2277. RB to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 12, 186–188.
[London]
Sunday Afternoon. [29 March 1846] [1]
Now, I think, if I had been “pricked at the heart” [2] by dear, dearest Ba’s charge yesterday,—if I did not certainly know why it might sometimes seem better to be silent than to speak,—should I not be found taking out three or four sheets of paper, and beginning to write, and write! My own, dearest and best,—it is not so,—not wrong, my heart’s self tells me,—and tells you? But, for the rest, there shall never pass a day till my death wherein I will not write to you, so long as you let me,—excepting those days I may spend with you,—partly or .. altogether—Love, shall I have very, very long to be hating to write, yet writing?
You see sometimes how I talk to you,—even in mere talking what a strange work I make of it. I go on thinking quite another way: so, generally, I often have thought, the little I have written, has been an inconscious scrawling with the mind fixed somewhere else: the subject of the scrawl may have previously been the real object of the mind on some similar occasion,—the very thing which then to miss, (finding in its place such another result of a still prior fancy-fit)—which then to see escape, or find escaped, .. was the vexation of the time! One cannot, (or I cannot) finish up the work in one’s mind, put away the old projects and take up new– Well, this which I feel on so many occasions, do you wonder if—if!
I should write on this forever! It is all so strange, such a dream as you say!
Indeed, love, the picture [3] is not like, nor “flattered” by any means, yet I don’t know how it is, I cannot be cross with it—there is a touch of truth in the eyes,—would one have believed that? I know my own way with portraits; how I let them master eventually my most decided sense of their unlikeness—and this finds me very prepared—still—it seems already more faithful than last night .. how do I determine where the miraculousness ends? (My Mother was greatly impressed by it—and my sister, coming (from my room) into the room where I was with a visitor, before whom she could not speak .. English, said “È molto bella”! [4] )
Here is my “proof”—I found it as I expected: I fear I must put you to that trouble of sending the other two acts—I hate to think of so troubling you! But do not, Ba, hurry yourself—nor take extraordinary pains [5] —what is worth your pains in these poor things? I like Luria better now,—it may do, now,—probably because it must: but, as I said yesterday, I seriously hope and trust to shew my sense of gratitude for what is promised my future life, by doing some real work in it,—work of yours, as thro’ you– I have felt,—not for the first time now,—but from the beginning, vexed, foolishly vexed perhaps, that I could not without attracting undesirable notice, “dedicate,” in the true sense of the word, this or the last number to you: but if any really worthy performance should follow, then .. my mouth will be unsealed. All is forewritten!
I wonder if you have ventured down this sunny afternoon—tell me how you are, and, once again, do not care about those papers,—any time will do.
So, bless you, my own—my all—beloved Ba.
Your RB
Address: Miss Barrett, / 50. Wimpole St.
Postmark: None. Letter was enclosed with parcel containing proofsheets.
Docket, in EBB’s hand: 156.
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 567–568.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by RB’s reference to his visit of 28 March.
2. Cf. Acts 2:37.
4. “She is very beautiful.”
5. i.e., in reading and making her notes on RB’s poems; see Appendix IV in vol. 11.
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