Author: RB

[Postmark: May 21, 1846]

Thursday.

Just as I write, the weather is a little more proper for
this ‘ the blest ascension-day of the cheerful month of May ‘ :
may you not go out therefore, my Ba ? Or down-stairs, at
all events. We were sorry, Sarianna and I, to see the bright
afternoon yesterday . . we ought to have gone, perhaps —
but Mr. Kenyon is good and will understand ; spite of the
spectacles. But what sonnet is that, you perverse Ba, of
which you give me the two or three words, — in print,— how,
where ? And if I do not request and request I shall be sure
to hear nothing of that American review again, — so, I do
request, Ba !

Last night brought Dickens’ ‘ Pictures from Italy ‘ — which
I read this morning. He seems to have expended his power
on the least interesting places, —and then gone on hurriedly,
seeing or describing less and less, till at last the mere names
of places do duty for pictures of them, and at Naples he
fairly gives it up . . the Vesuvius’ journey excepted. But
the book is readable and clever – shall I bring it ? — (or next
week when everybody here has done with it).

I know, dearest, you did not promise me that beatific
vision by the gate — but was not enough said to justify me
in waiting for you there ? Indeed, yes — only the rain and
wind seemed to forbid you ; as they did. Were your sisters
pleased ? I am not sure I should have been glad to meet
them so — I could not have left my sister (whom nobody
would have known) — and then, with that, unspoken secret
between us. Also I please myself by hoping that Mr.
Kenyon was only relieved of a great trouble and annoyance
in the present state of his anxieties by our keeping away.
Poor Captain Jones — really a fine, manly, noble fellow — I
am heartily sorry. As for me, since Ba asks, I am pretty
well, — much better in some points, and no worse in the rest
— all is right but the little sound in the head which will be
intrusive — but I must walk it away presently, or think it away
at worst.

For, dearest, dearest Ba, I can cure all pains at once
with you to think of, and to love, and to bless. So, bless
you !

Your R.

[Postmark: May 20, 1846]

Wednesday.

My Ba, I can just kneel down to you and be kissed, — I
cannot do more, nor speak, nor thank you — and I seem to
have no more chance of getting new love to give you, — all is
given, — so I have said before, and must keep saying now —
all of me is your very own.

My sister (whose engagement, and not mine, this was)
decides to act according to the letter of Mr. Kenyon’s kind
instructions, and keeps at home on account of the rain.
She is very subject to colds and sore-throat which the
least dampness underfoot is sure to produce in her. So I
am not near you ! You would not go, however, — I think,
would not go, — to the Park gate as you conditionally promised
— I do not, therefore, miss my flower-show, my ‘ rose
tree that bareth seven times seven.’ But the other chance
which your last letter apprises me of, — the visit of Mr.
Kenyon, — which, by going in time to him, I might perhaps
make my own too — that, on a second thought, I determine
to forego . . because it jeopardizes my Saturday, which will
be worth so many, many such visits, — does it not ? There
is no precedent in our golden year for three visits taking
place in a single week — not even in that end of October
when all the doubt was about the voyage — how I
remember !

I shall be more with you than if in the presence of
people before whom I may not say ‘ Miss Barrett ‘ with
impunity while professing to talk of Miss — I forget who !
But ‘ more with you ‘ I who am always with you !

Always with you in the spirit, always yearning to be with
you in the body, — always, when with you, praying, as for
the happiest of fortunes, that I may remain with you for
ever. So may it be, prays your

own, own R.

[Postmark: May 19, 1846]

Tuesday.

With this day expires the first year since you have been
yourself to me — putting aside the anticipations, and prognostications,
and even assurances from all reasons short of
absolute sight and hearing, — excluding the five or six
months of these, there remains a year of this intimacy. You
accuse me of talking extravagantly sometimes. I will be
quiet here, — is the tone too subdued if I say, such a life —
made up of such years — I would deliberately take rather
than any other imaginable one in which fame and worldly
prosperity and the love of the whole human race should
combine, excluding ‘ that of yours — to which I hearken ‘ —
only wishing the rest were there for a moment that you
might see and know that I did turn from them to you.
My dearest, inexpressibly dearest. How can I thank
you ? I feel sure you need not have been so kind to me, so
perfectly kind and good, — I should have remained your own,
gratefully, entirely your own, through the bare permission
to love you, or even without it — seeing that I never dreamed
of stipulating at the beginning for ‘ a return,’ and ‘ reward,’ —
but I also believe, joyfully, that no course but the course
you have taken would have raised me above my very self,
as I feel on looking back. I began by loving you in com-
parison with all the world, — now, I love you, my Ba, in the
face of your past self, as I remember it.

All words are foolish — but I kiss your feet and offer you
my heart and soul, dearest, dearest Ba.

I left you last evening without the usual privilege — you
did not rise, Ba ! But, — I don’t know why, — I got nervous
of a sudden, it seemed late and I remembered the Drawing-
room and its occupants.

[Postmark: May 18, 1846]

Sunday.
(Day before to-morrow!)

How kind to write and help me through the gloomy
day with a light! I could certainly feel my way in the
dark and reach to-morrow without very important stumbling,
but now I go cheerfully on, spite of a little headache and
weariness. Need you ? I should hate life apart from you.
Knowing what I say, I should hate it — the life of my soul
as seen from that of the mere body . . to which, to
the necessities of which, no human being ever ministered
before, and which, now that I have known you, I myself
cannot provide for, — or could not were you removed, —
even after the imperfect fashion of former times. If you
ask Mrs. Jameson she will tell you, if she has thought it
worth remembering, that I once, two or three years ago,
explained to her that I could not believe in ‘love’ nor
understand it, — nor be subject to it consequently. I said
-‘all you describe as characteristics of the passion — I
should expect to find in men more easily and completely — ‘
now I know better, and my year’s life spent in this knowledge
makes all before it look pale and all after, if an after
could come, look black.

Why do I write so ? I am rather dull, this horrible day,
and cling to you the closelier.

All you write about Art is most true. Carlyle has turned
and forged, reforged on his anvil that fact ‘that no age ever
appeared heroic to itself’ . . and so, worthy of reproduction-
in Art by itself . . I thought after Carlyle’s endeavours
nobody could be ignorant of that, — nobody who was
obliged to seek the proof of it out of his own experience.
The cant is, that ‘ an age of transition ‘ is the melancholy
thing to contemplate and delineate — whereas the worst things
of all to look back on are times of comparative standing
still, rounded in their important completeness. So the
young England imbeciles hold that ‘ belief ‘ is the admirable
point — in what they judge comparatively immaterial ! The
other day I took up a book two centuries old in which
‘ glory ‘, ‘ soldiering ‘, ‘ rushing to conquer ‘ and the rest,
were most thoroughly * believed in ‘ —and if by some
miracle the writer had conceived and described some unbeliever,
unable to ‘ rush to conquer the Parthians ‘ &c, it
would have been as though you found a green bough inside
a truss of straw.

But you know —

And I know one thing, one — but one — I love you,
shall love you ever, living and dying your own —

[Postmark: May 16, 1846]

Saturday.

Then, dearest-dearest, do take Mrs. Jameson’s advice — do
take care of the results of this fatigue— why should you see
any woman that pleases to ask to come ? I am certain that
some of the men you have refused to admit, would be more
considerate — and Miss Heaton must be a kind of fool into
the bargain with her inconsiderateness . . though that is the
folly’s very self. As for her ‘ Yorkshire Tragedy,’ I hold
myself rather aggrieved by it — they used to get up better
stories of Lord Byron, — and even I told you, anticipatingly,
that I caused that first wife of mine to drown and hang
herself . . whereas, now, it turns out she did neither, but
bade me do both . . nay, was not my wife after all ! I
hope she told Miss Heaton the story in the presence of the
husband who had no irreligious scruples. But enough of
this pure nonsense — I had, by this post that brings me your
last letter, one from Home — he leaves to-day for Ireland,
and says kind things about my plays — and unkind things
of Mr. Powell ‘a dog he repudiates for ever.’ So our
‘clique ‘ is deprived of yet another member !

For me, love, — I am pretty well — but rather out of
spirits, — for no earthly cause. I shall take a walk and get
better presently— your dear letters have their due effect, all
that effect !

So, dear, — all my world, my life, all I look to or live
for, my own Ba — I will bless you and bid you goodbye for
to-day — to-morrow I will write more — and on Monday —
return, my Ba, this kiss . . my dearest above all dearness !

[Postmark: May 15, 1846]
E/R

The sun is warm, and the day, I suppose, is fine, — but
my Ba will have been kept at home by the vile wind — most
vile — even I feel it ! So the spring passes away without the
true spring feeling — all the blossoms are fast going already
— and one’s spirits are affected, I dare say. Did you not
think me intolerable yesterday with my yawning and other
signs of fatigue you noticed? Well now — I do think a
little is said by all that : might one not like or even love . .
just short of true love, so long as the spirits were buoyant
and the mind cheerful, — and when the contrary befell, some
change might appear, surely !

The more I need you the more I love you, Ba — and I
need you always — in joy, to make the joy seem what it is —
and in any melancholy that I can imagine, more still, in-
finitely more, I need you — though melancholy, I certainly was
not — only tired a little . . all I mean to say is, that at times
when I could, I think, shut up Shelley, and turn aside from
Beethoven, and look away from my noble Polidoro, — my
Ba’s ring — not to say the hand — ah, you know, Ba, what
they are to me !

I have to go out to-day, to my sorrow — to the Garrick
Club, and a friend there. (My sister tells me we have to go
to the Flower-show next Wednesday unless the day be
rainy. I shall hear from Mr. Kenyon, I expect.)

Let me end the chapter we began yesterday, about
speech-making and adepts in it of various kinds, by telling you
what my father made me laugh by an account of, the other
day . . only it should be really told, and not written. He
had a curiosity to know how would-be Parliamentary members
canvassed . . and as the Chamberlain of the City, Sir
James Shaw, came into the Bank for that purpose (there
being Livery men there, or whatever they are called, with
votes) my father followed to hear how he would address
people. Sir James, a gigantic man, went about as his
friends directed . . or rather pushed and shoved him . . and
whenever they reached an Elector the whole cortfege stopped.
Sir James made his speech, the friends, book and pencil in
hand, recorded the promise the moment it was made, and
forthwith wheeled round their candidate to the next man . .
no word of speechification being to be wasted once its
object accomplished, since time pressed — so now fancy.
Friends (to Sir J) ‘ Mr Snooks, Sir James ! ‘ Sir J. (with
his eyes shut, and head two feet above Snooks) ‘ When Charles
Fox came into Parliament, he came into Parliament with
a profusion of promises, of which I’ll defy Charles Fox’s
best friends to say that he ever kept a single one ‘ — (Friends
twitch him)—’ Thankee Sir,’—’ Mr Smith.’ ‘ When Charles
Fox came into Parliament . . thankee. Sir’ — ‘ Mr Thompson ‘
— ‘ When Charles Fox . . thankee ! ‘ &c. &c. And so
on from man to man, never getting beyond this instructive
piece of anecdotical history — till at the very last a little
Elector, reaching to the great man’s elbow, let him go to
the full length of the sentence’s tether from admiration of
such an orator . . did not say briefly ‘ yes ‘or ‘ no ‘ as the
others had done. So Sir James arrived duly at . . ‘ kept
a single one. Thus — if . . as it were . . eh ? oh ! ‘ Here
he opened his eyes with a start, missing the pushing and
driving from his friends in the rear — and finding it was only
this little man ; he abruptly stopped . . was not going to
spend more eloquence on him ! There, Ba ; you tell me
you write nonsense . . I do the thing}, the precise thing !
But no more nonsense because I am going to kiss you,
which is wise, and love you with my whole heart and soul
forever, which is wiser, and pray you to love me, dear, dear
Ba, which is the wisest ! Sweetest, may God bless you, —
Your very own.

[Postmark: May 13, 1846]

Dearest, dearest, I shall be with you to-morrow and be
comforted — and will tell you all about everything. I am a
little tired (but very well, altogether well, singularly so) — and
I do feel a little about to-night’s affair, though you may not.
You, indeed, to judge me by yourself ! But, after all I do not
greatly care . . I can but get up and stammer and say
‘ thank you ‘ and sit down again, like my betters, — and — as I
say and say,— you are at the end of everything . . so long
as I find you ! I hoped that Tennyson was to have been
Poet-respondent — but Moxon says ‘ no ‘ . . and, moreover,
that the Committee had meant (and he supposed had acted
upon their meaning) to offer me the choice of taking either
qualification, of Poetry or the Drama, as mine . . but they
have altered their mind. As it is . . observe — (you will find
a list of Stewards in last Athenæum) — observe that they
are all Bishops or Deans or Doctors . . and that all will be
grave and heavy enough, I dare say. So I shall try and
speak for about five minutes on the advantages of the Press
over the Stage as a medium of communication of the Drama
. . and so get done, if Heaven please !

I saw Tennyson last night — and . . oh, let me tell you
to-morrow. Also, Severn, I saw . . Keats’ Severn, who
bought his own posthumous picture of Keats, and talked
pleasantly about him and Shelley (Tennyson asked me
‘ what I thought of Shelley ‘ — in so many words). Moxon’s
care of him, — Tennyson, not Severn, — is the charmingest
thing imaginable, and he seems to need it all — being in truth
but a long, hazy kind of a man, at least just after dinner . .
yet there is something ‘naif’ about him, too, — the genius
you see, too.

May God bless you, my dearest dearest, — to-morrow re-
pays for all —

{152|Your} {Letters|own} {of|R} {Robert|} {Browning|} {May|} {u|}.

[Postmark: May 12, 1846]

My Ba, your flower is the one flower I have seen, or see
or shall see — when it fades ‘ I will bless it till it shine,’ and
when I can bless you no longer it shall fade with me and
my letters and . . perhaps . . my ring. Ba, if . . I was
going to say, if you meant to make me most exquisitely
happy . . and you did surely mean it . . well, you succeed,
as you know ! And I see you on the grass, and am with
you as you properly acknowledge. And by this letter’s
presence and testimony, I may judge you to be not much
the worse, — not fatigued . . is it so ? Oh, it was a good
inspiration that led you through the half-opened gate and
under the laburnum, and, better still, that made you see us
‘ one day walking by the trees together ‘ — when all I shall
say is, — I hope, in spite of that felicity to remember and
feel this, as vividly as now.

‘ For the chain you hear rattle’ . . there comes the
earthly mood again and the inspiration goes away altogether !
So you being Miss Barrett and not my Ba for the moment,
I will give you none of my, and Ba’s, syren-island illustrations,
but ask you, what a fine lady would say if you caught
at her diamond necklace and cried — ‘ You shall wear no
such chains,— indeed you shall not ! ‘ Why even Flush is
proud of his corals and blue beads, you tell me ! As for
me, — being used to bear sundry heavier chains than this of
writing to you — owning the degradation of being, for
instance, forced to respire so many times a minute in order
to live — to go out into the open air so as to continue well —
with many similarly affronting impositions on a free spirit . .
on the whole, I can very patiently submit to write a letter
which is duly read, and forgiven for its imperfections, and
interpreted into a rationality (sometimes) not its own, and
then answered by the sweetest hand that ever ministered to
the dearest, dearest Ba that ever was imagined, or can be !
Ba, — there are three Syren’s Isles, you know : I shall
infallibly get into the farthest of them, a full thirty yards
from you and the tower, — so as to need being written to —
— for the cicale make such a noise that you will not be able
to call to me — which is as well, for you may . . that is, I
might — break my neck by a sudden leap on the needles of
rocks . . as I remember the boatman told me.

As for what you wish yesterday . . the mode of my
expressing my love . . I never think of it, — I have none —
no system, nor attempt at such a thing — I begin and end by
saying I love you — whatever comes of it. There is one obvious
remark to make however . . that unless I had loved you
and felt that every instant of my life depended on you for
its support and comfort, — I should never have dreamed of
what has been proposed and accepted . . Your own good-
ness at the very beginning would have rendered that super-
fluous ; for I was put in possession of your friendship, —
might write to you, and receive letters — might even hope to
see you as often as anybody — would not this have sufficed a
reasonable friendship? May not Mr. Kenyon be your
satisfied friend ? . But all was different — and so ——

So I am blessed now — and can only bless you. But
goodbye, dearest, till to-morrow — and next day, which is
ours. At 8 — eight I conjecture my martyrdom may take
place . . oh, think of me and help me ! I shall feel you, —
as ever. You forgot the letter after all . . can you send
it ? It may be convenient to produce, as I know nobody of
them all — terrible it is altogether ! ‘ At six ‘ the dinner
begins —— 1 shall get behind my brother Dramatists . .
and say very little about them, even.

Kiss me, in any case, of failure, or success, — and the
one will be forgotten, and the other doubled, centupled — to
your own —

[Postmark: May 11, 1846]

Sweetest, I have this moment come from Town and Mrs.
Jameson the Marc-Antonio Prints kept us all the morning
— and at last I said ‘ There is a letter for me at home which
I must go and answer.’ And now I cannot answer it — but I
can love you and say so . God bless you, ever dearest. I
have read your letter . . but only once. Now I shall begin
my proper number of times —

Ever your very own

[Postmark: May 11, 1846]

I am always telling you, because always feeling, that I
can express nothing of what goes from my heart to you, my
Ba ; but there is a certain choice I have all along exercised,
of subjects on which I would try and express somewhat —
while others might be let alone with less disadvantage.
When we first met, it was in your thought that I loved you
only for your poetry . . I think you thought that. And be-
cause one might be imagined to love that and not you, —
because everybody must love it, indeed, that is worthy, and yet
needs not of necessity love you, — yet might mistake or determine
to love you through loving it . . for all these reasons,
there was not the immediate demand on me for a full ex-
pression of my admiration for your intellectuality, — do you
see ? Rather, it was proper to insist as little as possible on
it, and speak to the woman, Ba, simply — and so I have tried
to speak, — partly, in truth, because I love her best, and love
her mind by the light and warmth of her heart — reading her
verses, saying ‘ and these are Ba’s,’ — not kissing her less
because they spoke the verses. But it does not follow that
I have lost the sense of any delight that has its source in
you, my dearest, dearest — however I may choose to live
habitually with certain others in preference. I would shut
myself up with you, and die to the world, and live out fifty
long, long lives in bliss through your sole presence — but it
is no less true that it will also be an ineffable pride, — some-
thing too sweet for the name of pride, — to avow myself,
before anyone whose good opinion I am soliciting to retain,
as so distinguished by you — it is too sweet, indeed, — so I
guard against it, — for frequent allusion to it, might, — (as I
stammer, and make plain things unintelligible) . . might
cause you to misconceive me, which would be dreadful
. . for after all, Ba’s head has given the crown its worth, —
though a wondrous crown it is, too ! All this means . .
the avowal we were speaking of, will be a heart’s pride above
every other pride whenever you decide on making such an
avowal. You will understand as you do ever your own R.

On getting home I found letters and letters — the best
being a summons to meet Tennyson at Moxon’s on Tuesday,
— and the frightfullest . . nay, I will send it. Now, Ba,
hold my hand from the distant room, tighter than ever, at
about 8 o’clock on Wednesday . . for I must go, I fear
— ‘ Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking’ &c. &c.
‘ ἐα, ἐα, ἀπεχε, φεῦ.’ Then Mr. Kenyon writes that his
friend Commodore Jones is returned to England in bad
health and that he must away to Portsmouth and see him
— so I do not go on Monday. While I was away Chorley’s
brother (John Chorley) called, — having been put to the
trouble of a journey hither for nothing.

I have been out this morning — to church with my sister
— and the sun shone almost oppressively, — but now all is
black and threatening. How I send my heart after your
possible movements, my own all-beloved ! Care for your-
self, and for me. But a few months more, — if God shall
please. May He bless you —

Ever your own

Hail and rain — at a quarter to four o’clock !