Author: EBB

October 11, 1845.

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

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

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

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

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

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

E.B.B.

 

Wednesday Evening.

October 8, 1845.

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

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

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

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

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

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

 

October 7, 1845.

Ah but the good things do not come together — for just as your letter comes I am driven to asking you to leave Tuesday for Wednesday.

On Tuesday Mr. Kenyon is to be here or not to be here, he says — there’s a doubt; and you would rather go to a clear day. So if you do not hear from me again I shall expect you on Wednesday unless I hear to the contrary from you: — and if anything happens to Wednesday you shall hear. Mr. Kenyon is in town for only two days, or three. I never could grumble against him, so good and kind as he is — but he may not come after all to-morrow — so it is not grudging the obolus to Belisarius, but the squandering of the last golden days at the bottom of the purse.

Do I ‘stand’ — Do I walk? Yes — most uprightly. I ‘walk upright every day.’ Do I go out? no, never. And I am not to be scolded for that, because when you were looking at the sun to-day, I was marking the east wind; and perhaps if I had breathed a breath of it  . . . farewell Pisa. People who can walk don’t always walk into the lion’s den as a consequence — do they? should they? Are you ‘sure that they should?’ I write in great haste. So Wednesday then  . . . perhaps!

And yours every day.

You understand. Wednesday — if nothing to the contrary.

 

Saturday.

October 6, 1845.

Tuesday is given up in full council. The thing is beyond doubting of, as George says and as you thought yesterday. And then George has it in his head to beguile the Duke of Palmella out of a smaller cabin, so that I might sail from the Thames on the twentieth — and whether he succeeds or not, I humbly confess that one of the chief advantages of the new plan if not the very chief (as I see it) is just in the delay.

Your spring-song is full of beauty as you know very well — and ‘that’s the wise thrush,’ so characteristic of you (and of the thrush too) that I was sorely tempted to ask you to write it ‘twice over,’  . . . and not send the first copy to Mary Hunter notwithstanding my promise to her. And now when you come to print these fragments, would it not be well if you were to stoop to the vulgarism of prefixing some word of introduction, as other people do, you know,  . . . a title  . . . a name? You perplex your readers often by casting yourself on their intelligence in these things — and although it is true that readers in general are stupid and can’t understand, it is still more true that they are lazy and won’t understand  . . . and they don’t catch your point of sight at first unless you think it worth while to push them by the shoulders and force them into the right place. Now these fragments  . . . you mean to print them with a line between  . . . and not one word at the top of it  . . . now don’t you! And then people will read

Oh, to be in England

and say to themselves  . . . ‘Why who is this?  . . . who’s out of England?’ Which is an extreme case of course; but you will see what I mean  . . . and often I have observed how some of the very most beautiful of your lyrics have suffered just from your disdain of the usual tactics of writers in this one respect.

And you are not better, still — you are worse instead of better  . . . are you not? Tell me — And what can you mean about ‘unimportance,’ when you were worse last week  . . . this expiring week  . . . than ever before, by your own confession? And now? — And your mother?

Yes — I promise! And so,  . . . Elijah will be missed instead of his mantle  . . . which will be a losing contract after all. But it shall be as you say. May you be able to say that you are better! God bless you.

Ever yours.

Never think of the ‘White Slave.’ I had just taken it up. The trash of it is prodigious — far beyond Mr. Smythe. Not that I can settle upon a book just now, in all this wind, to judge of it fairly.

 

Wednesday.

October 1, 1845.

I have read to the last line of your ‘Rosicrucian’; and my scepticism grew and grew through Hume’s process of doubtful doubts, and at last rose to the full stature of incredulity  . . . for I never could believe Shelley capable of such a book (call it a book!), not even with a flood of boarding-school idiocy dashed in by way of dilution. Altogether it roused me to deny myself so far as to look at the date of the book, and to get up and travel to the other end of the room to confront it with other dates in the ‘Letters from Abroad’  . . . (I, who never think of a date except the ‘A.D.,’ and am inclined every now and then to write that down as 1548  . . .) well! and on comparing these dates in these two volumes before my eyes, I find that your Rosicrucian was ‘printed for Stockdale’ in 1822, and that Shelley died in the July of the same year!! — There, is a vindicating fact for you! And unless the ‘Rosicrucian’ went into more editions than one, and dates here from a later one,  . . . which is not ascertainable from this fragment of a titlepage,  . . . the innocence of the great poet stands proved — now doesn’t it? For nobody will say that he published such a book in the last year of his life, in the maturity of his genius, and that Godwin’s daughter helped him in it! That ‘dripping dew’ from the skeleton is the only living word in the book! — which really amused me notwithstanding, from the intense absurdity of the whole composition  . . . descriptions  . . . sentiments  . . . and morals.

Judge yourself if I had not better say ‘No’ about the cloak! I would take it if you wished such a kindness to me — and although you might find it very useful to yourself  . . . or to your mother or sister  . . . still if you wished me to take it I should like to have it, and the mantle of the prophet might bring me down something of his spirit! but do you remember  . . . do you consider  . . . how many talkers there are in this house, and what would be talked — or that it is not worth while to provoke it all? And Papa, knowing it, would not like it — and altogether it is far better, believe me, that you should keep your own cloak, and I, the thought of the kindness you meditated in respect to it. I have heard nothing more — nothing.

I was asked the other day by a very young friend of mine  . . . the daughter of an older friend who once followed you up-stairs in this house  . . . Mr. Hunter, an Independent minister  . . . for ‘Mr. Browning’s autograph.’ She wants it for a collection  . . . for her album — and so, will you write out a verse or two on one side of note paper  . . . not as you write for the printers  . . . and let me keep my promise and send it to her? I forgot to ask you before. Or one verse will do  . . . anything will do  . . . and don’t let me be bringing you into vexation. It need not be of MS. rarity.

You are not better  . . . really  . . . I fear. And your mother’s being ill affects you more than you like to admit, I fear besides. Will you, when you write, say how both are  . . . nothing extenuating, you know. May God bless you, my dearest friend.

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

 

September 29, 1845.

Then first,  . . . first, I ask you not to misunderstand. Because we do not  . . . no, we do not  . . . agree (but disagree) as to ‘what is your true good’  . . . but disagree, and as widely as ever indeed.

The other asking shall come in its season  . . . some day before I go, if I go. It only relates to a restitution — and you cannot guess it if you try  . . . so don’t try! — and perhaps you can’t grant it if you try — and I cannot guess.

Cabins and berths all taken in the Malta steamer for both third and twentieth of October! see what dark lanterns the stars hold out, and how I shall stay in England after all as I think! And thus we are thrown back on the old Gibraltar scheme with its shifting of steamers  . . . unless we take the dreary alternative of Madeira! — or Cadiz! Even suppose Madeira,  . . . why it were for a few months alone — and there would be no temptation to loiter as in Italy.

Don’t think too hardly of poor Papa. You have his wrong side  . . . his side of peculiar wrongness  . . . to you just now. When you have walked round him you will have other thoughts of him.

Are you better, I wonder? and taking exercise and trying to be better? May God bless you! Tuesday need not be the last day if you like to take one more besides — for there is no going until the fourth or seventh,  . . . and the seventh is the more probable of those two. But now you have done with me until Tuesday.

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

 

Friday Evening.

September 27, 1845.

I had your letter late last night, everyone almost, being out of the house by an accident, so that it was left in the letter-box, and if I had wished to answer it before I saw you, it had scarcely been possible.

But it will be the same thing — for you know as well as if you saw my answer, what it must be, what it cannot choose but be, on pain of sinking me so infinitely below not merely your level but my own, that the depth cannot bear a glance down. Yet, though I am not made of such clay as to admit of my taking a base advantage of certain noble extravagances, (and that I am not I thank God for your sake) I will say, I must say, that your words in this letter have done me good and made me happy,  . . . that I thank and bless you for them,  . . . and that to receive such a proof of attachment from you, not only overpowers every present evil, but seems to me a full and abundant amends for the merely personal sufferings of my whole life. When I had read that letter last night I did think so. I looked round and round for the small bitternesses which for several days had been bitter to me, and I could not find one of them. The tear-marks went away in the moisture of new, happy tears. Why, how else could I have felt? how else do you think I could? How would any woman have felt  . . . who could feel at all  . . . hearing such words said (though ‘in a dream’ indeed) by such a speaker?

And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me — my heart was full when you came here to-day. Henceforward I am yours for everything but to do you harm — and I am yours too much, in my heart, ever to consent to do you harm in that way. If I could consent to do it, not only should I be less loyal  . . . but in one sense, less yours. I say this to you without drawback and reserve, because it is all I am able to say, and perhaps all I shall be able to say. However this may be, a promise goes to you in it that none, except God and your will, shall interpose between you and me,  . . . I mean, that if He should free me within a moderate time from the trailing chain of this weakness, I will then be to you whatever at that hour you shall choose  . . . whether friend or more than friend  . . . a friend to the last in any case. So it rests with God and with you — only in the meanwhile you are most absolutely free  . . . ‘unentangled’ (as they call it) by the breadth of a thread — and if I did not know that you considered yourself so, I would not see you any more, let the effort cost me what it might. You may force me feel:  . . . but you cannot force me to think contrary to my first thought  . . . that it were better for you to forget me at once in one relation. And if better for you, can it be bad for me? which flings me down on the stone-pavement of the logicians.

And now if I ask a boon of you, will you forget afterwards that it ever was asked? I have hesitated a great deal; but my face is down on the stone-pavement — no — I will not ask to-day — It shall be for another day — and may God bless you on this and on those that come after, my dearest friend.

 

I have spoken again, and the result is that we are in precisely the same position; only with bitterer feelings on one side. If I go or stay they must be bitter: words have been said that I cannot easily forget, nor remember without pain; and yet I really do almost smile in the midst of it all, to think how I was treated this morning as an undutiful daughter because I tried to put on my gloves  . . . for there was no worse provocation. At least he complained of the undutifulness and rebellion (!!!) of everyone in the house — and when I asked if he meant that reproach for me, the answer was that he meant it for all of us, one with another. And I could not get an answer. He would not even grant me the consolation of thinking that I sacrificed what I supposed to be good, to him. I told him that my prospects of health seemed to me to depend on taking this step, but that through my affection for him, I was ready to sacrifice those to his pleasure if he exacted it — only it was necessary to my self-satisfaction in future years, to understand definitely that the sacrifice was exacted by him and was made to him,  . . . and not thrown away blindly and by a misapprehension. And he would not answer that. I might do my own way, he said — he would not speak — he would not say that he was not displeased with me, nor the contrary: — I had better do what I liked: — for his part, he washed his hands of me altogether.

And so I have been very wise — witness how my eyes are swelled with annotations and reflections on all this! The best of it is that now George himself admits I can do no more in the way of speaking,  . . . I have no spell for charming the dragons,  . . . and allows me to be passive and enjoins me to be tranquil, and not ‘make up my mind’ to any dreadful exertion for the future. Moreover he advises me to go on with the preparations for the voyage, and promises to state the case himself at the last hour to the ‘highest authority’; and judge finally whether it be possible for me to go with the necessary companionship. And it seems best to go to Malta on the 3rd of October — if at all  . . . from steam-packet reasons  . . . without excluding Pisa  . . . remember  . . . by any means.

Well! — and what do you think? Might it be desirable for me to give up the whole? Tell me. I feel aggrieved of course and wounded — and whether I go or stay that feeling must last — I cannot help it. But my spirits sink altogether at the thought of leaving England so — and then I doubt about Arabel and Stormie  . . . and it seems to me that I ought not to mix them up in a business of this kind where the advantage is merely personal to myself. On the other side, George holds that if I give up and stay even, there will be displeasure just the same,  . . . and that, when once gone, the irritation will exhaust and smooth itself away — which however does not touch my chief objection. Would it be better  . . . more right  . . . to give it up? Think for me. Even if I hold on to the last, at the last I shall be thrown off — that is my conviction. But  . . . shall I give up at once? Do think for me.

And I have thought that if you like to come on Friday instead of Saturday  . . . as there is the uncertainty about next week,  . . . it would divide the time more equally: but let it be as you like and according to circumstances as you see them. Perhaps you have decided to go at once with your friends — who knows? I wish I could know that you were better to-day. May God bless you

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

 

September 24, 1845.

I have nothing to say about Pisa,  . . . but a great deal (if I could say it) about you, who do what is wrong by your own confession and are ill because of it and make people uneasy — now is it right altogether? is it right to do wrong? . . . for it comes to that: — and is it kind to do so much wrong? . . . for it comes almost to that besides. Ah — you should not indeed! I seem to see quite plainly that you will be ill in a serious way, if you do not take care and take exercise; and so you must consent to be teazed a little into taking both. And if you will not take them here  . . . or not so effectually as in other places; why not go with your Italian friends? Have you thought of it at all? I have been thinking since yesterday that it might be best for you to go at once, now that the probability has turned quite against me. If I were going, I should ask you not to do so immediately  . . . but you see how unlikely it is! — although I mean still to speak my whole thoughts — I will do that  . . . even though for the mere purpose of self-satisfaction. George came last night — but there is an adverse star this morning, and neither of us has the opportunity necessary. Only both he and I will speak — that is certain. And Arabel had the kindness to say yesterday that if I liked to go, she would go with me at whatever hazard — which is very kind — but you know I could not — it would not be right of me. And perhaps after all we may gain the point lawfully; and if not  . . . at the worst  . . . the winter may be warm (it is better to fall into the hands of God, as the Jew said) and I may lose less strength than usual,  . . . having more than usual to lose  . . . and altogether it may not be so bad an alternative. As to being the cause of any anger against my sister, you would not advise me into such a position, I am sure — it would be untenable for one moment.

But you  . . . in that case,  . . . would it not be good for your head if you went at once? I praise myself for saying so to you — yet if it really is good for you, I don’t deserve the praising at all. And how was it on Saturday — that question I did not ask yesterday — with Ben Jonson and the amateurs? I thought of you at the time — I mean, on that Saturday evening, nevertheless.

You shall hear when there is any more to say. May God bless you, dearest friend! I am ever yours,

E.B.B.

 

Friday Morning.

September 19, 1845.

It is not ‘misunderstanding’ you to know you to be the most generous and loyal of all in the world — you overwhelm me with your generosity — only while you see from above and I from below, we cannot see the same thing in the same light. Moreover, if we did, I should be more beneath you in one sense, than I am. Do me the justice of remembering this whenever you recur in thought to the subject which ends here in the words of it.

I began to write last Saturday to thank you for all the delight I had had in Shelley, though you beguiled me about the pencil-marks, which are few. Besides the translations, some of the original poems were not in my copy and were, so, quite new to me. ‘Marianne’s Dream’ I had been anxious about to no end — I only know it now. —

On Monday at the usual hour. As to coming twice into town on Saturday, that would have been quite foolish if it had been possible.

Dearest friend,

I am yours,

E.B.B.