Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  I did go to the drawing-room to-day ... would ... should ... did. The sun came out, the wind changed ... where was the obstacle? I spent a quarter of an hour in a fearful solitude, listening for knocks at the door, as a ghost-fearer might at midnight, and ‘came home’ none the worse in any way. Be sure that I shall ‘take care’ better than you do, and there, is the worst of it all — for you let people make you ill, and do it yourself upon occasion.

  You know from my letter how I found you out in the matter of the ‘Soul’s Tragedy.’ Oh! so bad ... so weak, so unworthy of your name! If some other people were half a quarter as much the contrary!

  And so, good-night, dear dearest. In spite of my fine speeches about ‘recollections,’ I should be unhappy enough to please you, with only those ... without you beside! I could not take myself back from being

  Your own —

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  [Post-mark, March 11, 1846.]

  Dear, dear Ba, but indeed I did return home earlier by two or three good hours than the night before — and to find no letter, — none of yours! That was reserved for this morning early, and then a rest came, a silence, over the thoughts of you — and now again, comes this last note! Oh, my love — why — what is it you think to do, or become ‘afterward,’ that you may fail in and so disappoint me? It is not very unfit that you should thus punish yourself, and that, sinning by your own ambition of growing something beyond my Ba even, you should ‘fear’ as you say! For, sweet, why wish, why think to alter ever by a line, change by a shade, turn better if that were possible, and so only rise the higher above me, get further from instead of nearer to my heart? What I expect, what I build my future on, am quite, quite prepared to ‘risk’ everything for, — is that one belief that you will not alter, will just remain as you are — meaning by ‘you,’ the love in you, the qualities I have known (for you will stop me, if I do not stop myself) what I have evidence of in every letter, in every word, every look. Keeping these, if it be God’s will that the body passes, — what is that? Write no new letters, speak no new words, look no new looks, — only tell me, years hence that the present is alive, that what was once, still is — and I am, must needs be, blessed as ever! You speak of my feeling as if it were a pure speculation — as if because I see somewhat in you I make a calculation that there must be more to see somewhere or other — where bdellium is found, the onyx-stone may be looked for in the mystic land of the four rivers! And perhaps ... ah, poor human nature! — perhaps I do think at times on what may be to find! But what is that to you? I offer for the bdellium — the other may be found or not found ... what I see glitter on the ground, that will suffice to make me rich as — rich as —

  So bless you my own Ba! I would not wait for paper, and you must forgive half-sheets, instead of a whole celestial quire to my love and praise. Are you so well? So adventurous? Thank you from my heart of hearts. And I am quite well to-day (and have received a note from Procter just this minute putting off his dinner on account of the death of his wife’s sister’s husband abroad). Observe this sheet I take as I find — I mean, that the tear tells of no improper speech repented of — what English, what sense, what a soul’s tragedy! but then, what real, realest love and more than love for my ever dearest Ba possesses her own —

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  [Post-mark, March 12, 1846.]

  When my Orpheus writes ‘Περι λιθων’ he makes a great mistake about onyxes — there is more true onyx in this letter of his that I have just read, than he will ever find in the desert land he goes to. And for what ‘glitters on the ground,’ it reminds me of the yellow metal sparks found in the Malvern Hills, and how we used to laugh years ago at one of our geological acquaintances, who looked mole-hills up that mountain-range in the scorn of his eyes, saying ... ‘Nothing but mica!!’ Is anybody to be rich through ‘mica’, I wonder? through ‘Nothing but mica?’ ‘As rich as — as rich as’ ... Walter the Pennyless?

  Dearest, best you are nevertheless, and it is a sorry jest which I can break upon your poverty, with that golden heart of yours so apprehended of mine! Why if I am ‘ambitious’ — is it not because you love me as if I were worthier of your love, and that, so, I get frightened of the opening of your eyelids to the unworthiness? ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep’ — there, is my ‘ambition for afterward.’ Oh — you do not understand how with an unspeakable wonder, an astonishment which keeps me from drawing breath, I look to this Dream, and ‘see your face as the face of an angel,’ and fear for the vanishing, ... because dreams and angels do pass away in this world. But you, I understand you, and all your goodness past expression, past belief of mine, if I had not known you ... just you. If it will satisfy you that I should know you, love you, love you — why then indeed — because I never bowed down to any of the false gods I know the gold from the mica, ... I! ‘My own beloved’ — you should have my soul to stand on if it could make you stand higher. Yet you shall not call me ‘ambitious.’

  To-day I went down-stairs again, and wished to know whether you were walking in your proportion — and your letter does call you ‘better,’ whether you walked enough or not, and it bears the Deptford post-mark. On Saturday I shall see how you are looking. So pale you were last time! I know Mr. Kenyon must have observed it, (dear Mr. Kenyon ... for being ‘kinder and kindest’) and that one of the ‘augurs’ marvelled at the other! By the way I forgot yesterday to tell you how Mr. Burges’s ‘apt remark’ did amuse me. And Mr. Kenyon who said much the same words to me last week in relation to this very Wordsworth junior, writhed, I am sure, and wished the ingenious observer with the lost plays of Æschylus — oh, I seem to see Mr. Kenyon’s face! He was to have come to tell me how you all behaved at dinner that day, but he keeps away ... you have given him too much to think of perhaps.

  I heard from Miss Mitford to-day that Mr. Chorley’s hope is at an end in respect to the theatre, and (I must tell you) she praises him warmly for his philosophy and fortitude under the disappointment. How much philosophy does it take, — please to instruct me, — in order to the decent bearing of such disasters? Can I fancy one, shorter than you by a whole head of the soul, condescending to ‘bear’ such things? No, indeed.

  Be good and kind, and do not work at the ‘Tragedy’ ... do not.

  So you and I have written out all the paper in London! At least, I send and send in vain to have more envelopes ‘after my kind,’ and the last answer is, that a ‘fresh supply will arrive in eight days from Paris, and that in the meanwhile they are quite out in the article.’ An awful sign of the times, is this famine of envelopes ... not to speak of the scarcity of little sheets: — and the augurs look to it all of course.

  For my part I think more of Chiappino — Chiappino holds me fast.

  But I must let you go — it is too late. This dearest letter, which you sent me! I thank you for it with ever so much dumbness. May God bless you and keep you, and make you happy for me.

  Your Ba.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  [Post-mark, March 12, 1846.]

  How I get to understand this much of Law — that prior possession is nine points of it! Just because your infinite adroitness got first hold of the point of view whence our connection looks like ‘a dream’ ... I find myself shut out of my very own, unable to say what is oftenest in my thought; whereas the dear, miraculous dream you were, and are, my Ba! Only, vanish — that you will never! My own, and for ever!

  Yesterday I read the poor, inconceivably inadequate notice in the People’s Journal. How curiously wrong, too, in the personal guesses! Sad work truly. For my old friend Mrs. Adams — no, I must be silent: the lyrics seem doggerel in its utter purity. And so the people are to be instructed in the new age of gold! I heard two days ago precisely what I told you — that there was a quarrel, &c. which this service was to smooth over, no doubt. Chorley told me, in a hasty word only, that all was over, Mr. Webster would not have anything to do with his play. The said W. is one of the poorest
of poor creatures, and as Chorley was certainly forewarned, forearmed I will hope him to have been likewise — still it is very disappointing — he was apparently nearer than most aspirants to the prize, — having the best will of the actresses on whose shoulder the burthen was to lie. I hope they have been quite honest with him — knowing as I do the easy process of transferring all sorts of burthens, in that theatrical world, from responsible to irresponsible members of it, actors to manager, manager to actors, as the case requires. And it is a ‘hope deferred’ with Chorley; not for the second or third time. I am very glad that he cares no more than you tell me.

  Still you go down-stairs, and still return safely, and every step leads us nearer to my ‘hope.’ How unremittingly you bless me — a visit promises a letter, a letter brings such news, crowns me with such words, and speaks of another visit — and so the golden links extend. Dearest words, dearest letters — as I add each to my heap, I say — I do say — ’I was poor, it now seems, a minute ago, when I had not this!’ Bless you, dear, dear Ba. On Saturday I shall be with you, I trust — may God bless you! Ever your own

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Sunday.

  [Post-mark, March 16, 1846.]

  Ever dearest I am going to say one word first of all lest I should forget it afterward, of the two or three words which you said yesterday and so passingly that you probably forget to-day having said them at all. We were speaking of Mr. Chorley and his house, and you said that you did not care for such and such things for yourself, but that for others — now you remember the rest. And I just want to say what it would have been simpler to have said at the time — only not so easy — (I couldn’t say it at the time) that you are not if you please to fancy that because I am a woman I have not the pretension to do with as little in any way as you yourself ... no, it is not that I mean to say.... I mean that you are not, if you please, to fancy that, because I am a woman, I look to be cared for in those outside things, or should have the slightest pleasure in any of them. So never wish nor regret in your thoughts to be able or not to be able to care this and this for me; for while you are thinking so, our thoughts go different ways, which is wrong. Mr. Fox did me a great deal too much honour in calling me ‘a religious hermit’; he was ‘curiously’ in fault, as you saw. It is not my vocation to sit on a stone in a cave — I was always too fond of lolling upon sofas or in chairs nearly as large, — and this, which I sit in, was given to me when I was a child by my uncle, the uncle I spoke of to you once, and has been lolled in nearly ever since ... when I was well enough. Well — that is a sort of luxury, of course — but it is more idle than expensive, as a habit, and I do believe that it is the ‘head and foot of my offending’ in that matter. Yes — ’confiteor tibi’ besides, that I do hate white dimity curtains, which is highly improper for a religious hermit of course, but excusable in me who would accept brown serge as a substitute with ever so much indifference. It is the white light which comes in the dimity which is so hateful to me. To ‘go mad in white dimity’ seems perfectly natural, and consequential even. Set aside these foibles, and one thing is as good as another with me, and the more simplicity in the way of living, the better. If I saw Mr. Chorley’s satin sofas and gilded ceilings I should call them very pretty I dare say, but never covet the possession of the like — it would never enter my mind to do so. Then Papa has not kept a carriage since I have been grown up (they grumble about it here in the house, but when people have once had great reverses they get nervous about spending money) so I shall not miss the Clarence and greys ... and I do entreat you not to put those two ideas together again of me and the finery which has nothing to do with me. I have talked a great deal too much of all this, you will think, but I want you, once for all, to apply it broadly to the whole of the future both in the general view and the details, so that we need not return to the subject. Judge for me as for yourself — what is good for you is good for me. Otherwise I shall be humiliated, you know; just as far as I know your thoughts.

  Mr. Kenyon has been here to-day — and I have been down-stairs — two great events! He was in brilliant spirits and sate talking ever so long, and named you as he always does. Something he asked, and then said suddenly ... ‘But I don’t see why I should ask you, when I ought to know him better than you can.’ On which I was wise enough to change colour, as I felt, to the roots of my hair. There is the effect of a bad conscience! and it has happened to me before, with Mr. Kenyon, three times — once particularly, when I could have cried with vexation (to complete the effects!), he looked at me with such infinite surprise in a dead pause of any speaking. That was in the summer; and all to be said for it now, is, that it couldn’t be helped: couldn’t!

  Mr. Kenyon asked of ‘Saul.’ (By the way, you never answered about the blue lilies.) He asked of ‘Saul’ and whether it would be finished in the new number. He hangs on the music of your David. Did you read in the Athenæum how Jules Janin — no, how the critic on Jules Janin (was it the critic? was it Jules Janin? the glorious confusion is gaining on me I think) has magnificently confounded places and persons in Robert Southey’s urn by the Adriatic and devoted friendship for Lord Byron? And immediately the English observer of the phenomenon, after moralizing a little on the crass ignorance of Frenchmen in respect to our literature, goes on to write like an ignoramus himself, on Mme. Charles Reybaud, encouraging that pure budding novelist, who is in fact a hack writer of romances third and fourth rate, of questionable purity enough, too. It does certainly appear wonderful that we should not sufficiently stand abreast here in Europe, to justify and necessitate the establishment of an European review — journal rather — (the ‘Foreign Review,’ so called, touching only the summits of the hills) a journal which might be on a level with the intelligent readers of all the countries of Europe, and take all the rising reputations of each, with the national light on them as they rise, into observation and judgment. If nobody can do this, it is a pity I think to do so much less — both in France and England — to snatch up a French book from over the Channel as ever and anon they do in the Athenæum, and say something prodigiously absurd of it, till people cry out ‘oh oh’ as in the House of Commons.

  Oh — oh — and how wise I am to-day, as if I were a critic myself! Yesterday I was foolish instead — for I couldn’t get out of my head all the evening how you said that you would come ‘to see a candle held up at the window.’ Well! but I do not mean to love you any more just now — so I tell you plainly. Certainly I will not. I love you already too much perhaps. I feel like the turning Dervishes turning in the sun when you say such words to me — and I never shall love you any ‘less,’ because it is too much to be made less of.

  And you write to-morrow? and will tell me how you are? honestly will tell me? May God bless you, most dear!

  I am yours — ’Tota tua est’

  Ba.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Sunday.

  [Post-mark, March 16, 1846.]

  How will the love my heart is full of for you, let me be silent? Insufficient speech is better than no speech, in one regard — the speaker had tried words, and if they fail, hereafter he needs not reflect that he did not even try — so with me now, that loving you, Ba, with all my heart and soul, all my senses being lost in one wide wondering gratitude and veneration, I press close to you to say so, in this imperfect way, my dear dearest beloved! Why do you not help me, rather than take my words, my proper word, from me and call them yours, when yours they are not? You said lately love of you ‘made you humble’ — just as if to hinder me from saying that earnest truth! — entirely true it is, as I feel ever more convincingly. You do not choose to understand it should be so, nor do I much care, for the one thing you must believe, must resolve to believe in its length and breadth, is that I do love you and live only in the love of you.

  I will rest on the confidence that you do so believe! You know by this that it is no shadowy image of you and not you, which having attached myself to in the first instance, I afterward compelled my fancy t
o see reproduced, so to speak, with tolerable exactness to the original idea, in you, the dearest real you I am blessed with — you know what the eyes are to me, and the lips and the hair. And I, for my part, know now, while fresh from seeing you, certainly know, whatever I may have said a short time since, that you will go on to the end, that the arm round me will not let me go, — over such a blind abyss — I refuse to think, to fancy, towards what it would be to loose you now! So I give my life, my soul into your hand — the giving is a mere form too, it is yours, ever yours from the first — but ever as I see you, sit with you, and come away to think over it all, I find more that seems mine to give; you give me more life and it goes back to you.

  I shall hear from you to-morrow — then, I will go out early and get done with some calls, in the joy and consciousness of what waits me, and when I return I will write a few words. Are these letters, these merest attempts at getting to talk with you through the distance — yet always with the consolation of feeling that you will know all, interpret all and forgive it and put it right — can such things be cared for, expected, as you say? Then, Ba, my life must be better ... with the closeness to help, and the ‘finding out the way’ for which love was always noted. If you begin making in fancy a lover to your mind, I am lost at once — but the one quality of affection for you, which would sooner or later have to be placed on his list of component graces; that I will dare start supply — the entire love you could dream of is here. You think you see some of the other adornments, and only too many; and you will see plainer one day, but with that I do not concern myself — you shall admire the true heroes — but me you shall love for the love’s sake. Let me kiss you, you, my dearest, dearest — God bless you ever —