I said the other day in explanation of Miss Heaton’s story. I make no
doubt, now, it was a pure dream to which my over-scrupulousness of
conscience gave a local habitation and name both, through the favourable
dimness and illusion of ‘a good many years ago’—because this last charge
about ‘Miss Campbell’—briefly—I never in my life saw, to my knowledge,
a woman of that name—nor can there be any woman of any other name from
my acquaintance with whom the merest misunderstanding in the world could
possibly arise to a third person ... I mean, that it must be a simple
falsehood and not gossip or distortion of fact, as I supposed in the
other case. I told you of the one instance where such distortion _might_
take place,—(Miss Haworth, to avoid mistake). This charge after the other
... I will tell you of what it reminds me—in my early boyhood I had a
habit of calling people ‘fools,’ with as little reverence as could be,
... and it used to be solemnly represented to me after such offences that
‘whoso calleth his brother “fool,” is in danger &c. for he hath committed
murder in his heart already’ &c. in short,—there was no help for it,—I
stood there a convicted _murderer_ ... to which I was forced penitently
to agree.... Here is Miss Heaton’s charge and my confession. Now, let
a policeman come here presently to ask what I know about the ‘Deptford
Murder’ or the ‘Marshalsea Massacre’—and you will have my ‘intimate
friend’s’ charge. By the way, did your brother overhear this, or was it
spoken to someone in his company, or is my friend his acquaintance also?
Because in either of the latter cases I can interfere easily. (There is
a _Mr. Browning_—Henry I think—living in, or near the Regent’s Park.) At
all events, please say that I know no such person, nor ever knew,—that
the whole is a pure falsehood—(and I only use so mild a word because
I write to _you_, and because on reading the letter again I see the
speakers were women).
It is a _fact_ that I have made myself almost ridiculous by a kind of
male prudery with respect to ‘young ladies’ ... that I have seemed to
imply—‘If I gave you the least encouragement something would be sure to
follow.’ In fact never seeing any attractiveness in the class, I was very
little inclined to get involved in troubles and troubles for nothing at
all. And as for marrying ... that is a point on which I have certainly
not chosen to dilate before _you_, nor shall I now dilate on it.
Well, I shall see you to-morrow, that remedies everything. And that is
your way of letting me see the Review,—you send it! Not that it has
arrived yet. Dear Ba, how ever good you are!
All about the lady enthusiasts makes me laugh—don’t think I fail of
the proper respect to them, however—it is only once in a week that one
sees a real painted Emperor settle on a flower, and then perhaps for a
few minutes—while at all times, if you look, you will find a good half
dozen of earnest yet sleepy drones _living_ there, working away at the
sweet,—after all, these get the most out of the flower.
Did you really go out yesterday? I was not sure, for the wind was
Easterly—but it appears to have done you no harm,—you may ‘go into the
street’ to-day—I am most happy,—most happy—and always entirely happy in
you,—in thinking of you, and hoping,—my life is in you now—
Bless you, dearest—I am your own.
2 o’clock, the parcel arrives ... thank you, best of Ba’s! I will read
and tell you—(only what on earth do you mean by sending back those
sketches?)
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 25, 1846.]
My own Ba is entreated to observe, that when she sends me reviews
about herself, and songs by herself, and a make-weight book about
‘Junius’ happens to be sent also ... I do not ordinarily plunge into
the Junius-discussion at once—perhaps from having made up my mind that
the Author is Miss Campbell:—at all events, while the review was read
and re-read and the music done justice and injustice to, the Junius was
opened for the first time this morning, at eight of the clock, and Ba’s
letter which lay between pages 16 and 17, ‘came to hand’—was brought
to me by my mother, from my father! but for whose lucky inspiration of
curiosity the said note had perhaps lain shut in till the book’s secret
was found out ... certainly _I_ should never have touched the book before
then! And from this note, duly studied, I learn that yesterday I must
have appeared to Ba touched by a general mental paralysis—inasmuch as I
was surprised, over and above the joyfulness, to hear that she was in the
Park on Thursday, as well as Friday ... (oh, I know the letter I _did_
receive mentioned it, but it seems as if _one_ of the two excursions were
unrecorded)—and seeing that I enquired whether Ba had heard with her own
ears the song ... and altogether omitted thanking her for the gift of it:
and lastly, brought no _Statesmen_, even on Ba’s request! Of all which
matters I _ought_ to have been made acquainted by the note: what must you
think of me, you Ba; dearest-dearest, that expect me to know the face
through the bonnet, and the letter through the book covers—(Ba sitting
in the Bookseller’s shop was a type, I see!). What did you think of me
yesterday, I want to know?
Well, and now my letter does come I thank you—(for all the trouble this
precedent will give me—next time a parcel comes—of poking into all
impossible places to see and to see!). You are the dearest, dearest,
impossibly dear Ba that heart ever adored,
‘And the roses which thou strowest,
All the cheerful way thou goest,
Would direct to follow thee,’
as Shirley sings—and every now and then the full sense of the sweetness
_collects_ itself and overcomes me entirely, as now, on the occasion of
this note that I find; I am blessed by you in the hundred unspeakable
ways—but were it only for _this_ and similar pure kindness, I find it in
my heart to give you my life could it profit you! Here ought I, by every
law and right and propriety ... ask Miss Campbell! ... to be ministering
to you, caring for you; and ... oh, Ba, do please, please, throw a coffee
cup at me!—(giving some _grounds_ for complaint!)—and after it the
_soucoupe_ (‘glaring with _saucer_ eyes’)—and see what you shall see, and
hear what you shall hear! You ‘strongest woman that has written yet’!
Have _they_ found that out? _I_ know it, I think, by this! So I will go
and think over it in the garden, and tell you more in the afternoon.
_12 o’clock!_—What strange weather!—but pleasant, I think—you have been
out, or will go out, perhaps. Tell me all, dearest, and how you feel
after it. To-morrow I will send you the Review and some of the other
books you have spoken of from time to time—but, I almost dare to keep
the _Statesmen_, spite of your positive request. Why, dear, want to see
what I desire to forget altogether? So my other poems, ‘Sordello’ &c.—I
most unaffectedly shudder at the notion of your reading them, as I said
yesterday. _My_ poetry is far from the ‘completest expression of my
being’—I hate to refer to it, or I could tell you why, wherefore, ...
_prove_ how imperfect (for a mild word), how unsatisfactory it must of
necessity be. Still, I should not so much object, if, such as it is, it
were the best, the flower of my life ... but that is all to come, and
through you, mainly, or more certainly. So will it not be better to let
me write one last poem this summer,—quite easily, stringing every day’s
thoughts instead of letting them fall,—and laying them at the dear feet
at the summer’s end for a memorial? I have been almost determining to
do this, or try to do it, as I walked in the garden just now. A poem to
publish or not to publish; but a proper introduction to the afterwork.
What do you think, my Ba, my dearest siren, and muse, and Mistress, and
... something beyond all, above all and better ... shall I do this?
And what are you studying about Amalfi, my Ba? Will you please keep
that Naples’ Note-book till I ask for it—at Amalfi. Till holy church
incorporate two in one; and I take the degree of my aspiration. Rᵗ. Bᵍ.
_B.A._—in earnest of which, kiss me dear, ‘earnest, most earnest of
poets,’ and let me kiss you as I do ... loving you as I love you. Bless
you, best and dearest.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, May 25, 1846.]
When you came yesterday I had scarcely done my grumbling over the
_Athenæum_, which really seems to me to select its subjects from the
things least likely to interest and elevate. It goes on its own level
perhaps—but to call itself a Journal of Art and Literature afterwards,
is too much to bear patiently when one turns it over and considers. Lady
Hester Stanhope’s physician, antiquities of the mayors of London, stories
re-collected from the magazines by Signor Marcotti—and this is literature
... art! Without thinking of ‘Luria,’ it is natural and righteous to
be angry even after the sun has gone down. These are your teachers,
O Israel! Mr. Dilke may well fly to the _Daily News_ for congenial
occupation and leave literature behind him, and nobody hang on the wheels
of his chariot, crying, ‘Come back, Mr. Dilke.’
Talking of chariots, George met you, he said, yesterday, wheeling down
Oxford Street, ... (this he told me when he came in ...) going as fast as
an express train, and far too fast, of course, either to recognize or be
recognized.
Oh—I forgot to tell you one thing about the review in the _Methodist
Quarterly_. You observe there some very absurd remarks about
Tennyson—but, just _there_, is an extract from the ‘Spirit of the Age,’
about his ‘coming out of himself as the nightingale from under the
leaves,’ ... you see _that_? Well ... it is curious that precisely what
is quoted _there_, is some of my writing, when I contributed to Mr.
Horne’s book. It amused me to recognize it, (as you did not George) ...
but I was vexed too at the foolish deduction, because....
In the midst I had to hold my Sunday-levee, when for the only day in the
week and for one half hour I have to see all my brothers and sisters at
once: on the week days, one being in one place and one in another, and
the visits to me only coming by twos and threes. Well, and Alfred, who
never had said a word to me before, gave me the opportunity of saying
‘_no, no, it is not true_’—followed hard by a remark from somebody else,
that ‘of course Ba must know, as she and Mr. Browning are such _very_
intimate friends,’ and a good deal of laughter on all sides: on which,
without any transition and with an exceeding impertinence, Alfred threw
himself down on the sofa and declared that he felt inclined to be very
ill, ... for that then perhaps (such things being heard of) some young
lady might come to visit _him_, to talk sympathetically on the broad
and narrow gauge! Altogether, I shall leave you for the future to ...
contradict yourself! I did not mean to do it this time, only that Alfred
forced me into it. But he said ... ‘How the Miss Cokers praised him!...
“It was delightful,” they cried, “to see a man of such a great genius
condescend to little people like them.”’ So they are better than the
_Athenæum_, and I shall not have them spoken of ungently, mind, even if
they do romance a little wildly, and marry _me_, next time, to the man in
the moon.
In the meantime, dearest, it is no moonshine that I was out walking
to-day again, and that I walked up all these stairs with my own feet on
returning. I sate down on the stairs two or three times, but I could
not rest in the drawing-room because somebody was there, and I was not
carried, as usual—see how vain-glorious I am. And what a summer-sense in
the air—and how lovely the strips of sky between the houses! And yet I
may tell you truly, that, constantly, through these vivid impressions,
I am thinking and feeling that mournful and bitter would be to me this
return into life, apart from you, apart from the consideration of you.
How could ever I have borne it, I keep feeling constantly. But you are
_there_, in the place of memory. Ah—you said yesterday that you were
not ungrateful! _I_ cannot say so. I blame myself often. And yet again
I think that the wrong may be pardoned to me, for that those affections
had worked out on me their uttermost pang—nearly unto death I had felt
them—and now if I am to live, it must be by other means—or I should
die still, and not live. Also I owe _you_ gratitude——do I not owe you
gratitude? Then, _I cannot help it_ ... right or wrong, I cannot help it
... you are all to me, and, beloved—whichever way I look, I only can see
_you_. If wrong, it is not for _you_ to be severe on me—
Your own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday. 12 o’clock.
I get nothing by the post this morning:—perhaps at next delivery! Well,
I had the unexpected largess yesterday, you know. At this time last
year the letters came once a week! Now the manna falls as manna should
omitting only the seventh day.
Do you know, my Ba,—the Campbell mystery is all but solved, to my
thinking, by supposing, as one may, that, those foolish ladies confound
their cousin’s friend _Brown_, an indubitable Scot and Lord Jeffrey’s
nephew,—(and their intimate for aught I know)—with _me_. He is in town
now; _did_ dine with them just before I saw him a fortnight ago; and
_may_ meditate happiness with Miss Campbell, and be provided with a
paragon of a ‘sister’ besides. Those ladies have been to Scotland—may
easily know him there and see ‘sights’ with him here. Is not all this
likely? It is not worth writing about to White, nor a visit to him at
Doctors’ Commons, but when I next chance on his company, I will enquire.
Here is the review,—which I like very much—the introductory, abstract
remarks might be better, but so it always is when a man, having really
something to say about one precise thing (your poems), thinks he had
better preface it by a little graceful _generality_. All he _wanted_ to
write, I agree in, thoroughly agree,—though I cannot but fancy my own
selection,—that _might_ be,—of passages and single poems!
And, dearest, I venture to keep back the _Statesmen_, as I asked leave to
do yesterday, for the reasons then given—may I keep it back?
Also I return those sketches,—now they have been in your hand, they
cannot lie about here—(I keep brown paper with your writing on it, and
string, and the wrappage of this pen of mine—to be sure) so I shall get
you to bear with them again, two or three being added, just as I find
them. There is, too, the ode which was presented to me on my departure
from Rome by an enthusiastic Roman; red ribbon and all! And last of all
you have my play as altered by Macready: greater excisions had been
determined on, but on the appearance of the printed copy had the effect
it intended ... it would have been too ludicrous to leave out the whole
of the first scene, for instance (as was in contemplation), and then to
tell the public ‘my play’ had been acted. I refer to this silly business
only to show you what success or non-success on the stage means and is
worth. It is all behind me now—so far behind!
Now I will wait and see what next post may bring me from dearest Ba—Ba,
the dear, and the beloved, e sopra tutto, the tall! Does she not ‘stand
high in the affection’—of her very own
R.B.?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Monday.
[Post-mark, May 25, 1846.]
Dear, dear love, your letter comes at half past _three_ by a new
Postman,—(very bewildered). You will perhaps have received my parcel and
note—if not, such things are on the road. All in _your_ note delights
me entirely. As for my walking fast, _that_ is exactly my use and wont
... I am famous for it,—as my father is for driving old lady-friends
into illnesses, and then saying innocently, ‘I took care to walk _very_
slowly.’ When I have anything to occupy my mind, I all but run—but the
pen can’t run, for this letter must go, and nothing said.
So, Ba, my Ba, Goodbye till to-morrow from
Your own, own.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 26, 1846.]
My beloved I scarcely know what to say about the poem. It is almost
profane and a sin to keep you from writing it when your mind goes that
way,—yet I am afraid that you cannot begin without doing too much and
without suffering as a consequence in your head. Now if you make yourself
ill, what will be the end? So you see my fears! Let it be however as it
must be! Only you will promise to keep from all excesses, and to write
very very gently. Ah—can you keep such a promise, if it is made ever so?
There are the fears again.
You are very strange in what you say about my reading your poetry—as if
it were not my peculiar gladness and glory!—my own, which no man can
take from me. And not _you_, indeed! Yet I am not likely to mistake
your poetry for the flower of your nature, knowing what that flower is,
knowing something of what that flower is without a name, and feeling
something of the mystical perfume of it. When I said, or when others
said for me, that my poetry was the flower of me, was it praise, did you
think, or blame? might it not stand for a sarcasm? It might,—if it were
not true, miserably true after a fashion.
Yet something of the sort is true, of course, with all poets who write
directly from their personal experience and emotions—their ideal rises to
the surface and floats like the bell of the waterlily. The roots and the
muddy water are _subaudita_, you know—as surely there, as the flower.
But _you_ ... you have the superabundant mental life and individuality
which admits of shifting a personality and speaking the truth still.
_That_ is the highest faculty, the strongest and rarest, which exercises
itself in Art,—we are all agreed there is none so great faculty as the
dramatic. Several times you have hinted to me that I made you careless
for the drama, and it has puzzled me to fancy how it could be, when
I understand myself so clearly both the difficulty and the glory of
dramatic art. Yet I am conscious of wishing you to take the other crown
besides—and after having made your own creatures speak in clear human
voices, to speak yourself out of that personality which God made, and
with the voice which He tuned into such power and sweetness of speech. I
do not think that, with all that music in you, only your own personality
should be dumb, nor that having thought so much and deeply on life and
its ends, you should not teach what you have learnt, in the directest and
most impressive way, the mask thrown off however moist with the breath.
And it is not, I believe, by the dramatic medium, that poets teach most
impressively—I have seemed to observe _that_! ... it is too difficult
for the common reader to analyse, and to discern between the vivid and
the earnest. Also he is apt to understand better always, when he sees
the lips move. Now, here is yourself, with your wonderful faculty!—it is
wondered at and recognised on all sides where there are eyes to see—it is
called wonderful and admirable! Yet, with an inferior power, you might
have taken yourself closer to the hearts and lives of men, and made
yourself dearer, though being less great. Therefore I do want you to do
this with your surpassing power—it will be so easy to you to speak, and
so noble, when spoken.
Not that I usen’t to fancy I could see you and know you, in a reflex
image, in your creations! I used, you remember. How these broken lights
and forms look strange and unlike now to me, when I stand by the complete
idea. Yes, _now_ I feel that no one can know you worthily by those poems.
Only ... I guessed a little. _Now_ let us have your own voice speaking of
yourself—if the voice may not hurt the speaker—which is my fear.
_Evening._—Thank you, dearest dearest! I have your parcel—I have your
letters ... three letters to-day, it is certainly feast day with me.
Thank you my own dearest. The drawings I had just fixed in my mind,
courageously to ask for, because as you _meant_ me to keep them I did not
see why I should throw away a fortune—and they return to me with interest
... I observe these new vivid sketches! Some day I shall put them into
a book, as _you_ should have done. Then for the Roman ode, and all the
rest, thank you, thank you. _I_ looked here and looked there, though,
for a letter—I could not find it at first, and was just saying to myself
quite articulately ‘What wickedness’! ... meaning that it was wickedness
in you to send me a parcel without a word, ... when I came upon the
folded paper. For _I_ looked inside the books, be sure. _I_ did not toss
them away....
There’s the gratitude of the world, you see! and of womankind in
particular! there’s the malign spirit of the _genus coffee-cup-throw-arum_!
Talking of which coffee-cups, you dare me to it. Which is imprudent,
to say the least of it. I heard once of her most gracious Majesty’s
throwing a tea-cup,—whereupon Albertus Magnus, who is no conjurer, could
find nothing better to do than to walk out of the room in solemn silence.
If I had been he, I should have tied the royal hands, I think; for when
women get to be warlike after that demonstrative fashion, it seems to me
to be allowable to teach them that they are not the strongest. I say it,
never thinking of my ‘licence to’ throw coffee-cups—which you granted,
knowing very well what I know intimately, ... that ... that....
I have a theory about you. Was ever anybody in the world, ... a woman
at least, ... _angry with you_? If anyone ever tried, did she not fail
in the first breath of the trying?—go out to curse like the prophet,
and bless instead? Tell me if anyone was ever angry with you? It is
impossible, I know perfectly. Therefore, as to the coffee-cup license,
... the divine Achilles, invulnerable all but the heel, might as well
have said to his dearest foe ‘Draw out your sword, O Diomede, and strike
me across the head, prick me in the forehead, slash me over the ears,
...’ and _that_ stand for a proof of courage!
What stuff I do write, to be sure. I was out to-day walking, with Arabel
and Flush, and rested at the bookseller’s; but as I went farther than the
other day, I let Stormie carry me up-stairs, ... it is such a long way!
Say how you are, dearest—you do not! Shall you walk so fast when you walk
with me under the trees? I shall not let you—I shall hang back, as Flush
does, when he won’t go with a string. Ah—little (altogether) you know
perhaps what a hard Degree that B:A: is, to take— —the BA which is not a
Bachelor’s.
No, no, for the rest. It was not any Brown on earth, but the only
Browning of the great genius, who was shown up as intimate friend to the
Miss Cokers and elect husband of that cloud, Miss Campbell the ‘great
heiress’—all in proportion, observe! But I do entreat you not to say a
word to Dr. White or another. Why should you? It is mere nonsense,—so
do let it evaporate quietly. Why, with all my doubts for which you have
blamed me, ... at the thickest and saddest of the doubting, it never
was what people could _say of you_ that could move me. And this is so
foolish, and unbelieved even by the very persons who say it, perhaps! Let
it pass away with other dust, in the wind. It is not worth the watering.
May God bless you! This is my last letter ... already! I had another
criticism to-day from America, in a book called ‘Thoughts on the Poets,’
which is written by a Mr. Tuckermann, and selects its poets on the most
singular principle ... or rather on none at all ... beginning with
Petrarch, ending with Bryant, receiving Tennyson, Procter, Hunt, and your
Ba ... and not a word of you! Stupid book—Petrarch and Alfieri are the
only foreign poets admitted—criticisms, swept back to the desk from the
magazines, I dare say. Very kind to me—you shall see if you like.
And now ... good-night at last! it must come. Have I not written you one
letter as long as the three? Only not worth a third as much—_that_ I know.
Wholly and ever your
BA.
Oh I must speak, though I meant to be silent! though first, I meant
to keep the great subject of the _Statesmen_ for an explosion on
Wednesday. I gave up the early poems because I felt contented to read
them afterwards—but listen ... my _Statesmen_, I _will not give up_. Now
listen—I expect nothing at all from them—they were written for another
person, and under peculiar circumstances ... they are probably as bad as
anything written by you, can be. Will _that_ do, to say? And _may_ I see
them? Now I ask ever so humbly ... _Dearest_!
_R.B. to E.B.B._
3½ P.M. Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 26, 1846.]
Dearest, your dearest of notes only arrived at 2 o’clock—and Carlyle has
just been with me,—come on horseback for the express purpose of strolling
about—so that I was forced, forced ... you see! He is gone again—and
there is only time to tell you why no more is told—but to-morrow will
supply all deficiency. Bless you, my dearest best Ba. How I love you!
Your own—
Poor Capt. Jones is dead,—you may see in the papers.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 28, 1846.]
Dearest it is my fancy to write quickly this morning and take my
letter to the post myself. Oh, I shall do it this time—there will be
no obstacle. The office is just below Hodgson’s, the bookseller’s. And
so with this letter, please to understand that I go to you twice and
wholly, once in the spirit, and again in the body.
But there is nothing to tell you, except that I think of you with the
thought which never can change essentially, while it deepens always. What
I meant to say yesterday was simply, that I, _knowing that_, should be
‘bad’ if I could fail practically to myself and you. I have known from
the beginning the whole painful side of what is before me, also ... I
should have no excuse therefore for any weakness in any fear. Should I
not be ‘bad’ then, and more unworthy of you than even according to my own
account, if the obstacle came from _me_? _It never can._ Remember to be
sure of it.
A change of feeling indeed would be a different thing, and we think
exactly alike on the fit consequences of it. Which change is however
absolutely impossible in my position and to _me_, ‘for reasons ... for
reasons’ ... you guess at some of them, some are spoken, and others
cannot be.
In one word for all, life seems to come to me only through you.
I am your very own
BA.
_R.B. to E.B.B._