Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Your own

  Ba.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  [Post-mark, February 7, 1846.]

  The clock strikes — three; and I am here, not with you — and my ‘fractious’ headache at the very worst got suddenly better just now, and is leaving me every minute — as if to make me aware, with an undivided attention, that at this present you are waiting for me, and soon will be wondering — and it would be so easy now to dress myself and walk or run or ride — do anything that led to you ... but by no haste in the world could I reach you, I am forced to see, before a quarter to five — by which time I think my letter must arrive. Dear, dearest Ba, did you but know how vexed I am — with myself, with — this is absurd, of course. The cause of it all was my going out last night — yet that, neither, was to be helped, the party having been twice put off before — once solely on my account. And the sun shines, and you would shine —

  Monday is to make all the amends in its power, is it not? Still, still I have lost my day.

  Bless you, my ever-dearest.

  Your R.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Sunday Morning.

  [Post-mark, February 9, 1846.]

  My dearest — there are no words, — nor will be to-morrow, nor even in the Island — I know that! But I do love you.

  My arms have been round you for many minutes since the last word —

  I am quite well now — my other note will have told you when the change began — I think I took too violent a shower bath, with a notion of getting better in as little time as possible, — and the stimulus turned mere feverishness to headache. However, it was no sooner gone, in a degree, than a worse plague came. I sate thinking of you — but I knew my note would arrive at about four o’clock or a little later — and I thought the visit for the quarter of an hour would as effectually prevent to-morrow’s meeting as if the whole two hours’ blessing had been laid to heart — to-morrow I shall see you, Ba — my sweetest. But there are cold winds blowing to-day — how do you bear them, my Ba? ‘Care’ you, pray, pray, care for all I care about — and be well, if God shall please, and bless me as no man ever was blessed! Now I kiss you, and will begin a new thinking of you — and end, and begin, going round and round in my circle of discovery, — My lotos-blossom! because they loved the lotos, were lotos-lovers, — λωτου τ’ ερωτες, as Euripides writes in the Τρωαδες.

  Your own

  P.S. See those lines in the Athenæum on Pulci with Hunt’s translation — all wrong — ’che non si sente,’ being — ’that one does not hear him’ i.e. the ordinarily noisy fellow — and the rest, male, pessime! Sic verte, meo periculo, mî ocelle!

  Where’s Luigi Pulci, that one don’t the man see?

  He just now yonder in the copse has ‘gone it’ (n’andò)

  Because across his mind there came a fancy;

  He’ll wish to fancify, perhaps, a sonnet!

  Now Ba thinks nothing can be worse than that? Then read this which I really told Hunt and got his praise for. Poor dear wonderful persecuted Pietro d’Abano wrote this quatrain on the people’s plaguing him about his mathematical studies and wanting to burn him — he helped to build Padua Cathedral, wrote a Treatise on Magic still extant, and passes for a conjuror in his country to this day — when there is a storm the mothers tell the children that he is in the air; his pact with the evil one obliged him to drink no milk; no natural human food! You know Tieck’s novel about him? Well, this quatrain is said, I believe truly, to have been discovered in a well near Padua some fifty years ago.

  Studiando le mie cifre, col compasso

  Rilevo, che presto sarò sotterra —

  Perchè del mio saper si fa gran chiasso,

  E gl’ignoranti m’hanno mosso guerra.

  Affecting, is it not, in its simple, child like plaining? Now so, if I remember, I turned it — word for word —

  Studying my ciphers, with the compass

  I reckon — who soon shall be below ground,

  Because of my lore they make great ‘rumpus,’

  And against me war makes each dull rogue round.

  Say that you forgive me to-morrow!

  [The following is in E.B.B.’s handwriting.]

  With my compass I take up my ciphers, poor scholar;

  Who myself shall be taken down soon under the ground ...

  Since the world at my learning roars out in its choler,

  And the blockheads have fought me all round.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Tuesday.

  [Post-mark, February 10, 1846.]

  Ever dearest, I have been possessed by your ‘Luria’ just as you would have me, and I should like you to understand, not simply how fine a conception the whole work seems to me, so developed, but how it has moved and affected me, without the ordinary means and dialect of pathos, by that calm attitude of moral grandeur which it has — it is very fine. For the execution, that too is worthily done — although I agree with you, that a little quickening and drawing in closer here and there, especially towards the close where there is no time to lose, the reader feels, would make the effect stronger — but you will look to it yourself — and such a conception must come in thunder and lightning, as a chief god would — must make its own way ... and will not let its poet go until he speaks it out to the ultimate syllable. Domizia disappoints me rather. You might throw a flash more of light on her face — might you not? But what am I talking? I think it a magnificent work — a noble exposition of the ingratitude of men against their ‘heroes,’ and (what is peculiar) an humane exposition ... not misanthropical, after the usual fashion of such things: for the return, the remorse, saves it — and the ‘Too late’ of the repentance and compensation covers with its solemn toll the fate of persecutors and victim. We feel that Husain himself could only say afterward ... ‘That is done.’ And now — surely you think well of the work as a whole? You cannot doubt, I fancy, of the grandeur of it — and of the subtilty too, for it is subtle — too subtle perhaps for stage purposes, though as clear, ... as to expression ... as to medium ... as ‘bricks and mortar’ ... shall I say?

  ‘A people is but the attempt of many

  To rise to the completer life of one.’

  There is one of the fine thoughts. And how fine he is, your Luria, when he looks back to his East, through the half-pardon and half-disdain of Domizia. Ah — Domizia! would it hurt her to make her more a woman ... a little ... I wonder!

  So I shall begin from the beginning, from the first act, and read through ... since I have read the fifth twice over. And remember, please, that I am to read, besides, the ‘Soul’s Tragedy,’ and that I shall dun you for it presently. Because you told me it was finished, otherwise I would not speak a word, feeling that you want rest, and that I, who am anxious about you, would be crossing my own purposes by driving you into work. It is the overwork, the overwear of mind and heart (for the feelings come as much into use as the thoughts in these productions), that makes you so pale, dearest, that distracts your head, and does all the harm on Saturdays and so many other days besides.

  To-day — how are you? It was right and just for me to write this time, after the two dear notes ... the one on Saturday night which made me praise you to myself and think you kinder than kindest, and the other on Monday morning which took me unaware — such a note, that was! Oh it was right and just that I should not teaze you to send me another after those two others, — yet I was very near doing it — yet I should like infinitely to hear to-day how you are — unreasonable! — Well! you will write now — you will answer what I am writing, and mention yourself particularly and sincerely — Remember! Above all, you will care for your head. I have been thinking since yesterday that, coming out of the cold, you might not have refused as usual to take something ... hot wine and water, or coffee? Will you have coffee with me on Saturday? ‘Shunning the salt,’ will you have the sugar? And do tell me, for I have been thinking, are you careful as to diet — and will such sublunary things as coffee and tea
and cocoa affect your head — for or against! Then you do not touch wine — and perhaps you ought. Surely something may be found or done to do you good. If it had not been for me, you would be travelling in Italy by this time and quite well perhaps.

  This morning I had a letter from Miss Martineau and really read it to the end without thinking it too long, which is extraordinary for me just now, and scarcely ordinary in the letter, and indeed it is a delightful letter, as letters go, which are not yours! You shall take it with you on Saturday to read, and you shall see that it is worth reading, and interesting for Wordsworth’s sake and her own. Mr. Kenyon has it now, because he presses on to have her letters, and I should not like to tell him that you had it first from me.... Also Saturday will be time enough.

  Oh — poor Mr. Horne! shall I tell you some of his offences? That he desires to be called at four in the morning, and does not get up till eight. That he pours libations on his bare head out of the water-glasses at great dinners. That being in the midst of sportsmen — rural aristocrats — lords of soil — and all talking learnedly of pointers’ noses and spaniels’ ears; he has exclaimed aloud in a mocking paraphrase — ’If I were to hold up a horse by the tail.’ The wit is certainly doubtful! — That being asked to dinner on Tuesday, he will go on Wednesday instead. — That he throws himself at full length with a gesture approaching to a ‘summerset’ on satin sofas. That he giggles. That he only thinks he can talk. That his ignorance on all subjects is astounding. That he never read the old ballads, nor saw Percy’s collection. That he asked who wrote ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes.’ That after making himself ridiculous in attempting to speak at a public meeting, he said to a compassionate friend ‘I got very well out of that.’ That, in writing his work on Napoleon, he employed a man to study the subject for him. That he cares for nobody’s poetry or fame except his own, and considers Tennyson chiefly illustrious as being his contemporary. That, as to politics, he doesn’t care ‘which side.’ That he is always talking of ‘my shares,’ ‘my income,’ as if he were a Kilmansegg. Lastly (and understand, this is my ‘lastly’ and not Miss Mitford’s, who is far from being out of breath so soon) that he has a mania for heiresses — that he has gone out at half past five and ‘proposed’ to Miss M or N with fifty thousand pounds, and being rejected (as the lady thought fit to report herself) came back to tea and the same evening ‘fell in love’ with Miss O or P ... with forty thousand — went away for a few months, and upon his next visit, did as much to a Miss Q or W, on the promise of four blood horses — has a prospect now of a Miss R or S — with hounds, perhaps.

  Too, too bad — isn’t it? I would repeat none of it except to you — and as to the worst part, the last, why some may be coincidence, and some, exaggeration, for I have not the least doubt that every now and then a fine poetical compliment was turned into a serious thing by the listener, and then the poor poet had critics as well as listeners all round him. Also, he rather ‘wears his heart on his sleeve,’ there is no denying — and in other respects he is not much better, perhaps, than other men. But for the base traffic of the affair — I do not believe a word. He is too generous — has too much real sensibility. I fought his battle, poor Orion. ‘And so,’ she said ‘you believe it possible for a disinterested man to become really attached to two women, heiresses, on the same day?’ I doubted the fact. And then she showed me a note, an autograph note from the poet, confessing the M or N part of the business — while Miss O or P confessed herself, said Miss Mitford. But I persisted in doubting, notwithstanding the lady’s confessions, or convictions, as they might be. And just think of Mr. Horne not having tact enough to keep out of these multitudinous scrapes, for those few days which on three separate occasions he paid Miss Mitford in a neighbourhood where all were strangers to him, — and never outstaying his week! He must have been foolish, read it all how we may.

  And so am I, to write this ‘personal talk’ to you when you will not care for it — yet you asked me, and it may make you smile, though Wordsworth’s tea-kettle outsings it all.

  When your Monday letter came, I was reading the criticism on Hunt and his Italian poets, in the Examiner. How I liked to be pulled by the sleeve to your translations! — How I liked everything! — Pulci, Pietro ... and you, best!

  Yet here’s a naiveté which I found in your letter! I will write it out that you may read it —

  ‘However it’ (the headache) ‘was no sooner gone in a degree, than a worse plague came — I sate thinking of you.’

  Very satisfactory that is, and very clear.

  May God bless you dearest, dearest! Be careful of yourself. The cold makes me languid, as heat is apt to make everybody; but I am not unwell, and keep up the fire and the thoughts of you.

  Your worse ... worst plague

  Your own

  Ba.

  I shall hear? yes! And admire my obedience in having written ‘a long letter’ to the letter!

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Wednesday Morning.

  [Post-mark, February 11, 1846.]

  My sweetest ‘plague,’ did I really write that sentence so, without gloss or comment in close vicinity? I can hardly think it — but you know well, well where the real plague lay, — that I thought of you as thinking, in your infinite goodness, of untoward chances which had kept me from you — and if I did not dwell more particularly on that thinking of yours, which became as I say, in the knowledge of it, a plague when brought before me with the thought of you, — if I passed this slightly over it was for pure unaffected shame that I should take up the care and stop the ‘reverie serene’ of — ah, the rhyme lets me say — ’sweetest eyes were ever seen’ — were ever seen! And yourself confess, in the Saturday’s note, to having been ‘unhappy for half an hour till’ &c. &c. — and do not I feel that here, and am not I plagued by it?

  Well, having begun at the end of your letter, dearest, I will go back gently (that is backwards) and tell you I ‘sate thinking’ too, and with no greater comfort, on the cold yesterday. The pond before the window was frozen (‘so as to bear sparrows’ somebody said) and I knew you would feel it — ’but you are not unwell’ — really? thank God — and the month wears on. Beside I have got a reassurance — you asked me once if I were superstitious, I remember (as what do I forget that you say?). However that may be, yesterday morning as I turned to look for a book, an old fancy seized me to try the ‘sortes’ and dip into the first page of the first I chanced upon, for my fortune; I said ‘what will be the event of my love for Her’ — in so many words — and my book turned out to be — ’Cerutti’s Italian Grammar!’ — a propitious source of information ... the best to be hoped, what could it prove but some assurance that you were in the Dative Case, or I, not in the ablative absolute? I do protest that, with the knowledge of so many horrible pitfalls, or rather spring guns with wires on every bush ... such dreadful possibilities of stumbling on ‘conditional moods,’ ‘imperfect tenses,’ ‘singular numbers,’ — I should have been too glad to put up with the safe spot for the sole of my foot though no larger than afforded by such a word as ‘Conjunction,’ ‘possessive pronoun — ,’ secure so far from poor Tippet’s catastrophe. Well, I ventured, and what did I find? This — which I copy from the book now — ’If we love in the other world as we do in this, I shall love thee to eternity’ — from ‘Promiscuous Exercises,’ to be translated into Italian, at the end.

  And now I reach Horne and his characteristics — of which I can tell you with confidence that they are grossly misrepresented where not altogether false — whether it proceed from inability to see what one may see, or disinclination, I cannot say. I know very little of Horne, but my one visit to him a few weeks ago would show the uncandidness of those charges: for instance, he talked a good deal about horses, meaning to ride in Ireland, and described very cleverly an old hunter he had hired once, — how it galloped and could not walk; also he propounded a theory of the true method of behaving in the saddle when a horse rears, which I besought him only to practise in f
ancy on the sofa, where he lay telling it. So much for professing his ignorance in that matter! On a sofa he does throw himself — but when thrown there, he can talk, with Miss Mitford’s leave, admirably, — I never heard better stories than Horne’s — some Spanish-American incidents of travel want printing — or have been printed, for aught I know. That he cares for nobody’s poetry is false, he praises more unregardingly of his own retreat, more unprovidingly for his own fortune, — (do I speak clearly?) — less like a man who himself has written somewhat in the ‘line’ of the other man he is praising — which ‘somewhat’ has to be guarded in its interests, &c., less like the poor professional praise of the ‘craft’ than any other I ever met — instance after instance starting into my mind as I write. To his income I never heard him allude — unless one should so interpret a remark to me this last time we met, that he had been on some occasion put to inconvenience by somebody’s withholding ten or twelve pounds due to him for an article, and promised in the confidence of getting them to a tradesman, which does not look like ‘boasting of his income’! As for the heiresses — I don’t believe one word of it, of the succession and transition and trafficking. Altogether, what miserable ‘set-offs’ to the achievement of an ‘Orion,’ a ‘Marlowe,’ a ‘Delora’! Miss Martineau understands him better.

  Now I come to myself and my health. I am quite well now — at all events, much better, just a little turning in the head — since you appeal to my sincerity. For the coffee — thank you, indeed thank you, but nothing after the ‘oenomel’ and before half past six. I know all about that song and its Greek original if Horne does not — and can tell you — , how truly...!