Category: Uncategorized

[Postmark: May 19, 1846]

Tuesday Morning.

My own ever dearest, when I try to thank you for such
a letter as yesterday’s, . . for any proof, in fact, of your
affection, . . I cannot speak : but you know, of this and all
things, that I understand, feel — you must know it very well.
There is only one thing I can do as I ought, and it is to
love you ; and the more I live, not ‘ the less ‘ but the more I
am able to love you — believe it of me. And for the less, . .
we never will return to that foolish subject, . . but for the
‘ less ‘ you spoke of when you said ‘ you do not love me
less?’ . . . why I thought at the moment and feel now,
that it would be too late, as I am, ever, upon any possible
ground, to love you less. If you loved me less . . even !
— or (to leave that) if you were to come to me and say that
you had murdered a man — why I may imagine such things,
you know — but I cannot imagine the possibility of my
loving you less, as a consequence of your failing so ! I am
yours in the deepest of my affections : — not unreasonably,
certainly, as I see you and know you — but if it were to turn
unreasonable . . I mean, if you took away the appearance
of reasonableness . . still I should be yours in the deepest
of my affections . . it is too late for a difference there.
Mrs. Jameson has just now sent me a proof with the
‘ Daughters of Pandarus,’ which she is to call for presently
and therefore I must come to an end with this note. How
I shall think of you to-morrow ! And if it should be fine, I
may perhaps drive in the park near the gardens . . take
my sisters to the gate of the gardens, and feel that you are
inside ! That will be something, if it is feasible. And if
it is fine or not, and if I go or not, I shall remember our
first day, the only day of my life which God blessed visibly
to me, the only day undimmed with a cloud . . my great
compensation-day, which it was worth while being born
for !

Your very own

Ba.

Oh — YOU will not see me to-morrow, remember ! I tell
you only out of cunning . . to win a thought !

[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 Morning.

You shall hear from me on this Sunday, though it
cannot be as an answer, dearest, to your letter of to-night.
But I being so wretchedly tired last night, and ‘ yawning ‘
being, to your mind, so ‘ intolerable,’ it is as well to leave a
better impression with you than that . . though there is
nothing to say, and the east wind blows on virulently.

The AthenÊum has put me out of humour for the day
. . besides. Not a word of ‘Luria’ — not a word of the
Literary Fund dinner, and a great, drawling carrying out
of the ‘ Poetry for the Million ‘ article . . as if all this trash
could not die of itself ! — as if it were not dead of itself! —
That the critics of a country should set themselves to such
work . . is as if the Premier of England took his official
seat in the window to kill flies, . . talking, with his first
finger out, of ‘ my administration.’ Only flies are flies and
have fly-life in them : they are nobler game than those.

Mrs. Jameson, while she was here the five minutes
yesterday, talked, in an under-breath to my under-breath
opposition, her opinion about the present age. ‘ That the
present age did not, could’ not, ought not, to express itself
by Art, . . though the next age would.’ She is surprisingly
wrong, it appears to me. There is no predominant character
in the age, she says, to be so expressed ! there is no
unity, to bear expression.

But art surely, if art is anything, is the expression, not
of the characteristics of an age except accidentally, . . essentially
it is the expression of Humanity in the individual
being — and unless we are men no longer, I cannot conceive
how such an argument as hers can be upheld for a
moment. Also it is exasperating to hear such things.

Then I do not believe, for one, that genius in the arts
is a mere reflection of the character of the times. Genius
precedes surely, — initiates. It is genius which gives an
Age its character and imposes its own colour …. But I
shall not write any more. Her paper on ‘ Titian’s House at
Venice,’ which she let me read in proof, and which is one
of the essays she is printing now, is full of beauty and truth,
and I admired it heartily. Then there is a quotation about
the ‘calm, cold, beautiful regard,’ of ‘Virgin child and
saint’ . . . which you may remember perhaps. I know
you will like the essay and feel it to be Venetian.

That you were feeling the east wind, beloved, meant
that you were not well, though you have quite left off telling
me a word of yourself lately. And why ? It shall not be
so next week, — now shall it ? May God bless you. I am
afraid of going down-stairs, because of the double-knocks.
It will be great gain to have the loudest noises from the
cicale. Except when somebody else is noisy, — which is a
noise I am always forgetting, just as if it were impossible.

Your own

Ba.

[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 16, 1846]

Not even do you yawn in vain then, O you ! And
this, then, is what Cicero called ‘ oscitans sapientia ? ‘ The
argument of the yawn ought in fact, to be conclusive. !

But, dearest, if it was ‘ intolerable ‘ to see you yawn
yesterday, still less supportable was it to-day when I had all
the yawning to myself, and proved nothing by it. Tired I
am beyond your conceiving of . . tired ! You saw how I
broke off in my letter to you this morning. Well — that was
Miss Heaton, who came yesterday and left the packet you
saw, and came again to-day and sate here exactly three hours.
Now imagine that ! Three hours of incessant restless
talking. At the end I was blanched, as everybody could see,
and Mrs. Jameson who came afterwards for five minutes
and was too unwell herself to stay, seriously exhorted me
not to exert myself too much lest I should pay the penalty.
And I had not been down-stairs even — only been ground
down in the talking-mill. Arabel told her too, before she
came up-stairs, that I was expecting a friend — ‘ Oh ‘ . . said
she to me, ‘ I shall go away directly anyone comes.’ And
again presently . . ‘ Pray tell me when I ought to go away ‘ !
(As if I could say Go. She deserved it, but I couldn’t !)
And then . . ‘ How good of you to let me sit here and talk ! ‘
So good of me, when I was wishing her . . only at Leeds in
the High Street, between a dissenter and a churchman —
anywhere but opposite to my eyes ! Yet she has very bright
ones, and cheeks redder than your roses ; and she is kind
and cordial … as I thought in the anguish of my soul,
when I tried to be grateful to her. Certainly I should have
been more so, if she had stayed a little less, talked a little
less — it is awful to think how some women can talk !
Happily she leaves London to-morrow morning, and will not
be here again till next year, if then. She talked biography
too … ah, I did not mean to tell you — but it is better to
tell you at once and have done . . only she desired me not
to mention it . . only she little knew what she was doing !
You will not mention it. She told me that ‘ her informant
about Mr. Browning, . . was a lady to whom he had been
engaged . . that there had been a very strong attachment on
both sides, but that everything was broken off by her on the
ground of religious differences — that it happened years ago
and that the lady was married.’ At first I exclaimed im-
prudently enough (but how could it be otherwise ?) that it
was not true — but I caught at the bridle in a minute or two
and let her have it her own way. Do not answer this — it
is nonsense, I know — but it helped to tire me with the rest.
Wasn’t it a delightful day for me ? At the end of the three
hours, she threw her arms round me and kissed me some
half dozen times and wished me ‘ goodbye ‘ till next year.
Wilson found me standing in the middle of the room, look-
ing as she said, ‘ like a ghost.’ And no wonder ! The
‘ vile wind ‘ out of doors was nothing to it.

Dearest, you are well ? Your letter says nothing. Only
one more letter, and then Monday. Ah — it is the sweetest
of flattery to say that you ‘ need ‘ me — but isn’t it difficult
to understand ? Yet while you even fancy that you have
such a need, you may be sure (let Charles Fox break his
promises ever so ! ) of your own

Ba

{1846|} {AND|} {Elizabeth|} {Barrett|} {Barrett|} {157|}

[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 15, 1846]

The treader on your footsteps was Miss Bayley, who
left a card and ‘ would come another day.’ She must have
seen you . . . One of these days, ‘ scirocco ‘ will be ‘ loose ‘
— we may as well be prepared for it. To keep it off as long
as possible is all that can be. But when it comes it will not
uproot my palm-trees, I think, though it should throw flat
the olives.

Papa brought me some flowers yesterday when he came
home . . and they went a little to my heart as I took them. I
put them into glasses near yours, and they look faded this
morning nevertheless, while your roses, for all your cruelty
to them, are luxuriant in beauty as if they had just finished
steeping themselves in garden-dew. I look gravely from
one set of flowers to the other — I cannot draw a glad omen
— I wish he had not given me these. Dearest, there seems
little kindness in teazing you with such thoughts . . but
they come and I write them : and let them come ever so
sadly, I do not for a moment doubt . . hesitate. One may
falter, where one does not fail. And for the rest, . . it is my
fault, and not my sorrow rather, that we act so ? It is by
choice that we act so ? If he had let me I should have
loved him out of a heart altogether open to him. It is
not my fault that he would not let me. Now it is too late
— I am not his nor my own, any more.

This morning I have had American letters of the kindest
. . from Massachusetts — and a review on my poems, quite
extravagant indeed, in the Methodist Quarterly, One of
these letters is so like another, that I need only tell you
of them . . written too by people . . Lydias and Richards . .
never heard of before by either of us. The review repeats
the fabulous story in the ‘ Spirit of the Age,’ about unknown
tongues and a seven years’ eclipse in total darkness — but I
say to myself . . . after all, the real myth is scarcely less
wonderful. If I have not all this knowledge … I have
you . . . which is greater, better ! ‘ Not less wonderful ‘ did

I say ? when it is the miracle

Oh, these people ! — I am seized and bound. More to-night !
from

Your own

Ba.

Say how you are.

[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 13, 1846]

When you began to speak of the islands, the three
islands, I thought you were going to propose that you should
live in one, and Flush in one, and I in the third : and almost
it was so, . . only that you took, besides, the ‘ farthest ‘ for
yourself ! Observe ! — always I write nonsense, when you
send me a letter which moves me like this, . . dearest, . .
my own !

To-day Mrs. Jameson has been here, and having left with
me a proof about Titian, she comes again to-morrow to take
it. I think her quite a lovable person now — I like her
more and more. How she talked of you to-day, and called
you the most charming companion in the world, setting you
too on your right throne as ‘ poet of the age.’ Wouldn’t it have
been an ‘ effect ‘ in the midst of all, if I had burst out crying ?
And what with being flurried, frightened, and a little nervous
from not sleeping well last night, I assure you it was quite
possible — but happily, on every account, I escaped that
‘ dramatic situation.’ I wish . . no, I can’t wish that she
wouldn’t talk of you as she does whenever she comes here.
And then, to make it better, she told me how you had
recited ‘ in a voice and manner as good as singing,’ my
‘ Catarina.’ How are such things to be borne, do you think,
when people are not made of marble ? But I took a long
breath, and held my mask on with both hands.

You will tell me of the Marc Antonio prints, — will you
not ? Remember them on Thursday. Raffael’s — are they
not ? I shall expect ever so much teaching, and showing,
and explaining . . I, who have seen and heard nothing of
pictures and music, from you who know everything . . so
the cicale must not be too loud for that. Did ever anyone
say to you that you were like Raffael’s portrait — not in the
eyes, which are quite different, but in the lower part of the
face, the mouth, and also the brow ? It has struck me some-
times — and I had it on my lips to-day as a question to Mrs.
Jameson. I think I was mad to-day altogether. But she
did not see it — (I mean my madness . . not your likeness !)
went away unconsciously.

Here, at last, is the letter ! Careless that I was
yesterday ! —

And you take me to be too generous if you fancy that I
proposed giving up the daily letter which is my daily bread.
I meant only that you should not, for the sake of a particular
post, tire yourself, hurry yourself, . . do what you did
yesterday. As for the daily letter, I am Ba — not Miss
Barrett. Now, am I Miss Barrett ? am I not Ba rather,
and your Ba ? I should like to hear what will be heard to-morrow.
Oh — I should like to be under the table, or in a
pasty, after the fashion of the queen’s dwarf when Elizabeth
was queen and Shakespeare poet. Shall you be nervous,
as I was with Mrs. Jameson ? Oh no, — why should you be
nervous ? You will do it all well and gracefully — I am not
afraid for you. It is simply out of vain-glory that I wish to
be there ! Only . . the dramatists of England . . where
in the world are they just now ? Or will somebody prove
ten of them, — because nought after one, makes exactly ten ?
Mr. Horne indeed. But I wish the toast had been ‘the
poets of England,’ rather. May God bless you, any way !
‘ I love you whatever comes of it.’ Yes, unless sorrow of
yours should come of it, that is what I like to hear. Better it
is, than a thousand praises of this thing and that thing, which
never were mine . . alas ! — Also, loving me so, you can be
made happy with laburnum-leaves ! — Dearest — most dear !
Dare I speak, do you think ?

Exactly at eight to-morrow, and exactly at three the next
day, I shall be with you — being at any hour

Your very own.

The walk did me no harm. But you say nothing of
yourself !

1846 AND Elizabeth Barrett Barrett 151

[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 —