A couple of weeks ago I published an excerpt from a love letter written by Elizabeth Barrett (Browning) to her beloved Robert Browning. Its only fair that I give Robert some space for a reply. Here's an sliver from one of his masterful - and romantic - responses:
When I come back from seeing you, and think over it all, there never is a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with, and wish to return to you with some ... not to say, all ... the thoughts and fancies it is sure to call out of me. There is nothing in you that does not draw out all of me. You possess me, dearest ... and there is no help for the expressing it all, no voice nor hand, but these of mine which shrink and turn away from the attempt. So you must go on, patiently, knowing me more and more, and your entire power on me, and I will console myself, to the full extent, with your knowledge—penetration, intuition—somehow I must believe you can get to what is here, in me, without the pretence of my telling or writing it.
He knew that she knew him, and what he felt and thought, even when, wordsmith though he was, his pen could not give voice to his soul.
1 comment:
I think I love this letter more.
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