[MF4A] Ever Yours - Episode 3

Transcript

You know, I've never read these before. I'm just going to say that the first sentence Browning starts off is pretty strong, and how they end their letters, well, they seem very committed right out of the gate for sure. Very passionate.

Why do you think I made the reference at the end of the audio? It's a significant piece in literary history. You both know if it's not a script, let alone anything of literary significance, I don't really read.

Such a shame. Because? It's okay.

It's cute when you try so hard to keep up with us. Now hold on a second, princess. Doing these readings with me, and I suppose every little bit counts.

I. .. I'll choose to ignore you baiting me.

Darn. And it gives us great joy to see you flustered. Come on, just a little taste.

Anyway. .. Damn it.

I tried, sweetheart. In the first letter, I see his joy in reading her work, just as I feel in seeing what you both create. Maybe not as eloquent as this letter, but I share the same sentiment.

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey. January 10th, 1845. I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett, and this is no offhand complimentary letter that I shall write.

Whatever else, no prompt. Matter of course, recognition of your genius. And there, a graceful and natural end of the thing.

Since the day last week when I first read your poems, when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me. For in the first flush of delight, I thought I would this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, when I do really enjoy and thoroughly justify my admiration, perhaps even as a loyal fellow craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some little good to be proud of hereafter. But nothing comes of it all, so into me it has gone and part of me it has become.

This great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew, oh how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat and prized highly and put in a book with a proper account at top and bottom and shut up and put away in the book called a flora. Besides, after all, I need to give up the thought of doing that too, in time. Because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give a reason for my faith in one and another excellence.

Fresh, deranged music, an affluent language, the exquisite pathos, true new brave thought, but this addressing myself to you, your own self, and for the first time my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart and I love you too. Do you know I was once not very far from seeing, really seeing you.

Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning, would you like to see Miss Barrett? Then he went to announce me, then he returned and you were too unwell, and now it was, now it's years ago.

I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels, as if I had been close, so close, to some world's wonder in chapel or crypt, only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some slight, so now seems slight and just sufficient bar to admission, and the half-open door shut, and I went home with my thousands of miles and the sight was never to be. Well, these poems were to be, and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself, yours, ever faithfully, Robert Browning. EBB to RB, 50 Wimpole Street, January 11th, 1845.

I thank you, dear Mr. Browning, from the bottom of my heart. You meant to give me pleasure by your letter, and even if the object had not been answered, I ought to still thank you.

But it is thoroughly answered, such as a letter from such a hand. Sympathy is dear, very dear to me, but the sympathy of a poet, and of such a poet, is the quintessence of sympathy to me. Will you take back my gratitude for it? Agreeing to that of all the commerce done in the world, from Tyre to Carthage, the exchange of sympathy for gratitude is the most princely thing.

For the rest you draw me on with your kindness. It is difficult to get rid of people when you once have given them too much pleasure. That is a fact, and we will not stop for the moral of it.

What I was going to say, after a little natural hesitation, is that if ever you emerge without inconvenient effort from your passive state, and will tell me of such faults as rise to the surface and strike you as important in my poems. For of course, I do not think of troubling you with criticism in detail. You will confer a lasting obligation on me, and one which I shall value so much, that I covet it at a distance.

I do not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism, and it is possible enough that I might not be altogether obedient to yours. But with my high respect for your power in your art, and for your experience as an artist, it would be quite impossible for me to hear a general observation of yours on what appears to you my master faults, without being the better for it hereafter in some way. I ask for only a sentence or two of general observation, and I do not ask even for that.

So as to tease you, put in the humble, low voice, which is so excellent a thing in women, particularly when they go a-begging. The most frequent general criticism I receive is, I think, upon the style, if I would but change my style. But that is an objection, isn't it, to the writer bodily? Buffon says, and every sincere writer must feel that le style, c'est l'homme, a fact, however, scarcely calculated to lessen the objection with certain critics.

It is indeed true that I was so near to the pleasure and honor of making your acquaintance, and it can be true that you look back upon the lost opportunity with any regret. But, you know, if you had entered the crypt, you might have caught cold, or been tired to death, and wished yourself a thousand miles off, which would have been worse than traveling them. It is not my interest, however, to put such thoughts in your head about it being all for the best, and I would rather hope, as I do, that what I lost by one chance I may recover by some future one.

Winters shut me up as they do Dormouse's eyes. In the spring, we shall see. And I am so much better that I seem turning round to the outworked world again.

And in the meantime, I have learned to know your voice, not merely from the poetry, but from the kindness in it. Mr. Kenyon often speaks of you, dear Mr.

Kenyon, who most unspeakably, or only speakably, with tears in my eyes, has been my friend and helper, and my book's friend and helper, critic and sympathizer, true friend of all hours. You know him well enough, I think, to understand that I must be grateful to him, him writing too much, and notwithstanding that I am writing too much. I will write of one thing more.

I will say that I am your debtor, not only for this cordial letter, but for all the pleasure which came with it, but in other ways, and those the highest. And I will say that while I live to follow this divine art of poetry, in proportion to my love for it, and my devotion to it, I must be a devout admirer and student of your works. This is in my heart to say to you, and I say it.

And for the rest, I am proud to remain your obliged and faithful Elizabeth B. Barrett. Hmm, how sweet.

And dare I say, suggestively flirty undertones of the first letter. Suggestive how? She used the word pleasure four times in one letter.

You might be reading a little too much into it. But, you know, I'm sure writing the word pleasure too many times back then could definitely get you put on a list. It was the Victorian times.

Feelings of love and desire were filled with subtleties that cried out their deepest vulnerabilities in a nice society. I don't see how it's any different from societal restraints now, but her letter sounds a lot like you. Smart, sweet, clever, expressive? More like how you've described yourself to us before.

So all of the above I mentioned. No, more like whiskey in a teacup. And you both love it.

Perhaps. And I won't be pulled into arguing with you on the truth. Damn, sorry love.

I tried my best. Anyway, we love you as ever yours. And ours.