Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  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.