The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 50

Yet do not think that I am turning it all to game. I could not do so with any real earnest sentiment ... I never could ... and now least, and with my own sister whom I love so. One may smile to oneself and yet wish another well--and so I smile to _you_--and it is all safe with you I know. He is a second or third cousin of ours and has golden opinions from all his friends and fellow-officers--and for the rest, most of these men are like one another.... I never could see the difference between fuller's earth and common clay, among them all.

What do you think he has said since--to _her_ too?--'I always persevere about everything. Once I began to write a farce--which they told me was as bad as could be. Well!--I persevered!--_I finished it_.' Perfectly unconscious, both he and she were of there being anything mal a propos in _that_--and no kind of harm was meant,--only it expresses the man.

Dearest--it had better be Thursday I think--_our_ day! I was showing to-day your father's drawings,--and my brothers, and Arabel besides, admired them very much on the right grounds. Say how you are. You did not seem to me to answer frankly this time, and I was more than half uneasy when you went away. Take exercise, dear, dearest ... think of me enough for it,--and do not hurry 'Luria.' May G.o.d bless you!

Your own

_Ba._

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

Sunday Evening.

[Post-mark, January 26, 1846.]

I will not try and write much to-night, dearest, for my head gives a little warning--and I have so much to think of!--spite of my penholder being kept back from me after all! Now, ought I to have asked for it?

Or did I not seem grateful enough at the promise? This last would be a characteristic reason, seeing that I reproached myself with feeling _too_ grateful for the 'special symbol'--the 'essential meaning' of which was already in my soul. Well then, I will--I do pray for it--next time; and I will keep it for that one yesterday and all its memories--and it shall bear witness against me, if, on the Siren's isle, I grow forgetful of Wimpole Street. And when is 'next time' to be--Wednesday or Thursday? When I look back on the strangely steady widening of my horizon--how no least interruption has occurred to visits or letters--oh, care _you_, sweet--care for us both!

That remark of your sister's delights me--you remember?--that the anger would not be so formidable. I have exactly the fear of encountering _that_, which the sense of having to deal with a ghost would induce: there's no striking at it with one's partizan. Well, G.o.d is above all! It is not my fault if it so happens that by returning my love you make me exquisitely blessed; I believe--more than hope, I am _sure_ I should do all I ever _now_ can do, if you were never to know it--that is, my love for you was in the first instance its own reward--if one must use such phrases--and if it were possible for that ... not _anger_, which is of no good, but that _opposition_--that adverse will--to show that your good would be attained by the--

But it would need to be _shown_ to me. You have said thus to me--in the very last letter, indeed. But with me, or any _man_, the instincts of happiness develop themselves too unmistakably where there is anything like a freedom of will. The man whose heart is set on being rich or influential after the worldly fashion, may be found far enough from the attainment of either riches or influence--but he will be in the presumed way to them--pumping at the pump, if he is really anxious for water, even though the pump be dry--but not sitting still by the dusty roadside.

I believe--first of all, you--but when that is done, and I am allowed to call your heart _mine_,--I cannot think you would be happy if parted from me--and _that_ belief, coming to add to my own feeling in _that_ case. So, this will _be_--I trust in G.o.d.

In life, in death, I am your own, _my_ own! My head has got well already! It is so slight a thing, that I make such an ado about! Do not reply to these bodings--they are gone--they seem absurd! All steps secured but the last, and that last the easiest! Yes--far easiest! For first you had to be created, only that; and then, in my time; and then, not in Timbuctoo but Wimpole Street, and then ... the strange hedge round the sleeping Palace keeping the world off--and then ...

all was to begin, all the difficulty only _begin_:--and now ... see where is reached! And I kiss you, and bless you, my dearest, in earnest of the end!

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

Monday.

[Post-mark, January 27, 1846.]

You have had my letter and heard about the penholder. Your fancy of 'not seeming grateful enough,' is not wise enough for _you_, dearest; when you know that _I_ know your common fault to be the undue magnifying of everything that comes from me, and I am always complaining of it outwardly and inwardly. That suddenly I should set about desiring you to be more grateful,--even for so great a boon as an old penholder,--would be a more astounding change than any to be sought or seen in a prime minister.

Another mistake you made concerning Henrietta and her opinion--and there's no use nor comfort in leaving you in it. Henrietta says that the 'anger would not be so formidable after all'! Poor dearest Henrietta, who trembles at the least bending of the brows ... who has less courage than I, and the same views of the future! What she referred to, was simply the infrequency of the visits. 'Why was I afraid,' she said--'where was the danger? who would be the _informer_?'--Well! I will not say any more. It is just natural that you, in your circ.u.mstances and a.s.sociations, should be unable to see what I have seen from the beginning--only you will not hereafter reproach me, in the most secret of your thoughts, for not having told you plainly. If I could have told you with greater plainness I should blame myself (and I do not) because it is not an opinion I have, but a perception. I see, I know. The result ... the end of all ... perhaps now and then I see _that_ too ... in the 'lucid moments' which are not the happiest for anybody. Remember, in all cases, that I shall not repent of any part of our past intercourse; and that, therefore, when the time for decision comes, you will be free to look at the question as if you saw it then for the first moment, without being hampered by considerations about 'all those yesterdays.'

For _him_ ... he would rather see me dead at his foot than yield the point: and he will say so, and mean it, and persist in the meaning.

Do you ever wonder at me ... that I should write such things, and have written others so different? _I have thought that in myself very often._ Insincerity and injustice may seem the two ends, while I occupy the straight betwixt two--and I should not like you to doubt how this may be! Sometimes I have begun to show you the truth, and torn the paper; I _could_ not. Yet now again I am borne on to tell you, ... to save you from some thoughts which you cannot help perhaps.

There has been no insincerity--nor is there injustice. I believe, I am certain, I have loved him better than the rest of his children. I have heard the fountain within the rock, and my heart has struggled in towards him through the stones of the rock ... thrust off ... dropping off ... turning in again and clinging! Knowing what is excellent in him well, loving him as my only parent left, and for himself dearly, notwithstanding that hardness and the miserable 'system' which made him appear harder still, I have loved him and been proud of him for his high qualities, for his courage and fort.i.tude when he bore up so bravely years ago under the worldly reverses which he yet felt acutely--more than you and I could feel them--but the fort.i.tude was admirable. Then came the trials of love--then, I was repulsed too often, ... made to suffer in the suffering of those by my side ...

depressed by petty daily sadnesses and terrors, from which it is possible however for an elastic affection to rise again as past. Yet my friends used to say 'You look broken-spirited'--and it was true. In the midst, came my illness,--and when I was ill he grew gentler and let me draw nearer than ever I had done: and after that great stroke ... you _know_ ... though _that_ fell in the middle of a storm of emotion and sympathy on my part, which drove clearly against him, G.o.d seemed to strike our hearts together by the shock; and I was grateful to him for not saying aloud what I said to myself in my agony, '_If it had not been for you_'...! And comparing my self-reproach to what I imagined his self-reproach must certainly be (for if _I_ had loved selfishly, _he_ had not been kind), I felt as if I could love and forgive him for two ... (I knowing that serene generous departed spirit, and seeming left to represent it) ... and I did love him better than all those left to _me_ to love in the world here. I proved a little my affection for him, by coming to London at the risk of my life rather than diminish the comfort of his home by keeping a part of my family away from him. And afterwards for long and long he spoke to me kindly and gently, and of me affectionately and with too much praise; and G.o.d knows that I had as much joy as I imagined myself capable of again, in the sound of his footstep on the stairs, and of his voice when he prayed in this room; my best hope, as I have told him since, being, to die beneath his eyes. Love is so much to me naturally--it is, to all women! and it was so much to _me_ to feel sure at last that _he_ loved me--to forget all blame--to pull the weeds up from that last illusion of life:--and this, till the Pisa-business, which threw me off, far as ever, again--farther than ever--when George said 'he could not flatter me' and I dared not flatter myself. But do _you_ believe that I never wrote what I did not feel: I never did. And I ask one kindness more ... do not notice what I have written here. Let it pa.s.s. We can alter nothing by ever so many words. After all, he is the victim. He isolates himself--and now and then he feels it ... the cold dead silence all round, which is the effect of an incredible system. If he were not stronger than most men, he could not bear it as he does. With such high qualities too!--so upright and honourable--you would esteem him, you would like him, I think. And so ... dearest ... let _that_ be the last word.

I dare say you have asked yourself sometimes, why it was that I never managed to draw you into the house here, so that you might make your own way. Now _that_ is one of the things impossible to me. I have not influence enough for _that_. George can never invite a friend of his even. Do you see? The people who do come here, come by particular license and a.s.sociation ... Capt. Surtees Cook being one of them.

Once ... when I was in high favour too ... I asked for Mr. Kenyon to be invited to dinner--he an old college friend, and living close by and so affectionate to me always--I felt that he must be hurt by the neglect, and asked. _It was in vain._ Now, you see--

May G.o.d bless you always! I wrote all my spirits away in this letter yesterday, and kept it to finish to-day ... being yours every day, glad or sad, ever beloved!--

Your BA.

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

Tuesday.

[Post-mark, January 27, 1846.]

Why will you give me such unnecessary proofs of your goodness? Why not leave the books for me to take away, at all events? No--you must fold up, and tie round, and seal over, and be at all the pains in the world with those hands I see now. But you only threaten; say you 'shall send'--as yet, and nothing having come, I do pray you, if not too late, to save me the shame--add to the grat.i.tude you never can now, I think ... only _think_, for you are a siren, and I don't know certainly to what your magic may not extend. Thus, in not so important a matter, I should have said, the day before yesterday, that no letter from you could make my heart rise within me, more than of old ...

unless it should happen to be of twice the ordinary thickness ... and _then_ there's a fear at first lest the over-running of my dealt-out measure should be just a note of Mr. Kenyon's, for instance! But yesterday the very seal began with 'Ba'--Now, always seal with that seal my letters, dearest! Do you recollect Donne's pretty lines about seals?

Quondam fessus Amor loquens Amato, Tot et tanta loquens amica, scripsit: Tandem et fessa ma.n.u.s dedit Sigillum.

And in his own English,

When love, being weary, made an end Of kind expressions to his friend, He writ; when hand could write no more, He gave the seal--and so left o'er.

(By the way, what a mercy that he never noticed the jingle _in posse_ of ending 'expressions' and beginning 'impressions.')

How your account of the actors in the 'Love's Labour Lost' amused me!

I rather like, though, the notion of that steady, business-like pursuit of love under difficulties; and the _sobbing_ proves something surely! Serjt. Talfourd says--is it not he who says it?--'All tears are not for sorrow.' I should incline to say, from my own feeling, that no tears were. They only express joy in me, or sympathy with joy--and so is it with you too, I should think.

Understand that I do _not_ disbelieve in Mesmerism--I only object to insufficient evidence being put forward as quite irrefragable. I keep an open sense on the subject--ready to be instructed; and should have refused such testimony as Miss Martineau's if it had been adduced in support of something I firmly believed--'non _tali_ auxilio'--indeed, so has truth been harmed, and only so, from the beginning. So, I shall read what you bid me, and learn all I can.

I am not quite so well this week--yesterday some friends came early and kept me at home--for which I seem to suffer a little; less, already, than in the morning--so I will go out and walk away the whirring ... which is all the mighty ailment. As for 'Luria' I have not looked at it since I saw you--which means, saw you in the body, because last night I saw you; as I wonder if you know!

Thursday, and again I am with you--and you will forget nothing ... how the farewell is to be returned? Ah, my dearest, sweetest Ba; how entirely I love you!

May G.o.d bless you ever--

R.

2. p.m. Your parcel arrives ... the penholder; now what shall I say?

How am I to use so fine a thing even in writing to you? I will give it you again in our Isle, and meantime keep it where my other treasures are--my letters and my dear ringlet.

Thank you--all I can thank.

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

Wednesday.

[Post-mark, January 28, 1846.]

Ever dearest--I will say, as you desire, nothing on that subject--but this strictly for myself: you engaged me to consult my own good in the keeping or breaking our engagement; not _your_ good as it might even seem to me; much less seem to another. My only good in this world--that against which all the world goes for nothing--is to spend my life with you, and be yours. You know that when I _claim_ anything, it is really yourself in me--you _give_ me a right and bid me use it, and I, in fact, am most obeying you when I appear most exacting on my own account--so, in that feeling, I dare claim, once for all, and in all possible cases (except that dreadful one of your becoming worse again ... in which case I wait till life ends with both of us), I claim your promise's fulfilment--say, at the summer's end: it cannot be for your good that this state of things should continue. We can go to Italy for a year or two and be happy as day and night are long. For me, I adore you. This is all unnecessary, I feel as I write: but you will think of the main fact as _ordained_, granted by G.o.d, will you not, dearest?--so, not to be put in doubt _ever again_--then, we can go quietly thinking of after matters. Till to-morrow, and ever after, G.o.d bless my heart's own, own Ba. All my soul follows you, love--encircles you--and I live in being yours.