The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 26

Do I 'stand'--Do I walk? Yes--most uprightly. I 'walk upright every day.' Do I go out? no, never. And I am not to be scolded for _that_, because when you were looking at the sun to-day, I was marking the east wind; and perhaps if I had breathed a breath of it ... farewell Pisa. People who can walk don't always walk into the lion's den as a consequence--do they? should they? Are you 'sure that they should?' I write in great haste. So Wednesday then ... perhaps!

And yours every day.

You understand. Wednesday--if nothing to the contrary.

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

12--Wednesday.

[Post-mark, October 8, 1845.]

Well, dearest, at all events I get up with the a.s.surance I shall see you, and go on till the fatal 11-1/4 p.m. believing in the same, and _then_, if after all there _does_ come such a note as this with its instructions, why, first, it _is_ such a note and such a gain, and next it makes a great day out of to-morrow that was to have been so little of a day, that is all. Only, only, I am suspicious, now, of a real loss to me in the end; for, _putting_ off yesterday, I dared put off (on your part) Friday to Sat.u.r.day ... while _now_ ... what shall be said to that?

Dear Mr. Kenyon to be the smiling inconscious obstacle to any pleasure of mine, if it were merely pleasure!

But I want to catch our next post--to-morrow, then, excepting what is to be excepted!

Bless you, my dearest--

Your own

R.B.

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

Wednesday Evening.

[Post-mark, October 8, 1845.]

Mr. Kenyon never came. My sisters met him in the street, and he had been 'detained all day in the city and would certainly be here to-morrow,' Wednesday! And so you see what has happened to Wednesday!

Moreover he may come besides on Thursday, ... I can answer for nothing. Only if I do not write and if you find Thursday admissible, will you come then? In the case of an obstacle, you shall hear. And it is not (in the meantime) my fault--now is it? I have been quite enough vexed about it, indeed.

Did the Monday work work harm to the head, I wonder? I do fear so that you won't get through those papers with impunity--especially if the plays are to come after ... though ever so 'gently.' And if you are to suffer, it would be right to tongue-tie that silver Bell, and leave the congregations to their selling of cabbages. Which is unphilanthropic of me perhaps, ... [Greek: o philtate].

Be sure that I shall be 'bold' when the time for going comes--and both bold and capable of the effort. I am desired to keep to the respirator and the cabin for a day or two, while the cold can reach us; and midway in the bay of Biscay some change of climate may be felt, they say. There is no sort of danger for me; except that I shall _stay in England_. And why is it that I feel to-night more than ever almost, as if I should stay in England? Who can tell? _I_ can tell one thing.

_If_ I stay, it will not be from a failure in my resolution--_that will_ not be--_shall_ not be. Yes--and Mr. Kenyon and I agreed the other day that there was something of the tigress-nature very distinctly cognisable under what he is pleased to call my 'Ba-lambishness.'

Then, on Thursday!... unless something happens to _Thursday_ ... and I shall write in that case. And I trust to you (as always) to attend to your own convenience--just as you may trust to me to remember my own 'boon.' Ah--you are curious, I think! Which is scarcely wise of you--because it _may_, you know, be the roc's egg after all. But no, it _isn't_--I will say just so much. And besides I _did_ say that it was a 'rest.i.tution,' which limits the guesses if it does not put an end to them. Unguessable, I choose it to be.

And now I feel as if I should _not_ stay in England. Which is the difference between one five minutes and another. May G.o.d bless you.

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

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

[Post-mark, October 11, 1845.]

Dear Mr. Kenyon has been here again, and talking so (in his kindness too) about the probabilities as to Pisa being against me ... about all depending 'on one throw' and the 'dice being loaded' &c. ... that I looked at him aghast as if he looked at the future through the folded curtain and was licensed to speak oracles:--and ever since I have been out of spirits ... oh, out of spirits--and must write myself back again, or try. After all he may be wrong like another--and I should tell you that he reasons altogether from the delay ... and that 'the cabins will therefore be taken' and the 'circular bills' out of reach!

He _said_ that one of his purposes in staying in town, was to '_knout_' me every day--didn't he?

Well--George will probably speak before _he_ leaves town, which will be on Monday! and now that the hour approaches, I do feel as if the house stood upon gunpowder, and as if I held Guy Fawkes's lantern in my right hand. And no: I shall not go. The obstacles will not be those of Mr. Kenyon's finding--and what their precise character will be I do not see distinctly. Only that they will be sufficient, and thrown by one hand just where the wheel should turn, ... _that_, I see--and you will, in a few days.

Did you go to Moxon's and settle the printing matter? Tell me. And what was the use of telling Mr. Kenyon that you were 'quite well' when you know you are not? Will you say to me how you are, saying the truth? and also how your mother is?

To show the significance of the omission of those evening or rather night visits of Papa's--for they came sometimes at eleven, and sometimes at twelve--I will tell you that he used to sit and talk in them, and then _always_ kneel and pray with me and for me--which I used of course to feel as a proof of very kind and affectionate sympathy on his part, and which has proportionably pained me in the withdrawing. They were no ordinary visits, you observe, ... and he could not well throw me further from him than by ceasing to pay them--the thing is quite expressively significant. Not that I pretend to complain, nor to have reason to complain. One should not be grateful for kindness, only while it lasts: _that_ would be a short-breathed grat.i.tude. I just tell you the fact, proving that it cannot be accidental.

Did you ever, ever tire me? Indeed no--you never did. And do understand that I am not to be tired 'in that way,' though as Mr. Boyd said once of his daughter, one may be so 'far too effeminate.' No--if I were put into a crowd I should be tired soon--or, apart from the crowd, if you made me discourse orations De Corona ... concerning your bag even ... I should be tired soon--though peradventure not very much sooner than you who heard. But on the smooth ground of quiet conversation (particularly when three people don't talk at once as my brothers do ... to say the least!) I last for a long while:--not to say that I have the pretension of being as good and inexhaustible a listener to your own speaking as you could find in the world. So please not to accuse me of being tired again. I can't be tired, and won't be tired, you see.

And now, since I began to write this, there is a new evil and anxiety--a worse anxiety than any--for one of my brothers is ill; had been unwell for some days and we thought nothing of it, till to-day Sat.u.r.day: and the doctors call it a fever of the typhoid character ...

not typhus yet ... but we are very uneasy. You must not come on Wednesday if an infectious fever be in the house--_that_ must be out of the question. May G.o.d bless you--I am quite heavy-hearted to-day, but never less yours,

E.B.B.

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

Sunday.

[Post-mark, October 13, 1845].

These are bad news, dearest--all bad, except the enduring comfort of your regard; the illness of your brother is worst ... that _would_ stay you, and is the first proper obstacle. I shall not attempt to speak and prove my feelings,--you know what even Flush is to me through you: I wait in anxiety for the next account.

If after all you do _not_ go to Pisa; why, we must be cheerful and wise, and take courage and hope. I cannot but see with your eyes and from your place, you know,--and will let this all be one surprizing and deplorable mistake of mere love and care ... but no such another mistake ought to be suffered, if you escape the effects of this. I will not cease to believe in a better event, till the very last, however, and it is a deep satisfaction that all has been made plain and straight up to this strange and sad interposition like a bar. You have done _your_ part, at least--with all that forethought and counsel from friends and adequate judges of the case--so, if the bar _will_ not move, you will consider--will you not, dearest?--where one may best encamp in the unforbidden country, and wait the spring and fine weather. Would it be advisable to go where Mr. Kenyon suggested, or elsewhere? Oh, these vain wishes ... the will here, and no means!

My life is bound up with yours--my own, first and last love. What wonder if I feared to tire you--I who, knowing you as I do, admiring what is so admirable (let me speak), loving what must needs be loved, fain to learn what you only can teach; proud of so much, happy in so much of you; I, who, for all this, neither come to admire, nor feel proud, nor be taught,--but only, only to live with you and be by you--that is love--for I _know_ the rest, as I say. I know those qualities are in you ... but at them I could get in so many ways.... I have your books, here are my letters you give me; you would answer my questions were _I_ in Pisa--well, and it all would amount to nothing, infinitely much as I know it is; to nothing if I could not sit by you and see you.... I can stop at that, but not before. And it seems strange to me how little ... less than little I have laid open of my feelings, the nature of them to you--I smile to think how if all this while I had been acting with the profoundest policy in intention, so as to pledge myself to nothing I could not afterwards perform with the most perfect ease and security, I should have done not much unlike what I _have_ done--to be sure, one word includes many or all ... but I have not said ... what I will not even now say ... you will _know_--in G.o.d's time to which I trust.

I will answer your note now--the questions. I did go--(it may amuse you to write on)--to Moxon's. First let me tell you that when I called there the Sat.u.r.day before, his brother (in his absence) informed me, replying to the question when it came naturally in turn with a round of like enquiries, that your poems continued to sell 'singularly well'--they would 'end in bringing a clear profit,' he said. I thought to catch him, and asked if they _had_ done so ... 'Oh; not at the beginning ... it takes more time--he answered. On Thursday I saw Moxon--he spoke rather encouragingly of my own prospects. I send him a sheetful to-morrow, I believe, and we are 'out' on the 1st of next month. Tennyson, by the way, has got his pension, 200 per annum--by the other way, Moxon has bought the MSS. of Keats in the possession of Taylor the publisher, and is going to bring out a complete edition; which is pleasant to hear.

After settling with Moxon I went to Mrs. Carlyle's--who told me characteristic quaintnesses of Carlyle's father and mother over the tea she gave me. And all yesterday, you are to know, I was in a permanent mortal fright--for my uncle came in the morning to intreat me to go to Paris in _the evening_ about some urgent business of his,--a five-minutes matter with his brother there,--and the affair being really urgent and material to his and the brother's interest, and no subst.i.tute being to be thought of, I was forced to promise to go--in case a letter, which would arrive in Town at noon, should not prove satisfactory. So I calculated times, and found I could be at Paris to-morrow, and back again, _certainly_ by Wednesday--and so not lose you on that day--oh, the fear I had!--but I was sure then and now, that the 17th would not see you depart. But night came, and the last Dover train left, and I drew breath freely--this morning I find the letter was all right--so may it be with all worse apprehensions!

What you fear, precisely that, never happens, as Napoleon observed and thereon grew bold. I had stipulated for an hour's notice, if go I must--and that was to be wholly spent in writing to you--for in quiet consternation my mother cared for my carpet bag.

And so, I shall hear from you to-morrow ... that is, you will write _then_, telling me _all_ about your brother. As for what you say, with the kindest intentions, 'of fever-contagion' and keeping away on Wednesday on _that_ account, it is indeed 'out of the question,'--for a first reason (which dispenses with any second) because I disbelieve altogether in contagion from fevers, and especially from typhus fevers--as do much better-informed men than myself--I speak quite advisedly. If there should be only _that_ reason, therefore, you will not deprive me of the happiness of seeing you next Wednesday.

I am not well--have a cold, influenza or some unpleasant thing, but am better than yesterday--My mother is much better, I think (she and my sister are resolute non-contagionists, mind you that!)

G.o.d bless you and all you love! dearest, I am your

R.B.

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