The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II | Page 7

cough before we reached London. The quality of the air does not
agree with me, that's evident. For nearly five years I have had no such
cough nor difficulty of breathing, and my friends, who at first sight
thought me looking well, must forbear all compliments for the future, I
think, I get so much paler every day. Next week we send Wilson to see
her mother near Sheffield and the baby with her, which is a great stroke
of fortitude in me; only what I can't bear is to see him crying because
she is gone away. So we resolve on letting them both go together.
When she returns, ten days or a fortnight after, we shall have to think of
going to Paris again; indeed Robert begins to be nervous about
me--which is nonsense, but natural enough perhaps.
In regard to Colwall, you are both, my very dear friends, the kindest
that you can be. Ah, but dearest, dearest Mrs. Martin, you can
understand, with the same kindness that you use to me in other things.
There is only one event in my life which never loses its bitterness;
which comes back on me like a retreating wave, going and coming
again, which was and _is my grief--I never had but one brother who
loved and comprehended me_. And so there is just one thought which
would be unbearable if I went into your neighbourhood; and you won't
set it down, I am sure, as unpardonable weakness, much less as
affectation, if I confess to you that I never could bear it. The past
would be too strong for me. As to Hope End, it is nothing. I have been
happier in my own home since, than I was there and then. But Torquay
has made the neighbourhood of Hope End impossible to me. I could
not eat or sleep in that air. You will forgive me for the weakness, I am
certain. You know a little, if not entirely, how we loved one another;
how I was first with him, and he with me; while God knows that death
and separation have no power over such love.
After all, we shall see you in Paris if not in England. We pass this

winter in Paris, in the hope of my being able to bear the climate, for
indeed Italy is too far. And if the winter does not disagree with me too
much we mean to take a house and settle in Paris, so as to be close to
you all, and that will be a great joy to me. You will pass through Paris
this autumn (won't you?) on your way to Pau, and I shall see you. I do
long to see you and make you know my husband....
So far from regretting my marriage, it has made the happiness and
honour of my life; and every unkindness received from my own house
makes me press nearer to the tenderest and noblest of human hearts
proved by the uninterrupted devotion of nearly five years. Husband,
lover, nurse--not one of these, has Robert been to me, but all three
together. I neither regret my marriage, therefore, nor the manner of it,
because the manner of it was a necessity of the act. I thought so at the
time, I think so now; and I believe that the world in general will decide
(if the world is to be really appealed to) that my opinion upon this
subject (after five years) is worth more.
Dearest Mrs. Martin, do write to me. I keep my thoughts as far as I can
from bitter things, and the affectionateness of my dearest sisters is
indeed much on the other side. Also, we are both giddy with the kind
attentions pressed on us from every side, from some of the best in
England. It's hard to think at all in such a confusion. We met Tennyson
(the Laureate) by a chance in Paris, who insisted that we should take
possession of his house and servants at Twickenham and use them as
long as we liked to stay in England. Nothing could be more warmly
kind, and we accepted the note in which he gave us the right of
possession for the sake of the generous autograph, though we never
intended in our own minds to act out the proposition. Since then, Mr.
Arnould, the Chancery barrister, has begged us to go and live in his
town house (we don't want houses, you see); Mrs. Fanny Kemble called
on and left us tickets for her Shakespeare reading (by the way, I was
charmed with her 'Hamlet'); Mr. Forster, of the 'Examiner,' gave us a
magnificent dinner at Thames Ditton in sight of the swans; and we
breakfast on Saturday with Mr. Rogers. Then