Chapter IV: Part 4

I intended to write to you last night and this morning, and could not,--you do not know what pain you give me in speaking so wildly. And if I disobey you, my dear friend, in speaking, (I for my part) of your wild speaking, I do it, not to displease you, but to be in my own eyes, and before God, a little more worthy, or less unworthy, of a generosity from which I recoil by instinct and at the first glance, yet conclusively; and because my silence would be the most disloyal of all means of expression, in reference to it. Listen to me then in this. You have said some intemperate things ... fancies,--which you will not say over again, nor unsay, but _forget at once_, and _for ever, having said at all_; and which (so) will die out between _you and me alone_, like a misprint between you and the printer. And this you will do _for my sake_ who am your friend (and you have none truer)--and this I ask, because it is a condition necessary to our future liberty of intercourse. You remember--surely you do--that I am in the most exceptional of positions; and that, just _because of it_, I am able to receive you as I did on Tuesday; and that, for me to listen to 'unconscious exaggerations,' is as unbecoming to the humilities of my position, as unpropitious (which is of more consequence) to the prosperities of yours. Now, if there should be one word of answer attempted to this; or of reference; _I must not_ ... I _will not see you again_--and you will justify me later in your heart. So for my sake you will not say it--I think you will not--and spare me the sadness of having to break through an intercourse just as it is promising pleasure to me; to me who have so many sadnesses and so few pleasures. You will!--and I need not be uneasy--and I shall owe you that tranquillity, as one gift of many. For, that I have much to receive from you in all the free gifts of thinking, teaching, master-spirits, ... _that_, I know!--it is my own praise that I appreciate you, as none can more. Your influence and help in poetry will be full of good and gladness to me--for with many to love me in this house, there is no one to judge me ... _now_. Your friendship and sympathy will be dear and precious to me all my life, if you indeed leave them with me so long or so little. Your mistakes in me ... which _I_ cannot mistake (--and which have humbled me by too much honouring--) I put away gently, and with grateful tears in my eyes; because _all that hail_ will beat down and spoil crowns, as well as 'blossoms.'

If I put off next Tuesday to the week after--I mean your visit,--shall you care much? For the relations I named to you, are to be in London next week; and I am to see one of my aunts whom I love, and have not met since my great affliction--and it will all seem to come over again, and I shall be out of spirits and nerves. On Tuesday week you can bring a tomahawk and do the criticism, and I shall try to have my courage ready for it--Oh, you will do me so much good--and Mr. Kenyon calls me 'docile' sometimes I assure you; when he wants to flatter me out of being obstinate--and in good earnest, I believe I shall do everything you tell me. The 'Prometheus' is done--but the monodrama is where it was--and the novel, not at all. But I think of some half promises half given, about something I read for 'Saul'--and the 'Flight of the Duchess'--where is she?

You are not displeased with me? _no, that_ would be hail and lightning together--I do not write as I might, of some words of yours--but you know that I am not a stone, even if silent like one. And if in the _un_silence, I have said one word to vex you, pity me for having had to say it--and for the rest, may God bless you far beyond the reach of vexation from my words or my deeds!

Your friend in grateful regard,

E.B.B.

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

Saturday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 24, 1845.]

Don't you remember I told you, once on a time that you 'knew nothing of me'? whereat you demurred--but I meant what I said, and knew it was so. To be grand in a simile, for every poor speck of a Vesuvius or a Stromboli in my microcosm there are huge layers of ice and pits of black cold water--and I make the most of my two or three fire-eyes, because I know by experience, alas, how these tend to extinction--and the ice grows and grows--still this last is true part of me, most characteristic part, _best_ part perhaps, and I disown nothing--only,--when you talked of '_knowing_ me'! Still, I am utterly unused, of these late years particularly, to dream of communicating anything about _that_ to another person (all my writings are purely dramatic as I am always anxious to say) that when I make never so little an attempt, no wonder if I _bungle_ notably--'language,' too is an organ that never studded this heavy heavy head of mine. Will you not think me very brutal if I tell you I could almost smile at your misapprehension of what I meant to write?--Yet I _will_ tell you, because it will undo the bad effect of my thoughtlessness, and at the same time exemplify the point I have all along been honestly earnest to set you right upon ... my real inferiority to you; just that and no more. I wrote to you, in an unwise moment, on the spur of being again 'thanked,' and, unwisely writing just as if thinking to myself, said what must have looked absurd enough as seen apart from the horrible counterbalancing never-to-be-written _rest of me_--by the side of which, could it be written and put before you, my note would sink to its proper and relative place, and become a mere 'thank you' for your good opinion--which I assure you is far too generous--for I really believe you to be my superior in many respects, and feel uncomfortable till _you_ see that, too--since I hope for your sympathy and assistance, and 'frankness is everything in such a case.' I do assure you, that had you read my note, _only_ having '_known_' so much of me as is implied in having inspected, for instance, the contents, merely, of that fatal and often-referred-to 'portfolio' there (_Dii meliora piis!_), you would see in it, (the note not the portfolio) the blandest utterance ever mild gentleman gave birth to. But I forgot that one may make too much noise in a silent place by playing the few notes on the 'ear-piercing fife' which in Othello's regimental band might have been thumped into decent subordination by his 'spirit-stirring drum'--to say nothing of gong and ophicleide. Will you forgive me, on promise to remember for the future, and be more considerate? Not that you must too much despise me, neither; nor, of all things, apprehend I am attitudinizing à la Byron, and giving you to understand unutterable somethings, longings for Lethe and all that--far from it! I never committed murders, and sleep the soundest of sleeps--but 'the heart is desperately wicked,' that is true, and though I dare not say 'I know' mine, yet I have had signal opportunities, I who began life from the beginning, and can forget nothing (but names, and the date of the battle of Waterloo), and have known good and wicked men and women, gentle and simple, shaking hands with Edmund Kean and Father Mathew, you and--Ottima! Then, I had a certain faculty of self-consciousness, years and years ago, at which John Mill wondered, and which ought to be improved by this time, if constant use helps at all--and, meaning, on the whole, to be a Poet, if not _the_ Poet ... for I am vain and ambitious some nights,--I do myself justice, and dare call things by their names to myself, and say boldly, this I love, this I hate, this I would do, this I would not do, under all kinds of circumstances,--and talking (thinking) in this style _to myself_, and beginning, however tremblingly, in spite of conviction, to write in this style _for myself_--on the top of the desk which contains my 'Songs of the Poets--NO. I M.P.', I wrote,--what you now forgive, I know! Because I am, from my heart, sorry that by a foolish fit of inconsideration I should have given pain for a minute to you, towards whom, on every account, I would rather soften and 'sleeken every word as to a bird' ... (and, not such a bird as my black self that go screeching about the world for 'dead horse'--corvus (picus)--mirandola!) I, too, who have been at such pains to acquire the reputation I enjoy in the world,--(ask Mr. Kenyon,) and who dine, and wine, and dance and enhance the company's pleasure till they make me ill and I keep house, as of late: Mr. Kenyon, (for I only quote where you may verify if you please) _he_ says my common sense strikes him, and its contrast with my muddy metaphysical poetry! And so it shall strike you--for though I am glad that, since you _did_ misunderstand me, you said so, and have given me an opportunity of doing by another way what I wished to do in _that_,--yet, if you had _not_ alluded to my writing, as I meant you should not, you would have certainly understood _something_ of its drift when you found me next Tuesday precisely the same quiet (no, for I feel I speak too loudly, in spite of your kind disclaimer, but--) the same mild man-about-town you were gracious to, the other morning--for, indeed, my own way of worldly life is marked out long ago, as precisely as yours can be, and I am set going with a hand, winker-wise, on each side of my head, and a directing finger before my eyes, to say nothing of an instinctive dread I have that a certain whip-lash is vibrating somewhere in the neighbourhood in playful readiness! So 'I hope here be proofs,' Dogberry's satisfaction that, first, I am but a very poor creature compared to you and entitled by my wants to look up to you,--all I meant to say from the first of the first--and that, next, I shall be too much punished if, for this piece of mere inconsideration, you deprive me, more or less, or sooner or later, of the pleasure of seeing you,--a little over boisterous gratitude for which, perhaps, caused all the mischief! The reasons you give for deferring my visits next week are too cogent for me to dispute--that is too true--and, being now and henceforward 'on my good behaviour,' I will at once cheerfully submit to them, if needs must--but should your mere kindness and forethought, as I half suspect, have induced you to take such a step, you will now smile with me, at this new and very unnecessary addition to the 'fears of me' I have got so triumphantly over in your case! Wise man, was I not, to clench my first favourable impression so adroitly ... like a recent Cambridge worthy, my sister heard of; who, being on his theological (or rather, scripture-historical) examination, was asked by the Tutor, who wished to let him off easily, 'who was the first King of Israel?'--'Saul' answered the trembling youth. 'Good!' nodded approvingly the Tutor. 'Otherwise called _Paul_,' subjoined the youth in his elation! Now I have begged pardon, and blushingly assured you _that_ was only a slip of the tongue, and that I did really _mean_ all the while, (Paul or no Paul), the veritable son of Kish, he that owned the asses, and found listening to the harp the best of all things for an evil spirit! Pray write me a line to say, 'Oh ... if _that's_ all!' and remember me for good (which is very compatible with a moment's stupidity) and let me not for one fault, (and that the only one that shall be), lose _any pleasure_ ... for your friendship I am sure I have not lost--God bless you, my dear friend!

R. BROWNING.

And by the way, will it not be better, as co-operating with you more effectually in your kind promise to forget the 'printer's error' in my blotted proof, to send me back that same 'proof,' if you have not inflicted proper and summary justice on it? When Mephistopheles last came to see us in this world outside here, he counselled sundry of us 'never to write a letter,--and never to burn one'--do you know that? But I never mind what I am told! Seriously, I am ashamed.... I shall next ask a servant for my paste in the 'high fantastical' style of my own 'Luria.'

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

Sunday
[May 25, 1845].

I owe you the most humble of apologies dear Mr. Browning, for having spent so much solemnity on so simple a matter, and I hasten to pay it; confessing at the same time (as why should I not?) that I am quite as much ashamed of myself as I ought to be, which is not a little. You will find it difficult to believe me perhaps when I assure you that I never made such a mistake (I mean of over-seriousness to indefinite compliments), no, never in my life before--indeed my sisters have often jested with me (in matters of which they were cognizant) on my supernatural indifference to the superlative degree in general, as if it meant nothing in grammar. I usually know well that 'boots' may be called for in this world of ours, just as you called for yours; and that to bring '_Bootes_,' were the vilest of mal-à-pro-pos-ities. Also, I should have understood 'boots' where you wrote it, in the letter in question; if it had not been for _the relation of two things_ in it--and now I perfectly seem to see _how_ I mistook that relation; ('_seem to see_'; because I have not looked into the letter again since your last night's commentary, and will not--) inasmuch as I have observed before in my own mind, that a good deal of what is called obscurity in you, arises from a habit of very subtle association; so subtle, that you are probably unconscious of it, ... and the effect of which is to throw together on the same level and in the same light, things of likeness and unlikeness--till the reader grows confused as I did, and takes one for another. I may say however, in a poor justice to myself, that I wrote what I wrote so unfortunately, _through reverence for you_, and not at all from vanity in my own account ... although I do feel palpably while I write these words here and now, that I might as well leave them unwritten; for that no man of the world who ever lived in the world (not even _you_) could be expected to believe them, though said, sung, and sworn.

For the rest, it is scarcely an apposite moment for you to talk, even 'dramatically,' of my 'superiority' to you, ... unless you mean, which perhaps you do mean, my superiority in _simplicity_--and, verily, to some of the 'adorable ingenuousness,' sacred to the shade of Simpson, I may put in a modest claim, ... 'and have my claim allowed.' 'Pray do not mock me' I quote again from your Shakespeare to you who are a dramatic poet; ... and I will admit anything that you like, (being humble just now)--even that I _did not know you_. I was certainly innocent of the knowledge of the 'ice and cold water' you introduce me to, and am only just shaking my head, as Flush would, after a first wholesome plunge. Well--if I do not know you, I shall learn, I suppose, in time. I am ready to try humbly to learn--and I may perhaps--if you are not done in Sanscrit, which is too hard for me, ... notwithstanding that I had the pleasure yesterday to hear, from America, of my profound skill in 'various languages less known than Hebrew'!--a liberal paraphrase on Mr. Horne's large fancies on the like subject, and a satisfactory reputation in itself--as long as it is not necessary to deserve it. So I here enclose to you your letter back again, as you wisely desire; although you never could doubt, I hope, for a moment, of its safety with me in the completest of senses: and then, from the heights of my superior ... stultity, and other qualities of the like order, ... I venture to advise you ... however (to speak of the letter critically, and as the dramatic composition it is) it is to be admitted to be very beautiful, and well worthy of the rest of its kin in the portfolio, ... 'Lays of the Poets,' or otherwise, ... I venture to advise you to burn it at once. And then, my dear friend, I ask you (having some claim) to burn at the same time the letter I was fortunate enough to write to you on Friday, and this present one--don't send them back to me; I hate to have letters sent back--but burn them for me and never mind Mephistopheles. After which friendly turn, you will do me the one last kindness of forgetting all this exquisite nonsense, and of refraining from mentioning it, by breath or pen, _to me or another_. Now I trust you so far:--you will put it with the date of the battle of Waterloo--and I, with every date in chronology; seeing that I can remember none of them. And we will shuffle the cards and take patience, and begin the game again, if you please--and I shall bear in mind that you are a dramatic poet, which is not the same thing, by any means, with _us_ of the primitive simplicities, who don't tread on cothurns nor shift the mask in the scene. And I will reverence you both as 'a poet' and as '_the_ poet'; because it is no false 'ambition,' but a right you have--and one which those who live longest, will see justified to the uttermost.... In the meantime I need not ask Mr. Kenyon if you have any sense, because I have no doubt that you have quite sense enough--and even if I had a doubt, I shall prefer judging for myself without interposition; which I can do, you know, as long as you like to come and see me. And you can come this week if you do like it--because our relations don't come till the end of it, it appears--not that I made a pretence 'out of kindness'--pray don't judge me so outrageously--but if you like to come ... not on Tuesday ... but on Wednesday at three o'clock, I shall be very glad to see you; and I, for one, shall have forgotten everything by that time; being quick at forgetting my own faults usually. If Wednesday does not suit you, I am not sure that I _can_ see you this week--but it depends on circumstances. Only don't think yourself _obliged_ to come on Wednesday. You know I _began_ by entreating you to be open and sincere with me--and no more--I _require_ no 'sleekening of every word.' I love the truth and can bear it--whether in word or deed--and those who have known me longest would tell you so fullest. Well!--May God bless you. We shall know each other some day perhaps--and I am

Always and faithfully your friend,

E.B.B.

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

[Post-mark, May 26, 1845.]

Nay--I _must_ have last word--as all people in the wrong desire to have--and then, no more of the subject. You said I had given you _great pain_--so long as I stop _that_, think anything of me you choose or can! But _before_ your former letter came, I saw the pre-ordained uselessness of mine. Speaking is to some _end_, (apart from foolish self-relief, which, after all, I can do without)--and where there is _no_ end--you see! or, to finish characteristically--since the offering to cut off one's right-hand to save anybody a headache, is in vile taste, even for our melodramas, seeing that it was never yet believed in on the stage or off it,--how much worse to really make the ugly chop, and afterwards come sheepishly in, one's arm in a black sling, and find that the delectable gift had changed aching to nausea! There! And now, 'exit, prompt-side, nearest door, Luria'--and enter R.B.--next Wednesday,--as boldly as he suspects most people do just after they have been soundly frightened!

I shall be most happy to see you on the day and at the hour you mention.

God bless you, my dear friend,

R.B.

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

Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 27, 1845.]

You will think me the most changeable of all the changeable; but indeed it is _not_ my fault that I cannot, as I wished, receive you on Wednesday. There was a letter this morning; and our friends not only come to London but come to this house on Tuesday (to-morrow) to pass two or three days, until they settle in an hotel for the rest of the season. Therefore you see, it is doubtful whether the two days may not be three, and the three days four; but if they go away in time, and if Saturday should suit you, I will let you know by a word; and you can answer by a yea or nay. While they are in the house, I must give them what time I can--and indeed, it is something to dread altogether.

Tuesday.

I send you the note I had begun before receiving yours of last night, and also a fragment[1] from Mrs. Hedley's herein enclosed, a full and complete certificate, ... that you may know ... quite _know_, ... what the real and only reason of the obstacle to Wednesday is. On Saturday perhaps, or on Monday more certainly, there is likely to be no opposition, ... at least not on the 'côté gauche' (_my_ side!) to our meeting--but I will let you know more.

For the rest, we have both been a little unlucky, there's no denying, in overcoming the embarrassments of a first acquaintance--but suffer me to say as one other last word, (and _quite, quite the last this time_!) in case there should have been anything approaching, however remotely, to a distrustful or unkind tone in what I wrote on Sunday, (and I have a sort of consciousness that in the process of my self-scorning I was not in the most sabbatical of moods perhaps--) that I do recall and abjure it, and from my heart entreat your pardon for it, and profess, notwithstanding it, neither to 'choose' nor 'to be able' to think otherwise of you than I have done, ... as of one _most_ generous and _most_ loyal; for that if I chose, I could not; and that if I could, I should not choose.

Ever and gratefully your friend,

E.B.B.

--And now we shall hear of 'Luria,' shall we not? and much besides. And Miss Mitford has sent me the most high comical of letters to read, addressed to her by 'R.B. Haydon historical painter' which has made me quite laugh; and would make _you_; expressing his righteous indignation at the 'great fact' and gross impropriety of any man who has 'thoughts too deep for tears' agreeing to wear a 'bag-wig' ... the case of poor Wordsworth's going to court, you know.--Mr. Haydon being infinitely serious all the time, and yet holding the doctrine of the divine right of princes in his left hand.

How is your head? may I be hoping the best for it? May God bless you.

[Footnote 1: ... me on Tuesday, or Wednesday? if on Tuesday, I shall come by the three o'clock train; if on Wednesday, _early_ in the morning, as I shall be anxious to secure rooms ... so that your Uncle and Arabel may come up on Thursday.]

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

[Post-mark, May 28, 1845.]

Saturday, Monday, as you shall appoint--no need to say that, or my thanks--but this note troubles you, out of my bounden duty to help you, or Miss Mitford, to make the Painter run violently down a steep place into the sea, if that will amuse you, by further informing him, what I know on the best authority, that Wordsworth's 'bag-wig,' or at least, the more important of his court-habiliments, were considerately furnished for the nonce by _Mr. Rogers_ from his own wardrobe, to the manifest advantage of the Laureate's pocket, but more problematic improvement of his person, when one thinks on the astounding difference of 'build' in the two Poets:--the fact should be put on record, if only as serving to render less chimerical a promise sometimes figuring in the columns of provincial newspapers--that the two apprentices, some grocer or other advertises for, will be 'boarded and _clothed_ like _one_ of the family.' May not your unfinished (really good) head of the great man have been happily kept waiting for the body which can now be added on, with all this picturesqueness of circumstances. Precept on precept ... but then, _line upon line_, is allowed by as good authority, and may I not draw _my_ confirming black line after yours, yet not break pledge? I am most grateful to you for doing me justice--doing yourself, your own judgment, justice, since even the play-wright of Theseus and the Amazon found it one of his hardest devices to 'write me a speech, lest the lady be frightened, wherein it shall be said that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but &c. &c.' God bless you--one thing more, but one--you _could never have_ misunderstood the _asking for the letter again_, I feared you might refer to it 'pour constater le fait'--

And now I am yours--

R.B.

My head is all but well now; thank you.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, May 30, 1845.]

Just one word to say that if Saturday, to-morrow, should be fine--because in the case of its raining I _shall not expect you_; you will find me at three o'clock.

Yes--the circumstances of the costume were mentioned in the letter; Mr. Rogers' bag-wig and the rest, and David Wilkie's sword--and also that the Laureate, so equipped, fell down upon both knees in the superfluity of etiquette, and had to be picked up by two lords-in-waiting. It is a large exaggeration I do not doubt--and then I never sympathised with the sighing kept up by people about that acceptance of the Laureateship which drew the bag-wig as a corollary after it. Not that the Laureateship honoured _him_, but that he honoured it; and that, so honouring it, he preserves a symbol instructive to the masses, who are children and to be taught by symbols now as formerly. Isn't it true? or at least may it not be true? And won't the court laurel (such as it is) be all the worthier of _you_ for Wordsworth's having worn it first?

And in the meantime I shall see you to-morrow perhaps? or if it should rain, on Monday at the same hour.

Ever yours, my dear friend,

E.B.B.

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

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 7, 1845.]

When I see all you have done for me in this 'Prometheus,' I feel more than half ashamed both of it and of me for using your time so, and forced to say in my own defence (not to you but myself) that I never thought of meaning to inflict such work on you who might be doing so much better things in the meantime both for me and for others--because, you see, it is not the mere reading of the MS., but the 'comparing' of the text, and the melancholy comparisons between the English and the Greek, ... quite enough to turn you from your [Greek: philanthrôpou tropou][1] that I brought upon you; and indeed I did not mean so much, nor so soon! Yet as you have done it for me--for me who expected a few jottings down with a pencil and a general opinion; it is of course of the greatest value, besides the pleasure and pride which come of it; and I must say of the translation, (before putting it aside for the nonce), that the circumstance of your paying it so much attention and seeing any good in it, is quite enough reward for the writer and quite enough motive for self-gratulation, if it were all torn to fragments at this moment--which is a foolish thing to say because it is so obvious, and because you would know it if I said it or not.

And while you were doing this for me, you thought it unkind of me not to write to you; yes, and you think me at this moment the very princess of apologies and excuses and depreciations and all the rest of the small family of distrust--or of hypocrisy ... who knows? Well! but you are wrong ... wrong ... to think so; and you will let me say one word to show where you are wrong--not for you to controvert, ... because it must relate to myself especially, and lies beyond your cognizance, and is something which I _must know best_ after all. And it is, ... that you persist in putting me into a false position, with respect to _fixing days_ and the like, and in making me feel somewhat as I did when I was a child, and Papa used to put me up on the chimney-piece and exhort me to stand up straight like a hero, which I did, straighter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as we say in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me and extending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice to the rug, where the dog lay ... dear old Havannah, ... and where he and I were likely to be dashed to pieces together and mix our uncanonised bones. Now my present false position ... which is not the chimney-piece's, ... is the necessity you provide for me in the shape of my having to name this day, or that day, ... and of your coming because I name it, and of my having to think and remember that you come because I name it. Through a weakness, perhaps, or morbidness, or one knows not how to define it, I _cannot help_ being uncomfortable in having to do this,--it is impossible. Not that I distrust _you_--you are the last in the world I could distrust: and then (although you may be sceptical) I am naturally given to trust ... to a fault ... as some say, or to a sin, as some reproach me:--and then again, if I were ever such a distruster, it could not be of _you_. But if you knew me--! I will tell you! if one of my brothers omits coming to this room for two days, ... I never ask why it happened! if my own father omits coming up-stairs to say 'good night,' I never say a word; and not from indifference. Do try to make out these readings of me as a _dixit Casaubonus_; and don't throw me down as a corrupt text, nor convict me for an infidel which I am not. On the contrary I am grateful and happy to believe that you like to come here; and even if you came here as a pure act of charity and pity to me, as long as you _chose to come_ I should not be too proud to be grateful and happy still. I could not be proud to _you_, and I hope you will not fancy such a possibility, which is the remotest of all. Yes, and _I_ am anxious to ask you to be wholly generous and leave off such an interpreting philosophy as you made use of yesterday, and forgive me when I beg you to fix your own days for coming for the future. Will you? It is the same thing in one way. If you like to come really every week, there is no hindrance to it--you can do it--and the privilege and obligation remain equally mine:--and if you name a day for coming on any week, where there is an obstacle on my side, you will learn it from me in a moment. Why I might as well charge _you_ with distrusting _me_, because you persist in making me choose the days. And it is not for me to do it, but for you--I must feel that--and I cannot help chafing myself against the thought that for me to begin to fix days in this way, just because you have quick impulses (like all imaginative persons), and wish me to do it now, may bring me to the catastrophe of asking you to come when you would rather not, ... which, as you say truly, would not be an important vexation to you; but to me would be worse than vexation; to _me_--and therefore I shrink from the very imagination of the possibility of such a thing, and ask you to bear with me and let it be as I prefer ... left to your own choice of the moment. And bear with me above all--because this shows no want of faith in you ... none ... but comes from a simple fact (with its ramifications) ... that you know little of me personally yet, and that _you guess_, even, but very little of the influence of a peculiar experience over me and out of me; and if I wanted a proof of this, we need not seek further than the very point of discussion, and the hard worldly thoughts you thought I was thinking of you yesterday,--I, who thought not one of them! But I am so used to discern the correcting and ministering angels by the same footsteps on the ground, that it is not wonderful I should look down there at any approach of a [Greek: philia taxis] whatever to this personal _me_. Have I not been ground down to browns and blacks? and is it my fault if I am not green? Not that it is my _complaint_--I should not be justified in complaining; I believe, as I told you, that there is more gladness than sadness in the world--that is, generally: and if some natures have to be refined by the sun, and some by the furnace (the less genial ones) both means are to be recognised as _good_, ... however different in pleasurableness and painfulness, and though furnace-fire leaves scorched streaks upon the fruit. I assured you there was nothing I had any power of teaching you: and there _is_ nothing, except grief!--which I would not teach you, you know, if I had the occasion granted.

It is a multitude of words about nothing at all, ... this--but I am like Mariana in the moated grange and sit listening too often to the mouse in the wainscot. Be as forbearing as you can--and believe how profoundly it touches me that you should care to come here at all, much more, so often! and try to understand that if I did not write as you half asked, it was just because I failed at the moment to get up enough pomp and circumstance to write on purpose to certify the important fact of my being a little stronger or a little weaker on one particular morning. That I am always ready and rejoiced to write to you, you know perfectly well, and I have proved, by 'superfluity of naughtiness' and prolixity through some twenty posts:--and this, and therefore, you will agree altogether to attribute no more to me on these counts, and determine to read me no more backwards with your Hebrew, putting in your own vowel points without my leave! Shall it be so?

Here is a letter grown from a note which it meant to be--and I have been interrupted in the midst of it, or it should have gone to you earlier. Let what I have said in it of myself pass unquestioned and unnoticed, because it is of _me_ and not of _you_, ... and, if in any wise lunatical, all the talking and writing in the world will not put the implied moon into another quarter. Only be patient with me a little, ... and let us have a smooth ground for the poems which I am foreseeing the sight of with such pride and delight--Such pride and delight!

And one thing ... which is chief, though it seems to come last!... you _will_ have advice (will you not?) if that pain does not grow much better directly? It cannot be prudent or even _safe_ to let a pain in the head go on so long, and no remedy be attempted for it, ... and you cannot be sure that it is a merely nervous pain and that it may not have consequences; and this, quite apart from the consideration of suffering. So you will see some one with an opinion to give, and take it? _Do_, I beseech you. You will not say 'no'? Also ... if on Wednesday you should be less well than usual, you will come on Thursday instead, I hope, ... seeing that it must be right for you to be quiet and silent when you suffer so, and a journey into London can let you be neither. Otherwise, I hold to my day, ... Wednesday. And may God bless you my dear friend.

Ever yours,

E.B.B.

You are right I see, nearly everywhere, if not quite everywhere in the criticisms--but of course I have not looked very closely--that is, I have read your papers but not in connection with a _my_ side of the argument--but I shall lose the post after all.

[Footnote 1: Aeschylus, _Prometheus_ II.: 'trick of loving men,' see note 3, on p. 39 above.]

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

Saturday Morning,
[Post-mark, June 7, 1845.]

I ventured to hope this morning might bring me news of you--First East-winds on you, then myself, then those criticisms!--I do assure you I am properly apprehensive. How are you? May I go on Wednesday without too much [Greek: anthadia].

Pray remember what I said and wrote, to the effect that my exceptions were, in almost every case, to the 'reading'--not to your version of it: but I have not specified the particular ones--not written down the Greek, of my suggested translations--have I? And if you do not find them in the margin of your copy, how you must wonder! Thus, in the last speech but one, of Hermes, I prefer Porson and Blomfield's [Greek: ei mêd' atychôn ti chala maniôn];--to the old combinations that include [Greek: eutychê]--though there is no MS. authority for emendation, it seems. But in what respect does Prometheus 'fare _well_,' or 'better' even, since the beginning? And is it not the old argument over again, that when a man _fails_ he should repent of his ways?--And while thinking of Hermes, let me say that '[Greek: mêde moi diplas odous prosbalês]' is surely--'Don't subject me to the trouble of a second journey ... by paying no attention to the first.' So says Scholiast A, and so backs him Scholiast B, especially created, it should appear, to show there could be _in rerum naturâ_ such another as his predecessor. A few other remarks occur to me, which I will tell you if you please; _now_, I really want to know how you are, and write for that.

Ever yours,

R.B.

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

[Post-mark, June 9, 1845.]

Just after my note left, yours came--I will try so to answer it as to please you; and I begin by promising cheerfully to do all you bid me about naming days &c. I do believe we are friends now and for ever. There can be no reason, therefore, that I should cling tenaciously to any one or other time of meeting, as if, losing that, I lost everything--and, for the future, I will provide against sudden engagements, outrageous weather &c., to your heart's content. Nor am I going to except against here and there a little wrong I could get up, as when you _imply_ from my quick impulses and the like. No, my dear friend--for I seem sure I shall have quite, quite time enough to do myself justice in your eyes--Let time show!

Perhaps I feel none the less sorely, when you 'thank' me for such company as mine, that I cannot avoid confessing to myself that it would not be so absolutely out of my power, perhaps, to contrive really and deserve thanks in a certain acceptation--I _might_ really _try_, at all events, and amuse you a little better, when I do have the opportunity,--and I _do not_--but there is the thing! It is all of a piece--I _do not_ seek your friendship in order to do you good--any good--only to do myself good. Though I _would_, God knows, do that too.

Enough of this.

I am much better, indeed,--but will certainly follow your advice should the pain return. And you--you have tried a new journey from your room, have you not?

Do recollect, at any turn, any chance so far in my favour,--that I am here and yours should you want any fetching and carrying in this outside London world. Your brothers may have their own business to mind, Mr. Kenyon is at New York, we will suppose; here am I--what else, _what else_ makes me count my cleverness to you, as I know I have done more than once, by word and letter, but the real wish to be set at work? I should have, I hope, better taste than to tell any everyday acquaintance, who could not go out, one single morning even, on account of a headache, that the weather was delightful, much less that I had been walking five miles and meant to run ten--yet to you I boasted once of polking and waltzing and more--but then would it not be a very superfluous piece of respect in the four-footed bird to keep his wings to himself because his Master Oceanos could fly forsooth? Whereas he begins to wave a flap and show how ready they are to be off--for what else were the good of him? Think of this--and

Know me for yours

R.B.

For good you are, to those notes--you shall have more,--that is, the rest--on Wednesday then, at 3, except as you except. God bless you.

Oh, let me tell you--I suppose Mr. Horne must be in town--as I received a letter two days ago, from the contriver of some literary society or other who had before written to get me to belong to it, protesting _against_ my reasons for refusing, and begging that 'at all events I would suspend my determination till I had been visited by Mr. H. on the subject'--and, as they can hardly mean to bring him express from the Drachenfels for just that, he is returned no doubt--and as he is your friend, I take the opportunity of mentioning the course I shall pursue with him or any other friend of yours I may meet,--(and everybody else, I may add--) the course I understand you to desire, with respect to our own intimacy. While I may acknowledge, I believe, that I correspond with you, I shall not, in any case, suffer it to be known that I see, or have seen you. This I just remind you of, lest any occasion of embarrassment should arise, for a moment, from your not being quite sure how _I_ had acted in any case.--Con che, le bacio le mani--a rivederla!

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

Tuesday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 10, 1845.]

I must thank you by one word for all your kindness and consideration--which could not be greater; nor more felt by me. In the first place, afterwards (if that should not be Irish dialect) do understand that my letter passed from my hands to go to yours on _Friday_, but was thrown aside carelessly down stairs and 'covered up' they say, so as not to be seen until late on Saturday; and I can only humbly hope to have been cross enough about it (having conscientiously tried) to secure a little more accuracy another time.--And then, ... if ever I should want anything done or found, ... (a roc's egg or the like) you may believe me that I shall not scruple to ask you to be the finder; but at this moment I want nothing, indeed, except your poems; and that is quite the truth. Now do consider and think what I could possibly want in your 'outside London world'; you, who are the 'Genius of the lamp'!--Why if you light it and let me read your romances, &c., by it, is not that the best use for it, and am I likely to look for another? Only I shall remember what you say, gratefully and seriously; and if ever I should have a good fair opportunity of giving you trouble (as if I had not done it already!), you may rely upon my evil intentions; even though dear Mr. Kenyon should not actually be at New York, ... which he is not, I am glad to say, as I saw him on Saturday.

Which reminds me that _he_ knows of your having been here, of course! and will not mention it; as he understood from me that _you_ would not.--Thank you! Also there was an especial reason which constrained me, on pain of appearing a great hypocrite, to tell Miss Mitford the bare fact of my having seen you--and reluctantly I did it, though placing some hope in her promise of discretion. And how necessary the discretion is, will appear in the awful statistical fact of our having at this moment, as my sisters were calculating yesterday, some forty relations in London--to say nothing of the right wing of the enemy. For Mr. Horne, I could have told you, and really I thought I _had_ told you of his being in England.

Last paragraph of all is, that I _don't want to be amused_, ... or rather that I _am_ amused by everything and anything. Why surely, surely, you have some singular ideas about me! So, till to-morrow,

E.B.B.

Instead of writing this note to you yesterday, as should have been, I went down-stairs--or rather was carried--and am not the worse.

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

Friday.
[Post-mark, June 14, 1845.]

Yes, the poem _is_ too good in certain respects for the prizes given in colleges, (when all the pure parsley goes naturally to the rabbits), and has a great deal of beauty here and there in image and expression. Still I do not quite agree with you that it reaches the Tennyson standard any wise; and for the blank verse, I cannot for a moment think it comparable to one of the grand passages in 'Oenone,' and 'Arthur' and the like. In fact I seem to hear more in that latter blank verse than you do, ... to hear not only a 'mighty line' as in Marlowe, but a noble full orbicular wholeness in complete passages--which always struck me as the mystery of music and great peculiarity in Tennyson's versification, inasmuch as he attains to these complete effects without that shifting of the pause practised by the masters, ... Shelley and others. A 'linked music' in which there are no links!--_that_, you would take to be a contradiction--and yet something like that, my ear has always seemed to perceive; and I have wondered curiously again and again how there could be so much union and no fastening. Only of course it is not model versification--and for dramatic purposes, it must be admitted to be bad.

Which reminds me to be astonished for the second time how you could think such a thing of me as that I wanted to read only your lyrics, ... or that I 'preferred the lyrics' ... or something barbarous in that way? You don't think me 'ambidexter,' or 'either-handed' ... and both hands open for what poems you will vouchsafe to me; and yet if you would let me see anything you may have in a readable state by you, ... 'The Flight of the Duchess' ... or act or scene of 'The Soul's Tragedy,' ... I shall be so glad and grateful to you! Oh--if you change your mind and choose to be _bien prié_, I will grant it is your right, and begin my liturgy directly. But this is not teazing (in the intention of it!) and I understand all about the transcription, and the inscrutableness of rough copies,--that is, if you write as I do, so that my guardian angel or M. Champollion cannot read what is written. Only whatever they can, (remember!) _I_ can: and you are not to mind trusting me with the cacistography possible to mortal readers.

The sun shines so that nobody dares complain of the east wind--and indeed I am better altogether. May God bless you, my dear friend.

E.B.B.

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

[Post-mark, June 14, 1845.]

When I ask my wise self what I really do remember of the Prize poem, the answer is--both of Chapman's lines a-top, quite worth any prize for their quoter--then, the good epithet of 'Green Europe' contrasting with Africa--then, deep in the piece, a picture of a Vestal in a vault, where I see a dipping and winking lamp plainest, and last of all the ominous 'all was dark' that dismisses you. I read the poem many years ago, and never since, though I have an impression that the versification is good, yet from your commentary I see I must have said a good deal more in its praise than that. But have you not discovered by this time that I go on talking with my thoughts away?

I know, I have always been jealous of my own musical faculty (I can write music).--Now that I see the uselessness of such jealousy, and am for loosing and letting it go, it may be cramped possibly. Your music is more various and exquisite than any modern writer's to my ear. One should study the mechanical part of the art, as nearly all that there is to be studied--for the more one sits and thinks over the creative process, the more it confirms itself as 'inspiration,' nothing more nor less. Or, at worst, you write down old inspirations, what you remember of them ... but with _that_ it begins. 'Reflection' is exactly what it names itself--a _re_-presentation, in scattered rays from every angle of incidence, of what first of all became present in a great light, a whole one. So tell me how these lights are born, if you can! But I can tell anybody how to make melodious verses--let him do it therefore--it should be exacted of all writers.

You do not understand what a new feeling it is for me to have someone who is to like my verses or I shall not ever like them after! So far differently was I circumstanced of old, that I used rather to go about for a subject of offence to people; writing ugly things in order to warn the ungenial and timorous off my grounds at once. I shall never do so again at least! As it is, I will bring all I dare, in as great quantities as I can--if not next time, after then--certainly. I must make an end, print this Autumn my last four 'Bells,' Lyrics, Romances, 'The Tragedy,' and 'Luna,' and then go on with a whole heart to my own Poem--indeed, I have just resolved not to begin any new song, even, till this grand clearance is made--I will get the Tragedy transcribed to bring--

'To bring!' Next Wednesday--if you know how happy you make me! may I not say _that_, my dear friend, when I feel it from my soul?

I thank God that you are better: do pray make fresh endeavours to profit by this partial respite of the weather! All about you must urge that: but even from my distance some effect might come of such wishes. But you _are_ better--look so and speak so! God bless you.

R.B.

You let 'flowers be sent you in a letter,' every one knows, and this hot day draws out our very first yellow rose.

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

Monday.
[Post-mark, June 17, 1845.]