The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
of myself in the least of me; in the tying of my shoestrings, say!—so much and no more! Now this is so wrong, as to make me impatient sometimes in feeling it to be your impression: I asked for silence—but also and chiefly for the putting away of ... you know very well what I asked for. And this was sincerely done, I attest to you. You wrote once to me ... oh, long before May and the day we met: that you 'had been so happy, you should be now justified to yourself in taking any step most hazardous to the happiness of your life'—but if you were justified, could I be therefore justified in abetting such a step,—the step of wasting, in a sense, your best feelings ... of emptying your water gourds into the sand? What I thought then I think now—just what any third person, knowing you, would think, I think and feel. I thought too, at first, that the feeling on your part was a mere generous impulse, likely to expand itself in a week perhaps. It affects me and has affected me, very deeply, more than I dare attempt to say, that you should persist so—and if sometimes I have felt, by a sort of instinct, that after all you would not go on to persist, and that (being a man, you know) you might mistake, a little unconsciously, the strength of your own feeling; you ought not to be surprised; when I felt it was more advantageous and happier for you that it should be so. In any case, I shall never regret my own share in the events of this summer, and your friendship will be dear to me to the last. You know I told you so—not long since. And as to what you say otherwise, you are right in thinking that I would not hold by unworthy motives in avoiding to speak what you had any claim to hear. But what could I speak that would not be unjust to you? Your life! if you gave it to me and I put my whole heart into it; what should I put but anxiety, and more sadness than you were born to? What could I give you, which it would not be ungenerous to give? Therefore we must leave this subject—and I must trust you to leave it without one word more; (too many have been said already—but I could not let your letter pass quite silently ... as if I had nothing to do but to receive all as matter of course so!) while you may well trust me to remember to my life's end, as the grateful remember; and to feel, as those do who have felt sorrow (for where these pits are dug, the water will stand), the full price of your regard. May God bless you, my dearest friend. I shall send this letter after I have seen you, and hope you may not have expected to hear sooner.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
Monday, 6 p.m.—I send in disobedience to your commands, Mrs. Shelley's book—but when books accumulate and when besides, I want to let you have the American edition of my poems ... famous for all manner of blunders, you know; what is to be done but have recourse to the parcel-medium? You were in jest about being at Pisa before or as soon as we were?—oh no—that must not be indeed—we must wait a little!—even if you determine to go at all, which is a question of doubtful expediency. Do take more exercise, this week, and make war against those dreadful sensations in the head—now, will you?
R.B. to E.B.B.
Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, September 3, 1845.]
I rather hoped ... with no right at all ... to hear from you this morning or afternoon—to know how you are—that, 'how are you,' there is no use disguising, is,—vary it how one may—my own life's question.—
I had better write no more, now. Will you not tell me something about you—the head; and that too, too warm hand ... or was it my fancy? Surely the report of Dr. Chambers is most satisfactory,—all seems to rest with yourself: you know, in justice to me, you do know that I know the all but mockery, the absurdity of anyone's counsel 'to be composed,' &c. &c. But try, dearest friend!
God bless you—
I am yours
R.B.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Tuesday Night.
[Post-mark, September 3, 1845.]
Before you leave London, I will answer your letter—all my attempts end in nothing now—
Dearest friend—I am yours ever
R.B.
But meantime, you will tell me about yourself, will you not? The parcel came a few minutes after my note left—Well, I can thank you for that; for the Poems,—though I cannot wear them round my neck—and for the too great trouble. My heart's friend! Bless you—
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, September 4, 1845.]
Indeed my headaches are not worth enquiring about—I mean, they are not of the slightest consequence, and seldom survive the remedy of a cup of coffee. I only wish it were the same with everybody—I mean, with every head! Also there is nothing the matter otherwise—and I am going to prove my right to a 'clean bill of health' by going into the park in ten minutes. Twice round the inner enclosure is what I can compass now—which is equal to once round the world—is it not?
I had just time to be afraid that the parcel had not reached you. The reason why I sent you the poems was that I had a few copies to give to my personal friends, and so, wished you to have one; and it was quite to please myself and not to please you that I made you have it; and if you put it into the 'plum-tree' to hide the errata, I shall be pleased still, if not rather more. Only let me remember to tell you this time in relation to those books and the question asked of yourself by your noble Romans, that just as I was enclosing my sixty-pounds debt to Mr. Moxon, I did actually and miraculously receive a remittance of fourteen pounds from the selfsame bookseller of New York who agreed last year to print my poems at his own risk and give me 'ten per cent on the profit.' Not that I ever asked for such a thing! They were the terms offered. And I always considered the 'per centage' as quite visionary ... put in for the sake of effect, to make the agreement look better! But no—you see! One's poetry has a real 'commercial value,' if you do but take it far away enough from the 'civilization of Europe.' When you get near the backwoods and the red Indians, it turns out to be nearly as good for something as 'cabbages,' after all! Do you remember what you said to me of cabbages versus poems, in one of the first letters you ever wrote to me?—of selling cabbages and buying Punches?
People complain of Dr. Chambers and call him rough and unfeeling—neither of which I ever found him for a moment—and I like him for his truthfulness, which is the nature of the man, though it is essential to medical morality never to let a patient think himself mortal while it is possible to prevent it, and even Dr. Chambers may incline to this on occasion. Still he need not have said all the good he said to me on Saturday—he used not to say any of it; and he must have thought some of it: and, any way, the Pisa-case is strengthened all round by his opinion and injunction, so that all my horror and terror at the thoughts of his visit, (and it's really true that I would rather suffer to a certain extent than be cured by means of those doctors!) had some compensation. How are you? do not forget to say! I found among some papers to-day, a note of yours which I asked Mr. Kenyon to give me for an autograph, two years ago.
May God bless you, dearest friend. And I have a dispensation from 'beef and porter' εις τους αιωνας. 'On no account' was the answer!
R.B. to E.B.B.
Friday Afternoon.
[Post-mark, September 5, 1845.]
What you tell me of Dr. Chambers, 'all the good of you' he said, and all I venture to infer; this makes me most happy and thankful. Do you use to attach our old τυφλας ελπιδας (and the practice of instilling them) to that medical science in which Prometheus boasted himself proficient? I had thought the 'faculty' dealt in fears, on the contrary, and scared you into obedience: but I know most about the doctors in Molière. However the joyous truth is—must be, that you are better, and if one could transport you quietly to Pisa, save you all worry,—what might one not expect!
When I know your own intentions—measures, I should say, respecting