Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  But Ba, I call you boldly here, and I dare kiss your dear, dear eyes, till to-morrow — Bless you, my own.

  MARCH, 1846

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Sunday.

  [Post-mark, March 2, 1846.]

  You never could think that I meant any insinuation against you by a word of what was said yesterday, or that I sought or am likely to seek a ‘security’! do you know it was not right of you to use such an expression — indeed no. You were angry with me for just one minute, or you would not have used it — and why? Now what did I say that was wrong or unkind even by construction? If I did say anything, it was three times wrong, and unjust as well as unkind, and wronged my own heart and consciousness of all that you are to me, more than it could you. But you began speaking of yourself just as a woman might speak under the same circumstances (you remember what you said), and then I, remembering that all the men in the world would laugh such an idea to scorn, said something to that effect, you know. I once was in company with a man, however, who valued himself very much on his constancy to a woman who was so deeply affected by it that she became his wife at last ... and the whole neighbourhood came out to stare at him on that ground as a sort of monster. And can you guess what the constancy meant? Seven years before, he loved that woman, he said, and she repulsed him. ‘And in the meantime, how many?’ I had the impertinence to ask a female friend who told me the tale. ‘Why,’ she answered with the utmost simplicity, ‘I understand that Miss A. and Miss B. and Mrs. C. would not listen to him, but he took Miss D.’s rejection most to heart.’ That was the head and front of his ‘constancy’ to Miss E., who had been loved, she boasted, for seven years ... that is, once at the beginning and once at the end. It was just a coincidence of the ‘premier pas’ and the ‘pis aller.’

  Beloved, I could not mean this for you; you are not made of such stuff, as we both know.

  And for myself, it was my compromise with my own scruples, that you should not be ‘chained’ to me, not in the merest metaphor, that you should not seem to be bound, in honour or otherwise, so that if you stayed with me it should be your free choice to stay, not the consequence of a choice so many months before. That was my compromise with my scruples, and not my doubt of your affection — and least of all, was it an intention of trifling with you sooner or later that made me wish to suspend all decisions as long as possible. I have decided (for me) to let it be as you shall please — now I told you that before. Either we will live on as we are, until an obstacle arises, — for indeed I do not look for a ‘security’ where you suppose, and the very appearance of it there, is what most rebuts me — or I will be yours in the obvious way, to go out of England the next half-hour if possible. As to the steps to be taken (or not taken) before the last step, we must think of those. The worst is that the only question is about a form. Virtually the evil is the same all round, whatever we do. Dearest, it was plain to see yesterday evening when he came into this room for a moment at seven o’clock, before going to his own to dress for dinner ... plain to see, that he was not altogether pleased at finding you here in the morning. There was no pretext for objecting gravely — but it was plain that he was not pleased. Do not let this make you uncomfortable, he will forget all about it, and I was not scolded, do you understand. It was more manner, but my sisters thought as I did of the significance: — and it was enough to prove to me (if I had not known) what a desperate game we should be playing if we depended on a yielding nerve there.

  And to-day I went down-stairs (to prove how my promises stand) though I could find at least ten good excuses for remaining in my own room, for our cousin, Sam Barrett, who brought the interruption yesterday and put me out of humour (it wasn’t the fault of the dear little cousin, Lizzie ... my ‘portrait’ ... who was ‘so sorry,’ she said, dear child, to have missed Papa somewhere on the stairs!) the cousin who should have been in Brittany yesterday instead of here, sate in the drawing-room all this morning, and had visitors there, and so I had excellent excuses for never moving from my chair. Yet, the field being clear at half-past two! I went for half an hour, just — just for you. Did you think of me, I wonder? It was to meet your thoughts that I went, dear dearest.

  How clever these sketches are. The expression produced by such apparently inadequate means is quite striking; and I have been making my brothers admire them, and they ‘wonder you don’t think of employing them in an illustrated edition of your works.’ Which might be, really! Ah, you did not ask for ‘Luria’! Not that I should have let you have it! — I think I should not indeed. Dearest, you take care of the head ... and don’t make that tragedy of the soul one for mine, by letting it make you ill. Beware too of the shower-bath — it plainly does not answer for you at this season. And walk, and think of me for your good, if such a combination should be possible.

  And I think of you ... if I do not of Italy. Yet I forget to speak to you of the Dulwich Gallery. I never saw those pictures, but am astonished that the whole world should be wrong in praising them. ‘Divine’ is a bad word for Murillo in any case — because he is intensely human in his most supernatural subjects. His beautiful Trinity in the National Gallery, which I saw the last time I went out to look at pictures, has no deity in it — and I seem to see it now. And do you remember the visitation of the angels to Abraham (the Duke of Sutherland’s picture — is it not?) where the mystic visitors look like shepherds who had not even dreamt of God? But I always understood that that Dulwich Gallery was famous for great works — you surprise me! And for painters ... their badness is more ostentatious than that of poets — they stare idiocy out of the walls, and set the eyes of sensitive men on edge. For the rest, however, I very much doubt whether they wear their lives more to rags, than writers who mistake their vocation in poetry do. There is a mechanism in poetry as in the other art — and, to men not native to the way of it, it runs hard and heavily. The ‘cudgelling of the brain’ is as good labour as the grinding of the colours, ... do you not think?

  If ever I am in the Sistine Chapel, it will not be with Mrs. Jameson — no. If ever I should be there, what teaching I shall want, I who have seen so few pictures, and love them only as children do, with an unlearned love, just for the sake of the thoughts they bring. Wonderfully ignorant I am, to have had eyes and ears so long! There is music, now, which lifts the hair on my head, I feel it so much, ... yet all I know of it as art, all I have heard of the works of the masters in it, has been the mere sign and suggestion, such as the private piano may give. I never heard an oratorio, for instance, in my life — judge by that! It is a guess, I make, at all the greatness and divinity ... feeling in it, though, distinctly and certainly, that a composer like Beethoven must stand above the divinest painter in soul-godhead, and nearest to the true poet, of all artists. And this I felt in my guess, long before I knew you. But observe how, if I had died in this illness, I should have left a sealed world behind me! you, unknown too — unguessed at, you, ... in many respects, wonderfully unguessed at! Lately I have learnt to despise my own instincts. And apart from those — and you, ... it was right for me to be melancholy, in the consciousness of passing blindfolded under all the world-stars, and of going out into another side of the creation, with a blank for the experience of this ... the last revelation, unread! How the thought of it used to depress me sometimes!

  Talking of music, I had a proposition the other day from certain of Mr. Russell’s (the singer’s) friends, about his setting to music my ‘Cry of the Children.’ His programme exhibits all the horrors of the world, I see! Lifeboats ... madhouses ... gamblers’ wives ... all done to the right sort of moaning. His audiences must go home delightfully miserable, I should fancy. He has set the ‘Song of the Shirt’ ... and my ‘Cry of the Children’ will be acceptable, it is supposed, as a climax of agony. Do you know this Mr. Russell, and what sort of music he suits to his melancholy? But to turn my ‘Cry’ to a ‘Song,’ a burden, it is said, is required — he can’t sing it without a burden! and behold what has been sent ‘for my approval�
��.... I shall copy it verbatim for you....

  And the threads twirl, twirl, twirl,

  Before each boy and girl;

  And the wheels, big and little, still whirl, whirl, whirl.

  ... accompaniment agitato, imitating the roar of the machinery!

  This is not endurable ... ought not to be ... should it now? Do tell me.

  May God bless you, very dearest! Let me hear how you are — and think how I am

  Your own....

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  [Post-mark, March 2, 1846.]

  Dearest, I have been kept in town and just return in time to say why you have no note ... to-morrow I will write ... so much there is to say on the subject of this letter I find.

  Bless you, all beloved —

  R.B.

  Oh, do not sleep another night on that horrible error I have led you into! The ‘Dulwich Gallery’! — !!! — oh, no. Only some pictures to be sold at the Greyhound Inn, Dulwich — ’the genuine property of a gentleman deceased.’

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Sunday Evening.

  [Post-mark, March 2, 1846.]

  One or two words, if no more, I must write to dearest Ba, the night would go down in double blackness if I had neither written nor been written to! So here is another piece of ‘kindness’ on my part, such as I have received praise for of late! My own sweetest, there is just this good in such praise, that by it one comes to something pleasantly definite amid the hazy uncertainties of mere wishes and possibilities — while my whole heart does, does so yearn, love, to do something to prove its devotion for you; and, now and then, amuses itself with foolish imaginings of real substantial services to which it should be found equal if fortune so granted; suddenly you interpose with thanks, in such terms as would all too much reward the highest of even those services which are never to be; and for what? — for a note, a going to Town, a — — ! Well, there are definite beginnings certainly, if you will recognise them — I mean, that since you do accept, far from ‘despising this day of small things,’ then I may take heart, and be sure that even though none of the great achievements should fall to my happy chance, still the barrenest, flattest life will — must of needs produce in its season better fruits than these poor ones — I keep it, value it, now, that it may produce such.

  Also I determine never again to ‘analyse,’ nor let you analyse if the sweet mouth can be anyway stopped: the love shall be one and indivisible — and the Loves we used to know from

  One another huddled lie ...

  Close beside Her tenderly —

  (which is surely the next line). Now am I not anxious to know what your father said? And if anybody else said or wondered ... how hould I know? Of all fighting — the warfare with shadows — what a work is there. But tell me, — and, with you for me —

  Bless me dearest ever, as the face above mine blesses me —

  Your own

  Sir Moses set off this morning, I hear — somebody yesterday called the telescope an ‘optical delusion,’ anticipating many more of the kind! So much for this ‘wandering Jew.’

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Monday Evening.

  [Post-mark, March 3, 1846.]

  Upon the whole, I think, I am glad when you are kept in town and prevented from writing what you call ‘much’ to me. Because in the first place, the little from you, is always much to me — and then, besides, the letter comes, and with it the promise of another! Two letters have I had from you to-day, ever dearest! How I thank you! — yes, indeed! It was like yourself to write yesterday ... to remember what a great gap there would have been otherwise, as it looked on this side — here. The worst of Saturday is (when you come on it) that Sunday follows — Saturday night bringing no letter. Well, it was very good of you, best of you!

  For the ‘analyzing’ I give it up willingly, only that I must say what altogether I forgot to say in my last letter, that it was not I, if you please, who spoke of the chrystals breaking away! And you, to quote me with that certainty! “The chrystals are broken off,” you say.’ I say!! When it was in your letter, and not at all in mine!!

  The truth is that I was stupid, rather, about the Dulwich collection — it was my fault. I caught up the idea of the gallery out of a heap of other thoughts, and really might have known better if I had given myself a chance, by considering.

  Mr. Kenyon came to-day, and has taken out a licence, it seems to me, for praising you, for he praised and praised. Somebody has told him (who had spent several days with you in a house with a large library) that he came away ‘quite astounded by the versatility of your learning’ — and that, to complete the circle, you discoursed as scientifically on the training of greyhounds and breeding of ducks as if you had never done anything else all your life. Then dear Mr. Kenyon talked of the poems; and hoped, very earnestly I am sure, that you would finish ‘Saul’ — which you ought to do, must do — only not now. By the way Mrs. Coleridge had written to him to enquire whether you had authority for the ‘blue lilies,’ rather than white. Then he asked about ‘Luria’ and ‘whether it was obscure’; and I said, not unless the people, who considered it, began by blindfolding themselves.

  And where do you think Mr. Kenyon talks of going next February — a long while off to be sure? To Italy of course. Everybody I ever heard of seems to be going to Italy next winter. He visits his brother at Vienna, and ‘may cross the Alps and get to Pisa’ — it is the shadow of a scheme — nothing certain, so far.

  I did not go down-stairs to-day because the wind blew and the thermometer fell. To-morrow, perhaps I may. And you, dearest dearest, might have put into the letters how you were when you wrote them. You might — but you did not feel well and would not say so. Confess that that was the reason. Reason or no reason, mention yourself to-morrow, and for the rest, do not write a long letter so as to increase the evil. There was nothing which I can remember as requiring an answer in what I wrote to you, and though I will have my letter of course, it shall be as brief as possible, if briefness is good for you — now always remember that. Why if I, who talk against ‘Luria,’ should work the mischief myself, what should I deserve? I should be my own jury directly and not recommend to mercy ... not to mine. Do take care — care for me just so much.

  And, except that taking care of your health, what would you do for me that you have not done? You have given me the best of the possible gifts of one human soul to another, you have made my life new, and am I to count these things as small and insufficient? Ah, you know, you know that I cannot, ought not, will not.

  May God bless you. He blesses me in letting me be grateful to you as your Ba.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Tuesday.

  [Post-mark, March 3, 1846.]

  First and most important of all, — dearest, ‘angry’ — with you, and for that! It is just as if I had spoken contemptuously of that Gallery I so love and so am grateful to — having been used to go there when a child, far under the age allowed by the regulations — those two Guidos, the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob’s vision, such a Watteau, the triumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group, all the Poussins with the ‘Armida’ and ‘Jupiter’s nursing’ — and — no end to ‘ands’ — I have sate before one, some one of those pictures I had predetermined to see, a good hour and then gone away ... it used to be a green half-hour’s walk over the fields. So much for one error, now for the second like unto it; what I meant by charging you with seeing, (not, not ‘looking for’) — seeing undue ‘security’ in that, in the form, — I meant to say ‘you talk about me being ‘free’ now, free till then, and I am rather jealous of the potency attributed to the form, with all its solemnity, because it is a form, and no more — yet you frankly agree with me that that form complied with, there is no redemption; yours I am then sure enough, to repent at leisure &c. &c.’ So I meant to ask, ‘then, all now said, all short of that particular form of saying it, all goes for comparatively nothing’? Here it is written down — you ‘wish to suspend all decisions
as long as possible’ — that form effects the decision, then, — till then, ‘where am I’? Which is just what Lord Chesterfield cautions people against asking when they tell stories. Love, Ba, my own heart’s dearest, if all is not decided now — why — hear a story, à propos of storytelling, and deduce what is deducible. A very old Unitarian minister met a still older evangelical brother — John Clayton (from whose son’s mouth I heard what you shall hear) — the two fell to argument about the true faith to be held — after words enough, ‘Well,’ said the Unitarian, as winding up the controversy with an amicable smile — ’at least let us hope we are both engaged in the pursuit of Truth!’ — ’Pursuit do you say?’ cried the other, ‘here am I with my years eighty and odd — if I haven’t found Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?’ My own Ba, if I have not already decided, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help! Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling, beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one’s heart’s good by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is there any parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of in the street — a labourer talking with his friends about ‘wishes’ — and this one wished, if he might get his wish, ‘to have a nine gallon cask of strong ale set running that minute and his own mouth to be tied under it’ — the exquisiteness of the delight was to be in the security upon security, — the being ‘tied.’ Now, Ba says I shall not be ‘chained’ if she can help!