One thing vexed me in your letter — I will tell you, the praise of my letters. Now, one merit they have — in language mystical — that of having no merit. If I caught myself trying to write finely, graphically &c. &c., nay, if I found myself conscious of having in my own opinion, so written, all would be over! yes, over! I should be respecting you inordinately, paying a proper tribute to your genius, summoning the necessary collectedness, — plenty of all that! But the feeling with which I write to you, not knowing that it is writing, — with you, face and mouth and hair and eyes opposite me, touching me, knowing that all is as I say, and helping out the imperfect phrases from your own intuition — that would be gone — and what in its place? ‘Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we write to Ambleside.’ No, no, love, nor can it ever be so, nor should it ever be so if — even if, preserving all that intimate relation, with the carelessness, still, somehow, was obtained with no effort in the world, graphic writing and philosophic and what you please — for I will be — would be, better than my works and words with an infinite stock beyond what I put into convenient circulation whether in fine speeches fit to remember, or fine passages to quote. For the rest, I had meant to tell you before now, that you often put me ‘in a maze’ when you particularize letters of mine — ’such an one was kind’ &c. I know, sometimes I seem to give the matter up in despair, I take out paper and fall thinking on you, and bless you with my whole heart and then begin: ‘What a fine day this is?’ I distinctly remember having done that repeatedly — but the converse is not true by any means, that (when the expression may happen to fall more consentaneously to the mind’s motion) that less is felt, oh no! But the particular thought at the time has not been of the insufficiency of expression, as in the other instance.
Now I will leave off — to begin elsewhere — for I am always with you, beloved, best beloved! Now you will write? And walk much, and sleep more? Bless you, dearest — ever —
Your own,
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-marks, Mis-sent to Mitcham. February 19 and 20, 1846.]
Best and kindest of all that ever were to be loved in dreams, and wondered at and loved out of them, you are indeed! I cannot make you feel how I felt that night when I knew that to save me an anxious thought you had come so far so late — it was almost too much to feel, and is too much to speak. So let it pass. You will never act so again, ever dearest — you shall not. If the post sins, why leave the sin to the post; and I will remember for the future, will be ready to remember, how postmen are fallible and how you live at the end of a lane — and not be uneasy about a silence if there should be one unaccounted for. For the Tuesday coming, I shall remember that too — who could forget it?... I put it in the niche of the wall, one golden lamp more of your giving, to throw light purely down to the end of my life — I do thank you. And the truth is, I should have been in a panic, had there been no letter that evening — I was frightened the day before, then reasoned the fears back and waited: and if there had been no letter after all — . But you are supernaturally good and kind. How can I ever ‘return’ as people say (as they might say in their ledgers) ... any of it all? How indeed can I who have not even a heart left of my own, to love you with?
I quite trust to your promise in respect to the medical advice, if walking and rest from work do not prevent at once the recurrence of those sensations — it was a promise, remember. And you will tell me the very truth of how you are — and you will try the music, and not be nervous, dearest. Would not riding be good for you — consider. And why should you be ‘alone’ when your sister is in the house? How I keep thinking of you all day — you cannot really be alone with so many thoughts ... such swarms of thoughts, if you could but see them, drones and bees together!
George came in from Westminster Hall after we parted yesterday and said that he had talked with the junior counsel of the wretched plaintiffs in the Ferrers case, and that the belief was in the mother being implicated, although not from the beginning. It was believed too that the miserable girl had herself taken step after step into the mire, involved herself gradually, the first guilt being an extravagance in personal expenses, which she lied and lied to account for in the face of her family. ‘Such a respectable family,’ said George, ‘the grandfather in court looking venerable, and everyone indignant upon being so disgraced by her!’ But for the respectability in the best sense, I do not quite see. That all those people should acquiesce in the indecency (according to every standard of English manners in any class of society) of thrusting the personal expenses of a member of their family on Lord Ferrers, she still bearing their name — and in those peculiar circumstances of her supposed position too — where is the respectability? And they are furious with her, which is not to be wondered at after all. Her counsel had an interview with her previous to the trial, to satisfy themselves of her good faith, and she was quite resolute and earnest, persisting in every statement. On the coming out of the anonymous letters, Fitzroy Kelly said to the juniors that if anyone could suggest a means of explanation, he would be eager to carry forward the case, ... but for him he saw no way of escaping from the fact of the guilt of their client. Not a voice could speak for her. So George was told. There is no ground for a prosecution for a conspiracy, he says, but she is open to the charge for forgery, of course, and to the dreadful consequences, though it is not considered at all likely that Lord Ferrers could wish to disturb her beyond the ruin she has brought on her own life.
Think of Miss Mitford’s growing quite cold about Mr. Chorley who has spent two days with her lately, and of her saying in a letter to me this morning that he is very much changed and grown to be ‘a presumptuous coxcomb.’ He has displeased her in some way — that is clear. What changes there are in the world.
Should I ever change to you, do you think, ... even if you came to ‘love me less’ — not that I meant to reproach you with that possibility. May God bless you, dear dearest. It is another miracle (beside the many) that I get nearer to the mountains yet still they seem more blue. Is not that strange?
Ever and wholly
Your Ba.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, February 20, 1846.]
And I offended you by praising your letters — or rather mine, if you please — as if I had not the right! Still, you shall not, shall not fancy that I meant to praise them in the way you seem to think — by calling them ‘graphic,’ ‘philosophic,’ — why, did I ever use such words? I agree with you that if I could play critic upon your letters, it would be an end! — but no, no ... I did not, for a moment. In what I said I went back to my first impressions — and they were vital letters, I said — which was the résumé of my thoughts upon the early ones you sent me, because I felt your letters to be you from the very first, and I began, from the beginning, to read every one several times over. Nobody, I felt, nobody of all these writers, did write as you did. Well! — and had I not a right to say that now at last, and was it not natural to say just that, when I was talking of other people’s letters and how it had grown almost impossible for me to read them; and do I deserve to be scolded? No indeed.
And if I had the misfortune to think now, when you say it is a fine day, that that is said in more music than it could be said in by another — where is the sin against you, I should like to ask. It is yourself who is the critic, I think, after all. But over all the brine, I hold my letters — just as Camoens did his poem. They are best to me — and they are best. I knew what they were, before I knew what you were — all of you. And I like to think that I never fancied anyone on a level with you, even in a letter.
What makes you take them to be so bad, I suppose, is just feeling in them how near we are. You say that! — not I.
Bad or good, you are better — yes, ‘better than the works and words’! — though it was very shameful of you to insinuate that I talked of fine speeches and passages and graphical and philosophical sentences, as if I had proposed a publication of ‘Elegant Extracts�
� from your letters. See what blasphemy one falls into through a beginning of light speech! It is wiser to talk of St. Petersburg; for all Voltaire’s ... ‘ne disons pas de mal de Nicolas.’
Wiser — because you will not go. If you were going ... well! — but there is no danger — it would not do you good to go, I am so happy this time as to be able to think — and your ‘mission of humanity’ lies nearer — ’strictly private and confidential’? but not in Harley Street — so if you go there, dearest, keep to the ‘one hour’ and do not suffer yourself to be tired and stunned in those hot rooms and made unwell again — it is plain that you cannot bear that sort of excitement. For Mr. Kenyon’s note, ... it was a great temptation to make a day of Friday — but I resist both for Monday’s sake and for yours, because it seems to me safer not to hurry you from one house to another till you are tired completely. I shall think of you so much the nearer for Mr. Kenyon’s note — which is something gained. In the meanwhile you are better, which is everything, or seems so. Ever dearest, do you remember what it is to me that you should be better, and keep from being worse again — I mean, of course, try to keep from being worse — be wise ... and do not stay long in those hot Harley Street rooms. Ah — now you will think that I am afraid of the unicorns! —
Through your being ill the other day I forgot, and afterwards went on forgetting, to speak of and to return the ballad — which is delightful; I have an unspeakable delight in those suggestive ballads, which seem to make you touch with the end of your finger the full warm life of other times ... so near they bring you, yet so suddenly all passes in them. Certainly there is a likeness to your Duchess — it is a curious crossing. And does it not strike you that a verse or two must be wanting in the ballad — there is a gap, I fancy.
Tell Mr. Kenyon (if he enquires) that you come here on Monday instead of Saturday — and if you can help it, do not mention Wednesday — it will be as well, not. You met Alfred at the door — he came up to me afterwards and observed that ‘at last he had seen you!’ ‘Virgilium tantum vidi!’
As to the thing which you try to say in the first page of this letter, and which you ‘stop’ yourself in saying ... I need not stop you in it....
And now there is no time, if I am to sleep to-night. May God bless you, dearest, dearest.
I must be your own while He blesses me.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Friday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, February 20, 1846.]
Here is my Ba’s dearest first letter come four hours after the second, with ‘Mis-sent to Mitcham’ written on its face as a reason, — one more proof of the negligence of somebody! But I do have it at last — what should I say? what do you expect me to say? And the first note seemed quite as much too kind as usual!
Let me write to-morrow, sweet? I am quite well and sure to mind all you bid me. I shall do no more than look in at that place (they are the cousins of a really good friend of mine, Dr. White — I go for him) if even that — for to-morrow night I must go out again, I fear — to pay the ordinary compliment for an invitation to the R.S.’s soirée at Lord Northampton’s. And then comes Monday — and to-night any unicorn I may see I will not find myself at liberty to catch. (N.B. — should you meditate really an addition to the ‘Elegant Extracts’ — mind this last joke is none of mine but my father’s; when walking with me when a child, I remember, he bade a little urchin we found fishing with a stick and a string for sticklebacks in a ditch — ’to mind that he brought any sturgeon he might catch to the king’ — he having a claim on such a prize, by courtesy if not right).
As for Chorley, he is neither the one nor the other of those ugly things. One remembers Regan’s ‘Oh Heaven — so you will rail at me, when you are in the mood.’ But what a want of self-respect such judgments argue, or rather, want of knowledge what true self-respect is: ‘So I believed yesterday, and so now — and yet am neither hasty, nor inapprehensive, nor malevolent’ — what then?
— But I will say more of my mind — (not of that) — to-morrow, for time presses a little — so bless you my ever ever dearest — I love you wholly.
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, February 21, 1846.]
As my sisters did not dine at home yesterday and I see nobody else in the evening, I never heard till just now and from Papa himself, that ‘George was invited to meet Mr. Browning and Mr. Procter.’ How surprised you will be. It must have been a sudden thought of Mr. Kenyon’s.
And I have been thinking, thinking since last night that I wrote you then a letter all but ... insolent ... which, do you know, I feel half ashamed to look back upon this morning — particularly what I wrote about ‘missions of humanity’ — now was it not insolent of me to write so? If I could take my letter again I would dip it into Lethe between the lilies, instead of the post office: — but I can’t — so if you wondered, you must forget as far as possible, and understand how it was, and that I was in brimming spirits when I wrote, from two causes ... first, because I had your letter which was a pure goodness of yours, and secondly because you were ‘noticeably’ better you said, or ‘noticeably well’ rather, to mind my quotations. So I wrote what I wrote, and gave it to Arabel when she came in at midnight, to give it to Henrietta who goes out before eight in the morning and often takes charge of my letters, and it was too late, at the earliest this morning, to feel a little ashamed. Miss Thomson told me that she had determined to change the type of the few pages of her letterpress which had been touched, and that therefore Mr. Burges’s revisions of my translations should be revised back again. She appears to be a very acute person, full of quick perceptions — naturally quick, and carefully trained — a little over anxious perhaps about mental lights, and opening her eyes still more than she sees, which is a common fault of clever people, if one must call it a fault. I like her, and she is kind and cordial. Will she ask you to help her book with a translation or two, I wonder. Perhaps — if the courage should come. Dearest, how I shall think of you this evening, and how near you will seem, not to be here. I had a letter from Mr. Mathews the other day, and smiled to read in it just what I had expected, that he immediately sent Landor’s verses on you to a few editors, friends of his, in order to their communication to the public. He received my apology for myself with the utmost graciousness. A kind good man he is.
After all, do you know, I am a little vexed that I should have even seemed to do wrong in my speech about the letters. It must have been wrong, if it seemed so to you, I fancy now. Only I really did no more mean to try your letters ... mine ... such as they are to me now, by the common critical measure, than the shepherds praised the pure tenor of the angels who sang ‘Peace upon earth’ to them. It was enough that they knew it for angels’ singing. So do you forgive me, beloved, and put away from you the thought that I have let in between us any miserable stuff ‘de métier,’ which I hate as you hate. And I will not say any more about it, not to run into more imprudences of mischief.
On the other hand I warn you against saying again what you began to say yesterday and stopped. Do not try it again. What may be quite good sense from me, is from you very much the reverse, and pray observe that difference. Or did you think that I was making my own road clear in the the thing I said about — ’jilts’? No, you did not. Yet I am ready to repeat of myself as of others, that if I ceased to love you, I certainly would act out the whole consequence — but that is an impossible ‘if’ to my nature, supposing the conditions of it otherwise to be probable. I never loved anyone much and ceased to love that person. Ask every friend of mine, if I am given to change even in friendship! And to you...! Ah, but you never think of such a thing seriously — and you are conscious that you did not say it very sagely. You and I are in different positions. Now let me tell you an apologue in exchange for your Wednesday’s stories which I liked so, and mine perhaps may make you ‘a little wiser’ — who knows?
It befell that there stood in hall a bold baron, and out he spake
to one of his serfs ... ‘Come thou; and take this baton of my baronie, and give me instead thereof that sprig of hawthorn thou holdest in thine hand.’ Now the hawthorn-bough was no larger a thing than might be carried by a wood-pigeon to the nest, when she flieth low, and the baronial baton was covered with fine gold, and the serf, turning it in his hands, marvelled greatly.
And he answered and said, ‘Let not my lord be in haste, nor jest with his servant. Is it verily his will that I should keep his golden baton? Let him speak again — lest it repent him of his gift.’
And the baron spake again that it was his will. ‘And I’ — he said once again — ’shall it be lawful for me to keep this sprig of hawthorn, and will it not repent thee of thy gift?’
Then all the servants who stood in hall, laughed, and the serf’s hands trembled till they dropped the baton into the rushes, knowing that his lord did but jest....
Which mine did not. Only, de te fabula narratur up to a point.
And I have your letter. ‘What did I expect?’ Why I expected just that, a letter in turn. Also I am graciously pleased (yes, and very much pleased!) to ‘let you write to-morrow.’ How you spoil me with goodness, which makes one ‘insolent’ as I was saying, now and then.
The worst is, that I write ‘too kind’ letters — I! — and what does that criticism mean, pray? It reminds me, at least, of ... now I will tell you what it reminds me of.
A few days ago Henrietta said to me that she was quite uncomfortable. She had written to somebody a not kind enough letter, she thought, and it might be taken ill. ‘Are you ever uncomfortable, Ba, after you have sent letters to the post?’ she asked me.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘sometimes, but from a reason just the very reverse of your reason, my letters, when they get into the post, seem too kind, — rather.’ And my sisters laughed ... laughed.
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 357