Aurora Leigh. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Nature’s self, you say, Has scorned to put her music in my mouth, Because a woman’s. Do you now turn round And ask for what a woman cannot give?’

      ‘For what she only can, I turn and ask,’ He answered, catching up my hands in his, And dropping on me from his high-eaved brow The full weight of his soul—‘I ask for love, And that, she can; for life in fellowship Through bitter duties—that, I know she can; For wifehood … will she?’ ‘Now,’ I said, ‘may God Be witness ’twixt us two!’ and with the word, Meseemed I floated into a sudden light Above his stature—‘am I proved too weak To stand alone, yet strong enough to bear Such leaners on my shoulder? poor to think, Yet rich enough to sympathise with thought? Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can, Yet competent to love, like him?’ I paused: Perhaps I darkened, as the light-house will That turns upon the sea. ‘It’s always so! Anything does for a wife.’ ‘Aurora, dear, And dearly honoured’ … he pressed in at once With eager utterance—‘you translate me ill. I do not contradict my thought of you Which is most reverent, with another thought Found less so. If your sex is weak for art, (And I who said so, did but honour you By using truth in courtship) it is strong For life and duty. Place your fecund heart In mine, and let us blossom for the world That wants love’s colour in the grey of time. With all my talk I can but set you where You look down coldly on the arena-heaps Of headless bodies, shapeless, indistinct! The Judgment-Angel scarce would find his way Through such a heap of generalised distress, To the individual man with lips and eyes— Much less Aurora. Ah, my sweet, come down, And, hand in hand, we’ll go where yours shall touch These victims, one by one! till, one by one, The formless, nameless trunk of every man Shall seem to wear a head, with hair you know, And every woman catch your mother’s face To melt you into passion.’ ‘I am a girl,’ I answered slowly; ‘you do well to name My mother’s face. Though far too early, alas, God’s hand did interpose ’twixt it and me, I know so much of love, as used to shine In that face and another. Just so much; No more indeed at all. I have not seen So much love since, I pray you pardon me, As answers even to make a marriage with, In this cold land of England. What you love, Is not a woman, Romney, but a cause: You want a helpmate, not a mistress, sir— A wife to help your ends … in her no end! Your cause is noble, your ends excellent, But I, being most unworthy of these and that, Do otherwise conceive of love. Farewell.’

      ‘Farewell, Aurora? you reject me thus?’ He said. ‘Why, sir, you are married long ago. You have a wife already whom you love, Your social theory. Bless you both, I say. For my part, I am scarcely meek enough To be the handmaid of a lawful spouse. Do I look a Hagar, think you?’ ‘So, you jest!’

      ‘Nay so, I speak in earnest,’ I replied. ‘You treat of marriage too much like, at least, A chief apostle; you would bear with you A wife … a sister … shall we speak it out? A sister of charity.’ ‘Then, must it be Indeed farewell? And was I so far wrong In hope and in illusion, when I took The woman to be nobler than the man, Yourself the noblest woman—in the use And comprehension of what love is—love, That generates the likeness of itself Through all heroic duties? so far wrong, In saying bluntly, venturing truth on love, Come, human creature, love and work with me,’— Instead of, ‘Lady, thou art wondrous fair, And, where the Graces walk before, the Muse Will follow at the lighting of their eyes, And where the Muse walks, lovers need to creep: Turn round and love me, or I die of love.’

      With quiet indignation I broke in. ‘You misconceive the question like a man, Who sees a woman as the complement Of his sex merely. You forget too much That every creature, female as the male, Stands single in responsible act and thought, As also in birth and death. Whoever says To a loyal woman, ‘Love and work with me,’ Will get fair answers, if the work and love, Being good themselves, are good for her—the best She was born for. Women of a softer mood, Surprised by men when scarcely awake to life, Will sometimes only hear the first word, love, And catch up with it any kind of work, Indifferent, so that dear love go with it: I do not blame such women, though, for love, They pick much oakum; earth’s fanatics make Too frequently heaven’s saints. But me, your work Is not the best for—nor your love the best, Nor able to commend the kind of work For love’s sake merely. Ah, you force me, sir, To be over-bold in speaking of myself— I, too, have my vocation—work to do, The heavens and earth have set me, since I changed My father’s face for theirs—and, though your world Were twice as wretched as you represent, Most serious work, most necessary work, As any of the economists’. Reform, Make trade a Christian possibility, And individual right no general wrong; Wipe out earth’s furrows of the Thine and Mine, And leave one green, for men to play at bowls, With innings for them all! … what then, indeed, If mortals were not greater by the head Than any of their prosperities? what then, Unless the artist keep up open roads Betwixt the seen and unseen—bursting through The best of your conventions with his best, The speakable, imaginable best God bids him speak, to prove what lies beyond Both speech and imagination? A starved man Exceeds a fat beast: we’ll not barter, sir, The beautiful for barley.—And, even so, I hold you will not compass your poor ends Of barley-feeding and material ease, Without a poet’s individualism To work your universal. It takes a soul, To move a body: it takes a high-souled man, To move the masses … even to a cleaner stye: It takes the ideal, to blow a hair’s-breadth off The dust of the actual.—Ah, your Fouriers failed, Because not poets enough to understand That life develops from within.——For me, Perhaps I am not worthy, as you say, Of work like this! … perhaps a woman’s soul Aspires, and not creates! yet we aspire, And yet I’ll try out your perhapses, sir; And if I fail … why, burn me up my straw Like other false works—I’ll not ask for grace, Your scorn is better, cousin Romney. I Who love my art, would never wish it lower To suit my stature. I may love my art. You’ll grant that even a woman may love art, Seeing that to waste true love on anything, Is womanly, past question.’ I retain The very last word which I said, that day, As you the creaking of the door, years past, Which let upon you such disabling news You ever after have been graver. He, His eyes, the motions in his silent mouth, Were fiery points on which my words were caught, Transfixed for ever in my memory For his sake, not their own. And yet I know I did not love him … nor he me … that’s sure. … And what I said, is unrepented of, As truth is always. Yet … a princely man!— If hard to me, heroic for himself! He bears down on me through the slanting years, The stronger for the distance. If he had loved, Ay, loved me, with that retributive face, … I might have been a common woman now, And happier, less known and less left alone; Perhaps a better woman after all— With chubby children hanging on my neck To keep me low and wise. Ah me, the vines That bear such fruit, are proud to stoop with it. The palm stands upright in a realm of sand.

      And I, who spoke the truth then, stand upright, Still worthy of having spoken out the truth, By being content I spoke it, though it set Him there, me here.—O woman’s vile remorse, To hanker after a mere name, a show, A supposition, a potential love! Does every man who names love in our lives, Become a power for that? is love’s true thing So much best to us, that what personates love Is next best? A potential love, forsooth! We are not so vile. No, no—he cleaves, I think, This man, this image, … chiefly for the wrong And shock he gave my life, in finding me Precisely where the devil of my youth Had set me, on those mountain-peaks of hope All glittering with the dawn-dew, all erect And famished for the morning—saying, while I looked for empire and much tribute, ‘Come, I have some worthy work for thee below. Come, sweep my barns, and keep my hospitals— And I will pay thee with a current coin Which men give women.’ As we spoke, the grass Was trod in haste beside us, and my aunt, With smile distorted by the sun—face, voice, As much at issue with the summer-day As if you brought a candle out of doors— Broke in with, ‘Romney, here!—My child, entreat Your cousin to the house, and have your talk, If girls must talk upon their birthdays. Come,’

      He answered for me calmly, with pale lips That seemed to motion for a smile in vain. ‘The talk is ended, madam, where we stand. Your brother’s daughter has dismissed me here; And all my answer can be better said Beneath the trees, than wrong by such a word Your house’s hospitalities. Farewell.’

      With that he vanished. I could hear his heel Ring bluntly in the lane, as down he leapt The short way from us.—Then, a measured speech Withdrew me. ‘What means this, Aurora Leigh? My brother’s daughter has dismissed my guests?’

      The lion in me felt