The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett | Page 2

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 ... you
were too unwell, and now it is years ago, and 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 it now seems, slight
and just sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut, and
I went home 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.
Miss Barrett,[1] 50 Wimpole St. R. Browning.
[Footnote 1: With this and the following letter the addresses on the
envelopes are given; for all subsequent letters the addresses are the
same. The correspondence passed through the post.]

_E.B.B. to R.B._
50 Wimpole Street: Jan. 11, 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 still to thank you. But it is thoroughly answered.
Such 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, too,
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
appear 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--but 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.
Is it indeed true that I was so near to the pleasure and honour of making
your acquaintance? and can it 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
travelling them. It is not my interest, however, to put such thoughts in
your head about its 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 outward
world again. And in the meantime I have learnt 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 sympathiser,