1835-1841
The residence of the Barretts at Sidmouth had never been a very
settled one--never intended to be permanent, and yet never having a
fixed term nor any reason for a fixed term. Hence it spread itself
gradually over a space of nearly three years, before the long
contemplated move to London actually took place. During the latter
part of that period, however, extant letters of Miss Barrett are
almost wholly wanting, and there is little information from any other
source as to the course of her life. It was apparently in the summer
of 1835 that Sidmouth was finally left behind, Mr. Barrett having
then taken a house at 74 Gloucester Place (near Baker Street), which,
though never regarded as more than a temporary residence, continued to
be the home of his family for the next three years.
The move to London was followed by two results of great importance
for Elizabeth Barrett. In the first place, her health, which had never
been strong, broke down altogether in the London atmosphere, and it is
from some time shortly after the arrival in Gloucester Place that
the beginning of her invalid life must be dated. On the other hand,
residence in London brought her into the neighbourhood of new friends;
and although the number of those admitted to see her in her sick-room
was always small, we yet owe to this fact the commencement of some of
her closest friendships, notably those with her distant cousin, John
Kenyon, and with Miss Mitford, the authoress of 'Our Village,' and of
a correspondence on a much fuller and more elaborate scale than any of
the earlier period. To this, no doubt, the fact of her confinement to
her room contributed not a little; for being unable to go out and see
her friends, much of her communication with them was necessarily by
letter. At the same time her literary activity was increasing. She
began to contribute poems to various magazines, and to be brought
thereby into connection with literary men; and she was also employed
on the longer compositions which went to make up her next volume of
published verse.
All this was, however, only of gradual development; and for some time
her correspondence is limited to Mr. Boyd, who was now living in St.
John's Wood, and Mrs. Martin. The exact date of the first letter is
uncertain, but it seems to belong to a time soon after the arrival of
the Barretts in town.
_To H.S. Boyd_
[74 Gloucester Place, London: autumn 1835.]
My dear Mr. Boyd,--As Georgie is going to do what I am afraid I shall
not be able to do to-day--namely, to visit _you_--he must take with
him a few lines from _Porsonia_ _greeting_, to say how glad I am to
feel myself again at only a short distance from you, and how still
gladder I shall be when the same room holds both of us. Don't be angry
because I have not visited you immediately. You know--or you _will_
know, if you consider--I cannot open the window and fly.
Papa and I were very much obliged to you for the poison--and are ready
to smile upon you whenever you give us the opportunity, as graciously
as Socrates did upon his executioner. How much you will have to say
to me about the Greeks, unless you begin first to abuse me about
the _Romans_; and if you begin _that_, the peroration will be a
very pathetic one, in my being turned out of your doors. Such is my
prophecy.
Papa has been telling me of your abusing my stanzas on Mrs. Hemans's
death. I had a presentiment that you would: and behold, why I said
nothing to you of them. Of course, I maintain, _versus_ both you and
papa, that they are very much to be admired: as well as everything
else proceeding from or belonging to ME. Upon which principle, I hope
you will admire George particularly.
Believe me, dear Mr. Boyd, your affectionate friend,
E.B. BARRETT.
Arabel's and my love to Annie. Won't she come to see us?
_To Mrs. Martin_
74 Gloucester Place, Portman Square, London: Jan. I, 1836.
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I am half willing and half unwilling to write
to you when, among such dearer interests and deep anxieties, you may
perhaps be scarcely at liberty to attend to what I write. And yet I
_will_ write, if it be only briefly, that you may not think--if you
think of us at all--that we have changed our hearts with our residence
so much as to forget to sympathise with you, dear Mrs. Martin, or to
neglect to apprise you ourselves of our movements. Indeed, a letter
to you should have been written among my first letters on arriving in
London, only Henrietta (my scape-goat, _you_ will say) said, '_I_ will
write to Mrs. Martin.' And then after I had waited, and determined
to write without waiting any longer, we heard of poor Mrs. Hanford's
affliction and your anxiety, and I have considered day after day
whether or not I should intrude upon you; until I find myself--_thus_!
I do hope that you have from the hand of God those consolations which
only He in Jesus Christ can give to the so afflicted. For I know well
that you are afflicted with the afflicted, and that with you sympathy
is suffering; and that while the tenderest earthly comfort is
administered by your presence and kindness to your dear friends, you
will feel bitterly for them what a little thing earthly comfort is,
when the earthly beloved perish before them. May He who is the Beloved
in the sight of His Father and His Church be near to them and you, and
cause you to _feel_ as well as _know_ the truth, that what is sudden
sorrow, to our judgments, is only long-prepared mercy in _His_ will
whose names are _Wisdom_ and _Love_. Should it not be, dear friend,
that the tears of our human eyes ought to serve the happy and touching
purpose of reminding us of those tears of Jesus which He shed in
assuming our sorrow with our flesh? And the memory of those tears
involves all comfort. A recognition of the oneness of the human nature
of that Divine Saviour who ever liveth, with ours which perishes and
sorrows so; an assurance drawn from thence of _His_ sympathy who sits
on the throne of God, with us who suffer in the dust of earth, and
of all those doctrines of redemption and sanctification and happiness
which come from Him and by Him.
Now you will forgive me for writing all this, dearest Mrs. Martin. I
like to write my thoughts and feelings out of my own head and heart,
just as they suggest themselves, when I write to you; and I cannot
think of affliction, particularly when it comes near to me in the
affliction or anxiety of dear friends, without looking back and
remembering what voice of God used to sound softly to me when none
other could speak comfort. You will forgive me, and not be angry with
me for trying, or seeming to try, to be a sermon writer.
Perhaps, dear Mrs. Martin, when you do feel inclined and able to
write, you would write me a few lines. Remember, I do not ask for them
_now_. No, do not think of writing now. I shall very much like to hear
how your dear charge is--whether there should appear any prospect of
improvement; and how poor Mrs. Hanford bears up against this heavy
calamity; and whether the anxiety and nursing affect your health. But
we shall try to hear this from the Biddulphs; and so do put me out of
your head, except when its thoughts would dwell on those on earth who
sympathise with you and care for you.
You see we are in London after all, and poor Sidmouth left afar. I
am almost inclined to say 'poor us' instead of 'poor Sidmouth.' But
I dare say I shall soon be able to see in my dungeon, and begin to be
amused with the spiders. Half my soul, in the meantime, seems to have
stayed behind on the seashore, which I love more than ever now that I
cannot walk on it in the body. London is wrapped up like a mummy, in
a yellow mist, so closely that I have had scarcely a glimpse of its
countenance since we came. Well, I am trying to like it all very much,
and I dare say that in time I may change my taste and my senses--and
succeed. We are in a house large enough to hold us, for four months,
at the end of which time, if the experiment of our being able to live
in London succeed, I _believe_ that papa's intention is to take an
unfurnished house and have his furniture from Ledbury. You may wonder
at me, but I wish that were settled _so_, and _now_. I am _satisfied_
with London, although I cannot enjoy it. We are not likely, in the
case of leaving it, to return to Devonshire, and I should look with
weary eyes to another strangership and pilgrimage even among green
fields that know not these fogs. Papa's object in settling here refers
to my brothers. George will probably enter as a barrister student at
the Inner Temple on the fifth or sixth of this month, and he will
have the advantage of his home by our remaining where we are. Another
advantage of London is, that we shall see here those whom we might see
nowhere else. This year, dear Mrs. Martin, may it bring with it the
true pleasure of seeing _you_! Three have gone, and we have not seen
you.... May God bless you and all that you care for, being with you
always as the God of consolation and peace.
Your affectionate
E.B. BARRETT.
It is from the middle of this year that Miss Barrett's active
appearance as an author may be dated. Hitherto her publications had
been confined to a few small anonymous volumes, printed rather to
please herself and her friends than with any idea of appealing to a
wider public. She was now anxious to take this farther step, and, with
that object, to obtain admission to some of the literary magazines.
This was obtained through the instrumentality of Mr. R.H. Home,
subsequently best known as the author of 'Orion.' He was at this
time personally unknown to Miss Barrett, but an application through a
common friend led both to the opening to the poetess of the pages of
the 'New Monthly Magazine,' then edited by Bulwer, and also to the
commencement of a friendship which has left its mark in the two
volumes of published letters to Mr. Home. The following is Mr. Home's
account of the opening of the acquaintance ('Letters,' i. 7, 8):
'My first introduction to Miss Barrett was by a note from Mrs.
Orme, inclosing one from the young lady containing a short
poem with the modest request to be frankly told whether it
might be ranked as poetry or merely verse. As there could be
no doubt in the recipient's mind on that point, the poem was
forwarded to Colburn's "New Monthly," edited at that time by
Mr. Bulwer (afterwards the late [first] Lord Lytton), where it
duly appeared in the current number. The next manuscript sent
to me was "The Dead Pan," and the poetess at once started on
her bright and noble career.'
The poem with which Miss Barrett thus made her bow to the world of
letters was 'The Romaunt of Margret,'[20] which appeared in the July
number of the magazine. Mr. Home must, however, have been in error
in speaking of 'The Dead Pan' as its successor, since that was not
written till some years later. More probably it was 'The Poet's
Vow,[21] which was printed in the October number of the 'New Monthly.'
[Footnote 20: _Poetical Works_, ii. 3.]
[Footnote 21: _Ib_. i. 277.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
[London:] October 14, Friday [1836].
My dear Friend,--Be as little angry with me as you can. I have not
been very well for a day or two, and shall enjoy a visit to you on
Monday so much more than I shall be able to do to-day, that I will ask
you to forgive my not going to you this week, and to receive me kindly
on that day instead--provided, you know, it is not wet.
The [Greek: Achaiides] approach the [Greek: Achaioi][22] more
tremblingly than usual, with the 'New Monthly Magazine' in their
hands. Now pray don't annoy yourself by reading a single word which
you would rather not read except for the sake of being kind to me.
And my prophecy is, that even by annoying yourself and making a
_strenuous_ effort, the whole force of friendship would not carry you
down the first page. Georgie says you want to know the verdict of the
'Athenaeum.' That paper unfortunately has been lent out of the house;
but my memory enables me to send you the words very correctly, I
think. After some observations on other periodicals, the writer goes
on to say: 'The "New Monthly Magazine" has not one heavy article. It
is rich in poetry, including some fine sonnets by the Corn Law Rhymer,
and a fine although too dreamy ballad, "The Poet's Vow." We are
almost tempted to pause and criticise the work of a writer of so much
inspiration and promise as the author of this poem, and exhort him
once again, to greater clearness of expression and less quaintness in
the choice of his phraseology; but this is not the time or place for
digression.'
You see my critic has condemned me with a very gracious countenance.
Do put on yours,
And believe me, affectionately yours,
E.B. BARRETT.
I forgot to say that you surprised and pleased me at the same time by
your praise of my 'Sea-mew.'[23] Love to Annie. We were glad to hear
that she did not _continue_ unwell, and that you are well again, too.
I hope you have had no return of the rheumatic pain.
[Footnote 22: Miss Barrett's Greek is habitually written without
accents or breathings.]
[Footnote 23: _Poetical Works_, ii. 278.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
[74 Gloucester Place:] Saturday, [October 1836].
My dear Friend,--I am much disappointed in finding myself at the end
of this week without having once seen you--particularly when your two
notes are waiting all this time to be answered. Do believe that they
were not, either of them, addressed to an ungrateful person, and that
the only reason of their being received _silently_ was my hope of
answering them more agreeably to both of us--by talking instead of
writing.
Yes; you have read my mystery.[24]
You paid a tithe to your human nature in reading only _nine-tenths_
of it, and the rest was a pure gift to your friendship for me, and is
taken and will be remembered as such. But you have a cruel heart for
a parody, and this one tried my sensibility so much that I cried--with
laughing. I confess to you notwithstanding, it was _very fair_, and
dealt its blow with a shining pointed weapon.
But what will you say to me when I confess besides that, in the face
of all your kind encouragement, my Drama of the Angels[25] has never
been touched until the last three days? It was _not_ out of pure
idleness on my part, nor of disregard to your admonition; but when my
thoughts were distracted with other things, books just begun inclosing
me all around, a whole load of books upon my conscience, I could not
possibly rise up to the gate of heaven and write about my angels.
You know one can't sometimes sit down to the sublunary, occupation
of reading Greek, unless one feels _free_ to it. And writing poetry
requires a double liberty, and an inclination which comes only of
itself.
But I have begun. I tried the blank metre once, and it _would not
do_, and so I had to begin again in lyrics. Something above an hundred
lines is written, and now I am in two panics, just as if one were not
enough. First, because it seems to me a very daring subject--a subject
almost beyond our sympathies, and therefore quite beyond the sphere of
human poetry. Perhaps when all is written courageously, I shall have
no courage left to publish it. Secondly, because all my tendencies
towards mysticism will be called into terrible operation by this
dreaming upon angels.
Yes; you _will_ read a mystery,
but don't make any rash resolutions about reading anything. As I have
begun, I certainly will go on with the writing.
Here is a question for you:
Am I to accept your generous sacrifice of reading nine-tenths of my
'Vow,' as an atonement for your WANT OF CONFIDENCE IN ME? Oh,
your conscience will understand very well what I mean, without a
dictionary.
Arabel and I intend to pay you a visit on Monday, and if we can, and
it is convenient to you, we are inclined to invite ourselves to your
dinner table. But this is all dependent on the weather.
Believe me, dear Mr. Boyd, your affectionate friend,
E.B. BARRETT.
[Footnote 24: An allusion to the first line of 'The Poet's Vow.']
[Footnote 25: The 'Seraphim,' published in 1838.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
[74 Gloucester Place:] November 26, 1836 [postmark].
My dear Mr. Boyd,--I have been so busy that I have not been able until
this morning to take breath or _inspiration_ to answer your lyrics.
You shall see me soon, but I am sorry to say it can't be Monday or
Tuesday.
I have had another note from the editor of the 'New Monthly
Magazine'--very flattering, and praying for farther supplies. The
Angels were not ready, and I was obliged to send something else, which
I will not ask you to read. So don't be very uneasy.
Arabel's and my best love to Annie. And believe me in a great hurry,
for I won't miss this post,
Yours affectionately,
E.B. BARRETT.
Your lyrics found me dull as prose
Among a file of papers
And analysing London fogs
To nothing but the vapours.
They knew their part; but through the fog
Their flaming lightning raising;
They missed my fancy, and instead,
My choler set a-blazing.
Quoth I, 'I need not care a pin
For charge unjust, unsparing;
Yet oh! for ancient bodkin[26] keen,
To punish this _Pindáring_.
'Yet oh! that I, a female Jove,
These fogs sublime might float on,
Where, eagle-like, my dove might show
A very [Greek: _ugron nôton_].[27]
'Then lightning should for lightning flash,
Vexation for vexation,
And shades of St. John's Wood should glow
In awful conflagration.'
I spoke; when lo! my birds of peace,
The vengeance disallowing,
Replied, 'Coo, coo!' But _keep in mind_,
That _cooing_ is not _cowing_.[28]
[Footnote 26: The bodkin seems to be a favourite weapon with ancient
dames whose genius was for killing (note by E.B.B.).]
[Footnote 27: A reference to Pindar, _Pyth_.i. 9.]
[Footnote 28: These verses are inclosed with the foregoing letter, as
a retort to Mr. Boyd's parody.]
_To Mrs. Martin_
74 Gloucester Place: December 7, 1836.
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Indeed I have long felt the need of writing
to you (I mean the need to myself), and although so many weeks and
even months have passed away in silence, they have not done so in lack
of affection and thought.
I had wished very much to have been able to tell you in this letter
where we had taken our house, or where we were going to take it. We
remain, however, in our usual state of conscious ignorance, although
there is a good deal of talking and walking about a house in Wimpole
Street--which, between ourselves, I am not very anxious to live in,
on account of the gloominesses of that street, and of that part of the
street, whose walls look so much like Newgate's turned inside out. I
would rather go on, in my old way, inhabiting castles in the air than
that particular house. Nevertheless, if it _is_ decided upon, I dare
say I shall contrive to be satisfied with it, and sleep and wake very
much as I should in any other. It will certainly be a point gained
to be settled somewhere, and I do so long to sit in my own
armchair--strange as it will look out of my own room--and to read from
my own books.... For our own particular parts, our healths continue
good--none of us, I think, the worse for fog or wind. As to wind, we
were almost elevated into the prerogative of _pigs_ in the late storm.
We could almost _see_ it, and the feeling it might have been fatal to
us. Bro and I were moralising about shipwrecks, in the dining-room,
when down came the chimney through the skylight into the entrance
passage. You may imagine the crashing effect of the bricks bounding
from the staircase downwards, breaking the stone steps in the process,
in addition to the falling in of twenty-four large panes of glass,
frames and all. We were terrified out of all propriety, and there has
been a dreadful calumny about Henrietta and me--that we had the hall
door open for the purpose of going out into the street with our
hair on end, if Bro had not _encouraged_ us by shutting the door and
locking it. I confess to opening the door, but deny the purpose of
it--at least, maintain that I only meant to keep in reserve a way of
escape, _in case_, as seemed probable, the whole house was on its
way to the ground. Indeed, we should think much of the _mercy_ of the
escape. Bro had been on the staircase only five minutes before. Sarah
the housemaid was actually there. She looked up accidentally and saw
the nodding chimneys, and ran down into the drawing-room to papa,
shrieking, but escaping with one graze of the hand from one brick. How
did _you_ fare in the wind? I never much imagined before that anything
so true to nature as a real live storm could make itself heard in our
streets. But it has come too surely, and carried away with it, besides
our chimney, all that was left to us of the country, in the shape of
the Kensington Garden trees. Now do write to me, dearest Mrs. Martin,
and soon, and tell me all you can of your chances and mischances, and
how Mr. Martin is getting on with the parish, and yourself with the
parishioners. But you have more the name of living at Colwall than the
thing. You seem to me to lead a far more wandering life than we,
for all our homelessness and 'pilgrim shoon.' Why, you have been in
Ireland since I last said a word to you, even upon paper....
I sometimes think that a pilgrim's life is the wisest--at least, the
most congenial to the 'uses of this world.' We give our sympathies and
associations to our hills and fields, and then the providence of God
gives _them_ to another, It is better, perhaps, to keep a stricter
_identity_, by calling only our thoughts our own.
Was there anybody in the world who ever loved London for itself? Did
Dr. Johnson, in his paradise of Fleet Street, love the pavement and
the walls? I doubt _that_--whether I ought to do so or not--though I
don't doubt at all that one may be contented and happy here, and love
much _in_ the place. But the place and the privileges of it don't mix
together in one's love, as is done among the hills and by the seaside.
I or Henrietta must have told you that one of my privileges has been
to see Wordsworth twice. He was very kind to me, and let me hear
his conversation. I went with him and Miss Mitford to Chiswick, and
thought all the way that I must certainly be dreaming. I saw her
almost every day of her week's visit to London (this was all long ago,
while you were in France); and she, who overflows with warm affections
and generous benevolences, showed me every present and absent
kindness, professing to love me, and asking me to write to her. Her
novel is to be published soon after Christmas, and I believe a new
tragedy is to appear about the same time, 'under the protection of Mr.
Forrest.' Papa has given me the first two volumes of Wordsworth's new
edition. The engraving in the first is his _own face_. You might think
me affected if I told you all I felt in seeing the living face.
His manners are very simple, and his conversation not at all
_prominent_--if you quite understand what I mean by _that_. I do
myself, for I saw at the same time Landor--the brilliant Landor!--and
_felt_ the difference between great genius and eminent talent; All
these visions have passed now. I hear and see nothing, except my doves
and the fireplace, and am doing little else than [_words torn out_]
write all day long. And then people ask me what I _mean_ in [_words
torn out_]. I hope you were among the six who understood or half
understood my 'Poet's Vow'--that is, if you read it at all. Uncle
Hedley made a long pause at the first part. But I have been reading,
too, Sheridan Knowles's play of the 'Wreckers.' It is full of passion
and pathos, and made me shed a great many tears. How do you get on
with the reading society? Do you see much or anything of Lady Margaret
Cocks, from whom I never hear now? I promised to let her have 'Ion,'
if I could, before she left Brighton, but the person to whom it was
lent did not return it to me in time. Will you tell her this, if you
do see her, and give her my kind regards at the same time? Dear Bell
was so sorry not to have seen you. If she had, you would have thought
her looking _very_ well, notwithstanding the thinness--perhaps, in
some measure, on account of it--and in _eminent_ spirits. I have not
seen her in such spirits for very, very long. And there she is, down
at Torquay, with the Hedleys and Butlers, making quite a colony of it,
and everybody, in each several letter, grumbling in an undertone at
the dullness of the place. What would _I_ give to see the waves once
more! But perhaps if I were there, I should grumble too. It is a
happiness to them to be _together_, and that, I am sure, they all
feel....
Believe me, dearest Mrs. Martin, your affectionate
E.B.B.
Oh that you would call me Ba![29]
[Footnote 29: Elizabeth Barrett's 'pet name' (see her poem, _Poetical
Works_, ii. 249), given to her as a child by her brother Edward, and
used by her family and friends, and by herself in her letters to them,
throughout her life.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
[74 Gloucester Place:]
Thursday, December 15, 1836 [postmark].
My dear Mr. Boyd,--... Two mornings since, I saw in the paper, under
the head of literary news, that a change of editorship was taking
place in the 'New Monthly Magazine;' and that Theodore Hook was to
preside in the room of Mr. Hall. I am so much too modest and too wise
to expect the patronage of two editors in succession, that I expect
both my poems in a return cover, by every twopenny post. Besides, what
has Theodore Hook to do with Seraphim? So, I shall leave that poem of
mine to your imagination; which won't be half as troublesome to you as
if I asked you to read it; begging you to be assured--to write it down
in your critical rubric--that it is the very finest composition you
ever read, _next_ (of course) to the beloved 'De Virginitate' of
Gregory Nazianzen.[30]
Mr. Stratten has just been here. I admire him more than I ever did,
for his admiration of my doves. By the way, I am sure he thought them
the most agreeable of the whole party; for he said, what he never did
before, that he could sit here for an hour! Our love to Annie--and
forgive me for Baskettiring a letter to you. I mean, of course, as to
size, not type.
Yours affectionately,
E.B. BARRETT.
Is your poem printed yet?
[Footnote 30:Do you mind that deed of Até
Which you bound me to so fast,--
Reading 'De Virginitate,'
From the first line to the last?
How I said at ending solemn,
As I turned and looked at you,
That Saint Simeon on the column
Had had somewhat less to do?
'Wine of Cyprus' (_Poetical Works_, iii. 139)]
_To H.S. Boyd_
[74 Gloucester Place:] Tuesday [Christmas 1836].
My dear Friend,--I am very much obliged to you for the _two_ copies
of your poem, so beautifully printed, with such 'majestical' types,
on such 'magnifical' paper, as to be almost worthy of Baskett himself.
You are too liberal in sending me more than one copy; and pray accept
in return a duplicate of gratitude.
As to my 'Seraphim,' they are not returned to me, as in the case of
their being unaccepted, I expressly begged they might be. Had the old
editor been the present one, my inference would of course be, that
their insertion was a determined matter; but as it is, I don't
know what to think.[31] A long list of great names, belonging to
_intending_ contributors, appeared in the paper a day or two ago, and
among them was Miss Mitford's.
Are you wroth with me for not saying a word about going to see
you? Arabel and I won't affirm it mathematically--but we are,
metaphysically, _talking_ of paying our visit to you next Tuesday.
Don't expect us, nevertheless.
Yours affectionately,
E.B. BARRETT.
What are my Christmas good wishes to be? That you may hold a Field in
your right hand, and a Baskerville in your left, before the year is
out! That degree of happiness will satisfy at least the _bodily_ part
of you.
You may wish, in return, for _me_, that I may learn to write rather
more legibly than 'at these presents.'
Our love to Annie.
Won't you send your new poem to Mr. Barker, to the care of Mr. Valpy,
with your Christmas benedictions?
[Footnote 31: As a matter of fact, 'The Seraphim' was not printed in
the _New Monthly_, being probably thought too long.]
_To Mrs. Martin_.
[74 Gloucester Place:] January 23, 1837 [postmark].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I am standing in Henrietta's place, she
says--but not, _I_ say, to answer your letter to _her_ yesterday, but
your letter to _me_, some weeks ago--which I meant to answer much
more immediately if the _ignis fatuus_ of a house (you see to what
a miserable fatuity I am reduced, of applying your pure country
metaphors to our brick pollutions) had not been gliding just
before us, and I had not much wished to be able to tell you of our
settlement. As it is, however, I must write, and shall keep a solemn
silence on the solemn subject of our shifting plans....
No! I was not at all disappointed in Wordsworth, although perhaps I
should not have singled him from the multitude as a great man. There
is a _reserve_ even in his countenance, which does not lighten
as Landor's does, whom I saw the same evening. His eyes have more
meekness than brilliancy; and in his slow even articulation there
is rather the solemnity and calmness of _truth_ itself, than the
animation and energy of those who seek for it. As to my being quite at
my ease when I spoke to him, why how could you ask such a question? I
trembled both in my soul and body. But he was very kind, and sate
near me and talked to me as long as he was in the room--and recited
a translation by Cary of a sonnet of Dante's--and altogether, it was
quite a dream! Landor too--Walter Savage Landor ... in whose hands
the ashes of antiquity burn again--gave me two Greek epigrams he had
lately written ... and talked brilliantly and prominently until Bro
(he and I went together) abused him for _ambitious_ singularity and
affectation. But it was very interesting. And dear Miss Mitford too!
and Mr. Raymond, a great Hebraist and the ancient author of 'A Cure
for a Heartache!' I never walked in the skies before; and perhaps
never shall again, when so many stars are out! I shall at least see
dear Miss Mitford, who wrote to me not long ago to say that she would
soon be in London with 'Otto,' her new tragedy, which was written at
Mr. Forrest's own request, he in the most flattering manner having
applied to her a stranger, as the authoress of 'Rienzi,' for a
dramatic work worthy of his acting--after rejecting many plays offered
to him, and among them Mr. Knowles's.... She says that her play will
be quite opposed, in its execution, to 'Ion,' as unlike it 'as a
ruined castle overhanging the Rhine, to a Grecian temple.' And I do
not doubt that it will be full of ability; although my own opinion
is that she stands higher as the authoress of 'Our Village' than of
'Rienzi,' and writes prose better than poetry, and transcends rather
in Dutch minuteness and high finishing, than in Italian ideality and
passion. I think besides that Mr. Forrest's rejection of any play
of Sheridan Knowles must refer rather to its unfitness for the
development of his own personal talent, than to its abstract demerit,
whatever Transatlantic tastes he may bring with him. The published
title of the last play is 'The Daughter,' not 'The Wreckers,' although
I believe it was acted as the last. I am very anxious to read 'Otto,'
not to _see_ it. I am not going to see it, notwithstanding an offered
temptation to sit in the authoress's own box. With regard to 'Ion,'
I think it is a beautiful work, but beautiful _rather_ morally than
intellectually. Is this right or not? Its moral tone is very noble,
and sends a grand and touching harmony into the midst of the full
discord of this utilitarian age. As dramatic _poetry_, it seems to me
to want, not beauty, but power, passion, and condensation. This is my
_doxy_ about 'Ion.' Its author[32] made me very proud by sending it to
me, although we do not know him personally. I have _heard_ that he is
a most amiable man (who else could have written 'Ion'?), but that he
was a little _elevated_ by his popularity last year!...
I have read Combe's 'Phrenology,' but not the 'Constitution of Man.'
The 'Phrenology' is very clever, and amusing; but I do not think it
logical or satisfactory. I forget whether 'slowness of the pulse' _is_
mentioned in it as a symptom of the poetical aestus. I am afraid, if
it be a symptom, I dare not take my place even in the 'forlorn hope of
poets' in this age so forlorn as to its poetry; for my pulse is in a
continual flutter and my feet not half cold enough for a pedestal--so
I must make my honours over to poor papa straightway. He has been
shivering and shuddering through the cold weather; and partaking our
influenza in the warmer. I am very sorry that you should have been a
sufferer too. It seems to have been a universal pestilence, even down
in Devonshire, where dear Bummy and the whole colony have had their
share of 'groans.' And one of my doves shook its pretty head and
ruffled its feathers and shut its eyes, and became subject to pap and
nursing and other infirmities for two or three days, until I was in
great consternation for the result. But it is well again--cooing as
usual; and so indeed we all are. But indeed, I can't write a
sentence more without saying some of the evil it deserves--of the
utilitarianisms of this corrupt age--among some of the chief of which
are steel pens!
I am so glad that you liked my 'Romaunt,' and so resigned that you did
not understand some of my 'Poet's Vow,' and so obliged that you should
care to go on reading what I write. They vouchsafed to publish in the
first number of the new series of the 'New Monthly' a little poem of
mine called 'The Island,'[33] but so incorrectly that I was glad at
the additional oblivion of my signature. If you see it, pray alter the
last senseless line of the first page into 'Leaf sounds with water, in
your ear,' and put 'amreeta' instead of 'amneta' on the second page;
and strike out '_of_' in the line which names Aeschylus! There are
other blunders, [but] these are intolerable, and cast me out of my
'contentment' for some time. I have begged for [proof] sheets in
future; and as none have come for the ensuing month, I suppose I shall
have nothing in the next number. They have a lyrical dramatic poem of
mine, 'The Two Seraphim,' which, whenever it appears, I shall like to
have your opinion of. As to the incomprehensible line in the 'Poet's
Vow' of which you asked me the meaning, 'One making one in strong
compass,' I meant to express how that oneness of God, 'in whom are all
things,' produces a oneness or sympathy (sympathy being the tendency
of many to become one) in all things. Do you understand? or is the
explanation to be explained? The unity of God preserves a unity in
men--that is, a perpetual sympathy between man and man--which sympathy
we must be subject to, if not in our joys, yet in our griefs. I
believe the subject itself involves the necessity of some mysticism;
but I must make no excuses. I am afraid that my very Seraphim will not
be thought to stand in a very clear light, even at heaven's gate. But
this is much _asay_ about nothing ...
The Bishop of Exeter is staying and preaching at Torquay. Do you not
envy them all for making part of his congregation? I am sure I do
_as much_. I envy you your before-breakfast activity. I am never a
_complete man_ without my breakfast--it seems to be some integral part
of my soul. _You_ 'read all O'Connell's speeches.' I never read any of
them--unless they take me by surprise. I keep my devotion for _unpaid_
patriots; but Miss Mitford is another devotee of Mr. O'Connell ...
Dearest Mrs. Martin's affectionate
E.B. BARRETT.
Thank you for the 'Ba' in Henrietta's letter. If you knew how many
people, whom I have known only within this year or two, whether I like
them or not, say 'Ba, Ba,' quite naturally and pastorally, you would
not come to me with the detestable 'Miss B.'
[Footnote 32: Serjeant Talfourd.]
[Footnote 33: _Poetical Works_, ii. 248.]
_To Mrs. Martin_
London: August 16, 1837.
My dear Mrs. Martin,--It seems a long long time since we had any
intercourse; and the answer to your last pleasant letter to Henrietta
_must_ go to you from me. We have heard of you that you don't mean to
return to England before the spring--which news proved me a prophet,
and disappointed me at the same time, for one can't enjoy even a
prophecy in this world without something vexing. Indeed, I do long to
see you again, dearest Mrs. Martin, and should always have the same
pleasure in it, and affection for you, if my friends and acquaintances
were as much multiplied as you _wrongly_ suppose them to be. But the
truth is that I have almost none at all, in this place; and, except
our relative Mr. Kenyon, not one literary in any sense. Dear Miss
Mitford, one of the very kindest of human beings, lies buried in
geraniums, thirty miles away. I could not conceive what Henrietta
had been telling you, or what you meant, for a long time--until we
conjectured that it must have been something about Lady Dacre, who
kindly sent me her book, and intimated that she would be glad to
receive me at her conversations--and you know me better than to
doubt whether I would go or not. There was an equal unworthiness and
unwillingness towards the honor of it. Indeed, dearest Mrs. Martin,
it is almost surprising how we contrive to be as dull in London as in
Devonshire--perhaps more so, for the sight of a multitude induces a
sense of seclusion which one has not without it; and, besides, there
were at Sidmouth many more known faces and listened-to voices than we
see and hear in this place. No house yet! And you will scarcely
have patience to read that papa has seen and likes another house in
Devonshire Place, and that he _may_ take it, and we _may_ be settled
in it, before the year closes. I myself think of the whole business
indifferently. My thoughts have turned so long on the subject of
houses, that the pivot is broken--and now they won't turn any more.
All that remains is, a sort of consciousness, that we should be more
comfortable in a house with cleaner carpets, and taken for rather
longer than a week at a time. Perhaps, after all, we are quite as well
_sur le tapis_ as it is. It is a thousand to one but that the feeling
of four red London walls closing around us for seven, eleven, or
twenty-five years, would be a harsh and hard one, and make us cry
wistfully to 'get out.' I am sure you will look up to your mountains,
and down to your lakes, and enter into this conjecture.
Talking of mountains and lakes is itself a trying thing to us poor
prisoners. Papa has talked several times of taking us into the country
for two months this summer, and we have dreamt of it a hundred times
in addition; but, after all, we are not likely to go I dare say. It
would have been very delightful--and who knows what may take place
next summer? We may not absolutely _die_, without seeing a tree.
Henrietta has seen a great many. You will have heard, I dare say, of
the enjoyment she had in her week at Camden House. She seems to have
walked from seven in the morning to seven at night; and was quite
delighted with the kindness within doors and the sunshine without. I
assure you that, fresh as she was from the air and dew, she saluted us
amidst the sentiment of our sisterly meeting just in this way--it was
almost her first exclamation--'What a very disagreeable smell there is
here!' And this, although she had brought geraniums enough from Camden
to perfume the Haymarket!...
I am happy to announce to you that a new little dove has appeared
from a shell--over which nobody had prognosticated good--on August
16, 1837. I and the senior doves appear equally delighted, and we
all three, in the capacity of good sitters and indefatigable
pullers-about, take a good deal of credit upon ourselves....
Arabel has begun oil painting, and without a master--and you can't
think how much effect and expression she has given to several of her
own sketches, notwithstanding all difficulties. Poor Henrietta is
without a piano, and is not to have one again _until we have another
house_! This is something like 'when Homer and Virgil are forgotten.'
_Speaking of Homer and Virgil_, I have been writing a 'Romance of the
Ganges,'[34] in order to illustrate an engraving in the new annual
to be edited by Miss Mitford, Finden's tableaux for 1838. It does not
sound a _very_ Homeric undertaking--I confess I don't hold any kind of
annual, gild it as you please, in too much honour and awe--but from
my wish to please her, and from the necessity of its being done in a
certain time, I was 'quite frightful,' as poor old Cooke used to
say, in order to express his own nervousness. But she was quite
pleased--she is very soon pleased--and the ballad, gone the way of
all writing, now-a-days, to the press. I do wish I could send you some
kind of news that would interest you; but you see scarcely any except
all this selfishness is in my beat. Dearest Bro draws and reads
German, and I fear is dull notwithstanding. But we are every one of
us more reconciled to London than we were. Well! I must not write
any more. Whenever you think of me, dearest Mrs. Martin, remember how
deeply and unchangeably I must regard you--both with my _mind_, my
_affections_, and that part of either, called my gratitude. BA.
Henrietta's kindest love and thanks for your letter. She desires me
to say that she and Bro are going to dine with Mrs. Robert Martin
to-morrow. I must tell you that Georgie and I went to hear Dr.
Chalmers preach, three Sundays ago. His sermon was on a text whose
extreme beauty would diffuse itself into any sermon preached upon
it--God is love. His eloquence was very great, and his views noble and
grasping. I expected much from his imagination, but not so much from
his knowledge. It was truer to Scripture than I was prepared for,
although there seemed to me some _want_ on the subject of the work
of the Holy Spirit on the heart, which work we cannot dwell upon too
emphatically. 'He worketh in us to will and to do,' and yet we are apt
to will and do without a transmission of the praise to Him. May God
bless you.
[Footnote 34: _Poetical Works_, ii. 83.]
_To Miss Commeline_
London: August 19, 1837.
My dear Miss Commeline,--I could not hear of your being in affliction
without very frequent thoughts of you and a desire to express some of
them in this way, and although so much time has passed I do hope that
you will believe in the sympathy with which I, or rather _we_, have
thought of you, and in the regard we shall not cease to feel for you
even if we meet no more in this world. It is blessed to know both
for ourselves and for each other that while there is a darkness that
_must_ come to all, there is a light which _may_; and may He who is
the light in the dark place be with you [now] and always, causing you
to feel rather the glory that is in Him than the shadow which is in
all beside--that so the sweetness of the consolation may pass the
bitterness of even grief. Do give my love to Mrs. Commeline and to
your sisters, and believe me, all of you, that the friends who have
gone from your neighbourhood have not gone from my old remembrance,
either of your kindness to them, or of their own feelings of interest
in you.
Trusting to such old remembrances, I will believe that you care to
know what we are doing and how we are settling--that word which has
now been on our lips for years, which it is marvellous to think how
it got upon human lips at all. We came from Sidmouth to try London and
ourselves, and see whether or not we could live together; and after
more than a year and a half close contact with smoke we find no very
good excuse for not remaining in it; and papa is going on with his
eternal hunt for houses--the wild huntsman in the ballad is nothing
to him, all except the sublimity--intending very seriously to take
the first he can. He is now about one in particular, but I won't tell
where it is because we have considered so many houses in particular
that our considerations have come to be a jest in general. I shall
be heartily glad, at least I _think_ so, for it is possible that
the reality of being bricked up for a lease time may not be very
agreeable. I think I shall be heartily glad when a house is taken, and
we have made it look like our own with our furniture and pictures and
books. I am so anxious to see my old books. I believe I shall begin at
the beginning and read every story book through in the joy of meeting,
and shall be as sedentary as ever I was in my own arm-chair. I
remember when I was a child spreading my vitality, not over trees and
flowers (I do that still--I still believe they have a certain animal
susceptibility to pleasure and pain; 'it is my creed,' and, being
Wordsworth's besides, I am not ashamed of it), but over chairs and
tables and books in particular, and being used to fancy a kind of love
in them to suit my love to them. And so if I were a child I should
have an intense pity for my poor folios, quartos, and duodecimos, to
say nothing of the arm-chair, shut up all these weeks and months in
boxes, without a rational eye to look upon them. Pray forgive me if I
have written a great deal of nonsense--'Je m'en doute.'
Henrietta has spent a fortnight at Chislehurst with the Martins, and
was very joyous there, and came back to us with that happy triumphant
air which I always fancy people 'just from the country' put on towards
us hapless Londoners.
But you must not think I am a discontented person and grumble all day
long at being in London. _There are many advantages here_, as I say to
myself whenever it is particularly disagreeable; and if we can't see
even a leaf or a sparrow without soot on it, there are the parrots at
the Zoological Gardens and the pictures at the Royal Academy; and real
live poets above all, with their heads full of the trees and birds and
sunshine of paradise. I have stood face to face with Wordsworth and
Landor; and Miss Mitford, who is in herself what she is in her books,
has become a dear friend of mine, but a distant one. She visits London
at long intervals, and lives thirty miles away....
Bro and I were studying German together all last summer with Henry,
before he left us to become a German, and I believe this is the last
of my languages, for I have begun absolutely to detest the sight of a
dictionary or grammar, which I never liked except as a means, and love
poetry with an intenser love, if that be possible, than I ever did.
Not that Greek is not as dear to me as ever, but I write more than I
read, even of Greek poetry, and am resolute to work whatever little
faculty I have, clear of imitations and conventionalisms which
cloud and weaken more poetry (particularly now-a-days) than would be
believed possible without looking into it....
As to society in London, I assure you that none of us have much, and
that as for me, you would wonder at seeing how possible it is to
live as secludedly in the midst of a multitude as in the centre
of solitude. My doves are my chief acquaintances, and I am so very
intimate with _them_ that they accept and even demand my assistance in
building their innumerable nests. Do tell me if there is any hope of
seeing any of you in London at any time. I say 'do tell me,' for I
will venture to ask you, dear Miss Commeline, to write me a few lines
in one of the idlest hours of one of your idlest days just to tell me
a little about you, and whether Mrs. Commeline is tolerably well. Pray
believe me under all circumstances,
Yours sincerely and affectionately,
E.B. BARRETT.
The spring of 1838 was marked by two events of interest to Miss
Barrett and her family. In the first place, Mr. Barrett's apparently
interminable search for a house ended in his selection of 50 Wimpole
Street, which continued to be his home for the rest of his life, and
which is, consequently, more than any other house in London, to
be associated with his daughter's memory. The second event was
the publication of 'The Seraphim, and other Poems,' which was Miss
Barrett's first serious appearance before the public, and in her
own name, as a poet. The early letters of this year refer to the
preparation of this volume, as well as to the authoress's health,
which was at this time in a very serious condition, owing to the
breaking of a blood-vessel. Indeed, from this time until her marriage
in 1846 she held her life on the frailest of tenures, and lived in all
respects the life of an invalid.
_To H.S. Boyd_
Monday morning, March 27, 1838 [postmark].
My dear Friend,--I do hope that you may not be very angry, but papa
thinks--and, indeed, I think--that as I have already _had_ two proof
sheets and forty-eight pages, and the printers have gone on to the
rest of the poem, it would not be very welcome to them if we were
to ask them to retrace their steps. Besides, I would rather--_I_ for
myself, _I_--that you had the whole poem at once and clearly printed
before you, to insure as many chances as possible of your liking it.
I am _promised_ to see the volume completed in three weeks from this
time, so that the dreadful moment of your reading it--I mean the
'Seraphim' part of it--cannot be far off, and perhaps, the season
being a good deal advanced even now, you might not, on consideration,
wish me to retard the appearance of the book, except for some very
sufficient reason. I feel very nervous about it--far more than I did
when my 'Prometheus' crept out [of] the Greek, or I myself out of
the shell, in the first 'Essay on Mind.' Perhaps this is owing to Dr.
Chambers's medicines, or perhaps to a consciousness that my present
attempt _is_ actually, and will be considered by others, more a trial
of strength than either of my preceding ones.
Thank you for the books, and especially for the _editio rarissima_,
which I should as soon have thought of your trusting to me as of your
admitting me to stand with gloves on within a yard of Baxter. This
extraordinary confidence shall not be abused.
I thank you besides for your kind inquiries about my health. Dr.
Chambers did not think me worse yesterday, notwithstanding the last
cold days, which have occasioned some uncomfortable sensations, and he
still thinks I shall be better in the summer season. In the meantime
he has ordered me to take ice--out of sympathy with nature, I suppose;
and not to speak a word, out of contradiction to my particular, human,
feminine nature.
Whereupon I revenge myself, you see, by talking all this nonsense upon
paper, and making you the victim.
To propitiate you, let me tell you that your commands have been
performed to the letter, and that one Greek motto (from 'Orpheus')
is given to the first part of 'The Seraphim,' and another from
_Chrysostom_ to the second.
Henrietta desires me to say that she means to go to see you very soon.
Give my very kind remembrance to Miss Holmes, and believe me,
Your affectionate friend,
E.B. BARRETT.
I saw Mr. Kenyon yesterday. He has a book just coming out.[35] I
should like you to read it. If you would, you would thank me for
saying so.
[Footnote 35: _Poems, for the most part occasional_, by John Kenyon.]
_To John Kenyon_[36]
[1838.]
Thank you, dearest Mr. Kenyon; and I should (and _shall_) thank Miss
Thomson too for caring to spend a thought on me after all the Parisian
glories and rationalities which I sympathise with by many degrees
nearer than you seem to do. We, in this England here, are just social
barbarians, to my mind--that is, we know how to read and write and
think, and even talk on occasion; but we carry the old rings in our
noses, and are proud of the flowers pricked into our cuticles. By so
much are they better than we on the Continent, I always think. Life
has a thinner rind, and so a livelier sap. And _that_ I can see in the
books and the traditions, and always understand people who like living
in France and Germany, and should like it myself, I believe, on some
accounts.
Where did you get your Bacchanalian song? Witty, certainly, but
the recollection of the _scores_ a little ghastly for the occasion,
perhaps. You have yourself sung into silence, too, all possible songs
of Bacchus, as the god and I know.
Here is a delightful letter from Miss Martineau. I cannot be so
selfish as to keep it to myself. The sense of natural beauty and the
_good_ sense of the remarks on rural manners are both exquisite of
their kinds, and Wordsworth is Wordsworth as she knows him. Have I
said that Friday will find me expecting the kind visit you promise?
_That_, at least, is what I meant to say with all these words.
Ever affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
[Footnote 36: John Kenyon (1784-1856) was born in Jamaica, the son
of a wealthy West Indian landowner, but came to England while quite
a boy, and was a conspicuous figure in literary society during the
second quarter of the century. He published some volumes of minor
verse, but is best known for his friendships with many literary men
and women, and for his boundless generosity and kindliness to all with
whom he was brought into contact. Crabb Robinson described him as a
man 'whose life is spent in making people happy.' He was a distant
cousin of Miss Barrett, and a friend of Robert Browning, who dedicated
to him his volume of 'Dramatic Romances,' besides writing and sending
to him 'Andrea del Sarto' as a substitute for a print of the painter's
portrait which he had been unable to find. The best account of Kenyon
is to be found in Mrs. Crosse's 'John Kenyon and his Friends' (in
_Red-Letter Days of My Life_, vol. i.).]
_To John Kenyon_
Wimpole Street: Sunday evening [1838?].
My dear Mr. Kenyon,--I am _so_ sorry to hear of your going, and I not
able to say 'good-bye' to you, that--I am _not_ writing this note on
that account.
It is a begging note, and now I am wondering to myself whether you
will think me very childish or womanish, or silly enough to be both
together (I know your thoughts upon certain parallel subjects), if
I go on to do my begging fully. I hear that you are going to Mr.
Wordsworth's--to Rydal Mount--and I want you to ask _for yourself_,
and then to send to me in a letter--by the post, I mean, two cuttings
out of the garden--of myrtle or geranium; I care very little which, or
what else. Only I say 'myrtle' because it is less given to die and I
say _two_ to be sure of my chances of saving one. Will you? You would
please me very much by doing it; and certainly not _dis_ please me by
refusing to do it. Your broadest 'no' would not sound half so strange
to me as my 'little crooked thing' does to you; but you see everybody
in the world is fanciful about something, and why not _E.B.B._?
Dear Mr. Kenyon, I have a book of yours--M. Rio's. If you want it
before you go, just write in two words, 'Send it,' or I shall infer
from your silence that I may keep it until you come back. No necessity
for answering this otherwise. Is it as bad as asking for autographs,
or worse? At any rate, believe me _in earnest_ this time--besides
being, with every wish for your enjoyment of mountains and lakes and
'cherry trees,'
Ever affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
_To H.S. Boyd_
[May 1838.]
My dear friend,--I am rather better than otherwise within the last
few days, but fear that nothing will make me essentially so except
the invisible sun. I am, however, a little better, and God's will is
always done in mercy.
As to the poems, do forgive me, dear Mr. Boyd; and refrain from
executing your cruel threat of suffering 'the desire of reading them
to pass away.'
I have not one sheet of them; and papa--and, to say the truth, I
myself--would so very much prefer your reading the preface first, that
you must try to indulge us in our phantasy. The book Mr. Bentley half
promises to finish the printing of this week. At any rate it is likely
to be all done in the next: and you may depend upon having a copy _as
soon_ as I have power over one.
With kind regards to Miss Holmes,
Believe me, your affectionate friend,
E.B.B.
_To H.S. Boyd_
50 Wimpole Street; Wednesday [May 1838].
Thank you for your inquiry, my dear friend. I had begun to fancy that
between Saunders and Otley and the 'Seraphim' I had fallen to the
ground of your disfavour. But I do trust to be able to send you a copy
before next Sunday.
I am thrown back a little just now by having caught a very bad cold,
which has of course affected my cough. The worst seems, however, to be
past, and Dr. Chambers told me yesterday that he expected to see me
in two days nearly as well as before this casualty. And I have been,
thank God, pretty well lately; and although when the stethoscope was
applied three weeks ago, it did not speak very satisfactorily of the
state of the lungs, yet Dr. Chambers seems to be hopeful still, and to
talk of the wonders which the summer sunshine (when it does come) may
be the means of doing for me. And people say that I look rather better
than worse, even now.
Did you hear of an autograph of Shakespeare's being sold lately for a
very large sum (I _think_ it was above a hundred pounds) on the credit
of its being the only genuine autograph extant? Is yours quite safe?
And are _you_ so, in your opinion of its veritableness?
I have just finished a very long barbarous ballad for Miss Mitford and
the Finden's tableaux of this year. The title is 'The Romaunt of the
Page,'[37] and the subject not of my own choosing.
I believe that you will certainly have 'The Seraphim' this week. Do
macadamise the frown from your brow in order to receive them.
Give my love to Miss Holmes.
Your affectionate friend,
E.B. BARRETT.
[Footnote 37: _Poetical Works_, ii. 40.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
June 7, 1838 [postmark].
My dear Mr. Boyd,--Papa is scarcely inclined, nor am I for myself, to
send my book or books to the East Indies. Let them alone, poor things,
until they can walk about a little! and then it will be time enough
for them to 'learn to _fly_.'
I am so sorry that Emily Harding saw Arabel and went away without this
note, which I have been meaning to write to you for several days, and
have been so absorbed and drawn away (all except my thoughts) by
other things necessary to be done, that I was forced to defer it. My
ballad,[38] containing a ladye dressed up like a page and galloping
off to Palestine in a manner that would scandalise you, went to Miss
Mitford this morning. But I augur from its length that she will not be
able to receive it into Finden.
Arabel has told me what Miss Harding told her of your being in the act
of going through my 'Seraphim' for the second time. For the feeling
of interest in me which brought this labour upon you, I thank you, my
dear friend. What your opinion _is_, and _will_ be, I am prepared to
hear with a good deal of awe. You will _certainly not approve of the
poem_.
There now! You see I am prepared. Therefore do not keep back one rough
word, for friendship's sake, but be as honest as--you could not help
being, without this request.
If I should live, I shall write (_I believe_) better poems than 'The
Seraphim;' which belief will help me to survive the condemnation heavy
upon your lips.
Affectionately yours,
E.B. BARRETT.
[Footnote 38: 'The Romaunt of the Page.']
'The Seraphim, and other Poems,' a duodecimo of 360 pages, at last
made its appearance at the end of May. At the time of its publication,
English poetry was experiencing one of its periods of ebb between
two flood tides of great achievement. Shelley, Keats, Byron, Scott,
Coleridge were dead; Wordsworth had ceased to produce poetry of the
first order; no fresh inspiration was to be expected from Landor,
Southey, Rogers, Campbell, and such other writers of the Georgian era
as still were numbered with the living. On the other hand, Tennyson,
though already the most remarkable among the younger poets, was still
but exercising himself in the studies in language and metrical music
by which his consummate art was developed; Browning had published only
'Pauline,' 'Paracelsus,' and 'Strafford;' the other poets who have
given distinction to the Victorian age had not begun to write. And
between the veterans of the one generation and the young recruits of
the next there was a singular want of writers of distinction. There
was thus every opportunity for a new poet when Miss Barrett entered
the lists with her first volume of acknowledged verse.
Its reception, on the whole, does credit alike to its own merits and
to the critics who reviewed it. It does not contain any of those poems
which have proved the most popular among its authoress's complete
works, except 'Cowper's Grave;' but 'The Seraphim' was a poem which
deserved to attract attention, and among the minor poems were 'The
Poet's Vow,' 'Isobel's Child,' 'The Romaunt of Margret,' 'My Doves,'
and 'The Sea-mew.' The volume did not suffice to win any wide
reputation for Miss Barrett, and no second edition was called for; on
the other hand, it was received with more than civility, with genuine
cordiality, by several among the reviewers, though they did not fail
to note its obvious defects. The 'Athenaeum'[39] began its review with
the following declaration:
This is an extraordinary volume--especially welcome as an
evidence of female genius and accomplishment--but it is hardly
less disappointing than extraordinary. Miss Barrett's genius
is of a high order; active, vigorous, and versatile, but
unaccompanied by discriminating taste. A thousand strange and
beautiful views flit across her mind, but she cannot look on
them with steady gaze; her descriptions, therefore, are
often shadowy and indistinct, and her language wanting in the
simplicity of unaffected earnestness.
[Footnote 39: July 7, 1838.]
The 'Examiner,'[40] after quoting at length from the preface and 'The
Seraphim,' continued:
Who will deny to the writer of such verses as these (and they
are not sparingly met with in the volume) the possession of
many of the highest qualities of the divine art? We regret
to have some restriction to add to an admission we make so
gladly. Miss Barrett is indeed a genuine poetess, of no common
order; yet is she in danger of being spoiled by over-ambition;
and of realising no greater or more final reputation than
a hectical one, like Crashaw's. She has fancy, feeling,
imagination, expression; but for want of some just equipoise
or other, between the material and spiritual, she aims
at flights which have done no good to the strongest, and
therefore falls infinitely short, except in such detached
passages as we have extracted above, of what a proper exercise
of her genius would infallibly reach.... Very various, and
in the main beautiful and true, are the minor poems. But the
entire volume deserves more than ordinary attention.
[Footnote 40: June 24, 1838.]
The 'Atlas,'[41] another paper whose literary judgments were highly
esteemed at that date, was somewhat colder, and dwelt more on
the faults of the volume, but added nevertheless that 'there are
occasional passages of great beauty, and full of deep poetical
feeling. In 'The Romaunt of Margret' it detected the influence of
Tennyson--a suggestion which Miss Barrett repudiated rather warmly;
and it concluded with the declaration that the authoress 'possesses
a fine poetical temperament, and has given to the public, in this
volume, a work of considerable merit.'
[Footnote 41: June 23, 1838.]
Such were the principal voices among the critical world when Miss
Barrett first ventured into its midst; and she might well be satisfied
with them. Two years later, the 'Quarterly Review'[42] included her
name in a review of 'Modern English Poetesses,' along with Caroline
Norton, 'V.,' and others whose names are even less remembered to-day.
But though the reviewer speaks of her genius and learning in high
terms of admiration, he cannot be said to treat her sympathetically.
He objects to the dogmatic positiveness of her prefaces, and protests
warmly against her 'reckless repetition of the name of God'--a charge
which, in another connection, will be found fully and fairly met in
one of her later letters. On points of technique he criticises
her frequent use of the perfect participle with accented final
syllable--'kissed,' 'bowed,' and the like--and her fondness for the
adverb 'very;' both of which mannerisms he charges to the example of
Tennyson. He condemns the 'Prometheus,' though recognising it as 'a
remarkable performance for a young lady.' He criticises the subject of
'The Seraphim,' 'from which Milton would have shrunk;' but adds, 'We
give Miss Barrett, however, the full credit of a lofty purpose, and
admit, moreover, that several particular passages in her poem
are extremely fine; equally profound in thought and striking in
expression.' He sums up as follows:
[Footnote 42: September 1840.]
In a word, we consider Miss Barrett to be a woman of undoubted
genius and most unusual learning; but that she has indulged
her inclination for themes of sublime mystery, not certainly
without displaying great power, yet at the expense of that
clearness, truth, and proportion, which are essential to
beauty; and has most unfortunately fallen into the trammels
of a school or manner of writing, which, of all that ever
existed--Lycophron, Lucan, and Gongora not forgotten--is most
open to the charge of being _vitiis imitabile exemplar_.
So much for the reception of 'The Seraphim' volume by the outside
world. The letters show how it appeared to the authoress herself.
The first of them deserves a word of special notice, because it is
likewise the first in these volumes addressed to Miss Mary Russell
Mitford, whose name holds a high and honourable place in the roll
of Miss Barrett's friends. Her own account of the beginning of the
friendship should be quoted in any record of Mrs. Browning's life.
'My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen
years ago.[43] She was certainly one of the most interesting persons
that I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same;
so that it is not merely the impression of my partiality or my
enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls
falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes,
richly fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such
a look of youthfulness that I had some difficulty in persuading a
friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the
translatress of the "Prometheus" of Aeschylus, the authoress of the
"Essay on Mind," was old enough to be introduced into company,
in technical language, was 'out.' Through the kindness of another
invaluable friend,[44] to whom I owe many obligations, but none so
great as this, I saw much of her during my stay in town. We met so
constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of the difference of
age,[45] intimacy ripened into friendship, and after my return into
the country we corresponded freely and frequently, her letters being
just what letters ought to be--her own talk put upon paper.'[46]
[Footnote 43: This was written about the end of 1851.]
[Footnote 44: Probably John Kenyon, whom Miss Mitford elsewhere calls
'the pleasantest man in London;' he, on his side, said of Miss Mitford
that 'she was better and stronger than any of her books.']
[Footnote 45: Nineteen years, Miss Mitford having been born in 1787.]
[Footnote 46: _Recollections of a Literary Life_, by Mary Russell
Mitford, p. 155 (1859).]
Miss Barrett's letters show how warmly she returned this feeling of
friendship, which lasted until Miss Mitford's death in 1855. Of the
earlier letters many must have disappeared: for it is evident from
Miss Mitford's just quoted words, and also from many references in
her published correspondence, that they were in constant communication
during these years of Miss Barrett's life in London. After her
marriage, however, the extant letters are far more frequent, and will
be found to fill a considerable place in the later pages of this work.
_To Miss Mitford_
50 Wimpole Street: Thursday [June 1838].
We thank you gratefully, dearest Miss Mitford. Papa and I and all of
us thank you for your more than kindnesses. The extracts were both
gladdening and surprising--and the one the more for being the other
also. Oh! it was _so_ kind of you, in the midst of your multitude of
occupations, to make time (out of love) to send them to us!
As to the ballad, dearest Miss Mitford, which you and Mr. Kenyon are
indulgent enough to like, remember that he passed his criticism
over it--before it went to you--and so if you did not find as many
obscurities as he did in it, the reason is--_his_ merit and not mine.
But don't believe him--no!--don't believe even Mr. Kenyon--whenever
he says that I am _perversely_ obscure. Unfortunately obscure, not
perversely--that is quite a wrong word. And the last time he used it
to me (and then, I assure you, another word still worse was with it)
I begged him to confine them for the future to his jesting moods.
Because, _indeed_, I am not in the very least degree perverse in this
fault of mine, which is my destiny rather than my choice, and comes
upon me, I think, just where I would eschew it most. So little has
perversity to do with its occurrence, that my fear of it makes me
sometimes feel quite nervous and thought-tied in composition....
I have not seen Mr. Kenyon since I wrote last. All last week I was
not permitted to get out of bed, and was haunted with leeches and
blisters. And in the course of it, Lady Dacre was so kind as to call
here, and to leave a note instead of the personal greeting which I was
not able to receive. The honor she did me a year ago, in sending me
her book, encouraged me to offer her my poems. I hesitated about doing
so at first, lest it should appear as if my vanity were dreaming of
a _return_; but Mr. Kenyon's opinion turned the balance. I was very
sorry not to have seen Lady Dacre and have written a reply to her
note expressive of this regret. But, after all, this inaudible voice
(except in its cough) could have scarcely made her understand that I
was obliged by her visit, had I been able to receive it.
Dr. Chambers has freed me again into the drawing-room, and I am much
better or he would not have done so. There is not, however, much
strength or much health, nor any near prospect of regaining either.
It is well that, in proportion to our feebleness, we may feel our
dependence upon God.
I feel as if I had not said half, and they have come to ask me if I
have not said _all_! My beloved friend, may you be happy in all ways!
Do write whenever you wish to talk and have no one to talk to nearer
you than I am! _Indeed_, I did not forget Dr. Mitford when I wrote
those words, although they look like it.
Your gratefully affectionate
E.B. BARRETT.
_To H.S. Boyd_
50 Wimpole Street: Wednesday morning [June 1838].
My dear Friend,--Do not think me depraved in ingratitude for not
sooner thanking you for the pleasure, made so much greater by the
surprise, which your note of judgment gave me. The truth is that I
have been very unwell, and delayed answering it immediately until the
painful physical feeling went away to make room for the pleasurable
moral one--and this I fancied it would do every hour, so that I might
be able to tell you at ease all that was in my thoughts. The fancy was
a vain one. The pain grew worse and worse, and Dr. Chambers has been
here for two successive days shaking his head as awfully as if it bore
all Jupiter's ambrosial curls; and is to be here again to-day, but
with, I trust, a less grave countenance, inasmuch as the leeches last
night did their duty, and I feel much better--God be thanked for the
relief. But I am not yet as well as before this attack, and am still
confined to my bed--and so you must rather imagine than read what I
thought and felt in reading your wonderful note. Of course it pleased
me very much, very very much--and, I dare say, would have made me vain
by this time, if it had not been for the opportune pain and the sight
of Dr. Chambers's face.
I sent a copy of my book to Nelly Bordman _before_ I read your
suggestion. I knew that her kind feeling for me would interest her in
the sight of it.
Thank you once more, dear Mr. Boyd! May all my critics be gentle after
the pattern of your gentleness!
Believe me, affectionately yours,
E.B. BARRETT.
_To H.S. Boyd_
50 Wimpole Street: June 17 [1838].
My dear Friend,--I send you a number of the 'Atlas' which you may
keep. It is a favorable criticism, certainly--but I confess this of my
vanity, that it has not altogether pleased me. You see what it is to
be spoilt.
As to the 'Athenaeum,' although I am _not_ conscious of the quaintness
and mannerism laid to my charge, and am very sure that I have always
written too naturally (that is, too much from the impulse of thought
and feeling) to have studied '_attitudes_,' yet the critic was quite
right in stating his opinion, and so am I in being grateful to him for
the liberal praise he has otherwise given me. Upon the whole, I like
his review better than even the 'Examiner,' notwithstanding my being
perfectly satisfied with _that_.
Thank you for the question about my health. I am very tolerably
well--for _me_: and am said to look better. At the same time I am
aware of being always on the verge of an increase of illness--I mean,
in a very excitable state--with a pulse that flies off at a word
and is only to be caught by digitalis. But I am better--for the
present--while the sun shines.
Thank you besides for your criticisms, which I shall hold in memory,
and use whenever I am not particularly _obstinate_, in all my
SUCCEEDING EDITIONS!
You will smile at that, and so do _I._
Arabel is walking in the Zoological Gardens with the Cliffes--but I
think you will see her before long.
Your affectionate friend,
E.B. BARRETT.
Don't let me forget to mention the Essays[47]. You shall have
yours--and Miss Bordman hers--and the delay has not arisen from either
forgetfulness or indifference on my part--although I never deny that
I don't like giving the Essay to anybody because I don't like it.
Now that sounds just like 'a woman's reason,' but it isn't, albeit so
reasonable! I meant to say 'because I don't like the ESSAY.'
[Footnote 47: i.e. copies of the _Essay on Mind_.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
50 Wimpole Street: Thursday, June 21 [1838].
My dear Friend,--Notwithstanding this silence so ungrateful in
appearance, I thank you at last, and very sincerely, for your kind
letter. It made me laugh, and amused me--and gratified me besides.
Certainly your 'quality of mercy is not strained.'
My reason for not writing more immediately is that Arabel has meant,
day after day, to go to you, and has had a separate disappointment for
every day. She says now, '_Indeed_, I hope to see Mr. Boyd to-morrow.'
But _I_ say that I will not keep this answer of mine to run the risk
of another day's contingencies, and that _it_ shall go, whether _she_
does or not.
I am better a great deal than I was last week, and have been allowed
by Dr. Chambers to come downstairs again, and occupy my old place
on the sofa. My health remains, however, in what I cannot help
considering myself, and in what, I _believe_, Dr. Chambers considers,
a very precarious state, and my weakness increases, of course, under
the remedies which successive attacks render necessary. Dr. Chambers
deserves my confidence--and besides the skill with which he has met
the different modifications of the complaint, I am grateful to him
for a feeling and a sympathy which are certainly rare in such of his
profession as have their attention diverted, as his must be, by an
immense practice, to fifty objects in a day. But, notwithstanding all,
one breath of the east wind undoes whatever he labours to do. It is
well to look up and remember that in the eternal reality these second
causes are no causes at all.
Don't leave this note about for Arabel to see. I am anxious not to
alarm her, or any one of my family: and it may please God to make me
as well and strong again as ever. And, indeed, I am twice as well this
week as I was last.
Your affectionate friend, dear Mr. Boyd,
E.B. BARRETT.
I have seen an extract from a private letter of Mr. Chorley, editor
of the 'Athenaeum,'[48] which speaks _huge_ praises of my poems. If he
were to say a tithe of them in print, it would be nine times above my
expectation!
[Footnote 48: This is an error. Mr. Chorley was not editor of the
_Athenaeum_, though he was one of its principal contributors.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
[June 1838.]
My dear Friend,--I begged your servant to wait--how long ago I am
afraid to think--but certainly I must not make this note very long. I
did intend to write to you to-day in any case. Since Saturday I have
had my thanks ready at the end of my fingers waiting to slide along
to the nib of my pen. Thank you for all your kindness and criticism,
which is kindness too--thank you at last. Would that I deserved the
praises as well as I do most of the findings-fault--and there is no
time now to say more of _them_. Yet I believe I have something to say,
and will find a time to say it in.
Dr. Chambers has just been here, and does not think me quite as well
as usual. The truth is that I was rather excited and tired yesterday
by rather too much talking and hearing talking, and suffer for it
to-day in my _pulse_. But I am better on the whole.
Mr. Cross,[49] the great lion, the insect-making lion, came yesterday
with Mr. Kenyon, and afterwards Lady Dacre. She is kind and gentle in
her manner. She told me that she had 'placed my book in the hands of
Mr. Bobus Smith, the brother of Sidney Smith, and the best judge
in England,' and that it was to be returned to her on Tuesday. If I
_should_ hear the 'judgment,' I will tell you, whether you care to
hear it or not. There is no other review, as far as I am aware.
Give my love to Miss Bordman. When is she coming to see me?
The thunder did not do me any harm.
Your affectionate friend, in great haste, although your servant is not
likely to think so, E.B.B.
[Footnote 49: Andrew Crosse, the electrician, who had recently
published his observations of a remarkable development of insect life
in connection with certain electrical experiments--a discovery which
caused much controversy at the time, on account of its supposed
bearings on the origin of life and the doctrine of creation.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
[June 1838.]
My dear Friend,--You must let me _feel_ my thanks to you, even when
I do not _say_ them. I have put up your various notes together, and
perhaps they may do me as much good hereafter, as they have already,
for the most part, given me pleasure.
The 'burden pure _have_ been' certainly was a misprint, as certainly
'nor man nor nature satisfy'[50] is ungrammatical. But I am _not_ so
sure about the passage in Isobel:
I am not used to tears at nights Instead of slumber--nor to prayer.
Now I think that the passage may imply a repetition of the words with
which it begins, after 'nor'--thus--'nor _am I used_ to prayer,' &c.
Either you or I may be right about it, and either 'or' or 'nor' may be
grammatical. At least, so I pray.[51]
You did not answer one question. Do you consider that '_apolyptic_'
stands without excuse?[52]
I never read Greek to any person except yourself and Mr. MacSwiney,
my brother's tutor. To him I read longer than a few weeks, but then
it was rather guessing and stammering and tottering through parts of
Homer and extracts from Xenophon than reading. _You_ would not have
called it reading if you had heard it.
I studied hard by myself afterwards, and the kindness with which
afterwards still you assisted me, if yourself remembers gladly _I_
remember _gratefully_ and gladly.
I have just been told that your servant was desired by you _not to
wait a minute_.
The wind is unfavorable for the sea. I do not think there is the least
probability of my going before the end of next week, if then. You
shall hear.
Affectionately yours,
E.B. BARRETT.
I am tolerably well. I have been forced to take digitalis again, which
makes me feel weak; but still I am better, I think.
[Footnote 50: Altered in later editions to 'satisfies.']
[Footnote 51: In later editions 'not' is repeated instead of 'nor,'
which looks like a compromise between her own opinion and Mr. Boyd's.]
[Footnote 52: The poem entitled 'Sounds,' in the volume of 1838,
contained the line 'As erst in Patmos apolyptic John,' presumably for
'apocalyptic.' This being naturally held to be 'without excuse,'
the line was altered in subsequent editions to 'As the seer-saint of
Patmos, loving John.']
In the course of this year the failure in Miss Barrett's health had
become so great that her doctor advised removal to a warmer climate
for the winter. Torquay was the place selected, and thither she
went in the autumn, accompanied by her brother Edward, her favourite
companion from childhood. Other members of the family, including Mr.
Barrett, joined them from time to time. At Torquay she was able to
live, but no more, and it was found necessary for her to stay during
the summers as well as the winters of the next three years. Letters
from this period are scarce, though it is clear from Miss Mitford's
correspondence that a continuous interchange of letters was kept up
between the two friends, and her acquaintanceship with Horne was now
ripening into a close literary intimacy. A story relating to Bishop
Phillpotts of Exeter, the hero of so many racy anecdotes, is contained
in a letter of Miss Barrett's which must have been written about
Christmas of either 1838 or 1839:--
'He [the bishop] was, however, at church on Christmas Day, and upon
Mr. Elliot's being mercifully inclined to omit the Athanasian Creed,
prompted him most episcopally from the pew with a "whereas;" and
further on in the Creed, when the benign reader substituted the
word _condemnation_ for the terrible one--"Damnation!" exclaimed the
bishop. The effect must have been rather startling.'
A slight acquaintance with the words of the Athanasian Creed will
suggest that the story had suffered in accuracy before it reached Miss
Barrett, who, of course, was unable to attend church, and whose own
ignorance on the subject may be accounted for by remembering that
she had been brought up as a Nonconformist. With a little correction,
however, the story may be added to the many others on record with
respect to 'Henry of Exeter.'
The following letter is shown, by the similarity of its contents
to the one which succeeds it, to belong to November 1839, when Miss
Barrett was entering on her second winter in Torquay.
_To Mrs. Martin_
Beacon Terrace, Torquay: November 24 [1839].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Henrietta _shall not_ write to-day, whatever
she may wish to do. I felt, in reading your unreproaching letter
to her, as self-reproachful as anybody could with a great deal of
innocence (in the way of the world) to fall back upon. I felt sorry,
very sorry, not to have written something to you something sooner,
which was a possible thing--although, since the day of my receiving
your welcome letter, I have written scarcely at all, nor that little
without much exertion. Had it been with me as usual, be sure that
you should not have had any silence to complain of. Henrietta knew I
wished to write, and felt, I suppose, unwilling to take my place when
my filling it myself before long appeared possible. A long story--and
not as entertaining as Mother Hubbard. But I would rather tire
you than leave you under any wrong impression, where my regard and
thankfulness to you, dearest Mrs. Martin, are concerned.
To reply to your kind anxiety about me, I may call myself decidedly
better than I have been. Since October I I have not been out of
bed--except just for an hour a day, when I am lifted to the sofa with
the bare permission of my physician--who tells me that it is so much
easier to make me worse than better, that he dares not permit anything
like exposure or further exertion. I like him (Dr. Scully) very
much, and although he evidently thinks my case in the highest degree
precarious, yet knowing how much I bore last winter and understanding
from him that the worst _tubercular_ symptoms have not actually
appeared, I am willing to think it may be God's will to keep me here
still longer. I would willingly stay, if it were only for the sake of
that tender affection of my beloved family which it so deeply affects
me to consider. Dearest papa is with us now--to my great comfort
and joy: and looking very well!--and astonishing everybody with his
eternal youthfulness! Bro and Henrietta and Arabel besides, I can
count as companions--and then there is dear Bummy! We are fixed at
Torquay for the winter--that is, until the end of May: and after that,
if I have any will or power and am alive to exercise either, I do
trust and hope to go away. The death of my kind friend Dr. Bury
was, as you suppose, a great grief and shock to me. How could it be
otherwise, after his daily kindness to me for a year? And then his
young wife and child--and the rapidity (a three weeks' illness) with
which he was hurried away from the energies and toils and honors of
professional life to the stillness of _that_ death!
'_God's Will_' is the only answer to the mystery of the world's
afflictions....
Don't fancy me worse than I am--or that this bed-keeping is the result
of a gradual sinking. It is not so. A feverish attack prostrated me
on October 2--and such will leave their effects--and Dr. Scully is so
afraid of leading me into danger by saying, 'You may get up and dress
as usual' that you should not be surprised if (in virtue of being the
senior Torquay physician and correspondingly prudent) he left me
in this durance vile for a great part of the winter. I am decidedly
better than I was a month ago, really and truly.
May God bless you, dearest Mrs. Martin! My best and kindest regards
to Mr. Martin. Henrietta desires me to promise for her a letter to
Colwall soon; but I think that one from Colwall should come first. May
God bless you! Bro's fancy just now is painting in water colours and
he performs many sketches. Do you ever in your dreams of universal
benevolence dream of travelling into Devonshire?
Love your affectionate BA,
--found guilty of egotism and stupidity 'by this sign' and at once!
_To H.S. Boyd_
1 Beacon Terrace, Torquay:
Wednesday, November 27, 1839.
If you can forgive me, my ever dear friend, for a silence which has
not been intended, there will be another reason for being thankful to
you, in addition to the many. To do myself justice, one of my earliest
impulses on seeing my beloved Arabel, and recurring to the kindness
with which you desired that happiness for me long before I possessed
it, was to write and tell you how happy I felt. But she had promised,
she said, to write herself, and moreover she and only she was to send
you the ballad--in expectation of your dread judgment upon which I
delayed my own writing. It came in the first letter we received in our
new house, on the first of last October. An hour after reading it, I
was upon my bed; was attacked by fever in the night, and from that
bed have never even been lifted since--to these last days of
November--except for one hour a day to the sofa at two yards'
distance. I am very much better now, and have been so for some time;
but my physician is so persuaded, he says, that it is easier to do
me harm than good, that he will neither permit any present attempt at
further exertion, nor hint at the time when it may be advisable for
him to permit it. Under the circumstances it has of course been more
difficult than usual for me to write. Pray believe, my dear and kind
friend, in the face of all circumstances and appearances, that I never
forget you, nor am reluctant (oh, how could that be?) to write to you;
and that you shall often have to pay 'a penny for my thoughts' under
the new Postage Act--if it be in God's wisdom and mercy to spare me
through the winter. Under the new act I shall not mind writing ten
words and then stopping. As it is, they would scarcely be worth eleven
pennies.
Thank you again and again for your praise of the ballad, which both
delighted and _surprised_ me ... as I had scarcely hoped that you
might like it at all. Think of Mr. Tilt's never sending me a proof
sheet. The consequences are rather deplorable, and, if they had
occurred to you, might have suggested a deep melancholy for life.
In my case, _I_, who am, you know, hardened to sins of carelessness,
simply look _aghast_ at the misprints and mispunctuations coming in as
a flood, and sweeping away meanings and melodies together. The annual
itself is more splendid than usual, and its vignettes have illustrated
my story--angels, devils and all--most beautifully. Miss Mitford's
tales (in prose) have suffered besides by reason of Mr. Tilt--but are
attractive and graphic notwithstanding--and Mr. Horne has supplied a
dramatic poem of great power and beauty.
How I rejoice with you in the glorious revelation (about to be) of
Gregory's second volume! The 'De Virginitate' poem will, in its new
purple and fine linen, be more dazzling than ever.
Do you know that George is barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple--_is_?
I have seen him gazetted.
My dearest papa is with me now, making me very happy of course. I have
much reason to be happy--more to be grateful--yet am more obedient
to the former than to the latter impulse. May the Giver of good
give gratitude with as full a hand! May He bless _you_--and bring us
together again, if no more in the flesh, yet in the spirit!
Your ever affectionate friend,
E.B. BARRETT.
Do write--when you are able and _least_ disinclined. Do you approve of
Prince Albert or not?[53]
[Footnote 53: The engagement of Prince Albert to Queen Victoria took
place in October 1839.]
_To H.S. Boyd_
Torquay: May 29, 1840.
My ever dear Friend,--It was very pleasant to me to see your seal
upon a letter once more; and although the letter itself left me with
a mournful impression of your having passed some time so much less
happily than I would wish and pray for you, yet there remains the
pleasant thought to me still that you have not altogether forgotten
me. Do receive the expression of my most affectionate sympathy under
this and every circumstance--and I fear that the shock to your nerves
and spirits could not be a light one, however impressed you might be
and must be with the surety and verity of God's love working in all
His will. Poor poor Patience! Coming to be so happy with you, with
that joyous smile I thought so pretty! Do you not remember my telling
you so? Well--it is well and better for her; happier for her, if God
in Christ Jesus have received her, than her hopes were of the holiday
time with you. The holiday is _for ever_ now....
I heard from Nelly Bordman only a few days before receiving your
letter, and so far from preparing me for all this sadness and
gloom, she pleased me with her account of you whom she had lately
seen--dwelling upon your retrograde passage into youth, and the
delight you were taking in the presence and society of some still
more youthful, fair, and gay _monstrum amandum_, some prodigy of
intellectual accomplishment, some little Circe who never turned
anybodies into pigs. I learnt too from her for the first time that you
were settled at Hampstead! Whereabout at Hampstead, and for how long?
She didn't tell me _that_, thinking of course that I knew something
more about you than I do. Yes indeed; you _do_ treat me very shabbily.
I agree with you in thinking so. To think that so many hills and woods
should interpose between us--that I should be lying here, fast bound
by a spell, a sleeping beauty in a forest, and that _you_, who used
to be such a doughty knight, should not take the trouble of cutting
through even a hazel tree with your good sword, to find out what
had become of me. Now do tell me, the hazel tree being down at last,
whether you mean to live at Hampstead, whether you have taken a
house there and have carried your books there, and wear Hampstead
grasshoppers in your bonnet (as they did at Athens) to prove yourself
of the soil.
All this nonsense will make you think I am better, and indeed I am
pretty well just now--quite, however, confined to the bed--except when
lifted from it to the sofa baby-wise while they make it; even then
apt to faint. Bad symptoms too do not leave me; and I am obliged to be
blistered every few days--but I am free from any attack just now, and
am a good deal less feverish than I am occasionally. There has been
a consultation between an Exeter physician and my own, and they agree
exactly, both hoping that with care I shall pass the winter, and rally
in the spring, both hoping that I may be able to go about again with
some comfort and independence, although I never can be fit again for
anything like exertion....
Do you know, did you ever hear anything of Mr. Horne who wrote 'Cosmo
de Medici,' and the 'Death of Marlowe,' and is now desecrating his
powers (I beg your pardon) by writing the life of Napoleon? By the
way, he is the author of a dramatic sketch in the last Finden.
He is in my mind one of the very first poets of the day, and has
written to me so kindly (offering, although I never saw him in my
life, to cater for me in literature, and send me down anything likely
to interest me in the periodicals), that I cannot but think his
amiability and genius do honor to one another.
Do you remember Mr. Caldicott who used to preach in the infant
schoolroom at Sidmouth? He died here the death of a saint, as he had
lived a saintly life, about three weeks ago. It affected me a good
deal. But he was always so associated in my thoughts more with heaven
than earth, that scarcely a transition seems to have passed upon his
locality. 'Present with the Lord' is true of him now; even as 'having
his conversation in heaven' was formerly. There is little difference.
May it be so with us all, with you and with me, my ever and very dear
friend! In the meantime do not forget me. I never can forget _you_.
Your affectionate and grateful
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
Arabel desires her love to be offered to you.
_To H.S. Boyd_
1 Beacon Terrace, Torquay: July 8, 1840.
My ever dear Friend,--I must write to you, although it is so very
long, or at least seems so, since you wrote to me. But you say to
Arabel in speaking of me that I '_used_ to care for what is poetical;'
therefore, perhaps you say to yourself sometimes that I _used_ to
care for _you_! I am anxious to vindicate my identity to you, in that
respect above all.
It is a long, dreary time since I wrote to you. I admit the pause on
my own part, while I charge you with another. But _your_ silence has
embraced more pleasantness and less suffering to you than mine has to
me, and I thank God for a prosperity in which my unchangeable regard
for you causes me to share directly....
I have not rallied this summer as soon and well as I did last. I was
very ill early in April at the time of our becoming conscious to our
great affliction--so ill as to believe it utterly improbable, speaking
humanly, that I ever should be any better. I am, however, a very great
deal better, and gain strength by sensible degrees, however slowly,
and do hope for the best--'the best' meaning one sight more of London.
In the meantime I have not yet been able to leave my bed.
To prove to you that I who 'used to care' for poetry do so still, and
that I have not been absolutely idle lately, an 'Athenaeum' shall
be sent to you containing a poem on the subject of the removal of
Napoleon's ashes.[54] It is a fitter subject for you than for me.
Napoleon is no idol of _mine. I_ never made a 'setting sun' of him.
But my physician suggested the subject as a noble one and then there
was something suggestive in the consideration that the 'Bellerophon'
lay on those very bay-waters opposite to my bed.
Another poem (which you won't like, I dare say) is called 'The Lay of
the Rose,'[55] and appeared lately in a magazine. Arabel is going to
write it out for you, she desires me to tell you with her best love.
Indeed, I have written lately (as far as manuscript goes) a good deal,
only on all sorts of subjects and in as many shapes.
Lazarus would make a fine poem, wouldn't he? I lie here, weaving a
great many schemes. I am seldom at a loss for thread.
Do write sometimes to me, and tell me if you do anything besides
hearing the clocks strike and bells ring. My beloved papa is with me
still. There are so many mercies close around me (and his presence
is far from the least), that God's _Being_ seems proved to me,
_demonstrated_ to me, by His manifested love. May His blessing in
the full lovingness rest upon you always! Never fancy I can forget or
think of you coldly.
Your affectionate and grateful
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
[Footnote 54: 'Crowned and Buried' _(Poetical Works_, iii. 9).]
[Footnote 55: _Poetical Works_, iii. 152.]
The above letter was written only three days before the tragedy which
utterly wrecked Elizabeth Barrett's life for a time, and cast a
deep shadow over it which never wholly passed away--the death of her
brother Edward through drowning. On July 11, he and two friends had
gone for a sail in a small boat. They did not return when they were
expected, and presently a rumour came that a boat, answering in
appearance to theirs, had been seen to founder in Babbicombe Bay;
but it was not until three days later that final confirmation of the
disaster was obtained by the discovery of the bodies. What this blow
meant to the bereaved sister cannot be told: the horror with which she
refers to it, even at a distance of many years, shows how deeply it
struck. It was the loss of the brother whom she loved best of all; and
she had the misery of thinking that it was to attend on her that he
had come to the place where he met his death. Little wonder if Torquay
was thenceforward a memory from which she shrank, and if even the
sound of the sea became a horror to her.
One natural consequence of this terrible sorrow is a long break in her
correspondence. It is not until the beginning of 1841 that she seems
to have resumed the thread of her life and to have returned to her
literary occupations. Her health had inevitably suffered under the
shock, and in the autumn of 1840 Miss Mitford speaks of not daring to
expect more than a few months of lingering life. But when things were
at the worst, she began unexpectedly to take a turn for the better.
Through the winter she slowly gathered strength, and with strength the
desire to escape from Torquay, with its dreadful associations, and
to return to London. Meanwhile her correspondence with her friends
revived, and with Horne in particular she was engaged during 1841 in
an active interchange of views with regard to two literary projects.
Indeed, it was only the return to work that enabled her to struggle
against the numbing effect of the calamity which had overwhelmed her.
Some time afterwards (in October 1843) she wrote to Mrs. Martin:
'For my own part and experience--I do not say it as a phrase or
in exaggeration, but from very clear and positive conviction--I do
believe that I should be _mad_ at this moment, if I had not forced
back--dammed out--the current of rushing recollections by work, work,
work.' One of the projects in which she was concerned was 'Chaucer
Modernised,' a scheme for reviving interest in the father of English
poetry, suggested in the first instance by Wordsworth, but committed
to the care of Horne, as editor, for execution. According to the
scheme as originally planned, all the principal poets of the day were
to be invited to share the task of transmuting Chaucer into modern
language. Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, Horne, and others actually executed
some portions of the work; Tennyson and Browning, it was hoped, would
lend a hand with some of the later parts. Horne invited Miss Barrett
to contribute, and, besides executing modernisations of 'Queen
Annelida and False Arcite' and 'The Complaint of Annelida,'[56] she
also advised generally on the work of the other writers during its
progress through the press. The other literary project was for a
lyrical drama, to be written in collaboration with Horne. It was to be
called 'Psyché Apocalypté,' and was to be a drama on the Greek model,
treating of the birth and self-realisation of the soul of man.
[Footnote 56: These versions are not reprinted in her collected
_Poetical Works_, but are to be found in 'Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer
modernised,' (1841).]
The sketch of its contents, given in the correspondence with Horne,
will make the modern reader accept with equanimity the fact that it
never progressed beyond the initial stage of drafting the plot. It is
allegorical, philosophical, fantastic, unreal--everything which was
calculated to bring out the worst characteristics of Miss Barrett's
style and to intensify her faults. Fortunately her removal from
Torquay to London interrupted the execution of the scheme. It
was never seriously taken up again, and, though never explicitly
abandoned, died a natural death from inanition, somewhat to the relief
of Miss Barrett, who had come to recognise its impracticability.
Apart from the correspondence with Horne, which has been published
elsewhere, very few letters are left from this period; but those which
here follow serve to bridge over the interval until the departure
from Torquay, which closes one well-marked period in the life of the
poetess.
_To Mrs. Martin_
December 11, 1840.
My ever dearest Mrs. Martin,--I should have written to you without
this last proof of your remembrance--this cape, which, warm and pretty
as it is, I value so much more as the work of your hands and gift of
your affection towards me. Thank you, dearest Mrs. Martin, and thank
you too for _all the rest_--for all your sympathy and love. And do
believe that although grief had so changed me from myself and warped
me from my old instincts, as to prevent my looking forwards with
pleasure to seeing you again, yet that full amends are made in the
looking back with a pleasure more true because more tender than any
old retrospections. Do give my love to dear Mr. Martin, and say what I
could not have said even if I had seen him.
Shall you really, dearest Mrs. Martin, come again? Don't think we do
not think of the hope you left us. Because we do indeed.
A note from papa has brought the comforting news that my dear, dear
Stormie is in England again, in London, and looking perfectly well. It
is a mercy which makes me very thankful, and would make me joyful if
anything could. But the meanings of some words change as we live on.
Papa's note is hurried. It was a sixty-day passage, and that is all he
tells me. Yes--there is something besides about Sette and Occy being
either unknown or misknown, through the fault of their growing. Papa
is not near returning, I think. He has so much to do and see, and so
much cause to be enlivened and renewed as to spirits, that I begged
him not to think about me and stay away as long as he pleased. And the
accounts of him and of all at home are satisfying, I thank God....
There is an east wind just now, which I feel. Nevertheless, Dr. Scully
has said, a few minutes since, that I am as well as he could hope,
considering the season.
May God bless you ever!
Your gratefully attached
BA.
_To Mrs. Martin_
March 29, 1841.
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Have you thought 'The dream has come true'?
I mean the dream of the flowers which you pulled for me and I wouldn't
look at, even? I fear you must have thought that the dream about my
ingratitude has come true.
And yet it has not. Dearest Mrs. Martin, it has _not_. I have not
forgotten you or remembered you less affectionately through all the
silence, or longed less for the letters I did not ask for. But the
truth is, my faculties seem to hang heavily now, like flappers when
the spring is broken. _My_ spring _is_ broken, and a separate exertion
is necessary for the lifting up of each--and then it falls down again.
I never felt so before: there is no wonder that I should feel so now.
Nevertheless, I don't give up much to the pernicious languor--the
tendency to lie down to sleep among the snows of a weary journey--I
don't give up much to it. Only I find it sometimes at the root of
certain negligences--for instance, of this toward _you_.
Dearest Mrs. Martin, receive my sympathy, _our_ sympathy, in the
anxiety you have lately felt so painfully, and in the rejoicing for
its happy issue. Do say when you write (I take for granted, you see,
that you will write) how Mrs. B---- is now--besides the intelligence
more nearly touching me, of your own and Mr. Martin's health and
spirits. May God bless you both!
Ah! but you did not come: I was disappointed!
And Mrs. Hanford! Do you know, I tremble in my reveries sometimes,
lest you should think it, guess it to be half unkind in me not to have
made an exertion to see Mrs. Hanford. It was not from want of interest
in her--least of all from want of love to _you_. But I have not
stirred from my bed yet. But, to be honest, that was not the reason--I
did not feel as if I _could_, without a painful effort, which, on the
other hand, could not, I was conscious, result in the slightest shade
of satisfaction to her, receive and talk to her. Perhaps it is hard
for you to _fancy_ even how I shrink away from the very thought of
seeing a human face--except those immediately belonging to me in love
or relationship--(yours _does_, you know)--and a stranger's might be
easier to look at than one long known....
For my own part, my dearest Mrs. Martin, my heart has been lightened
lately by kind, _honest_ Dr. Scully (who would never give an opinion
just to please me), saying that I am 'quite right' to mean to go to
London, and shall probably be fit for the journey early in June.
He says that I may pass the winter there moreover, and with
impunity--that wherever I am it will probably be necessary for me
to remain shut up during the cold weather, and that under such
circumstances it is quite possible to warm a London room to as safe
a condition as a room _here_. So my heart is lightened of the fear
of opposition: and the only means of regaining whatever portion of
earthly happiness is not irremediably lost to me by the Divine decree,
I am free to use. In the meantime, it really does seem to me that I
make some progress in health--if the word in my lips be not a mockery.
Oh, I fancy I shall be strengthened to get home!
Your remarks on Chaucer pleased me very much. I am glad you liked what
I did--or tried to do--and as to the criticisms, you were right--and
they sha'n't be unattended to if the opportunity of correction be
given to me.
Ever your affectionate
BA.
_To H.S. Boyd_
August 28, 1841.
My very dear Friend,--I have fluctuated from one shadow of uncertainty
and anxiety to another, all the summer, on the subject to which my
last earthly wishes cling, and I delayed writing to you to be able to
say I am going to London. I may say so now--as far as the human may
say 'yes' or 'no' of their futurity. The carriage, a patent carriage
with a bed in it, and set upon some hundreds of springs, is, I
believe, on its road down to me, and immediately upon its arrival
we begin our journey. Whether we shall ever complete it remains
uncertain--_more_ so than other uncertainties. My physician appears a
good deal alarmed, calls it an undertaking full of hazard, and myself
the 'Empress Catherine' for insisting upon attempting it. But I must.
I go, as 'the doves to their windows,' to the only earthly daylight I
see here. I go to rescue myself from the associations of this dreadful
place. I go to restore to my poor papa the companionships family.
Enough has been done and suffered for _me_. I thank God I am going
home at last.
How kind it was in you, my very kind and ever very dear friend, to ask
me to visit you at Hampstead! I felt myself smiling while I read that
part of your letter, and laid it down and suffered the vision to arise
of your little room and your great Gregory and your dear self scolding
me softly as in the happy olden times for not reading slow enough.
Well--we do not know what _may_ happen! I _may_ (even that is
probable) read to you again. But now--ah, my dear friend--if you could
imagine me such as I am!--you would not think I could visit you! Yet
I am wonderfully better this summer; and if I can but reach home
and bear the first painful excitement, it will do me more good than
anything--I know it will! And if it does not, it will be _well_ even
so.
I shall tell them to send you the 'Athenaeum' of last week, where I
have a 'House of Clouds,'[57] which papa likes so much that he would
wish to live in it if it were not for the damp. There is not a clock
in one room--that's another objection. How are your clocks? Do they
go? and do you like their voices as well as you used to do?
I think Annie is not with you; but in case of her still being so, do
give her (and yourself too) Arabel's love and mine. I wish I heard of
you oftener. Is there nobody to write? May God bless you!
Your ever affectionate friend,
E.B.B.
_To H.S. Boyd_
August 31, 1831 [_sic_].
Thank you, my ever dear friend, with almost my last breath at Torquay,
for your kindness about the Gregory, besides the kind note itself. It
is, however, too late. We go, or mean at present to go, to-morrow;
and the carriage which is to waft us through the air upon a thousand
springs has actually arrived. You are not to think severely upon Dr.
Scully's candour with me as to the danger of the journey. He _does_
think it 'likely to do me harm;' therefore, you know, he was justified
by his medical responsibility in laying before me all possible
consequences. I have considered them all, and dare them gladly and
gratefully. Papa's domestic comfort is broken up by the separation in
his family, and the associations of this place lie upon me, struggle
as I may, like the oppression of a perpetual night-mare. It is an
instinct of self-preservation which impels me to escape--or to try
to escape. And In God's mercy--though God forbid that I should deny
either His mercy or His justice, if He should deny me--we may be
together in Wimpole Street in a few days. Nelly Bordman has kindly
written to me Mr. Jago's favourable opinion of the patent carriages,
and his conviction of my accomplishing the journey without
inconvenience.
May God bless you, my dear dear friend! Give my love to dearest Annie!
Perhaps, if I am ever really in Wimpole Street, _safe enough for
Greek_, you will trust the poems to me which you mention. I care as
much for poetry as ever, and could not more.
Your affectionate and grateful
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
[Footnote 57: _Poetical Works_, iii. 186.]