Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  But now — here all the jesting goes. You tell me what was observed in the ‘moment’s’ visit; by you, and (after, I suppose) by your sisters. First, I will always see with your eyes there — next, what I see I will never speak, if it pain you; but just this much truth I ought to say, I think. I always give myself to you for the worst I am, — full of faults as you will find, if you have not found them. But I will not affect to be so bad, so wicked, as I count wickedness, as to call that conduct other than intolerable — there, in my conviction of that, is your real ‘security’ and mine for the future as the present. That a father choosing to give out of his whole day some five minutes to a daughter, supposed to be prevented from participating in what he, probably, in common with the whole world of sensible men, as distinguished from poets and dreamers, consider every pleasure of life, by a complete foregoing of society — that he, after the Pisa business and the enforced continuance, and as he must believe, permanence of this state in which any other human being would go mad — I do dare say, for the justification of God, who gave the mind to be used in this world, — where it saves us, we are taught, or destroys us, — and not to be sunk quietly, overlooked, and forgotten; that, under these circumstances, finding ... what, you say, unless he thinks he does find, he would close the door of his house instantly; a mere sympathizing man, of the same literary tastes, who comes good-naturedly, on a proper and unexceptionable introduction, to chat with and amuse a little that invalid daughter, once a month, so far as is known, for an hour perhaps, — that such a father should show himself ‘not pleased plainly,’ at such a circumstance ... my Ba, it is shocking! See, I go wholly on the supposition that the real relation is not imagined to exist between us. I so completely could understand a repugnance to trust you to me were the truth known, that, I will confess, I have several times been afraid the very reverse of this occurrence would befall; that your father would have at some time or other thought himself obliged, by the usual feeling of people in such cases, to see me for a few minutes and express some commonplace thanks after the customary mode (just as Capt. Domett sent a heap of unnecessary thanks to me not long ago for sending now a letter now a book to his son in New Zealand — keeping up the spirits of poor dear Alfred now he is cut off from the world at large) — and if this had been done, I shall not deny that my heart would have accused me — unreasonably I know but still, suppression, and reserve, and apprehension — the whole of that is horrible always! But this way of looking on the endeavour of anybody, however humble, to just preserve your life, remedy in some degree the first, if it was the first, unjustifiable measure, — this being ‘displeased’ — is exactly what I did not calculate upon. Observe, that in this only instance I am able to do as I shall be done by; to take up the arms furnished by the world, the usages of society — this is monstrous on the world’s showing! I say this now that I may never need recur to it — that you may understand why I keep such entire silence henceforth.

  Get but well, keep but as well, and all is easy now. This wonderful winter — the spring — the summer — you will take exercise, go up and down stairs, get strong. I pray you, at your feet, to do this, dearest! Then comes Autumn, with the natural expectations, as after rouge one expects noir: the likelihood of a severe winter after this mild one, which to prevent, you reiterate your demand to go and save your life in Italy, ought you not to do that? And the matters brought to issue, (with even, if possible, less shadow of ground for a refusal than before, if you are well, plainly well enough to bear the voyage) there I will bid you ‘be mine in the obvious way’ — if you shall preserve your belief in me — and you may in much, in all important to you. Mr. Kenyon’s praise is undeserved enough, but yesterday Milnes said I was the only literary man he ever knew, tenax propositi, able to make out a life for himself and abide in it — ’for,’ he went on, ‘you really do live without any of this titillation and fussy dependence upon adventitious excitement of all kinds, they all say they can do without.’ That is more true — and I intend by God’s help to live wholly for you; to spend my whole energies in reducing to practice the feeling which occupies me, and in the practical operation of which, the other work I had proposed to do will be found included, facilitated — I shall be able — but of this there is plenty time to speak hereafter — I shall, I believe, be able to do this without even allowing the world to very much misinterpret — against pure lying there is no defence, but all up to that I hope to hinder or render unimportant — as you shall know in time and place.

  I have written myself grave, but write to me, dear, dearest, and I will answer in a lighter mood — even now I can say how it was yesterday’s hurry happened. I called on Milnes — who told me Hanmer had broken a bone in his leg and was laid up, so I called on him too — on Moxon, by the way, (his brother telling me strangely cheering news, from the grimmest of faces, about my books selling and likely to sell ... your wishes, Ba!) — then in Bond Street about some business with somebody, then on Mrs. Montagu who was out walking all the time, and home too. I found a letter from Mr. Kenyon, perfectly kind, asking me to go on Monday to meet friends, and with yours to-day comes another confirming the choice of the day. How entirely kind he is!

  I am very well, much better, indeed — taking that bath with sensibly good effect, to-night I go to Montagu’s again; for shame, having kept away too long.

  And the rest shall answer yours — dear! Not ‘much to answer?’ And Beethoven, and Painting and — what is the rest and shall be answered! Bless you, now, my darling — I love you, ever shall love you, ever be your own.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Tuesday Evening.

  [Post-mark, March 4, 1846.]

  Yes, but, dearest, you mistake me, or you mistake yourself. I am sure I do not over-care for forms — it is not my way to do it — and in this case ... no. Still you must see that here is a fact as well as a form, and involving a frightful quantity of social inconvenience (to use the mildest word) if too hastily entered on. I deny altogether looking for, or ‘seeing’ any ‘security’ in it for myself — it is a mere form for the heart and the happiness: illusions may pass after as before. Still the truth is that if they were to pass with you now, you stand free to act according to the wide-awakeness of your eyes, and to reform your choice ... see! whereas afterward you could not carry out such a reformation while I was alive, even if I helped you. All I could do for you would be to walk away. And you pretend not to see this broad distinction? — ah. For me I have seen just this and no more, and have felt averse to forestall, to seem to forestall even by an hour, or a word, that stringency of the legal obligation from which there is in a certain sense no redemption. Tie up your drinker under the pour of his nine gallons, and in two minutes he will moan and writhe (as you perfectly know) like a Brinvilliers under the water-torture. That he asked to be tied up, was unwise on his own principle of loving ale. And you sha’n’t be ‘chained’ up, if you were to ask twenty times: if you have found truth or not in the water-well.

  You do not see aright what I meant to tell you on another subject. If he was displeased, (and it was expressed by a shadow a mere negation of pleasure) it was not with you as a visitor and my friend. You must not fancy such a thing. It was a sort of instinctive indisposition towards seeing you here — unexplained to himself, I have no doubt — of course unexplained, or he would have desired me to receive you never again, that would have been done at once and unscrupulously. But without defining his own feeling, he rather disliked seeing you here — it just touched one of his vibratory wires, brushed by and touched it — oh, we understand in this house. He is not a nice observer, but, at intervals very wide, he is subject to lightnings — call them fancies, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Certainly it was not in the character of a ‘sympathising friend’ that you made him a very little cross on Monday. And yet you never were nor will be in danger of being thanked, he would not think of it. For the reserve, the apprehension — dreadful those things are, and desecrating to one’s own nature — but we did
not make this position, we only endure it. The root of the evil is the miserable misconception of the limits and character of parental rights — it is a mistake of the intellect rather than of the heart. Then, after using one’s children as one’s chattels for a time, the children drop lower and lower toward the level of the chattels, and the duties of human sympathy to them become difficult in proportion. And (it seems strange to say it, yet it is true) love, he does not conceive of at all. He has feeling, he can be moved deeply, he is capable of affection in a peculiar way, but that, he does not understand, any more than he understands Chaldee, respecting it less of course.

  And you fancy that I could propose Italy again? after saying too that I never would? Oh no, no — yet there is time to think of this, a superfluity of time, ... ‘time, times and half a time’ and to make one’s head swim with leaning over a precipice is not wise. The roar of the world comes up too, as you hear and as I heard from the beginning. There will be no lack of ‘lying,’ be sure — ’pure lying’ too — and nothing you can do, dearest dearest, shall hinder my being torn to pieces by most of the particularly affectionate friends I have in the world. Which I do not think of much, any more than of Italy. You will be mad, and I shall be bad ... and that will be the effect of being poets! ‘Till when, where are you?’ — why in the very deepest of my soul — wherever in it is the fountain head of loving! beloved, there you are!

  Some day I shall ask you ‘in form,’ — as I care so much for forms, it seems, — what your ‘faults’ are, these immense multitudinous faults of yours, which I hear such talk of, and never, never, can get to see. Will you give me a catalogue raisonnée of your faults? I should like it, I think. In the meantime they seem to be faults of obscurity, that is, invisible faults, like those in the poetry which do not keep it from selling as I am so, so glad to understand. I am glad too that Mr. Milnes knows you a little.

  Now I must end, there is no more time to-night. God bless you, very dearest! Keep better ... try to be well — as I do for you since you ask me. Did I ever think that you would think it worth while to ask me that? What a dream! reaching out into the morning! To-day however I did not go down-stairs, because it was colder and the wind blew its way into the passages: — if I can to-morrow without risk, I will, ... be sure ... be sure. Till Thursday then! — till eternity!

  ‘Till when, where am I,’ but with you? and what, but yours

  Your

  Ba.

  I have been writing ‘autographs’ (save my mark) for the North and the South to-day ... the Fens, and Golden Square. Somebody asked for a verse, ... from either ‘Catarina’ or ‘Flush’ ... ‘those poems’ &c. &c.! Such a concatenation of criticisms. So I preferred Flush of course — i.e. gave him the preferment.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Wednesday Morning.

  [Post-mark, March 4, 1846.]

  Ah, sweetest, don’t mind people and their lies any more than I shall; if the toad does ‘take it into his toad’s head to spit at you’ — you will not ‘drop dead,’ I warrant. All the same, if one may make a circuit through a flower-bed and see the less of his toad-habits and general ugliness, so much the better — no words can express my entire indifference (far below contempt) for what can be said or done. But one thing, only one, I choose to hinder being said, if I can — the others I would not if I could — why prevent the toad’s puffing himself out thrice his black bigness if it amuses him among those wet stones? We shall be in the sun.

  I dare say I am unjust — hasty certainly, in the other matter — but all faults are such inasmuch as they are ‘mistakes of the intellect’ — toads may spit or leave it alone, — but if I ever see it right, exercising my intellect, to treat any human beings like my ‘chattels’ — I shall pay for that mistake one day or another, I am convinced — and I very much fear that you would soon discover what one fault of mine is, if you were to hear anyone assert such a right in my presence.

  Well, I shall see you to-morrow — had I better come a little later, I wonder? — half-past three, for instance, staying, as last time, till ... ah, it is ill policy to count my treasure aloud! Or shall I come at the usual time to-morrow? If I do not hear, at the usual time! — because, I think you would — am sure you would have considered and suggested it, were it necessary.

  Bless you, dearest — ever your own.

  I said nothing about that Mr. Russell and his proposition — by all means, yes — let him do more good with that noble, pathetic ‘lay’ — and do not mind the ‘burthen,’ if he is peremptory — so that he duly specify ‘by the singer’ — with that precaution nothing but good can come of his using it.

  E.B.B. to R.B.

  Thursday.

  [Post-mark, March 6, 1846.]

  Ever dearest I lose no time in writing, you see, so as to be written to at the soonest — and there is another reason which makes me hasten to write ... it is not all mercantile calculation. I want you to understand me.

  Now listen! I seem to understand myself: it seems to me that every word I ever said to you on one subject, is plainly referable to a class of feelings of which you could not complain ... could not. But this is my impression; and yours is different: — you do not understand, you do not see by my light, and perhaps it is natural that you should not, as we stand on different steps of the argument. Still I, who said what I did, for you, and from an absorbing consideration of what was best for you, cannot consent, even out of anxiety for your futurity, to torment you now, to vex you by a form of speech which you persist in translating into a want of trust in you ... (I, want trust in you!!) into a need of more evidence about you from others ... (could you say so?) and even into an indisposition on my part to fulfil my engagement — no, dearest dearest, it is not right of you. And therefore, as you have these thoughts reasonably or unreasonably, I shall punish you for them at once, and ‘chain’ you ... (as you wish to be chained), chain you, rivet you — do you feel how the little fine chain twists round and round you? do you hear the stroke of the riveting? and you may feel that too. Now, it is done — now, you are chained — Bia has finished the work — I, Ba! (observe the anagram!) and not a word do you say, of Prometheus, though you have the conscience of it all, I dare say. Well! you must be pleased, ... as it was ‘the weight of too much liberty’ which offended you: and now you believe, perhaps, that I trust you, love you, and look to you over the heads of the whole living world, without any one head needing to stoop; you must, if you please, because you belong to me now and shall believe as I choose. There’s a ukase for you! Cry out ... repent ... and I will loose the links, and let you go again — shall it be ‘My dear Miss Barrett?’

  Seriously, you shall not think of me such things as you half said, if not whole said, to-day. If all men were to speak evil of you, my heart would speak of you the more good — that would be the one result with me. Do I not know you, soul to soul? should I believe that any of them could know you as I know you? Then for the rest, I am not afraid of ‘toads’ now, not being a child any longer. I am not inclined to mind, if you do not mind, what may be said about us by the benevolent world, nor will other reasons of a graver kind affect me otherwise than by the necessary pain. Therefore the whole rests with you — unless illness should intervene — and you will be kind and good (will you not?) and not think hard thoughts of me ever again — no. It wasn’t the sense of being less than you had a right to pretend to, which made me speak what you disliked — for it is I who am ‘unworthy,’ and not another — not certainly that other!

  I meant to write more to-night of subjects farther off us, but my sisters have come up-stairs and I must close my letter quickly. Beloved, take care of your head! Ah, do not write poems, nor read, nor neglect the walking, nor take that shower-bath. Will you, instead, try the warm bathing? Surely the experiment is worth making for a little while. Dearest beloved, do it for your own

  Ba.

  R.B. to E.B.B.

  Friday Morning.

  [Post-mark, March 6, 1846.]

  I am altoge
ther your own, dearest — the words were only words and the playful feelings were play — while the fact has always been so irresistibly obvious as to make them break on and off it, fantastically like water turning to spray and spurts of foam on a great solid rock. Now you call the rock, a rock, but you must have known what chance you had of pushing it down when you sent all those light fancies and free-leaves, and refusals-to-hold-responsible, to do what they could. It is a rock; and may be quite barren of good to you, — not large enough to build houses on, not small enough to make a mantelpiece of, much less a pedestal for a statue, but it is real rock, that is all.

  It is always I who ‘torment’ you — instead of taking the present and blessing you, and leaving the future to its own cares. I certainly am not apt to look curiously into what next week is to bring, much less next month or six months, but you, the having you, my own, dearest beloved, that is as different in kind as in degree from any other happiness or semblance of it that even seemed possible of realization. Then, now, the health is all to stay, or retard us — oh, be well, my Ba!

  Let me speak of that letter — I am ashamed at having mentioned those circumstances, and should not have done so, but for their insignificance — for I knew that if you ever did hear of them, all any body would say would not amount to enough to be repeated to me and so get explained at once. Now that the purpose is gained, it seems little worth gaining. You bade me not send the letter: I will not.

  As for ‘what people say’ — ah — Here lies a book, Bartoli’s ‘Simboli’ and this morning I dipped into his Chapter XIX. His ‘Symbol’ is ‘Socrate fatto ritrar su’ Boccali’ and the theme of his dissertating, ‘L’indegnità del mettere in disprezzo i più degni filosofi dell’antichità.’ He sets out by enlarging on the horror of it — then describes the character of Socrates, then tells the story of the representation of the ‘Clouds,’and thus gets to his ‘symbol’ — ’le pazzie fatte spacciare a Socrate in quella commedia ... il misero in tanto scherno e derisione del pubblico, che perfino i vasai dipingevano il suo ritratto sopra gli orci, i fiaschi, i boccali, e ogni vasellamento da più vile servigio. Così quel sommo filosofo ... fu condotto a far di se par le case d’Atene una continua commedia, con solamente vederlo comparir così scontraffatto e ridicolo, come i vasai sel formavano d’invenzione’ —