Day: May 6, 2018

[Postmark: May 6, 1846]

Dearest Ba let me silent, as on other occasions, over
what you promise : one reads of ‘ a contest in generosity,’
and now this party was as determined to give, as that party
not to accept — far from anything so graceful, I am com-
pelled to clutch at the offering, I take all, because, because
— because I must, now ! May God requite you, my best
beloved !

I met Mrs. Jameson last evening and she began just as
I prophesied . . ‘ but ‘ said she ‘ I will tell you all when
you come and breakfast with me on Thursday — which a
note of mine now on its way to you, desires may happen ! ‘

A large party at Chorley’s, and admirable music — not
without a pleasant person or two. I wish you could hear
that marvellous Pischek, with his Rhine songs, and Bohemian
melodies. Then a Herr Kellerman told a kind of crying
story on the violoncello, full of quiet pathos, and Godefroi
— if they so spell him — harped like a God harping, im-
mortal victorious music indeed ! Altogether a notable
evening . . oh, the black ingratitude of man . . these few
words are the poor ‘set-off’ to this morning’s weary
yawning, and stupefaction. To-night having to follow beside !
So near you I shall be ! Mrs J. is to at the Procters’
to-night too. Oh, by the way, and in the straight way to
make Ba laugh . . Mrs J.’s first word was ‘ What ? Are
you married ?’ She having caught a bit of Miss Chorley’s
enquiry after ‘ Mrs. Browning’s health ‘ i.e. my mother’s.
Probably Miss Heaton’s friend, who is my intimate, heard
me profess complete infidelity as to — homœopathy . . que
sais-je ? But of all accusations in the world . . what do
you say to my having been asked if I was not the Author of
‘ Romeo and Juliet,’ and ‘ Othello ‘? A man actually asked
me that, as I sate in Covent Garden Pit to see the second
representation of ‘ Strafford ‘ — I supposed he had been set
on by somebody, but the simple face looked too quiet
for that impertinence — I was muffled up in a cloak, too ; so
I said ‘ No — so far as I am aware.’ (His question was ‘ is
not this Mr. Browning the author of &c. &c. ‘) After the
play, all was made clear by somebody in Macready’s dress-
ing room — two burlesques on Shakespeare were in the course
of performance at some minor theatre by a Mr. Brown, or
Brownley, or something Brown-like — and to these my friend
had alluded.

So is begot, so nourished ‘ il mondan rumore ‘ — I, author
of ‘ Othello ‘ ! — when I can be, and am, and may tell Ba I
am, her own, own
R.

The news about the post — the walk there which might
have been, — that is pure delight ! But take care, my all-
precious love—festina lente. All the same, what a vision I
have of the Bonnet !

[Postmark: May 6, 1846]

But my own only beloved, I surely did not speak too
‘ insistingly ‘ yesterday. I shrank from your question as
you put it, because you put it wrong. If you had asked
me instead, whether I meant to keep my promise to you, I
would have answered ‘ yes ‘ without hesitation : but the
form you chose, referred to you more than to me, and was
indeed and indeed a foolish form of a question, my own
dearest ! For the rest . . ah, you do not see my innermost
nature, . . you ! — you are happily too high, and cannot
see into it . . cannot perceive how the once elastic spring
is broken with the long weights ! . . you wonder that it
should drop, when you, who lifted it up, do not hold it up !
you cannot understand ! . you wonder ! And I wonder
too . . on the other side ! I wonder how I can feel
happy and alive . . as I can, through you ! how I can turn
my face toward life again . . as I can, for you ! . . and
chiefly of all, how I can ever imagine . . as I do, sometimes
. . that such a one as you, may be happy perhaps with such
a one as I ! . . happy !

Do not judge me severely, you, to whom I have given
both hands, for your own uses and ends ! — you, who are
more to me than I can be to you, even by your own state-
ment — better to me than life . . or than death even, as
death seemed to me before I knew you.

Certainly I love you enough, and trust you enough, if
you knew what God knows. Yet, . . ‘ now hear me.’ I
shall not be able to please you, I think, by a firm continued
belief of this engagement’s being justifiable, until the event
wholly has justified it . . I mean, . . until I shall see you
not less happy for having lived near me for six months or a
year — should God’s mercy permit such justification. Do
not blame me. I cannot help it . . I would, if I could,
help it. Every time you say, as in this dearest letter, ever
dearest, that you have been happy on such a day through
being with me, I have a new astonishment— it runs
through me from head to feet . . I open my eyes astonished,
whenever my sun rises in the morning, as if I saw an angel in
the sun. And I do see him, in a sense. Ah — if you make
a crime to me of my astonishments, it is all over indeed ! can
I help it, indeed ? So forgive me ! let it not be too great a
wrong to be covered by a pardon. Think that we are different,
you and I — and do not think that I would send you
to ‘ money and worldly advancement ‘ . . do not think so
meanly of my ambition for you.

Dearest dearest ! — do you ever think that I could fail to
you ? Do you doubt for a moment, ever . . ever, . . that
my hand might peradventure ‘ shake less ‘ in being loosed
from yours ? Why, it might — and would ! Dead hands
do not shake at all, — and only so, could my hand be loosed
from yours through a failing on my part. It is your hand,
while you hold it : while you choose to hold it, and while it
is a living hand.

Do you know what you are to me, . . you ? We talk of
the mild weather doing me good . . of the sun doing me
good . . of going into the air as a means of good ! Have
you done me no good, do you fancy, in loving me and lift-
ing me up ? Has the unaccustomed divine love and tender-
ness been nothing to me ? Think ! Mrs. Jameson says
earnestly . . said to me the other day . . that ‘ love was
only magnetism.’ And I say in my heart, that, magnet or
no magnet, I have been drawn back into life by your means
and for you . . that I see the dancing mystical lights which .
are seen through the eyelids . . and I think of you with an
unspeakable gratitude always — always ! No other could
have done this for me — it was not possible, except by you.

But, no— do not, beloved, wish the first days here again.
You saw your way better in them than I did. I had too
bitter feelings sometimes : they looked to me like an
epigram of destiny ! as if ‘ He who sitteth on high should
laugh her to scorn — should hold her in derision ‘ — as why
not ? My best hope was that you should be my friend after
all. We will not have them back again . . those days !
And in these, you do not love me less but more } Would it
be strange to thank you ? I feel as if I ought to thank you!

I have written, written, and have more to write, yet must
end here now. The letter I wrote this morning and gave to
my sister to leave in the post, she was so naughty as to forget,
and has been well scolded as a consequence ; but the scold-
ing did not avail, I fear, to take the letter to you to-night ;
there is no chance Mrs. Jameson came to-day when I
was engaged with Lady Margaret Cocks and I could not
see her — and Mr. Kenyon came, when I could see him and
was glad. I am tired with my multitude of visitors — oh, so
tired !

Why are you melancholy, dear, dearest ? Was it my
fault ? could that be ? no — you were unwell, I think . . I
fear. Say how you are ; and believe that you may answer
your own questions, for that I never can fail to you. If
two persons have one will on a matter of that sort, they
need not be thwarted here in London — so answer your own
questions.

Wholly and ever yours I am.

[Postmark: May 6, 1846]

Dearest, it has just come into my head that I should
like to carry this letter to the post myself — but no, I shall
not be able. Probably the post is far out of reach, and
even if it were within reach, my grand scheme of walking
in the street is scarcely a possible thing to-day, for I must
keep watch in the house from two till five for Lady
Margaret Cocks, an old friend of mine, who was kind to
me when I was a child, in the country, and has not for-
gotten me since, when, two months in the year, she has
been in the habit of going to London. A good, worthy
person, with a certain cultivation as to languages and
literature, but quite manquée on the side of the imagination
. . talking of the poets, as a blind woman of colours,
calling ‘ Pippa Passes ‘ ‘ pretty and odd,’ and writing herself
‘ poems ‘ in heaps of copy books which every now and then
she brings to show me … ‘ odes ‘ to Hope and Patience
and all the cardinal virtues, with formulas of ‘ Begin my
muse’ in the fashion ended last century. She has helped
to applaud and scold me since I could walk and write
verses ; and when I was so wicked as to go to dissenting
chapels besides, she reproached me with tears in her eyes ;
but they were tears of earnest partizanship, and not of affec-
tion for me, . . she does not love me after all, nor guess at
my heart, and I do not love her, I feel. Woe to us ! for
there are good and unlovable people in the world, and we
cannot help it for our lives.

In the midst of writing which, comes the Leeds Miss
Heaton, who used to send me those long confidential letters
à faire frémir, and beg me to call her ‘ Ellen,’ and as this is
the second time that she has sent up her card, in an acci-
dental visit to London, I thought I would be good-natured
for once, and see her. An intelligent woman, with large
black eyes and a pleasant voice, and young . . manners
provincial enough, for the rest, and talking as if the world
were equally divided between the ‘ Congregationalists ‘ and
the ‘ Churchpeople.’ She assured me that ‘ Dr. Vaughan
was very much annoyed ‘ at the article on my poems which
‘ crept ‘ into his review, and that it was fully intended to
recant at length on the first convenient oppojtunity. ‘ And
really,’ she said, ‘ it seems to me that you have as many
admirers among churchmen as among dissenters.’ ! There’s
glory ! — and I kept my countenance. Lost it though, five
minutes afterwards, when she observed pathetically, that a
‘ friend of hers who had known Mr. Browning quite inti-
mately, had told her he was an infidel . . . more’s the pity,
when he has such a genius.’ I desired the particular information
of your intimate friend, a little more warmly perhaps
than was necessary, . . but what could be expected of me,
I wonder ?

I shall write again to you to-night, you know, and this is
enough for two o’clock. Now will you get my letter on this
Tuesday ? Do you think of me . . love me ? And are you
well to-day? The flowers look beautiful though you put
their heads into the water instead of their feet.

Your Ba.
Your Ba.