Day: August 24, 2018

[Postmark: August 24, 1846]

My own dearest, let me say the most urgent thing first. You hear these suspicions of your brothers. Will you consider if, during this next month, we do not risk too much in seeing each other as usual? We risk everything . . and what do we gain, in the face of that ? I can learn no more about you, be taught no new belief in your absolute peerlessness – I have taken my place at your feet for ever : all my use of the visits is, therefore, the perfect delight of them . . and to hazard a whole life of such delight for the want of self-denial during a little month, – that would be horrible. I altogether sympathise with your brothers’ impatience, or curiosity, or anxiety, or ‘ graveness ‘ – and am prepared for their increasing and growing to heights difficult or impossible to be borne. But do you not think we may avoid compelling any premature crisis of this kind ? I am guided by your feelings, as I seem to perceive them, in this matter ; the harm to be apprehended is through the harm to them – to your brothers. If they determine on avowedly knowing what we intend, I do not see which to fear most ; the tacit acquiescence in our scheme which may draw down a vengeance on them without doing us the least good, – or the open opposition which would bring about just so much additional misfortune. I know, now, your perfect adequacy to any pain and danger you will incur for our love’s sake – I believe in you as you would have me believe : but give yourself to me, dearest dearest Ba, the entire creature you are, and not a lacerated thing only reaching my arms to sink there. Perhaps this is all a sudden fancy, not justified by circumstances, arising from my ignorance of the characters of those I talk about ; that is for you to decide – your least word reassures me, as always. But I fear much for you, to make up, perhaps, for there being nothing else in the world fit to fear : I exclude direct visitations of God, which cannot be feared, after all – dreadful dooms to which we should bow. But the ‘ fear ‘ proper, means with me an apprehension that, with all my best effort, it may be unable to avert some misfortune . . the effort going on all the time : and this is a real effort, dearest Ba, this letter : consider it thus. I will (if possible) send it to town, so as to reach you earlier and allow you to write one line in reply. You have heard all I can say . . say you, shall I come to-morrow ? If you think it advisable, I will come and be most happy.

Another thing : you see your excitement about the church and the crowd . . My own love, are you able, – with all that great, wonderful heart of yours, – to bear the railway fatigues, and the entering and departure from Paris and Orleans and the other cities and towns ? Would not the long sea-voyage be infinitely better, if a little dearer? Or what can be dear if it prevents all that risk, or rather certainty, of excitement and fatigue ? You see, the packet sails on the 30th September and the 15th October. As three of us go, they would probably make some reduction in price. Ah, even here, I must smile . . will you affirm that ever an approximation to a doubt crossed your mind about Flush ? I think your plans with respect to ‘ Blackwood ‘ most excellent – I see many advantages.

Here is the carriage for my sister, who is going to stay in town at the Arnoulds’ for a week, – with Mrs. A. in it to fetch her. I shall give this letter to be put in the post – I have all to say, but the very essential is said – understand me, my best, only love, and forgive my undue alarm, for the sake of the love that prompts it. Write the one line . . do not let me do myself wrong by my anxiety – if I may come, let me ! Bless you, Ba.

[Postmark: August 24, 1846]
ED

But dearest – Did you not understand that I understood ? I know your words better than you think, you see. Were you afraid to trust me to give a chase to them in my recollection, lest I should fall blindly upon some ‘ Secret Sin ‘ of yours ? a wild boar, instead of a poor little coney belonging to the rocks of my desolation ? – such as it was before you made the yellow furze grow everywhere on it ? Now, it is like me for wickedness, to begin talking of your ‘ Secret Sins,’ just by this opportunity. You overcome me with goodness – there’s the real truth, and the whole of it.

While I am writing, comes in Arabel with such a face. My brother had been talking, talking of me. Stormie suddenly touched her and said ‘ Is it true that there is an engagement between Mr. Browning and Ba – ? ‘ She was taken unaware, but had just power to say ‘ You had better ask them, if you want to know. What nonsense, Storm.’ ‘ Well,’ he resumed, ‘ I’ll ask Ba when I go up-stairs.’ George was by, looking as grave as if antedating his judgeship. Think how frightened I was, Robert . . expecting them up-stairs every minute, – for all my brothers come here on Sunday, all together. But they came, and not a single word was said – not on that subject, and I talked on every other in a sort of hurried way – I was so frightened.

Saturday Mr. Boyd and I talked on it for two hours nearly, he would not let me go with his kindness. Nothing, he said, would make him gladder than our having gone, and escaped the storms. In fact, what with affection for me, and disaffection in other directions, he thinks of nothing besides, I do believe. He only wishes that he had known last year, in order to exhort me properly. The very triumph of reason and righteousness, he considers the whole affair. But I told you what Mr. Boyd is – dear, poor Mr. Boyd ! Talking such pure childishness sometimes, in such pure Attic – yet one of the very most upright men, after all, that I ever dreamt of – one of the men born shepherds – with a crook in the hand, instead of the metaphorical ‘ silver spoon in the mouth.’ Good, dear Mr. Boyd, – I am very grateful to him for his goodness to me just now. I assure you that he takes us up exactly as if we were Ossian and Macpherson, or a criticism of Person’s, or a new chapter of Bentley on Phalaris. By the way, do you believe in Ossian ? Let me be properly prepared for that question.

But I have a question for you of my own. Listen to me, my Famous in Council, and give me back words of wisdom. A long, long while ago, nearly a year since perhaps, I wrote to the Blackwoods of Edinburgh to mention my new ‘ Prometheus,’ and to ask if they would care to use it in their magazine, that, and verses more my own ; whether they would care to have them at the usual magazine terms – I had some lyrics by me, and people have constantly advised me to print in Blackwood, with the prospect of republishing in the independent form. You get at the public so, and are paid for your poems instead of paying for them. Did I tell you all this before – and about my having written the enquiry ? At any rate, no reply came – I concluded that Mr. Blackwood did not think it worth while to write, and eschewed the poems – and the subject passed from my thoughts till last night. Then came a very civil note. The authorities receiving nothing from me, were afraid that their answer to my letter had not reached me, and therefore wrote again. They would ‘ like to see ‘ my ‘ Prometheus ‘ though apprehensive of its being unfit for the Magazine – but particularly desire to have all manner of lyrics, whatever I have by me. Now, what do you think ? What shall I do ? Would it not be well to let this door between us and Blackwood stand open. One is not in the worst company there – they pay well, – and you have the opportunity of standing face to face with the public at any moment – without hindering the solemner interviews. When we are in Italy, particularly . . ! Do you see ? Tell me your thoughts.

Since I began this letter, I have been to the Scotch Church in our neighbourhood – and it has all been in vain – I could not stay. We heard that a French minister, a M. Alphonse Monod of Montauban, was to preach at three o’clock, in French – and counting on a small congregation, and Arabel (through a knowledge of the localities) encouraging me with the prospect of sitting close to the door, and retiring back into the entrance-hall when the singing began, so as to escape that excitement – I agreed to make the trial, and she and I set out in a cab from the cab-stand hard by . . to which we walked. But the church was filling, obviously filling, as we arrived . . and grew fuller and fuller. We went in and came out again, and I sate down on the stairs – and the people came faster and faster, and I could not keep the tears out of my eyes to begin with.

One gets nervous among all these people if a straw stirs. So Arabel after due observations on every side, decided that it would be too much of a congregation for me, and that I had better go home to Flush – (poor Flush having been left at home in a state of absolute despair). She therefore put me into a cab and sent me to Wimpole Street, and stayed behind herself to hear M. Monod – there’s my adventure to-day. When I opened my door on my return, Flush threw himself upon me with a most ecstatical agony, and for full ten minutes did not cease jumping and kissing my hands – he thought he had lost me for certain, this time. Oh ! and you warn me against the danger of losing him. Indeed I take care and take thought too – those ‘ organised banditti ‘ are not merely banditti de comedie – they are a dreadful reality. Did I not tell you once that they had announced to me that I should not have Flush back the next time, for less than ten guineas ? But you will let him come with us to Italy, instead – will you not, dear, dearest ? in good earnest, will you not? Because, if I leave him behind, he will be teazed for my sins in this house – or I could not be sure of the reverse of it. And even if he escaped that fate, consider how he would break his heart about me. Dogs pine to death sometimes – and if ever a dog loved a man, or a woman, Flush loves me. But you say that he shall keep the house at Pisa – and you mean it, I hope and I think ? – you are in earnest. May God bless you, – so, I say my prayers, though I missed the Church. To-morrow, comes my letter . . come my two letters ! the happy Monday ! The happier Tuesday, if on Tuesday comes the writer of the letters !

His very own BA.

[Postmark: August 24, 1846]

This time, they brought me your letter at six o’clock yesterday evening : was I startled, or no, do you think, as I received it ? But all proved right, and kind as ever, or kinder. By the post-mark, I see you did go out. Can you care in this way for my disappointments and remedy them ? If I did not love you, how I would begin now ! Every day shows me more to love in you, dearest, and I open my arms as wide as I can . . ‘ incomprehensible ‘ Ba, as Donne would say ! Also he would say much better things, however.

What a visitation ! Miss Martineau is the more formidable friend, however – Mrs. Jameson will be contented with a little confidence, you see, and ask no questions – but I doubt if you arrange matters so easily with the new-comer. Because no great delicacy can be kept alive with all that conceit – and such conceit ! A lady told me a few weeks ago that she had seen a letter in which Miss M. gave as her reason for not undertaking then, during the London season, this very journey which empty London is to benefit from now, ‘ that at such a time she should be mobbed to death ‘ : whereupon the lady went on to comment, ‘ Miss M. little knows what London is, and how many nearly as notable objects may be found to divert its truculence from herself ‘ – Tom Thumb, and Ibrahim Pacha, to wit.

Why do you suspect that you ‘ teaze ‘ me when you say ‘ there will remain too much use for the word ” painful ” ‘ ? Do you not know more of me by this time, my own Ba ? When I have spoken of the probable happiness of our future life – of the chances in our favour from a community of tastes and feelings, – I have really done it on your account, not mine. I very well know that there would be an exquisite, secret happiness through pain with you, or for you – but it is not for me to insist on that, with that divine diffidence in your own worth which meets me wherever I turn to approach you, and puts me so gently aside . . so I rather retire and content myself with occupying the ground you do concede . . and since you will only hear of my being happy in the obvious, ordinary way, I tell you, with perfect truth, that you, and only you, can make me thus – that only you, of all women, look in the direction that I look, and feel as I feel, and live for the ends of my life ; and beside that, see with my eyes the most natural and immediate way of reaching them, through a simple life, retirements from the world here (not from the real world), travel, and the rest. But all the while I know . . do not you know, Ba ? . . that the joy’s essence is in the life with you, for the sake of you, not of the mere vulgar happiness ; and that if any of our calculations should fail, it will be a surprise, a delight, a pride to me to take the new taste you shall prescribe, or leave the old one you forbid. My life being yours, what matters the change which you effect in it ?

Here, you mean not even so much as this by your ‘ painful ‘ – ‘ Elopement ‘ ! Let them call it ‘ felony ‘ or ‘ burglary ‘ – so long as they don’t go to church with us, and propose my health after breakfast ! Now you fancy this a gratuitous piece of impertinence, do you not, Ba? You are wrong, sweet : I speak from directest experience – having dreamed, the night before last, that we were married, and that on adjourning to the house of a friend of mine, his brother, a young fop I know slightly, made a speech, about a certain desk or dressing-case, which he ended by presenting to me in the name of the house ! Whereto I replied in a strain of the most alarming fluency ( . . all in the dream, I need not tell you) – ‘and then I woke.’ Oh can I have smiled, higher up in the letter, at Miss Martineau’s overexcitability on the subject of ‘ mobbing ‘ here ? The greatest coward is the wisest man . . even the suspicion of such mobs ought to keep people at their lakes, or send them to their Pisas.

By the way, Byron speaks of plucking oranges in his garden at Pisa . . I saw just a courtyard with a high wall – which may have been a garden . . but a gloomier one than the palace, even, warrants. They have painted the front fresh staring yellow and changed its name . . there being another Casa Lanfranchi on the other side of the Arno.

Now I will kiss you, dearest : used you to divine that at the very beginning, I have sometimes shortened the visit in order to arrive at the time of taking your hand ?

You will write to me to-night, I think – Tuesday is our day, remember. May God bless you, my very very dearest –

Your R

That sonnet will not turn up it is neither in Vasari, nor Dolce, nor Castiglione . . probably in Richardson’s ‘ Painting ‘ which somebody has borrowed – but I will find it yet, knowing that it must be near at hand.