But how, 'a _foolish_ comment'? Good and true rather! And I admired
the _writing_[1] ... worthy of the reeds of Jordan!
[Footnote 1: Mr. Browning's letter is written in an unusually bold
hand.]
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, November 27, 1845.]
How are you? and Miss Bayley's visit yesterday, and Mr. K.'s
to-day--(He told me he should see you this morning--and _I_ shall pass
close by, having to be in town and near you,--but only the thought
will reach you and be with you--) tell me all this, dearest.
How kind Mr. Kenyon was last night and the day before! He neither
wonders nor is much vexed, I dare believe--and I write now these few
words to say so--My heart is set on next Thursday, remember ... and
the prize of Saturday! Oh, dearest, believe for truth's sake, that I
WOULD most frankly own to any fault, any imperfection in the beginning
of my love of you; in the pride and security of this present stage it
has reached--I _would_ gladly learn, by the full lights now, what an
insufficient glimmer it grew from, ... but there _never has been
change_, only development and increased knowledge and strengthened
feeling--I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and
become yours for ever. God bless you, and make me thankful!
And you _will_ give me _that_? What shall save me from wreck: but
truly? How must I feel to you!
Yours R.B.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, November 27, 1845.]
Now you must not blame me--you must not. To make a promise is one
thing, and to keep it, quite another: and the conclusion you see 'as
from a tower.' Suppose I had an oath in heaven somewhere ... near to
'coma Berenices,' ... never to give you what you ask for! ... would
not such an oath be stronger than a mere half promise such as I sent
you a few hours ago? Admit that it would--and that I am not to blame
for saying now ... (listen!) that I _never can_ nor _will give you
this thing_;--only that I will, if you please, exchange it for another
thing--you understand. _I_ too will avoid being 'assuming'; I will not
pretend to be generous, no, nor 'kind.' It shall be pure merchandise
or nothing at all. Therefore determine!--remembering always how our
'ars poetica,' after Horace, recommends 'dare et petere
vicissim'--which is making a clatter of pedantry to take advantage of
the noise ... because perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say this to
you, and perhaps I _am_! ... yet say it none the less.
And ... less lightly ... if you have right and reason on your side,
may I not have a little on mine too? And shall I not care, do you
think?... Think!
Then there is another reason for me, entirely mine. You have come to
me as a dream comes, as the best dreams come ... dearest--and so there
is need to me of 'a sign' to know the difference between dream and
vision--and _that_ is my completest reason, my own reason--you have
none like it; none. A ticket to know the horn-gate from the ivory, ...
ought I not to have it? Therefore send it to me before I send you
anything, and if possible by that Lewisham post which was the most
frequent bringer of your letters until these last few came, and which
reaches me at eight in the evening when all the world is at dinner and
my solitude most certain. Everything is so still then, that I have
heard the footsteps of a letter of yours ten doors off ... or more,
perhaps. Now beware of imagining from this which I say, that there is
a strict police for my correspondence ... (it is not so--) nor that I
do not like hearing from you at any and every hour: it _is_ so. Only I
would make the smoothest and sweetest of roads for ... and you
_understand_, and do not _imagine_ beyond.
_Tuesday evening._--What is written is written, ... all the above: and
it is forbidden to me to write a word of what I could write down here
... forbidden for good reasons. So I am silent on _conditions_ ...
those being ... first ... that you never do such things again ... no,
you must not and shall not.... I _will not let it be_: and secondly,
that you try to hear the unspoken words, and understand how your gift
will remain with me while _I_ remain ... they need not be said--just
as _it_ need not have been so beautiful, for that. The beauty drops
'full fathom five' into the deep thought which covers it. So I study
my Machiavelli to contrive the possibility of wearing it, without
being put to the question violently by all the curiosity of all my
brothers;--the questions 'how' ... 'what' ... 'why' ... put round and
edgeways. They are famous, some of them, for asking questions. I say
to them--'well: how many more questions?' And now ... for _me_--_have_
I said a word?--_have_ I not been obedient? And by rights and in
justice, there should have been a reproach ... if there could!
Because, friendship or more than friendship, Pisa or no Pisa, it was
unnecessary altogether from you to me ... but I have done, and you
shall not be teazed.
_Wednesday._--Only ... I persist in the view of the _other_ question.
This will not do for the '_sign_,' ... this, which, so far from being
qualified for disproving a dream, is the beautiful image of a dream in
itself ... _so_ beautiful: and with the very shut eyelids, and the
"little folding of the hands to sleep." You see at a glance it will
not do. And so--
Just as one might be interrupted while telling a fairy-tale, ... in
the midst of the "and so's" ... just _so_, I have been interrupted by
the coming in of Miss Bayley, and here she has been sitting for nearly
two hours, from twelve to two nearly, and I like her, do you know. Not
only she talks well, which was only a thing to expect, but she seems
to _feel_ ... to have great sensibility--_and_ her kindness to me ...
kindness of manner and words and expression, all together ... quite
touched me.--I did not think of her being so loveable a person. Yet it
was kind and generous, her proposition about Italy; (did I tell you
how she made it to me through Mr. Kenyon long ago--when I was a mere
stranger to her?) the proposition to go there with me herself. It was
quite a grave, earnest proposal of hers--which was one of the reasons
why I could not even _wish_ not to see her to-day. Because you see, it
was a tremendous degree of experimental generosity, to think of going
to Italy by sea with an invalid stranger, "seule _à_ seule." And she
was wholly in earnest, wholly. Is there not good in the world after
all?
Tell me how you are, for I am not at ease about you--You were not well
even yesterday, I thought. If this goes on ... but it mustn't go
on--oh, it must not. May God bless us more!
Do not fancy, in the meantime, that you stay here 'too long' for any
observation that can be made. In the first place there is nobody to
'observe'--everybody is out till seven, except the one or two who will
not observe if I tell them not. My sisters are glad when you come,
because it is a gladness of mine, ... they observe. I have a great
deal of liberty, to have so many chains; we all have, in this house:
and though the liberty has melancholy motives, it saves some daily
torment, and _I_ do not complain of it for one.
May God bless you! Do not forget me. Say how you are. What good can I
do you with all my thoughts, when you keep unwell? See!--Facts are
against fancies. As when I would not have the lamp lighted yesterday
because it seemed to make it later, and you proved directly that it
would not make it _earlier_, by getting up and going away!