Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Am I not ‘femme qui parle’ to-day? And let me talk on ever so, the proof won’t come. May God bless you — and me as I am

  Yours,

  E.B.B.

  And the silent promise I would have you make is this — that if ever you should leave me, it shall be (though you are not ‘selfish’) for your sake — and not for mine: for your good, and not for mine. I ask it — not because I am disinterested; but because one class of motives would be valid, and the other void — simply for that reason.

  Then the femme qui parle (looking back over the parlance) did not mean to say on the first page of this letter that she was ever for a moment vexed in her pride that she should owe anything to her adversities. It was only because adversities are accidents and not essentials. If it had been prosperities, it would have been the same thing — no, not the same thing! — but far worse.

  Occy is up to-day and doing well.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  [Post-mark, October 27, 1845.]

  How does one make ‘silent promises’ ... or, rather, how does the maker of them communicate that fact to whomsoever it may concern? I know, there have been many, very many unutterable vows and promises made, — that is, thought down upon — the white slip at the top of my notes, — such as of this note; and not trusted to the pen, that always comes in for the shame, — but given up, and replaced by the poor forms to which a pen is equal; and a glad minute I should account that, in which you collected and accepted those ‘promises’ — because they would not be all so unworthy of me — much less you! I would receive, in virtue of them, the ascription of whatever worthiness is supposed to lie in deep, truest love, and gratitude —

  Read my silent answer there too!

  All your letter is one comfort: we will be happy this winter, and after, do not fear. I am most happy, to begin, that your brother is so much better: he must be weak and susceptible of cold, remember.

  It was on my lip, I do think, last visit, or the last but one, to beg you to detach those papers from the Athenæum’s gâchis. Certainly this opportunity is most favourable, for every reason: you cannot hesitate, surely. At present those papers are lost — lost for practical purposes. Do pray reply without fail to the proposers; no, no harm of these really fine fellows, who could do harm (by printing incorrect copies, and perhaps eking out the column by suppositious matter ... ex-gr. they strengthened and lengthened a book of Dickens’, in Paris, by adding quant. suff. of Thackeray’s ‘Yellowplush Papers’ ... as I discovered by a Parisian somebody praising the latter to me as Dickens’ best work!) — and who do really a good straightforward un-American thing. You will encourage ‘the day of small things’ — though this is not small, nor likely to have small results. I shall be impatient to hear that you have decided. I like the progress of these Americans in taste, their amazing leaps, like grasshoppers up to the sun — from ... what is the ‘from,’ what depth, do you remember, say, ten or twelve years back? — to — Carlyle, and Tennyson, and you! So children leave off Jack of Cornwall and go on just to Homer.

  I can’t conceive why my proof does not come — I must go to-morrow and see. In the other, I have corrected all the points you noted, to their evident improvement. Yesterday I took out ‘Luria’ and read it through — the skeleton — I shall hope to finish it soon now. It is for a purely imaginary stage, — very simple and straightforward. Would you ... no, Act by Act, as I was about to propose that you should read it; that process would affect the oneness I most wish to preserve.

  On Tuesday — at last, I am with you. Till when be with me ever, dearest — God bless you ever —

  R.B.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Tuesday 9 a.m.

  [In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]

  I got this on coming home last night — have just run through it this morning, and send it that time may not be lost. Faults, faults; but I don’t know how I have got tired of this. The Tragedies will be better, at least the second —

  At 3 this day! Bless you —

  R.B.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  I write in haste, not to lose time about the proof. You will see on the papers here my doubtfulnesses such as they are — but silence swallows up the admirations ... and there is no time. ‘Theocrite’ overtakes that wish of mine which ran on so fast — and the ‘Duchess’ grows and grows the more I look — and ‘Saul’ is noble and must have his full royalty some day. Would it not be well, by the way, to print it in the meanwhile as a fragment confessed ... sowing asterisks at the end. Because as a poem of yours it stands there and wants unity, and people can’t be expected to understand the difference between incompleteness and defect, unless you make a sign. For the new poems — they are full of beauty. You throw largesses out on all sides without counting the coins: how beautiful that ‘Night and Morning’ ... and the ‘Earth’s Immortalities’ ... and the ‘Song’ too. And for your ‘Glove,’ all women should be grateful, — and Ronsard, honoured, in this fresh shower of music on his old grave ... though the chivalry of the interpretation, as well as much beside, is so plainly yours, ... could only be yours perhaps. And even you are forced to let in a third person ... close to the doorway ... before you can do any good. What a noble lion you give us too, with the ‘flash on his forehead,’ and ‘leagues in the desert already’ as we look on him! And then, with what a ‘curious felicity’ you turn the subject ‘glove’ to another use and strike De Lorge’s blow back on him with it, in the last paragraph of your story! And the versification! And the lady’s speech — (to return!) so calm, and proud — yet a little bitter!

  Am I not to thank you for all the pleasure and pride in these poems? while you stand by and try to talk them down, perhaps.

  Tell me how your mother is — tell me how you are ... you who never were to be told twice about walking. Gone the way of all promises, is that promise?

  Ever yours,

  E.B.B.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Wednesday Night.

  [Post-mark, October 30, 1845.]

  Like your kindness — too, far too generous kindness, — all this trouble and correcting, — and it is my proper office now, by this time, to sit still and receive, by right Human (as opposed to Divine). When you see the pamphlet’s self, you will find your own doing, — but where will you find the proofs of the best of all helping and counselling and inciting, unless in new works which shall justify the unsatisfaction, if I may not say shame, at these, these written before your time, my best love?

  Are you doing well to-day? For I feel well, have walked some eight or nine miles — and my mother is very much better ... is singularly better. You know whether you rejoiced me or no by that information about the exercise you had taken yesterday. Think what telling one that you grow stronger would mean!

  ‘Vexatious’ with you! Ah, prudence is all very right, and one ought, no doubt, to say, ‘of course, we shall not expect a life exempt from the usual proportion of &c. &c. — ’ but truth is still more right, and includes the highest prudence besides, and I do believe that we shall be happy; that is, that you will be happy: you see I dare confidently expect the end to it all ... so it has always been with me in my life of wonders — absolute wonders, with God’s hand over all.... And this last and best of all would never have begun so, and gone on so, to break off abruptly even here, in this world, for the little time.

  So try, try, dearest, every method, take every measure of hastening such a consummation. Why, we shall see Italy together! I could, would, will shut myself in four walls of a room with you and never leave you and be most of all then ‘a lord of infinite space’ — but, to travel with you to Italy, or Greece. Very vain, I know that, all such day dreaming! And ungrateful, too; with the real sufficing happiness here of being, and knowing that you know me to be, and suffer me to tell you I am yours, ever your own.

  God bless you, my dearest —

  NOVEMBER, 1845

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  [Post-mark, November 1, 1845.]

&
nbsp; All to-day, Friday, Miss Mitford has been here! She came at two and went away at seven — and I feel as if I had been making a five-hour speech on the corn laws in Harriet Martineau’s parliament; ... so tired I am. Not that dear Miss Mitford did not talk both for me and herself, ... for that, of course she did. But I was forced to answer once every ten minutes at least — and Flush, my usual companion, does not exact so much — and so I am tired and come to rest myself on this paper. Your name was not once spoken to-day; a little from my good fencing: when I saw you at the end of an alley of associations, I pushed the conversation up the next — because I was afraid of questions such as every moment I expected, with a pair of woman’s eyes behind them; and those are worse than Mr. Kenyon’s, when he puts on his spectacles. So your name was not once spoken — not thought of, I do not say — perhaps when I once lost her at Chevy Chase and found her suddenly with Isidore the queen’s hairdresser, my thoughts might have wandered off to you and your unanswered letter while she passed gradually from that to this — I am not sure of the contrary. And Isidore, they say, reads Béranger, and is supposed to be the most literary person at court — and wasn’t at Chevy Chase one must needs think.

  One must needs write nonsense rather — for I have written it there. The sense and the truth is, that your letter went to the bottom of my heart, and that my thoughts have turned round it ever since and through all the talking to-day. Yes indeed, dreams! But what is not dreaming is this and this — this reading of these words — this proof of this regard — all this that you are to me in fact, and which you cannot guess the full meaning of, dramatic poet as you are ... cannot ... since you do not know what my life meant before you touched it, ... and my angel at the gate of the prison! My wonder is greater than your wonders, ... I who sate here alone but yesterday, so weary of my own being that to take interest in my very poems I had to lift them up by an effort and separate them from myself and cast them out from me into the sunshine where I was not — feeling nothing of the light which fell on them even — making indeed a sort of pleasure and interest about that factitious personality associated with them ... but knowing it to be all far on the outside of me ... myself ... not seeming to touch it with the end of my finger ... and receiving it as a mockery and a bitterness when people persisted in confounding one with another. Morbid it was if you like it — perhaps very morbid — but all these heaps of letters which go into the fire one after the other, and which, because I am a woman and have written verses, it seems so amusing to the letter-writers of your sex to write and see ‘what will come of it,’ ... some, from kind good motives I know, ... well, ... how could it all make for me even such a narrow strip of sunshine as Flush finds on the floor sometimes, and lays his nose along, with both ears out in the shadow? It was not for me ... me ... in any way: it was not within my reach — I did not seem to touch it as I said. Flush came nearer, and I was grateful to him ... yes, grateful ... for not being tired! I have felt grateful and flattered ... yes flattered ... when he has chosen rather to stay with me all day than go down-stairs. Grateful too, with reason, I have been and am to my own family for not letting me see that I was a burthen. These are facts. And now how am I to feel when you tell me what you have told me — and what you ‘could would and will’ do, and shall not do?... but when you tell me?

  Only remember that such words make you freer and freer — if you can be freer than free — just as every one makes me happier and richer — too rich by you, to claim any debt. May God bless you always. When I wrote that letter to let you come the first time, do you know, the tears ran down my cheeks.... I could not tell why: partly it might be mere nervousness. And then, I was vexed with you for wishing to come as other people did, and vexed with myself for not being able to refuse you as I did them.

  When does the book come out? Not on the first, I begin to be glad.

  Ever yours,

  E.B.B.

  I trust that you go on to take exercise — and that your mother is still better. Occy’s worst symptom now is too great an appetite ... a monster-appetite indeed.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Tuesday.

  [Post-mark, November 4, 1845.]

  Only a word to tell you Moxon promises the books for to-morrow, Wednesday — so towards evening yours will reach you — ’parve liber, sine me ibis’ ... would I were by you, then and ever! You see, and know, and understand why I can neither talk to you, nor write to you now, as we are now; — from the beginning, the personal interest absorbed every other, greater or smaller — but as one cannot well, — or should not, — sit quite silently, the words go on, about Horne, or what chances — while you are in my thought.

  But when I have you ... so it seems ... in my very heart; when you are entirely with me — oh, the day — then it will all go better, talk and writing too.

  Love me, my own love; not as I love you — not for — but I cannot write that. Nor do I ask anything, with all your gifts here, except for the luxury of asking. Withdraw nothing, then, dearest, from your

  R.B.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Wednesday.

  [Post-mark, November 6, 1845.]

  I had your note last night, and am waiting for the book to-day; a true living breathing book, let the writer say of it what he will. Also when it comes it won’t certainly come ‘sine te.’ Which is my comfort.

  And now — not to make any more fuss about a matter of simple restitution — may I have my letter back?... I mean the letter which if you did not destroy ... did not punish for its sins long and long ago ... belongs to me — which, if destroyed, I must lose for my sins, ... but, if undestroyed, which I may have back; may I not? is it not my own? must I not? — that letter I was made to return and now turn to ask for again in further expiation. Now do I ask humbly enough? And send it at once, if undestroyed — do not wait till Saturday.

  I have considered about Mr. Kenyon and it seems best, in the event of a question or of a remark equivalent to a question, to confess to the visits ‘generally once a week’ ... because he may hear, one, two, three different ways, ... not to say the other reasons and Chaucer’s charge against ‘doubleness.’ I fear ... I fear that he (not Chaucer) will wonder a little — and he has looked at me with scanning spectacles already and talked of its being a mystery to him how you made your way here; and I, who though I can bespeak self-command, have no sort of presence of mind (not so much as one would use to play at Jack straws) did not help the case at all. Well — it cannot be helped. Did I ever tell you what he said of you once — ’that you deserved to be a poet — being one in your heart and life:’ he said that of you to me, and I thought it a noble encomium and deserving its application.

  For the rest ... yes: you know I do — God knows I do. Whatever I can feel is for you — and perhaps it is not less, for not being simmered away in too much sunshine as with women accounted happier. I am happy besides now — happy enough to die now.

  May God bless you, dear — dearest —

  Ever I am yours —

  The book does not come — so I shall not wait. Mr. Kenyon came instead, and comes again on Friday he says, and Saturday seems to be clear still.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Just arrived! — (mind, the silent writing overflows the page, and laughs at the black words for Mr. Kenyon to read!) — But your note arrived earlier — more of that, when I write after this dreadful dispatching-business that falls on me — friend A. and B. and C. must get their copy, and word of regard, all by next post! —

  Could you think that that untoward letter lived one moment after it returned to me? I burned it and cried ‘serve it right’! Poor letter, — yet I should have been vexed and offended then to be told I could love you better than I did already. ‘Live and learn!’ Live and love you — dearest, as loves you

  R.B.

  You will write to reassure me about Saturday, if not for other reasons. See your corrections ... and understand that in one or two instances in which they would seem not to be adopted, they are so, by
some modification of the previous, or following line ... as in one of the Sorrento lines ... about a ‘turret’ — see! (Can you give me Horne’s address — I would send then.)

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Thursday Evening.

  [Post-mark, November 7, 1845.]

  I see and know; read and mark; and only hope there is no harm done by my meddling; and lose the sense of it all in the sense of beauty and power everywhere, which nobody could kill, if they took to meddling more even. And now, what will people say to this and this and this — or ‘O seclum insipiens et inficetum!’ or rather, O ungrateful right hand which does not thank you first! I do thank you. I have been reading everything with new delight; and at intervals remembering in inglorious complacency (for which you must try to forgive me) that Mr. Forster is no longer anything like an enemy. And yet (just see what contradiction!) the British Quarterly has been abusing me so at large, that I can only take it to be the achievement of a very particular friend indeed, — of someone who positively never reviewed before and tries his new sword on me out of pure friendship. Only I suppose it is not the general rule, and that there are friends ‘with a difference.’ Not that you are to fancy me pained — oh no! — merely surprised. I was prepared for anything almost from the quarter in question, but scarcely for being hung ‘to the crows’ so publicly ... though within the bounds of legitimate criticisms, mind. But oh — the creatures of your sex are not always magnanimous — that is true. And to put you between me and all ... the thought of you ... in a great eclipse of the world ... that is happy ... only, too happy for such as I am; as my own heart warns me hour by hour.