The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 44

Your R.B.

And I find by a note from a fairer friend and favourer of mine that in the _New Quarterly_ 'Mr. Browning' figures pleasantly as 'one without any sympathy for a human being!'--Then, for newts and efts at all events!

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

Tuesday Night.

[Post-mark, January 7, 1846.]

But, my sweet, there is safer going in letters than in visits, do you not see? In the letter, one may go to the utmost limit of one's supposed tether without danger--there is the distance so palpably between the most audacious step _there_, and the next ... which is nowhere, seeing it is not in the letter. Quite otherwise in personal intercourse, where any indication of turning to a certain path, even, might possibly be checked not for its own fault but lest, the path once reached and proceeded in, some other forbidden turning might come into sight, we will say. In the letter, all ended _there_, just there ... and you may think of that, and forgive; at all events, may avoid speaking irrevocable words--and when, as to me, those words are intensely _true, doom-words_--think, dearest! Because, as I told you once, what most characterizes my feeling for you is the perfect _respect_ in it, the full _belief_ ... (I shall get presently to poor Robert's very avowal of 'owing you all esteem'!). It is on that I build, and am secure--for how should I know, of myself, how to serve you and be properly yours if it all was to be learnt by my own interpreting, and what you professed to dislike you were to be considered as wishing for, and what liking, as it seemed, you were loathing at your heart, and if so many 'noes' made a 'yes,' and 'one refusal no rebuff' and all that horrible b.e.s.t.i.a.lity which stout gentlemen turn up the whites of their eyes to, when they rise after dinner and pressing the right hand to the left side say, 'The toast be dear woman!' Now, love, with this feeling in me from the beginning,--I do believe,--_now_, when I am utterly blest in this gift of your love, and least able to imagine what I should do without it,--I cannot but believe, I say, that had you given me once a 'refusal'--clearly derived from your own feelings, and quite apart from any fancied consideration for my interests; had this come upon me, whether slowly but inevitably in the course of events, or suddenly as precipitated by any step of mine; I should, _believing you_, have never again renewed directly or indirectly such solicitation; I should have begun to count how many other ways were yet open to serve you and devote myself to you ... but from _the outside_, now, and not in your livery! Now, if I should have acted thus under _any_ circ.u.mstances, how could I but redouble my endeavours at precaution after my own foolish--you know, and forgave long since, and I, too, am forgiven in my own eyes, for the cause, though not the manner--but could I do other than keep 'farther from you' than in the letters, dearest? For your own part in that matter, seeing it with all the light you have since given me (and _then_, not inadequately by my own light) I could, I do kiss your feet, kiss every letter in your name, bless you with my whole heart and soul if I could pour them out, from me, before you, to stay and be yours; when I think on your motives and pure perfect generosity. It was the plainness of _that_ which determined me to wait and be patient and grateful and your own for ever in any shape or capacity you might please to accept. Do you think that because I am so rich now, I could not have been most rich, too, _then_--in what would seem little only to _me_, only with this great happiness? I should have been proud beyond measure--happy past all desert, to call and be allowed to see you simply, speak with you and be spoken to--what am I more than others? Don't think this mock humility--_it is not_--you take me in your mantle, and we shine together, but I know my part in it! All this is written breathlessly on a sudden fancy that you _might_--if not now, at some future time--give other than this, the true reason, for that discrepancy you see, that nearness in the letters, that early farness in the visits! And, love, all love is but a pa.s.sionate _drawing closer_--I would be one with you, dearest; let my soul press close to you, as my lips, dear life of my life.

_Wednesday._--You are entirely right about those poems of Horne's--I spoke only of the effect of the first glance, and it is a principle with me to begin by welcoming any strangeness, intention of originality in men--the other way of safe copying precedents being _so_ safe! So I began by praising all that was at all questionable in the form ... reserving the ground-work for after consideration. The Elf-story turns out a pure mistake, I think--and a common mistake, too. Fairy stories, the good ones, were written for men and women, and, being true, pleased also children; now, people set about writing for children and miss them and the others too,--with that detestable irreverence and plain mocking all the time at the very wonder they profess to want to excite. All obvious bending down to the lower capacity, determining not to be the great complete man one is, by half; any patronizing minute to be spent in the nursery over the books and work and healthful play, of a visitor who will presently bid good-bye and betake himself to the Beefsteak Club--keep us from all that! The Sailor Language is good in its way; but as wrongly used in Art as real clay and mud would be, if one plastered them in the foreground of a landscape in order to attain to so much truth, at all events--the true thing to endeavour is the making a golden colour which shall do every good in the power of the dirty brown. Well, then, what a veering weatherc.o.c.k am I, to write so and now, _so_! Not altogether,--for first it was but the stranger's welcome I gave, the right of every new comer who must stand or fall by his behaviour once admitted within the door. And then--when I know what Horne thinks of--you, dearest; how he knew you first, and from the soul admired you; and how little he thinks of my good fortune ... I _could_ NOT begin by giving you a bad impression of anything he sends--he has such very few rewards for a great deal of hard excellent enduring work, and _none_, no reward, I do think, would he less willingly forego than your praise and sympathy. But your opinion once expressed--truth remains the truth--so, at least, I excuse myself ... and quite as much for what I say _now_ as for what was said _then_! 'King John' is very fine and full of purpose; 'The n.o.ble Heart,' sadly faint and uncharacteristic. The chief incident, too, turns on that poor conventional fallacy about what const.i.tutes a proper wrong to resist--a piece of morality, after a different standard, is introduced to complete another fashioned morality--a segment of a circle of larger dimensions is fitted into a smaller one. Now, you may have your own standard of morality in this matter of resistance to wrong, how and when if at all. And you may quite understand and sympathize with quite different standards innumerable of other people; but go from one to the other abruptly, you cannot, I think. 'Bear patiently all injuries--revenge in no case'--that is plain. 'Take what you conceive to be G.o.d's part, do his evident work, stand up for good and destroy evil, and co-operate with this whole scheme here'--_that_ is plain, too,--but, call Otto's act _no_ wrong, or being one, not such as should be avenged--and then, call the remark of a stranger that one is a 'recreant'--just what needs the slight punishment of instant death to the remarker--and ... where is the way? What _is_ clear?

--Not my letter! which goes on and on--'dear letters'--sweetest?

because they cost all the precious labour of making out? Well, I shall see you to-morrow, I trust. Bless you, my own--I have not half said what was to say even in the letter I thought to write, and which proves only what you see! But at a thought I fly off with you, 'at a c.o.c.k-crow from the Grange.'--Ever your own.

Last night, I received a copy of the _New Quarterly_--now here is popular praise, a sprig of it! Instead of the attack I supposed it to be, from my foolish friend's account, the notice is outrageously eulogistical, a stupidly extravagant laudation from first to last--and in _three other_ articles, as my sister finds by diligent fishing, they introduce my name with the same felicitous praise (except one instance, though, in a good article by Chorley I am certain); and _with_ me I don't know how many poetical _cretins_ are praised as noticeably--and, in the turning of a page, somebody is abused in the richest style of scavengering--only Carlyle! And I love him enough not to envy him nor wish to change places, and giving him mine, mount into his.

All which, let me forget in the thoughts of to-morrow! Bless you, my Ba.

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

Wednesday.

[Post-mark, January 7, 1846.]

But some things are indeed said very truly, and as I like to read them--of _you_, I mean of course,--though I quite understand that it is doing no manner of good to go back so to 'Paracelsus,' heading the article 'Paracelsus and other poems,' as if the other poems could not front the reader broadly by a divine right of their own. 'Paracelsus'

is a great work and will _live_, but the way to do you good with the stiffnecked public (such good as critics can do in their degree) would have been to hold fast and conspicuously the gilded horn of the last living crowned creature led by you to the altar, saying 'Look _here_.'

What had he to do else, as a critic? Was he writing for the _Retrospective Review_? And then, no attempt at a.n.a.lytical criticism--or a failure, at the least attempt! all slack and in sentences! Still these are right things to say, true things, worthy things, said of you as a poet, though your poems do not find justice: and I like, for my own part, the issuing from my cathedral into your great world--the outermost temple of divinest consecration. I like that figure and a.s.sociation, and none the worse for its being a sufficient refutation of what he dared to impute, of your poetical sectarianism, in another place--_yours_!

For me, it is all quite kind enough--only I object, on my own part also, to being reviewed in the 'Seraphim,' when my better books are nearer: and also it always makes me a little savage when people talk of Tennysonianisms! I have faults enough as the Muses know,--but let them be _my_ faults! When I wrote the 'Romaunt of Margret,' I had not read a line of Tennyson. I came from the country with my eyes only half open, and he had not penetrated where I had been living and sleeping: and in fact when I afterwards tried to reach him here in London, nothing could be found except one slim volume, so that, till the collected works appeared ... _favente_ Moxon, ... I was ignorant of his best _early_ productions; and not even for the rhythmetical form of my 'Vision of the Poets,' was I indebted to the 'Two Voices,'--three pages of my 'Vision' having been written several years ago--at the beginning of my illness--and thrown aside, and taken up again in the spring of 1844. Ah, well! there's no use talking! In a solitary review which noticed my 'Essay on Mind,' somebody wrote ...

'this young lady imitates Darwin'--and I never could _read_ Darwin, ... was stopped always on the second page of the 'Loves of the Plants'

when I tried to read him to 'justify myself in having an opinion'--the repulsion was too strong. Yet the 'young lady imitated Darwin' of course, as the infallible critic said so.

And who are Mr. Helps and Miss Emma Fisher and the 'many others,'

whose company brings one down to the right plebeianism? The 'three poets in three distant ages born' may well stare amazed!

After all you shall not by any means say that I upset the inkstand on your review in a pa.s.sion--because pray mark that the ink has over-run some of your praises, and that if I had been angry to the overthrow of an inkstand, it would not have been precisely _there_. It is the second book spoilt by me within these two days--and my fingers were so dabbled in blackness yesterday that to wring my hands would only have made matters worse. Holding them up to Mr. Kenyon they looked dirty enough to befit a poetess--as black 'as bard beseemed'--and he took the review away with him to read and save it from more harm.

How could it be that you did not get my letter which would have reached you, I thought, on Monday evening, or on Tuesday at the very very earliest?--and how is it that I did not hear from you last night again when I was unreasonable enough to expect it? is it true that you _hate_ writing to me?

At that word, comes the review back from dear Mr. Kenyon, and the letter which I enclose to show you how it accounts reasonably for the ink--I did it 'in a pet,' he thinks! And I ought to buy you a new book--certainly I ought--only it is not worth doing justice for--and I shall therefore send it back to you spoilt as it is; and you must forgive me as magnanimously as you can.

'Omne ignotum pro magnifico'--do you think _so_? I hope not indeed!

_vo quietando_--and everything else that I ought to do--except of course, _that_ thinking of you which is so difficult.

May G.o.d bless you. Till to-morrow!

Your own always.

Mr. Kenyon refers to 'Festus'--of which I had said that the fine things were worth looking for, in the design manque.

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

Friday Morning.

[Post-mark, January 9, 1846.]

You never think, ever dearest, that I 'repent'--why what a word to use! You never could _think_ such a word for a moment! If you were to leave me even,--to decide that it is best for you to do it, and do it,--I should accede at once of course, but never should I nor could I 'repent' ... regret anything ... be sorry for having known you and loved you ... no! Which I say simply to prove that, in _no_ extreme case, could I repent for my own sake. For yours, it might be different.

_Not_ out of 'generosity' certainly, but from the veriest selfishness, I choose here, before G.o.d, any possible present evil, rather than the future consciousness of feeling myself less to you, on the whole, than another woman might have been.

Oh, these vain and most heathenish repet.i.tions--do I not vex you by them, _you_ whom I would always please, and never vex? Yet they force their way because you are the best n.o.blest and dearest in the world, and because your happiness is so precious a thing.

Cloth of frieze, be not too bold, Though thou'rt matched with cloth of gold!

--_that_, beloved, was written for _me_. And you, if you would make me happy, _always_ will look at yourself from my ground and by my light, as I see you, and consent to be selfish in all things. Observe, that if I were _vacillating_, I should not be so weak as to tease you with the process of the vacillation: I should wait till my pendulum ceased swinging. It is precisely because I am your own, past any retraction or wish of retraction,--because I belong to you by gift and ownership, and am ready and willing to prove it before the world at a word of yours,--it is precisely for this, that I remind you too often of the necessity of using this right of yours, not to your injury, of being wise and strong for both of us, and of guarding your happiness which is mine. I have said these things ninety and nine times over, and over and over have you replied to them,--as yesterday!--and now, do not speak any more. It is only my preachment for general use, and not for particular application,--only to be _ready_ for application. I love you from the deepest of my nature--the whole world is nothing to me beside you--and what is so precious, is not far from being terrible.

'How _dreadful_ is this place.'

To hear you talk yesterday, is a gladness in the thought for to-day,--it was with such a full a.s.sent that I listened to every word.

It is true, I think, that we see things (things apart from ourselves) under the same aspect and colour--and it is certainly true that I have a sort of instinct by which I seem to know your views of such subjects as we have never looked at together. I know _you_ so well (yes, I boast to myself of that intimate knowledge), that I seem to know also the _idola_ of all things as they are in your eyes--so that never, scarcely, I am curious,--never anxious, to learn what your opinions may be. Now, _have_ I been curious or anxious? It was enough for me to know _you_.

More than enough! You have 'left undone'--do you say? On the contrary, you have done too much,--you _are_ too much. My cup,--which used to hold at the bottom of it just the drop of Heaven dew mingling with the absinthus,--has overflowed all this wine: and _that_ makes me look out for the vases, which would have held it better, had you stretched out your hand for them.

Say how you are--and do take care and exercise--and write to me, dearest!

Ever your own--

BA.

How right you are about 'Ben Capstan,'--and the ill.u.s.tration by the _yellow clay_. That is precisely what I meant,--said with more precision than I could say it. Art without an ideal is neither nature nor art. The question involves the whole difference between Madame Tussaud and Phidias.

I have just received Mr. Edgar Poe's book--and I see that the deteriorating preface which was to have saved me from the vanity-fever produceable by the dedication, is cut down and away--perhaps in this particular copy only!

Tuesday is so near, as men count, that I caught myself just now being afraid lest the week should have no chance of appearing long to you!

Try to let it be long to you--will you? My consistency is wonderful.

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

Friday Morning.

As if I could deny you anything! Here is the Review--indeed it was foolish to mind your seeing it at all. But now, may I stipulate?--You shall not send it back--but on your table I shall find and take it next Tuesday--_c'est convenu_! The other precious volume has not yet come to hand (nor to foot) all through your being so sure that to carry it home would have been the death of me last evening!