to receive, and which I thought to myself she would apply to _me_ some
day, with the rest of what Miss Mitford calls ‘those good-for-nothing
poets and poetesses.’ She maintained, (Mrs. Jameson did) that ‘artistical
natures never learn wisdom from experience—that sorrow teaches them
nothing—leaves no trace at all—that the mind is modified in no way by
passion—suffering.’ Which I disbelieved quite, and ventured to say on
the other side, that although practically a man or woman might not be
wiser, through perhaps the interception of a vivid apprehension of the
present, which might put back the influence of the future over actions,
... yet that it was impossible for a self-conscious nature (which all
these artistic natures are) and a sensitive nature, not to receive
some sort of modification from things suffered—‘No’—she said, ‘they
did not! she had known and loved such—and they were like children, all
of them,—essentially immature.’ But she did not persuade me. What is
_inequality_ of nature, as Dugald Stewart observed it, (and did he not
say that men of genius had lop-sided minds?) is different, I think, from
immaturity in her sense of the word. We were talking of her friend Mrs.
Butler, which brought us to the subject. Presently she will say of you
and me ... ‘Just see there! she meant no harm, poor thing, I dare say—but
she acts like a child! And, for _him_, _his_ is the imbecility of most
regent genius ... such as I am to live to see confessed imperial, or I
die a disappointed woman.’!
Do you hear? _I_ do, distinctly. _You_, in the meantime, are looking at
the ‘locks’ ... just as poor Louis Seize did when they were preparing his
guillotine.
May God bless you, my own dearest—Think of me _a little_—as you say!
Your
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday.
[Post-mark, April 3, 1846.]
I want to tell you a thing before I forget it, my own Ba—a thing that
pleased me to find out this morning. A few days ago there was a paragraph
in the newspaper about Lord Compton and his ways at Rome. His address
was to be read in the general list of working-artists kept for public
inspection at Monaldini’s news-room, and the Earl’s self was to be found
in fraternal association with ‘young art,’ at board and sporting-place,
wearing the same distinctive _blouse_ and Louis II. hat with great
flaps; even his hair as picturesquely disordered as the best of
them—(the artists, not flaps)—at all which the reporter seemed scarcely
to know whether he ought to laugh or cry. This I read in the _Daily
News_ with other gossip about Rome, last Wednesday. But this morning a
_Cambridge Advertiser_ of the same day reaches me—and there, under the
head of College news (after recording that Mr. A. has been appointed
to this vicarage, and Mr. B. licensed to the other curacy)—one finds
this—‘The Earl Compton, M.A. (Hon. 1837)—is of great fame in Rome as a
Painter!’—which the other authority wholly forgot to mention; supposing,
no doubt, all the love went to the blouse and flapped hat aforesaid!
Now, is it not a good instance of that fascination which the _true_
life at Rome (apart from the stupidities of the travelling English)
exercises every now and then on susceptible people? The best thing for
an English Earl to do,—(who will be a Marquis one day)—would be to stay
here and vindicate his title by honest work with the opportunities it
affords him—but if he _cannot_ rise to the dignity of the best part,
surely this, he chooses, is better than many others—being caught as some
noblemen were yesterday, for instance, superintending a dog-fight in
some horrible den of thieves in St. Giles’s. I don’t know, after all,
why I tell you this,—but that amid all the dull doings of the notable
dull ones there, and their ‘honours’—(such a wonder of a man was Smith’s
prize-man,—another had got to be gloriously first in the Classical
Tripos)—this bit of ‘fame at Rome’ seemed like a break of blue real sky
with a star in it, shining through the canvas sham clouds and oil-paper
moons of a theatre.
Now I get to you, my Ba! How strange! It does so happen that I took the
pen and laid out the paper with, I really think, a completer, deeper
yearning of love to _you_ than usual even—I seemed to have a thousand
things that I _could_ say _now_—and on touching the paper ... see—I start
off with a foolish story and still foolisher comment as if there were no
Ba close at my head all the time, straight before my eyes too! So it is
with me—I give the _expressing_ part up at once! It must be understood,
inferred,—(_proved_, never!) All nonsense, so I will stay—and try to be
wise to-morrow—_now_, I have no note to guide me and half put into my
mouth what I ought to say. So, dear, dear Ba, goodbye! I very well know
what this letter is worth—yet because of the love and endeavour _un_seen,
may I not have the hand to kiss—and without the glove? It _is_ kissed,
whether you give it or no,—for there are two long days more to wait—and
then comes Monday! Bless you till then, and ever, my dearest: My own Ba—
Your R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 4, 1846.]
Shall the heir to a Marquisate ‘justify his title’ in these days?
Is not the best thing he can do for _himself_, to forget it in a
studio at Rome?—and one of the best things he can do for his country,
perhaps, to desecrate it at dog-fighting before the eyes of all men?
I should not like to have to justify my Marquisate to reasonable
men now-a-days,—should _you_ ... seriously speaking? It would be a
hard task, and rather dull in the performance. On the other hand, the
noble dog-fighters (unconscious patriots!) find it easy and congenial
occupation down in St. Giles’s, rubbing out (as in the old game of fox
and goose) figure by figure, prestige by prestige, the gross absurdity of
hereditary legislators, lords, and the like. Yet of the three positions,
I would rather be at Rome, certainly a man looks nobler there, is better,
is happier ... a good deal nearer the angels than on his ‘landed estates’
playing at feudal proprietor, or even in St. Giles’s dog-fighting. See
what a republican you have for a ... _Ba_. Did you fancy me capable
of writing such unlawful, disorderly things? And it isn’t out of
bitterness, nor covetousness ... no, indeed. People in general would
rather be Marquises than Roman artists, consulting their own wishes and
inclination. I, for my part, ever since I could speak my mind and knew
it, always openly and inwardly preferred the glory of those who live by
their heads, to the opposite glory of those who carry other people’s
arms. So much for glory. Happiness goes the same way to my fancy. There
is something fascinating to me, in that Bohemian way of living ... all
the conventions of society cut so close and thin, that the soul can see
through ... beyond ... above. It is ‘real life’ as you say ... whether at
Rome or elsewhere. I am very glad that you like simplicity in habits of
life—it has both reasonableness and sanctity. People are apt to suffocate
their faculties by their manners—English people especially. I admire that
you,—R.B.,—who have had temptation more than enough, I am certain, under
every form, have lived in the midst of this London of ours, close to the
great social vortex, yet have kept so safe, and free, and calm and pure
from the besetting sins of our society. When you came to see me first, I
did not expect so much of you in that one respect. How could I? You had
lived in the world, I knew, and I thought ... well!—what matter, _now_,
what I thought?
I will tell you instead how to-day has gone by with me. Not like
yesterday, indeed! In the first place, I went down-stairs, walked up and
down the drawing-room twice, and finding nobody there (they were all
having luncheon in the dining-room) came up-stairs again ... half-way on
the stairs met Flush, who having been asleep, had not missed me till just
then, and was in the act of search. I was lost for ever, thought poor
Flush. At least I think he thought so by his eyes. They were three times
their usual largeness—he looked quite wild ... and leaped against me
with such an ecstasy of astonished joy, that I nearly fell backward down
the stairs (whereupon, you would have had to go to the Siren’s island,
dearest, all by yourself!) After which escape of mine and Flushie’s, and
when I had persuaded him to be good and quiet and to believe that I was
not my own ghost, I came home with him and prepared to see....
I will tell you. She is a Mrs. Paine who lives at Farnham, and learns
Greek, and writes to me such overcoming letters, that at last, and in a
moment of imprudent reaction from an ungrateful discourtesy on my part,
I agreed to see her if she ever came to London. Upon which, she comes
directly—I am taken in my trap. She comes and returns the same day, and
all to see me. Well—she had been kind to me ... and she came at two
to-day. Do you know, ... for the first five minutes, I _repented quite_?
Dearest ... she came just with the sort of face which a child might take
to see a real, alive lioness at the Zoological Gardens ... she just sate
down on a chair, and stared. How can people do such things in this year
of grace when they are abolishing the Corn Laws, I wonder? For my part it
was so unlike anything civilized I had ever been used to that I felt as
if my voice and breath went together. It would have saved me to be able
to _stare back again_, but _that_ was out of my power. So I endured—and,
after a pause, ran violently down a steep place into some sort of
conversation (thinking of your immortal Simpson, and vowing never to be
drawn into such a situation again) and in a little while, I was able
to recognize that there was nothing worse than bad manners—_ignorant_
manners—and that, for the rest, my antagonist was a young, pretty woman
(_rather_ pretty), enthusiastic and provincial, with a strong love for
poetry and literature generally, loving Carlyle and _your_self, (could
I hold out against _that_?) and telling me all her domestic happinesses
with a frankness which quite appeased me and prevented my being too tired
... though she stayed two hours, and _wasn’t you_!—
So there is my history of to-day for you! To-morrow you will have the
proof—and perhaps, _I_ shall! Monday will bring a better thing than a
proof. May God bless you, beloved. Say how you are ... to-morrow! _Mind_
to do it ... or I will not sit any more in your gondola-chair. How can
you make me, unless I choose?
And you speak against my letter to-night? you shall not dare do such
things. It is a good, dear letter, and it is mine to call so ... and I
knew its fellows before I knew you and loved them before I loved you,
and so you are not to be proud and scornful and try to put them down ‘in
_that_ way.’
Your own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday.
[April 4, 1846.]
Oh, my two letters—and to turn from such letters to you, to my own Ba!—I
very well know I am not grateful enough, if there is any grace in _that_,
any power to avert punishment, as one hopes! But all my hope is in future
endeavour—it _is_, my Ba,—this is earnest truth. And one thing that
strikes me on hearing such prognostications of Mrs. Jameson’s opinion on
_our_ subject—is that—as far as I am concerned ... or yourself, indeed—we
must make up our mind to endure the stress of it, and of such opinions
generally, with all resignation ... and by the time we _can_ answer,—why,
alas, they are gone and forgotten, so that there’s no paying them for
their impertinence. I mean, that I do not _expect_, as a foolish fanciful
boy might, that on the sudden application of ‘Hymen’s torch’ (to give
the old simile one chance more) your happiness will blaze out apparent
to the whole world lying in darkness, like a wondrous ‘Catherine-wheel,’
now all blue, now red, and so die at the bed amid an universal clapping
of hands—I trust a long life of real work ‘begun, carried on and ended,’
as it never otherwise could have been (certainly by _me_ ... and if
I dare hope, _you_, dearest, it is because you teach me to aspire to
the height)—that the attainment of all that happiness of daily, hourly
life in entire affection, which seeing that men of genius need rather
more—ah, these words, I cannot look back and take up the thread of the
sentence,—but I wanted to say—we will live the real answer, will we not,
dearest, all the stupidity against ‘genius’ ‘poets,’ and the like, is got
past the stage of being treated with patient consideration and gentle
pity—it is _too_ vexatious, if it will not lie still, out of the way, by
this time. What _is_ the crime, to his fellow man or woman (not to God,
I know that—these are peculiar sins to Him—whether greater in His eyes,
who shall say?)—but to mankind, _what_ is crime which would have been
prevented but for the ‘genius’ involved in it? A man of genius ill-treats
his wife—well, take away the ‘genius’—does he so naturally improve? See
the article in to-day’s _Athenæum_, about the French Duel—far enough
from ‘men of genius’ these Dujarriers &c.—but go to-night into half the
_estaminets_ of Paris, and see whether the quarrels over dice and some
wine present any more pleasing matter of contemplation _au fond_. Sin is
sin everywhere and the worse, I think, for the grossness. Being fired at
by a duellist is a little better, I think also, than being struck on the
face by some ruffian. These are extreme cases—but go higher and it is the
same thing. Poor, cowardly miscreated natures abound—if you could throw
‘genius’ into their composition, they would become more degraded still, I
suppose!
I know I want every faculty I can by any possibility dare—want all, and
much more, to teach me what you are, my own Ba, and what I should do to
prove that I am taught, and do know.
I will write at length to you to-morrow, my all beloved. I am, somehow,
overflowing with things to say, and the time is _fearfully_ short—my
proofs have just arrived, here they are, not even _glanced_ over by
me—(To-morrow, love! not one thing answered in my letters, as when I read
and read them to-night I shall say to myself). Bless you, dearest, dearest
R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday.
[April 5, 1846.]
It seems to me the safest way to send back the proofs by the early Monday
post: you may choose perhaps to bring the sheet corrected into town when
you come, and so I shall let you have what you sent me, before you come
to take it ... though I thought first of waiting. To-morrow I shall force
you to tell me how you like the ‘Tragedy’ _now_! For my part, it delights
me—and must raise your reputation as a poet and thinker ... _must_.
Chiappino is highly dramatic in that first part, and speaks so finely
sometimes that it is a wrench to one’s sympathies to find him overthrown.
Do you know that, as far as the _temper_ of the man goes, I am acquainted
with a Chiappino ... just such a man, in the temper, the pride and the
bitterness ... not in other things. When I read your manuscript I was
reminded—but here in print it, seems to grow nearer and nearer. My
Chiappino has tired me out at last—I have borne more from him than women
ought to bear from men, because he was unfortunate and embittered in his
nature and by circumstances, and because I regarded him as a friend of
many years. Yet, as I have told him, anyone, who had not such confidence
in me, would think really _ill of me_ through reading the insolent
letters which he has thought fit to address to me on what he called a
pure principle of adoration. At last I made up my mind (and shall keep it
so) to answer no letter of the kind. Men are ignoble in some things, past
the conceiving of their fellows. Again and again I have said ... ‘Specify
your charge against me’—but there is no charge. With the most reckless
and dauntless inconsistency I am lifted halfway to the skies, and made a
mark there for mud pellets—so that I have been excited sometimes to say
quite passionately ... ‘If I am the filth of the earth, tread on me—if
I am an angel of Heaven, respect me—but I can’t be both, remember.’ See
where your Chiappino leads you ... and me! Though I shall not tell you
the other name of mine. Whenever I see him now, I make Arabel stay in
the room—otherwise I _am afraid_—he is such a violent man. A good man,
though, in many respects, and quite an old friend. Some men grow incensed
with the continual pricks of ill-fortune, like mad bulls: some grow tame
and meek.
Well—_I_ did not like the spirit of the _Athenæum_ remarks either. I
like what _you_ say. These literary men are never so well pleased, as
in having opportunities of barking against one another—and, for the
_Athenæum_ people, if they wanted to be didactic as to morals, they
might have taken occasion to be so out of their own order, and in their
own country. And then to bring in Balzac _so_! The worst of Balzac (who
has not a fine moral sense at any time, great and gifted as he is), the
very worst of him, is his bearing towards his literary brothers ... the
manner in which he, who can so nobly present genius to the reverence of
humanity in scientific men (as he describes them in his books), always
dishonours and depreciates it in the man of letters and the poet. See his
‘Grand Homme de Province à Paris,’ one of the most powerful of his works,
but the remark is true everywhere. I go on writing as if I were not to
see you directly. It is past four oclock—and if Mr. Kenyon does not come
to-day, he may come to-morrow, and find you, who were here last Thursday
to his knowledge!—Half I fear.
Observe the proof. Since you have two, you say, I have not scrupled to
write down on this ever so much improvidence, which you will glance at
and decide upon finally.
‘Grateful’ ... ‘grateful’ ... what a word _that_ is. I never would have
such a word on any proof that came to me for correction. Do not use
such inapplicable words—do not, dearest! for you know very well in your
understanding (if not in your heart) that if such a word is to be used
by either of us, it is _not by you_. My word, I shall keep mine,—_I_ am
‘grateful’—_you_ cannot be ‘grateful’ ... for ineffable reasons....
‘Pour bonnes raisons
Que l’on n’ose dire.
Et que nous taisons.’
For the rest, it is certainly very likely that you may ‘want all your
faculties, _and more_’ ... to bear with me ... to support me with
graceful resignation; and who can tell whether I may not be found
intolerable after all?
By the way (talking of St. Catherine’s wheels and the like torments) you
wrote ‘gag’ ... did you not? ... where the proof says ‘gadge’—I did not
alter it. More and more I like ‘Luria.’
Your BA.
Mr. Kenyon has been here—so our Monday is safe.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, April 6, 1846.]
I sent you some even more than usual hasty foolish words,—not caring
much, however—for dearest Ba shall have to forgive my shortcomings every
hour in the day,—it is her destiny, and I began unluckily with that
stupidest of all notions,—that about the harm coming of genius &c., so I
fell with my subject and we rolled in the mud together—_pas vrai?_ But
there was so many other matters alluded to in your _dearest_ (because
last) letter—there are many things in which I agree with you to such a
tremblingly exquisite exactness, so to speak, that I hardly dare cry out
lest the charm break, the imaginary oscillation prove incomplete and
your soul, _now_ directly over, pass beyond mine yet, and not _stay_! Do
you understand, dear soul of my soul, dearest Ba? Oh, how different it
all might be! In this House of life—where I go, you go—where I ascend
you run before—when I descend it is after you. Now, one might have a
piece of Ba, but a very little of her, and make it up into a lady and
a mistress, and find her a room to her mind perhaps when she should
sit and sing, ‘warble eat and dwell’ like Tennyson’s blackbird, and to
visit her there with due honour one might wear the finest of robes, use
the courtliest of ceremonies—and then—after a time, leave her there and
go, the door once shut, without much blame, to throw off the tunic and
put on Lord Compton’s blouse and go whither one liked—after, to me, the
most melancholy fashion in the world. How different with us! If it were
_not_, indeed—what a mad folly would marriage be! Do you know what quaint
thought strikes me, out of old Bunyan, on this very subject? He says
(with another meaning though) ‘Who would keep a cow, that may buy milk at
a penny the quart’—(elegant allusion). Just so,—whoever wants ‘a quart’
of this other comfort, as solace of whatever it may be (at breakfast
or tea time too), why not go and ‘buy’ the same, and having discussed
it, drink claret at dinner at his club? Why did not Mr. Butler _read_
Fanny Kemble’s verses, paying his penny of intellectual labour, and see
her play ‘Portia’ at night, and make her a call or ride with her in the
middle of the day—why ‘keep the cow’? _But_—don’t you know they prescribe
to some constitutions the _perpetual living_ in a cow-house? the breath,
the unremitting influence is everything,—not the milk—(now, Ba—Ba is
suddenly Ἴω πλανωμένη and Mrs. Jameson is the Gadfly—and I am laughed
at—not too cruelly, or the other lock of hair becomes mine—with which
locks ... and not with Louis Seize iron knick-nack ones, I rather think I
was occupied last time, last farewell taking—)
From all which I infer—that I shall see you to-morrow! Yes, or I should
not have the heart to be so glad and absurd.
Well, to-morrow makes amends—dear, dear Ba! Why do you persist in trying
to turn my head so? It does not turn, I look the more steadfastly at
the feet and the ground, for all your crying and trying! But something
shocking might happen—_would_ happen, if it were not written that I am to
get nothing but good from Ba,—and _who, who_ began calling names—who used
the word ‘flatterer’ first?
Bless you my own dearest flatterer—I love you with heart and soul. Are
you down-stairs to day? it is warm, the rain you like—yes you are down, I
think. God keep you wherever you are!
Your own.
I went last night to Lord Compton’s father’s Soirée,—and for all our deep
convictions, and philosophic rejoicing, I assure you that of the two or
three words that we interchanged—congratulation on the bright fortune
of his son formed no part,—any more than intelligence about ordering
Regiments to India whenever I met the relatives of the ordered. And
yesterday morning I planted a full dozen more rose-trees, all white—to
take away the yellow-rose reproach!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday Morning.
[April 6, 1846.]
I shall receive a note from you presently, I trust—but this had better
go now—for I expect a friend, and must attend to him as he wants to go
walking—so, dearest—dearest, take my—last work I ever shall _send_ you,
if God please!
A word about a passage or two,—I had forgotten to say before—gadge is a
real name (in Johnson, too) for a torturing iron—it is part of the horror
of such things that they should be mysteriously named,—indefinitely,—‘The
Duke of Exeter’s Daughter’ for instance ... Ugh!—Besides, am I not
a rhymester? Well, who knows but one may want to use such a word in
a couplet with ‘_badge_’—which, if one reject the old and obsolete
‘_fadge_,’ is rhymeless?
Then Chiappino remarks that men of genius usually do the _reverse_ ...
of beginning by dethroning &c. and so arriving with utmost reluctancy
at the acknowledgment of a natural and unalterable _inequality_ of
Mankind—instead of _that_, they begin _at once_, he says, by recognizing
it in their adulation &c. &c.—I have supplied the words ‘_at once_,’ and
taken out ‘_virtually_,’ which was unnecessary; so that the parallel
possibly reads clearlier. I know there are other things to say—but at
this moment my memory is at fault.
Can you tell me Mrs. Jameson’s address?
My sea-friend’s opinion is altogether unfavourable to the notion of an
invalid’s trusting himself alone in a merchant vessel—he says—‘it will
certainly be the gentleman’s death.’ So very small a degree of comfort
can be secured amid all the inevitable horrors of dirt, roughness, &c.
The expenses are trifling in any case, on that very account. Any number
of the _Shipping Gazette_ (I think) will give a list of all vessels about
to sail, with choice of ports—or on the walls of the Exchange one may see
their names placarded, with reference to the Agent—or he will, himself,
(my friend Chas. Walton) do his utmost with a shipowner, we both know,
and save some expense, perhaps. I made him remark the difference between
my carelessness of accommodations and an invalid’s proper attention
beforehand—but he persisted in saying nothing can be done, nothing
effectual. My time is out—but I must bless you my ever dearest Ba—and
kiss you—
Ever your own.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, April 7, 1846.]