"Let it be on Thursday then, dearest, for the reasons you
mention. I will say nothing of my own desires to meet you sooner .. they are
corrected by the other desires to spend my whole life with you. After all, these
are the critical weeks now approaching or indeed present—there shall be no fault
I can avoid– So, till Thursday–
Chorley said very little .. he is all discreteness and
forbearance, here as on other points– He goes to Birmingham at the end of this
week, and returning after some three or four days, leaves London for
Paris—probably next Saturday week– From Paris he thinks of going to Holland .. a
good step,—and of staying at Scheven..ing ..
what is the Bath’s name?—not a good step, I told him, because of the mortal
ugliness of the place—which I well remember .. it may have improved in ten
years, to be sure– There, “walking on the sands,” (sands in a heapy slope, not a
traversable flat) he means to “grow to an end” with his Tragedy .. there is a noble ardour in his working
which one cannot help admiring—he has a few weeks’ holiday, is jaded to death
with writing, and yet will write away his brief time of respite and
restoratives—for what?– He wondered whether there was any chance of our meeting
in Paris—“our” meaning him and myself."
It's a good thing he made that clear. Think of the angst!
"As for your communication to Mr Boyd—how could you do
otherwise, my own Ba? I am altogether regardless of whatever danger there may
be, in the great delight at his sympathy and approval of your intention: he
probably never heard my name before .. but his own will ever be associated
divinely in my memory with those verses which always have affected me
profoundly .. perhaps on the whole, more
profoundly than any others you ever wrote: that is hard to prove to
myself,—but I really think so—the personal allusions in it, went straight to my
heart at the beginning– I remember, too, how he loved and loves you .. you told
me, Ba. So I am most grateful to him,—as I ever shall feel to those who, knowing
you, judge me worthy of being capable of knowing you and taking your impress,
and becoming yours sufficiently for your happiness."
Knowing Boyd's opinion of poetry from reading Miss Barrett's correspondence I would suspect that Boyd would hate and despise Browning's poetry. But hating someone's poetry is very different from hating the man. Who could hate Browning? He seems like a pleasant bloke.
Are you so well, dearest, in your walks,—after your
rides?– Does that rejoice me or no, when I would rather hear you had been happy,
than simply see you without such an assurance? I am very well, since you ask—but
my mother is not—her head being again affected. Yet the late improvement gives
ground for hope .. nor is this a very violent attack in itself.
I suppose it was in Mrs Jameson’s mind, as you
apprehend. You must always be fond of her—(and such will be always my way of
rewarding people I am fond of!)
God bless you, dearest– I love you all I can, Ba. I see
another ship is advertised to sail—(a steamer) for Naples, and other southern
Ports—“but no higher”– When you are well and disposed to go to Greece, take me,
my love– I should feel too happy for this world, I think, among the islands with
you. My very own, I am yours–
Wait a minute here. Wasn't she going to go the Greece if she determined that Browning no longer loved her? In the meantime Miss Barrett has had a bit of an adventure:
"Your mother is not well, dearest?—that is bad
news indeed– And then, I think of your superstition of your being ill & well
with her—take care & keep well, Robert, .. or of what use will it be that
I should be well? Today we drove out, & were as far as Finchley,
& I am none the worse at all for it– Do you know Finchley? It is pretty
& rural,—the ground rising & falling as if with the weight of verdure
& dew:—fields, & hedgerows, & long slopes of grass thick & long
enough, in its fresh greenness, quite to hide the nostrils of the grazing cows–
The fields are little, too, as if the hedges wanted to get together. Then the
village of Finchley straggles along the road with a line of cottages, or small
houses, seeming to play at a village– No butchers, no bakers—only one
shop in the place .. but gardens, & creepers round the windows. Such a way
from London, it looked!– Arabel wanted to call on a friend of hers, a daughter
of Sir William Russell’s, who married an adopted son of Lamartine, &
was in the navy, and is now an Independent minister officiating in this selfsame
metropolis of Finchley– A concatenation,
that is, altogether– Very poor they are—living on something less than two
hundred a year, with five children, & the eldest five years old. And the
children came out to us, everybody else being away—so I, who wd have stayed in
the carriage under other circumstances, was tempted out by the children &
the cottage, & they dragged us along to see the drawingroom, &
diningroom, & 'Papa’s flowers', & their own particular book about the
'twenty seven tailors,': & those of the
children who could speak, thought Flush 'very cool' for walking up stairs
without being asked. (The baby opened its immense eyes wider than ever, thinking
unutterable things.) So as they had been
so kind & hospitable to us, we could not do less (after a quantity of
admiration upon the pretty house covered with roses, & the garden &
lawn, & especially the literature of those twentyseven tailors) we could not
do less than offer to give them a drive .. which was accepted with acclamation–
Think of our taking into the carriage, all five children, with their prodigious
eyes & cheeks—the nurse on the coachbox, to take them home at the end of
some quarter of a mile! At the moment of parting, Alphonse Lamartine thought
seriously of making a great scream—but upon Arabel’s perjuring herself by a
promise to ‘come again soon,’ we got away without that catastrophe. A worse one
is, that you may think yourself obliged to read this amusing history. To make
amends, I send you what I gathered for you in the garden. 'Pansy!—that’s
for thoughts–' "
I observe that Miss Browning not only reads letters very closely she is a very close observer of rustic scenery and children. According to the footnote in Kintner the pansy is preserved with the letter at Wellesley College.
"How wise we are about thursday! or rather about tuesday
& wednesday, perhaps.
As for Mr Boyd, he had just heard your name, but he is
blind & deaf to modern literature, & I am not anxious that he should
know you much by your poetry. He asked some questions about you, & he
enquired of Arabel particularly whether she thought we cared for each other
enough– But to tell you the truth, his unqualified adhesion strikes me as less
the result of his love for you, than of his anger towards another– I am
sure he triumphs inwardly in the idea of a chain being broken which he has so
often denounced in words that pained & vexed me—& then last year’s
affair about Italy made him furious– Oh—I could see plainly by the sort of smile
he smiled—— .. but we need not talk of it—I am at the end too of my time. How
good you are to me not to upbraid me for imprudence or womanly talkativeness!
You are too, too good. And you liked my verses to Mr Boyd!– Which I like
to hear, of course. Dearest!"
It looks like just about everyone has it in for Papa Barrett. It is also interesting that he questioned Arabel about their attachment. So, if Arabel knew nothing of the engagement she certainly knew everything else.
"Shall we go to Greece then, Robert? Let us, if
you like it! When we have used a little the charm of your Italy .. & have
been in England just to see that everybody is well, of yours & mine, .. (if
you like that!) .. why straightway we can go 'among the islands'—(and
nearly as pleasant, it will be for me, as if I went there alone, having
left you!). I should like to see Athens with my living eyes: Athens was in all
the dreams I dreamed, before I knew you. Why should we not see Athens, &
Ægypt too, & float down the mystical Nile, & stand in the shadow of the
Pyramids? All of it is more possible now, than walking up this street
seemed to me last year–"
It is passages like this and her description of her time with Boyd and at Finchley that make me want to read the next letter to see Browning's reaction. Poor Browning. How can he stand reading her dreary letters? Such forbearance!
"Indeed, there is only one miracle for me my beloved,—& that is
your loving me. Everything else under the sun, & much over it, seems the
merest commonplace & workday matter-of-fact. If I found myself, suddenly,
riding in Paradise, on a white elephant of golden feet, .. I should shake the
bridle, I fancy, with ever so much nonchalance, & absently wonder over “that
miracle” of the previous world. Because 'That’s for thoughts', as my flower says!
look at it & listen. As for me, I am your very own–"
That is a wonderfully visual image. Like pulling down the shades of your carriage as you ride through the Alps because they you are so sated. Ho hum...
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