Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  The flowers are ... so beautiful! Indeed it was wrong, though, to send me the last. It was not just to the lawful possessors and enjoyers of them. That it was kind to me I do not forget.

  You are too teachable a pupil in the art of obliterating — and omne ignotum pro terrifico ... and therefore I won’t frighten you by walking to meet you for fear of being frightened myself.

  So good-bye until Tuesday. I ought not to make you read all this, I know, whether you like to read it or not: and I ought not to have written it, having no better reason than because I like to write on and on. You have better reasons for thinking me very weak — and I, too good ones for not being able to reproach you for that natural and necessary opinion.

  May God bless you my dearest friend.

  E.B.B.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Tuesday Evening.

  [Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]

  What can I say, or hope to say to you when I see what you do for me?

  This — for myself, (nothing for you!) — this, that I think the great, great good I get by your kindness strikes me less than that kindness.

  All is right, too —

  Come, I will have my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my utterest hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters — and the Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from two lines of a legend that delighted my infancy, and now instruct my maturer years in pretty nearly all they boast of the semi-mythologic era referred to — ’In London town, when reigned King Lud, His lords went stomping thro’ the mud’ — would all historic records were half as picturesque!)

  But you know, yes, you know you are too indulgent by far — and treat these roughnesses as if they were advanced to many a stage! Meantime the pure gain is mine, and better, the kind generous spirit is mine, (mine to profit by) — and best — best — best, the dearest friend is mine,

  So be happy

  R.B.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  [Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]

  Yes, I admit that it was stupid to read that word so wrong. I thought there was a mistake somewhere, but that it was yours, who had written one word, meaning to write another. ‘Cower’ puts it all right of course. But is there an English word of a significance different from ‘stamp,’ in ‘stomp?’ Does not the old word King Lud’s men stomped withal, claim identity with our ‘stamping.’ The a and o used to ‘change about,’ you know, in the old English writers — see Chaucer for it. Still the ‘stomp’ with the peculiar significance, is better of course than the ‘stamp’ even with a rhyme ready for it, and I dare say you are justified in daring to put this old wine into the new bottle; and we will drink to the health of the poem in it. It is ‘Italy in England’ — isn’t it? But I understand and understood perfectly, through it all, that it is unfinished, and in a rough state round the edges. I could not help seeing that, even if I were still blinder than when I read ‘Lower’ for ‘Cower.’

  But do not, I ask of you, speak of my ‘kindness’ ... my kindness! — mine! It is ‘wasteful and ridiculous excess’ and mis-application to use such words of me. And therefore, talking of ‘compacts’ and the ‘fas’ and ‘nefas’ of them, I entreat you to know for the future that whatever I write of your poetry, if it isn’t to be called ‘impertinence,’ isn’t to be called ‘kindness,’ any more, ... a fortiori, as people say when they are sure of an argument. Now, will you try to understand?

  And talking still of compacts, how and where did I break any compact? I do not see.

  It was very curious, the phenomenon about your ‘Only a Player-Girl.’ What an un-godlike indifference to your creatures though — your worlds, breathed away from you like soap bubbles, and dropping and breaking into russet portfolios unobserved! Only a god for the Epicurean, at best, can you be? That Miss Cushman went to Three Mile Cross the other day, and visited Miss Mitford, and pleased her a good deal, I fancied from what she said, ... and with reason, from what you say. And ‘Only a Fiddler,’ as I forgot to tell you yesterday, is announced, you may see in any newspaper, as about to issue from the English press by Mary Howitt’s editorship. So we need not go to America for it. But if you complain of George Sand for want of art, how could you bear Andersen, who can see a thing under his eyes and place it under yours, and take a thought separately into his soul and express it insularly, but has no sort of instinct towards wholeness and unity; and writes a book by putting so many pages together, ... just so! — For the rest, there can be no disagreeing with you about the comparative difficulty of novel-writing and drama-writing. I disagree a little, lower down in your letter, because I could not deny (in my own convictions) a certain proportion of genius to the author of ‘Ernest Maltravers,’ and ‘Alice’ (did you ever read those books?), even if he had more impotently tried (supposing it to be possible) for the dramatic laurel. In fact his poetry, dramatic or otherwise, is ‘nought’; but for the prose romances, and for ‘Ernest Maltravers’ above all, I must lift up my voice and cry. And I read the Athenæum about your Sir James Wylie who took you for an Italian....

  ‘Poi vi dirò Signor, che ne fu causa

  Ch’ avio fatto al scriver debita pausa.’ —

  Ever your

  E.B.B.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Friday Morning.

  [Post-mark, August 15, 1845.]

  Do you know, dear friend, it is no good policy to stop up all the vents of my feeling, nor leave one for safety’s sake, as you will do, let me caution you never so repeatedly. I know, quite well enough, that your ‘kindness’ is not so apparent, even, in this instance of correcting my verses, as in many other points — but on such points, you lift a finger to me and I am dumb.... Am I not to be allowed a word here neither?

  I remember, in the first season of German Opera here, when ‘Fidelio’s’ effects were going, going up to the gallery in order to get the best of the last chorus — get its oneness which you do — and, while perched there an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormous enthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought, — I and a cousin of mine) — whose whole body broke out in billow, heaved and swayed in the perfection of his delight, hands, head, feet, all tossing and striving to utter what possessed him. Well — next week, we went again to the Opera, and again mounted at the proper time, but the crowd was greater, and our mild great faced white haired red cheeked German was not to be seen, not at first — for as the glory was at its full, my cousin twisted me round and made me see an arm, only an arm, all the body of its owner being amalgamated with a dense crowd on each side, before, and — not behind, because they, the crowd, occupied the last benches, over which we looked — and this arm waved and exulted as if ‘for the dignity of the whole body,’ — relieved it of its dangerous accumulation of repressed excitability. When the crowd broke up all the rest of the man disengaged itself by slow endeavours, and there stood our friend confessed — as we were sure!

  — Now, you would have bade him keep his arm quiet? ‘Lady Geraldine, you would!’

  I have read those novels — but I must keep that word of words, ‘genius’ — for something different — ’talent’ will do here surely.

  There lies ‘Consuelo’ — done with!

  I shall tell you frankly that it strikes me as precisely what in conventional language with the customary silliness is styled a woman’s book, in its merits and defects, — and supremely timid in all the points where one wants, and has a right to expect, some fruit of all the pretence and George Sandism. These are occasions when one does say, in the phrase of her school, ‘que la Femme parle!’ or what is better, let her act! and how does Consuelo comfort herself on such an emergency? Why, she bravely lets the uninspired people throw down one by one their dearest prejudices at her feet, and then, like a very actress, picks them up, like so many flowers, returning them to the breast of the owners with a smile and a courtesy and trips off the stage with a glance at the Pit. Count Christian, Baron Frederic, Baro
ness — what is her name — all open their arms, and Consuelo will not consent to entail disgrace &c. &c. No, you say — she leaves them in order to solve the problem of her true feeling, whether she can really love Albert; but remember that this is done, (that is, so much of it as ever is done, and as determines her to accept his hand at the very last) — this is solved sometime about the next morning — or earlier — I forget — and in the meantime, Albert gets that ‘benefit of the doubt’ of which chapter the last informs you. As for the hesitation and self examination on the matter of that Anzoleto — the writer is turning over the leaves of a wrong dictionary, seeking help from Psychology, and pretending to forget there is such a thing as Physiology. Then, that horrible Porpora: — if George Sand gives him to a Consuelo for an absolute master, in consideration of his services specified, and is of opinion that they warrant his conduct, or at least, oblige submission to it, — then, I find her objections to the fatherly rule of Frederic perfectly impertinent — he having a few claims upon the gratitude of Prussia also, in his way, I believe! If the strong ones will make the weak ones lead them — then, for Heaven’s sake, let this dear old all-abused world keep on its course without these outcries and tearings of hair, and don’t be for ever goading the Karls and other trodden-down creatures till they get their carbines in order (very rationally) to abate the nuisance — when you make the man a long speech against some enormity he is about to commit, and adjure and beseech and so forth, till he throws down the aforesaid carbine, falls on his knees, and lets the Frederic go quietly on his way to keep on killing his thousands after the fashion that moved your previous indignation. Now is that right, consequential — that is, inferential; logically deduced, going straight to the end — manly?

  The accessories are not the Principal, the adjuncts — the essence, nor the ornamental incidents the book’s self, so what matters it if the portraits are admirable, the descriptions eloquent, (eloquent, there it is — that is her characteristic — what she has to speak, she speaks out, speaks volubly forth, too well, inasmuch as you say, advancing a step or two, ‘And now speak as completely here’ — and she says nothing) — but all that, another could do, as others have done — but ‘la femme qui parle’ — Ah, that, is this all? So I am not George Sand’s — she teaches me nothing — I look to her for nothing.

  I am ever yours, dearest friend. How I write to you — page on page! But Tuesday — who could wait till then! Shall I not hear from you?

  God bless you ever

  R.B.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Saturday.

  [Post-mark, August 16, 1845.]

  But what likeness is there between opposites; and what has ‘M. l’Italien’ to do with the said ‘elderly German’? See how little! For to bring your case into point, somebody should have been playing on a Jew’s harp for the whole of the orchestra; and the elderly German should have quoted something about ‘Harp of Judah’ to the Venetian behind him! And there, you would have proved your analogy! — Because you see, my dear friend, it was not the expression, but the thing expressed, I cried out against — the exaggeration in your mind. I am sorry when I write what you do not like — but I have instincts and impulses too strong for me when you say things which put me into such a miserably false position in respect to you — as for instance, when in this very last letter (oh, I must tell you!) you talk of my ‘correcting your verses’! My correcting your verses!!! — Now is that a thing for you to say? — And do you really imagine that if I kept that happily imagined phrase in my thoughts, I should be able to tell you one word of my impressions from your poetry, ever, ever again? Do you not see at once what a disqualifying and paralysing phrase it must be, of simple necessity? So it is I who have reason to complain, ... it appears to me, ... and by no means you — and in your ‘second consideration’ you become aware of it, I do not at all doubt.

  As to ‘Consuelo’ I agree with nearly all that you say of it — though George Sand, we are to remember, is greater than ‘Consuelo,’ and not to be depreciated according to the defects of that book, nor classified as ‘femme qui parle’ ... she who is man and woman together, ... judging her by the standard of even that book in the nobler portions of it. For the inconsequency of much in the book, I admit it of course — and you will admit that it is the rarest of phenomena when men ... men of logic ... follow their own opinions into their obvious results — nobody, you know, ever thinks of doing such a thing: to pursue one’s own inferences is to rush in where angels ... perhaps ... do not fear to tread, ... but where there will not be much other company. So the want of practical logic shall be a human fault rather than a womanly one, if you please: and you must please also to remember that ‘Consuelo’ is only ‘half the orange’; and that when you complain of its not being a whole one, you overlook that hand which is holding to you the ‘Comtesse de Rudolstadt’ in three volumes! Not that I, who have read the whole, profess a full satisfaction about Albert and the rest — and Consuelo is made to be happy by a mere clap-trap at last: and Mme. Dudevant has her specialities, — in which, other women, I fancy, have neither part nor lot, ... even here! — Altogether, the book is a sort of rambling ‘Odyssey,’ a female ‘Odyssey,’ if you like, but full of beauty and nobleness, let the faults be where they may. And then, I like those long, long books, one can live away into ... leaving the world and above all oneself, quite at the end of the avenue of palms — quite out of sight and out of hearing! — Oh, I have felt something like that so often — so often! and you never felt it, and never will, I hope.

  But if Bulwer had written nothing but the ‘Ernest Maltravers’ books, you would think perhaps more highly of him. Do you not think it possible now? It is his most impotent struggling into poetry, which sets about proving a negative of genius on him — that, which the Athenæum praises as ‘respectable attainment in various walks of literature’ — ! like the Athenæum, isn’t it? and worthy praise, to be administered by professed judges of art? What is to be expected of the public, when the teachers of the public teach so? —

  When you come on Tuesday, do not forget the MS. if any is done — only don’t let it be done so as to tire and hurt you — mind! And good-bye until Tuesday, from

  E.B.B.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Sunday.

  [Post-mark, August 18, 1845.]

  I am going to propose to you to give up Tuesday, and to take your choice of two or three other days, say Friday, or Saturday, or to-morrow ... Monday. Mr. Kenyon was here to-day and talked of leaving London on Friday, and of visiting me again on ‘Tuesday’ ... he said, ... but that is an uncertainty, and it may be Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. So I thought (wrong or right) that out of the three remaining days you would not mind choosing one. And if you do choose the Monday, there will be no need to write — nor time indeed — ; but if the Friday or Saturday, I shall hear from you, perhaps. Above all things remember, my dear friend, that I shall not expect you to-morrow, except as by a bare possibility. In great haste, signed and sealed this Sunday evening by

  E.B.B.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Monday, 7 P.M.

  [Post-mark, August 19, 1845.]

  I this moment get your note — having been out since the early morning — and I must write just to catch the post. You are pure kindness and considerateness, no thanks to you! — (since you will have it so — ). I choose Friday, then, — but I shall hear from you before Thursday, I dare hope? I have all but passed your house to-day — with an Italian friend, from Rome, whom I must go about with a little on weariful sight seeing, so I shall earn Friday.

  Bless you

  R.B.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Tuesday.

  [Post-mark, August 20, 1845.]

  I fancied it was just so — as I did not hear and did not see you on Monday. Not that you were expected particularly — but that you would have written your own negative, it appeared to me, by some post in the day, if you had received my note in time. It happened well too, altogether, as you h
ave a friend with you, though Mr. Kenyon does not come, and will not come, I dare say; for he spoke like a doubter at the moment; and as this Tuesday wears on, I am not likely to have any visitors on it after all, and may as well, if the rain quite ceases, go and spend my solitude on the park a little. Flush wags his tail at that proposition when I speak it loud out. And I am to write to you before Friday, and so, am writing, you see ... which I should not, should not have done if I had not been told; because it is not my turn to write, ... did you think it was?

  Not a word of Malta! except from Mr. Kenyon who talked homilies of it last Sunday and wanted to speak them to Papa — but it would not do in any way — now especially — and in a little time there will be a decision for or against; and I am afraid of both ... which is a happy state of preparation. Did I not tell you that early in the summer I did some translations for Miss Thomson’s ‘Classical Album,’ from Bion and Theocritus, and Nonnus the author of that large (not great) poem in some forty books of the ‘Dionysiaca’ ... and the paraphrases from Apuleius? Well — I had a letter from her the other day, full of compunction and ejaculation, and declaring the fact that Mr. Burges had been correcting all the proofs of the poems; leaving out and emending generally, according to his own particular idea of the pattern in the mount — is it not amusing? I have been wicked enough to write in reply that it is happy for her and all readers ... sua si bona norint ... if during some half hour which otherwise might have been dedicated by Mr. Burges to patting out the lights of Sophocles and his peers, he was satisfied with the humbler devastation of E.B.B. upon Nonnus. You know it is impossible to help being amused. This correcting is a mania with that man! And then I, who wrote what I did from the ‘Dionysiaca,’ with no respect for ‘my author,’ and an arbitrary will to ‘put the case’ of Bacchus and Ariadne as well as I could, for the sake of the art-illustrations, ... those subjects Miss Thomson sent me, ... and did it all with full liberty and persuasion of soul that nobody would think it worth while to compare English with Greek and refer me back to Nonnus and detect my wanderings from the text!! But the critic was not to be cheated so! And I do not doubt that he has set me all ‘to rights’ from beginning to end; and combed Ariadne’s hair close to her cheeks for me. Have you known Nonnus, ... you who forget nothing? and have known everything, I think? For it is quite startling, I must tell you, quite startling and humiliating, to observe how you combine such large tracts of experience of outer and inner life, of books and men, of the world and the arts of it; curious knowledge as well as general knowledge ... and deep thinking as well as wide acquisition, ... and you, looking none the older for it all! — yes, and being besides a man of genius and working your faculty and not wasting yourself over a surface or away from an end. Dugald Stewart said that genius made naturally a lop-sided mind — did he not? He ought to have known you. And I who do ... a little ... (for I grow more loth than I was to assume the knowledge of you, my dear friend) — I do not mean to use that word ‘humiliation’ in the sense of having felt the thing myself in any painful way, ... because I never for a moment did, or could, you know, — never could ... never did ... except indeed when you have over praised me, which forced another personal feeling in. Otherwise it has always been quite pleasant to me to be ‘startled and humiliated’ — and more so perhaps than to be startled and exalted, if I might choose....