The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ was stupid to read that word so wrong. I thought there was a mistake somewhere, but that it was yours, who had written one word, meaning to write another. 'Cower' puts it all right of course. But is there an English word of a significance different from 'stamp,' in 'stomp?' Does not the old word King Lud's men stomped withal, claim identity with our 'stamping.' The a and o used to 'change about,' you know, in the old English writers—see Chaucer for it. Still the 'stomp' with the peculiar significance, is better of course than the 'stamp' even with a rhyme ready for it, and I dare say you are justified in daring to put this old wine into the new bottle; and we will drink to the health of the poem in it. It is 'Italy in England'—isn't it? But I understand and understood perfectly, through it all, that it is unfinished, and in a rough state round the edges. I could not help seeing that, even if I were still blinder than when I read 'Lower' for 'Cower.'

      But do not, I ask of you, speak of my 'kindness' ... my kindness!—mine! It is 'wasteful and ridiculous excess' and mis-application to use such words of me. And therefore, talking of 'compacts' and the 'fas' and 'nefas' of them, I entreat you to know for the future that whatever I write of your poetry, if it isn't to be called 'impertinence,' isn't to be called 'kindness,' any more, ... a fortiori, as people say when they are sure of an argument. Now, will you try to understand?

      And talking still of compacts, how and where did I break any compact? I do not see.

      It was very curious, the phenomenon about your 'Only a Player-Girl.' What an un-godlike indifference to your creatures though—your worlds, breathed away from you like soap bubbles, and dropping and breaking into russet portfolios unobserved! Only a god for the Epicurean, at best, can you be? That Miss Cushman went to Three Mile Cross the other day, and visited Miss Mitford, and pleased her a good deal, I fancied from what she said, ... and with reason, from what you say. And 'Only a Fiddler,' as I forgot to tell you yesterday, is announced, you may see in any newspaper, as about to issue from the English press by Mary Howitt's editorship. So we need not go to America for it. But if you complain of George Sand for want of art, how could you bear Andersen, who can see a thing under his eyes and place it under yours, and take a thought separately into his soul and express it insularly, but has no sort of instinct towards wholeness and unity; and writes a book by putting so many pages together, ... just so!—For the rest, there can be no disagreeing with you about the comparative difficulty of novel-writing and drama-writing. I disagree a little, lower down in your letter, because I could not deny (in my own convictions) a certain proportion of genius to the author of 'Ernest Maltravers,' and 'Alice' (did you ever read those books?), even if he had more impotently tried (supposing it to be possible) for the dramatic laurel. In fact his poetry, dramatic or otherwise, is 'nought'; but for the prose romances, and for 'Ernest Maltravers' above all, I must lift up my voice and cry. And I read the Athenæum about your Sir James Wylie who took you for an Italian....

      'Poi vi dirò Signor, che ne fu causa

       Ch' avio fatto al scriver debita pausa.'—

      Ever your

      E.B.B.

      R.B. to E.B.B.

      Friday Morning.

       [Post-mark, August 15, 1845.]

      Do you know, dear friend, it is no good policy to stop up all the vents of my feeling, nor leave one for safety's sake, as you will do, let me caution you never so repeatedly. I know, quite well enough, that your 'kindness' is not so apparent, even, in this instance of correcting my verses, as in many other points—but on such points, you lift a finger to me and I am dumb.... Am I not to be allowed a word here neither?

      I remember, in the first season of German Opera here, when 'Fidelio's' effects were going, going up to the gallery in order to get the best of the last chorus—get its oneness which you do—and, while perched there an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormous enthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought,—I and a cousin of mine)—whose whole body broke out in billow, heaved and swayed in the perfection of his delight, hands, head, feet, all tossing and striving to utter what possessed him. Well—next week, we went again to the Opera, and again mounted at the proper time, but the crowd was greater, and our mild great faced white haired red cheeked German was not to be seen, not at first—for as the glory was at its full, my cousin twisted me round and made me see an arm, only an arm, all the body of its owner being amalgamated with a dense crowd on each side, before, and—not behind, because they, the crowd, occupied the last benches, over which we looked—and this arm waved and exulted as if 'for the dignity of the whole body,'—relieved it of its dangerous accumulation of repressed excitability. When the crowd broke up all the rest of the man disengaged itself by slow endeavours, and there stood our friend confessed—as we were sure!

      —Now, you would have bade him keep his arm quiet? 'Lady Geraldine, you would!'

      I have read those novels—but I must keep that word of words, 'genius'—for something different—'talent' will do here surely.

      There lies 'Consuelo'—done with!

      I shall tell you frankly that it strikes me as precisely what in conventional language with the customary silliness is styled a woman's book, in its merits and defects,—and supremely timid in all the points where one wants, and has a right to expect, some fruit of all the pretence and George Sandism. These are occasions when one does say, in the phrase of her school, 'que la Femme parle!' or what is better, let her act! and how does Consuelo comfort herself on such an emergency? Why, she bravely lets the uninspired people throw down one by one their dearest prejudices at her feet, and then, like a very actress, picks them up, like so many flowers, returning them to the breast of the owners with a smile and a courtesy and trips off the stage with a glance at the Pit. Count Christian, Baron Frederic, Baroness—what is her name—all open their arms, and Consuelo will not consent to entail disgrace &c. &c. No, you say—she leaves them in order to solve the problem of her true feeling, whether she can really love Albert; but remember that this is done, (that is, so much of it as ever is done, and as determines her to accept his hand at the very last)—this is solved sometime about the next morning—or earlier—I forget—and in the meantime, Albert gets that 'benefit of the doubt' of which chapter the last informs you. As for the hesitation and self examination on the matter of that Anzoleto—the writer is turning over the leaves of a wrong dictionary, seeking help from Psychology, and pretending to forget there is such a thing as Physiology. Then, that horrible Porpora:—if George Sand gives him to a Consuelo for an absolute master, in consideration of his services specified, and is of opinion that they warrant his conduct, or at least, oblige submission to it,—then, I find her objections to the fatherly rule of Frederic perfectly impertinent—he having a few claims upon the gratitude of Prussia also, in his way, I believe! If the strong ones will make the weak ones lead them—then, for Heaven's sake, let this dear old all-abused world keep on its course without these outcries and tearings of hair, and don't be for ever goading the Karls and other trodden-down creatures till they get their carbines in order (very rationally) to abate the nuisance—when you make the man a long speech against some enormity he is about to commit, and adjure and beseech and so forth, till he throws down the aforesaid carbine, falls on his knees, and lets the Frederic go quietly on his way to keep on killing his thousands after the fashion that moved your previous indignation. Now is that right, consequential—that is, inferential; logically deduced, going straight to the end—manly?

      The accessories are not the Principal, the adjuncts—the essence, nor the ornamental incidents the book's self, so what matters it if the portraits are admirable, the descriptions eloquent, (eloquent, there it is—that is her characteristic—what she has to speak, she speaks out, speaks volubly forth, too well, inasmuch as you say, advancing a step or two, 'And now speak as completely here'—and СКАЧАТЬ