May 20, 1846 marks the first anniversary of the momentous meeting between our two poets but they have done with speech making for the most part and are back to business as usual. Browning begins by making just a short, humble speech:
"My Ba, I can just kneel down to you and be kissed,--I cannot do more, nor speak, nor thank you--and I seem to have no more chance of getting new love to give you--, all is given,--so I have said before, and must keep saying now--all of me is your very own."
Next he explains that he and his sister ended up not going to the flower show due to the weather and that he is going to see Mr. Kenyon, who was then going to go see Miss Barrett, and he had to explain why he decided not to accompany Mr. Kenyon to see Miss Barrett after their meeting:
"...that, on second thought, I determined to forego..because it jeopardizes my Saturday, which will be worth so many, many such visits,--does it not? There is no precedent in our golden year for three visits taking place in a single week--not even in that end of October when all the doubt was about the voyage..how I remember!
I shall be more with you than if in the presence of people before whom I may not say 'Miss Barrett' with impunity while professing to talk of Miss..I forgot who! But 'more with you' I who am always with you! Always with you in spirit, always yearning to be with you in the body,--always, when with you, praying as for the happiest of fortunes, that I may remain with you forever. So may it be, prays you own, own R."
Here he is remembering the time he was at a dinner party telling a story to a group and accidental said "Miss Barrett..um..I mean...." Oh dear. She talks in her sleep and he dreams when he is awake. How are these guys going to keep this secret? She responds:
"Was it wrong of me that never did I once think of the possibility of your coming here with Mr. Kenyon? Never once had I the thought of it. If I had, I should have put it away by saying aloud 'Don't come;' because as you say, it would have prevented saturday's coming, the coming today would,..& also, as you do not say, it would have been infinitely hard for me to meet you & Mr. Kenyon in one battalion. Oh no, no! The gods forefend that you should come in that way! It was bad enough as it was, to day, when, while he sate here his ten minutes (first showing me a sonnet from America, which began 'Daughters of Grecian Genius!') he turned those horrible spectacles full on me & asked, 'Does Mrs. Jameson know that Mr. Browning come here?' 'No,' said I,--suddenly abashed, though I had borne the sonnet like a hero. 'Well, then ! I advise you to give directions to he servants that when she or anyone asks for you, they should not say Mr. Browning is with you,--as they said the other day to Miss Bayley who told me of it.' Now wasn't that pleasant to hear? I thanked him for his advice, & felt as uncomfortable as was well possible--& am, at this moment, a little in doubt how he was thinking while he spoke. Perhaps after the fashion of my sisters, when they cry out 'Such a state of things never was heard of before!'....
Such a day, today!--it was finer last year I remember ! & tuesday, instead of wednesday !...Dearest, how are you? Never now will you condescend to say how you are. Which is not to be allowed in this second year of our reign. I am very well. Yesterday I heard some delightful matrimonial details of an 'establishment' in Regent's Park, quite like an old pastoral in the quickness of the repartee. 'I hate you'--'I abhor you'--'I never liked you'--'I always detested you.' A cup & saucer thrown bodily, here, by the lady!--On which the gentleman upsets her, chair & all, flat on the floor. The witness, who is a friend of mine, gets frightened & begins to cry. She was invited to the house to be god mother the their child, & now she is pressed to stay longer to witness the articles of separation.
Oh, I suppose such things are common enough!--But what is remarkable here, is the fact that neither party is a poet, by the remotest courtesy."
What an absolute hoot. First the servants are telling random callers who is in the house and then a tragic tale of love gone wrong. Definitely a red letter day for Miss Barrett. Just imagine if Browning had come with Mr. Kenyon, that truly would have been a comedy of errors. The cat, most surely, would have been out of the bag.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
May 19
On May 19, 1846 our poets were on the eve of the anniversary commemorating their first meeting. They had to plan ahead so that the posts got across London by the 20th. They had their regularly scheduled meeting the previous day and as usual continue the verbal in the written. They will not meet on the 20th this year because Browning is to accompany his sister to a flower show. We will begin with Miss Barrett who writes in the morning:
"...There is only one thing I can do as I ought, & it is to love you: & the more I live, not 'the less' but the more I am able to love you--believe it of me. And for the less,..we never will return to that foolish subject,..but for the 'less' you spoke of when you said 'you do not love me less?'...why I thought at the moment & feel now, that it would be too late, as I am, ever, upon any possible ground, to love you less--If you loved me less..even!--or (to leave that) if you were to come to me and say that you had murdered a man-----why I may imagine such things, you know,--but I can not imagine the possibility of my loving you less, as a consequence of your failing so!--I am yours in the deepest of my affections:---not unreasonably, certainly, as I see you & know you--but if it were to turn unreasonable..I mean, if you took away the appearance of reasonableness..still I should be yours in the deepest of my affections...it is too late for a difference there.
...How I shall think of you tomorrow! And if it should be fine, I may drive in the park near the gardens..take my sisters to the gate of the gardens, & feel that you are inside! That will be something, if it is feasible. And if it is fine or not, and if I go out or not, I shall remember our first day, the only day of my life which God blessed visibly to me, the only day undimmed with a cloud..my great compensation-day, which is was worth while being born for!
She is almost Browning-like in her struggle to get her thoughts on paper. Her musing that she could imagine Browning murdering someone made me think of their great argument about duelling. She seems to have struggled with the idea that she could love someone who has done great evil. It appears that she has reconciled with the idea of this great love, which loves the sinner the more as they struggle to do right. She is careful to say that she does not see him in this 'unreasonable' mode of 'failing' to do right, but she is taking a leap of faith with this man. He himself has told her that she does not know him, that Kenyon does not know him and after their argument about duelling, which he backed down from, she obviously has had some doubts about his position on moral issues. This is not a shallow woman who has simply fallen into love on a whim. She has deep moral convictions which she is working through every day of this courtship.
Browning, who is usually the one who struggles to get his ideas across, works to keep it simple today:
"With this day expires the first year since you have been yourself to me--putting aside the anticipations, and prognostications, and even assurances from all reasons short of absolute sight and hearing,--excluding the five or six months of these, there remains a year of this intimacy: you accuse me of talking extravagantly sometimes. I will be quiet here,--is the tone too subdued if I say such a life--made up of such years--I would deliberately take rather than any other imaginable one in which fame and worldly prosperity and the love of the whole human race should combine, excluding 'that of yours--to which I hearken'--only wishing the rest were there for a moment that you might see and know that I did turn from them to you. My dearest, inexpressibly dearest. How can I thank you? I feel sure you need not have been so kind to me, so perfectly kind and good,--I should have remained your own, gratefully, entirely your own, thro' the bare permission to love you, or even without it,--seeing that I never dreamed of stipulating at the beginning for 'a return,' and 'reward,'--but I also believe, joyfully, that no course but the course you have taken could have raised me above my very self, as I feel on looking back,--I began by loving you in comparison with all the world,--now I love you, my Ba, in the face of your past self, as I remember it.....All words are foolish--but I kiss your feet and offer you my heart and soul, dearest, dearest Ba."
No, the tone is not too subdued, to turn from "the love of the whole human race" to only Miss Barrett. It's wonderfully extravagant that he would reject all of the world for her. Imagine how our sensitive Miss Barrett will struggle with these words.
Miss Barrett writes again in the evening after receiving Browning's letter:
"Do you remember how, when poor Abou Hassan, in the Arabian story, awakens from sleep in the Sultan's chamber, to the sound of instruments of music, & is presently complimented by the grand vizier on the royal wisdom displayed throughout his reign...do you remember? Because just as he listened, do I listen, when you talk to me about 'the course I have taken'...I, who have just had the wit to sit still in my chair with my eyes half shut, & dream...dream!--Ah, whether I am asleep or awake, what do I know..even know?--As to the 'course I have taken,' it has been somewhere among the stars..or under the trees of the Hesperides, at lowest."
Ah, but the truth is that while it has been Browning who has pressed the suit it is she who has made the decisions to let him succeed. It has all been totally up to her. Her course was decided when she chose to allow him to visit her and she chose to to reject her father's authority over her personal decisions. So, while she may feel that she did nothing, she did all. She may have simply sate in her chair but all the thinking was the doing. At any time she could have rejected Browning, for any reason, and he would have had no course but to have accepted her decision. It is also probable that Browning may well have been attracted by her resistance, her shyness and her lack of guile. But she does not see this. Or she simply sees this as part of a miracle:
"Why how can I write to you such foolishness? Rather I should be serious, grave, & keep away from myths & images, & speak the truth plainly. And speaking the truth plainly, I, when I look back, dearest beloved, see that you have done for me everything, instead of my doing anything for you--that you have lifted me...Can I speak?--Heavens!--how I had different thoughts of you & of myself & of the world & of life, last year at this hour! The spirits who look backward over the grave, cannot feel much otherwise from my feeling as I look back. As to your thanking me, that is monstrous, it seems to me. It is the action of your own heart alone, which has appeared to do you any good. For myself, if I do not spoil your life, it is the nearest to deserving thanks that I can come. Think what I was when you saw me first...laid there on the sofa as an object of merest compassion! & of a sadder spirit than even the face showed!..& then think of all your generosity & persistence in goodness. Think of it!--shall I ever cease? Not while the heart beats which beats for you."
Next she touches on the 'missing' letter. After their first meeting Browning wrote a declaration of love which she rejected with the threat that if her persisted she would not see him again. She sent it back and told him to burn it. He did. Now she refers back to that time:
"And now as the year has rounded itself to 'the perfect round,' I will speak of that first letter, about which so many words were,..just to say, this time that I am glad now, yes, glad,..as we were to have a miracle,..to have it so, a born-miracle from the beginning. I feel glad, now, that nothing was between the knowing & the loving..& that the beloved eyes were never cold discerners & analyzers of me at any time. I am glad & grateful to you, my own altogether dearest!--Yet the letter was read in pain & agitation, & you have scarely guessed how much. I could not sleep night after night,--could not, & my fear was at nights, lest the feverishness should make me talk deliriously & tell the secret aloud. Judge if the deeps of my heart were not shaken. From the first you had that power over me, not withstanding those convictions which I also had & which you know."
This paragraph is fascinating. Her more formal letter of this morning seems cold compared to this open and raw confession of her inner most thoughts. Looking back she feels that the spontaneousness of his passion after their first meeting proves the love. She is repeating her belief that his loving her for no reason ('I love you because I love you') was a more valid reason for love than to sit and gaze on her, analyze her and decide that he loved her because of her shoes.
"For it was not the character of the letter apart from you, which shook me,--I could prove that to you--I received & answered very calmly, with most absolute calmness, a letter of the kind last summer..knowing in respect to the writer of it, (just as I thought of you), that a moment's enthusiasm had carried him a good way past his discretion. I am sure that he was perfectly satisfied with my way of answering his letter..as I was myself. But you..you.. I could not escape so from you. You were stronger than I, from the beginning, & I felt the mastery in you by the first word & first look.
Dearest & most generous. No man was ever like you, I know! May God keep me from laying a blot on one day of yours!--on one hour!--& rather blot out mine!
For my life, it is yours, as this year has been yours. But how can it make you happy, such a thing as my life? There, I wonder still. It never made me happy, without you!"
This reference to a letter that she has written to reject another suitor is wonderful. I wonder who this suitor can be? Surely not the Rev. George Barrett Hunter! He would not so simply accept a letter of rejection. I wonder if Browning is curious after she has teazed him about his supposed girlfriend who rejected him due to his religious beliefs. How many suitors can this invalid poet have?
But again she ends her letter on a note of self rejection. She sees nothing worthy in herself, she is so beaten down with her own self-doubts. This woman, who has decided that she will love a man even if he chose to kill another human being, an act that she rejects as immoral and illogical, cannot understand how this same man can see anything worthy of love in a woman with such high moral feeling and God-like love. Her Christian ethic has failed her in this instance for she has failed to understand that Browning could love her, as she loves Browning and as God loves them both, with all her faults and failings. She has failed to comprehend this gift of love, but she does not reject it. God's gift was Browning's 'persistence' and 'mastery' which has won her over and she accepts the gift which God offered her to take; she had the faith to gave the final fiat, but not the insight to understand it.
"...There is only one thing I can do as I ought, & it is to love you: & the more I live, not 'the less' but the more I am able to love you--believe it of me. And for the less,..we never will return to that foolish subject,..but for the 'less' you spoke of when you said 'you do not love me less?'...why I thought at the moment & feel now, that it would be too late, as I am, ever, upon any possible ground, to love you less--If you loved me less..even!--or (to leave that) if you were to come to me and say that you had murdered a man-----why I may imagine such things, you know,--but I can not imagine the possibility of my loving you less, as a consequence of your failing so!--I am yours in the deepest of my affections:---not unreasonably, certainly, as I see you & know you--but if it were to turn unreasonable..I mean, if you took away the appearance of reasonableness..still I should be yours in the deepest of my affections...it is too late for a difference there.
...How I shall think of you tomorrow! And if it should be fine, I may drive in the park near the gardens..take my sisters to the gate of the gardens, & feel that you are inside! That will be something, if it is feasible. And if it is fine or not, and if I go out or not, I shall remember our first day, the only day of my life which God blessed visibly to me, the only day undimmed with a cloud..my great compensation-day, which is was worth while being born for!
She is almost Browning-like in her struggle to get her thoughts on paper. Her musing that she could imagine Browning murdering someone made me think of their great argument about duelling. She seems to have struggled with the idea that she could love someone who has done great evil. It appears that she has reconciled with the idea of this great love, which loves the sinner the more as they struggle to do right. She is careful to say that she does not see him in this 'unreasonable' mode of 'failing' to do right, but she is taking a leap of faith with this man. He himself has told her that she does not know him, that Kenyon does not know him and after their argument about duelling, which he backed down from, she obviously has had some doubts about his position on moral issues. This is not a shallow woman who has simply fallen into love on a whim. She has deep moral convictions which she is working through every day of this courtship.
Browning, who is usually the one who struggles to get his ideas across, works to keep it simple today:
"With this day expires the first year since you have been yourself to me--putting aside the anticipations, and prognostications, and even assurances from all reasons short of absolute sight and hearing,--excluding the five or six months of these, there remains a year of this intimacy: you accuse me of talking extravagantly sometimes. I will be quiet here,--is the tone too subdued if I say such a life--made up of such years--I would deliberately take rather than any other imaginable one in which fame and worldly prosperity and the love of the whole human race should combine, excluding 'that of yours--to which I hearken'--only wishing the rest were there for a moment that you might see and know that I did turn from them to you. My dearest, inexpressibly dearest. How can I thank you? I feel sure you need not have been so kind to me, so perfectly kind and good,--I should have remained your own, gratefully, entirely your own, thro' the bare permission to love you, or even without it,--seeing that I never dreamed of stipulating at the beginning for 'a return,' and 'reward,'--but I also believe, joyfully, that no course but the course you have taken could have raised me above my very self, as I feel on looking back,--I began by loving you in comparison with all the world,--now I love you, my Ba, in the face of your past self, as I remember it.....All words are foolish--but I kiss your feet and offer you my heart and soul, dearest, dearest Ba."
No, the tone is not too subdued, to turn from "the love of the whole human race" to only Miss Barrett. It's wonderfully extravagant that he would reject all of the world for her. Imagine how our sensitive Miss Barrett will struggle with these words.
Miss Barrett writes again in the evening after receiving Browning's letter:
"Do you remember how, when poor Abou Hassan, in the Arabian story, awakens from sleep in the Sultan's chamber, to the sound of instruments of music, & is presently complimented by the grand vizier on the royal wisdom displayed throughout his reign...do you remember? Because just as he listened, do I listen, when you talk to me about 'the course I have taken'...I, who have just had the wit to sit still in my chair with my eyes half shut, & dream...dream!--Ah, whether I am asleep or awake, what do I know..even know?--As to the 'course I have taken,' it has been somewhere among the stars..or under the trees of the Hesperides, at lowest."
Ah, but the truth is that while it has been Browning who has pressed the suit it is she who has made the decisions to let him succeed. It has all been totally up to her. Her course was decided when she chose to allow him to visit her and she chose to to reject her father's authority over her personal decisions. So, while she may feel that she did nothing, she did all. She may have simply sate in her chair but all the thinking was the doing. At any time she could have rejected Browning, for any reason, and he would have had no course but to have accepted her decision. It is also probable that Browning may well have been attracted by her resistance, her shyness and her lack of guile. But she does not see this. Or she simply sees this as part of a miracle:
"Why how can I write to you such foolishness? Rather I should be serious, grave, & keep away from myths & images, & speak the truth plainly. And speaking the truth plainly, I, when I look back, dearest beloved, see that you have done for me everything, instead of my doing anything for you--that you have lifted me...Can I speak?--Heavens!--how I had different thoughts of you & of myself & of the world & of life, last year at this hour! The spirits who look backward over the grave, cannot feel much otherwise from my feeling as I look back. As to your thanking me, that is monstrous, it seems to me. It is the action of your own heart alone, which has appeared to do you any good. For myself, if I do not spoil your life, it is the nearest to deserving thanks that I can come. Think what I was when you saw me first...laid there on the sofa as an object of merest compassion! & of a sadder spirit than even the face showed!..& then think of all your generosity & persistence in goodness. Think of it!--shall I ever cease? Not while the heart beats which beats for you."
Next she touches on the 'missing' letter. After their first meeting Browning wrote a declaration of love which she rejected with the threat that if her persisted she would not see him again. She sent it back and told him to burn it. He did. Now she refers back to that time:
"And now as the year has rounded itself to 'the perfect round,' I will speak of that first letter, about which so many words were,..just to say, this time that I am glad now, yes, glad,..as we were to have a miracle,..to have it so, a born-miracle from the beginning. I feel glad, now, that nothing was between the knowing & the loving..& that the beloved eyes were never cold discerners & analyzers of me at any time. I am glad & grateful to you, my own altogether dearest!--Yet the letter was read in pain & agitation, & you have scarely guessed how much. I could not sleep night after night,--could not, & my fear was at nights, lest the feverishness should make me talk deliriously & tell the secret aloud. Judge if the deeps of my heart were not shaken. From the first you had that power over me, not withstanding those convictions which I also had & which you know."
This paragraph is fascinating. Her more formal letter of this morning seems cold compared to this open and raw confession of her inner most thoughts. Looking back she feels that the spontaneousness of his passion after their first meeting proves the love. She is repeating her belief that his loving her for no reason ('I love you because I love you') was a more valid reason for love than to sit and gaze on her, analyze her and decide that he loved her because of her shoes.
"For it was not the character of the letter apart from you, which shook me,--I could prove that to you--I received & answered very calmly, with most absolute calmness, a letter of the kind last summer..knowing in respect to the writer of it, (just as I thought of you), that a moment's enthusiasm had carried him a good way past his discretion. I am sure that he was perfectly satisfied with my way of answering his letter..as I was myself. But you..you.. I could not escape so from you. You were stronger than I, from the beginning, & I felt the mastery in you by the first word & first look.
Dearest & most generous. No man was ever like you, I know! May God keep me from laying a blot on one day of yours!--on one hour!--& rather blot out mine!
For my life, it is yours, as this year has been yours. But how can it make you happy, such a thing as my life? There, I wonder still. It never made me happy, without you!"
This reference to a letter that she has written to reject another suitor is wonderful. I wonder who this suitor can be? Surely not the Rev. George Barrett Hunter! He would not so simply accept a letter of rejection. I wonder if Browning is curious after she has teazed him about his supposed girlfriend who rejected him due to his religious beliefs. How many suitors can this invalid poet have?
But again she ends her letter on a note of self rejection. She sees nothing worthy in herself, she is so beaten down with her own self-doubts. This woman, who has decided that she will love a man even if he chose to kill another human being, an act that she rejects as immoral and illogical, cannot understand how this same man can see anything worthy of love in a woman with such high moral feeling and God-like love. Her Christian ethic has failed her in this instance for she has failed to understand that Browning could love her, as she loves Browning and as God loves them both, with all her faults and failings. She has failed to comprehend this gift of love, but she does not reject it. God's gift was Browning's 'persistence' and 'mastery' which has won her over and she accepts the gift which God offered her to take; she had the faith to gave the final fiat, but not the insight to understand it.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
May 17
May 17, 1845 brought a letter from Browning wherein he pokes the pin on the writhing Miss Barrett, taunting her about her mistrust of him. Smart fellow that he is, he recognizes that he found the right combination of words to force her to let him enter her physical world and here he plays it out:
"My friend is not 'mistrustful' of me, no, because she don't fear I shall make mainprize of the stray cloaks and umbrellas down-stairs, or turn an article for Colburn's on her sayings and doings up-stairs,—but spite of that, she does mistrust ... so mistrust my common sense,—nay, uncommon and dramatic-poet's sense, if I am put on asserting it!—all which pieces of mistrust I could detect, and catch struggling, and pin to death in a moment, and put a label in, with name, genus and species, just like a horrible entomologist; only I won't, because the first visit of the Northwind will carry the whole tribe into the Red Sea—and those horns and tails and scalewings are best forgotten altogether. And now will I say a cutting thing and have done. Have I trusted my friend so,—or said even to myself, much less to her, she is even as—'Mr. Simpson' who desireth the honour of the acquaintance of Mr. B. whose admirable works have long been his, Simpson's, especial solace in private—and who accordingly is led to that personage by a mutual friend—Simpson blushing as only adorable ingenuousness can, and twisting the brim of his hat like a sailor giving evidence. Whereupon Mr. B. beginneth by remarking that the rooms are growing hot—or that he supposes Mr. S. has not heard if there will be another adjournment of the House to-night—whereupon Mr. S. looketh up all at once, brusheth the brim smooth again with his sleeve, and takes to his assurance once more, in something of a huff, and after staying his five minutes out for decency's sake, noddeth familiarly an adieu, and spinning round on his heel ejaculateth mentally—'Well, I did expect to see something different from that little yellow commonplace man ... and, now I come to think, there was some precious trash in that book of his'—Have I said 'so will Miss Barrett ejaculate?' "
As the kids say when a well placed verbal thrust has been delivered, "Boom!" He had fun delivering that particular 'cut'. I loveth all his 'eth's as he tells his Tudor tale. He has pinned his quarry so now he ends the letter leniently, as he should:
"Dear Miss Barrett, I thank you for the leave you give me, and for the infinite kindness of the way of giving it. I will call at 2 on Tuesday—not sooner, that you may have time to write should any adverse circumstances happen ... not that they need inconvenience you, because ... what I want particularly to tell you for now and hereafter—do not mind my coming in the least, but—should you be unwell, for instance,—just send or leave word, and I will come again, and again, and again—my time is of no importance, and I have acquaintances thick in the vicinity.
Now if I do not seem grateful enough to you, am I so much to blame? You see it is high time you saw me, for I have clearly written myself out!"
I like the prick about how his time is of 'no importance', and then he ends as light as a feather. Alright Miss Barrett, what have you for us today?
"I shall be ready on Tuesday I hope, but I hate and protest against your horrible 'entomology.' Beginning to explain, would thrust me lower and lower down the circles of some sort of an 'Inferno'; only with my dying breath I would maintain that I never could, consciously or unconsciously, mean to distrust you; or, the least in the world, to Simpsonize you. What I said, ... it was you that put it into my head to say it—for certainly, in my usual disinclination to receive visitors, such a feeling does not enter. There, now! There, I am a whole 'giro' lower! Now, you will say perhaps that I distrust you, and nobody else! So it is best to be silent, and bear all the 'cutting things' with resignation! that is certain.
Still I must really say, under this dreadful incubus-charge of Simpsonism, ... that you, who know everything, or at least make awful guesses at everything in one's feelings and motives, and profess to be able to pin them down in a book of classified inscriptions, ... should have been able to understand better, or misunderstand less, in a matter like this—Yes! I think so. I think you should have made out the case in some such way as it was in nature—viz. that you had lashed yourself up to an exorbitant wishing to see me, ... (you who could see, any day, people who are a hundredfold and to all social purposes, my superiors!) because I was unfortunate enough to be shut up in a room and silly enough to make a fuss about opening the door; and that I grew suddenly abashed by the consciousness of this. How different from a distrust of you! how different!
Ah—if, after this day, you ever see any interpretable sign of distrustfulness in me, you may be 'cutting' again, and I will not cry out. In the meantime here is a fact for your 'entomology.' I have not so much distrust, as will make a doubt, as will make a curiosity for next Tuesday. Not the simplest modification of curiosity enters into the state of feeling with which I wait for Tuesday:—and if you are angry to hear me say so, ... why, you are more unjust than ever.
(Let it be three instead of two—if the hour be as convenient to yourself.)
Before you come, try to forgive me for my 'infinite kindness' in the manner of consenting to see you. Is it 'the cruellest cut of all' when you talk of infinite kindness, yet attribute such villainy to me? Well! but we are friends till Tuesday—and after perhaps.
This letter is a perfect example of Miss Barrett's wonderful sense of humor. This is one of the main reasons that I started this blog, I find her letters to be so amusing and I think people miss that when all they know of her is the Sonnet Sequence.
The visual she creates of her spiral journey down into hell as she attempts to defend herself of the charge of 'Simpsonism' is wonderful along with her accusation that he will charge her with mistrusting him, and only him, to make himself more aggrieved. Her use of the word 'incubus' is great fun. Then she taunts him right back, calling him out as a 'know it all'. She sifts through his words to find ammunition to fire back at him: wanting an explanation of how she can be so 'kind' when she is such a villain!
She throws in her own appraisal of the situation which perhaps was the truth of it: Browning was a bit obsessed with the idea of seeing her out of simple curiosity and perhaps as a kindness to an invalid. The fact that she made a big deal out of it made him more and more curious. He had been fed a lot of information about her by the admiring Mr. Kenyon and her letters to Browning were very affectionate, she never missed an opportunity to praise him. And so, this is the last letter before the meeting on May 20th. Oh, my friends, the sparkeths are going to flyeth. So enjoy your days of rest in 1845. We must wait a few days for 1845 to catch up. Join me again on May 19 in 1846.
"My friend is not 'mistrustful' of me, no, because she don't fear I shall make mainprize of the stray cloaks and umbrellas down-stairs, or turn an article for Colburn's on her sayings and doings up-stairs,—but spite of that, she does mistrust ... so mistrust my common sense,—nay, uncommon and dramatic-poet's sense, if I am put on asserting it!—all which pieces of mistrust I could detect, and catch struggling, and pin to death in a moment, and put a label in, with name, genus and species, just like a horrible entomologist; only I won't, because the first visit of the Northwind will carry the whole tribe into the Red Sea—and those horns and tails and scalewings are best forgotten altogether. And now will I say a cutting thing and have done. Have I trusted my friend so,—or said even to myself, much less to her, she is even as—'Mr. Simpson' who desireth the honour of the acquaintance of Mr. B. whose admirable works have long been his, Simpson's, especial solace in private—and who accordingly is led to that personage by a mutual friend—Simpson blushing as only adorable ingenuousness can, and twisting the brim of his hat like a sailor giving evidence. Whereupon Mr. B. beginneth by remarking that the rooms are growing hot—or that he supposes Mr. S. has not heard if there will be another adjournment of the House to-night—whereupon Mr. S. looketh up all at once, brusheth the brim smooth again with his sleeve, and takes to his assurance once more, in something of a huff, and after staying his five minutes out for decency's sake, noddeth familiarly an adieu, and spinning round on his heel ejaculateth mentally—'Well, I did expect to see something different from that little yellow commonplace man ... and, now I come to think, there was some precious trash in that book of his'—Have I said 'so will Miss Barrett ejaculate?' "
As the kids say when a well placed verbal thrust has been delivered, "Boom!" He had fun delivering that particular 'cut'. I loveth all his 'eth's as he tells his Tudor tale. He has pinned his quarry so now he ends the letter leniently, as he should:
"Dear Miss Barrett, I thank you for the leave you give me, and for the infinite kindness of the way of giving it. I will call at 2 on Tuesday—not sooner, that you may have time to write should any adverse circumstances happen ... not that they need inconvenience you, because ... what I want particularly to tell you for now and hereafter—do not mind my coming in the least, but—should you be unwell, for instance,—just send or leave word, and I will come again, and again, and again—my time is of no importance, and I have acquaintances thick in the vicinity.
Now if I do not seem grateful enough to you, am I so much to blame? You see it is high time you saw me, for I have clearly written myself out!"
I like the prick about how his time is of 'no importance', and then he ends as light as a feather. Alright Miss Barrett, what have you for us today?
"I shall be ready on Tuesday I hope, but I hate and protest against your horrible 'entomology.' Beginning to explain, would thrust me lower and lower down the circles of some sort of an 'Inferno'; only with my dying breath I would maintain that I never could, consciously or unconsciously, mean to distrust you; or, the least in the world, to Simpsonize you. What I said, ... it was you that put it into my head to say it—for certainly, in my usual disinclination to receive visitors, such a feeling does not enter. There, now! There, I am a whole 'giro' lower! Now, you will say perhaps that I distrust you, and nobody else! So it is best to be silent, and bear all the 'cutting things' with resignation! that is certain.
Still I must really say, under this dreadful incubus-charge of Simpsonism, ... that you, who know everything, or at least make awful guesses at everything in one's feelings and motives, and profess to be able to pin them down in a book of classified inscriptions, ... should have been able to understand better, or misunderstand less, in a matter like this—Yes! I think so. I think you should have made out the case in some such way as it was in nature—viz. that you had lashed yourself up to an exorbitant wishing to see me, ... (you who could see, any day, people who are a hundredfold and to all social purposes, my superiors!) because I was unfortunate enough to be shut up in a room and silly enough to make a fuss about opening the door; and that I grew suddenly abashed by the consciousness of this. How different from a distrust of you! how different!
Ah—if, after this day, you ever see any interpretable sign of distrustfulness in me, you may be 'cutting' again, and I will not cry out. In the meantime here is a fact for your 'entomology.' I have not so much distrust, as will make a doubt, as will make a curiosity for next Tuesday. Not the simplest modification of curiosity enters into the state of feeling with which I wait for Tuesday:—and if you are angry to hear me say so, ... why, you are more unjust than ever.
(Let it be three instead of two—if the hour be as convenient to yourself.)
Before you come, try to forgive me for my 'infinite kindness' in the manner of consenting to see you. Is it 'the cruellest cut of all' when you talk of infinite kindness, yet attribute such villainy to me? Well! but we are friends till Tuesday—and after perhaps.
This letter is a perfect example of Miss Barrett's wonderful sense of humor. This is one of the main reasons that I started this blog, I find her letters to be so amusing and I think people miss that when all they know of her is the Sonnet Sequence.
The visual she creates of her spiral journey down into hell as she attempts to defend herself of the charge of 'Simpsonism' is wonderful along with her accusation that he will charge her with mistrusting him, and only him, to make himself more aggrieved. Her use of the word 'incubus' is great fun. Then she taunts him right back, calling him out as a 'know it all'. She sifts through his words to find ammunition to fire back at him: wanting an explanation of how she can be so 'kind' when she is such a villain!
She throws in her own appraisal of the situation which perhaps was the truth of it: Browning was a bit obsessed with the idea of seeing her out of simple curiosity and perhaps as a kindness to an invalid. The fact that she made a big deal out of it made him more and more curious. He had been fed a lot of information about her by the admiring Mr. Kenyon and her letters to Browning were very affectionate, she never missed an opportunity to praise him. And so, this is the last letter before the meeting on May 20th. Oh, my friends, the sparkeths are going to flyeth. So enjoy your days of rest in 1845. We must wait a few days for 1845 to catch up. Join me again on May 19 in 1846.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
May 16
We have letters from two separate years to look at today. May 16, 1845 Miss Barrett is trying to defend herself from Browning's accusation that she is mistrustful of him and that is why she will not allow him to visit her. He has been gently applying pressure for months and it looks like he found the right combination of words to push her to consent:
"But how 'mistrustfulness'? And how 'that way?' What have I said or done, I, who am not apt to be mistrustful of anybody and should be a miraculous monster if I began with you! What can I have said, I say to myself again and again.
One thing, at any rate, I have done, 'that way' or this way! I have made what is vulgarly called a 'piece of work' about little; or seemed to make it. Forgive me. I am shy by nature:—and by position and experience, ... by having had my nerves shaken to excess, and by leading a life of such seclusion, ... by these things together and by others besides, I have appeared shy and ungrateful to you. Only not mistrustful. You could not mean to judge me so. Mistrustful people do not write as I write, surely! for wasn't it a Richelieu or Mazarin (or who?) who said that with five lines from anyone's hand, he could take off his head for a corollary? I think so.
Well!—but this is to prove that I am not mistrustful, and to say, that if you care to come to see me you can come; and that it is my gain (as I feel it to be) and not yours, whenever you do come. You will not talk of having come afterwards I know, because although I am 'fast bound' to see one or two persons this summer (besides yourself, whom I receive of choice and willingly) I cannot admit visitors in a general way—and putting the question of health quite aside, it would be unbecoming to lie here on the sofa and make a company-show of an infirmity, and hold a beggar's hat for sympathy. I should blame it in another woman—and the sense of it has had its weight with me sometimes."
She makes a good point about the openness of her letters. A penniless poet could certainly have made a profit by them if he had such an inclination, although there has been nothing in the letters to this point that could have ruined her socially other than her bluntly stated opinions of other writers.
"And if I write all this egotism, ... it is for shame; and because I feel ashamed of having made a fuss about what is not worth it; and because you are extravagant in caring so for a permission, which will be nothing to you afterwards. Not that I am not touched by your caring so at all! I am deeply touched now; and presently, ... I shall understand. Come then. There will be truth and simplicity for you in any case; and a friend. And do not answer this—I do not write it as a fly trap for compliments. Your spider would scorn me for it too much. Also, ... as to the how and when. You are not well now, and it cannot be good for you to do anything but be quiet and keep away that dreadful musical note in the head. I entreat you not to think of coming until that is all put to silence satisfactorily. When it is done, ... you must choose whether you would like best to come with Mr. Kenyon or to come alone—and if you would come alone, you must just tell me on what day, and I will see you on any day unless there should be an unforeseen obstacle, ... any day after two, or before six. And my sister will bring you up-stairs to me; and we will talk; or you will talk; and you will try to be indulgent, and like me as well as you can. If, on the other hand, you would rather come with Mr. Kenyon, you must wait, I imagine, till June,—because he goes away on Monday and is not likely immediately to return—no, on Saturday, to-morrow."
Ha! If she thinks Browning is going to wait until June she is living in a cloud. It is interesting that it was her being ashamed and embarrassed, embarrassed by her shyness, that made her finally give in. He calls her 'kind' a lot in his letters and she invariably denies this, but I think she was kind (kind to other people, rather hard on herself) as much as she hated the epithet.
Now, to jump ahead a year, May 16, 1846 brought Browning's response to the gossip from the long winded Miss Heaton that Browning had been engaged to another woman who had broken it off due to religious scruples but who was now married to another man:
"Then, dearest-dearest, do take Mrs. Jameson's advice-do take care of the results of this fatigue: why should you see any woman that pleases to ask to come? I am certain that some of the men you have refused to admit, would be more considerate--and Miss Heaton must be a kind of fool into the bargain with her inconsiderateness..tho' that is the folly's very self. As for her 'Yorkshire Tragedy,' I hold myself rather aggrieved by it-they used to get up better stories of Lord Byron--,and even I told you, anticipatingly, that I caused that first wife of mine to drown and hang herself..whereas, now, it turns out she did neither, but bade me do both..nay, was not my wife after all! I hope she told Miss Heaton the story in the presence of the husband who had no irreligious scruples. But enough of this pure nonsense...."
So, he took the humor path with a touch of faux high dudgeon and no denial. Well played, young Browning. In the mean time Miss Barrett seems to have forgotten the old girlfriend and writes a late night letter so that he will have something to hold him over the long Sunday. She is considering art:
"Mrs. Jameson..talked..her opinion of the present-age--'That the present age did not, could not, ought not, to express itself by Art,..though the next age would.' She is surprisingly wrong, it appears to me. There is no predominant character in the age, she says, to be so expressed!--there is no unity, to bear expression.
But art is surely, if art is anything, is the expression, not of the characteristics of the age except accidentally..essentially it is the expression of Humanity in the individual being--& unless we are men no longer, I cannot conceive how such an argument as hers can be upheld for a moment. Also it is exasperating to hear such things.
Then I do not believe, for one, that genius in the arts, is a mere reflection of the character of the times. Genius precedes surely, initiates. It is genius which gives an Age its character and imposes its own colour.....But I shall not write any more...."
This belief in the individuality of genius is a recurring theme for EBB. Later, she touches on this same idea when she argues against Socialism, seeing it as a destroyer of the individual genius who must have freedom to follow their particular path of development and must not be regimented by the needs of the state.
"But how 'mistrustfulness'? And how 'that way?' What have I said or done, I, who am not apt to be mistrustful of anybody and should be a miraculous monster if I began with you! What can I have said, I say to myself again and again.
One thing, at any rate, I have done, 'that way' or this way! I have made what is vulgarly called a 'piece of work' about little; or seemed to make it. Forgive me. I am shy by nature:—and by position and experience, ... by having had my nerves shaken to excess, and by leading a life of such seclusion, ... by these things together and by others besides, I have appeared shy and ungrateful to you. Only not mistrustful. You could not mean to judge me so. Mistrustful people do not write as I write, surely! for wasn't it a Richelieu or Mazarin (or who?) who said that with five lines from anyone's hand, he could take off his head for a corollary? I think so.
Well!—but this is to prove that I am not mistrustful, and to say, that if you care to come to see me you can come; and that it is my gain (as I feel it to be) and not yours, whenever you do come. You will not talk of having come afterwards I know, because although I am 'fast bound' to see one or two persons this summer (besides yourself, whom I receive of choice and willingly) I cannot admit visitors in a general way—and putting the question of health quite aside, it would be unbecoming to lie here on the sofa and make a company-show of an infirmity, and hold a beggar's hat for sympathy. I should blame it in another woman—and the sense of it has had its weight with me sometimes."
She makes a good point about the openness of her letters. A penniless poet could certainly have made a profit by them if he had such an inclination, although there has been nothing in the letters to this point that could have ruined her socially other than her bluntly stated opinions of other writers.
"And if I write all this egotism, ... it is for shame; and because I feel ashamed of having made a fuss about what is not worth it; and because you are extravagant in caring so for a permission, which will be nothing to you afterwards. Not that I am not touched by your caring so at all! I am deeply touched now; and presently, ... I shall understand. Come then. There will be truth and simplicity for you in any case; and a friend. And do not answer this—I do not write it as a fly trap for compliments. Your spider would scorn me for it too much. Also, ... as to the how and when. You are not well now, and it cannot be good for you to do anything but be quiet and keep away that dreadful musical note in the head. I entreat you not to think of coming until that is all put to silence satisfactorily. When it is done, ... you must choose whether you would like best to come with Mr. Kenyon or to come alone—and if you would come alone, you must just tell me on what day, and I will see you on any day unless there should be an unforeseen obstacle, ... any day after two, or before six. And my sister will bring you up-stairs to me; and we will talk; or you will talk; and you will try to be indulgent, and like me as well as you can. If, on the other hand, you would rather come with Mr. Kenyon, you must wait, I imagine, till June,—because he goes away on Monday and is not likely immediately to return—no, on Saturday, to-morrow."
Ha! If she thinks Browning is going to wait until June she is living in a cloud. It is interesting that it was her being ashamed and embarrassed, embarrassed by her shyness, that made her finally give in. He calls her 'kind' a lot in his letters and she invariably denies this, but I think she was kind (kind to other people, rather hard on herself) as much as she hated the epithet.
Now, to jump ahead a year, May 16, 1846 brought Browning's response to the gossip from the long winded Miss Heaton that Browning had been engaged to another woman who had broken it off due to religious scruples but who was now married to another man:
"Then, dearest-dearest, do take Mrs. Jameson's advice-do take care of the results of this fatigue: why should you see any woman that pleases to ask to come? I am certain that some of the men you have refused to admit, would be more considerate--and Miss Heaton must be a kind of fool into the bargain with her inconsiderateness..tho' that is the folly's very self. As for her 'Yorkshire Tragedy,' I hold myself rather aggrieved by it-they used to get up better stories of Lord Byron--,and even I told you, anticipatingly, that I caused that first wife of mine to drown and hang herself..whereas, now, it turns out she did neither, but bade me do both..nay, was not my wife after all! I hope she told Miss Heaton the story in the presence of the husband who had no irreligious scruples. But enough of this pure nonsense...."
So, he took the humor path with a touch of faux high dudgeon and no denial. Well played, young Browning. In the mean time Miss Barrett seems to have forgotten the old girlfriend and writes a late night letter so that he will have something to hold him over the long Sunday. She is considering art:
"Mrs. Jameson..talked..her opinion of the present-age--'That the present age did not, could not, ought not, to express itself by Art,..though the next age would.' She is surprisingly wrong, it appears to me. There is no predominant character in the age, she says, to be so expressed!--there is no unity, to bear expression.
But art is surely, if art is anything, is the expression, not of the characteristics of the age except accidentally..essentially it is the expression of Humanity in the individual being--& unless we are men no longer, I cannot conceive how such an argument as hers can be upheld for a moment. Also it is exasperating to hear such things.
Then I do not believe, for one, that genius in the arts, is a mere reflection of the character of the times. Genius precedes surely, initiates. It is genius which gives an Age its character and imposes its own colour.....But I shall not write any more...."
This belief in the individuality of genius is a recurring theme for EBB. Later, she touches on this same idea when she argues against Socialism, seeing it as a destroyer of the individual genius who must have freedom to follow their particular path of development and must not be regimented by the needs of the state.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
May 15
There were three letters on May 15, 1846. Miss Barrett begins with a followup on their meeting the previous day:
"The treader on you footsteps was Miss Bailey, who left a card & 'would come another day.' She must have seen you...One of these days, 'scirocco' will be 'loose'--we may as well be prepared for it. To keep it off as long as possible is all that can be. But when it comes it will not uproot my palmtrees, I think, though it should throw flat the olives.
Papa brought me some flowers yesterday when he came home..& they went a little to my heart as I took them. I put them into glasses near yours, & they look faded this morning nevertheless, while your roses, for all your cruelty to them, are luxuriant in beauty as if they had just finished steeping themselves in garden-dew. I look gravely from one set of flowers to the other--I cannot draw a glad omen--I wish he had not given me these. Dearest, there seems little kindness in teazing you with such thoughts..but they come & I write them: and let them come ever so sadly, I do not for a moment doubt, hesitate. One may falter, where one does not fail. And for the rest,..it is my fault, and not my sorrow rather, that we act so? It is by choice that we act so? If he had let me I should have loved him out of a heart altogether open to him--It is not my fault that he would not let me. Now it is too late--I am not his nor my own, any more-"
Miss Barrett seems resolute but a bit melancholy. Browning refers to their meeting the previous day as well:
"...Did you not think me intolerable yesterday with my yawning and other signs of fatigue you noticed? Well now--I do think a little is said by all that: might one not like or even love..just short of true love,--so long as the spirits were buoyant and the mind cheerful,--and when the contrary befell, some change might appear, surely!.."
But the real excitement comes in the third letter of the day, from Miss Barrett, written in the evening:
"Not even do you yawn in vain then, O you!--And this, then is what Cicero called 'oscitans sapientis [yawning wisdom]? The argument of the yawn ought in fact, to be conclusive--! But, dearest, if it was intolerable to see you yawn yesterday, still less supportable was it to-day when I had all the yawning to myself, & proved nothing by it. Tired I am beyond your conceiving of..tired!--You saw how I broke off in my letter to you this morning. Well--that was Miss Heaton, who came yesterday & left the packet you saw, & came again today & sate here exactly three hours. Now imagine that! Three hours of incessant talking!--At the end I was blanched, as everyone could see, & Mrs. Jameson who came afterwards for five minutes & was too unwell herself to stay, seriously exhorted me not to exert myself too much lest I should pay the penalty. And I had not been down stairs even--only been ground down in the talking-mill. Arabel told her too, before she came up-stairs, that I was expecting a friend--"Oh"..said she to me, "I shall go away directly anyone comes." And again presently.."Pray tell me when I ought to go away"!--(As if I could say Go. She deserved it, but I couldn't!) And then.."How good of you to let me sit here & talk!" So good of me , when I was wishing her..only at Leeds in the High Street, between a dissenter & a churchman--anywhere but opposite to my eyes!...it is awful how some women can talk! Happily she leaves London tomorrow morning, & will not be here again till next year, if then."
Now here comes the dreadfully dramatic part:
"She talked biography too...ah, I did not mean to tell you-but it is better to tell you at once and have done..only she desired me not to mention it..only she little knew what she was doing!--You will not mention it. She told me that 'her informant about Mr. Browning,..was a lady to whom he had been engaged..that there had bee a very strong attachment on both sides, but that everything was broken off by her on the ground of religious differences--that it happened years ago & that the lady was married.' At first I exclaimed imprudently enough (but how could it be otherwise?) that it could not be true--but I caught at the bridal in a minute or two & let her have it her way. Do not answer this--it is nonsense, I know--but it helped to tire me with the rest. Wasn't it a delightful day for me? At the end of three hours she threw her arms around me & kissed me some half dozen times & wished me 'goodbye' till next year. Wilson found me standing in the middle of the room, looking as she said, 'like a ghost.' And no wonder! The 'vile' wind out of doors has nothing to do with it."
Oh, dear. As much as she avows that it is 'nonsense' it wasn't the three hours of incessant talking that turned her into a virtual ghost. The thought of the 'New Cross Knight' having been engaged to another woman has obviously caught her off guard. Remember her talk of understanding jealousy but not understanding love and the visual she created of carrying a dagger around with her to stab her errant lover. Perhaps Miss Heaton should be glad that Miss Barrett was not armed, she might have taken it out on the messenger!
She tells Browning not to mention it twice, but how can he not address it? This is the hard part for him: make a jest of it or address it seriously. We haven't had this much drama in the letters since the dueling argument. Good gracious! What if he admits that it is true? Will Miss Barrett stand by her poet?
"The treader on you footsteps was Miss Bailey, who left a card & 'would come another day.' She must have seen you...One of these days, 'scirocco' will be 'loose'--we may as well be prepared for it. To keep it off as long as possible is all that can be. But when it comes it will not uproot my palmtrees, I think, though it should throw flat the olives.
Papa brought me some flowers yesterday when he came home..& they went a little to my heart as I took them. I put them into glasses near yours, & they look faded this morning nevertheless, while your roses, for all your cruelty to them, are luxuriant in beauty as if they had just finished steeping themselves in garden-dew. I look gravely from one set of flowers to the other--I cannot draw a glad omen--I wish he had not given me these. Dearest, there seems little kindness in teazing you with such thoughts..but they come & I write them: and let them come ever so sadly, I do not for a moment doubt, hesitate. One may falter, where one does not fail. And for the rest,..it is my fault, and not my sorrow rather, that we act so? It is by choice that we act so? If he had let me I should have loved him out of a heart altogether open to him--It is not my fault that he would not let me. Now it is too late--I am not his nor my own, any more-"
Miss Barrett seems resolute but a bit melancholy. Browning refers to their meeting the previous day as well:
"...Did you not think me intolerable yesterday with my yawning and other signs of fatigue you noticed? Well now--I do think a little is said by all that: might one not like or even love..just short of true love,--so long as the spirits were buoyant and the mind cheerful,--and when the contrary befell, some change might appear, surely!.."
But the real excitement comes in the third letter of the day, from Miss Barrett, written in the evening:
"Not even do you yawn in vain then, O you!--And this, then is what Cicero called 'oscitans sapientis [yawning wisdom]? The argument of the yawn ought in fact, to be conclusive--! But, dearest, if it was intolerable to see you yawn yesterday, still less supportable was it to-day when I had all the yawning to myself, & proved nothing by it. Tired I am beyond your conceiving of..tired!--You saw how I broke off in my letter to you this morning. Well--that was Miss Heaton, who came yesterday & left the packet you saw, & came again today & sate here exactly three hours. Now imagine that! Three hours of incessant talking!--At the end I was blanched, as everyone could see, & Mrs. Jameson who came afterwards for five minutes & was too unwell herself to stay, seriously exhorted me not to exert myself too much lest I should pay the penalty. And I had not been down stairs even--only been ground down in the talking-mill. Arabel told her too, before she came up-stairs, that I was expecting a friend--"Oh"..said she to me, "I shall go away directly anyone comes." And again presently.."Pray tell me when I ought to go away"!--(As if I could say Go. She deserved it, but I couldn't!) And then.."How good of you to let me sit here & talk!" So good of me , when I was wishing her..only at Leeds in the High Street, between a dissenter & a churchman--anywhere but opposite to my eyes!...it is awful how some women can talk! Happily she leaves London tomorrow morning, & will not be here again till next year, if then."
Now here comes the dreadfully dramatic part:
"She talked biography too...ah, I did not mean to tell you-but it is better to tell you at once and have done..only she desired me not to mention it..only she little knew what she was doing!--You will not mention it. She told me that 'her informant about Mr. Browning,..was a lady to whom he had been engaged..that there had bee a very strong attachment on both sides, but that everything was broken off by her on the ground of religious differences--that it happened years ago & that the lady was married.' At first I exclaimed imprudently enough (but how could it be otherwise?) that it could not be true--but I caught at the bridal in a minute or two & let her have it her way. Do not answer this--it is nonsense, I know--but it helped to tire me with the rest. Wasn't it a delightful day for me? At the end of three hours she threw her arms around me & kissed me some half dozen times & wished me 'goodbye' till next year. Wilson found me standing in the middle of the room, looking as she said, 'like a ghost.' And no wonder! The 'vile' wind out of doors has nothing to do with it."
Oh, dear. As much as she avows that it is 'nonsense' it wasn't the three hours of incessant talking that turned her into a virtual ghost. The thought of the 'New Cross Knight' having been engaged to another woman has obviously caught her off guard. Remember her talk of understanding jealousy but not understanding love and the visual she created of carrying a dagger around with her to stab her errant lover. Perhaps Miss Heaton should be glad that Miss Barrett was not armed, she might have taken it out on the messenger!
She tells Browning not to mention it twice, but how can he not address it? This is the hard part for him: make a jest of it or address it seriously. We haven't had this much drama in the letters since the dueling argument. Good gracious! What if he admits that it is true? Will Miss Barrett stand by her poet?
Monday, May 14, 2012
May 14
May 14, 1843 brings a wonderful letter from Miss Barrett to Mr. Hugh Boyd, her Greek scholar friend, who objected to her description of some lines of verse he had penned as 'octosyllabic'. Miss Barrett corrects the record:
"My very dear Friend,—I hear with wonder from Arabel of your repudiation of my word 'octosyllabic' for the two lines in your controversial poem. Certainly, if you count the syllables on your fingers, there are ten syllables in each line: of that I am perfectly aware; but the lines are none the less belonging to the species of versification called octosyllabic. Do you not observe, my dearest Mr. Boyd, that the final accent and rhyme fall on the eighth syllable instead of the tenth, and that that single circumstance determines the class of verse—that they are in fact octosyllabic verses with triple rhymes?
Pope has double rhymes in his heroic verses, but how does he manage them? Why, he admits eleven syllables, throwing the final accent and rhyme on the tenth, thus:
Again, if there is a double rhyme to an octosyllabic verse, there are always nine syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable, thus:
Again, if there is a triple rhyme to an octosyllabic verse (precisely the present case) there must always be ten syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable; thus from 'Hudibras' again:
You will admit that these last couplets are precisely of the same structure as yours, and certainly they are octosyllabics, and made use of by Butler in an octosyllabic poem, whereas yours, to be rendered of the heroic structure, should run thus:
I have written a good deal about an oversight on your part of little consequence; but as you charged me with a mistake made in cold blood and under corrupt influences from Lake-mists, why I was determined to make the matter clear to you. And as to the influences, if I were guilty of this mistake, or of a thousand mistakes, Wordsworth would not be guilty in me. I think of him now, exactly as I thought of him during the first years of my friendship for you, only with an equal admiration. He was a great poet to me always, and always, while I have a soul for poetry, will be so; yet I said, and say in an under-voice, but steadfastly, that Coleridge was the grander genius. There is scarcely anything newer in my estimation of Wordsworth than in the colour of my eyes!
Perhaps I was wrong in saying 'a pun.' But I thought I apprehended a double sense in your application of the term 'Apostolical succession' to Oxford's 'breeding' and 'hatching,' words which imply succession in a way unecclesiastical.
After all which quarrelling, I am delighted to have to talk of your coming nearer to me—within reach—almost within my reach. Now if I am able to go in a carriage at all this summer, it will be hard but that I manage to get across the park and serenade you in Greek under your window.
Your ever affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT."
Well, I don't know about you, but I certainly learned something. To use the modern parlance, she schooled Mr. Boyd on the true nature of his own clever rhymes. And her defense against the Lake-mist influences of Wordsworth was charming, ending well for Coleridge! I appreciate the fact that she stood up for herself and didn't back down or simply drop the matter. Woman liberated.
"My very dear Friend,—I hear with wonder from Arabel of your repudiation of my word 'octosyllabic' for the two lines in your controversial poem. Certainly, if you count the syllables on your fingers, there are ten syllables in each line: of that I am perfectly aware; but the lines are none the less belonging to the species of versification called octosyllabic. Do you not observe, my dearest Mr. Boyd, that the final accent and rhyme fall on the eighth syllable instead of the tenth, and that that single circumstance determines the class of verse—that they are in fact octosyllabic verses with triple rhymes?
Hatching succession apostolical,
With other falsehoods diabolical.
With other falsehoods diabolical.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow,
The rest is nought but leather and prunella.
The rest is nought but leather and prunella.
Compound for sins that we're inclined to,
By damning those we have no mind to.
('Hudibras.')By damning those we have no mind to.
Again, if there is a triple rhyme to an octosyllabic verse (precisely the present case) there must always be ten syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable; thus from 'Hudibras' again:
Then in their robes the penitentials
Are straight presented with credentials.
Remember how in arms and politics,
We still have worsted all your holy tricks.
Are straight presented with credentials.
Remember how in arms and politics,
We still have worsted all your holy tricks.
Hatching at ease succession apostolical,
With many other falsehoods diabolical.
With many other falsehoods diabolical.
Perhaps I was wrong in saying 'a pun.' But I thought I apprehended a double sense in your application of the term 'Apostolical succession' to Oxford's 'breeding' and 'hatching,' words which imply succession in a way unecclesiastical.
After all which quarrelling, I am delighted to have to talk of your coming nearer to me—within reach—almost within my reach. Now if I am able to go in a carriage at all this summer, it will be hard but that I manage to get across the park and serenade you in Greek under your window.
Your ever affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT."
Well, I don't know about you, but I certainly learned something. To use the modern parlance, she schooled Mr. Boyd on the true nature of his own clever rhymes. And her defense against the Lake-mist influences of Wordsworth was charming, ending well for Coleridge! I appreciate the fact that she stood up for herself and didn't back down or simply drop the matter. Woman liberated.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
May 13
May 13, 1845 is leading into our poets' first meeting on May 20. They have been corresponding since January 10, 1845 when Browning sent the first letter. He has been fishing about for his invitation to visit her and she has been putting it off due to the weather and her health. Today, it looks like he has hit upon a strategy that will bear fruit:
" 'If you ask me, I must ask myself'—that is, when I am to see you—I will never ask you! You do not know what I shall estimate that permission at,—nor do I, quite—but you do—do not you? know so much of me as to make my 'asking' worse than a form—I do not 'ask' you to write to me—not directly ask, at least.
I will tell you—I ask you not to see me so long as you are unwell, or mistrustful of—
No, no, that is being too grand! Do see me when you can, and let me not be only writing myself yours, R.B."
'Mistrustful' is the key to opening the door at 50 Wimpole Street. He immediately withdraws the word, but it is in the ether between them. He has tried all manner of words and flattery to push the door open but accusing Miss Barrett of unkindness via being mistrustful will bring the effect he has been searching for. What will be her response to this thrust? Will she attempt to parry or will she meet the challenge head on?
" 'If you ask me, I must ask myself'—that is, when I am to see you—I will never ask you! You do not know what I shall estimate that permission at,—nor do I, quite—but you do—do not you? know so much of me as to make my 'asking' worse than a form—I do not 'ask' you to write to me—not directly ask, at least.
I will tell you—I ask you not to see me so long as you are unwell, or mistrustful of—
No, no, that is being too grand! Do see me when you can, and let me not be only writing myself yours, R.B."
'Mistrustful' is the key to opening the door at 50 Wimpole Street. He immediately withdraws the word, but it is in the ether between them. He has tried all manner of words and flattery to push the door open but accusing Miss Barrett of unkindness via being mistrustful will bring the effect he has been searching for. What will be her response to this thrust? Will she attempt to parry or will she meet the challenge head on?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)