May 12

May 12, 1846 Browning has recieved the laburnum blossom Miss Barrett sent in her letter of the 11th. Let's just say he likes it:

"...Ba, if..I was going to say, if you meant to make me most exquisitely happy..and you did surely mean it..well, you succeeded, as you know! And I see you on the grass, and am with you as you properly acknowledge. And by this letter's presence & testimony, I may judge you to be not much worse,--not fatigued..is it so? Oh, it was good inspiration that led you thro' the half-opened gate and under the laburnum, and, better still, that made you see us 'one day walking by the trees together'--when all I shall say is,--I hope, in spite of that felicity to remember and feel this, as vividly as now--"

He then returns to his ongoing analogy as Miss Barrett as a siren:

"Ba, there are three siren isles, you know: I shall infallibly get into the farthest of them, a full thirty yards from you and the tower, so as to need being written to..for the cicale [cicadas] make such a noise that you will not be able to call to me--which is as well, for you may..that is, I might, break my neck by a sudden leap on the needles of the rocks..as I remember the boatman told me."

Browning's silly mood is answered by Miss Barrett's silly mood:

"When you began to speak of the islands, the three islands, I thought you were going to propose that you should live in one, & Flush in one, & I in the third: & almost it was so,..only that you took, besides, the 'farthest' for yourself!--Observe!--always I write nonsense, when you write me a letter which moves me like this, dearest, my own!"

But the meat of Miss Barrett's letter is her visit with Mrs. Jameson, who will have such a huge part in their escape across the continent later in the year, but who at this point has no idea of their doing anything but corresponding:

"I think her quite a lovable person now-I like her more and more. How she talked of you today, and called you the most charming companion in the world, setting you too on your throne as 'poet of the age.' Wouldn't it have been an 'effect' in the midst of it all, if I had burst out crying? And what with being flurried, frightened, & a little nervous from not sleeping well last night, I assure you it was quite possible--but happily on every account, I escaped that 'dramatic situation.' I wish, no, I can't wish that she wouldn't talk of you as she does whenever she comes here--And then, to make it better, she told me how you had recited 'in a voice & manner as good as singing,' my 'Catarina.' how are such things to be borne, do you think, when people are not made of marble? But I took a long breath, & held my breath, & held my mask on with both hands."

Kintner, if I remember correctly, says that Browning referred to Miss Barrett's poem 'Catarina to Camoens' 76 times in the courtship letters. Yeah, I think he liked that one. And of course this is the origin of the title to her sonnet sequence 'Sonnets From the Portuguese'. When the sonnets were published 'Catarina to Camoens' was republished to appear just ahead of the sequence. I would have loved to have heard Browning's rendition. It's probably for the best that Miss Barrett was not present because that would have been the end of all secrets. As it was, how Mrs. Jameson didn't suss out the truth of the relationship between our poets probably has more to do with Miss Barrett's well cultivated reputation as an invalid than for any other reason. I am sure Miss Barrett blushed red at the mention of his name. Guilt does that to a lady.

May 11

Miss Barrett has been out and about on May 11, 1846:

"Look inside this letter--look! I gathered it for you to-day when I was walking in Regent's Park. Are you surprised? Arabel & Flush & I were in the carriage--& the sun was shining with that green light through the trees, as if he carried down with him the very essence of the leaves, to the ground,..& I wished so much to walk through a half open gate along a shaded path, that we stopped the carriage and got out and walked, & I put both of my feet on the grass,..which was the strangest feeling!..& gathered this laburnum for you. It hung quite high up on the tree, the little blossom did, and Arabel said that certainly I could not reach it--but you see! It is too generous return for all your flowers: or to speak seriously, a proof that I thought of you & wished for you--which it was natural to do, for I never enjoyed any of my excursions as I did to-day's--the standing under the trees & on the grass, was so delightful. It was like a bit of that Dreamland which is your special dominion,--& felt joyful enough for the moment, to look round for you, as for the cause. It seemed illogical, not to see you close by. And you were not far after all, if thoughts count as bringers near. Dearest, we shall walk together under the trees some day.
And all those strange people moving about like phantoms of life,--How wonderful it looked to me!--& only you,..the idea of you..& myself seemed to be real there! And Flush a little, too!--"

I would say that she had entered some sort of romantic dream state in Regent's Park, but she was, after all, a poet. And as we all must know, all poets are quite mad.

"Ah--what..next to nonsense,..in the first letter this morning! So you think that I meant to complain when we first met, of your 'loving me only for my poetry'! Which I did not, simply because I did not believe that you loved me! for any reason. For the rest, I am not over-particular, I fancy, about what I may be loved for. There is no good reason for loving me certainly & my earnest desire (as I have said again & again) is, that there should be by profession no reason at all. But if there is to be any sort of reason, why one is as welcome as another..you may love me for my shoes, if you like it..except that they wear out. I thought if you did love me at all--you loved out into the air, I thought--a love  a priori, as the philosophers might say, & not by induction, any wise! Your only knowledge of me was by the poems (or most of it)--& what knowledge could that be, when I feel myself so far below my own aspirations, morally, spiritually? So I thought you did not love me at all--I did not believe in miracles then, nor in 'Divine Legations'--but my miracle is as good as Constantine's, you may tell your bishop on wednesday when he has delivered his charge."

This paragraph amuses me because poor Browning is constantly trying to put his feelings into words and struggling and dropping off in mid-sentence because he can't complete the thought. And she is essentially saying here, 'it doesn't matter why, just love me, that is enough, we neither one can understand it.' The danger with loving her for her shoe's of course, is not that they wear out, but that other women could wear the same shoe. So, her shoe analogy isn't very apt: there is only one Miss Barrett and there are many, many shoes.

May 10

May 10, 1854 brings a letter from Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford. Writing from Rome, Mrs. Browning spends a good part of the letter commiserating with Miss Mitford for her poor health and the health of the ever tender Pen, but the letter takes a turn of interest as she discusses the interesting people she meets in the Eternal City:

"The pleasantest days in Rome we have spent with the Kembles—the two sisters—who are charming and excellent, both of them, in different ways; and certainly they have given us some exquisite hours on the Campagna, upon picnic excursions, they and certain of their friends—for instance, M. Ampère, the member of the French Institute, who is witty and agreeable; M. Gorze, the Austrian Minister, also an agreeable man; and Mr. Lyons, the son of Sir Edmund, &c. The talk was almost too brilliant for the sentiment of the scenery, but it harmonised entirely with the mayonnaise and champagne. I should mention, too, Miss Hosmer (but she is better than a talker), the young American sculptress, who is a great pet of mine and of Robert's, and who emancipates the eccentric life of a perfectly 'emancipated female' from all shadow of blame by the purity of hers. She lives here all alone (at twenty-two); dines and breakfasts at the cafés precisely as a young man would; works from six o'clock in the morning till night, as a great artist must, and this with an absence of pretension and simplicity of manners which accord rather with the childish dimples in her rosy cheeks than with her broad forehead and high aims. The Archer Clives have been to Naples, but have returned for a time. Mr. Lockhart, who went to England with the Duke of Wellington (the same prepared to bury him on the road), writes to Mrs. Sartoris that he has grown much better under the influence of the native beef and beer. To do him justice he looked, when here, innocent of the recollection even of either. I wonder if you have seen Mrs. Howe's poems, lately out, called 'Passion Flowers.' They were sent to me by an American friend but were intercepted en route, so that I have not set eyes on them yet, but one or two persons, not particularly reliable as critics, have praised them to me. She is the wife of Dr. Howe, the deaf and dumb philanthropist, and herself neither deaf nor dumb (very much the contrary) I understand—a handsome woman and brilliant in society. I gossip on to you, dearest dear Miss Mitford, as if you were in gossiping humour. Believe that my tender thoughts, deeper than any said, are with you always."

Mrs. Browning is no longer in Wimpole Street. She is seeing the world and the people in it. With the social influence of her gregarious husband she is meeting the artists and politicians of Europe. What fun. Just listening in on the conversations must have given her more material for poetry than she could ever have imagined. This certainly must have justified, in her mind, marrying Browning and leaving her father's home. And yet, she doesn't seem overwhelmed by the experience and keeps her sense of the absurdity of it all.

May 8

Before we begin our round of letters today I want to link to the very few articles that were published on May 7, 2012 to commemorate Browning's 200th birthday anniversary, in case you missed them.

From the Guardian UK: Robert Browning-A Poet Worth Remembering : "The Victorian didn't have the flash and dash of Dickens, but he was a great and brave writer"

From The Scotsman.com: Remembering Robert Browning - Victorian Britain’s greatest poet   


And now for our daily business:
We have a letter from Browning on May 8, 1846 responding to Miss Barrett's birthday letter from May 7th urging him to look down on her from his place in the constellation of the Lyre and the Crown:

" 'Look down on you'--my Ba? I would die for you, with triumphant happiness, God knows,--at a signal from your hand! But that,--look down,--never, tho' you bade me again and again, and in such words! I look up,--always up,--my Ba. When I indulge in my deepest luxury, I make you stand..do you not know that? I sit, and my Ba chooses to let me sit, and stands by,--understanding all the same how the relation really is between us,--how I would, and do, kiss her feet,--my Queens feet!"

Okay, now that seems a bit over the top to my sensibilities, but hey, who wouldn't like some genius poet practicing his craft on them? But there is more:

"Do you feel for me so, my love? I seldom dare to try and speak to you of your love for me..my love I am allowed to profess..I could not steadily (I have tried, whether you you noticed it or no, and could not) say aloud 'and you love me' ! Because it is altogether a blessing of your gift,--irrespective of my love to you,--however it may go to increase it--Here are the words however. Human conviction is weak enough, no doubt,--but, when I forget these words, and this answer of my heart to them,--I cannot say it--"

How he struggles to find words. To make his thoughts clear. Always trying to play out the root of the thought. He does better when he has a concrete story to tell:

"My God bless you, dearest dearest,--my Ba! I was at Mrs. Jameson's this morning--she spoke of you so as to make my heart tremble with very delight--I never liked her so much...I may say, never liked her before by comparison. She read me your three translations [of the section of Homer's Odyssey-regarding the daughters of Pandarus],--clearly feeling their rare beauty--and now,--let me clap hands, my Ba, and ask you who knows best? She means to print BOTH versions--the blank verse and the latter rhymed one. Of course, of course! But she said so many things--I must tell you to-morrow,--if you remind me. She felt such gratifications, too, at your thinking her etching of St. Cecilia worthy to hang by your chair, in your sight. Do you know, Ba, at the end,--a propos of her breakfast, I fairly took her by both hands, and shook them with a cordiality which I reflect, tardily, may subject the Literary Character to a possible misconstruction. 'He must have wanted a breakfast'--she will say!

I am going to the museum on Monday with her, to see Italian prints. I like her very much....

And I, too, look over the grave, to follow you, my own hearts love-Let Mrs. Jameson repeal those acts [the septennial act],--limit the seven years to seven days or less,--what matters? If the seven days have to be endured because of law,--then I see the weariness of course: but in our case, if a benevolent Legislature should inform me, now, that if I choose, I may decline visiting you to-morrow--
Ah, nefandum [not to be spoken of, impious], --kiss me, my own Ba, and let the world legislate and decree and relieve and be otherwise notable--so they let me be your own for ever R."

Browning was feeling it the day after his birthday, however, I have a suspicion that all this praise and gallantry will not go over well with Miss Barrett. She probably fears being overpraised believing that the bubble of happiness that she has been dwelling in will burst and she will be left with ashes as she was with her brother. Tomorrow is the day of their scheduled visit, so hopefully this will work itself out before the next round of letters begins on May 10.

May 7

May 7, 1812-2012

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of

Robert Browning

How do we celebrate the birthday of Robert Browning at the Barrett Browning Blog? The same way we celebrate everyday: we talk about letters to and from Robert Browning.

Browning starts the day on May 7, 1846 with his obligatory daily letter, telling Miss Barrett:

"Have you not forgotten that birthday? Do, my Ba, forget it--my day, as I told you, is the 20th [the day they met]--my true happiest day! But I thank you all I can, dearest--All good to me comes thro' you, or for you--every wish and hope ends in you...."

But Miss Barrett remembered his birthday:

"Beloved, my thoughts go to you this morning, loving & blessing you!--May God bless you for both His worlds--not for this alone. For me, if I can ever do or be anything to you, it will be my uttermost blessing of all I ever knew, or could know, as He knows. A year ago, I thought, with a sort of mournful exultation, that I was pure of wishes. Now, they recoil back on me in a spring-tide..flow back, wave upon wave,..till I should lose breath to speak them!--and it is nothing to say that they concern another...for they are so much the more intensely mine, & of me. My God bless you, very dear! dearest."

Then she received his letter:

"So I am to forget today, I am told in the letter. Ah!--But I shall forget & remember what I please. In the meanwhile I was surprised while writing thus to you this morning..as a good deed to begin with.. by Miss Bayley's coming...She came & then Mr. Kenyon came,...and as they both went downstairs together, Mrs. Jameson came up."

Yes, so much for the recluse in the attic business. This leads to an interesting contemplation of life as an atheist:

"Miss Bayley is what is called strong-minded, & with all her feeling for art & Beauty, talks of utility like a Utilitarian of the highest, & professes to receive nothing without proof, like a reasoner of the lowest. She told me with a frankness for which I did not like her less, that she was a materialist of the strictest order, & believed in no soul & no future state. In the face of those conclusions, she said, she was calm & resigned. It is more than I could be, as I confessed. My whole nature would cry aloud against that most pitiful result of the struggle here--a wrestling only for the dust, & not for the crown. What a resistless melancholy would fall upon me if I has such thoughts!--& what a dreadful indifference. All grief, to have itself to end in!--all joy, to be based on nothingness!--all love, to feel eternal separation under & over it! Dreary & ghastly, it would be! I should not have the strength to love you, I think, if I had such a miserable creed. And for life itself,..would it be worth holding on such terms,--with our blind Ideals making mocks & mows at us wherever we turned? A game to throw up, this life would be, as not worth playing to the end!

There's a fit letter for the seventh of May!--but why was thursday the seventh, & not wednesday rather, which would have let me escape visitors? I thank God that I can look over the grave with you, past the grave,..& hope to be worthier of you there at least."

But to lighten the gloom of atheism she provides the antidote of a description of her visit with Mrs. Jameson:

"Mrs. Jameson did not have much to say, being hoarse & weak with a cold, but she told me of having met you at dinner, & found you 'very agreeable.' Also, beginning by a word about Professor Longfellow, who was married, it appears, and is tolerably merciful as a husband for a poet..('solving the problem of the possibility of such a thing,' said she!)..beginning so, she dropped into the subject of marriage generally, & was inclined to repropose Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's septennial act--..which might be a reform perhaps!.....what do you think? Have I not, altogether, been listening to improving & memorable discourse on this seventh of May? The ninth's will be more after my heart [the date of their next scheduled visit].

I like Mrs. Jameson's mind!--and I like her views on many subjects--Exclusive of the septennial marriage act, though."

Apparently the 'septennial marriage act' was a proposal by which all married people had the right to declare every seventh year whether they chose to continue in the marriage.

And so she ends the daily epistle with:

"So, good night--dearest!--I think of you behind all of these passing clouds of subjects, my poet of the Lyre & Crown!

Look down on your own Ba"

One must suppose that both of our poets are now enjoying the same constellation, looking down at the celebratory activities of all the Barrett Browning enthusiasts.

Enjoy the party! 

May 6

In his required letter of May 6, 1846 Browning describes his social interaction of the previous evening:

"I met Mrs. Jameson last evening and she began just as I prophesied..'but'said she 'I will tell you all when you come and breakfast with me on Thursday--which a note of mine now on its way to you, desires may happen'!--A large party at Chorley's, and admirable music--not without a pleasant person or two. I wish you could hear that marvellous Pischek, with his Rhine songs, and Bohemina melodies. Then a Herr Kellerman told a kind of a crying story on the violoncello, full of quiet pathos, and Godefroi--if they so spell him--harped like a god harping,--immortal victorious music indeed! Altogether a notable evening..oh, the black ingratitude of man..these few words are the proof 'set-off' to this morning's weary yawning, and stupefaction. To-night having to follow beside! So near you I shall be! (Mrs. J is to be at the Proctor's to-night too') Oh, by the way, and in the straight way to make Ba laugh..Mrs. J's first word was 'What? Are you married?' She having caught a bit of Miss Chorley's enquiry after 'Mrs. Browning's health' i.e. my mother's. Probably Miss Heaton's friend, who is my intimate, heard me profess complete infidelity as to--homeopathy..que sais-je [whatever]?"

So Miss Barrett writes to Browning that evening while he is dining at Proctor's, in the next street over, with Mrs. Jameson:

Now, dearest, you are close by & I am writing to you as if you were ever so far off. People are not always the better, you see, for being near on another. there's a moral to put on with your gloves,--and if you were not quite sufficiently frightened by Mrs. Jameson's salutation, it may be of some use to you perhaps--who knows?
She left word yesterday that she should come today or tomorrow, as to today she didn't, I shall hear of you from her tomorrow, that is, if you go to her breakfast, which you will do I dare say, supposing that you are not perfectly ill & exhausted by what came before. Ah--You do not say how you are--& I know what that means. Even the music was half lost in the fatigue.. that is what you express by 'stupefaction.' And then to have to dine at Mr. Proctor's without music..say how you are..do not omit it this time.
Nor think that I shall forget how tomorrow is the seventh of May..your month as you call it somewhere..in Sordello, I believe..so that I knew before, you had a birthday there--& I shall remember it tomorrow & send you the thoughts which are yours, & pray for you that you shall be saved from March-winds..ever dearest!

Miss Barrett's tone of command sort of shakes the spell in this letter. Her concern about his health takes on a hectoring tone at times. It will be interesting to see if Browning responds to her demand that he temper his social activities for the sake of his health. 
And so, Browning's birthday is to be celebrated May 7th. Will he have a party to celebrate? Will Miss Barrett send him a birthday present? Will he go out and get drunk with other poets?

May 5

May 5, 1846 brought visitors to Miss Barrett's room at Wimpole Street. None of them Browning. So she gives Browning a blow by blow of the events of her day. She considered going to post her letter to Browning herself, but kept to her room:

"...I must keep watch in the house from two till five for Lady Margaret Cocks, an old friend of mine, who was kind to me when I was a child, in the country, & has not forgotten me since, when, two months in the year, she has been in the habit of going to London. A good, worthy person, with a certain cultivation as to languages & literature, but quite manquee on the side of the imagination..talking of the poets, as a blind woman of colours, calling Pippa Passes, 'pretty & odd.' & writing herself 'poems' in heaps of copy books which every now & then she brings to show me...'odes' to Hope & Patience & all the cardinal virtues, with the formulas of 'Begin my Muse' in the fashion ended last century. She has helped to applaud & scold me since I could walk & write verses,--& when I was so wicked as to go to dissenting chapels besides she reproached me with tears in her eyes,--but they were tears of earnest partizanship, & not of affection for me,..she does not love me after all, nor guess at my heart, and I do not love her, I feel--Woe to us! for there are good & unlovable people in the world, and we cannot help it for out lives."

Well, first off, Lady Cocks should never have called Pippa Passes 'pretty & odd'. That was a mortal error. Next, she better have a good reasoned arguments in order to question Miss Barrett's religious choices. Miss Barrett seems strong and deeply rooted in her convictions but very tolerant of other's views. It seems she expects the same courtesy. But it doesn't stop with Lady Cocks:

"In the midst of writing which, comes the Leeds Miss Heaton, who used to send me those long confidentual letters a faire fremir [to thrill], & beg me to call her Ellen & as this is the second time that she has sent up her card, in an accidental visit to London, I thought I would be good natured for once, & see her. An intelligent woman, with large black eyes & a pleasant voice, & young..manners provincial enough, for the rest, & talking as if the world were equally divided between the "Congregationalists" & the "Churchpeople." .....'And really,' she said, 'it seems to me that you have as many admirers among churchmen as among dissenters.' ! There's glory!--and I kept my countenance. Lost it though, five minutes afterwards, when she observed pathetically, that a 'friend of hers who had know Mr. Browning quite intimately, had told her he was an infidel...more's the pity, when he has such a genius.' I denied the particular information of you intimate friend, a little more warmly perhaps than was necessary,..but what was expected of me, I wonder?"

For a woman 'shut up in her father's attic' (as I have heard her described) Miss Barrett certainly seems to get a full dose of gossip. The editor of these letters (Kintner) offers some back story: "Ellen Heaton, later a close friend of the Browning's in Italy, was the confidante of Euphrasia Haworth, a woman eleven years Browning's senior, with whom he had been on good terms about 1837," although he does not believe Miss Haworth is the person being referred to here. What he doesn't note here is that Browning was a great Shelley admirer and went through what we would call a Shelley phase, where he tried to emulate his hero, taking up vegetarianism and atheism. Browning kept his admiration for Shelley, visiting the sites of his life when possible, but gave up the vegetarianism and atheism.

But it does not end there for Miss Barrett's day as she writes in the evening:

"Mrs. Jameson came today when I was engaged with Lady Margaret Cocks & I could not see her--& Mr. Kenyon came, when I could see him & was glad. I am tired with my multitude of visitors--oh, so tired!"

Indeed, that was more than enough for one day. I wonder how many other letters she wrote that day? She was certainly busy in her father's attic!