The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 61

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

Wednesday Morning.

[Post-mark, March 4, 1846.]

Ah, sweetest, don't mind people and their lies any more than I shall; if the toad _does_ 'take it into his toad's head to spit at you'--you will not 'drop dead,' I warrant. All the same, if one may make a circuit through a flower-bed and see the less of his toad-habits and general ugliness, so much the better--no words can express my entire indifference (far below _contempt_) for what can be said or done. But one thing, only one, I choose to hinder being said, if I can--the others I would not if I could--why prevent the toad's puffing himself out thrice his black bigness if it amuses him among those wet stones?

We shall be in the sun.

I dare say I am unjust--hasty certainly, in the other matter--but all faults are such inasmuch as they are 'mistakes of the intellect'--toads may spit or leave it alone,--but if I ever see it right, exercising my intellect, to treat any human beings like my 'chattels'--I shall pay for that mistake one day or another, I am convinced--and I very much fear that you would soon discover what one fault of mine is, if you were to hear anyone a.s.sert such a right in my presence.

Well, I shall see you to-morrow--had I better come a little later, I wonder?--half-past three, for instance, staying, as last time, till ... ah, it is ill policy to count my treasure aloud! Or shall I come at the usual time to-morrow? If I do _not_ hear, at the usual time!--because, I think you would--am sure you would have considered and suggested it, were it necessary.

Bless you, dearest--ever your own.

I said nothing about that Mr. Russell and his proposition--by all means, yes--let him do more good with that n.o.ble, pathetic 'lay'--and do not mind the 'burthen,' if he is peremptory--so that he duly specify '_by the singer_'--with _that_ precaution nothing but good can come of his using it.

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

Thursday.

[Post-mark, March 6, 1846.]

Ever dearest I lose no time in writing, you see, so as to be written to at the soonest--and there is another reason which makes me hasten to write ... it is not all mercantile calculation. I want you to understand me.

Now listen! I seem to understand myself: it seems to me that every word I ever said to you on one subject, is plainly referable to a cla.s.s of feelings of which you could not complain ... could not. But this is _my_ impression; and yours is different:--you do not understand, you do not see by my light, and perhaps it is natural that you should not, as we stand on different steps of the argument. Still I, who said what I did, _for you_, and from an absorbing consideration of what was best _for you_, cannot consent, even out of anxiety for your futurity, to torment you now, to vex you by a form of speech which you persist in translating into a want of trust in you ... (_I_, want trust in you!!) into a need of more evidence about you from others ... (_could_ you say so?) and even into an indisposition on my part to fulfil my engagement--no, dearest dearest, it is not right of you. And therefore, as you have these thoughts reasonably or unreasonably, I shall punish you for them at once, and 'chain' you ...

(as you wish to be chained), chain you, rivet you--do you feel how the little fine chain twists round and round you? do you hear the stroke of the riveting? and you may _feel that_ too. Now, it is done--now, you are chained--_Bia_ has finished the work--I, _Ba_! (observe the anagram!) and not a word do you say, of Prometheus, though you have the conscience of it all, I dare say. Well! you must be pleased, ...

as it was 'the weight of too much liberty' which offended you: and now you believe, perhaps, that I trust you, love you, and look to you over the heads of the whole living world, without any one head needing to stoop; you _must_, if you please, because you belong to me now and shall believe as I choose. There's a ukase for you! Cry out ... repent ... and I will loose the links, and let you go again--_shall_ it be '_My dear Miss Barrett_?'

Seriously, you shall not think of me such things as you half said, if not whole said, to-day. If all men were to speak evil of you, my heart would speak of you the more good--_that_ would be the one result with _me_. Do I not know you, soul to soul? should I believe that any of them could know you as I know you? Then for the rest, I am not afraid of 'toads' now, not being a child any longer. I am not inclined to mind, if _you_ do not mind, what may be said about us by the benevolent world, nor will other reasons of a graver kind affect me otherwise than by the necessary pain. Therefore the whole rests with you--unless illness should intervene--and you will be kind and good (will you not?) and not think hard thoughts of me ever again--no. It wasn't the sense of being less than you had a right to pretend to, which made me speak what you disliked--for it is _I_ who am 'unworthy,' and not another--not certainly that other!

I meant to write more to-night of subjects farther off us, but my sisters have come up-stairs and I must close my letter quickly.

Beloved, take care of your head! Ah, do not write poems, nor read, nor neglect the walking, nor take that shower-bath. _Will_ you, instead, try the warm bathing? Surely the experiment is worth making for a little while. Dearest beloved, do it for your own

BA.

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

Friday Morning.

[Post-mark, March 6, 1846.]

I am altogether your own, dearest--the words were only words and the playful feelings were play--while the _fact_ has always been so irresistibly obvious as to make them _break_ on and off it, fantastically like water turning to spray and spurts of foam on a great solid rock. _Now_ you call the rock, a rock, but you must have known what chance you had of pushing it down when you sent all those light fancies and free-leaves, and refusals-to-hold-responsible, to do what they could. It _is_ a rock; and may be quite barren of good to you,--not large enough to build houses on, not small enough to make a mantelpiece of, much less a pedestal for a statue, but it is real rock, that is all.

It is always _I_ who 'torment' _you_--instead of taking the present and blessing you, and leaving the future to its own cares. I certainly am not apt to look curiously into what next week is to bring, much less next month or six months, but you, the having you, my own, dearest beloved, _that_ is as different in kind as in degree from any other happiness or semblance of it that even seemed possible of realization. Then, now, the health is all to stay, or r.e.t.a.r.d us--oh, be well, my Ba!

Let me speak of that letter--I am ashamed at having mentioned those circ.u.mstances, and should not have done so, but for their insignificance--for I knew that if you ever _did_ hear of them, all any body _would_ say would not amount to enough to be repeated to me and so get explained at once. Now that the purpose is gained, it seems little worth gaining. You bade me not send the letter: I will not.

As for 'what people say'--ah--Here lies a book, Bartoli's 'Simboli'

and this morning I dipped into his Chapter XIX. His 'Symbol' is 'Socrate fatto ritrar su' Boccali' and the theme of his dissertating, 'L'indegnita del mettere in disprezzo i piu degni filosofi dell'antichita.' He sets out by enlarging on the horror of it--then describes the character of Socrates, then tells the story of the representation of the 'Clouds,'and thus gets to his 'symbol'--'le pazzie fatte s.p.a.cciare a Socrate in quella commedia ... il misero in tanto scherno e derisione del pubblico, che perfino i vasai dipingevano il suo ritratto sopra gli orci, i fiaschi, i boccali, e ogni vasellamento da piu vile servigio. Cos quel sommo filosofo ...

fu condotto a far di se par le case d'Atene una continua commedia, con solamente vederlo comparir cos scontraffatto e ridicolo, come i vasai sel formavano d'invenzione'--

There you have what a very clever man can say in choice Tuscan on a pa.s.sage in aelian which he takes care not to quote nor allude to, but which is the sole authority for the fact. aelian, speaking of Socrates'

magnanimity, says that on the first representation, a good many foreigners being present who were at a loss to know 'who could be this Socrates'--the sage himself stood up that he might be pointed out to them by the auditory at large ... 'which' says aelian--'was no difficulty for them, to whom his features were most familiar,--_the very potters being in the habit of decorating their vessels with his likeness_'--no doubt out of a pleasant and affectionate admiration.

Yet see how 'people' can turn this out of its sense,--'say' their say on the simplest, plainest word or deed, and change it to its opposite!

'G.o.d's great gift of speech abused' indeed!

But what shall we hear of it _there_, my Siren?

On Monday--is it not? _Who_ was it looked into the room just at our leave-taking?

Bless you, my ever dearest,--remember to walk, to go down-stairs--and be sure that I will endeavour to get well for my part. To-day I am very well--with this letter!

Your own.

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

Friday Evening.

[Post-mark, March 7, 1846.]

Always _you_, is it, who torments me? always _you_? Well! I agree to bear the torments as Socrates his persecution by the potters:--and by the way he liked those potters, as Plato shows, and was fain to go to them for his ill.u.s.trations ... as I to you for all my light. Also, while we are on the subject, I will tell you another fault of your Bartoli ... his 'choice Tuscan' filled one of my pages, in the place of my English better than Tuscan.

For the letter you mentioned, I meant to have said in mine yesterday, that I was grateful to you for telling me of it--_that_ was one of the prodigalities of your goodness to me ... not thrown away, in one sense, however superfluous. Do you ever think how I must feel when you overcome me with all this generous tenderness, only beloved! I cannot say it.

Because it is colder to-day I have not been down-stairs but let to-morrow be warm enough--_facilis descensus_. There's something infernal to me really, in the going down, and now too that our cousin is here! Think of his beginning to attack Henrietta the other day....

'_So_ Mr. C. has retired and left the field to Surtees Cook. Oh ...

you needn't deny ... it's the news of all the world except your father. And as to _him_, I don't blame you--he never will consent to the marriage of son or daughter. Only you should consider, you know, because he won't leave you a shilling, &c. &c....' You hear the sort of man. And then in a minute after ... 'And what is this about Ba?'

'About Ba' said my sisters, 'why who has been persuading you of such nonsense?' 'Oh, my authority is very good,--perfectly unnecessary for you to tell any stories, Arabel,--a literary friendship, is it?' ...

and so on ... after that fashion! This comes from my brothers of course, but we need not be afraid of its pa.s.sing _beyond_, I think, though I was a good deal vexed when I heard first of it last night and have been in cousinly anxiety ever since to get our Orestes safe away from those Furies his creditors, into Brittany again. He is an intimate friend of my brothers besides the relationship, and they talk to him as to each other, only they oughtn't to have talked _that_, and without knowledge too.

I forgot to tell you that Mr. Kenyon was in an immoderate joy the day I saw him last, about Mr. Poe's 'Raven' as seen in the _Athenaeum_ extracts, and came to ask what I knew of the poet and his poetry, and took away the book. It's the rhythm which has taken him with 'glamour'

I fancy. Now you will stay on Monday till the last moment, and go to him for dinner at six.

Who 'looked in at the door?' n.o.body. But Arabel a little way opened it, and hearing your voice, went back. There was no harm--_is_ no fear of harm. n.o.body in the house would find his or her pleasure in running the risk of giving me pain. I mean my brothers and sisters would not.

Are you trying the music to charm the brain to stillness? Tell me. And keep from that 'Soul's Tragedy' which did so much harm--oh, that I had bound you by some Stygian oath not to touch it.

So my rock ... may the birds drop into your crevices the seeds of all the flowers of the world--only it is not for _those_, that I cling to you as the single rock in the salt sea.

Ever I am

Your own.