"The most successful book of the season has been Mrs. Browning's
'Aurora Leigh.' I could wish some things altered, I confess; but as
it is, it is by far (a hundred times over) the finest poem ever
written by a woman. We know little or nothing of Sappho,--nothing to
induce comparison,--and all other wearers of petticoats must
courtesy to the ground."
In several of his last letters to me there are frequent allusions to
our civil war. Here is an extract from an epistle written in 1861:--
"We read with painful attention the accounts of your great quarrel
in America. We know nothing beyond what we are told by the New York
papers, and these are the stories of _one_ of the combatants. I am
afraid that, however you may mend the schism, you will never be so
strong again. I hope, however, that something may arise to terminate
the bloodshed; for, after all, fighting is an unsatisfactory way of
coming at the truth. If you were to stand up at once (and finally)
against the slave-trade, your band of soldiers would have a more
decided _principle_ to fight for. But--
"--But I really know little or nothing. I hope that at Boston you
are comparatively peaceful, and I know that you are more
abolitionist than in the more southern countries.
"There is nothing new doing here in the way of books. The last book
I have seen is called 'Tannhauser,' published by Chapman and
Hall,--a poem under feigned names, but _really_ written by Robert
Lytton and Julian Fane. It is not good enough for the first, but (as
I conjecture) too good for the last. The songs which decide the
contest of the bards are the worst portions of the book.
"I read some time ago a novel which has not made much noise, but
which is prodigiously clever,--'City and Suburb.' The story hangs in
parts, but it is full of weighty sentences. We have no poet _since_
Tennyson except Robert Lytton, who, you know, calls himself Owen
Meredith. Poetry in England is assuming a new character, and not a
better character. It has a sort of pre-Raphaelite tendency which
does not suit my aged feelings. I am for Love, or the World well
lost. But I forget that, if I live beyond the 21st of next November,
I shall be _seventy-four_ years of age. I have been obliged to
resign my Commissionership of Lunacy, not being able to bear the
pain of travelling. By this I lose about £900 a year. I am,
therefore, sufficiently poor, even for a poet. Browning, as you
know, has lost his wife. He is coming with his little boy to live in
England. I rejoice at this, for I think that the English should live
in England, especially in their youth, when people learn things that
they never forget afterward."