ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT (continued 11)

Yet here's a naiveté which I found in your letter! I will write it out that you may read it—

'However it' (the headache) 'was no sooner gone in a degree, than a worse plague came—I sate thinking of you.'

Very satisfactory that is, and very clear.

May God bless you dearest, dearest! Be careful of yourself. The cold makes me languid, as heat is apt to make everybody; but I am not unwell, and keep up the fire and the thoughts of you.

Your worse ... worst plague

Your own

Ba.

I shall hear? yes! And admire my obedience in having written 'a long letter' to the letter!

R.B. to E.B.B.

Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, February 11, 1846.]

My sweetest 'plague,' did I really write that sentence so, without gloss or comment in close vicinity? I can hardly think it—but you know well, well where the real plague lay,—that I thought of you as thinking, in your infinite goodness, of untoward chances which had kept me from you—and if I did not dwell more particularly on that thinking of yours, which became as I say, in the knowledge of it, a plague when brought before me with the thought of you,—if I passed this slightly over it was for pure unaffected shame that I should take up the care and stop the 'reverie serene' of—ah, the rhyme lets me say—'sweetest eyes were ever seen'—were ever seen! And yourself confess, in the Saturday's note, to having been 'unhappy for half an hour till' &c. &c.—and do not I feel that here, and am not I plagued by it?

Well, having begun at the end of your letter, dearest, I will go back gently (that is backwards) and tell you I 'sate thinking' too, and with no greater comfort, on the cold yesterday. The pond before the window was frozen ('so as to bear sparrows' somebody said) and I knew you would feel it—'but you are not unwell'—really? thank God—and the month wears on. Beside I have got a reassurance—you asked me once if I were superstitious, I remember (as what do I forget that you say?). However that may be, yesterday morning as I turned to look for a book, an old fancy seized me to try the 'sortes' and dip into the first page of the first I chanced upon, for my fortune; I said 'what will be the event of my love for Her'—in so many words—and my book turned out to be—'Cerutti's Italian Grammar!'—a propitious source of information ... the best to be hoped, what could it prove but some assurance that you were in the Dative Case, or I, not in the ablative absolute? I do protest that, with the knowledge of so many horrible pitfalls, or rather spring guns with wires on every bush ... such dreadful possibilities of stumbling on 'conditional moods,' 'imperfect tenses,' 'singular numbers,'—I should have been too glad to put up with the safe spot for the sole of my foot though no larger than afforded by such a word as 'Conjunction,' 'possessive pronoun—,' secure so far from poor Tippet's catastrophe. Well, I ventured, and what did I find? This—which I copy from the book now—'If we love in the other world as we do in this, I shall love thee to eternity'—from 'Promiscuous Exercises,' to be translated into Italian, at the end.

And now I reach Horne and his characteristics—of which I can tell you with confidence that they are grossly misrepresented where not altogether false—whether it proceed from inability to see what one may see, or disinclination, I cannot say. I know very little of Horne, but my one visit to him a few weeks ago would show the uncandidness of those charges: for instance, he talked a good deal about horses, meaning to ride in Ireland, and described very cleverly an old hunter he had hired once,—how it galloped and could not walk; also he propounded a theory of the true method of behaving in the saddle when a horse rears, which I besought him only to practise in fancy on the sofa, where he lay telling it. So much for professing his ignorance in that matter! On a sofa he does throw himself—but when thrown there, he can talk, with Miss Mitford's leave, admirably,—I never heard better stories than Horne's—some Spanish-American incidents of travel want printing—or have been printed, for aught I know. That he cares for nobody's poetry is false, he praises more unregardingly of his own retreat, more unprovidingly for his own fortune,—(do I speak clearly?)—less like a man who himself has written somewhat in the 'line' of the other man he is praising—which 'somewhat' has to be guarded in its interests, &c., less like the poor professional praise of the 'craft' than any other I ever met—instance after instance starting into my mind as I write. To his income I never heard him allude—unless one should so interpret a remark to me this last time we met, that he had been on some occasion put to inconvenience by somebody's withholding ten or twelve pounds due to him for an article, and promised in the confidence of getting them to a tradesman, which does not look like 'boasting of his income'! As for the heiresses—I don't believe one word of it, of the succession and transition and trafficking. Altogether, what miserable 'set-offs' to the achievement of an 'Orion,' a 'Marlowe,' a 'Delora'! Miss Martineau understands him better.

Now I come to myself and my health. I am quite well now—at all events, much better, just a little turning in the head—since you appeal to my sincerity. For the coffee—thank you, indeed thank you, but nothing after the 'oenomel' and before half past six. I know all about that song and its Greek original if Horne does not—and can tell you—, how truly...!

The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine— But might I of Jove's nectar sup I would not change for thine! No, no, no!

And by the bye, I have misled you as my wont is, on the subject of wine, 'that I do not touch it'—not habitually, nor so as to feel the loss of it, that on a principle; but every now and then of course.

And now, 'Luria', so long as the parts cohere and the whole is discernible, all will be well yet. I shall not look at it, nor think of it, for a week or two, and then see what I have forgotten. Domizia is all wrong; I told you I knew that her special colour had faded,—it was but a bright line, and the more distinctly deep that it was so narrow. One of my half dozen words on my scrap of paper 'pro memoria' was, under the 'Act V.' 'she loves'—to which I could not bring it, you see! Yet the play requires it still,—something may yet be effected, though.... I meant that she should propose to go to Pisa with him, and begin a new life. But there is no hurry—I suppose it is no use publishing much before Easter—I will try and remember what my whole character did mean—it was, in two words, understood at the time by 'panther's-beauty'—on which hint I ought to have spoken! But the work grew cold, and you came between, and the sun put out the fire on the hearth nec vult panthera domari!

For the 'Soul's Tragedy'—that will surprise you, I think. There is no trace of you there,—you have not put out the black face of it—it is all sneering and disillusion—and shall not be printed but burned if you say the word—now wait and see and then say! I will bring the first of the two parts next Saturday.

And now, dearest, I am with you—and the other matters are forgotten already. God bless you, I am ever your own R. You will write to me I trust? And tell me how to bear the cold.

E.B.B. to R.B.

[Post-mark, February 12, 1846.]

Ah, the 'sortes'! Is it a double oracle—'swan and shadow'—do you think? or do my eyes see double, dazzled by the light of it? 'I shall love thee to eternity'—I shall.

And as for the wine, I did not indeed misunderstand you 'as my wont is,' because I understood simply that 'habitually' you abstained from wine, and I meant exactly that perhaps it would be better for your health to take it habitually. It might, you know—not that I pretend to advise. Only when you look so much too pale sometimes, it comes into one's thoughts that you ought not to live on cresses and cold water. Strong coffee, which is the nearest to a stimulant that I dare to take, as far as ordinary diet goes, will almost always deliver me from the worst of headaches, but there is no likeness, no comparison. And your 'quite well' means that dreadful 'turning' still ... still! Now do not think any more of the Domizias, nor 'try to remember,' which is the most wearing way of thinking. The more I read and read your 'Luria,' the grander it looks, and it will make its own road with all understanding men, you need not doubt, and still less need you try to make me uneasy about the harm I have done in 'coming between,' and all the rest of it. I wish never to do you greater harm than just that, and then with a white conscience 'I shall love thee to eternity!... dearest! You have made a golden work out of your 'golden-hearted Luria'—as once you called him to me, and I hold it in the highest admiration—should, if you were precisely nothing to me. And still, the fifth act rises! That is certain. Nevertheless I seem to agree with you that your hand has vacillated in your Domizia. We do not know her with as full a light on her face, as the other persons—we do not see the panther,—no, certainly we do not—but you will do a very little for her which will be everything, after a time ... and I assure you that if you were to ask for the manuscript before, you should not have a page of it—now, you are only to rest. What a work to rest upon! Do consider what a triumph it is! The more I read, the more I think of it, the greater it grows—and as to 'faded lines,' you never cut a pomegranate that was redder in the deep of it. Also, no one can say 'This is not clearly written.' The people who are at 'words of one syllable' may be puzzled by you and Wordsworth together this time ... as far as the expression goes. Subtle thoughts you always must have, in and out of 'Sordello'—and the objectors would find even Plato (though his medium is as lucid as the water that ran beside the beautiful plane-tree!) a little difficult perhaps.

To-day Mr. Kenyon came, and do you know, he has made a beatific confusion between last Saturday and next Saturday, and said to me he had told Miss Thomson to mind to come on Friday if she wished to see me ... 'remembering' (he added) 'that Mr. Browning took Saturday!!' So I let him mistake the one week for the other—'Mr. Browning took Saturday,' it was true, both ways. Well—and then he went on to tell me that he had heard from Mrs. Jameson who was at Brighton and unwell, and had written to say this and that to him, and to enquire besides—now, what do you think, she enquired besides? 'how you and ... Browning were' said Mr. Kenyon—I write his words. He is coming, perhaps to-morrow, or perhaps Sunday—Saturday is to have a twofold safety. That is, if you are not ill again. Dearest, you will not think of coming if you are ill ... unwell even. I shall not be frightened next time, as I told you—I shall have the precedent. Before, I had to think! 'It has never happened so—there must be a cause—and if it is a very, very, bad cause, why no one will tell me ... it will not seem my concern'—that was my thought on Saturday. But another time ... only, if it is possible to keep well, do keep well, beloved, and think of me instead of Domizia, and let there be no other time for your suffering ... my waiting is nothing. I shall remember for the future that you may have the headache—and do you remember it too!

For Mr. Horne I take your testimony gladly and believingly. She blots with her eyes sometimes. She hates ... and loves, in extreme degrees. We have, once or twice or thrice, been on the border of mutual displeasure, on this very subject, for I grew really vexed to observe the trust on one side and the dyspathy on the other—using the mildest of words. You see, he found himself, down in Berkshire, in quite a strange element of society,—he, an artist in his good and his evil,—and the people there, 'county families,' smoothly plumed in their conventions, and classing the ringlets and the aboriginal way of using water-glasses among offences against the Moral Law. Then, meaning to be agreeable, or fascinating perhaps, made it twenty times worse. Writing in albums about the graces, discoursing meditated impromptus at picnics, playing on the guitar in fancy dresses,—all these things which seemed to poor Orion as natural as his own stars I dare say, and just the things suited to the genus poet, and to himself specifically,—were understood by the natives and their 'rural deities' to signify, that he intended to marry one half the county, and to run away with the other. But Miss Mitford should have known better—she should. And she would have known better, if she had liked him—for the liking could have been unmade by no such offences. She is too fervent a friend—she can be. Generous too, she can be without an effort; and I have had much affection from her—and accuse myself for seeming to have less—but—

May God bless you!—I end in haste after this long lingering.

Your

Ba.

Not unwell—I am not! I forgot it, which proves how I am not.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Friday Morning. [Post-mark, February 13, 1846.]

Two nights ago I read the 'Soul's Tragedy' once more, and though there were not a few points which still struck me as successful in design and execution, yet on the whole I came to a decided opinion, that it will be better to postpone the publication of it for the present. It is not a good ending, an auspicious wind-up of this series; subject-matter and style are alike unpopular even for the literary grex that stands aloof from the purer plebs, and uses that privilege to display and parade an ignorance which the other is altogether unconscious of—so that, if 'Luria' is clearish, the 'Tragedy' would be an unnecessary troubling the waters. Whereas, if I printed it first in order, my readers, according to custom, would make the (comparatively) little they did not see into, a full excuse for shutting their eyes at the rest, and we may as well part friends, so as not to meet enemies. But, at bottom, I believe the proper objection is to the immediate, first effect of the whole—its moral effect—which is dependent on the contrary supposition of its being really understood, in the main drift of it. Yet I don't know; for I wrote it with the intention of producing the best of all effects—perhaps the truth is, that I am tired, rather, and desirous of getting done, and 'Luria' will answer my purpose so far. Will not the best way be to reserve this unlucky play and in the event of a second edition—as Moxon seems to think such an apparition possible—might not this be quietly inserted?—in its place, too, for it was written two or three years ago. I have lost, of late, interest in dramatic writing, as you know, and, perhaps, occasion. And, dearest, I mean to take your advice and be quiet awhile and let my mind get used to its new medium of sight; seeing all things, as it does, through you: and then, let all I have done be the prelude and the real work begin. I felt it would be so before, and told you at the very beginning—do you remember? And you spoke of Io 'in the proem.' How much more should follow now!

And if nothing follows, I have you.

I shall see you to-morrow and be happy. To-day—is it the weather or what?—something depresses me a little—to-morrow brings the remedy for it all. I don't know why I mention such a matter; except that I tell you everything without a notion of after-consequence; and because your dearest, dearest presence seems under any circumstances as if created just to help me there; if my spirits rise they fly to you; if they fall, they hold by you and cease falling—as now. Bless you, Ba—my own best blessing that you are! But a few hours and I am with you, beloved!

Your own

E.B.B. to R.B.

Saturday Evening. [Post-mark, February 16, 1846.]

Ever dearest, though you wanted to make me say one thing displeasing to you to-day, I had not courage to say two instead ... which I might have done indeed and indeed! For I am capable of thinking both thoughts of 'next year,' as you suggested them:—because while you are with me I see only you, and you being you, I cannot doubt a power of yours nor measure the deep loving nature which I feel to be so deep—so that there may be ever so many 'mores,' and no 'more' wonder of mine!—but afterwards, when the door is shut and there is no 'more' light nor speaking until Thursday, why then, that I do not see you but me,—then comes the reaction,—the natural lengthening of the shadows at sunset,—and then, the 'less, less, less' grows to seem as natural to my fate, as the 'more' seemed to your nature—I being I!

Sunday.—Well!—you are to try to forgive it all! And the truth, over and under all, is, that I scarcely ever do think of the future, scarcely ever further than to your next visit, and almost never beyond, except for your sake and in reference to that view of the question which I have vexed you with so often, in fearing for your happiness. Once it was a habit of mind with me to live altogether in what I called the future—but the tops of the trees that looked towards Troy were broken off in the great winds, and falling down into the river beneath, where now after all this time they grow green again, I let them float along the current gently and pleasantly. Can it be better I wonder! And if it becomes worse, can I help it? Also the future never seemed to belong to me so little—never! It might appear wonderful to most persons, it is startling even to myself sometimes, to observe how free from anxiety I am—from the sort of anxiety which might be well connected with my own position here, and which is personal to myself. That is all thrown behind—into the bushes—long ago it was, and I think I told you of it before. Agitation comes from indecision—and I was decided from the first hour when I admitted the possibility of your loving me really. Now,—as the Euphuists used to say,—I am 'more thine than my own' ... it is a literal truth—and my future belongs to you; if it was mine, it was mine to give, and if it was mine to give, it was given, and if it was given ... beloved....

So you see!

Then I will confess to you that all my life long I have had a rather strange sympathy and dyspathy—the sympathy having concerned the genus jilt (as vulgarly called) male and female—and the dyspathy—the whole class of heroically virtuous persons who make sacrifices of what they call 'love' to what they call 'duty.' There are exceptional cases of course, but, for the most part, I listen incredulously or else with a little contempt to those latter proofs of strength—or weakness, as it may be:—people are not usually praised for giving up their religion, for unsaying their oaths, for desecrating their 'holy things'—while believing them still to be religious and sacramental! On the other side I have always and shall always understand how it is possible for the most earnest and faithful of men and even of women perhaps, to err in the convictions of the heart as well as of the mind, to profess an affection which is an illusion, and to recant and retreat loyally at the eleventh hour, on becoming aware of the truth which is in them. Such men are the truest of men, and the most courageous for the truth's sake, and instead of blaming them I hold them in honour, for me, and always did and shall.

And while I write, you are 'very ill'—very ill!—how it looks, written down so! When you were gone yesterday and my thoughts had tossed about restlessly for ever so long, I was wise enough to ask Wilson how she thought you were looking, ... and she 'did not know' ... she 'had not observed' ... 'only certainly Mr. Browning ran up-stairs instead of walking as he did the time before.'

Now promise me dearest, dearest—not to trifle with your health. Not to neglect yourself ... not to tire yourself ... and besides to take the advice of your medical friend as to diet and general treatment:—because there must be a wrong and a right in everything, and the right is very important under your circumstances ... if you have a tendency to illness. It may be right for you to have wine for instance. Did you ever try the putting your feet into hot water at night, to prevent the recurrence of the morning headache—for the affection of the head comes on early in the morning, does it not? just as if the sleeping did you harm. Now I have heard of such a remedy doing good—and could it increase the evil?—mustard mixed with the water, remember. Everything approaching to congestion is full of fear—I tremble to think of it—and I bring no remedy by this teazing neither! But you will not be 'wicked' nor 'unkind,' nor provoke the evil consciously—you will keep quiet and forswear the going out at nights, the excitement and noise of parties, and the worse excitement of composition—you promise. If you knew how I keep thinking of you, and at intervals grow so frightened! Think you, that you are three times as much to me as I can be to you at best and greatest,—because you are more than three times the larger planet—and because too, you have known other sources of light and happiness ... but I need not say this—and I shall hear on Monday, and may trust to you every day ... may I not? Yet I would trust my soul to you sooner than your own health.

May God bless you, dear, dearest. If the first part of the 'Soul's Tragedy' should be written out, I can read that perhaps, without drawing you in to think of the second. Still it may be safer to keep off altogether for the present—and let it be as you incline. I do not speak of 'Luria.'

Your own

BA.

If it were not for Mr. Kenyon, I should say, almost, Wednesday, instead of Thursday—I want to see you so much, and to see for myself about the looks and spirits, only it would not do if he found you here on Wednesday. Let him come to-morrow or on Tuesday, and Wednesday will be safe—shall we consider? what do you think?

R.B. to E.B.B.

Sunday Afternoon. [Post-mark, February 16, 1846.]

Here is the letter again, dearest: I suppose it gives me the same pleasure, in reading, as you—and Mr. K. as me, and anybody else as him; if all the correspondence which was claimed again and burnt on some principle or other some years ago be at all of the nature of this sample, the measure seems questionable. Burn anybody's real letters, well and good: they move and live—the thoughts, feelings, and expressions even,—in a self-imposed circle limiting the experience of two persons only—there is the standard, and to that the appeal—how should a third person know? His presence breaks the line, so to speak, and lets in a whole tract of country on the originally inclosed spot—so that its trees, which were from side to side there, seem left alone and wondering at their sudden unimportance in the broad land; while its 'ferns such as I never saw before' and which have been petted proportionably, look extravagant enough amid the new spread of good honest grey grass that is now the earth's general wear. So that the significance is lost at once, and whole value of such letters—the cypher changed, the vowel-points removed: but how can that affect clever writing like this? What do you, to whom it is addressed, see in it more than the world that wants to see it and shan't have it? One understands shutting an unprivileged eye to the ineffable mysteries of those 'upper-rooms,' now that the broom and dust pan, stocking-mending and gingerbread-making are invested with such unforeseen reverence ... but the carriage-sweep and quarry, together with Jane and our baskets, and a pleasant shadow of Wordsworth's Sunday hat preceding his own rapid strides in the direction of Miss Fenwick's house—surely, 'men's eyes were made to see, so let them gaze' at all this! And so I, gazing with a clear conscience, am very glad to hear so much good of a very good person and so well told. She plainly sees the proper use and advantage of a country-life; and that knowledge gets to seem a high point of attainment doubtless by the side of the Wordsworth she speaks of—for mine he shall not be as long as I am able! Was ever such a 'great' poet before? Put one trait with the other—the theory of rural innocence—alternation of 'vulgar trifles' with dissertating with style of 'the utmost grandeur that even you can conceive' (speak for yourself, Miss M.!)—and that amiable transition from two o'clock's grief at the death of one's brother to three o'clock's happiness in the 'extraordinary mesmeric discourse' of one's friend. All this, and the rest of the serene and happy inspired daily life which a piece of 'unpunctuality' can ruin, and to which the guardian 'angel' brings as crowning qualification the knack of poking the fire adroitly—of this—what can one say but that—no, best hold one's tongue and read the 'Lyrical Ballads' with finger in ear. Did not Shelley say long ago 'He had no more imagination than a pint-pot'—though in those days he used to walk about France and Flanders like a man? Now, he is 'most comfortable in his worldly affairs' and just this comes of it! He lives the best twenty years of his life after the way of his own heart—and when one presses in to see the result of the rare experiment ... what the one alchemist whom fortune has allowed to get all his coveted materials and set to work at last in earnest with fire and melting-pot—what he produces after all the talk of him and the like of him; why, you get pulvis et cinis—a man at the mercy of the tongs and shovel!

Well! Let us despair at nothing, but, wishing success to the newer aspirant, expect better things from Miss M. when the 'knoll,' and 'paradise,' and their facilities, operate properly; and that she will make a truer estimate of the importance and responsibilities of 'authorship' than she does at present, if I understand rightly the sense in which she describes her own life as it means to be; for in one sense it is all good and well, and quite natural that she should like 'that sort of strenuous handwork' better than book-making; like the play better than the labour, as we are apt to do. If she realises a very ordinary scheme of literary life, planned under the eye of God not 'the public,' and prosecuted under the constant sense of the night's coming which ends it good or bad—then, she will be sure to 'like' the rest and sport—teaching her maids and sewing her gloves and making delicate visitors comfortable—so much more rational a resource is the worst of them than gin-and-water, for instance. But if, as I rather suspect, these latter are to figure as a virtual half duty of the whole Man—as of equal importance (on the ground of the innocence and utility of such occupations) with the book-making aforesaid—always supposing that to be of the right kind—then I respect Miss M. just as I should an Archbishop of Canterbury whose business was the teaching A.B.C. at an infant-school—he who might set on the Tens to instruct the Hundreds how to convince the Thousands of the propriety of doing that and many other things. Of course one will respect him only the more if when that matter is off his mind he relaxes at such a school instead of over a chess-board; as it will increase our love for Miss M. to find that making 'my good Jane (from Tyne-mouth)'—'happier and—I hope—wiser' is an amusement, or more, after the day's progress towards the 'novel for next year' which is to inspire thousands, beyond computation, with the ardour of making innumerable other Janes and delicate relatives happier and wiser—who knows but as many as Burns did, and does, so make happier and wiser? Only, his quarry and after-solace was that 'marble bowl often replenished with whiskey' on which Dr. Curry discourses mournfully, 'Oh, be wiser Thou!'—and remember it was only after Lord Bacon had written to an end his Book—given us for ever the Art of Inventing—whether steam-engine or improved dust-pan—that he took on himself to do a little exemplary 'hand work'; got out on that cold St. Alban's road to stuff a fowl with snow and so keep it fresh, and got into his bed and died of the cold in his hands ('strenuous hand work'—) before the snow had time to melt. He did not begin in his youth by saying—'I have a horror of merely writing 'Novum Organums' and shall give half my energies to the stuffing fowls'!

All this it is my amusement, of an indifferent kind, to put down solely on the pleasant assurance contained in that postscript, of the one way of never quarrelling with Miss M.—'by joining in her plan and practice of plain speaking'—could she but 'get people to do it!' Well, she gets me for a beginner: the funny thing would be to know what Chorley's desperate utterance amounted to! Did you ever hear of the plain speaking of some of the continental lottery-projectors? An estate on the Rhine, for instance, is to be disposed of, and the holder of the lucky ticket will find himself suddenly owner of a mediæval castle with an unlimited number of dependencies—vineyards, woods, pastures, and so forth—all only waiting the new master's arrival—while inside, all is swept and garnished (not to say, varnished)—the tables are spread, the wines on the board, all is ready for the reception but ... here 'plain speaking' becomes necessary—it prevents quarrels, and, could the projector get people to practise it as he does all would be well; so he, at least, will speak plainly—you hear what is provided but, he cannot, dares not withhold what is not—there is then, to speak plainly,—no night cap! You will have to bring your own night cap. The projector furnishes somewhat, as you hear, but not all—and now—the worst is heard,—will you quarrel with him? Will my own dear, dearest Ba please and help me here, and fancy Chorley's concessions, and tributes, and recognitions, and then, at the very end, the 'plain words,' to counterbalance all, that have been to overlook and pardon?

Oh, my own Ba, hear my plain speech—and how this is not an attempt to frighten you out of your dear wish to 'hear from me'—no, indeed—but a whim, a caprice,—and now it is out! over, done with! And now I am with you again—it is to you I shall write next. Bless you, ever—my beloved. I am much better, indeed—and mean to be well. And you! But I will write—this goes for nothing—or only this, that I am your very own—

R.B. to E.B.B.

Monday. [Post-mark, February 16, 1846.]

My long letter is with you, dearest, to show how serious my illness was 'while you wrote': unless you find that letter too foolish, as I do on twice thinking—or at all events a most superfluous bestowment of handwork while the heart was elsewhere, and with you—never more so! Dear, dear Ba, your adorable goodness sinks into me till it nearly pains,—so exquisite and strange is the pleasure: so you care for me, and think of me, and write to me!—I shall never die for you, and if it could be so, what would death prove? But I can live on, your own as now,—utterly your own.

Dear Ba, do you suppose we differ on so plain a point as that of the superior wisdom, and generosity, too, of announcing such a change &c. at the eleventh hour? There can be no doubt of it,—and now, what of it to me?

But I am not going to write to-day—only this—that I am better, having not been quite so well last night—so I shut up books (that is, of my own) and mean to think about nothing but you, and you, and still you, for a whole week—so all will come right, I hope! May I take Wednesday? And do you say that,—hint at the possibility of that, because you have been reached by my own remorse at feeling that if I had kept my appointment last Saturday (but one)—Thursday would have been my day this past week, and this very Monday had been gained? Shall I not lose a day for ever unless I get Wednesday and Saturday?—yet ... care ... dearest—let nothing horrible happen.

If I do not hear to the contrary to-morrow—or on Wednesday early—

But write and bless me dearest, most dear Ba. God bless you ever—

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday Morning. [Post-mark, February 17, 1846.]

Méchant comme quatre! you are, and not deserving to be let see the famous letter—is there any grammar in that concatenation, can you tell me, now that you are in an arch-critical humour? And remember (turning back to the subject) that personally she and I are strangers and that therefore what she writes for me is naturally scene-painting to be looked at from a distance, done with a masterly hand and most amiable intention, but quite a different thing of course from the intimate revelations of heart and mind which make a living thing of a letter. If she had sent such to me, I should not have sent it to Mr. Kenyon, but then, she would not have sent it to me in any case. What she has sent me might be a chapter in a book and has the life proper to itself, and I shall not let you try it by another standard, even if you wished, but you don't—for I am not so bête as not to understand how the jest crosses the serious all the way you write. Well—and Mr. Kenyon wants the letter the second time, not for himself, but for Mr. Crabb Robinson who promises to let me have a new sonnet of Wordsworth's in exchange for the loan, and whom I cannot refuse because he is an intimate friend of Miss Martineau's and once allowed me to read a whole packet of letters from her to him. She does not object (as I have read under her hand) to her letters being shown about in MS., notwithstanding the anathema against all printers of the same (which completes the extravagance of the unreason, I think) and people are more anxious to see them from their presumed nearness to annihilation. I, for my part, value letters (to talk literature) as the most vital part of biography, and for any rational human being to put his foot on the traditions of his kind in this particular class, does seem to me as wonderful as possible. Who would put away one of those multitudinous volumes, even, which stereotype Voltaire's wrinkles of wit—even Voltaire? I can read book after book of such reading—or could! And if her principle were carried out, there would be an end! Death would be deader from henceforth. Also it is a wrong selfish principle and unworthy of her whole life and profession, because we should all be ready to say that if the secrets of our daily lives and inner souls may instruct other surviving souls, let them be open to men hereafter, even as they are to God now. Dust to dust, and soul-secrets to humanity—there are natural heirs to all these things. Not that I do not intimately understand the shrinking back from the idea of publicity on any terms—not that I would not myself destroy papers of mine which were sacred to me for personal reasons—but then I never would call this natural weakness, virtue—nor would I, as a teacher of the public, announce it and attempt to justify it as an example to other minds and acts, I hope.

How hard you are on the mending of stockings and the rest of it! Why not agree with me and like that sort of homeliness and simplicity in combination with such large faculty as we must admit there? Lord Bacon did a great deal of trifling besides the stuffing of the fowl you mention—which I did not remember: and in fact, all the great work done in the world, is done just by the people who know how to trifle—do you not think so? When a man makes a principle of 'never losing a moment,' he is a lost man. Great men are eager to find an hour, and not to avoid losing a moment. 'What are you doing' said somebody once (as I heard the tradition) to the beautiful Lady Oxford as she sate in her open carriage on the race-ground—'Only a little algebra,' said she. People who do a little algebra on the race-ground are not likely to do much of anything with ever so many hours for meditation. Why, you must agree with me in all this, so I shall not be sententious any longer. Mending stockings is not exactly the sort of pastime I should choose—who do things quite as trifling without the utility—and even your Seigneurie peradventure.... I stop there for fear of growing impertinent. The argumentum ad hominem is apt to bring down the argumentum ad baculum, it is as well to remember in time.

For Wordsworth ... you are right in a measure and by a standard—but I have heard such really desecrating things of him, of his selfishness, his love of money, his worldly cunning (rather than prudence) that I felt a relief and gladness in the new chronicle;—and you can understand how that was. Miss Mitford's doctrine is that everything put into the poetry, is taken out of the man and lost utterly by him. Her general doctrine about poets, quite amounts to that—I do not say it too strongly. And knowing that such opinions are held by minds not feeble, it is very painful (as it would be indeed in any case) to see them apparently justified by royal poets like Wordsworth. Ah, but I know an answer—I see one in my mind!

So again for the letters. Now ought I not to know about letters, I who have had so many ... from chief minds too, as society goes in England and America? And your letters began by being first to my intellect, before they were first to my heart. All the letters in the world are not like yours ... and I would trust them for that verdict with any jury in Europe, if they were not so far too dear! Mr. Kenyon wanted to make me show him your letters—I did show him the first, and resisted gallantly afterwards, which made him say what vexed me at the moment, ... 'oh—you let me see only women's letters,'—till I observed that it was a breach of confidence, except in some cases, ... and that I should complain very much, if anyone, man or woman, acted so by myself. But nobody in the world writes like you—not so vitally—and I have a right, if you please, to praise my letters, besides the reason of it which is as good.

Ah—you made me laugh about Mr. Chorley's free speaking—and, without the personal knowledge, I can comprehend how it could be nothing very ferocious ... some 'pardonnez moi, vous êtes un ange.' The amusing part is that by the same post which brought me the Ambleside document, I heard from Miss Mitford 'that it was an admirable thing of Chorley to have persisted in not allowing Harriet Martineau to quarrel with him' ... so that there are laurels on both sides, it appears.

And I am delighted to hear from you to-day just so, though I reproach you in turn just so ... because you were not 'depressed' in writing all this and this and this which has made me laugh—you were not, dearest—and you call yourself better, 'much better,' which means a very little perhaps, but is a golden word, let me take it as I may. May God bless you. Wednesday seems too near (now that this is Monday and you are better) to be our day ... perhaps it does,—and Thursday is close beside it at the worst.

Dearest I am your own

Ba.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Monday Evening. [In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]

Now forgive me, dearest of all, but I must teaze you just a little, and entreat you, if only for the love of me, to have medical advice and follow it without further delay. I like to have recourse to these medical people quite as little as you can—but I am persuaded that it is necessary—that it is at least wise, for you to do so now, and, you see, you were 'not quite so well' again last night! So will you, for me? Would I not, if you wished it? And on Wednesday, yes, on Wednesday, come—that is, if coming on Wednesday should really be not bad for you, for you must do what is right and kind, and I doubt whether the omnibus-driving and the noises of every sort betwixt us, should not keep you away for a little while—I trust you to do what is best for both of us.

And it is not best ... it is not good even, to talk about 'dying for me' ... oh, I do beseech you never to use such words. You make me feel as if I were choking. Also it is nonsense—because nobody puts out a candle for the light's sake.

Write one line to me to-morrow—literally so little—just to say how you are. I know by the writing here, what is. Let me have the one line by the eight o'clock post to-morrow, Tuesday.

For the rest it may be my 'goodness' or my badness, but the world seems to have sunk away beneath my feet and to have left only you to look to and hold by. Am I not to feel, then, any trembling of the hand? the least trembling?

May God bless both of us—which is a double blessing for me notwithstanding my badness.

I trust you about Wednesday—and if it should be wise and kind not to come quite so soon, we will take it out of other days and lose not one of them. And as for anything 'horrible' being likely to happen, do not think of that either,—there can be nothing horrible while you are not ill. So be well—try to be well—use the means and, well or ill, let me have the one line to-morrow ... Tuesday. I send you the foolish letter I wrote to-day in answer to your too long one—too long, was it not, as you felt? And I, the writer of the foolish one, am twice-foolish, and push poor 'Luria' out of sight, and refuse to finish my notes on him till the harm he has done shall have passed away. In my badness I bring false accusation, perhaps, against poor Luria.

So till Wednesday—or as you shall fix otherwise.

Your

Ba.

R.B. to E.B.B.

6-1/2 Tuesday Evening.

My dearest, your note reaches me only now, with an excuse from the postman. The answer you expect, you shall have the only way possible. I must make up a parcel so as to be able to knock and give it. I shall be with you to-morrow, God willing—being quite well.

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 passages 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 pass. 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 class 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 circumstances 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 coxcomb.' 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 God 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 résumé 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. Nobody, I felt, nobody 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 passages 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 passes in them. Certainly there is a likeness to your Duchess—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 Saturday—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 God 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 soirée 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 fishing 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.]

As my sisters did not dine at home yesterday and I see nobody else in the evening, I never heard till just now and from Papa himself, that 'George was invited to meet Mr. Browning and Mr. Procter.' How surprised you will be. It must have been a sudden thought of Mr. Kenyon's.

And I have been thinking, thinking since last night that I wrote you then a letter all but ... insolent ... which, do you know, I feel half ashamed to look back upon this morning—particularly what I wrote about 'missions of humanity'—now was it not insolent of me to write so? If I could take my letter again I would dip it into Lethe between the lilies, instead of the post office:—but I can't—so if you wondered, you must forget as far as possible, and understand how it was, and that I was in brimming spirits when I wrote, from two causes ... first, because I had your letter which was a pure goodness of yours, and secondly because you were 'noticeably' better you said, or 'noticeably well' rather, to mind my quotations. So I wrote what I wrote, and gave it to Arabel when she came in at midnight, to give it to Henrietta who goes out before eight in the morning and often takes charge of my letters, and it was too late, at the earliest this morning, to feel a little ashamed. Miss Thomson told me that she had determined to change the type of the few pages of her letterpress which had been touched, and that therefore Mr. Burges's revisions of my translations should be revised back again. She appears to be a very acute person, full of quick perceptions—naturally quick, and carefully trained—a little over anxious perhaps about mental lights, and opening her eyes still more than she sees, which is a common fault of clever people, if one must call it a fault. I like her, and she is kind and cordial. Will she ask you to help her book with a translation or two, I wonder. Perhaps—if the courage should come. Dearest, how I shall think of you this evening, and how near you will seem, not to be here. I had a letter from Mr. Mathews the other day, and smiled to read in it just what I had expected, that he immediately sent Landor's verses on you to a few editors, friends of his, in order to their communication to the public. He received my apology for myself with the utmost graciousness. A kind good man he is.

After all, do you know, I am a little vexed that I should have even seemed to do wrong in my speech about the letters. It must have been wrong, if it seemed so to you, I fancy now. Only I really did no more mean to try your letters ... mine ... such as they are to me now, by the common critical measure, than the shepherds praised the pure tenor of the angels who sang 'Peace upon earth' to them. It was enough that they knew it for angels' singing. So do you forgive me, beloved, and put away from you the thought that I have let in between us any miserable stuff 'de métier,' which I hate as you hate. And I will not say any more about it, not to run into more imprudences of mischief.

On the other hand I warn you against saying again what you began to say yesterday and stopped. Do not try it again. What may be quite good sense from me, is from you very much the reverse, and pray observe that difference. Or did you think that I was making my own road clear in the the thing I said about—'jilts'? No, you did not. Yet I am ready to repeat of myself as of others, that if I ceased to love you, I certainly would act out the whole consequence—but that is an impossible 'if' to my nature, supposing the conditions of it otherwise to be probable. I never loved anyone much and ceased to love that person. Ask every friend of mine, if I am given to change even in friendship! And to you...! Ah, but you never think of such a thing seriously—and you are conscious that you did not say it very sagely. You and I are in different positions. Now let me tell you an apologue in exchange for your Wednesday's stories which I liked so, and mine perhaps may make you 'a little wiser'—who knows?

It befell that there stood in hall a bold baron, and out he spake to one of his serfs ... 'Come thou; and take this baton of my baronie, and give me instead thereof that sprig of hawthorn thou holdest in thine hand.' Now the hawthorn-bough was no larger a thing than might be carried by a wood-pigeon to the nest, when she flieth low, and the baronial baton was covered with fine gold, and the serf, turning it in his hands, marvelled greatly.

And he answered and said, 'Let not my lord be in haste, nor jest with his servant. Is it verily his will that I should keep his golden baton? Let him speak again—lest it repent him of his gift.'

And the baron spake again that it was his will. 'And I'—he said once again—'shall it be lawful for me to keep this sprig of hawthorn, and will it not repent thee of thy gift?'

Then all the servants who stood in hall, laughed, and the serf's hands trembled till they dropped the baton into the rushes, knowing that his lord did but jest....

Which mine did not. Only, de te fabula narratur up to a point.

And I have your letter. 'What did I expect?' Why I expected just that, a letter in turn. Also I am graciously pleased (yes, and very much pleased!) to 'let you write to-morrow.' How you spoil me with goodness, which makes one 'insolent' as I was saying, now and then.

The worst is, that I write 'too kind' letters—I!—and what does that criticism mean, pray? It reminds me, at least, of ... now I will tell you what it reminds me of.

A few days ago Henrietta said to me that she was quite uncomfortable. She had written to somebody a not kind enough letter, she thought, and it might be taken ill. 'Are you ever uncomfortable, Ba, after you have sent letters to the post?' she asked me.

'Yes,' I said, 'sometimes, but from a reason just the very reverse of your reason, my letters, when they get into the post, seem too kind,—rather.' And my sisters laughed ... laughed.

But if you think so beside, I must seriously set to work, you see, to correct that flagrant fault, and shall do better in time dis faventibus, though it will be difficult.

Mr. Kenyon's dinner is a riddle which I cannot read. You are invited to meet Miss Thomson and Mr. Bayley and 'no one else.' George is invited to meet Mr. Browning and Mr. Procter and 'no one else'—just those words. The 'absolu' (do you remember Balzac's beautiful story?) is just you and 'no one else,' the other elements being mere uncertainties, shifting while one looks for them.

Am I not writing nonsense to-night? I am not 'too wise' in any case, which is some comfort. It puts one in spirits to hear of your being 'well,' ever and ever dearest. Keep so for me. May God bless you hour by hour. In every one of mine I am your own

Ba.

For Miss Mitford ...

But people are not angels quite ...

and she sees the whole world in stripes of black and white, it is her way. I feel very affectionately towards her, love her sincerely. She is affectionate to me beyond measure. Still, always I feel that if I were to vex her, the lower deep below the lowest deep would not be low enough for me. I always feel that. She would advertise me directly for a wretch proper.

Then, for all I said about never changing, I have ice enough over me just now to hold the sparrows!—in respect to a great crowd of people, and she is among them—for reasons—for reasons.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Saturday Morning. [Post-mark, February 23, 1846.]

So all was altered, my love—and, instead of Miss T. and the other friend, I had your brother and Procter—to my great pleasure. After, I went to that place, and soon got away, and am very well this morning in the sunshine; which I feel with you, do I not? Yesterday after dinner we spoke of Mrs. Jameson, and, as my wont is—(Here your letter reaches me—let me finish this sentence now I have finished kissing you, dearest beyond all dearness—My own heart's Ba!)—oh, as I am used, I left the talking to go on by itself, with the thought busied elsewhere, till at last my own voice startled me for I heard my tongue utter 'Miss Barrett ... that is, Mrs. Jameson says' ... or 'does ... or does not.' I forget which! And if anybody noticed the gaucherie it must have been just your brother!

Now to these letters! I do solemnly, unaffectedly wonder how you can put so much pure felicity into an envelope so as that I shall get it as from the fount head. This to-day, those yesterday—there is, I see, and know, thus much goodness in line after line, goodness to be scientifically appreciated, proved there—but over and above, is it in the writing, the dots and traces, the seal, the paper—here does the subtle charm lie beyond all rational accounting for? The other day I stumbled on a quotation from J. Baptista Porta—wherein he avers that any musical instrument made out of wood possessed of medicinal properties retains, being put to use, such virtues undiminished,—and that, for instance, a sick man to whom you should pipe on a pipe of elder-tree would so receive all the advantage derivable from a decoction of its berries. From whence, by a parity of reasoning, I may discover, I think, that the very ink and paper were—ah, what were they? Curious thinking won't do for me and the wise head which is mine, so I will lie and rest in my ignorance of content and understand that without any magic at all you simply wish to make one person—which of your free goodness proves to be your R.B.—to make me supremely happy, and that you have your wish—you do bless me! More and more, for the old treasure is piled undiminished and still the new comes glittering in. Dear, dear heart of my heart, life of my life, will this last, let me begin to ask? Can it be meant I shall live this to the end? Then, dearest, care also for the life beyond, and put in my mind how to testify here that I have felt, if I could not deserve that a gift beyond all gifts! I hope to work hard, to prove I do feel, as I say—it would be terrible to accomplish nothing now.

With which conviction—renewed conviction time by time, of your extravagance of kindness to me unworthy,—will it seem characteristically consistent when I pray you not to begin frightening me, all the same, with threats of writing less kindly? That must not be, love, for your sake now—if you had not thrown open those windows of heaven I should have no more imagined than that Syrian lord on whom the King leaned 'how such things might be'—but, once their influence showered, I should know, too soon and easily, if they shut up again! You have committed your dear, dearest self to that course of blessing, and blessing on, on, for ever—so let all be as it is, pray, pray!

No—not all. No more, ever, of that strange suspicion—'insolent'—oh, what a word!—nor suppose I shall particularly wonder at its being fancied applicable to that, of all other passages of your letter! It is quite as reasonable to suspect the existence of such a quality there as elsewhere: how can such a thing, could such a thing come from you to me? But, dear Ba, do you know me better! Do feel that I know you, I am bold to believe, and that if you were to run at me with a pointed spear I should be sure it was a golden sanative, Machaon's touch, for my entire good, that I was opening my heart to receive! As for words, written or spoken—I, who sin forty times in a day by light words, and untrue to the thought, I am certainly not used to be easily offended by other peoples' words, people in the world. But your words! And about the 'mission'; if it had not been a thing to jest at, I should not have begun, as I did—as you felt I did. I know now, what I only suspected then, and will tell you all the matter on Monday if you care to hear. The 'humanity' however, would have been unquestionable if I had chosen to exercise it towards the poor weak incapable creature that wants somebody, and urgently, I can well believe.

As for your apologue, it is naught—as you felt, and so broke off—for the baron knew well enough it was a spray of the magical tree which once planted in his domain would shoot up, and out, and all round, and be glorious with leaves and musical with birds' nests, and a fairy safeguard and blessing thenceforward and for ever, when the foolish baton had been broken into ounces of gold, even if gold it were, and spent and vanished: for, he said, such gold lies in the highway, men pick it up, more of it or less; but this one slip of the flowering tree is all of it on this side Paradise. Whereon he laid it to his heart and was happy—in spite of his disastrous chase the night before, when so far from catching an unicorn, he saw not even a respectable prize-heifer, worth the oil-cake and rape-seed it had doubtless cost to rear her—'insolence!'

I found no opportunity of speaking to Mr. K. about Monday, but nothing was said of last Wednesday, and he must know I did not go yesterday. So, Monday is laughing in sunshine surely! Bless you, my sweetest. I love you with my whole heart; ever shall love you.

E.B.B. to R.B.

[Post-mark, February 24, 1846.]

Ever dearest, it is only when you go away, when you are quite gone, out of the house and the street, that I get up and think properly, and with the right gratitude of your flowers. Such beautiful flowers you brought me this time too! looking like summer itself, and smelling! Doing the 'honour due' to the flowers, makes your presence a little longer with me, the sun shines back over the hill just by that time, and then drops, till the next letter.

If I had had the letter on Saturday as ought to have been, no, I could not have answered it so that you should have my answer on Sunday—no, I should still have had to write first.

Now you understand that I do not object to the writing first, but only to the hearing second. I would rather write than not—I! But to be written to is the chief gladness of course; and with all you say of liking to have my letters (which I like to hear quite enough indeed) you cannot pretend to think that yours are not more to me, most to me! Ask my guardian-angel and hear what he says! Yours will look another way for shame of measuring joys with him! Because as I have said before, and as he says now, you are all to me, all the light, all the life; I am living for you now. And before I knew you, what was I and where? What was the world to me, do you think? and the meaning of life? And now, when you come and go, and write and do not write, all the hours are chequered accordingly in so many squares of white and black, as if for playing at fox and goose ... only there is no fox, and I will not agree to be goose for one ... that is you perhaps, for being 'too easily' satisfied.

So my claim is that you are more to me than I can be to you at any rate. Mr. Fox said on Sunday that I was a 'religious hermit' who wrote 'poems which ought to be read in a Gothic alcove'; and religious hermits, when they care to see visions, do it better, they all say, through fasting and flagellation and seclusion in dark places. St. Theresa, for instance, saw a clearer glory by such means, than your Sir Moses Montefiore through his hundred-guinea telescope. Think then, how every shadow of my life has helped to throw out into brighter, fuller significance, the light which comes to me from you ... think how it is the one light, seen without distractions.

I was thinking the other day that certainly and after all (or rather before all) I had loved you all my life unawares, that is, the idea of you. Women begin for the most part, (if ever so very little given to reverie) by meaning, in an aside to themselves, to love such and such an ideal, seen sometimes in a dream and sometimes in a book, and forswearing their ancient faith as the years creep on. I say a book, because I remember a friend of mine who looked everywhere for the original of Mr. Ward's 'Tremaine,' because nothing would do for her, she insisted, except just that excess of so-called refinement, with the book-knowledge and the conventional manners, (loue qui peut, Tremaine), and ended by marrying a lieutenant in the Navy who could not spell. Such things happen every day, and cannot be otherwise, say the wise:—and this being otherwise with me is miraculous compensation for the trials of many years, though such abundant, overabundant compensation, that I cannot help fearing it is too much, as I know that you are too good and too high for me, and that by the degree in which I am raised up you are let down, for us two to find a level to meet on. One's ideal must be above one, as a matter of course, you know. It is as far as one can reach with one's eyes (soul-eyes), not reach to touch. And here is mine ... shall I tell you? ... even to the visible outward sign of the black hair and the complexion (why you might ask my sisters!) yet I would not tell you, if I could not tell you afterwards that, if it had been red hair quite, it had been the same thing, only I prove the coincidence out fully and make you smile half.

Yet indeed I did not fancy that I was to love you when you came to see me—no indeed ... any more than I did your caring on your side. My ambition when we began our correspondence, was simply that you should forget I was a woman (being weary and blasée of the empty written gallantries, of which I have had my share and all the more perhaps from my peculiar position which made them so without consequence), that you should forget that and let us be friends, and consent to teach me what you knew better than I, in art and human nature, and give me your sympathy in the meanwhile. I am a great hero-worshipper and had admired your poetry for years, and to feel that you liked to write to me and be written to was a pleasure and a pride, as I used to tell you I am sure, and then your letters were not like other letters, as I must not tell you again. Also you influenced me, in a way in which no one else did. For instance, by two or three half words you made me see you, and other people had delivered orations on the same subject quite without effect. I surprised everybody in this house by consenting to see you. Then, when you came, you never went away. I mean I had a sense of your presence constantly. Yes ... and to prove how free that feeling was from the remotest presentiment of what has occurred, I said to Papa in my unconsciousness the next morning ... 'it is most extraordinary how the idea of Mr. Browning does beset me—I suppose it is not being used to see strangers, in some degree—but it haunts me ... it is a persecution.' On which he smiled and said that 'it was not grateful to my friend to use such a word.' When the letter came....

Do you know that all that time I was frightened of you? frightened in this way. I felt as if you had a power over me and meant to use it, and that I could not breathe or speak very differently from what you chose to make me. As to my thoughts, I had it in my head somehow that you read them as you read the newspaper—examined them, and fastened them down writhing under your long entomological pins—ah, do you remember the entomology of it all?

But the power was used upon me—and I never doubted that you had mistaken your own mind, the strongest of us having some exceptional weakness. Turning the wonder round in all lights, I came to what you admitted yesterday ... yes, I saw that very early ... that you had come here with the intention of trying to love whomever you should find, ... and also that what I had said about exaggerating the amount of what I could be to you, had just operated in making you more determined to justify your own presentiment in the face of mine. Well—and if that last clause was true a little, too ... why should I be sorry now ... and why should you have fancied for a moment, that the first could make me sorry. At first and when I did not believe that you really loved me, when I thought you deceived yourself, then, it was different. But now ... now ... when I see and believe your attachment for me, do you think that any cause in the world (except what diminished it) could render it less a source of joy to me? I mean as far as I myself am considered. Now if you ever fancy that I am vain of your love for me, you will be unjust, remember. If it were less dear, and less above me, I might be vain perhaps. But I may say before God and you, that of all the events of my life, inclusive of its afflictions, nothing has humbled me so much as your love. Right or wrong it may be, but true it is, and I tell you. Your love has been to me like God's own love, which makes the receivers of it kneelers.

Why all this should be written, I do not know—but you set me thinking yesterday in that backward line, which I lean back to very often, and for once, as you made me write directly, why I wrote, as my thoughts went, that way.

Say how you are, beloved—and do not brood over that 'Soul's Tragedy,' which I wish I had here with 'Luria,' because, so, you should not see it for a month at least. And take exercise and keep well—and remember how many letters I must have before Saturday. May God bless you. Do you want to hear me say

I cannot love you less...?

That is a doubtful phrase. And

I cannot love you more

is doubtful too, for reasons I could give. More or less, I really love you, but it does not sound right, even so, does it? I know what it ought to be, and will put it into the 'seal' and the 'paper' with the ineffable other things.

Dearest, do not go to St. Petersburg. Do not think of going, for fear it should come true and you should go, and while you were helping the Jews and teaching Nicholas, what (in that case) would become of your

Ba?

R.B. to E.B.B.

Tuesday. [Post-mark, February 24, 1846.]

Ah, sweetest, in spite of our agreement, here is the note that sought not to go, but must—because, if there is no speaking of Mrs. Jamesons and such like without bringing in your dear name (not dearest name, my Ba!) what is the good of not writing it down, now, when I, though possessed with the love of it no more than usual, yet may speak, and to a hearer? And I have to thank you with all my heart for the good news of the increasing strength and less need for the opium—how I do thank you, my dearest—and desire to thank God through whose goodness it all is! This I could not but say now, to-morrow I will write at length, having been working a little this morning, with whatever effect. So now I will go out and see your elm-trees and gate, and think the thoughts over again, and coming home I shall perhaps find a letter.

Dearest, dearest—my perfect blessing you are!

May God continue his care for us. R.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Wednesday Morning. [Post-mark, February 25, 1846.]

Once you were pleased to say, my own Ba, that 'I made you do as I would.' I am quite sure, you make me speak as you would, and not at all as I mean—and for one instance, I never surely spoke anything half so untrue as that 'I came with the intention of loving whomever I should find'—No! wreathed shells and hollows in ruins, and roofs of caves may transform a voice wonderfully, make more of it or less, or so change it as to almost alter, but turn a 'no' into a 'yes' can no echo (except the Irish one), and I said 'no' to such a charge, and still say 'no.' I did have a presentiment—and though it is hardly possible for me to look back on it now without lending it the true colours given to it by the event, yet I can put them aside, if I please, and remember that I not merely hoped it would not be so (not that the effect I expected to be produced would be less than in anticipation, certainly I did not hope that, but that it would range itself with the old feelings of simple reverence and sympathy and friendship, that I should love you as much as I supposed I could love, and no more) but in the confidence that nothing could occur to divert me from my intended way of life, I made—went on making arrangements to return to Italy. You know—did I not tell you—I wished to see you before I returned? And I had heard of you just so much as seemed to make it impossible such a relation could ever exist. I know very well, if you choose to refer to my letters you may easily bring them to bear a sense in parts, more agreeable to your own theory than to mine, the true one—but that was instinct, Providence—anything rather than foresight. Now I will convince you! yourself have noticed the difference between the letters and the writer; the greater 'distance of the latter from you,' why was that? Why, if not because the conduct began with him, with one who had now seen you—was no continuation of the conduct, as influenced by the feeling, of the letters—else, they, if near, should have enabled him, if but in the natural course of time and with increase of familiarity, to become nearer—but it was not so! The letters began by loving you after their way—but what a world-wide difference between that love and the true, the love from seeing and hearing and feeling, since you make me resolve, what now lies blended so harmoniously, into its component parts. Oh, I know what is old from what is new, and how chrystals may surround and glorify other vessels meant for ordinary service than Lord N's! But I don't know that handling may not snap them off, some of the more delicate ones; and if you let me, love, I will not again, ever again, consider how it came and whence, and when, so curiously, so pryingly, but believe that it was always so, and that it all came at once, all the same; the more unlikelinesses the better, for they set off the better the truth of truths that here, ('how begot? how nourished?')—here is the whole wondrous Ba filling my whole heart and soul; and over-filling it, because she is in all the world, too, where I look, where I fancy. At the same time, because all is so wondrous and so sweet, do you think that it would be so difficult for me to analyse it, and give causes to the effects in sufficiently numerous instances, even to 'justify my presentiment?' Ah, dear, dearest Ba, I could, could indeed, could account for all, or enough! But you are unconscious, I do believe, of your power, and the knowledge of it would be no added grace, perhaps! So let us go on—taking a lesson out of the world's book in a different sense. You shall think I love you for—(tell me, you must, what for) while in my secret heart I know what my 'mission of humanity' means, and what telescopic and microscopic views it procures me. Enough—Wait, one word about the 'too kind letters'—could not the same Montefiore understand that though he deserved not one of his thousand guineas, yet that he is in disgrace if they bate him of his next gift by merely ten? It is all too kind—but I shall feel the diminishing of the kindness, be very sure! Of that there is, however, not too alarming a sign in this dearest, because last of all—dearest letter of all—till the next! I looked yesterday over the 'Tragedy,' and think it will do after all. I will bring one part at least next time, and 'Luria' take away, if you let me, so all will be off my mind, and April and May be the welcomer? Don't think I am going to take any extraordinary pains. There are some things in the 'Tragedy' I should like to preserve and print now, leaving the future to spring as it likes, in any direction, and these half-dead, half-alive works fetter it, if left behind.

Yet one thing will fetter it worse, only one thing—if you, in any respect, stay behind? You that in all else help me and will help me, beyond words—beyond dreams—if, because I find you, your own works stop—'then comes the Selah and the voice is hushed.' Oh, no, no, dearest, so would the help cease to be help—the joy to be joy, Ba herself to be quite Ba, and my own Siren singing song for song. Dear love, will that be kind, and right, and like the rest? Write and promise that all shall be resumed, the romance-poem chiefly, and I will try and feel more yours than ever now. Am I not with you in the world, proud of you—and vain, too, very likely, which is all the sweeter if it is a sin as you teach me. Indeed dearest, I have set my heart on your fulfilling your mission—my heart is on it! Bless you, my Ba—

Your R.B.

I am so well as to have resumed the shower-bath (this morning)—and I walk, especially near the elms and stile—and mean to walk, and be very well—and you, dearest?

E.B.B. to R.B.

[Post-mark, February 26, 1846.]

I confess that while I was writing those words I had a thought that they were not quite yours as you said them. Still it comes to something in their likeness, but we will not talk of it and break off the chrystals—they are so brittle, then? do you know that by an 'instinct.' But I agree that it is best not to talk—I 'gave it up' as a riddle long ago. Let there be 'analysis' even, and it will not be solution. I have my own thoughts of course, and you have yours, and the worst is that a third person looking down on us from some snow-capped height, and free from personal influences, would have his thoughts too, and he would think that if you had been reasonable as usual you would have gone to Italy. I have by heart (or by head at least) what the third person would think. The third person thundered to me in an abstraction for ever so long, and at intervals I hear him still, only you shall not to-day, because he talks 'damnable iterations' and teazes you. Nay, the first person is teazing you now perhaps, without going any further, and yet I must go a little further, just to say (after accepting all possible unlikelinesses and miracles, because everything was miraculous and impossible) that it was agreed between us long since that you did not love me for anything—your having no reason for it is the only way of your not seeming unreasonable. Also for my own sake. I like it to be so—I cannot have peace with the least change from it. Dearest, take the baron's hawthorn bough which, in spite of his fine dream of it is dead since the other day, and so much the worse than when I despised it last—take that dead stick and push it upright into the sand as the tide rises, and the whole blue sea draws up its glittering breadth and length towards and around it. But what then? What does that prove? ... as the philosopher said of the poem. So we ought not to talk of such things; and we get warned off even in the accidental illustrations taken up to light us. Still, the stick certainly did not draw the sea.

Dearest and best you were yesterday, to write me the little note! You are better than the imaginations of my heart, and they, as far as they relate to you (not further) are not desperately wicked, I think. I always expect the kindest things from you, and you always are doing some kindness beyond what is expected, and this is a miracle too, like the rest, now isn't it? When the knock came last night, I knew it was your letter, and not another's. Just another little leaf of my Koran! How I thank you ... thank you! If I write too kind letters, as you say, why they may be too kind for me to send, but not for you to receive; and I suppose I think more of you than of me, which accounts for my writing them, accounts and justifies. And that is my reflection not now for the first time. For we break rules very often—as that exegetical third person might expound to you clearly out of the ninety-sixth volume of the 'Code of Conventions,' only you are not like another, nor have you been to me like another—you began with most improvident and (will you let me say?) unmasculine generosity, and Queen Victoria does not sit upon a mat after the fashion of Queen Pomare, nor should.