day—with Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘other hard questions yet not impossible
to be solved’ (‘What song the Sirens sang to Ulysses,’ is the first!)
in which blessed hope let me leave off; for I confess to having written
myself all-but-tired, headachy. But ‘vexed with you’! Ba, Ba; you perplex
me, bewilder me; let me get right again; kiss me, dearest, and all is
right—God bless you ever—
Your R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 9, 1846.]
_After_ the question about the ‘Sirens’ song to Ulysses, dearest? Then
directly _before_, I suppose, the other ‘difficult question’ talked of
by your Sir Thomas Browne, as to ‘what name Achilles bore when he lived
among the women.’ _That_, you think, will be an appropriate position for
our ‘moot point’ which, once in England, was guilty of tiring you and
making your head ache:—and as for Achilles’ name when he lived among
women, it was Μῶρος you will readily guess, and I shall not dare to deny.
Only ... only ... I never shall be convinced on the ‘previous question’
by the arguments of your letter—it is not possible.
May I say just one thing, without touching that specific subject? There
is a certain class of sacrifice which men who live in society, should pay
willingly to society ... the sacrifice of little or indifferent things,
... in respect to mere manners and costume. There is another class of
sacrifice which should be refused by every righteous man though ever so
eminently a social man, and though to the loss of his social position.
Now you would be the last, I am sure, to confound these two classes of
sacrifice—and you will admit that our question is simply _between them_
... and to which of them, duelling belongs ... and not at all whether
society is in itself a desirable thing and much rejoiced in by the Browns
and Smiths. You refuse to wear a fool’s cap in the street, because
society forbids you—which is well: but if, in order to avoid wearing
it, you shoot the ‘foolish child’ who forces it upon you ... why you do
_not_ well, by any means: it would not be well even for a Brown or a
Smith—but for my poet of the ‘Bells and Pomegranates,’ it is very ill,
wonderfully ill ... so ill, that I shut my eyes, and have the heartache
(for the headache!) only to think of it. So I will not. Why should we
see things so differently, ever dearest? If anyone had asked me, I could
have answered for you that you saw it quite otherwise. And you would hang
men even—you!
Well! Because I do ‘not rue’ (and am so much the more unfit to die) I am
to be stabbed through the body by an act of ‘private judgment’ of my next
neighbour. So I must take care and ‘rue’ when I do anything wrong—and
I begin now, for being the means of tiring you, ... and for seeming to
persist _so_! You may be right and I wrong, of course—I only speak as
I _see_. And will not speak any more last words ... taking pardon for
these. _I rue._
To-day I was down-stairs again—and if the sun shines on as brightly, I
shall be out of doors before long perhaps.
Your headache! tell me how your headache is,—remember to tell me. When
your letter came, I kissed it by a sort of instinct ... not that I do
always at first sight (please to understand), but because the writing
did not look angry ... not vexed writing. Then I read ... ‘First of all,
kiss’....
So it seemed like magic.
Only I know that if I went on to write disagreeing disagreeable letters,
you might not help to leave off loving me at the end. I seem to see
through this crevice.
Good Heavens!—how dreadfully natural it would be to me, seem to me, if
you _did_ leave off loving me! How it would be like the sun’s setting ...
and no more wonder! Only, more darkness, more pain. May God bless you my
only dearest! and me, by keeping me
Your
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday. 8 A.M.
[Post-mark, April 9, 1846.]
Dearest, I have to go out presently and shall not be able to return
before night ... so that the letter I expect will only be read _then_,
and answered to-morrow—what will it be, the letter? Nothing but dear
and kind, I know ... even deserve to know, in a sense,—because I am
sure all in _my_ letter was meant to be ‘read by your light.’ I submit,
unfeignedly, to you, there as elsewhere—and,—as I said, I think,—I wrote
_so_, precisely because it was never likely to be my own case. I should
consider it the _most_ unhappy thing that could possibly happen to
me,—(putting aside the dreadful possibilities one refuses to consider at
all,—the _most_).
Have you made any discoveries about the disposition of Saturday? May I
come, dearest? (On Saturday evening I shall see a friend who will tell
me all he knows about ships and voyage expenses—or refer me to higher
authorities.)
Bless you, now and ever, my own Ba. Do you know, next Saturday, in its
position of successor to Good Friday, will be the anniversary of Mr.
Kenyon’s asking me, some four years ago, ‘if _I would like to see_ Miss
B.’ How I remember? I was staying with him for a couple of days. Now, I
will ask myself ‘would you like to kiss Ba?’ ‘_Then comes the Selah._’
Goodbye, dearest-dearest!
Yours R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 10, 1846.]
I thought you had not written to me to-night, ever dearest! Nine o’clock
came and went, and I heard no postman’s knock; and I supposed that I did
not deserve (in your mind) to hear it at all. At last I rang the bell and
said to Wilson ... ‘Look in the letter-box—there may be a letter perhaps.
If there should be none, you need not come up-stairs to tell me—I shall
understand.’ So she left me, and, _that_ time, I listened for _footsteps_
... the footsteps of my letter. If I had not heard them directly, what
should I have thought?
You are good and kind, ... _too_ good and kind, ... always, always!—and
I love you gratefully and shall to the end, and with an unspeakable
apprehension of what you are in yourself, and towards me:—yet you
cannot, you know,—you know you cannot, dearest ... ‘submit’ to me in
an _opinion_, any more than I could to you, if I desired it ever so
anxiously. We will talk no more however on this subject now. I have had
some pain from it, of course ... but I am satisfied to have had the
pain, for the knowledge ... which was as necessary as possible, under
circumstances, for more reasons than one.
Dearest ... before I go to talk of something else ... will you be
besought of me to consider within yourself, ... and not with me to
teaze you; _why_ the ‘case,’ spoken of, should ‘never in likelihood be
your own?’ Are you and yours charmed from the influence of offensive
observations ... _personally_ offensive? ‘The most unhappy thing that
could happen to you,’ is it, on that account, the farthest thing?
Now—! Mrs. Jameson was here to-day, and in the room before, almost, I
heard of her being on the stairs. It is goodnatured of her to remember
me in her brief visits to London—and she brought me two or three St.
Sebastians with the arrows through them, etched by herself, to look
at—very goodnatured! Once she spoke of you—‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you saw Mr.
Browning’s last number! yes, I remember how you spoke of it. I suppose
Mr. Kenyon lent you his copy’.... And before I could speak, she was on
another subject. But I should not have had heart to say what I meant and
predetermined to say, even if the opportunity to-day had been achieved.
As if you could not be read except in Mr. Kenyon’s copy! I might have
confessed to my own copy, even if not to my own original ... do you not
think?
Before she came, I went down to the drawing-room, I and Flush, and
found no one there ... and walked drearily up and down the rooms, and,
so, came back to mine. May you have spent your day better. There was
sunshine for you, as I could see. God bless you and keep you. Saturday
may be clear for us, or may not—and if it should not be clear, certainly
Monday and Tuesday will not ... what shall be done? Will you wait till
Wednesday? or will you (now let it be as you choose!) come on Saturday,
running the risk of finding only a parcel ... a book and a letter ... and
so going away, if there should be reasons against the visit. Because last
Monday was _known_ of, and I shall not ascertain until Saturday whether
or not we shall be at liberty. Or ... shall we at once say _Wednesday_?
It is for your decision. You go out on Saturday evening ... and perhaps
altogether there may be a conspiracy against Saturday. Judge and decide.
I am writing as with the point of a pilgrim’s staff rather than a pen.
‘We are all strangers and pilgrims.’ Can you read anywise?
I think of you, bless you, love you—but it would have been better for
you never to have seen my face perhaps, though Mr. Kenyon gave the first
leave. _Perhaps!!_—I ‘flatter’ _myself_ to-night, in change for _you_.
Best beloved I am your
BA.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday—2 o’clock p.m.
[Post-mark, April 10, 1846.]
Ever dearest I wrote last night what might make you doubtful and
uncomfortable about Saturday; being doubtful myself and not knowing what
word to say of it. But just now Papa has been here in the room with
me,—and a beatific Jamaica packet has just come in, as the post declares
... (Benedetta sia l’ora &c.!) and he will ‘hear more,’ he says, ‘_in the
city to-morrow_!’—So we are safe. Come, if there should be no reason
of your own for staying. For me, I seem to have more need than usual of
seeing you. May God bless you. I am
Your
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, April 10, 1846.]
Dearest, sweetest best—how can you, seeing so much, yet see that
‘possibility’—_I leave off loving_ you! and be ‘angry’ and ‘vexed’ and
the rest! Well—take care I don’t answer fairly and plainly that I _can_
do all this—as the poor women had to confess in their bewilderment
when grave judges asked ‘by which of the thirty-seven ways they were
accustomed to signify their desire of his presence to Asmodeus—&c.
&c.—But I cannot jest, nor trifle here—I protest in the most solemn way
I am capable of conceiving, that I am altogether unable to imagine how
or whence or why any possible form of anger or vexation or any thing
akin can or could or should or shall ever rise in me to you—it is a
sense hitherto undreamed of, a new faculty—altogether an inexplicable,
impossible feeling. I am not called on, surely, to suppose cases of
pure impossibility? To say, ‘if you did thus or thus,’—what I know you
could no more do than go and kill cows with your own hand, and dig up
kale grounds? But I _can_ fancy your being angry with me, very angry—and
speaking the truth of the anger—that is to be _fancied_: and God knows I
should in that case kiss _my_ letters, here, till you pleased to judge
me not unworthy to kiss the hem of your garment again. My own Ba! My
election is made or God made it for me,—and is irrevocable. I am wholly
yours. I see you have yet to understand what that implies,—but you will
one day. And in this, just said, I understand _serious_ anger, for
serious offences; to which, despite my earnest endeavour, who shall say I
may not be liable? What are you given me for but to make me better—and,
in that, happier? If you could save my soul, ‘so as by fire,’ would your
dear love shrink from that? But in the matter we really refer to....
Oh, Ba, did I not pray you at the beginning to _tell_ me the instant
you detected anything to be altered by _human_ effort? to give me that
chance of becoming more like you and worthier of you? and here where
you think me gravely in the wrong, and I am growing conscious of being
in the wrong,—one or two repetitions of such conduct as yours, such
‘disagreeable letters,’ and I _must_ ‘leave off’.... When I do _that_ on
such ground ... I need imprecate no foolish sense on my head,—the very
worst will be in full operation. I only wrote to justify an old feeling,
exercised only in the case of others I have heard of—men called ‘cool
murderers,’ ‘deliberate imbruers of their hands in,’ &c. &c.—and I meant
just to say,—well,—I, and others, despise your society and only go into
it now to be the surer that, when we leave it, we were not excluded as
the children turn from the grapes because their teeth are set on edge,
whatever may be the foxes’ pretext—but, for your own devoted followers
be a little more merciful, and while you encourage them to spend a dozen
years in a law-suit, lest they lose a few pounds ... but I won’t repeat
the offence, dear—_you are right_ and I am wrong and will lay it to
heart, and now kiss, not your feet this time, because I am the prouder,
far from the more humble, by this admission and retractation——
Your note arrives here—Ba;—it would have been ‘better for me,’ _that_?
Oh, dearest, let us marry soon, very soon, and end all this! If I
could begin taking exceptions again, I might charge you with such wild
conventionalism, such wondrous perversity of sight or blindness rather!
_Can_ you, now, by this time, tell me or yourself that you could believe
me happy with any other woman that ever breathed? I tell _you_, without
affectation, that I lay the whole blame to myself ... that I feel that if
I had spoken my love out _sufficiently_, all this doubt could never have
been possible. You quite believe I am in earnest, know my own mind and
speak as I feel, on these points we disputed about—yet _I am_ far from
being sure of it, or so it seems now—but, as for loving you,—_there_ I
mistake, or may be wrong, or may, or might or or—
_Now_ kiss me, my best-dearest beloved! It seems I am always understood
_so_—the words are words, and faulty, and inexpressive, or wrongly
expressive,—but when I live under your eyes, and die, you will never
mistake,—you _do not now_, thank God, say to me—‘you want to go elsewhere
for all you say the visit seems too brief’—and, ‘you would change me for
another, for all you possess’—never do you _say_ such things—but when I
am away, all the mistaking begins—let it end soon, come, dearest life of
my life, light of my soul, heart’s joy of my heart!
You feel I _must_ see you to-morrow if possible—at all events I will call
for the parcel. (What made you suppose I was engaged to-morrow night? The
saying that I should meet my sea-faring friend, perhaps? But that is to
be _here_—he comes here—at all events, I recollect no other engagement—if
I had one with Death himself, I almost think I would go,—folly!) But let
the parcel be ready (to put into my hand at once) and I will venture at 3
o’clock.
In truth, all yesterday I was very unwell,—going about sight-seeing with
a friend and his lady-cousins, and afterward dining with them—I came home
dead with intense boring—I rarely remember to have suffered so much.
To-day I am rather better,—much better, indeed. If I can but see you for
a few minutes to-morrow!
May God bless you, dearest—and show you the truth in me, the one truth
which I dare hope compensates for much that is to be forgiven: when I
told you at the beginning I was not worthy, was infinitely lower &c., you
seemed incredulous! well now, you see! I, that you _would_ persist in
hoping better things of, held such opinions as those—and so you begin
setting me right, and so I am set far on towards right—is not all well,
love? And now go on, when I give next occasion, and tell me more, and let
me alter more, and thank you, if I can, _more_,—but not, not love you
more, you, Ba, whom I love wholly,—with all my faculties, all my being.
May God bless you, again—it all ends there—!
Your own R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, April 13, 1846.]
I will not speak much of the letter, as you desire that I should not.
And because everything you write must be answered in some way and sense,
... must have some result, there is the less need of words in the
present case. Let me say only then, ever dearest, dearest, that I never
felt towards you as I felt when I had read that letter ... never loved
you so entirely! ... that it went to my heart, and stayed there, and
seemed to mix with the blood of it ... believe this of me, dear dearest
beloved! For the rest, there is no need for me to put aside carefully the
assumption of being didactic to _you_ ... of being better than _you_, so
as to teach you! ... ah, you are so fond of dressing me up in pontifical
garments (‘for fun,’ as the children say!)—but because they are too large
for me, they drop off always of themselves, ... they do not require my
pulling them off: these extravagances get righted of their own accord.
After all, too, you, ... with that præternatural submissiveness of yours,
... you know your power upon the whole, and understand, in the midst of
the obeisances, that you can do very much what you please, with your High
Priest. Εἴ τις αἴσθησἲς in the ghosts of the tribe of Levi, let them see
and witness how it is!
And now, do _you_ see. It was just natural that when we differed for the
first time I should fall into low spirits. In the night, at dream-time,
when instead of dreams ‘deep thought falleth upon man,’ suddenly I have
been sad even to tears, do you know, to think of _that_: and whenever I
am not _glad_, the old fears and misgivings come back—no, you _do not
understand_ ... you _cannot_, perhaps! But dear, dearest, never think of
yourself that you have expressed ‘insufficiently’ your feelings for me.
Insufficiently! No words but _just your own_, between heaven and earth,
could have persuaded me that one such as you could love me! and the
tongue of angels could not speak better words for that purpose, than just
yours. Also, I know that you love me.... I do know it, my only dearest,
and recognize it in the gratitude of my soul:—and it is through my want
of familiarity with any happiness—through the want of use in carrying
these weights of flowers, that I drop them again and again out of weak
hands. Besides the _truth_ is, that I am _not_ worthy of you—and if you
were to see it just as I see it, why there would be an end ... there, ...
I sometimes think reasonably.
Well—now I shall be good for at least a fortnight. Do I not teaze you and
give you trouble? I feel ashamed of myself sometimes. Let me go away from
myself to talk of Mr. Kenyon, therefore!
For he came to-day, and arrived in town on Friday evening—(what an escape
on Saturday!) and said of you, ... with those detestable spectacles—like
the Greek burning glasses, turned full on my face ... ‘I suppose now that
Mr. Browning’s book is done and there are no more excuses for coming,
he will come _without_ excuses.’ Then, after talk upon other subjects,
he began a long wandering sentence, the end of which I could see a mile
off, about how he ‘ought to know better than I, but wished to enquire of
me’ ... what, do you suppose? ... why, ‘what Mr. Browning’s objects in
life were. Because Mrs. Procter had been saying that it was a pity he
had not seven or eight hours a day of occupation,’ &c. &c. It is a good
thing to be angry, as a refuge from being confounded: I really _could
say_ something to _that_. And I did say that you ‘did not _require_ an
occupation as a means of living ... having simple habits and desires—nor
as an end of living, since you found one in the exercise of your genius!
and that if Mr. Procter had looked as simply to his art as an end, he
would have done better things.’
Which made Mr. Kenyon cry out ... ‘Ah now! you are spiteful! and you need
not be, for there was nothing unkind in what she said.’ ‘But _absurd_’!
... I insisted—‘seeing that to put race horses into dray carts, was not
usually done nor advised.’
You told me she was a worldly woman; and here is a proof, sent back to
you. But what business have worldly women to talk their dust and ashes
over high altars in that way? I was angry and sinned not—angry for the
moment. Then Mr. Kenyon agreed with me, I think, and illustrated the
subject by telling me how Wordsworth had given himself to the service
of the temple from the beginning—‘though,’ observed Mr. Kenyon, ‘he did
not escape _so_ from worldliness.’ But William Wordsworth is not Robert
Browning. Mr. Kenyon spoke of your family and of yourself with the best
and most reverent words.
And all this reminds me of what I have often and often mused about saying
to you, and shrank back, and torn the paper now and then.... You know the
subject you wanted to discuss, on Saturday. Now whenever the time shall
come for discussing that subject, let this be a point agreed upon by both
of us. The peculiarity of our circumstances will enable us to be free of
the world ... of our friends even ... of all observation and examination,
in certain respects: now let us use the advantage which falls to us
from our misfortune,—and, since we must act for ourselves at last, let
us resist the curiosity of the whole race of third persons ... even the
affectionate interest of such friends as dear Mr. Kenyon, ... and put it
into the power of nobody to say to himself or to another, ... ‘she had
so much, and he, so much, in worldly possessions—or she had not so much
and he had not so much.’ Try to understand what I mean. As it is not of
the least importance to either of us, as long as we can live, whether the
sixpence, we live by, came most from you or from me ... and as it will
be as much mine as yours, and yours as mine when we are together ... why
let us join in throwing a little dust in all the winking eyes round—oh,
it is nonsense and weakness, I know—but I would rather, rather, see
winking eyes than staring eyes. What has anybody to do with us? Even my
own family ... why should they _ever_ see the farthest figure of _our_
affairs, as to mere money? There now—it is said, ... what I have had in
my head so long to say. And one other word resumes my meditations on ‘the
subject’ which will not be ripe for discussion for ever so many months
... and that other word is ... that if ever I am to wrong you so much as
to be yours _so_, it is on the condition of leaving England within the
fewest possible half hours afterwards. I told you _that_, long ago—so
bear it in mind. I should not dare breathe in this England. Think!—There
is my father—and there is yours! Do you imagine that I am _not afraid
of your family_? and should be still more, if it were not for the great
agony of fear on the side of my own house. Ah—I must love you unspeakably
... even to dare think of the possibility of such things. So we will not
talk of them now. I write what I write, to throw it off my mind and have
done. Bear it in yours, but do not refer to it—_I ask you not to refer to
it_.
A long straggling letter, this is. I shall have mine to-morrow. And
you will tell me if Wednesday or Thursday shall be our day; and above
all, tell me how you are. Then the book will come. Remember to send one
to Mrs. Jameson! I write in haste ... in haste—but one may think of
you either in haste or at leisure, without blotting the air. Love me,
beloved ... do not leave off to see if I deserve it. I am at least (which
is at most)
Your very own.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, April 13, 1846.]
Dearest, unspeakably dear Ba,—would I were with you! But my heart stays
with you: I write this, tired somewhat and out of spirits—for I have been
writing notes this morning; getting rid of the arrears which turn out
more considerable than I thought. And the moment I have done, I look to
the chair and the picture and desire to be at rest with you; the perfect
rest and happiness here on earth. But _do_ think, my own Ba, in the
direction I indicated yesterday—any obstacle now, would be more than I
could bear—I feel I _must_ live with you,—if but for a year, a month—to
express the love which words cannot express, nor these letters, nor aught
else.