when I was walking in the Regent’s Park. Are you surprised? Arabel and
Flush and I were in the carriage—and the sun was shining with that green
light through the trees, as if he carried down with him the very essence
of the leaves, to the ground, ... and I wished so much to walk through
a half open gate along a shaded path, that we stopped the carriage and
got out and walked, and I put both my feet on the grass, ... which was
the strangest feeling! ... and gathered this laburnum for you. It hung
quite high up on the tree, the little blossom did, and Arabel said that
certainly I could not reach it—but you see! It is a too generous return
for all your flowers: or, to speak seriously, a proof that I thought of
you and wished for you—which it was natural to do, for I never enjoyed
any of my excursions as I did to-day’s—the standing under the trees and
on the grass, was so delightful. It was like a bit of that Dreamland
which is your especial dominion,—and I felt joyful enough for the moment,
to look round for you, as for the cause. It seemed _illogical_, not to
see you close by. And you were not far after all, if thoughts count as
bringers near. Dearest, we shall walk together under the trees some day!
And all those strange people moving about like phantoms of life. How
wonderful it looked to me!—and only you, ... the idea of you ... and
myself seemed to be real there! And Flush a little, too!—
Ah—what ... _next_ to nonsense, ... in the first letter, this morning! So
you think that I meant to complain when we first met, of your ‘_loving
me only for my poetry_’! Which I did not, simply because I did not
believe that _you loved me!—for any reason_. For the rest, I am not
over-particular, I fancy, about what I may be loved for. There is no good
reason for loving me, certainly, and my earnest desire (as I have said
again and again) is, that there should be by profession no reason at
all. But if there is to be any sort of reason, why one is as welcome as
another ... you may love me for my shoes, if you like it ... except that
they wear out. I thought you did not love me at all—you loved out into
the air, I thought—a love _a priori_, as the philosophers might say, and
not _by induction_, any wise! Your only knowledge of me was by the poems
(or most of it)—and what knowledge could _that_ be, when I feel myself so
far below my own aspirations, morally, spiritually? So I thought you did
not love me at all—I did not believe in miracles _then_, nor in ‘Divine
Legations’—but _my_ miracle is as good as Constantine’s, you may tell
your bishop on Wednesday when he has delivered his charge.
Is it _eight_ o’clock, or _three_? You write a [figure] which looks like
both, or at least either.
Love me, my only beloved; since you _can_. May God bless you!
I am ever and wholly your
BA.
_Say how you are._
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 12, 1846.]
My Ba, your flower is the one flower I have seen, or see or shall
see—when it fades ‘I will bless it till it shine,’ and when I can bless
you no longer it shall fade with me and my letters and ... perhaps ...
my ring. Ba, if ... I was going to say, _if_ you meant to make me most
exquisitely happy ... and you _did_ surely mean it ... well, you succeed,
as you know! And I see you on the grass, and am with you as you properly
acknowledge. And by this letter’s presence and testimony, I may judge
you to be not much the worse,—not fatigued ... is it so? Oh, it was a
good inspiration that led you through the half-opened gate and under the
laburnum, and, better still, that made you see us ‘one day walking by
the trees together’—when all I shall say is,—I hope, in spite of that
felicity to remember and feel _this_, as vividly as now.
‘For the chain you hear rattle’ ... _there_ comes the earthly mood again
and the inspiration goes away altogether! So you being Miss Barrett
and not my Ba for the moment, I will give you none of my, and Ba’s,
syren-island illustrations, but ask you, what a fine lady would say if
you caught at her diamond necklace and cried—‘You shall wear no such
chains,—indeed you shall not!’ Why even Flush is proud of his corals and
blue beads, you tell me! As for me,—being used to bear sundry heavier
chains than this of writing to you—owning the degradation of being, for
instance, forced to respire so many times a minute in order to live—to
go out into the open air so as to continue well—with many similarly
affronting impositions on a free spirit ... on the whole, I can very
patiently submit to write a letter which is duly read, and forgiven for
its imperfections, and interpreted into a rationality (sometimes) not
its own, and then answered by the sweetest hand that ever ministered to
the dearest, dearest Ba that ever was imagined, or can be! Ba,—there are
three Syren’s Isles, you know: I shall infallibly get into the farthest
of them, a full thirty yards from you and the tower,—so as to need being
written to—for the _cicale_ make such a noise that you will not be able
to call to me—which is as well, for you may ... that is, _I_ might—break
my neck by a sudden leap on the needles of rocks ... as I remember the
boatman told me.
As for what you wish yesterday ... the _mode_ of my expressing my love
... I never think of it,—I _have_ none—no system, nor attempt at such a
thing—I begin and end by saying _I love you—whatever comes of it_. There
is one obvious remark to make however ... that unless I _had_ loved you
and felt that every instant of my life depended on you for its support
and comfort,—I should never have dreamed of what has been proposed and
accepted ... Your own goodness at the very beginning would have rendered
that superfluous; for I was put in possession of your friendship,—might
write to you, and receive letters—might even hope to see you as often as
anybody—would not this have sufficed a reasonable friendship? May not Mr.
Kenyon be your satisfied friend?... But all was different—and so——
So I am blessed now—and can only bless you. But goodbye, dearest, till
to-morrow—and next day, which is ours. At 8—eight I conjecture my
martyrdom may take place ... oh, think of me and help me! I shall feel
you,—as ever. You forgot the letter after all ... can you send it? It may
be convenient to produce, as I know nobody of them all—terrible it is
altogether! ‘At six’ the dinner begins— —I shall get behind my brother
Dramatists ... and say very little about them, even.
Kiss me, in any case, of failure, or success,—and the one will be
forgotten, and the other doubled, centupled—to your own—
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 13, 1846.]
When you began to speak of the islands, the three islands, I thought you
were going to propose that you should live in one, and Flush in one, and
I in the third: and almost it was so, ... only that you took, besides,
the ‘_farthest_’ for yourself! Observe!—always I write nonsense, when you
send me a letter which moves me like this, ... dearest, ... my own!
To-day Mrs. Jameson has been here, and having left with me a proof about
Titian, she comes again to-morrow to take it. I think her quite a lovable
person now—I like her more and more. How she talked of you to-day, and
called you the most charming companion in the world, setting you too
on your right throne as ‘poet of the age.’ Wouldn’t it have been an
‘_effect_’ in the midst of all, if I had burst out crying? And what with
being flurried, frightened, and a little nervous from not sleeping well
last night, I assure you it was quite possible—but happily, on every
account, I escaped that ‘dramatic situation.’ I wish ... no, I can’t
wish that she wouldn’t talk of you as she does whenever she comes here.
And then, to make it better, she told me how you had recited ‘in a voice
and manner as good as singing,’ my ‘Catarina.’ How are such things to be
borne, do you think, when people are not made of marble? But I took a
long breath, and held my mask on with both hands.
You will tell me of the Marc Antonio prints,—will you not? Remember
them on Thursday. Raffael’s—are they not? I shall expect ever so much
teaching, and showing, and explaining ... I, who have seen and heard
nothing of pictures and music, from you who know everything ... so the
cicale must not be too loud for _that_. Did ever anyone say to you
that you were like Raffael’s portrait—not in the eyes, which are quite
different, but in the lower part of the face, the mouth, and also the
brow? It has struck me sometimes—and I had it on my lips to-day as a
question to Mrs. Jameson. I think I was mad to-day altogether. But she
did not see it—(I mean my madness ... not your likeness!) [and] went away
unconsciously.
Here, at last, is the letter! Careless that I was yesterday!—
And you take me to be too generous if you fancy that I proposed giving up
the daily letter which is my daily bread. I meant only that you should
not, for the sake of a particular post, tire yourself, hurry yourself,
... do what you did yesterday. As for the daily letter, I am Ba—not Miss
Barrett. Now, am I Miss Barrett? am I not Ba rather, and your Ba? I
should like to hear what will be heard to-morrow. Oh—I should like to be
under the table, or in a pasty, after the fashion of the queen’s dwarf
when Elizabeth was queen and Shakespeare poet. Shall you be nervous, as
_I_ was with Mrs. Jameson? Oh no,—why should you be nervous? You will do
it all well and gracefully—I am not afraid for you. It is simply out of
vain-glory that I wish to be there! Only ... the dramatists of England
... where in the world are they just now? Or will somebody prove _ten_ of
them,—because _nought_ after _one_, makes exactly ten? Mr. Horne indeed.
But I wish the toast had been ‘the poets of England,’ rather. May God
bless you, any way! ‘_I love you whatever comes of it._’ Yes, unless
sorrow of yours should come of it, _that_ is what I like to hear. Better
it is, than a thousand praises of this thing and that thing, which never
were mine ... alas!—Also, loving me _so_, you can be made happy with
laburnum-leaves!—Dearest—most dear! Dare I speak, do you think?
Exactly at eight to-morrow, and exactly at three the next day, I shall be
with you—being at any hour
Your very own.
The walk did me no harm. But you say nothing of yourself!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, May 13, 1846.]
Dearest, dearest, I shall be with you to-morrow and be comforted—and will
tell you all about everything. I am a little tired (but _very_ well,
altogether well, singularly so)—and I _do_ feel a little about to-night’s
affair, though you may not. _You_, indeed, to judge me by yourself! But,
after all I do not greatly care ... I can but get up and stammer and
say ‘thank you’ and sit down again, like my betters,—and—as I say and
say,—_you_ are at the end of everything ... so long as I find _you_!
I hoped that Tennyson was to have been Poet-respondent—but Moxon says
‘no’ ... and, moreover, that the Committee had meant (and he supposed
had acted upon their meaning) to offer me the choice of taking either
qualification, of Poetry or the Drama, as mine ... but they have altered
their mind. As it _is_ ... observe—(you will find a list of Stewards in
last _Athenæum_)—observe that they are all Bishops or Deans or Doctors
... and that all will be grave and heavy enough, I dare say. So I shall
try and speak for about five minutes on the advantages of the Press over
the Stage as a medium of communication of the Drama ... and so get done,
if Heaven please!
I saw Tennyson last night—and ... oh, let me tell you to-morrow. Also,
Severn, I saw ... Keats’ Severn, who bought his own posthumous picture
of Keats, and talked pleasantly about him and Shelley (Tennyson asked
me ‘what I thought of Shelley’—in so many words). Moxon’s care of
him,—Tennyson, not Severn,—is the charmingest thing imaginable, and he
seems to need it all—being in truth but a LONG, hazy kind of a man, at
least just after dinner ... yet there is something ‘naif’ about him,
too,—the genius you see, too.
May God bless you, my dearest dearest,—to-morrow repays for all—
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday.
[Post-mark, May 15, 1846.]
The treader on your footsteps was Miss Bayley, who left a card and
‘would come another day.’ She must have seen you.... One of these days,
‘scirocco’ will be ‘loose’—we may as well be prepared for it. To keep it
off as long as possible is all that can be. But when it comes it will not
uproot my palm-trees, I think, though it should throw flat the olives.
Papa brought me some flowers yesterday when he came home ... and they
went a little to my heart as I took them. I put them into glasses near
yours, and they look faded this morning nevertheless, while your roses,
for all your cruelty to them, are luxuriant in beauty as if they had
just finished steeping themselves in garden-dew. I look gravely from
one set of flowers to the other—I cannot draw a glad omen—I wish he had
not given me these. Dearest, there seems little kindness in teazing you
with such thoughts ... but they come and I write them: and let them come
ever so sadly, I do not for a moment doubt ... hesitate. One may falter,
where one does not fail. And for the rest, ... it is my fault, and not my
sorrow rather, that we act so? It is by choice that we act so? If he had
let me I should have loved him out of a heart altogether open to him. It
is not my fault that he would not let me. Now it is too late—I am not his
nor my own, any more.
This morning I have had American letters of the kindest ... from
Massachusetts—and a review on my poems, quite extravagant indeed, in the
_Methodist Quarterly_. One of these letters is so like another, that
I need only tell you of them ... written too by people ... Lydias and
Richards ... never heard of before by either of us. The review repeats
the fabulous story in the ‘Spirit of the Age,’ about unknown tongues
and a seven years’ eclipse in total darkness—but I say to myself ...
after all, the real myth is scarcely less wonderful. If I have not all
this knowledge ... I have _you_ ... which is greater, better! ‘Not less
wonderful’ did I say? when it is the miracle....
Oh, these people!—I am seized and bound. More to-night! from
Your own
BA.
_Say how you are._
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday.
[Post-mark, May 15, 1846.]
The sun is warm, and the day, I suppose, is fine,—but my Ba will have
been kept at home by the vile wind—most vile—even I feel it! So the
spring passes away without the true spring feeling—all the blossoms are
fast going already—and one’s spirits are affected, I dare say. Did you
not think me intolerable yesterday with my yawning and other signs of
fatigue you noticed? Well now—I _do_ think a little is _said_ by all
that: might one not _like_ or even _love_ ... just short of _true_ love,
so long as the spirits were buoyant and the mind cheerful,—and when the
contrary befell, some change might appear, surely!
The more I need you the more I love you, Ba—and I need you _always_—in
joy, to make the joy seem what it is—and in any melancholy that I can
imagine, _more_ still, infinitely more, I need you—though _melancholy_,
I certainly was not—only tired a little ... all I mean to say is, that
at times when I could, I think, shut up Shelley, and turn aside from
Beethoven, and look away from my noble Polidoro,—my Ba’s ring—not to say
the hand—ah, you know, Ba, what they are to me!
I have to go out to-day, to my sorrow—to the Garrick Club, and a friend
there. (My sister tells me we have to go to the Flower-show next
Wednesday unless the day be rainy. I shall hear from Mr. Kenyon, I
expect.)
Let me end the chapter we began yesterday, about speech-making and adepts
in it of various kinds, by telling you what my father made me laugh
by an account of, the other day ... only it should be really _told_,
and not written. He had a curiosity to know how would-be Parliamentary
members _canvassed_ ... and as the Chamberlain of the City, Sir James
Shaw, came into the Bank for that purpose (there being Livery men there,
or whatever they are called, with votes) my father followed to hear how
he would address people. Sir James, a gigantic man, went about as his
friends directed ... or rather pushed and shoved him ... and whenever
they reached an Elector the whole cortège stopped, Sir James made his
speech, the friends, book and pencil in hand, recorded the promise the
moment it was made, and forthwith wheeled round their candidate to the
next man ... no word of speechification being to be wasted once its
object accomplished, since time pressed—so now fancy. _Friends_ (to Sir
J) ‘Mr. Snooks, Sir James!’ Sir J. (_with his eyes shut, and head two
feet above Snooks_) ‘When Charles Fox came into Parliament, he came into
Parliament with a profusion of promises, of which I’ll defy Charles Fox’s
best friends to say that he ever kept a single one’—(Friends twitch
him)—‘Thankee Sir,’—‘Mr. Smith.’ ‘When Charles Fox came into Parliament
... thankee, Sir’—‘Mr. Thompson’—‘When Charles Fox ... thankee!’ &c. &c.
And so on from man to man, never getting beyond this instructive piece of
anecdotical history—till at the very last a little Elector, reaching to
the great man’s elbow, let him go to the full length of the sentence’s
tether from admiration of such an orator ... did not say briefly ‘yes’
or ‘no’ as the others had done. So Sir James arrived duly at ... ‘kept a
single one. Thus—if ... as it were ... eh? oh!’ Here he opened his eyes
with a start, missing the pushing and driving from his friends in the
rear—and finding it was only this little man; he abruptly stopped ...
was not going to spend more eloquence on _him_! There, Ba; _you tell_ me
you write nonsense ... _I do_ the thing, the precise thing! But no more
nonsense because I am going to kiss you, which is wise, and love you with
my whole heart and soul forever, which is wiser, and pray you to love me,
dear, dear Ba, which is the wisest! Sweetest, may God bless you,—
Your very own.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Friday Evening.
[Post-mark, May 16, 1846.]
Not even do you yawn in vain then, O you! And this, then, is what Cicero
called ‘oscitans sapientia?’ The _argument of the yawn_ ought in fact, to
be conclusive!
But, dearest, if it was ‘intolerable’ to see you yawn yesterday, still
less supportable was it to-day when I had all the yawning to myself, and
proved nothing by it. Tired I am beyond your conceiving of ... tired!
You saw how I broke off in my letter to you this morning. Well—that
was Miss Heaton, who came yesterday and left the packet you saw, and
came again to-day and sate here exactly three hours. Now imagine that!
Three hours of incessant restless talking. At the end I was _blanched_,
as everybody could see, and Mrs. Jameson who came afterwards for five
minutes and was too unwell herself to stay, seriously exhorted me not to
exert myself too much lest I should pay the penalty. And I had not been
down-stairs even—only been ground down in the talking-mill. Arabel told
her too, before she came up-stairs, that I was expecting a friend—‘Oh’
... said she to me, ‘I shall go away directly anyone comes.’ And again
presently ... ‘Pray tell me when I ought to go away’! (As if I could
say _Go_. She deserved it, but I _couldn’t_!) And then ... ‘How good
of you to let me sit here and talk!’ So good of me, when I was wishing
her ... only at Leeds in the High Street, between a dissenter and a
churchman—anywhere but opposite to my eyes! Yet _she_ has very bright
ones, and cheeks redder than your roses; and she is kind and cordial ...
as I thought in the anguish of my soul, when I tried to be grateful to
her. Certainly I should have been more so, if she had stayed a little
less, talked a little less—it is awful to think how some women can talk!
Happily she leaves London to-morrow morning, and will not be here again
till next year, if then. She talked biography too ... ah, I did not mean
to tell you—but it is better to tell you at once and have done ... only
she desired me not to mention it ... only she little knew what she was
doing! You will not mention it. She told me that ‘her informant about Mr.
Browning, ... was a lady _to whom he had been engaged_ ... that there
had been a very strong attachment on both sides, but that everything
was broken off by _her_ on the ground of religious differences—that it
happened years ago and that the lady was married.’ At first I exclaimed
imprudently enough (but how could it be otherwise?) that it was not
true—but I caught at the bridle in a minute or two and let her have it
her own way. Do not answer this—it is nonsense, I know—but it helped to
tire me with the rest. Wasn’t it a delightful day for me? At the end of
the three hours, she threw her arms round me and kissed me some half
dozen times and wished me ‘goodbye’ till next year. Wilson found me
standing in the middle of the room, looking as she said, ‘like a ghost.’
And no wonder! The ‘vile wind’ out of doors was nothing to it.
Dearest, you are well? Your letter says nothing. Only one more letter,
and then Monday. Ah—it is the sweetest of flattery to say that you ‘need’
me—but isn’t it difficult to understand? Yet while you even fancy that
you have such a need, you may be sure (let Charles Fox break his promises
ever so!) of your own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday.
[Post-mark, May 16, 1846.]
Then, dearest-dearest, _do_ take Mrs. Jameson’s advice—_do_ take care of
the results of this fatigue—why should you see any woman that pleases to
ask to come? I am certain that some of the men you have refused to admit,
would be more considerate—and Miss Heaton must be a kind of fool into the
bargain with her inconsiderateness ... though _that_ is the folly’s very
self. As for her ‘Yorkshire Tragedy,’ I hold myself rather aggrieved by
it—they used to get up better stories of Lord Byron,—and even _I told_
you, anticipatingly, that I caused that first wife of mine to drown and
hang herself ... whereas, now, it turns out she did neither, but bade me
do both ... nay, was not my wife after all! I hope she told Miss Heaton
the story in the presence of the husband who had no irreligious scruples.
But enough of this pure nonsense—I had, by this post that brings me
your last letter, one from Horne—he leaves to-day for Ireland, and says
kind things about my plays—and unkind things of Mr. Powell ‘a dog he
repudiates for ever.’ So our ‘clique’ is deprived of yet another member!
For me, love,—I am pretty well—but _rather_ out of spirits,—for no
earthly cause. I shall take a walk and get better presently—your dear
letters have their due effect, all that effect!
So, dear,—all my world, my life, all I look to or live for, my own Ba—I
will bless you and bid you goodbye for to-day—to-morrow I will write
more—and on Monday—return, my Ba, this kiss ... my dearest above all
dearness!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 16, 1846.]
You shall hear from me on this Sunday, though it cannot be as an answer,
dearest, to your letter of to-night. But I being so wretchedly tired last
night, and ‘yawning’ being, to your mind, so ‘intolerable,’ it is as well
to leave a better impression with you than _that_ ... though there is
nothing to say, and the east wind blows on virulently.
The _Athenæum_ has put me out of humour for the day ... besides. Not a
word of ‘Luria’—not a word of the Literary Fund dinner, and a great,
drawling carrying out of the ‘Poetry for the Million’ article ... as
if all this trash could not die of itself!—as if it were not _dead_ of
itself!—That the critics of a country should set themselves to such
work ... is as if the Premier of England took his official seat in the
window to kill flies, ... talking, with his first finger out, of ‘my
administration.’ Only flies are flies and have fly-life in them: they are
nobler game than those.
Mrs. Jameson, while she was here the five minutes yesterday, talked,
in an under-breath to my under-breath opposition, her opinion about
the present age. ‘That the present age did not, could not, ought not,
to express itself by Art, ... though the next age would.’ She is
surprisingly wrong, it appears to me. There is no predominant character
in the age, she says, to be so expressed! there is no unity, to bear
expression.
But art surely, if art is anything, is the expression, not of the
characteristics of an age except accidentally, ... essentially it is the
expression of Humanity in the individual being—and unless we are men no
longer, I cannot conceive how such an argument as hers can be upheld for
a moment. Also it is exasperating to hear such things.