mere reflection of the character of the times. Genius precedes
surely,—initiates. It is genius which gives an Age its character and
imposes its own colour.... But I shall not write any more. Her paper on
‘Titian’s House at Venice,’ which she let me read in proof, and which is
one of the essays she is printing now, is full of beauty and truth, and
I admired it heartily. Then there is a quotation about the ‘calm, cold,
beautiful regard,’ of ‘Virgin child and saint’ ... which you may remember
perhaps. I know you will like the essay and feel it to be Venetian.
That you were feeling the east wind, beloved, meant that you were not
well, though you have quite left off telling me a word of yourself
lately. And why? It shall not be so next week,—now shall it? May
God bless you. I am afraid of going down-stairs, because of the
double-knocks. It will be great gain to have the loudest noises from the
cicale. Except when somebody else is noisy,—which is a noise I am always
forgetting, just as if it were impossible.
Your own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday.
(Day before to-morrow!)
[Post-mark, May 18, 1846.]
How kind to write to me and help me through the gloomy day with a light!
I could certainly feel my way in the dark and reach to-morrow without
very important stumbling, but now I go cheerfully on, spite of a little
headache and weariness. Need you? I should hate life apart from you.
Knowing what I say, I should hate it—the life of my soul as seen apart
from that of the mere body ... to which, to the necessities of which, no
human being ever ministered before, and which, now that I have known you,
I myself cannot provide for,—or could not were you removed,—even after
the imperfect fashion of former times. If you ask Mrs. Jameson she will
tell you, if she has thought it worth remembering, that I once, two or
three years ago, _explained_ to her that I could not believe in ‘love’
nor understand it,—nor be subject to it consequently. I said—‘all you
describe as characteristics of the passion—I should expect to find in
_men_ more easily and completely—’ now I know better, and my year’s life
spent in this knowledge makes all before it look pale and all _after_, if
an after could come, look black.
Why do I write so? I am rather dull, this horrible day, and cling to you
the closelier.
All you write about Art is most true. Carlyle has turned and forged,
reforged on his anvil that fact ‘that no age ever appeared heroic to
itself’ ... and so, worthy of reproduction in Art by itself ... I thought
after Carlyle’s endeavours nobody could be ignorant of that,—nobody who
was obliged to seek the proof of it out of his own experience. The cant
is, that ‘an age of transition’ is the melancholy thing to contemplate
and delineate—whereas the worst things of all to look back on are times
of comparative standing still, rounded in their important completeness.
So the young England imbeciles hold that ‘belief’ is the admirable
point—_in what_, they judge comparatively immaterial! The other day I
took up a book two centuries old in which ‘glory’, ‘soldiering’, ‘rushing
to conquer’ and the rest, were most thoroughly ‘believed in’—and if by
some miracle the writer had conceived and described some unbeliever,
unable to ‘rush to conquer the Parthians’ &c., it would have been as
though you found a green bough inside a truss of straw.
But you know—
And I know one thing, one—but one—I love you, _shall_ love you ever,
living and dying your own—
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 19, 1846.]
My own ever dearest, when I try to thank you for such a letter as
yesterday’s, ... for any proof, in fact, of your affection, ... I cannot
speak: but you know, of this and all things, that I understand, feel—you
must know it very well. There is only one thing I can do as I ought, and
it is to love you; and the more I live, not ‘_the less_’ but the _more_
I am able to love you—believe it of me. And for _the less_, ... we never
will return to that foolish subject, ... but for the ‘less you spoke of
when you said ‘you do not love me less?’ ... why I thought at the moment
and feel now, that it would be too late, as I am, ever, upon any possible
ground, to love you less. If you loved _me_ less ... even!—or (to leave
that) if you were to come to me and say that you had murdered a man—why
I may imagine such things, you know—but I cannot imagine the possibility
of my loving you less, as a consequence of your failing so! I am yours
in the deepest of my affections:—not unreasonably, certainly, as I see
you and know you—but if it _were_ to turn unreasonable ... I mean, if you
took away the appearance of reasonableness ... still I should be yours in
the deepest of my affections ... it is too late for a difference _there_.
Mrs. Jameson has just now sent me a proof with the ‘Daughters of
Pandarus,’ which she is to call for presently and therefore I must come
to an end with this note. How I shall think of you to-morrow! And if it
should be fine, I may perhaps drive in the park near the gardens ... take
my sisters to the gate of the gardens, and feel that you are inside! That
will be something, if it is feasible. And if it is fine or not, and if I
go or not, I shall remember our first day, the only day of my life which
God blessed visibly to me, the only day undimmed with a cloud ... my
great compensation-day, which it was worth while being born for!
Your very own
BA.
Oh—you will _not see me_ to-morrow, remember! I tell you only out of
cunning ... to win a thought!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 19, 1846].
With this day expires the first year since you have been yourself
to me—putting aside the anticipations, and prognostications, and
even assurances from all reasons short of absolute sight and
hearing,—excluding the five or six months of these, there remains a year
of this intimacy. You accuse me of talking extravagantly sometimes. I
will be quiet here,—is the tone _too_ subdued if I say, such a life—made
up of such years—I would deliberately take rather than any other
imaginable one in which fame and worldly prosperity and the love of the
whole human race should combine, excluding ‘that of yours—to which I
hearken’—only wishing the rest were there for a moment that you might
see and know that I did turn from them to you. My dearest, inexpressibly
dearest. How can I thank you? I feel sure you _need_ not have been so
kind to me, so perfectly kind and good,—I should have remained your own,
gratefully, entirely your own, through the bare permission to love you,
or even without it—seeing that I never dreamed of stipulating at the
beginning for ‘a return,’ and ‘reward,’—but I also believe, joyfully,
that no course but the course you have taken would have raised me above
my very self, as I feel on looking back. I began by loving you in
comparison with all the world,—now, I love you, my Ba, in the face of
your past self, as I remember it.
All words are foolish—but I kiss your feet and offer you my heart and
soul, dearest, dearest Ba.
I left you last evening without the usual privilege—you did not rise, Ba!
But,—I don’t know why,—I got nervous of a sudden, it seemed late and I
remembered the Drawing-room and its occupants.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, May 20, 1846.]
Do you remember how, when poor Abou Hassan, in the Arabian story, awakens
from sleep in the Sultan’s chamber, to the sound of instruments of music,
he is presently complimented by the grand vizier on the royal wisdom
displayed throughout his reign ... do you remember? Because just as he
listened, do _I_ listen, when you talk to me about ‘the course I have
taken’.... _I_, who have just had the wit to sit still in my chair with
my eyes half shut, and dream ... dream!—Ah, whether I am asleep or awake,
what do I know ... even now? As to the ‘course I have taken,’ it has been
somewhere among the stars ... or under the trees of the Hesperides, at
lowest....
Why how can I write to you such foolishness? Rather I should be serious,
grave, and keep away from myths and images, and speak the truth plainly.
And speaking the truth plainly, I, when I look back, dearest beloved, see
that you have done for me everything, instead of my doing anything for
you—that you have lifted me.... Can I speak? Heavens!—how I had different
thoughts of you and of myself and of the world and of life, last year
at this hour! The spirits who look backward over the grave, cannot feel
much otherwise from my feeling as I look back. As to _your_ thanking
_me_, _that_ is monstrous, it seems to me. It is the action of your own
heart alone, which has appeared to do you any good. For myself, if I do
not spoil your life, it is the nearest to deserving thanks that I can
come. Think what I was when you saw me first ... laid there on the sofa
as an object of the merest compassion! and of a sadder spirit than even
the face showed! and then think of all your generosity and persistence
in goodness. Think of it!—shall I ever cease? Not while the heart beats,
which beats for you.
And now as the year has rounded itself to ‘the perfect round,’ I will
speak of that first letter, about which so many words were, ... just to
say, this time, that I am glad now, yes, glad, ... as we were to have a
miracle, ... to have it _so_, a born-miracle from the beginning. I feel
glad, now, that nothing was _between_ the knowing and the loving ... and
that the beloved eyes were never cold discerners and analyzers of me at
any time. I am glad and grateful to you, my own altogether dearest! Yet
the letter was read in pain and agitation, and you have scarcely guessed
how much. I could not sleep night after night,—could not,—and my fear was
at nights, lest the feverishness should make me talk deliriously and tell
the secret aloud. Judge if the deeps of my heart were not shaken. From
the first you had that power over me, notwithstanding those convictions
which I also had and which you know.
For it was not the character of the letter apart from you, which shook
me,—I could prove that to you—I received and answered very calmly, with
most absolute calmness, a letter of the kind last summer ... knowing
in respect to the writer of it, (just as I thought of _you_), that a
moment’s enthusiasm had carried him a good way past his discretion. I am
sure that he was perfectly satisfied with my way of answering his letter
... as I was myself. But _you_ ... _you_ ... I could not escape so from
_you_. You were stronger than I, from the beginning, and I felt the
mastery in you by the first word and first look.
Dearest and most generous. No man was ever like you, I know! May God
keep me from laying a blot on one day of yours!—on one hour! and rather
blot out mine!
For my life, it is yours, as this year has been yours. But how can it
make you happy, such a thing as my life? _There_, I wonder still. It
never made me happy, without you!—
Your very own
BA.
Mrs. Jameson was here to-day and brought a message from Mr. Kenyon, who
comes to-morrow _at one_. The sun does not promise to come besides—does
he?
Mrs. Jameson goes to Brighton on Thursday, and returns in a day or two to
spend another month or six weeks in town, changing her lodgings.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Wednesday.
[Post-mark, May 20, 1846.]
My Ba, I can just kneel down to you and be kissed,—I cannot do more, nor
speak, nor thank you—and I seem to have no more chance of getting new
love to give you,—all is given,—so I have said before, and must keep
saying now—all of me is your very own.
My sister (whose engagement, and not mine, this was) decides to act
according to the letter of Mr. Kenyon’s kind instructions, and keeps at
home on account of the rain. She is very subject to colds and sore-throat
which the least dampness underfoot is sure to produce in her. So I am
not near you! You would not go, however,—I think, would not go,—to the
Park gate as you conditionally promised—I do not, therefore, miss _my_
flower-show, my ‘rose tree that beareth seven times seven.’ But the
other chance which your last letter apprises me of,—the visit of Mr.
Kenyon,—which, by going in time to him, I might perhaps make my own
too—_that_, on a second thought, I determine to forego ... because
it jeopardizes my Saturday, which will be worth so many, many such
visits,—does it not? There is no precedent in our golden year for three
visits taking place in a single week—not even in that end of October when
all the doubt was about the voyage—how I remember!
I shall be more with you than if in the presence of people before whom
I may not say ‘Miss Barrett’ with impunity while professing to talk of
Miss—I forget who! But ‘_more_ with you’ I who am always with you!
Always with you in the spirit, always yearning to be with you in the
body,—always, when with you, praying, as for the happiest of fortunes,
that I may remain with you for ever. So may it be, prays your
own, own R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday, May 20.
Was it very wrong of me that never did I once think of the possibility of
your coming here with Mr. Kenyon? Never once had I the thought of it. If
I had, I should have put it away by saying aloud ‘Don’t come’; because
as you say, it would have prevented Saturday’s coming, the coming to-day
would, ... and also, as you do not say, it would have been infinitely
hard for me to meet you and Mr. Kenyon in one battalion. Oh no, no! The
gods forefend that you should come in that way! It was bad enough as it
was, to-day, when while he sate here his ten minutes, (first showing me a
sonnet from America, which began ‘Daughter of Græcian Genius!’) he turned
those horrible spectacles full on me and asked, ‘Does Mrs. Jameson know
that Mr. Browning comes here?’ ‘No,’ said I,—suddenly abashed, though
I had borne the sonnet like a hero. ‘Well, then! I advise you to give
directions to the servants that when she or anyone else asks for you,
they should not say _Mr. Browning is with you_,—as they said the other
day to Miss Bayley who told me of it.’ Now, wasn’t _that_ pleasant to
hear? I thanked him for his advice, and felt as uncomfortable as was well
possible—and am, at this moment, a little in doubt how he was thinking
while he spoke. Perhaps after the fashion of my sisters, when they cry
out ‘Such a state of things never was heard of before!’ Not that they
have uttered one word of opposition ... not, from the first they knew,
... understand!—but that they are frightened at what may be said by
people who take for granted that we are strangers, you and I, to one
another. Ah!—a little more, a little less ... of what consequence is it?
Such a day, to-day!—it was finer last year I remember! and Tuesday,
instead of Wednesday! Your sister was right, very right—though mine
went—but the distance was less, with us. A party of _twelve_ went from
this house—‘among us but not of us.’ For my part, I have not stirred
from my room of course—the carriage was out of the question. And, if you
please, I never ‘_promised_’ to be at the park gate—oh indeed, I never
meditated seeing you even from afar—I thought only that I should hear
a little distant music and remember that, where it sounded, you were,
_that_ was all, ... and too much, the stars made out, and so drove down
the clouds.
Poor Mr. Kenyon was grave—depressed about his friend, who is in a
desperate state—dying in fact. He returns to Portsmouth to-morrow to be
with him till the change comes.
Dearest, how are you? Never now will you condescend to say how you
are. Which is not to be allowed in this second year of our reign. I am
very well. Yesterday I heard some delightful matrimonial details of an
‘establishment’ in Regent’s Park, quite like an old pastoral in the
quickness of the repartee. ‘I hate you’—‘I abhor you’—‘I never liked
you’—‘I always detested you.’ A cup and saucer thrown bodily, here, by
the lady! On which the gentleman upsets her, ... chair and all, ...
flat on the floor. The witness, who is a friend of mine, gets frightened
and begins to cry. She was invited to the house to be godmother to their
child, and now she is pressed to stay longer to witness the articles of
separation.
Oh, I suppose such things are common enough!—But what is remarkable
_here_, is the fact that neither party is a _poet_, by the remotest
courtesy.
Goodnight, dear dearest—
I am your
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 21, 1846.]
Just as I write, the weather is a little more proper for this ‘the
blest ascension-day of the cheerful month of May’: may you not go out
therefore, my Ba? Or down-stairs, at all events. We were sorry, Sarianna
and I, to see the bright afternoon yesterday ... we ought to have
gone, perhaps—but Mr. Kenyon is good and will understand; spite of the
spectacles. But what sonnet is that, you perverse Ba, of which you give
me the two or three words,—in print,—how, where? And if I do not request
and request I shall be sure to hear nothing of that American review
again,—so, I do request, Ba!
Last night brought Dickens’ ‘Pictures from Italy’—which I read this
morning. He seems to have expended his power on the least interesting
places,—and then gone on hurriedly, seeing or describing less and less,
till at last the mere names of places do duty for pictures of them, and
at Naples he fairly gives it up ... the Vesuvius’ journey excepted. But
the book is readable and clever—shall I bring it?—(or next week when
everybody here has done with it).
I know, dearest, you did not _promise_ me that beatific vision by the
gate—but was not enough said to justify me in waiting for you there?
Indeed, yes—only the rain and wind seemed to forbid you; as they did.
Were your sisters pleased? I am not sure I should have been glad to
meet them _so_—I could not have left my sister (whom nobody would have
known)—and then, with that unspoken secret between us. Also I please
myself by hoping that Mr. Kenyon was only relieved of a great trouble and
annoyance in the present state of his anxieties by our keeping away. Poor
Captain Jones—really a fine, manly, noble fellow—I am heartily sorry. As
for me, since Ba asks, I am pretty well,—much better in some points, and
no worse in the rest—all is right but the little sound in the head which
_will_ be intrusive—but I must walk it away presently, or _think_ it away
at worst.
For, dearest, dearest Ba, I _can_ cure all pains at once with you to
think of, and to love, and to bless. So, bless you!
Your R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday.
[Post-mark, May 22, 1846.]
Dearest, when your letter came I was cutting open the leaves of Dickens’
‘Letters from Italy’ which Papa had brought in—so I am glad to have
your thoughts of the book to begin with. Before your letter came I had
sent you the review, as you will find. What changes, what changes! And
the sonnet was purely manuscript, and for the good of the world should
remain so. Oh—you cannot care for all this trash—such trash! Why I
had a manuscript sonnet sent to me last autumn by ‘person or persons
unknown,’ ... ‘To EBB on her departure from England _to Pisa_.’ Can
you fancy that melodious piece of gossipping? Then a lady of the city,
famous, I believe, for haberdashery, used to address _all_ her poems to
me—which really was original ... for she would write five or six ‘poems’
on an evening, and sweep them up and send them to me once a fortnight,
upon faith, hope and charity, seaweed and moonshine, cornlaws and the
immortality of the soul, and take me for her standing muse, properly
_thou_’d and _thee_’d all through. What a good vengeance it would be
upon your unjust charges, if I set you to read a volume or two of those
‘poems’ ... which all went into the fire—so you need not be frightened.
And to-day I had a rose-tree sent to me by somebody who has laid close
siege to me this long while, and whom I have escaped hitherto ... but who
has encamped, she says, ‘till July’ in _16_ Wimpole Street. She writes
too on her card ... ‘When are you going to Italy?’
Ah! you, who blame me (half blame me) for ‘seeing women,’ do not know
how difficult it is to help it sometimes, without being in appearance
ungrateful and almost brutal. Just because I am unwell, they teaze me
more, I believe. Now that Miss Heaton ... oh, I need not go back, but it
was not of my choice, be sure. You being a man are different,—and perhaps
you make people afraid and keep them off. They do not thrust their hands
through the bars where the lion is, as they do with the giraffe. Once I
had this proposition—‘If we mayn’t come in, _will you stand up at the
window that we may see_?’ Now!—And there’s the essence of at least ten
MS. sonnets!——so don’t complain any more.
As for Mr. Kenyon, he had his ‘collation,’ I understand—and he said
that he was expecting Mrs. Jameson and _sundries_—but he referred to
some ‘friends from the country who would not be so mad as to come,’ and
whom I knew to be yourselves. You were quite, quite right not to come.
To-day you are right too ... in thinking that I—was out. I was in the
park nearly an hour, Arabel and Flush and I: and perhaps if to-morrow
should be fine, I may walk in the street; so think of me and help me.
This is my last letter before I see you again, dear dearest. Oh—but I
heard yesterday ... and it was not a tradition of the elders this time
... it was ‘vivid in the pages of contemporary history’ ... in fact one
of my brothers heard it at the Flower Show and brought it home as the
newest news, ... that ‘Mr. Browning is to be married immediately to Miss
Campbell.’ The tellers of the news were ‘intimate friends’ of yours, they
said, and knew it from the highest authority—
Laugh!—Why should not they talk, being women? My brother did not tell
_me_, but he told it down-stairs—and Arabel was amused, she said, at some
of the faces round. At that turn of the road they lost the track of the
hare. Not an observation was made by anybody.
May God bless you—Think of me. I am ever and ever
Your own
BA.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday.
This is not to be called a letter, please to understand, because to write
a letter to you once a day is enough in all reason. But I want to send
you the review you asked for at the same time with the drawings which I
kept too long I thought months ago,—but I have looked over them again and
again. Then there is the book on Junius—and lastly, the song which I want
you to have ... the ‘Toll Slowly’—_that_ is my gift to you, for as much
as it is worth, and not to be sent back to me if you please. As for the
Notes on Naples, I shall keep them for the present, having need to study
about Amalfi.
Now I am going out in the carriage, and shall drive round the park
perhaps. You will not think much of the music—but it being the first
music I had heard for years and years, and in itself so overwhelmingly
melancholy, it affected me so that I should scarcely hear it to the
end. I went down-stairs on purpose to hear it and be able to thank the
composer rightly. But she has done better things, I am sure.
Your own
BA.
Observe—I disobey in nothing by sending this parcel. There is too much
for you to carry. Don’t forget to bring me my _Statesmen_ which is a
lawful burden.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday.
[Post-mark, May 22, 1846.]