The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 1

The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.

Vol. 1.

1845-1846.

Edited by Robert B. Browning.

NOTE

In considering the question of publishing these letters, which are all that ever pa.s.sed between my father and mother, for after their marriage they were never separated, it seemed to me that my only alternatives were to allow them to be published or to destroy them. I might, indeed, have left the matter to the decision of others after my death, but that would be evading a responsibility which I feel that I ought to accept.

Ever since my mother's death these letters were kept by my father in a certain inlaid box, into which they exactly fitted, and where they have always rested, letter beside letter, each in its consecutive order and numbered on the envelope by his own hand.

My father destroyed all the rest of his correspondence, and not long before his death he said, referring to these letters: 'There they are, do with them as you please when I am dead and gone!'

A few of the letters are of little or no interest, but their omission would have saved only a few pages, and I think it well that the correspondence should be given in its entirety.

I wish to express my grat.i.tude to my father's friend and mine, Mrs.

Miller Morison, for her unfailing sympathy and a.s.sistance in deciphering some words which had become scarcely legible owing to faded ink.

R.B.B.

1898.

THE LETTERS OF

ROBERT BROWNING

AND

ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT

1845-1846

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

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.

[Post-mark, January 10, 1845.]

I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,--and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write,--whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing. Since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me, for in the first flush of delight I thought I would this once get out of my habit of purely pa.s.sive enjoyment, when I do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration--perhaps even, as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some little good to be proud of hereafter!--but nothing comes of it all--so into me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew--Oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat, and prized highly, and put in a book with a proper account at top and bottom, and shut up and put away ... and the book called a 'Flora,' besides!

After all, I need not give up the thought of doing that, too, in time; because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give a reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought; but in this addressing myself to you--your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart--and I love you too. Do you know I was once not very far from seeing--really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' then he went to announce me,--then he returned ... you were too unwell, and now it is years ago, and I feel as at some untoward pa.s.sage in my travels, as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt, only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some slight, so it now seems, slight and just sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, and the sight was never to be?

Well, these Poems were to be, and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself,

Yours ever faithfully,

ROBERT BROWNING.

Miss Barrett,[1]

50 Wimpole St.

R. Browning.

[Footnote 1: With this and the following letter the addresses on the envelopes are given; for all subsequent letters the addresses are the same. The correspondence pa.s.sed through the post.]

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

50 Wimpole Street: Jan. 11, 1845.

I thank you, dear Mr. Browning, from the bottom of my heart. You meant to give me pleasure by your letter--and even if the object had not been answered, I ought still to thank you. But it is thoroughly answered. Such a letter from such a hand! Sympathy is dear--very dear to me: but the sympathy of a poet, and of such a poet, is the quintessence of sympathy to me! Will you take back my grat.i.tude for it?--agreeing, too, that of all the commerce done in the world, from Tyre to Carthage, the exchange of sympathy for grat.i.tude is the most princely thing!

For the rest you draw me on with your kindness. It is difficult to get rid of people when you once have given them too much pleasure--_that_ is a fact, and we will not stop for the moral of it. What I was going to say--after a little natural hesitation--is, that if ever you emerge without inconvenient effort from your 'pa.s.sive state,' and will _tell_ me of such faults as rise to the surface and strike you as important in my poems, (for of course, I do not think of troubling you with criticism in detail) you will confer a lasting obligation on me, and one which I shall value so much, that I covet it at a distance. I do not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism and it is possible enough that I might not be altogether obedient to yours. But with my high respect for your power in your Art and for your experience as an artist, it would be quite impossible for me to hear a general observation of yours on what appear to you my master-faults, without being the better for it hereafter in some way. I ask for only a sentence or two of general observation--and I do not ask even for _that_, so as to tease you--but in the humble, low voice, which is so excellent a thing in women--particularly when they go a-begging! The most frequent general criticism I receive, is, I think, upon the style,--'if I _would_ but change my style'! But _that_ is an objection (isn't it?) to the writer bodily? Buffon says, and every sincere writer must feel, that '_Le style c'est l'homme_'; a fact, however, scarcely calculated to lessen the objection with certain critics.

Is it indeed true that I was so near to the pleasure and honour of making your acquaintance? and can it be true that you look back upon the lost opportunity with any regret? _But_--you know--if you had entered the 'crypt,' you might have caught cold, or been tired to death, and _wished_ yourself 'a thousand miles off;' which would have been worse than travelling them. It is not my interest, however, to put such thoughts in your head about its being 'all for the best'; and I would rather hope (as I do) that what I lost by one chance I may recover by some future one. Winters shut me up as they do dormouse's eyes; in the spring, _we shall see_: and I am so much better that I seem turning round to the outward world again. And in the meantime I have learnt to know your voice, not merely from the poetry but from the kindness in it. Mr. Kenyon often speaks of you--dear Mr.

Kenyon!--who most unspeakably, or only speakably with tears in my eyes,--has been my friend and helper, and my book's friend and helper!

critic and sympathiser, true friend of all hours! You know him well enough, I think, to understand that I must be grateful to him.

I am writing too much,--and notwithstanding that I am writing too much, I will write of one thing more. I will say that I am your debtor, not only for this cordial letter and for all the pleasure which came with it, but in other ways, and those the highest: and I will say that while I live to follow this divine art of poetry, in proportion to my love for it and my devotion to it, I must be a devout admirer and student of your works. This is in my heart to say to you--and I say it.

And, for the rest, I am proud to remain

Your obliged and faithful

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

Robert Browning, Esq.

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.

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

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.

Jan. 13, 1845.

Dear Miss Barrett,--I just shall say, in as few words as I can, that you make me very happy, and that, now the beginning is over, I dare say I shall do better, because my poor praise, number one, was nearly as felicitously brought out, as a certain tribute to no less a personage than Ta.s.so, which I was amused with at Rome some weeks ago, in a neat pencilling on the plaister-wall by his tomb at Sant'Onofrio--'Alla cara memoria--di--(please fancy solemn inters.p.a.ces and grave capital letters at the new lines) di--Torquato Ta.s.so--il Dottore Bernardini--offriva--il seguente Carme--_O tu_'--and no more,--the good man, it should seem, breaking down with the overload of love here! But my 'O tu'--was breathed out most sincerely, and now you have taken it in gracious part, the rest will come after.

Only,--and which is why I write now--it looks as if I have introduced some phrase or other about 'your faults' so cleverly as to give exactly the opposite meaning to what I meant, which was, that in my first ardour I had thought to tell you of _everything_ which impressed me in your verses, down, even, to whatever 'faults' I could find,--a good earnest, when I had got to _them_, that I had left out not much between--as if some Mr. Fellows were to say, in the overflow of his first enthusiasm of rewarded adventure: 'I will describe you all the outer life and ways of these Lycians, down to their very sandal-thongs,' whereto the be-corresponded one rejoins--'Shall I get next week, then, your dissertation on sandal-thongs'? Yes, and a little about the 'Olympian Horses,' and G.o.d-charioteers as well!

What 'struck me as faults,' were not matters on the removal of which, one was to have--poetry, or high poetry,--but the very highest poetry, so I thought, and that, to universal recognition. For myself, or any artist, in many of the cases there would be a positive loss of time, peculiar artist's pleasure--for an instructed eye loves to see where the brush has dipped twice in a l.u.s.trous colour, has lain insistingly along a favourite outline, dwelt lovingly in a grand shadow; for these 'too muches' for the everybody's picture are so many helps to the making out the real painter's picture as he had it in his brain. And all of the t.i.tian's Naples Magdalen must have once been golden in its degree to justify that heap of hair in her hands--the _only_ gold effected now!

But about this soon--for night is drawing on and I go out, yet cannot, quiet at conscience, till I report (to _myself_, for I never said it to you, I think) that your poetry must be, cannot but be, infinitely more to me than mine to you--for you _do_ what I always wanted, hoped to do, and only seem now likely to do for the first time. You speak out, _you_,--I only make men and women speak--give you truth broken into prismatic hues, and fear the pure white light, even if it is in me, but I am going to try; so it will be no small comfort to have your company just now, seeing that when you have your men and women aforesaid, you are busied with them, whereas it seems bleak, melancholy work, this talking to the wind (for I have begun)--yet I don't think I shall let _you_ hear, after all, the savage things about Popes and imaginative religions that I must say.

See how I go on and on to you, I who, whenever now and then pulled, by the head and hair, into letter-writing, get sorrowfully on for a line or two, as the cognate creature urged on by stick and string, and then come down 'flop' upon the sweet haven of page one, line last, as serene as the sleep of the virtuous! You will never more, I hope, talk of 'the honour of my acquaintance,' but I will joyfully wait for the delight of your friendship, and the spring, and my Chapel-sight after all!