Though I am to see you so soon, I cannot but write a word or two, to
thank you for the interest you take in my poems, as evinced by your
solicitude about their immediate reception. I write partly to thank
you for this, and to express the pleasure it has given me, and partly
to remove any uneasiness from your mind which the disappointments you
sometimes meet with, in this labour of love, may occasion. I see that
you have many battles to fight for me--more than, in the ardour and
confidence of your pure and elevated mind, you had ever thought of
being summoned to; but be assured that this opposition is nothing more
than what I distinctly foresaw that you and my other friends would
have to encounter. I say this, not to give myself credit for an eye of
prophecy, but to allay any vexatious thoughts on my account which this
opposition may have produced in you.
It is impossible that any expectations can be lower than mine
concerning the immediate effect of this little work upon what is
called the public. I do not here take into consideration the envy and
malevolence, and all the bad passions which always stand in the way of
a work of any merit from a living poet; but merely think of the pure,
absolute, honest ignorance in which all worldlings of every rank and
situation must be enveloped, with respect to the thoughts, feelings
and images on which the life of my poems depends. The things which I
have taken, whether from within or without, what have they to do with
routs, dinners, morning calls, hurry from door to door, from street to
street, on foot or in carriage; with Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, Mr. Paul
or Sir Francis Burdett, the Westminster election or the borough of
Honiton? In a word--for I cannot stop to make my way through the hurry
of images that present themselves to me--what have they to do with the
endless talking about things nobody cares anything for except as far
as their own vanity is concerned, and this with persons they care
nothing for but as their vanity or _selfishness_ is concerned?--what
have they to do (to say all at once) with a life without love? In such
a life there can be no thought; for we have no thought (save thoughts
of pain) but as far as we have love and admiration.
It is an awful truth, that there neither is, nor can be, any genuine
enjoyment of poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons who
live, or wish to live, in the broad light of the world--among
those who either are, or are striving to make themselves, people of
consideration in society. This is a truth, and an awful one, because
to be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to
be without love of human nature and reverence for God.
Upon this I shall insist elsewhere; at present let me confine myself
to my object; which is to make you, my dear friend, as easy-hearted
as myself with respect to these poems. Trouble not yourself upon their
present reception; of what moment is that compared with what I trust
is their destiny?--to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to
daylight, by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the
gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, and therefore, to
become more actively and securely virtuous; this is their office,
which I trust they will faithfully perform, long after we (that is,
all that is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves. I am well aware
how far it would seem to many I overrate my own exertions, when I
speak in this way, in direct connexion with the volume I have just
made public.
I am not, however, afraid of such censure, insignificant as probably
the majority of those poems would appear to very respectable persons.
I do not mean London wits and witlings, for these have too many foul
passions about them to be respectable, even if they had more intellect
than the benign laws of Providence will allow to such a heartless
existence as theirs is; but grave, kindly-natured, worthy persons,
who would be pleased if they could. I hope that these volumes are
not without some recommendations, even for readers of this class: but
their imagination has slept; and the voice which is the voice of my
poetry, without imagination, cannot be heard....
My letter (as this second sheet, which I am obliged to take,
admonishes me) is growing to an enormous length; and yet, saving that
I have expressed my calm confidence that these poems will live, I have
said nothing which has a particular application to the object of it,
which was to remove all disquiet from your mind on account of the
condemnation they may at present incur from that portion of my
contemporaries who are called the public. I am sure, my dear Lady
Beaumont, if you attach any importance to it, it can only be from an
apprehension that it may affect me, upon which I have already set you
at ease; or from a fear that this present blame is ominous of their
future or final destiny. If this be the case, your tenderness for me
betrays you. Be assured that the decision of these persons has nothing
to do with the question; they are altogether incompetent judges. These
people, in the senseless hurry of their idle lives, do not _read_
books, they merely snatch a glance at them, that they may talk about
them. And even if this were not so, never forget what, I believe, was
observed to you by Coleridge, that every great and original writer, in
proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste
by which he is to be relished; he must teach the art by which he is to
be seen; this, in a certain degree, even to all persons, however wise
and pure may be their lives, and however unvitiated their taste. But
for those who dip into books in order to give an opinion of them, or
talk about them to take up an opinion--for this multitude of unhappy
and misguided, and misguiding beings, an entire regeneration must
be produced; and if this be possible, it must be a work of time. To
conclude, my ears are stone-dead to this idle buzz, and my flesh as
insensible as iron to these petty stings; and after what I have said,
I am sure yours will be the same. I doubt not that you will share with
me an invincible confidence that my writings (and among them these
little poems) will co-operate with the benign tendencies in human
nature and society, wherever found; and that they will in their degree
be efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier. Farewell.
I will not apologize for this letter, though its length demands an
apology....