Chapter VII: Part 7

But, dearest, if it was ‘intolerable’ to see you yawn yesterday, still less supportable was it to-day when I had all the yawning to myself, and proved nothing by it. Tired I am beyond your conceiving of ... tired! You saw how I broke off in my letter to you this morning. Well—that was Miss Heaton, who came yesterday and left the packet you saw, and came again to-day and sate here exactly three hours. Now imagine that! Three hours of incessant restless talking. At the end I was _blanched_, as everybody could see, and Mrs. Jameson who came afterwards for five minutes and was too unwell herself to stay, seriously exhorted me not to exert myself too much lest I should pay the penalty. And I had not been down-stairs even—only been ground down in the talking-mill. Arabel told her too, before she came up-stairs, that I was expecting a friend—‘Oh’ ... said she to me, ‘I shall go away directly anyone comes.’ And again presently ... ‘Pray tell me when I ought to go away’! (As if I could say _Go_. She deserved it, but I _couldn’t_!) And then ... ‘How good of you to let me sit here and talk!’ So good of me, when I was wishing her ... only at Leeds in the High Street, between a dissenter and a churchman—anywhere but opposite to my eyes! Yet _she_ has very bright ones, and cheeks redder than your roses; and she is kind and cordial ... as I thought in the anguish of my soul, when I tried to be grateful to her. Certainly I should have been more so, if she had stayed a little less, talked a little less—it is awful to think how some women can talk! Happily she leaves London to-morrow morning, and will not be here again till next year, if then. She talked biography too ... ah, I did not mean to tell you—but it is better to tell you at once and have done ... only she desired me not to mention it ... only she little knew what she was doing! You will not mention it. She told me that ‘her informant about Mr. Browning, ... was a lady _to whom he had been engaged_ ... that there had been a very strong attachment on both sides, but that everything was broken off by _her_ on the ground of religious differences—that it happened years ago and that the lady was married.’ At first I exclaimed imprudently enough (but how could it be otherwise?) that it was not true—but I caught at the bridle in a minute or two and let her have it her own way. Do not answer this—it is nonsense, I know—but it helped to tire me with the rest. Wasn’t it a delightful day for me? At the end of the three hours, she threw her arms round me and kissed me some half dozen times and wished me ‘goodbye’ till next year. Wilson found me standing in the middle of the room, looking as she said, ‘like a ghost.’ And no wonder! The ‘vile wind’ out of doors was nothing to it.

Dearest, you are well? Your letter says nothing. Only one more letter, and then Monday. Ah—it is the sweetest of flattery to say that you ‘need’ me—but isn’t it difficult to understand? Yet while you even fancy that you have such a need, you may be sure (let Charles Fox break his promises ever so!) of your own

BA.

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

Saturday.
[Post-mark, May 16, 1846.]

Then, dearest-dearest, _do_ take Mrs. Jameson’s advice—_do_ take care of the results of this fatigue—why should you see any woman that pleases to ask to come? I am certain that some of the men you have refused to admit, would be more considerate—and Miss Heaton must be a kind of fool into the bargain with her inconsiderateness ... though _that_ is the folly’s very self. As for her ‘Yorkshire Tragedy,’ I hold myself rather aggrieved by it—they used to get up better stories of Lord Byron,—and even _I told_ you, anticipatingly, that I caused that first wife of mine to drown and hang herself ... whereas, now, it turns out she did neither, but bade me do both ... nay, was not my wife after all! I hope she told Miss Heaton the story in the presence of the husband who had no irreligious scruples. But enough of this pure nonsense—I had, by this post that brings me your last letter, one from Horne—he leaves to-day for Ireland, and says kind things about my plays—and unkind things of Mr. Powell ‘a dog he repudiates for ever.’ So our ‘clique’ is deprived of yet another member!

For me, love,—I am pretty well—but _rather_ out of spirits,—for no earthly cause. I shall take a walk and get better presently—your dear letters have their due effect, all that effect!

So, dear,—all my world, my life, all I look to or live for, my own Ba—I will bless you and bid you goodbye for to-day—to-morrow I will write more—and on Monday—return, my Ba, this kiss ... my dearest above all dearness!

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

Saturday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 16, 1846.]

You shall hear from me on this Sunday, though it cannot be as an answer, dearest, to your letter of to-night. But I being so wretchedly tired last night, and ‘yawning’ being, to your mind, so ‘intolerable,’ it is as well to leave a better impression with you than _that_ ... though there is nothing to say, and the east wind blows on virulently.

The _Athenæum_ has put me out of humour for the day ... besides. Not a word of ‘Luria’—not a word of the Literary Fund dinner, and a great, drawling carrying out of the ‘Poetry for the Million’ article ... as if all this trash could not die of itself!—as if it were not _dead_ of itself!—That the critics of a country should set themselves to such work ... is as if the Premier of England took his official seat in the window to kill flies, ... talking, with his first finger out, of ‘my administration.’ Only flies are flies and have fly-life in them: they are nobler game than those.

Mrs. Jameson, while she was here the five minutes yesterday, talked, in an under-breath to my under-breath opposition, her opinion about the present age. ‘That the present age did not, could not, ought not, to express itself by Art, ... though the next age would.’ She is surprisingly wrong, it appears to me. There is no predominant character in the age, she says, to be so expressed! there is no unity, to bear expression.

But art surely, if art is anything, is the expression, not of the characteristics of an age except accidentally, ... essentially it is the expression of Humanity in the individual being—and unless we are men no longer, I cannot conceive how such an argument as hers can be upheld for a moment. Also it is exasperating to hear such things.

Then I do not believe, for one, that genius in the arts is a mere reflection of the character of the times. Genius precedes surely,—initiates. It is genius which gives an Age its character and imposes its own colour.... But I shall not write any more. Her paper on ‘Titian’s House at Venice,’ which she let me read in proof, and which is one of the essays she is printing now, is full of beauty and truth, and I admired it heartily. Then there is a quotation about the ‘calm, cold, beautiful regard,’ of ‘Virgin child and saint’ ... which you may remember perhaps. I know you will like the essay and feel it to be Venetian.

That you were feeling the east wind, beloved, meant that you were not well, though you have quite left off telling me a word of yourself lately. And why? It shall not be so next week,—now shall it? May God bless you. I am afraid of going down-stairs, because of the double-knocks. It will be great gain to have the loudest noises from the cicale. Except when somebody else is noisy,—which is a noise I am always forgetting, just as if it were impossible.

Your own

BA.

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

Sunday.
(Day before to-morrow!)
[Post-mark, May 18, 1846.]

How kind to write to me and help me through the gloomy day with a light! I could certainly feel my way in the dark and reach to-morrow without very important stumbling, but now I go cheerfully on, spite of a little headache and weariness. Need you? I should hate life apart from you. Knowing what I say, I should hate it—the life of my soul as seen apart from that of the mere body ... to which, to the necessities of which, no human being ever ministered before, and which, now that I have known you, I myself cannot provide for,—or could not were you removed,—even after the imperfect fashion of former times. If you ask Mrs. Jameson she will tell you, if she has thought it worth remembering, that I once, two or three years ago, _explained_ to her that I could not believe in ‘love’ nor understand it,—nor be subject to it consequently. I said—‘all you describe as characteristics of the passion—I should expect to find in _men_ more easily and completely—’ now I know better, and my year’s life spent in this knowledge makes all before it look pale and all _after_, if an after could come, look black.

Why do I write so? I am rather dull, this horrible day, and cling to you the closelier.

All you write about Art is most true. Carlyle has turned and forged, reforged on his anvil that fact ‘that no age ever appeared heroic to itself’ ... and so, worthy of reproduction in Art by itself ... I thought after Carlyle’s endeavours nobody could be ignorant of that,—nobody who was obliged to seek the proof of it out of his own experience. The cant is, that ‘an age of transition’ is the melancholy thing to contemplate and delineate—whereas the worst things of all to look back on are times of comparative standing still, rounded in their important completeness. So the young England imbeciles hold that ‘belief’ is the admirable point—_in what_, they judge comparatively immaterial! The other day I took up a book two centuries old in which ‘glory’, ‘soldiering’, ‘rushing to conquer’ and the rest, were most thoroughly ‘believed in’—and if by some miracle the writer had conceived and described some unbeliever, unable to ‘rush to conquer the Parthians’ &c., it would have been as though you found a green bough inside a truss of straw.

But you know—

And I know one thing, one—but one—I love you, _shall_ love you ever, living and dying your own—

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

Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 19, 1846.]

My own ever dearest, when I try to thank you for such a letter as yesterday’s, ... for any proof, in fact, of your affection, ... I cannot speak: but you know, of this and all things, that I understand, feel—you must know it very well. There is only one thing I can do as I ought, and it is to love you; and the more I live, not ‘_the less_’ but the _more_ I am able to love you—believe it of me. And for _the less_, ... we never will return to that foolish subject, ... but for the ‘less you spoke of when you said ‘you do not love me less?’ ... why I thought at the moment and feel now, that it would be too late, as I am, ever, upon any possible ground, to love you less. If you loved _me_ less ... even!—or (to leave that) if you were to come to me and say that you had murdered a man—why I may imagine such things, you know—but I cannot imagine the possibility of my loving you less, as a consequence of your failing so! I am yours in the deepest of my affections:—not unreasonably, certainly, as I see you and know you—but if it _were_ to turn unreasonable ... I mean, if you took away the appearance of reasonableness ... still I should be yours in the deepest of my affections ... it is too late for a difference _there_.

Mrs. Jameson has just now sent me a proof with the ‘Daughters of Pandarus,’ which she is to call for presently and therefore I must come to an end with this note. How I shall think of you to-morrow! And if it should be fine, I may perhaps drive in the park near the gardens ... take my sisters to the gate of the gardens, and feel that you are inside! That will be something, if it is feasible. And if it is fine or not, and if I go or not, I shall remember our first day, the only day of my life which God blessed visibly to me, the only day undimmed with a cloud ... my great compensation-day, which it was worth while being born for!

Your very own

BA.

Oh—you will _not see me_ to-morrow, remember! I tell you only out of cunning ... to win a thought!

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

Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 19, 1846].

With this day expires the first year since you have been yourself to me—putting aside the anticipations, and prognostications, and even assurances from all reasons short of absolute sight and hearing,—excluding the five or six months of these, there remains a year of this intimacy. You accuse me of talking extravagantly sometimes. I will be quiet here,—is the tone _too_ subdued if I say, such a life—made up of such years—I would deliberately take rather than any other imaginable one in which fame and worldly prosperity and the love of the whole human race should combine, excluding ‘that of yours—to which I hearken’—only wishing the rest were there for a moment that you might see and know that I did turn from them to you. My dearest, inexpressibly dearest. How can I thank you? I feel sure you _need_ not have been so kind to me, so perfectly kind and good,—I should have remained your own, gratefully, entirely your own, through the bare permission to love you, or even without it—seeing that I never dreamed of stipulating at the beginning for ‘a return,’ and ‘reward,’—but I also believe, joyfully, that no course but the course you have taken would have raised me above my very self, as I feel on looking back. I began by loving you in comparison with all the world,—now, I love you, my Ba, in the face of your past self, as I remember it.

All words are foolish—but I kiss your feet and offer you my heart and soul, dearest, dearest Ba.

I left you last evening without the usual privilege—you did not rise, Ba! But,—I don’t know why,—I got nervous of a sudden, it seemed late and I remembered the Drawing-room and its occupants.

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

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, May 20, 1846.]

Do you remember how, when poor Abou Hassan, in the Arabian story, awakens from sleep in the Sultan’s chamber, to the sound of instruments of music, he is presently complimented by the grand vizier on the royal wisdom displayed throughout his reign ... do you remember? Because just as he listened, do _I_ listen, when you talk to me about ‘the course I have taken’.... _I_, who have just had the wit to sit still in my chair with my eyes half shut, and dream ... dream!—Ah, whether I am asleep or awake, what do I know ... even now? As to the ‘course I have taken,’ it has been somewhere among the stars ... or under the trees of the Hesperides, at lowest....

Why how can I write to you such foolishness? Rather I should be serious, grave, and keep away from myths and images, and speak the truth plainly. And speaking the truth plainly, I, when I look back, dearest beloved, see that you have done for me everything, instead of my doing anything for you—that you have lifted me.... Can I speak? Heavens!—how I had different thoughts of you and of myself and of the world and of life, last year at this hour! The spirits who look backward over the grave, cannot feel much otherwise from my feeling as I look back. As to _your_ thanking _me_, _that_ is monstrous, it seems to me. It is the action of your own heart alone, which has appeared to do you any good. For myself, if I do not spoil your life, it is the nearest to deserving thanks that I can come. Think what I was when you saw me first ... laid there on the sofa as an object of the merest compassion! and of a sadder spirit than even the face showed! and then think of all your generosity and persistence in goodness. Think of it!—shall I ever cease? Not while the heart beats, which beats for you.

And now as the year has rounded itself to ‘the perfect round,’ I will speak of that first letter, about which so many words were, ... just to say, this time, that I am glad now, yes, glad, ... as we were to have a miracle, ... to have it _so_, a born-miracle from the beginning. I feel glad, now, that nothing was _between_ the knowing and the loving ... and that the beloved eyes were never cold discerners and analyzers of me at any time. I am glad and grateful to you, my own altogether dearest! Yet the letter was read in pain and agitation, and you have scarcely guessed how much. I could not sleep night after night,—could not,—and my fear was at nights, lest the feverishness should make me talk deliriously and tell the secret aloud. Judge if the deeps of my heart were not shaken. From the first you had that power over me, notwithstanding those convictions which I also had and which you know.

For it was not the character of the letter apart from you, which shook me,—I could prove that to you—I received and answered very calmly, with most absolute calmness, a letter of the kind last summer ... knowing in respect to the writer of it, (just as I thought of _you_), that a moment’s enthusiasm had carried him a good way past his discretion. I am sure that he was perfectly satisfied with my way of answering his letter ... as I was myself. But _you_ ... _you_ ... I could not escape so from _you_. You were stronger than I, from the beginning, and I felt the mastery in you by the first word and first look.

Dearest and most generous. No man was ever like you, I know! May God keep me from laying a blot on one day of yours!—on one hour! and rather blot out mine!

For my life, it is yours, as this year has been yours. But how can it make you happy, such a thing as my life? _There_, I wonder still. It never made me happy, without you!—

Your very own

BA.

Mrs. Jameson was here to-day and brought a message from Mr. Kenyon, who comes to-morrow _at one_. The sun does not promise to come besides—does he?

Mrs. Jameson goes to Brighton on Thursday, and returns in a day or two to spend another month or six weeks in town, changing her lodgings.

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

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, May 20, 1846.]

My Ba, I can just kneel down to you and be kissed,—I cannot do more, nor speak, nor thank you—and I seem to have no more chance of getting new love to give you,—all is given,—so I have said before, and must keep saying now—all of me is your very own.

My sister (whose engagement, and not mine, this was) decides to act according to the letter of Mr. Kenyon’s kind instructions, and keeps at home on account of the rain. She is very subject to colds and sore-throat which the least dampness underfoot is sure to produce in her. So I am not near you! You would not go, however,—I think, would not go,—to the Park gate as you conditionally promised—I do not, therefore, miss _my_ flower-show, my ‘rose tree that beareth seven times seven.’ But the other chance which your last letter apprises me of,—the visit of Mr. Kenyon,—which, by going in time to him, I might perhaps make my own too—_that_, on a second thought, I determine to forego ... because it jeopardizes my Saturday, which will be worth so many, many such visits,—does it not? There is no precedent in our golden year for three visits taking place in a single week—not even in that end of October when all the doubt was about the voyage—how I remember!

I shall be more with you than if in the presence of people before whom I may not say ‘Miss Barrett’ with impunity while professing to talk of Miss—I forget who! But ‘_more_ with you’ I who am always with you!

Always with you in the spirit, always yearning to be with you in the body,—always, when with you, praying, as for the happiest of fortunes, that I may remain with you for ever. So may it be, prays your

own, own R.

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

Wednesday, May 20.

Was it very wrong of me that never did I once think of the possibility of your coming here with Mr. Kenyon? Never once had I the thought of it. If I had, I should have put it away by saying aloud ‘Don’t come’; because as you say, it would have prevented Saturday’s coming, the coming to-day would, ... and also, as you do not say, it would have been infinitely hard for me to meet you and Mr. Kenyon in one battalion. Oh no, no! The gods forefend that you should come in that way! It was bad enough as it was, to-day, when while he sate here his ten minutes, (first showing me a sonnet from America, which began ‘Daughter of Græcian Genius!’) he turned those horrible spectacles full on me and asked, ‘Does Mrs. Jameson know that Mr. Browning comes here?’ ‘No,’ said I,—suddenly abashed, though I had borne the sonnet like a hero. ‘Well, then! I advise you to give directions to the servants that when she or anyone else asks for you, they should not say _Mr. Browning is with you_,—as they said the other day to Miss Bayley who told me of it.’ Now, wasn’t _that_ pleasant to hear? I thanked him for his advice, and felt as uncomfortable as was well possible—and am, at this moment, a little in doubt how he was thinking while he spoke. Perhaps after the fashion of my sisters, when they cry out ‘Such a state of things never was heard of before!’ Not that they have uttered one word of opposition ... not, from the first they knew, ... understand!—but that they are frightened at what may be said by people who take for granted that we are strangers, you and I, to one another. Ah!—a little more, a little less ... of what consequence is it?

Such a day, to-day!—it was finer last year I remember! and Tuesday, instead of Wednesday! Your sister was right, very right—though mine went—but the distance was less, with us. A party of _twelve_ went from this house—‘among us but not of us.’ For my part, I have not stirred from my room of course—the carriage was out of the question. And, if you please, I never ‘_promised_’ to be at the park gate—oh indeed, I never meditated seeing you even from afar—I thought only that I should hear a little distant music and remember that, where it sounded, you were, _that_ was all, ... and too much, the stars made out, and so drove down the clouds.

Poor Mr. Kenyon was grave—depressed about his friend, who is in a desperate state—dying in fact. He returns to Portsmouth to-morrow to be with him till the change comes.

Dearest, how are you? Never now will you condescend to say how you are. Which is not to be allowed in this second year of our reign. I am very well. Yesterday I heard some delightful matrimonial details of an ‘establishment’ in Regent’s Park, quite like an old pastoral in the quickness of the repartee. ‘I hate you’—‘I abhor you’—‘I never liked you’—‘I always detested you.’ A cup and saucer thrown bodily, here, by the lady! On which the gentleman upsets her, ... chair and all, ... flat on the floor. The witness, who is a friend of mine, gets frightened and begins to cry. She was invited to the house to be godmother to their child, and now she is pressed to stay longer to witness the articles of separation.

Oh, I suppose such things are common enough!—But what is remarkable _here_, is the fact that neither party is a _poet_, by the remotest courtesy.

Goodnight, dear dearest—

I am your

BA.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 21, 1846.]

Just as I write, the weather is a little more proper for this ‘the blest ascension-day of the cheerful month of May’: may you not go out therefore, my Ba? Or down-stairs, at all events. We were sorry, Sarianna and I, to see the bright afternoon yesterday ... we ought to have gone, perhaps—but Mr. Kenyon is good and will understand; spite of the spectacles. But what sonnet is that, you perverse Ba, of which you give me the two or three words,—in print,—how, where? And if I do not request and request I shall be sure to hear nothing of that American review again,—so, I do request, Ba!

Last night brought Dickens’ ‘Pictures from Italy’—which I read this morning. He seems to have expended his power on the least interesting places,—and then gone on hurriedly, seeing or describing less and less, till at last the mere names of places do duty for pictures of them, and at Naples he fairly gives it up ... the Vesuvius’ journey excepted. But the book is readable and clever—shall I bring it?—(or next week when everybody here has done with it).

I know, dearest, you did not _promise_ me that beatific vision by the gate—but was not enough said to justify me in waiting for you there? Indeed, yes—only the rain and wind seemed to forbid you; as they did. Were your sisters pleased? I am not sure I should have been glad to meet them _so_—I could not have left my sister (whom nobody would have known)—and then, with that unspoken secret between us. Also I please myself by hoping that Mr. Kenyon was only relieved of a great trouble and annoyance in the present state of his anxieties by our keeping away. Poor Captain Jones—really a fine, manly, noble fellow—I am heartily sorry. As for me, since Ba asks, I am pretty well,—much better in some points, and no worse in the rest—all is right but the little sound in the head which _will_ be intrusive—but I must walk it away presently, or _think_ it away at worst.

For, dearest, dearest Ba, I _can_ cure all pains at once with you to think of, and to love, and to bless. So, bless you!

Your R.

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

Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 22, 1846.]

Dearest, when your letter came I was cutting open the leaves of Dickens’ ‘Letters from Italy’ which Papa had brought in—so I am glad to have your thoughts of the book to begin with. Before your letter came I had sent you the review, as you will find. What changes, what changes! And the sonnet was purely manuscript, and for the good of the world should remain so. Oh—you cannot care for all this trash—such trash! Why I had a manuscript sonnet sent to me last autumn by ‘person or persons unknown,’ ... ‘To EBB on her departure from England _to Pisa_.’ Can you fancy that melodious piece of gossipping? Then a lady of the city, famous, I believe, for haberdashery, used to address _all_ her poems to me—which really was original ... for she would write five or six ‘poems’ on an evening, and sweep them up and send them to me once a fortnight, upon faith, hope and charity, seaweed and moonshine, cornlaws and the immortality of the soul, and take me for her standing muse, properly _thou_’d and _thee_’d all through. What a good vengeance it would be upon your unjust charges, if I set you to read a volume or two of those ‘poems’ ... which all went into the fire—so you need not be frightened.

And to-day I had a rose-tree sent to me by somebody who has laid close siege to me this long while, and whom I have escaped hitherto ... but who has encamped, she says, ‘till July’ in _16_ Wimpole Street. She writes too on her card ... ‘When are you going to Italy?’

Ah! you, who blame me (half blame me) for ‘seeing women,’ do not know how difficult it is to help it sometimes, without being in appearance ungrateful and almost brutal. Just because I am unwell, they teaze me more, I believe. Now that Miss Heaton ... oh, I need not go back, but it was not of my choice, be sure. You being a man are different,—and perhaps you make people afraid and keep them off. They do not thrust their hands through the bars where the lion is, as they do with the giraffe. Once I had this proposition—‘If we mayn’t come in, _will you stand up at the window that we may see_?’ Now!—And there’s the essence of at least ten MS. sonnets!——so don’t complain any more.

As for Mr. Kenyon, he had his ‘collation,’ I understand—and he said that he was expecting Mrs. Jameson and _sundries_—but he referred to some ‘friends from the country who would not be so mad as to come,’ and whom I knew to be yourselves. You were quite, quite right not to come. To-day you are right too ... in thinking that I—was out. I was in the park nearly an hour, Arabel and Flush and I: and perhaps if to-morrow should be fine, I may walk in the street; so think of me and help me. This is my last letter before I see you again, dear dearest. Oh—but I heard yesterday ... and it was not a tradition of the elders this time ... it was ‘vivid in the pages of contemporary history’ ... in fact one of my brothers heard it at the Flower Show and brought it home as the newest news, ... that ‘Mr. Browning is to be married immediately to Miss Campbell.’ The tellers of the news were ‘intimate friends’ of yours, they said, and knew it from the highest authority—

Laugh!—Why should not they talk, being women? My brother did not tell _me_, but he told it down-stairs—and Arabel was amused, she said, at some of the faces round. At that turn of the road they lost the track of the hare. Not an observation was made by anybody.

May God bless you—Think of me. I am ever and ever

Your own

BA.

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

Thursday.

This is not to be called a letter, please to understand, because to write a letter to you once a day is enough in all reason. But I want to send you the review you asked for at the same time with the drawings which I kept too long I thought months ago,—but I have looked over them again and again. Then there is the book on Junius—and lastly, the song which I want you to have ... the ‘Toll Slowly’—_that_ is my gift to you, for as much as it is worth, and not to be sent back to me if you please. As for the Notes on Naples, I shall keep them for the present, having need to study about Amalfi.

Now I am going out in the carriage, and shall drive round the park perhaps. You will not think much of the music—but it being the first music I had heard for years and years, and in itself so overwhelmingly melancholy, it affected me so that I should scarcely hear it to the end. I went down-stairs on purpose to hear it and be able to thank the composer rightly. But she has done better things, I am sure.

Your own

BA.

Observe—I disobey in nothing by sending this parcel. There is too much for you to carry. Don’t forget to bring me my _Statesmen_ which is a lawful burden.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, May 22, 1846.]

I have a great mind to retract ... I _do_ retract altogether whatever I said the other day in explanation of Miss Heaton’s story. I make no doubt, now, it was a pure dream to which my over-scrupulousness of conscience gave a local habitation and name both, through the favourable dimness and illusion of ‘a good many years ago’—because this last charge about ‘Miss Campbell’—briefly—I never in my life saw, to my knowledge, a woman of that name—nor can there be any woman of any other name from my acquaintance with whom the merest misunderstanding in the world could possibly arise to a third person ... I mean, that it must be a simple falsehood and not gossip or distortion of fact, as I supposed in the other case. I told you of the one instance where such distortion _might_ take place,—(Miss Haworth, to avoid mistake). This charge after the other ... I will tell you of what it reminds me—in my early boyhood I had a habit of calling people ‘fools,’ with as little reverence as could be, ... and it used to be solemnly represented to me after such offences that ‘whoso calleth his brother “fool,” is in danger &c. for he hath committed murder in his heart already’ &c. in short,—there was no help for it,—I stood there a convicted _murderer_ ... to which I was forced penitently to agree.... Here is Miss Heaton’s charge and my confession. Now, let a policeman come here presently to ask what I know about the ‘Deptford Murder’ or the ‘Marshalsea Massacre’—and you will have my ‘intimate friend’s’ charge. By the way, did your brother overhear this, or was it spoken to someone in his company, or is my friend his acquaintance also? Because in either of the latter cases I can interfere easily. (There is a _Mr. Browning_—Henry I think—living in, or near the Regent’s Park.) At all events, please say that I know no such person, nor ever knew,—that the whole is a pure falsehood—(and I only use so mild a word because I write to _you_, and because on reading the letter again I see the speakers were women).

It is a _fact_ that I have made myself almost ridiculous by a kind of male prudery with respect to ‘young ladies’ ... that I have seemed to imply—‘If I gave you the least encouragement something would be sure to follow.’ In fact never seeing any attractiveness in the class, I was very little inclined to get involved in troubles and troubles for nothing at all. And as for marrying ... that is a point on which I have certainly not chosen to dilate before _you_, nor shall I now dilate on it.

Well, I shall see you to-morrow, that remedies everything. And that is your way of letting me see the Review,—you send it! Not that it has arrived yet. Dear Ba, how ever good you are!

All about the lady enthusiasts makes me laugh—don’t think I fail of the proper respect to them, however—it is only once in a week that one sees a real painted Emperor settle on a flower, and then perhaps for a few minutes—while at all times, if you look, you will find a good half dozen of earnest yet sleepy drones _living_ there, working away at the sweet,—after all, these get the most out of the flower.

Did you really go out yesterday? I was not sure, for the wind was Easterly—but it appears to have done you no harm,—you may ‘go into the street’ to-day—I am most happy,—most happy—and always entirely happy in you,—in thinking of you, and hoping,—my life is in you now—

Bless you, dearest—I am your own.

2 o’clock, the parcel arrives ... thank you, best of Ba’s! I will read and tell you—(only what on earth do you mean by sending back those sketches?)

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

Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 25, 1846.]

My own Ba is entreated to observe, that when she sends me reviews about herself, and songs by herself, and a make-weight book about ‘Junius’ happens to be sent also ... I do not ordinarily plunge into the Junius-discussion at once—perhaps from having made up my mind that the Author is Miss Campbell:—at all events, while the review was read and re-read and the music done justice and injustice to, the Junius was opened for the first time this morning, at eight of the clock, and Ba’s letter which lay between pages 16 and 17, ‘came to hand’—was brought to me by my mother, from my father! but for whose lucky inspiration of curiosity the said note had perhaps lain shut in till the book’s secret was found out ... certainly _I_ should never have touched the book before then! And from this note, duly studied, I learn that yesterday I must have appeared to Ba touched by a general mental paralysis—inasmuch as I was surprised, over and above the joyfulness, to hear that she was in the Park on Thursday, as well as Friday ... (oh, I know the letter I _did_ receive mentioned it, but it seems as if _one_ of the two excursions were unrecorded)—and seeing that I enquired whether Ba had heard with her own ears the song ... and altogether omitted thanking her for the gift of it: and lastly, brought no _Statesmen_, even on Ba’s request! Of all which matters I _ought_ to have been made acquainted by the note: what must you think of me, you Ba; dearest-dearest, that expect me to know the face through the bonnet, and the letter through the book covers—(Ba sitting in the Bookseller’s shop was a type, I see!). What did you think of me yesterday, I want to know?

Well, and now my letter does come I thank you—(for all the trouble this precedent will give me—next time a parcel comes—of poking into all impossible places to see and to see!). You are the dearest, dearest, impossibly dear Ba that heart ever adored,

‘And the roses which thou strowest,
All the cheerful way thou goest,
Would direct to follow thee,’

as Shirley sings—and every now and then the full sense of the sweetness _collects_ itself and overcomes me entirely, as now, on the occasion of this note that I find; I am blessed by you in the hundred unspeakable ways—but were it only for _this_ and similar pure kindness, I find it in my heart to give you my life could it profit you! Here ought I, by every law and right and propriety ... ask Miss Campbell! ... to be ministering to you, caring for you; and ... oh, Ba, do please, please, throw a coffee cup at me!—(giving some _grounds_ for complaint!)—and after it the _soucoupe_ (‘glaring with _saucer_ eyes’)—and see what you shall see, and hear what you shall hear! You ‘strongest woman that has written yet’! Have _they_ found that out? _I_ know it, I think, by this! So I will go and think over it in the garden, and tell you more in the afternoon.

_12 o’clock!_—What strange weather!—but pleasant, I think—you have been out, or will go out, perhaps. Tell me all, dearest, and how you feel after it. To-morrow I will send you the Review and some of the other books you have spoken of from time to time—but, I almost dare to keep the _Statesmen_, spite of your positive request. Why, dear, want to see what I desire to forget altogether? So my other poems, ‘Sordello’ &c.—I most unaffectedly shudder at the notion of your reading them, as I said yesterday. _My_ poetry is far from the ‘completest expression of my being’—I hate to refer to it, or I could tell you why, wherefore, ... _prove_ how imperfect (for a mild word), how unsatisfactory it must of necessity be. Still, I should not so much object, if, such as it is, it were the best, the flower of my life ... but that is all to come, and through you, mainly, or more certainly. So will it not be better to let me write one last poem this summer,—quite easily, stringing every day’s thoughts instead of letting them fall,—and laying them at the dear feet at the summer’s end for a memorial? I have been almost determining to do this, or try to do it, as I walked in the garden just now. A poem to publish or not to publish; but a proper introduction to the afterwork. What do you think, my Ba, my dearest siren, and muse, and Mistress, and ... something beyond all, above all and better ... shall I do this? And what are you studying about Amalfi, my Ba? Will you please keep that Naples’ Note-book till I ask for it—at Amalfi. Till holy church incorporate two in one; and I take the degree of my aspiration. Rᵗ. Bᵍ. _B.A._—in earnest of which, kiss me dear, ‘earnest, most earnest of poets,’ and let me kiss you as I do ... loving you as I love you. Bless you, best and dearest.

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, May 25, 1846.]

When you came yesterday I had scarcely done my grumbling over the _Athenæum_, which really seems to me to select its subjects from the things least likely to interest and elevate. It goes on its own level perhaps—but to call itself a Journal of Art and Literature afterwards, is too much to bear patiently when one turns it over and considers. Lady Hester Stanhope’s physician, antiquities of the mayors of London, stories re-collected from the magazines by Signor Marcotti—and this is literature ... art! Without thinking of ‘Luria,’ it is natural and righteous to be angry even after the sun has gone down. These are your teachers, O Israel! Mr. Dilke may well fly to the _Daily News_ for congenial occupation and leave literature behind him, and nobody hang on the wheels of his chariot, crying, ‘Come back, Mr. Dilke.’

Talking of chariots, George met you, he said, yesterday, wheeling down Oxford Street, ... (this he told me when he came in ...) going as fast as an express train, and far too fast, of course, either to recognize or be recognized.

Oh—I forgot to tell you one thing about the review in the _Methodist Quarterly_. You observe there some very absurd remarks about Tennyson—but, just _there_, is an extract from the ‘Spirit of the Age,’ about his ‘coming out of himself as the nightingale from under the leaves,’ ... you see _that_? Well ... it is curious that precisely what is quoted _there_, is some of my writing, when I contributed to Mr. Horne’s book. It amused me to recognize it, (as you did not George) ... but I was vexed too at the foolish deduction, because....

In the midst I had to hold my Sunday-levee, when for the only day in the week and for one half hour I have to see all my brothers and sisters at once: on the week days, one being in one place and one in another, and the visits to me only coming by twos and threes. Well, and Alfred, who never had said a word to me before, gave me the opportunity of saying ‘_no, no, it is not true_’—followed hard by a remark from somebody else, that ‘of course Ba must know, as she and Mr. Browning are such _very_ intimate friends,’ and a good deal of laughter on all sides: on which, without any transition and with an exceeding impertinence, Alfred threw himself down on the sofa and declared that he felt inclined to be very ill, ... for that then perhaps (such things being heard of) some young lady might come to visit _him_, to talk sympathetically on the broad and narrow gauge! Altogether, I shall leave you for the future to ... contradict yourself! I did not mean to do it this time, only that Alfred forced me into it. But he said ... ‘How the Miss Cokers praised him!... “It was delightful,” they cried, “to see a man of such a great genius condescend to little people like them.”’ So they are better than the _Athenæum_, and I shall not have them spoken of ungently, mind, even if they do romance a little wildly, and marry _me_, next time, to the man in the moon.

In the meantime, dearest, it is no moonshine that I was out walking to-day again, and that I walked up all these stairs with my own feet on returning. I sate down on the stairs two or three times, but I could not rest in the drawing-room because somebody was there, and I was not carried, as usual—see how vain-glorious I am. And what a summer-sense in the air—and how lovely the strips of sky between the houses! And yet I may tell you truly, that, constantly, through these vivid impressions, I am thinking and feeling that mournful and bitter would be to me this return into life, apart from you, apart from the consideration of you. How could ever I have borne it, I keep feeling constantly. But you are _there_, in the place of memory. Ah—you said yesterday that you were not ungrateful! _I_ cannot say so. I blame myself often. And yet again I think that the wrong may be pardoned to me, for that those affections had worked out on me their uttermost pang—nearly unto death I had felt them—and now if I am to live, it must be by other means—or I should die still, and not live. Also I owe _you_ gratitude——do I not owe you gratitude? Then, _I cannot help it_ ... right or wrong, I cannot help it ... you are all to me, and, beloved—whichever way I look, I only can see _you_. If wrong, it is not for _you_ to be severe on me—

Your own

BA.

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

Monday. 12 o’clock.

I get nothing by the post this morning:—perhaps at next delivery! Well, I had the unexpected largess yesterday, you know. At this time last year the letters came once a week! Now the manna falls as manna should omitting only the seventh day.

Do you know, my Ba,—the Campbell mystery is all but solved, to my thinking, by supposing, as one may, that, those foolish ladies confound their cousin’s friend _Brown_, an indubitable Scot and Lord Jeffrey’s nephew,—(and their intimate for aught I know)—with _me_. He is in town now; _did_ dine with them just before I saw him a fortnight ago; and _may_ meditate happiness with Miss Campbell, and be provided with a paragon of a ‘sister’ besides. Those ladies have been to Scotland—may easily know him there and see ‘sights’ with him here. Is not all this likely? It is not worth writing about to White, nor a visit to him at Doctors’ Commons, but when I next chance on his company, I will enquire.

Here is the review,—which I like very much—the introductory, abstract remarks might be better, but so it always is when a man, having really something to say about one precise thing (your poems), thinks he had better preface it by a little graceful _generality_. All he _wanted_ to write, I agree in, thoroughly agree,—though I cannot but fancy my own selection,—that _might_ be,—of passages and single poems!

And, dearest, I venture to keep back the _Statesmen_, as I asked leave to do yesterday, for the reasons then given—may I keep it back?

Also I return those sketches,—now they have been in your hand, they cannot lie about here—(I keep brown paper with your writing on it, and string, and the wrappage of this pen of mine—to be sure) so I shall get you to bear with them again, two or three being added, just as I find them. There is, too, the ode which was presented to me on my departure from Rome by an enthusiastic Roman; red ribbon and all! And last of all you have my play as altered by Macready: greater excisions had been determined on, but on the appearance of the printed copy had the effect it intended ... it would have been too ludicrous to leave out the whole of the first scene, for instance (as was in contemplation), and then to tell the public ‘my play’ had been acted. I refer to this silly business only to show you what success or non-success on the stage means and is worth. It is all behind me now—so far behind!

Now I will wait and see what next post may bring me from dearest Ba—Ba, the dear, and the beloved, e sopra tutto, the tall! Does she not ‘stand high in the affection’—of her very own

R.B.?

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, May 25, 1846.]

Dear, dear love, your letter comes at half past _three_ by a new Postman,—(very bewildered). You will perhaps have received my parcel and note—if not, such things are on the road. All in _your_ note delights me entirely. As for my walking fast, _that_ is exactly my use and wont ... I am famous for it,—as my father is for driving old lady-friends into illnesses, and then saying innocently, ‘I took care to walk _very_ slowly.’ When I have anything to occupy my mind, I all but run—but the pen can’t run, for this letter must go, and nothing said.

So, Ba, my Ba, Goodbye till to-morrow from

Your own, own.

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

Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 26, 1846.]

My beloved I scarcely know what to say about the poem. It is almost profane and a sin to keep you from writing it when your mind goes that way,—yet I am afraid that you cannot begin without doing too much and without suffering as a consequence in your head. Now if you make yourself ill, what will be the end? So you see my fears! Let it be however as it must be! Only you will promise to keep from all excesses, and to write very very gently. Ah—can you keep such a promise, if it is made ever so? There are the fears again.

You are very strange in what you say about my reading your poetry—as if it were not my peculiar gladness and glory!—my own, which no man can take from me. And not _you_, indeed! Yet I am not likely to mistake your poetry for the flower of your nature, knowing what that flower is, knowing something of what that flower is without a name, and feeling something of the mystical perfume of it. When I said, or when others said for me, that my poetry was the flower of me, was it praise, did you think, or blame? might it not stand for a sarcasm? It might,—if it were not true, miserably true after a fashion.

Yet something of the sort is true, of course, with all poets who write directly from their personal experience and emotions—their ideal rises to the surface and floats like the bell of the waterlily. The roots and the muddy water are _subaudita_, you know—as surely there, as the flower.