_E.B.B. to R.B._
[Post-mark, October 22, 1845.]
Even at the risk of teazing you a little I must say a few words, that
there may be no misunderstanding between us--and this, before I sleep
to-night. To-day and before to-day you surprised me by your manner of
receiving my remark about your visits, for I believed I had
sufficiently made clear to you long ago how certain questions were
ordered in this house and how no exception was to be expected for my
sake or even for yours. Surely I told you this quite plainly long ago.
I only meant to say in my last letter, in the same track ... (fearing
in the case of your wishing to come oftener that you might think it
unkind in me not to seem to wish the same) ... that if you came too
often and it was _observed_, difficulties and vexations would follow
as a matter of course, and it would be wise therefore to run no risk.
That was the head and front of what I meant to say. The weekly one
visit is a thing established and may go on as long as you please--and
there is no objection to your coming twice a week _now_ and _then_ ...
if now and then merely ... if there is no habit ... do you understand?
I may be prudent in an extreme perhaps--and certainly everybody in the
house is not equally prudent!--but I did shrink from running any risk
with that calm and comfort of the winter as it seemed to come on. And
was it more than I said about the cloak? was there any newness in it?
anything to startle you? Still I do perfectly see that whether new or
old, what it _involves_ may well be unpleasant to you--and that
(however old) it may be apt to recur to your mind with a new
increasing unpleasantness. We have both been carried too far perhaps,
by late events and impulses--but it is never too late to come back to
a right place, and I for my part come back to mine, and entreat you my
dearest friend, first, _not to answer this_, and next, to weigh and
consider thoroughly 'that particular contingency' which (I tell you
plainly, I who know) the tongue of men and of angels would not modify
so as to render less full of vexations to you. Let Pisa prove the
excellent hardness of some marbles! Judge. From motives of
self-respect, you may well walk an opposite way ... _you_.... When I
told you once ... or twice ... that 'no human influence should' &c.
&c., ... I spoke for myself, quite over-looking you--and now that I
turn and see you, I am surprised that I did not see you before ...
_there_. I ask you therefore to consider 'that contingency' well--not
forgetting the other obvious evils, which the late decision about Pisa
has aggravated beyond calculation ... for as the smoke rolls off we
see the harm done by the fire. And so, and now ... is it not advisable
for you to go abroad at once ... as you always intended, you know ...
now that your book is through the press? What if you go next week? I
leave it to you. In any case _I entreat you not to answer
this_--neither let your thoughts be too hard on me for what you may
call perhaps vacillation--only that I stand excused (I do not say
justified) before my own moral sense. May God bless you. If you go, I
shall wait to see you till your return, and have letters in the
meantime. I write all this as fast as I can to have it over. What I
ask of you is, to consider alone and decide advisedly ... for both our
sakes. If it should be your choice not to make an end now, ... why I
shall understand _that_ by your not going ... or you may say '_no_' in
a word ... for I require no '_protestations_' indeed--and _you_ may
trust to _me_ ... it shall be as you choose. _You will consider my
happiness most by considering your own_ ... and that is my last word.
_Wednesday morning._--I did not say half I thought about the poems
yesterday--and their various power and beauty will be striking and
surprising to your most accustomed readers. 'St. Praxed'--'Pictor
Ignotus'--'The Ride'--'The Duchess'!--Of the new poems I like
supremely the first and last ... that 'Lost Leader' which strikes so
broadly and deep ... which nobody can ever forget--and which is worth
all the journalizing and pamphleteering in the world!--and then, the
last 'Thought' which is quite to be grudged to that place of fragments
... those grand sea-sights in the long lines. Should not these
fragments be severed otherwise than by numbers? The last stanza but
one of the 'Lost Mistress' seemed obscure to me. Is it so really? The
end you have put to 'England in Italy' gives unity to the whole ...
just what the poem wanted. Also you have given some nobler lines to
the middle than met me there before. 'The Duchess' appears to me more
than ever a new-minted golden coin--the rhythm of it answering to your
own description, 'Speech half asleep, or song half awake?' You have
right of trove to these novel effects of rhythm. Now if people do not
cry out about these poems, what are we to think of the world?
May God bless you always--send me the next proof _in any case_.