Shall I hear from you, I wonder! Oh my vain thoughts, that will not keep you well! And, ever since you have known me, you have been worse — that, you confess! — and what if it should be the crossing of my bad star? You of the ‘Crown’ and the ‘Lyre,’ to seek influences from the ‘chair of Cassiopeia’! I hope she will forgive me for using her name so! I might as well have compared her to a professorship of poetry in the university of Oxford, according to the latest election. You know, the qualification, there, is, — not to be a poet.
How vexatious, yesterday! The stars (talking of them) were out of spherical tune, through the damp weather, perhaps, and that scarlet sun was a sign! First Mr. Chorley! — and last, dear Mr. Kenyon; who will say tiresome things without any provocation. Did you walk with him his way, or did he walk with you yours? or did you only walk down-stairs together?
Write to me! Remember that it is a month to Monday. Think of your very own, who bids God bless you when she prays best for herself! —
E.B.B.
Say particularly how you are — now do not omit it. And will you have Miss Martineau’s books when I can lend them to you? Just at this moment I dare not, because they are reading them here.
Let Mr. Mackay have his full proprietary in his ‘Dead Pan’ — which is quite a different conception of the subject, and executed in blank verse too. I have no claims against him, I am sure!
But for the man! — To call him a poet! A prince and potentate of Commonplaces, such as he is! — I have seen his name in the Athenæum attached to a lyric or two ... poems, correctly called fugitive, — more than usually fugitive — but I never heard before that his hand was in the prose department.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, January 14, 1846.]
Was I in the wrong, dearest, to go away with Mr. Kenyon? I well knew and felt the price I was about to pay — but the thought did occur that he might have been informed my probable time of departure was that of his own arrival — and that he would not know how very soon, alas, I should be obliged to go — so ... to save you any least embarrassment in the world, I got — just that shake of the hand, just that look — and no more! And was it all for nothing, all needless after all? So I said to myself all the way home.
When I am away from you — a crowd of things press on me for utterance — ’I will say them, not write them,’ I think: — when I see you — all to be said seems insignificant, irrelevant, — ’they can be written, at all events’ — I think that too. So, feeling so much, I say so little!
I have just returned from Town and write for the Post — but you mean to write, I trust.
That was not obtained, that promise, to be happy with, as last time!
How are you? — tell me, dearest; a long week is to be waited now!
Bless you, my own, sweetest Ba.
I am wholly your
R.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Thursday.
[Post-mark, January 15, 1846.]
Dearest, dearer to my heart minute by minute, I had no wish to give you pain, God knows. No one can more readily consent to let a few years more or less of life go out of account, — be lost — but as I sate by you, you so full of the truest life, for this world as for the next, — and was struck by the possibility, all that might happen were I away, in the case of your continuing to acquiesce — dearest, it is horrible — could not but speak. If in drawing you, all of you, closer to my heart, I hurt you whom I would — outlive ... yes, — cannot speak here — forgive me, Ba.
My Ba, you are to consider now for me. Your health, your strength, it is all wonderful; that is not my dream, you know — but what all see. Now, steadily care for us both — take time, take counsel if you choose; but at the end tell me what you will do for your part — thinking of me as utterly devoted, soul and body, to you, living wholly in your life, seeing good and ill only as you see, — being yours as your hand is, — or as your Flush, rather. Then I will, on my side, prepare. When I say ‘take counsel’ — I reserve my last right, the man’s right of first speech. I stipulate, too, and require to say my own speech in my own words or by letter — remember! But this living without you is too tormenting now. So begin thinking, — as for Spring, as for a New Year, as for a new life.
I went no farther than the door with Mr. Kenyon. He must see the truth; and — you heard the playful words which had a meaning all the same.
No more of this; only, think of it for me, love!
One of these days I shall write a long letter — on the omitted matters, unanswered questions, in your past letters. The present joy still makes me ungrateful to the previous one; but I remember. We are to live together one day, love!
Will you let Mr. Poe’s book lie on the table on Monday, if you please, that I may read what he does say, with my own eyes? That I meant to ask, too!
How too, too kind you are — how you care for so little that affects me! I am very much better — I went out yesterday, as you found: to-day I shall walk, beside seeing Chorley. And certainly, certainly I would go away for a week, if so I might escape being ill (and away from you) a fortnight; but I am not ill — and will care, as you bid me, beloved! So, you will send, and take all trouble; and all about that crazy Review! Now, you should not! — I will consider about your goodness. I hardly know if I care to read that kind of book just now.
Will you, and must you have ‘Pauline’? If I could pray you to revoke that decision! For it is altogether foolish and not boylike — and I shall, I confess, hate the notion of running over it — yet commented it must be; more than mere correction! I was unluckily precocious — but I had rather you saw real infantine efforts (verses at six years old, and drawings still earlier) than this ambiguous, feverish — Why not wait? When you speak of the ‘Bookseller’ — I smile, in glorious security — having a whole bale of sheets at the house-top. He never knew my name even! — and I withdrew these after a very little time.
And now — here is a vexation. May I be with you (for this once) next Monday, at two instead of three o’clock? Forster’s business with the new Paper obliges him, he says, to restrict his choice of days to Monday next — and give up my part of Monday I will never for fifty Forsters — now, sweet, mind that! Monday is no common day, but leads to a Saturday — and if, as I ask, I get leave to call at 2 — and to stay till 3-1/2 — though I then lose nearly half an hour — yet all will be comparatively well. If there is any difficulty — one word and I re-appoint our party, his and mine, for the day the paper breaks down — not so long to wait, it strikes me!
Now, bless you, my precious Ba — I am your own —
— Your own R.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 17, 1846.]
Our letters have crossed; and, mine being the longest, I have a right to expect another directly, I think. I have been calculating: and it seems to me — now what I am going to say may take its place among the paradoxes, — that I gain most by the short letters. Last week the only long one came last, and I was quite contented that the ‘old friend’ should come to see you on Saturday and make you send me two instead of the single one I looked for: it was a clear gain, the little short note, and the letter arrived all the same. I remember, when I was a child, liking to have two shillings and sixpence better than half a crown — and now it is the same with this fairy money, which will never turn all into pebbles, or beans, whatever the chronicles may say of precedents.
Arabel did tell Mr. Kenyon (she told me) that ‘Mr. Browning would soon go away’ — in reply to an observation of his, that ‘he would not stay as I had company’; and altogether it was better, — the lamp made it look late. But you do not appear in the least remorseful for being tempted of my black devil, my familiar, to ask such questions and leave me under such an impression — ’mens conscia recti’ too!! —
And Mr. Kenyon will not come until next Monday perhaps. How am I? But I am too well to be asked about. Is it not a war
m summer? The weather is as ‘miraculous’ as the rest, I think. It is you who are unwell and make people uneasy, dearest. Say how you are, and promise me to do what is right and try to be better. The walking, the changing of the air, the leaving off Luria ... do what is right, I earnestly beseech you. The other day, I heard of Tennyson being ill again, ... too ill to write a simple note to his friend Mr. Venables, who told George. A little more than a year ago, it would have been no worse a thing to me to hear of your being ill than to hear of his being ill! — How the world has changed since then! To me, I mean.
Did I say that ever ... that ‘I knew you must be tired?’ And it was not even so true as that the coming event threw its shadow before?
Thursday night. — I have begun on another sheet — I could not write here what was in my heart — yet I send you this paper besides to show how I was writing to you this morning. In the midst of it came a female friend of mine and broke the thread — the visible thread, that is.
And now, even now, at this safe eight o’clock, I could not be safe from somebody, who, in her goodnature and my illfortune, must come and sit by me — and when my letter was come — ’why wouldn’t I read it? What wonderful politeness on my part.’ She would not and could not consent to keep me from reading my letter. She would stand up by the fire rather.
No, no, three times no. Brummel got into the carriage before the Regent, ... (didn’t he?) but I persisted in not reading my letter in the presence of my friend. A notice on my punctiliousness may be put down to-night in her ‘private diary.’ I kept the letter in my hand and only read it with those sapient ends of the fingers which the mesmerists make so much ado about, and which really did seem to touch a little of what was inside. Not all, however, happily for me! Or my friend would have seen in my eyes what they did not see.
May God bless you! Did I ever say that I had an objection to read the verses at six years old — or see the drawings either? I am reasonable, you observe! Only, ‘Pauline,’ I must have some day — why not without the emendations? But if you insist on them, I will agree to wait a little — if you promise at last to let me see the book, which I will not show. Some day, then! you shall not be vexed nor hurried for the day — some day. Am I not generous? And I was ‘precocious’ too, and used to make rhymes over my bread and milk when I was nearly a baby ... only really it was mere echo-verse, that of mine, and had nothing of mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. I used to write of virtue with a large ‘V,’ and ‘Oh Muse’ with a harp, and things of that sort. At nine years old I wrote what I called ‘an epic’ — and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which we used to act in the nursery. There was a French ‘hexameter’ tragedy on the subject of Regulus — but I cannot even smile to think of it now, there are so many grave memories — which time has made grave — hung around it. How I remember sitting in ‘my house under the sideboard,’ in the dining-room, concocting one of the soliloquies beginning
Que suis je? autrefois un général Remain:
Maintenant esclave de Carthage je souffre en vain.
Poor Regulus! — Can’t you conceive how fine it must have been altogether? And these were my ‘maturer works,’ you are to understand, ... and ‘the moon was bright at ten o’clock at night’ years before. As to the gods and goddesses, I believed in them all quite seriously, and reconciled them to Christianity, which I believed in too after a fashion, as some greater philosophers have done — and went out one day with my pinafore full of little sticks (and a match from the housemaid’s cupboard) to sacrifice to the blue-eyed Minerva who was my favourite goddess on the whole because she cared for Athens. As soon as I began to doubt about my goddesses, I fell into a vague sort of general scepticism, ... and though I went on saying ‘the Lord’s prayer’ at nights and mornings, and the ‘Bless all my kind friends’ afterwards, by the childish custom ... yet I ended this liturgy with a supplication which I found in ‘King’s Memoirs’ and which took my fancy and met my general views exactly.... ‘O God, if there be a God, save my soul if I have a soul.’ Perhaps the theology of many thoughtful children is scarcely more orthodox than this: but indeed it is wonderful to myself sometimes how I came to escape, on the whole, as well as I have done, considering the commonplaces of education in which I was set, with strength and opportunity for breaking the bonds all round into liberty and license. Papa used to say ... ‘Don’t read Gibbon’s history — it’s not a proper book. Don’t read “Tom Jones” — and none of the books on this side, mind!’ So I was very obedient and never touched the books on that side, and only read instead Tom Paine’s ‘Age of Reason,’ and Voltaire’s ‘Philosophical Dictionary,’ and Hume’s ‘Essays,’ and Werther, and Rousseau, and Mary Wollstonecraft ... books, which I was never suspected of looking towards, and which were not ‘on that side’ certainly, but which did as well.
How I am writing! — And what are the questions you did not answer? I shall remember them by the answers I suppose — but your letters always have a fulness to me and I never seem to wish for what is not in them.
But this is the end indeed.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Night.
[In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]
Ever dearest — how you can write touching things to me; and how my whole being vibrates, as a string, to these! How have I deserved from God and you all that I thank you for? Too unworthy I am of all! Only, it was not, dearest beloved, what you feared, that was ‘horrible,’ it was what you supposed, rather! It was a mistake of yours. And now we will not talk of it any more.
Friday morning. — For the rest, I will think as you desire: but I have thought a great deal, and there are certainties which I know; and I hope we both are aware that nothing can be more hopeless than our position in some relations and aspects, though you do not guess perhaps that the very approach to the subject is shut up by dangers, and that from the moment of a suspicion entering one mind, we should be able to meet never again in this room, nor to have intercourse by letter through the ordinary channel. I mean, that letters of yours, addressed to me here, would infallibly be stopped and destroyed — if not opened. Therefore it is advisable to hurry on nothing — on these grounds it is advisable. What should I do if I did not see you nor hear from you, without being able to feel that it was for your happiness? What should I do for a month even? And then, I might be thrown out of the window or its equivalent — I look back shuddering to the dreadful scenes in which poor Henrietta was involved who never offended as I have offended ... years ago which seem as present as to-day. She had forbidden the subject to be referred to until that consent was obtained — and at a word she gave up all — at a word. In fact she had no true attachment, as I observed to Arabel at the time — a child never submitted more meekly to a revoked holiday. Yet how she was made to suffer. Oh, the dreadful scenes! and only because she had seemed to feel a little. I told you, I think, that there was an obliquity — an eccentricity, or something beyond — on one class of subjects. I hear how her knees were made to ring upon the floor, now! she was carried out of the room in strong hysterics, and I, who rose up to follow her, though I was quite well at that time and suffered only by sympathy, fell flat down upon my face in a fainting-fit. Arabel thought I was dead.
I have tried to forget it all — but now I must remember — and throughout our intercourse I have remembered. It is necessary to remember so much as to avoid such evils as are inevitable, and for this reason I would conceal nothing from you. Do you remember, besides, that there can be no faltering on my ‘part,’ and that, if I should remain well, which is not proved yet, I will do for you what you please and as you please to have it done. But there is time for considering!
Only ... as you speak of ‘counsel,’ I will take courage to tell you that my sisters know, Arabel is in most of my confidences, and being often in the room with me, taxed me with the truth long ago — she saw that I was affected from some cause — and I told her. We are as safe with both of them as poss
ible ... and they thoroughly understand that if there should be any change it would not be your fault.... I made them understand that thoroughly. From themselves I have received nothing but the most smiling words of kindness and satisfaction (I thought I might tell you so much), they have too much tenderness for me to fail in it now. My brothers, it is quite necessary not to draw into a dangerous responsibility. I have felt that from the beginning, and shall continue to feel it — though I hear and can observe that they are full of suspicions and conjectures, which are never unkindly expressed. I told you once that we held hands the faster in this house for the weight over our heads. But the absolute knowledge would be dangerous for my brothers: with my sisters it is different, and I could not continue to conceal from them what they had under their eyes; and then, Henrietta is in a like position. It was not wrong of me to let them know it? — no?
Yet of what consequence is all this to the other side of the question? What, if you should give pain and disappointment where you owe such pure gratitude. But we need not talk of these things now. Only you have more to consider than I, I imagine, while the future comes on.
Dearest, let me have my way in one thing: let me see you on Tuesday instead of on Monday — on Tuesday at the old hour. Be reasonable and consider. Tuesday is almost as near as the day before it; and on Monday, I shall be hurried at first, lest Papa should be still in the house, (no harm, but an excuse for nervousness: and I can’t quote a noble Roman as you can, to the praise of my conscience!) and you will be hurried at last, lest you should not be in time for Mr. Forster. On the other hand, I will not let you be rude to the Daily News, ... no, nor to the Examiner. Come on Tuesday, then, instead of Monday, and let us have the usual hours in a peaceable way, — and if there is no obstacle, — that is, if Mr. Kenyon or some equivalent authority should not take note of your being here on Tuesday, why you can come again on the Saturday afterwards — I do not see the difficulty. Are we agreed? On Tuesday, at three o’clock. Consider, besides, that the Monday arrangement would hurry you in every manner, and leave you fagged for the evening — no, I will not hear of it. Not on my account, not on yours!
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 348