person or two. I wish you could hear that marvellous Pischek, with his
Rhine songs, and Bohemian melodies. Then a Herr Kellerman told a kind of
crying story on the violoncello, full of quiet pathos, and Godefroi—if
they so spell him—harped like a God harping, immortal victorious music
indeed! Altogether a notable evening ... oh, the black ingratitude of
man ... these few words are the poor ‘set-off’ to this morning’s weary
yawning, and stupefaction. To-night having to follow beside! So near you
I shall be! Mrs. J. is to [be] at the Procters’ to-night too. Oh, by the
way, and in the straight way to make Ba laugh ... Mrs. J.’s _first_ word
was ‘What? Are you _married_?’ She having caught a bit of Miss Chorley’s
enquiry after ‘Mrs. Browning’s health’ i.e. my mother’s. Probably
Miss Heaton’s friend, who is my intimate, heard me profess complete
infidelity as to—homœopathy ... _que sais-je_? But of all accusations
in the world ... what do you say to my having been asked if I was not
the Author of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ and ‘Othello’? A man actually asked me
that, as I sate in Covent Garden Pit to see the second representation
of ‘Strafford’—I supposed he had been _set on_ by somebody, but the
simple face looked too quiet for that impertinence—I was muffled up in
a cloak, too; so I said ‘No—so far as I am aware.’ (His question was,
‘_is not THIS Mr. Browning_ the author of &c. &c.’) After the play, all
was made clear by somebody in Macready’s dressing room—two burlesques on
Shakespeare _were_ in the course of performance at some minor theatre by
a Mr. Brown, or Brownley, or something Brown-like—and to these my friend
had alluded.
So is begot, so nourished ‘_il mondan rumore_’—_I_, author of
‘Othello’!—when I can be, and am, and may tell Ba I am, her own, own
R.
The news about the post—the walk there which might have been,—_that_ is
pure delight! But take care, my all-precious love—_festina lente_. All
the same, what a vision I have of the _Bonnet_!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, May 7, 1846.]
Now, dearest, you are close by and I am writing to you as if you were
ever so far off. People are not always the better, you see, for being
near one another. There’s a moral to put on with your gloves—and if you
were not quite sufficiently frightened by Mrs. Jameson’s salutation, it
may be of some use to you perhaps—who knows?
She left word yesterday that she should come to-day or to-morrow, and as
to-day she didn’t, I shall hear of you from her to-morrow ... that is,
if you go to her breakfast, which you will do I dare say, supposing that
you are not perfectly ill and exhausted by what came before. Ah—you do
not say how you are—and I know what _that_ means. Even the music was half
lost in the fatigue ... _that_ is what you express by ‘stupefaction.’ And
then to have to dine at Mr. Procter’s without music ... say how you are
... do not omit it this time.
Nor think that I shall forget how to-morrow is the seventh of May ...
your month as you call it somewhere ... in Sordello, I believe ... so
that I knew before, you had a birthday there—and I shall remember it
to-morrow and send you the thoughts which are yours, and pray for you
that you may be saved from March-winds ... ever dearest!
I am glad you heard the music after all: it was something to hear, as you
describe it.
To-day I had a book sent to me from America by the poetess Mrs. Osgood.
Did you ever hear of a poetess Mrs. Osgood? ... and her note was of the
very most affectionate, and her book is of the most gorgeous, all purple
and gold—and she tells me ... oh, she tells me ... that I ought to go to
New York, only ‘to see Mr. Poe’s wild eyes flash through tears’ when he
reads my verses. It is overcoming to think of, even ... isn’t it? Talking
of poetesses, such as Mrs. Osgood and me, Miss Heaton, ... the friend of
your intimate friend, ... told me yesterday that the poetess proper of
the city of Leeds was ‘_Mrs. A._’ ... ‘Mrs. A.?’ said I with an enquiring
innocence. ‘Oh,’ she went on, (divining sarcasms in every breath I drew)
... ‘oh! I dare say, _you_ wouldn’t admit her to be a real poetess. But
as she lives in Leeds and writes verses, we call her our poetess! and
then, really, Mrs. A. is a charming woman. She was a Miss Roberts ...
and her ‘Spirit of the Woods,’ and of the ‘Flowers’ has been admired, I
assure you.’ Well, in a moment I seemed to remember something,—because
only a few months since, surely I had a letter from somebody who once was
a spirit of the Woods or ghost of the Flowers. Still, I could not make
out _Mrs. A._ ...! ‘Certainly’ I confessed modestly, ‘I never did hear
of a Mrs. A. ... and yet, and yet’.... A most glorious confusion I was
in ... when suddenly my visitor thought of spelling the name ... ‘_H e
y_’ said she. Now conceive that! The Mrs. Hey who came by solution, had
both written to me and sent me a book on the Lakes quite lately ... ‘by
the author of the Spirit of the Woods’.... _There_ was the explanation!
And my Leeds visitor will go back and say that I denied all knowledge of
the charming Mrs. A. the Leeds poetess, and that it was with the greatest
difficulty I could be brought to recognise her existence. Oh, the
arrogance and ingratitude of me! And Mrs. A. ... being ‘a churchwoman’
... will expose me of course to the churchwardens! May you never fall
into such ill luck! You could not expect me to walk to the post office
afterwards—now could you?
What nonsense and foolishness I take it into my head to send you
sometimes.
I was down-stairs to-day but not out of the house. Now you are talking,
now you are laughing—I think that almost I can hear you when I _listen
hard_ ... at Mr. Procter’s!
Do _you_, on the other side, hear _me_? ... and how I am calling myself
your very own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 7, 1846.]
No, dearest,—I get Mrs. Jameson’s leave to put the breakfast off till
to-morrow—and this morning, instead of resting as I had intended, I
wisely went to town, to get a call on Forster off my mind—I have walked
there and back again ... see the weakness you pity! I _cheat_ you, my Ba,
of all that pity ... yet when I have got it, however unjustly, I lay it
to my heart.
And I was at Mrs. Procter’s last night—Kinglake and Chorley, with a
little of Milnes and Coventry Patmore—but no Howitts: because they have a
sick child,—dying, I am afraid. On my return I found a note from Horne,
who is in London of a sudden for a week.
Oh,—_The Daily News_ passes into the redoubtable hands of Mr. Dilke,—and
the price is to be reduced to 2½d, in emulation of the system recently
adopted by the French Journals. Forster continues to write, on the new
Editor’s particular entreaty. I rather think the scheme will succeed,
Dilke having the experience the present régime wants—he will buy his
privileges cheaply too. So that Chorley may possibly be employed. Here
ends my patronage of it, at all events—not another number do I groan over!
Patmore told me in his quiet way that his criticisms—his book on which
he had been expending a world of pains, is altogether superseded by the
appearance of ‘Ulrici on Shakespeare’—‘the very words of many of his more
important paragraphs are the same.’ _That_ astounds one a little, does it
not?
And what, _what_ do you suppose Tennyson’s business to have been at
Dickens’—what caused all the dining and repining? He has been sponsor
to Dickens’ child _in company with Count D’Orsay_, and accordingly the
_novus homo_ glories in the prænomina, Alfred D’Orsay Tennyson Dickens!
Ah, Charlie, if this don’t prove to posterity that you might have been a
Tennyson and were a D’Orsay—why excellent labour will have been lost! You
observe, ‘Alfred’ is common to both the godfather and the—devil-father,
as I take the Count to be: so Milnes has been goodnaturedly circulating
the report that in good truth it is _the_ Alfred of neither personage,
but of—Mr. Alfred Bunn. When you remember what the form of sponsorship
is, to what it pledges you in the ritual of the Church of England— —and
_then_ remember that Mr. Dickens is an enlightened Unitarian,—you will
get a curious notion of the man, I fancy.
Have you not forgotten that birthday? Do, my Ba, forget it—my day, as I
told you, is the 20th—my true, happiest day! But I thank you all I can,
dearest—All good to me comes through you, or for you—every wish and hope
ends in you. May God bless you, ever dear Ba.—
Your own R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
May 7th, 1846.
Beloved, my thoughts go to you this morning, loving and blessing you! May
God bless you for both His worlds—not for this alone. For me, if I can
ever do or be anything to you, it will be my uttermost blessing of all I
ever knew, or could know, as He knows. A year ago, I thought, with a sort
of mournful exultation, that I was _pure of wishes_. Now, they recoil
back on me in a spring-tide ... flow back, wave upon wave, ... till I
should lose breath to speak them! and it is nothing, to say that they
concern another ... for they are so much the more intensely mine, and of
me. May God bless you, very dear! dearest.
So I am to forget to-day, I am told in the letter. Ah! But I shall forget
and remember what I please. In the meanwhile I was surprised while
writing thus to you this morning ... as a good deed to begin with ... by
Miss Bayley’s coming. Remembering the seventh of May I forgot _Thursday_,
which she had named for her visit, and altogether she took me by
surprise. I thought it was Wednesday! She came and then, Mr. Kenyon came,
... and as they both went down-stairs together, Mrs. Jameson came up.
Miss Bayley is what is called _strong-minded_, and with all her feeling
for art and Beauty, talks of utility like a Utilitarian of the highest,
and professes to receive nothing without _proof_, like a reasoner of the
lowest. She told me with a frankness for which I did not like her less,
that she was a materialist of the strictest order, and believed in no
soul and no future state. In the face of those conclusions, she said,
she was calm and resigned. It is more than _I_ could be, as I confessed.
My whole nature would cry aloud against that most pitiful result of the
struggle here—a wrestling only for the dust, and not for the crown. What
a resistless melancholy would fall upon me if I had such thoughts!—and
what a dreadful indifference. All grief, to have itself to end in!—all
joy, to be based upon nothingness!—all love, to feel eternal separation
under and over it! Dreary and ghastly, it would be! I should not have
strength to love you, I think, if I had such a miserable creed. And for
life itself, ... would it be worth holding on such terms,—with our blind
Ideals making mocks and mows at us wherever we turned? A game to throw
up, this life would be, as not worth playing to an end!
There’s a fit letter for the seventh of May!—but why was _Thursday_
the seventh, and not Wednesday rather, which would have let me escape
visitors? I thank God that I can look over the grave with you, _past_ the
grave, ... and hope to be worthier of you _there_ at least.
Mrs. Jameson did not say much, being hoarse and weak with a cold, but
she told me of having met you at dinner, and found you ‘very agreeable.’
Also, beginning by a word about Professor Longfellow, who has married,
it appears, and is a tolerably merciful husband for a poet ... (‘solving
the problem of the _possibility_ of such a thing,’ said she!) ...
beginning so, she dropped into the subject of marriage generally, and
was inclined to repropose Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s septennial act
... which might be a reform perhaps! ... what do you think? Have I not,
altogether, been listening to improving and memorable discourse on this
seventh of May? The _ninth’s_ will be more after my heart.
I like Mrs. Jameson, mind!—and I like her views on many
subjects—_ex_clusive of the septennial marriage act, though.
How you amuse me by your account of the sponsorship! the illustrious
D’Orsay with his _paletot_ reputation, in a cleft stick of Alfred ...
Tennyson! Bunn in the distance! A curious combination it makes really ...
and you read it like a vates that you are!—
So, good night—dearest!—I think of you behind all these passing clouds of
subjects, my poet of the Lyre and Crown! Look down on your own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday.
[Post-mark, May 8, 1846.]
‘_Look down on you_’—my Ba? I would die for you, with triumphant
happiness, God knows, at a signal from your hand! But that,—look
_down_,—never, though you bade me again and again, and in such words! I
look _up_,—always up,—my Ba. When I indulge in my deepest luxury, I make
you _stand_ ... do you not know that? I sit, and my Ba chooses to let me
sit, and stands by,—understanding all the same how the relation really
_is_ between us,—how I would, and do, kiss her feet,—my queen’s feet!
Do you feel for me so, my love? I seldom dare to try and speak to you of
_your love for me_ ... my love I am allowed to profess ... I could not
steadily (I have tried, whether you noticed it or no, and could not,)
say aloud ‘and you love _me_’! Because it is altogether a blessing of
your gift,—irrespective of my love to you—however it may go to increase
it. Here are the words however. Human conviction is weak enough, no
doubt,—but, when I forget these words, and this answer of my heart to
them,—I cannot say it—
May God bless you, dearest dearest,—my Ba! I was at Mrs. Jameson’s
this morning—she spoke of you so as to make my heart tremble with
very delight—I never liked her so much ... I may say, never liked her
before—by comparison. She read me your three translations,—clearly
feeling their rare beauty; and now,—let me clap hands, my Ba, and ask
you who knows best? She means to print BOTH versions—the blank verse
and the _latter_ rhymed one. Of course, of course! But she said so many
things—I must tell you to-morrow,—if you _remind_ me. She felt such
gratifications, too, at your thinking her etching of St. Cecilia worthy
to hang by your chair, in your sight. Do you know, Ba, at the end,—_à
propos of her breakfast_, I fairly took her by both hands, and shook
them with a cordiality which I just reflect, tardily, may subject the
Literary Character to a possible misconstruction. ‘He must have wanted a
breakfast,’ she will say!
I am going to the Museum on Monday with her, to see Italian prints. I
like her very much. And after breakfast, Mr. Kenyon came in, and Mr.
Bezzi—and Mr. K. means to make me go and see him next Monday also, I
believe.
But my seeing, and hearing, and enjoying—Saturday is my day for all that?
To-morrow—by this time!—too great happiness it is, I know.
And I, too, look long over the grave, to follow you, my own heart’s love.
Let Mrs. Jameson repeal those acts,—limit the seven years to seven days
or less,—what matters? If the seven days have to be endured because of a
law,—then I see the weariness of course—but in our case, if a benevolent
Legislature should inform me, now, that if I choose, I may decline
visiting you to-morrow—
... Ah, nefandum,—kiss me, my own Ba, and let the world legislate and
decree and relieve and be otherwise notable—so they let me be your own
for ever
R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, May 11, 1846.]
Dearest when you use such words as ‘eligible ...’ (_investment_ ... was
it?) and I do not protest seriously and at length, it is through the
very absurdity and unnaturalness ... as if you were to say that the last
comet was made of macaroni, and Arago stood by, he would not think it
worth while to confute you. Talking the worldly idiom, as you will tell
me you just meant to do in those words, and considering the worldly
considerations, why still the advantage is with you—I can do nothing
that I can see, but stand in your sunshine. I solemnly assure you that
only the apparent fact of your _loving me_, has overcome the scruple,
which, on this ground, made me recoil from.... Well! there is no use now
in talking. But for _you_ to talk of what is eligible and ineligible for
_me_, is too absurd—indeed it is. You might be richer, to be sure—but _I_
like it better as it is, a hundred times—I should _choose_ it to be so,
if it were left to my choice. In every other respect, using the world’s
measures, ... or the measure of the angel who measured the heavenly
Jerusalem, ... you are beyond me ... above me—and nothing but your love
for me could have brought us to a level. My love for you could not have
_tried_, even! Now, if I teaze you with saying such things over and over,
it is the right punishment for what _you_ said yesterday about ‘eligible
marriages’—now, isn’t it?
But your conclusion then was right. For if you were twice yourself,
with a duchy of the moon to boot, it would avail nothing. We should have
to carry all this underground work on precisely the same. Miserable it
is, nevertheless—only, I keep my eyes from _that side_, as far as I
can. I keep my eyes on your face. Yesterday Henrietta told me that Lady
Carmichael, a cousin of ours, met her at the Royal Academy and took her
aside to ‘speak seriously to her’ ... to observe that she looked thin and
_worried_, and to urge her to act for herself ... to say too, that Mrs.
Bayford, an old hereditary friend of ours, respected by us all for her
serene, clear-headed views of most things,—and ‘of the strictest sect,’
too, for all domestic duties,—‘did not like, as a mother, to give direct
advice, but was of opinion that the case admitted certainly and plainly
of the daughter’s acting for herself.’ In fact, it was a message, sent
under cover of a supposed irresponsibility. Which is one of a hundred
proofs to show how this case is considered exceptional among our family
friends, and that no very hard judgment will be passed at the latest.
Only, on other grounds, _I_ shall be blamed ... and perhaps by another
class of speakers. As for telling Mr. Kenyon, it is most unadvisable,
both for his sake and ours. Did you never hear him talk of his organ of
caution? We should involve him in ever so many fears for us, and force
him to have his share of the odium at last. Papa would not speak to him
again while he lived. And people might say, ‘Mr. Kenyon did it all.’
No—if we are to be selfwilled, let us be selfwilled ... at least, let
_me_! for you, of course, are free to follow your judgment in respect
to your own friends. And then, it is rather a matter of feeling with me
after all, that as I _cannot_ give my confidence to my father, I should
refuse it to others. I feel _that_ a little.
Henrietta will do nothing, I think, this year—there are considerations
of convenience to prevent it; and it is better for us that it should be
so, and will not be worse for _her_ in the end. I wish that man were a
little nobler, higher ... more of a man! He is amiable, good-natured,
easy-tempered, of good intentions in the main: but he eats and drinks and
sleeps, and _shows_ it all when he talks. Very popular in his regiment,
very fond of his mother—there is good in him of course—and for the
rest....
Dearest ... to compare others with you, would be too hard upon them.
Besides, each is after his kind. Yet ... as far as love goes ... and
although this man sincerely loves my sister, I do believe, ... I admit
to myself, again and again, that if you were to adopt such a bearing
towards _me_, as he does to her, I should break with you at once. And
why? Not because I am spoilt, though you knit your brows and think so
... nor because I am exacting and offensible, though you may fancy that
too. Nor because I hold loosely by you ... dearest beloved ... ready at a
caprice to fall away. But because _then_ I should know you did _not_ love
me enough to let you be happy hereafter with me ... you, who must love
according to what you _are_! greatly, as you write ‘Lurias’!
To-morrow, shall you be at Mr. Kenyon’s? To-morrow I shall hear. Nothing
has happened since I saw you. May God bless you.
Your own, I am.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, May 11, 1846.]
I am always telling you, because always feeling, that I can express
nothing of what goes from my heart to you, my Ba; but there is a certain
choice I have all along exercised, of subjects on which I would _try_ and
express somewhat—while others might be let alone with less disadvantage.
When we first met, it was in your thought that I loved you only for your
poetry ... I think you thought that. And because one _might_ be imagined
to love that and not you,—because everybody must love it, indeed,
that is worthy, and yet needs not of necessity love you,—yet _might_
mistake or determine to love you through loving _it_ ... for all these
reasons, there was not the immediate demand on me for a full expression
of my admiration for your intellectuality,—do you see? Rather, it was
proper to insist as little as possible on it, and speak to the woman,
Ba, simply—and so I have tried to speak,—partly, in truth, because
I love _her_ best, and love her mind by the light and warmth of her
heart—reading her verses, saying ‘and these are Ba’s,’—not kissing her
less because they spoke the verses. But it does not follow that I have
lost the sense of any delight that has its source in you, my dearest,
dearest—however I may choose to live habitually with certain others in
preference. I would shut myself up with you, and die to the world, and
live out fifty long, long lives in bliss through your sole presence—but
it is no less true that it will also be an ineffable pride,—something too
sweet for the name of pride,—to avow myself, before anyone whose good
opinion I am soliciting to retain, as _so_ distinguished by you—it is
_too_ sweet, indeed,—so I guard against it,—for frequent allusion to it,
might,—(as I stammer, and make plain things unintelligible) ... might
cause you to misconceive me, which would be dreadful ... for after all,
Ba’s head has given the crown its worth,—though a wondrous crown it is,
too! All this means ... the avowal we were speaking of, will be a heart’s
pride above every other pride whenever you decide on making such an
avowal. You will understand as you do ever your own R.
* * * * *
On getting home I found letters and letters—the best being a summons
to meet Tennyson at Moxon’s on Tuesday,—and the frightfullest ...
nay, I will send it. Now, Ba, hold my hand from the distant room,
tighter than ever, at about 8 o’clock on Wednesday ... for I must go, I
fear—‘Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking’ &c. &c. ‘ἔα, ἔα, ἄπεχε,
φεῦ.’ Then Mr. Kenyon writes that his friend Commodore Jones is returned
to England in bad health and that he must away to Portsmouth and see
him—so I do not go on Monday. While I was away Chorley’s brother (John
Chorley) called,—having been put to the trouble of a journey hither for
nothing.
I have been out this morning—to church with my sister—and the sun shone
almost oppressively,—but now all is black and threatening. How I send
my heart after your possible movements, my own all-beloved! Care for
yourself, and for me. But a few months more,—if God shall please. May He
bless you—
Ever your own
Hail and rain—at a quarter to four o’clock!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday 4 o’clock.
[Post-mark, May 11, 1846.]
Sweetest, I have this moment come from Town and Mrs. Jameson—the
Marc-Antonio Prints kept us all the morning—and at last I said ‘There is
a letter for me at home which I _must_ go and answer.’ And now I cannot
answer it—but I can love you and say so. God bless you, ever dearest.
I have read your letter ... but only once. Now I shall begin my proper
number of times—
Ever your very own
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday.
[Post-mark, May 12, 1846.]
It is too bad, or too good, or something. Almost I could reproach you,
and quite would thank you! yet do not let it be so again. You are
supernaturally kind ... kindestest, bestestest ... and, so, dearestest
by the merest justice; only, to think of your hastening home, as if you
were under an obligation to write to me in the face of the seven worlds,
... _that_ is too much, and shall not be again—now see that it shall not.
I seem to hear the rattling of the chain all this distance. And do, for
the future, let it be otherwise. When you are kept in London, or in any
way hindered, or unwell, ... in any case of the sort, let the vow be kept
by _one line_, which, too late for the day’s post, may reach me the next
day,—and I shall not be uneasy at eight o’clock, but wait ‘as those who
wait for the morning.’ In the meanwhile how I thank you! The second dear
letter comes close in the footsteps of the first, as your goodnesses are
so apt to do.
Well!—and whatever you may think about Wednesday, _I_ am pleased, and
feel every inclination to ‘return thanks’ myself in reply to the bishop
of Lincoln. I send the letter back lest you should want it. The worst
is that you are likely to have a very bad headache with the noise and
confusion—and the bishop’s blessing on the dramatists of England, will
not prevent it, I fear.