Author: RB

October 23, 1845.

But I must answer you, and be forgiven, too, dearest. I was (to begin at the beginning) surely not ‘startled‘  . . . only properly aware of the deep blessing I have been enjoying this while, and not disposed to take its continuance as pure matter of course, and so treat with indifference the first shadow of a threatening intimation from without, the first hint of a possible abstraction from the quarter to which so many hopes and fears of mine have gone of late. In this case, Continue reading “#136”

<p>Monday Morning.<br>
[In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]
</p>
<p> This arrived on Saturday night &nbsp;-&nbsp;- I just correct it in time for this our first post &nbsp;-&nbsp;- will it do, the new matter? I can take it to-morrow &nbsp;-&nbsp;- when I am to see you &nbsp;-&nbsp;- if you are able to glance through it by then.
</p>
<p> The ‘Inscription,’ how does that read?
</p>
<p> There is strange temptation, by the way, in the space they please to leave for the presumable ‘motto’ &nbsp;-&nbsp;- ‘they but remind me of mine own conception’ &nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. but one must give no clue, of a silk’s breadth, to the ‘<span>Bower</span>,’ <span>yet</span>, One day!
</p>
<p> &nbsp;-&nbsp;- Which God send you, dearest, and your
</p>
<p>R.B.
</p>
<br>

Saturday.

October 18, 1845.

I must not go on tearing these poor sheets one after the other,  – – the proper phrases will not come,  – – so let them stay, while you care for my best interests in their best, only way, and say for me what I would say if I could  – – dearest,  – – say it, as I feel it!

I am thankful to hear of the continued improvement of your brother. So may it continue with him! Pulses I know very little about  – – Continue reading “#133”

October 15, 1845.

Thanks, my dearest, for the good news  – – of the fever’s abatement  – – it is good, too, that you write cheerfully, on the whole: what is it to me that you write is of me  . . . I shall never say that! Mr. Kenyon is all kindness, and one gets to take it as not so purely natural a thing, the showing kindness to those it concerns, and belongs to,  – – well! On Thursday, then,  – – to-morrow! Did you not get a note of mine, a hurried note, which was meant for yesterday-afternoon’s delivery?

Mr. Forster came yesterday and was very profuse of graciosities: he may have, or must have meant well, so we will go on again with the friendship, as the snail repairs his battered shell.

My poems went duly to press on Monday night  – – there is not much correctable in them,  – – you make, or you spoil, one of these things; that is, I do. I have adopted all your emendations, and thrown in lines and words, just a morning’s business; but one does not write plays so. You may like some of my smaller things, which stop interstices, better than what you have seen; I shall wonder to know. I am to receive a proof at the end of the week  – – will you help me and over-look it. (‘Yes’  – – she says  . . . my thanks I do not say!  – – )

While writing this, the Times catches my eye (it just came in) and something from the Lancet is extracted, a long article against quackery  – – and, as I say, this is the first and only sentence I read  – – ‘There is scarcely a peer of the realm who is not the patron of some quack pill or potion: and the literati too, are deeply tainted. We have heard of barbarians who threw quacks and their medicines into the sea: but here in England we have Browning, a prince of poets, touching the pitch which defiles and making Paracelsus the hero of a poem. Sir E.L. Bulwer writes puffs for the water doctors in a style worthy of imitation by the scribe that does the poetical for Moses and Son. Miss Martineau makes a finessing servant girl her physician-general: and Richard Howitt and the Lady aforesaid stand God-father and mother to the contemptible mesmeric vagaries of Spencer Hall.’  – – Even the sweet incense to me fails of its effect if Paracelsus is to figure on a level with Priessnitz, and ‘Jane’!

What weather, now at last! Think for yourself and for me  – – could you not go out on such days?

I am quite well now  – – cold, over and gone. Did I tell you my Uncle arrived from Paris on Monday, as they hoped he would  – – so my travel would have been to great purpose!

Bless my dearest  – – my own!

R.B.

 

Tuesday Morning,

October 14, 1845.

Be sure, my own, dearest love, that this is for the best; will be seen for the best in the end. It is hard to bear now  – – but you have to bear it; any other person could not, and you will, I know, knowing you  – – will be well this one winter if you can, and then  – – since I am not selfish in this love to you, my own conscience tells me,  – – I desire, more earnestly than I ever knew what desiring was, to be yours and with you and, as far as may be in this life and world, you  – – and no hindrance to that, but one, gives me a moment’s care or fear; but that one is just your little hand, as I could fancy it raised in any least interest of yours  – – and before that, I am, and would ever be, still silent. But now  – – what is to make you raise that hand? I will not speak now; not seem to take advantage of your present feelings,  – – we will be rational, and all-considering and weighing consequences, and foreseeing them  – – but first I will prove  . . . if that has to be done, why  – – but I begin speaking, and I should not, I know.

Bless you, love!

R.B.

To-morrow I see you, without fail. I am rejoiced as you can imagine, at your brother’s improved state.

 

Sunday.

October 13, 1845.

These are bad news, dearest  – – all bad, except the enduring comfort of your regard; the illness of your brother is worst  . . . that would stay you, and is the first proper obstacle. I shall not attempt to speak and prove my feelings,  – – you know what even Flush is to me through you: I wait in anxiety for the next account.

If after all you do not go to Pisa; why, we must be cheerful and wise, and take courage and hope. I cannot but see with your eyes and from your place, you know,  – – and will let this all be one surprizing and deplorable mistake of mere love and care  . . . but no such another mistake ought to be suffered, if you escape the effects of this. I will not cease to believe in a better event, till the very last, however, and it is a deep satisfaction that all has been made plain and straight up to this strange and sad interposition like a bar. You have done your part, at least  – – with all that forethought and counsel from friends and adequate judges of the case  – – so, if the bar will not move, you will consider  – – will you not, dearest?  – – where one may best encamp in the unforbidden country, and wait the spring and fine weather. Would it be advisable to go where Mr. Kenyon suggested, or elsewhere? Oh, these vain wishes  . . . the will here, and no means!

My life is bound up with yours  – – my own, first and last love. What wonder if I feared to tire you  – – I who, knowing you as I do, admiring what is so admirable (let me speak), loving what must needs be loved, fain to learn what you only can teach; proud of so much, happy in so much of you; I, who, for all this, neither come to admire, nor feel proud, nor be taught,  – – but only, only to live with you and be by you  – – that is love  – – for I know the rest, as I say. I know those qualities are in you  . . . but at them I could get in so many ways . . .. I have your books, here are my letters you give me; you would answer my questions were I in Pisa  – – well, and it all would amount to nothing, infinitely much as I know it is; to nothing if I could not sit by you and see you . . .. I can stop at that, but not before. And it seems strange to me how little  . . . less than little I have laid open of my feelings, the nature of them to you  – – I smile to think how if all this while I had been acting with the profoundest policy in intention, so as to pledge myself to nothing I could not afterwards perform with the most perfect ease and security, I should have done not much unlike what I have done  – – to be sure, one word includes many or all  . . . but I have not said  . . . what I will not even now say  . . . you will know  – – in God’s time to which I trust.

I will answer your note now  – – the questions. I did go  – – (it may amuse you to write on)  – – to Moxon’s. First let me tell you that when I called there the Saturday before, his brother (in his absence) informed me, replying to the question when it came naturally in turn with a round of like enquiries, that your poems continued to sell ‘singularly well’  – – they would ‘end in bringing a clear profit,’ he said. I thought to catch him, and asked if they had done so  . . . ‘Oh; not at the beginning  . . . it takes more time  – – he answered. On Thursday I saw Moxon  – – he spoke rather encouragingly of my own prospects. I send him a sheetful to-morrow, I believe, and we are ‘out’ on the 1st of next month. Tennyson, by the way, has got his pension, £200 per annum  – – by the other way, Moxon has bought the MSS. of Keats in the possession of Taylor the publisher, and is going to bring out a complete edition; which is pleasant to hear.

After settling with Moxon I went to Mrs. Carlyle’s  – – who told me characteristic quaintnesses of Carlyle’s father and mother over the tea she gave me. And all yesterday, you are to know, I was in a permanent mortal fright  – – for my uncle came in the morning to intreat me to go to Paris in the evening about some urgent business of his,  – – a five-minutes matter with his brother there,  – – and the affair being really urgent and material to his and the brother’s interest, and no substitute being to be thought of, I was forced to promise to go  – – in case a letter, which would arrive in Town at noon, should not prove satisfactory. So I calculated times, and found I could be at Paris to-morrow, and back again, certainly by Wednesday  – – and so not lose you on that day  – – oh, the fear I had!  – – but I was sure then and now, that the 17th would not see you depart. But night came, and the last Dover train left, and I drew breath freely  – – this morning I find the letter was all right  – – so may it be with all worse apprehensions! What you fear, precisely that, never happens, as Napoleon observed and thereon grew bold. I had stipulated for an hour’s notice, if go I must  – – and that was to be wholly spent in writing to you  – – for in quiet consternation my mother cared for my carpet bag.

And so, I shall hear from you to-morrow  . . . that is, you will write then, telling me all about your brother. As for what you say, with the kindest intentions, ‘of fever-contagion’ and keeping away on Wednesday on that account, it is indeed ‘out of the question,’  – – for a first reason (which dispenses with any second) because I disbelieve altogether in contagion from fevers, and especially from typhus fevers  – – as do much better-informed men than myself  – – I speak quite advisedly. If there should be only that reason, therefore, you will not deprive me of the happiness of seeing you next Wednesday.

I am not well  – – have a cold, influenza or some unpleasant thing, but am better than yesterday  – – My mother is much better, I think (she and my sister are resolute non-contagionists, mind you that!)

God bless you and all you love! dearest, I am your

R.B.

 

12  – – Wednesday.

October 8, 1845.

Well, dearest, at all events I get up with the assurance I shall see you, and go on till the fatal 11-1/4 p.m. believing in the same, and then, if after all there does come such a note as this with its instructions, why, first, it is such a note and such a gain, and next it makes a great day out of to-morrow that was to have been so little of a day, that is all. Only, only, I am suspicious, now, of a real loss to me in the end; for, putting off yesterday, I dared put off (on your part) Friday to Saturday  . . . while now  . . . what shall be said to that?

Dear Mr. Kenyon to be the smiling inconscious obstacle to any pleasure of mine, if it were merely pleasure!

But I want to catch our next post  – – to-morrow, then, excepting what is to be excepted!

Bless you, my dearest  – –

Your own

R.B.

 

Monday Morning.

October 6, 1845.

I should certainly think that the Duke of Palmella may be induced, and with no great difficulty, to give up a cabin under the circumstances  – – and then the plan becomes really objection-proof, so far as mortal plans go. But now you must think all the boldlier about whatever difficulties remain, just because they are so much the fewer. It is cold already in the mornings and evenings  – – cold and (this morning) foggy  – – I did not ask if you continue to go out from time to time . . .. I am sure you should,  – – you would so prepare yourself properly for the fatigue and change  – – yesterday it was very warm and fine in the afternoon, nor is this noontime so bad, if the requisite precautions are taken. And do make ‘journeys across the room,’ and out of it, meanwhile, and stand when possible  – – get all the strength ready, now that so much is to be spent. Oh, if I were by you!

Thank you, thank you  – – I will devise titles  – – I quite see what you say, now you do say it. I am (this Monday morning, the prescribed day for efforts and beginnings) looking over and correcting what you read  – – to press they shall go, and then the plays can follow gently, and then  . . . ‘Oh to be in Pisa. Now that E.B.B. is there!’  – – And I shall be there! . . . I am much better to-day; and my mother better  – – and to-morrow I shall see you  – – So come good things together!

Dearest  – – till to-morrow and ever I am yours, wholly yours  – – May God bless you!

R.B.

You do not ask me that ‘boon’  – – why is that?  – – Besides, I have my own real boons to ask too, as you will inevitably find, and I shall perhaps get heart by your example.

 

Thursday.

October 2, 1845.

Well, let us hope against hope in the sad matter of the novel  – – yet, yet,  – – it is by Shelley, if you will have the truth  – – as I happen to know  – – proof last being that Leigh Hunt told me he unearthed it in Shelley’s own library at Marlow once, to the writer’s horror and shame  – – ‘He snatched it out of my hands’  – – said H. Yet I thrust it into yours  . . . so much for the subtle fence of friends who reach your heart by a side-thrust, as I told you on Tuesday, after the enemy has fallen back breathless and baffled. As for the date, that Stockdale was a notorious pirate and raker-up of rash publications  . . . and, do you know, I suspect the title-page is all that boasts such novelty,  – – see if the book, the inside leaves, be not older evidently!  – – a common trick of the ‘trade’ to this day. The history of this and ‘Justrozzi,’ as it is spelt,  – – the other novel,  – – may be read in Medwin’s ‘Conversations’  – – and, as I have been told, in Lady Ch. Bury’s ‘Reminiscences’ or whatever she calls them  . . . the ‘Guistrozzi’ was certainly ‘written in concert with’  – – somebody or other  . . . for I confess the whole story grows monstrous and even the froth of wine strings itself in bright bubbles,  – – ah, but this was the scum of the fermenting vat, do you see? I am happy to say I forget the novel entirely, or almost  – – and only keep the exact impression which you have gained  . . . through me! ‘The fair cross of gold he dashed on the floor‘  – – (that is my pet-line  . . . because the ‘chill dew’ of a place not commonly supposed to favour humidity is a plagiarism from Lewis’s ‘Monk,’ it now flashes on me! Yes, Lewis, too, puts the phrase into intense italics.) And now, please read a chorus in the ‘Prometheus Unbound’ or a scene from the ‘Cenci’  – – and join company with Shelley again!

– – From ‘chill dew’ I come to the cloak  – – you are quite right  – – and I give up that fancy. Will you, then, take one more precaution when all proper safe-guards have been adopted; and, when everything is sure, contrive some one sureness besides, against cold or wind or sea-air; and say ‘this  – – for the cloak which is not here, and to help the heart’s wish which is,’  – – so I shall be there palpably. Will you do this? Tell me you will, to-morrow  – – and tell me all good news.

My Mother suffers still . . .. I hope she is no worse  – – but a little better  – – certainly better. I am better too, in my unimportant way.

Now I will write you the verses  . . . some easy ones out of a paper-full meant to go between poem and poem in my next number, and break the shock of collision.

Let me kiss your hand  – – dearest! My heart and life  – – all is yours, and forever  – – God make you happy as I am through you  – – Bless you

R.B.

 

September 27, 1845.

Think for me, speak for me, my dearest, my own! You that are all great-heartedness and generosity, do that one more generous thing?

God bless you for

R.B.

What can it be you ask of me!  – – ‘a boon’  – – once my answer to that had been the plain one  – – but now  . . . when I have better experience of  – – No, now I have best experience of how you understand my interests; that at last we both know what is my true good  – – so ask, ask! My own, now! For there it is!  – – oh, do not fear I am ‘entangled‘  – – my crown is loose on my head, not nailed there  – – my pearl lies in my hand  – – I may return it to the sea, if I will!

What is it you ask of me, this first asking?