Elizabeth Barrett Quotes in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)

Elizabeth Barrett: What's another disaster to one who has known little but disaster all her life? But you're a fighter. You were born for victory and triumph. Oh, and if disaster ever came to you through me...

Robert Browning: Yes, a fighter. But I'm sick of fighting alone. I need a comrade in arms to fight beside me.

Elizabeth Barrett: But not one already wounded in battle.

Robert Browning: Wounded but undaunted, unbeaten, unbroken. What finer comrade could a man ask for?

Elizabeth Barrett: Robert, have you ever thought that my strength may break down on the journey?

Robert Browning: It had occurred to me, yes.

Elizabeth Barrett: Supposing I were to die on your hands?

Robert Browning: Are you afraid, Ba?

Elizabeth Barrett: Afraid. You should know that I would rather die with you beside me than live a hundred lives without you. But how would you feel if I were to die? And what would the world say of you?

Robert Browning: I should be branded as a little better than a murderer. What I should feel... I leave you to imagine.

Elizabeth Barrett: And yet you ask me to come with you?

Robert Browning: Yes. I am prepared to risk your life, much more my own, to get you out of that dreadful house and into the sun and to have you for my wife.

Elizabeth Barrett: You love me like that?

Robert Browning: I love you like that.

Elizabeth Barrett: Is that Mr. Browning over there?

Wilson: I shouldn't be at ALL surprised, Miss.

Edward Moulton-Barrett: Elizabeth, give me your Bible.

Elizabeth Barrett: My Bible belonged to Mama. I can't have it used for such a purpose.

Edward Moulton-Barrett: Give me your Bible.

Elizabeth Barrett: No.

Edward Moulton-Barrett: You refuse?

Elizabeth Barrett: Yes.

Dr. Chambers: You know, the fact is, a change from these surroundings would do you a world of good. Italy's the place for you!

Elizabeth Barrett: Italy? Oh, no Doctor. This is my Italy.

Dr. Chambers: Rubbish. That's just it. You don't want to go anywhere. You don't want to see anybody. Confound it, my dear, isn't there something you want to do?

Elizabeth Barrett: Yes. And I'm doing it. I'm writing poetry. And there are those you think it isn't such bad poetry. Mr. Robert Browning has sent me several letters of approval.

Dr. Chambers: Browning? Never heard of him.

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh Doctor, that reminds me, sit down a minute. You remember PaPa suggesting to you that a certain kind of beer called Porter might do me good?

Dr. Chambers: Yes! And an excellent suggestion, too!

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh, forgive me, but it was nothing of the kind. I've had to drink it twice a day and in consequence my life has become one long misery.

Dr. Chambers: Bless my soul!

Elizabeth Barrett: I'm not exaggerating! One long misery.

Dr. Chambers: You poor little lady.

Elizabeth Barrett: There's no use my opinion to PaPa, but, if, you dear, Doctor Chambers, would suggest to him that something else might be equally beneficial? Why...

Dr. Chambers: What would you say to a couple of glasses of hot milk?

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh, I hate milk. But, I'll drink it all day long if you'll only rescue me from Porter.

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh, Wilson, I'm so tired. Tired! Tired. Will it never end?

Wilson: End, Miss?

Elizabeth Barrett: This long, long gray death of life.

Wilson: Oh, Miss Ba, you shouldn't say such things.

Wilson: [after Miss Ba reads a poem aloud] I call that just lovely, Miss Ba.

Elizabeth Barrett: Yes, but do you know what it means?

Wilson: Oh, no Miss.

Elizabeth Barrett: Does it convey anything at all to your mind?

Wilson: Oh, no Miss Ba.

Elizabeth Barrett: Well, thank heaven for that.

Wilson: But, then, read poetry never does, Miss. Least ways not read poetry like what you make.

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh, but I didn't write that. It's by Mr. Browning.

Wilson: Oh, he must be a tailored gentleman.

Bella Hedley: Poor Ba, so pale. So faawgile. So inferior. One has only to see your dear face to know how near you are to heaven.

Elizabeth Barrett: I wouldn't quite say that, Bella

Bella Hedley: Oh yes! You always have a look in your eyes, darling, as if you already saw the angels.

Henrietta Barrett: Ba, dear, is there anything? Anything at all to be said to PaPa's attitude toward marriage? Can it possibly be wrong to - to want a man's love desperately and - long for babies of my own?

Elizabeth Barrett: Love and babies are something I don't know very much about.

Henrietta Barrett: Oh, I know, dear, you're a woman apart. But, but, love and babies are natural to an ordinary girl like me. And what's natural, cant' be wrong!

Elizabeth Barrett: No. And yet the holiest men and women renounce these things.

Henrietta Barrett: Oh, I dare say, Ba; but, I'm not holy!

Henrietta Barrett: But, do you know Ba, sometimes I've wondered, are you, are you completely satisfied? Is it enough just to - to correspond with Mr. Browning, for instance? Don't you sometimes wish that you could see him?

Elizabeth Barrett: If I could see and not be seen.

Henrietta Barrett: Why?

Elizabeth Barrett: Because, at heart, I'm as vain as a peacock. He thinks my verses, stately and beautiful. He probably thinks me, the same. It would be so humiliating to disillusion him.

Henrietta Barrett: Oh, don't be silly, Ba. You're very interesting and picturesque.

Elizabeth Barrett: Isn't that how the guidebooks usually describe a ruin?

Elizabeth Barrett: Tell Mr. Browning that I'm very sorry but I'm - I'm not well enough to see him.

Henrietta Barrett: Oh, but, Ba, that's not true you can't send him away.

Elizabeth Barrett: But, I'd much - I'd much rather not see him.

Henrietta Barrett: Oh fudge! You're not a silly school girl, I'll bring him up myself!

Robert Browning: Oh, nothing they told me about you, personally, had the slightest interests for me. Because I knew it already. And better than they.

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh, Mr. Browning, do my writings give me so hopelessly away?

Robert Browning: Hopelessly, utterly, entirely - to me. Of course, I can't speak for the rest of the world.

Elizabeth Barrett: I pray it would be quite useless, by ever trying to play act with you.

Robert Browning: Quite useless.

Elizabeth Barrett: I shall always have to be - just myself?

Robert Browning: Always.

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh, but those poems! With their glad and great-hearted acceptance of life. You can't imagine what they mean to me! Here I am, shut in by these four walls - and they troupe into my room, most wonderful people of yours, out of every age and country - and all so tingling with life. No. You'll never begin to realize just - just how much I do owe you.

Robert Browning: Au revoir, then.

Elizabeth Barrett: Goodbye.

Robert Browning: Au revoir.

Elizabeth Barrett: Au revoir.

Wilson: Excuse me, Miss Elizabeth. Mr. Browning's downstairs.

Elizabeth Barrett: Oh, well - ask him to wait, please.

Bella Hedley: Oh, no dear, cousin. Ask him to come white up. We have to go downstairs and have tea with Uncle Edward. And besides, we wouldn't dweam of interrupting your tete-a-tete. Isn't it frilling, Harry. Mr. Browning's a poet and Miss Elizabeth's a poet. Isn't that a coincidence?

Harry Bevan: Oh, quaint, my dear, quaint.

Octavius Barrett: Has it got feathers?

The Barrett Family: No!

Octavius Barrett: Is it a tiger?

The Barrett Family: No!

Octavius Barrett: Dragon?

The Barrett Family: No!

Elizabeth Barrett: Think of something you're are more afraid of than anything else in the world.

Octavius Barrett: Hmm. Is it a g-g-g-g-girl?

Elizabeth Barrett: Why do you tell me this?

Henrietta Barrett: Because I want you to say that I'm a wicked, deceitful, purged, loose woman!