Month: October 2017

Friday.

October 17, 1845.

Do tell me what you mean precisely by your ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ title. I have always understood it to refer to the Hebraic priestly garment — Continue reading “#132”

Wednesday.

October 16, 1845.

Your letter which should have reached me in the morning of yesterday, I did not receive until nearly midnight — partly through the eccentricity of our new postman whose good pleasure it is to make use of the letter-box without knocking; and partly from the confusion in the house, of illness in different ways  . . . the very servants being ill,  . . . one of them breaking a blood-vessel — for there is no new case of fever;  . . . and for dear Occy, he grows better slowly day by day. And just so late last night, five letters were found in the letter-box, and mine  . . . yours  . . . among them — which accounts for my beginning to answer it only now.

What am I to say but this  . . . that I know what you are  . . . and that I know also what you are to me, — and that I should accept that knowledge as more than sufficient recompense for worse vexations than these late ones. Therefore let no more be said of them: and no more need be said, even if they were not likely to prove their own end good, as I believe with you. You may be quite sure that I shall be well this winter, if in any way it should be possible, and that I will not be beaten down, if the will can do anything. I admire how, if all had happened so but a year ago, (yet it could not have happened quite so!), I should certainly have been beaten down — and how it is different now,  . . . and how it is only gratitude to you, to say that it is different now. My cage is not worse but better since you brought the green groundsel to it — and to dash oneself against the wires of it will not open the door. We shall see  . . . and God will oversee. And in the meantime you will not talk of extravagances; and then nobody need hold up the hand — because, as I said and say, I am yours, your own — only not to hurt you. So now let us talk of the first of November and of the poems which are to come out then, and of the poems which are to come after then — and of the new avatar of ‘Sordello,’ for instance, which you taught me to look for. And let us both be busy and cheerful — and you will come and see me throughout the winter,  . . . if you do not decide rather on going abroad, which may be better  . . . better for your health’s sake? — in which case I shall have your letters.

And here is another  . . . just arrived. How I thank you. Think of the Times! Still it was very well of them to recognise your principality. Oh yes — do let me see the proof — I understand too about the ‘making and spoiling.’

Almost you forced me to smile by thinking it worth while to say that you are ‘not selfish.’ Did Sir Percival say so to Sir Gawaine across the Round Table, in those times of chivalry to which you belong by the soul? Certainly you are not selfish! May God bless you.

Ever your

E.B.B.

The fever may last, they say, for a week longer, or even a fortnight — but it decreases. Yet he is hot still, and very weak.

To to-morrow!

 

October 15, 1845.

Thanks, my dearest, for the good news  – – of the fever’s abatement  – – it is good, too, that you write cheerfully, on the whole: what is it to me that you write is of me  . . . I shall never say that! Mr. Kenyon is all kindness, and one gets to take it as not so purely natural a thing, the showing kindness to those it concerns, and belongs to,  – – well! On Thursday, then,  – – to-morrow! Did you not get a note of mine, a hurried note, which was meant for yesterday-afternoon’s delivery?

Mr. Forster came yesterday and was very profuse of graciosities: he may have, or must have meant well, so we will go on again with the friendship, as the snail repairs his battered shell.

My poems went duly to press on Monday night  – – there is not much correctable in them,  – – you make, or you spoil, one of these things; that is, I do. I have adopted all your emendations, and thrown in lines and words, just a morning’s business; but one does not write plays so. You may like some of my smaller things, which stop interstices, better than what you have seen; I shall wonder to know. I am to receive a proof at the end of the week  – – will you help me and over-look it. (‘Yes’  – – she says  . . . my thanks I do not say!  – – )

While writing this, the Times catches my eye (it just came in) and something from the Lancet is extracted, a long article against quackery  – – and, as I say, this is the first and only sentence I read  – – ‘There is scarcely a peer of the realm who is not the patron of some quack pill or potion: and the literati too, are deeply tainted. We have heard of barbarians who threw quacks and their medicines into the sea: but here in England we have Browning, a prince of poets, touching the pitch which defiles and making Paracelsus the hero of a poem. Sir E.L. Bulwer writes puffs for the water doctors in a style worthy of imitation by the scribe that does the poetical for Moses and Son. Miss Martineau makes a finessing servant girl her physician-general: and Richard Howitt and the Lady aforesaid stand God-father and mother to the contemptible mesmeric vagaries of Spencer Hall.’  – – Even the sweet incense to me fails of its effect if Paracelsus is to figure on a level with Priessnitz, and ‘Jane’!

What weather, now at last! Think for yourself and for me  – – could you not go out on such days?

I am quite well now  – – cold, over and gone. Did I tell you my Uncle arrived from Paris on Monday, as they hoped he would  – – so my travel would have been to great purpose!

Bless my dearest  – – my own!

R.B.

 

Tuesday,

October 15, 1845.

Will this note reach you at the ‘fatal hour’  . . . or sooner? At any rate it is forced to ask you to take Thursday for Wednesday, inasmuch as Mr. Kenyon in his exceeding kindness has put off his journey just for me, he says, because he saw me depressed about the decision, and wished to come and see me again to-morrow and talk the spirits up, I suppose. It is all so kind and good, that I cannot find a voice to grumble about the obligation it brings of writing thus. And then, if you suffer from cold and influenza, it will be better for you not to come for another day,  . . . I think that, for comfort. Shall I hear how you are to-night, I wonder? Dear Occy ‘turned the corner,’ the physician said, yesterday evening, and, although a little fluctuating to-day, remains on the whole considerably better. They were just in time to keep the fever from turning to typhus.

How fast you print your book, for it is to be out on the first of November! Why it comes out suddenly like the sun. Mr. Kenyon asked me if I had seen anything you were going to print; and when I mentioned the second part of the ‘Duchess’ and described how your perfect rhymes, perfectly new, and all clashing together as by natural attraction, had put me at once to shame and admiration, he began to praise the first part of the same poem (which I had heard him do before, by the way) and extolled it as one of your most striking productions.

And so until Thursday! May God bless you —

and as the heart goes, ever yours.

I am glad for Tennyson, and glad for Keats. It is well to be able to be glad about something — is is it not? about something out of ourselves. And (in myself) I shall be most glad, if I have a letter to-night. Shall I?

 

Tuesday Morning,

October 14, 1845.

Be sure, my own, dearest love, that this is for the best; will be seen for the best in the end. It is hard to bear now  – – but you have to bear it; any other person could not, and you will, I know, knowing you  – – will be well this one winter if you can, and then  – – since I am not selfish in this love to you, my own conscience tells me,  – – I desire, more earnestly than I ever knew what desiring was, to be yours and with you and, as far as may be in this life and world, you  – – and no hindrance to that, but one, gives me a moment’s care or fear; but that one is just your little hand, as I could fancy it raised in any least interest of yours  – – and before that, I am, and would ever be, still silent. But now  – – what is to make you raise that hand? I will not speak now; not seem to take advantage of your present feelings,  – – we will be rational, and all-considering and weighing consequences, and foreseeing them  – – but first I will prove  . . . if that has to be done, why  – – but I begin speaking, and I should not, I know.

Bless you, love!

R.B.

To-morrow I see you, without fail. I am rejoiced as you can imagine, at your brother’s improved state.

 

Saturday.

October 14, 1845.

It was the merest foolishness in me to write about fevers and the rest as I did to-day, just as if it could do any good, all the wringing of hands in the world. And there is no typhus yet  . . . and no danger of any sort I hope and trust! — and how weak it is that habit of spreading the cloud which is in you all around you, how weak and selfish  . . . and unlike what you would do  . . . just as you are unlike Mr. Kenyon. And you are unlike him — and you were right on Thursday when you said so, and I was wrong in setting up a phrase on the other side  . . . only what I said came by an instinct because you seemed to be giving him all the sunshine to use and carry, which should not be after all. But you are unlike him and must be  . . . seeing that the producers must differ from the ‘nati consumere fruges’ in the intellectual as in the material. You create and he enjoys, and the work makes you pale and the pleasure makes him ruddy, and it is so of a necessity. So differs the man of genius from the man of letters — and then dear Mr. Kenyon is not even a man of letters in a full sense  . . . he is rather a Sybarite of letters. Do you think he ever knew what mental labour is? I fancy not. Not more than he has known what mental inspiration is! And not more than he has known what the strife of the heart is  . . . with all his tenderness and sensibility. He seems to me to evade pain, and where he suffers at all to do so rather negatively than positively  . . . if you understand what I mean by that  . . . rather by a want than by a blow: the secret of all being that he has a certain latitudinarianism (not indifferentism) in his life and affections, and has no capacity for concentration and intensity. Partly by temperament and partly by philosophy he contrives to keep the sunny side of the street — though never inclined to forget the blind man at the corner. Ah, dear Mr. Kenyon: he is magnanimous in toleration, and excellent in sympathy — and he has the love of beauty and the reverence of genius — but the faculty of worship he has not: he will not worship aright either your heroes or your gods  . . . and while you do it he only ‘tolerates’ the act in you. Once he said  . . . not to me  . . . but I heard of it: ‘What, if genius should be nothing but scrofula?’ and he doubts (I very much fear) whether the world is not governed by a throw of those very same ‘loaded dice,’ and no otherwise. Yet he reveres genius in the acting of it, and recognizes a God in creation — only it is but ‘so far,’ and not farther. At least I think not — and I have a right to think what I please of him, holding him as I do, in such true affection. One of the kindest and most indulgent of human beings has he been to me, and I am happy to be grateful to him.

Sunday. — The Duke of Palmella takes the whole vessel for the 20th and therefore if I go it must be on the 17th. Therefore (besides) as George must be on sessions to-morrow, he will settle the question with Papa to-night. In the meantime our poor Occy is not much better, though a little, and is ordered leeches on his head, and is confined to his bed and attended by physician and surgeon. It is not decided typhus, but they will not answer for its not being infectious; and although he is quite at the top of the house, two stories above me, I shall not like you to come indeed. And then there will be only room for a farewell, and I who am a coward shrink from the saying of it. No — not being able to see you to-morrow, (Mr. Kenyon is to be here to-morrow, he says) let us agree to throw away Wednesday. I will write,  . . . you will write perhaps — and above all things you will promise to write by the ‘Star’ on Monday, that the captain may give me your letter at Gibraltar. You promise? But I shall hear from you before then, and oftener than once, and you will acquiesce about Wednesday and grant at once that there can be no gain, no good, in that miserable good-bye-ing. I do not want the pain of it to remember you by — I shall remember very well without it, be sure. Still it shall be as you like — as you shall chose — and if you are disappointed about Wednesday (if it is not vain in me to talk of disappointments) why do with Wednesday as you think best  . . . always understanding that there’s no risk of infection.

Monday. — All this I had written yesterday — and to-day it all is worse than vain. Do not be angry with me — do not think it my fault — but I do not go to Italy  . . . it has ended as I feared. What passed between George and Papa there is no need of telling: only the latter said that I ‘might go if I pleased, but that going it would be under his heaviest displeasure.’ George, in great indignation, pressed the question fully: but all was vain  . . . and I am left in this position  . . . to go, if I please, with his displeasure over me, (which after what you have said and after what Mr. Kenyon has said, and after what my own conscience and deepest moral convictions say aloud, I would unhesitatingly do at this hour!) and necessarily run the risk of exposing my sister and brother to that same displeasure  . . . from which risk I shrink and fall back and feel that to incur it, is impossible. Dear Mr. Kenyon has been here and we have been talking — and he sees what I see  . . . that I am justified in going myself, but not in bringing others into difficulty. The very kindness and goodness with which they desire me (both my sisters) ‘not to think of them,’ naturally makes me think more of them. And so, tell me that I am not wrong in taking up my chain again and acquiescing in this hard necessity. The bitterest ‘fact’ of all is, that I had believed Papa to have loved me more than he obviously does: but I never regret knowledge  . . . I mean I never would unknow anything  . . . even were it the taste of the apples by the Dead sea — and this must be accepted like the rest. In the meantime your letter comes — and if I could seem to be very unhappy after reading it  . . . why it would be ‘all pretence’ on my part, believe me. Can you care for me so much  . . . you? Then that is light enough to account for all the shadows, and to make them almost unregarded — the shadows of the life behind. Moreover dear Occy is somewhat better — with a pulse only at ninety: and the doctors declare that visitors may come to the house without any manner of danger. Or I should not trust to your theories — no, indeed: it was not that I expected you to be afraid, but that I was afraid — and if I am not ashamed for that, why at least I am, for being lâche about Wednesday, when you thought of hurrying back from Paris only for it! You could think that! — You can care for me so much! — (I come to it again!) When I hold some words to my eyes  . . . such as these in this letter  . . . I can see nothing beyond them  . . . no evil, no want. There is no evil and no want. Am I wrong in the decision about Italy? Could I do otherwise? I had courage and to spare — but the question, you see, did not regard myself wholly. For the rest, the ‘unforbidden country’ lies within these four walls. Madeira was proposed in vain — and any part of England would be as objectionable as Italy, and not more advantageous to me than Wimpole Street. To take courage and be cheerful, as you say, is left as an alternative — and (the winter may be mild!) to fall into the hands of God rather than of man: and I shall be here for your November, remember.

And now that you are not well, will you take care? and not come on Wednesday unless you are better? and never again bring me wet flowers, which probably did all the harm on Thursday? I was afraid for you then, though I said nothing. May God bless you.

Ever yours I am — your own.

Ninety is not a high pulse  . . . for a fever of this kind — is it? and the heat diminishes, and his spirits are better — and we are all much easier  . . . have been both to-day and yesterday indeed.

 

Sunday.

October 13, 1845.

These are bad news, dearest  – – all bad, except the enduring comfort of your regard; the illness of your brother is worst  . . . that would stay you, and is the first proper obstacle. I shall not attempt to speak and prove my feelings,  – – you know what even Flush is to me through you: I wait in anxiety for the next account.

If after all you do not go to Pisa; why, we must be cheerful and wise, and take courage and hope. I cannot but see with your eyes and from your place, you know,  – – and will let this all be one surprizing and deplorable mistake of mere love and care  . . . but no such another mistake ought to be suffered, if you escape the effects of this. I will not cease to believe in a better event, till the very last, however, and it is a deep satisfaction that all has been made plain and straight up to this strange and sad interposition like a bar. You have done your part, at least  – – with all that forethought and counsel from friends and adequate judges of the case  – – so, if the bar will not move, you will consider  – – will you not, dearest?  – – where one may best encamp in the unforbidden country, and wait the spring and fine weather. Would it be advisable to go where Mr. Kenyon suggested, or elsewhere? Oh, these vain wishes  . . . the will here, and no means!

My life is bound up with yours  – – my own, first and last love. What wonder if I feared to tire you  – – I who, knowing you as I do, admiring what is so admirable (let me speak), loving what must needs be loved, fain to learn what you only can teach; proud of so much, happy in so much of you; I, who, for all this, neither come to admire, nor feel proud, nor be taught,  – – but only, only to live with you and be by you  – – that is love  – – for I know the rest, as I say. I know those qualities are in you  . . . but at them I could get in so many ways . . .. I have your books, here are my letters you give me; you would answer my questions were I in Pisa  – – well, and it all would amount to nothing, infinitely much as I know it is; to nothing if I could not sit by you and see you . . .. I can stop at that, but not before. And it seems strange to me how little  . . . less than little I have laid open of my feelings, the nature of them to you  – – I smile to think how if all this while I had been acting with the profoundest policy in intention, so as to pledge myself to nothing I could not afterwards perform with the most perfect ease and security, I should have done not much unlike what I have done  – – to be sure, one word includes many or all  . . . but I have not said  . . . what I will not even now say  . . . you will know  – – in God’s time to which I trust.

I will answer your note now  – – the questions. I did go  – – (it may amuse you to write on)  – – to Moxon’s. First let me tell you that when I called there the Saturday before, his brother (in his absence) informed me, replying to the question when it came naturally in turn with a round of like enquiries, that your poems continued to sell ‘singularly well’  – – they would ‘end in bringing a clear profit,’ he said. I thought to catch him, and asked if they had done so  . . . ‘Oh; not at the beginning  . . . it takes more time  – – he answered. On Thursday I saw Moxon  – – he spoke rather encouragingly of my own prospects. I send him a sheetful to-morrow, I believe, and we are ‘out’ on the 1st of next month. Tennyson, by the way, has got his pension, £200 per annum  – – by the other way, Moxon has bought the MSS. of Keats in the possession of Taylor the publisher, and is going to bring out a complete edition; which is pleasant to hear.

After settling with Moxon I went to Mrs. Carlyle’s  – – who told me characteristic quaintnesses of Carlyle’s father and mother over the tea she gave me. And all yesterday, you are to know, I was in a permanent mortal fright  – – for my uncle came in the morning to intreat me to go to Paris in the evening about some urgent business of his,  – – a five-minutes matter with his brother there,  – – and the affair being really urgent and material to his and the brother’s interest, and no substitute being to be thought of, I was forced to promise to go  – – in case a letter, which would arrive in Town at noon, should not prove satisfactory. So I calculated times, and found I could be at Paris to-morrow, and back again, certainly by Wednesday  – – and so not lose you on that day  – – oh, the fear I had!  – – but I was sure then and now, that the 17th would not see you depart. But night came, and the last Dover train left, and I drew breath freely  – – this morning I find the letter was all right  – – so may it be with all worse apprehensions! What you fear, precisely that, never happens, as Napoleon observed and thereon grew bold. I had stipulated for an hour’s notice, if go I must  – – and that was to be wholly spent in writing to you  – – for in quiet consternation my mother cared for my carpet bag.

And so, I shall hear from you to-morrow  . . . that is, you will write then, telling me all about your brother. As for what you say, with the kindest intentions, ‘of fever-contagion’ and keeping away on Wednesday on that account, it is indeed ‘out of the question,’  – – for a first reason (which dispenses with any second) because I disbelieve altogether in contagion from fevers, and especially from typhus fevers  – – as do much better-informed men than myself  – – I speak quite advisedly. If there should be only that reason, therefore, you will not deprive me of the happiness of seeing you next Wednesday.

I am not well  – – have a cold, influenza or some unpleasant thing, but am better than yesterday  – – My mother is much better, I think (she and my sister are resolute non-contagionists, mind you that!)

God bless you and all you love! dearest, I am your

R.B.

 

October 11, 1845.

Dear Mr. Kenyon has been here again, and talking so (in his kindness too) about the probabilities as to Pisa being against me  . . . about all depending ‘on one throw’ and the ‘dice being loaded’ &c.  . . . that I looked at him aghast as if he looked at the future through the folded curtain and was licensed to speak oracles: — and ever since I have been out of spirits  . . . oh, out of spirits — and must write myself back again, or try. After all he may be wrong like another — and I should tell you that he reasons altogether from the delay  . . . and that ‘the cabins will therefore be taken’ and the ‘circular bills’ out of reach! He said that one of his purposes in staying in town, was to ‘knout‘ me every day — didn’t he?

Well — George will probably speak before he leaves town, which will be on Monday! and now that the hour approaches, I do feel as if the house stood upon gunpowder, and as if I held Guy Fawkes’s lantern in my right hand. And no: I shall not go. The obstacles will not be those of Mr. Kenyon’s finding — and what their precise character will be I do not see distinctly. Only that they will be sufficient, and thrown by one hand just where the wheel should turn,  . . . that, I see — and you will, in a few days.

Did you go to Moxon’s and settle the printing matter? Tell me. And what was the use of telling Mr. Kenyon that you were ‘quite well’ when you know you are not? Will you say to me how you are, saying the truth? and also how your mother is?

To show the significance of the omission of those evening or rather night visits of Papa’s — for they came sometimes at eleven, and sometimes at twelve — I will tell you that he used to sit and talk in them, and then always kneel and pray with me and for me — which I used of course to feel as a proof of very kind and affectionate sympathy on his part, and which has proportionably pained me in the withdrawing. They were no ordinary visits, you observe,  . . . and he could not well throw me further from him than by ceasing to pay them — the thing is quite expressively significant. Not that I pretend to complain, nor to have reason to complain. One should not be grateful for kindness, only while it lasts: that would be a short-breathed gratitude. I just tell you the fact, proving that it cannot be accidental.

Did you ever, ever tire me? Indeed no — you never did. And do understand that I am not to be tired ‘in that way,’ though as Mr. Boyd said once of his daughter, one may be so ‘far too effeminate.’ No — if I were put into a crowd I should be tired soon — or, apart from the crowd, if you made me discourse orations De Coronâ  . . . concerning your bag even  . . . I should be tired soon — though peradventure not very much sooner than you who heard. But on the smooth ground of quiet conversation (particularly when three people don’t talk at once as my brothers do  . . . to say the least!) I last for a long while: — not to say that I have the pretension of being as good and inexhaustible a listener to your own speaking as you could find in the world. So please not to accuse me of being tired again. I can’t be tired, and won’t be tired, you see.

And now, since I began to write this, there is a new evil and anxiety — a worse anxiety than any — for one of my brothers is ill; had been unwell for some days and we thought nothing of it, till to-day Saturday: and the doctors call it a fever of the typhoid character  . . . not typhus yet  . . . but we are very uneasy. You must not come on Wednesday if an infectious fever be in the house — that must be out of the question. May God bless you — I am quite heavy-hearted to-day, but never less yours,

E.B.B.

 

Wednesday Evening.

October 8, 1845.

Mr. Kenyon never came. My sisters met him in the street, and he had been ‘detained all day in the city and would certainly be here to-morrow,’ Wednesday! And so you see what has happened to Wednesday! Moreover he may come besides on Thursday,  . . . I can answer for nothing. Only if I do not write and if you find Thursday admissible, will you come then? In the case of an obstacle, you shall hear. And it is not (in the meantime) my fault — now is it? I have been quite enough vexed about it, indeed.

Did the Monday work work harm to the head, I wonder? I do fear so that you won’t get through those papers with impunity — especially if the plays are to come after  . . . though ever so ‘gently.’ And if you are to suffer, it would be right to tongue-tie that silver Bell, and leave the congregations to their selling of cabbages. Which is unphilanthropic of me perhaps,  . . . ω φιλτατε.

Be sure that I shall be ‘bold’ when the time for going comes — and both bold and capable of the effort. I am desired to keep to the respirator and the cabin for a day or two, while the cold can reach us; and midway in the bay of Biscay some change of climate may be felt, they say. There is no sort of danger for me; except that I shall stay in England. And why is it that I feel to-night more than ever almost, as if I should stay in England? Who can tell? I can tell one thing. If I stay, it will not be from a failure in my resolution — that will not be — shall not be. Yes — and Mr. Kenyon and I agreed the other day that there was something of the tigress-nature very distinctly cognisable under what he is pleased to call my ‘Ba-lambishness.’

Then, on Thursday! . . . unless something happens to Thursday  . . . and I shall write in that case. And I trust to you (as always) to attend to your own convenience — just as you may trust to me to remember my own ‘boon.’ Ah — you are curious, I think! Which is scarcely wise of you — because it may, you know, be the roc’s egg after all. But no, it isn’t — I will say just so much. And besides I did say that it was a ‘restitution,’ which limits the guesses if it does not put an end to them. Unguessable, I choose it to be.

And now I feel as if I should not stay in England. Which is the difference between one five minutes and another. May God bless you.

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

 

12  – – Wednesday.

October 8, 1845.

Well, dearest, at all events I get up with the assurance I shall see you, and go on till the fatal 11-1/4 p.m. believing in the same, and then, if after all there does come such a note as this with its instructions, why, first, it is such a note and such a gain, and next it makes a great day out of to-morrow that was to have been so little of a day, that is all. Only, only, I am suspicious, now, of a real loss to me in the end; for, putting off yesterday, I dared put off (on your part) Friday to Saturday  . . . while now  . . . what shall be said to that?

Dear Mr. Kenyon to be the smiling inconscious obstacle to any pleasure of mine, if it were merely pleasure!

But I want to catch our next post  – – to-morrow, then, excepting what is to be excepted!

Bless you, my dearest  – –

Your own

R.B.