E.B.B. to R.B.
Wednesday, May 20.
Was it very 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 to-day would, ... and also, as you do not say, it would have been infinitely hard for me to meet you and 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 ‘Daughter of Græcian Genius!’) he turned those horrible spectacles full on me and asked, ‘Does Mrs. Jameson know that Mr. Browning comes here?’ ‘No,’ said I,—suddenly abashed, though I had borne the sonnet like a hero. ‘Well, then! I advise you to give directions to the servants that when she or anyone else 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, and felt as uncomfortable as was well possible—and 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!’ Not that they have uttered one word of opposition ... not, from the first they knew, ... understand!—but that they are frightened at what may be said by people who take for granted that we are strangers, you and I, to one another. Ah!—a little more, a little less ... of what consequence is it?
Such a day, to-day!—it was finer last year I remember! and Tuesday, instead of Wednesday! Your sister was right, very right—though mine went—but the distance was less, with us. A party of twelve went from this house—‘among us but not of us.’ For my part, I have not stirred from my room of course—the carriage was out of the question. And, if you please, I never ‘promised’ to be at the park gate—oh indeed, I never meditated seeing you even from afar—I thought only that I should hear a little distant music and remember that, where it sounded, you were, that was all, ... and too much, the stars made out, and so drove down the clouds.
Poor Mr. Kenyon was grave—depressed about his friend, who is in a desperate state—dying in fact. He returns to Portsmouth to-morrow to be with him till the change comes.
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 and saucer thrown bodily, here, by the lady! On which the gentleman upsets her, ... chair and all, ... flat on the floor. The witness, who is a friend of mine, gets frightened and begins to cry. She was invited to the house to be godmother to their child, and 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.
Goodnight, dear dearest—
I am your
Ba.