The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
have twice, in speech and writing, been pleased to apply to your observations on me; certainly this does go as near as can be—as there is but one step to take from Southampton pier to New York quay, for travellers Westward. Now will you lay this to heart and perpend—lest in my righteous indignation I [some words effaced here]! For my own health—it improves, thank you! And I shall go abroad all in good time, never fear. For my 'Bells,' Mr. Chorley tells me there is no use in the world of printing them before November at earliest—and by that time I shall get done with these Romances and certainly one Tragedy (that could go to press next week)—in proof of which I will bring you, if you let me, a few more hundreds of lines next Wednesday. But, 'my poet,' if I would, as is true, sacrifice all my works to do your fingers, even, good—what would I not offer up to prevent you staying ... perhaps to correct my very verses ... perhaps read and answer my very letters ... staying the production of more 'Berthas' and 'Caterinas' and 'Geraldines,' more great and beautiful poems of which I shall be—how proud! Do not be punctual in paying tithes of thyme, mint, anise and cummin, and leaving unpaid the real weighty dues of the Law; nor affect a scrupulous acknowledgment of 'what you owe me' in petty manners, while you leave me to settle such a charge, as accessory to the hiding the Talent, as best I can! I have thought of this again and again, and would have spoken of it to you, had I ever felt myself fit to speak of any subject nearer home and me and you than Rome and Cardinal Acton. For, observe, you have not done ... yes, the 'Prometheus,' no doubt ... but with that exception have you written much lately, as much as last year when 'you wrote all your best things' you said, I think? Yet you are better now than then. Dearest friend, I intend to write more, and very likely be praised more, now I care less than ever for it, but still more do I look to have you ever before me, in your place, and with more poetry and more praise still, and my own heartfelt praise ever on the top, like a flower on the water. I have said nothing of yesterday's storm ... thunder ... may you not have been out in it! The evening draws in, and I will walk out. May God bless you, and let you hold me by the hand till the end—Yes, dearest friend!
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]
Just to show what may be lost by my crossings out, I will tell you the story of the one in the 'Duchess'—and in fact it is almost worth telling to a metaphysician like you, on other grounds, that you may draw perhaps some psychological good from the absurdity of it. Hear, then. When I had done writing the sheet of annotations and reflections on your poem I took up my pencil to correct the passages reflected on with the reflections, by the crosses you may observe, just glancing over the writing as I did so. Well! and, where that erasure is, I found a line purporting to be extracted from your 'Duchess,' with sundry acute criticisms and objections quite undeniably strong, following after it; only, to my amazement, as I looked and looked, the line so acutely objected to and purporting, as I say, to, be taken from the 'Duchess,' was by no means to be found in the 'Duchess,' ... nor anything like it, ... and I am certain indeed that, in the 'Duchess' or out of it, you never wrote such a bad line in your life. And so it became a proved thing to me that I had been enacting, in a mystery, both poet and critic together—and one so neutralizing the other, that I took all that pains you remark upon to cross myself out in my double capacity, ... and am now telling the story of it notwithstanding. And there's an obvious moral to the myth, isn't there? for critics who bark the loudest, commonly bark at their own shadow in the glass, as my Flush used to do long and loud, before he gained experience and learnt the γνωθι σεαυτον in the apparition of the brown dog with the glittering dilating eyes, ... and as I did, under the erasure. And another moral springs up of itself in this productive ground; for, you see, ... 'quand je m'efface il n'ya pas grand mal.'
And I am to be made to work very hard, am I? But you should remember that if I did as much writing as last summer, I should not be able to do much else, ... I mean, to go out and walk about ... for really I think I could manage to read your poems and write as I am writing now, with ever so much head-work of my own going on at the same time. But the bodily exercise is different, and I do confess that the novelty of living more in the outer life for the last few months than I have done for years before, make me idle and inclined to be idle—and everybody is idle sometimes—even you perhaps—are you not? For me, you know, I do carpet-work—ask Mrs. Jameson—and I never pretend to be in a perpetual motion of mental industry. Still it may not be quite as bad as you think: I have done some work since 'Prometheus'—only it is nothing worth speaking of and not a part of the romance-poem which is to be some day if I live for it—lyrics for the most part, which lie written illegibly in pure Egyptian—oh, there is time enough, and too much perhaps! and so let me be idle a little now, and enjoy your poems while I can. It is pure enjoyment and must be—but you do not know how much, or you would not talk as you do sometimes ... so wide of any possible application.
And do not talk again of what you would 'sacrifice' for me. If you affect me by it, which is true, you cast me from you farther than ever in the next thought. That is true.
The poems ... yours ... which you left with me,—are full of various power and beauty and character, and you must let me have my own gladness from them in my own way.
Now I must end this letter. Did you go to Chelsea and hear the divine philosophy?
Tell me the truth always ... will you? I mean such truths as may be painful to me though truths....
May God bless you, ever dear friend.
E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Friday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]
Then there is one more thing 'off my mind': I thought it might be with you as with me—not remembering how different are the causes that operate against us; different in kind as in degree:—so much reading hurts me, for instance,—whether the reading be light or heavy, fiction or fact, and so much writing, whether my own, such as you have seen, or the merest compliment-returning to the weary tribe that exact it of one. But your health—that before all!... as assuring all eventually ... and on the other accounts you must know! Never, pray, pray, never lose one sunny day or propitious hour to 'go out or walk about.' But do not surprise me, one of these mornings, by 'walking' up to me when I am introduced' ... or I shall infallibly, in spite of all the after repentance and begging pardon—I shall [words effaced]. So here you learn the first 'painful truth' I have it in my power to tell you!
I sent you the last of our poor roses this morning—considering that I fairly owed that kindness to them.
Yes, I went to Chelsea and found dear Carlyle alone—his wife is in the country where he will join her as soon as his book's last sheet returns corrected and fit for press—which will be at the month's end about. He was all kindness and talked like his own self while he made me tea—and, afterward, brought chairs into the little yard, rather than garden, and smoked his pipe with apparent relish; at night he would walk as far as Vauxhall Bridge on my way home.
If I used the word 'sacrifice,' you do well to object—I can imagine nothing ever to be done by me worthy such a name.
God bless you, dearest friend—shall I hear from you before Tuesday?
Ever your own
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Friday.
[Post-mark, August 8, 1845.]
It is very kind to send these flowers—too kind—why are they sent? and without one single word ... which is not too kind certainly. I looked down into the heart of the roses and turned the carnations over and over to the peril of their leaves, and in vain! Not a word do I deserve to-day, I suppose! And yet if I don't, I don't deserve the flowers either. There should have been an equal justice done to my demerits, O Zeus with the scales!
After all I do thank you for these flowers—and they are beautiful—and