The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 27

Sat.u.r.day.

[Post-mark, October 14, 1845.]

It was the merest foolishness in me to write about fevers and the rest as I did to-day, just as if it could do any good, all the wringing of hands in the world. And there is no typhus _yet_ ... and no danger of any sort I hope and trust!--and how weak it is that habit of spreading the cloud which is in you all around you, how weak and selfish ... and unlike what _you_ would do ... just as you are unlike Mr. Kenyon. And you _are_ unlike him--and you were right on Thursday when you said so, and I was wrong in setting up a phrase on the other side ... only what I said came by an instinct because you seemed to be giving him all the suns.h.i.+ne to use and carry, which should not be after all. But you are unlike him and must be ... seeing that the producers must differ from the 'nati consumere fruges' in the intellectual as in the material. You create and he enjoys, and the work makes you pale and the pleasure makes him ruddy, and it is so of a necessity. So differs the man of genius from the man of letters--and then dear Mr. Kenyon is not even a man of letters in a full sense ... he is rather a Sybarite of letters. Do you think he ever knew what mental labour is? I fancy not. Not more than he has known what mental inspiration is! And not more than he has known what the strife of the heart is ... with all his tenderness and sensibility. He seems to me to _evade_ pain, and where he suffers at all to do so rather negatively than positively ...

if you understand what I mean by that ... rather by a want than by a blow: the secret of all being that he has a certain lat.i.tudinarianism (not indifferentism) in his life and affections, and has no capacity for concentration and intensity. Partly by temperament and partly by philosophy he contrives to keep the sunny side of the street--though never inclined to forget the blind man at the corner. Ah, dear Mr.

Kenyon: he is magnanimous in toleration, and excellent in sympathy--and he has the love of beauty and the reverence of genius--but the faculty of _wors.h.i.+p_ he has not: he will not wors.h.i.+p aright either your heroes or your G.o.ds ... and while you do it he only 'tolerates' the act in you. Once he said ... not to me ... but I heard of it: 'What, if genius should be nothing but scrofula?' and he doubts (I very much fear) whether the world is not governed by a throw of those very same 'loaded dice,' and no otherwise. Yet he reveres genius in the acting of it, and recognizes a G.o.d in creation--only it is but 'so far,' and not farther. At least I think not--and I have a right to think what I please of him, holding him as I do, in such true affection. One of the kindest and most indulgent of human beings has he been to me, and I am happy to be grateful to him.

_Sunday._--The Duke of Palmella takes the whole vessel for the 20th and therefore if I go it must be on the 17th. Therefore (besides) as George must be on sessions to-morrow, he will settle the question with Papa to-night. In the meantime our poor Occy is not much better, though a little, and is ordered leeches on his head, and is confined to his bed and attended by physician and surgeon. It is not decided typhus, but they will not answer for its not being infectious; and although he is quite at the top of the house, two stories above me, I shall not like you to come indeed. And then there will be only room for a farewell, and I who am a coward shrink from the saying of it.

No--not being able to see you to-morrow, (Mr. Kenyon is to be here to-morrow, he says) let us agree to throw away Wednesday. I will write, ... you will write perhaps--and above all things you will promise to write by the 'Star' on Monday, that the captain may give me your letter at Gibraltar. You promise? But I shall hear from you before then, and oftener than once, and you will acquiesce about Wednesday and grant at once that there can be no gain, no good, in that miserable good-bye-ing. I do not want the pain of it to remember you by--I shall remember very well without it, be sure. Still it shall be as you like--as you shall chose--and if you are _disappointed_ about Wednesday (if it is not vain in me to talk of disappointments) why do with Wednesday as you think best ... always understanding that there's no risk of infection.

_Monday._--All this I had written yesterday--and to-day it all is worse than vain. Do not be angry with me--do not think it my fault--but _I do not go to Italy_ ... it has ended as I feared. What pa.s.sed between George and Papa there is no need of telling: only the latter said that I 'might go if I pleased, but that going it would be under his heaviest displeasure.' George, in great indignation, pressed the question fully: but all was vain ... and I am left in this position ... to go, if I please, with his displeasure over me, (which after what you have said and after what Mr. Kenyon has said, and after what my own conscience and deepest moral convictions say aloud, I would unhesitatingly do at this hour!) and necessarily run the risk of exposing my sister and brother to that same displeasure ... from which risk I shrink and fall back and feel that to incur it, is impossible.

Dear Mr. Kenyon has been here and we have been talking--and he sees what I see ... that I am justified in going myself, but not in bringing others into difficulty. The very kindness and goodness with which they desire me (both my sisters) 'not to think of them,'

naturally makes me think more of them. And so, tell me that I am not wrong in taking up my chain again and acquiescing in this hard necessity. The bitterest 'fact' of all is, that I had believed Papa to have loved me more than he obviously does: but I never regret knowledge ... I mean I never would _un_know anything ... even were it the taste of the apples by the Dead sea--and this must be accepted like the rest. In the meantime your letter comes--and if I could seem to be very unhappy after reading it ... why it would be 'all pretence'

on my part, believe me. Can you care for me so much ... _you_? Then _that_ is light enough to account for all the shadows, and to make them almost unregarded--the shadows of the life behind. Moreover dear Occy is somewhat better--with a pulse only at ninety: and the doctors declare that visitors may come to the house without any manner of danger. Or I should not trust to your theories--no, indeed: it was not that I expected you to be afraid, but that _I_ was afraid--and if I am not ashamed for _that_, why at least I am, for being _lache_ about Wednesday, when you thought of hurrying back from Paris only for it!

You _could_ think _that_!--You _can_ care for me so much!--(I come to it again!) When I hold some words to my eyes ... such as these in this letter ... I can see nothing beyond them ... no evil, no want.

There _is_ no evil and no want. Am I wrong in the decision about Italy? Could I do otherwise? I had courage and to spare--but the question, you see, did not regard myself wholly. For the rest, the 'unforbidden country' lies within these four walls. Madeira was proposed in vain--and any part of England would be as objectionable as Italy, and not more advantageous to _me_ than Wimpole Street. To take courage and be cheerful, as you say, is left as an alternative--and (the winter may be mild!) to fall into the hands of G.o.d rather than of man: _and I shall be here for your November, remember_.

And now that you are not well, will you take care? and not come on Wednesday unless you are better? and never again bring me _wet flowers_, which probably did all the harm on Thursday? I was afraid for you then, though I said nothing. May G.o.d bless you.

Ever yours I am--your own.

Ninety is not a high pulse ... for a fever of this kind--is it? and the heat diminishes, and his spirits are better--and we are all much easier ... have been both to-day and yesterday indeed.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Tuesday Morning, [Post-mark, October 14, 1845.]

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

Bless you, love!

R.B.

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

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday, [Post-mark, October 15, 1845.]

Will this note reach you at the 'fatal hour' ... or sooner? At any rate it is forced to ask you to take Thursday for Wednesday, inasmuch as Mr. Kenyon in his exceeding kindness has put off his journey just for _me_, he says, because he saw me depressed about the decision, and wished to come and see me again to-morrow and talk the spirits up, I suppose. It is all so kind and good, that I cannot find a voice to grumble about the obligation it brings of writing thus. And then, if you suffer from cold and influenza, it will be better for you not to come for another day, ... I think _that_, for comfort. Shall I hear how you are to-night, I wonder? Dear Occy 'turned the corner,' the physician said, yesterday evening, and, although a little fluctuating to-day, remains on the whole considerably better. They were just in time to keep the fever from turning to typhus.

How fast you print your book, for it is to be out on the first of November! Why it comes out suddenly like the sun. Mr. Kenyon asked me if I had seen anything you were going to print; and when I mentioned the second part of the 'd.u.c.h.ess' and described how your perfect rhymes, perfectly new, and all clas.h.i.+ng together as by natural attraction, had put me at once to shame and admiration, he began to praise the first part of the same poem (which I had heard him do before, by the way) and extolled it as one of your most striking productions.

And so until Thursday! May G.o.d bless you--

and as the heart goes, ever yours.

I am glad for Tennyson, and glad for Keats. It is well to be able to be glad about something--is is it not? about something out of ourselves. And (_in_ myself) I shall be most glad, if I have a letter to-night. Shall I?

_R.B. to E.B.B._

[Post-mark, October 15, 1845.]

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

Mr. Forster came yesterday and was very profuse of graciosities: he may have, or must have meant well, so we will go on again with the friends.h.i.+p, as the snail repairs his battered sh.e.l.l.

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

While writing this, the _Times_ catches my eye (it just came in) and something from the _Lancet_ is extracted, a long article against quackery--and, as I say, this is the first and only sentence I read--'There is scarcely a peer of the realm who is not the patron of some quack pill or potion: and the literati too, are deeply tainted.

We have heard of barbarians who threw quacks and their medicines into the sea: but here in England we have Browning, a prince of poets, touching the pitch which defiles and making Paracelsus the hero of a poem. Sir E.L. Bulwer writes puffs for the water doctors in a style worthy of imitation by the scribe that does the poetical for Moses and Son. Miss Martineau makes a finessing servant girl her physician-general: and Richard Howitt and the Lady aforesaid stand G.o.d-father and mother to the contemptible mesmeric vagaries of Spencer Hall.'--Even the sweet incense to me fails of its effect if Paracelsus is to figure on a level with Priessnitz, and 'Jane'!

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

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

Bless my dearest--my own!

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Wednesday.

[Post-mark, October 16, 1845.]

Your letter which should have reached me in the morning of yesterday, I did not receive until nearly midnight--partly through the eccentricity of our new postman whose good pleasure it is to make use of the letter-box without knocking; and partly from the confusion in the house, of illness in different ways ... the very servants being ill, ... one of them breaking a blood-vessel--for there is no new case of fever; ... and for dear Occy, he grows better slowly day by day.

And just so late last night, five letters were found in the letter-box, and mine ... yours ... among them--which accounts for my beginning to answer it only now.

What am I to say but this ... that I know what you are ... and that I know also what you are to _me_,--and that I should accept that knowledge as more than sufficient recompense for worse vexations than these late ones. Therefore let no more be said of them: and no more _need_ be said, even if they were not likely to prove their own end good, as I believe with you. You may be quite sure that I shall be well this winter, if in any way it should be possible, and that I _will not_ be beaten down, if the will can do anything. I admire how, if all had happened so but a year ago, (yet it could not have happened quite _so_!), I should certainly have been beaten down--and how it is different now, ... and how it is only grat.i.tude to you, to _say_ that it is different now. My cage is not worse but better since you brought the green groundsel to it--and to dash oneself against the wires of it will not open the door. We shall see ... and G.o.d will oversee. And in the meantime you will not talk of extravagances; and then n.o.body need hold up the hand--because, as I said and say, I am yours, your own--only not to _hurt you_. So now let us talk of the first of November and of the poems which are to come out then, and of the poems which are to come after then--and of the new avatar of 'Sordello,' for instance, which you taught me to look for. And let us both be busy and cheerful--and you will come and see me throughout the winter, ... if you do not decide rather on going abroad, which may be better ...

better for your health's sake?--in which case I shall have your letters.

And here is another ... just arrived. How I thank you. Think of the _Times_! Still it was very well of them to recognise your princ.i.p.ality. Oh yes--do let me see the proof--I understand too about the 'making and spoiling.'

Almost you forced me to smile by thinking it worth while to say that you are '_not selfish_.' Did Sir Percival say so to Sir Gawaine across the Round Table, in those times of chivalry to which you belong by the soul? Certainly you are not selfis.h.!.+ May G.o.d bless you.

Ever your

E.B.B.

The fever may last, they say, for a week longer, or even a fortnight--but it _decreases_. Yet he is hot still, and very weak.