The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 60

Sunday Evening.

[Post-mark, March 2, 1846.]

One or two words, if no more, I must write to dearest Ba, the night would go down in double blackness if I had neither written nor been written to! So here is another piece of 'kindness' on my part, such as I have received praise for of late! My own sweetest, there is just this good in such praise, that by it one comes to something pleasantly definite amid the hazy uncertainties of mere wishes and possibilities--while my whole heart does, _does_ so yearn, love, to do something to prove its devotion for you; and, now and then, amuses itself with foolish imaginings of real substantial services to which it should be found equal if fortune so granted; suddenly you interpose with thanks, in such terms as would all too much reward the highest of even those services which are never to be; and for what?--for a note, a going to Town, a ----! Well, there are definite beginnings certainly, if you will recognise them--I mean, that since you _do_ accept, far from 'despising this day of small things,' then I may take heart, and be sure that even though none of the great achievements should fall to my happy chance, still the barrenest, flattest life will--_must_ of needs produce in its season better fruits than these poor ones--I keep it, value it, now, that it may produce such.

Also I determine never again to 'a.n.a.lyse,' nor let you a.n.a.lyse if the sweet mouth can be anyway stopped: the love shall be one and indivisible--and the Loves we used to know from

One another huddled lie ...

Close beside Her tenderly--

(which is surely the next line). Now am I not anxious to know what your father said? And if anybody else said or wondered ... how should I know? Of all fighting--the warfare with shadows--what a work is _there_. But tell me,--and, with you for me--

Bless me dearest ever, as the face above mine blesses me--

Your own

Sir Moses set off this morning, I hear--somebody yesterday called the telescope an 'optical delusion,' antic.i.p.ating many more of the kind!

So much for this 'wandering Jew.'

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

Monday Evening.

[Post-mark, March 3, 1846.]

Upon the whole, I think, I am glad when you are kept in town and prevented from writing what you call 'much' to me. Because in the first place, the little from _you_, is always much to _me_--and then, besides, _the letter comes_, and with it the promise of another! Two letters have I had from you to-day, ever dearest! How I thank you!--yes, _indeed_! It was like yourself to write yesterday ... to remember what a great gap there would have been otherwise, as it looked on this side--here. The worst of Sat.u.r.day is (when you come on it) that Sunday follows--Sat.u.r.day night bringing no letter. Well, it was very good of you, best of you!

For the 'a.n.a.lyzing' I give it up willingly, only that I must say what altogether I forgot to say in my last letter, that it was not _I_, if you please, who spoke of the chrystals breaking away! And you, to quote me with that certainty! "The chrystals are broken off," _you say_.' _I_ say!! When it was in your letter, and not at all in mine!!

The truth is that I was stupid, rather, about the Dulwich collection--it was my fault. I caught up the idea of the gallery out of a heap of other thoughts, and really might have known better if I had given myself a chance, by considering.

Mr. Kenyon came to-day, and has taken out a licence, it seems to me, for praising you, for he praised and praised. Somebody has told him (who had spent several days with you in a house with a large library) that he came away 'quite astounded by the versatility of your learning'--and that, to complete the circle, you discoursed as scientifically on the training of greyhounds and breeding of ducks as if you had never done anything else all your life. Then dear Mr.

Kenyon talked of the poems; and hoped, very earnestly I am sure, that you would finish 'Saul'--which you ought to do, must do--_only not now_. By the way Mrs. Coleridge had written to him to enquire whether you had authority for the 'blue lilies,' rather than white. Then he asked about 'Luria' and 'whether it was obscure'; and I said, not unless the people, who considered it, began by blindfolding themselves.

And where do you think Mr. Kenyon talks of going next February--a long while off to be sure? To Italy of course. Everybody I ever heard of seems to be going to Italy next winter. He visits his brother at Vienna, and 'may cross the Alps and get to Pisa'--it is the shadow of a scheme--nothing certain, so far.

I did not go down-stairs to-day because the wind blew and the thermometer fell. To-morrow, perhaps I may. And _you_, dearest dearest, might have put into the letters how you were when you wrote them. You might--but you did not feel well and would not say so.

Confess that that was the reason. Reason or no reason, mention yourself to-morrow, and for the rest, do not write a long letter so as to increase the evil. There was nothing which I can remember as requiring an answer in what I wrote to you, and though I _will_ have my letter of course, it shall be as brief as possible, if briefness is good for you--_now always remember that_. Why if I, who talk against 'Luria,' should work the mischief myself, what should I deserve? I should be my own jury directly and not recommend to mercy ... not to mine. Do take care--care for _me_ just so much.

And, except that taking care of your health, what would you do for me that you have not done? You have given me the best of the possible gifts of one human soul to another, you have made my life new, and am I to count these things as small and insufficient? Ah, you _know_, you _know_ that I cannot, ought not, will not.

May G.o.d bless you. He blesses me in letting me be grateful to you as your Ba.

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

Tuesday.

[Post-mark, March 3, 1846.]

First and most important of all,--dearest, 'angry'--with you, and for _that_! It is just as if I had spoken contemptuously of that Gallery I so love and so am grateful to--having been used to go there when a child, far under the age allowed by the regulations--those two Guidos, the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob's vision, such a Watteau, the triumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group, all the Poussins with the 'Armida' and 'Jupiter's nursing'--and--no end to 'ands'--I have sate before one, some _one_ of those pictures I had predetermined to see, a good hour and then gone away ... it used to be a green half-hour's walk over the fields. So much for one error, now for the second like unto it; what I meant by charging you with _seeing_, (not, _not_ '_looking_ for')--_seeing_ undue 'security' in _that_, in the form,--I meant to say 'you talk about me being 'free'

now, free till _then_, and I am rather jealous of the potency attributed to the _form_, with all its solemnity, because it _is_ a form, and no more--yet you frankly agree with me that _that_ form complied with, there is no redemption; yours I am _then_ sure enough, to repent at leisure &c. &c.' So I meant to ask, 'then, all _now_ said, all short of that particular form of saying it, all goes for comparatively nothing'? Here it is written down--you 'wish to _suspend_ all decisions as long as possible'--_that_ form effects the decision, then,--till then, 'where am I'? Which is just what Lord Chesterfield cautions people against asking when they tell stories.

Love, Ba, my own heart's dearest, if all is _not_ decided _now_--why--hear a story, a propos of storytelling, and deduce what is deducible. A very old Unitarian minister met a still older evangelical brother--John Clayton (from whose son's mouth I heard what you shall hear)--the two fell to argument about the true faith to be held--after words enough, 'Well,' said the Unitarian, as winding up the controversy with an amicable smile--'at least let us hope we are both engaged in the _pursuit_ of Truth!'--'_Pursuit_ do you say?' cried the other, 'here am I with my years eighty and odd--if I haven't _found_ Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?' My own Ba, if I have not already _decided_, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help!

Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling, beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one's heart's good by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is there any parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of in the street--a labourer talking with his friends about '_wishes_'--and this one wished, if he might get his wish, 'to have a nine gallon cask of strong ale set running that minute and his own mouth to be _tied_ under it'--the exquisiteness of the delight was to be in the security upon security,--the being 'tied.' Now, Ba says I shall not be 'chained' if she can help!

But now--here all the jesting goes. You tell me what was observed in the 'moment's' visit; by you, and (after, I suppose) by your sisters.

First, I _will_ always see with your eyes _there_--next, what I see I will _never_ speak, if it pain you; but just this much truth I ought to say, I think. I always give myself to you for the worst I am,--full of faults as you will find, if you have not found them. But I _will_ not affect to be so bad, so wicked, as I count wickedness, as to call that conduct other than intolerable--_there_, in my conviction of _that_, is your real 'security' and mine for the future as the present. That a father choosing to give out of his whole day some five minutes to a daughter, supposed to be prevented from partic.i.p.ating in what he, probably, in common with the whole world of sensible men, as distinguished from poets and dreamers, consider _every_ pleasure of life, by a complete foregoing of society--that he, after the Pisa business and the enforced continuance, and as he must believe, permanence of this state in which any other human being would go mad--I do dare say, for the justification of G.o.d, who gave the mind to be _used_ in this world,--where it saves us, we are taught, or destroys us,--and not to be sunk quietly, overlooked, and forgotten; that, under these circ.u.mstances, finding ... what, you say, unless he thinks he _does_ find, he would close the door of his house instantly; a mere sympathizing man, of the same literary tastes, who comes good-naturedly, on a proper and unexceptionable introduction, to chat with and amuse a little that invalid daughter, once a month, so far as is known, for an hour perhaps,--that such a father should show himself '_not pleased_ plainly,' at such a circ.u.mstance ... my Ba, it is SHOCKING! See, I go _wholly_ on the supposition that the real relation is not imagined to exist between us. I so completely could understand a repugnance to trust you to me were the truth known, that, I will confess, I have several times been afraid the very reverse of this occurrence would befall; that your father would have at some time or other thought himself obliged, by the usual feeling of people in such cases, to see me for a few minutes and express some commonplace thanks after the customary mode (just as Capt. Domett sent a heap of unnecessary thanks to me not long ago for sending now a letter now a book to his son in New Zealand--keeping up the spirits of poor dear Alfred now he is cut off from the world at large)--and if _this_ had been done, I shall not deny that my heart would have accused me--unreasonably I _know_ but still, suppression, and reserve, and apprehension--the whole of _that is_ horrible always! But this way of looking on the endeavour of anybody, however humble, to just preserve your life, remedy in some degree the first, if it _was_ the first, unjustifiable measure,--this being 'displeased'--is exactly what I did _not_ calculate upon. Observe, that in this _only_ instance I am able to do as I shall be done by; to take up the arms furnished by the world, the usages of society--this is monstrous on the _world's_ showing! I say this now that I may never need recur to it--that you may understand why I keep _such_ entire silence henceforth.

Get but well, keep but _as_ well, and all is easy now. This wonderful winter--the spring--the summer--you will take exercise, go up and down stairs, get strong. _I pray you, at your feet, to do this, dearest!_ Then comes Autumn, with the natural expectations, as after _rouge_ one expects _noir_: the _likelihood_ of a _severe_ winter after this mild one, which to prevent, you reiterate your demand to go and save your life in Italy, ought you not to do that? And the matters brought to issue, (with even, if possible, less shadow of ground for a refusal than before, if you are _well_, plainly well enough to bear the voyage) _there_ I _will_ bid you 'be mine in the obvious way'--if you shall preserve your belief in me--and you _may_ in much, in all important to you. Mr. Kenyon's praise is undeserved enough, but yesterday Milnes said I was the only literary man he ever knew, _tenax propositi_, able to make out a life for himself and abide in it--'for,' he went on, 'you really do live without any of this _t.i.tillation_ and fussy dependence upon advent.i.tious excitement of all kinds, they all say they can do without.' That is _more_ true--and I _intend_ by G.o.d's help to live wholly for you; to spend my whole energies in reducing to practice the feeling which occupies me, and in the practical operation of which, the other work I had proposed to do will be found included, facilitated--I shall be able--but of this there is plenty time to speak hereafter--I shall, I believe, be able to do this without even allowing the world to _very much_ misinterpret--against pure lying there is no defence, but all up to that I hope to hinder or render unimportant--as you shall know in time and place.

I have written myself grave, but write to _me_, dear, dearest, and I will answer in a lighter mood--even now I can say how it was yesterday's hurry happened. I called on Milnes--who told me Hanmer had broken a bone in his leg and was laid up, so I called on him too--on Moxon, by the way, (his brother telling me strangely cheering news, from the grimmest of faces, about my books selling and likely to sell ... your wishes, Ba!)--then in Bond Street about some business with somebody, then on Mrs. Montagu who was out walking all the time, and home too. I found a letter from Mr. Kenyon, perfectly kind, asking me to go on Monday to meet friends, and with yours to-day comes another confirming the choice of the day. How entirely kind he is!

I am very well, much better, indeed--taking that bath with sensibly good effect, to-night I go to Montagu's again; for shame, having kept away too long.

And the rest shall answer _yours_--dear! Not 'much to answer?' And Beethoven, and Painting and--what _is_ the rest and shall be answered!

Bless you, now, my darling--I love you, ever shall love you, ever be your own.

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

Tuesday Evening.

[Post-mark, March 4, 1846.]

Yes, but, dearest, you mistake me, or you mistake yourself. I am sure I do not over-care for forms--it is not my way to do it--and in this case ... no. Still you must see that here is a fact as well as a form, and involving a frightful quant.i.ty of social inconvenience (to use the mildest word) if too hastily entered on. I deny altogether looking for, or 'seeing' any 'security' in it for myself--it is a mere form for the heart and the happiness: illusions may pa.s.s after as before.

Still the truth is that if they were to pa.s.s with you now, you stand free to act according to the wide-awakeness of your eyes, and to reform your choice ... see! whereas afterward you could not carry out such a reformation while I was alive, even if I helped you. All I could do for you would be to walk away. And you pretend not to see this broad distinction?--ah. For me I have seen just this and no more, and have felt averse to forestall, to seem to forestall even by an hour, or a word, that stringency of the legal obligation from which there _is_ in a certain sense no redemption. Tie up your drinker under the pour of his nine gallons, and in two minutes he will moan and writhe (as you perfectly know) like a Brinvilliers under the water-torture. That he _asked_ to be tied up, was unwise on his own principle of loving ale. And _you_ sha'n't be 'chained' up, if you were to ask twenty times: if you have found truth or not in the water-well.

You do not see aright what I meant to tell you on another subject. If he was displeased, (and it was expressed by a shadow a mere negation of pleasure) it was not with you as a visitor and my friend. You must not fancy such a thing. It was a sort of instinctive indisposition towards seeing you here--unexplained to himself, I have no doubt--of course unexplained, or he would have desired me to receive you never again, _that_ would have been done at once and unscrupulously. But without defining his own feeling, he rather disliked seeing you here--it just touched one of his vibratory wires, brushed by and touched it--oh, we understand in this house. He is not a nice observer, but, at intervals very wide, he is subject to lightnings--call them fancies, sometimes right, sometimes wrong.

Certainly it was not in the character of a 'sympathising friend' that you made him a very little cross on Monday. And yet you never were nor will be in danger of being _thanked_, he would not think of it. For the reserve, the apprehension--dreadful those things are, and desecrating to one's own nature--but we did not make this position, we only endure it. The root of the evil is the miserable misconception of the limits and character of parental rights--it is a mistake of the intellect rather than of the heart. Then, after using one's children as one's chattels for a time, the children drop lower and lower toward the level of the chattels, and the duties of human sympathy to them become difficult in proportion. And (it seems strange to say it, yet it is true) _love_, he does not conceive of at all. He has feeling, he can be moved deeply, he is capable of affection in a peculiar way, but _that_, he does not understand, any more than he understands Chaldee, respecting it less of course.

And you fancy that I could propose Italy again? after saying too that I never would? Oh no, no--yet there is time to think of this, a superfluity of time, ... 'time, times and half a time' and to make one's head swim with leaning over a precipice is not wise. The roar of the world comes up too, as you hear and as I heard from the beginning. There will be no lack of 'lying,' be sure--'pure lying'

too--and nothing you can do, dearest dearest, shall hinder my being torn to pieces by most of the particularly affectionate friends I have in the world. Which I do not think of much, any more than of Italy.

You will be mad, and I shall be bad ... and _that_ will be the effect of being poets! 'Till when, where are you?'--why in the very deepest of my soul--wherever in it is the fountain head of loving! beloved, _there_ you are!

Some day I shall ask you 'in form,'--as I care so much for forms, it seems,--what your 'faults' are, these immense mult.i.tudinous faults of yours, which I hear such talk of, and never, never, can get to see.

Will you give me a catalogue raisonnee of your faults? I should like it, I think. In the meantime they seem to be faults of obscurity, that is, invisible faults, like those in the poetry which do not keep it from selling as I am _so, so_ glad to understand. I am glad too that Mr. Milnes knows you a little.

Now I must end, there is no more time to-night. G.o.d bless you, very dearest! Keep better ... try to be well--as _I_ do for you since you ask me. Did I ever think that _you_ would think it worth while to ask me _that_? What a dream! reaching out into the morning! To-day however I did not go down-stairs, because it was colder and the wind blew its way into the pa.s.sages:--if I can to-morrow without risk, I will, ...

be sure ... be sure. Till Thursday then!--till eternity!

'Till when, where am I,' but with you? and what, but yours

Your

BA.

I have been writing 'autographs' (save my _mark_) for the North and the South to-day ... the Fens, and Golden Square. Somebody asked for a verse, ... from either 'Catarina' or 'Flush' ... 'those poems' &c.

&c.! Such a concatenation of criticisms. So I preferred Flush of course--i.e. gave him the preferment.