Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  My dear friend, how shall I pull you and make you come to Paris? Madame de Triqueti was here the other day, and spoke of you, and swore she wouldn’t help to take rooms for you, unless you came near her. As to the two rooms you speak of, I am sure you might have what rooms you pleased now, in this neighbourhood. What would you give? Our present apartment is comfort itself, and except some cold days a short time after you went away, we have really had no winter. The miraculous warmth has saved me, for I was so felled in that Rue de Grenelle, I should scarcely have had force against an ordinary cold season. Little Penini has been blossoming like a rose all the time. Such a darling, idle, distracted child he is, not keeping his attention for three minutes together for the hour and a half I teach him, and when I upbraid him for it, throwing himself upon me like a dog, kissing my cheeks and head and hands. ‘O you little pet, dive me one chance more! I will really be dood,’ and learning everything by magnetism, getting on in seven weeks, for instance, to read French quite surprisingly. He has written a poem on the war and the peace, called ‘Soldiers going and coming,’ which Robert and I thought so remarkable that I sent it to Mr. Forster. Oh, such a darling, that child is! I expect the wings to grow presently.

  As for my poem (far below Penini’s), I work on steadily and have put in order and transcribed five books, containing in all above six thousand lines ready for the press. I have another book to put together and transcribe, and then must begin the composition part of one or two more books, I suppose. I must be ready for printing by the time we go to England, in June. Robert too is much occupied with ‘Sordello,’ and we neither of us receive anybody till past four o’clock. I mean that when you have read my new book, you put away all my other poems or most of them, and know me only by the new. Oh, I am so anxious to make it good. I have put much of myself in it — I mean to say, of my soul, my thoughts, emotions, opinions; in other respects, there is not a personal line, of course. It’s a sort of poetic art-novel. If it’s a failure, there will be the comfort of having made a worthy effort, of having done it as well as I could. Write soon to me, and love us both constantly, as we do you.

  Your ever affectionate

  Ba.

  To Mrs. Jameson

  [Paris]: May 2, 1856 [postmark].

  My dearest Mona Nina, — It’s very pleasant always to get letters from you, and such kind dear letters, showing that you haven’t broken the tether-strings in search of ‘pastures new,’ weary of our cropped grass.

  As for news, you have most of the persons upon whom you care for gossip in your hand now — Mrs. Sartoris, Madame Viardot, Lady Monson, and the Ristori herself. Robert went to see her twice, because Lady Monson led him by the hand kindly, and was charmed; thought the Médée very fine, but won’t join in the cry about miraculous genius and Rachel out-Racheled. He thinks that as far as the highest and largest development of sensibility can go, she is very great; but that for those grand and sudden aperçus which have distinguished actors — such as Kean, for instance — he does not acknowledge them in her. You have heard perhaps how Dickens and others, Macready among the rest, depreciated her. Dickens went so far as to say, I understand, that no English audience would tolerate her defects; which will be put to the proof presently. By the way, you had better not quote Macready on this subject, as he expressed himself unwilling to be quoted on it....

  So now we are well again, thank God; and if Robert will but take regular exercise, he will keep so, I hope. As to Penini, he is radiant, and even I have been out walking twice, though a good deal weaker for the winter. More open air, and much more, is necessary to set me growing again, but I shall grow; and meantime I have been working, and am working, at so close a rate that if I lose a day I am lost, which is too close a rate, and makes one feel rather nervous. We see nobody till after four meantime. I have finished (not transcribed) the last book but one, and am now in the very last book, which must be finished with the last days of May. Then the first fortnight of June will be occupied with the transcription of these two last books, and I shall carry the completed work with me to England on the 16th if it please God. Oh, I do hope you won’t be disappointed with it — much! Some things you will like certainly, because of the boldness and veracity of them, and others you may; I can’t be so sure. Robert speaks well of the poetry — encourages me much. But then he has seen only six of the eight books yet.

  He just now has taken to drawing, and after thirteen days’ application has produced some quite startling copies of heads. I am very glad. He can’t rest from serious work in light literature, as I can; it wearies him, and there are hours which are on his hands, which is bad both for them and for him. The secret of life is in full occupation, isn’t it? This world is not tenable on other terms. So while I lie on the sofa and rest in a novel, Robert has a resource in his drawing; and really, with all his feeling and knowledge of art, some of the mechanical trick of it can’t be out of place.

  To-night he is going to Madame Mohl, who is well and as vivacious as ever. When Monckton Milnes was in Paris he dined with him in company with Mignet, Cavour, George Sand, and an empty chair in which Lamartine was expected to sit. George Sand had an ivy wreath round her head, and looked like herself; But Lady Monson will talk to you of her, better than I can. Now, mind you ask Lady Monson.

  As to this Government, I only entreat you not to believe any of the mendacious reports set afloat here by a most unworthy Opposition, and carried out by the English ‘Athenæum’ and other prints. Surely a cause must be bad which is supported by such bad means. In the first place, Béranger did not write the verses attributed to him. The internal evidence was sufficient — for Victor Hugo is his personal enemy — to say nothing of the poetry. Then it would be wise, I think, in considering this question, and in taking for granted that the ‘literature and talent’ of the country are against the Government, to analyse the antecedents and character of the persons who do stand out, persons implicated in former Governments, or favored by former Governments, and whose vanity and prejudices are necessarily contrary to a new order. These persons, either in themselves or their friends, have all been tried in action and found wanting. They have all lost the confidence of the French people, either by their misconduct or their ill-fortune. They are all cast aside as broken instruments. Under these circumstances they think it desirable to break themselves into the lock, to prevent the turning of another key; they consider it noble and patriotic to stand aside and revile and throw mud, in order to hinder the action of those who are acting for the country. In my mind, it is quite otherwise; in my mind and in many other minds — Robert’s, for instance! and he began with a most intense hatred of this Government, as you well know. But he does not shut his eyes to all that is noble and admirable going on, on all sides. At last he is sick of the Opposition, he admits. In respect to literature, nothing can be more mendacious than to say there are restraints upon literature. Books of freer opinion are printed now than would ever have been permitted under Louis Philippe, as was reproached against Napoleon by an enemy the other day — books of free opinion, even licentious opinion, on religion and philosophy. There is restraint in the newspapers only. That the ‘Athenæum’ should venture to say that in consequence of the suppression of books compositors are thrown out of work and forced to become transcribers of verses like Béranger’s (which are not Béranger’s) is so stupendous a falsehood in the face of statistics which prove a yearly increase in the amount of books printed that I quite lose my breath, you see, in speaking of it.

  The Government is steadily solving, or attempting to solve, that difficult modern problem of possible Socialism which has been knocking at all our heads and hearts so long. That is its vexation. It is a Government for the ‘bus people, the first settled and serious Government that ever attempted their case. Its action is worth all the pedantry of the doctrinaires and the middling morals of the juste milieu; and I, who am a Democrat, will stand by it as long as I can stand, which isn’t very long just now, as I told you.

  Dea
rest Mona Nina, I am so uneasy about dear Mr. Kenyon, who has been ill again — is ill, I fear. He is in London — more’s the pity! and Miss Bayley is with him. He gives me sad thoughts.

  Do write of yourself. Don’t you be sad, dearest friend. Oh, I do wish you could have come, and let us love you and talk to you — but on the 16th of June, at any rate.

  Your ever affectionate

  Ba.

  To Mrs. Jameson

  [Paris]: Monday, May 6, 1856 [postmark].

  My dearest Mona Nina, — Your letter makes me feel very uncomfortable. We are in real difficulty about our dear friend Mr. Kenyon, the impulse being, of course, that Robert should go at once, and then the fear coming that it might be an annoyance, an intrusion, something the farthest from what it should be at all. If you had been more explicit — you — and we could know what was in your mind when you ‘ask’ Robert to come, my dear friend, then it would be all easier. If we could but know whether anything passed between you and Miss Bayley on this subject, or whether it is entirely out of your own head that you wish Robert to come. I thought about it yesterday, till I went to bed at eight o’clock with headache. Shall I tell you something in your ear? It is easier for a rich man to enter, after all, into the kingdom of heaven than into the full advantages of real human tenderness. Robert would give much at this moment to be allowed to go to dearest Mr. Kenyon, sit up with him, hold his hand, speak a good loving word to him. This would be privilege to him and to me; and love and gratitude on our parts justified us in asking to be allowed to do it. Twice we have asked. The first time a very kind but decided negative was returned to us on the part of our friend. Yesterday we again asked. Yesterday I wrote to say that it would be consolation to us if Robert might go — if we might say so without ‘teasing.’ To-morrow, in the case of Miss Bayley sending a consent, even on her own part, Robert will set off instantly; but without an encouraging word from her — my dear friend, do you not see that it might really vex dearest Mr. Kenyon? Observe, we have no more right of intruding than you would have if you forced your way upstairs. It’s a wretched world, where we can’t express an honest affection honestly without half appearing indelicate to ourselves; nothing proves more how the dirt of the world is up to our chins, and I think I had my headache yesterday really and absolutely from simple disgust.

  You see, Robert might go to stay till Mr. Edward Kenyon arrives — if it were only till then. I still hope and pray that our dearest friend may rally, to recover at least a tolerable degree of health. He has certain good symptoms; and some of the bad ones, such as the wandering, &c., are constitutional with him under the least fever. You may suppose what painful anxiety we are in about him. Oh, he has been always so good to me — so true, sympathising, and generous a friend!

  I shall always have a peculiar feeling to that dear kind Miss Bayley for what she has been to him these latter months.

  Now I can’t write any more just now. Leighton has been cut up unmercifully by the critics, but bears on, Robert says, not without courage. That you should say ‘his picture looked well’ was comfort in the general gloom, though even you don’t give anything yet that can be called an opinion. Mrs. Sartoris will be much vexed by it all, I am sure.

  May God bless you! Write to me. Robert’s love with that of

  Your ever affectionate

  Ba.

  Did you observe a portrait of Robert by Page? Where have they hung it, and how does it strike you?

  To Miss E.F. Haworth

  [Paris]: 3 Rue du Colisée:

  Saturday, June 17, 1856 [postmark].

  My dearest Fanny, — I was just going to write to you to beg you to apply to Chapman for Robert’s book, when he came to stop me with the newspaper. Thank you, my dearest Fanny, for having thought of me when you had so much weary thought; it was very touching to me that you should. And I am vexed to have missed two days before I told you this — the first by an accident, and the second (to-day) by its being a blank post-day; but you will know by your heart how deeply I have felt and feel for you. May God bless you and love you! If I were as He to comfort, you should be strong and calm at this moment. But what are we to one another in this world? How weak, how far, we all feel in moments like these.

  Still, I should like to know that you had some friend near you, to hold your hand and look in your face and be silent, as those are silent who know and feel. When you can write again, tell me how it is with you in this respect, and in others.

  So sudden, so sudden! Yet bereavements like these are always sudden to the soul, more or less. All blows must needs be sudden. May your health not suffer, dear Fanny. We shall be in London in about a week after the 16th, for we are delayed through my not having finished my poem, which nobody will finish reading perhaps. We go to Mr. Kenyon’s house in Devonshire Place, kindly offered to us for the summer. Shall we find you, I wonder, in London?

  Yes; there are terrible costs in this world. We get knowledge by losing what we hoped for, and liberty by losing what we loved. But this world is a fragment — or, rather, a segment — and it will be rounded presently, to the completer satisfaction. Not to doubt that is the greatest blessing it gives now. Death is as vain as life; the common impression of it, as false and as absurd. A mere change of circumstances. What more? And how near these spirits are, how conscious, how full of active energy and tender reminiscence and interest, who shall dare to doubt? For myself, I do not doubt at all. If I did, I should be sitting here inexpressibly sad — for myself, not you....

  Robert unites with me in affectionate sympathy, and Sarianna was here last night, talking feelingly about you. You shall have Robert’s book when we get to England. Think how much I think of you.

  Your ever affectionate

  Ba.

  Mr. Kenyon has been very ill, and is still in a state occasioning anxiety. He is at the Isle of Wight.

  At the end of June the Brownings came back to London, for what was, as it proved, Mrs. Browning’s last visit to England. Mr. Kenyon had lent them his house in London, at 39 Devonshire Place, he himself being in the Isle of Wight; but a shadow was thrown over the whole of this visit by the serious and ultimately fatal illness of this dear friend. It was partly in order to see him, and partly because Miss Arabel Barrett had been sent out of town by her father almost as soon as her sister reached Devonshire Place, that about the beginning of September they made an expedition to the Isle of Wight, staying first at Ventnor with Miss Barrett, and subsequently at West Cowes with Mr. Kenyon. All the while Mrs. Browning was actively engaged in seeing ‘Aurora Leigh’ through the press, and the poem was published just about the time they left England. The letters during this visit are few and mostly unimportant, but the following are of interest.

  To Mrs. Jameson

  39 Devonshire Place:

  Friday morning [July-August 1856].

  My dearest Mona Nina, my dear friend, — I am so grieved, so humiliated. If it is possible to forgive me, do.

  I received your note, delayed answering it because I fancied Robert might learn to accept your kindness about the box after a day’s consideration, and so forgot everything bodily, taking one day for another, as is my way lately, in this great crush of too much to do and think of. When I was persuaded to go yesterday morning for the first and last time to the Royal Academy, on the point of closing, I went in like an idiot — that is, an innocent — never once thinking of what I was running the risk of losing; and when I returned and found you gone, you were lost and I in despair. So much in despair that I did not hope once you might come again, and out I went after dinner to see the Edward Kenyons in Beaumont Street, like an innocent — that is, an idiot — and so lost you again. You may forgive me — it is possible — but to forgive myself! it is more difficult. Try not quite to give me up for it. Your note gave me so much pleasure. I wished so to see you! For the future I mean to write down engagements in a text-hand, and set them up somewhere in sight; but if I broke through twenty others as shamefully, it would not be with as much real
grief to myself as in this fault to my dearest Mona Nina. Do come soon, out of mercy — and magnanimity!

  Your ever affectionate

  Ba.

  To Mrs. Martin

  3 Parade, West Cowes:

  September 9, 1856 [postmark].

  My dearest Mrs. Martin, — Your letter has followed us. We have been in the south of the island, at Ventnor, with Arabel, and are now in the north with Mr. Kenyon. We came off from London at a day’s notice, the Wimpole Street people being sent away abruptly (in consequence, plainly, of our arrival becoming known), and Arabel bringing her praying eyes to bear on Robert, who agreed to go with her and stay for a fortnight. So we have had a happy sorrowful two weeks together, between meeting and parting; and then came here, where our invalid friend called us. Poor Arabel is in low spirits — very — and aggrieved with being sent away from town; but the fresh air and repose will do her good, in spite of herself, though she swears they won’t (in the tone of saying they shan’t). She is not by any means strong, and overworks herself in London with schools and Refuges, and societies — does the work of a horse, and isn’t a horse. Last winter she was quite unwell, as you heard. In spite of which, I did not think her looking ill when I saw her first; and now she looks well, I think — quite as well as she ever does. But she wants a new moral atmosphere — a little society. She is thrown too entirely on her own resources, and her own resources are of somewhat a gloomy character. This is all wrong. It has been partly necessary and a little her fault, at one time. I would give my right hand to take her to Italy; but if I gave right and left, it would not be found possible. My father has remained in London, and may not go to Ventnor for the next week or two, says a letter from Arabel this morning.... The very day he heard of our being in Devonshire Place he gave orders that his family should go away. I wrote afterwards, but my letter, as usual, remained unnoticed.