E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 30, 1845.]
Just one word to say that if Saturday, to-morrow, should be fine—because in the case of its raining I shall not expect you; you will find me at three o'clock.
Yes—the circumstances of the costume were mentioned in the letter; Mr. Rogers' bag-wig and the rest, and David Wilkie's sword—and also that the Laureate, so equipped, fell down upon both knees in the superfluity of etiquette, and had to be picked up by two lords-in-waiting. It is a large exaggeration I do not doubt—and then I never sympathised with the sighing kept up by people about that acceptance of the Laureateship which drew the bag-wig as a corollary after it. Not that the Laureateship honoured him, but that he honoured it; and that, so honouring it, he preserves a symbol instructive to the masses, who are children and to be taught by symbols now as formerly. Isn't it true? or at least may it not be true? And won't the court laurel (such as it is) be all the worthier of you for Wordsworth's having worn it first?
And in the meantime I shall see you to-morrow perhaps? or if it should rain, on Monday at the same hour.
Ever yours, my dear friend,
E.B.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 7, 1845.]
When I see all you have done for me in this 'Prometheus,' I feel more than half ashamed both of it and of me for using your time so, and forced to say in my own defence (not to you but myself) that I never thought of meaning to inflict such work on you who might be doing so much better things in the meantime both for me and for others—because, you see, it is not the mere reading of the MS., but the 'comparing' of the text, and the melancholy comparisons between the English and the Greek, ... quite enough to turn you from your φιλανθρωπου τροπου19 that I brought upon you; and indeed I did not mean so much, nor so soon! Yet as you have done it for me—for me who expected a few jottings down with a pencil and a general opinion; it is of course of the greatest value, besides the pleasure and pride which come of it; and I must say of the translation, (before putting it aside for the nonce), that the circumstance of your paying it so much attention and seeing any good in it, is quite enough reward for the writer and quite enough motive for self-gratulation, if it were all torn to fragments at this moment—which is a foolish thing to say because it is so obvious, and because you would know it if I said it or not.
And while you were doing this for me, you thought it unkind of me not to write to you; yes, and you think me at this moment the very princess of apologies and excuses and depreciations and all the rest of the small family of distrust—or of hypocrisy ... who knows? Well! but you are wrong ... wrong ... to think so; and you will let me say one word to show where you are wrong—not for you to controvert, ... because it must relate to myself especially, and lies beyond your cognizance, and is something which I must know best after all. And it is, ... that you persist in putting me into a false position, with respect to fixing days and the like, and in making me feel somewhat as I did when I was a child, and Papa used to put me up on the chimney-piece and exhort me to stand up straight like a hero, which I did, straighter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as we say in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me and extending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice to the rug, where the dog lay ... dear old Havannah, ... and where he and I were likely to be dashed to pieces together and mix our uncanonised bones. Now my present false position ... which is not the chimney-piece's, ... is the necessity you provide for me in the shape of my having to name this day, or that day, ... and of your coming because I name it, and of my having to think and remember that you come because I name it. Through a weakness, perhaps, or morbidness, or one knows not how to define it, I cannot help being uncomfortable in having to do this,—it is impossible. Not that I distrust you—you are the last in the world I could distrust: and then (although you may be sceptical) I am naturally given to trust ... to a fault ... as some say, or to a sin, as some reproach me:—and then again, if I were ever such a distruster, it could not be of you. But if you knew me—! I will tell you! if one of my brothers omits coming to this room for two days, ... I never ask why it happened! if my own father omits coming up-stairs to say 'good night,' I never say a word; and not from indifference. Do try to make out these readings of me as a dixit Casaubonus; and don't throw me down as a corrupt text, nor convict me for an infidel which I am not. On the contrary I am grateful and happy to believe that you like to come here; and even if you came here as a pure act of charity and pity to me, as long as you chose to come I should not be too proud to be grateful and happy still. I could not be proud to you, and I hope you will not fancy such a possibility, which is the remotest of all. Yes, and I am anxious to ask you to be wholly generous and leave off such an interpreting philosophy as you made use of yesterday, and forgive me when I beg you to fix your own days for coming for the future. Will you? It is the same thing in one way. If you like to come really every week, there is no hindrance to it—you can do it—and the privilege and obligation remain equally mine:—and if you name a day for coming on any week, where there is an obstacle on my side, you will learn it from me in a moment. Why I might as well charge you with distrusting me, because you persist in making me choose the days. And it is not for me to do it, but for you—I must feel that—and I cannot help chafing myself against the thought that for me to begin to fix days in this way, just because you have quick impulses (like all imaginative persons), and wish me to do it now, may bring me to the catastrophe of asking you to come when you would rather not, ... which, as you say truly, would not be an important vexation to you; but to me would be worse than vexation; to me—and therefore I shrink from the very imagination of the possibility of such a thing, and ask you to bear with me and let it be as I prefer ... left to your own choice of the moment. And bear with me above all—because this shows no want of faith in you ... none ... but comes from a simple fact (with its ramifications) ... that you know little of me personally yet, and that you guess, even, but very little of the influence of a peculiar experience over me and out of me; and if I wanted a proof of this, we need not seek further than the very point of discussion, and the hard worldly thoughts you thought I was thinking of you yesterday,—I, who thought not one of them! But I am so used to discern the correcting and ministering angels by the same footsteps on the ground, that it is not wonderful I should look down there at any approach of a φιλια ταξις whatever to this personal me. Have I not been ground down to browns and blacks? and is it my fault if I am not green? Not that it is my complaint—I should not be justified in complaining; I believe, as I told you, that there is more gladness than sadness in the world—that is, generally: and if some natures have to be refined by the sun, and some by the furnace (the less genial ones) both means are to be recognised as good, ... however different in pleasurableness and painfulness, and though furnace-fire leaves scorched streaks upon the fruit. I assured you there was nothing I had any power of teaching you: and there is nothing, except grief!—which I would not teach you, you know, if I had the occasion granted.
It is a multitude of words about nothing at all, ... this—but I am like Mariana in the moated grange and sit listening too often to the mouse in the wainscot. Be as forbearing as you can—and believe how profoundly it touches me that you should care to come here at all, much more, so often! and try to understand that if I did not write as you half asked, it was just because I failed at the moment to get up enough pomp and circumstance to write on purpose to certify the important fact of my being a little stronger or a little weaker on one particular morning. That I am always ready and rejoiced to write to you, you know perfectly well, and I have proved, by 'superfluity of naughtiness' and prolixity through some twenty posts:—and this, and therefore, you will agree altogether to attribute no more to me on these counts, and determine to read me no more backwards with your Hebrew, putting in your own vowel points without my leave! Shall it be so?
Here is a letter grown from a note which it meant to be—and I have been interrupted in the midst of it, or it should have gone to you earlier. Let what I have said in it of myself pass unquestioned and unnoticed, because it is of me and not of you, ... and, if in any wise lunatical, all the talking and writing in the world will not put the implied moon into another quarter. Only be patient with me a little, ... and let us have a smooth ground for the poems which I am foreseeing the sight of with such pride and delight—Such pride and delight!
And one thing ... which is chief, though it seems to come last!... you will have advice (will you not?) if that pain does not grow much better directly? It cannot be prudent or even safe to let a pain in the head go on so long, and no remedy be attempted for it, ... and you cannot be sure that it is a merely nervous pain and that it may not have consequences; and this, quite apart from the consideration of suffering. So you will see some one with an opinion to give, and take it? Do, I beseech you. You will not say 'no'? Also ... if on Wednesday you should be less well than usual, you will come on Thursday instead, I hope, ... seeing that it must be right for you to be quiet and silent when you suffer so, and a journey into London can let you be neither. Otherwise, I hold to my day, ... Wednesday. And may God bless you my dear friend.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
You are right I see, nearly everywhere, if not quite everywhere in the criticisms—but of course I have not looked very closely—that is, I have read your papers but not in connection with a my side of the argument—but I shall lose the post after all.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Saturday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 7, 1845.]
I ventured to hope this morning might bring me news of you—First East-winds on you, then myself, then those criticisms!—I do assure you I am properly apprehensive. How are you? May I go on Wednesday without too much ανθαδια.
Pray remember what I said and wrote, to the effect that my exceptions were, in almost every case, to the 'reading'—not to your version of it: but I have not specified the particular ones—not written down the Greek, of my suggested translations—have I? And if you do not find them in the margin of your copy, how you must wonder! Thus, in the last speech but one, of Hermes, I prefer Porson and Blomfield's ει μηδ' ατυχων τι χαλα μανιων;—to the old combinations that include ευτυχη—though there is no MS. authority for emendation, it seems. But in what respect does Prometheus 'fare well,' or 'better' even, since the beginning? And is it not the old argument over again, that when a man fails he should repent of his ways?—And while thinking of Hermes, let me say that 'μηδε μοι διπλας οδους προσβαλης' is surely—'Don't subject me to the trouble of a second journey ... by paying no attention to the first.' So says Scholiast A, and so backs him Scholiast B, especially created, it should appear, to show there could be in rerum naturâ such another as his predecessor. A few other remarks occur to me, which I will tell you if you please; now, I really want to know how you are, and write for that.
Ever yours,
R.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
[Post-mark, June 9, 1845.]
Just after my note left, yours came—I will try so to answer it as to please you; and I begin by promising cheerfully to do all you bid me about naming days &c. I do believe we are friends now and for ever. There can be no reason, therefore, that I should cling tenaciously to any one or other time of meeting, as if, losing that, I lost everything—and, for the future, I will provide against sudden engagements, outrageous weather &c., to your heart's content. Nor am I going to except against here and there a little wrong I could get up, as when you imply from my quick impulses and the like. No, my dear friend—for I seem sure I shall have quite, quite time enough to do myself justice in your eyes—Let time show!
Perhaps I feel none the less sorely, when you 'thank' me for such company as mine, that I cannot avoid confessing to myself that it would not be so absolutely out of my power, perhaps, to contrive really and deserve thanks in a certain acceptation—I might really try, at all events, and amuse you a little better, when I do have the opportunity,—and I do not—but there is the thing! It is all of a piece—I do not seek your friendship in order to do you good—any good—only to do myself good. Though I would, God knows, do that too.
Enough of this.
I am much better, indeed,—but will certainly follow your advice should the pain return. And you—you have tried a new journey from your room, have you not?
Do recollect, at any turn, any chance so far in my favour,—that I am here and yours should you want any fetching and carrying in this outside London world. Your brothers may have their own business to mind, Mr. Kenyon is at New York, we will suppose; here am I—what else, what else makes me count my cleverness to you, as I know I have done more than once, by word and letter, but the real wish to be set at work? I should have, I hope, better taste than to tell any everyday acquaintance, who could not go out, one single morning even, on account of a headache, that the weather was delightful, much less that I had been walking five miles and meant to run ten—yet to you I boasted once of polking and waltzing and more—but then would it not be a very superfluous piece of respect in the four-footed bird to keep his wings to himself because his Master Oceanos could fly forsooth? Whereas he begins to wave a flap and show how ready they are to be off—for what else were the good of him? Think of this—and
Know me for yours
R.B.
For good you are, to those notes—you shall have more,—that is, the rest—on Wednesday then, at 3, except as you except. God bless you.
Oh, let me tell you—I suppose Mr. Horne must be in town—as I received a letter two days ago, from the contriver of some literary society or other who had before written to get me to belong to it, protesting against my reasons for refusing, and begging that 'at all events I would suspend my determination till I had been visited by Mr. H. on the subject'—and, as they can hardly mean to bring him express from the Drachenfels for just that, he is returned no doubt—and as he is your friend, I take the opportunity of mentioning the course I shall pursue with him or any other friend of yours I may meet,—(and everybody else, I may add—) the course I understand you to desire, with respect to our own intimacy. While I may acknowledge, I believe, that I correspond with you, I shall not, in any case, suffer it to be known that I see, or have seen you. This I just remind you of, lest any occasion of embarrassment should arise, for a moment, from your not being quite sure how I had acted in any case.—Con che, le bacio le mani—a rivederla!
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 10, 1845.]
I must thank you by one word for all your kindness and consideration—which could not be greater; nor more felt by me. In the first place, afterwards (if that should not be Irish dialect) do understand that my letter passed from my hands to go to yours on Friday, but was thrown aside carelessly down stairs and 'covered up' they say, so as not to be seen until late on Saturday; and I can only humbly hope to have been cross enough about it (having conscientiously tried) to secure a little more accuracy another time.—And then, ... if ever I should want anything done or found, ... (a roc's egg or the like) you may believe me that I shall not scruple to ask you to be the finder; but at this moment I want nothing, indeed, except your poems; and that is quite the truth. Now do consider and think what I could possibly want in your 'outside London world'; you, who are the 'Genius of the lamp'!—Why if you light it and let me read your romances, &c., by it, is not that the best use for it, and am I likely to look for another? Only I shall remember what you say, gratefully and seriously; and if ever I should have a good fair opportunity of giving you trouble (as if I had not done it already!), you may rely upon my evil intentions; even though dear Mr. Kenyon should not actually be at New York, ... which he is not, I am glad to say, as I saw him on Saturday.
Which reminds me that he knows of your having been here, of course! and will not mention it; as he understood from me that you would not.—Thank you! Also there was an especial reason which constrained me, on pain of appearing a great hypocrite, to tell Miss Mitford the bare fact of my having seen you—and reluctantly I did it, though placing some hope in her promise of discretion. And how necessary the discretion is, will appear in the awful statistical fact of our having at this moment, as my sisters were calculating yesterday, some forty relations in London—to say nothing of the right wing of the enemy. For Mr. Horne, I could have told you, and really I thought I had told you of his being in England.
Last paragraph of all is, that I don't want to be amused, ... or rather that I am amused by everything and anything. Why surely, surely, you have some singular ideas about me! So, till to-morrow,
E.B.B.
Instead of writing this note to you yesterday, as should have been, I went down-stairs—or rather was carried—and am not the worse.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday.
[Post-mark, June 14, 1845.]
Yes, the poem is too good in certain respects for the prizes given in colleges, (when all the pure parsley goes naturally to the rabbits), and has a great deal of beauty here and there in image and expression. Still I do not quite agree with you that it reaches the Tennyson standard any wise; and for the blank verse, I cannot for a moment think it comparable to one of the grand passages in 'Oenone,' and 'Arthur' and the like. In fact I seem to hear more in that latter blank verse than you do, ... to hear not only a 'mighty line' as in Marlowe, but a noble full orbicular wholeness in complete passages—which always struck me as the mystery of music and great peculiarity in Tennyson's versification, inasmuch as he attains to these complete effects without that shifting of the pause practised by the masters, ... Shelley and others. A 'linked music' in which there are no links!—that, you would take to be a contradiction—and yet something like that, my ear has always seemed to perceive; and I have wondered curiously again and again how there could be so much union and no fastening. Only of course it is not model versification—and for dramatic purposes, it must be admitted to be bad.
Which reminds me to be astonished for the second time how you could think such a thing of me as that I wanted to read only your lyrics, ... or that I 'preferred the lyrics' ... or something barbarous in that way? You don't think me 'ambidexter,' or 'either-handed' ... and both hands open for what poems you will vouchsafe to me; and yet if you would let me see anything you may have in a readable state by you, ... 'The Flight of the Duchess' ... or act or scene of 'The Soul's Tragedy,' ... I shall be so glad and grateful to you! Oh—if you change your mind and choose to be bien prié, I will grant it is your right, and begin my liturgy directly. But this is not teazing (in the intention of it!) and I understand all about the transcription, and the inscrutableness of rough copies,—that is, if you write as I do, so that my guardian angel or M. Champollion cannot read what is written. Only whatever they can, (remember!) I can: and you are not to mind trusting me with the cacistography possible to mortal readers.
The sun shines so that nobody dares complain of the east wind—and indeed I am better altogether. May God bless you, my dear friend.
E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
[Post-mark, June 14, 1845.]
When I ask my wise self what I really do remember of the Prize poem, the answer is—both of Chapman's lines a-top, quite worth any prize for their quoter—then, the good epithet of 'Green Europe' contrasting with Africa—then, deep in the piece, a picture of a Vestal in a vault, where I see a dipping and winking lamp plainest, and last of all the ominous 'all was dark' that dismisses you. I read the poem many years ago, and never since, though I have an impression that the versification is good, yet from your commentary I see I must have said a good deal more in its praise than that. But have you not discovered by this time that I go on talking with my thoughts away?
I know, I have always been jealous of my own musical faculty (I can write music).—Now that I see the uselessness of such jealousy, and am for loosing and letting it go, it may be cramped possibly. Your music is more various and exquisite than any modern writer's to my ear. One should study the mechanical part of the art, as nearly all that there is to be studied—for the more one sits and thinks over the creative process, the more it confirms itself as 'inspiration,' nothing more nor less. Or, at worst, you write down old inspirations, what you remember of them ... but with that it begins. 'Reflection' is exactly what it names itself—a re-presentation, in scattered rays from every angle of incidence, of what first of all became present in a great light, a whole one. So tell me how these lights are born, if you can! But I can tell anybody how to make melodious verses—let him do it therefore—it should be exacted of all writers.
You do not understand what a new feeling it is for me to have someone who is to like my verses or I shall not ever like them after! So far differently was I circumstanced of old, that I used rather to go about for a subject of offence to people; writing ugly things in order to warn the ungenial and timorous off my grounds at once. I shall never do so again at least! As it is, I will bring all I dare, in as great quantities as I can—if not next time, after then—certainly. I must make an end, print this Autumn my last four 'Bells,' Lyrics, Romances, 'The Tragedy,' and 'Luna,' and then go on with a whole heart to my own Poem—indeed, I have just resolved not to begin any new song, even, till this grand clearance is made—I will get the Tragedy transcribed to bring—
'To bring!' Next Wednesday—if you know how happy you make me! may I not say that, my dear friend, when I feel it from my soul?
I thank God that you are better: do pray make fresh endeavours to profit by this partial respite of the weather! All about you must urge that: but even from my distance some effect might come of such wishes. But you are better—look so and speak so! God bless you.
R.B.
You let 'flowers be sent you in a letter,' every one knows, and this hot day draws out our very first yellow rose.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Monday.
[Post-mark, June 17, 1845.]
Yes, I quite believe as you do that what is called the 'creative process' in works of Art, is just inspiration and no less—which made somebody say to me not long since; And so you think that Shakespeare's 'Othello' was of the effluence of the Holy Ghost?'—rather a startling deduction, ... only not quite as final as might appear to somebodies perhaps. At least it does not prevent my going on to agree with the saying of Spiridion, ... do you remember?... 'Tout ce que l'homme appelle inspiration, je l'appelle aussi revelation,' ... if there is not something too self-evident in it after all—my sole objection! And is it not true that your inability to analyse the mental process in question, is one of the proofs of the fact of inspiration?—as the gods were known of old by not being seen to move their feet,—coming and going in an equal sweep of radiance.—And still more wonderful than the first transient great light you speak of, ... and far beyond any work of reflection, except in the pure analytical sense in which you use the word, ... appears that gathering of light on light upon particular points, as you go (in composition) step by step, till you get intimately near to things, and see them in a fullness and clearness, and an intense trust in the truth of them which you have not in any sunshine of noon (called real!) but which you have then ... and struggle to communicate:—an ineffectual struggle with most writers (oh, how ineffectual!) and when effectual, issuing in the 'Pippa Passes,' and other master-pieces of the world.
You will tell me what you mean exactly by being jealous of your own music? You said once that you had had a false notion of music, or had practised it according to the false notions of other people: but did you mean besides that you ever had meant to despise music altogether—because that, it is hard to set about trying to believe of you indeed. And then, you can praise my verses for music?—Why, are you aware that people blame me constantly for wanting harmony—from Mr. Boyd who moans aloud over the indisposition of my 'trochees' ... and no less a person than Mr. Tennyson, who said to somebody who repeated it, that in the want of harmony lay the chief defect of the poems, 'although it might verily be retrieved, as he could fancy that I had an ear by nature.' Well—but I am pleased that you should praise me—right or wrong—I mean, whether I am right or wrong in being pleased! and I say so to you openly, although my belief is that you are under a vow to our Lady of Loretto to make giddy with all manner of high vanities, some head, ... not too strong for such things, but too low for them, ... before you see again the embroidery on her divine petticoat. Only there's a flattery so far beyond praise ... even your praise—as where you talk of your verses being liked &c., and of your being happy to bring them here, ... that is scarcely a lawful weapon; and see if the Madonna may not signify so much to you!—Seriously, you will not hurry too uncomfortably, or uncomfortably at all, about the transcribing? Another day, you know, will do as well—and patience is possible to me, if not 'native to the soil.'
Also I am behaving very well in going out into the noise; not quite out of doors yet, on account of the heat—and I am better as you say, without any doubt at all, and stronger—only my looks are a little deceitful; and people are apt to be heated and flushed in this weather, one hour, to look a little more ghastly an hour or two after. Not that it is not true of me that I am better, mind! Because I am.
The 'flower in the letter' was from one of my sisters—from Arabel (though many of these poems are ideal ... will you understand?) and your rose came quite alive and fresh, though in act of dropping its beautiful leaves, because of having to come to me instead of living on in your garden, as it intended. But I thank you—for this, and all, my dear friend.
E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 19, 1845.]
When I next see you, do not let me go on and on to my confusion about matters I am more or less ignorant of, but always ignorant. I tell you plainly I only trench on them, and intrench in them, from gaucherie, pure and respectable ... I should certainly grow instructive on the prospects of hay-crops and pasture-land, if deprived of this resource. And now here is a week to wait before I shall have any occasion to relapse into Greek literature when I am thinking all the while, 'now I will just ask simply, what flattery there was,' &c. &c., which, as I had not courage to say then, I keep to myself for shame now. This I will say, then—wait and know me better, as you will one long day at the end.
Why I write now, is because you did not promise, as before, to let me know how you are—this morning is miserably cold again—Will you tell me, at your own time?
God bless you, my dear friend.
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 20, 1845.]
If on Greek literature or anything else it is your pleasure to cultivate a reputation for ignorance, I will respect your desire—and indeed the point of the deficiency in question being far above my sight I am not qualified either to deny or assert the existence of it; so you are free to have it all your own way.
About the 'flattery' however, there is a difference; and I must deny a little having ever used such a word ... as far as I can recollect, and I have been trying to recollect, ... as that word of flattery. Perhaps I said something about your having vowed to make me vain by writing this or that of my liking your verses and so on—and perhaps I said it too lightly ... which happened because when one doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry, it is far best, as a general rule, to laugh. But the serious truth is that it was all nonsense together what I wrote, and that, instead of talking of your making me vain, I should have talked (if it had been done sincerely) of your humbling me—inasmuch as nothing does humble anybody so much as being lifted up too high. You know what vaulting Ambition did once for himself? and when it is done for him by another, his fall is still heavier. And one moral of all this general philosophy is, that if when your poems come, you persist in giving too much importance to what I may have courage to say of this or of that in them, you will make me a dumb critic and I shall have no help for my dumbness. So I tell you beforehand—nothing extenuating nor exaggerating nor putting down in malice. I know so much of myself as to be sure of it. Even as it is, the 'insolence' which people blame me for and praise me for, ... the 'recklessness' which my friends talk of with mitigating countenances ... seems gradually going and going—and really it would not be very strange (without that) if I who was born a hero worshipper and have so continued, and who always recognised your genius, should find it impossible to bring out critical doxies on the workings of it. Well—I shall do what I can—as far as impressions go, you understand—and you must promise not to attach too much importance to anything said. So that is a covenant, my dear friend!—
And I am really gaining strength—and I will not complain of the weather. As long as the thermometer keeps above sixty I am content for one; and the roses are not quite dead yet, which they would have been in the heat. And last and not least—may I ask if you were told that the pain in the head was not important (or was) in the causes, ... and was likely to be well soon? or was not? I am at the end.
E.B.B.
Upon second or third thoughts, isn't it true that you are a little suspicious of me? suspicious at least of suspiciousness?
R.B. to E.B.B.
Sunday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, June 23, 1845.]
And if I am 'suspicious of your suspiciousness,' who gives cause, pray? The matter was long ago settled, I thought, when you first took exception to what I said about higher and lower, and I consented to this much—that you should help seeing, if you could, our true intellectual and moral relation each to the other, so long as you would allow me to see what is there, fronting me. 'Is my eye evil because yours is not good?' My own friend, if I wished to 'make you vain,' if having 'found the Bower' I did really address myself to the wise business of spoiling its rose-roof,—I think that at least where there was such a will, there would be also something not unlike a way,—that I should find a proper hooked stick to tear down flowers with, and write you other letters than these—quite, quite others, I feel—though I am far from going to imagine, even for a moment, what might be the precise prodigy—like the notable Son of Zeus, that was to have been, and done the wonders, only he did not, because &c. &c.
But I have a restless head to-day, and so let you off easily. Well, you ask me about it, that head, and I am not justified in being positive when my Doctor is dubious; as for the causes, they are neither superfluity of study, nor fancy, nor care, nor any special naughtiness that I know how to amend. So if I bring you 'nothing to signify' on Wednesday ... though I hope to do more than that ... you will know exactly why it happens. I will finish and transcribe the 'Flight of the Duchess' since you spoke of that first.
I am truly happy to hear that your health improves still.
For me, going out does me good—reading, writing, and, what is odd,—infinitely most of all, sleeping do me the harm,—never any very great harm. And all the while I am yours
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Monday.
[Post-mark, June 24, 1845.]
I had begun to be afraid that I did not deserve to have my questions answered; and I was afraid of asking them over again. But it is worse to be afraid that you are not better at all in any essential manner (after all your assurances) and that the medical means have failed so far. Did you go to somebody who knows anything?—because there is no excuse, you see, in common sense, for not having the best and most experienced opinion when there is a choice of advice—and I am confident that that pain should not be suffered to go on without something being done. What I said about nerves, related to what you had told me of your mother's suffering and what you had fancied of the relation of it to your own, and not that I could be thinking about imaginary complaints—I wish I could. Not (either) that I believe in the relation ... because such things are not hereditary, are they? and the bare coincidence is improbable. Well, but, I wanted particularly to say this—Don't bring the 'Duchess' with you on Wednesday. I shall not expect anything, I write distinctly to tell you—and I would far far rather that you did not bring it. You see it is just as I thought—for that whether too much thought or study did or did not bring on the illness, ... yet you admit that reading and writing increase it ... as they would naturally do any sort of pain in the head—therefore if you will but be in earnest and try to get well first, we will do the 'Bells' afterwards, and there will be time for a whole peal of them, I hope and trust, before the winter. Now do admit that this is reasonable, and agree reasonably to it. And if it does you good to go out and take exercise, why not go out and take it? nay, why not go away and take it? Why not try the effect of a little change of air—or even of a great change of air—if it should be necessary, or even expedient? Anything is better, you know ... or if you don't know, I know—than to be ill, really, seriously—I mean for you to be ill, who have so much to do and to enjoy in the world yet ... and all those bells waiting to be hung! So that if you will agree to be well first, I will promise to be ready afterwards to help you in any thing I can do ... transcribing or anything ... to get the books through the press in the shortest of times—and I am capable of a great deal of that sort of work without being tired, having the habit of writing in any sort of position, and the long habit, ... since, before I was ill even, I never used to write at a table (or scarcely ever) but on the arm of a chair, or on the seat of one, sitting myself on the floor, and calling myself a Lollard for dignity. So you will put by your 'Duchess' ... will you not? or let me see just that one sheet—if one should be written—which is finished? ... up to this moment, you understand? finished now.
And if I have tired and teazed you with all these words it is a bad opportunity to take—and yet I will persist in saying through good and bad opportunities that I never did 'give cause' as you say, to your being 'suspicious of my suspiciousness' as I believe I said before. I deny my 'suspiciousness' altogether—it is not one of my faults. Nor is it quite my fault that you and I should always be quarrelling about over-appreciations and under-appreciations—and after all I have no interest nor wish, I do assure you, to depreciate myself—and you are not to think that I have the remotest claim to the Monthyon prize for good deeds in the way of modesty of self-estimation. Only when I know you better, as you talk of ... and when you know me too well, ... the right and the wrong of these conclusions will appear in a fuller light than ever so much arguing can produce now. Is it unkindly written of me? no—I feel it is not!—and that 'now and ever we are friends,' (just as you think) I think besides and am happy in thinking so, and could not be distrustful of you if I tried. So may God bless you, my ever dear friend—and mind to forget the 'Duchess' and to remember every good counsel!—Not that I do particularly confide in the medical oracles. They never did much more for me than, when my pulse was above a hundred and forty with fever, to give me digitalis to make me weak—and, when I could not move without fainting (with weakness), to give me quinine to make me feverish again. Yes—and they could tell from the stethoscope, how very little was really wrong in me ... if it were not on a vital organ—and how I should certainly live ... if I didn't die sooner. But then, nothing has power over affections of the chest, except God and his winds—and I do hope that an obvious quick remedy may be found for your head. But do give up the writing and all that does harm!—
Ever yours, my dear friend,
E.B.B.
Miss Mitford talked of spending Wednesday with me—and I have put it off to Thursday:—and if you should hear from Mr. Chorley that he is coming to see her and me together on any day, do understand that it was entirely her proposition and not mine, and that certainly it won't be acceded to, as far as I am concerned; as I have explained to her finally. I have been vexed about it—but she can see him down-stairs as she has done before—and if she calls me perverse and capricious (which she will do) I shall stop the reflection by thanking her again and again (as I can do sincerely) for her kindness and goodness in coming to see me herself, so far!—
R.B. to E.B.B.
Tuesday Morning,
[Post-mark, June 24, 1845.]
(So my friend did not in the spirit see me write that first letter, on Friday, which was too good and true to send, and met, five minutes after, its natural fate accordingly. Then on Saturday I thought to take health by storm, and walked myself half dead all the morning—about town too: last post-hour from this Thule of a suburb—4 P.M. on Saturdays, next expedition of letters, 8 A.M. on Mondays;—and then my real letter set out with the others—and, it should seem, set at rest a 'wonder whether thy friend's questions deserved answering'—de-served—answer-ing—!)
Parenthetically so much—I want most, though, to tell you—(leaving out any slightest attempt at thanking you) that I am much better, quite well to-day—that my doctor has piloted me safely through two or three illnesses, and knows all about me, I do think—and that he talks confidently of getting rid of all the symptoms complained of—and has made a good beginning if I may judge by to-day. As for going abroad, that is just the thing I most want to avoid (for a reason not so hard to guess, perhaps, as why my letter was slow in arriving).
So, till to-morrow,—my light through the dark week.
God ever bless you, dear friend,
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, June 25, 1845.]
What will you think when I write to ask you not to come to-morrow, Wednesday; but ... on Friday perhaps, instead? But do see how it is; and judge if it is to be helped.
I have waited hour after hour, hoping to hear from Miss Mitford that she would agree to take Thursday in change for Wednesday,—and just as I begin to wonder whether she can have received my letter at all, or whether she may not have been vexed by it into taking a vengeance and adhering to her own devices; (for it appealed to her esprit de sexe on the undeniable axiom of women having their way ... and she might choose to act it out!) just as I wonder over all this, and consider what a confusion of the elements it would be if you came and found her here, and Mr. Chorley at the door perhaps, waiting for some of the light of her countenance;—comes a note from Mr. Kenyon, to the effect that he will be here at four o'clock P.M.—and comes a final note from my aunt Mrs. Hedley (supposed to be at Brighton for several months) to the effect that she will be here at twelve o'clock, M.!! So do observe the constellation of adverse stars ... or the covey of 'bad birds,' as the Romans called them, and that there is no choice, but to write as I am writing. It can't be helped—can it? For take away the doubt about Miss Mitford, and Mr. Kenyon remains—and take away Mr. Kenyon, and there is Mrs. Hedley—and thus it must be for Friday ... which will learn to be a fortunate day for the nonce—unless Saturday should suit you better. I do not speak of Thursday, because of the doubt about Miss Mitford—and if any harm should happen to Friday, I will write again; but if you do not hear again, and are able to come then, you will come perhaps then.
In the meantime I thank you for the better news in your note—if it is really, really to be trusted in—but you know, you have said so often that you were better and better, without being really better, that it makes people ... 'suspicious.' Yet it is full amends for the disappointment to hope ... here I must break off or be too late. May God bless you my dear friend.
E.B.B.