E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Monday Afternoon.
[Post-mark July 7, 1845.]
While I write this, — 3 o’clock you may be going out, I will hope, for the day is very fine, perhaps all the better for the wind: yet I got up this morning sure of bad weather. I shall not try to tell you how anxious I am for the result and to know it. You will of course feel fatigued at first — but persevering, as you mean to do, do you not? — persevering, the event must be happy.
I thought, and still think, to write to you about George Sand, and the vexed question, a very Bermoothes of the ‘Mental Claims of the Sexes Relatively Considered’ (so was called the, ... I do believe, ... worst poem I ever read in my life), and Mrs. Hemans, and all and some of the points referred to in your letter — but ‘by my fay, I cannot reason,’ to-day: and, by a consequence, I feel the more — so I say how I want news of you ... which, when they arrive, I shall read ‘meritoriously’ — do you think? My friend, what ought I to tell you on that head (or the reverse rather) — of your discourse? I should like to match you at a fancy-flight; if I could, give you nearly as pleasant an assurance that ‘there’s no merit in the case,’ but the hot weather and lack of wit get the better of my good will — besides, I remember once to have admired a certain enticing simplicity in the avowal of the Treasurer of a Charitable Institution at a Dinner got up in its behalf — the Funds being at lowest, Debt at highest ... in fact, this Dinner was the last chance of the Charity, and this Treasurer’s speech the main feature in the chance — and our friend, inspired by the emergency, went so far as to say, with a bland smile — ’Do not let it be supposed that we — despise annual contributors, — we rather — solicit their assistance.’ All which means, do not think that I take any ‘merit’ for making myself supremely happy, I rather &c. &c.
Always rather mean to deserve it a little better — but never shall: so it should be, for you and me — and as it was in the beginning so it is still. You are the — But you know and why should I tease myself with words?
Let me send this off now — and to-morrow some more, because I trust to hear you have made the first effort and with success.
Ever yours, my dear friend,
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Monday.
[Post-mark, July 8, 1845.]
Well — I have really been out; and am really alive after it — which is more surprising still — alive enough I mean, to write even so, to-night. But perhaps I say so with more emphasis, to console myself for failing in my great ambition of getting into the Park and of reaching Mr. Kenyon’s door just to leave a card there vaingloriously, ... all which I did fail in, and was forced to turn back from the gates of Devonshire Place. The next time it will be better perhaps — and this time there was no fainting nor anything very wrong ... not even cowardice on the part of the victim (be it recorded!) for one of my sisters was as usual in authority and ordered the turning back just according to her own prudence and not my selfwill. Only you will not, any of you, ask me to admit that it was all delightful — pleasanter work than what you wanted to spare me in taking care of your roses on Saturday! don’t ask that, and I will try it again presently.
I ought to be ashamed of writing this I and me-ism — but since your kindness made it worth while asking about I must not be over-wise and silent on my side.
Tuesday. — Was it fair to tell me to write though, and be silent of the ‘Duchess,’ and when I was sure to be so delighted — and you knew it? I think not indeed. And, to make the obedience possible, I go on fast to say that I heard from Mr. Horne a few days since and that he said — ’your envelope reminds me of’ — you, he said ... and so, asked if you were in England still, and meant to write to you. To which I have answered that I believe you to be in England — thinking it strange about the envelope; which, as far as I remember, was one of those long ones, used, the more conveniently to enclose to him back again a MS. of his own I had offered with another of his, by his desire, to Colburn’s Magazine, as the productions of a friend of mine, when he was in Germany and afraid of his proper fatal onymousness, yet in difficulty how to approach the magazines as a nameless writer (you will not mention this of course). And when he was in Germany, I remember, ... writing just as your first letter came ... that I mentioned it to him, and was a little frankly proud of it! but since, your name has not occurred once — not once, certainly! — and it is strange.... Only he can’t have heard of your having been here, and it must have been a chance-remark — altogether! taking an imaginary emphasis from my evil conscience perhaps. Talking of evils, how wrong of you to make that book for me! and how ill I thanked you after all! Also, I couldn’t help feeling more grateful still for the Duchess ... who is under ban: and for how long I wonder?
My dear friend, I am ever yours,
E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 9, 1845.]
You are all that is good and kind: I am happy and thankful the beginning (and worst of it) is over and so well. The Park and Mr. Kenyon’s all in good time — and your sister was most prudent — and you mean to try again: God bless you, all to be said or done — but, as I say it, no vain word. No doubt it was a mere chance-thought, and à propos de bottes of Horne — neither he or any other can know or even fancy how it is. Indeed, though on other grounds I should be all so proud of being known for your friend by everybody, yet there’s no denying the deep delight of playing the Eastern Jew’s part here in this London — they go about, you know by travel-books, with the tokens of extreme destitution and misery, and steal by blind ways and by-paths to some blank dreary house, one obscure door in it — which being well shut behind them, they grope on through a dark corridor or so, and then, a blaze follows the lifting a curtain or the like, for they are in a palace-hall with fountains and light, and marble and gold, of which the envious are never to dream! And I, too, love to have few friends, and to live alone, and to see you from week to week. Do you not suppose I am grateful?
And you do like the ‘Duchess,’ as much as you have got of it? that delights me, too — for every reason. But I fear I shall not be able to bring you the rest to-morrow — Thursday, my day — because I have been broken in upon more than one morning; nor, though much better in my head, can I do anything at night just now. All will come right eventually, I hope, and I shall transcribe the other things you are to judge.
To-morrow then — only (and that is why I would write) do, do know me for what I am and treat me as I deserve in that one respect, and go out, without a moment’s thought or care, if to-morrow should suit you — leave word to that effect and I shall be as glad as if I saw you or more — reasoned gladness, you know. Or you can write — though that is not necessary at all, — do think of all this!
I am yours ever, dear friend,
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, July 12, 1845.]
You understand that it was not a resolution passed in favour of formality, when I said what I did yesterday about not going out at the time you were coming — surely you do; whatever you might signify to a different effect. If it were necessary for me to go out every day, or most days even, it would be otherwise; but as it is, I may certainly keep the day you come, free from the fear of carriages, let the sun shine its best or worst, without doing despite to you or injury to me — and that’s all I meant to insist upon indeed and indeed. You see, Jupiter Tonans was good enough to come to-day on purpose to deliver me — one evil for another! for I confess with shame and contrition, that I never wait to enquire whether it thunders to the left or the right, to be frightened most ingloriously. Isn’t it a disgrace to anyone with a pretension to poetry? Dr. Chambers, a part of whose office it is, Papa says, ‘to reconcile foolish women to their follies,’ used to take the side of my vanity, and discourse at length on the passive obedience of some nervous systems to electrical influences; but perhaps my faint-heartedness is besides tra
ceable to a half-reasonable terror of a great storm in Herefordshire, where great storms most do congregate, (such storms!) round the Malvern Hills, those mountains of England. We lived four miles from their roots, through all my childhood and early youth, in a Turkish house my father built himself, crowded with minarets and domes, and crowned with metal spires and crescents, to the provocation (as people used to observe) of every lightning of heaven. Once a storm of storms happened, and we all thought the house was struck — and a tree was so really, within two hundred yards of the windows while I looked out — the bark, rent from the top to the bottom ... torn into long ribbons by the dreadful fiery hands, and dashed out into the air, over the heads of other trees, or left twisted in their branches — torn into shreds in a moment, as a flower might be, by a child! Did you ever see a tree after it has been struck by lightning? The whole trunk of that tree was bare and peeled — and up that new whiteness of it, ran the finger-mark of the lightning in a bright beautiful rose-colour (none of your roses brighter or more beautiful!) the fever-sign of the certain death — though the branches themselves were for the most part untouched, and spread from the peeled trunk in their full summer foliage; and birds singing in them three hours afterwards! And, in that same storm, two young women belonging to a festive party were killed on the Malvern Hills — each sealed to death in a moment with a sign on the chest which a common seal would cover — only the sign on them was not rose-coloured as on our tree, but black as charred wood. So I get ‘possessed’ sometimes with the effects of these impressions, and so does one, at least, of my sisters, in a lower degree — and oh! — how amusing and instructive all this is to you! When my father came into the room to-day and found me hiding my eyes from the lightning, he was quite angry and called ‘it disgraceful to anybody who had ever learnt the alphabet’ — to which I answered humbly that ‘I knew it was’ — but if I had been impertinent, I might have added that wisdom does not come by the alphabet but in spite of it? Don’t you think so in a measure? non obstantibus Bradbury and Evans? There’s a profane question — and ungrateful too ... after the Duchess — I except the Duchess and her peers — and be sure she will be the world’s Duchess and received as one of your most striking poems. Full of various power the poem is.... I cannot say how deeply it has impressed me — but though I want the conclusion, I don’t wish for it; and in this, am reasonable for once! You will not write and make yourself ill — will you? or read ‘Sybil’ at unlawful hours even? Are you better at all? What a letter! and how very foolishly to-day
I am yours,
E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 14, 1845.]
Very well — I shall say no more on the subject — though it was not any piece of formality on your part that I deprecated; nor even your over-kindness exactly — I rather wanted you to be really, wisely kind, and do me a greater favour then the next great one in degree; but you must understand this much in me, how you can lay me under deepest obligation. I daresay you think you have some, perhaps many, to whom your well-being is of deeper interest than to me. Well, if that be so, do for their sakes make every effort with the remotest chance of proving serviceable to you; nor set yourself against any little irksomeness these carriage-drives may bring with them just at the beginning; and you may say, if you like, ‘how I shall delight those friends, if I can make this newest one grateful’ — and, as from the known quantity one reasons out the unknown, this newest friend will be one glow of gratitude, he knows that, if you can warm your finger-tips and so do yourself that much real good, by setting light to a dozen ‘Duchesses’: why ought I not to say this when it is so true? Besides, people profess as much to their merest friends — for I have been looking through a poem-book just now, and was told, under the head of Album-verses alone, that for A. the writer would die, and for B. die too but a crueller death, and for C. too, and D. and so on. I wonder whether they have since wanted to borrow money of him on the strength of his professions. But you must remember we are in July; the 13th it is, and summer will go and cold weather stay (‘come’ forsooth!) — and now is the time of times. Still I feared the rain would hinder you on Friday — but the thunder did not frighten me — for you: your father must pardon me for holding most firmly with Dr. Chambers — his theory is quite borne out by my own experience, for I have seen a man it were foolish to call a coward, a great fellow too, all but die away in a thunderstorm, though he had quite science enough to explain why there was no immediate danger at all — whereupon his younger brother suggested that he should just go out and treat us to a repetition of Franklin’s experiment with the cloud and the kite — a well-timed proposition which sent the Explainer down with a white face into the cellar. What a grand sight your tree was — is, for I see it. My father has a print of a tree so struck — torn to ribbons, as you describe — but the rose-mark is striking and new to me. We had a good storm on our last voyage, but I went to bed at the end, as I thought — and only found there had been lightning next day by the bare poles under which we were riding: but the finest mountain fit of the kind I ever saw has an unfortunately ludicrous association. It was at Possagno, among the Euganean Hills, and I was at a poor house in the town — an old woman was before a little picture of the Virgin, and at every fresh clap she lighted, with the oddest sputtering muttering mouthful of prayer imaginable, an inch of guttery candle, which, the instant the last echo had rolled away, she as constantly blew out again for saving’s sake — having, of course, to light the smoke of it, about an instant after that: the expenditure in wax at which the elements might be propitiated, you see, was a matter for curious calculation. I suppose I ought to have bought the whole taper for some four or five centesimi (100 of which make 8d. English) and so kept the countryside safe for about a century of bad weather. Leigh Hunt tells you a story he had from Byron, of kindred philosophy in a Jew who was surprised by a thunderstorm while he was dining on bacon — he tried to eat between-whiles, but the flashes were as pertinacious as he, so at last he pushed his plate away, just remarking with a compassionate shrug, ‘all this fuss about a piece of pork!’ By the way, what a characteristic of an Italian late evening is Summer-lightning — it hangs in broad slow sheets, dropping from cloud to cloud, so long in dropping and dying off. The ‘bora,’ which you only get at Trieste, brings wonderful lightning — you are in glorious June-weather, fancy, of an evening, under green shock-headed acacias, so thick and green, with the cicalas stunning you above, and all about you men, women, rich and poor, sitting standing and coming and going — and through all the laughter and screaming and singing, the loud clink of the spoons against the glasses, the way of calling for fresh ‘sorbetti’ — for all the world is at open-coffee-house at such an hour — when suddenly there is a stop in the sunshine, a blackness drops down, then a great white column of dust drives straight on like a wedge, and you see the acacia heads snap off, now one, then another — and all the people scream ‘la bora, la bora!’ and you are caught up in their whirl and landed in some interior, the man with the guitar on one side of you, and the boy with a cageful of little brown owls for sale, on the other — meanwhile, the thunder claps, claps, with such a persistence, and the rain, for a finale, falls in a mass, as if you had knocked out the whole bottom of a huge tank at once — then there is a second stop — out comes the sun — somebody clinks at his glass, all the world bursts out laughing, and prepares to pour out again, — but you, the stranger, do make the best of your way out, with no preparation at all; whereupon you infallibly put your foot (and half your leg) into a river, really that, of rainwater — that’s a Bora (and that comment of yours, a justifiable pun!) Such things you get in Italy, but better, better, the best of all things you do not (I do not) get those. And I shall see you on Wednesday, please remember, and bring you the rest of the poem — that you should like it, gratifies me more than I will try to say, but then, do not you be tempted by that pleasure of pleasing which I think is your besetting sin — may it n
ot be? — and so cut me off from the other pleasure of being profited. As I told you, I like so much to fancy that you see, and will see, what I do as I see it, while it is doing, as nobody else in the world should, certainly, even if they thought it worth while to want — but when I try and build a great building I shall want you to come with me and judge it and counsel me before the scaffolding is taken down, and while you have to make your way over hods and mortar and heaps of lime, and trembling tubs of size, and those thin broad whitewashing brushes I always had a desire to take up and bespatter with. And now goodbye — I am to see you on Wednesday I trust — and to hear you say you are better, still better, much better? God grant that, and all else good for you, dear friend, and so for R.B.
ever yours.
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, July 18, 1845.]
I suppose nobody is ever expected to acknowledge his or her ‘besetting sin’ — it would be unnatural — and therefore you will not be surprised to hear me deny the one imputed to me for mine. I deny it quite and directly. And if my denial goes for nothing, which is but reasonable, I might call in a great cloud of witnesses, ... a thundercloud, ... (talking of storms!) and even seek no further than this table for a first witness; this letter, I had yesterday, which calls me ... let me see how many hard names ... ‘unbending,’ ... ‘disdainful,’ ... ‘cold hearted,’ ... ‘arrogant,’ ... yes, ‘arrogant, as women always are when men grow humble’ ... there’s a charge against all possible and probable petticoats beyond mine and through it! Not that either they or mine deserve the charge — we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for I don’t pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins ‘over the way’ and in antithesis. It’s an undeserved charge, and unprovoked! and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented into ill temper; and shall remain unanswered, for me, ... and should, ... even if I could write mortal epigrams, as your Lamia speaks them. Only it serves to help my assertion that people in general who know something of me, my dear friend, are not inclined to agree with you in particular, about my having an ‘over-pleasure in pleasing,’ for a besetting sin. If you had spoken of my sister Henrietta indeed, you would have been right — so right! but for me, alas, my sins are not half as amiable, nor given to lean to virtue’s side with half such a grace. And then I have a pretension to speak the truth like a Roman, even in matters of literature, where Mr. Kenyon says falseness is a fashion — and really and honestly I should not be afraid ... I should have no reason to be afraid, ... if all the notes and letters written by my hand for years and years about presentation copies of poems and other sorts of books were brought together and ‘conferred,’ as they say of manuscripts, before my face — I should not shrink and be ashamed. Not that I always tell the truth as I see it — but I never do speak falsely with intention and consciousness — never — and I do not find that people of letters are sooner offended than others are, by the truth told in gentleness; — I do not remember to have offended anyone in this relation, and by these means. Well! — but from me to you; it is all different, you know — you must know how different it is. I can tell you truly what I think of this thing and of that thing in your ‘Duchess’ — but I must of a necessity hesitate and fall into misgiving of the adequacy of my truth, so called. To judge at all of a work of yours, I must look up to it, and far up — because whatever faculty I have is included in your faculty, and with a great rim all round it besides! And thus, it is not at all from an over-pleasure in pleasing you, not at all from an inclination to depreciate myself, that I speak and feel as I do and must on some occasions; it is simply the consequence of a true comprehension of you and of me — and apart from it, I should not be abler, I think, but less able, to assist you in anything. I do wish you would consider all this reasonably, and understand it as a third person would in a moment, and consent not to spoil the real pleasure I have and am about to have in your poetry, by nailing me up into a false position with your gold-headed nails of chivalry, which won’t hold to the wall through this summer. Now you will not answer this? — you will only understand it and me — and that I am not servile but sincere, but earnest, but meaning what I say — and when I say I am afraid, you will believe that I am afraid; and when I say I have misgivings, you will believe that I have misgivings — you will trust me so far, and give me liberty to breathe and feel naturally ... according to my own nature. Probably, or certainly rather, I have one advantage over you, ... one, of which women are not fond of boasting — that of being older by years — for the ‘Essay on Mind,’ which was the first poem published by me (and rather more printed than published after all), the work of my earliest youth, half childhood, half womanhood, was published in 1826 I see. And if I told Mr. Kenyon not to let you see that book, it was not for the date, but because Coleridge’s daughter was right in calling it a mere ‘girl’s exercise’; because it is just that and no more, ... no expression whatever of my nature as it ever was, ... pedantic, and in some things pert, ... and such as altogether, and to do myself justice (which I would fain do of course), I was not in my whole life. Bad books are never like their writers, you know — and those under-age books are generally bad. Also I have found it hard work to get into expression, though I began rhyming from my very infancy, much as you did (and this, with no sympathy near to me — I have had to do without sympathy in the full sense — ), and even in my ‘Seraphim’ days, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, — from leading so conventual recluse a life, perhaps — and all my better poems were written last year, the very best thing to come, if there should be any life or courage to come; I scarcely know. Sometimes — it is the real truth — I have haste to be done with it all. It is the real truth; however to say so may be an ungrateful return for your kind and generous words, ... which I do feel gratefully, let me otherwise feel as I will, ... or must. But then you know you are liable to such prodigious mistakes about besetting sins and even besetting virtues — to such a set of small delusions, that are sure to break one by one, like other bubbles, as you draw in your breath, ... as I see by the law of my own star, my own particular star, the star I was born under, the star Wormwood, ... on the opposite side of the heavens from the constellations of ‘the Lyre and the Crown.’ In the meantime, it is difficult to thank you, or not to thank you, for all your kindnesses — αλγος δε σιγαν. Only Mrs. Jameson told me of Lady Byron’s saying ‘that she knows she is burnt every day in effigy by half the world, but that the effigy is so unlike herself as to be inoffensive to her,’ and just so, or rather just in the converse of so, is it with me and your kindnesses. They are meant for quite another than I, and are too far to be so near. The comfort is ... in seeing you throw all those ducats out of the window, (and how many ducats go in a figure to a ‘dozen Duchesses,’ it is profane to calculate) the comfort is that you will not be the poorer for it in the end; since the people beneath, are honest enough to push them back under the door. Rather a bleak comfort and occupation though! — and you may find better work for your friends, who are (some of them) weary even unto death of the uses of this life. And now, you who are generous, be generous, and take no notice of all this. I speak of myself, not of you so there is nothing for you to contradict or discuss — and if there were, you would be really kind and give me my way in it. Also you may take courage; for I promise not to vex you by thanking you against your will, — more than may be helped.
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 320