November 16, 1845

Browning responds to Miss Barrett's letter of November 12th after visiting on November 13th:

"Sunday Morning.

At last your letter comes—and the deep joy—(I know and use to analyse my own feelings, and be sober in giving distinctive names to their varieties; this is deep joy)—the true love with which I take this much of you into my heart .. that proves what it is I wanted so long, and find at last, and am happy for ever. I must have more than 'intimated'—I must have spoken plainly out the truth, if I do myself the barest justice, and told you long ago that the admiration at your works went away, quite another way and afar from this love of you: if I could fancy some method of what I shall say happening without all the obvious stumbling-blocks of the falseness, &c which no foolish fancy dares associate with you .. if you could tell me when I next sit by you .. 'I will undeceive you,—I am not the Miss B.—she is upstairs and you shall see her– I only wrote those letters, and am what you see, that is all now left you'—(all the misapprehension having arisen from me, in some inexplicable way) .. I should .. not begin by saying anything, dear, dearest—but after that, I should assure you—soon make you believe that I did not much wonder at the event, for I have been all my life asking what connection there is between the satisfaction at the display of power, and the sympathy with—ever-increasing sympathy with—all imaginable weakness? Look now: Coleridge writes on and on,—at last he writes a note to his 'War-Eclogue,' in which he avers himself to have been actuated by a really—on the whole—benevolent feeling to Mr Pitt when he wrote that stanza in which 'Fire' means to 'cling to him everlastingly' .. where is the long line of admiration now that the end snaps?– And now—here I refuse to fancy .. you know whether, if you never write another line, speak another intelligible word, recognize me by a look, again—whether I shall love you less or more .. more,—having a right to expect more strength with the strange emergency. And it is because I know this, build upon this entirely, that as a reasonable creature, I am bound to look first to what hangs farthest and most loosely from me .. what might go from you to your loss, and so to mine, to say the least .. because I want all of you, not just so much as I could not live without—and because I see the danger of your entirely generous disposition and cannot quite, yet, bring myself to profit by it in the quiet way you recommend. Always remember, I never wrote to you, all the years, on the strength of your poetry .. tho’ I constantly heard of you thro’ Mr K. and was near seeing you once, and might have easily availed myself of his intervention to commend any letter to your notice, so as to reach you out of the foolish crowd of rushers-in upon genius .. who come and eat their bread and cheese on the high-altar—and talk of reverence without one of its surest instincts—never quiet till they cut their initials on the cheek of the Medicean Venus to prove they worship her. My admiration, as I said, went its natural way in silence—but when on my return to England in December, late in the month, Mr K. sent those Poems to my sister, and I read my name there—and when, a day or two after, I met him and, beginning to speak my mind on them, and getting on no better than I should now, said quite naturally—'if I were to write this, now?'—and he assured me with his perfect kindness, you would be even 'pleased' to hear from me under those circumstances .. nay,—for I will tell you all, in this, in everything—when he wrote me a note soon after to re-assure me on that point .. then I did write, on account of my purely personal obligation, tho’ of course taking that occasion to allude to the general and customary delight in your works: I did write, on the whole, unwillingly .. in the consciousness of having to speak on a subject which I felt thoroughly concerning, and could not be satisfied with an imperfect expression of: as for expecting then what has followed .. I shall only say I was scheming how to get done with England and go to my heart in Italy. And now, my love—I am round you .. my whole life is wound up and down and over you .. I feel you stir everywhere: I am not conscious of thinking or feeling but about you, with some reference to you—so I will live, so may I die! And you have blessed me beyond the bond, in more than in giving me yourself to love,—inasmuch as you believed me from the first .. what you call 'dream-work' was real of its kind, did you not think? and now you believe me, I believe and am happy, in what I write with my heart full of love for you: why do you tell me of a doubt, as now, and bid me not clear it up, 'not answer you?'– Have I done wrong in thus answering? Never, never do me direct wrong and hide for a moment from me what a word can explain as now: you see, you thought, if but for a moment, I loved your intellect,—or what predominates in your poetry and is most distinct from your heart,—better, or as well as you—did you not? and I have told you every thing,—explained everything .. have I not? And now I will dare .. yes, dearest, kiss you back to my heart again; my own. There—and there!"

 

Browning has really been magnificent in his letter writing lately. This is another very compelling letter, lifting Miss Barrett up and giving her the assurance that she needs. I must admit that I am not sure what distinction he is trying to make here in this previous paragraph and I wonder if he knows himself. On first reading it seems that he is saying that her poetry or gift at writing poetry does not come into his feelings toward her; he wrote his first letter to her out of obligation for her kind mention of him in her poem. He says if he really felt compelled by the brilliance of her poetry he would have written long before. And yet, if you look at his first letter to her he says that he loved her and her poems. Here, he says he did not care and was simply preparing to leave the country. That he loves her but he does not know why is a perfectly acceptable explanation, but he does not leave it at that, he is making it perhaps more complicated than it is.

I think it really comes together in the next paragraph. The distinction, I believe, that he is trying to make in the following paragraph, is that he loves her and not her poetry. He doesn't love the mechanical rhyme and rhythm, the nuts and bolts and her brilliance at stringing the words together. He believes that the poetry is her. And that is what he loves, he loves her. He draws a line across the paper and begins again:

___________________________________________________________

"And since I wrote what is above, I have been reading among other poems that sonnet—'Past and Future'—which affects me more than any poem I ever read. How can I put your poetry away from you, even in these ineffectual attempts to concentrate myself upon, and better apply myself to, what remains?—poor, poor work it is,—for is not that sonnet to be loved as a true utterance of yours? I cannot attempt to put down the thoughts that rise: may God bless me, as you pray, by letting that beloved hand shake the less .. I will only ask, the less .. for being laid on mine thro’ this life! And, indeed, you write down, for me to calmly read, that I make you happy! Then it is .. as with all power .. God thro’ the weakest instrumentality .. and I am past expression proud and grateful– My love, I am

your RB"

 

Here is Past and Future so that you may see the reference:

 

MY future will not copy fair my past

On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done,

Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one

Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast

Upon the fulness of the heart, at last

Saith no grace after meat. My wine hath run

Indeed out of my cup, and there is none

To gather up the bread of my repast

Scattered and trampled ! Yet I find some good

In earth's green herbs, and streams that bubble up

Clear from the darkling ground, — content until

I sit with angels before better food.

Dear Christ ! when thy new vintage fills my cup,

This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.

"I must answer your questions: I am better .. and will certainly have your injunction before my eyes and work quite moderately. Your letters come straight to me—my father’s go to Town, except on extraordinary occasions, so that all come for my first looking-over. I saw Mr K. last night at the Amateur Comedy—and heaps of old acquaintances—and came home tired and savage—and yearned literally, for a letter this morning, and so it came! and I was well again. So, I am not even to have your low spirits leaning on mine? It was just because I always find you alike, and ever like yourself, that I seemed to discern a depth, when you spoke of 'some days' and what they made uneven where all is agreeable to me: do not, now, deprive me of a right—a right, to find you as you are, .. get no habit of being cheerful with me– I have universal sympathy and can show you a side of me, a true face, turn as you may: if you are cheerful, so will I be .. if sad, my cheerfulness will be all the while behind, and propping up, any sadness that meets yours, if that should be necessary. As for my question about the opium .. you do not misunderstand that neither: I trust in the eventual consummation of my .. shall I not say, our .. hopes; and all that bears upon your health immediately or prospectively, affects me—how it affects me! will you write again? Wednesday, remember! Mr K. wants me to go to him one of the three next days after. I will bring you some letters .. one from Landor. Why should I trouble you about 'Pomfret'?

And Luria .. does it so interest you? Better is to come of it– How you lift me up!–"

 

So, her letters go straight to Browning Jr., there is no chance that Browning Sr. will get to read her secret missives. Poor Browning Sr., he is deprived of a great pleasure. And as much as he finds her 'even' when he sees her, he must see the depths of her sadness if he believes that she 'lives' in her poems. He demands the 'right' of seeing her as she is and supporting her however she is. He certainly can find the right words if he puts his mind to it. As for her giving him her copy of 'Pomfret', I think we shall hear more of this presently. And despite her writing a veritable essay on 'Luria', he is far more interested in her than in her analysis of his poetry. As well he should be. This woman needs to be continually wooed or she will doubt his love.

His comment about her being 'even' has come back to me now. Behold Sonnet XV, yes, she needs to be constantly wooed and assured:

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.

November 12, 1845

Miss Barrett has re-read Browning's letter of November 9th and suddenly realized what he said:

"Two letters in one– Wednesday.

I shall see you tomorrow & yet am writing what you will have to read perhaps. When you spoke of ‘stars’ & ‘geniuses’ in that letter, I did not seem to hear,—I was listening to those words of the letter which were of a better silver in the sound than even your praise could be: and now that at last I come to hear them in their extravagance (oh such pure extravagance about 'glorious geniuses'—) I cant help telling you they were heard last, & deserved it.

Shall I tell you besides?– The first moment in which I seemed to admit to myself in a flash of lightning the possibility of your affection for me being more than dream-work .. the first moment was that when you intimated (as you have done since repeatedly) that you cared for me not for a reason, but because you cared for me. Now such a ‘parceque’[because] which reasonable people wd take to be irrational, was just the only one fitted to the uses of my understanding on the particular question we were upon .. just the ‘woman’s reason’ suitable to the woman ..: for I could understand that it might be as you said, & if so, that it was altogether unanswerable .. do you see?– If a fact includes its own cause .. why there it stands for ever—one of 'earth’s immortalities' —as long as it includes it–"

 

The thing I pick out of this paragraph is her reluctance to use the word love. Browning wrote in his letter of October 23, "I love you because I love you,—I see you 'once a week' because I cannot see you all day long,—I think of you all day long, because I most certainly could not think of you once an hour less, if I tried..." But she writes it here as "...you cared for me not for a reason, but because you cared for me." She is very careful not to use the word in connection to Browning. She will write that she loves her father and her siblings, but not the man that she is betrothed to.

 

"And when unreasonableness stands for a reason, it is a promising state of things, we may both admit, & proves what it would be as well not too curiously to enquire into. But then .. to look at it in a brighter aspect, .. I do remember how, years ago, when talking the foolishnesses which women will talk when they are by themselves, & not forced to be sensible, .. one of my friends thought it 'safest to begin with a little aversion,' & another, wisest to begin with a great deal of esteem, & how the best attachments were produced so & so, .. I took it into my head to say that the best was where there was no cause at all for it, &, the more wholly unreasonable, the better still, .. that the motive shd lie in the feeling itself & not in the object of it, & that the affection which could (if it could) throw itself out on an idiot with a goitre would be more admirable than Abelard’s. Whereupon everybody laughed, & someone thought it affected of me & no true opinion, & others said plainly that it was immoral, & somebody else hoped in a sarcasm, that I meant to act out my theory for the advantage of the world. To which I replied quite gravely that I had not virtue enough .. & so, people laughed as it is fair to laugh when other people are esteemed to talk nonsense. And all this came back to me in the south wind of your ‘parceque’, & I tell it as it came .. now.

Which proves, if it proves anything, .. while I have every sort of natural pleasure in your praises & like you to like my poetry just as I should, & perhaps more than I should,—yet why it is all behind .. & in its place—& why I have a tendency moreover to sift & measure any praise of yours & to separate it from the superfluities, far more than with any other person’s praise in the world."

 

She enjoys his praise of her poetry (and herself) but she does not trust his praise.....because it is not rational! Just as him 'caring' for her is not rational or as she puts it 'reasonable.'

 

Friday evening/ Shall I send this letter or not? I have been ‘tra ’l si e ’l no’ [between yes and no] & writing a new beginning on a new sheet even—but after all you ought to hear the remote echo of your last letter .. far out among the hills, .. as well as the immediate reverberation, & so I will send it,—& what I send is not to be answered, remember!

___________________

I read Luria’s first act twice through before I slept last night, & feel just as a bullet might feel, not because of the lead of it but because shot into the air & suddenly arrested & suspended. It (‘Luria’) is all life, & we know (that is, the reader knows) that there must be results here & here. How fine that sight of Luria is upon the lynx hides—how you see the Moor in him just in the glimpse you have by the eyes of another—& that laugh when the horse drops the forage, what wonderful truth & character you have in that!– And then, when he is in the scene—! ‘Golden-hearted Luria’ you called him once to me, & his heart shines already .. wide open to the morning sun– The construction seems to me very clear everywhere—& the rhythm, even over-smooth in a few verses, where you invert a little artificially—but that shall be set down on a separate strip of paper: & in the meantime I am snatched up into ‘Luria’ & feel myself driven on to the ends of the poet, just as a reader should."

 

She has included a sheet of notes she made as she read Luria--which is not published with the letter. You get a taste of her review here. How she loves to dissect poetry.

"But you are not driven on to any ends? so as to be tired, I mean? You will not suffer yourself to be overworked because you are ‘interested’ in this work. I am so certain that the sensations in your head demand repose,—& it must be so injurious to you to be perpetually calling, calling these new creations, one after another, that you must consent to be called to, & not hurry the next act, no, nor any act—let the people have time to learn the last number by heart. And how glad I am that Mr Fox should say what he did of it .. though it was’nt true you know .. not exactly. Still, I do hold that as far as construction goes, you never put together so much unquestionable, smooth glory before, .. not a single entanglement for the understanding .. unless ‘the snowdrops’ make an exception—while for the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before your readers more plainly than in that same number!– Also you have extended your sweep of power—the sea-weed is thrown farther (if not higher) than it was found before,—& one may calculate surely now how a few more waves will cover the brown stones & float the sight up away through the fissure of the rocks– The rhythm (to touch one of the various things) the rhythm of that ‘Duchess’ does more & more strike me as a new thing; something like (if like anything) what the Greeks called pedestrian metre,—between metre & prose .. the difficult rhymes combining too quite curiously with the easy looseness of the general measure. Then the Ride—with that touch of natural feeling at the end, to prove that it was not in brutal carelessness that the poor horse was driven through all that suffering. Yes, & how that one touch of softness acts back upon the energy & resolution & exalts both, instead of weakening anything, as might have been expected by the vulgar of writers or critics. And then ‘Saul’—& in a first place ‘St Praxed’—& for pure description, Fortù .. & the deep ‘Pictor Ignotus’—& the noble, serene ‘Italy in England,’ which grows on you the more you know of it—& the delightful ‘Glove’—& the short lyrics .. for one comes to ‘select’ everything at last, & certainly I do like these poems better & better, as your poems are made to be liked. But you will be tired to hear it said over & over so, .. & I am going to ‘Luria’, besides."

 

Apparently Mr. Fox wrote to Browning regarding the new book and he has shared the letter with Miss Barrett, but we do not know what he said that she considered kind but not true. Whatever it was it gave her an opportunity to praise his poetry to such an extent that she decides she better pull back.

When you write will you say exactly how you are? and will you write?– And I want to explain to you that although I dont make a profession of equable spirits, (as a matter of temperament, my spirits were always given to rock a little, up & down) yet that I did not mean to be so ungrateful & wicked as to complain of low spirits now & to you. It would not be true either: & I said 'low' to express a merely bodily state. My opium comes in to keep the pulse from fluttering & fainting .. to give the right composure & point of balance to the nervous system. I dont take it for ‘my spirits’ in the usual sense,—you must not think such a thing. The medical man who came to see me made me take it the other day when he was in the room, before the right hour & when I was talking quite cheerfully, just for the need he observed in the pulse– ‘It was a necessity of my position,’ he said. Also I do not suffer from it in any way, as people usually do who take opium. I am not even subject to an opium-headache. —As to the low spirits I will not say that mine have not been low enough & with cause enough, .. but even then, .. why if you were to ask the nearest witnesses, .. say, even my own sisters, .. everybody would tell you, I think, that the ‘cheerfulness’ even then, was the remarkable thing in me .. certainly it has been remarked about me again & again. Nobody has known that it was an effort (a habit of effort) to throw the light on the outside,—I do abhor so that ignoble groaning aloud of the 'groans of Testy & Sensitive'—yet I may say that for three years I never was conscious of one movement of pleasure in anything. Think if I could mean to complain of ‘low spirits’ now, & to you!"

 

She is apologizing for her previous letter which she realizes was not an appropriate response to his words of love.

"<…>

Why it would be like complaining of not being able to see at noon—which would simply prove that I was very blind. And you, who are not blind, cannot make out what is written .. so you need not try– May God bless you long after you have done blessing me!–Your own EBB"

 

Miss Barrett has crossed out a line of two and teazes Browning that he cannot possibly figure out what she has written.

 

"Now I am half tempted to tear this letter in two (& it is long enough for three) & to send you only the latter half– But you will understand—you will not think that there is a contradiction between the first & last .. you cannot– One is a truth of me—& the other a truth of you—& we two are different, you know.

You are not over-working in ‘Luria’? That you should not, is a truth too–

I observed that Mr Kenyon put in ‘Junior’ to your address. Ought that to be done? or does my fashion of directing find you without hesitation?——"

 

Does she fear that Browning's father will read her letters? That might be interesting.

"Mr Kenyon asked me for Mr Chorley’s book, or you should have it– Shall I send it to you presently?"

 

What is the deal with Kenyon? Does he take precedent in all things? It is a wonder Browning has anything to do with that man!

November 10, 1845 Landor to Browning

Walter Savage Landor, one of Browning's literary heroes, mentor and friend responded to Browning's presentation copy of his Dramatic Romances and Lyrics:

 

"My dear kind friend,

Before I have half read thro your Dramatic Romances, I must acknowledge the delight I am receiving,—in no small doubt however, whether with all my haste I shall be in time for the post. What a profusion of imagery, covering what a depth of thought! You may stand quite alone if you will—and I think you will. I confess to you I do not greatly like our Sub-Shakesperian poets. It is only now and then that a breath of fresh air breaks in among them, sitting (as they all do) in the tavern, and smelling of ale and cheese. We have better poetry from the living. Even the despised and ridiculed Annuals confirm it. This very year there is in the Book of Beauty a poem by my friend Theodosia Garrow, on Italy, far surpassing those of M. Angelo and Filicaia. Sappho is far less intense. Pindar is far less animated. We never had so many good poets as at the present time, or lately. Campbell’s Hohenlinden, Hemanses Ivan and Casa-bianca, are unequalled since—ay, since when? But there is a stanza too much in each of those last.

Æquam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem [Remember, when life’s path is steep, to keep an even mind]—is a difficult rule to keep in poetry, where it is as much wanted as anywhere.

If ever you receive my collected Works, pray do not say a single word about the poetry. I might have been a poet if I had given up my mind to it. In prose I found more room. We had no prose-writer interesting in his subject and graceful in his style. We had none who could stand with Pascal, De Sevigné, Bossuet, and Le Sage; nor do I think the Romans had, or even the Greeks. I detest the subjects of Bossuet, but what eloquence! I threw out both artists to their full length, and made room for myself beyond their sphere– Allow me this little glass of rosoglio from my private cup-board, and believe me

Your very sincere and obliged

W S Landor"

November 10, 1845

Miss Barrett responds to Browning's fear that her helping him with his poetry will in some way hurt her work:

"Monday.

If it were possible that you could do me harm in the way of work, (but it is’nt) it would be possible, not through writing letters & reading manuscripts, but because of a reason to be drawn from your own great line

'What man is strong until he stands alone?'

What man .. what woman? For have I not felt twenty times the desolate advantage of being insulated here & of not minding anybody when I made my poems?—of living a little like a disembodied spirit, & caring less for suppositious criticism than for the black fly buzzing in the pane?– That made me what dear Mr Kenyon calls ‘insolent’,—untimid, & unconventional in my degree,—& not so much by strength, you see, as by separation– You touch your greater ends by mere strength,—breaking with your own hands the hampering threads which, in your position, wd have hampered me."

 

She has grasped a line from Browning's Colombe's Birthday --which has been used in the book she is reading, Pomfret (see below and her letter to Chorley on November 8th)--and is comparing it to her own life experience. She believes that her poetry was made bolder, not because of strength, but because of what she sees as her 'separation'. Perhaps her lack of timidity in her poetry came from a type of disregard for her own (social) safety. What did she have to lose? But isn't this a type of strength? She is perhaps misinterpreting herself because she sees Browning as giving her a strength she felt she lacked. This could really be seen as feeling of security rather than a sense of strength. She sees Browning's strength as pure power, a male power that she would like to possess in her poetry.

"Still .. when all is changed for me now, & different, it is not possible, .. for all the changing, .. nor for all your line & my speculation, .. that I should not be better & stronger for being within your influences & sympathies, in this way of writing as in other ways– We shall see—you will see. Yet I have been idle lately I confess,—leaning half out of some turret-window of the castle of Indolence & watching the new sunrise—as why not?– Do I mean to be idle always? no!—and am I not an industrious worker on the average of days? Indeed yes! Also I have been less idle than you think perhaps, even this last year, though the results seem so like trifling: and I shall set about the prose papers for the New York people, & the something rather better besides we may hope .. may I not hope, if you wish it? Only there is no ‘crown’ for me, be sure, except what grows from this letter & such letters .. this sense of being anything to One! there is no room for another crown. Have I a great head like Goethe’s that there should be room?—& mine is bent down already by the unused weight—& as to bearing it, .. 'will it do,—tell me, .. to treat that as a light effort, an easy matter?' "

 

Yes, she is stronger and more secure with Browning's support and certainly she has been less idle--for certainly she has begun the Sonnet Sequence. And of course she demures from Browning wanting her to place a crown on her own head as she crown's him. It is too much for the humble Miss Barrett. She seems melancholy at his praise.

"Now let me remember to tell you that the line of yours I have just quoted, & which has been present with me since you wrote it, Mr Chorley has quoted too in his new novel of 'Pomfret.' You were right in your identifying of servant & waistcoat—& Wilson waited only till you had gone on saturday, to give me a parcel & note, .. the novel itself in fact, which Mr Chorley had the kindness to send me ‘some days or weeks,’ said the note, ‘previous to the publication.’ Very goodnatured of him certainly! and the book seems to me his best work in point of sustainment & vigour, & I am in process of being interested in it. Not that he is a maker, even for this prose. A feeler .. an observer .. a thinker even, in a certain sphere—but a maker .. no, as it seems to me .. and if I were he, I would rather herd with the essayists than the novelists where he is too good to take inferior rank & not strong enough to ‘go up higher’. Only it would be more right in me to be grateful than to talk so—now wd’nt it?"

 

Such an opinionated woman! My, my.

 

"And here is Mr Kenyon’s letter back again—a kind good letter .. a letter I have liked to read, (so it was kind & good in you to let me!)—and he was with me today & praising the ride to Ghent, & praising the Duchess, & praising you altogether as I liked to hear him. The Ghent-ride was ‘very fine’—& the

‘Into the midnight they galloped abreast’

drew us out into the night as witnesses. And then, the ‘Duchess’ .. the conception of it was noble, & the vehicle, rhythm & all, most characteristic & individual .. though some of the rhymes .. oh, some of the rhymes did not find grace in his ears .. but the incantation-scene, ‘just trenching on the supernatural,’ that was taken to be ‘wonderful’, .. 'showing extraordinary power, .. as indeed other things did, .. works of a highly original writer & of such various faculty!'– Am I not tired of writing your praises as he said them? So I shall tell you, instead of any more, that I went down to the drawing room yesterday (because it was warm enough) by an act of supererogatory virtue for which you may praise me in turn. What weather it is! & how the year seems to have forgotten itself into April.

But after all, how have I answered your letter? & how are such letters to be answered? Do we answer the sun when he shines? May God bless you .. it is my answer—with one word besides .. that I am wholly & ever your

EBB

On thursday as far as I know yet—& you shall hear if there shd be an obstacle. Will you walk? If you will not, you know, you must be forgetting me a little– Will you remember me too in the act of the play?—but above all things in taking the right exercise, & in not over-working the head.!– And this for no serpent’s reason."

 

She began the letter in a rather reflective mood and then tried to snap herself out of it. I think she realized that her response to his beautiful letter was a bit moody and excuses herself a bit with--"how can I answer such a letter?...it is too much for me." She is almost Browning-like in her inability to put her thoughts into words. Tomorrow will be better.

November 9, 1845

Browning went to Wimpole Street on Saturday, November 8, 1845 to visit with Miss Barrett. He wrote the date and time of their meeting on the envelope of the last letter he received from Miss Barrett: "+ Saty Nov 8. / 3–4.5m. p.m." A fairly short meeting. He wrote the next day:

"Sunday Evening.

When I come back from seeing you, and think over it all, there never is a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with, and wish to return to you with some .. not to say, all .. the thoughts & fancies it is sure to call out of me:—there is nothing in you that does not draw out all of me:—you possess me, dearest .. and there is no help for the expressing it all, no voice nor hand, but these of mine which shrink and turn away from the attempt: So you must go on, patiently, knowing me, more and more, and your entire power on me, and I will console myself, to the full extent, with your knowledge,—penetration,—intuition .. somehow I must believe you can get to what is here, in me—without the pretence of my telling or writing it. But, because I give up the great achievements, there is no reason I should not secure any occasion of making clear one of the less important points that arise in our intercourse .. if I fancy I can do it with the least success: for instance, it is on my mind to explain what I meant yesterday by trusting that the entire happiness I feel in the letters, and the help in the criticising might not be hurt by the surmise, even, that those labours to which you were born, might be suspended, in any degree, thro’ such generosity to me: dearest, I believed in your glorious genius and knew it for a true star from the moment I saw it,—long before I had the blessing of knowing it was my star, with my fortune and futurity in it—and, when I draw back from myself, and look better and more clearly, then I do feel, with you, that the writing a few letters more or less, reading many or few rhymes of any other person, would not interfere in any material degree with that power of yours—that you might easily make one so happy and yet go on writing 'Geraldines' and 'Berthas'—but—how can I, dearest, leave my heart’s treasures long, even to look at your genius? .. and when I come back and find all safe, find the comfort of you, the traces of you .. will it do,—tell me—to treat all that as a light effort, an easy matter?

Yet, if you can lift me with one hand, while the other suffices to crown you—there is queenliness in that, too!"

 

Browning can really turn it on when he wants to. This has to be one of his greatest efforts. His default position is that he cannot put what he feels into words and often he cannot. But then he makes your heart melt with his words.

Well, I have spoken. As I told you, your turn comes now: how have you determined respecting the American Edition?—you tell me nothing of yourself! It is all me you help, me you do good to .. and I take it all! Now see if this goes on! I have not had every love-luxury, I now find out .. where is the proper, rationally-to-be-expected, 'lovers’ quarrel?' Here, as you will find! 'Iræ amantium' .. I am no more 'at a loss with my Naso,' than Peter Ronsard. Ah .. but then they are to be 'reintegratio amoris' ['lovers’ quarrels are love’s renewals']—and to get back into a thing, one must needs get for a moment first out of it .. trust me, no! And now, the natural inference from all this? The consistent inference .. the 'self-denying ordinance'? Why,—do you doubt?—even this,—you must just put aside the Romance, and tell the Americans to wait, and make my heart start up when the letter is laid to it,—the letter full of your news, telling me you are well and walking, and working for my sake towards the time I—informing me, moreover, if Thursday or Friday is to be my day–

May God bless you, my own love–

I will certainly bring you an Act of the Play .. for this serpent’s reason, in addition to the others .. that– No, I will tell you that. I can tell you now more than even lately!

Ever your own RB"

 

A beautifully rendered letter. He admonishes her to not stop her work for his sake and then mocking himself he selfishly tells her to put aside her Romance poem and the essay's for the American publisher and write a letter to him. I think the meeting on the 8th must have been very successful.

 

The quote is from his just published poem "The Glove."

November 8, 1845

Miss Barrett has been send a presentation copy of Chorley's latest book, Pomfret; or, Public opinion and private judgment, and writes to thank him. As usual she writes a very charming letter:

"50, Wimpole Street,

November 8th.

Dear Mr. Chorley,–

I cannot wait till I have read these three volumes, to thank you for the kindness and distinction of the gift. The pleasure and sympathy which are sure to come with the reading, I think, will be another motive of grateful acknowledgement—but in the meantime I will let the earlier motive act. So I thank you much now.

There was a letter too from Italy which was a pure kindness on your part, and which reached me just as I was midway in a dream of being there myself this winter .. breaking off as dreams of mine are apt to do whenever they try to exceed that certain limit of poetical vagueness of .. 'whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell.' So instead of the south I take to my winter-prison again, .. I, who have been at comparative liberty this summer and moving about nearly like other people: but though the bolts are shot again now, I remain very well just so far into the winter, and should be quite well always, I believe, if I were but charmed from the wind and the frost by some good strong useful curse after the fashion of Kehama’s. Then I agree with you that the weather is delightful, and that my phrase 'just so far into the winter' which I meant for the eighth of November (is’nt it the eighth?) is little suitable to this luxurious warm soft atmosphere which might belong to the eighth of April.

So, instead of writing any more, I shall go to Pomfret and enjoy it all the more of course (in an exquisite human selfishness) because the rest of the world cannot at the same moment. And after all, how much better this sort of early fruit is than any other—how much better for instance, than peaches a guinea each! So I go to Pomfret as I said; thanking you, dear Mr. Chorley, again and again for all your goodness to me. Miss Mitford spent some hours with me a few days ago and was looking well and talking like herself.

Very truly yours,

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett."

 

 

November 6, 1845

Browning's book has been published and he sends a note with the volume to Miss Barrett:

"Just arrived! .. (mind, the silent writing overflows the page, and laughs at the black words for Mr Kenyon to read!) —But your note arrived earlier—more of that, when I write after this dreadful dispatching-business that falls on me—friend A, & B. & C—must get their copy, and word of regard, all by next post!–

Could you think that that untoward letter lived one moment after it returned to me? I burned it and cried 'serve it right'! Poor letter!—yet I should have been vexed & offended then to be told I could love you better than I did already! 'Live and learn!' Live and love you––dearest, as loves you RB."

 

No, he did not keep the letter. It would be interesting to see what he wrote that got her so upset. But, alas....

 

"You will write to reassure me about Saturday, if not for other reasons. See your corrections .. and understand that in the one or two instances in which they would seem not to be adopted, they are so, by some modification of the previous, or following line .. as in one of the Sorrento lines .. about a 'turret'—see! (Can you give me Horne’s address—I would send there)"

 

And so, he writes notes to his friends and mentors to accompany copies of his poems. Here is one to Mr. William Johnsin Fox, a very early mentor. Browning was also friends with Fox's daughters--perhaps his first mature lady friends.

 

"My dear Sir,

Last year, I had a note from you, in which with other kind expressions, you gave me your address and an invitation to call there. I went abroad soon after, and after my return, have only been waiting such an opportunity as the sending another of my pamphlets to assure you (very unnecessarily I hope) that I shall have all my old pride and pleasure in availing myself of a privilege should you still be disposed to concede it.

Ever yours very faithfully and affectionately,

R. Browning."

 

But of course Miss Barrett writes:

 

"Thursday evening

I see & know,—read & mark,—& only hope there is no harm done by my meddling .. & lose the sense of it all in the sense of beauty & power everywhere, which nobody could kill, if they took to meddling more even– And now, what will people say to this & this & this—or 'o seclum insipiens et impietum [Oh, this age! how tasteless and ill-bred it is!]'!—or rather, o ungrateful right hand which does not thank you first! I do thank you. I have been reading everything with new delight,—& at intervals remembering in inglorious complacency (for which you must try to forgive me) that Mr Forster is no longer anything like an enemy. And yet (just see what contradiction!) the British Quarterly has been abusing me so at large, that I can only take it to be the achievement of a very particular friend indeed,—of someone who positively never reviewed before & tries his new sword on me out of pure friendship. Only I suppose it is not the general rule, & that there are friends 'with a difference.' Not that you are to fancy me pained—oh no!—merely surprised. I was prepared for anything almost from the quarter in question, but scarcely for being hung ‘to the crows’ so publicly .. though within the bounds of legitimate criticisms, mind. But oh—the creatures of your sex are not always magnanimous—that is true. And to put you between me & all .. the thought of you .. in a great ecclipse of the world .. that is happy .. only, .. too happy for such as I am;—as my own heart warns me hour by hour."

 

I puzzled over this paragraph when I first read it. It was rather unlike her to talk about herself when she would normally be praising his poetry. On second reading I think I see what she is doing. She knows that his poems will not be well received so she let's him know that she has been picked over by the critics as well. She doesn't want him to feel that he alone in being mauled by the critics. And in the end, what does it matter because they are happy in each other.

 

" 'Serve me right!' I do not dare to complain. I wished for the safety of that letter so much that I finished by persuading myself of the probability of it: but ‘serve me right’ quite clearly. And yet—but no more 'and yets' about it. 'And yets' fray the silk."

 

Yes, the offending letter is gone. She won't order him to burn any more of his letters.

 

"I see how the 'turret' stands in the new reading, triumphing over the ‘tower’, & unexceptionable in every respect. Also I do hold that nobody with an ordinary understanding has the slightest pretence for attaching a charge of obscurity to this new number—there are lights enough for the critics to scan one another’s dull blank of visage by. One verse indeed in that expressive lyric of the ‘Lost Mistress,’ does still seem questionable to me, though you have changed a word since I saw it,—& still I fancy that I rather leap at the meaning than reach it—but it is my own fault probably .. I am not sure. With that one exception I am quite sure that people who shall complain of darkness are blind .. I mean, that the construction is clear & unembarrassed everywhere. Subtleties of thought which are not directly apprehensible by minds of a common range, are here as elsewhere in your writings—but if to utter things ‘hard to understand’ from that cause, be an offence, why we may begin with 'our beloved brother Paul,' you know, & go down through all the geniuses of the world, & bid them put away their inspirations. You must descend to the level of critic A or B, that he may look into your face .. Ah well!—'Let them rave'. You will live when all those are under the willows. In the meantime there is something better, as you said, even than your poetry .. as the giver is better than the gift, & the maker than the creature, & you than yours. Yes—you than yours .. (I did not mean it so when I wrote it first .. but I accept the ‘bona verba [good words-words of good omen]’,& use the phrase for the end of my letter) .. as you are better than yours, .. even when so much yours as your own EBB–"

 

I admire the fact that she will tell him when she sees a problem in his work. She always calls them as she sees them. Perhaps through the tint of love and hero worship.

 

"May I see the first act first? Let me!—— And you walk?–"

 

She is still wanting to see the first act of "Luria". She lusts after his poetry. The "Let me!" cry of a child wanting to look at a kaleidoscope.

 

"Mr Horne’s address is Hill Side, Fitzroy Park, Highgate. There is no reason against saturday so far. Mr Kenyon comes tomorrow, friday, & therefore ..!!—and if saturday shd become impracticable, I will write again."

 

And so the visits continue, dodging Mr. Kenyon all the way.