Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  And the end of the whole matter is — what? Not by any means what my Ba expects or ought to expect; that I say with a flounce ‘Catch me blotting down on paper, again, the first vague impressions in the weakest words and being sure I have only to bid her “understand”! — when I can get “Blair on Rhetoric,” and the additional chapter on the proper conduct of a letter’! On the contrary I tell you, Ba, my own heart’s dearest, I will provoke you tenfold worse; will tell you all that comes uppermost, and what frightens me or reassures me, in moments lucid or opaque — and when all the pen-stumps and holders refuse to open the lock, out will come the key perforce; and once put that knowledge — of the entire love and worship of my heart and soul — to its proper use, and all will be clear — tell me to-morrow that it will be clear when I call you to account and exact strict payment for every word and phrase and full-stop and partial stop, and no stop at all, in this wicked little note which got so treacherously the kisses and the thankfulness — written with no penholder that is to belong to me, I hope — but with the feather, possibly, which Sycorax wiped the dew from, as Caliban remembered when he was angry! All but — (that is, all was wrong but) — to be just ... the old, dear, so dear ending which makes my heart beat now as at first ... and so, pays for all! Wherefore, all is right again, is it not? and you are my own priceless Ba, my very own — and I will have you, if you like that style, and want you, and must have you every day and all day long — much less see you to-morrow stand —

  ... Now, there breaks down my new spirit — and, shame or no, I must pray you, in the old way, not to receive me standing — I should not remain master of myself I do believe!

  You have put out of my head all I intended to write — and now I slowly begin to remember the matters they seem strangely unimportant — that poor impotency of a Newspaper! No — nothing of that for the present. To-morrow my dearest! Ba’s first comment — ’To-morrow? To-day is too soon, it seems — yet it is wise, perhaps, to avoid the satiety &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.’

  Does she feel how I kissed that comment back on her dear self as fit punishment?

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  [Post-mark, January 26, 1846.]

  I must begin by invoking my own stupidity! To forget after all the penholder! I had put it close beside me too on the table, and never once thought of it afterwards from first to last — just as I should do if I had a common-place book, the memoranda all turning to obliviscenda as by particular contact. So I shall send the holder with Miss Martineau’s books which you can read or not as you like ... they have beauty in passages ... but, trained up against the wall of a set design, want room for branching and blossoming, great as her skill is. I like her ‘Playfellow’ stories twice as well. Do you know them? Written for children, and in such a fine heroic child-spirit as to be too young and too old for nobody. Oh, and I send you besides a most frightful extract from an American magazine sent to me yesterday ... no, the day before ... on the subject of mesmerism — and you are to understand, if you please, that the Mr. Edgar Poe who stands committed in it, is my dedicator ... whose dedication I forgot, by the way, with the rest — so, while I am sending, you shall have his poems with his mesmeric experience and decide whether the outrageous compliment to E.B.B. or the experiment on M. Vandeleur [Valdemar] goes furthest to prove him mad. There is poetry in the man, though, now and then, seen between the great gaps of bathos.... ‘Politian’ will make you laugh — as the ‘Raven’ made me laugh, though with something in it which accounts for the hold it took upon people such as Mr. N.P. Willis and his peers — it was sent to me from four different quarters besides the author himself, before its publication in this form, and when it had only a newspaper life. Some of the other lyrics have power of a less questionable sort. For the author, I do not know him at all — never heard from him nor wrote to him — and in my opinion, there is more faculty shown in the account of that horrible mesmeric experience (mad or not mad) than in his poems. Now do read it from the beginning to the end. That ‘going out’ of the hectic, struck me very much ... and the writhing away of the upper lip. Most horrible! — Then I believe so much of mesmerism, as to give room for the full acting of the story on me ... without absolutely giving full credence to it, understand.

  Ever dearest, you could not think me in earnest in that letter? It was because I understood you so perfectly that I felt at liberty for the jesting a little — for had I not thought of that before, myself, and was I not reproved for speaking of it, when I said that I was content, for my part, even so? Surely you remember — and I should not have said it if I had not felt with you, felt and known, that ‘there is, with us, less for the future to give or take away than in the ordinary cases.’ So much less! All the happiness I have known has come to me through you, and it is enough to live for or die in — therefore living or dying I would thank God, and use that word ‘enough’ ... being yours in life and death. And always understanding that if either of us should go, you must let it be this one here who was nearly gone when she knew you, since I could not bear —

  Now see if it is possible to write on this subject, unless one laughs to stop the tears. I was more wise on Friday.

  Let me tell you instead of my sister’s affairs, which are so publicly talked of in this house that there is no confidence to be broken in respect to them — yet my brothers only see and hear, and are told nothing, to keep them as clear as possible from responsibility. I may say of Henrietta that her only fault is, her virtues being written in water — I know not of one other fault. She has too much softness to be able to say ‘no’ in the right place — and thus, without the slightest levity ... perfectly blameless in that respect, ... she says half a yes or a quarter of a yes, or a yes in some sort of form, too often — but I will tell you. Two years ago, three men were loving her, as they called it. After a few months, and the proper quantity of interpretations, one of them consoled himself by giving nick-names to his rivals. Perseverance and Despair he called them, and so, went up to the boxes to see out the rest of the play. Despair ran to a crisis, was rejected in so many words, but appealed against the judgment and had his claim admitted — it was all silence and mildness on each side ... a tacit gaining of ground, — Despair ‘was at least a gentleman,’ said my brothers. On which Perseverance came on with violent re-iterations, — insisted that she loved him without knowing it, or should — elbowed poor Despair into the open streets, who being a gentleman wouldn’t elbow again — swore that ‘if she married another he would wait till she became a widow, trusting to Providence’ ... did wait every morning till the head of the house was out, and sate day by day, in spite of the disinclination of my sisters and the rudeness of all my brothers, four hours in the drawing-room ... let himself be refused once a week and sate all the longer ... allowed everybody in the house (and a few visitors) to see and hear him in fits of hysterical sobbing, and sate on unabashed, the end being that he sits now sole regnant, my poor sister saying softly, with a few tears of remorse for her own instability, that she is ‘taken by storm and cannot help it.’ I give you only the résumé of this military movement — and though I seem to smile, which it was impossible to avoid at some points of the evidence as I heard it from first one person and then another, yet I am woman enough rather to be glad that the decision is made so. He is sincerely attached to her, I believe; and the want of refinement and sensibility (for he understood her affections to be engaged to another at one time) is covered in a measure by the earnestness, — and justified too by the event — everybody being quite happy and contented, even to Despair, who has a new horse and takes lessons in music.

  That’s love — is it not? And that’s my answer (if you look for it) to the question you asked me yesterday.

  Yet do not think that I am turning it all to game. I could not do so with any real earnest sentiment ... I never could ... and now least, and with my own sister whom I love so. One may smile to oneself and yet wish another well — and so I smile to you — and it is all safe with you I know. He is a secon
d or third cousin of ours and has golden opinions from all his friends and fellow-officers — and for the rest, most of these men are like one another.... I never could see the difference between fuller’s earth and common clay, among them all.

  What do you think he has said since — to her too? — ’I always persevere about everything. Once I began to write a farce — which they told me was as bad as could be. Well! — I persevered! — I finished it.’ Perfectly unconscious, both he and she were of there being anything mal à propos in that — and no kind of harm was meant, — only it expresses the man.

  Dearest — it had better be Thursday I think — our day! I was showing to-day your father’s drawings, — and my brothers, and Arabel besides, admired them very much on the right grounds. Say how you are. You did not seem to me to answer frankly this time, and I was more than half uneasy when you went away. Take exercise, dear, dearest ... think of me enough for it, — and do not hurry ‘Luria.’ May God bless you!

  Your own

  Ba.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Sunday Evening.

  [Post-mark, January 26, 1846.]

  I will not try and write much to-night, dearest, for my head gives a little warning — and I have so much to think of! — spite of my penholder being kept back from me after all! Now, ought I to have asked for it? Or did I not seem grateful enough at the promise? This last would be a characteristic reason, seeing that I reproached myself with feeling too grateful for the ‘special symbol’ — the ‘essential meaning’ of which was already in my soul. Well then, I will — I do pray for it — next time; and I will keep it for that one yesterday and all its memories — and it shall bear witness against me, if, on the Siren’s isle, I grow forgetful of Wimpole Street. And when is ‘next time’ to be — Wednesday or Thursday? When I look back on the strangely steady widening of my horizon — how no least interruption has occurred to visits or letters — oh, care you, sweet — care for us both!

  That remark of your sister’s delights me — you remember? — that the anger would not be so formidable. I have exactly the fear of encountering that, which the sense of having to deal with a ghost would induce: there’s no striking at it with one’s partizan. Well, God is above all! It is not my fault if it so happens that by returning my love you make me exquisitely blessed; I believe — more than hope, I am sure I should do all I ever now can do, if you were never to know it — that is, my love for you was in the first instance its own reward — if one must use such phrases — and if it were possible for that ... not anger, which is of no good, but that opposition — that adverse will — to show that your good would be attained by the —

  But it would need to be shown to me. You have said thus to me — in the very last letter, indeed. But with me, or any man, the instincts of happiness develop themselves too unmistakably where there is anything like a freedom of will. The man whose heart is set on being rich or influential after the worldly fashion, may be found far enough from the attainment of either riches or influence — but he will be in the presumed way to them — pumping at the pump, if he is really anxious for water, even though the pump be dry — but not sitting still by the dusty roadside.

  I believe — first of all, you — but when that is done, and I am allowed to call your heart mine, — I cannot think you would be happy if parted from me — and that belief, coming to add to my own feeling in that case. So, this will be — I trust in God.

  In life, in death, I am your own, my own! My head has got well already! It is so slight a thing, that I make such an ado about! Do not reply to these bodings — they are gone — they seem absurd! All steps secured but the last, and that last the easiest! Yes — far easiest! For first you had to be created, only that; and then, in my time; and then, not in Timbuctoo but Wimpole Street, and then ... the strange hedge round the sleeping Palace keeping the world off — and then ... all was to begin, all the difficulty only begin: — and now ... see where is reached! And I kiss you, and bless you, my dearest, in earnest of the end!

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Monday.

  [Post-mark, January 27, 1846.]

  You have had my letter and heard about the penholder. Your fancy of ‘not seeming grateful enough,’ is not wise enough for you, dearest; when you know that I know your common fault to be the undue magnifying of everything that comes from me, and I am always complaining of it outwardly and inwardly. That suddenly I should set about desiring you to be more grateful, — even for so great a boon as an old penholder, — would be a more astounding change than any to be sought or seen in a prime minister.

  Another mistake you made concerning Henrietta and her opinion — and there’s no use nor comfort in leaving you in it. Henrietta says that the ‘anger would not be so formidable after all’! Poor dearest Henrietta, who trembles at the least bending of the brows ... who has less courage than I, and the same views of the future! What she referred to, was simply the infrequency of the visits. ‘Why was I afraid,’ she said — ’where was the danger? who would be the informer?’ — Well! I will not say any more. It is just natural that you, in your circumstances and associations, should be unable to see what I have seen from the beginning — only you will not hereafter reproach me, in the most secret of your thoughts, for not having told you plainly. If I could have told you with greater plainness I should blame myself (and I do not) because it is not an opinion I have, but a perception. I see, I know. The result ... the end of all ... perhaps now and then I see that too ... in the ‘lucid moments’ which are not the happiest for anybody. Remember, in all cases, that I shall not repent of any part of our past intercourse; and that, therefore, when the time for decision comes, you will be free to look at the question as if you saw it then for the first moment, without being hampered by considerations about ‘all those yesterdays.’

  For him ... he would rather see me dead at his foot than yield the point: and he will say so, and mean it, and persist in the meaning.

  Do you ever wonder at me ... that I should write such things, and have written others so different? I have thought that in myself very often. Insincerity and injustice may seem the two ends, while I occupy the straight betwixt two — and I should not like you to doubt how this may be! Sometimes I have begun to show you the truth, and torn the paper; I could not. Yet now again I am borne on to tell you, ... to save you from some thoughts which you cannot help perhaps.

  There has been no insincerity — nor is there injustice. I believe, I am certain, I have loved him better than the rest of his children. I have heard the fountain within the rock, and my heart has struggled in towards him through the stones of the rock ... thrust off ... dropping off ... turning in again and clinging! Knowing what is excellent in him well, loving him as my only parent left, and for himself dearly, notwithstanding that hardness and the miserable ‘system’ which made him appear harder still, I have loved him and been proud of him for his high qualities, for his courage and fortitude when he bore up so bravely years ago under the worldly reverses which he yet felt acutely — more than you and I could feel them — but the fortitude was admirable. Then came the trials of love — then, I was repulsed too often, ... made to suffer in the suffering of those by my side ... depressed by petty daily sadnesses and terrors, from which it is possible however for an elastic affection to rise again as past. Yet my friends used to say ‘You look broken-spirited’ — and it was true. In the midst, came my illness, — and when I was ill he grew gentler and let me draw nearer than ever I had done: and after that great stroke ... you know ... though that fell in the middle of a storm of emotion and sympathy on my part, which drove clearly against him, God seemed to strike our hearts together by the shock; and I was grateful to him for not saying aloud what I said to myself in my agony, ‘If it had not been for you’...! And comparing my self-reproach to what I imagined his self-reproach must certainly be (for if I had loved selfishly, he had not been kind), I felt as if I could love and forgive him for two ... (I knowing that serene generous departed spirit, and s
eeming left to represent it) ... and I did love him better than all those left to me to love in the world here. I proved a little my affection for him, by coming to London at the risk of my life rather than diminish the comfort of his home by keeping a part of my family away from him. And afterwards for long and long he spoke to me kindly and gently, and of me affectionately and with too much praise; and God knows that I had as much joy as I imagined myself capable of again, in the sound of his footstep on the stairs, and of his voice when he prayed in this room; my best hope, as I have told him since, being, to die beneath his eyes. Love is so much to me naturally — it is, to all women! and it was so much to me to feel sure at last that he loved me — to forget all blame — to pull the weeds up from that last illusion of life: — and this, till the Pisa-business, which threw me off, far as ever, again — farther than ever — when George said ‘he could not flatter me’ and I dared not flatter myself. But do you believe that I never wrote what I did not feel: I never did. And I ask one kindness more ... do not notice what I have written here. Let it pass. We can alter nothing by ever so many words. After all, he is the victim. He isolates himself — and now and then he feels it ... the cold dead silence all round, which is the effect of an incredible system. If he were not stronger than most men, he could not bear it as he does. With such high qualities too! — so upright and honourable — you would esteem him, you would like him, I think. And so ... dearest ... let that be the last word.