[MF4A] Ever Yours - Episode 1

Transcript

Welcome listeners to a show, one tucked neatly up with a cup of tea or coffee, a cozy blanket or a warm fireplace, the sunlight of the morning dawn shining through the window, or the bright silver reflections of moonlight. Is that too much, Kateri? Whatever made you think that? Your expression.

I thought you were doing fine. It's a little harder than I thought to echo two great Victorian poets' love story in an introduction. Which is why we're doing this whole thing with breaking the fourth wall for episode one as an introduction, and then we can move forward with the story for all the rest.

Well, I'd still like to finish what I've done. Please? Of course.

I'll even look away to make you feel comfortable. Let voice actors Kateri Wilde and Odyssey Lane take you on a journey of your own. Experience comfort, love, connection, and the warm embrace of not one, but two doting partners, making sure you feel right at home.

You're giggling. You're doing fine, Lane. I promise, it's adorable.

You're making it. .. interesting.

And we did discuss more about our interactive spin with the letters. So you're not too far off? Fine, fine, I'll save the theatrics for next time.

Now you, dear listener, we'd like to invite you to join us in the exploration of intimate storytelling for the adventurous heart. Despite this series being centered around a polycule, of course, it's safe for work. Just saying, in case you actually listen in a public place, and all to help you explore an avenue of romance and care you might have missed or never tried before in a relaxed, flirtatious, and endearing roleplay.

Yes, we take your hands in ours, because there's two of us. Sharing with you the beautiful and romantic story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Yes, quite the journey.

Come with us in following the journey of these two as they fall deeper in love through each other's passion, desire, and longing. The letters we'll be sharing come from the books The Letters of Robert Barrett and Elizabeth Barrett, Volume 1 and 2, 1845-1846, using excerpts of copies from the original 1898 publication of The Brownings' Courtship, compiled by their son, Robert Wideman Barrett Browning. The first volume is also available for free on Kindle or the Gutenberg Project, and you can find the letters in the archive's Special Collections at Wesley College, MA.

As well, they're available online at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. You can go to the Baylor Digital Collection Library online and see the actual letters and read the transcripts for free. You know, seeing the letters for myself helped me paint a visual of the two.

A bit of the time period, seeing their own handwriting, their strokes of the pen, I'd recommend if anyone was interested to look into it for themselves. I've always been a fan of the poem, How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and I still find it funny how I'm not the only one who got confused about if it was written by Shakespeare.

Even you, Lane. Yeah, Google really should do more research and get their facts straight. Perhaps.

But I loved the poem, and then I found out about the love letters between her and her husband. I was surprised how expansive and connective those personal writings showcased their love story. I think their story is certainly a passionate one.

Not because they're talented poets, but because of the feelings contained in the contents of the letters. And it seems to have found their way to their son, at least, considering he felt strongly enough about their work to compile all 574 letters. And then that rippled out from there and inspired the Browning letters collaboration.

There has to be a reason that their son and these institutions wanted to keep these things alive, right? Maybe these works inspired them, be filled with hope that romance is still out there today, to at least have an understanding that love like theirs used to exist. And I think it can still be found today.

Their son actually wrote a little bit on why he decided to do what he did with them, with the letters. And I'd like to take a moment to go over that, just real quick, and give a little more insight into the why. Here I'll read what he wrote, as you can hear from the paper.

In considering the question of publishing these letters, which are all that ever passed between my father and mother, for after their marriage they were never separated, it seemed to me that my only alternatives were to allow them to be published or to destroy them. I might, indeed, have left the matter to the decision of others after my death, but that would be evading a responsibility which I feel that I ought to accept. Ever since my mother's death, these letters were kept by my father in a certain inlaid box into which they exactly fitted, and where they have always rested, letter beside letter, each in its consecutive order, and numbered on the envelope by his own hands.

My father destroyed all the rest of his correspondence, and not long before his death, he said, referring to these letters, There they are. Do with them as you please when I'm dead and gone. A few of the letters are of little or no interest, but their omission would have saved only a few pages, and I think it well that the correspondence should be given in its entirety.

I wish to express my gratitude to my father's friend, and mine, Miss Miller Morrison, for her unfailing sympathy and assistance in deciphering some words which had become scarcely legible owing to faded ink. Robert Barrett Browning, 1898 I can resonate with how much it meant for their son to translate, edit, and publish their letters more from a personal point of view. Without divulging too much, it reminded me of my grandparents.

During their own courtship, my grandfather lived in another country for two to three years, and they'd send letters often to each other. They'd spray her signature perfume on them, and they even had a nickname for each other from how often they wrote, which is why this podcast is called Ever Yours, as a tie-in to the podcast in how personal addresses and signings of letters are endearing and personal. It would have been nice to read their letters, but when I asked, my grandmother had this deadpan look on her face and said, oh no, we burned them.

They filled the fireplace more than once to destroy them. She went into detail how it was stuffed to the brim each time they used a fireplace. That's how many letters were exchanged.

So to hear Browning and Barrett had exchanged letters for a year and a half amazes me. I bet they held hands before marriage. Huh.

I do wish I could have read my grandparents' letters. I guess there must have been some very unholy themes. Well, maybe unlike your grandparents' letters, the Victorians knew how to be poetically subtle.

And now that the introduction is finished, every episode will draw you into the center of your own intimate story with us. To start off, we'll be posting bi-weekly and hope to shift to weekly, which is likely because it would take a long time to finish reading two letters for each episode. And if you're feeling just as inspired, Kateri and myself encourage you to share some of your favorite stories, letters, writings.

We will look forward to reading them. So please, join us on a wild odyssey. As ever yours, and ours.