The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Part 56

Bless you ever--

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

Thursday Morning.

[Post-mark, February 19, 1846.]

My sweetest, best, dearest Ba I _do_ love you less, much less already, and adore you more, more by so much more as I see of you, think of you--I am yours just as much as those flowers; and you may pluck those flowers to pieces or put them in your breast; it is not because you so bless me now that you may not if you please one day--you will stop me here; but it is the truth and I live in it.

I am quite well; indeed, this morning, _noticeably_ well, they tell me, and well I mean to keep if I can.

When I got home last evening I found this note--and I have _accepted_, that I might say I could also keep an engagement, if so minded, at Harley Street--thereby insinuating that other reasons _may_ bring me into the neighbourhood than _the_ reason--but I shall either not go there, or only for an hour at most. I also found a note headed 'Strictly private and confidential'--so here it goes from my mouth to my heart--pleasantly proposing that I should start in a few days for St. Petersburg, as secretary to somebody going there on a 'mission of humanity'--_grazie tante_!

Did you hear of my meeting someone at the door whom I take to have been one of your brothers?

One thing vexed me in your letter--I will tell you, the praise of _my_ letters. Now, one merit they have--in language mystical--that of having _no_ merit. If I caught myself trying to write finely, graphically &c. &c., nay, if I found myself conscious of having in my own opinion, so written, all would be over! yes, over! I should be respecting you inordinately, paying a proper tribute to your genius, summoning the necessary collectedness,--plenty of all that! But the feeling with which I write to you, not knowing that it is writing,--with _you_, face and mouth and hair and eyes opposite me, touching me, knowing that all _is_ as I say, and helping out the imperfect phrases from your own intuition--_that_ would be gone--and _what_ in its place? 'Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we write to Ambleside.' No, no, love, nor can it ever be so, nor should it ever be so if--even if, preserving all that intimate relation, with the carelessness, _still_, somehow, was obtained with no effort in the world, graphic writing and philosophic and what you please--for I _will_ be--_would_ be, better than my works and words with an infinite stock beyond what I put into convenient circulation whether in fine speeches fit to remember, or fine pa.s.sages to quote. For the rest, I had meant to tell you before now, that you often put me 'in a maze'

when you particularize letters of mine--'such an one was kind' &c. I know, sometimes I seem to give the matter up in despair, I take out paper and fall thinking on you, and bless you with my whole heart and then begin: 'What a fine day this is?' I distinctly remember having done that repeatedly--but the converse is not true by any means, that (when the expression may happen to fall more consentaneously to the mind's motion) that less is felt, oh no! But the particular thought at the time has not been of the _insufficiency_ of expression, as in the other instance.

Now I will leave off--to begin elsewhere--for I am always with you, beloved, best beloved! Now you will write? And walk much, and sleep more? Bless you, dearest--ever--

Your own,

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

[Post-marks, Mis-sent to Mitcham. February 19 and 20, 1846.]

Best and kindest of all that ever were to be loved in dreams, and wondered at and loved out of them, you are indeed! I cannot make you feel how I felt that night when I knew that to save me an anxious thought you had come so far so late--it was almost too much to feel, and _is_ too much to speak. So let it pa.s.s. You will never act so again, ever dearest--you shall not. If the post sins, why leave the sin to the post; and I will remember for the future, will be ready to remember, how postmen are fallible and how you live at the end of a lane--and not be uneasy about a silence if there should be one unaccounted for. For the Tuesday coming, I shall remember that too--who could forget it?... I put it in the niche of the wall, one golden lamp more of your giving, to throw light purely down to the end of my life--I do thank you. And the truth is, I _should_ have been in a panic, had there been no letter that evening--I was frightened the day before, then reasoned the fears back and waited: and if there had been no letter after all--. But you are supernaturally good and kind.

How can I ever 'return' as people say (as they might say in their ledgers) ... any of it all? How indeed can I who have not even a heart left of my own, to love you with?

I quite trust to your promise in respect to the medical advice, if walking and rest from work do not prevent at once the recurrence of those sensations--it was a promise, remember. And you will tell me the very truth of how you are--and you will try the music, and not be nervous, dearest. Would not _riding_ be good for you--consider. And why should you be 'alone' when your sister is in the house? How I keep thinking of you all day--you cannot really be alone with so many thoughts ... such swarms of thoughts, if you could but see them, drones and bees together!

George came in from Westminster Hall after we parted yesterday and said that he had talked with the junior counsel of the wretched plaintiffs in the Ferrers case, and that the belief was in the mother being implicated, although not from the beginning. It was believed too that the miserable girl had herself taken step after step into the mire, involved herself gradually, the first guilt being an extravagance in personal expenses, which she lied and lied to account for in the face of her family. 'Such a respectable family,' said George, 'the grandfather in court looking venerable, and everyone indignant upon being so disgraced by her!' But for the respectability in the best sense, I do not quite see. That all those people should acquiesce in the indecency (according to every standard of English manners in any cla.s.s of society) of thrusting the personal expenses of a member of their family on Lord Ferrers, she still bearing their name--and in those peculiar circ.u.mstances of her supposed position too--where is the respectability? And they are furious with her, which is not to be wondered at after all. Her counsel had an interview with her previous to the trial, to satisfy themselves of her good faith, and she was quite resolute and earnest, persisting in every statement.

On the coming out of the anonymous letters, Fitzroy Kelly said to the juniors that if anyone could suggest a means of explanation, he would be eager to carry forward the case, ... but for him he saw no way of escaping from the fact of the guilt of their client. Not a voice could speak for her. So George was told. There is no ground for a prosecution for a conspiracy, he says, but she is open to the charge for _forgery_, of course, and to the dreadful consequences, though it is not considered at all likely that Lord Ferrers could wish to disturb her beyond the ruin she has brought on her own life.

Think of Miss Mitford's growing quite cold about Mr. Chorley who has spent two days with her lately, and of her saying in a letter to me this morning that he is very much changed and grown to be 'a presumptuous c.o.xcomb.' He has displeased her in some way--that is clear. What changes there are in the world.

Should I ever change to _you_, do you think, ... even if you came to 'love me less'--not that I meant to reproach you with that possibility. May G.o.d bless you, dear dearest. It is another miracle (beside the many) that I get nearer to the mountains yet still they seem more blue. Is not _that_ strange?

Ever and wholly

Your BA.

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

Thursday Evening.

[Post-mark, February 20, 1846.]

And I offended you by praising your letters--or rather _mine_, if you please--as if I had not the right! Still, you shall not, shall not fancy that I meant to praise them in the way you seem to think--by calling them 'graphic,' 'philosophic,'--why, did I ever use such words? I agree with you that if I could play critic upon your letters, it would be an end!--but no, no ... I did not, for a moment. In what I said I went back to my first impressions--and they were _vital_ letters, I said--which was the resume of my thoughts upon the early ones you sent me, because I felt your letters to be _you_ from the very first, and I began, from the beginning, to read every one several times over. n.o.body, I felt, n.o.body of all these writers, did write as you did. Well!--and had I not a right to say _that_ now at last, and was it not natural to say just _that_, when I was talking of other people's letters and how it had grown almost impossible for me to read them; and do I deserve to be scolded? No indeed.

And if I had the misfortune to think now, when you say it is a fine day, that _that_ is said in more music than it could be said in by another--where is the sin against _you_, I should like to ask. It is yourself who is the critic, I think, after all. But over all the brine, I hold my letters--just as Camoens did his poem. They are _best to me_--and they are _best_. I knew what _they_ were, before I knew what _you_ were--all of you. And I like to think that I never fancied anyone on a level with you, even in a letter.

What makes you take them to be so bad, I suppose, is just feeling in them how near we are. _You say that!_--not I.

Bad or good, you _are_ better--yes, 'better than the works and words'!--though it was very shameful of you to insinuate that I talked of fine speeches and pa.s.sages and graphical and philosophical sentences, as if I had proposed a publication of 'Elegant Extracts'

from your letters. See what blasphemy one falls into through a beginning of light speech! It is wiser to talk of St. Petersburg; for all Voltaire's ... '_ne disons pas de mal de Nicolas_.'

Wiser--because you will not go. If you were going ... well!--but there is no danger--it would not do you good to go, I am so happy this time as to be able to think--and your 'mission of humanity' lies nearer--'strictly private and confidential'? but not in Harley Street--so if you go _there_, dearest, keep to the 'one hour' and do not suffer yourself to be tired and stunned in those hot rooms and made unwell again--it is plain that you cannot bear that sort of excitement. For Mr. Kenyon's note, ... it was a great temptation to make a day of Friday--but I resist both for Monday's sake and for yours, because it seems to me safer not to hurry you from one house to another till you are tired completely. I shall think of you so much the nearer for Mr. Kenyon's note--which is something gained. In the meanwhile you are better, which is everything, or seems so. Ever dearest, do you remember what it is to me that you should be better, and keep from being worse again--I mean, of course, _try_ to keep from being worse--be wise ... and do not stay long in those hot Harley Street rooms. Ah--now you will think that I am afraid of the unicorns!--

Through your being ill the other day I forgot, and afterwards went on forgetting, to speak of and to return the ballad--which is delightful; I have an unspeakable delight in those suggestive ballads, which seem to make you touch with the end of your finger the full warm life of other times ... so near they bring you, yet so suddenly all pa.s.ses in them. Certainly there is a likeness to your d.u.c.h.ess--it is a curious crossing. And does it not strike you that a verse or two must be wanting in the ballad--there is a gap, I fancy.

Tell Mr. Kenyon (if he enquires) that you come here on Monday instead of Sat.u.r.day--and if you can help it, do not mention Wednesday--it will be as well, not. You met Alfred at the door--he came up to me afterwards and observed that 'at last he had seen you!' 'Virgilium tantum vidi!'

As to the thing which you try to say in the first page of this letter, and which you 'stop' yourself in saying ... _I_ need not stop you in it....

And now there is no time, if I am to sleep to-night. May G.o.d bless you, dearest, dearest.

I must be your own while He blesses _me_.

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

Friday Afternoon.

[Post-mark, February 20, 1846.]

Here is my Ba's dearest _first_ letter come four hours after the second, with '_Mis-sent to Mitcham_' written on its face as a reason,--one more proof of the negligence of somebody! But I _do_ have it at last--what should I say? what do you expect me to say? And the first note seemed quite as much too kind as usual!

Let me write to-morrow, sweet? I am quite well and sure to mind all you bid me. I shall do no more than look in at that place (they are the cousins of a really good friend of mine, Dr. White--I go for _him_) if even that--for to-morrow night I must go out again, I fear--to pay the ordinary compliment for an invitation to the R.S.'s _soiree_ at Lord Northampton's. And then comes Monday--and to-night any unicorn I may see I will not find myself at liberty to catch.

(N.B.--should you meditate really an addition to the 'Elegant Extracts'--mind this last joke is none of mine but my father's; when walking with me when a child, I remember, he bade a little urchin we found fis.h.i.+ng with a stick and a string for sticklebacks in a ditch--'to mind that he brought any sturgeon he might catch to the king'--he having a claim on such a prize, by courtesy if not right).

As for Chorley, he is neither the one nor the other of those ugly things. One remembers Regan's 'Oh Heaven--so you will rail at _me_, when you are in the mood.' But what a want of self-respect such judgments argue, or rather, want of knowledge what true self-respect is: 'So I believed yesterday, and _so_ now--and yet am neither hasty, nor inapprehensive, nor malevolent'--what then?

--But I will say more of my mind--(not of that)--to-morrow, for time presses a little--so bless you my ever ever dearest--I love you wholly.

R.B.

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

Friday Morning.

[Post-mark, February 21, 1846.]