Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  It is a very poor answer! Almost as poor an answer as yours could be if I were to ask you to teach me to please you always; or rather, how not to displease you, disappoint you, vex you — what if all those things were in my fate?

  And — (to begin!) — I am disappointed to-night. I expected a letter which does not come — and I had felt so sure of having a letter to-night ... unreasonably sure perhaps, which means doubly sure.

  Friday. — Remember you have had two notes of mine, and that it is certainly not my turn to write, though I am writing.

  Scarcely you had gone on Wednesday when Mr. Kenyon came. It seemed best to me, you know, that you should go — I had the presentiment of his footsteps — and so near they were, that if you had looked up the street in leaving the door, you must have seen him! Of course I told him of your having been here and also at his house; whereupon he enquired eagerly if you meant to dine with him, seeming disappointed by my negative. ‘Now I had told him,’ he said ... and murmured on to himself loud enough for me to hear, that ‘it would have been a peculiar pleasure &c.’ The reason I have not seen him lately is the eternal ‘business,’ just as you thought, and he means to come ‘oftener now,’ so nothing is wrong as I half thought.

  As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking what sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most particularly admire — sulkiness? — the divine gift of sitting aloof in a cloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps — pettishness? ... which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one either? obstinacy? — which is an agreeable form of temper I can assure you, and describes itself — or the good open passion which lies on the floor and kicks, like one of my cousins? — Certainly I prefer the last, and should, I think, prefer it (as an evil), even if it were not the born weakness of my own nature — though I humbly confess (to you, who seem to think differently of these things) that never since I was a child have I upset all the chairs and tables and thrown the books about the room in a fury — I am afraid I do not even ‘kick,’ like my cousin, now. Those demonstrations were all done by the ‘light of other days’ — not a very full light, I used to be accustomed to think: — but you, — you think otherwise, you take a fury to be the opposite of ‘indifference,’ as if there could be no such thing as self-control! Now for my part, I do believe that the worst-tempered persons in the world are less so through sensibility than selfishness — they spare nobody’s heart, on the ground of being themselves pricked by a straw. Now see if it isn’t so. What, after all, is a good temper but generosity in trifles — and what, without it, is the happiness of life? We have only to look round us. I saw a woman, once, burst into tears, because her husband cut the bread and butter too thick. I saw that with my own eyes. Was it sensibility, I wonder! They were at least real tears and ran down her cheeks. ‘You always do it’! she said.

  Why how you must sympathize with the heroes and heroines of the French romances (do you sympathize with them very much?) when at the slightest provocation they break up the tables and chairs, (a degree beyond the deeds of my childhood! — I only used to upset them) break up the tables and chairs and chiffoniers, and dash the china to atoms. The men do the furniture, and the women the porcelain: and pray observe that they always set about this as a matter of course! When they have broken everything in the room, they sink down quite (and very naturally) abattus. I remember a particular case of a hero of Frederic Soulié’s, who, in the course of an ‘emotion,’ takes up a chair unconsciously, and breaks it into very small pieces, and then proceeds with his soliloquy. Well! — the clearest idea this excites in me, is of the low condition in Paris, of moral government and of upholstery. Because — just consider for yourself — how you would succeed in breaking to pieces even a three-legged stool if it were properly put together — as stools are in England — just yourself, without a hammer and a screw! You might work at it comme quatre, and find it hard to finish, I imagine. And then as a demonstration, a child of six years old might demonstrate just so (in his sphere) and be whipped accordingly.

  How I go on writing! — and you, who do not write at all! — two extremes, one set against the other.

  But I must say, though in ever such an ill temper (which you know is just the time to select for writing a panegyric upon good temper) that I am glad you do not despise my own right name too much, because I never was called Elizabeth by any one who loved me at all, and I accept the omen. So little it seems my name that if a voice said suddenly ‘Elizabeth,’ I should as soon turn round as my sisters would ... no sooner. Only, my own right name has been complained of for want of euphony ... Ba ... now and then it has — and Mr. Boyd makes a compromise and calls me Elibet, because nothing could induce him to desecrate his organs accustomed to Attic harmonies, with a Ba. So I am glad, and accept the omen.

  But I give you no credit for not thinking that I may forget you ... I! As if you did not see the difference! Why, I could not even forget to write to you, observe! —

  Whenever you write, say how you are. Were you wet on Wednesday?

  Your own —

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Saturday.

  [Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]

  I do not, nor will not think, dearest, of ever ‘making you happy’ — I can imagine no way of working that end, which does not go straight to my own truest, only true happiness — yet in every such effort there is implied some distinction, some supererogatory grace, or why speak of it at all? You it is, are my happiness, and all that ever can be: you — dearest!

  But never, if you would not, what you will not do I know, never revert to that frightful wish. ‘Disappoint me?’ ‘I speak what I know and testify what I have seen’ — you shall ‘mystery’ again and again — I do not dispute that, but do not you dispute, neither, that mysteries are. But it is simply because I do most justice to the mystical part of what I feel for you, because I consent to lay most stress on that fact of facts that I love you, beyond admiration, and respect, and esteem and affection even, and do not adduce any reason which stops short of accounting for that, whatever else it would account for, because I do this, in pure logical justice — you are able to turn and wonder (if you do ... now) what causes it all! My love, only wait, only believe in me, and it cannot be but I shall, little by little, become known to you — after long years, perhaps, but still one day: I would say this now — but I will write more to-morrow. God bless my sweetest — ever, love, I am your

  R.B.

  But my letter came last night, did it not?

  Another thing — no, to-morrow — for time presses, and, in all cases, Tuesday — remember!

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Saturday.

  [Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]

  I have your letter now, and now I am sorry I sent mine. If I wrote that you had ‘forgotten to write,’ I did not mean it; not a word! If I had meant it I should not have written it. But it would have been better for every reason to have waited just a little longer before writing at all. A besetting sin of mine is an impatience which makes people laugh when it does not entangle their silks, pull their knots tighter, and tear their books in cutting them open.

  How right you are about Mr. Lowell! He has a refined fancy and is graceful for an American critic, but the truth is, otherwise, that he knows nothing of English poetry or the next thing to nothing, and has merely had a dream of the early dramatists. The amount of his reading in that direction is an article in the Retrospective Review which contains extracts; and he re-extracts the extracts, re-quotes the quotations, and, ‘a pede Herculem,’ from the foot infers the man, or rather from the sandal-string of the foot, infers and judges the soul of the man — it is comparative anatomy under the most speculative conditions. How a writer of his talents and pretensions could make up his mind to make up a book on such slight substratum, is a curious proof of the state of literature in America. Do you not think so? Why a lecturer on the English Dramatists for a ‘Young Ladies’ academy’ here in England,
might take it to be necessary to have better information than he could gather from an odd volume of an old review! And then, Mr. Lowell’s naïveté in showing his authority, — as if the Elizabethan poets lay mouldering in inaccessible manuscript somewhere below the lowest deep of Shakespeare’s grave, — is curious beyond the rest! Altogether, the fact is an epigram on the surface-literature of America. As you say, their books do not suit us: — Mrs. Markham might as well send her compendium of the History of France to M. Thiers. If they knew more they could not give parsley crowns to their own native poets when there is greater merit among the rabbits. Mrs. Sigourney has just sent me — just this morning — her ‘Scenes in my Native Land’ and, peeping between the uncut leaves, I read of the poet Hillhouse, of ‘sublime spirit and Miltonic energy,’ standing in ‘the temple of Fame’ as if it were built on purpose for him. I suppose he is like most of the American poets, who are shadows of the true, as flat as a shadow, as colourless as a shadow, as lifeless and as transitory. Mr. Lowell himself is, in his verse-books, poetical, if not a poet — and certainly this little book we are talking of is grateful enough in some ways — you would call it a pretty book — would you not? Two or three letters I have had from him ... all very kind! — and that reminds me, alas! of some ineffable ingratitude on my own part! When one’s conscience grows too heavy, there is nothing for it but to throw it away! —

  Do you remember how I tried to tell you what he said of you, and how you would not let me?

  Mr. Mathews said of him, having met him once in society, that he was the concentration of conceit in appearance and manner. But since then they seem to be on better terms.

  Where is the meaning, pray, of E.B.C.? your meaning, I mean?

  My true initials are E.B.M.B. — my long name, as opposed to my short one, being Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett! — there’s a full length to take away one’s breath! — Christian name ... Elizabeth Barrett: — surname, Moulton Barrett. So long it is, that to make it portable, I fell into the habit of doubling it up and packing it closely, ... and of forgetting that I was a Moulton, altogether. One might as well write the alphabet as all four initials. Yet our family-name is Moulton Barrett, and my brothers reproach me sometimes for sacrificing the governorship of an old town in Norfolk with a little honourable verdigris from the Heralds’ Office. As if I cared for the Retrospective Review! Nevertheless it is true that I would give ten towns in Norfolk (if I had them) to own some purer lineage than that of the blood of the slave! Cursed we are from generation to generation! — I seem to hear the ‘Commination Service.’

  May God bless you always, always! beyond the always of this world! —

  Your

  E.B.B.

  Mr. Dickens’s ‘Cricket’ sings repetitions, and, with considerable beauty, is extravagant. It does not appear to me by any means one of his most successful productions, though quite free from what was reproached as bitterness and one-sidedness, last year.

  You do not say how you are — not a word! And you are wrong in saying that you ‘ought to have written’ — as if ‘ought’ could be in place so! You never ‘ought’ to write to me you know! or rather ... if you ever think you ought, you ought not! Which is a speaking of mysteries on my part!

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Sunday Night.

  [Post-mark, December 22, 1845.]

  Now, ‘ought’ you to be ‘sorry you sent that letter,’ which made, and makes me so happy — so happy — can you bring yourself to turn round and tell one you have so blessed with your bounty that there was a mistake, and you meant only half that largess? If you are not sensible that you do make me most happy by such letters, and do not warm in the reflection of your own rays, then I do give up indeed the last chance of procuring you happiness. My own ‘ought,’ which you object to, shall be withdrawn — being only a pure bit of selfishness; I felt, in missing the letter of yours, next day, that I might have drawn it down by one of mine, — if I had begged never so gently, the gold would have fallen — there was my omitted duty to myself which you properly blame. I should stand silently and wait and be sure of the ever-remembering goodness.

  Let me count my gold now — and rub off any speck that stays the full shining. First — that thought ... I told you; I pray you, pray you, sweet — never that again — or what leads never so remotely or indirectly to it! On your own fancied ground, the fulfilment would be of necessity fraught with every woe that can fall in this life. I am yours for ever — if you are not here, with me — what then? Say, you take all of yourself away but just enough to live on; then, that defeats every kind purpose ... as if you cut away all the ground from my feet but so much as serves for bare standing room ... why still, I stand there — and is it the better that I have no broader space, when off that you cannot force me? I have your memory, the knowledge of you, the idea of you printed into my heart and brain, — on that, I can live my life — but it is for you, the dear, utterly generous creature I know you, to give me more and more beyond mere life — to extend life and deepen it — as you do, and will do. Oh, how I love you when I think of the entire truthfulness of your generosity to me — how, meaning and willing to give, you gave nobly! Do you think I have not seen in this world how women who do love will manage to confer that gift on occasion? And shall I allow myself to fancy how much alloy such pure gold as your love would have rendered endurable? Yet it came, virgin ore, to complete my fortune! And what but this makes me confident and happy? Can I take a lesson by your fancies, and begin frightening myself with saying ... ‘But if she saw all the world — the worthier, better men there ... those who would’ &c. &c. No, I think of the great, dear gift that it was; how I ‘won’ nothing (the hateful word, and French thought) — did nothing by my own arts or cleverness in the matter ... so what pretence have the more artful or more clever for: — but I cannot write out this folly — I am yours for ever, with the utmost sense of gratitude — to say I would give you my life joyfully is little.... I would, I hope, do that for two or three other people — but I am not conscious of any imaginable point in which I would not implicitly devote my whole self to you — be disposed of by you as for the best. There! It is not to be spoken of — let me live it into proof, beloved!

  And for ‘disappointment and a burden’ ... now — let us get quite away from ourselves, and not see one of the filaments, but only the cords of love with the world’s horny eye. Have we such jarring tastes, then? Does your inordinate attachment to gay life interfere with my deep passion for society? ‘Have they common sympathy in each other’s pursuits?’ — always asks Mrs. Tomkins! Well, here was I when you knew me, fixed in my way of life, meaning with God’s help to write what may be written and so die at peace with myself so far. Can you help me or no? Do you not help me so much that, if you saw the more likely peril for poor human nature, you would say, ‘He will be jealous of all the help coming from me, — none from him to me!’ — And that would be a consequence of the help, all-too-great for hope of return, with any one less possessed than I with the exquisiteness of being transcended and the blest one.

  But — ’here comes the Selah and the voice is hushed’ — I will speak of other things. When we are together one day — the days I believe in — I mean to set about that reconsidering ‘Sordello’ — it has always been rather on my mind — but yesterday I was reading the ‘Purgatorio’ and the first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one struck me with a new significance, as well describing the man and his purpose and fate in my own poem — see; one of the burthened, contorted souls tells Virgil and Dante —

  Noi fummo già tutti per forza morti,

  E peccatori infin’ all’ ultim’ ora:

  Quivi — lume del ciel ne fece accorti

  Si chè, pentendo e perdonando, fora

  Di vita uscimmo a Dio pacificati

  Che del disio di se veder n’accora.23

  Which is just my Sordello’s story ... could I ‘do’ it off hand, I wonder —

  And sinners were we to the extreme ho
ur;

  Then, light from heaven fell, making us aware,

  So that, repenting us and pardoned, out

  Of life we passed to God, at peace with Him

  Who fills the heart with yearning Him to see.

  There were many singular incidents attending my work on that subject — thus, quite at the end, I found out there was printed and not published, a little historical tract by a Count V — — something, called ‘Sordello’ — with the motto ‘Post fata resurgam’! I hope he prophesied. The main of this — biographical notices — is extracted by Muratori, I think. Last year when I set foot in Naples I found after a few minutes that at some theatre, that night, the opera was to be ‘one act of Sordello’ and I never looked twice, nor expended a couple of carlines on the libretto!

  I wanted to tell you, in last letter, that when I spoke of people’s tempers you have no concern with ‘people’ — I do not glance obliquely at your temper — either to discover it, or praise it, or adapt myself to it. I speak of the relation one sees in other cases — how one opposes passionate foolish people, but hates cold clever people who take quite care enough of themselves. I myself am born supremely passionate — so I was born with light yellow hair: all changes — that is the passion changes its direction and, taking a channel large enough, looks calmer, perhaps, than it should — and all my sympathies go with quiet strength, of course — but I know what the other kind is. As for the breakages of chairs, and the appreciation of Parisian meubles; manibus, pedibusque descendo in tuam sententiam, Ba, mi ocelle! (‘What was E.B. C?’ why, the first letter after, and not, E.B. B, my own B! There was no latent meaning in the C — but I had no inclination to go on to D, or E, for instance).