Sir Moses set off this morning, I hear--somebody yesterday called the
telescope an 'optical delusion,' anticipating many more of the kind!
So much for this 'wandering Jew.'
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Evening.
[Post-mark, March 3, 1846.]
Upon the whole, I think, I am glad when you are kept in town and
prevented from writing what you call 'much' to me. Because in the
first place, the little from _you_, is always much to _me_--and then,
besides, _the letter comes_, and with it the promise of another! Two
letters have I had from you to-day, ever dearest! How I thank
you!--yes, _indeed_! It was like yourself to write yesterday ... to
remember what a great gap there would have been otherwise, as it
looked on this side--here. The worst of Saturday is (when you come on
it) that Sunday follows--Saturday night bringing no letter. Well, it
was very good of you, best of you!
For the 'analyzing' I give it up willingly, only that I must say what
altogether I forgot to say in my last letter, that it was not _I_, if
you please, who spoke of the chrystals breaking away! And you, to
quote me with that certainty! "The chrystals are broken off," _you
say_.' _I_ say!! When it was in your letter, and not at all in mine!!
The truth is that I was stupid, rather, about the Dulwich
collection--it was my fault. I caught up the idea of the gallery out
of a heap of other thoughts, and really might have known better if I
had given myself a chance, by considering.
Mr. Kenyon came to-day, and has taken out a licence, it seems to me,
for praising you, for he praised and praised. Somebody has told him
(who had spent several days with you in a house with a large library)
that he came away 'quite astounded by the versatility of your
learning'--and that, to complete the circle, you discoursed as
scientifically on the training of greyhounds and breeding of ducks as
if you had never done anything else all your life. Then dear Mr.
Kenyon talked of the poems; and hoped, very earnestly I am sure, that
you would finish 'Saul'--which you ought to do, must do--_only not
now_. By the way Mrs. Coleridge had written to him to enquire whether
you had authority for the 'blue lilies,' rather than white. Then he
asked about 'Luria' and 'whether it was obscure'; and I said, not
unless the people, who considered it, began by blindfolding
themselves.
And where do you think Mr. Kenyon talks of going next February--a long
while off to be sure? To Italy of course. Everybody I ever heard of
seems to be going to Italy next winter. He visits his brother at
Vienna, and 'may cross the Alps and get to Pisa'--it is the shadow of
a scheme--nothing certain, so far.
I did not go down-stairs to-day because the wind blew and the
thermometer fell. To-morrow, perhaps I may. And _you_, dearest
dearest, might have put into the letters how you were when you wrote
them. You might--but you did not feel well and would not say so.
Confess that that was the reason. Reason or no reason, mention
yourself to-morrow, and for the rest, do not write a long letter so as
to increase the evil. There was nothing which I can remember as
requiring an answer in what I wrote to you, and though I _will_ have
my letter of course, it shall be as brief as possible, if briefness is
good for you--_now always remember that_. Why if I, who talk against
'Luria,' should work the mischief myself, what should I deserve? I
should be my own jury directly and not recommend to mercy ... not to
mine. Do take care--care for _me_ just so much.
And, except that taking care of your health, what would you do for me
that you have not done? You have given me the best of the possible
gifts of one human soul to another, you have made my life new, and am
I to count these things as small and insufficient? Ah, you _know_, you
_know_ that I cannot, ought not, will not.
May God bless you. He blesses me in letting me be grateful to you as
your Ba.
_R.B. to E.B.B._
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, March 3, 1846.]
First and most important of all,--dearest, 'angry'--with you, and for
_that_! It is just as if I had spoken contemptuously of that Gallery I
so love and so am grateful to--having been used to go there when a
child, far under the age allowed by the regulations--those two Guidos,
the wonderful Rembrandt of Jacob's vision, such a Watteau, the
triumphant three Murillo pictures, a Giorgione music-lesson group,
all the Poussins with the 'Armida' and 'Jupiter's nursing'--and--no
end to 'ands'--I have sate before one, some _one_ of those pictures I
had predetermined to see, a good hour and then gone away ... it used
to be a green half-hour's walk over the fields. So much for one error,
now for the second like unto it; what I meant by charging you with
_seeing_, (not, _not_ '_looking_ for')--_seeing_ undue 'security' in
_that_, in the form,--I meant to say 'you talk about me being 'free'
now, free till _then_, and I am rather jealous of the potency
attributed to the _form_, with all its solemnity, because it _is_ a
form, and no more--yet you frankly agree with me that _that_ form
complied with, there is no redemption; yours I am _then_ sure enough,
to repent at leisure &c. &c.' So I meant to ask, 'then, all _now_
said, all short of that particular form of saying it, all goes for
comparatively nothing'? Here it is written down--you 'wish to
_suspend_ all decisions as long as possible'--_that_ form effects the
decision, then,--till then, 'where am I'? Which is just what Lord
Chesterfield cautions people against asking when they tell stories.
Love, Ba, my own heart's dearest, if all is _not_ decided
_now_--why--hear a story, à propos of storytelling, and deduce what is
deducible. A very old Unitarian minister met a still older evangelical
brother--John Clayton (from whose son's mouth I heard what you shall
hear)--the two fell to argument about the true faith to be held--after
words enough, 'Well,' said the Unitarian, as winding up the
controversy with an amicable smile--'at least let us hope we are both
engaged in the _pursuit_ of Truth!'--'_Pursuit_ do you say?' cried the
other, 'here am I with my years eighty and odd--if I haven't _found_
Truth by this time where is my chance, pray?' My own Ba, if I have not
already _decided_, alas for me and the solemn words that are to help!
Though in another point of view there would be some luxurious feeling,
beyond the ordinary, in knowing one was kept safe to one's heart's
good by yet another wall than the hitherto recognised ones. Is there
any parallel in the notion I once heard a man deliver himself of in
the street--a labourer talking with his friends about '_wishes_'--and
this one wished, if he might get his wish, 'to have a nine gallon cask
of strong ale set running that minute and his own mouth to be _tied_
under it'--the exquisiteness of the delight was to be in the security
upon security,--the being 'tied.' Now, Ba says I shall not be
'chained' if she can help!
But now--here all the jesting goes. You tell me what was observed in
the 'moment's' visit; by you, and (after, I suppose) by your sisters.
First, I _will_ always see with your eyes _there_--next, what I see I
will _never_ speak, if it pain you; but just this much truth I ought
to say, I think. I always give myself to you for the worst I am,--full
of faults as you will find, if you have not found them. But I _will_
not affect to be so bad, so wicked, as I count wickedness, as to call
that conduct other than intolerable--_there_, in my conviction of
_that_, is your real 'security' and mine for the future as the
present. That a father choosing to give out of his whole day some five
minutes to a daughter, supposed to be prevented from participating in
what he, probably, in common with the whole world of sensible men, as
distinguished from poets and dreamers, consider _every_ pleasure of
life, by a complete foregoing of society--that he, after the Pisa
business and the enforced continuance, and as he must believe,
permanence of this state in which any other human being would go
mad--I do dare say, for the justification of God, who gave the mind to
be _used_ in this world,--where it saves us, we are taught, or
destroys us,--and not to be sunk quietly, overlooked, and forgotten;
that, under these circumstances, finding ... what, you say, unless he
thinks he _does_ find, he would close the door of his house instantly;
a mere sympathizing man, of the same literary tastes, who comes
good-naturedly, on a proper and unexceptionable introduction, to chat
with and amuse a little that invalid daughter, once a month, so far as
is known, for an hour perhaps,--that such a father should show
himself '_not pleased_ plainly,' at such a circumstance ... my Ba, it
is SHOCKING! See, I go _wholly_ on the supposition that the real
relation is not imagined to exist between us. I so completely could
understand a repugnance to trust you to me were the truth known, that,
I will confess, I have several times been afraid the very reverse of
this occurrence would befall; that your father would have at some time
or other thought himself obliged, by the usual feeling of people in
such cases, to see me for a few minutes and express some commonplace
thanks after the customary mode (just as Capt. Domett sent a heap of
unnecessary thanks to me not long ago for sending now a letter now a
book to his son in New Zealand--keeping up the spirits of poor dear
Alfred now he is cut off from the world at large)--and if _this_ had
been done, I shall not deny that my heart would have accused
me--unreasonably I _know_ but still, suppression, and reserve, and
apprehension--the whole of _that is_ horrible always! But this way of
looking on the endeavour of anybody, however humble, to just preserve
your life, remedy in some degree the first, if it _was_ the first,
unjustifiable measure,--this being 'displeased'--is exactly what I did
_not_ calculate upon. Observe, that in this _only_ instance I am able
to do as I shall be done by; to take up the arms furnished by the
world, the usages of society--this is monstrous on the _world's_
showing! I say this now that I may never need recur to it--that you
may understand why I keep _such_ entire silence henceforth.
Get but well, keep but _as_ well, and all is easy now. This wonderful
winter--the spring--the summer--you will take exercise, go up and down
stairs, get strong. _I pray you, at your feet, to do this, dearest!_
Then comes Autumn, with the natural expectations, as after _rouge_ one
expects _noir_: the _likelihood_ of a _severe_ winter after this mild
one, which to prevent, you reiterate your demand to go and save your
life in Italy, ought you not to do that? And the matters brought to
issue, (with even, if possible, less shadow of ground for a refusal
than before, if you are _well_, plainly well enough to bear the
voyage) _there_ I _will_ bid you 'be mine in the obvious way'--if you
shall preserve your belief in me--and you _may_ in much, in all
important to you. Mr. Kenyon's praise is undeserved enough, but
yesterday Milnes said I was the only literary man he ever knew, _tenax
propositi_, able to make out a life for himself and abide in
it--'for,' he went on, 'you really do live without any of this
_titillation_ and fussy dependence upon adventitious excitement of all
kinds, they all say they can do without.' That is _more_ true--and I
_intend_ by God's help to live wholly for you; to spend my whole
energies in reducing to practice the feeling which occupies me, and in
the practical operation of which, the other work I had proposed to do
will be found included, facilitated--I shall be able--but of this
there is plenty time to speak hereafter--I shall, I believe, be able
to do this without even allowing the world to _very much_
misinterpret--against pure lying there is no defence, but all up to
that I hope to hinder or render unimportant--as you shall know in time
and place.
I have written myself grave, but write to _me_, dear, dearest, and I
will answer in a lighter mood--even now I can say how it was
yesterday's hurry happened. I called on Milnes--who told me Hanmer had
broken a bone in his leg and was laid up, so I called on him too--on
Moxon, by the way, (his brother telling me strangely cheering news,
from the grimmest of faces, about my books selling and likely to sell
... your wishes, Ba!)--then in Bond Street about some business with
somebody, then on Mrs. Montagu who was out walking all the time, and
home too. I found a letter from Mr. Kenyon, perfectly kind, asking me
to go on Monday to meet friends, and with yours to-day comes another
confirming the choice of the day. How entirely kind he is!
I am very well, much better, indeed--taking that bath with sensibly
good effect, to-night I go to Montagu's again; for shame, having kept
away too long.
And the rest shall answer _yours_--dear! Not 'much to answer?' And
Beethoven, and Painting and--what _is_ the rest and shall be answered!
Bless you, now, my darling--I love you, ever shall love you, ever be
your own.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, March 4, 1846.]
Yes, but, dearest, you mistake me, or you mistake yourself. I am sure
I do not over-care for forms--it is not my way to do it--and in this
case ... no. Still you must see that here is a fact as well as a form,
and involving a frightful quantity of social inconvenience (to use the
mildest word) if too hastily entered on. I deny altogether looking
for, or 'seeing' any 'security' in it for myself--it is a mere form
for the heart and the happiness: illusions may pass after as before.
Still the truth is that if they were to pass with you now, you stand
free to act according to the wide-awakeness of your eyes, and to
reform your choice ... see! whereas afterward you could not carry out
such a reformation while I was alive, even if I helped you. All I
could do for you would be to walk away. And you pretend not to see
this broad distinction?--ah. For me I have seen just this and no more,
and have felt averse to forestall, to seem to forestall even by an
hour, or a word, that stringency of the legal obligation from which
there _is_ in a certain sense no redemption. Tie up your drinker under
the pour of his nine gallons, and in two minutes he will moan and
writhe (as you perfectly know) like a Brinvilliers under the
water-torture. That he _asked_ to be tied up, was unwise on his own
principle of loving ale. And _you_ sha'n't be 'chained' up, if you
were to ask twenty times: if you have found truth or not in the
water-well.
You do not see aright what I meant to tell you on another subject. If
he was displeased, (and it was expressed by a shadow a mere negation
of pleasure) it was not with you as a visitor and my friend. You must
not fancy such a thing. It was a sort of instinctive indisposition
towards seeing you here--unexplained to himself, I have no doubt--of
course unexplained, or he would have desired me to receive you never
again, _that_ would have been done at once and unscrupulously. But
without defining his own feeling, he rather disliked seeing you
here--it just touched one of his vibratory wires, brushed by and
touched it--oh, we understand in this house. He is not a nice
observer, but, at intervals very wide, he is subject to
lightnings--call them fancies, sometimes right, sometimes wrong.
Certainly it was not in the character of a 'sympathising friend' that
you made him a very little cross on Monday. And yet you never were nor
will be in danger of being _thanked_, he would not think of it. For
the reserve, the apprehension--dreadful those things are, and
desecrating to one's own nature--but we did not make this position, we
only endure it. The root of the evil is the miserable misconception of
the limits and character of parental rights--it is a mistake of the
intellect rather than of the heart. Then, after using one's children
as one's chattels for a time, the children drop lower and lower toward
the level of the chattels, and the duties of human sympathy to them
become difficult in proportion. And (it seems strange to say it, yet
it is true) _love_, he does not conceive of at all. He has feeling, he
can be moved deeply, he is capable of affection in a peculiar way, but
_that_, he does not understand, any more than he understands Chaldee,
respecting it less of course.
And you fancy that I could propose Italy again? after saying too that
I never would? Oh no, no--yet there is time to think of this, a
superfluity of time, ... 'time, times and half a time' and to make
one's head swim with leaning over a precipice is not wise. The roar
of the world comes up too, as you hear and as I heard from the
beginning. There will be no lack of 'lying,' be sure--'pure lying'
too--and nothing you can do, dearest dearest, shall hinder my being
torn to pieces by most of the particularly affectionate friends I have
in the world. Which I do not think of much, any more than of Italy.
You will be mad, and I shall be bad ... and _that_ will be the effect
of being poets! 'Till when, where are you?'--why in the very deepest
of my soul--wherever in it is the fountain head of loving! beloved,
_there_ you are!
Some day I shall ask you 'in form,'--as I care so much for forms, it
seems,--what your 'faults' are, these immense multitudinous faults of
yours, which I hear such talk of, and never, never, can get to see.
Will you give me a catalogue raisonnée of your faults? I should like
it, I think. In the meantime they seem to be faults of obscurity, that
is, invisible faults, like those in the poetry which do not keep it
from selling as I am _so, so_ glad to understand. I am glad too that
Mr. Milnes knows you a little.
Now I must end, there is no more time to-night. God bless you, very
dearest! Keep better ... try to be well--as _I_ do for you since you
ask me. Did I ever think that _you_ would think it worth while to ask
me _that_? What a dream! reaching out into the morning! To-day however
I did not go down-stairs, because it was colder and the wind blew its
way into the passages:--if I can to-morrow without risk, I will, ...
be sure ... be sure. Till Thursday then!--till eternity!
'Till when, where am I,' but with you? and what, but yours