Chapter VI: Part 6

Very well--I shall say no more on the subject--though it was not any piece of formality on your part that I deprecated; nor even your over-kindness exactly--I rather wanted you to be really, wisely kind, and do me a greater favour then the next great one in degree; but you must understand this much in me, how you can lay me under deepest obligation. I daresay you think you have some, perhaps many, to whom your well-being is of deeper interest than to me. Well, if that be so, do for their sakes make every effort with the remotest chance of proving serviceable to you; nor _set yourself against_ any little irksomeness these carriage-drives may bring with them just at the beginning; and you may say, if you like, 'how I shall delight those friends, if I can make this newest one grateful'--and, as from the known quantity one reasons out the unknown, this newest friend will be one glow of gratitude, he knows that, if you can warm your finger-tips and so do yourself that much real good, by setting light to a dozen 'Duchesses': why ought I not to say this when it is so true? Besides, people profess as much to their merest friends--for I have been looking through a poem-book just now, and was told, under the head of Album-verses alone, that for A. the writer would die, and for B. die too but a crueller death, and for C. too, and D. and so on. I wonder whether they have since wanted to borrow money of him on the strength of his professions. But you must remember we are in July; the 13th it is, and summer will go and cold weather stay ('_come_' forsooth!)--and now is the time of times. Still I feared the rain would hinder you on Friday--but the thunder did not frighten me--for you: your father must pardon me for holding most firmly with Dr. Chambers--his theory is quite borne out by my own experience, for I have seen a man it were foolish to call a coward, a great fellow too, all but die away in a thunderstorm, though he had quite science enough to explain why there was no immediate danger at all--whereupon his younger brother suggested that he should just go out and treat us to a repetition of Franklin's experiment with the cloud and the kite--a well-timed proposition which sent the Explainer down with a white face into the cellar. What a grand sight your tree was--_is_, for I see it. My father has a print of a tree so struck--torn to ribbons, as you describe--but the rose-mark is striking and new to me. We had a good storm on our last voyage, but I went to bed at the end, as I thought--and only found there had been lightning next day by the bare poles under which we were riding: but the finest mountain fit of the kind I ever saw has an unfortunately ludicrous association. It was at Possagno, among the Euganean Hills, and I was at a poor house in the town--an old woman was before a little picture of the Virgin, and at every fresh clap she lighted, with the oddest sputtering muttering mouthful of prayer imaginable, an inch of guttery candle, which, the instant the last echo had rolled away, she as constantly blew out again for saving's sake--having, of course, to _light the smoke_ of it, about an instant after that: the expenditure in wax at which the elements might be propitiated, you see, was a matter for curious calculation. I suppose I ought to have bought the whole taper for some four or five centesimi (100 of which make 8d. English) and so kept the countryside safe for about a century of bad weather. Leigh Hunt tells you a story he had from Byron, of kindred philosophy in a Jew who was surprised by a thunderstorm while he was dining on bacon--he tried to eat between-whiles, but the flashes were as pertinacious as he, so at last he pushed his plate away, just remarking with a compassionate shrug, 'all this fuss about a piece of pork!' By the way, what a characteristic of an Italian _late_ evening is Summer-lightning--it hangs in broad slow sheets, dropping from cloud to cloud, so long in dropping and dying off. The 'bora,' which you only get at Trieste, brings wonderful lightning--you are in glorious June-weather, fancy, of an evening, under green shock-headed acacias, so thick and green, with the cicalas stunning you above, and all about you men, women, rich and poor, sitting standing and coming and going--and through all the laughter and screaming and singing, the loud clink of the spoons against the glasses, the way of calling for fresh 'sorbetti'--for all the world is at open-coffee-house at such an hour--when suddenly there is a stop in the sunshine, a blackness drops down, then a great white column of dust drives straight on like a wedge, and you see the acacia heads snap off, now one, then another--and all the people scream 'la bora, la bora!' and you are caught up in their whirl and landed in some interior, the man with the guitar on one side of you, and the boy with a cageful of little brown owls for sale, on the other--meanwhile, the thunder claps, claps, with such a persistence, and the rain, for a finale, falls in a mass, as if you had knocked out the whole bottom of a huge tank at once--then there is a second stop--out comes the sun--somebody clinks at his glass, all the world bursts out laughing, and prepares to pour out again,--but _you_, the stranger, _do_ make the best of your way out, with no preparation at all; whereupon you infallibly put your foot (and half your leg) into a river, really that, of rainwater--that's a _Bora_ (and that comment of yours, a justifiable pun!) Such things you get in Italy, but better, better, the best of all things you do not (_I_ do not) get those. And I shall see you on Wednesday, please remember, and bring you the rest of the poem--that you should like it, gratifies me more than I will try to say, but then, do not you be tempted by that pleasure of pleasing which I think is your besetting sin--may it not be?--and so cut me off from the other pleasure of being profited. As I told you, I like so much to fancy that you see, and will see, what I do as _I_ see it, while it is doing, as nobody else in the world should, certainly, even if they thought it worth while to want--but when I try and build a great building I shall want you to come with me and judge it and counsel me before the scaffolding is taken down, and while you have to make your way over hods and mortar and heaps of lime, and trembling tubs of size, and those thin broad whitewashing brushes I always had a desire to take up and bespatter with. And now goodbye--I am to see you on Wednesday I trust--and to hear you say you are better, still better, much better? God grant that, and all else good for you, dear friend, and so for R.B.

ever yours.

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

[Post-mark, July 18, 1845.]

I suppose nobody is ever expected to acknowledge his or her 'besetting sin'--it would be unnatural--and therefore you will not be surprised to hear me deny the one imputed to me for mine. I deny it quite and directly. And if my denial goes for nothing, which is but reasonable, I might call in a great cloud of witnesses, ... a thundercloud, ... (talking of storms!) and even seek no further than this table for a first witness; this letter, I had yesterday, which calls me ... let me see how many hard names ... 'unbending,' ... 'disdainful,' ... 'cold hearted,' ... 'arrogant,' ... yes, 'arrogant, as women always are when men grow humble' ... there's a charge against all possible and probable petticoats beyond mine and through it! Not that either they or mine deserve the charge--we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for I don't pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins 'over the way' and in antithesis. It's an undeserved charge, and unprovoked! and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented into ill temper; and shall remain unanswered, for _me_, ... and _should_, ... even if I could write mortal epigrams, as your Lamia speaks them. Only it serves to help my assertion that people in general who know something of me, my dear friend, are not inclined to agree with you in particular, about my having an 'over-pleasure in pleasing,' for a besetting sin. If you had spoken of my sister Henrietta indeed, you would have been right--_so_ right! but for _me_, alas, my sins are not half as amiable, nor given to lean to virtue's side with half such a grace. And then I have a pretension to speak the truth like a Roman, even in matters of literature, where Mr. Kenyon says falseness is a fashion--and really and honestly I should not be afraid ... I should have no reason to be afraid, ... if all the notes and letters written by my hand for years and years about presentation copies of poems and other sorts of books were brought together and 'conferred,' as they say of manuscripts, before my face--I should not shrink and be ashamed. Not that I always tell the truth as I see it--_but_ I _never do_ speak falsely with intention and consciousness--never--and I do not find that people of letters are sooner offended than others are, by the truth told in gentleness;--I do not remember to have offended anyone in this relation, and by these means. Well!--but _from me to you_; it is all different, you know--you must know how different it is. I can tell you truly what I think of this thing and of that thing in your 'Duchess'--but I must of a necessity hesitate and fall into misgiving of the adequacy of my truth, so called. To judge at all of a work of yours, I must _look up to it_, and _far up_--because whatever faculty _I_ have is included in your faculty, and with a great rim all round it besides! And thus, it is not at all from an over-pleasure in pleasing _you_, not at all from an inclination to depreciate myself, that I speak and feel as I do and must on some occasions; it is simply the consequence of a true comprehension of you and of me--and apart from it, I should not be abler, I think, but less able, to assist you in anything. I do wish you would consider all this reasonably, and understand it as a third person would in a moment, and consent not to spoil the real pleasure I have and am about to have in your poetry, by nailing me up into a false position with your gold-headed nails of chivalry, which won't hold to the wall through this summer. Now you will not answer this?--you will only understand it and me--and that I am not servile but sincere, but earnest, but meaning what I say--and when I say I am afraid, you will believe that I am afraid; and when I say I have misgivings, you will believe that I have misgivings--you will _trust_ me so far, and give me liberty to breathe and feel naturally ... according to my own nature. Probably, or certainly rather, I have one advantage over you, ... one, of which women are not fond of boasting--that of _being older by years_--for the 'Essay on Mind,' which was the first poem published by me (and rather more printed than published after all), the work of my earliest youth, half childhood, half womanhood, was published in 1826 I see. And if I told Mr. Kenyon not to let you see that book, it was not for the date, but because Coleridge's daughter was right in calling it a mere 'girl's exercise'; because it is just _that_ and no more, ... no expression whatever of my nature as it ever was, ... pedantic, and in some things pert, ... and such as altogether, and to do myself justice (which I would fain do of course), I was not in my whole life. Bad books are never like their writers, you know--and those under-age books are generally bad. Also I have found it hard work to _get into expression_, though I began rhyming from my very infancy, much as you did (and this, with no sympathy near to me--I have had to do without sympathy in the full sense--), and even in my 'Seraphim' days, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth,--from leading so conventual recluse a life, perhaps--and all my better poems were written last year, the very best thing to come, if there should be any life or courage to come; I scarcely know. Sometimes--it is the real truth--I have haste to be done with it all. It is the real truth; however to say so may be an ungrateful return for your kind and generous words, ... which I _do_ feel gratefully, let me otherwise feel as I will, ... or must. But then you know you are liable to such prodigious mistakes about besetting sins and even besetting virtues--to such a set of small delusions, that are sure to break one by one, like other bubbles, as you draw in your breath, ... as I see by the law of my own star, my own particular star, the star I was born under, the star _Wormwood_, ... on the opposite side of the heavens from the constellations of 'the Lyre and the Crown.' In the meantime, it is difficult to thank you, or _not_ to thank you, for all your kindnesses--[Greek: algos de sigan]. Only Mrs. Jameson told me of Lady Byron's saying 'that she knows she is burnt every day in effigy by half the world, but that the effigy is so unlike herself as to be inoffensive to her,' and just so, or rather just in the converse of _so_, is it with me and your kindnesses. They are meant for quite another than I, and are too far to be so near. The comfort is ... in seeing you throw all those ducats out of the window, (and how many ducats go in a figure to a 'dozen Duchesses,' it is profane to calculate) the comfort is that you will not be the poorer for it in the end; since the people beneath, are honest enough to push them back under the door. Rather a bleak comfort and occupation though!--and you may find better work for your friends, who are (some of them) weary even unto death of the uses of this life. And now, you who are generous, _be_ generous, and take no notice of all this. I speak of myself, not of you so there is nothing for you to contradict or discuss--and if there were, you would be really kind and give me my way in it. Also you may take courage; for I promise not to vex you by thanking you against _your_ will,--more than may be helped.

Some of this letter was written before yesterday and in reply of course to yours--so it is to pass for two letters, being long enough for just six. Yesterday you must have wondered at me for being in such a maze altogether about the poems--and so now I rise to explain that it was assuredly the wine song and no other which I read of yours in _Hood's_. And then, what did I say of the Dante and Beatrice? Because what I referred to was the exquisite page or two or three on that subject in the 'Pentameron.' I do not remember anything else of Landor's with the same bearing--do you? As to Montaigne, with the threads of my thoughts smoothly disentangled, I can see nothing coloured by him ... nothing. Do bring all the _Hood_ poems of your own--inclusive of the 'Tokay,' because I read it in such haste as to whirl up all the dust you saw, from the wheels of my chariot. The 'Duchess' is past speaking of here--but you will see how I am delighted. And we must make speed--only taking care of your head--for I heard to-day that Papa and my aunt are discussing the question of sending me off either to Alexandria or Malta for the winter. Oh--it is quite a passing talk and thought, I dare say! and it would not _be_ in any case, until September or October; though in every case, I suppose, _I_ should not be much consulted ... and all cases and places would seem better to me (if I were) than Madeira which the physicians used to threaten me with long ago. So take care of your headache and let us have the 'Bells' rung out clear before the summer ends ... and pray don't say again anything about clear consciences or unclear ones, in granting me the privilege of reading your manuscripts--which is all clear privilege to me, with pride and gladness waiting on it. May God bless you always my dear friend!

E.B.B.

You left behind your sister's little basket--but I hope you did not forget to thank her for my carnations.

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

[no date]

I shall just say, at the beginning of a note as at the end, I am yours _ever_, and not till summer ends and my nails fall out, and my breath breaks bubbles,--ought you to write thus having restricted me as you once did, and do still? You tie me like a Shrove-Tuesday fowl to a stake and then pick the thickest cudgel out of your lot, and at my head it goes--I wonder whether you remembered having predicted exactly the same horror once before. 'I was to see you--and you were to understand'--_Do_ you? do you understand--my own friend--with that superiority in years, too! For I confess to that--you need not throw that in my teeth ... as soon as I read your 'Essay on Mind'--(which of course I managed to do about 12 hours after Mr. K's positive refusal to keep his promise, and give me the book) from preface to the 'Vision of Fame' at the end, and reflected on my own doings about that time, 1826--I did indeed see, and wonder at, your advance over me in years--what then? I have got nearer you considerably--(if only nearer)--since then--and prove it by the remarks I make at favourable times--such as this, for instance, which occurs in a poem you are to see--written some time ago--which advises nobody who thinks nobly of the Soul, to give, if he or she can help, such a good argument to the materialist as the owning that any great choice of that Soul, which it is born to make and which--(in its determining, as it must, the whole future course and impulses of that soul)--which must endure for ever, even though the object that induced the choice should disappear--owning, I say, that such a choice may be scientifically determined and produced, at any operator's pleasure, by a definite number of ingredients, so much youth, so much beauty, so much talent &c. &c., with the same certainty and precision that another kind of operator will construct you an artificial volcano with so much steel filings and flower of sulphur and what not. There is more in the soul than rises to the surface and meets the eye; whatever does _that_, is for this world's immediate uses; and were this world _all, all_ in us would be producible and available for use, as it _is_ with the body now--but with the soul, what is to be developed _afterward_ is the main thing, and instinctively asserts its rights--so that when you hate (or love) you shall not be so able to explain 'why' ('You' is the ordinary creature enough of my poem--_he_ might not be so able.)

There, I will write no more. You will never drop _me_ off the golden hooks, I dare believe--and the rest is with God--whose finger I see every minute of my life. Alexandria! Well, and may I not as easily ask leave to come 'to-morrow at the Muezzin' as next Wednesday at three?

God bless you--do not be otherwise than kind to this letter which it costs me pains, great pains to avoid writing better, as truthfuller--this you get is not the first begun. Come, you shall not have the heart to blame me; for, see, I will send all my sins of commission with _Hood_,--blame _them_, tell me about them, and meantime let me be, dear friend, yours,

R.B.

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, July 21, 1845.]

But I never _did_ strike you or touch you--and you are not in earnest in the complaint you make--and this is really all I am going to say to-day. What I said before was wrung from me by words on your part, while you know far too well how to speak so as to make them go deepest, and which sometimes it becomes impossible, or over-hard to bear without deprecation:--as when, for instance, you talk of being 'grateful' to _me_!!--Well! I will try that there shall be no more of it--no more provocation of generosities--and so, (this once) as you express it, I 'will not have the heart to blame' you--except for reading my books against my will, which was very wrong indeed. Mr. Kenyon asked me, I remember, (he had a mania of sending my copybook literature round the world to this person and that person, and I was roused at last into binding him by a vow to do so no more) I remember he asked me ... 'Is Mr. Browning to be excepted?'; to which I answered that nobody was to be excepted--and thus he was quite right in resisting to the death ... or to dinner-time ... just as you were quite wrong after dinner. Now, could a woman have been more curious? Could the very author of the book have done worse? But I leave my sins and yours gladly, to get into the _Hood_ poems which have delighted me so--and first to the St. Praxed's which is of course the finest and most powerful ... and indeed full of the power of life ... and of death. It has impressed me very much. Then the 'Angel and Child,' with all its beauty and significance!--and the 'Garden Fancies' ... some of the stanzas about the name of the flower, with such exquisite music in them, and grace of every kind--and with that beautiful and musical use of the word 'meandering,' which I never remember having seen used in relation to _sound_ before. It does to mate with your '_simmering_ quiet' in Sordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sure as you read it. Then I like your burial of the pedant so much!--you have quite the damp smell of funguses and the sense of creeping things through and through it. And the 'Laboratory' is hideous as you meant to make it:--only I object a little to your tendency ... which is almost a habit, and is very observable in this poem I think, ... of making lines difficult for the reader to read ... see the opening lines of this poem. Not that music is required everywhere, nor in _them_ certainly, but that the uncertainty of rhythm throws the reader's mind off the _rail_ ... and interrupts his progress with you and your influence with him. Where we have not direct pleasure from rhythm, and where no peculiar impression is to be produced by the changes in it, we should be encouraged by the poet to _forget it altogether_; should we not? I am quite wrong perhaps--but you see how I do not conceal my wrongnesses where they mix themselves up with my sincere impressions. And how could it be that no one within my hearing ever spoke of these poems? Because it is true that I never saw one of them--never!--except the 'Tokay,' which is inferior to all; and that I was quite unaware of your having printed so much with Hood--or at all, except this 'Tokay,' and this 'Duchess'! The world is very deaf and dumb, I think--but in the end, we need not be afraid of its not learning its lesson.

Could you come--for I am going out in the carriage, and will not stay to write of your poems even, any more to-day--could you come on Thursday or Friday (the day left to your choice) instead of on Wednesday? If I could help it I would not say so--it is not a caprice. And I leave it to you, whether Thursday or Friday. And Alexandria seems discredited just now for Malta--and 'anything but Madeira,' I go on saying to myself. These _Hood_ poems are all to be in the next 'Bells' of course--of necessity?

May God bless you my dear friend, my ever dear friend!--

E.B.B.

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

Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 22, 1845.]

I will say, with your leave, Thursday (nor attempt to say anything else without your leave).

The temptation of reading the 'Essay' was more than I could bear: and a wonderful work it is every way; the other poems and their music--wonderful!

And you go out still--so continue better!

I cannot write this morning--I should say too much and have to be sorry and afraid--let me be safely yours ever, my own dear friend--

R.B.

I am but too proud of your praise--when will the blame come--at Malta?

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

[Post-mark, July 25, 1845.]

Are you any better to-day? and will you say just the truth of it? and not attempt to do any of the writing which does harm--nor of the reading even, which may do harm--and something does harm to you, you see--and you told me not long ago that you knew how to avoid the harm ... now, did you not? and what could it have been last week which you did not avoid, and which made you so unwell? Beseech you not to think that I am going to aid and abet in this wronging of yourself, for I will not indeed--and I am only sorry to have given you my querulous queries yesterday ... and to have omitted to say in relation to them, too, how they were to be accepted in any case as just passing thoughts of mine for _your_ passing thoughts, ... some right, it may be ... some wrong, it must be ... and none, insisted on even by the thinker! just impressions, and by no means pretending to be judgments--now _will_ you understand? Also, I intended (as a proof of my fallacy) to strike out one or two of my doubts before I gave the paper to you--so _whichever strikes you as the most foolish of them, of course must be what I meant to strike out_--(there's ingenuity for you!). The poem did, for the rest, as will be suggested to you, give me the very greatest pleasure, and astonish me in two ways ... by the versification, mechanically considered; and by the successful evolution of pure beauty from all that roughness and rudeness of the sin of the boar-pinner--successfully evolved, without softening one hoarse accent of his voice. But there is to be a pause now--you will not write any more--no, nor come here on Wednesday, if coming into the roar of this London should make the pain worse, as I cannot help thinking it must--and you were not well yesterday morning, you admitted. You _will_ take care? And if there should be a wisdom in going away...!

Was it very wrong of me, doing what I told you of yesterday? Very imprudent, I am afraid--but I never knew how to be prudent--and then, there is not a sharing of responsibility in any sort of imaginable measure; but a mere going away of so many thoughts, apart from the thinker, or of words, apart from the speaker, ... just as I might give away a pocket-handkerchief to be newly marked and mine no longer. I did not do--and would not have done, ... one of those papers singly. It would have been unbecoming of me in every way. It was simply a writing of notes ... of slips of paper ... now on one subject, and now on another ... which were thrown into the great cauldron and boiled up with other matter, and re-translated from my idiom where there seemed a need for it. And I am not much afraid of being ever guessed at--except by those Oedipuses who astounded me once for a moment and were after all, I hope, baffled by the Sphinx--or ever betrayed; because besides the black Stygian oaths and indubitable honour of the editor, he has some interest, even as I have the greatest, in being silent and secret. And nothing _is mine_ ... if something is _of me_ ... or _from_ me, rather. Yet it was wrong and foolish, I see plainly--wrong in all but the motives. How dreadful to write against time, and with a side-ways running conscience! And then the literature of the day was wider than his knowledge, all round! And the booksellers were barking distraction on every side!--I had some of the mottos to find too! But the paper relating to you I never was consulted about--or in _one particular way_ it would have been better,--as easily it might have been. May God bless you, my dear friend,

E.B.B.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 25, 1845.]

You would let me _now_, I dare say, call myself grateful to you--yet such is my jealousy in these matters--so do I hate the material when it puts down, (or tries) the immaterial in the offices of friendship; that I could almost tell you I was _not_ grateful, and try if that way I could make you see the substantiality of those other favours you refuse to recognise, and reality of the other gratitude you will not admit. But truth is truth, and you are all generosity, and will draw none but the fair inference, so I thank you as well as I can for this _also_--this last kindness. And you know its value, too--how if there were another _you_ in the world, who had done all you have done and whom I merely admired for that; if such an one had sent me such a criticism, so exactly what I want and can use and turn to good; you know how I would have told you, my _you_ I saw yesterday, all about it, and been sure of your sympathy and gladness:--but the two in one!

For the criticism itself, it is all true, except the over-eating--all the suggestions are to be adopted, the improvements accepted. I so thoroughly understand your spirit in this, that, just in this beginning, I should really like to have found some point in which I could coöperate with your intention, and help my work by disputing the effect of any alteration proposed, if it ought to be disputed--_that_ would answer your purpose exactly as well as agreeing with you,--so that the benefit to me were apparent; but this time I cannot dispute one point. All is for best.

So much for this 'Duchess'--which I shall ever rejoice in--wherever was a bud, even, in that strip of May-bloom, a live musical bee hangs now. I shall let it lie (my poem), till just before I print it; and then go over it, alter at the places, and do something for the places where I (really) wrote anyhow, almost, to get done. It is an odd fact, yet characteristic of my accomplishings one and all in this kind, that of _the poem_, the real conception of an evening (two years ago, fully)--of _that_, not a line is written,--though perhaps after all, what I am going to call the accessories in the story are real though indirect reflexes of the original idea, and so supersede properly enough the necessity of its personal appearance, so to speak. But, as I conceived the poem, it consisted entirely of the Gipsy's description of the life the Lady was to lead with her future Gipsy lover--a _real_ life, not an unreal one like that with the Duke. And as I meant to write it, all their wild adventures would have come out and the insignificance of the former vegetation have been deducible only--as the main subject has become now; of course it comes to the same thing, for one would never show half by half like a cut orange.--

Will you write to me? caring, though, so much for my best interests as not to write if you can work for yourself, or save yourself fatigue. I _think_ before writing--or just after writing--such a sentence--but reflection only justifies my first feeling; I _would_ rather go without your letters, without seeing you at all, if that advantaged you--my dear, first and last friend; my friend! And now--surely I might dare say you may if you please get well through God's goodness--with persevering patience, surely--and this next winter abroad--which you must get ready for now, every sunny day, will you not? If I venture to weary you again with all this, is there not the cause of causes, and did not the prophet write that 'there was a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the E.B.B.' led on to the fortune of

Your R.B.

Oh, let me tell you in the bitterness of my heart, that it was only 4 o'clock--that clock I enquired about--and that, ... no, I shall never say with any grace what I want to say ... and now dare not ... that you all but owe me an extra quarter of an hour next time: as in the East you give a beggar something for a few days running--then you miss him; and next day he looks indignant when the regular dole falls and murmurs--'And, for yesterday?'--Do I stay too long, I _want_ to know,--too long for the voice and head and all but the spirit that may not so soon tire,--knowing the good it does. If you would but tell me.

God bless you--

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, July 28, 1845]

You say too much indeed in this letter which has crossed mine--and particularly as there is not a word in it of what I most wanted to know and want to know ... _how you are_--for you must observe, if you please, that the very paper you pour such kindness on, was written after your own example and pattern, when, in the matter of my 'Prometheus' (such different wearying matter!), you took trouble for me and did me good. Judge from this, if even in inferior things, there can be gratitude from you to me!--or rather, do not judge--but listen when I say that I am delighted to have met your wishes in writing as I wrote; only that you are surely wrong in refusing to see a single wrongness in all that heap of weedy thoughts, and that when you look again, you must come to the admission of it. One of the thistles is the suggestion about the line

Was it singing, was it saying,

which you wrote so, and which I proposed to amend by an intermediate 'or.' Thinking of it at a distance, it grows clear to me that you were right, and that there should be and must be no 'or' to disturb the listening pause. Now _should_ there? And there was something else, which I forget at this moment--and something more than the something else. Your account of the production of the poem interests me very much--and proves just what I wanted to make out from your statements the other day, and they refused, I thought, to let me, ... that you are more faithful to your first _Idea_ than to your first _plan_. Is it so? or not? 'Orange' is orange--but _which half_ of the orange is not predestinated from all eternity--: is it _so_?

_Sunday._--I wrote so much yesterday and then went out, not knowing very well how to speak or how to be silent (is it better to-day?) of some expressions of yours ... and of your interest in me--which are deeply affecting to my feelings--whatever else remains to be said of them. And you know that you make great mistakes, ... of fennel for hemlock, of four o'clocks for five o'clocks, and of other things of more consequence, one for another; and may not be quite right besides as to my getting well '_if I please_!' ... which reminds me a little of what Papa says sometimes when he comes into this room unexpectedly and convicts me of having dry toast for dinner, and declares angrily that obstinacy and dry toast have brought me to my present condition, and that if I _pleased_ to have porter and beefsteaks instead, I should be as well as ever I was, in a month!... But where is the need of talking of it? What I wished to say was this--that if I get better or worse ... as long as I live and to the last moment of life, I shall remember with an emotion which cannot change its character, all the generous interest and feeling you have spent on me--_wasted_ on me I was going to write--but I would not provoke any answering--and in one obvious sense, it need not be so. I never shall forget these things, my dearest friend; nor remember them more coldly. God's goodness!--I believe in it, as in His sunshine here--which makes my head ache a little, while it comes in at the window, and makes most other people gayer--it does _me_ good too in a different way. And so, may God bless you! and me in this ... just this, ... that I may never have the sense, ... intolerable in the remotest apprehension of it ... of being, in any way, directly or indirectly, the means of ruffling your smooth path by so much as one of my flint-stones!--In the meantime you do not tire me indeed even when you go later for sooner ... and I do not tire myself even when I write longer and duller letters to you (if the last is possible) than the one I am ending now ... as the most grateful (leave me that word) of your friends.

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.

God 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 anticipated 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 friendship 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 dykes? 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 God 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 God-innocence' about those kind lips of his. Come, let me snatch 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 twang of the bow and the arrowhead in the white--Shelley'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 'Duchess')--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 tithes of thyme, mint, anise and cummin, 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 God 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.]