R.B. to E.B.B.

Just arrived!—(mind, the silent writing overflows the page, and laughs at the black words for Mr. Kenyon to read!)—But your note arrived earlier—more of that, when I write after this dreadful dispatching-business that falls on me—friend A. and B. and C. must get their copy, and word of regard, all by next post!—

Could you think that that untoward letter lived one moment after it returned to me? I burned it and cried 'serve it right'! Poor letter,—yet I should have been vexed and offended then to be told I could love you better than I did already. 'Live and learn!' Live and love you—dearest, as loves you

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday Evening.
[Post-mark, November 10, 1845.]

When I come back from seeing you, and think over it all, there never is a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with, and wish to return to you with some ... not to say, all ... the thoughts and fancies it is sure to call out of me. There is nothing in you that does not draw out all of me. You possess me, dearest ... and there is no help for the expressing it all, no voice nor hand, but these of mine which shrink and turn away from the attempt. So you must go on, patiently, knowing me more and more, and your entire power on me, and I will console myself, to the full extent, with your knowledge—penetration, intuition—somehow I must believe you can get to what is here, in me, without the pretence of my telling or writing it. But, because I give up the great achievements, there is no reason I should not secure any occasion of making clear one of the less important points that arise in our intercourse ... if I fancy I can do it with the least success. For instance, it is on my mind to explain what I meant yesterday by trusting that the entire happiness I feel in the letters, and the help in the criticising might not be hurt by the surmise, even, that those labours to which you were born, might be suspended, in any degree, through such generosity to me. Dearest, I believed in your glorious genius and knew it for a true star from the moment I saw it; long before I had the blessing of knowing it was my star, with my fortune and futurity in it. And, when I draw back from myself, and look better and more clearly, then I do feel, with you, that the writing a few letters more or less, reading many or few rhymes of any other person, would not interfere in any material degree with that power of yours—that you might easily make one so happy and yet go on writing 'Geraldines' and 'Berthas'—but—how can I, dearest, leave my heart's treasures long, even to look at your genius?... and when I come back and find all safe, find the comfort of you, the traces of you ... will it do—tell me—to trust all that as a light effort, an easy matter?

Yet, if you can lift me with one hand, while the other suffices to crown you—there is queenliness in that, too!

Well, I have spoken. As I told you, your turn comes now. How have you determined respecting the American Edition? You tell me nothing of yourself! It is all me you help, me you do good to ... and I take it all! Now see, if this goes on! I have not had every love-luxury, I now find out ... where is the proper, rationally to-be-expected—'lovers' quarrel'? Here, as you will find! 'Iræ; amantium'.... I am no more 'at a loss with my Naso,' than Peter Ronsard. Ah, but then they are to be reintegratio amoris—and to get back into a thing, one must needs get for a moment first out of it ... trust me, no! And now, the natural inference from all this? The consistent inference ... the 'self-denying ordinance'? Why—do you doubt? even this,—you must just put aside the Romance, and tell the Americans to wait, and make my heart start up when the letter is laid to it; the letter full of your news, telling me you are well and walking, and working for my sake towards the time—informing me, moreover, if Thursday or Friday is to be my day—.

May God bless you, my own love.

I will certainly bring you an Act of the Play ... for this serpent's reason, in addition to the others ... that—No, I will tell you that—I can tell you now more than even lately!

Ever your own

R.B.

Facsimile of Letter of Robert Browning

(See Vol. I., p. 270)

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday.
[Post-mark, November 11, 1845.]

If it were possible that you could do me harm in the way of work, (but it isn't) it would be possible, not through writing letters and reading manuscripts, but because of a reason to be drawn from your own great line

What man is strong until he stands alone?

What man ... what woman? For have I not felt twenty times the desolate advantage of being insulated here and of not minding anybody when I made my poems?—of living a little like a disembodied spirit, and caring less for suppositious criticism than for the black fly buzzing in the pane?—That made me what dear Mr. Kenyon calls 'insolent,'—untimid, and unconventional in my degree; and not so much by strength, you see, as by separation. You touch your greater ends by mere strength; breaking with your own hands the hampering threads which, in your position would have hampered me.

Still ... when all is changed for me now, and different, it is not possible, ... for all the changing, nor for all your line and my speculation, ... that I should not be better and stronger for being within your influences and sympathies, in this way of writing as in other ways. We shall see—you will see. Yet I have been idle lately I confess; leaning half out of some turret-window of the castle of Indolence and watching the new sunrise—as why not?—Do I mean to be idle always?—no!—and am I not an industrious worker on the average of days? Indeed yes! Also I have been less idle than you think perhaps, even this last year, though the results seem so like trifling: and I shall set about the prose papers for the New York people, and the something rather better besides we may hope ... may I not hope, if you wish it? Only there is no 'crown' for me, be sure, except what grows from this letter and such letters ... this sense of being anything to one! there is no room for another crown. Have I a great head like Goethe's that there should be room? and mine is bent down already by the unused weight—and as to bearing it, ... 'Will it do,—tell me; to treat that as a light effort, an easy matter?'

Now let me remember to tell you that the line of yours I have just quoted, and which has been present with me since you wrote it, Mr. Chorley has quoted too in his new novel of 'Pomfret.' You were right in your identifying of servant and waistcoat—and Wilson waited only till you had gone on Saturday, to give me a parcel and note; the novel itself in fact, which Mr. Chorley had the kindness to send me 'some days or weeks,' said the note, 'previous to the publication.' Very goodnatured of him certainly: and the book seems to me his best work in point of sustainment and vigour, and I am in process of being interested in it. Not that he is a maker, even for this prose. A feeler ... an observer ... a thinker even, in a certain sphere—but a maker ... no, as it seems to me—and if I were he, I would rather herd with the essayists than the novelists where he is too good to take inferior rank and not strong enough to 'go up higher.' Only it would be more right in me to be grateful than to talk so—now wouldn't it?

And here is Mr. Kenyon's letter back again—a kind good letter ... a letter I have liked to read (so it was kind and good in you to let me!)—and he was with me to-day and praising the 'Ride to Ghent,' and praising the 'Duchess,' and praising you altogether as I liked to hear him. The Ghent-ride was 'very fine'—and the

Into the midnight they galloped abreast

drew us out into the night as witnesses. And then, the 'Duchess' ... the conception of it was noble, and the vehicle, rhythm and all, most characteristic and individual ... though some of the rhymes ... oh, some of the rhymes did not find grace in his ears—but the incantation-scene, 'just trenching on the supernatural,' that was taken to be 'wonderful,' ... 'showing extraordinary power, ... as indeed other things did ... works of a highly original writer and of such various faculty!'—Am I not tired of writing your praises as he said then? So I shall tell you, instead of any more, that I went down to the drawing-room yesterday (because it was warm enough) by an act of supererogatory virtue for which you may praise me in turn. What weather it is! and how the year seems to have forgotten itself into April.

But after all, how have I answered your letter? and how are such letters to be answered? Do we answer the sun when he shines? May God bless you ... it is my answer—with one word besides ... that I am wholly and ever your

E.B.B.

On Thursday as far as I know yet—and you shall hear if there should be an obstacle. Will you walk? If you will not, you know, you must be forgetting me a little. Will you remember me too in the act of the play?—but above all things in taking the right exercise, and in not overworking the head. And this for no serpent's reason.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Two letters in one—Wednesday.
[Post-mark, November 15, 1845.]

I shall see you to-morrow and yet am writing what you will have to read perhaps. When you spoke of 'stars' and 'geniuses' in that letter, I did not seem to hear; I was listening to those words of the letter which were of a better silver in the sound than even your praise could be; and now that at last I come to hear them in their extravagance (oh such pure extravagance about 'glorious geniuses'—) I can't help telling you they were heard last, and deserved it.

Shall I tell you besides?—The first moment in which I seemed to admit to myself in a flash of lightning the possibility of your affection for me being more than dream-work ... the first moment was that when you intimated (as you have done since repeatedly) that you cared for me not for a reason, but because you cared for me. Now such a 'parceque' which reasonable people would take to be irrational, was just the only one fitted to the uses of my understanding on the particular question we were upon ... just the 'woman's reason' suitable to the woman ...; for I could understand that it might be as you said, and, if so, that it was altogether unanswerable ... do you see? If a fact includes its own cause ... why there it stands for ever—one of 'earth's immortalities'—as long as it includes it.

And when unreasonableness stands for a reason, it is a promising state of things, we may both admit, and proves what it would be as well not too curiously to enquire into. But then ... to look at it in a brighter aspect, ... I do remember how, years ago, when talking the foolishnesses which women will talk when they are by themselves, and not forced to be sensible, ... one of my friends thought it 'safest to begin with a little aversion,' and another, wisest to begin with a great deal of esteem, and how the best attachments were produced so and so, ... I took it into my head to say that the best was where there was no cause at all for it, and the more wholly unreasonable, the better still; that the motive should lie in the feeling itself and not in the object of it—and that the affection which could (if it could) throw itself out on an idiot with a goître would be more admirable than Abelard's. Whereupon everybody laughed, and someone thought it affected of me and no true opinion, and others said plainly that it was immoral, and somebody else hoped, in a sarcasm, that I meant to act out my theory for the advantage of the world. To which I replied quite gravely that I had not virtue enough—and so, people laughed as it is fair to laugh when other people are esteemed to talk nonsense. And all this came back to me in the south wind of your 'parceque,' and I tell it as it came ... now.

Which proves, if it proves anything, ... while I have every sort of natural pleasure in your praises and like you to like my poetry just as I should, and perhaps more than I should; yet why it is all behind ... and in its place—and why I have a tendency moreover to sift and measure any praise of yours and to separate it from the superfluities, far more than with any other person's praise in the world.

Friday evening.—Shall I send this letter or not? I have been 'tra 'l si e 'l no,' and writing a new beginning on a new sheet even—but after all you ought to hear the remote echo of your last letter ... far out among the hills, ... as well as the immediate reverberation, and so I will send it,—and what I send is not to be answered, remember!

I read Luria's first act twice through before I slept last night, and feel just as a bullet might feel, not because of the lead of it but because shot into the air and suddenly arrested and suspended. It ('Luria') is all life, and we know (that is, the reader knows) that there must be results here and here. How fine that sight of Luria is upon the lynx hides—how you see the Moor in him just in the glimpse you have by the eyes of another—and that laugh when the horse drops the forage, what wonderful truth and character you have in that!—And then, when he is in the scene—: 'Golden-hearted Luria' you called him once to me, and his heart shines already ... wide open to the morning sun. The construction seems to me very clear everywhere—and the rhythm, even over-smooth in a few verses, where you invert a little artificially—but that shall be set down on a separate strip of paper: and in the meantime I am snatched up into 'Luria' and feel myself driven on to the ends of the poet, just as a reader should.

But you are not driven on to any ends? so as to be tired, I mean? You will not suffer yourself to be overworked because you are 'interested' in this work. I am so certain that the sensations in your head demand repose; and it must be so injurious to you to be perpetually calling, calling these new creations, one after another, that you must consent to be called to, and not hurry the next act, no, nor any act—let the people have time to learn the last number by heart. And how glad I am that Mr. Fox should say what he did of it ... though it wasn't true, you know ... not exactly. Still, I do hold that as far as construction goes, you never put together so much unquestionable, smooth glory before, ... not a single entanglement for the understanding ... unless 'the snowdrops' make an exception—while for the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before your readers more plainly than in that same number! Also you have extended your sweep of power—the sea-weed is thrown farther (if not higher) than it was found before; and one may calculate surely now how a few more waves will cover the brown stones and float the sight up away through the fissure of the rocks. The rhythm (to touch one of the various things) the rhythm of that 'Duchess' does more and more strike me as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greeks called pedestrian-metre, ... between metre and prose ... the difficult rhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of the general measure. Then 'The Ride'—with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering ... yes, and how that one touch of softness acts back upon the energy and resolution and exalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have been expected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then 'Saul'—and in a first place 'St. Praxed'—and for pure description, 'Fortú' and the deep 'Pictor Ignotus'—and the noble, serene 'Italy in England,' which grows on you the more you know of it—and that delightful 'Glove'—and the short lyrics ... for one comes to 'select' everything at last, and certainly I do like these poems better and better, as your poems are made to be liked. But you will be tired to hear it said over and over so, ... and I am going to 'Luria,' besides.

When you write will you say exactly how you are? and will you write? And I want to explain to you that although I don't make a profession of equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits were always given to rock a little, up and down) yet that I did not mean to be so ungrateful and wicked as to complain of low spirits now and to you. It would not be true either: and I said 'low' to express a merely bodily state. My opium comes in to keep the pulse from fluttering and fainting ... to give the right composure and point of balance to the nervous system. I don't take it for 'my spirits' in the usual sense; you must not think such a thing. The medical man who came to see me made me take it the other day when he was in the room, before the right hour and when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the need he observed in the pulse. 'It was a necessity of my position,' he said. Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually do who take opium. I am not even subject to an opium-headache. As to the low spirits I will not say that mine have not been low enough and with cause enough; but even then, ... why if you were to ask the nearest witnesses, ... say, even my own sisters, ... everybody would tell you, I think, that the 'cheerfulness' even then, was the remarkable thing in me—certainly it has been remarked about me again and again. Nobody has known that it was an effort (a habit of effort) to throw the light on the outside,—I do abhor so that ignoble groaning aloud of the 'groans of Testy and Sensitude'—yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in anything. Think if I could mean to complain of 'low spirits' now, and to you. Why it would be like complaining of not being able to see at noon—which would simply prove that I was very blind. And you, who are not blind, cannot make out what is written—so you need not try. May God bless you long after you have done blessing me!

Your own     

E.B.B.

Now I am half tempted to tear this letter in two (and it is long enough for three) and to send you only the latter half. But you will understand—you will not think that there is a contradiction between the first and last ... you cannot. One is a truth of me—and the other a truth of you—and we two are different, you know.

You are not over-working in 'Luria'? That you should not, is a truth, too.

I observed that Mr. Kenyon put in 'Junior' to your address. Ought that to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you without hesitation?

Mr. Kenyon asked me for Mr. Chorley's book, or you should have it. Shall I send it to you presently?

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, November 17, 1845.]

At last your letter comes—and the deep joy—(I know and use to analyse my own feelings, and be sober in giving distinctive names to their varieties; this is deep joy,)—the true love with which I take this much of you into my heart, ... that proves what it is I wanted so long, and find at last, and am happy for ever. I must have more than 'intimated'—I must have spoken plainly out the truth, if I do myself the barest justice, and told you long ago that the admiration at your works went away, quite another way and afar from the love of you. If I could fancy some method of what I shall say happening without all the obvious stumbling-blocks of falseness, &c. which no foolish fancy dares associate with you ... if you could tell me when I next sit by you—'I will undeceive you,—I am not the Miss B.—she is up-stairs and you shall see her—I only wrote those letters, and am what you see, that is all now left you' (all the misapprehension having arisen from me, in some inexplicable way) ... I should not begin by saying anything, dear, dearest—but after that, I should assure you—soon make you believe that I did not much wonder at the event, for I have been all my life asking what connection there is between the satisfaction at the display of power, and the sympathy with—ever-increasing sympathy with—all imaginable weakness? Look now: Coleridge writes on and on,—at last he writes a note to his 'War-Eclogue,' in which he avers himself to have been actuated by a really—on the whole—benevolent feeling to Mr. Pitt when he wrote that stanza in which 'Fire' means to 'cling to him everlastingly'—where is the long line of admiration now that the end snaps? And now—here I refuse to fancy—you know whether, if you never write another line, speak another intelligible word, recognize me by a look again—whether I shall love you less or more ... more; having a right to expect more strength with the strange emergency. And it is because I know this, build upon this entirely, that as a reasonable creature, I am bound to look first to what hangs farthest and most loosely from me ... what might go from you to your loss, and so to mine, to say the least ... because I want all of you, not just so much as I could not live without—and because I see the danger of your entirely generous disposition and cannot quite, yet, bring myself to profit by it in the quiet way you recommend. Always remember, I never wrote to you, all the years, on the strength of your poetry, though I constantly heard of you through Mr. K. and was near seeing you once, and might have easily availed myself of his intervention to commend any letter to your notice, so as to reach you out of the foolish crowd of rushers-in upon genius ... who come and eat their bread and cheese on the high-altar, and talk of reverence without one of its surest instincts—never quiet till they cut their initials on the cheek of the Medicean Venus to prove they worship her. My admiration, as I said, went its natural way in silence—but when on my return to England in December, late in the month, Mr. K. sent those Poems to my sister, and I read my name there—and when, a day or two after, I met him and, beginning to speak my mind on them, and getting on no better than I should now, said quite naturally—'if I were to write this, now?'—and he assured me with his perfect kindness, you would be even 'pleased' to hear from me under those circumstances ... nay,—for I will tell you all, in this, in everything—when he wrote me a note soon after to reassure me on that point ... then I did write, on account of my purely personal obligation, though of course taking that occasion to allude to the general and customary delight in your works: I did write, on the whole, unwillingly ... with consciousness of having to speak on a subject which I felt thoroughly concerning, and could not be satisfied with an imperfect expression of. As for expecting then what has followed ... I shall only say I was scheming how to get done with England and go to my heart in Italy. And now, my love—I am round you ... my whole life is wound up and down and over you.... I feel you stir everywhere. I am not conscious of thinking or feeling but about you, with some reference to you—so I will live, so may I die! And you have blessed me beyond the bond, in more than in giving me yourself to love; inasmuch as you believed me from the first ... what you call 'dream-work' was real of its kind, did you not think? and now you believe me, I believe and am happy, in what I write with my heart full of love for you. Why do you tell me of a doubt, as now, and bid me not clear it up, 'not answer you?' Have I done wrong in thus answering? Never, never do me direct wrong and hide for a moment from me what a word can explain as now. You see, you thought, if but for a moment, I loved your intellect—or what predominates in your poetry and is most distinct from your heart—better, or as well as you—did you not? and I have told you every thing,—explained everything ... have I not? And now I will dare ... yes, dearest, kiss you back to my heart again; my own. There—and there!

And since I wrote what is above, I have been reading among other poems that sonnet—'Past and Future'—which affects me more than any poem I ever read. How can I put your poetry away from you, even in these ineffectual attempts to concentrate myself upon, and better apply myself to what remains?—poor, poor work it is; for is not that sonnet to be loved as a true utterance of yours? I cannot attempt to put down the thoughts that rise; may God bless me, as you pray, by letting that beloved hand shake the less ... I will only ask, the less ... for being laid on mine through this life! And, indeed, you write down, for me to calmly read, that I make you happy! Then it is—as with all power—God through the weakest instrumentality ... and I am past expression proud and grateful—My love,

I am your

R.B.

I must answer your questions: I am better—and will certainly have your injunction before my eyes and work quite moderately. Your letters come straight to me—my father's go to Town, except on extraordinary occasions, so that all come for my first looking-over. I saw Mr. K. last night at the Amateur Comedy—and heaps of old acquaintances—and came home tired and savage—and yearned literally, for a letter this morning, and so it came and I was well again. So, I am not even to have your low spirits leaning on mine? It was just because I always find you alike, and ever like yourself, that I seemed to discern a depth, when you spoke of 'some days' and what they made uneven where all is agreeable to me. Do not, now, deprive me of a right—a right ... to find you as you are; get no habit of being cheerful with me—I have universal sympathy and can show you a side of me, a true face, turn as you may. If you are cheerful ... so will I be ... if sad, my cheerfulness will be all the while behind, and propping up, any sadness that meets yours, if that should be necessary. As for my question about the opium ... you do not misunderstand that neither: I trust in the eventual consummation of my—shall I not say, our—hopes; and all that bears upon your health immediately or prospectively, affects me—how it affects me! Will you write again? Wednesday, remember! Mr. K. wants me to go to him one of the three next days after. I will bring you some letters ... one from Landor. Why should I trouble you about 'Pomfret.'

And Luria ... does it so interest you? Better is to come of it. How you lift me up!—

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday.
[Post-mark, November 18, 1845.]

How you overcome me as always you do—and where is the answer to anything except too deep down in the heart for even the pearl-divers? But understand ... what you do not quite ... that I did not mistake you as far even as you say here and even 'for a moment.' I did not write any of that letter in a 'doubt' of you—not a word.... I was simply looking back in it on my own states of feeling, ... looking back from that point of your praise to what was better ... (or I should not have looked back)—and so coming to tell you, by a natural association, how the completely opposite point to that of any praise was the one which struck me first and most, viz. the no-reason of your reasoning ... acknowledged to be yours. Of course I acknowledge it to be yours, ... that high reason of no reason—I acknowledged it to be yours (didn't I?) in acknowledging that it made an impression on me. And then, referring to the traditions of my experience such as I told them to you, I meant, so, farther to acknowledge that I would rather be cared for in that unreasonable way, than for the best reason in the world. But all that was history and philosophy simply—was it not?—and not doubt of you.

The truth is ... since we really are talking truths in this world ... that I never have doubted you—ah, you know!—I felt from the beginning so sure of the nobility and integrity in you that I would have trusted you to make a path for my soul—that, you know. I felt certain that you believed of yourself every word you spoke or wrote—and you must not blame me if I thought besides sometimes (it was the extent of my thought) that you were self-deceived as to the nature of your own feelings. If you could turn over every page of my heart like the pages of a book, you would see nothing there offensive to the least of your feelings ... not even to the outside fringes of your man's vanity ... should you have any vanity like a man; which I do doubt. I never wronged you in the least of things—never ... I thank God for it. But 'self-deceived,' it was so easy for you to be: see how on every side and day by day, men are—and women too—in this sort of feelings. 'Self-deceived,' it was so possible for you to be, and while I thought it possible, could I help thinking it best for you that it should be so—and was it not right in me to persist in thinking it possible? It was my reverence for you that made me persist! What was I that I should think otherwise? I had been shut up here too long face to face with my own spirit, not to know myself, and, so, to have lost the common illusions of vanity. All the men I had ever known could not make your stature among them. So it was not distrust, but reverence rather. I sate by while the angel stirred the water, and I called it Miracle. Do not blame me now, ... my angel!

Nor say, that I 'do not lean' on you with all the weight of my 'past' ... because I do! You cannot guess what you are to me—you cannot—it is not possible:—and though I have said that before, I must say it again ... for it comes again to be said. It is something to me between dream and miracle, all of it—as if some dream of my earliest brightest dreaming-time had been lying through these dark years to steep in the sunshine, returning to me in a double light. Can it be, I say to myself, that you feel for me so? can it be meant for me? this from you?

If it is your 'right' that I should be gloomy at will with you, you exercise it, I do think—for although I cannot promise to be very sorrowful when you come, (how could that be?) yet from different motives it seems to me that I have written to you quite superfluities about my 'abomination of desolation,'—yes indeed, and blamed myself afterwards. And now I must say this besides. When grief came upon grief, I never was tempted to ask 'How have I deserved this of God,' as sufferers sometimes do: I always felt that there must be cause enough ... corruption enough, needing purification ... weakness enough, needing strengthening ... nothing of the chastisement could come to me without cause and need. But in this different hour, when joy follows joy, and God makes me happy, as you say, through you ... I cannot repress the ... 'How have I deserved this of Him?'—I know I have not—I know I do not.

Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room for you?—If so, it was well done,—dearest! They leave the ground fallow before the wheat.

'Were you wrong in answering?' Surely not ... unless it is wrong to show all this goodness ... and too much, it may be for me. When the plants droop for drought and the copious showers fall suddenly, silver upon silver, they die sometimes of the reverse of their adversities. But no—that, even, shall not be a danger! And if I said 'Do not answer,' I did not mean that I would not have a doubt removed—(having no doubt!—) but I was simply unwilling to seem to be asking for golden words ... going down the aisles with that large silken purse, as quêteuse. Try to understand.

On Wednesday then!—George is invited to meet you on Thursday at Mr. Kenyon's.

The Examiner speaks well, upon the whole, and with allowances ... oh, that absurdity about metaphysics apart from poetry!—'Can such things be' in one of the best reviews of the day? Mr. Kenyon was here on Sunday and talking of the poems with real living tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. But I will tell you. 'Luria' is to climb to the place of a great work, I see. And if I write too long letters, is it not because you spoil me, and because (being spoilt) I cannot help it?—May God bless you always—

Your           

E.B.B.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Thursday Morning.

Here is the copy of Landor's verses.

You know thoroughly, do you not, why I brought all those good-natured letters, desperate praise and all? Not, not out of the least vanity in the world—nor to help myself in your sight with such testimony: would it seem very extravagant, on the contrary, if I said that perhaps I laid them before your eyes in a real fit of compunction at not being, in my heart, thankful enough for the evident motive of the writers,—and so was determined to give them the 'last honours' if not the first, and not make them miss you because, through my fault, they had missed me? Does this sound too fantastical? Because it is strictly true: the most laudatory of all, I skimmed once over with my flesh creeping—it seemed such a death-struggle, that of good nature over—well, it is fresh ingratitude of me, so here it shall end.

I am not ungrateful to you—but you must wait to know that:—I can speak less than nothing with my living lips.

I mean to ask your brother how you are to-night ... so quietly!

God bless you, my dearest, and reward you.

Your R.B.

Mrs. Shelley—with the 'Ricordi.'

Of course, Landor's praise is altogether a different gift; a gold vase from King Hiram; beside he has plenty of conscious rejoicing in his own riches, and is not left painfully poor by what he sends away. That is the unpleasant point with some others—they spread you a board and want to gird up their loins and wait on you there. Landor says 'come up higher and let us sit and eat together.' Is it not that?

Now—you are not to turn on me because the first is my proper feeling to you, ... for poetry is not the thing given or taken between us—it is heart and life and myself, not mine, I give—give? That you glorify and change and, in returning then, give me!

E.B.B. to R.B.

Thursday.
[Post-mark, November 21, 1845.]

Thank you! and will you, if your sister made the copy of Landor's verses for me as well as for you, thank her from me for another kindness, ... not the second nor the third? For my own part, be sure that if I did not fall on the right subtle interpretation about the letters, at least I did not 'think it vain' of you! vain: when, supposing you really to have been over-gratified by such letters, it could have proved only an excess of humility!—But ... besides the subtlety,—you meant to be kind to me, you know,—and I had a pleasure and an interest in reading them—only that ... mind. Sir John Hanmer's, I was half angry with! Now is he not cold?—and is it not easy to see why he is forced to write his own scenes five times over and over? He might have mentioned the 'Duchess' I think; and he a poet! Mr. Chorley speaks some things very well—but what does he mean about 'execution,' en revanche? but I liked his letter and his candour in the last page of it. Will Mr. Warburton review you? does he mean that? Now do let me see any other letters you receive. May I? Of course Landor's 'dwells apart' from all: and besides the reason you give for being gratified by it, it is well that one prophet should open his mouth and prophesy and give his witness to the inspiration of another. See what he says in the letter.... 'You may stand quite alone if you will—and I think you will.' That is a noble testimony to a truth. And he discriminates—he understands and discerns—they are not words thrown out into the air. The 'profusion of imagery covering the depth of thought' is a true description. And, in the verses, he lays his finger just on your characteristics—just on those which, when you were only a poet to me, (only a poet: does it sound irreverent? almost, I think!) which, when you were only a poet to me, I used to study, characteristic by characteristic, and turn myself round and round in despair of being ever able to approach, taking them to be so essentially and intensely masculine that like effects were unattainable, even in a lower degree, by any female hand. Did I not tell you so once before? or oftener than once? And must not these verses of Landor's be printed somewhere—in the Examiner? and again in the Athenæum? if in the Examiner, certainly again in the Athenæum—it would be a matter of course. Oh those verses: how they have pleased me! It was an act worthy of him—and of you.

George has been properly 'indoctrinated,' and, we must hope, will do credit to my instructions. Just now ... just as I was writing ... he came in to say good-morning and good-night (he goes to chambers earlier than I receive visitors generally), and to ask with a smile, if I had 'a message for my friend' ... that was you ... and so he was indoctrinated. He is good and true, honest and kind, but a little over-grave and reasonable, as I and my sisters complain continually. The great Law lime-kiln dries human souls all to one colour—and he is an industrious reader among law books and knows a good deal about them, I have heard from persons who can judge; but with a sacrifice of impulsiveness and liberty of spirit, which I should regret for him if he sate on the Woolsack even. Oh—that law! how I do detest it! I hate it and think ill of it—I tell George so sometimes—and he is good-natured and only thinks to himself (a little audibly now and then) that I am a woman and talking nonsense. But the morals of it, and the philosophy of it! And the manners of it! in which the whole host of barristers looks down on the attorneys and the rest of the world!—how long are these things to last!

Theodosia Garrow, I have seen face to face once or twice. She is very clever—very accomplished—with talents and tastes of various kinds—a musician and linguist, in most modern languages I believe—and a writer of fluent graceful melodious verses, ... you cannot say any more. At least I cannot—and though I have not seen this last poem in the 'Book of Beauty,' I have no more trust ready for it than for its predecessors, of which Mr. Landor said as much. It is the personal feeling which speaks in him, I fancy—simply the personal feeling—and, that being the case, it does not spoil the discriminating appreciation on the other page of this letter. I might have the modesty to admit besides that I may be wrong and he, right, all through. But ... 'more intense than Sappho'!—more intense than intensity itself!—to think of that!—Also the word 'poetry' has a clear meaning to me, and all the fluency and facility and quick ear-catching of a tune which one can find in the world, do not answer to it—no.

How is the head? will you tell me? I have written all this without a word of it, and yet ever since yesterday I have been uneasy, ... I cannot help it. You see you are not better but worse. 'Since you were in Italy'—Then is it England that disagrees with you? and is it change away from England that you want? ... require, I mean. If so—why what follows and ought to follow? You must not be ill indeed—that is the first necessity. Tell me how you are, exactly how you are; and remember to walk, and not to work too much—for my sake—if you care for me—if it is not too bold of me to say so. I had fancied you were looking better rather than otherwise: but those sensations in the head are frightful and ought to be stopped by whatever means; even by the worst, as they would seem to me. Well—it was bad news to hear of the increase of pain; for the amendment was a 'passing show' I fear, and not caused even by thoughts of mine or it would have appeared before; while on the other side (the sunny side of the way) I heard on that same yesterday, what made me glad as good news, a whole gospel of good news, and from you too who profess to say 'less than nothing,' and that was that 'the times seemed longer to you':—do you remember saying it? And it made me glad ... happy—perhaps too glad and happy—and surprised: yes, surprised!—for if you had told me (but you would not have told me) if you had let me guess ... just the contrary, ... 'that the times seemed shorter,' ... why it would have seemed to me as natural as nature—oh, believe me it would, and I could not have thought hardly of you for it in the most secret or silent of my thoughts. How am I to feel towards you, do you imagine, ... who have the world round you and yet make me this to you? I never can tell you how, and you never can know it without having my heart in you with all its experiences: we measure by those weights. May God bless you! and save me from being the cause to you of any harm or grief!... I choose it for my blessing instead of another. What should I be if I could fail willingly to you in the least thing? But I never will, and you know it. I will not move, nor speak, nor breathe, so as willingly and consciously to touch, with one shade of wrong, that precious deposit of 'heart and life' ... which may yet be recalled.

And, so, may God bless you and your

E.B.B.

Remember to say how you are.

I sent 'Pomfret'—and Shelley is returned, and the letters, in the same parcel—but my letter goes by the post as you see. Is there contrast enough between the two rival female personages of 'Pomfret.' I fancy not. Helena should have been more 'demonstrative' than she appeared in Italy, to secure the 'new modulation' with Walter. But you will not think it a strong book, I am sure, with all the good and pure intention of it. The best character ... most life-like ... as conventional life goes ... seems to me 'Mr. Rose' ... beyond all comparison—and the best point, the noiseless, unaffected manner in which the acting out of the 'private judgment' in Pomfret himself is made no heroic virtue but simply an integral part of the love of truth. As to Grace she is too good to be interesting, I am afraid—and people say of her more than she expresses—and as to 'generosity,' she could not do otherwise in the last scenes.

But I will not tell you the story after all.

At the beginning of this letter I meant to write just one page; but my generosity is like Grace's, and could not help itself. There were the letters to write of, and the verses! and then, you know, 'femme qui parle' never has done. Let me hear! and I will be as brisk as a monument next time for variety.