Month: November 2017

November 28, 1845.

Take it, dearest; what I am forced to think you mean  – – and take no more with it  – – for I gave all to give long ago  – – I am all yours  – – and now, mine; give me mine to be happy with!

You will have received my note of yesterday.  – – I am glad you are satisfied with Miss Bayley, whom I, too, thank  . . . that is, sympathize with,  . . . (not wonder at, though)  – – for her intention . . .. Well, may it all be for best  – – here or at Pisa, you are my blessing and life.

. . . How all considerate you are, you that are the kind, kind one! The post arrangement I will remember  – – to-day, for instance, will this reach you at 8? I shall be with you then, in thought. ‘Forget you!’  – – What does that mean, dearest?

And I might have stayed longer and you let me go. What does that mean, also tell me? Why, I make up my mind to go, always, like a man, and praise myself as I get through it  – – as when one plunges into the cold water  – – only  . . . ah, that too is no more a merit than any other thing I do  . . . there is the reward, the last and best! Or is it the ‘lure’?

I would not be ashamed of my soul if it might be shown you,  – – it is wholly grateful, conscious of you.

But another time, do not let me wrong myself so! Say, ‘one minute more.’

On Monday?  – – I am much better  – – and, having got free from an engagement for Saturday, shall stay quietly here and think the post never intending to come  – – for you will not let me wait longer?

Shall I dare write down a grievance of my heart, and not offend you? Yes, trusting in the right of my love  – – you tell me, sweet, here in the letter, ‘I do not look so well’  – – and sometimes, I ‘look better’  . . . how do you know? When I first saw you  – – I saw your eyes  – – since then, you, it should appear, see mine  – – but I only know yours are there, and have to use that memory as if one carried dried flowers about when fairly inside the garden-enclosure. And while I resolve, and hesitate, and resolve again to complain of this  – – (kissing your foot  . . . not boldly complaining, nor rudely)  – – while I have this on my mind, on my heart, ever since that May morning  . . . can it be?

– – No, nothing can be wrong now  – – you will never call me ‘kind’ again, in that sense, you promise! Nor think ‘bitterly’ of my kindness, that word!

Shall I see you on Monday?

God bless you my dearest  – – I see her now  – – and here and now the eyes open, wide enough, and I will kiss them  – – how gratefully!

Your own

R.B.

 

Monday Evening.

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!

Wholly and ever your

E.B.B.

 

Thursday Morning.

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.

 

Monday.

November 24, 1845.

But what unlawful things have I said about ‘kindness’? I did not mean any harm — no, indeed! And as to thinking  . . . as to having ever thought, that you could ‘imitate’ (can this word be ‘imitate’?) an unfelt feeling or a feeling unsupposed to be felt  . . . I may solemnly assure you that I never, never did so. ‘Get up’ — ‘imitate’!! But it was the contrary  . . . all the contrary! From the beginning, now did I not believe you too much? Did I not believe you even in your contradiction of yourself  . . . in your yes and no on the same subject,  . . . and take the world to be turning round backwards and myself to have been shut up here till I grew mad,  . . . rather than disbelieve you either way? Well! — You know it as well as I can tell you, and I will not, any more. If I have been ‘wrong,’ it was not so  . . . nor indeed then  . . . it is not so, though it is now, perhaps.

Therefore  . . . but wait! I never gave away what you ask me to give you, to a human being, except my nearest relatives and once or twice or thrice to female friends,  . . . never, though reproached for it; and it is just three weeks since I said last to an asker that I was ‘too great a prude for such a thing’! it was best to anticipate the accusation! — And, prude or not, I could not — I never could — something would not let me. And now  . . . what am I to do  . . . ‘for my own sake and not yours?’ Should you have it, or not? Why I suppose  . . . yes. I suppose that ‘for my own sense of justice and in order to show that I was wrong’ (which is wrong — you wrote a wrong word there  . . . ‘right,’ you meant!) ‘to show that I was right and am no longer so,’  . . . I suppose you must have it, ‘Oh, You,’  . . . who have your way in everything! Which does not mean  . . . Oh, vous, qui avez toujours raison — far from it.

Also  . . . which does not mean that I shall give you what you ask for, to-morrow, — because I shall not — and one of my conditions is (with others to follow) that not a word be said to-morrow, you understand. Some day I will send it perhaps  . . . as you knew I should  . . . ah, as you knew I should  . . . notwithstanding that ‘getting up’  . . . that ‘imitation’  . . . of humility: as you knew too well I should!

Only I will not teaze you as I might perhaps; and now that your headache has begun again — the headache again: the worse than headache! See what good my wishes do! And try to understand that if I speak of my being ‘wrong’ now in relation to you  . . . of my being right before, and wrong now,  . . . I mean wrong for your sake, and not for mine  . . . wrong in letting you come out into the desert here to me, you whose place is by the waters of Damascus. But I need not tell you over again — you know. May God bless you till to-morrow and past it for ever. Mr. Kenyon brought me your note yesterday to read about the ‘order in the button-hole’ — ah! — or ‘oh, you,’ may I not re-echo? It enrages me to think of Mr. Forster; publishing too as he does, at a moment, the very sweepings of Landor’s desk! Is the motive of the reticence to be looked for somewhere among the cinders? — Too bad it is. So, till to-morrow! and you shall not be ‘kind’ any more.

Your

E.B.B.

But how, ‘a foolish comment’? Good and true rather! And I admired the writing  . . . worthy of the reeds of Jordan!

 

Sunday Night.

November 24, 1845.

But a word to-night, my love  – – for my head aches a little,  – – I had to write a long letter to my friend at New Zealand, and now I want to sit and think of you and get well  – – but I must not quite lose the word I counted on.

So, that way you will take my two days and turn them against me? Oh, you! Did I say the ‘root’ had been striking then, or rather, that the seeds, whence the roots take leisure and grow, they had been planted then  – – and might not a good heart and hand drop acorns enough to grow up into a complete Dodona-grove,  – – when the very rook, say farmers, hides and forgets whole navies of ship-wood one day to be, in his summer storing-journeys? But this shall do  – – I am not going to prove what may be, when here it is, to my everlasting happiness.

– – And ‘I am kind’  – – there again! Do I not know what you mean by that? Well it is some comfort that you make all even in some degree, and take from my faculties here what you give them, spite of my protesting, in other directions. So I could not when I first saw you admire you very much, and wish for your friendship, and be willing to give you mine, and desirous of any opportunity of serving you, benefiting you; I could not think the finding myself in a position to feel this, just this and no more, a sufficiently fortunate event  . . . but I must needs get up, or imitate, or  . . . what is it you fancy I do?  . . . an utterly distinct, unnecessary, inconsequential regard for you, which should, when it got too hard for shamming at the week’s end,  – – should simply spoil, in its explosion and departure, all the real and sufficing elements of an honest life-long attachment and affections! that I should do this, and think it a piece of kindness does . . ..

Now, I’ll tell you what it does deserve, and what it shall get. Give me, dearest beyond expression, what I have always dared to think I would ask you for  . . . one day! Give me  . . . wait  – – for your own sake, not mine who never, never dream of being worth such a gift  . . . but for your own sense of justice, and to say, so as my heart shall hear, that you were wrong and are no longer so, give me so much of you  – – all precious that you are  – – as may be given in a lock of your hair  – – I will live and die with it, and with the memory of you  – – this at the worst! If you give me what I beg,  – – shall I say next Tuesday  . . . when I leave you, I will not speak a word. If you do not, I will not think you unjust, for all my light words, but I will pray you to wait and remember me one day  – – when the power to deserve more may be greater  . . . never the will. God supplies all things: may he bless you, beloved! So I can but pray, kissing your hand.

R.B.

Now pardon me, dearest, for what is written  . . . what I cannot cancel, for the love’s sake that it grew from.

The Chronicle was through Moxon, I believe  – – Landor had sent the verses to Forster at the same time as to me, yet they do not appear. I never in my life less cared about people’s praise or blame for myself, and never more for its influence on other people than now  – – I would stand as high as I could in the eyes of all about you  – – yet not, after all, at poor Chorley’s expense whom your brother, I am sure, unintentionally, is rather hasty in condemning; I have told you of my own much rasher opinion and how I was ashamed and sorry when I corrected it after. C. is of a different species to your brother, differently trained, looking different ways  – – and for some of the peculiarities that strike at first sight, C. himself gives a good reason to the enquirer on better acquaintance. For ‘Vulgarity’  – – NO! But your kind brother will alter his view, I know, on further acquaintance  . . . and,  – – woe’s me  – – will find that ‘assumption’s’ pertest self would be troubled to exercise its quality at such a house as Mr. K.’s, where every symptom of a proper claim is met half way and helped onward far too readily.

Good night, now. Am I not yours  – – are you not mine? And can that make you happy too?

Bless you once more and for ever.

That scrap of Landor’s being for no other eye than mine  – – I made the foolish comment, that there was no blotting out  – – made it some four or five years ago, when I could read what I only guess at now, through my idle opening the hand and letting the caught bird go  – – but there used to be a real satisfaction to me in writing those grand Hebrew characters  – – the noble languages!

 

Saturday.

November 22, 1845.

Mr. Kenyon came yesterday — and do you know when he took out those verses and spoke his preface and I understood what was to follow, I had a temptation from my familiar Devil not to say I had read them before — I had the temptation strong and clear. For he (Mr. K.) told me that your sister let him see them — .

But no — My ‘vade retro’ prevailed, and I spoke the truth and shamed the devil and surprised Mr. Kenyon besides, as I could observe. Not an observation did he make till he was just going away half an hour afterwards, and then he said rather dryly  . . . ‘And now may I ask how long ago it was when you first read these verses? — was it a fortnight ago?’ It was better, I think, that I should not have made a mystery of such a simple thing,  . . . and yet I felt half vexed with myself and with him besides. But the verses, — how he praised them! more than I thought of doing  . . . as verses — though there is beauty and music and all that ought to be. Do you see clearly now that the latter lines refer to the combination in you, — the qualities over and above those held in common with Chaucer? And I have heard this morning from two or three of the early readers of the Chronicle (I never care to see it till the evening) that the verses are there — so that my wishes have fulfilled themselves there at least — strangely, for wishes of mine  . . . which generally ‘go by contraries’ as the soothsayers declare of dreams. How kind of you to send me the fragment to Mr. Forster! and how I like to read it. Was the Hebrew yours then  . . . written then, I mean  . . . or written now?

Mr. Kenyon told me that you were to dine with him on Tuesday, and I took for granted, at first hearing, that you would come on Wednesday perhaps to me — and afterwards I saw the possibility of the two ends being joined without much difficulty. Still, I was not sure, before your letter came, how it might be.

That you really are better is the best news of all — thank you for telling me. It will be wise not to go out too much — ‘aequam servare mentem’ as Landor quotes,  . . . in this as in the rest. Perhaps that worst pain was a sort of crisis  . . . the sharp turn of the road about to end  . . . oh, I do trust it may be so.

Mr. K. wrote to Landor to the effect that it was not because he (Mr. K.) held you in affection, nor because the verses expressed critically the opinion entertained of you by all who could judge, nor because they praised a book with which his own name was associated  . . . but for the abstract beauty of those verses  . . . for that reason he could not help naming them to Mr. Landor. All of which was repeated to me yesterday.

Also I heard of you from George, who admired you — admired you  . . . as if you were a chancellor in posse, a great lawyer in esse — and then he thought you  . . . what he never could think a lawyer  . . . ‘unassuming.’ And you  . . . you are so kind! Only that makes me think bitterly what I have thought before, but cannot write to-day.

It was good-natured of Mr. Chorley to send me a copy of his book, and he sending so few — very! George who admires you, does not tolerate Mr. Chorley  . . . (did I tell ever?) declares that the affectation is ‘bad,’ and that there is a dash of vulgarity  . . . which I positively refuse to believe, and should, I fancy, though face to face with the most vainglorious of waistcoats. How can there be vulgarity even of manners, with so much mental refinement? I never could believe in those combinations of contradictions.

‘An obvious matter,’ you think! as obvious, as your ‘green hill’  . . . which I cannot see. For the rest  . . . my thought upon your ‘great fact‘ of the ‘two days,’ is quite different from yours  . . . for I think directly, ‘So little’! so dreadfully little! What shallow earth for a deep root! What can be known of me in that time? ‘So there, is the only good, you see, that comes from making calculations on a slip of paper! It is not and it cannot come to good.’ I would rather look at my seventy-five letters — there is room to breathe in them. And this is my idea (ecce!) of monumental brevity — and hic jacet at last

Your E.B.B.

 

Friday Night.

November 22, 1845.

How good and kind to send me these books! (The letter I say nothing of, according to convention: if I wrote down ‘best and kindest’  . . . oh, what poorest words!) I shall tell you all about ‘Pomfret,’ be sure. Chorley talked of it, as we walked homewards together last night,  – – modestly and well, and spoke of having given away two copies only  . . . to his mother one, and the other to  – – Miss Barrett, and ‘she seemed interested in the life of it, entered into his purpose in it,’ and I listened to it all, loving Chorley for his loveability which is considerable at other times, and saying to myself what might run better in the child’s couplet  – – ‘Not more than others I deserve, Though God has given me more’!  – – Given me the letter which expresses surprise that I shall feel these blanks between the days when I see you longer and longer! So am I surprised  – – that I should have mentioned so obvious a matter at all; or leave unmentioned a hundred others its correlatives which I cannot conceive you to be ignorant of, you! When I spread out my riches before me, and think what the hour and more means that you endow one with, I do  – – not to say could  – – I do form resolutions, and say to myself  – – ‘If next time I am bidden stay away a fortnight, I will not reply by a word beyond the grateful assent.’ I do, God knows, lay up in my heart these priceless treasures,  – – shall I tell you? I never in my life kept a journal, a register of sights, or fancies, or feelings; in my last travel I put down on a slip of paper a few dates, that I might remember in England, on such a day I was on Vesuvius, in Pompeii, at Shelley’s grave; all that should be kept in memory is, with me, best left to the brain’s own process. But I have, from the first, recorded the date and the duration of every visit to you; the numbers of minutes you have given me  . . . and I put them together till they make  . . . nearly two days now; four-and-twenty-hour-long-days, that I have been by you  – – and I enter the room determining to get up and go sooner  . . . and I go away into the light street repenting that I went so soon by I don’t know how many minutes  – – for, love, what is it all, this love for you, but an earnest desiring to include you in myself, if that might be; to feel you in my very heart and hold you there for ever, through all chance and earthly changes!

There, I had better leave off; the words!

I was very glad to find myself with your brother yesterday; I like him very much and mean to get a friend in him  – – (to supply the loss of my friend  . . . Miss Barrett  – – which is gone, the friendship, so gone!) But I did not ask after you because I heard Moxon do it. Now of Landor’s verses: I got a note from Forster yesterday telling me that he, too, had received a copy  . . . so that there is no injunction to be secret. So I got a copy for dear Mr. Kenyon, and, lo! what comes! I send the note to make you smile! I shall reply that I felt in duty bound to apprise you; as I did. You will observe that I go to that too facile gate of his on Tuesday, my day  . . . from your house directly. The worst is that I have got entangled with invitations already, and must go out again, hating it, to more than one place.

I am very well  – – quite well; yes, dearest! The pain is quite gone; and the inconvenience, hard on its trace. You will write to me again, will you not? And be as brief as your heart lets you, to me who hoard up your words and get remote and imperfect ideas of what  . . . shall it be written? . . . anger at you could mean, when I see a line blotted out; a second-thoughted finger-tip rapidly put forth upon one of my gold pieces!

I rather think if Warburton reviews me it will be in the Quarterly, which I know he writes for. Hanmer is a very sculpturesque passionless high-minded and amiable man  . . . this coldness, as you see it, is part of him. I like his poems, I think, better than you  – – ‘the Sonnets,’ do you know them? Not ‘Fra Cipolla.’ See what is here, since you will not let me have only you to look at  – – this is Landor’s first opinion  – – expressed to Forster  – – see the date! and last of all, see me and know me, beloved! May God bless you!

 

Thursday.

November 21, 1845.

Thank you! and will you, if your sister made the copy of Landor’s verses for me as well as for you, thank her from me for another kindness,  . . . not the second nor the third? For my own part, be sure that if I did not fall on the right subtle interpretation about the letters, at least I did not ‘think it vain’ of you! vain: when, supposing you really to have been over-gratified by such letters, it could have proved only an excess of humility! — But  . . . besides the subtlety, — you meant to be kind to me, you know, — and I had a pleasure and an interest in reading them — only that  . . . mind. Sir John Hanmer’s, I was half angry with! Now is he not cold? — and is it not easy to see why he is forced to write his own scenes five times over and over? He might have mentioned the ‘Duchess’ I think; and he a poet! Mr. Chorley speaks some things very well — but what does he mean about ‘execution,’ en revanche? but I liked his letter and his candour in the last page of it. Will Mr. Warburton review you? does he mean that? Now do let me see any other letters you receive. May I? Of course Landor’s ‘dwells apart’ from all: and besides the reason you give for being gratified by it, it is well that one prophet should open his mouth and prophesy and give his witness to the inspiration of another. See what he says in the letter . . .. ‘You may stand quite alone if you will — and I think you will.’ That is a noble testimony to a truth. And he discriminates — he understands and discerns — they are not words thrown out into the air. The ‘profusion of imagery covering the depth of thought’ is a true description. And, in the verses, he lays his finger just on your characteristics — just on those which, when you were only a poet to me, (only a poet: does it sound irreverent? almost, I think!) which, when you were only a poet to me, I used to study, characteristic by characteristic, and turn myself round and round in despair of being ever able to approach, taking them to be so essentially and intensely masculine that like effects were unattainable, even in a lower degree, by any female hand. Did I not tell you so once before? or oftener than once? And must not these verses of Landor’s be printed somewhere — in the Examiner? and again in the Athenæum? if in the Examiner, certainly again in the Athenæum — it would be a matter of course. Oh those verses: how they have pleased me! It was an act worthy of him — and of you.

George has been properly ‘indoctrinated,’ and, we must hope, will do credit to my instructions. Just now  . . . just as I was writing  . . . he came in to say good-morning and good-night (he goes to chambers earlier than I receive visitors generally), and to ask with a smile, if I had ‘a message for my friend’  . . . that was you  . . . and so he was indoctrinated. He is good and true, honest and kind, but a little over-grave and reasonable, as I and my sisters complain continually. The great Law lime-kiln dries human souls all to one colour — and he is an industrious reader among law books and knows a good deal about them, I have heard from persons who can judge; but with a sacrifice of impulsiveness and liberty of spirit, which I should regret for him if he sate on the Woolsack even. Oh — that law! how I do detest it! I hate it and think ill of it — I tell George so sometimes — and he is good-natured and only thinks to himself (a little audibly now and then) that I am a woman and talking nonsense. But the morals of it, and the philosophy of it! And the manners of it! in which the whole host of barristers looks down on the attorneys and the rest of the world! — how long are these things to last!

Theodosia Garrow, I have seen face to face once or twice. She is very clever — very accomplished — with talents and tastes of various kinds — a musician and linguist, in most modern languages I believe — and a writer of fluent graceful melodious verses,  . . . you cannot say any more. At least I cannot — and though I have not seen this last poem in the ‘Book of Beauty,’ I have no more trust ready for it than for its predecessors, of which Mr. Landor said as much. It is the personal feeling which speaks in him, I fancy — simply the personal feeling — and, that being the case, it does not spoil the discriminating appreciation on the other page of this letter. I might have the modesty to admit besides that I may be wrong and he, right, all through. But  . . . ‘more intense than Sappho’! — more intense than intensity itself! — to think of that! — Also the word ‘poetry’ has a clear meaning to me, and all the fluency and facility and quick ear-catching of a tune which one can find in the world, do not answer to it — no.

How is the head? will you tell me? I have written all this without a word of it, and yet ever since yesterday I have been uneasy,  . . . I cannot help it. You see you are not better but worse. ‘Since you were in Italy’ — Then is it England that disagrees with you? and is it change away from England that you want?  . . . require, I mean. If so — why what follows and ought to follow? You must not be ill indeed — that is the first necessity. Tell me how you are, exactly how you are; and remember to walk, and not to work too much — for my sake — if you care for me — if it is not too bold of me to say so. I had fancied you were looking better rather than otherwise: but those sensations in the head are frightful and ought to be stopped by whatever means; even by the worst, as they would seem to me. Well — it was bad news to hear of the increase of pain; for the amendment was a ‘passing show’ I fear, and not caused even by thoughts of mine or it would have appeared before; while on the other side (the sunny side of the way) I heard on that same yesterday, what made me glad as good news, a whole gospel of good news, and from you too who profess to say ‘less than nothing,’ and that was that ‘the times seemed longer to you‘: — do you remember saying it? And it made me glad  . . . happy — perhaps too glad and happy — and surprised: yes, surprised! — for if you had told me (but you would not have told me) if you had let me guess  . . . just the contrary,  . . . ‘that the times seemed shorter,’  . . . why it would have seemed to me as natural as nature — oh, believe me it would, and I could not have thought hardly of you for it in the most secret or silent of my thoughts. How am I to feel towards you, do you imagine,  . . . who have the world round you and yet make me this to you? I never can tell you how, and you never can know it without having my heart in you with all its experiences: we measure by those weights. May God bless you! and save me from being the cause to you of any harm or grief! . . . I choose it for my blessing instead of another. What should I be if I could fail willingly to you in the least thing? But I never will, and you know it. I will not move, nor speak, nor breathe, so as willingly and consciously to touch, with one shade of wrong, that precious deposit of ‘heart and life’  . . . which may yet be recalled.

And, so, may God bless you and your

E.B.B.

Remember to say how you are.

I sent ‘Pomfret’ — and Shelley is returned, and the letters, in the same parcel — but my letter goes by the post as you see. Is there contrast enough between the two rival female personages of ‘Pomfret.’ I fancy not. Helena should have been more ‘demonstrative’ than she appeared in Italy, to secure the ‘new modulation’ with Walter. But you will not think it a strong book, I am sure, with all the good and pure intention of it. The best character  . . . most life-like  . . . as conventional life goes  . . . seems to me ‘Mr. Rose’  . . . beyond all comparison — and the best point, the noiseless, unaffected manner in which the acting out of the ‘private judgment’ in Pomfret himself is made no heroic virtue but simply an integral part of the love of truth. As to Grace she is too good to be interesting, I am afraid — and people say of her more than she expresses — and as to ‘generosity,’ she could not do otherwise in the last scenes.

But I will not tell you the story after all.

At the beginning of this letter I meant to write just one page; but my generosity is like Grace’s, and could not help itself. There were the letters to write of, and the verses! and then, you know, ‘femme qui parle’ never has done. Let me hear! and I will be as brisk as a monument next time for variety.

 

Thursday Morning.

Here is the copy of Landor’s verses.

You know thoroughly, do you not, why I brought all those good-natured letters, desperate praise and all? Not, not out of the least vanity in the world  – – nor to help myself in your sight with such testimony: would it seem very extravagant, on the contrary, if I said that perhaps I laid them before your eyes in a real fit of compunction at not being, in my heart, thankful enough for the evident motive of the writers,  – – and so was determined to give them the ‘last honours’ if not the first, and not make them miss you because, through my fault, they had missed me? Does this sound too fantastical? Because it is strictly true: the most laudatory of all, I skimmed once over with my flesh creeping  – – it seemed such a death-struggle, that of good nature over  – – well, it is fresh ingratitude of me, so here it shall end.

I am not ungrateful to you  – – but you must wait to know that:  – – I can speak less than nothing with my living lips.

I mean to ask your brother how you are to-night  . . . so quietly!

God bless you, my dearest, and reward you.

Your R.B.

Mrs. Shelley  – – with the ‘Ricordi.’

Of course, Landor’s praise is altogether a different gift; a gold vase from King Hiram; beside he has plenty of conscious rejoicing in his own riches, and is not left painfully poor by what he sends away. That is the unpleasant point with some others  – – they spread you a board and want to gird up their loins and wait on you there. Landor says ‘come up higher and let us sit and eat together.’ Is it not that?

Now  – – you are not to turn on me because the first is my proper feeling to you,  . . . for poetry is not the thing given or taken between us  – – it is heart and life and myself, not mine, I give  – – give? That you glorify and change and, in returning then, give me!

 

Monday.

November 18, 1845.

How you overcome me as always you do — and where is the answer to anything except too deep down in the heart for even the pearl-divers? But understand  . . . what you do not quite  . . . that I did not mistake you as far even as you say here and even ‘for a moment.’ I did not write any of that letter in a ‘doubt’ of you — not a word . . .. I was simply looking back in it on my own states of feeling,  . . . looking back from that point of your praise to what was better  . . . (or I should not have looked back) — and so coming to tell you, by a natural association, how the completely opposite point to that of any praise was the one which struck me first and most, viz. the no-reason of your reasoning  . . . acknowledged to be yours. Of course I acknowledge it to be yours,  . . . that high reason of no reason — I acknowledged it to be yours (didn’t I?) in acknowledging that it made an impression on me. And then, referring to the traditions of my experience such as I told them to you, I meant, so, farther to acknowledge that I would rather be cared for in that unreasonable way, than for the best reason in the world. But all that was history and philosophy simply — was it not? — and not doubt of you.

The truth is  . . . since we really are talking truths in this world  . . . that I never have doubted you — ah, you know! — I felt from the beginning so sure of the nobility and integrity in you that I would have trusted you to make a path for my soul — that, you know. I felt certain that you believed of yourself every word you spoke or wrote — and you must not blame me if I thought besides sometimes (it was the extent of my thought) that you were self-deceived as to the nature of your own feelings. If you could turn over every page of my heart like the pages of a book, you would see nothing there offensive to the least of your feelings  . . . not even to the outside fringes of your man’s vanity  . . . should you have any vanity like a man; which I do doubt. I never wronged you in the least of things — never  . . . I thank God for it. But ‘self-deceived,’ it was so easy for you to be: see how on every side and day by day, men are — and women too — in this sort of feelings. ‘Self-deceived,’ it was so possible for you to be, and while I thought it possible, could I help thinking it best for you that it should be so — and was it not right in me to persist in thinking it possible? It was my reverence for you that made me persist! What was I that I should think otherwise? I had been shut up here too long face to face with my own spirit, not to know myself, and, so, to have lost the common illusions of vanity. All the men I had ever known could not make your stature among them. So it was not distrust, but reverence rather. I sate by while the angel stirred the water, and I called it Miracle. Do not blame me now,  . . . my angel!

Nor say, that I ‘do not lean’ on you with all the weight of my ‘past’  . . . because I do! You cannot guess what you are to me — you cannot — it is not possible: — and though I have said that before, I must say it again  . . . for it comes again to be said. It is something to me between dream and miracle, all of it — as if some dream of my earliest brightest dreaming-time had been lying through these dark years to steep in the sunshine, returning to me in a double light. Can it be, I say to myself, that you feel for me so? can it be meant for me? this from you?

If it is your ‘right’ that I should be gloomy at will with you, you exercise it, I do think — for although I cannot promise to be very sorrowful when you come, (how could that be?) yet from different motives it seems to me that I have written to you quite superfluities about my ‘abomination of desolation,’ — yes indeed, and blamed myself afterwards. And now I must say this besides. When grief came upon grief, I never was tempted to ask ‘How have I deserved this of God,’ as sufferers sometimes do: I always felt that there must be cause enough  . . . corruption enough, needing purification  . . . weakness enough, needing strengthening  . . . nothing of the chastisement could come to me without cause and need. But in this different hour, when joy follows joy, and God makes me happy, as you say, through you  . . . I cannot repress the  . . . ‘How have I deserved this of Him?’ — I know I have not — I know I do not.

Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room for you? — If so, it was well done, — dearest! They leave the ground fallow before the wheat.

‘Were you wrong in answering?’ Surely not  . . . unless it is wrong to show all this goodness  . . . and too much, it may be for me. When the plants droop for drought and the copious showers fall suddenly, silver upon silver, they die sometimes of the reverse of their adversities. But no — that, even, shall not be a danger! And if I said ‘Do not answer,’ I did not mean that I would not have a doubt removed — (having no doubt! — ) but I was simply unwilling to seem to be asking for golden words  . . . going down the aisles with that large silken purse, as quêteuse. Try to understand.

On Wednesday then! — George is invited to meet you on Thursday at Mr. Kenyon’s.

The Examiner speaks well, upon the whole, and with allowances  . . . oh, that absurdity about metaphysics apart from poetry! — ‘Can such things be’ in one of the best reviews of the day? Mr. Kenyon was here on Sunday and talking of the poems with real living tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. But I will tell you. ‘Luria’ is to climb to the place of a great work, I see. And if I write too long letters, is it not because you spoil me, and because (being spoilt) I cannot help it? — May God bless you always —

Your

E.B.B.