_R.B. to E.B.B._
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 15, 1845.]
Do you know, dear friend, it is no good policy to stop up all the
vents of my feeling, nor leave one for safety's sake, as you will do,
let me caution you never so repeatedly. I know, quite well enough,
that your 'kindness' is not _so_ apparent, even, in this instance of
correcting my verses, as in many other points--but on such points, you
lift a finger to me and I am dumb.... Am I not to be allowed a word
here neither?
I remember, in the first season of German Opera here, when 'Fidelio's'
effects were going, going up to the gallery in order to get the best
of the last chorus--get its oneness which you do--and, while perched
there an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormous
enthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought,--I and a cousin of
mine)--whose whole body broke out in billow, heaved and swayed in the
perfection of his delight, hands, head, feet, all tossing and striving
to utter what possessed him. Well--next week, we went again to the
Opera, and again mounted at the proper time, but the crowd was
_greater_, and our mild great faced white haired red cheeked German
was not to be seen, not at first--for as the glory was at its full, my
cousin twisted me round and made me see an arm, only an arm, all the
body of its owner being amalgamated with a dense crowd on each side,
before, and--not behind, because they, the crowd, occupied the last
benches, over which we looked--and this arm waved and exulted as if
'for the dignity of the whole body,'--relieved it of its dangerous
accumulation of repressed excitability. When the crowd broke up all
the rest of the man disengaged itself by slow endeavours, and there
stood our friend confessed--as we were sure!
--Now, you would have bade him keep his arm quiet? 'Lady Geraldine,
you _would_!'
I have read those novels--but I must keep that word of words,
'genius'--for something different--'talent' will do here surely.
There lies 'Consuelo'--done with!
I shall tell you frankly that it strikes me as precisely what in
conventional language with the customary silliness is styled a
_woman's_ book, in its merits and defects,--and supremely timid in all
the points where one wants, and has a right to expect, some _fruit_ of
all the pretence and George Sand_ism_. These are occasions when one
does say, in the phrase of her school, 'que la Femme parle!' or what
is better, let her act! and how does Consuelo comfort herself on such
an emergency? Why, she bravely lets the uninspired people throw down
one by one their dearest prejudices at her feet, and then, like a
very actress, picks them up, like so many flowers, returning them to
the breast of the owners with a smile and a courtesy and trips off the
stage with a glance at the Pit. Count Christian, Baron Frederic,
Baroness--what is her name--all open their arms, and Consuelo will not
consent to entail disgrace &c. &c. No, you say--she leaves them in
order to solve the problem of her true feeling, whether she can really
love Albert; but remember that this is done, (that is, so much of it
as ever _is_ done, and as determines her to accept his hand at the
very last)--this is solved sometime about the next morning--or
earlier--I forget--and in the meantime, Albert gets that 'benefit of
the doubt' of which chapter the last informs you. As for the
hesitation and self examination on the matter of that Anzoleto--the
writer is turning over the leaves of a wrong dictionary, seeking help
from Psychology, and pretending to forget there is such a thing as
Physiology. Then, that horrible Porpora:--if George Sand gives _him_
to a Consuelo for an absolute master, in consideration of his services
specified, and is of opinion that _they_ warrant his conduct, or at
least, oblige submission to it,--then, I find her objections to the
fatherly rule of Frederic perfectly impertinent--he having a few
claims upon the gratitude of Prussia also, in his way, I believe! If
the strong ones _will make_ the weak ones lead them--then, for
Heaven's sake, let this dear old all-abused world keep on its course
without these outcries and tearings of hair, and don't be for ever
goading the Karls and other trodden-down creatures till they get their
carbines in order (very rationally) to abate the nuisance--when you
make the man a long speech against some enormity he is about to
commit, and adjure and beseech and so forth, till he throws down the
aforesaid carbine, falls on his knees, and lets the Frederic go
quietly on his way to keep on killing his thousands after the fashion
that moved your previous indignation. Now is that right,
consequential--that is, _inferential_; logically deduced, going
straight to the end--_manly_?
The accessories are not the Principal, the adjuncts--the essence, nor
the ornamental incidents the book's self, so what matters it if the
portraits are admirable, the descriptions eloquent, (eloquent, there
it is--that is her characteristic--what she _has_ to speak, she
_speaks out_, speaks volubly _forth_, too well, inasmuch as you say,
advancing a step or two, 'And now speak as completely _here_'--and she
says nothing)--but all _that_, another could do, as others have
done--but 'la femme qui parle'--Ah, that, is _this_ all? So I am not
George Sand's--she teaches me nothing--I look to her for nothing.
I am ever yours, dearest friend. How I write to you--page on page! But
Tuesday--who could wait till then! Shall I not hear from you?