Chapter I: Part 1

THE LETTERS

OF

ROBERT BROWNING

AND

ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT

1845-1846

_WITH PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES_

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON

SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE

1899

[All rights reserved]

=_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_=

_From an oil painting by Gordigiani_

London: Published by Smith, Elder & Co. 15, Waterloo Place.]

ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING _Frontispiece_
_After the picture by Gordigiani_

FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT 566

THE LETTERS OF

ROBERT BROWNING

AND

ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT

1845-1846

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, March 25, 1846.]

You were right to bid me never again wish my poor flowers were ‘diamonds’—you could not, I think, speak so to my heart of any diamonds. God knows my life is for you to take just as you take flowers:—these last please you, serve you best when plucked—and ‘my life’s rose’ ... if I dared profane _that_ expression I would say, you have but to ‘stoop’ for it. Foolish, as all words are.

You _dwell_ on that notion of your being peculiarly isolated,—of any kindness to you, in your present state, seeming doubled and quadrupled—what do I, what could anyone infer from _that_ but, most obviously, that it was a very fortunate thing for such kindness, and that the presumable bestower of it got all his distinction from the fact that no better ... however, I hate this and cannot go on. Dearest, believe that under ordinary circumstances, with ordinary people, all operates differently—the _imaginary_ kindness-bestower with his ideal methods of showing and proving his love,—_there_ would be the rival to fear!

Do not let us talk of this—you always beat me, beside, turn my own illustrations into obscurations—as in the notable case of the _cards_ and stakes and risks—I suppose, (to save my vanity!) that if I knew anything about cards, I might go on, a step at least, with my argument. I once heard a dispute in the street between the proprietor of an oyster-stall and one of his customers—_who_ was in the wrong ... that is, _who_ used the clenching argument you shall hear presently, I don’t remember; but _one_ brought the other to this pass—‘_Are_ there three shells to an oyster?’—Just that! If there _were not_—he would clearly be found in the wrong, that was all!—‘_Why_,’ ... began the other; and I regret I did not catch the rest—there was such a clear possibility contained in that ‘_Why_ ... an oyster _might_ have three shells!’

Note the adroitness,—(calm heroic silence of the _act_ rather than a merely attempted _word_,) the mastery with which, taking up Ba’s implied challenge, I _do_ furnish her with both ‘amusement and instruction’—moreover I will at Ba’s bidding amuse and instruct the world at large, and make them know all to be known—for my purposes—about ‘Bells and Pomegranates’—yes, it will be better.

I said rather hastily that my head ‘ached’ yesterday: that meant, only that it was more observable because, after walking, it is usually well—and I had been walking. To-day it is much better; I sit reading ‘Cromwell,’ and the newspaper, and presently I shall go out—all will be better now, I hope—it shall not be my fault, at least, depend on that. All my work (work!)—well, such as it is, it is done—and I scarcely care _how_—I shall be prouder to begin one day—(may it be soon!—) with your hand in mine from the beginning—_that_ is a very different thing in its effect from the same hand touching mine _after_ I had begun, with no suspicion such a chance could befall! I repeat, both these things, ‘Luria’ and the other, are _manqué_, failures—the life-incidents ought to have been acted over again, experienced afresh; and I had no inclination nor ability. But one day, my siren!

Let me make haste and correct a stupid error. I spoke to my father last night about that tragedy of the _studs_—I was wholly _out_ in the story—the sufferer was his _uncle_, and the scene should have been laid on the Guinea coast. À propos of errors—the copyright matter is most likely a case of copy-_wrong_ by reporters—I never heard of it before—to be sure, I signed a petition of Miss Martineau’s superintending once on a time—but long ago, ‘I, I, I’—how, dear, all important ‘I’ takes care of himself, and issues bulletins, and corrects his wise mistakes, and all this to ... just ‘one of his readers of the average intelligence.’ Are you that, so much as that, Ba? I will tell you—if you do not write to me all about _your_ dear, dearest self, I shall sink with shame at the recollection of what this letter and its like prove to be—_must_ prove to be! Dear love, tell me—that you walk and are in good spirits, and I will try and write better. May God bless my own beloved!—Ever her own

R.

I think, am all but sure, there is a _Mrs._ Hornblower something!

Just a minute to say your second note has come, and that I _do_ hate _hate_ having to write, not kiss my answer on your dearest mouth—kindest, dearest—to-morrow I will try—and meantime—though Ba by the fire will not be cold at heart, cold _of_ heart, at least, and I will talk to _her_ and more than talk—My dearest, dearest one!

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

Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, March 26, 1846.]

But if people half say things,—intimate things, as when your disputant in the street (you are felicitous, I think, in your street-_experiences_) suggested the possible case of the ‘three oyster shells to an oyster,’—why you must submit to be answered a little, and even confuted at need. Now just see—

... ‘Got all his distinction from the fact that no better’ ... That is precisely _the fact_ ... _so_ ... as you have stated it, and implied ... ‘The fact that no better’ ... _is to be found in the world—no better_ ... _none_. There, is the peculiar combination. The isolation on one side, and the best in the whole world, coming in for company! And I ‘dwell’ upon it, never being tired ... and if _you_ are tired already, you must be tired of _me_, because the ‘dwelling’ has grown to be a part of me and I cannot put it away. It is my especial miracle _à moi_. ‘No better?’ No, indeed! not in the seven worlds! and just _there_, lies the miraculous point.

But you mean it perhaps otherwise. You mean that it is a sort of _pis aller_ on my part. A _pis aller_ along the Via lactea ... is _that_ what you mean?

Shall I let you off the rest, dearest, dearest? though you deserve ever so much more, for implying such monstrous things, and treading down all my violets, so and so. What did I say to set you writing so? I cannot remember at all? If I ‘dwell’ on anything, beloved, it is that I feel it strongly, be sure—and if I feel gratitude to you with the other feelings, you should not grudge what is a happy feeling in itself, and not dishonouring (I answer for _that_) to the object of it.

Now I shall tell you. I had a visitor to-day—Mrs. Jameson; and when she went away she left me ashamed of myself—I felt like a hypocrite—_I_, who was not born for one, I think. She began to talk of you ... talked like a wise woman, which she is ... led me on to say just what I might have said if I had not known you, (she, thoroughly impressed with the notion that we two are strangers!) and made me quite leap in my chair with a sudden consciousness, by exclaiming at last ... ‘I am really glad to hear you speak so. Such appreciation’ &c. &c. ... imagine what she went on to say. Dearest—I believe she rather gives me a sort of credit for _appreciating you_ without the jealousy ‘_de métier_.’ Good Heavens ... how humiliating some conditions of praise are! She _approved_ me with her eye—indeed she did. And this, while we were agreeing that you were the best ... ‘none better’ ... none so good ... of your country and age. Do you know, while we were talking, I felt inclined both to laugh and to cry, and if I had ‘given way’ the least, she would have been considerably astounded. As it was, my hands were so marble-cold when she took leave of me, that she observed it and began making apologies for exhausting me. Now here is a strip of the ‘world,’ ... see what colour it will turn to presently! We had better, I think, go farther than to your siren’s island—into the desert ... shall we say? Such stories there will be! For certain, ... I shall have seen you just once out of the window! Shall you not be afraid? Well—and she talked of Italy too—it was before she talked of _you_—and she hoped I had not given up the thoughts of going there. To which I said that ‘I had not ... but that it seemed like scheming to travel in the moon.’ She talked of a difference, and set down the moon-travelling as simple lunacy. ‘And simply lunatical,’ ... I said, ... ‘my thoughts, if chronicled, would be taken to be, perhaps’—‘No, no, no,! ...’ she insisted ... ‘as long as I kept to the earth, everything was to be permitted to me.’

How people talk at cross-purposes in this world ... and act so too! It’s the very spirit of worldly communion. Souls are gregarious in a sense, but no soul touches another, as a general rule. I like Mrs. Jameson nevertheless—I like her _more_. She appreciates you—and it is _my_ turn to praise for that, now. I am to see her again to-morrow morning, when she has the goodness to promise to bring some etchings of her own, her illustrations of the new essays, for me to look at.

Ah—your ‘_failures_ in “Luria” and the “Tragedy”’—Proud, we should all be, to fail exactly so.

Dearest, are you better indeed? Walk ... talk to the Ba in the chair ... go on to be better, ever dearest. May God bless you! Ah ... the ‘I’s.’ You do not see that the ‘I’s’—as you make them, ... all turn to ‘yous’ by the time they get to me. The ‘I’s’ indeed! How dare you talk against my eyes? For me, I was going down-stairs to-day, but it was wet and windy and I was warned not to go. If I am in bad or good spirits, judge from this foolish letter—foolish and wise, both!—but not melancholy, _anywise_. When one drops into a pun, one might as well come to an end altogether—it can’t be worse with one.

Nor can it be better than being

Your own

‘_No better_’!!.

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

Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, March 26, 1846.]

Sometimes I have a disposition to dispute with dearest Ba, to wrench her simile-weapons out of the dexterous hand (that is, try and do so) and have the truth of things my way and its own way, not hers, if she _be_ Ba—(observe, I say nothing about ever meeting with remarkable success in such undertakings, only, that they _are_ entered on sometimes). But at other times I seem as if I must lie down, like Flush, with all manner of coral necklaces about my neck, and two sweet mysterious hands on my head, and so be forced to hear verses on me, Ba’s verses, in which I, that am but Flush of the lower nature, am called loving friend and praised for not preferring to go ‘coursing hares’—with ‘other dogs.’ So I will lie now, as you will have it, and say in Flush-like tones (the looks that are dog’s tones)—I don’t _don’t_ know how it is, or why, or what it all will end in, but I am very happy and what I hear must mean right, by the music,—though the meaning is above me,—and here _are_ the hands—which I may, and will, look up to, and kiss—determining not to insist any more this time that at Miss Mitford’s were sundry dogs, brighter than ‘brown’—See where, just where, Flush stops discreetly! ‘Eternity’ he would have added, ‘but stern death’ &c. &c.

I treat these things lightheartedly, as you see—instead of seriously, which would at first thought seem the wiser course—‘for after all, she will find out one day’ &c. _No_, dearest,—I do not fear that! Why make uneasy words of saying simply I shall continue to give you my best flowers, all I can find—if I bring violets, or grass, when you expected to get roses,—you will know there were none in my garden—that is all.

And for you—as I may have told you once,—as I tell myself always—you are _entirely_ what I love—not just a rose plucked off with an inch of stalk, but presented as a rose should be, with a green world of boughs round: all about you is ‘to my heart’—(to my mind, as they phrase it)—and were it not that, of course, I know _when_ to have done with fancyings and merely flitting permissible ‘inly-sayings with heart-playing,’ and when it is time to look at the plain ‘best’ through the lock of ‘good’ and ‘better’ in circumstances and accident—I _do_ say—were the best blessing of all, the blessing I trust and believe God intends, of your perfect restoration to health,—were _that_ not so palpably best,—I should catch myself desirous that your present state of _unconfirmed_ health might never pass away! Ba _understands_, I know! After all, it will always stay, that luxury,—if but through the memory of what has been, and _may_ recur, that deepest luxury that makes my very heartstrings tremble in the thought of—that I shall have a right, a duty—where in another case, they would be uncalled for, superfluous, impertinent. Tapers ordinarily burn best _let alone_, with all your light depending on the little flame, the darkest night but for it—why, stand off—what good can you do, so long as there is no extraordinary evil to avert, breaking down of the candlestick to prevent? But _here_—there will be reason as well as a delight beyond delights in always learning to close over, all but holding the flame in the hollow of one’s hand! I shall have a right to think it is not mere pleasure, merely for myself, that I care and am close by—and that which thus is called ‘not for myself’ _is_, after all, in its essence, _most_ for myself,—why it is a luxury, a last delight!—

In the procurement of which there will be this obstacle, or grave matter to be first taken into consideration,—that the world will ‘change colour’ about it, will have its own thoughts on the subject I have my own thoughts, on _its_ subject, the affairs of the world and pieces of perfect good fortune it approves of, and stamps for enviable—and on the whole the world has quite a right to treat me unceremoniously,—I having begun it. As for the ‘seeing out of the window once’—those who knew nothing about us but our names had better think _that_ was the way, than most others; and the half-dozen who knew a little more, may hear the true account if they please, when they hear anything—those who know _all_, all necessary to know, will understand my 137 letters here and my 54 visits ... see, I write as if this were to be pleaded to-night—would it were! As if you had to write the _meeting_ between Hector and Andromache, not the parting! By the way, dearest, what enchanted poetry all your translations for Miss Thomson are—as Carlyle says! ‘Nobody can touch them, get at them!’ How am I the better for Nonnus, and Apuleius? Now, do you serve me well _there_?

I shall hear to-morrow of Mrs. Jameson’s etchings and discourses? and more good news of you, darling? I am _quite_ well to-day—going out with my sister to dine next door—then, over to-morrow, and the letter, will come Saturday, my day.

Bless you, my own best, dearest—I am your own.

R.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, March 27, 1846.]

Not the ‘dexterous hand’—say rather the good cause. For the rest, when you turn into a dog and lie down, are you not afraid that a sorcerer should go by and dash the water and speak the formula of the old tales. ‘If thou wert born a dog, remain a dog, but if not’.... If not ... _what_ is to happen? Aminè whipped her enchanted hounds ever so often in the day ... ah, what nonsense happens!

Dear, dearest, how you ‘take me with guile,’ or with stronger than guile, ... with that divine right you have, of talking absurdities! You make it clear at last that I am so much the better for being bad ... and _I_ ... shall I laugh? _can_ I? is it possible? The words go too deep ... as deep as death which cannot laugh! And I am forbidden to ‘dwell’ on the meaning of them—I! There are ‘_I’s_’ to match yours!

I shall have the right of doing one thing, ... (passing to _my_ rights). I shall hold to the right of remembering to my last hour, that _you_, who might well have passed by on the other side if we two had met on the road when I was riding at ease, ... _did not_ when I was in the dust. I choose to remember _that_ to the end of feeling. As for _men_, you are not to take me to be quite ignorant of what they are worth in the gross. The most blindfolded women may see a little under the folds ... and I have seen quite enough to be glad to shut my eyes. Did I not tell you that I never thought that any man whom _I_ could love, would stoop to love _me_, even if I attained so far as the sight of such. Which I _never attained_ ... until ... until! Then, that _you_ should care for me.!! Oh—I hold to my rights, though you overcome me in most other things. And it is my right to love you better than I could do if I were more worthy to be loved by you.

Mrs. Jameson came late to-day, ... at five—and was hurried and could not stay ten minutes, ... but showed me her etchings and very kindly left a ‘Dead St. Cecilia’ which I admired most, for its beautiful lifelessness. She is not to be in town again, she said, till a month has gone—a month, at least. Oh—and ‘quite uneasy’ she was, about my ‘cold hands’—yesterday—she thought she had put me to death with over-talking!—which made me smile a little ... ‘subridens.’ But she is very kind and affectionate; and you were right to teach me to like her—and now, do you know, I look in vain for the ‘steely eyes’ I fancied I saw once, and see nothing but two good and true ones.

Well—here is an end till Saturday. It is too late ... or I could go on writing ... which I do not hate indeed. Talking of hating, ... ‘what you love entirely’ means _that you love entirely_ ... and no more and no less. If it did not mean so, I should be unhappy about the _mistake_ ... but to ‘love entirely’ is not a mistake and cannot pass for one either on earth or in Heaven. May God bless you, ever dearest. Such haste I write in—as if the angels were running up Jacob’s ladder!—or _down_ it, rather, at this close!

Your own

BA.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, March 27, 1846.]

‘Qui laborat, orat’; so they used to say, and in that case I have been devotional to a high degree this morning. Seven holes did I dig (to keep up inversions of style)—seven rose-trees did I plant—(‘Brennus’—and ‘Madame Lafarge’! are two names I remember; very characteristic of old Gaul and young France—) and, for my pains, the first fruits, first blossoms some two or three months hence, will come, and will go to dearest Ba who first taught me what a rose really _was_, how sweet it might become with superadded memories of the room and the chair and the vase, and the cutting stalks and pouring fresh water ... ah, my own Ba!—And did you think to warn me out of the Flush-simile by the hint of Aminè’s privilege which it would warrant? If the ‘ever so much whipping’ should please you!... And beside it was, if I recollect, for the creature’s good, those poor imprisoned sisters, all the time. Moreover, I _was_ ‘born’ all this and more, that you _will_ know, at least—and only walked glorious and erect on two legs till dear Siren, an old friend of, and deep in the secrets of Circe, sprinkled the waters ... perhaps on those roses—No, before that!—

Well, to-morrow comes fast now—and I shall trust to be with you my beloved—and, first, you are to show me the portrait, remember.

I am glad you like Mrs. Jameson—do not _I_ like her all the better, much the better! But it is fortunate I shall not see her by any chance just now—she would be sure to begin and tell me about _you_—and if my hands did not turn cold, my ear-tips would assuredly turn red. I daresay that St. Cecilia is the beautiful statue above her tomb at Rome; covered with a veil—affectingly beautiful; I well remember how she lies.

Now good-bye; and to-morrow! Bless you, ever dear, dearest Ba—

Your own

R.

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

Sunday Afternoon.

Now, I think, if I had been ‘pricked at the heart’ by dear, dearest Ba’s charge yesterday,—if I did not _certainly_ know why it might sometimes seem better to be silent than to speak,—should I not be found taking out three or four sheets of paper, and beginning to write, and write! My own, dearest and best, it is _not_ so,—not wrong, my heart’s self tells me,—and tells you! But, for the rest, there shall never pass a day till my death wherein I will not write to you, so long as you let me, excepting those days I may spend with you, partly or ... altogether—Love, shall I have very, very long to be hating to write, yet writing?

You see sometimes how I _talk_ to you,—even in mere talking what a strange work I make of it. I go on thinking quite another way; so, generally, I often have thought, the little I _have_ written, has been an unconscious scrawling with the mind fixed somewhere else: the subject of the scrawl may have previously been the real object of the mind on some similar occasion,—the very thing which _then_ to miss, (finding in its place _such another_ result of a still prior fancy-fit)—which then to see escape, or find escaped, was the vexation of the time! One cannot, (or _I_ cannot) _finish up_ the work in one’s mind, put away the old projects and take up new. Well, this which I feel on so many occasions, do you wonder if—if!

I should write on _this_ for ever! It is all so strange, such a dream as you say!

Indeed, love, the picture is not like, nor ‘flattered’ by any means, yet I don’t know how it is, I cannot be cross with it—there is a touch of truth in the eyes,—would one have believed _that_? I know my own way with portraits; how I let them master eventually my most decided sense of their _unlikeness_—and _this_ finds me very prepared—still—it seems already more faithful than last night ... how do I determine where the miraculousness ends? (My Mother was greatly impressed by it—and my sister, coming (from my room) into the room where I was with a visitor, before whom she could not speak English, said ‘_È molto bella_’!)

Here is my ‘proof’—I found it as I expected. I fear I must put you to that trouble of sending the other two acts—I hate to think of so troubling you! But do not, Ba, hurry yourself—nor take extraordinary pains—what is worth your pains in these poor things? I like Luria better now,—it may do, now,—probably because it _must_; but, as I said yesterday, I seriously hope and trust to shew my sense of gratitude for what is promised my future life, by doing some real work in it; work of yours, as through you. I have felt, not for the first time now, but from the beginning vexed, foolishly vexed perhaps, that I could not without attracting undesirable notice, ‘dedicate,’ in the true sense of the word, this or the last number to you. But if any really worthy performance _should_ follow, then my mouth will be unsealed. All is forewritten!

I wonder if you have ventured down this sunny afternoon—tell me how you are, and, once again, do not care about those papers; any time will do.

So, bless you, my own—my all-beloved Ba.

Your R.B.

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

Sunday Evening.
[Post-mark, March 30, 1846.]

Dearest, I have been trying your plan of thinking of you instead of writing, to-day, and the end is that I am driven to the last of the day and have scarcely room in it to write what I would. Observe if you please, how badly ‘the system works,’ as the practical people say. Then Mr. Kenyon came and talked,—asked when I had seen you, ... and desired, ‘if ever I saw you again,’ (ah, what an ‘if ever’!) that I would enquire about the ‘blue lilies’ ... which I satisfied him were of the right colour, on your authority.

But, to go to the ‘Tragedy’—I am not to admire it ... am I? And you really think that anyone who can think ... feel ... could help such an admiration, or ought to try to help it? Now just see. It is a new work with your mark on it. That is ... it would make some six or sixteen works for other people, if ‘cut up into little stars’—rolled out ... diluted with rain-water. But it is your work as it is—and if you do not care for _that, I_ care, and shall remember to care on. It is a work full of power and significance, and I am not at all sure (not that it is wise to make comparisons, but that I want you to understand how I am impressed!)—I am not at all sure that if I knew you now first and only by these two productions, ... ‘Luria’ and the ‘Tragedy,’ ... I should not involuntarily attribute more power and a higher faculty to the writer of the last—I _should_, I think—yet ‘Luria’ is the completer work.... I know it very well. Such thoughts, you have, in this second part of the Tragedy! a ‘Soul’s Tragedy’ indeed! No one _thinks_ like you—other poets talk like the merest women in comparison. Why it is full of hope for both of us, to look forward and consider what you may achieve with that combination of authority over the reasons and the passions, and that wonderful variety of the plastic power! But I am going to tell you—Certainly I think you were right (though you know I doubted and cried out) I think now you were right in omitting the theological argument you told me of, from this second part. It would clog the action, and already I am half inclined to fancy it a little clogged in one or two places—but if this is true even, it would be easy to lighten it. Your Ogniben (here is my only criticism in the ways of objection) seems to me almost too wise for a crafty worldling—tell me if he is not! Such thoughts, for the rest, you are prodigal of! That about the child, ... do you remember how you brought it to me in your first visit, nearly a year ago?

Nearly a year ago! how the time passes! If I had ‘done my duty’ like the enchanted fish leaping on the gridiron, and seen you never again after that first visit, you would have forgotten all about me by this day. Or at least, ‘that prude’ I should be! Somewhere under your feet, I should be put down by this day! Yes! and my enchanted dog would be coursing ‘some small deer’ ... some unicorn of a ‘golden horn,’ ... (_not_ the Kilmansegg gold!) out of hearing if I should have a mind to whistle ever so, ... but out of harm’s way perhaps besides.

Well, I do think of it sometimes as you see. Which proves that I love you better than myself by the whole width of the Heavens; the sevenfold Heavens. Yet I think again how He of the heavens and earth brought us together so wonderfully, holding two souls in His hand. If my fault was in it, my _will_ at least was not. Believe it of me, dear dearest, that I who am as clear-sighted as other women, ... and not more humble (as to the approaches of common men), was quite resolutely blind when _you_ came—I could not understand the possibility of _that_. It was too much ... too surpassing. And so it will seem to the end. The astonishment, I mean, will not cease to be. It is my own especial fairy-tale ... from the spells of which, may you be unharmed...! How one writes and writes over and over the same thing! But day by day the same sun rises, ... over, and over, and nobody is tired. May God bless you, dearest of all, and justify what has been by what shall be, ... and let me be free of spoiling any sun of yours! Shall you ever tell me in your thoughts, I wonder, to get out of your sun? No—no—Love keeps love too safe! and I have faith, you see, as a grain of mustard-seed!

Your own

BA.

_Say how you are ... mind!_

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, March 30, 1846.]

‘The system,’ Ba?—Were _you_ to stop writing, as if for my reasons? Could _I_ do without your letters, on any pretence? You say well—it was a foolish fancy, and now—have done with it!

And do you think you _could_ have refused to see me after that visit? I mean, do you think I did not resolve so to conduct myself; so to ‘humble myself and go still and softly all my days’; that your suspicion should needs insensibly clear up ... (if it had been _so_ pre-ordained, and that no more was in my destiny,) and at last I should have been written down your friend for ever, and let come and stay, on that footing. But you really think the confirmation of that sentence must have been attended with such an effect—that I should have forgotten you or _so_ remembered you? You think that on the strength of such a love as _that_, I would have ventured a month of my future life ... much less, the whole of it? _Not you_, Ba,—my dearest, dearest!

How you surprise me (what ever may you think) by liking that ‘Tragedy’! It seems as if, having got out of the present trouble, I shall never fall into its fellow—I will strike, for the future, on the glowing, malleable metal; afterward, _filing_ is quite another process from hammering, and a more difficult one. Note, that ‘filing’ is the wrong word,—and the rest of it, the wrong simile,—and all of it, in its stupid wrongness very characteristic of what I try to illustrate—oh, the better, better days are before me _there_ as in all else! But, do you notice how stupid I am to-day? My head begins again—that is the fact; it is better a good deal than in the morning—its œconomy passes my comprehension altogether, that is the other fact. With the deep joy in my heart below—this morning’s letter here—what _does_ the head mean by its perversity? I will go out presently and walk it back to its senses.

Dearest, did you receive my ‘proof’ this morning? Do not correct nor look at it, nor otherwise trouble yourself—there is plenty of time. But what day is ours to be? Of that you say nothing, and of my poems a great deal, ‘O _you_ inverter!’ But _I_ am, rather, a _re_verter—and _you_ shall revert, and mind the natural order of things, and tell me first of all—(in to-night’s letter, dearest?)—that it is to be on—?

Now let me kiss you here—my own Ba! Being stupid makes _some_ difference in me—I am no poet, nor prose-writer, nor rational ‘Christian, pagan nor man’ this afternoon—but I _am_ now—as yesterday—as the long ‘year ago’—your own, utterly your own! May God bless you! (I wondered yesterday if you had gone down-stairs—‘_no_’ I infer!)

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

Monday.

Dearest, I send you back the two parts of the ‘Soul’s Tragedy,’ and the proof. On a strip of paper are two or three _inanities_ in the form of doubts I had in reading the first part. I think upon the whole that you owe me all gratitude for the help of so much high critical wisdom—of which this paper is a fair proof and expression.

The proof, the printed ‘Luria’ I mean, has more than pleased me. It is noble and admirable; and grows greater, the closer seen. The most exceptionable part, it seems to me, is Domizia’s retraction at the last, for which one looks round for the sufficient motive. But the impression of the whole work goes straight to the soul—it is heroic in the best sense.

I write in such haste. Oh—I should have liked to have read again the second part of the ‘Tragedy,’ but dare not keep it though you give me leave. I think of the printers—and you will let me have the proof, in this case also.

Your letter shall be answered presently. Your sister’s word about the picture proves very conclusively how wonderfully like it must be as a portrait! _That_ would settle the question to any ‘Royal Commission’ in the world—only we need not go so far.

Dearest I end here—to begin again in another half hour. Ah—and you promise, you promise—

No time—but ever your own

BA.

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

Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, March 31, 1846.]

Ah now, now, you _see_! Held up in _that_ light, it _is_ ‘a foolish fancy,’ and unlawful, besides! ‘Not on any _pretence_’ will you do without letters ... _you_! And you count it among the imaginations of your heart that _I_ could do without them better perhaps ... _I_ ... to whom they are sun, air, and human voices, at the very lowest calculation? Why seriously you don’t imagine that your letters are not a thousand times more to _me_, than letters ever in the world were before, ... since ‘Heaven first brought them to some wretch’s aid.’ If you _do_, that _is_ the foolishest fancy of all.

So foolish as to be unspeakable. We will ‘have done with it,’ as you say. I only ‘revert’ and innocently,—I do not reproach, even ignorantly,—I am grateful rather. What you said in the letter this morning made me grateful, ... and oh, so glad! so glad! what you said, I mean, of writing to me on every day that we did not meet on otherwise. That promise seemed to bring us nearer (see how I think of letters!), nearer than another word _could_, though you went for it to the end of the universe, ... that other word. So I accept the promise as a promise of pure gold, and thank _you_, as pure gold too, which you are, or rather far above. Only my own dearest, you shall not write long letters ... long letters are out of the agreement.... I never feel the need of length _as long as_ the writing is _there_ ... just the little shred of the Koran, to be gathered up reverently ... (Inshallah!)—and then, you shall not write at all when you are not well ... no, you shall not. So remember from henceforth! Shall I whip my enchanted dog when he is so good and true?—not to say that the tags of the lashes (do you call them _tags_?) would swing round and strike me on the shoulders? Dearest, you are the best, kindest in the world—such a very, very, _very_ ‘little lower than the angels!’ If ever I could take advantage of your goodness and tenderness, to teaze and vex you, ... what should _I_ be, I have been seriously enquiring to-day, head on hand, when I had sent away ‘Luria.’ For I sent it away, and the ‘Tragedy’ with it, and I hope you will have all to-morrow morning at the furthest, ... before you get this letter. There was a note too in the parcel.

As to dedications ... believe me that I would not have them if I could ... that is, _even if there were no dangers_. I could not bear to have words from you which the world might listen to ... I mean, that to be commended of you in _that_ way, on _that_ ground, would make me feel cold to the heart. Oh no, no, no! It is better to have the proof-sheet as I had it this morning: it is the better glory ... as glory!

‘Not worthy of my pains’ ... you are right! But infinitely worthy of my _pleasures_—such pleasure as I could gather from nothing else, except from your letters and your very presence. Do you think that anything beside in the whole world could bring pleasure to me, as pleasure goes, ... anything like reading your poetry? My ‘pains’ indeed! It is a felicitous word—‘je vous en fais mon compliment.’

And all this time, while I write lightly, you are not well perhaps—you were unwell when you wrote to me; you were unwell a little yesterday even. Say how you are to-morrow—do not forget. For the cause of the unwellness, _I_ see it, if _you_ do not. It was _the proof-correcting_—I expected that you would be unwell—it is no worse than was threatened to my thoughts. The comfort is that all this wrong work is coming to an end, and that it is covenanted between us for you to _rest absolutely_ from henceforth. Say how you are, dearest dearest. And walk, walk. For me, I have not been down-stairs. It has been cold—too cold for _that_, I thought.

Oh—but I wanted to say one thing! That wonderful picture, which is not much like a unicorn or even ‘a whale’ ... but rather more perhaps than like _me_, you may keep for weeks or months, if you choose; if it continues ‘not to make you cross.’ Because _it_ does not flatter, and because _you_ do not flatter (in such equal proportions!): the sympathy accounts for the liking ... or absence of dislike; on your part.

Now I must end. _Thursday_ is our day, I think:—and it is easier to say ‘Thursday’ on Monday than on Saturday ... a discovery of mine, _that_, as good as Faraday’s last!

Say how you are. Do not forget. I had to say.... What I cannot, to-night.

But I am your own

BA.

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

Tuesday
[Post-mark, March 31, 1846.]

Dear, dear, Ba, what shall I say or not say? On a kind of principle, I have tried before this to _subdue_ the expression of gratitude for the material, _worldly_ good you do me—for my poor store of words would all pay themselves away here, at the beginning, and so leave the higher, peculiar, _Ba’s own_ gifts even without a _cry_ of _acknowledgment_, not to say of thanks. But somehow you, you my dearest, my Ba, look out of all imaginable nooks and crevices in the materiality—I see you through your goodness,—I cannot distinguish between your acts now,—the greater, indeed, and the lesser! Which _is_ the ‘lesser’? _With you_ all their heap of work seems no more than——. (I cannot even think of what may serve for some lesser act of kindness! _That_ is just what I wanted to say—‘the effect defective comes by cause’ here—there _is_ no ‘lesser’ blessing in your power, as I said!)

Now, darling,—it is late in the afternoon, as posts go—I have been out all the morning in town, and while I was happy with one letter (found waiting my return)—the parcel comes—so I will just say this much, (this _little_, this _least_)—this word now—and by to-night all shall be corrected, I hope, and got rid of fairly. And to-morrow, I will have you to myself, my best one, and will write till you cry out against me. I go now. God bless you and reward you—prays your very own

R.B.

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

Tuesday Evening,
[Post-mark, March 31, 1846.]

If people were always as grateful to other people for being just kind to _themselves_, ... what a grateful world we should have of it! The actual _good_ you get out of me, may be stated at about _two commas and a semi-colon_—do I overstate it, I wonder? _You_, on the other side, never overstate anything ... never enlarge ... never exaggerate! In fact, the immense ‘worldly’ advantages which fall to you from _me_, are plain to behold. Dearest, what nonsense you talk some times, for a man so wise! nonsense as wonderful in its way for ‘Robert Browning’ as the dancing of polkas! The worst is, that it sets me wishing impotently, to do some really good helpful thing for you—and I cannot,—cannot. The good comes to me from you, and will not go back again. Even the loving you, ... which is all I can, ... have I not had to question of it again and again.... “Is _that_ good?” Now see.

I shall be anxious to hear your own thoughts of the ‘Soul’s Tragedy’ when you have it in print. You liked ‘Luria’ better for seeing it printed—and I must have you like the ‘Tragedy’ in proportion. It _strikes_ me. It is original, as they say. There is something in it awakening ... striking:—and when it has awakened, it won’t let you go to sleep again immediately.

And of yourself, not a word. You might have said _one_ word—but you have been in London which makes me hope that you are perhaps a little better ... or at least not worse. Oh, I do not hope _much_ while you are about this printing. You are sure not to be well. That is to be accepted as a necessary consequence—it cannot be otherwise. The comfort is, that the whole will be put away in a week or ten days, and that then I may set myself to hope for you, as the roses to blow in June. Fit summer-business, _that_ will be! And you will help me, and walk and take care.

What do you think I have been doing to-day to Mr. Kenyon? Sending him the ‘enchanted poetry’ which such as _you_ are never to see ... the translation about Hector and Andromache!—yes, really. Yet after all it is not that I like him so much better than you ... I do not indeed ... it is just that Miss Thomson and her book are of consequence to him, and that he hears through Miss Bayley and herself of the attempt here and the failure there, ... and so, being interested altogether, he asked me to let him see what I did with Homer. And it is not much. Old Homer laughs his translators to very scorn ... and he does not spare _me_, for being a woman. Surpassingly and profoundly beautiful that scene is. I have tried it in blank verse. About a year ago, when I had a sudden fit of translating, I made an experiment on the first fifty lines of the Iliad in a rhymed measure which seemed to me rather nearer to the Greek cadence than our common heroic verse. Listen to what I remember—

Thus he spake in his prayer: and Apollo gave ear to the whole;
And came down from the steep of Olympus, with wrath in his soul;
On his shoulder the bow, and the quiver fast woven by fate,
And the darts hurtled on, as he trod, with the thrill of his hate
And the step of his godhead. Like night did he travel below—
And he sate down afar from the ships, and drew strong to the bow—

And so we get to the arrows you talked of ... ah, do you remember ... do you remember? ... which were to kill dogs and mules, you said! But they didn’t. I have an enchanted dog (‘which nobody _can_ deny’!) and am not far to seek in my Apollo.

To-day I had a letter from Miss Mitford who says that, inasmuch as she does not go to Paris, she shall come for a fortnight to London and ‘see me every day.’!! No time is fixed—but I look a little aghast. _Am I not grateful and affectionate?_ Is it right of you, not to let me love anyone as I used to do? Is it in _that_ sense that you kill the dogs and mules? Perhaps. The truth is, I would rather she did not come—far rather. And she may not, after all— ... now I am ashamed of myself thoroughly

I have not been down-stairs to-day—the weather seemed so doubtful. To-morrow, if it is possible, I will ... must ... do it. So ... goodbye till the day after—Thursday. May God bless you every day! and if only as I think of you ... you would not lose much!

Your BA.

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

[Post-mark, April 1, 1846.]

_Now_—dear, dearest Ba—let me begin the only way!—And so you are kissed whether you feel it or not—through the distance, what matter? Dear love, I return from town—my writing has gone away—you remain, and we are together—as I said, it _would_ be, so it is! And here is your letter, and here are recollections of all the letters for so long, all the perfect kindnesses which I did not answer, meaning to answer them one day—and, one day, look to receive (I may write you) a huge sheetful of answers to bygone interrogatories,—sins of omission remedied according to ability—and you will stare like a man, I read of somewhere, who asked his neighbour ‘how he fed that mule of his, so as to keep it in such good case?’—and then, struck by some other fancy, went on to talk of other matters till the day’s end—when, on alighting at their Inn (for these two were journeying, and the talk began with the stirrup-cup)—the other, who had been watching his opportunity, breaking silence for the first time, answered—‘With oats and hay.’ Observe that the only part of the story I parallel is the _surprise_ at the end—for I am not going to get whipped before I deserve, Aminè (_Ba mine_). At all events I will answer this last dear note. The ‘good’ you do me, I see you cannot see nor understand _yet_—there is my answer! Here, in this instance, I corrected everything,—altered, improved. Did you notice the alterations (curtailments) in ‘Luria’? Well, I put in a few phrases in the second part of the other,—where Ogniben speaks—and hope that they give a little more insight as to his character—which I meant for that of a man of wide speculation and narrow practice,—universal understanding of men and sympathy with them, yet professionally restricted claims for himself, for his own life. _There_, was the theology to have come in! He should have explained, ‘the belief in a future state, with me, modifies every feeling derivable from this present life—I consider _that_ as dependent on foregoing _this_—consequently, I may see that your principles are perfectly right and proper to be embraced so far as concerns this world, though I believe there is an eventual gain, to be obtained elsewhere, in either opposing or disregarding them,—in not availing myself of the advantages they procure.’ Do you see?—as a man may not choose to drink wine, for his health’s sake, or from a scruple of conscience &c.—and yet may be a good judge of what wine should be, how it _ought_ to taste—something like this was _meant_—and when it is forgotten almost, and only the written thing with a shadow of the meaning stays,—you wonder that the written thing gets to look better in time? Do you think if I could forget _you_, Ba, I should not reconcile myself to your picture—which already I love better than yesterday—and which, to revenge, I know I shall by this time to-morrow like less, so far less. Well, and then there is Domizia—I _could not_ bring her to my purpose. I left the neck stiff that was to have bowed of its own accord—for nothing graceful could be accomplished by pressing with both hands on the head above! I meant to make her leave off her own projects through love of Luria. As it is, they in a manner fulfil themselves, so far as she has any power over them, and then, she being left unemployed, sees Luria, begins to see him, having hitherto seen only her own ends which he was to further. Oh, enough of it! I have told you, and tell you and will tell you, my Ba, because it is simple truth,—that you have been ‘helping’ me to cover a defeat, not gain a triumph. If I had not known you _so far_ THESE works might have been the _better_:—as assuredly, the greater works, I trust will follow,—they would have suffered in proportion! If you take a man from prison and set him free ... do you not probably cause a signal interruption to his previously all ingrossing occupation, and sole labour of love, of carving bone-boxes, making chains of cherry-stones, and other such time-beguiling operations—does he ever take up that business with the old alacrity? No! But he begins ploughing, building—(castles he makes, no bone-boxes now). I may plough and build—but there,—leave them as they are!

Here an end till to-morrow—my best dearest. I am very well to-day—I forgot to say anything yesterday. You did not go down-stairs, for all your good intentions, I hope—this morning I mean: observe how the days are made—the mornings are warm and sunny—after gets up such a wind as now howls—what a sound! The most melancholy in the whole world I think.

No—I can’t do what I had set down—keep my remonstrance and upbraiding on the Homer-subject till to-morrow and then speak arrows. What do you mean, Ba, by ‘remembering’ those lines you give me—have you no more written down, _Quite_ happy and original they are—but to-morrow this is waited for—dearest, bless you ever! your

R.

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

Friday
[Post-mark, April 3, 1846.]

Dearest, your flowers make the whole room look like April, they are so full of colours ... growing fuller and fuller as we get nearer to the sun. The wind was melancholy too, all last night—oh, _I_ think the wind melancholy, just as _you_ do,—or _more_ than you do perhaps for having spent so many restless days and nights close on the sea-shore in Devonshire. I seem now always to hear the sea _in_ the wind, voice within voice! But I like a sudden wind not too loud,—a wind which you hear the rain in rather than the sea—and I like the half cloudy half sunny April weather, such as we have it here in England, with a west or south wind—I like and enjoy _that_; and remember vividly how I used to like to walk or wade nearly up to my waist in the wet grass or weeds, with the sun overhead, and the wind darkening or lightening the verdure all round.

But none of it was happiness, dearest dearest. Happiness does not come with the sun or the rain. Since my illness, when the door of the future seemed shut and locked before my face, and I did not tire myself with knocking any more, I thought I was happier, happy, I thought, just because I was tranquil _unto death_. Now I know life from death, ... and the unsorrowful life for the first time since I was a woman; though I sit here on the edge of a precipice in a position full of anxiety and danger. What matter, ... if one shuts one’s eyes, and listens to the birds singing? Do you know, I am glad—I could almost thank God—that Papa keeps so far from me ... that he has given up coming in the evening ... I could almost thank God. If he were affectionate, and made me, or _let_ me, feel myself necessary to him, ... how should I bear (even with my reason on my side) to prepare to give him pain? So that the Pisa business last year, by sounding the waters, was good in its way ... and the pang that came with it to me, was also good. He feels!—he loves me ... but it is not (this, I mean to say) to the _trying_ degrees of feeling and love ... trying to _me_. Ah, well! In any case, I should have ended probably, in giving up all for you—I do not profess otherwise. I used to think I should, if ever I loved anyone—and if the love of you is different from, it is greater than, anything preconceived ... divined.