I will write the paper as you bid me. Only, in the face of all that is to come, I solemnly tell you that neither I nor mine ... certainly not I ... will consent to an act of injustice, disinheriting my last hours (whenever they shall come) of a natural satisfaction. You are noble in all things—but this will not be in your power—I will not discuss it so as to teaze you. Your reputation is dear to me of course ... the thoughts which men shall have of you in the least matter, I would choose to keep clean ... free from every possible taint. But it will be obvious to all, that if you pleased, you might throw out of the windows everything called mine, the moment after our marriage—interest and principal—why not? And if you abstain from this, and after your own death allow the sum which originally came from my family, to relapse there ... why it is all of pure generosity on your part—and they will understand it as I do, ... as generosity ... as more than justice. Well—let that be! It is your act, and not mine, letting it be—and I have no objection to show you what my wishes are, (mere wishes), so helping you to carry out such an act in the best way. I send you the paper therefore—to that end—and only that end. There, you must stop—I never will consent to the extravagance you propose about yourself. You shall not, if you love me, think of carrying it out. If I thought you could be so hard on me, ... do you know, I would rather throw it all up now into the hands of my sisters, and be poor with you at once—I could bear that so much better than the thoughts of leaving you to be poor. Or, would you be easier, dearest—if a part were relinquished now? would it make you easier ... and would you promise me, so, that what is mine should be accepted as yours to the end? The worst is that if I were ill, I should be a burden to you, and thus we might have reasons for regret. Still it shall be as pleases you best. But I must be pleased a little too. It is fair that I should.
Certainly you exaggerate to yourself the position. What would have become of you if you had loved a real heiress instead? That would have been a misfortune. As it is, while you are plotting how to get rid of these penny-pieces, everybody will be pitying you for having fixed yourself in such conditions of starvation. You, who might—have married Miss Burdett Coutts!
See how I teaze you!—first promising not to teaze you! But always I am worse than I meant to be. Wasn’t it your fault a little for bringing up this horrible subject?—but here is the paper, the only sort of ‘settlement’ we shall have! Always I have said and sworn that I never, if I married, would have a settlement—and now I thank God to be able to keep my word so. This only is a settlement of the question.
Beloved, how is your head? I love you out of the deepest of my heart, and shall not cease.
Your very own
Ba.
Is this what is called a document? It seems to me that I have a sort of legal genius—and that I should be on the Woolsack in the Martineau. Parliament. But it seems, too, rather bold to attach such a specification to your name. Laugh and pardon it all!
In compliance with the request of Robert Browning, who may possibly become my husband, that I would express in writing my wishes respecting the ultimate disposal of whatever property I possess at this time, whether in the funds or elsewhere, ... I here declare my wishes to be ... that he, Robert Browning, ... having, of course, as it is his right to do, first held and used the property in question for the term of his natural life, ... should bequeath the same, by an equal division, to my two sisters, or, in the case of the previous death of either or both of them, to such of my surviving brothers as most shall need it by the judgment of my eldest surviving brother.
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.