The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
to sing the burden out all day long—until the time when the subject was suddenly changed by my heart being broken by that great stone that fell out of Heaven. Afterwards I was let do anything I could best ... which was very little, until last year—and the working, last year, did much for me in giving me stronger roots down into life, ... much. But think of that absurd reasoning that went before!—the niaiserie of it! For, granting all the premises all round, it is not the utterance of a thought that can hurt anybody; while only the utterance is dependent on the will; and so, what can the taking away of an inkstand do? Those physicians are such metaphysicians! It's curious to listen to them. And it's wise to leave off listening: though I have met with excessive kindness among them, ... and do not refer to Dr. Chambers in any of this, of course.
I am very glad you went to Chelsea—and it seemed finer afterwards, on purpose to make room for the divine philosophy. Which reminds me (the going to Chelsea) that my brother Henry confessed to me yesterday, with shame and confusion of face, to having mistaken and taken your umbrella for another belonging to a cousin of ours then in the house. He saw you ... without conjecturing, just at the moment, who you were. Do you conjecture sometimes that I live all alone here like Mariana in the moated Grange? It is not quite so—: but where there are many, as with us, every one is apt to follow his own devices—and my father is out all day and my brothers and sisters are in and out, and with too large a public of noisy friends for me to bear, ... and I see them only at certain hours, ... except, of course, my sisters. And then as you have 'a reputation' and are opined to talk generally in blank verse, it is not likely that there should be much irreverent rushing into this room when you are known to be in it.
The flowers are ... so beautiful! Indeed it was wrong, though, to send me the last. It was not just to the lawful possessors and enjoyers of them. That it was kind to me I do not forget.
You are too teachable a pupil in the art of obliterating—and omne ignotum pro terrifico ... and therefore I won't frighten you by walking to meet you for fear of being frightened myself.
So good-bye until Tuesday. I ought not to make you read all this, I know, whether you like to read it or not: and I ought not to have written it, having no better reason than because I like to write on and on. You have better reasons for thinking me very weak—and I, too good ones for not being able to reproach you for that natural and necessary opinion.
May God bless you my dearest friend.
E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]
What can I say, or hope to say to you when I see what you do for me?
This—for myself, (nothing for you!)—this, that I think the great, great good I get by your kindness strikes me less than that kindness.
All is right, too—
Come, I will have my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my utterest hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters—and the Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from two lines of a legend that delighted my infancy, and now instruct my maturer years in pretty nearly all they boast of the semi-mythologic era referred to—'In London town, when reigned King Lud, His lords went stomping thro' the mud'—would all historic records were half as picturesque!)
But you know, yes, you know you are too indulgent by far—and treat these roughnesses as if they were advanced to many a stage! Meantime the pure gain is mine, and better, the kind generous spirit is mine, (mine to profit by)—and best—best—best, the dearest friend is mine,
So be happy
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, August 13, 1845.]
Yes, I admit that it was stupid to read that word so wrong. I thought there was a mistake somewhere, but that it was yours, who had written one word, meaning to write another. 'Cower' puts it all right of course. But is there an English word of a significance different from 'stamp,' in 'stomp?' Does not the old word King Lud's men stomped withal, claim identity with our 'stamping.' The a and o used to 'change about,' you know, in the old English writers—see Chaucer for it. Still the 'stomp' with the peculiar significance, is better of course than the 'stamp' even with a rhyme ready for it, and I dare say you are justified in daring to put this old wine into the new bottle; and we will drink to the health of the poem in it. It is 'Italy in England'—isn't it? But I understand and understood perfectly, through it all, that it is unfinished, and in a rough state round the edges. I could not help seeing that, even if I were still blinder than when I read 'Lower' for 'Cower.'
But do not, I ask of you, speak of my 'kindness' ... my kindness!—mine! It is 'wasteful and ridiculous excess' and mis-application to use such words of me. And therefore, talking of 'compacts' and the 'fas' and 'nefas' of them, I entreat you to know for the future that whatever I write of your poetry, if it isn't to be called 'impertinence,' isn't to be called 'kindness,' any more, ... a fortiori, as people say when they are sure of an argument. Now, will you try to understand?
And talking still of compacts, how and where did I break any compact? I do not see.
It was very curious, the phenomenon about your 'Only a Player-Girl.' What an un-godlike indifference to your creatures though—your worlds, breathed away from you like soap bubbles, and dropping and breaking into russet portfolios unobserved! Only a god for the Epicurean, at best, can you be? That Miss Cushman went to Three Mile Cross the other day, and visited Miss Mitford, and pleased her a good deal, I fancied from what she said, ... and with reason, from what you say. And 'Only a Fiddler,' as I forgot to tell you yesterday, is announced, you may see in any newspaper, as about to issue from the English press by Mary Howitt's editorship. So we need not go to America for it. But if you complain of George Sand for want of art, how could you bear Andersen, who can see a thing under his eyes and place it under yours, and take a thought separately into his soul and express it insularly, but has no sort of instinct towards wholeness and unity; and writes a book by putting so many pages together, ... just so!—For the rest, there can be no disagreeing with you about the comparative difficulty of novel-writing and drama-writing. I disagree a little, lower down in your letter, because I could not deny (in my own convictions) a certain proportion of genius to the author of 'Ernest Maltravers,' and 'Alice' (did you ever read those books?), even if he had more impotently tried (supposing it to be possible) for the dramatic laurel. In fact his poetry, dramatic or otherwise, is 'nought'; but for the prose romances, and for 'Ernest Maltravers' above all, I must lift up my voice and cry. And I read the Athenæum about your Sir James Wylie who took you for an Italian....
'Poi vi dirò Signor, che ne fu causa
Ch' avio fatto al scriver debita pausa.'—
Ever your
E.B.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, August 15, 1845.]
Do you know, dear friend, it is no good policy to stop up all the vents of my feeling, nor leave one for safety's sake, as you will do, let me caution you never so repeatedly. I know, quite well enough, that your 'kindness' is not so apparent, even, in this instance of correcting my verses, as in many other points—but on such points, you lift a finger to me and I am dumb.... Am I not to be allowed a word here neither?
I remember, in the first season of German Opera here, when 'Fidelio's' effects were going, going up to the gallery in order to get the best of the last chorus—get its oneness which you do—and, while perched there an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormous enthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought,—I and a cousin of mine)—whose whole body broke out in billow, heaved and swayed in the perfection of his delight,