The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 42

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

Sat.u.r.day.

[Post-mark, December 27, 1845.]

Yes, indeed, I have 'observed that way' in you, and not once, and not twice, and not twenty times, but oftener than any,--and almost every time ... do you know, ... with an uncomfortable feeling from the reflection that _that_ is the way for making all sorts of mistakes dependent on and issuing in exaggeration. It is the very way!--the highway.

For what you say in the letter here otherwise, I do not deny the truth--as partial truth:--I was speaking generally quite. Admit that I am not apt to be extravagant in my _esprit de s.e.xe_: the Martineau doctrines of intellectual equality &c., I gave them up, you remember, like a woman--most disgracefully, as Mrs. Jameson would tell me. But we are not on that ground now--we are on ground worth holding a brief for!--and when women fail _here_ ... it is not so much our fault.

Which was all I meant to say from the beginning.

It reminds me of the exquisite a.n.a.lysis in your 'Luria,' this third act, of the worth of a woman's sympathy,--indeed of the exquisite double-a.n.a.lysis of unlearned and learned sympathies. Nothing could be better, I think, than this:--

To the motive, the endeavour,--the heart's self-- Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act, Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king;

except the characterizing of the 'learned praise,' which comes afterwards in its fine subtle truth. What would these critics do to you, to what degree undo you, who would deprive you of the exercise of the discriminative faculty of the metaphysicians? As if a poet could be great without it! They might as well recommend a watchmaker to deal only in faces, in dials, and not to meddle with the wheels inside!

You shall tell Mr. Forster so.

And speaking of 'Luria,' which grows on me the more I read, ... how fine he is when the doubt breaks on him--I mean, when he begins ...

'Why then, all is very well.' It is most affecting, I think, all that process of doubt ... and that reference to the friends at home (which at once proves him a stranger, and intimates, by just a stroke, that he will not look home for comfort out of the new foreign treason) is managed by you with singular dramatic dexterity....

... 'so slight, so slight, And yet it tells you they are dead and gone'--

And then, the direct approach....

You now, so kind here, all you Florentines, What is it in your eyes?--

Do you not feel it to be success, ... '_you_ now?' _I_ do, from my low ground as reader. The whole breaking round him of the cloud, and the manner in which he _stands_, facing it, ... I admire it all thoroughly. Braccio's vindication of Florence strikes me as almost too _poetically_ subtle for the man--but n.o.body could have the heart to wish a line of it away--_that_ would be too much for critical virtue!

I had your letter yesterday morning early. The post-office people were so resolved on keeping their Christmas, that they would not let me keep mine. No post all day, after that general post before noon, which never brings me anything worth the breaking of a seal!

Am I to see you on Monday? If there should be the least, least crossing of that day, ... anything to do, anything to see, anything to listen to,--remember how Tuesday stands close by, and that another Monday comes on the following week. Now I need not say _that_ every time, and you will please to remember it--Eccellenza!--

May G.o.d bless you--

Your

E.B.B.

From the _New Monthly Magazine_. 'The admirers of Robert Browning's poetry, and they are now very numerous, will be glad to hear of the issue by Mr. Moxon of a seventh series of the renowned "Bells" and delicious "Pomegranates," under the t.i.tle of "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics."'

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

Tuesday.

[Post-mark, December 30, 1845.]

When you are gone I find your flowers; and you never spoke of nor showed them to me--so instead of yesterday I thank you to-day--thank you. Count among the miracles that your flowers live with me--I accept _that_ for an omen, dear--dearest! Flowers in general, all other flowers, die of despair when they come into the same atmosphere ...

used to do it so constantly and observably that it made me melancholy and I left off for the most part having them here. Now you see how they put up with the close room, and condescend to me and the dust--it is true and no fancy! To be sure they know that I care for them and that I stand up by the table myself to change their water and cut their stalk freshly at intervals--_that_ may make a difference perhaps. Only the great reason must be that they are yours, and that you teach them to bear with me patiently.

Do not pretend even to misunderstand what I meant to say yesterday of dear Mr. Kenyon. His blame would fall as my blame of myself has fallen: he would say--will say--'it is ungenerous of her to let such a risk be run! I thought she would have been more generous.' There, is Mr. Kenyon's opinion as I foresee it! Not that it would be spoken, you know! he is too kind. And then, he said to me last summer, somewhere _a propos_ to the flies or b.u.t.terflies, that he had 'long ceased to wonder at any extreme of foolishness produced by--_love_.' He will of course think you very very foolish, but not ungenerously foolish like other people.

Never mind. I do not mind indeed. I mean, that, having said to myself worse than the worst perhaps of what can be said against me by any who regard me at all, and feeling it put to silence by the fact that you _do_ feel so and so for me; feeling that fact to be an answer to all,--I cannot mind much, in comparison, the railing at second remove.

There will be a nine days' railing of it and no more: and if on the ninth day you should not exactly wish never to have known me, the better reason will be demonstrated to stand with us. On this one point the wise man cannot judge for the fool his neighbour. If you _do_ love me, the inference is that you would be happier with than without me--and whether you do, you know better than another: so I think of _you_ and not of _them_--always of _you_! When I talked of being afraid of dear Mr. Kenyon, I just meant that he makes me nervous with his all-scrutinizing spectacles, put on for great occasions, and his questions which seem to belong to the spectacles, they go together so:--and then I have no presence of mind, as you may see without the spectacles. My only way of hiding (when people set themselves to look for me) would be the old child's way of getting behind the window curtains or under the sofa:--and even _that_ might not be effectual if I had recourse to it now. Do you think it would? Two or three times I fancied that Mr. Kenyon suspected something--but if he ever _did_, his only reproof was a reduplicated praise of _you_--he praises you always and in relation to every sort of subject.

What a _misomonsism_ you fell into yesterday, you who have much great work to do which no one else can do except just yourself!--and you, too, who have courage and knowledge, and must know that every work, with the principle of life in it, _will_ live, let it be trampled ever so under the heel of a faithless and unbelieving generation--yes, that it will live like one of your toads, for a thousand years in the heart of a rock. All men can teach at second or third hand, as you said ...

by prompting the foremost rows ... by tradition and translation:--all, _except_ poets, who must preach their own doctrine and sing their own song, to be the means of any wisdom or any music, and therefore have stricter duties thrust upon them, and may not lounge in the [Greek: stoa] like the conversation-teachers. So much I have to say to you, till we are in the Siren's island--and _I_, jealous of the Siren!--

The Siren waits thee singing song for song,

says Mr. Landor. A prophecy which refuses to cla.s.s you with the 'mute fishes,' precisely as I do.

And are you not my 'good'--all my good now--my only good ever? The Italians would say it better without saying more.

I had a letter from Miss Martineau this morning who accounts for her long silence by the supposition,--put lately to an end by scarcely credible information from Mr. Moxon, she says--that I was out of England; gone to the South from the 20th of September. She calls herself the strongest of women, and talks of 'walking fifteen miles one day and writing fifteen pages another day without fatigue,'--also of mesmerizing and of being infinitely happy except in the continued alienation of two of her family who cannot forgive her for getting well by such unlawful means. And she is to write again to tell me of Wordsworth, and promises to send me her new work in the meanwhile--all very kind.

So here is my letter to you, which you asked for so 'against the principles of universal justice.' Yes, very unjust--very unfair it was--only, you make me do just as you like in everything. Now confess to your own conscience that even if I had not a lawful claim of a debt against you, I might come to ask charity with another sort of claim, oh 'son of humanity.' Think how much more need of a letter _I_ have than you can have; and that if you have a giant's power, ''tis tyrannous to use it like a giant.' Who would take tribute from the desert? How I grumble. _Do_ let me have a letter directly! remember that no other light comes to my windows, and that I wait 'as those who watch for the morning'--'lux mea!'

May G.o.d bless you--and mind to say how you are _exactly_, and don't neglect the walking, _pray_ do not.

Your own

And after all, those women! A great deal of doctrine commends and discommends itself by the delivery: and an honest thing may be said so foolishly as to disprove its very honesty. Now after all, what did she mean by that very silly expression about books, but that she did not feel as she considered herself capable of feeling--and that else but _that_ was the meaning of the other woman? Perhaps it should have been spoken earlier--nay, clearly it should--but surely it was better spoken even in the last hour than not at all ... surely it is always and under all circ.u.mstances, better spoken at whatever cost--I have thought so steadily since I could think or feel at all. An entire openness to the last moment of possible liberty, at whatever cost and consequence, is the most honourable and most merciful way, both for men and women! perhaps for men in an especial manner. But I shall send this letter away, being in haste to get change for it.

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

Wednesday, December 31, 1845.

I have been properly punished for so much treachery as went to that re-urging the prayer that _you_ would begin writing, when all the time (after the first of those words had been spoken which bade _me_ write) I was full of purpose to send my own note last evening; one which should do its best to thank you: but see, the punishment! At home I found a note from Mr. Horne--on the point of setting out for Ireland, too unwell to manage to come over to me; anxious, so he said, to see me before leaving London, and with only Tuesday or to-day to allow the opportunity of it, if I should choose to go and find him out. So I considered all things and determined to go--but not till so late did I determine on Tuesday, that there was barely time to get to Highgate--wherefore no letter reached you to beg pardon ... and now this undeserved--beyond the usual undeservedness--this last-day-of-the-Year's gift--do you think or not think my grat.i.tude weighs on me? When I lay this with the others, and remember what you have done for me--I do bless you--so as I cannot but believe must reach the all-beloved head all my hopes and fancies and cares fly straight to. Dearest, whatever change the new year brings with it, we are together--I can give you no more of myself--indeed, you give me now (back again if you choose, but changed and renewed by your possession) the powers that seemed most properly mine. I could only mean that, by the expressions to which you refer--only could mean that you were my crown and palm branch, now and for ever, and so, that it was a very indifferent matter to me if the world took notice of that fact or no. Yes, dearest, that _is_ the meaning of the prophecy, which I was stupidly blind not to have read and taken comfort from long ago.

You ARE the veritable Siren--and you 'wait me,' and will sing 'song for song.' And this is my first song, my true song--this love I bear you--I look into my heart and then let it go forth under that name--love. I am more than mistrustful of many other feelings in me: they are not earnest enough; so far, not true enough--but this is all the flower of my life which you call forth and which lies at your feet.

Now let me say it--what you are to remember. That if I had the slightest doubt, or fear, I would utter it to you on the instant--secure in the incontested stability of the main _fact_, even though the heights at the verge in the distance should tremble and prove vapour--and there would be a deep consolation in your forgiveness--indeed, yes; but I tell you, on solemn consideration, it does seem to me that--once take away the broad and general words that admit in their nature of any freight they can be charged with,--put aside love, and devotion, and trust--and _then_ I seem to have said _nothing_ of my feeling to you--nothing whatever.

I will not write more now on this subject. Believe you are my blessing and infinite reward beyond possible desert in intention,--my life has been crowned by you, as I said!

May G.o.d bless you ever--through you I shall be blessed. May I kiss your cheek and pray this, my own, all-beloved?

I must add a word or two of other things. I am very well now, quite well--am walking and about to walk. Horne, or rather his friends, reside in the very lane Keats loved so much--Millfield Lane. Hunt lent me once the little copy of the first Poems dedicated to him--and on the t.i.tle-page was recorded in Hunt's delicate characters that 'Keats met him with this, the presentation-copy, or whatever was the odious name, in M---- Lane--called Poets' Lane by the G.o.ds--Keats came running, holding it up in his hand.' Coleridge had an affection for the place, and Sh.e.l.ley '_knew_' it--and I can testify it is green and silent, with pleasant openings on the grounds and ponds, through the old trees that line it. But the hills here are far more open and wild and hill-like; not with the eternal clump of evergreens and thatched summer house--to say nothing of the 'invisible railing' miserably visible everywhere.

You very well know _what_ a vision it is you give me--when you speak of _standing up by the table_ to care for my flowers--(which I will never be ashamed of again, by the way--I will say for the future; 'here are my best'--in this as in other things.) Now, do you remember, that once I bade you not surprise me out of my good behaviour by standing to meet me unawares, as visions do, some day--but now--_omne ignotum_? No, dearest!

Ought I to say there will be two days more? till Sat.u.r.day--and if one word comes, _one_ line--think! I am wholly yours--yours, beloved!

R.B.