July 7

For a change of pace, let us look at a letter written by Mrs. Browning to Mr. Kenyon describing the glories of Venice and travels in Europe. This letter was sent from Paris, after her first visit to Venice, 1851:

"Venice is quite exquisite; it wrapt me round with a spell at first sight, and I longed to live and die there—never to go away. The gondolas, and the glory they swim through, and the silence of the population, drifted over one's head across the bridges, and the fantastic architecture and the coffee-drinking and music in the Piazza San Marco, everything fitted into my lazy, idle nature and weakness of body, as if I had been born to the manner of it and to no other. Do you know I expected in Venice a dreary sort of desolation? Whereas there was nothing melancholy at all, only a soothing, lulling, rocking atmosphere which if Armida had lived in a city rather than in a garden would have suited her purpose. Indeed Taglioni seems to be resting her feet from dancing, there, with a peculiar zest, inasmuch as she has bought three or four of the most beautiful palaces. How could she do better? And one or two ex-kings and queens (of the more vulgar royalties) have wrapt themselves round with those shining waters to forget the purple—or dream of it, as the case may be. Robert and I led a true Venetian life, I assure you; we 'swam in gondolas' to the Lido and everywhere else, we went to a festa at Chioggia in the steamer (frightening Wilson by being kept out by the wind till two o'clock in the morning), we went to the opera and the play (at a shilling each, or not as much!), and we took coffee every evening on St. Mark's Piazza, to music and the stars. Altogether it would have been perfect, only what's perfect in the world? While I grew fat, Wilson grew thin, and Robert could not sleep at nights. The air was too relaxing or soft or something for them both, and poor Wilson declares that another month of Venice would have killed her outright. Certainly she looked dreadfully ill and could eat nothing. So I was forced to be glad to go away, out of pure humanity and sympathy, though I keep saying softly to myself ever since, 'What is there on earth like Venice?'
Then, we slept at Padua on St. Anthony's night (more's the pity for us: they made us pay sixteen zwanzigers for it!), and Robert and I, leaving Wiedeman at the inn, took a calèche and drove over to Arqua, which I had set my heart on seeing for Petrarch's sake. Did you ever see it, you? And didn't it move you, the sight of that little room where the great soul exhaled itself? Even Robert's man's eyes had tears in them as we stood there, and looked through the window at the green-peaked hills. And, do you know, I believe in 'the cat.'
Through Brescia we passed by moonlight (such a flood of white moonlight) and got into Milan in the morning. There we stayed two days, and I climbed to the topmost pinnacle of the cathedral; wonder at me! Indeed I was rather overtired, it must be confessed—three hundred and fifty steps—but the sight was worth everything, enough to light up one's memory for ever. How glorious that cathedral is! worthy almost of standing face to face with the snow Alps; and itself a sort of snow dream by an artist architect, taken asleep in a glacier! Then the Da Vinci Christ did not disappoint us, which is saying much. It is divine. And the Lombard school generally was delightful after Bologna and those soulless Caracci! I have even given up Guido, and Guercino too, since knowing more of them. Correggio, on the other hand, is sublime at Parma; he is wonderful! besides having the sense to make his little Christs and angels after the very likeness of my baby.
From Milan we moved to Como, steamed down to Menaggio (opposite to Bellaggio), took a calèche to Porlezza, and a boat to Lugano, another calèche to Bellinzona, left Wiedeman there, and, returning on our steps, steamed down and up again the Lago Maggiore, went from Bellinzona to Faido and slept, and crossed the Mount St. Gothard the next day, catching the Lucerne steamer at Fluellen. The scenery everywhere was most exquisite, but of the great pass I shall say nothing—it was like standing in the presence of God when He is terrible. The tears overflowed my eyes. I think I never saw the sublime before. Do you know I sate out in the coupé a part of the way with Robert so as to apprehend the whole sight better, with a thick shawl over my head, only letting out the eyes to see. They told us there was more snow than is customary at this time of year, and it well might be so, for the passage through it, cut for the carriage, left the snow-walls nodding over us at a great height on each side, and the cold was intense.
Do you know we might yield the palm, and that Lucerne is far finer than any of our Italian lakes? Even Robert had to confess it at once. I wanted to stay in Switzerland, but we found it wiser to hasten our steps and come to Paris; so we came. Yes, and we travelled from Strasburg to Paris in four-and-twenty hours, night and day, never stopping except for a quarter of an hour's breakfast and half an hour's dinner. So afraid I was of the fatigue for Wiedeman! But between the unfinished railroad and the diligence, there's a complication of risks of losing places just now, and we were forced to go the whole way in a breath or to hazard being three or four days on the road. So we took the coupé and resigned ourselves, and poor little babe slept at night and laughed in the day, and came into Paris as fresh in spirit as if just alighted from the morning star, screaming out with delight at the shops! Think of that child! Upon the whole he has enjoyed our journey as much as any one of us, observing and admiring; though Robert and Wilson will have it that some of his admiration of the scenery we passed through was pureaffectation and acted out to copy ours. He cried out, clasping his hands, that the mountains were 'due'—meaning a great number. His love of beautiful buildings, of churches especially, no one can doubt about. When first he saw St. Mark's, he threw up his arms in wonder, and then, clasping them round Wilson's neck (she was carrying him), he kissed her in an ecstasy of joy. And that was after a long day's journey, when most other children would have been tired and fretful. But the sense of the beautiful is certainly very strong in him, little darling. He can't say the word 'church' yet, but when he sees one he begins to chant. Oh, he's a true Florentine in some things.
Well, now we are in Paris and have to forget the 'belle chiese;' we have beautiful shops instead, false teeth grinning at the corners of the streets, and disreputable prints, and fascinating hats and caps, and brilliant restaurants, and M. le Président in a cocked hat and with a train of cavalry, passing like a rocket along the boulevards to an occasional yell from the Red. Oh yes, and don't mistake me! for I like it all extremely, it's a splendid city—a city in the country, as Venice is a city in the sea. And I'm as much amused as Wiedeman, who stands in the street before the printshops (to Wilson's great discomfort) and roars at the lions. And I admire the bright green trees and gardens everywhere in the heart of the town. Surely it is a most beautiful city! And I like the restaurants more than is reasonable; dining à la carte, and mixing up one's dinner with heaps of newspapers, and the 'solution' by Emile de Girardin, who suggests that the next President should be a tailor. Moreover, we find apartments very cheap in comparison to what we feared, and we are in a comfortable quiet hotel, where it is possible, and not ruinous, to wait and look about one.
As to England—oh England—how I dread to think of it. We talk of going over for a short time, but have not decided when; yet it will be soon perhaps—it may. If it were not for my precious Arabel, I would not go; because Robert's family would come to him here, they say. But to give up Arabel is impossible. Henrietta is in Somersetshire; it is uncertain whether I shall see her, even in going, and she too might come to Paris this winter. And you will come—you promised, I think?...
I feel here near enough to England, that's the truth. I recoil from the bitterness of being nearer. Still, it must be thought of....
Mind, if ever I go to England I shall have no heart to go out of a very dark corner. I shall just see you and that's all. It's only Robert who is a patriot now, of us two. England, what with the past and the present, is a place of bitterness to me, bitter enough to turn all her seas round to wormwood! Airs and hearts, all are against me in England; yet don't let me be ungrateful. No love is forgotten or less prized, certainly not yours. Only I'm a citizeness of the world now, you see, and float loose.
God bless you, dearest Mr. Kenyon, prays
Your ever affectionate

Ba.

Well, I guess she liked travelling. Can it be possible that she climbed to the top of the Milan Cathedral and was not carried? Her health certainly seems at a peak. Her joy at being in the world and not simply reading about the world is evident in her descriptions of all the sights. She was certainly blessed that she did not suffer from motion sickness. And the fact that Browning allowed her to ride on the outside of the carriage through the Alps! Was he trying to kill her? They did not spare the horses in making the trip from Salzburg to Paris, about 225 miles, in 24 hours. Her reference to 'disreputable prints' is rather amusing. Paris is so naughty. Taken altogether, her good health, good weather and a two year old child who slept all night and laughed all day, this was a miracle of a trip. I wonder how shocked Kenyon was at her declaration that she was a 'citizeness of the world'? Wasn't she getting bold!

July 6

July 6, 1846 Browning begins with arranging their next meeting but then continues the discussion of the Haydon crisis:

When I read, after the reasons for not seeing you to-day, this—“still I leave it to you,”—believe, dearest, that I at once made the sacrifice and determined to wait till Wednesday,—as seemed best for you, and therefore for me: but at the letter’s very end, amid the sweetest, comes “Wednesday .. or must it be Thursday?”—what is that? what “must” is mine? Shall you fear, or, otherwise suffer, if we appoint Wednesday?

Oh, another year of this! yet I am not, I feel, ungrateful to the Past .. all the obstacles in the world can do nothing now,—nothing: earlier, they might have proved formidable annoyances. I have seen enough of you, Ba, for an eternity of belief in you .. and you,—as you confess, you cannot think “I shall forget”....

....this disinspiriting bequest of poor Haydon’s journal .. his “writings”—from which all the harm came, and, it should seem, is still to come to himself and everybody beside....it is part & parcel of the insanity—and to lay the business of editing the “twenty-six” (I think) volumes, with the responsibility, on you—most insane! Unless, which one would avoid supposing, the author trusted precisely to your ignorance of facts and isolation from the people able to instruct you...With an impartial prudent man, acquainted with the artists of the last thirty years, the editing might turn to profit: I do hope for an exercise of Mr Kenyon’s caution here, at all events– And then how horrible are all these posthumous revelations,—these passions of the now passionless, errors of the at length better-instructed! All falls unfitly, ungraciously– The triumphs or the despondencies, the hopes or fears, of—whom? He is so far above it all now! Even in this life,—imagine a proficient in an art or science—who, after thirty or sixty years of progressive discovery, finds that some bookseller has disinterred and is about publishing the raw first attempt at a work which he was guilty of in the outset!

This fear is a fear Browning himself truly felt for he tried, in vain, to hide his early poems from the world. He ends with a postscript:

"I am going to Talfourd’s tomorrow (to dine)—and perhaps to Chorley’s in the evening– If I can do any bidding of yours at Talfourd’s .. but that seems improbable,—with Mr Kenyon, too! But (this between our very selves) the Talfourds, or at least Mrs T., please to take one of their unimaginably stupid groundless dislikes to him."

That is an interesting piece of gossip. Miss Barrett responds:

"But I meant to “leave it to you”, not to come before wednesday but after wednesday, in case of some wednesday’s engagement coming to cross mine. “Ba’s old way” .. do you cry out! Perhaps– Only that an engagement is a possible thing always. Not meaning an engagement with Miss Campbell. I hope, hope, then, to be able to see you, dearest Robert, on wednesday. On wednesday, at last!–"

Oh dear, Miss Campbell again!

Ah—you use the right word for the other subject. If a bequest, it is indeed a “dispiriting bequest,” this of poor Haydon’s. But I hope to the last that he meant simply to point to me as the actual holder of the papers & certainly when he sent the great trunk here, it was with no intention of dying—; Mr Kenyon agreed with me to that effect– I showed him the notes which I had found & laid aside for you, & which you shall take with you on wednesday....Now I will tell you one thing which he told me in confidence, but which is at length perhaps in those papers—I tell you because you are myself, & will understand the need & obligation to silence—and I want you to understand besides how the twenty six volumes hang heavily on my thoughts--He told me in so many words that Mrs Norton had made advances towards him & that his children in sympathy towards their mother, had dashed into atoms the bust of the poetess as it stood in his painting room."

Now there is some juicy gossip! Those crazy poetesses, always making advances at men!

"If you can say anything safely for me at Mr Talfourd’s, of course I shall be glad––and Mr Kenyon will speak to Mr Forster, he said. I want to get back my letters too as soon as I can do it without disturbing anyone’s peace– What is in those letters, I cannot tell, so impulsively & foolishly, sometimes, I am apt to write,—& at that time through caring for nobody & feeling so loose to life, I threw away my thoughts without looking where they fell. Often my sisters have blamed me for writing in that wild way to strangers—& I should like to have the letters back before they shall have served to amuse two or three executors—but of this too, I spoke to Mr Kenyon."

Still it is not of me that we are called to think & I would not for the world refuse any last desire, if clearly signified, & if the power shd be with me. He was not a common man—he had in him the stuff of greatness, this poor Haydon had,—& we must consider reverently whatever rent garment he shall have left behind. Quite, in some respects, I think with you .. but your argument does appear to me to sweep out too far on one side, so that if you do not draw it back, Robert, you will efface all autobiography & confession .. tear out a page bent over by many learners—I mean when you say that because he is above (now), the passions & frailties he has recorded, we should put from us the record. True, he is above it all—true, he has done with the old Haydon,—like a man outgrowing his own childhood he will not spin this top any more. Oh, it is true– I feel it all just as you do. But, after all, a man outgrowing his childhood, may leave his top to children, & no one smile! This record is not for the angels, but for us, who are a little lower at highest. Three volumes perhaps may be taken from the twentysix full of character & interest, & not without melancholy teaching. Only some competent & sturdy hand should manage the selection,—as surely as mine is unfit for it. But where to seek discretion? delicacy?"

She is indeed a very wise, thoughtful woman. How delicately she disagrees with Browning, not in an argumentative way, but thoughtful and illustrative. The 'top' analogy is very fine.

"When I was a child I heard two married women talking. One said to the other .. “The most painful part of marriage is the first year, when the lover changes into the husband by slow degrees”. The other woman agreed, as a matter of fact is agreed to. I listened with my eyes & ears, & never forgot it .. as you observe– It seemed to me, child as I was, a dreadful thing to have a husband by such a process. Now, it seems to me more dreadful.

‘Si l’ame est immortelle

L’amour ne l’est il pas?’

[If the soul is immortal

 Is not love too?]

Beautiful verses—just to prove to you that I do not remember only the disagreeable things .. only to teaze you with, like so many undeserved reproaches– And you so good, so best– Ah—but it is that which frightens me! so far best!

You were foolish to begin to love me, you know, as always I told you my beloved!—but since you would begin, .. go on to do it as long as you can .. do not leave me in the wilderness.God bless you for me!–

I am your Ba.

Think if people were to get hold of that imputation on poor Mrs Norton—think!

She is still worried about getting married. She loves him but still fears that it will fade and they will end up in a loveless, conventional marriage. There is more to Miss Barrett than her poetry. I begin to suspect that her earlier threat that she would carry a dagger on her waist and stab her lover if he cheated on her might not have been a jest. 

The postscript reminder to Browning not to spread gossip about Mrs. Norton is a classic touch. If anyone spreads the gossip it will surely be Haydon's jealous children. I guess that never crossed her mind.

July 5

July 5, 1846 Miss Barrett returns to the subject of Haydon, who before killing himself in a most gruesome way, sent her his papers and tools:

I meant to write you a long letter today,—but first my aunt & cousin were here telling me all the statistics of Arabella Hedley’s marriage,—& then Mr Kenyon came, .. & on such a very different subject, his talk was, that he has left me quite depressed—. It appears that poor Mr Haydon, in a paper entering into his reasons for selfdestruction, says, that he has left his manuscripts to me, with a desire for me to arrange the terms of their publication with Longman. Of course it has affected me naturally .. such a proof of trust when he had so many friends wiser & stronger to look to—but I believe the reference to be simply to the fact of his having committed to my care all his private papers in a great trunk .. one of three which he sent here. Two years ago when we corresponded, he made me read a good part of his memoirs, which he thought of publishing at that time, .. & then he asked me (no, it was a year & a half ago) to speak about them to some bookseller .. to Longman, he said, I remember, then. I explained, in reply, how I had not any influence with any bookseller in the world,—advising him besides not to think of printing, without considerable modification, what I had read. In fact it was .. with much that was individual & interesting, .. as unfit as possible for the general reader—fervid & coarse at once, with personal references blood-dyed at every page—. At the last, I suppose, the idea came back to him of my name in conjunction with Longman’s– I cannot think that he meant me to do any editor’s work—for which (with whatever earnestness of will) I must be comparatively unfit, both as a woman & as personally & historically ignorant of the persons & times he writes of. I should not know how one reference would fall innocently, & another like a thunderbolt on surviving persons. I only know that without great modification, the memoirs should not appear at all .. that the scandal would be great if they did. At the same time you will feel with me, I am sure, you who always feel with me, that whatever is clearly set for me to do, I should not shrink from under these circumstances, whatever the unpleasantness may be, more or less, involved in the doing. But if Mr Serjt Talfourd is the executor .. is he not the obviously fit person––well!—there is no need to talk any more. Mr Kenyon is to try to see the paper. It was Mr Forster who came to tell him of this matter & to get him to communicate it to me. Poor Haydon!

Dearest, I long for you to come & bring me a little light. Tell me how you are—now tell me. Tell me too how your mother is....

My aunt’s presence here has seemed to throw me back suddenly & painfully into real life out of my dream-life with you--into the old dreary flats of real life. She does not know your name even—she sees in me just Ba who is not your Ba—& when she talks to me .. seeing me so .. I catch the reflection of the cold abstraction as she apprehends it, & feel myself for a moment a Ba who is not your Ba .. sliding back into the melancholy of it!– Do you understand the curious process I talk of so mistily? Do you understand that she makes me sorrowful with not talking of you while she talks to me? Everything, in fact, that divides us, I must suffer from—so I need not treat metaphysically of causes & causes .. splitting the thinner straws....

Robert!—how did you manage to write me the dear note from Mrs Jameson’s? how could you dare write & direct it before her eyes? What an audacity that was of yours. Oh—and how I regretted the missing you, as you proved it was a missing, by the letter! Twice to miss you on one day, seemed too much ill luck … even for me, I was going to write .. but that would have been a word of my old life, before I knew that I was born to the best fortune & happiest, which any woman could have, .. in being loved by you.

Dearest, do not leave off loving me– Do not forget me by wednesday. Shall it be wednesday? or must it be thursday? answer you."

This Haydon business has sent Miss Barrett into a funk. She has been riding high on the sea of love and unkempt reality has run her into rough waters. But Browning sends words of love to cheer her:

"You will have known by my two or three words, that I received your letter in time to set out for Mrs J’s—she said to me, directly and naturally, “you have missed a great pleasure”—and then, accounted for your absence. Do not be sorry, Ba, at my gladness .. for I was, I hope, glad .. yes, I am sure, glad that you ran no risk,—if you will not think of that, think of my risk if you had “fainted” .. should I have kept the secret, do you suppose? Oh, dearest of all dreamt of dearness,—incur no unnecessary danger now, at .. shall I dare trust,—the end of the adventure! I cannot fear for any mischances that may follow, once let my arms be round you .. I mean, the blow seems then to fall on both alike .. now, what dismal, obscure months might be prolonged between us, before we meet next, by a caprice where the power is! When have I been so long without the blessing of your sight! Yet how considerately you have written, what amends you make, all that the case admits of!

When you say these exquisitely dear and tender things, you know, Ba, it is as if the sweet hand were on my mouth. I cannot speak .. I try to seem as if I heard not, for all the joy of hearing .. you give me a jewel and I cannot repeat “yes, you do give me a jewel” .. I am not worthy of any gift, you must know, Ba,—never say you do not—but what you press on me, let me feel, and half-see, and in the end, carry away, but do not think I can, in set words, take them—at most, they are, and shall be, half-gift, half-loan for adornment’s sake,—mine to wear, yours to take back again. Even this, all this ungracefulness is proper, appropriate in its way. I am penetrated with shame thinking on what you say, and what my utmost devotion will deserve .. so infinitely less will it deserve! You are my very, very angel."

Receiving that letter in the evening surely will lift her out of her trough, at least until the next big wave hits the boat.

July 4

Browning has made it to Mrs. Jameson's and finds that Miss Barrett has been unable to come. So, her sits down and writes her a note:

"Dearest Ba,

I am at Mrs Jameson’s .. to hear you cannot come,—most properly .. She wants me to go and see an Exhibition, and I cannot refuse .. so this is my poor long letter (with kisses in the words,) that was to have been! But on Monday, dearest, dearest, I shall see you? All thanks for your letter .. I dare write no more, as there must be some difference in my way of writing to you from other ways.

Bless you, ever as I am ever yours–RB"

That is very bold. I wonder what he told Mrs. Jameson he was writing.

Miss Barrett is holed up in her room at Wimpole Street:

"....After all it was not possible for me to get to Mrs Jameson’s this morning .. not that I was unwell to signify, mind .. but unfit for the exertion .. & it would not have been agreeable to anybody if I had gone there & fainted. So here I am, the picture of helpless indolence, stretched out at full length between the chair & the high stool, thinking how you will not today sit on the low one, nor in your old own place by me——oh how I think, think, think of you, to make imperfect amends!– Are you disappointed .. you? I hope you are, & I fear you are. My generosity does not carry me through the hope of it to the end. I love your love too much. And that is the worst fault, my beloved, I ever can find in my love of you."

Miss Barrett then provides an interesting discourse on her fears of marriage:

"Let me pass the time a little, then, by confessing to you that what you said, some letters ago, about the character of our intercourse, in our present relation, being a sort of security for the future, .. that that did strike me as a true & reasonable observation as far as it goes. I think, at least, that if I were inclined to fear for my own happiness apart from yours, (which, as God knows, is a fear that never comes into my head) I should have sense to reason myself clear of it all by seeing in you none of the common rampant man-vices which tread down a woman’s peace .. & which begin the work often long before marriage. Oh, I understand perfectly, how as soon as ever a common man is sure of a woman’s affections, he takes up the tone of right & might .. & he will have it so .. & he wont have it so!.– I have heard of the bitterest tears being shed by the victim as soon as ever, by one word of hers, she had placed herself in his power. Of such, are ‘Lovers quarrels’ for the most part. The growth of power on one side .. & the struggle against it, by means legal & illegal, on the other. There are other causes, of course—but, for none of them, could it be possible for me to quarrel with you now or ever– Neither now nor ever do I look forward to the ordinary dangers—. What I have feared has been so different! May God bless you my own .. own! For my part, you have my leave to make me unhappy if you please. It only would be just that the happiness you have given, you should take away—it is yours, as I am yours."

This is truly fascinating. She does not want to go from one tyrant to another. There is more to her hesitation than mere fear that she will be nothing but a hindrance to him due to her illness. She does not want to get stuck in a 'normal' 19th century marriage. But she is a bit optimistic if she thinks they will never quarrel and a bit rampantly romantic to think that she will be happy to be made unhappy by him. We have already seen Browning's temper. Not directed towards her of course, but living together too closely can fray nerves, even for the most well suited people.

July 3

Too many visitors have caused the scheduled Friday meeting at Wimpole Street to be rescheduled for Saturday but they had a backup plan that they would meet at Mrs. Jameson's. But now, even this is not working out because Browning cannot get there in time:

"No, dear, dear Ba, I shall not see you to-day in spite of all the hoping and fancying .. for I could not, as I calculate, reach Mrs Jameson’s before 1. oclock or a little later .. and there would be the worst of vexations, to know you had been and gone again! I persuade myself you may not pay the visit to-day, .. (“it is improbable” you say) .. and that it may be paid next week, the week in which there is only one day for us .. how do you say, dearest? all complaining is vain--let tomorrow make haste and arrive!"

Browning also has to comment on Miss Barrett's report that she will mount her mule and go to Greece if she determines that Browning no longer loves her:

"Ba, there is nothing in your letter that shocks me,—nothing: if you choose to imagine that 'possibility', you are consistent in imagining the proper step to take .. it is all imagining: but I feel altogether as you feel about the horribleness of married friends, mutual esteemers &c– When your name sounds in my ear like any other name, your voice like other voices,—when we wisely cease to interfere with each other’s pursuits,—respect differences of taste &c &c all will be over then!

I cannot myself conceive of one respect in which I shall ever fall from this feeling for you .. there never has been one word, one gesture unprompted by the living, immediate love beneath—but there have been many, many, so many that the same love has suppressed, refused to be represented by! I say this, because I can suppose a man taking up a service of looks and words, which service is only to last for a time and so may be endured,—after which the “real affection”, “honest attachment” &c & means to go to its ends by a shorter road, saving useless ceremony and phrases .. do you know what I mean? I hardly do .. except that it is, whatever it is, opposed, as heaven to earth, to what I feel is, I count confidently on being more and more able to find the true words and ways (which may not be spoken words perhaps), the true rites by which you should be worshipped, you dear, dear Ba, my entire blessing now and ever—and ever; if God shall save me also."

What? Typical Browning. I try to figure out where he is going with these mental jaunts of his and in this case, the hour is late and I just haven't got a clue. But I do like that he is trying to find the proper rites to worship her by. I mean, who wouldn't?

Miss Barrett gets his letter and realizes that her Friday is lost:

"Oh! “tomorrow, make haste & arrive”. And what good will tomorrow do when it comes?

Dearest, with your letter tonight, I have a note from Mrs Jameson, who proposes that I should go to her just on this tomorrow, between twelve & one: she will wait for me till one & then go out. Moreover she leaves town on tuesday. Now I think I ought to try to be with her this time, therefore, on the hour she mentions, & I will try .. I mean to try. But as for seeing you even so, & for a moment, .. I understand that it scarcely is possible—no, not possible—you cannot have time, I think. Thinking which, understanding which, I shall yet, in spite of reason, listen for the footstep & the voice: certainly I shall not help doing that.

Our tomorrow!– How they have spoilt it for us! In revenge, I shall love you tomorrow twice as much, looking at my dead flowers. Twice as much!! “Ba, never talk extravagances.” Twice as much is a giant fifty feet high. It is foolish to be fabulous....May God bless you, dear, dear! Give me all my thoughts (those that belong to me) tomorrow. Poor disinherited tomorrow–....

And you are the best, best! When I speak lead, you answer gold. Because I “do not shock” you, you melt my heart away with joy."

But then Saturday is lost as well as a late letter from Miss Barrett reports:

"I am forced to say something now which you will not like & which I, for my part, hate to say—but you shall judge how impossible it is for me to see you tomorrow.

The visitors did not come last night; & as this morning we expected them hourly, the post brought a letter instead, to the effect that they were to arrive just on saturday .. leaving us to calculate the time of arrival between one p.m. to five or six. If at one, .. Papa will be in the house & likely to stay in it all day after .. which would be a complication of disadvantages for us: and if at three .. why even so, my aunt would ‘admire' a little the reason of my not seeing her at once, & there would be questions & answers à faire fremir.So dearest dearest, I must try to live, these two days more, without seeing you—& indeed it will be hard work—the very light of the sun tomorrow, let it be ever so bright a sun, will only reproach the day with what it ought to have been .. our day, instead of everybody’s day or nobody’s day, a poor, blank, dreary day. What, when the clock is at three, .. oh what will keep me, I wonder, from being sullen to my aunt & sulkey to my cousin? They will think me (if my ministering angel should not throw me some hallowing thought of you, best beloved!) considerably fallen off in the morale, however the improvement may be, of the bodily health– I shall be as cross, as cross .. well, if I am less than cross, you must be right after all, & I, “une femme miraculeuse [a miraculous woman]”without illusion!– It is too bad, too bad. The whole week—from monday to monday! And I do not positively fix even monday, though I hope for monday:—but monday may be taken from us just as saturday is—& the Hedleys are to come on tuesday .. only not to this house. I wish they were all at Seringabatam [India].

Do not mind it however. Yes, mind it a little, .. Robert, but not overmuch—because the day shall not be lost utterly .. I shall take care. I will be on the watch for half days when people go out to shop .. that solemn business of life, .. & we will have our lost day back again .. you will see. But I could not get to Mrs Jameson’s this morning, not being quite well enough. It is nothing as illness,—I tell you the truth, dear—& even now I feel better than I did in the early morning. It was only just enough to prevent my going. And if I had gone I should not have seen you—you would not go in time—you would not perhaps even have my letter in time. The stars are against us for the moment, it seems.

Write to me, think of me, love me. You shall hear on saturday & on sunday, & we will settle about monday. After all, it would have been difficult to have met you at Mrs Jameson’s, observing the ‘fitness of things’:--and as I am subject to the madness of saying ‘Robert’ without knowing it …!

May God bless you– Say how you are! Dont let me slide out of your mind through this rift in the rock. I catch at the jutting stones."

She is still teazing about whether she ever actually said his name. How much their relationship has changed. She is so eager to see him now; she seems as 'on fire' as he was in the fall on 1845. She fought it for so long, but she is 'all in' now. I don't see either of them backing out now. I was thinking about what would have happened, despite everyone's fears for her health, if something had happened to Browning, even at this point, before they are married. How deeply into the pit of despair she would have dropped. I wonder if that ever occurred to her in her constant analysis of the possibilities.

July 2

2 July 1846 Browning continues the discussion of whether Miss Barrett had ever spoken the name 'Robert' to Browning:

"Dear, you might as well imagine you had never given me any other of the gifts, as that you did not call me, as I tell you: you spoke quickly, interrupting me, and, for the name, “I can hear it, ’twixt my spirit and the earth-noise intervene”: do you think I forget one gift in another, even a greater? I should still taste the first freshness of the vinegar, (or whatever was the charm of it)—tho’ Cleopatra had gone on dissolving pearl after pearl in it: I love you for these gifts to me now—hereafter, it seems almost as if I must love you even better, should you choose to continue them to me in spite of complete knowledge: I feel this as often as I think of it, which is not seldom."

He accepts her gift of his name as the compliment she meant. Very charming, as to be expected from the great poet. He looks ahead to their future with a typical Browning anecdote:

"But of your dear self now—the going out will soon and effectually cure the nervousness, we may be sure. I am most happy, love, to hear of the walking and increased strength. So you used to like riding on a donkey? Then you shall have a mule, un bel mulo, and I will be your muleteer, walk by your side—and you will think the moment you see him of the wicked shoeing of cats with walnut-shells, for they make a mule’s shoes turn up, for all the world like large shells,—those on his forefeet at least."

Never heard of shoeing a cat with walnut shells. Every generation has their own version of torture, I suppose. Miss Barrett responds, of course, with her typical good humor:

"....In the meanwhile,—quite you make me laugh by your positiveness about the name-calling. Well—if ever I did such a thing, it was in a moment of unconsciousness all the more surprising, that, even to my own soul, in the lowest spirit-whisper, I have not been in the habit of saying ‘Robert’, speaking of you. You have only been The One. No word ever stood for you– The Idea admitted of no representative—the words fell down before it & were silent. Still such very positive people must be right of course—they always are. At any rate it is only one illusion more—and some day I expect to hear you say & swear that you saw me fly out of one window & fly in at another. So much for your Cleopatra’s Roman pearls, oh my famous in council!—& appreciator of sour vinegar!"

And she continues with her look at their future plans, all based on the off chance that Browning will discover the truth about her after a time:

"Miss Mitford wrung a promise from me--that “if I were well enough & in England next summer, I would go to see her”. So remember. Isn’t it a promise for two?

Only we shall be mule-riding in those days--unless I shall have tired you--Shall you be tired of me in one winter, I wonder? My programme is, to let you try me for one winter, & if you are tired (as I shall know without any confession on your side) why then I shall set the mule on a canter & leave you in La Cava, & go & live in Greece somewhere all alone, taking enough with me for bread & salt. Is it a jest, do you think? Indeed it is not. It is very grave earnest, be sure. I believe that I never could quarrel with you,—but the same cause would absolutely hinder my living with you if you did not love me. We could not lead the abominable lives of ‘married people’ all round—you know we could not– I at least know that I could not, & just because I love you so entirely. Then, you know, you could come to England by yourself .. and .. “Where’s Ba”?—— “Oh, she’s somewhere in the world, I suppose– How can I tell?” And then Mrs Jameson would shake her head, & observe that the problem was solved exactly as she expected .. & that artistical natures smelt of sulphur & brimstone, without any exceptions.

Am I laughing? am I crying? who can tell. But I am not teazing, .. Robert! .. because, my Robert, if gravely I distrusted your affection, I could not use such light-sounding words on the whole—now could I? It is only the supposition of a possible future .. just possible .. (as the end of human affections passes for a possible thing) .. which made me say what I would do in such a case.

But I am yours—your own: and it is impossible, in my belief, that I can ever fail to you so as to be less yours, on this side the grave or across it. So, I think of impossibilities .. whatever I may, of possibilities!"

As light as she sounds I suspect that she is serious. The faux quote she attributes to Browning is a hoot, "How can I tell?" She has apparently seen so many unhappy marriages that she doubts that any marriage can be happy. The same prevails in the 21st century, but how much worse in the 19th century when any kind of escape was expensive both monetarily and socially. It is doubtful, however, that if she did determine that Browning no longer loved her that she would care what society thought, her personal disappointment would be too great.

July 1

July 1, 1846 continues the amusing argument as to whether Miss Barrett had ever called Browning 'Robert'. Browning begins the round with:

"Dearest—dearest, you did once, one time only, call me by my name—Robert; and tho’ it was to bid “R. not talk extravagances” (your very words) still the name so spoken became what it never had been before to me. I never am called by any pet-name, nor abbreviation, here at home or elsewhere .. oh, best let it alone .. it is one of my incommunicable advantages to have a Ba of my own, and call her so—indeed, yes, my Ba! I write “dearest”, and “most dearest”, but it all ends in—“Ba”, and the “my” is its framework, its surrounding arm—Ba,—my own Ba! “Robert” is in Saxon, (ni fallor), “famous in counsel”, so let him give a proof of his quality in counselling you to hold your good, happy inspiration about La Cava (my French mapmaker must have had Ceva in Piedmont in his head)for at such a place, so situate, we renounce not one sight at Salerno, nor Amalfi, nor Sorrento .. four miles .. the distance between your House and Highgate, perhaps! Cava,—the hollow of a hill,—and such hills and such hollows are in that land! Oh, let it be La Cava—or Seven Dials, with you!"


Does that settle the issue? If you think it does, you do not know Miss Barrett. Browning continues:


"I past thro’ Seven Dials this morning—and afterward, by your house,—with a heart full of thoughts,—not fuller than usual, but they were more stirring and alive, near their source. I called at Mrs Procter’s door .. (proceeding from Forster’s)—and then on Mrs Jameson whom I found and talked with pleasantly till a visitor came .. I do extremely appreciate her, delight in her .. to avoid saying “love”—I was never just to her before, far from it: I saw her niece, a quiet earnest looking little girl. But did it not please me to call in at Moxon’s and hear that (amongst other literary news dexterously enquired after) “Miss Barrett’s poems were selling very well and would ere long be out of print”—and, after that pleasure, came the other of finding dear, generous, noble Carlyle had sent his new edition of Cromwell, three great volumes, with his brave energetic assurance of “regards” & “many” of them, in black manly writing on the first page. So may he continue to like me till he knows you,—when it will be “mine” instead of me, that he shall love—“love”? I let the whole world love you—if they can overtake my love, .. as I read on, about the visit to Mr Boyd, I thought, “I trust she will kiss his forehead”,—and I will kiss yours—thus—for that, too,—in gratitude for that. You dear, good, blessing of a Ba, how I kiss you!–....I did not see Moxon—only the Brother—who tells odd stories drily; one made me laugh to-day– Poor Mr Reade, Landor’s love, sent a book to Campbell the Poet, and then called on him … to discover him in the very act of wiping a razor on a leaf torn out of the book, laid commodiously by his toilet-table for the express purpose."

But Miss Barrett is having none of this nonsense about calling him Robert and responds:

"No, no! indeed I never did. If you heard me say ‘Robert’, it was on a stair landing in the House of Dreams—never anywhere else! Why how could you fancy such a thing? Was’nt it rather your own disquieted Conscience which spoke instead of me, saying ‘Robert, dont be extravagant’. Yes—just the speech that is, for a ‘good uneasy’, discerning conscience—& you took it for my speech!

‘Dont be extravagant’ I may certainly have said. Both I & the conscience might have said so obvious a thing.

Ah—& now I have got the name, shall I have courage to say it? tell me, best counsellor! I like it better than any other name, though I never spoke it with my own lips .. I never called anyone by such a name .. except once when I was in the lane with Bertha–One uncle I have, called Robert—but to me he is an ‘uncle Hedley’ & no more. So it is a white name to take into life. Is’nt this an Hebraic expression of a preferring affection .. “I have called thee by thy name”? And therefore, because you are the best, only dearest!—— Robert."

They are so cute.

"You passed by & I never knew! How foolish—but really it quite strikes me as something wonderful, that I should not have known. I know however of your being in London, because … (dont expect a supernatural evidence) Mrs Jameson told me. She was here with me about five, & brought her niece whom I liked just for the reasons you give,—& herself was feeling & affectionate as ever:—it is well that you should give me leave to love her a little. Once she touched upon Italy .. & I admitted that I thought of it, & thought it probable as an event .. on which she pressed gently to know “on what I counted”. ‘Perhaps on my own courage,’ I said. ‘Oh’ she exclaimed ‘now I see clearly’.

Which made me smile .. the idea of her seeing clearly—but earnestly & cordially she desired me to remember that to be useful to me in any manner, would give her pleasure. Such kindness! The sense of it has sunk into my heart. You cannot praise her too much for me. She was so kind, that when she asked me to go to see her in Mortimer Street on friday, I could not help agreeing at once: and I am to have the sofa & no company—that’s a promise. She asked me to go at twelve oclock, & to bring Mr Kenyon for an escort—but I would not answer for Mr Kenyon’s going, only half promising for myself. Now I must try to fix a later hour, because ..

Listen to the because. My aunt, Miss Clarke, & my cousin, her adopted daughter & niece, come tomorrow evening, & stay in this house .. oh, I cannot tell you how long: for a whole week as a beginning, certainly. I have been sighing & moaning so about it that Arabel calls it quite a scandal—but when one cant be glad, why should it be so undutiful to appear sad? If she had but stayed in Paris six months longer! Well—and tomorrow-morning Miss Mitford comes to spend the day like the kind dear friend she is,—& I, not the least in the world glad to see her! Why have you turned my heart into such hard porphyry? Once, when it was plain clay, every finger (of these womanly fingers) left a mark on it—& now, .. you see!– Even Mrs Jameson makes me grateful to her chiefly (as I know in myself) because she sees you as you are in part, & will forgive me for loving you as soon as she hears of it .. however she may, & must consistently, expect us to torment one another, according to the way of the “artistic temperament,” evermore, & ever more & more. But for the rest, the others who do not know you & value you .. I hate to see them .. & there’s the truth!– There is something too in the concealment, the reserve, the doubleness enforced on occasion!—which is painful & hateful. Detestable it all is.

And I like La Cava too! Think of a hollow in the mountain .. something like a cave, do you think? At least it must be a hollow in the mountains. I wrote to my friend this morning to ask if the place is considered warm, & if she knew any more of it. The ‘porticos as at Bologna’ look attractive too by the dreamlight we look at them by: & Baba may escape the forty thieves of English in the Cave, with a good watchword like Sesame—now that’s half my nonsense & half your’s, I beg you to observe. I wont be at the charge of it all.

I was out today—walked up, walked down, in my old fashion—only I do improve in walking, I think, & gain strength.

May God bless you dear dearest! I am your own."

These kids are going to have to get married soon, Miss Barrett has got it bad. Any chance that she backs out now? I don't see it. She is too far gone.