Robert and Elizabeth

Monday, 7 P.M.

August 19, 1845.

I this moment get your note  – – having been out since the early morning  – – and I must write just to catch the post. You are pure kindness and considerateness, no thanks to you!  – – (since you will have it so  – – ). I choose Friday, then,  – – but I shall hear from you before Thursday, I dare hope? I have all but passed your house to-day  – – with an Italian friend, from Rome, whom I must go about with a little on weariful sight seeing, so I shall earn Friday.

Bless you

R.B.

 

Sunday.

August 18, 1845.

I am going to propose to you to give up Tuesday, and to take your choice of two or three other days, say Friday, or Saturday, or to-morrow  . . . Monday. Mr. Kenyon was here to-day and talked of leaving London on Friday, and of visiting me again on ‘Tuesday’  . . . he said,  . . . but that is an uncertainty, and it may be Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. So I thought (wrong or right) that out of the three remaining days you would not mind choosing one. And if you do choose the Monday, there will be no need to write — nor time indeed — ; but if the Friday or Saturday, I shall hear from you, perhaps. Above all things remember, my dear friend, that I shall not expect you to-morrow, except as by a bare possibility. In great haste, signed and sealed this Sunday evening by

E.B.B.

 

Saturday.

August 16, 1845.

But what likeness is there between opposites; and what has ‘M. l’Italien’ to do with the said ‘elderly German’? See how little! For to bring your case into point, somebody should have been playing on a Jew’s harp for the whole of the orchestra; and the elderly German should have quoted something about ‘Harp of Judah’ to the Venetian behind him! And there, you would have proved your analogy! — Because you see, my dear friend, it was not the expression, but the thing expressed, I cried out against — the exaggeration in your mind. I am sorry when I write what you do not like — but I have instincts and impulses too strong for me when you say things which put me into such a miserably false position in respect to you — as for instance, when in this very last letter (oh, I must tell you!) you talk of my ‘correcting your verses’! My correcting your verses!!! — Now is that a thing for you to say? — And do you really imagine that if I kept that happily imagined phrase in my thoughts, I should be able to tell you one word of my impressions from your poetry, ever, ever again? Do you not see at once what a disqualifying and paralysing phrase it must be, of simple necessity? So it is I who have reason to complain,  . . . it appears to me,  . . . and by no means you — and in your ‘second consideration’ you become aware of it, I do not at all doubt.

As to ‘Consuelo’ I agree with nearly all that you say of it — though George Sand, we are to remember, is greater than ‘Consuelo,’ and not to be depreciated according to the defects of that book, nor classified as ‘femme qui parle’  . . . she who is man and woman together,  . . . judging her by the standard of even that book in the nobler portions of it. For the inconsequency of much in the book, I admit it of course — and you will admit that it is the rarest of phenomena when men  . . . men of logic  . . . follow their own opinions into their obvious results — nobody, you know, ever thinks of doing such a thing: to pursue one’s own inferences is to rush in where angels  . . . perhaps  . . . do not fear to tread,  . . . but where there will not be much other company. So the want of practical logic shall be a human fault rather than a womanly one, if you please: and you must please also to remember that ‘Consuelo’ is only ‘half the orange’; and that when you complain of its not being a whole one, you overlook that hand which is holding to you the ‘Comtesse de Rudolstadt’ in three volumes! Not that I, who have read the whole, profess a full satisfaction about Albert and the rest — and Consuelo is made to be happy by a mere clap-trap at last: and Mme. Dudevant has her specialities, — in which, other women, I fancy, have neither part nor lot,  . . . even here! — Altogether, the book is a sort of rambling ‘Odyssey,’ a female ‘Odyssey,’ if you like, but full of beauty and nobleness, let the faults be where they may. And then, I like those long, long books, one can live away into  . . . leaving the world and above all oneself, quite at the end of the avenue of palms — quite out of sight and out of hearing! — Oh, I have felt something like that so often — so often! and you never felt it, and never will, I hope.

But if Bulwer had written nothing but the ‘Ernest Maltravers’ books, you would think perhaps more highly of him. Do you not think it possible now? It is his most impotent struggling into poetry, which sets about proving a negative of genius on him — that, which the Athenæum praises as ‘respectable attainment in various walks of literature’ — ! like the Athenæum, isn’t it? and worthy praise, to be administered by professed judges of art? What is to be expected of the public, when the teachers of the public teach so? —

When you come on Tuesday, do not forget the MS. if any is done — only don’t let it be done so as to tire and hurt you — mind! And good-bye until Tuesday, from

E.B.B.

 

Friday Morning.

August 15, 1845.

Do you know, dear friend, it is no good policy to stop up all the vents of my feeling, nor leave one for safety’s sake, as you will do, let me caution you never so repeatedly. I know, quite well enough, that your ‘kindness’ is not so apparent, even, in this instance of correcting my verses, as in many other points  – – but on such points, you lift a finger to me and I am dumb . . .. Am I not to be allowed a word here neither?

I remember, in the first season of German Opera here, when ‘Fidelio’s’ effects were going, going up to the gallery in order to get the best of the last chorus  – – get its oneness which you do  – – and, while perched there an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormous enthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought,  – – I and a cousin of mine)  – – whose whole body broke out in billow, heaved and swayed in the perfection of his delight, hands, head, feet, all tossing and striving to utter what possessed him. Well  – – next week, we went again to the Opera, and again mounted at the proper time, but the crowd was greater, and our mild great faced white haired red cheeked German was not to be seen, not at first  – – for as the glory was at its full, my cousin twisted me round and made me see an arm, only an arm, all the body of its owner being amalgamated with a dense crowd on each side, before, and  – – not behind, because they, the crowd, occupied the last benches, over which we looked  – – and this arm waved and exulted as if ‘for the dignity of the whole body,’  – – relieved it of its dangerous accumulation of repressed excitability. When the crowd broke up all the rest of the man disengaged itself by slow endeavours, and there stood our friend confessed  – – as we were sure!

– – Now, you would have bade him keep his arm quiet? ‘Lady Geraldine, you would!’

I have read those novels  – – but I must keep that word of words, ‘genius’  – – for something different  – – ‘talent’ will do here surely.

There lies ‘Consuelo’  – – done with!

I shall tell you frankly that it strikes me as precisely what in conventional language with the customary silliness is styled a woman’s book, in its merits and defects,  – – and supremely timid in all the points where one wants, and has a right to expect, some fruit of all the pretence and George Sandism. These are occasions when one does say, in the phrase of her school, ‘que la Femme parle!’ or what is better, let her act! and how does Consuelo comfort herself on such an emergency? Why, she bravely lets the uninspired people throw down one by one their dearest prejudices at her feet, and then, like a very actress, picks them up, like so many flowers, returning them to the breast of the owners with a smile and a courtesy and trips off the stage with a glance at the Pit. Count Christian, Baron Frederic, Baroness  – – what is her name  – – all open their arms, and Consuelo will not consent to entail disgrace &c. &c. No, you say  – – she leaves them in order to solve the problem of her true feeling, whether she can really love Albert; but remember that this is done, (that is, so much of it as ever is done, and as determines her to accept his hand at the very last)  – – this is solved sometime about the next morning  – – or earlier  – – I forget  – – and in the meantime, Albert gets that ‘benefit of the doubt’ of which chapter the last informs you. As for the hesitation and self examination on the matter of that Anzoleto  – – the writer is turning over the leaves of a wrong dictionary, seeking help from Psychology, and pretending to forget there is such a thing as Physiology. Then, that horrible Porpora:  – – if George Sand gives him to a Consuelo for an absolute master, in consideration of his services specified, and is of opinion that they warrant his conduct, or at least, oblige submission to it,  – – then, I find her objections to the fatherly rule of Frederic perfectly impertinent  – – he having a few claims upon the gratitude of Prussia also, in his way, I believe! If the strong ones will make the weak ones lead them  – – then, for Heaven’s sake, let this dear old all-abused world keep on its course without these outcries and tearings of hair, and don’t be for ever goading the Karls and other trodden-down creatures till they get their carbines in order (very rationally) to abate the nuisance  – – when you make the man a long speech against some enormity he is about to commit, and adjure and beseech and so forth, till he throws down the aforesaid carbine, falls on his knees, and lets the Frederic go quietly on his way to keep on killing his thousands after the fashion that moved your previous indignation. Now is that right, consequential  – – that is, inferential; logically deduced, going straight to the end  – – manly?

The accessories are not the Principal, the adjuncts  – – the essence, nor the ornamental incidents the book’s self, so what matters it if the portraits are admirable, the descriptions eloquent, (eloquent, there it is  – – that is her characteristic  – – what she has to speak, she speaks out, speaks volubly forth, too well, inasmuch as you say, advancing a step or two, ‘And now speak as completely here‘  – – and she says nothing)  – – but all that, another could do, as others have done  – – but ‘la femme qui parle’  – – Ah, that, is this all? So I am not George Sand’s  – – she teaches me nothing  – – I look to her for nothing.

I am ever yours, dearest friend. How I write to you  – – page on page! But Tuesday  – – who could wait till then! Shall I not hear from you?

God bless you ever

R.B.

 

August 13, 1845.

Yes, I admit that it was stupid to read that word so wrong. I thought there was a mistake somewhere, but that it was yours, who had written one word, meaning to write another. ‘Cower’ puts it all right of course. But is there an English word of a significance different from ‘stamp,’ in ‘stomp?’ Does not the old word King Lud’s men stomped withal, claim identity with our ‘stamping.’ The a and o used to ‘change about,’ you know, in the old English writers — see Chaucer for it. Still the ‘stomp’ with the peculiar significance, is better of course than the ‘stamp’ even with a rhyme ready for it, and I dare say you are justified in daring to put this old wine into the new bottle; and we will drink to the health of the poem in it. It is ‘Italy in England’ — isn’t it? But I understand and understood perfectly, through it all, that it is unfinished, and in a rough state round the edges. I could not help seeing that, even if I were still blinder than when I read ‘Lower’ for ‘Cower.’

But do not, I ask of you, speak of my ‘kindness’  . . . my kindness! — mine! It is ‘wasteful and ridiculous excess’ and mis-application to use such words of me. And therefore, talking of ‘compacts’ and the ‘fas’ and ‘nefas’ of them, I entreat you to know for the future that whatever I write of your poetry, if it isn’t to be called ‘impertinence,’ isn’t to be called ‘kindness,’ any more,  . . . a fortiori, as people say when they are sure of an argument. Now, will you try to understand?

And talking still of compacts, how and where did I break any compact? I do not see.

It was very curious, the phenomenon about your ‘Only a Player-Girl.’ What an un-godlike indifference to your creatures though — your worlds, breathed away from you like soap bubbles, and dropping and breaking into russet portfolios unobserved! Only a god for the Epicurean, at best, can you be? That Miss Cushman went to Three Mile Cross the other day, and visited Miss Mitford, and pleased her a good deal, I fancied from what she said,  . . . and with reason, from what you say. And ‘Only a Fiddler,’ as I forgot to tell you yesterday, is announced, you may see in any newspaper, as about to issue from the English press by Mary Howitt’s editorship. So we need not go to America for it. But if you complain of George Sand for want of art, how could you bear Andersen, who can see a thing under his eyes and place it under yours, and take a thought separately into his soul and express it insularly, but has no sort of instinct towards wholeness and unity; and writes a book by putting so many pages together,  . . . just so! — For the rest, there can be no disagreeing with you about the comparative difficulty of novel-writing and drama-writing. I disagree a little, lower down in your letter, because I could not deny (in my own convictions) a certain proportion of genius to the author of ‘Ernest Maltravers,’ and ‘Alice’ (did you ever read those books?), even if he had more impotently tried (supposing it to be possible) for the dramatic laurel. In fact his poetry, dramatic or otherwise, is ‘nought’; but for the prose romances, and for ‘Ernest Maltravers’ above all, I must lift up my voice and cry. And I read the Athenæum about your Sir James Wylie who took you for an Italian . . ..

Ever your

E.B.B.

 

Tuesday Evening.

August 13, 1845.

What can I say, or hope to say to you when I see what you do for me?

This  – – for myself, (nothing for you!)  – – this, that I think the great, great good I get by your kindness strikes me less than that kindness.

All is right, too  – –

Come, I will have my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my utterest hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters  – – and the Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from two lines of a legend that delighted my infancy, and now instruct my maturer years in pretty nearly all they boast of the semi-mythologic era referred to  – – ‘In London town, when reigned King Lud, His lords went stomping thro’ the mud’  – – would all historic records were half as picturesque!)

But you know, yes, you know you are too indulgent by far  – – and treat these roughnesses as if they were advanced to many a stage! Meantime the pure gain is mine, and better, the kind generous spirit is mine, (mine to profit by)  – – and best  – – best  – – best, the dearest friend is mine,

So be happy

R.B.

 

August 11, 1845.

But if it ‘hurts’ you to read and write ever so little, why should I be asked to write  . . . for instance  . . . ‘before Tuesday?’ And I did mean to say before to-day, that I wish you never would write to me when you are not quite well, as once or twice you have done if not much oftener; because there is not a necessity,  . . . and I do not choose that there should ever be, or seem a necessity,  . . . do you understand? And as a matter of personal preference, it is natural for me to like the silence that does not hurt you, better than the speech that does. And so, remember.

And talking of what may ‘hurt’ you and me, you would smile, as I have often done in the midst of my vexation, if you knew the persecution I have been subjected to by the people who call themselves (lucus a non lucendo) ‘the faculty,’ and set themselves against the exercise of other people’s faculties, as a sure way to death and destruction. The modesty and simplicity with which one’s physicians tell one not to think or feel, just as they would tell one not to walk out in the dew, would be quite amusing, if it were not too tryingly stupid sometimes. I had a doctor once who thought he had done everything because he had carried the inkstand out of the room — ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you will have such a pulse to-morrow.’ He gravely thought poetry a sort of disease — a sort of fungus of the brain — and held as a serious opinion, that nobody could be properly well who exercised it as an art — which was true (he maintained) even of men — he had studied the physiology of poets, ‘quotha’ — but that for women, it was a mortal malady and incompatible with any common show of health under any circumstances. And then came the damnatory clause in his experience  . . . that he had never known ‘a system’ approaching mine in ‘excitability’  . . . except Miss Garrow’s  . . . a young lady who wrote verses for Lady Blessington’s annuals  . . . and who was the only other female rhymer he had had the misfortune of attending. And she was to die in two years, though she was dancing quadrilles then (and has lived to do the same by the polka), and I, of course, much sooner, if I did not ponder these things, and amend my ways, and take to reading ‘a course of history’!! Indeed I do not exaggerate. And just so, for a long while I was persecuted and pestered  . . . vexed thoroughly sometimes  . . . my own family, instructed to sing the burden out all day long — until the time when the subject was suddenly changed by my heart being broken by that great stone that fell out of Heaven. Afterwards I was let do anything I could best  . . . which was very little, until last year — and the working, last year, did much for me in giving me stronger roots down into life,  . . . much. But think of that absurd reasoning that went before! — the niaiserie of it! For, granting all the premises all round, it is not the utterance of a thought that can hurt anybody; while only the utterance is dependent on the will; and so, what can the taking away of an inkstand do? Those physicians are such metaphysicians! It’s curious to listen to them. And it’s wise to leave off listening: though I have met with excessive kindness among them,  . . . and do not refer to Dr. Chambers in any of this, of course.

I am very glad you went to Chelsea — and it seemed finer afterwards, on purpose to make room for the divine philosophy. Which reminds me (the going to Chelsea) that my brother Henry confessed to me yesterday, with shame and confusion of face, to having mistaken and taken your umbrella for another belonging to a cousin of ours then in the house. He saw you  . . . without conjecturing, just at the moment, who you were. Do you conjecture sometimes that I live all alone here like Mariana in the moated Grange? It is not quite so — : but where there are many, as with us, every one is apt to follow his own devices — and my father is out all day and my brothers and sisters are in and out, and with too large a public of noisy friends for me to bear,  . . . and I see them only at certain hours,  . . . except, of course, my sisters. And then as you have ‘a reputation’ and are opined to talk generally in blank verse, it is not likely that there should be much irreverent rushing into this room when you are known to be in it.

The flowers are  . . . so beautiful! Indeed it was wrong, though, to send me the last. It was not just to the lawful possessors and enjoyers of them. That it was kind to me I do not forget.

You are too teachable a pupil in the art of obliterating — and omne ignotum pro terrifico  . . . and therefore I won’t frighten you by walking to meet you for fear of being frightened myself.

So good-bye until Tuesday. I ought not to make you read all this, I know, whether you like to read it or not: and I ought not to have written it, having no better reason than because I like to write on and on. You have better reasons for thinking me very weak — and I, too good ones for not being able to reproach you for that natural and necessary opinion.

May God bless you my dearest friend.

E.B.B.

 

Sunday Afternoon.

August 11, 1845.

How good you are to the smallest thing I try and do  – – (to show I would please you for an instant if I could, rather than from any hope such poor efforts as I am restricted to, can please you or ought.) And that you should care for the note that was not there!  – – But I was surprised by the summons to seal and deliver, since time and the carrier were peremptory  – – and so, I dared divine, almost, I should hear from you by our mid-day post  – – which happened  – – and the answer to that, you received on Friday night, did you not? I had to go to Holborn, of all places,  – – not to pluck strawberries in the Bishop’s Garden like Richard Crouchback, but to get a book  – – and there I carried my note, thinking to expedite its delivery: this notelet of yours, quite as little in its kind as my blue flowers,  – – this came last evening  – – and here are my thanks, dear E.B.B.  – – dear friend.

In the former note there is a phrase I must not forget to call on you to account for  – – that where it confesses to having done ‘some work  – – only nothing worth speaking of.’ Just see,  – – will you be first and only compact-breaker? Nor misunderstand me here, please,  . . . as I said, I am quite rejoiced that you go out now, ‘walk about’ now, and put off the writing that will follow thrice as abundantly, all because of the stopping to gather strength  . . . so I want no new word, not to say poem, not to say the romance-poem  – – let the ‘finches in the shrubberies grow restless in the dark’  – – I am inside with the lights and music: but what is done, is done, pas vrai? And ‘worth’ is, dear my friend, pardon me, not in your arbitration quite.

Let me tell you an odd thing that happened at Chorley’s the other night. I must have mentioned to you that I forget my own verses so surely after they are once on paper, that I ought, without affectation, to mend them infinitely better, able as I am to bring fresh eyes to bear on them  – – (when I say ‘once on paper’ that is just what I mean and no more, for after the sad revising begins they do leave their mark, distinctly or less so according to circumstances). Well, Miss Cushman, the new American actress (clever and truthful-looking) was talking of a new novel by the Dane Andersen, he of the ‘Improvisatore,’ which will reach us, it should seem, in translation, viâ America  – – she had looked over two or three proofs of the work in the press, and Chorley was anxious to know something about its character. The title, she said, was capital  – – ‘Only a Fiddler!’  – – and she enlarged on that word, ‘Only,’ and its significance, so put: and I quite agreed with her for several minutes, till first one reminiscence flitted to me, then another and at last I was obliged to stop my praises and say ‘but, now I think of it, I seem to have written something with a similar title  – – nay, a play, I believe  – – yes, and in five acts  – – ‘Only an Actress’  – – and from that time, some two years or more ago to this, I have been every way relieved of it’!  – – And when I got home, next morning, I made a dark pocket in my russet horror of a portfolio give up its dead, and there fronted me ‘Only a Player-girl’ (the real title) and the sayings and doings of her, and the others  – – such others! So I made haste and just tore out one sample-page, being Scene the First, and sent it to our friend as earnest and proof I had not been purely dreaming, as might seem to be the case. And what makes me recall it now is, that it was Russian, and about a fair on the Neva, and booths and droshkies and fish-pies and so forth, with the Palaces in the back ground. And in Chorley’s Athenæum of yesterday you may read a paper of very simple moony stuff about the death of Alexander, and that Sir James Wylie I have seen at St. Petersburg (where he chose to mistake me for an Italian  – – ‘M. l’Italien’ he said another time, looking up from his cards) . . .. So I think to tell you.

Now I may leave off  – – I shall see you start, on Tuesday  – – hear perhaps something definite about your travelling.

Do you know, ‘Consuelo’ wearies me  – – oh, wearies  – – and the fourth volume I have all but stopped at  – – there lie the three following, but who cares about Consuelo after that horrible evening with the Venetian scamp, (where he bullies her, and it does answer, after all she says) as we say? And Albert wearies too  – – it seems all false, all writing  – – not the first part, though. And what easy work these novelists have of it! a Dramatic poet has to make you love or admire his men and women,  – – they must do and say all that you are to see and hear  – – really do it in your face, say it in your ears, and it is wholly for you, in your power, to name, characterize and so praise or blame, what is so said and done  . . . if you don’t perceive of yourself, there is no standing by, for the Author, and telling you. But with these novelists, a scrape of the pen  – – out blurting of a phrase, and the miracle is achieved  – – ‘Consuelo possessed to perfection this and the other gift’  – – what would you more? Or, to leave dear George Sand, pray think of Bulwer’s beginning a ‘character’ by informing you that lone, or somebody in ‘Pompeii,’ ‘was endowed with perfect genius’  – – ‘genius’! What though the obliging informer might write his fingers off before he gave the pitifullest proof that the poorest spark of that same, that genius, had ever visited him? Ione has it ‘perfectly‘  – – perfectly  – – and that is enough! Zeus with the scales? with the false weights!

And now  – – till Tuesday good-bye, and be willing to get well as (letting me send porter instead of flowers  – – and beefsteaks too!) soon as may be! and may God bless you, ever dear friend.

R.B.

 

Friday.

August 8, 1845.

It is very kind to send these flowers — too kind — why are they sent? and without one single word  . . . which is not too kind certainly. I looked down into the heart of the roses and turned the carnations over and over to the peril of their leaves, and in vain! Not a word do I deserve to-day, I suppose! And yet if I don’t, I don’t deserve the flowers either. There should have been an equal justice done to my demerits, O Zeus with the scales!

After all I do thank you for these flowers — and they are beautiful — and they came just in a right current of time, just when I wanted them, or something like them — so I confess that humbly, and do thank you, at last, rather as I ought to do. Only you ought not to give away all the flowers of your garden to me; and your sister thinks so, be sure — if as silently as you sent them. Now I shall not write any more, not having been written to. What with the Wednesday’s flowers and these, you may think how I in this room, look down on the gardens of Damascus, let your Jew say what he pleases of them — and the Wednesday’s flowers are as fresh and beautiful, I must explain, as the new ones. They were quite supererogatory  . . . the new ones  . . . in the sense of being flowers. Now, the sense of what I am writing seems questionable, does it not? — at least, more so, than the nonsense of it.

Not a word, even under the little blue flowers!!! —

E.B.B.

 

Friday Afternoon.

August 8, 1845.

Then there is one more thing ‘off my mind’: I thought it might be with you as with me  – – not remembering how different are the causes that operate against us; different in kind as in degree:  – – so much reading hurts me, for instance,  – – whether the reading be light or heavy, fiction or fact, and so much writing, whether my own, such as you have seen, or the merest compliment-returning to the weary tribe that exact it of one. But your health  – – that before all! . . . as assuring all eventually  . . . and on the other accounts you must know! Never, pray, pray, never lose one sunny day or propitious hour to ‘go out or walk about.’ But do not surprise me, one of these mornings, by ‘walking’ up to me when I am introduced’  . . . or I shall infallibly, in spite of all the after repentance and begging pardon  – – I shall [words effaced]. So here you learn the first ‘painful truth’ I have it in my power to tell you!

I sent you the last of our poor roses this morning  – – considering that I fairly owed that kindness to them.

Yes, I went to Chelsea and found dear Carlyle alone  – – his wife is in the country where he will join her as soon as his book’s last sheet returns corrected and fit for press  – – which will be at the month’s end about. He was all kindness and talked like his own self while he made me tea  – – and, afterward, brought chairs into the little yard, rather than garden, and smoked his pipe with apparent relish; at night he would walk as far as Vauxhall Bridge on my way home.

If I used the word ‘sacrifice,’ you do well to object  – – I can imagine nothing ever to be done by me worthy such a name.

God bless you, dearest friend  – – shall I hear from you before Tuesday?

Ever your own

R.B.