A Private History of Happiness (28 page)

Back in his cottage, the books themselves seemed full of encouragement, now that they were up on their shelves. When the air was full of vigor outside in the lanes and fields, then in his heart it felt good to see the
Canterbury Pilgrims
above the fireplace, and Shakespeare in the alcove, like the patron saint of literature itself on this joyful day.

In his later comments on Omar Khayyam, Edward FitzGerald praised the way of falling “back upon Today (which has outlasted so many Tomorrows!) as the only Ground he got to stand upon, however momentarily slipping from under his Feet.” On that sunny Suffolk morning, he himself had learned the same lesson as he appreciated the richness of the passing hour. Like Chaucer’s pilgrims on their road to Canterbury, he still had a long journey to travel, but on such a lovely spring day he could feel that both the energy of the natural world and the literary tradition were ready to offer their support to his own creative powers.

Elizabeth Barrett, poet, writing a letter to her betrothed

LONDON
• DECEMBER 1845

I have put some of [your] hair into a little locket which was given to me when I was a child by my favourite uncle, Papa’s only brother, who used to tell me that he loved me better than my own father did, and was jealous when I was not glad. It is through him in part, that I am richer than my sisters
—through him and his mother—and a great grief it was and trial, when he died a few years ago in Jamaica, proving by his last act that I was unforgotten. And now I remember how he once said to me: “Do you beware of ever loving!—If you do, you will not do it half: it will be for life and death.”

So I put the hair into his locket, which I wear habitually, and which never had hair before
—the natural use of it being for perfume—and this is the best perfume for all hours, besides the completing of a prophecy.

Elizabeth Barrett had first met Robert Browning when he visited her at her home in the center of London seven months before this letter. She was in her late thirties, an invalid who rarely left her bedroom in the London family house. She was already a well-known poet, as indeed was her visitor. He had made contact initially in a letter expressing his admiration for her work.

Their friendship soon deepened into love. This was all kept secret because of the domestic despotism of her father, Edward Moulton Barrett. The exchange of little tokens was like smuggled contraband, romance and adventure blended into a delicious elixir.

Whenever her brothers or sisters got married, their father denied them his consent and then promptly disinherited them. That was why the modest inheritance Elizabeth Barrett had from her uncle was important—and why she referred to it in this romantic letter to Browning. This financial security was the basis of the plan they were devising: to marry secretly and then flee to Italy. Without this money, their scheme would have been merely a game of fantasizing.

So this was a letter of reassurance: they would have enough to get to Italy together. (They did indeed marry and move to Tuscany the following year.) Then she obviously felt she could be less practical and tell Browning the story of her uncle’s prophecy—that once she was in love, it would be forever. She would never recover and “‘it will be for life and death.’” The words were her pledge to her lover, an anecdotal declaration of faith.

She had also been given a plainer present by her uncle, a little treasure to remember him by, a locket that she always wore in his memory. She had kept a drop of perfume in it, perhaps as a restorative on her many days of ill health.

Now she enclosed there safely a lock of Robert Browning’s hair. As she told him her secret, she might have lifted the locket to her lips; she felt that this little token was “the best perfume for all hours.” It was the scent of sweet freedom and love, the soft trace of their future in the heavy air of her semi-captivity in London. She was happy now as she realized this was already fulfilling her uncle’s prophecy: Her first love would be forever.

Honoré de Balzac, novelist, writing a letter to his beloved

PARIS
• OCTOBER 28, 1833

I went to bed at two o’clock, after having walked home through the deserted silent streets of the Luxembourg quarter, admiring the blue sky, the effects of moonlight and mist on the Luxembourg, the Pantheon, Saint Sulpice, the Val de Grace, the Observatory, and the boulevards, drowned in torrents of thought, and carrying about me two notes for a thousand francs each! But I no longer bestowed a thought on them. It was my valet who found them. That lovely night had plunged me into ecstasy; you were in the skies! They spoke to me of love; I walked on listening to find out whether your dear voice might not fall from those stars, sweet and harmonious on my ears, and vibrate in my heart; and my idol, my flower, my life, I embroidered some arabesques on the wretched frame of my days of sorrow and labour.

[. . .] I am back in my study, correcting proofs, recovered from my excursions into the world of matter of fact, again taking up my chimeras, my loves; and going to bed at six in the evening, my frugality, and my bodily inactivity, will be resumed.

Goodbye till tomorrow, my love; I shall get up at midnight on Friday morning, in short, and I shall begin by reading over again your last letter to see whether I have not forgotten to answer you in any point.

We have had here for the last week a real summer, the loveliest weather in creation. Paris is superb. Love of my life, a thousand kisses are confided to the air for you, a thousand thoughts of happiness scattered during my wanderings, and an unspeakable disdain at the sight of men.

Honoré de Balzac was a busy man. He spent his nights writing his novels (“I shall get up at midnight”), which were already bringing success and would soon make him one of the most celebrated French authors of the nineteenth century. He lived mostly by a severe and focused routine, driven to compose his stories in lonely concentration.
But recently he had had a life-changing encounter with the woman to whom he was writing this letter, the Polish countess Evelina Hanska.

In 1832—Balzac was in his early thirties—she had written to him to express her admiration for one of his books. She was married to a wealthy nobleman, but she had come to Switzerland in September of 1833, a few weeks before this letter, to meet Balzac at Neuchâtel. They had fallen in love and then she had to go home.

But this was not a letter of sadness or separation. He was describing a deeply positive experience. Last night, he had been walking home through the streets of Paris. It had already been a pleasant sight, “admiring the blue sky, the effects of moonlight and mist” on the great buildings of the city. At the same time, he was preoccupied with his feelings, “drowned in torrents of thought.” He was so swept up by his love that he was carrying with him “two notes for a thousand francs each” and then forgot about them—even though money was important to him.

Then the night was magically transfigured. Suddenly Balzac felt as if his lover’s presence was all around him, as if indeed she “were in the skies!” Instead of being far away, she appeared to be an immediate presence. She had become his whole world.

So intense was this feeling that he even hoped he might hear her “dear voice” right there. This was a moment of complete ecstasy: distance became closeness, anxiety turned into assurance. They would never be apart now. They were always going to be close. She would be with him always and everywhere. In fact, it took many years before they were to marry, long after her husband had died and only shortly before Balzac’s own death.

Yet whatever that future, this was a moment when love itself became a simple sensation of happiness. Beyond even the touch and sight of the beloved, love was everything.

Then Balzac was back in his ordinary routine. But it was suffused by the glow of that moment.

John Smith, businessman, writing in his journal

BURLINGTON, NEW JERSEY
• MAY 26, 1748

Was at [a Quaker] meeting [. . .] This was to me a peculiarly good meeting. I waited in it for a sense whether it would be suitable for me to renew my visits to dear Hannah Logan; and in my waiting my mind was filled with sweetness, and enlarged in pure love and a particular openness and freedom, so that I determined in the affirmative [. . .]

In the evening I rode to Stenton. Hannah and her mother were not at home, but soon came, and my dearest Creature received me with a decent agreeable freedom, and we conversed together with solid delight and pleasure [. . .]

Had my dear Hannah’s company several hours, and received the fullest assurances of a reciprocal love and tenderness. Our conversation was in boundless confidence, and with the most perfect harmony our souls seemed entirely knit and united together, and we jointly breathed that the Eternal One might bless us in a sacred and indissoluble tie, and might make us one another’s joy in him.

John Smith was a capable young man who was already successful in the banking business. He was born and lived in the town of Burlington, New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. In his mid-twenties, he had known Hannah Logan for some time and they had seemed to be getting on well. He liked her. But then they had become less at ease together, perhaps because his intentions were becoming more serious. He had not seen her for a while now.

Hannah Logan was slightly younger than John Smith. She was the daughter of James Logan, previously secretary to William Penn (the founder of Pennsylvania) and now a wealthy statesman of the colony. Smith’s own family was doing well, but perhaps the Logans’ status also made him nervous of Hannah. That day in May, though, he wanted to see her again.

In his uncertainty, John Smith went and sat in a Quaker meeting and waited to feel an inner sign. Should he take the risk of visiting her—or would it be better to wait?

In the calm of the meeting, with its reflective sharing of silence, he did become aware of his inner self. He found that his “mind was filled with sweetness,” as all the hesitation naturally resolved into a sense of purpose. His inner world seemed to expand. The horizons stretched. His mind was suffused with the happiness of being in love and he was now certain. He would go and see Hannah Logan later that day.

First, he had friends over for lunch. Then he rode to Stenton, the Philadelphia country home of the Logan family. Hannah was out but he decided to wait. He was not giving in now, although it would have been a perfect excuse to leave it all for another time.

Soon enough Hannah Logan and her mother came home. How would she treat him? He has a lovely expression to describe her welcome: “Hannah [. . .] received me with a decent agreeable freedom”—modest, as required by society, and yet friendly, too. At the same time, it was in tune with his own hopeful burst of “openness and freedom.” Despite all the restraint of their manners and values, this was a moment of liberation, the coming of inner and outer freedom.