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

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, true friend of all hours! You know him well enough, I think, to understand that I must be grateful to him.
I am 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 and for all the pleasure