Author: EBB

Saturday Evening.

This is the mere postscript to the letter I have just sent away. By a few minutes too late, comes what I have all day been waiting for,  . . . and besides (now it is just too late!) now I may have a skein of silk if I please, to make that knot with,  . . . for want of which, two locks meant for you, have been devoted to the infernal gods already  . . . fallen into a tangle and thrown into the fire  . . . and all the hair of my head might have followed, for I was losing my patience and temper fast,  . . . and the post to boot. So wisely I shut my letter, (after unwisely having driven everything to the last moment!) — and now I have silk to tie fast with  . . . to tie a ‘nodus’  . . . ‘dignus’ of the celestial interposition — and a new packet shall be ready to go to you directly.

At last I remember to tell you that the first letter you had from me this week, was forgotten, (not by me) forgotten, and detained, so, from the post — a piece of carelessness which Wilson came to confess to me too frankly for me to grumble as I should have done otherwise.

For the staying longer, I did not mean to say you were wrong not to stay. In the first place you were keeping your father ‘in a maze,’ as you said yourself — and then, even without that, I never know what o’clock it is  . . . never. Mr. Kenyon tells me that I must live in a dream — which I do — time goes  . . . seeming to go round rather than go forward. The watch I have, broke its spring two years ago, and there I leave it in the drawer — and the clocks all round strike out of hearing, or at best, when the wind brings the sound, one upon another in a confusion. So you know more of time than I do or can.

Till Monday then! I send the ‘Ricordi’ to take care of the rest  . . . of mine. It is a touching story — and there is an impracticable nobleness from end to end in the spirit of it. How slow (to the ear and mind) that Italian rhetoric is! a language for dreamers and declaimers. Yet Dante made it for action, and Machiavelli’s prose can walk and strike as well as float and faint.

The ring is smaller than I feared at first, and may perhaps —

Now you will not say a word. My excuse is that you had nothing to remember me by, while I had this and this and this and this  . . . how much too much!

If I could be too much

Your

E.B.B.

 

Friday.

December 1, 1845.

It comes at eight o’clock — the post says eight  . . . I say nearer half past eight  . . . it comes — and I thank you, thank you, as I can. Do you remember the purple lock of a king on which hung the fate of a city? I do! And I need not in conscience — because this one here did not come to me by treason — ‘ego et rex meus,’ on the contrary, do fairly give and take.

I meant at first only to send you what is in the ring  . . . which, by the way, will not fit you I know — (not certainly in the finger which it was meant for  . . .) as it would not Napoleon before you — but can easily be altered to the right size . . .. I meant at first to send you only what was in the ring: but your fashion is best so you shall have it both ways. Now don’t say a word on Monday  . . . nor at all. As for the ring, recollect that I am forced to feel blindfold into the outer world, and take what is nearest  . . . by chance, not choice  . . . or it might have been better — a little better — perhaps. The best of it is that it’s the colour of your blue flowers. Now you will not say a word — I trust to you.

It is enough that you should have said these others, I think. Now is it just of you? isn’t it hard upon me? And if the charge is true, whose fault is it, pray? I have been ashamed and vexed with myself fifty times for being so like a little girl,  . . . for seeming to have ‘affectations’; and all in vain: ‘it was stronger than I,’ as the French say. And for you to complain! As if Haroun Alraschid after cutting off a head, should complain of the want of an obeisance! — Well! — I smile notwithstanding. Nobody can help smiling — both for my foolishness which is great, I confess, though somewhat exaggerated in your statement — (because if it was quite as bad as you say, you know, I never should have seen you  . . . and I have!) and also for yours  . . . because you take such a very preposterously wrong way for overcoming anybody’s shyness. Do you know, I have laughed  . . . really laughed at your letter. No — it has not been so bad. I have seen you at every visit, as well as I could with both eyes wide open — only that by a supernatural influence they won’t stay open with you as they are used to do with other people  . . . so now I tell you. And for the rest I promise nothing at all — as how can I, when it is quite beyond my control — and you have not improved my capabilities  . . . do you think you have? Why what nonsense we have come to — we, who ought to be ‘talking Greek!’ said Mr. Kenyon.

Yes — he came and talked of you, and told me how you had been speaking of  . . . me; and I have been thinking how I should have been proud of it a year ago, and how I could half scold you for it now. Ah yes — and Mr. Kenyon told me that you had spoken exaggerations — such exaggerations! — Now should there not be some scolding  . . . some?

But how did you expect Mr. Kenyon to ‘wonder’ at you, or be ‘vexed’ with you? That would have been strange surely. You are and always have been a chief favourite in that quarter  . . . appreciated, praised, loved, I think.

While I write, a letter from America is put into my hands, and having read it through with shame and confusion of face  . . . not able to help a smile though notwithstanding,  . . . I send it to you to show how you have made me behave! — to say nothing of my other offences to the kind people at Boston — and to a stray gentleman in Philadelphia who is to perform a pilgrimage next year, he says,  . . . to visit the Holy Land and your E.B.B. I was naughty enough to take that letter to be a circular  . . . for the address of various ‘Europaians.’ In any case  . . . just see how I have behaved! and if it has not been worse than  . . . not opening one’s eyes! — Judge. Really and gravely I am ashamed — I mean as to Mr. Mathews, who has been an earnest, kind friend to me — and I do mean to behave better. I say that to prevent your scolding, you know. And think of Mr. Poe, with that great Roman justice of his (if not rather American!), dedicating a book to one and abusing one in the preface of the same. He wrote a review of me in just that spirit — the two extremes of laudation and reprehension, folded in on one another. You would have thought that it had been written by a friend and foe, each stark mad with love and hate, and writing the alternate paragraphs — a most curious production indeed.

And here I shall end. I have been waiting  . . . waiting for what does not come  . . . the ring  . . . sent to have the hair put in; but it won’t come (now) until too late for the post, and you must hear from me before Monday  . . . you ought to have heard to-day. It has not been my fault — I have waited. Oh these people — who won’t remember that it is possible to be out of patience! So I send you my letter now  . . . and what is in the paper now  . . . and the rest, you shall have after Monday. And you will not say a word  . . . not then  . . . not at all! — I trust you. And may God bless you.

If ever you care less for me — I do not say it in distrust of you  . . . I trust you wholly — but you are a man, and free to care less,  . . . and if ever you do  . . . why in that case you will destroy, burn,  . . . do all but send back  . . . enough is said for you to understand.

May God bless you. You are best to me — best  . . . as I see  . . . in the world — and so, dearest aright to

Your

E.B.B.

Finished on Saturday evening. Oh — this thread of silk — And to post!! After all you must wait till Tuesday. I have no silk within reach and shall miss the post. Do forgive me.

 

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.

 

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!

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Two letters in one — Wednesday.

November 15, 1845.

I shall see you to-morrow and yet am writing what you will have to read perhaps. When you spoke of ‘stars’ and ‘geniuses’ in that letter, I did not seem to hear; I was listening to those words of the letter which were of a better silver in the sound than even your praise could be; and now that at last I come to hear them in their extravagance (oh such pure extravagance about ‘glorious geniuses’ — ) I can’t help telling you they were heard last, and deserved it.

Shall I tell you besides? — The first moment in which I seemed to admit to myself in a flash of lightning the possibility of your affection for me being more than dream-work  . . . the first moment was that when you intimated (as you have done since repeatedly) that you cared for me not for a reason, but because you cared for me. Now such a ‘parceque’ which reasonable people would take to be irrational, was just the only one fitted to the uses of my understanding on the particular question we were upon  . . . just the ‘woman’s reason’ suitable to the woman  . . .; for I could understand that it might be as you said, and, if so, that it was altogether unanswerable  . . . do you see? If a fact includes its own cause  . . . why there it stands for ever — one of ‘earth’s immortalities’ — as long as it includes it.

And when unreasonableness stands for a reason, it is a promising state of things, we may both admit, and proves what it would be as well not too curiously to enquire into. But then  . . . to look at it in a brighter aspect,  . . . I do remember how, years ago, when talking the foolishnesses which women will talk when they are by themselves, and not forced to be sensible,  . . . one of my friends thought it ‘safest to begin with a little aversion,’ and another, wisest to begin with a great deal of esteem, and how the best attachments were produced so and so,  . . . I took it into my head to say that the best was where there was no cause at all for it, and the more wholly unreasonable, the better still; that the motive should lie in the feeling itself and not in the object of it — and that the affection which could (if it could) throw itself out on an idiot with a goître would be more admirable than Abelard’s. Whereupon everybody laughed, and someone thought it affected of me and no true opinion, and others said plainly that it was immoral, and somebody else hoped, in a sarcasm, that I meant to act out my theory for the advantage of the world. To which I replied quite gravely that I had not virtue enough — and so, people laughed as it is fair to laugh when other people are esteemed to talk nonsense. And all this came back to me in the south wind of your ‘parceque,’ and I tell it as it came  . . . now.

Which proves, if it proves anything,  . . . while I have every sort of natural pleasure in your praises and like you to like my poetry just as I should, and perhaps more than I should; yet why it is all behind  . . . and in its place — and why I have a tendency moreover to sift and measure any praise of yours and to separate it from the superfluities, far more than with any other person’s praise in the world.

Friday evening. — Shall I send this letter or not? I have been ‘tra ‘l si e ‘l no,’ and writing a new beginning on a new sheet even — but after all you ought to hear the remote echo of your last letter  . . . far out among the hills,  . . . as well as the immediate reverberation, and so I will send it, — and what I send is not to be answered, remember!

I read Luria’s first act twice through before I slept last night, and feel just as a bullet might feel, not because of the lead of it but because shot into the air and suddenly arrested and suspended. It (‘Luria’) is all life, and we know (that is, the reader knows) that there must be results here and here. How fine that sight of Luria is upon the lynx hides — how you see the Moor in him just in the glimpse you have by the eyes of another — and that laugh when the horse drops the forage, what wonderful truth and character you have in that! — And then, when he is in the scene — : ‘Golden-hearted Luria’ you called him once to me, and his heart shines already  . . . wide open to the morning sun. The construction seems to me very clear everywhere — and the rhythm, even over-smooth in a few verses, where you invert a little artificially — but that shall be set down on a separate strip of paper: and in the meantime I am snatched up into ‘Luria’ and feel myself driven on to the ends of the poet, just as a reader should.

But you are not driven on to any ends? so as to be tired, I mean? You will not suffer yourself to be overworked because you are ‘interested’ in this work. I am so certain that the sensations in your head demand repose; and it must be so injurious to you to be perpetually calling, calling these new creations, one after another, that you must consent to be called to, and not hurry the next act, no, nor any act — let the people have time to learn the last number by heart. And how glad I am that Mr. Fox should say what he did of it  . . . though it wasn’t true, you know  . . . not exactly. Still, I do hold that as far as construction goes, you never put together so much unquestionable, smooth glory before,  . . . not a single entanglement for the understanding  . . . unless ‘the snowdrops’ make an exception — while for the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before your readers more plainly than in that same number! Also you have extended your sweep of power — the sea-weed is thrown farther (if not higher) than it was found before; and one may calculate surely now how a few more waves will cover the brown stones and float the sight up away through the fissure of the rocks. The rhythm (to touch one of the various things) the rhythm of that ‘Duchess’ does more and more strike me as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greeks called pedestrian-metre,  . . . between metre and prose  . . . the difficult rhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of the general measure. Then ‘The Ride’ — with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering  . . . yes, and how that one touch of softness acts back upon the energy and resolution and exalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have been expected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then ‘Saul’ — and in a first place ‘St. Praxed’ — and for pure description, ‘Fortú’ and the deep ‘Pictor Ignotus’ — and the noble, serene ‘Italy in England,’ which grows on you the more you know of it — and that delightful ‘Glove’ — and the short lyrics  . . . for one comes to ‘select’ everything at last, and certainly I do like these poems better and better, as your poems are made to be liked. But you will be tired to hear it said over and over so,  . . . and I am going to ‘Luria,’ besides.

When you write will you say exactly how you are? and will you write? And I want to explain to you that although I don’t make a profession of equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits were always given to rock a little, up and down) yet that I did not mean to be so ungrateful and wicked as to complain of low spirits now and to you. It would not be true either: and I said ‘low’ to express a merely bodily state. My opium comes in to keep the pulse from fluttering and fainting  . . . to give the right composure and point of balance to the nervous system. I don’t take it for ‘my spirits’ in the usual sense; you must not think such a thing. The medical man who came to see me made me take it the other day when he was in the room, before the right hour and when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the need he observed in the pulse. ‘It was a necessity of my position,’ he said. Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually do who take opium. I am not even subject to an opium-headache. As to the low spirits I will not say that mine have not been low enough and with cause enough; but even then,  . . . why if you were to ask the nearest witnesses,  . . . say, even my own sisters,  . . . everybody would tell you, I think, that the ‘cheerfulness’ even then, was the remarkable thing in me — certainly it has been remarked about me again and again. Nobody has known that it was an effort (a habit of effort) to throw the light on the outside, — I do abhor so that ignoble groaning aloud of the ‘groans of Testy and Sensitude’ — yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in anything. Think if I could mean to complain of ‘low spirits’ now, and to you. Why it would be like complaining of not being able to see at noon — which would simply prove that I was very blind. And you, who are not blind, cannot make out what is written — so you need not try. May God bless you long after you have done blessing me!

Your own

E.B.B.

Now I am half tempted to tear this letter in two (and it is long enough for three) and to send you only the latter half. But you will understand — you will not think that there is a contradiction between the first and last  . . . you cannot. One is a truth of me — and the other a truth of you — and we two are different, you know.

You are not over-working in ‘Luria’? That you should not, is a truth, too.

I observed that Mr. Kenyon put in ‘Junior‘ to your address. Ought that to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you without hesitation?

Mr. Kenyon asked me for Mr. Chorley’s book, or you should have it. Shall I send it to you presently?

 

Monday.

November 11, 1845.

If it were possible that you could do me harm in the way of work, (but it isn’t) it would be possible, not through writing letters and reading manuscripts, but because of a reason to be drawn from your own great line

What man is strong until he stands alone?

What man  . . . what woman? For have I not felt twenty times the desolate advantage of being insulated here and of not minding anybody when I made my poems? — of living a little like a disembodied spirit, and caring less for suppositious criticism than for the black fly buzzing in the pane? — That made me what dear Mr. Kenyon calls ‘insolent,’ — untimid, and unconventional in my degree; and not so much by strength, you see, as by separation. You touch your greater ends by mere strength; breaking with your own hands the hampering threads which, in your position would have hampered me.

Still  . . . when all is changed for me now, and different, it is not possible,  . . . for all the changing, nor for all your line and my speculation,  . . . that I should not be better and stronger for being within your influences and sympathies, in this way of writing as in other ways. We shall see — you will see. Yet I have been idle lately I confess; leaning half out of some turret-window of the castle of Indolence and watching the new sunrise — as why not? — Do I mean to be idle always? — no! — and am I not an industrious worker on the average of days? Indeed yes! Also I have been less idle than you think perhaps, even this last year, though the results seem so like trifling: and I shall set about the prose papers for the New York people, and the something rather better besides we may hope  . . . may I not hope, if you wish it? Only there is no ‘crown’ for me, be sure, except what grows from this letter and such letters  . . . this sense of being anything to one! there is no room for another crown. Have I a great head like Goethe’s that there should be room? and mine is bent down already by the unused weight — and as to bearing it,  . . . ‘Will it do, — tell me; to treat that as a light effort, an easy matter?’

Now let me remember to tell you that the line of yours I have just quoted, and which has been present with me since you wrote it, Mr. Chorley has quoted too in his new novel of ‘Pomfret.’ You were right in your identifying of servant and waistcoat — and Wilson waited only till you had gone on Saturday, to give me a parcel and note; the novel itself in fact, which Mr. Chorley had the kindness to send me ‘some days or weeks,’ said the note, ‘previous to the publication.’ Very goodnatured of him certainly: and the book seems to me his best work in point of sustainment and vigour, and I am in process of being interested in it. Not that he is a maker, even for this prose. A feeler  . . . an observer  . . . a thinker even, in a certain sphere — but a maker  . . . no, as it seems to me — and if I were he, I would rather herd with the essayists than the novelists where he is too good to take inferior rank and not strong enough to ‘go up higher.’ Only it would be more right in me to be grateful than to talk so — now wouldn’t it?

And here is Mr. Kenyon’s letter back again — a kind good letter  . . . a letter I have liked to read (so it was kind and good in you to let me!) — and he was with me to-day and praising the ‘Ride to Ghent,’ and praising the ‘Duchess,’ and praising you altogether as I liked to hear him. The Ghent-ride was ‘very fine’ — and the

Into the midnight they galloped abreast

drew us out into the night as witnesses. And then, the ‘Duchess’  . . . the conception of it was noble, and the vehicle, rhythm and all, most characteristic and individual  . . . though some of the rhymes  . . . oh, some of the rhymes did not find grace in his ears — but the incantation-scene, ‘just trenching on the supernatural,’ that was taken to be ‘wonderful,’  . . . ‘showing extraordinary power,  . . . as indeed other things did  . . . works of a highly original writer and of such various faculty!’ — Am I not tired of writing your praises as he said then? So I shall tell you, instead of any more, that I went down to the drawing-room yesterday (because it was warm enough) by an act of supererogatory virtue for which you may praise me in turn. What weather it is! and how the year seems to have forgotten itself into April.

But after all, how have I answered your letter? and how are such letters to be answered? Do we answer the sun when he shines? May God bless you  . . . it is my answer — with one word besides  . . . that I am wholly and ever your

E.B.B.

On Thursday as far as I know yet — and you shall hear if there should be an obstacle. Will you walk? If you will not, you know, you must be forgetting me a little. Will you remember me too in the act of the play? — but above all things in taking the right exercise, and in not overworking the head. And this for no serpent’s reason.

 

Thursday Evening.

November 7, 1845.

I see and know; read and mark; and only hope there is no harm done by my meddling; and lose the sense of it all in the sense of beauty and power everywhere, which nobody could kill, if they took to meddling more even. And now, what will people say to this and this and this — or ‘O seclum insipiens et inficetum!’ or rather, O ungrateful right hand which does not thank you first! I do thank you. I have been reading everything with new delight; and at intervals remembering in inglorious complacency (for which you must try to forgive me) that Mr. Forster is no longer anything like an enemy. And yet (just see what contradiction!) the British Quarterly has been abusing me so at large, that I can only take it to be the achievement of a very particular friend indeed, — of someone who positively never reviewed before and tries his new sword on me out of pure friendship. Only I suppose it is not the general rule, and that there are friends ‘with a difference.’ Not that you are to fancy me pained — oh no! — merely surprised. I was prepared for anything almost from the quarter in question, but scarcely for being hung ‘to the crows’ so publicly  . . . though within the bounds of legitimate criticisms, mind. But oh — the creatures of your sex are not always magnanimous — that is true. And to put you between me and all  . . . the thought of you  . . . in a great eclipse of the world  . . . that is happy  . . . only, too happy for such as I am; as my own heart warns me hour by hour.

‘Serve me right’ — I do not dare to complain. I wished for the safety of that letter so much that I finished by persuading myself of the probability of it: but ‘serve me right’ quite clearly. And yet — but no more ‘and yets’ about it. ‘And yets’ fray the silk.

I see how the ‘turret’ stands in the new reading, triumphing over the ‘tower,’ and unexceptionable in every respect. Also I do hold that nobody with an ordinary understanding has the slightest pretence for attaching a charge of obscurity to this new number — there are lights enough for the critics to scan one another’s dull blank of visage by. One verse indeed in that expressive lyric of the ‘Lost Mistress,’ does still seem questionable to me, though you have changed a word since I saw it; and still I fancy that I rather leap at the meaning than reach it — but it is my own fault probably  . . . I am not sure. With that one exception I am quite sure that people who shall complain of darkness are blind  . . . I mean, that the construction is clear and unembarrassed everywhere. Subtleties of thought which are not directly apprehensible by minds of a common range, are here as elsewhere in your writings — but if to utter things ‘hard to understand’ from that cause be an offence, why we may begin with ‘our beloved brother Paul,’ you know, and go down through all the geniuses of the world, and bid them put away their inspirations. You must descend to the level of critic A or B, that he may look into your face . . .. Ah well! — ‘Let them rave.’ You will live when all those are under the willows. In the meantime there is something better, as you said, even than your poetry — as the giver is better than the gift, and the maker than the creature, and you than yours. Yes — you than yours . . .. (I did not mean it so when I wrote it first  . . . but I accept the ‘bona verba,’ and use the phrase for the end of my letter)  . . . as you are better than yours; even when so much yours as your own

E.B.B.

May I see the first act first? Let me! — And you walk?

Mr. Horne’s address is Hill Side, Fitzroy Park, Highgate.

There is no reason against Saturday so far. Mr. Kenyon comes to-morrow, Friday, and therefore — ! — and if Saturday should become impracticable, I will write again.