And was the little book written with Mr. Mill, pure metaphysics, or
what?
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Saturday Night, March 1 [1845].
Dear Miss Barrett,--I seem to find of a sudden--surely I knew
before--anyhow, I _do_ find now, that with the octaves on octaves of
quite new golden strings you enlarged the compass of my life's harp
with, there is added, too, such a tragic chord, that which you
touched, so gently, in the beginning of your letter I got this
morning, 'just escaping' &c. But if my truest heart's wishes avail, as
they have hitherto done, you shall laugh at East winds yet, as I do!
See now, this sad feeling is so strange to me, that I must write it
out, _must_, and you might give me great, the greatest pleasure for
years and yet find me as passive as a stone used to wine libations,
and as ready in expressing my sense of them, but when I am pained, I
find the old theory of the uselessness of communicating the
circumstances of it, singularly untenable. I have been 'spoiled' in
this world--to such an extent, indeed, that I often _reason_ out--make
clear to myself--that I might very properly, so far as myself am
concerned, take any step that would peril the whole of my future
happiness--because the past is gained, secure, and on record; and,
though not another of the old days should dawn on me, I shall not have
lost my life, no! Out of all which you are--please--to make a sort of
sense, if you can, so as to express that I have been deeply struck to
find a new real unmistakable sorrow along with these as real but not
so new joys you have given me. How strangely this connects itself in
my mind with another subject in your note! I looked at that
translation for a minute, not longer, years ago, knowing nothing about
it or you, and I _only_ looked to see what rendering a passage had
received that was often in my thoughts.[1] I forget your version (it
was not _yours_, my _'yours' then_; I mean I had no extraordinary
interest about it), but the original makes Prometheus (telling over
his bestowments towards human happiness) say, as something [Greek:
peraiterô tônde], that he stopped mortals [Greek: mê proderkesthai
moron--to poion eurôn], asks the Chorus, [Greek: têsde pharmakon
nosou]? Whereto he replies, [Greek: tuphlas en autois elpidas
katôkisa] (what you hear men dissertate upon by the hour, as proving
the immortality of the soul apart from revelation, undying yearnings,
restless longings, instinctive desires which, unless to be eventually
indulged, it were cruel to plant in us, &c. &c.). But, [Greek: meg'
ôphelêma tout' edôrêsô brotois]! concludes the chorus, like a sigh
from the admitted Eleusinian Æschylus was! You cannot think how this
foolish circumstance struck me this evening, so I thought I would e'en
tell you at once and be done with it. Are you not my dear friend
already, and shall I not use you? And pray you not to 'lean out of the
window' when my own foot is only on the stair; do wait a little for
Yours _ever_,