The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
your disdain of the usual tactics of writers in this one respect.
And you are not better, still—you are worse instead of better ... are you not? Tell me—And what can you mean about 'unimportance,' when you were worse last week ... this expiring week ... than ever before, by your own confession? And now?—And your mother?
Yes—I promise! And so, ... Elijah will be missed instead of his mantle ... which will be a losing contract after all. But it shall be as you say. May you be able to say that you are better! God bless you.
Ever yours.
Never think of the 'White Slave.' I had just taken it up. The trash of it is prodigious—far beyond Mr. Smythe. Not that I can settle upon a book just now, in all this wind, to judge of it fairly.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, October 6, 1845.]
I should certainly think that the Duke of Palmella may be induced, and with no great difficulty, to give up a cabin under the circumstances—and then the plan becomes really objection-proof, so far as mortal plans go. But now you must think all the boldlier about whatever difficulties remain, just because they are so much the fewer. It is cold already in the mornings and evenings—cold and (this morning) foggy—I did not ask if you continue to go out from time to time.... I am sure you should,—you would so prepare yourself properly for the fatigue and change—yesterday it was very warm and fine in the afternoon, nor is this noontime so bad, if the requisite precautions are taken. And do make 'journeys across the room,' and out of it, meanwhile, and stand when possible—get all the strength ready, now that so much is to be spent. Oh, if I were by you!
Thank you, thank you—I will devise titles—I quite see what you say, now you do say it. I am (this Monday morning, the prescribed day for efforts and beginnings) looking over and correcting what you read—to press they shall go, and then the plays can follow gently, and then ... 'Oh to be in Pisa. Now that E.B.B. is there!'—And I shall be there!... I am much better to-day; and my mother better—and to-morrow I shall see you—So come good things together!
Dearest—till to-morrow and ever I am yours, wholly yours—May God bless you!
R.B.
You do not ask me that 'boon'—why is that?—Besides, I have my own real boons to ask too, as you will inevitably find, and I shall perhaps get heart by your example.
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, October 7, 1845.]
Ah but the good things do not come together—for just as your letter comes I am driven to asking you to leave Tuesday for Wednesday.
On Tuesday Mr. Kenyon is to be here or not to be here, he says—there's a doubt; and you would rather go to a clear day. So if you do not hear from me again I shall expect you on Wednesday unless I hear to the contrary from you:—and if anything happens to Wednesday you shall hear. Mr. Kenyon is in town for only two days, or three. I never could grumble against him, so good and kind as he is—but he may not come after all to-morrow—so it is not grudging the obolus to Belisarius, but the squandering of the last golden days at the bottom of the purse.
Do I 'stand'—Do I walk? Yes—most uprightly. I 'walk upright every day.' Do I go out? no, never. And I am not to be scolded for that, because when you were looking at the sun to-day, I was marking the east wind; and perhaps if I had breathed a breath of it ... farewell Pisa. People who can walk don't always walk into the lion's den as a consequence—do they? should they? Are you 'sure that they should?' I write in great haste. So Wednesday then ... perhaps!
And yours every day.
You understand. Wednesday—if nothing to the contrary.
R.B. to E.B.B.
12—Wednesday.
[Post-mark, October 8, 1845.]
Well, dearest, at all events I get up with the assurance I shall see you, and go on till the fatal 11-1/4 p.m. believing in the same, and then, if after all there does come such a note as this with its instructions, why, first, it is such a note and such a gain, and next it makes a great day out of to-morrow that was to have been so little of a day, that is all. Only, only, I am suspicious, now, of a real loss to me in the end; for, putting off yesterday, I dared put off (on your part) Friday to Saturday ... while now ... what shall be said to that?
Dear Mr. Kenyon to be the smiling inconscious obstacle to any pleasure of mine, if it were merely pleasure!
But I want to catch our next post—to-morrow, then, excepting what is to be excepted!
Bless you, my dearest—
Your own
R.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Wednesday Evening.
[Post-mark, October 8, 1845.]
Mr. Kenyon never came. My sisters met him in the street, and he had been 'detained all day in the city and would certainly be here to-morrow,' Wednesday! And so you see what has happened to Wednesday! Moreover he may come besides on Thursday, ... I can answer for nothing. Only if I do not write and if you find Thursday admissible, will you come then? In the case of an obstacle, you shall hear. And it is not (in the meantime) my fault—now is it? I have been quite enough vexed about it, indeed.
Did the Monday work work harm to the head, I wonder? I do fear so that you won't get through those papers with impunity—especially if the plays are to come after ... though ever so 'gently.' And if you are to suffer, it would be right to tongue-tie that silver Bell, and leave the congregations to their selling of cabbages. Which is unphilanthropic of me perhaps, ... ω φιλτατε.
Be sure that I shall be 'bold' when the time for going comes—and both bold and capable of the effort. I am desired to keep to the respirator and the cabin for a day or two, while the cold can reach us; and midway in the bay of Biscay some change of climate may be felt, they say. There is no sort of danger for me; except that I shall stay in England. And why is it that I feel to-night more than ever almost, as if I should stay in England? Who can tell? I can tell one thing. If I stay, it will not be from a failure in my resolution—that will not be—shall not be. Yes—and Mr. Kenyon and I agreed the other day that there was something of the tigress-nature very distinctly cognisable under what he is pleased to call my 'Ba-lambishness.'
Then, on Thursday!... unless something happens to Thursday ... and I shall write in that case. And I trust to you (as always) to attend to your own convenience—just as you may trust to me to remember my own 'boon.' Ah—you are curious, I think! Which is scarcely wise of you—because it may, you know, be the roc's egg after all. But no, it isn't—I will say just so much. And besides I did say that it was a 'restitution,' which limits the guesses if it does not put an end to them. Unguessable, I choose it to be.
And now I feel as if I should not stay in England. Which is the difference between one five minutes and another. May God bless you.
Ever yours,
E.B.B.
E.B.B. to R.B.
[Post-mark, October 11, 1845.]
Dear Mr. Kenyon has been here again, and talking so (in his kindness too) about the probabilities as to Pisa being against me ... about all depending 'on one throw' and the 'dice being loaded' &c. ... that I looked at him aghast as if he looked at the future through the folded curtain and was licensed to speak oracles:—and ever since I have been out of spirits ... oh, out of spirits—and must write myself back again, or try. After all he may be wrong like another—and I should tell