_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, July 25, 1845.]
You would let me _now_, I dare say, call myself grateful to you--yet
such is my jealousy in these matters--so do I hate the material when
it puts down, (or tries) the immaterial in the offices of friendship;
that I could almost tell you I was _not_ grateful, and try if that way
I could make you see the substantiality of those other favours you
refuse to recognise, and reality of the other gratitude you will not
admit. But truth is truth, and you are all generosity, and will draw
none but the fair inference, so I thank you as well as I can for this
_also_--this last kindness. And you know its value, too--how if there
were another _you_ in the world, who had done all you have done and
whom I merely admired for that; if such an one had sent me such a
criticism, so exactly what I want and can use and turn to good; you
know how I would have told you, my _you_ I saw yesterday, all about
it, and been sure of your sympathy and gladness:--but the two in one!
For the criticism itself, it is all true, except the over-eating--all
the suggestions are to be adopted, the improvements accepted. I so
thoroughly understand your spirit in this, that, just in this
beginning, I should really like to have found some point in which I
could coöperate with your intention, and help my work by disputing the
effect of any alteration proposed, if it ought to be disputed--_that_
would answer your purpose exactly as well as agreeing with you,--so
that the benefit to me were apparent; but this time I cannot dispute
one point. All is for best.
So much for this 'Duchess'--which I shall ever rejoice in--wherever
was a bud, even, in that strip of May-bloom, a live musical bee hangs
now. I shall let it lie (my poem), till just before I print it; and
then go over it, alter at the places, and do something for the places
where I (really) wrote anyhow, almost, to get done. It is an odd fact,
yet characteristic of my accomplishings one and all in this kind, that
of _the poem_, the real conception of an evening (two years ago,
fully)--of _that_, not a line is written,--though perhaps after all,
what I am going to call the accessories in the story are real though
indirect reflexes of the original idea, and so supersede properly
enough the necessity of its personal appearance, so to speak. But, as
I conceived the poem, it consisted entirely of the Gipsy's description
of the life the Lady was to lead with her future Gipsy lover--a _real_
life, not an unreal one like that with the Duke. And as I meant to
write it, all their wild adventures would have come out and the
insignificance of the former vegetation have been deducible only--as
the main subject has become now; of course it comes to the same thing,
for one would never show half by half like a cut orange.--
Will you write to me? caring, though, so much for my best interests as
not to write if you can work for yourself, or save yourself fatigue. I
_think_ before writing--or just after writing--such a sentence--but
reflection only justifies my first feeling; I _would_ rather go
without your letters, without seeing you at all, if that advantaged
you--my dear, first and last friend; my friend! And now--surely I
might dare say you may if you please get well through God's
goodness--with persevering patience, surely--and this next winter
abroad--which you must get ready for now, every sunny day, will you
not? If I venture to weary you again with all this, is there not the
cause of causes, and did not the prophet write that 'there was a tide
in the affairs of men, which taken at the E.B.B.' led on to the
fortune of
Your R.B.
Oh, let me tell you in the bitterness of my heart, that it was only 4
o'clock--that clock I enquired about--and that, ... no, I shall never
say with any grace what I want to say ... and now dare not ... that
you all but owe me an extra quarter of an hour next time: as in the
East you give a beggar something for a few days running--then you miss
him; and next day he looks indignant when the regular dole falls and
murmurs--'And, for yesterday?'--Do I stay too long, I _want_ to
know,--too long for the voice and head and all but the spirit that may
not so soon tire,--knowing the good it does. If you would but tell me.