2269. EBB to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 12, 172–174.
[London]
Tuesday. [Postmark: 24 March 1846]
How ungrateful I was to your flowers yesterday, never looking at them nor praising them till they were put away, & yourself gone away—& that was your fault, be it remembered, because you began to tell me of the good news from Moxon’s, &, in the joy of it, I missed the flowers .. for the nonce, you know. Afterward they had their due, & all the more that you were not there. My first business when you are out of the room & the house, & the street perhaps, is to arrange the flowers & to gather out of them all the thoughts you leave between the leaves & at the end of the stalks– And shall I tell you what happened, not yesterday, but the thursday before? no, it was the friday morning, when I found, or rather Wilson found & held up from my chair, a bunch of dead blue violets– Quite dead they seemed! You had dropped them & I had sate on them, & where we murdered them they had lain, poor things, all the night through. And Wilson thought it the vainest of labours when she saw me set about reviving them, cutting the stalks afresh, & dipping them head & ears into water—but then she did not know how you & I & ours live under a miraculous dispensation, & could only simply be astonished when they took to blowing again as if they never had wanted the dew of the garden, .. yes, & when at last they outlived all the prosperity of the contemporary white violets which flourished in water from the beginning & were free from the disadvantage of having been sate upon. Now you shall thank me for this letter, .. it is at once so amusing & instructive. After all, too, it teaches you what the great events of my life are——not that the resuscitation of your violets would not really be a great event to me, even if I led the life of a pirate, between fire & sea, otherwise. But take you away .. out of my life!—& what remains? The only greenness I used to have, (before you brought your flowers) was as the grass growing in deserted streets, .. which brings a proof, in every increase, of the extending desolation.
Dearest, I persist in thinking that you ought not to be too disdainful to explain your meaning in the Pomegranates. [1] Surely you might say in a word or two that, your title having been doubted about, (to your surprise, you might say!), you refer the doubters to the Jewish priest’s robe, & the Rabbinical gloss .. for I suppose it is a gloss on the robe .. do you not think so? Consider that Mr Kenyon & I may fairly represent the average intelligence of your readers,—& that he was altogether in the clouds as to your meaning .. had not the most distant notion of it—while I, taking hold of the priest’s garment, missed the Rabbins & the distinctive significance, as completely as he did. Then for Vasari, it is not the handbook of the whole world however it may be Mrs Jameson’s. Now why should you be too proud to teach such persons as only desire to be taught? I persist—I shall teaze you.
This morning my brothers have been saying .. [‘]‘ah you had Mr Browning with you yesterday, I see by the flowers”, .. just as if they said “I see queen Mab has been with you”. [2] Then Stormie took the opportunity of swearing to me by all his gods that your name was mentioned lately in the House of commons [3] —is that true? or untrue? He forgot to tell me at the time, he says,—& you were named with others & in relation to copyright matters. Is it true?
Mr Hornblower Gill is the author of a Hymn to Passion week, [4] & wrote to me as “the glorifier of pain” to remind me that the best glory of a soul is shown in the joy of it, & that all chief poets except Dante have seen, felt, & written it so. Thus & therefore was matured his purpose of writing an “ode to joy”, as I told you. The man seems to have very good thoughts, .. but he writes like a colder Cowley [5] still .. no impulse, no heat for fusing .. no inspiration, in fact. Though I have scarcely done more than glance at his “Passion week,” & have little right to give an opinion.
If you have killed Luria as you helped to kill my violets, what shall I say, do you fancy? Well—we shall see!– Do not kill yourself, beloved, in any case!– The ιοστεφανοι Μουσαι [6] had better die themselves first!– Ah—what am I writing? What nonsense! I mean, in deep earnest, the deepest, that you should take care & exercise: & not be vexed for Luria’s sake—Luria will have his triumph presently! May God bless you—prays your own
Ba
Address: Robert Browning Esqre / New Cross / Hatcham / Surrey.
Postmark: 8NT8 MR24 1846 B.
Docket, in RB’s hand: 136.
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 552–554.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. RB’s explanation of the title for the series appeared on the verso of the title page of A Soul’s Tragedy. In letter 2310, EBB accuses him of placing it there in order to hide it, and, additionally, she assumes that the placement excludes A Soul’s Tragedy from the series, an assumption RB corrects in the following letter.
2. Romeo and Juliet, I, 4, 53.
3. We have been unable to trace any reference to RB in the House of Commons during this period; however, RB had signed a “Petition of English Authors” put forward by Thomas Noon Talfourd in 1840 (Three Speeches Delivered in favour of a measure for an Extension of Copyright, 1840, by Thomas Noon Talfourd, pp. 144–146). Other signers in addition to RB included Carlyle, Dickens, Leigh Hunt, Miss Martineau and Miss Mitford.
4. Thomas Hornblower Gill (1819–1906) was the author of a number of hymns used by Non-Conformists, as well as a long poem entitled The Fortunes of Faith; or Church and State (1841). In the “Our Library Table” column of The Athenæum for 18 May 1844 (no. 864, p. 450), Gill’s Hymn to the Week above Every Week, Passion Week was described as “A lyrical poem indicating enthusiasm, with occasional energy of expression, and facility of versification.”
5. Abraham Cowley (1618–67), immensely popular in his lifetime, was dismissed by later generations as a poet of excessive wit and affectation, with little or no power to touch the heart. EBB refers to him in “A Vision of Poets,” lines 394–396.
6. “Violet-crowned muses.” Cf. Pippa Passes, II, 61.
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