Robert and Elizabeth

Tuesday Morning.
March 12, 1845.

Your letter made me so happy, dear Miss Barrett, that I have kept quiet this while; is it too great a shame if I begin to want more good news of you, and to say so? Because there has been a bitter wind ever since. Will you grant me a great favour? Always when you write, though about your own works, not Greek plays merely, put me in, always, a little official bulletin-line that shall say ‘I am better’ or ‘still better,’ will you? That is done, then  – – and now, what do I wish to tell you first? The poem you propose to make, for the times; the fearless fresh living work you describe, is the only Poem to be undertaken now by you or anyone that is a Poet at all; the only reality, only effective piece of service to be rendered God and man; it is what I have been all my life intending to do, and now shall be much, much nearer doing, since you will along with me. And you can do it, I know and am sure  – – so sure, that I could find in my heart to be jealous of your stopping in the way even to translate the Prometheus; though the accompanying monologue will make amends too. Or shall I set you a task I meant for myself once upon a time?  – – which, oh, how you would fulfil! Restore the Prometheus πυρφορος as Shelley did the Λυομενος; when I say ‘restore,’ I know, or very much fear, that the πυρφορος was the same with the πυρκαευς which, by a fragment, we sorrowfully ascertain to have been a Satyric Drama; but surely the capabilities of the subject are much greater than in this, we now wonder at; nay, they include all those of this last  – – for just see how magnificently the story unrolls itself. The beginning of Jupiter’s dynasty, the calm in Heaven after the storm, the ascending  – – (stop, I will get the book and give the words), οπως ταχιστα τον πατρωον εις θρονον καθεζετ’, ευθυς δαιμοσιν νεμει γερα αλλοισιν αλλα  – – κ.τ.λ., all the while Prometheus being the first among the first in honour, as καιτοι θεοισι τοις νεοις τουτοις γερα τις αλλος, η ‘γω, παντελως διωρισε? then the one black hand-cloudlet storming the joyous blue and gold everywhere, βροτων δε των ταλαιπωρων λογον ουκ εσχεν ουδενα, and the design of Zeus to blot out the whole race, and plant a new one. And Prometheus with his grand solitary εγω δ’ ετολμησα, and his saving them, as the first good, from annihilation. Then comes the darkening brow of Zeus, and estrangement from the benign circle of grateful gods, and the dissuasion of old confederates, and all the Right that one may fancy in Might, the strongest reasons παυεσθαι τροπου φιλανθρωπου coming from the own mind of the Titan, if you will, and all the while he shall be proceeding steadily in the alleviation of the sufferings of mortals whom, νηπιους οντας το πριν, εννους και φρενων επηβολους εθηκε, while still, in proportion, shall the doom he is about to draw on himself, manifest itself more and more distinctly, till at the last, he shall achieve the salvation of man, body (by the gift of fire) and soul (by even those τυφλαι ελπιδες, hopes of immortality), and so having rendered him utterly, according to the mythos here, independent of Jove  – – for observe, Prometheus in the play never talks of helping mortals more, of fearing for them more, of even benefiting them more by his sufferings. The rest is between Jove and himself; he will reveal the master-secret to Jove when he shall have released him, &c. There is no stipulation that the gifts to mortals shall be continued; indeed, by the fact that it is Prometheus who hangs on Caucasus while ‘the ephemerals possess fire,’ one sees that somehow mysteriously they are past Jove’s harming now. Well, this wholly achieved, the price is as wholly accepted, and off into the darkness passes in calm triumphant grandeur the Titan, with Strength and Violence, and Vulcan’s silent and downcast eyes, and then the gold clouds and renewed flushings of felicity shut up the scene again, with Might in his old throne again, yet with a new element of mistrust, and conscious shame, and fear, that writes significantly enough above all the glory and rejoicing that all is not as it was, nor will ever be. Such might be the framework of your Drama, just what cannot help striking one at first glance, and would not such a Drama go well before your translation? Do think of this and tell me  – – it nearly writes itself. You see, I meant the μεγ’ ωφελημα to be a deep great truth; if there were no life beyond this, I think the hope in one would be an incalculable blessing for this life, which is melancholy for one like Æschylus to feel, if he could only hope, because the argument as to the ulterior good of those hopes is cut clean away, and what had he left?

I do not find it take away from my feeling of the magnanimity of Prometheus that he should, in truth, complain (as he does from beginning to end) of what he finds himself suffering. He could have prevented all, and can stop it now  – – of that he never thinks for a moment. That was the old Greek way  – – they never let an antagonistic passion neutralise the other which was to influence the man to his praise or blame. A Greek hero fears exceedingly and battles it out, cries out when he is wounded and fights on, does not say his love or hate makes him see no danger or feel no pain. Æschylus from first word to last (ιδεσθε με, οια πασχω to εσορας με, ως

εκδικα πασχω) insists on the unmitigated reality of the punishment which only the sun, and divine ether, and the godhead of his mother can comprehend; still, still that is only what I suppose Æschylus to have done  – – in your poem you shall make Prometheus our way.

And now enough of Greek, which I am fast forgetting (for I never look at books I loved once)  – – it was your mention of the translation that brought out the old fast fading outlines of the Poem in my brain  – – the Greek poem, that is. You think  – – for I must get to you  – – that I ‘unconsciously exaggerate what you are to me.’ Now, you don’t know what that is, nor can I very well tell you, because the language with which I talk to myself of these matters is spiritual Attic, and ‘loves contractions,’ as grammarians say; but I read it myself, and well know what it means, that’s why I told you I was self-conscious  – – I meant that I never yet mistook my own feelings, one for another  – – there! Of what use is talking? Only do you stay here with me in the ‘House’ these few short years. Do you think I shall see you in two months, three months? I may travel, perhaps. So you have got to like society, and would enjoy it, you think? For me, I always hated it  – – have put up with it these six or seven years past, lest by foregoing it I should let some unknown good escape me, in the true time of it, and only discover my fault when too late; and now that I have done most of what is to be done, any lodge in a garden of cucumbers for me! I don’t even care about reading now  – – the world, and pictures of it, rather than writings about the world! But you must read books in order to get words and forms for ‘the public’ if you write, and that you needs must do, if you fear God. I have no pleasure in writing myself  – – none, in the mere act  – – though all pleasure in the sense of fulfilling a duty, whence, if I have done my real best, judge how heart-breaking a matter must it be to be pronounced a poor creature by critic this and acquaintance the other! But I think you like the operation of writing as I should like that of painting or making music, do you not? After all, there is a great delight in the heart of the thing; and use and forethought have made me ready at all times to set to work  – – but  – – I don’t know why  – – my heart sinks whenever I open this desk, and rises when I shut it. Yet but for what I have written you would never have heard of me  – – and through what you have written, not properly for it, I love and wish you well! Now, will you remember what I began my letter by saying  – – how you have promised to let me know if my wishing takes effect, and if you still continue better? And not even  . . . (since we are learned in magnanimity) don’t even tell me that or anything else, if it teases you,  – – but wait your own good time, and know me for  . . . if these words were but my own, and fresh-minted for this moment’s use! . . .

Yours ever faithfully,    

R. Browning.

March 5, 1845.

But I did not mean to strike a ‘tragic chord’; indeed I did not! Sometimes one’s melancholy will be uppermost and sometimes one’s mirth, — the world goes round, you know — and I suppose that in that letter of mine the melancholy took the turn. As to ‘escaping with my life,’ it was just a phrase — at least it did not signify more than that the sense of mortality, and discomfort of it, is peculiarly strong with me when east winds are blowing and waters freezing. For the rest, I am essentially better, Continue reading “#12”

Saturday Night, March 1 [1845].

Dear Miss Barrett,  – – I seem to find of a sudden  – – surely I knew before  – – anyhow, I do find now, that with the octaves on octaves of quite new golden strings you enlarged the compass of my life’s harp with, there is added, too, such a tragic chord, that which you touched, so gently, in the beginning of your letter I got this morning, ‘just escaping’ &c. But if my truest heart’s wishes avail, as they have hitherto done, you shall laugh at East winds yet, as I do! See now, this sad feeling is so strange to me, Continue reading “#11”

50 Wimpole Street: Feb. 27, 1845.

Yes, but, dear Mr. Browning, I want the spring according to the new ‘style’ (mine), and not the old one of you and the rest of the poets. To me unhappily, the snowdrop is much the same as the snow — it feels as cold underfoot — and I have grown sceptical about ‘the voice of the turtle,’ the east winds blow so loud. April is a Parthian with a dart, and May (at least the early part of it) a spy in the camp. That is my idea of what you call spring; mine, in the new style! A little later comes my spring; and indeed after such severe weather, from which I have just escaped with my life, I may thank it for coming at all. Continue reading “#10”

Wednesday Morning  – – Spring!

February 26, 1845.

Real warm Spring, dear Miss Barrett, and the birds know it; and in Spring I shall see you, surely see you  – – for when did I once fail to get whatever I had set my heart upon? As I ask myself sometimes, with a strange fear.

I took up this paper to write a great deal  – – now, I don’t think I shall write much  – – ‘I shall see you,’ I say!

That ‘Luria’ you enquire about, Continue reading “#9”

50 Wimpole Street, February 17, 1845.

Dear Mr. Browning, — To begin with the end (which is only characteristic of the perverse like myself), I assure you I read your handwriting as currently as I could read the clearest type from font. If I had practised the art of reading your letters all my life, I couldn’t do it better. And then I approve of small MS. upon principle. Think of what an immense quantity of physical energy must go to the making of those immense sweeping handwritings achieved by some persons  . . . Continue reading “#8”

Hatcham, Tuesday.
February 11, 1845.

Dear Miss Barrett,  – – People would hardly ever tell falsehoods about a matter, if they had been let tell truth in the beginning, for it is hard to prophane one’s very self, and nobody who has, for instance, used certain words and ways to a mother or a father could, even if by the devil’s help he would, reproduce or mimic them with any effect to anybody else that was to be won over  – – and so, if ‘I love you’ were always outspoken when it might be, there would, I suppose, be no fear of its desecration at any after time. But lo! only last night, Continue reading “#7”

50 Walpole Street: Feb. 3, 1845.

Why how could I hate to write to you, dear Mr. Browning? Could you believe in such a thing? If nobody likes writing to everybody (except such professional letter writers as you and I are not), yet everybody likes writing to somebody, and it would be strange and contradictory if I were not always delighted both to hear from you and to write to you, this talking upon paper being as good a social pleasure as another, when our means are somewhat straitened. As for me, Continue reading “#6”

New Cross, Hatcham, Monday Night.
January 28, 1845.

Dear Miss Barrett,  – – Your books lie on my table here, at arm’s length from me, in this old room where I sit all day: and when my head aches or wanders or strikes work, as it now or then will, I take my chance for either green-covered volume, as if it were so much fresh trefoil to feel in one’s hands this winter-time,  – – and round I turn, and, putting a decisive elbow on three or four half-done-with ‘Bells’ of mine, read, read, read, and just as I have shut up the book and walked to the window, I recollect that you wanted me to find faults there, and that, in an unwise hour, I engaged to do so. Meantime, Continue reading “#5”

50 Wimpole Street: Jan. 15, 1845.

Dear Mr. Browning, — The fault was clearly with me and not with you.

When I had an Italian master, years ago, he told me that there was an unpronounceable English word which absolutely expressed me, and which he would say in his own tongue, as he could not in mine — ‘testa lunga.’ Of course, the signor meant headlong! — and now I have had enough to tame me, and might be expected to stand still in my stall. But you see I do not. Headlong I was at first, and headlong I continue — precipitously rushing forward through all manner of nettles and briars instead of keeping the path; guessing at the meaning of unknown words instead of looking into the dictionary — tearing open letters, and never untying a string, — and expecting everything to be done in a minute, and the thunder to be as quick as the lightning. Continue reading “#4”