,

I am your

R.B.

I must answer your questions: I am better--and will certainly have your injunction before my eyes and work quite moderately. Your letters come _straight_ to me--my father's go to Town, except on extraordinary occasions, so that _all_ come for my first looking-over. I saw Mr. K. last night at the Amateur Comedy--and heaps of old acquaintances--and came home tired and savage--and _yearned_ literally, for a letter this morning, and so it came and I was well again. So, I am not even to have your low spirits leaning on mine? It was just because I always find you alike, and _ever_ like yourself, that I seemed to discern a depth, when you spoke of 'some days' and what they made uneven where all 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 with me--I have universal sympathy and can show you a SIDE of me, a true face, turn as you may. If you _are_ cheerful ... so will I be ... if sad, my cheerfulness will be all the while _behind_, and propping up, any sadness that meets yours, if that should be necessary. As for my question 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 or prospectively, affects me--how it affects me! Will you write again? _Wednesday_, remember! Mr. K. wants me to go to him one of the three next 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. How you 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 to anything except too deep down in the heart for even the pearl-divers? But understand ... what you do not quite ... that I did not mistake you as far even as you say here and even 'for a moment.' I did not write any of that letter in a 'doubt' of you--not a word.... I was simply looking back in it on my own states of feeling, ... looking back from that point of your praise to what was better ... (or I should not have looked back)--and so coming to tell you, by a natural association, how the completely opposite point to that of any praise was the one which struck me first and most, viz. the no-reason of your reasoning ... acknowledged to be yours. Of course I acknowledge it to be yours, ... that high reason of no reason--I acknowledged it to be yours (didn't I?) in acknowledging that it made an impression on me. And then, referring to the traditions of my experience such as I told them to you, I meant, so, farther to acknowledge that I would rather be cared for in _that_ unreasonable way, than for the best reason in the world. But all _that_ was history and philosophy simply--was it not?--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 the beginning so sure of the nobility and integrity in you that I would have trusted you to make a path for my soul--_that_, you _know_. I felt certain that you believed of yourself every word you spoke or wrote--and you must not blame me if I thought besides sometimes (it was the extent of my thought) that you were self-deceived as to the nature of your own feelings. If you could turn over every page of my heart like the pages of a book, you would see nothing there offensive to the least of your feelings ... not even to the outside fringes of your 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 ... I thank 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 this sort of feelings. 'Self-deceived,' it was so possible for you to be, and while I thought it possible, could I help thinking it _best_ for you that it should be so--and was it not right in me to persist in thinking it possible? It was my reverence for you that made me persist! What was _I_ that I should think otherwise? I had been shut up 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 I had ever known could not make your stature among them. So it was not distrust, but reverence rather. I sate by while the angel stirred the water, 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--it is not possible:--and though I have said _that_ before, I must say it again ... for it comes again to be said. It is something to me between dream and miracle, all of it--as if some dream of my earliest brightest dreaming-time had been lying through these dark years to steep 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, you exercise it, I do think--for although I cannot promise to be very sorrowful when you come, (how could that be?) yet from different motives it seems to me that I have written to you quite superfluities about my 'abomination of desolation,'--yes indeed, and blamed myself afterwards. And now I must say this besides. When grief came upon grief, I never was tempted to ask 'How have I deserved this of God,' as sufferers sometimes do: I always felt that there must be cause enough ... corruption enough, needing purification ... weakness enough, needing strengthening ... _nothing_ of the chastisement could come to me without cause and need. But in this different hour, when joy follows joy, and God makes me happy, as you say, _through_ you ... I cannot repress the ... 'How have I deserved _this_ of Him?'--I know I have not--I know I do not.

Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room for you?--If so, it was well done,--dearest! They leave the ground fallow before the wheat.

'Were you wrong in answering?' Surely not ... unless it is wrong to show all this goodness ... and too much, it may be for _me_. When the plants droop for drought and the copious showers fall suddenly, silver upon silver, they die sometimes of the reverse of their adversities. But no--_that_, even, shall not be a danger! And if I said 'Do not answer,' 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 for golden 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 such things be' in one of the best reviews of the day? Mr. Kenyon was here on Sunday and talking of the poems with real living tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. But I will tell you. 'Luria' is to climb to the place of a great work, I see. And if I write too long letters, is it not because you spoil me, and because (being spoilt) I cannot help it?--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-natured letters, desperate praise and all? Not, _not_ out of the least vanity in the world--nor to help myself in your sight with such testimony: would it seem very extravagant, on the contrary, if I said that perhaps I laid them before your eyes in a real fit of compunction at not being, in my heart, thankful enough for the evident motive of the writers,--and so was determined to give them the 'last honours' if not the first, and not make them miss _you_ because, through my fault, they had missed _me_? Does this sound too fantastical? Because it is strictly true: the most laudatory of all, I _skimmed_ once over with my flesh _creeping_--it seemed such a death-struggle, that of good nature over--well, it is fresh ingratitude of me, so here it shall end.

I am not ungrateful to _you_--but you must wait to know that:--I can speak 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 vase from King Hiram; beside he has plenty of conscious rejoicing in his own riches, and is not left painfully poor by what he sends away. _That_ is the unpleasant point with some others--they spread you a board and want to gird up their loins and wait on you there. Landor says '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 feeling to _you_, ... for poetry is not the thing given or taken between us--it is heart and life and _my_self, not _mine_, I give--give? That you 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's verses for _me_ as well as for you, thank _her_ from me for another kindness, ... not the second nor the third? For my own part, be sure that if I did not fall on the right subtle interpretation about the letters, at least I did not 'think it vain' of you! vain: when, supposing you really to have been over-gratified by such letters, it could have proved only an excess of humility!--But ... besides the subtlety,--you meant to be kind to _me_, you know,--and I had a pleasure and an interest in reading them--only that ... mind. Sir John Hanmer's, I was half angry with! Now _is_ he not cold?--and is it not easy to see _why_ he is forced to write his own scenes five times over and over? He might have mentioned the 'Duchess' I think; and he a poet! Mr. Chorley speaks some things very well--but what does he mean about 'execution,' _en revanche_? but I liked his letter and his candour in the last page of it. Will Mr. Warburton review you? does he mean _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 you give for being gratified by it, it is well that one prophet should open his mouth and prophesy and give his witness to the inspiration of another. See what he says in the letter.... '_You may stand quite alone if you will--and I think you will.' That_ is a noble testimony to a _truth_. And he discriminates--he understands and discerns--they are not words thrown out into the air. The 'profusion of imagery covering the depth of thought' is a true description. And, in the verses, he lays his finger just on your characteristics--just on those which, when you were only a poet to me, (only a poet: does it sound irreverent? almost, I think!) which, when you were only a poet to me, I used to study, characteristic by characteristic, and turn myself round and round in despair of being ever able to approach, taking them to be so essentially and intensely masculine that like effects were unattainable, even in a lower degree, by any female hand. Did I not tell you so once before? or oftener than once? And must not these verses of Landor's be printed somewhere--in the _Examiner_? and again in the _Athenæum_? if in the _Examiner_, certainly again in the _Athenæum_--it would be a matter of course. Oh those verses: how they have pleased me! It was an act worthy of him--and of _you_.

George has been properly 'indoctrinated,' and, we must hope, will do credit to my instructions. Just now ... just as I was writing ... he came in to say good-morning and good-night (he goes to chambers earlier than I receive visitors generally), and to ask with a smile, if I had 'a message for my friend' ... _that_ was you ... and so he was indoctrinated. He is good and true, honest and kind, but a little over-grave and reasonable, as I and my sisters complain continually. The great Law lime-kiln dries human souls all to one colour--and he is an industrious reader among law books and knows a good deal about them, I have heard from persons who can judge; but with a sacrifice of impulsiveness and liberty of spirit, which _I_ should regret for him if he sate on the Woolsack even. Oh--that law! how I do detest it! I hate it and think ill of it--I tell George so sometimes--and he is good-natured and only thinks to himself (a little audibly now and then) 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 whole host of barristers looks down on the attorneys and the rest of the world!--how long are these things to last!

Theodosia Garrow, I have seen face to face once or twice. She is very clever--very accomplished--with talents and tastes of various kinds--a musician and linguist, in most modern languages I believe--and a writer of fluent graceful melodious verses, ... you cannot say any more. At least _I_ cannot--and though I have not seen this last poem in the 'Book of Beauty,' I have no more trust ready for it than for its predecessors, of which Mr. Landor said as much. It is the personal feeling which speaks in him, I fancy--simply the personal feeling--and, _that_ being the case, it does not spoil the discriminating appreciation on the other page of this letter. I might have the modesty to admit besides that I may be wrong and he, right, all through. But ... 'more intense than Sappho'!--more intense than intensity itself!--to think of _that_!--Also the word 'poetry' has a clear meaning to me, and all the fluency and facility and quick ear-catching of a tune which one can find in the world, do not answer to it--no.

How is the head? will you tell me? I have written all this without a word of it, and yet ever since yesterday I have been uneasy, ... I cannot help it. You see you are not better but worse. 'Since you were in Italy'--Then is it England that disagrees with you? and is it change away from England that you want? ... _require_, I mean. If so--why what follows and ought to follow? You must not be ill indeed--_that_ is the first necessity. Tell me how you are, exactly how you are; and remember to walk, and not to work too much--for my sake--if you care for me--if it is not too bold of me to say so. I had fancied you were looking better rather than otherwise: but those sensations in the head are frightful and ought to be stopped by whatever means; even by the worst, as they would seem to _me_. Well--it was bad news to hear of the increase of pain; for the amendment was a 'passing show' I fear, and not caused even by thoughts of mine or it would have appeared before; while on the other side (the sunny side of the way) I heard on that same yesterday, what made me glad as good news, a whole gospel of good news, and from _you_ too who profess to say 'less than nothing,' and _that_ was that '_the times seemed longer to you_':--do you remember saying it? And it made me glad ... happy--perhaps too glad and happy--and surprised: yes, surprised!--for if you had told me (but you would not have told me) if you had let me guess ... just the contrary, ... '_that the times seemed shorter_,' ... why it would have seemed to _me_ as natural as nature--oh, believe me it would, and I could not have thought hardly of you for it in the most secret or silent of my thoughts. How am I to feel towards you, do you imagine, ... who have the world round you and yet make me this to you? I never can tell you how, and you never can know it without having my heart in you with all its experiences: we measure by those weights. May God bless you! and save _me_ from being 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 fail willingly to you in the least thing? But I _never will_, and you know it. I will not move, nor speak, nor breathe, so as willingly and consciously to touch, with one shade of wrong, that precious deposit of '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 the same parcel--but my letter goes by the post as you see. Is there contrast enough between the two rival female personages of 'Pomfret.' _I_ fancy not. Helena should have been more 'demonstrative' than she appeared in Italy, to secure the 'new modulation' with Walter. But you will not think it a strong book, I am sure, with all the good and pure intention of it. The best character ... most life-like ... as conventional life goes ... seems to _me_ 'Mr. Rose' ... beyond all comparison--and the best point, the noiseless, unaffected manner in which the acting out of the 'private judgment' in Pomfret himself is made no heroic virtue but simply an integral part of the love of truth. As to Grace she is too good to be interesting, I am afraid--and people say of her more than she expresses--and as to 'generosity,' she could 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 my generosity is like Grace's, and could not help itself. There were the letters to write of, and the verses! and then, you know, 'femme qui parle' never has done. _Let_ me hear! and I will be as brisk as a monument 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 nothing of, according to convention: if I wrote down 'best and kindest' ... oh, what poorest words!) I shall tell you all about 'Pomfret,' be sure. Chorley talked of it, as we walked homewards together last night,--modestly and well, and spoke of having given away two copies only ... to his mother one, and the other to--Miss Barrett, and 'she seemed interested in the life of it, entered into his purpose in it,' and I listened to it all, loving Chorley for his loveability which is considerable at other times, and saying to myself what might run better in the child's couplet--'Not more than others I deserve, Though God has given me more'!--Given me the letter which expresses surprise that I shall feel these blanks between the days when I see you longer and longer! So am _I_ surprised--that I should have mentioned so obvious a matter at all; or leave unmentioned a hundred others its correlatives which I cannot conceive you to be ignorant of, you! When I spread out my riches before me, and think _what_ the hour and more means that you endow one with, I _do_--not to say _could_--I _do_ form resolutions, and say to myself--'If next time I am bidden stay away a FORTNIGHT, I will not reply by a word beyond the grateful assent.' I _do_, God knows, lay up in my heart these priceless treasures,--shall I 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 of paper a few dates, that I might remember in England, on such a day I was on Vesuvius, in Pompeii, at Shelley's grave; all that should be kept 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 of every visit to you; the numbers of minutes you have given me ... and I put them together till they make ... nearly two days now; four-and-twenty-hour-long-days, that I have been _by you_--and I enter the room determining to get up and go sooner ... and I go away into the light street repenting that I went so soon by I don't know how many minutes--for, love, what is it all, this love for you, but an earnest desiring to include you in myself, if that might be; to feel you in my very heart and hold you there for ever, through all chance and earthly changes!

There, I had better leave off; the words!

I was very glad to find myself with your brother yesterday; I like him very much and mean to get a friend in him--(to supply the loss of my friend ... Miss Barrett--which is gone, the friendship, so gone!) But I did not ask after you because I heard Moxon do it. Now of Landor's verses: 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 the note to make you smile! I shall reply that I felt in duty bound to apprise you; as I did. You will observe that I go to that too facile gate of his on Tuesday, _my day_ ... from your house directly. The worst is that I have got entangled with invitations already, and must go 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 hoard up your words and get remote and imperfect ideas of what ... shall it be 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 gold pieces!

I rather think if Warburton reviews me it will be in the _Quarterly_, which I know he writes for. Hanmer is a very sculpturesque passionless high-minded and amiable man ... this coldness, as you see it, is part of him. I like his poems, I think, better than you--'the Sonnets,' do you know them? Not 'Fra Cipolla.' See what is here, since you will not let me have only you to look at--this is Landor's first opinion--expressed to Forster--see the date! and last of all, see me and 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 those verses and spoke his preface and I understood what was to follow, I had a temptation from my familiar Devil not to say I had read them before--I had the temptation strong and clear. For he (Mr. K.) told me that your sister let him see them--.

But no--My 'vade retro' prevailed, and I spoke the truth and shamed the devil and surprised Mr. Kenyon besides, as I could observe. Not an observation did he make till he was just going away half an hour afterwards, and then he said rather dryly ... 'And now may I ask how long ago it was when you first read these verses?--was it a fortnight ago?' It was better, I think, that I should not have made a mystery of such a simple thing, ... and yet I felt half vexed with myself and with him besides. But the verses,--how he praised them! more than I thought of doing ... as verses--though there is beauty and music and all that ought to be. Do you see clearly now that the latter lines refer to the combination in you,--the qualities over and above those held in common with Chaucer? And I have heard this morning from two or three of the early readers of the _Chronicle_ (I never care to see it till the evening) that the verses are there--so that my wishes have fulfilled themselves _there_ at least--strangely, for wishes of mine ... which generally 'go by contraries' as the soothsayers declare of dreams. How kind of you to send me the fragment to Mr. Forster! and how 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 I took for granted, at first hearing, that you would come on Wednesday perhaps to me--and afterwards I saw the possibility of the two ends being joined without much difficulty. Still, I was not sure, before your letter came, how it might be.

That you really are better is the best news of all--thank you for telling me. It will be wise not to go out _too_ much--'aequam servare mentem' as Landor quotes, ... in this as in the rest. Perhaps that worst pain was a sort of crisis ... the sharp turn of the road about to 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 critically the opinion entertained of you by all who could judge, nor because they praised a book with which his own name was associated ... but for the abstract beauty of those verses ... for _that_ reason he could not help naming them to Mr. Landor. All of which was repeated to me yesterday.

Also I heard of you from George, who admired you--admired you ... as if you were a chancellor in _posse_, a great lawyer in _esse_--and then he thought you ... what he never could think a lawyer ... '_unassuming_.' And _you_ ... you are so kind! Only _that_ makes me think 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, and he sending so few--very! George who admires _you_, does not tolerate Mr. Chorley ... (did I tell ever?) declares that the affectation is 'bad,' and that there is a dash of vulgarity ... which I positively refuse to believe, and _should_, I fancy, though face to face with the most vainglorious of waistcoats. How can there be vulgarity even of manners, with so much mental refinement? I never could believe in those 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 I think directly, 'So little'! so dreadfully little! What shallow earth for a deep root! What can be known of me in that time? 'So _there_, is the only good, you see, that comes from making calculations on a slip of paper! It is not and it cannot come to good.' I would rather look at my seventy-five letters--there is room to breathe in them. And this is 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 to write a long letter to my friend at New Zealand, and now I want to sit and think of you and get well--but I must not quite lose the word I counted 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_ had been planted then--and might not a good heart and hand drop acorns enough to grow up into a complete Dodona-grove,--when the very rook, say farmers, hides and forgets whole navies of ship-wood one day to be, in his summer storing-journeys? But this shall do--I am not going to prove what _may_ be, when here it _is_, to my everlasting happiness.

--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, and take from my faculties here what you give them, spite of my protesting, in other directions. So I could not when I first saw you admire you very much, and wish for your friendship, and be willing to give you mine, and desirous of any opportunity of serving you, benefiting you; I could not think the finding myself in a position to feel 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's end,--should simply spoil, in its explosion and departure, all the real and sufficing elements of an honest life-long attachment and affections! that I should do this, and think it a piece of kindness does....

Now, I'll tell you what it _does_ deserve, and what it shall get. Give me, dearest beyond expression, what I have always dared to think I would 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 for your 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--all precious that you are--as may be given in a lock of your hair--I will live 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 ... when I leave you, I will not speak a word. If you do not, I will not think you unjust, for all my light words, but I will pray you to wait and remember me one day--when the power to deserve more may be greater ... never the will. God supplies all things: may he bless you, beloved! So I 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 the verses to Forster at the same time as to me, yet they do not appear. I never 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 would stand as high as I could in the eyes of all about you--yet not, after all, at poor Chorley's expense whom your brother, I am sure, unintentionally, is rather hasty in condemning; I have told you of my own much rasher opinion and how I was ashamed and sorry when I corrected it after. C. is of a different species to your brother, differently trained, looking different ways--and for some of the peculiarities that strike at first sight, C. himself gives a good reason to the enquirer on better acquaintance. For 'Vulgarity'--NO! But your kind brother will alter his view, I know, on further acquaintance ... and,--woe's me--will find that 'assumption's' pertest self 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 helped onward 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 the foolish comment, that there was no blotting out--made it some four or five years ago, when I could read what I only guess at now, through my idle opening the hand and letting the caught bird go--but there used to be a real satisfaction to me in writing those grand Hebrew characters--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 mean any harm--no, indeed! And as to thinking ... as to having ever thought, that you could 'imitate' (can this word be 'imitate'?) an unfelt feeling or a feeling unsupposed to be felt ... I may solemnly assure you that I never, never did so. 'Get up'--'imitate'!! But it was the contrary ... _all_ the contrary! From the beginning, now _did_ I not believe you too much? Did I not believe you even in your contradiction of yourself ... in your _yes_ and _no_ on the same subject, ... and take the world to be turning round backwards and myself to have been shut up here till I grew mad, ... rather than disbelieve you either way? Well!--You know it as well as I can tell you, 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 twice or thrice to female friends, ... never, though reproached for it; and it is just three weeks since I said last to an asker that I was 'too great a prude for such a thing'! it was best to anticipate the accusation!--And, prude or not, I could not--I never could--_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 I suppose ... _yes_. I suppose that 'for my own sense of justice and in order to show that I was wrong' (which is wrong--you wrote a wrong word there ... 'right,' you meant!) 'to show that I was _right_ and am no longer so,' ... I suppose you must have it, 'Oh, _You_,' ... who have your way in everything! Which does not mean ... Oh, vous, qui avez 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 (with others 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, as you 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 your headache has begun again--the headache again: the worse than headache! See what good my wishes do! And try to understand that if I speak of my 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 whose place is by the waters of Damascus. But I need not tell you over again--you _know_. May God bless you till to-morrow and past it for ever. 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? It enrages me to think of Mr. Forster; publishing too as he does, at a moment, the very sweepings of Landor's desk! Is the motive of the reticence to be looked for somewhere among the cinders?--Too bad it is. 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 admired the _writing_[1] ... worthy of the reeds of Jordan!

[Footnote 1: Mr. Browning's letter is written in an unusually bold hand.]

_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.'s to-day--(He told me he should see you this morning--and _I_ shall pass close by, having to be in town and near you,--but only the thought will reach you and be with you--) tell me all this, dearest.

How kind Mr. Kenyon was last night and the day before! He neither wonders nor is much vexed, I dare believe--and I write now these few words to say so--My heart is set on next Thursday, remember ... and the prize of Saturday! Oh, dearest, believe for truth's sake, that I WOULD most frankly own to any fault, any imperfection in the beginning of my love of you; in the pride and security of this present stage it has reached--I _would_ gladly learn, by the full lights now, what an insufficient glimmer it grew from, ... but there _never has been change_, only development and increased knowledge and strengthened feeling--I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours for ever. God bless you, and make me thankful!

And you _will_ give me _that_? What shall save me from wreck: but truly? 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 one thing, and to keep it, quite another: and the conclusion you see 'as from a tower.' Suppose I had an oath in heaven somewhere ... near to 'coma Berenices,' ... never to give you what you ask for! ... would not such an oath be stronger than a mere half promise such as I sent you a few hours ago? Admit that it would--and that I am not to blame for saying now ... (listen!) that I _never can_ nor _will give you this thing_;--only that I will, if you please, exchange it for another thing--you understand. _I_ too will avoid being 'assuming'; I will not pretend to be generous, no, nor 'kind.' It shall be pure merchandise or nothing at all. Therefore determine!--remembering always how our 'ars poetica,' after Horace, recommends 'dare et petere vicissim'--which is making a clatter of pedantry to take advantage of the noise ... because perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say this to you, 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 you think?... Think!

Then there is another reason for me, entirely mine. You have come to me as a dream comes, as the best dreams come ... dearest--and so there is need to me of 'a sign' to know the difference between dream and vision--and _that_ is my completest reason, my own reason--you have none 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 you anything, and if possible by that Lewisham post which was the most frequent bringer of your letters until these last few came, and which reaches me at eight in the evening when all the world is at dinner and my solitude most certain. Everything is so still then, that I have heard the footsteps of a letter of yours ten doors off ... or more, perhaps. Now beware of imagining from this which I say, that there is a strict police for my correspondence ... (it is not so--) nor that I do not like hearing from you at any and every hour: it _is_ so. Only I would make the smoothest and sweetest of roads for ... and you _understand_, and do not _imagine_ beyond.