Category: Uncategorized

25th Dec. [1845.]

My dear Christmas gift of a letter! I will write back a few lines, (all I can, having to go out now)  – – just that I may forever,  – – certainly during our mortal ‘forever’  – – mix my love for you, and, as you suffer me to say, your love for me  . . . dearest!  . . . these shall be mixed with the other loves of the day and live therein  – – as I write, and trust, and know  – – forever! While I live I will remember what was my feeling in reading, and in writing, and in stopping from either  . . . as I have just done  . . . to kiss you and bless you with my whole heart.  – – Yes, yes, bless you, my own!

All is right, all of your letter  . . . admirably right and just in the defence of the women I seemed to speak against; and only seemed  – – because that is a way of mine which you must have observed; that foolish concentrating of thought and feeling, for a moment, on some one little spot of a character or anything else indeed, and in the attempt to do justice and develop whatever may seem ordinarily to be overlooked in it,  – – that over vehement insisting on, and giving an undue prominence to, the same  – – which has the effect of taking away from the importance of the rest of the related objects which, in truth, are not considered at all  . . . or they would also rise proportionally when subjected to the same (that is, correspondingly magnified and dilated) light and concentrated feeling. So, you remember, the old divine, preaching on ‘small sins,’ in his zeal to expose the tendencies and consequences usually made little account of, was led to maintain the said small sins to be ‘greater than great ones.’ But then  . . . if you look on the world altogether, and accept the small natures, in their usual proportion with the greater  . . . things do not look quite so bad; because the conduct which is atrocious in those higher cases, of proposal and acceptance, may be no more than the claims of the occasion justify (wait and hear) in certain other cases where the thing sought for and granted is avowedly less by a million degrees. It shall all be traffic, exchange (counting spiritual gifts as only coin, for our purpose), but surely the formalities and policies and decencies all vary with the nature of the thing trafficked for. If a man makes up his mind during half his life to acquire a Pitt-diamond or a Pilgrim-pearl  – – [he] gets witnesses and testimony and so forth  – – but, surely, when I pass a shop where oranges are ticketed up seven for sixpence I offend no law by sparing all words and putting down the piece with a certain authoritative ring on the counter. If instead of diamonds you want  – – (being a king or queen)  – – provinces with live men on them  . . . there is so much more diplomacy required; new interests are appealed to  – – high motives supposed, at all events  – – whereas, when, in Naples, a man asks leave to black your shoe in the dusty street ‘purely for the honour of serving your Excellency’ you laugh and would be sorry to find yourself without a ‘grano’ or two  – – (six of which, about, make a farthing)  – – Now do you not see! Where so little is to be got, why offer much more? If a man knows that  . . . but I am teaching you! All I mean is, that, in Benedick’s phrase, ‘the world must go on.’ He who honestly wants his wife to sit at the head of his table and carve  . . . that is be his help-meat (not ‘help mete for him’)  – – he shall assuredly find a girl of his degree who wants the table to sit at; and some dear friend to mortify, who would be glad of such a piece of fortune; and if that man offers that woman a bunch of orange-flowers and a sonnet, instead of a buck-horn-handled sabre-shaped knife, sheathed in a ‘Every Lady Her Own Market-Woman, Being a Table of’ &c. &c.  – – then, I say he is  – –

Bless you, dearest  – – the clock strikes  – – and time is none  – – but  – – bless you!

Your own R.B.

 

Sunday Night.

December 24, 1845.

But did I dispute? Surely not. Surely I believe in you and in ‘mysteries.’ Surely I prefer the no-reason to ever so much rationalism  . . . (rationalism and infidelity go together they say!). All which I may do, and be afraid sometimes notwithstanding, and when you overpraise me (not overlove) I must be frightened as I told you.

It is with me as with the theologians. I believe in you and can be happy and safe so; but when my ‘personal merits’ come into question in any way, even the least,  . . . why then the position grows untenable: it is no more ‘of grace.’

Do I tease you as I tease myself sometimes? But do not wrong me in turn! Do not keep repeating that ‘after long years’ I shall know you — know you! — as if I did not without the years. If you are forced to refer me to those long ears, I must deserve the thistles besides. The thistles are the corollary.

For it is obvious — manifest — that I cannot doubt of you, that I may doubt of myself, of happiness, of the whole world, — but of you — not: it is obvious that if I could doubt of you and act so I should be a very idiot, or worse indeed. And you  . . . you think I doubt of you whenever I make an interjection! — now do you not? And is it reasonable? — Of you, I mean?

Monday. — For my part, you must admit it to be too possible that you may be, as I say, ‘disappointed’ in me — it is too possible. And if it does me good to say so, even now perhaps  . . . if it is mere weakness to say so and simply torments you, why do you be magnanimous and forgive that  . . . let it pass as a weakness and forgive it so. Often I think painful things which I do not tell you and . . ..

While I write, your letter comes. Kindest of you it was, to write me such a letter, when I expected scarcely the shadow of one! — this makes up for the other letter which I expected unreasonably and which you ‘ought not‘ to have written, as was proved afterwards. And now why should I go on with that sentence? What had I to say of ‘painful things,’ I wonder? all the painful things seem gone  . . . vanished. I forget what I had to say. Only do you still think of this, dearest beloved; that I sit here in the dark but for you, and that the light you bring me (from my fault! — from the nature of my darkness!) is not a settled light as when you open the shutters in the morning, but a light made by candles which burn some of them longer and some shorter, and some brighter and briefer, at once — being ‘double-wicks,’ and that there is an intermission for a moment now and then between the dropping of the old light into the socket and the lighting of the new. Every letter of yours is a new light which burns so many hours  . . . and then! — I am morbid, you see — or call it by what name you like  . . . too wise or too foolish. ‘If the light of the body is darkness, how great is that darkness.’ Yet even when I grow too wise, I admit always that while you love me it is an answer to all. And I am never so much too foolish as to wish to be worthier for my own sake — only for yours: — not for my own sake, since I am content to owe all things to you.

And it could be so much to you to lose me! — and you say so, — and then think it needful to tell me not to think the other thought! As if that were possible! Do you remember what you said once of the flowers? — that you ‘felt a respect for them when they had passed out of your hands.’ And must it not be so with my life, which if you choose to have it, must be respected too? Much more with my life! Also, see that I, who had my warmest affections on the other side of the grave, feel that it is otherwise with me now — quite otherwise. I did not like it at first to be so much otherwise. And I could not have had any such thought through a weariness of life or any of my old motives, but simply to escape the ‘risk’ I told you of. Should I have said to you instead of it  . . . ‘Love me for ever‘? Well then,  . . . I do.

As to my ‘helping’ you, my help is in your fancy; and if you go on with the fancy, I perfectly understand that it will be as good as deeds. We have sympathy too — we walk one way — oh, I do not forget the advantages. Only Mrs. Tomkins’s ideas of happiness are below my ambition for you.

So often as I have said (it reminds me) that in this situation I should be more exacting than any other woman — so often I have said it: and so different everything is from what I thought it would be! Because if I am exacting it is for you and not for me — it is altogether for you — you understand that, dearest of all  . . . it is for you wholly. It never crosses my thought, in a lightning even, the question whether I may be happy so and so — I. It is the other question which comes always — too often for peace.

People used to say to me, ‘You expect too much — you are too romantic.’ And my answer always was that ‘I could not expect too much when I expected nothing at all’  . . . which was the truth — for I never thought (and how often I have said that!) I never thought that anyone whom I could love, would stoop to love me  . . . the two things seemed clearly incompatible to my understanding.

And now when it comes in a miracle, you wonder at me for looking twice, thrice, four times, to see if it comes through ivory or horn. You wonder that it should seem to me at first all illusion — illusion for you, — illusion for me as a consequence. But how natural.

It is true of me — very true — that I have not a high appreciation of what passes in the world (and not merely the Tomkins-world!) under the name of love; and that a distrust of the thing had grown to be a habit of mind with me when I knew you first. It has appeared to me, through all the seclusion of my life and the narrow experience it admitted of, that in nothing men — and women too — were so apt to mistake their own feelings, as in this one thing. Putting falseness quite on one side, quite out of sight and consideration, an honest mistaking of feeling appears wonderfully common, and no mistake has such frightful results — none can. Self-love and generosity, a mistake may come from either — from pity, from admiration, from any blind impulse — oh, when I look at the histories of my own female friends — to go no step further! And if it is true of the women, what must the other side be? To see the marriages which are made every day! worse than solitudes and more desolate! In the case of the two happiest I ever knew, one of the husbands said in confidence to a brother of mine — not much in confidence or I should not have heard it, but in a sort of smoking frankness, — that he had ‘ruined his prospects by marrying’; and the other said to himself at the very moment of professing an extraordinary happiness,  . . . ‘But I should have done as well if I had not married her.’

Then for the falseness — the first time I ever, in my own experience, heard that word which rhymes to glove and comes as easily off and on (on some hands!) — it was from a man of whose attentions to another woman I was at that time her confidante. I was bound so to silence for her sake, that I could not even speak the scorn that was in me — and in fact my uppermost feeling was a sort of horror  . . . a terror — for I was very young then, and the world did, at the moment, look ghastly!

The falseness and the calculations! — why how can you, who are just, blame women  . . . when you must know what the ‘system’ of man is towards them, — and of men not ungenerous otherwise? Why are women to be blamed if they act as if they had to do with swindlers? — is it not the mere instinct of preservation which makes them do it? These make women what they are. And your ‘honourable men,’ the most loyal of them, (for instance) is it not a rule with them (unless when taken unaware through a want of self-government) to force a woman (trying all means) to force a woman to stand committed in her affections  . . . (they with their feet lifted all the time to trample on her for want of delicacy) before they risk the pin-prick to their own personal pitiful vanities? Oh — to see how these things are set about by men! to see how a man carefully holding up on each side the skirts of an embroidered vanity to keep it quite safe from the wet, will contrive to tell you in so many words that he  . . . might love you if the sun shone! And women are to be blamed! Why there are, to be sure, cold and heartless, light and changeable, ungenerous and calculating women in the world! — that is sure. But for the most part, they are only what they are made  . . . and far better than the nature of the making  . . . of that I am confident. The loyal make the loyal, the disloyal the disloyal. And I give no more discredit to those women you speak of, than I myself can take any credit in this thing — I. Because who could be disloyal with you  . . . with whatever corrupt inclination? you, who are the noblest of all? If you judge me so,  . . . it is my privilege rather than my merit  . . . as I feel of myself.

Wednesday. — All but the last few lines of all this was written before I saw you yesterday, ever dearest — and since, I have been reading your third act which is perfectly noble and worthy of you both in the conception and expression, and carries the reader on triumphantly  . . . to speak for one reader. It seems to me too that the language is freer — there is less inversion and more breadth of rhythm. It just strikes me so for the first impression. At any rate the interest grows and grows. You have a secret about Domizia, I guess — which will not be told till the last perhaps. And that poor, noble Luria, who will be equal to the leap  . . . as it is easy to see. It is full, altogether, of magnanimities; — noble, and nobly put. I will go on with my notes, and those, you shall have at once  . . . I mean together  . . . presently. And don’t hurry and chafe yourself for the fourth act — now that you are better! To be ill again — think what that would be! Luria will be great now whatever you do — or whatever you do not. Will he not?

And never, never for a moment (I quite forgot to tell you) did I fancy that you were talking at me in the temper-observations — never. It was the most unprovoked egotism, all that I told you of my temper; for certainly I never suspected you of asking questions so. I was simply amused a little by what you said, and thought to myself (if you will know my thoughts on that serious subject) that you had probably lived among very good-tempered persons, to hold such an opinion about the innocuousness of ill-temper. It was all I thought, indeed. Now to fancy that I was capable of suspecting you of such a manoeuvre! Why you would have asked me directly; — if you had wished ‘curiously to enquire.’

An excellent solemn chiming, the passage from Dante makes with your ‘Sordello,’ and the ‘Sordello’ deserves the labour which it needs, to make it appear the great work it is. I think that the principle of association is too subtly in movement throughout it — so that while you are going straight forward you go at the same time round and round, until the progress involved in the motion is lost sight of by the lookers on. Or did I tell you that before?

You have heard, I suppose, how Dickens’s ‘Cricket’ sells by nineteen thousand copies at a time, though he takes Michael Angelo to be ‘a humbug’ — or for ‘though’ read ‘because.’ Tell me of Mr. Kenyon’s dinner and Moxon?

Is not this an infinite letter? I shall hear from you, I hope . . .. I ask you to let me hear soon. I write all sorts of things to you, rightly and wrongly perhaps; when wrongly forgive it. I think of you always. May God bless you. ‘Love me for ever,’ as

Your

Ba

 

Sunday Night.

December 22, 1845.

Now, ‘ought‘ you to be ‘sorry you sent that letter,’ which made, and makes me so happy  – – so happy  – – can you bring yourself to turn round and tell one you have so blessed with your bounty that there was a mistake, and you meant only half that largess? If you are not sensible that you do make me most happy by such letters, and do not warm in the reflection of your own rays, then I do give up indeed the last chance of procuring you happiness. My own ‘ought,’ which you object to, shall be withdrawn  – – being only a pure bit of selfishness; I felt, in missing the letter of yours, next day, that I might have drawn it down by one of mine,  – – if I had begged never so gently, the gold would have fallen  – – there was my omitted duty to myself which you properly blame. I should stand silently and wait and be sure of the ever-remembering goodness.

Let me count my gold now  – – and rub off any speck that stays the full shining. First  – – that thought  . . . I told you; I pray you, pray you, sweet  – – never that again  – – or what leads never so remotely or indirectly to it! On your own fancied ground, the fulfilment would be of necessity fraught with every woe that can fall in this life. I am yours for ever  – – if you are not here, with me  – – what then? Say, you take all of yourself away but just enough to live on; then, that defeats every kind purpose  . . . as if you cut away all the ground from my feet but so much as serves for bare standing room  . . . why still, I stand there  – – and is it the better that I have no broader space, when off that you cannot force me? I have your memory, the knowledge of you, the idea of you printed into my heart and brain,  – – on that, I can live my life  – – but it is for you, the dear, utterly generous creature I know you, to give me more and more beyond mere life  – – to extend life and deepen it  – – as you do, and will do. Oh, how I love you when I think of the entire truthfulness of your generosity to me  – – how, meaning and willing to give, you gave nobly! Do you think I have not seen in this world how women who do love will manage to confer that gift on occasion? And shall I allow myself to fancy how much alloy such pure gold as your love would have rendered endurable? Yet it came, virgin ore, to complete my fortune! And what but this makes me confident and happy? Can I take a lesson by your fancies, and begin frightening myself with saying  . . . ‘But if she saw all the world  – – the worthier, better men there  . . . those who would’ &c. &c. No, I think of the great, dear gift that it was; how I ‘won‘ nothing (the hateful word, and French thought)  – – did nothing by my own arts or cleverness in the matter  . . . so what pretence have the more artful or more clever for:  – – but I cannot write out this folly  – – I am yours for ever, with the utmost sense of gratitude  – – to say I would give you my life joyfully is little . . .. I would, I hope, do that for two or three other people  – – but I am not conscious of any imaginable point in which I would not implicitly devote my whole self to you  – – be disposed of by you as for the best. There! It is not to be spoken of  – – let me live it into proof, beloved!

And for ‘disappointment and a burden’  . . . now  – – let us get quite away from ourselves, and not see one of the filaments, but only the cords of love with the world’s horny eye. Have we such jarring tastes, then? Does your inordinate attachment to gay life interfere with my deep passion for society? ‘Have they common sympathy in each other’s pursuits?’  – – always asks Mrs. Tomkins! Well, here was I when you knew me, fixed in my way of life, meaning with God’s help to write what may be written and so die at peace with myself so far. Can you help me or no? Do you not help me so much that, if you saw the more likely peril for poor human nature, you would say, ‘He will be jealous of all the help coming from me,  – – none from him to me!’  – – And that would be a consequence of the help, all-too-great for hope of return, with any one less possessed than I with the exquisiteness of being transcended and the blest one.

But  – – ‘here comes the Selah and the voice is hushed’  – – I will speak of other things. When we are together one day  – – the days I believe in  – – I mean to set about that reconsidering ‘Sordello’  – – it has always been rather on my mind  – – but yesterday I was reading the ‘Purgatorio’ and the first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one struck me with a new significance, as well describing the man and his purpose and fate in my own poem  – – see; one of the burthened, contorted souls tells Virgil and Dante  – –

Which is just my Sordello’s story  . . . could I ‘do‘ it off hand, I wonder  – –

There were many singular incidents attending my work on that subject  – – thus, quite at the end, I found out there was printed and not published, a little historical tract by a Count V  – –  – – something, called ‘Sordello’  – – with the motto ‘Post fata resurgam’! I hope he prophesied. The main of this  – – biographical notices  – – is extracted by Muratori, I think. Last year when I set foot in Naples I found after a few minutes that at some theatre, that night, the opera was to be ‘one act of Sordello’ and I never looked twice, nor expended a couple of carlines on the libretto!

I wanted to tell you, in last letter, that when I spoke of people’s tempers you have no concern with ‘people’  – – I do not glance obliquely at your temper  – – either to discover it, or praise it, or adapt myself to it. I speak of the relation one sees in other cases  – – how one opposes passionate foolish people, but hates cold clever people who take quite care enough of themselves. I myself am born supremely passionate  – – so I was born with light yellow hair: all changes  – – that is the passion changes its direction and, taking a channel large enough, looks calmer, perhaps, than it should  – – and all my sympathies go with quiet strength, of course  – – but I know what the other kind is. As for the breakages of chairs, and the appreciation of Parisian meubles; manibus, pedibusque descendo in tuam sententiam, Ba, mi ocelle! (‘What was E.B. C?’ why, the first letter after, and not, E.B. B, my own B! There was no latent meaning in the C  – – but I had no inclination to go on to D, or E, for instance).

And so, love, Tuesday is to be our day  – – one day more  – – and then! And meanwhile ‘care‘ for me! a good word for you  – – but my care, what is that! One day I aspire to care, though! I shall not go away at any dear Mr. K.’s coming! They call me down-stairs to supper  – – and my fire is out, and you keep me from feeling cold and yet ask if I am well? Yes, well  – – yes, happy  – – and your own ever  – – I must bid God bless you  – – dearest!

R.B.

 

Saturday.

December 20, 1845.

I have your letter now, and now I am sorry I sent mine. If I wrote that you had ‘forgotten to write,’ I did not mean it; not a word! If I had meant it I should not have written it. But it would have been better for every reason to have waited just a little longer before writing at all. A besetting sin of mine is an impatience which makes people laugh when it does not entangle their silks, pull their knots tighter, and tear their books in cutting them open.

How right you are about Mr. Lowell! He has a refined fancy and is graceful for an American critic, but the truth is, otherwise, that he knows nothing of English poetry or the next thing to nothing, and has merely had a dream of the early dramatists. The amount of his reading in that direction is an article in the Retrospective Review which contains extracts; and he re-extracts the extracts, re-quotes the quotations, and, ‘a pede Herculem,’ from the foot infers the man, or rather from the sandal-string of the foot, infers and judges the soul of the man — it is comparative anatomy under the most speculative conditions. How a writer of his talents and pretensions could make up his mind to make up a book on such slight substratum, is a curious proof of the state of literature in America. Do you not think so? Why a lecturer on the English Dramatists for a ‘Young Ladies’ academy’ here in England, might take it to be necessary to have better information than he could gather from an odd volume of an old review! And then, Mr. Lowell’s naïveté in showing his authority, — as if the Elizabethan poets lay mouldering in inaccessible manuscript somewhere below the lowest deep of Shakespeare’s grave, — is curious beyond the rest! Altogether, the fact is an epigram on the surface-literature of America. As you say, their books do not suit us: — Mrs. Markham might as well send her compendium of the History of France to M. Thiers. If they knew more they could not give parsley crowns to their own native poets when there is greater merit among the rabbits. Mrs. Sigourney has just sent me — just this morning — her ‘Scenes in my Native Land’ and, peeping between the uncut leaves, I read of the poet Hillhouse, of ‘sublime spirit and Miltonic energy,’ standing in ‘the temple of Fame’ as if it were built on purpose for him. I suppose he is like most of the American poets, who are shadows of the true, as flat as a shadow, as colourless as a shadow, as lifeless and as transitory. Mr. Lowell himself is, in his verse-books, poetical, if not a poet — and certainly this little book we are talking of is grateful enough in some ways — you would call it a pretty book — would you not? Two or three letters I have had from him  . . . all very kind! — and that reminds me, alas! of some ineffable ingratitude on my own part! When one’s conscience grows too heavy, there is nothing for it but to throw it away! —

Do you remember how I tried to tell you what he said of you, and how you would not let me?

Mr. Mathews said of him, having met him once in society, that he was the concentration of conceit in appearance and manner. But since then they seem to be on better terms.

Where is the meaning, pray, of E.B.C.? your meaning, I mean?

My true initials are E.B.M.B. — my long name, as opposed to my short one, being Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett! — there’s a full length to take away one’s breath! — Christian name  . . . Elizabeth Barrett: — surname, Moulton Barrett. So long it is, that to make it portable, I fell into the habit of doubling it up and packing it closely,  . . . and of forgetting that I was a Moulton, altogether. One might as well write the alphabet as all four initials. Yet our family-name is Moulton Barrett, and my brothers reproach me sometimes for sacrificing the governorship of an old town in Norfolk with a little honourable verdigris from the Heralds’ Office. As if I cared for the Retrospective Review! Nevertheless it is true that I would give ten towns in Norfolk (if I had them) to own some purer lineage than that of the blood of the slave! Cursed we are from generation to generation! — I seem to hear the ‘Commination Service.’

May God bless you always, always! beyond the always of this world! —

Your

E.B.B.

Mr. Dickens’s ‘Cricket’ sings repetitions, and, with considerable beauty, is extravagant. It does not appear to me by any means one of his most successful productions, though quite free from what was reproached as bitterness and one-sidedness, last year.

You do not say how you are — not a word! And you are wrong in saying that you ‘ought to have written’ — as if ‘ought’ could be in place so! You never ‘ought’ to write to me you know! or rather  . . . if you ever think you ought, you ought not! Which is a speaking of mysteries on my part!

 

Saturday.

December 20, 1845.

I do not, nor will not think, dearest, of ever ‘making you happy’  – – I can imagine no way of working that end, which does not go straight to my own truest, only true happiness  – – yet in every such effort there is implied some distinction, some supererogatory grace, or why speak of it at all? You it is, are my happiness, and all that ever can be: you  – – dearest!

But never, if you would not, what you will not do I know, never revert to that frightful wish. ‘Disappoint me?’ ‘I speak what I know and testify what I have seen’  – – you shall ‘mystery’ again and again  – – I do not dispute that, but do not you dispute, neither, that mysteries are. But it is simply because I do most justice to the mystical part of what I feel for you, because I consent to lay most stress on that fact of facts that I love you, beyond admiration, and respect, and esteem and affection even, and do not adduce any reason which stops short of accounting for that, whatever else it would account for, because I do this, in pure logical justice  – – you are able to turn and wonder (if you do  . . . now) what causes it all! My love, only wait, only believe in me, and it cannot be but I shall, little by little, become known to you  – – after long years, perhaps, but still one day: I would say this now  – – but I will write more to-morrow. God bless my sweetest  – – ever, love, I am your

R.B.

But my letter came last night, did it not?

Another thing  – – no, to-morrow  – – for time presses, and, in all cases, Tuesday  – – remember!

 

Thursday Evening.

December 20, 1845.

Dearest, you know how to say what makes me happiest, you who never think, you say, of making me happy! For my part I do not think of it either; I simply understand that you are my happiness, and that therefore you could not make another happiness for me, such as would be worth having — not even you! Why, how could you? That was in my mind to speak yesterday, but I could not speak it — to write it, is easier.

Talking of happiness — shall I tell you? Promise not to be angry and I will tell you. I have thought sometimes that, if I considered myself wholly, I should choose to die this winter — now — before I had disappointed you in anything. But because you are better and dearer and more to be considered than I, I do not choose it. I cannot choose to give you any pain, even on the chance of its being a less pain, a less evil, than what may follow perhaps (who can say?), if I should prove the burden of your life.

For if you make me happy with some words, you frighten me with others — as with the extravagance yesterday — and seriously — too seriously, when the moment for smiling at them is past — I am frightened, I tremble! When you come to know me as well as I know myself, what can save me, do you think, from disappointing and displeasing you? I ask the question, and find no answer.

It is a poor answer, to say that I can do one thing well  . . . that I have one capacity largely. On points of the general affections, I have in thought applied to myself the words of Mme. de Stael, not fretfully, I hope, not complainingly, I am sure (I can thank God for most affectionate friends!) not complainingly, yet mournfully and in profound conviction — those words — ‘jamais je n’ai pas été aimée comme j’aime.’ The capacity of loving is the largest of my powers I think — I thought so before knowing you — and one form of feeling. And although any woman might love you — every woman, — with understanding enough to discern you by — (oh, do not fancy that I am unduly magnifying mine office) yet I persist in persuading myself that! Because I have the capacity, as I said — and besides I owe more to you than others could, it seems to me: let me boast of it. To many, you might be better than all things while one of all things: to me you are instead of all — to many, a crowning happiness — to me, the happiness itself. From out of the deep dark pits men see the stars more gloriously — and de profundis amavi —

It is a very poor answer! Almost as poor an answer as yours could be if I were to ask you to teach me to please you always; or rather, how not to displease you, disappoint you, vex you — what if all those things were in my fate?

And — (to begin!) — I am disappointed to-night. I expected a letter which does not come — and I had felt so sure of having a letter to-night  . . . unreasonably sure perhaps, which means doubly sure.

Friday. — Remember you have had two notes of mine, and that it is certainly not my turn to write, though I am writing.

Scarcely you had gone on Wednesday when Mr. Kenyon came. It seemed best to me, you know, that you should go — I had the presentiment of his footsteps — and so near they were, that if you had looked up the street in leaving the door, you must have seen him! Of course I told him of your having been here and also at his house; whereupon he enquired eagerly if you meant to dine with him, seeming disappointed by my negative. ‘Now I had told him,’ he said  . . . and murmured on to himself loud enough for me to hear, that ‘it would have been a peculiar pleasure &c.’ The reason I have not seen him lately is the eternal ‘business,’ just as you thought, and he means to come ‘oftener now,’ so nothing is wrong as I half thought.

As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking what sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most particularly admire — sulkiness? — the divine gift of sitting aloof in a cloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps — pettishness?  . . . which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one either? obstinacy? — which is an agreeable form of temper I can assure you, and describes itself — or the good open passion which lies on the floor and kicks, like one of my cousins? — Certainly I prefer the last, and should, I think, prefer it (as an evil), even if it were not the born weakness of my own nature — though I humbly confess (to you, who seem to think differently of these things) that never since I was a child have I upset all the chairs and tables and thrown the books about the room in a fury — I am afraid I do not even ‘kick,’ like my cousin, now. Those demonstrations were all done by the ‘light of other days’ — not a very full light, I used to be accustomed to think: — but you, — you think otherwise, you take a fury to be the opposite of ‘indifference,’ as if there could be no such thing as self-control! Now for my part, I do believe that the worst-tempered persons in the world are less so through sensibility than selfishness — they spare nobody’s heart, on the ground of being themselves pricked by a straw. Now see if it isn’t so. What, after all, is a good temper but generosity in trifles — and what, without it, is the happiness of life? We have only to look round us. I saw a woman, once, burst into tears, because her husband cut the bread and butter too thick. I saw that with my own eyes. Was it sensibility, I wonder! They were at least real tears and ran down her cheeks. ‘You always do it’! she said.

Why how you must sympathize with the heroes and heroines of the French romances (do you sympathize with them very much?) when at the slightest provocation they break up the tables and chairs, (a degree beyond the deeds of my childhood! — I only used to upset them) break up the tables and chairs and chiffoniers, and dash the china to atoms. The men do the furniture, and the women the porcelain: and pray observe that they always set about this as a matter of course! When they have broken everything in the room, they sink down quite (and very naturally) abattus. I remember a particular case of a hero of Frederic Soulié’s, who, in the course of an ’emotion,’ takes up a chair unconsciously, and breaks it into very small pieces, and then proceeds with his soliloquy. Well! — the clearest idea this excites in me, is of the low condition in Paris, of moral government and of upholstery. Because — just consider for yourself — how you would succeed in breaking to pieces even a three-legged stool if it were properly put together — as stools are in England — just yourself, without a hammer and a screw! You might work at it comme quatre, and find it hard to finish, I imagine. And then as a demonstration, a child of six years old might demonstrate just so (in his sphere) and be whipped accordingly.

How I go on writing! — and you, who do not write at all! — two extremes, one set against the other.

But I must say, though in ever such an ill temper (which you know is just the time to select for writing a panegyric upon good temper) that I am glad you do not despise my own right name too much, because I never was called Elizabeth by any one who loved me at all, and I accept the omen. So little it seems my name that if a voice said suddenly ‘Elizabeth,’ I should as soon turn round as my sisters would  . . . no sooner. Only, my own right name has been complained of for want of euphony  . . . Ba  . . . now and then it has — and Mr. Boyd makes a compromise and calls me Elibet, because nothing could induce him to desecrate his organs accustomed to Attic harmonies, with a Ba. So I am glad, and accept the omen.

But I give you no credit for not thinking that I may forget you  . . . I! As if you did not see the difference! Why, I could not even forget to write to you, observe! —

Whenever you write, say how you are. Were you wet on Wednesday?

Your own —

 

Friday Morning.

December 19, 1845.

I ought to have written yesterday: so to-day when I need a letter and get none, there is my own fault besides, and the less consolation. A letter from you would light up this sad day. Shall I fancy how, if a letter lay there where I look, rain might fall and winds blow while I listened to you, long after the words had been laid to heart? But here you are in your place  – – with me who am your own  – – your own  – – and so the rhyme joins on,

Now, is that taken from your book? No  – – but from my book, which holds my verses as I write them; and as I open it, I read that.

And speaking of verse  – – somebody gave me a few days ago that Mr. Lowell’s book you once mentioned to me. Anyone who ‘admires’ you shall have my sympathy at once  – – even though he do change the laughing wine-mark into a ‘stain’ in that perfectly beautiful triplet  – – nor am I to be indifferent to his good word for myself (though not very happily connected with the criticism on the epithet in that ‘Yorkshire Tragedy’  – – which has better things, by the way  – – seeing that ‘white boy,’ in old language, meant just ‘good boy,’ a general epithet, as Johnson notices in the life of Dryden, whom the schoolmaster Busby was used to class with his ‘white boys’  – – this is hypercriticism, however). But these American books should not be reprinted here  – – one asks, what and where is the class to which they address themselves? for, no doubt, we have our congregations of ignoramuses that enjoy the profoundest ignorance imaginable on the subjects treated of; but these are evidently not the audience Mr. Lowell reckons on; rather, if one may trust the manner of his setting to work, he would propound his doctrine to the class. Always to be found, of spirits instructed up to a certain height and there resting  – – vines that run up a prop and there tangle and grow to a knot  – – which want supplying with fresh poles; so the provident man brings his bundle into the grounds, and sticks them in laterally or a-top of the others, as the case requires, and all the old stocks go on growing again  – – but here, with us, whoever wanted Chaucer, or Chapman, or Ford, got him long ago  – – what else have Lamb, and Coleridge, and Hazlitt and Hunt and so on to the end of their generations  . . . what else been doing this many a year? What one passage of all these, cited with the very air of a Columbus, but has been known to all who know anything of poetry this many, many a year? The others, who don’t know anything, are the stocks that have got to shoot, not climb higher  – – compost, they want in the first place! Ford’s and Crashaw’s rival Nightingales  – – why they have been dissertated on by Wordsworth and Coleridge, then by Lamb and Hazlitt, then worked to death by Hunt, who printed them entire and quoted them to pieces again, in every periodical he was ever engaged upon; and yet after all, here ‘Philip’  – – ‘must read’ (out of a roll of dropping papers with yellow ink tracings, so old!) something at which ‘John’ claps his hands and says ‘Really  – – that these ancients should own so much wit &c.’! The passage no longer looks its fresh self after this veritable passage from hand to hand: as when, in old dances, the belle began the figure with her own partner, and by him was transferred to the next, and so to the next  – – they ever beginning with all the old alacrity and spirit; but she bearing a still-accumulating weight of tokens of gallantry, and none the better for every fresh pushing and shoving and pulling and hauling  – – till, at the bottom of the room  – –

To which Mr. Lowell might say, that  – – No, I will say the true thing against myself  – – and it is, that when I turn from what is in my mind, and determine to write about anybody’s book to avoid writing that I love and love and love again my own, dearest love  – – because of the cuckoo-song of it,  – – then, I shall be in no better humour with that book than with Mr. Lowell’s!

But I have a new thing to say or sing  – – you never before heard me love and bless and send my heart after  – – ‘Ba’  – – did you? Ba  . . . and that is you! I tried  . . . (more than wanted) to call you that, on Wednesday! I have a flower here  – – rather, a tree, a mimosa, which must be turned and turned, the side to the light changing in a little time to the leafy side, where all the fans lean and spread  . . . so I turn your name to me, that side I have not last seen: you cannot tell how I feel glad that you will not part with the name  – – Barrett  – – seeing you have two of the same  – – and must always, moreover, remain my EBB!

Dearest ‘E.B.C.’  – – no, no! and so it will never be!

Have you seen Mr. Kenyon? I did not write  . . . knowing that such a procedure would draw the kind sure letter in return, with the invitation &c., as if I had asked for it! I had perhaps better call on him some morning very early.

Bless you, my own sweetest. You will write to me, I know in my heart!

Ever may God bless you!

R.B.

Tuesday Evening.
December 17, 1845.

Henrietta had a note from Mr. Kenyon to the effect that he was ‘coming to see Ba‘ to-day if in any way he found it possible. Now he has not come — and the inference is that he will come to-morrow — in which case you will be convicted of not wishing to be with him perhaps. So  . . . would it not be advisable for you to call at his door for a moment — and before you come here? Think of it. You know it would not do to vex him — would it?

Your            

E.B.B.

Monday.

December 16, 1845.

Mr. Kenyon has not come — he does not come so often, I think. Did he know from you that you were to see me last Thursday? If he did it might be as well, do you not think? to go to him next week. Will it not seem frequent, otherwise? But if you did not tell him of Thursday distinctly (I did not — remember!), he might take the Wednesday’s visit to be the substitute for rather than the successor of Thursday’s: and in that case, why not write a word to him yourself to propose dining with him as he suggested? He really wishes to see you — of that, I am sure. But you will know what is best to do, and he may come here to-morrow perhaps, and ask a whole set of questions about you; so my right hand may forget its cunning for any good it does. Only don’t send messages by me, please!

How happy I am with your letter to-night.

When I had sent away my last letter I began to remember, and could not help smiling to do so, that I had totally forgotten the great subject of my ‘fame,’ and the oath you administered about it — totally! Now how do you read that omen? If I forget myself, who is to remember me, do you think? — except you? — which brings me where I would stay. Yes — ‘yours’ it must be, but you, it had better be! But, to leave the vain superstitions, let me go on to assure you that I did mean to answer that part of your former letter, and do mean to behave well and be obedient. Your wish would be enough, even if there could be likelihood without it of my doing nothing ever again. Oh, certainly I have been idle — it comes of lotus-eating — and, besides, of sitting too long in the sun. Yet ‘idle’ may not be the word! silent I have been, through too many thoughts to speak just that! — As to writing letters and reading manuscripts’ filling all my time, why I must lack ‘vital energy’ indeed — you do not mean seriously to fancy such a thing of me! For the rest . . .. Tell me — Is it your opinion that when the apostle Paul saw the unspeakable things, being snatched up into the third Heavens ‘whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell,’ — is it your opinion that, all the week after, he worked particularly hard at the tent-making? For my part, I doubt it.

I would not speak profanely or extravagantly — it is not the best way to thank God. But to say only that I was in the desert and that I am among the palm-trees, is to say nothing  . . . because it is easy to understand how, after walking straight on  . . . on  . . . furlong after furlong  . . . dreary day after dreary day,  . . . one may come to the end of the sand and within sight of the fountain: — there is nothing miraculous in that, you know!

Yet even in that case, to doubt whether it may not all be mirage, would be the natural first thought, the recurring dream-fear! now would it not? And you can reproach me for my thoughts, as if they were unnatural!

Never mind about the third act — the advantage is that you will not tire yourself perhaps the next week. What gladness it is that you should really seem better, and how much better that is than even ‘Luria.’

Mrs. Jameson came to-day — but I will tell you.

May God bless you now and always.

Your

E.B.B.

 

Monday Morning.

December 15, 1845.

Every word you write goes to my heart and lives there: let us live so, and die so, if God will. I trust many years hence to begin telling you what I feel now;  – – that the beam of the light will have reached you!  – – meantime it is here. Let me kiss your forehead, my sweetest, dearest.

Wednesday I am waiting for  – – how waiting for!

After all, it seems probable that there was no intentional mischief in that jeweller’s management of the ring. The divided gold must have been exposed to fire  – – heated thoroughly, perhaps,  – – and what became of the contents then! Well, all is safe now, and I go to work again of course. My next act is just done  – – that is, being done  – – but, what I did not foresee, I cannot bring it, copied, by Wednesday, as my sister went this morning on a visit for the week.

On the matters, the others, I will not think, as you bid me,  – – if I can help, at least. But your kind, gentle, good sisters! and the provoking sorrow of the right meaning at bottom of the wrong doing  – – wrong to itself and its plain purpose  – – and meanwhile, the real tragedy and sacrifice of a life!

If you should see Mr. Kenyon, and can find if he will be disengaged on Wednesday evening, I shall be glad to go in that case.

But I have been writing, as I say, and will leave off this, for the better communing with you. Don’t imagine I am unwell; I feel quite well, but a little tired, and the thought of you waits in such readiness! So, may God bless you, beloved!

I am all your own

R.B.