_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday--and Tuesday.
[Post-mark, May 6, 1845.]
So when wise people happen to be ill, they sit up till six o'clock in
the morning and get up again at nine? Do tell me how Lurias can ever
be made out of such ungodly imprudences. If the wind blows east or
west, where can any remedy be, while such evil deeds are being
committed? And what is to be the end of it? And what is the
reasonableness of it in the meantime, when we all know that thinking,
dreaming, creating people like yourself, have two lives to bear
instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others, ...
throwing over and buckling in that fold of death, to stroke the
life-purple smoother. You have to live your own personal life, and
also Luria's life--and therefore you should sleep for both. It is
logical indeed--and rational, ... which logic is not always ... and if
I had 'the tongue of men and of angels,' I would use it to persuade
you. Polka, for the rest, may be good; but sleep is better. I think
better of sleep than I ever did, now that she will not easily come
near me except in a red hood of poppies. And besides, ... praise your
'goodnatured body' as you like, ... it is only a seeming goodnature!
Bodies bear malice in a terrible way, be very sure!--appear mild and
smiling for a few short years, and then ... out with a cold steel; and
the _soul has it_, 'with a vengeance,' ... according to the phrase!
You will not persist, (will you?) in this experimental homicide. Or
tell me if you will, that I may do some more tearing. It really,
really is wrong. Exercise is one sort of rest and you feel relieved by
it--and sleep is another: one being as necessary as the other.
This is the first thing I have to say. The next is a question. _What
do you mean about your manuscripts ... about 'Saul' and the
portfolio?_ for I am afraid of hazardously supplying ellipses--and
your 'Bos' comes to [Greek: bous epi glôssê].[1] I get half bribed to
silence by the very pleasure of fancying. But if it could be possible
that you should mean to say you would show me.... Can it be? or am I
reading this 'Attic contraction' quite the wrong way? You see I am
afraid of the difference between flattering myself and being
flattered; the fatal difference. And now will you understand that I
should be too overjoyed to have revelations from the 'Portfolio,' ...
however incarnated with blots and pen-scratches, ... to be able to ask
impudently of them now? Is that plain?
It must be, ... at any rate, ... that if _you_ would like to 'write
something together' with me, _I_ should like it still better. I should
like it for some ineffable reasons. And I should not like it a bit the
less for the grand supply of jests it would administer to the critical
Board of Trade, about visible darkness, multiplied by two, mounting
into palpable obscure. We should not mind ... should we? _you_ would
not mind, if you had got over certain other considerations
deconsiderating to your coadjutor. Yes--but I dare not do it, ... I
mean, think of it, ... just now, if ever: and I will tell you why in a
Mediæval-Gothic-architectural manuscript.
The only poet by profession (if I may say so,) except yourself, with
whom I ever had much intercourse even on paper, (if this is near to
'much') has been Mr. Horne. We approached each other on the point of
one of Miss Mitford's annual editorships; and ever since, he has had
the habit of writing to me occasionally; and when I was too ill to
write at all, in my dreary Devonshire days, I was his debtor for
various little kindnesses, ... for which I continue his debtor. In my
opinion he is a truehearted and generous man. Do you not think so?
Well--long and long ago, he asked me to write a drama with him on the
Greek model; that is, for me to write the choruses, and for him to do
the dialogue. Just then it was quite doubtful in my own mind, and
worse than doubtful, whether I ever should write again; and the very
doubtfulness made me speak my 'yes' more readily. Then I was desired
to make a subject, ... to conceive a plan; and my plan was of a man,
haunted by his own soul, ... (making her a separate personal Psyche, a
dreadful, beautiful Psyche)--the man being haunted and terrified
through all the turns of life by her. Did you ever feel afraid of your
own soul, as I have done? I think it is a true wonder of our
humanity--and fit subject enough for a wild lyrical drama. I should
like to write it by myself at least, well enough. But with him I will
not now. It was delayed ... delayed. He cut the plan up into scenes
... I mean into a list of scenes ... a sort of ground-map to work
on--and there it lies. Nothing more was done. It all lies in one
sheet--and I have offered to give up my copyright of idea in it--if he
likes to use it alone--or I should not object to work it out alone on
my own side, since it comes from me: only I will not consent now to a
_double work_ in it. There are objections--none, be it well
understood, in Mr. Horne's disfavour,--for I think of him as well at
this moment, and the same in all essential points, as I ever did. He
is a man of fine imagination, and is besides good and generous. In the
course of our acquaintance (on paper--for I never saw him) I never was
angry with him except once; and then, _I_ was quite wrong and had to
confess it. But this is being too 'mediæval.' Only you will see from
it that I am a little entangled on the subject of compound works, and
must look where I tread ... and you will understand (if you ever hear
from Mr. Kenyon or elsewhere that I am going to write a compound-poem
with Mr. Horne) how it _was_ true, and isn't true any more.
Yes--you are going to Mr. Kenyon's on the 12th--and yes--my brother
and sister are going to meet you and your sister there one day to
dinner. Shall I have courage to see you soon, I wonder! If you ask me,
I must ask myself. But oh, this make-believe May--it can't be May
after all! If a south-west wind sate in your chestnut tree, it was but
for a few hours--the east wind 'came up this way' by the earliest
opportunity of succession. As the old 'mysteries' showed 'Beelzebub
with a bearde,' even so has the east wind had a 'bearde' of late, in a
full growth of bristling exaggerations--the English spring-winds have
excelled themselves in evil this year; and I have not been down-stairs
yet.--_But_ I am certainly stronger and better than I was--that is
undeniable--and I _shall_ be better still. You are not going away
soon--are you? In the meantime you do not know what it is to be ... a
little afraid of Paracelsus. So right about the Italians! and the
'rose porporine' which made me smile. How is the head?
Ever yours,