The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 41

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

Sunday Night.

[Post-mark, December 24, 1845.]

But did I dispute? Surely not. Surely I believe in you and in 'mysteries.' Surely I prefer the no-reason to ever so much rationalism ... (rationalism and infidelity go together they say!). All which I may do, and be afraid sometimes notwithstanding, and when you overpraise me (_not_ over_love_) I must be frightened as I told you.

It is with me as with the theologians. I believe in you and can be happy and safe _so_; but when my 'personal merits' come into question in any way, even the least, ... why then the position grows untenable: it is no more 'of grace.'

Do I tease you as I tease myself sometimes? But do not wrong me in turn! Do not keep repeating that 'after long years' I shall know you--know you!--as if I did not without the years. If you are forced to refer me to those long ears, I must deserve the thistles besides.

The thistles are the corollary.

For it is obvious--manifest--that I cannot doubt of you, that I may doubt of myself, of happiness, of the whole world,--but of _you_--_not_: it is obvious that if I could doubt of you and _act so_ I should be a very idiot, or worse indeed. And _you_ ... you think I doubt of you whenever I make an interjection!--now do you not? And is it reasonable?--Of _you_, I mean?

_Monday._--For my part, you must admit it to be too possible that you may be, as I say, 'disappointed' in me--it _is_ too possible. And if it does me good to say so, even now perhaps ... if it is mere weakness to say so and simply torments you, why do _you_ be magnanimous and forgive _that_ ... let it pa.s.s as a weakness and forgive it _so_.

Often I think painful things which I do not tell you and....

While I write, your letter comes. Kindest of you it was, to write me such a letter, when I expected scarcely the shadow of one!--this makes up for the other letter which I expected unreasonably and which you '_ought not_' to have written, as was proved afterwards. And now why should I go on with that sentence? What had I to say of 'painful things,' I wonder? all the painful things seem gone ... vanished. I forget what I had to say. Only do you still think of this, dearest beloved; that I sit here in the dark but for _you_, and that the light you bring me (from _my_ fault!--from the nature of _my_ darkness!) is not a settled light as when you open the shutters in the morning, but a light made by candles which burn some of them longer and some shorter, and some brighter and briefer, at once--being 'double-wicks,'

and that there is an intermission for a moment now and then between the dropping of the old light into the socket and the lighting of the new. Every letter of yours is a new light which burns so many hours ... and _then_!--I am morbid, you see--or call it by what name you like ... too wise or too foolish. 'If the light of the body is darkness, how great is that darkness.' Yet even when I grow too wise, I admit always that while you love me it is an answer to all. And I am never so much too foolish as to wish to be worthier for my own sake--only for yours:--not for my own sake, since I am content to owe all things to you.

And it could be so much to you to lose me!--and you say so,--and _then_ think it needful to tell me not to think the other thought! As if _that_ were possible! Do you remember what you said once of the flowers?--that you 'felt a respect for them when they had pa.s.sed out of your hands.' And must it not be so with my life, which if you choose to have it, must be respected too? Much more with my life!

Also, see that I, who had my warmest affections on the other side of the grave, feel that it is otherwise with me now--quite otherwise. I did not like it at first to be so much otherwise. And I could not have had any such thought through a weariness of life or any of my old motives, but simply to escape the 'risk' I told you of. Should I have said to you instead of it ... '_Love me for ever_'? Well then, ... I _do_.

As to my 'helping' you, my help is in your fancy; and if you go on with the fancy, I perfectly understand that it will be as good as deeds. We _have_ sympathy too--we walk one way--oh, I do not forget the advantages. Only Mrs. Tomkins's ideas of happiness are below my ambition for you.

So often as I have said (it reminds me) that in this situation I should be more exacting than any other woman--so often I have said it: and so different everything is from what I thought it would be!

Because if I am exacting it is for _you_ and not for _me_--it is altogether for _you_--you understand _that_, dearest of all ... it is for _you wholly_. It never crosses my thought, in a lightning even, the question whether I may be happy so and so--_I_. It is the other question which comes always--too often for peace.

People used to say to me, 'You expect too much--you are too romantic.'

And my answer always was that 'I could not expect too much when I expected nothing at all' ... which was the truth--for I never thought (and how often I have _said that_!) I never thought that anyone whom _I_ could love, would stoop to love _me_ ... the two things seemed clearly incompatible to my understanding.

And now when it comes in a miracle, you wonder at me for looking twice, thrice, four times, to see if it comes through ivory or _horn_.

You wonder that it should seem to me at first all illusion--illusion for you,--illusion for me as a consequence. But how natural.

It is true of me--very true--that I have not a high appreciation of what pa.s.ses in the world (and not merely the Tomkins-world!) under the name of love; and that a distrust of the thing had grown to be a habit of mind with me when I knew you first. It has appeared to me, through all the seclusion of my life and the narrow experience it admitted of, that in nothing men--and women too--were so apt to mistake their own feelings, as in this one thing. Putting _falseness_ quite on one side, quite out of sight and consideration, an honest mistaking of feeling appears wonderfully common, and no mistake has such frightful results--none can. Self-love and generosity, a mistake may come from either--from pity, from admiration, from any blind impulse--oh, when I look at the histories of my own female friends--to go no step further!

And if it is true of the _women_, what must the other side be? To see the marriages which are made every day! worse than solitudes and more desolate! In the case of the two happiest I ever knew, one of the husbands said in confidence to a brother of mine--not much in confidence or I should not have heard it, but in a sort of smoking frankness,--that he had 'ruined his prospects by marrying'; and the other said to himself at the very moment of professing an extraordinary happiness, ... 'But I should have done as well if I had not married _her_.'

Then for the falseness--the first time I ever, in my own experience, heard that word which rhymes to glove and comes as easily off and on (on some hands!)--it was from a man of whose attentions to another woman I was at that _time her confidante_. I was bound so to silence for her sake, that I could not even speak the scorn that was in me--and in fact my uppermost feeling was a sort of horror ... a terror--for I was very young then, and the world did, at the moment, look ghastly!

The falseness and the calculations!--why how can you, who are _just_, _blame women_ ... when you must know what the 'system' of man is towards them,--and of men not ungenerous otherwise? Why are women to be blamed if they act as if they had to do with swindlers?--is it not the mere instinct of preservation which makes them do it? These make women what they are. And your 'honourable men,' the most loyal of them, (for instance) is it not a rule with them (unless when taken unaware through a want of self-government) to force a woman (trying all means) to force a woman to stand committed in her affections ...

(they with their feet lifted all the time to trample on her for want of delicacy) before _they_ risk the pin-p.r.i.c.k to their own personal pitiful vanities? Oh--to see how these things are set about by _men_!

to see how a man carefully holding up on each side the skirts of an embroidered vanity to keep it quite safe from the wet, will contrive to tell you in so many words that he ... might love you if the sun shone! And women are to be blamed! Why there are, to be sure, cold and heartless, light and changeable, ungenerous and calculating women in the world!--that is sure. But for the most part, they are only what they are made ... and far better than the nature of the making ... of that I am confident. The loyal make the loyal, the disloyal the disloyal. And I give no more discredit to those women you speak of, than I myself can take any credit in this thing--I. Because who could be disloyal with _you_ ... with whatever corrupt inclination? _you_, who are the n.o.blest of all? If you judge me so, ... it is my privilege rather than my merit ... as I feel of myself.

_Wednesday._--All but the last few lines of all this was written before I saw you yesterday, ever dearest--and since, I have been reading your third act which is perfectly n.o.ble and worthy of you both in the conception and expression, and carries the reader on triumphantly ... to speak for one reader. It seems to me too that the language is freer--there is less inversion and more breadth of rhythm.

It just strikes me so for the first impression. At any rate the interest grows and grows. You have a secret about Domizia, I guess--which will not be told till the last perhaps. And that poor, n.o.ble Luria, who will be equal to the leap ... as it is easy to see.

It is full, altogether, of magnanimities;--n.o.ble, and n.o.bly put. I will go on with my notes, and those, you shall have at once ... I mean together ... presently. And don't hurry and chafe yourself for the fourth act--now that you are better! To be ill again--think what that would be! Luria will be great now whatever you do--or whatever you do _not_. Will he not?

And never, never for a moment (I quite forgot to tell you) did I fancy that you were talking at _me_ in the temper-observations--never. It was the most unprovoked egotism, all that I told you of my temper; for certainly I never suspected you of asking questions so. I was simply amused a little by what you said, and thought to myself (if you _will_ know my thoughts on that serious subject) that you had probably lived among very good-tempered persons, to hold such an opinion about the innocuousness of ill-temper. It was all I thought, indeed. Now to fancy that I was capable of suspecting you of such a manoeuvre! Why you would have _asked_ me directly;--if you had wished 'curiously to enquire.'

An excellent solemn chiming, the pa.s.sage from Dante makes with your 'Sordello,' and the 'Sordello' _deserves_ the labour which it needs, to make it appear the great work it is. I think that the principle of a.s.sociation is too subtly in movement throughout it--so that _while_ you are going straight forward you go at the same time round and round, until the progress involved in the motion is lost sight of by the lookers on. Or did I tell you that before?

You have heard, I suppose, how d.i.c.kens's 'Cricket' sells by nineteen thousand copies at a time, though he takes Michael Angelo to be 'a humbug'--or for 'though' read 'because.' Tell me of Mr. Kenyon's dinner and Moxon?

Is not this an infinite letter? I shall hear from you, I hope.... I _ask_ you to let me hear soon. I write all sorts of things to you, rightly and wrongly perhaps; when wrongly forgive it. I think of you always. May G.o.d bless you. 'Love me for ever,' as

Your

_Ba_

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

25th Dec. [1845.]

My dear Christmas gift of a letter! I will write back a few lines, (all I can, having to go out now)--just that I may forever,--certainly during our mortal 'forever'--mix my love for you, and, as you suffer me to say, your love for me ... dearest! ... these shall be mixed with the other loves of the day and live therein--as I write, and trust, and know--forever! While I live I will remember what was my feeling in reading, and in writing, and in stopping from either ... as I have just done ... to kiss you and bless you with my whole heart.--Yes, yes, bless you, my own!

All is right, all of your letter ... admirably right and just in the defence of the women I _seemed_ to speak against; and only seemed--because that is a way of mine which you must have observed; that foolish concentrating of thought and feeling, for a moment, on some one little spot of a character or anything else indeed, and in the attempt to do justice and develop whatever may seem ordinarily to be overlooked in it,--that over vehement _insisting_ on, and giving an undue prominence to, the same--which has the effect of taking away from the importance of the rest of the related objects which, in truth, are not considered at all ... or they would also rise proportionally when subjected to the same (that is, correspondingly magnified and dilated) light and concentrated feeling. So, you remember, the old divine, preaching on 'small sins,' in his zeal to expose the tendencies and consequences usually made little account of, was led to maintain the said small sins to be 'greater than great ones.' _But then_ ... if you look on the world _altogether_, and accept the small natures, in their usual proportion with the greater ... things do not look _quite_ so bad; because the conduct which _is_ atrocious in those higher cases, of proposal and acceptance, _may_ be no more than the claims of the occasion justify (wait and hear) in certain other cases where the thing sought for and granted is avowedly less by a million degrees. It shall all be traffic, exchange (counting spiritual gifts as only coin, for our purpose), but surely the formalities and policies and decencies all vary with the nature of the thing trafficked for. If a man makes up his mind during half his life to acquire a Pitt-diamond or a Pilgrim-pearl--[he] gets witnesses and testimony and so forth--but, surely, when I pa.s.s a shop where oranges are ticketed up seven for sixpence I offend no law by sparing all words and putting down the piece with a certain authoritative ring on the counter. If instead of diamonds you want--(being a king or queen)--provinces with live men on them ... there is so much more diplomacy required; new interests are appealed to--high motives _supposed_, at all events--whereas, when, in Naples, a man asks leave to black your shoe in the dusty street 'purely for the honour of serving your Excellency' you laugh and would be sorry to find yourself without a 'grano' or two--(six of which, about, make a farthing)--Now do you not see! Where so little is to be got, why offer much more? If a man knows that ... but I am teaching you! All I mean is, that, in Bened.i.c.k's phrase, 'the world must go on.' He who honestly wants his wife to sit at the head of his table and carve ... that is be his _help-meat_ (not 'help mete for him')--he shall a.s.suredly find a girl of his degree who wants the table to sit at; and some dear friend to mortify, who _would_ be glad of such a piece of fortune; and if that man offers that woman a bunch of orange-flowers and a sonnet, instead of a buck-horn-handled sabre-shaped knife, sheathed in a 'Every Lady Her Own _Market-Woman_, Being a Table of' &c. &c.--_then_, I say he is--

Bless you, dearest--the clock strikes--and time is none--but--bless you!

Your own R.B.

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

Sat.u.r.day 4. p.m.

[Post-mark, December 27, 1845.]

I was forced to leave off abruptly on Christmas Morning--and now I have but a few minutes before our inexorable post leaves. I hoped to return from Town earlier. But I can say something--and Monday will make amends.

'For ever' and for ever I _do_ love you, dearest--love you with my whole heart--in life, in death--

Yes; I did go to Mr. Kenyon's--who had a little to forgive in my slack justice to his good dinner, but was for the rest his own kind self--and I went, also, to Moxon's--who said something about my number's going off 'rather heavily'--so let it!

Too good, too, too indulgent you are, my own Ba, to 'acts' first or last; but all the same, I am glad and encouraged. _Let_ me get done with these, and better things will follow.

Now, bless you, ever, my sweetest--I have you ever in my thoughts--And on Monday, remember, I am to see you.

Your own R.B.

See what I cut out of a _Cambridge Advertiser_[1] of the 24th--to make you laugh!

[Footnote 1: The cutting enclosed is:--'A Few Rhymes for the Present Christmas' by J. Purchas, Esq., B.A. It is headed by several quotations, the first of which is signed 'Elizabeth B. Barrett:'

'This age shows to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam, Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to G.o.d.'

This is followed by extracts from Pindar, 'Lear,' and the Hon. Mrs.

Norton.]