And as for the wine, I did not indeed misunderstand you 'as my wont is,' because I understood simply that 'habitually' you abstained from wine, and I meant exactly that perhaps it would be better for your health to take it habitually. It might, you know—not that I pretend to advise. Only when you look so much too pale sometimes, it comes into one's thoughts that you ought not to live on cresses and cold water. Strong coffee, which is the nearest to a stimulant that I dare to take, as far as ordinary diet goes, will almost always deliver me from the worst of headaches, but there is no likeness, no comparison. And your 'quite well' means that dreadful 'turning' still ... still! Now do not think any more of the Domizias, nor 'try to remember,' which is the most wearing way of thinking. The more I read and read your 'Luria,' the grander it looks, and it will make its own road with all understanding men, you need not doubt, and still less need you try to make me uneasy about the harm I have done in 'coming between,' and all the rest of it. I wish never to do you greater harm than just that, and then with a white conscience 'I shall love thee to eternity!... dearest! You have made a golden work out of your 'golden-hearted Luria'—as once you called him to me, and I hold it in the highest admiration—should, if you were precisely nothing to me. And still, the fifth act rises! That is certain. Nevertheless I seem to agree with you that your hand has vacillated in your Domizia. We do not know her with as full a light on her face, as the other persons—we do not see the panther,—no, certainly we do not—but you will do a very little for her which will be everything, after a time ... and I assure you that if you were to ask for the manuscript before, you should not have a page of it—now, you are only to rest. What a work to rest upon! Do consider what a triumph it is! The more I read, the more I think of it, the greater it grows—and as to 'faded lines,' you never cut a pomegranate that was redder in the deep of it. Also, no one can say 'This is not clearly written.' The people who are at 'words of one syllable' may be puzzled by you and Wordsworth together this time ... as far as the expression goes. Subtle thoughts you always must have, in and out of 'Sordello'—and the objectors would find even Plato (though his medium is as lucid as the water that ran beside the beautiful plane-tree!) a little difficult perhaps.
To-day Mr. Kenyon came, and do you know, he has made a beatific confusion between last Saturday and next Saturday, and said to me he had told Miss Thomson to mind to come on Friday if she wished to see me ... 'remembering' (he added) 'that Mr. Browning took Saturday!!' So I let him mistake the one week for the other—'Mr. Browning took Saturday,' it was true, both ways. Well—and then he went on to tell me that he had heard from Mrs. Jameson who was at Brighton and unwell, and had written to say this and that to him, and to enquire besides—now, what do you think, she enquired besides? 'how you and ... Browning were' said Mr. Kenyon—I write his words. He is coming, perhaps to-morrow, or perhaps Sunday—Saturday is to have a twofold safety. That is, if you are not ill again. Dearest, you will not think of coming if you are ill ... unwell even. I shall not be frightened next time, as I told you—I shall have the precedent. Before, I had to think! 'It has never happened so—there must be a cause—and if it is a very, very, bad cause, why no one will tell me ... it will not seem my concern'—that was my thought on Saturday. But another time ... only, if it is possible to keep well, do keep well, beloved, and think of me instead of Domizia, and let there be no other time for your suffering ... my waiting is nothing. I shall remember for the future that you may have the headache—and do you remember it too!
For Mr. Horne I take your testimony gladly and believingly. She blots with her eyes sometimes. She hates ... and loves, in extreme degrees. We have, once or twice or thrice, been on the border of mutual displeasure, on this very subject, for I grew really vexed to observe the trust on one side and the dyspathy on the other—using the mildest of words. You see, he found himself, down in Berkshire, in quite a strange element of society,—he, an artist in his good and his evil,—and the people there, 'county families,' smoothly plumed in their conventions, and classing the ringlets and the aboriginal way of using water-glasses among offences against the Moral Law. Then, meaning to be agreeable, or fascinating perhaps, made it twenty times worse. Writing in albums about the graces, discoursing meditated impromptus at picnics, playing on the guitar in fancy dresses,—all these things which seemed to poor Orion as natural as his own stars I dare say, and just the things suited to the genus poet, and to himself specifically,—were understood by the natives and their 'rural deities' to signify, that he intended to marry one half the county, and to run away with the other. But Miss Mitford should have known better—she should. And she would have known better, if she had liked him—for the liking could have been unmade by no such offences. She is too fervent a friend—she can be. Generous too, she can be without an effort; and I have had much affection from her—and accuse myself for seeming to have less—but—
May God bless you!—I end in haste after this long lingering.
Your
Ba.
Not unwell—I am not! I forgot it, which proves how I am not.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, February 13, 1846.]
Two nights ago I read the 'Soul's Tragedy' once more, and though there were not a few points which still struck me as successful in design and execution, yet on the whole I came to a decided opinion, that it will be better to postpone the publication of it for the present. It is not a good ending, an auspicious wind-up of this series; subject-matter and style are alike unpopular even for the literary grex that stands aloof from the purer plebs, and uses that privilege to display and parade an ignorance which the other is altogether unconscious of—so that, if 'Luria' is clearish, the 'Tragedy' would be an unnecessary troubling the waters. Whereas, if I printed it first in order, my readers, according to custom, would make the (comparatively) little they did not see into, a full excuse for shutting their eyes at the rest, and we may as well part friends, so as not to meet enemies. But, at bottom, I believe the proper objection is to the immediate, first effect of the whole—its moral effect—which is dependent on the contrary supposition of its being really understood, in the main drift of it. Yet I don't know; for I wrote it with the intention of producing the best of all effects—perhaps the truth is, that I am tired, rather, and desirous of getting done, and 'Luria' will answer my purpose so far. Will not the best way be to reserve this unlucky play and in the event of a second edition—as Moxon seems to think such an apparition possible—might not this be quietly inserted?—in its place, too, for it was written two or three years ago. I have lost, of late, interest in dramatic writing, as you know, and, perhaps, occasion. And, dearest, I mean to take your advice and be quiet awhile and let my mind get used to its new medium of sight; seeing all things, as it does, through you: and then, let all I have done be the prelude and the real work begin. I felt it would be so before, and told you at the very beginning—do you remember? And you spoke of Io 'in the proem.' How much more should follow now!