2197. EBB to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 12, 42–43.
[London]
[4 February 1846] [1]
But I did not .. dear dearest .. no indeed, I did not mean any harm about the letter. I wanted to show you how you had given me pleasure—& so, .. did I give you pain? was that my ingenuity? Forgive my unhappiness in it, & let it be as if it had not been. Only I will just say that what made me take [sic, for talk] about ‘the thorn in the flesh’ [2] from that letter so long, was a sort of conviction of your having put into it as much of the truth, your truth, as admitted of the ultimate purpose of it, .. & not the least, slightest doubt of the key you gave me to the purpose in question. And so forgive me. Why did you set about explaining, as if I were doubting you?– When you said once that it “did not come & go”, .. was it not enough? enough to make me feel happy as I told you? Did I require you to write a letter like this?—— Now think for a moment, & know once for all, how from the beginning to these latter days & through all possible degrees of crisis, you have been to my apprehension & gratitude, the best, most consistent most noble … the words falter that would speak of it all. In nothing or at no moment have you .. I will not say .. failed to me .. but spoken or acted unworthily of yourself at the highest. What have you ever been to me except too generous?—. Ah—if I had been only half as generous, it is true that I never could have seen you again after that first meeting—it was the straight path perhaps. But I had not courage– I shrank from the thought of it—& then .. besides .. I could not believe that your mistake was likely to last,—I concluded that I might keep my friend.
Why should any remembrance be painful to you? I do not understand. Unless indeed I should grow painful to you .. I myself!—seeing that every remembered separate thing has brought me nearer to you, & made me yours with a deeper trust & love.
And for that letter .. do you fancy that in my memory the sting is not gone from it?—& that I do not carry the thought of it, as the Roman maidens, you speak of, their cool harmless snakes, at my heart always?– [3] So let the poor letter be forgiven—for the sake of the dear letter that was burnt [4] .. forgiven by you .. until you grow angry with me instead .. just till then.
And that you should care so much about the opium—! Then I must care, & get to do with less .. at least– On the other side of your goodness & indulgence (a very little way on the other side, ..) it might strike you as strange that I who have had no pain .. no acute suffering to keep down from its angles .. should need opium in any shape. But I have had restlessness till it made me almost mad—at one time I lost the power of sleeping quite .. & even in the day, the continual aching sense of weakness, <has been intolerable ..> [5] besides palpitation .. as if one’s life instead of giving movement to the body, were imprisoned undiminished within it, & beating & fluttering impotently to get out, at all the doors & windows. So the medical people gave me opium .. a preparation of it, called morphine, & æther—& ever since I have been calling it my amreeta draught, [6] my elixir, .. because the tranquillizing power has been wonderful. Such a nervous system I have .. so irritable naturally, & so shattered by various causes, .. that the need has continued in a degree until now—& it would be dangerous to leave off the calming remedy, Mr Jago [7] says, except very slowly & gradually. But slowly & gradually something may be done—& you are to understand that I never increased upon the prescribed quantity .. prescribed in the first instance—no!– Now think of my writing all this to you!–
And after all the lotus-eaters are blessed beyond the opium-eaters; & the best of lotuses are such thoughts as I know.
Dear Miss Mitford comes tomorrow, & I am not glad enough– Shall I have a letter to make me glad? She will talk, talk, talk .. & I shall be hoping all day that not a word may be talked of .. you:—a forlorn hope indeed! There’s a hope for a day like thursday which is just in the middle between a tuesday & a saturday!
Your head .. is it .. how is it? tell me. And consider again if it could be possible that I could ever desire to reproach you .. in what I said about the letter.
May God bless you, best & dearest. If you are the compensation, blessed is the evil that fell upon me: & that, I can say before God.
Your Ba–
Address: Robert Browning Esqre / New Cross / Hatcham / Surrey.
Postmark: 10FN10 FE5 1846 A.
Docket, in RB’s hand: (111).
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 436–438.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Date provided by postmark and EBB’s reference to Miss Mitford’s visit, which occurred on 5 February.
2. II Corinthians 12:7.
3. RB made a similar remark to Fanny Haworth in April 1839 (see letter 689); however, we have been unable to trace the source of this allusion.
5. The phrase in angle brackets was added above the line.
6. Amreeta, in Hindu mythology, was a liquor conferring immortality on the drinker. A long note in Southey’s The Curse of Kehama explains that it was produced by churning the ocean with a mountain.
7. Francis Robert Jago (d. 1862, aged 75) had previously provided medical advice to EBB (see letter 849, note 2).
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