--Your own R.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Morning.
[Post-mark, January 17, 1846.]
Our letters have crossed; and, mine being the longest, I have a right
to expect another directly, I think. I have been calculating: and it
seems to me--now what I am going to say may take its place among the
paradoxes,--that I gain most by the short letters. Last week the only
long one came last, and I was quite contented that the 'old friend'
should come to see you on Saturday and make you send me two instead of
the single one I looked for: it was a clear gain, the little short
note, and the letter arrived all the same. I remember, when I was a
child, liking to have two shillings and sixpence better than half a
crown--and now it is the same with this fairy money, which will never
turn all into pebbles, or beans, whatever the chronicles may say of
precedents.
Arabel did tell Mr. Kenyon (she told me) that 'Mr. Browning would soon
go away'--in reply to an observation of his, that 'he would not stay
as I had company'; and altogether it was better,--the lamp made it
look late. But you do not appear in the least remorseful for being
tempted of my black devil, my familiar, to ask such questions and
leave me under such an impression--'mens conscia recti' too!!--
And Mr. Kenyon will not come until next Monday perhaps. How am I? But
I am too well to be asked about. Is it not a warm summer? The weather
is as 'miraculous' as the rest, I think. It is you who are unwell and
make people uneasy, dearest. Say how you are, and promise me to do
what is right and try to be better. The walking, the changing of the
air, the leaving off Luria ... do what is right, I earnestly beseech
you. The other day, I heard of Tennyson being ill again, ... too ill
to write a simple note to his friend Mr. Venables, who told George. A
little more than a year ago, it would have been no worse a thing to me
to hear of your being ill than to hear of his being ill!--How the
world has changed since then! To _me_, I mean.
Did I say _that_ ever ... that 'I knew you must be tired?' And it was
not even so true as that the coming event threw its shadow before?
_Thursday night._--I have begun on another sheet--I could not write
here what was in my heart--yet I send you this paper besides to show
how I was writing to you this morning. In the midst of it came a
female friend of mine and broke the thread--the visible thread, that
is.
And now, even now, at this safe eight o'clock, I could not be safe
from somebody, who, in her goodnature and my illfortune, must come and
sit by me--and when my letter was come--'why wouldn't I read it? What
wonderful politeness on my part.' She would not and could not consent
to keep me from reading my letter. She would stand up by the fire
rather.
No, no, three times no. Brummel got into the carriage before the
Regent, ... (didn't he?) but I persisted in not reading my letter in
the presence of my friend. A notice on my punctiliousness may be put
down to-night in her 'private diary.' I kept the letter in my hand and
only read it with those sapient ends of the fingers which the
mesmerists make so much ado about, and which really did seem to touch
a little of what was inside. Not _all_, however, happily for me! Or my
friend would have seen in my eyes what _they_ did not see.
May God bless you! Did I ever say that I had an objection to read the
verses at six years old--or see the drawings either? I am reasonable,
you observe! Only, 'Pauline,' I must have _some day_--why not without
the emendations? But if you insist on them, I will agree to wait a
little--if you promise _at last_ to let me see the book, which I will
not show. Some day, then! you shall not be vexed nor hurried for the
day--some day. Am I not generous? And _I_ was 'precocious' too, and
used to make rhymes over my bread and milk when I was nearly a baby
... only really it was mere echo-verse, that of mine, and had nothing
of mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. I
used to write of virtue with a large 'V,' and 'Oh Muse' with a harp,
and things of that sort. At nine years old I wrote what I called 'an
epic'--and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which we
used to act in the nursery. There was a French 'hexameter' tragedy on
the subject of Regulus--but I cannot even smile to think of it now,
there are so many grave memories--which time has made grave--hung
around it. How I remember sitting in 'my house under the sideboard,'
in the dining-room, concocting one of the soliloquies beginning
Que suis je? autrefois un général Remain:
Maintenant esclave de Carthage je souffre en vain.
Poor Regulus!--Can't you conceive how fine it must have been
altogether? And these were my 'maturer works,' you are to understand,
... and 'the moon was bright at ten o'clock at night' years before. As
to the gods and goddesses, I believed in them all quite seriously, and
reconciled them to Christianity, which I believed in too after a
fashion, as some greater philosophers have done--and went out one day
with my pinafore full of little sticks (and a match from the
housemaid's cupboard) to sacrifice to the blue-eyed Minerva who was my
favourite goddess on the whole because she cared for Athens. As soon
as I began to doubt about my goddesses, I fell into a vague sort of
general scepticism, ... and though I went on saying 'the Lord's
prayer' at nights and mornings, and the 'Bless all my kind friends'
afterwards, by the childish custom ... yet I ended this liturgy with a
supplication which I found in 'King's Memoirs' and which took my fancy
and met my general views exactly.... 'O God, if there be a God, save
my soul if I have a soul.' Perhaps the theology of many thoughtful
children is scarcely more orthodox than this: but indeed it is
wonderful to myself sometimes how I came to escape, on the whole, as
well as I have done, considering the commonplaces of education in
which I was set, with strength and opportunity for breaking the bonds
all round into liberty and license. Papa used to say ... 'Don't read
Gibbon's history--it's not a proper book. Don't read "Tom Jones"--and
none of the books on _this_ side, mind!' So I was very obedient and
never touched the books on _that_ side, and only read instead Tom
Paine's 'Age of Reason,' and Voltaire's 'Philosophical Dictionary,'
and Hume's 'Essays,' and Werther, and Rousseau, and Mary
Wollstonecraft ... books, which I was never suspected of looking
towards, and which were not 'on _that_ side' certainly, but which did
as well.
How I am writing!--And what are the questions you did not answer? I
shall remember them by the answers I suppose--but your letters always
have a fulness to me and I never seem to wish for what is not in them.
But this is the end _indeed_.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Thursday Night.
[In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]
Ever dearest--how you can write touching things to me; and how my
whole being vibrates, as a string, to these! How have I deserved from
God and you all that I thank you for? Too unworthy I am of all! Only,
it was not, dearest beloved, what you feared, that was 'horrible,' it
was what you _supposed_, rather! It was a mistake of yours. And now we
will not talk of it any more.
_Friday morning._--For the rest, I will think as you desire: but I
have thought a great deal, and there are certainties which I know; and
I hope we _both_ are aware that nothing can be more hopeless than our
position in some relations and aspects, though you do not guess
perhaps that the very approach to the subject is shut up by dangers,
and that from the moment of a suspicion entering _one_ mind, we should
be able to meet never again in this room, nor to have intercourse by
letter through the ordinary channel. I mean, that letters of yours,
addressed to me here, would infallibly be stopped and destroyed--if
not opened. Therefore it is advisable to hurry on nothing--on these
grounds it is advisable. What should I do if I did not see you nor
hear from you, without being able to feel that it was for your
happiness? What should I do for a month even? And then, I might be
thrown out of the window or its equivalent--I look back shuddering to
the dreadful scenes in which poor Henrietta was involved who never
offended as I have offended ... years ago which seem as present as
to-day. She had forbidden the subject to be referred to until that
consent was obtained--and at a word she gave up all--at a word. In
fact she had no true attachment, as I observed to Arabel at the
time--a child never submitted more meekly to a revoked holiday. Yet
how she was made to suffer. Oh, the dreadful scenes! and only because
she had seemed to feel a little. I told you, I think, that there was
an obliquity--an eccentricity, or something beyond--on one class of
subjects. I hear how her knees were made to ring upon the floor, now!
she was carried out of the room in strong hysterics, and I, who rose
up to follow her, though I was quite well at that time and suffered
only by sympathy, fell flat down upon my face in a fainting-fit.
Arabel thought I was dead.
I have tried to forget it all--but now I must remember--and throughout
our intercourse _I have remembered_. It is necessary to remember so
much as to avoid such evils as are inevitable, and for this reason I
would conceal nothing from you. Do _you_ remember, besides, that there
can be no faltering on my 'part,' and that, if I should remain well,
which is not proved yet, I will do for you what you please and as you
please to have it done. But there is time for considering!
Only ... as you speak of 'counsel,' I will take courage to tell you
that my _sisters know_, Arabel is in most of my confidences, and being
often in the room with me, taxed me with the truth long ago--she saw
that I was affected from some cause--and I told her. We are as safe
with both of them as possible ... and they thoroughly understand that
_if there should be any change it would not be your fault_.... I made
them understand that thoroughly. From themselves I have received
nothing but the most smiling words of kindness and satisfaction (I
thought I might tell you so much), they have too much tenderness for
me to fail in it now. My brothers, it is quite necessary not to draw
into a dangerous responsibility. I have felt that from the beginning,
and shall continue to feel it--though I hear and can observe that they
are full of suspicions and conjectures, which are never unkindly
expressed. I told you once that we held hands the faster in this house
for the weight over our heads. But the absolute _knowledge_ would be
dangerous for my brothers: with my sisters it is different, and I
could not continue to conceal from _them_ what they had under their
eyes; and then, Henrietta is in a like position. It was not wrong of
me to let them know it?--no?
Yet of what consequence is all this to the other side of the question?
What, if _you_ should give pain and disappointment where you owe such
pure gratitude. But we need not talk of these things now. Only you
have more to consider than _I_, I imagine, while the future comes on.
Dearest, let me have my way in one thing: let me see you on _Tuesday_
instead of on Monday--on Tuesday at the old hour. Be reasonable and
consider. Tuesday is almost as near as the day before it; and on
Monday, I shall be hurried at first, lest Papa should be still in the
house, (no harm, but an excuse for nervousness: and I can't quote a
noble Roman as you can, to the praise of my conscience!) and _you_
will be hurried at last, lest you should not be in time for Mr.
Forster. On the other hand, I will not let you be rude to the _Daily
News_, ... no, nor to the _Examiner_. Come on Tuesday, then, instead
of Monday, and let us have the usual hours in a peaceable way,--and if
there is no obstacle,--that is, if Mr. Kenyon or some equivalent
authority should not take note of your being here on Tuesday, why you
can come again on the Saturday afterwards--I do not see the
difficulty. Are we agreed? On Tuesday, at three o'clock. Consider,
besides, that the Monday arrangement would hurry you in every manner,
and leave you fagged for the evening--no, I will not hear of it. Not
on my account, not on yours!
Think of me on Monday instead, and write before. Are not these two
lawful letters? And do not they deserve an answer?
My life was ended when I knew you, and if I survive myself it is for
your sake:--_that_ resumes all my feelings and intentions in respect
to you. No 'counsel' could make the difference of a grain of dust in
the balance. It _is so_, and not otherwise. If you changed towards me,
it would be better for you I believe--and I should be only where I was
before. While you do _not_ change, I look to you for my first
affections and my first duty--and nothing but your bidding me, could
make me look away.
In the midst of this, Mr. Kenyon came and I felt as if I could not
talk to him. No--he does not 'see how it is.' He may have passing
thoughts sometimes, but they do not stay long enough to produce--even
an opinion. He asked if you had been here long.
It may be wrong and ungrateful, but I do wish sometimes that the world
were away--even the good Kenyon-aspect of the world.
And so, once more--may God bless you!