The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 32

you called him once to me, and his heart shines already ... wide open to the morning sun. The construction seems to me very clear everywhere--and the rhythm, even over-smooth in a few verses, where you invert a little artificially--but that shall be set down on a separate strip of paper: and in the meantime I am s.n.a.t.c.hed up into 'Luria' and feel myself driven on to the ends of the poet, just as a reader should.

But _you_ are not driven on to any ends? so as to be tired, I mean?

You will not suffer yourself to be overworked because you are 'interested' in this work. I am so certain that the sensations in your head _demand_ repose; and it must be so injurious to you to be perpetually calling, calling these new creations, one after another, that you must consent to be called _to_, and not hurry the next act, no, nor any act--let the people have time to learn the last number by heart. And how glad I am that Mr. Fox should say what he did of it ...

though it wasn't true, you know ... not exactly. Still, I do hold that as far as construction goes, you never put together so much unquestionable, smooth glory before, ... not a single entanglement for the understanding ... unless 'the snowdrops' make an exception--while for the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before your readers more plainly than in that same number! Also you have extended your sweep of power--the sea-weed is thrown farther (if not higher) than it was found before; and one may calculate surely now how a few more waves will cover the brown stones and float the sight up away through the fissure of the rocks. The rhythm (to touch one of the various things) the rhythm of that 'd.u.c.h.ess' does more and more strike me as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greeks called pedestrian-metre, ... between metre and prose ... the difficult rhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of the general measure. Then 'The Ride'--with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering ... yes, and how that one touch of softness acts back upon the energy and resolution and exalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have been expected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then 'Saul'--and in a first place 'St. Praxed'--and for pure description, 'Fortu' and the deep 'Pictor Ignotus'--and the n.o.ble, serene 'Italy in England,' which grows on you the more you know of it--and that delightful 'Glove'--and the short lyrics ... for one comes to _'select' everything_ at last, and certainly I do like these poems better and better, as your poems are made to be liked. But you will be tired to hear it said over and over so, ... and I am going to 'Luria,' besides.

When you write will you say exactly how you are? and will you write?

And I want to explain to you that although I don't make a profession of equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits were always given to rock a little, up and down) yet that I did not mean to be so ungrateful and wicked as to complain of low spirits now and to you. It would not be true either: and I said 'low' to express a merely bodily state. My opium comes in to keep the pulse from fluttering and fainting ... to give the right composure and point of balance to the nervous system. I don't take it for 'my spirits' in the usual sense; you must not think such a thing. The medical man who came to see me made me take it the other day when he was in the room, before the right hour and when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the need he observed in the pulse. 'It was a necessity of my position,' he said. Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually do who take opium. I am not even subject to an opium-headache. As to the low spirits I will not say that mine _have not_ been low enough and with cause enough; but _even then_, ... why if you were to ask the nearest witnesses, ... say, even my own sisters, ... everybody would tell you, I think, that the 'cheerfulness' even _then_, was the remarkable thing in me--certainly it has been remarked about me again and again. n.o.body has known that it was an effort (a habit of effort) to throw the light on the outside,--I do abhor so that ign.o.ble groaning aloud of the 'groans of Testy and Sensitude'--yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in anything. Think if I could mean to complain of 'low spirits' now, and to you. Why it would be like complaining of not being able to see at noon--which would simply prove that I was very blind. And you, who are not blind, cannot make out what is written--so you _need not try_.

May G.o.d bless you long after you have done blessing me!

Your own

E.B.B.

Now I am half tempted to tear this letter in two (and it is long enough for three) and to send you only the latter half. But you will understand--you will not think that there is a contradiction between the first and last ... you _cannot_. One is a truth of me--and the other a truth of you--and we two are different, you know.

You are not over-working in 'Luria'? That you _should not_, is a truth, too.

I observed that Mr. Kenyon put in '_Junior_' to your address. Ought that to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you without hesitation?

Mr. Kenyon asked me for Mr. Chorley's book, or you should have it.

Shall I send it to you presently?

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

Sunday Morning.

[Post-mark, November 17, 1845.]

At last your letter comes--and the deep joy--(I know and use to a.n.a.lyse my own feelings, and be sober in giving distinctive names to their varieties; this is _deep_ joy,)--the true love with which I take this much of you into my heart, ... _that_ proves what it is I wanted so long, and find at last, and am happy for ever. I must have more than 'intimated'--I must have spoken plainly out the truth, if I do myself the barest justice, and told you long ago that the admiration at your works went _away_, quite another way and afar from the love of you. If I could fancy some method of what I shall say happening without all the obvious stumbling-blocks of falseness, &c.

which no foolish fancy dares a.s.sociate with you ... if you COULD tell me when I next sit by you--'I will undeceive you,--I am not _the_ Miss B.--she is up-stairs and you shall see her--I only wrote those letters, and am what you see, that is all now left you' (all the misapprehension having arisen from _me_, in some inexplicable way) ...

I should not begin by _saying_ anything, dear, dearest--but _after that_, I should a.s.sure you--soon make you believe that I did not much wonder at the event, for I have been all my life asking what connection there is between the satisfaction at the display of power, and the sympathy with--ever-increasing sympathy with--all imaginable weakness? Look now: Coleridge writes on and on,--at last he writes a note to his 'War-Eclogue,' in which he avers himself to have been actuated by a really--on the whole--_benevolent_ feeling to Mr. Pitt when he wrote that stanza in which 'Fire' means to 'cling to him everlastingly'--where is the long line of admiration now that the end snaps? And now--here I refuse to fancy--you KNOW whether, if you never write another line, speak another intelligible word, recognize me by a look again--whether I shall love you less or _more_ ... MORE; having a right to expect more strength with the strange emergency. And it is because I know this, build upon this entirely, that as a reasonable creature, I am bound to look first to what hangs farthest and most loosely from me ... what _might_ go from you to your loss, and so to mine, to say the least ... because I want ALL of you, not just so much as I could not live without--and because I see the danger of your entirely generous disposition and cannot quite, yet, bring myself to profit by it in the quiet way you recommend. Always remember, I never wrote to you, all the years, on the strength of your poetry, though I constantly heard of you through Mr. K. and was near seeing you once, and might have easily availed myself of his intervention to commend any letter to your notice, so as to reach you out of the foolish crowd of rushers-in upon genius ... who come and eat their bread and cheese on the high-altar, and talk of reverence without one of its surest instincts--never quiet till they cut their initials on the cheek of the Medicean Venus to prove they worship her. My admiration, as I said, went its natural way in silence--but when on my return to England in December, late in the month, Mr. K. sent those Poems to my sister, and I read my name there--and when, a day or two after, I met him and, beginning to speak my mind on them, and getting on no better than I should now, said quite naturally--'if I were to _write_ this, now?'--and he a.s.sured me with his perfect kindness, you would be even 'pleased' to hear from me under those circ.u.mstances ... nay,--for I will tell you all, in this, in everything--when he wrote me a note soon after to rea.s.sure me on that point ... THEN I _did_ write, on _account of my purely personal obligation_, though of course taking that occasion to allude to the general and customary delight in your works: I did write, on the whole, UNWILLINGLY ... with consciousness of having to _speak_ on a subject which I _felt_ thoroughly concerning, and could not be satisfied with an imperfect expression of. As for expecting THEN what has followed ... I shall only say I was scheming how to get done with England and go to my heart in Italy. And now, my love--I am round you ... my whole life is wound up and down and over you.... I feel you stir everywhere. I am not conscious of thinking or feeling but _about_ you, with some reference to you--so I will live, so may I die! And you have blessed me _beyond_ the _bond_, in more than in giving me yourself to love; inasmuch as you believed me from the first ... what you call 'dream-work' _was_ real of its kind, did you not think? and now you believe me, _I_ believe and am happy, in what I write with my heart full of love for you. Why do you tell me of a doubt, as now, and bid me not clear it up, 'not answer you?' Have I done wrong in thus answering? Never, never do _me_ direct _wrong_ and hide for a moment from me what a word can explain as now.

You see, you thought, if but for a moment, I loved your intellect--or what predominates in your poetry and is most distinct from your heart--better, or as well as you--did you not? and I have told you every thing,--explained everything ... have I not? And now I will dare ... yes, dearest, kiss you back to my heart again; my own. There--and there!

And since I wrote what is above, I have been reading among other poems that sonnet--'Past and Future'--which affects me more than any poem I ever read. How can I put your poetry away from you, even in these ineffectual attempts to concentrate myself upon, and better apply myself to what remains?--poor, poor work it is; for is not that sonnet to be loved as a true utterance of yours? I cannot attempt to put down the thoughts that rise; may G.o.d bless me, as you pray, by letting that beloved hand shake the less ... I will only ask, _the less_ ... for being laid on mine through this life! And, indeed, you write down, for me to calmly read, that I make you happy! Then it is--as with all power--G.o.d through the weakest instrumentality ... and I am past expression proud and grateful--My love,

I am your

R.B.

I must answer your questions: I am better--and will certainly have your injunction before my eyes and work quite moderately. Your letters come _straight_ to me--my father's go to Town, except on extraordinary occasions, so that _all_ come for my first looking-over. I saw Mr. K.

last night at the Amateur Comedy--and heaps of old acquaintances--and came home tired and savage--and _yearned_ literally, for a letter this morning, and so it came and I was well again. So, I am not even to have your low spirits leaning on mine? It was just because I always find you alike, and _ever_ like yourself, that I seemed to discern a depth, when you spoke of 'some days' and what they made uneven where all is agreeable to _me_. Do not, now, deprive me of a right--a right ... to find you as you _are_; get no habit of being cheerful with me--I have universal sympathy and can show you a SIDE of me, a true face, turn as you may. If you _are_ cheerful ... so will I be ... if sad, my cheerfulness will be all the while _behind_, and propping up, any sadness that meets yours, if that should be necessary. As for my question about the opium ... you do not misunderstand _that_ neither: I trust in the eventual consummation of my--shall I not say, _our_--hopes; and all that bears upon your health immediately or prospectively, affects me--how it affects me! Will you write again?

_Wednesday_, remember! Mr. K. wants me to go to him one of the three next days after. I will bring you some letters ... one from Landor.

Why should I trouble you about 'Pomfret.'

And Luria ... does it so interest you? Better is to come of it. How you lift me up!--

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

Monday.

[Post-mark, November 18, 1845.]

How you overcome me as always you do--and where is the answer to anything except too deep down in the heart for even the pearl-divers?

But understand ... what you do not quite ... that I did not mistake you as far even as you say here and even 'for a moment.' I did not write any of that letter in a 'doubt' of you--not a word.... I was simply looking back in it on my own states of feeling, ... looking back from that point of your praise to what was better ... (or I should not have looked back)--and so coming to tell you, by a natural a.s.sociation, how the completely opposite point to that of any praise was the one which struck me first and most, viz. the no-reason of your reasoning ... acknowledged to be yours. Of course I acknowledge it to be yours, ... that high reason of no reason--I acknowledged it to be yours (didn't I?) in acknowledging that it made an impression on me.

And then, referring to the traditions of my experience such as I told them to you, I meant, so, farther to acknowledge that I would rather be cared for in _that_ unreasonable way, than for the best reason in the world. But all _that_ was history and philosophy simply--was it not?--and not _doubt of you_.

The truth is ... since we really are talking truths in this world ...

that I never have doubted you--ah, you _know_!--I felt from the beginning so sure of the n.o.bility and integrity in you that I would have trusted you to make a path for my soul--_that_, you _know_. I felt certain that you believed of yourself every word you spoke or wrote--and you must not blame me if I thought besides sometimes (it was the extent of my thought) that you were self-deceived as to the nature of your own feelings. If you could turn over every page of my heart like the pages of a book, you would see nothing there offensive to the least of your feelings ... not even to the outside fringes of your man's vanity ... should you have any vanity like a man; which I _do_ doubt. I never wronged you in the least of things--never ... I thank G.o.d for it. But 'self-deceived,' it was so easy for you to be: see how on every side and day by day, men are--and women too--in this sort of feelings. 'Self-deceived,' it was so possible for you to be, and while I thought it possible, could I help thinking it _best_ for you that it should be so--and was it not right in me to persist in thinking it possible? It was my reverence for you that made me persist! What was _I_ that I should think otherwise? I had been shut up here too long face to face with my own spirit, not to know myself, and, so, to have lost the common illusions of vanity. All the men I had ever known could not make your stature among them. So it was not distrust, but reverence rather. I sate by while the angel stirred the water, and I called it _Miracle_. Do not blame me now, ... _my_ angel!

Nor say, that I 'do not lean' on you with all the weight of my 'past'

... because I do! You cannot guess what you are to me--you cannot--it is not possible:--and though I have said _that_ before, I must say it again ... for it comes again to be said. It is something to me between dream and miracle, all of it--as if some dream of my earliest brightest dreaming-time had been lying through these dark years to steep in the sunshine, returning to me in a double light. _Can_ it be, I say to myself, that _you_ feel for me _so_? can it be meant for me?

this from _you_?

If it is your 'right' that I should be gloomy at will with you, you exercise it, I do think--for although I cannot promise to be very sorrowful when you come, (how could that be?) yet from different motives it seems to me that I have written to you quite superfluities about my 'abomination of desolation,'--yes indeed, and blamed myself afterwards. And now I must say this besides. When grief came upon grief, I never was tempted to ask 'How have I deserved this of G.o.d,'

as sufferers sometimes do: I always felt that there must be cause enough ... corruption enough, needing purification ... weakness enough, needing strengthening ... _nothing_ of the chastis.e.m.e.nt could come to me without cause and need. But in this different hour, when joy follows joy, and G.o.d makes me happy, as you say, _through_ you ...

I cannot repress the ... 'How have I deserved _this_ of Him?'--I know I have not--I know I do not.

Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room for you?--If so, it was well done,--dearest! They leave the ground fallow before the wheat.

'Were you wrong in answering?' Surely not ... unless it is wrong to show all this goodness ... and too much, it may be for _me_. When the plants droop for drought and the copious showers fall suddenly, silver upon silver, they die sometimes of the reverse of their adversities.

But no--_that_, even, shall not be a danger! And if I said 'Do not answer,' I did not mean that I would not have a doubt removed--(having _no_ doubt!--) but I was simply unwilling to seem to be asking for golden words ... going down the aisles with that large silken purse, as _queteuse_. Try to understand.

On Wednesday then!--George is invited to meet you on Thursday at Mr.

Kenyon's.

The _Examiner_ speaks well, upon the whole, and with allowances ...

oh, that absurdity about metaphysics apart from poetry!--'Can such things be' in one of the best reviews of the day? Mr. Kenyon was here on Sunday and talking of the poems with real living tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. But I will tell you. 'Luria' is to climb to the place of a great work, I see. And if I write too long letters, is it not because you spoil me, and because (being spoilt) I cannot help it?--May G.o.d bless you always--

Your

E.B.B.

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

Thursday Morning.

Here is the copy of Landor's verses.

You know thoroughly, do you not, why I brought all those good-natured letters, desperate praise and all? Not, _not_ out of the least vanity in the world--nor to help myself in your sight with such testimony: would it seem very extravagant, on the contrary, if I said that perhaps I laid them before your eyes in a real fit of compunction at not being, in my heart, thankful enough for the evident motive of the writers,--and so was determined to give them the 'last honours' if not the first, and not make them miss _you_ because, through my fault, they had missed _me_? Does this sound too fantastical? Because it is strictly true: the most laudatory of all, I _skimmed_ once over with my flesh _creeping_--it seemed such a death-struggle, that of good nature over--well, it is fresh ingrat.i.tude of me, so here it shall end.

I am not ungrateful to _you_--but you must wait to know that:--I can speak less than nothing with my living lips.

I mean to ask your brother how you are to-night ... so quietly!

G.o.d bless you, my dearest, and reward you.