astonishment is profound and unutterable at your new religion--your
new faith in this pseud-Ossian--and your desecration, in his service,
of the old Hellenic altars. And by the way, my own figure reminds me
to inquire of you whether you are not sometimes struck with a _want_
in him--a want very grave in poetry, and very strange in antique
poetry--the want of devotional feeling and conscience of God. Observe,
that all antique poets rejoice greatly and abundantly in their divine
mythology; and that if this Ossian be both antique and godless, he is
an exception, a discrepancy, a monster in the history of letters and
experience of humanity. As such I leave him.
Oh, how angry you will be with me. But you seemed tolerably prepared
in your last letter for my being in a passion.... Ever affectionately
yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
Why should I be angry with Flush? _He_ does not believe in Ossian. Oh,
I assure you he doesn't.
The following letter was called forth by a criticism of Mr. Kenyon's
on Miss Barrett's poem, _The Dead Pan_, which he had seen in
manuscript; but it also meets some criticisms which others had made
upon her last volume (see above, p. 65).
_To John Kenyan_
Wimpole Street: March 25, 1843.
My very dear Cousin,--Your kindness having touched me much, and your
good opinion, whether literary or otherwise, being of great price to
me, it is even with tears in my eyes that I begin to write to you upon
a difference between us. And what am I to say? To admit, of course,
in the first place, the injuriousness to the 'popularity,' of the
scriptural tone. But am I to sacrifice a principle to popularity?
Would you advise me to do so? Should I be more worthy of your kindness
by doing so? and could you (apart from the kindness) call my refusal
to do so either perverseness or obstinacy? Even if you could, I hope
you will try a little to be patient with me, and to forgive, at least,
what you find it impossible to approve.
My dear cousin, if you had not reminded me of Wordsworth's
exclamation--
I would rather be
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn--
and if he had never made it, I do think that its significance would
have occurred to me, by a sort of instinct, in connection with this
discussion. Certainly _I_ would rather be a pagan whose religion
was actual, earnest, continual--for week days, work days, and song
days--than I would be a _Christian_ who, from whatever motive, shrank
from hearing or uttering the name of Christ out of a 'church.' I am no
fanatic, but I like truth and earnestness in all things, and I cannot
choose but believe that such a Christian shows but ill beside such
a pagan. What pagan poet ever thought of casting his gods out of
his poetry? In what pagan poem do they not shine and thunder? And if
_I_--to approach the point in question--if _I_, writing a poem the
end of which is the extolment of what I consider to be Christian truth
over the pagan myths shrank even _there_ from naming the name of my
God lest it should not meet the sympathies of some readers, or lest it
should offend the delicacies of other readers, or lest, generally,
it should be unfit for the purposes of poetry in what more forcible
manner than by that act (I appeal to Philip against Philip) can I
controvert my own poem, or secure to myself and my argument a logical
and unanswerable shame? If Christ's name is improperly spoken in that
poem, then indeed is Schiller right, and the true gods of poetry are
to be sighed for mournfully. For be sure that _Burns_ was right, and
that a poet without devotion is below his own order, and that poetry
without religion will gradually lose its elevation. And then, my dear
friend, we do not live among dreams. The Christian religion is true or
it is not, and if it is true it offers the highest and purest objects
of contemplation. And the poetical faculty, which expresses the
highest moods of the mind, passes naturally to the highest objects.
Who can separate these things? Did Dante? Did Tasso? Did Petrarch? Did
Calderon? Did Chaucer? Did the poets of our best British days? Did any
one of these shrink from speaking out Divine names when the occasion
came? Chaucer, with all his jubilee of spirit and resounding laughter,
had the name of Jesus Christ and God as frequently to familiarity on
his lips as a child has its father's name. You say 'our religion
is not vital--not week-day--enough.' Forgive me, but _that_ is a
confession of a wrong, not an argument. And if a poet be a poet, it is
his business to work for the elevation and purification of the public
mind, rather than for his own popularity! while if he be not a poet,
no sacrifice of self-respect will make amends for a defective faculty,
nor _ought_ to make amends.
My conviction is that the _poetry of Christianity_ will one day be
developed greatly and nobly, and that in the meantime we are wrong,
poetically as morally, in desiring to restrain it. No, I never felt
repelled by any Christian phraseology in Cowper--although he is not a
favorite poet of mine from other causes--nor in Southey, nor even
in James Montgomery, nor in Wordsworth where he writes
'ecclesiastically,' nor in Christopher North, nor in Chateaubriand,
nor in Lamartine.
It is but two days ago since I had a letter--and not from a
fanatic--to reproach my poetry for not being Christian enough, and
this is not the first instance, nor the second, of my receiving such
a reproach. I tell you this to open to you the possibility of another
side to the question, which makes, you see, a triangle of it!
Can you bear with such a long answer to your letter, and forbear
calling it a 'preachment'? There may be such a thing as an awkward and
untimely introduction of religion, I know, and I have possibly
been occasionally guilty in this way. But for _my principle_ I must
contend, for it is a poetical principle _and more_, and an entire
sincerity in respect to it is what I owe to you and to myself. Try to
forgive me, dear Mr. Kenyon. I would propitiate your indulgence for me
by a libation of your own eau de Cologne poured out at your feet!
It is excellent eau de Cologne, and you are very kind to me,
but, notwithstanding all, there is a foreboding within me that my
'conventicleisms' will be inodorous in your nostrils.
[_Incomplete_.]
_To John Kenyon_
Tuesday [about March 1843].
My very dear Cousin,--I have read your letter again and again, and
feel your kindness fully and earnestly. You have advised me about the
poem,[74] entering into the questions referring to it with the warmth
rather of the author of it than the critic of it, and this I am
sensible of as absolutely as anyone can be. At the same time, I have a
strong perception rather than opinion about the poem, and also, if you
would not think it too serious a word to use in such a place, I have
a _conscience_ about it. It was not written in a desultory fragmentary
way, the last stanzas thrown in, as they might be thrown out, but with
a _design_, which leans its whole burden on the last stanzas. In fact,
the last stanzas were in my mind to say, and all the others presented
the mere avenue to the end of saying them. Therefore I cannot throw
them out--I cannot yield to the temptation even of pleasing _you_ by
doing so; I make a compromise with myself, and _do not throw them
out, and do not print the poem_. Now say nothing against this, my dear
cousin, because I am obstinate, as you know, as you have good evidence
for knowing. I _will not_ either alter or print it. Then you have your
manuscript copy, which you can cut into any shape you please as long
as you keep it out of print; and seeing that the poem really does
belong to you, having had its origin in your paraphrase of Schiller's
stanzas, I see a great deal of poetical justice in the manuscript
copyright remaining in your hands. For the rest I shall have quite
enough to print and to be responsible for without it, and I am quite
satisfied to let it be silent for a few years until either I or you
(as may be the case even with _me_!) shall have revised our judgments
in relation to it.
This being settled, you must suffer me to explain (for mere personal
reasons, and not for the good of the poem) that no mortal priest (of
St. Peter's or otherwise) is referred to in a particular stanza, but
the Saviour Himself. Who is 'the High Priest of our profession,' and
the only 'priest' recognised in the New Testament. In the same way the
altar candles are altogether spiritual, or they could not be supposed,
even by the most amazing poetical exaggeration, to 'light the earth
and skies.' I explain this, only that I may not appear to you to have
compromised the principle of the poem, by compromising any truth (such
in my eyes) for the sake of a poetical effect.
And now I will not say any more. I know that you will be inclined
to cry, 'Print it in any case,' but I will entreat of your kindness,
which I have so much right to trust in while entreating, _not to say
one such word. Be kind, and let me follow my own way silently_. I have
not, indeed, like a spoilt child in a fret, thrown the poem up because
I would not alter it, though you have done much to spoil me. I act
advisedly, and have made up my mind as to what is the wisest and best
thing to do, and personally the pleasantest to myself, after a good
deal of serious reflection. 'Pan is dead,' and so best, for the
present at least.
I shall take your advice about the preface in every respect, and
thanks for the letter and Taylor's memoirs.
Miss Mitford talks of coming to town for a day, and of bringing Flush
with her, as soon as the weather settles, and to-day looks so like
it that I have mused this morning on the possibility of breaking
my prison doors and getting into the next room. Only there is a
forbidding north wind, they say.
Don't be vexed with me, dear Mr. Kenyon. You know there are
obstinacies in the world as well as mortalities, and thereto
appertaining. And then you will perceive through all mine, that it is
difficult for me to act against your judgment so far as to put my own
tenacity into print.
Ever gratefully and affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
[Footnote 74: 'The Dead Pan' (_Poetical Works_, iii. 280).]
It is to the honour of America that it recognised from the first the
genius of Miss Barrett; and for a large part of her life some of the
closest of her personal and literary connections were with Americans.
The same is true in both respects of Robert Browning. As appears from
some letters printed farther on in these volumes, at a time when the
sale of his poems in England was almost infinitesimal, they were known
and highly prized in the United States. Expressions of Mrs. Browning's
sympathy with America and of gratitude for the kindly feelings of
Americans recur frequently in the letters, and it is probable that
there are still extant in the States many letters written to friends
and correspondents there. Only three or four such have been made
available for the present collection; and of these the first follows
here in its place in the chronological sequence. It was written to Mr.
Cornelius Mathews, then editor of 'Graham's Magazine,' who had
invited Miss Barrett to send contributions to his periodical. The warm
expression in it of sympathy with the poetry of Robert Browning, whom
she did not yet know personally, is especially interesting to readers
of this later day, who, like the spectators at a Greek tragedy, watch
the development of a drama of which the _dénouement_ is already known
to them.
_To Cornelius Mathews_
50 Wimpole Street: April 28, 1843.
My dear Mr. Mathews,--In replying to your kind letter I send some
more verse for Graham's, praying such demi-semi-gods as preside over
contributors to magazines that I may not appear over-loquacious to
my editor. Of course it is not intended to thrust three or four poems
into one number. My pluralities go to you simply to 'bide your
time,' and be used one by one as the opportunity is presented. In the
meanwhile you have received, I hope, a short letter written to explain
my unwillingness to apply, as you desired me at first, to Wiley and
Putnam--an unwillingness justified by what you told me afterwards.
I did not apply, nor have I applied, and I would rather not apply
at all. Perhaps I shall hear from them presently. The pamphlet on
International Copyright is welcome at a distance, but it has not come
near me yet; and for all your kindness in relation to the prospective
gift of your works I thank you again and earnestly. You are kind to me
in many ways, and I would willingly know as much of your intellectual
habits as you teach me of your genial feelings. This 'Pathfinder'
(what an excellent name for an American journal!) I also owe to you,
with the summing up of your performances in it, and with a notice
of Mr. Browning's 'Blot on the Scutcheon,' which would make one
poet furious (the 'infelix Talfourd') and another a little
melancholy--namely, Mr. Browning himself. There is truth on both
sides, but it seems to me hard truth on Browning. I do assure you I
never saw him in my life--do not know him even by correspondence--and
yet, whether through fellow-feeling for Eleusinian mysteries, or
whether through the more generous motive of appreciation of his
powers, I am very sensitive to the thousand and one stripes with which
the assembly of critics doth expound its vocation over him, and the
'Athenaeum,' for instance, made me quite cross and misanthropical last
week.[75] The truth is--and the world should know the truth--it is
easier to find a more faultless writer than a poet of equal genius.
Don't let us fall into the category of the sons of Noah. Noah was once
drunk, indeed, but once he built the ark. Talking of poets, would
your 'Graham's Miscellany' care at all to have occasional poetical
contributions from Mr. Horne? I am in correspondence with him, and
I think I could manage an arrangement upon the same terms as my
engagement rests on, if you please and your friends please, that is,
and without formality, if it should give you any pleasure. He is a
writer of great power, I think. And this reminds me that you may be
looking all the while for the 'Athenaeum's' reply to your friend's
proposition--of which I lost no time in apprising the editor, Mr.
Dilke, and here are some of his words: 'An American friend who had
been long in England, and often conversed with me on the subject,
resolved on his return to establish such a correspondence. In all
things worth knowing--all reviews of good books' (which 'are published
first or simultaneously,' says Mr. Dilke, 'in London'), 'he was
anticipated, and after some months he was driven of necessity to
geological surveys, centenary celebrations, progress of railroads,
manufactures, &c., and thus the prospect was abandoned altogether.'
Having made this experiment, Mr. Dilke is unwilling to risk another.
Neither must we blame him for the reserve. When the international
copyright shall at once protect the national _meum_ and _tuum_ in
literature and give it additional fullness and value, we shall cease
to say insolently to you that what we want of your books we will get
without your help, but as it is, the Mr. Dilkes of us have nothing
much more courteous to do. I wish I could have been of any use to
your friend--I have done what I could. In regard to critical papers
of mine, I would willingly give myself up to you, seeing your good
nature; but it is the truth that I never published any prose papers
at all except the series on the Greek Christian poets and the other
series on the English poets in the 'Athenaeum' of last year, and both
of which you have probably seen. Afterwards I threw up my brief and
went back to my poetry, in which I feel that I must do whatever I am
equal to doing at all. That life is short and art long appears to us
more true than usual when we lie all day long on a sofa and are as
frightened of the east wind as if it were a tiger. Life is not only
short, but uncertain, and art is not only long, but absorbing. What
have I to do with writing '_scandal_' (as Mr. Jones would say) upon
my neighbour's work, when I have not finished my own? So I threw up my
brief into Mr. Dilke's hands, and went back to my verses. Whenever I
print another volume you shall have it, if Messrs. Wiley and Putnam
will convey it to you. How can I send you, by the way, anything I may
have to send you? Why will you not, as a nation, embrace our great
penny post scheme, and hold our envelopes in all acceptation? You do
not know--cannot guess--what a wonderful liberty our Rowland Hill has
given to British spirits, and how we '_flash_ a thought' instead of
'wafting' it from our extreme south to our extreme north, paying 'a
penny for our thought' and for the electricity included. I recommend
you our penny postage as the most successful revolution since the
'glorious three days' of Paris.
And so, you made merry with my scorn of my 'Prometheus.' Believe
me--believe me absolutely--I did not strike that others might spare,
but from an earnest remorse. When you know me better, you will know,
I hope, that I am _true_, whether right or wrong, and you know already
that I am right in this thing, the only merit of the translation being
its closeness. Can I be of any use to you, dear Mr. Mathews? When I
can, make use of me. You surprise and disappoint me in your sketch of
the Boston poet, for the letter he wrote to me struck me as frank and
honest. I wonder if he made any use of the verses I sent him; and
I wonder what I sent him--for I never made a note of it, through
negligence, and have quite forgotten. Are you acquainted with
Mrs. Sigourney? She has offended us much by her exposition of Mrs.
Southey's letter, and I must say not without cause. I rejoice in the
progress of 'Wakondah,' wishing the influences of mountain and river
to be great over him and in him. And so I will say the 'God bless you'
your kindness cares to hear, and remain,
Sincerely and thankfully yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
_(Endorsed in another hand)_
E.B. Barrett, London, received May 12, 1843,
4 poems, previously furnished to _Graham's Magazine_, $50.
[Footnote 75: The _Athenaeum_ of April 22 contained a review of
Browning's 'Dramatic Lyrics,' charging him with taking pleasure in
being enigmatical, and declaring this to be a sign of weakness, not
strength. It spoke of many of the pieces composing the volume as being
rather fragments and sketches than having any right to independent
existence.]
_To John Kenyan_
May 1, 1843
My dear Cousin,--Here is my copyright for you, and you will see that I
have put 'word' instead of 'sound,' as certainly the proper 'word.' Do
let me thank you once more for all the trouble and interest you have
taken with me and in me. Observe besides that I have altered the title
according to your unconscious suggestion, and made it 'The Dead
Pan,' which is a far better name, I think, than the repetition of the
_refrain_.
But I spoil my exemplary docility so far, by confessing that I don't
like 'scornful children' half--no, not half so well as my 'railing
children,' although, to be sure, you proved to me that the last was
nigh upon nonsense. You proved it--that is, you almost proved it, for
don't we say--at least, _mightn't_ we say--'the thunder was silent'?
'_thunder_' involving the idea of noise, as much as 'railing children'
do. Consider this--I give it up to you.[76]
I am ashamed to have kept Carlyle so long, but I quite failed in
trying to read him at my "usual pace--he _won't_ be read quick. After
all, and full of beauty and truth as that book is, and strongly as it
takes hold of my sympathies, there is nothing new in it--not even a
new Carlyleism, which I do not say by way of blaming the book, because
the author of it might use words like the apostle's: 'To write the
same things unto you, to me indeed is not grievous, and to you it is
safe.' The world being blind and deaf and rather stupid, requires a
reiteration of certain uncongenial truths....
Thank you for the address.
Ever affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
I observe that the _most questionable rhymes_ are not objected to by
Mr. Merivale; also--but this letter is too long already.
[Footnote 76: Mr. Kenyon's view evidently prevailed, for stanza 19 now
has 'scornful children.']
_To Mrs. Martin_
May 3, 1843.
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--If _you_ promised (which you did), _I_ ought
to have promised--and therefore we may ask each other's pardon....
How is the dog? and how does dear Mr. Martin find himself in Arcadia?
Do we all stand in his recollection like a species of fog, or a
concentrated essence of brick wall? How I wish--and since I said it
aloud to you I have often wished it over in a whisper--that you would
put away your romance, or cut it in two, and spend six months of the
year in London with us! Miss Mitford believes that wishes, if wished
hard enough, realise themselves, but my experience has taught me a
less cheerful creed. Only if wishes _do_ realise themselves!
Miss Mitford is at Bath, where she has spent one week and is about to
spend two, and then goes on her way into Devonshire. She amused me so
the other day by desiring me to look at the date of Mr. Landor's poems
in their first edition, because she was sure that it must be fifty
years since, and she finds him at this 1843, the very Lothario
of Bath, enchanting the wives, making jealous the husbands, and
'enjoying,' altogether, the worst of reputations. I suggested that
if she proved him to be seventy-five, as long as he proved himself
enchanting, it would do no manner of good in the way of practical
ethics; and that, besides, for her to travel round the world to
investigate gentlemen's ages was invidious, and might be alarming as
to the safe inscrutability of ladies' ages. She is delighted with the
_scenery of Bath_, which certainly, take it altogether, marble and
mountains, is the most beautiful town I ever looked upon. Cheltenham,
I think, is a mere commonplace to it, although the avenues are
beautiful, to be sure....
Mrs. Southey complains that she has lost half her income by her
marriage, and her friend Mr. Landor is anxious to persuade, by the
means of intermediate friends, Sir Robert Peel to grant her a pension.
She is said to be in London now, and has at least left Keswick for
ever. It is not likely that Wordsworth should come here this year,
which I am sorry for now, although I should certainly be sorry if he
did come. A happy state of contradiction, not confined either to that
particular movement or no-movement, inasmuch as I was gratified by his
sending me the poem you saw, and yet read it with such extreme pain as
to incapacitate me from judging of it. Such stuff we are made of!
This is a long letter--and you are tired, I feel by instinct!
May God bless you, my dearest Mrs. Martin. Give my love to Mr. Martin,
and think of me as
Your very affectionate,
BA.
Henry and Daisy have been to see the _lying in state_, as lying stark
and dead is called whimsically, of the Duke of Sussex. It was a fine
sight, they say.
_To H.S. Boyd_
May 9, 1843 [postmark].
My very dear Friend,--I thank you much for the copies of your
'Anti-Puseyistic Pugilism.' The papers reached my hands quite safely
and so missed setting the world on fire; and I shall be as wary of
them evermore (be sure) as if they were gunpowder. Pray send them
to Mary Hunter. Why not? Why should you think that I was likely to
'object' to your doing so? She will laugh. _I_ laughed, albeit in no
smiling mood; for I have been transmigrating from one room to another,
and your packet found me half tired and half excited, and _whole_
grave. But I could not choose but laugh at your Oxford charge; and
when I had counted your great guns and javelin points and other
military appurtenances of the Punic war, I said to myself--or to
Flush, 'Well, Mr. Boyd will soon be back again with the dissenters.'
Upon which I think Flush said, 'That's a comfort.'
Mary's direction is, 111 London Road, Brighton. You ought to send
the verses to her yourself, if you mean to please her entirely: and
I cannot agree with you that there is the slightest danger in sending
them by the post. Letters are never opened, unless you tempt the flesh
by putting sovereigns, or shillings, or other metallic substances
inside the envelope; and if the devil entered into me causing me
to write a libel against the Queen, I would send it by the post
fearlessly from John o' Groat's to Land's End inclusive.
One of your best puns, if not the best,
Hatching succession apostolical,
With other falsehoods diabolical,
lies in an octosyllabic couplet; and what business has _that_ in your
heroic libel?
The 'pearl' of maidens sends her love to you.
Your very affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
_To H.S. Boyd_
May 14, 1843.
My very dear Friend,--I hear with wonder from Arabel of your
repudiation of my word 'octosyllabic' for the two lines in your
controversial poem. Certainly, if you count the syllables on your
fingers, there are ten syllables in each line: of _that_ I am
perfectly aware; but the lines are none the less belonging to the
species of versification called octosyllabic. Do you not observe, my
dearest Mr. Boyd, that the final accent and rhyme fall on the eighth
syllable instead of the tenth, and that _that_ single circumstance
determines the class of verse--that they are in fact octosyllabic
verses with triple rhymes?
Hatching succession apostolical,
With other falsehoods diabolical.
Pope has double rhymes in his heroic verses, but how does he manage
them? Why, he admits eleven syllables, throwing the final accent and
rhyme on the tenth, thus:
Worth makes the man, and want of it the f_e_llow,
The rest is nought but leather and prun_e_lla.
Again, if there is a double rhyme to an octosyllabic verse, there
are always _nine_ syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme
falling on the eighth syllable, thus:
Compound for sins that we're incl_i_ned to,
By damning those we have no m_i_nd to.
('Hudibras.')
Again, if there is a triple rhyme to an octosyllabic verse (precisely
the present case) there must always be ten syllables in that verse,
the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable; thus from
'Hudibras' again:
Then in their robes the penit_e_ntials
Are straight presented with cred_e_ntials.
Remember how in arms and p_o_litics,
We still have worsted all your h_o_ly tricks.
You will admit that these last couplets are precisely of the same
structure as yours, and certainly they are octosyllabics, and made use
of by Butler in an octosyllabic poem, whereas yours, to be rendered of
the heroic structure, should run thus:
Hatching at ease succession apostolical,
With many other falsehoods diabolical.
I have written a good deal about an oversight on your part of little
consequence; but as you charged me with a mistake made in cold blood
and under corrupt influences from Lake-mists, why I was determined to
make the matter clear to you. And as to the _influences_, if I were
guilty of this mistake, or of a thousand mistakes, Wordsworth would
not be guilty _in_ me. I think of him now, exactly as I thought of him
during the first years of my friendship for you, only with _an equal_
admiration. He was a great poet to me always, and always, while I have
a soul for poetry, will be so; yet I said, and say in an under-voice,
but steadfastly, that Coleridge was the grander genius. There is
scarcely anything newer in my estimation of Wordsworth than in the
colour of my eyes!
Perhaps I was wrong in saying '_a pun._' But I thought I apprehended a
double sense in your application of the term 'Apostolical succession'
to Oxford's 'breeding' and 'hatching,' words which imply succession in
a way unecclesiastical.
After all which quarrelling, I am delighted to have to talk of your
coming nearer to me--within reach--almost within my reach. Now if I am
able to go in a carriage at all this summer, it will be hard but that
I manage to get across the park and serenade you in Greek under your
window.
Your ever affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
_To H.S. Boyd_
May 18, 1843.
My very dear Friend,--Yes, you have surprised me!
I always have thought of you, and I always think and say, that you are
truthful and candid in a supreme degree, and therefore it is not your
candour about Wordsworth which surprises me.
He had the kindness to send me the poem upon Grace Darling when it
first appeared; and with a curious mixture of feelings (for I was much
gratified by his attention in sending it) I yet read it with _so_ much
pain from the nature of the subject, that my judgment was scarcely
free to consider the poetry--I could scarcely determine to myself what
I _thought_ of it from feeling too much.
_But_ I do confess to you, my dear friend, that I suspect--through the
mist of my sensations--the poem in question to be very inferior to his
former poems; I confess that the impression left on my mind is, of
its decided inferiority, and I have heard that the poet's friends and
critics (all except _one_) are mourning over its appearance; sighing
inwardly, 'Wordsworth is old.'
One thing is clear to me, however, and over _that_ I rejoice and
triumph greatly. If you can esteem this poem of 'Grace Darling,' you
must be susceptible to the grandeur and beauty of the poems which
preceded it; and the cause of your past reluctance to recognise the
poet's power must be, as I have always suspected, from your having
given a very partial attention and consideration to his poetry. You
were partial in your attention _I_, perhaps, was injudicious in my
extracts; but with your truth and his genius, I cannot doubt but that
the time will come for your mutual amity. Oh that I could stand as a
herald of peace, with my wool-twisted fillet! I do not understand the
Greek metres as well as you do, but I understand Wordsworth's genius
better, and do you forgive that it should console me.
I will ask about his collegian extraction. Such a question never
occurred to me. Apollo taught him under the laurels, while all the
Muses looked through the boughs.
Your ever affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT,
Oh, yes, it delights me that you should be nearer. Of course you know
that Wordsworth is Laureate.[77]
[Footnote 77: Wordsworth was nominated Poet Laureate after the death
of Southey in March 1843.]
_To John Kenyan_
May 19, 1843,
Thank you, my dear cousin, for all your kindness to me. There is
ivy enough for a thyrsus, and I almost feel ready to enact a sort of
Bacchus triumphalis 'for jollitie,' as I see it already planted, and
looking in at me through the window. I never thought to see such a
sight as _that_ in my London room, and am overwhelmed with my own
glory.
And then Mr. Browning's note! Unless you say 'nay' to me, I shall keep
this note, which has pleased me so much, yet not more than it ought.
_Now_, I forgive Mr. Merivale for his hard thoughts of my easy rhymes.
But all this pleasure, my dear Mr. Kenyon, I owe to _you_, and shall
remember that I do.
Ever affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
_To Mrs. Martin_
May 26, 1843.
... I thank you for your part in the gaining of my bed, dearest Mrs.
Martin, most earnestly; and am quite ready to believe that it
was gained by _wishdom_, which believing is wisdom! No, you would
certainly never recognise my prison if you were to see it. The bed,
like a sofa and no Bed; the large table placed out in the room,
towards the wardrobe end of it; the sofa rolled where a sofa should be
rolled--opposite the arm-chair: the drawers crowned with a coronal
of shelves fashioned by Sette and Co. (of papered deal and crimson
merino) to carry my books; the washing table opposite turned into a
cabinet with another coronal of shelves; and Chaucer's and Homer's
busts in guard over these two departments of English and Greek
poetry; three more busts consecrating the wardrobe which there was no
annihilating; and the window--oh, I must take a new paragraph for the
window, I am out of breath.
In the window is fixed a deep box full of soil, where are _springing
up_ my scarlet runners, nasturtiums, and convolvuluses, although they
were disturbed a few days ago by the revolutionary insertion among
them of a great ivy root with trailing branches so long and wide that
the top tendrils are fastened to Henrietta's window of the higher
storey, while the lower ones cover all my panes. It is Mr. Kenyon's
gift. He makes the like to flourish out of mere flowerpots, and
embower his balconies and windows, and why shouldn't this flourish
with me? But certainly--there is no shutting my eyes to the fact that
it does droop a little. Papa prophesies hard things against it every
morning, 'Why, Ba, it looks worse and worse,' and everybody preaches
despondency. I, however, persist in being sanguine, looking out for
new shoots, and making a sure pleasure in the meanwhile by listening
to the sound of the leaves against the pane, as the wind lifts them
and lets them fall. Well, what do you think of my ivy? Ask Mr. Martin,
if he isn't jealous already.
Have you read 'The Neighbours,' Mary Howitt's translation of Frederica
Bremer's Swedish? Yes, perhaps. Have you read 'The Home,'[1] fresh
from the same springs? _Do_, if you have not. It has not only charmed
me, but made me happier and better: it is fuller of Christianity than
the most orthodox controversy in Christendom; and represents to
my perception or imagination a perfect and beautiful embodiment of
Christian outward life from the inward, purely and tenderly. At the
same time, I should tell you that Sette says, 'I might have liked it
ten years ago, but it is too young and silly to give me any pleasure
now.' For _me_, however, it is not too young, and perhaps it won't be
for you and Mr. Martin. As to Sette, he is among the patriarchs, to
say nothing of the lawyers--and there we leave him....
Ever your affectionate
BA.
_To John Kenyan_
50 Wimpole Street:
Wednesday, or is it Thursday? [summer 1843].
My dear Cousin,--... I send you my friend Mr. Horne's new epic,[78]
and beg you, if you have an opportunity, to drop it at Mr. Eagles'
feet, so that he may pick it up and look at it. I have not gone
through it (I have another copy), but it appears to me to be full of
fine things. As to the author's fantasy of selling it for a farthing,
I do not enter into the secret of it--unless, indeed, he should
intend a sarcasm on the age's generous patronage of poetry, which is
possible.
[Footnote 78: _Orion_, the early editions of which were sold at a
farthing, in accordance with a fancy of the author. Miss Barrett
reviewed it in the _Athenaum_ (July 1843).]
_To John Kenyan_
June 30, 1843.
Thank you, my dear Mr. Kenyon, for the Camden Society books, and also
for these which I return; and also for the hope of seeing you, which
I kept through yesterday. I honor Mrs. Coleridge for the readiness of
reasoning and integrity in reasoning, for the learning, energy, and
impartiality which she has brought to her purpose, and I agree with
her in many of her objects; and disagree, by opposing her opponents
with a fuller front than she is always inclined to do. In truth, I
can never see anything in these sacramental ordinances except a
prospective sign in one (Baptism), and a memorial sign in the
other, the Lord's Supper, and could not recognise either under any
modification as a peculiar instrument of grace, mystery, or the like.
The tendencies we have towards making mysteries of God's simplicities
are as marked and sure as our missing the actual mystery upon
occasion. God's love is the true mystery, and the sacraments are only
too simple for us to understand. So you see I have read the book in
spite of prophecies. After all I should like to cut it in two--it
would be better for being shorter--and it might be clearer also. There
is, in fact, some dullness and perplexity--a few passages which are,
to my impression, contradictory of the general purpose--something
which is not generous, about nonconformity--and what I cannot help
considering a superfluous tenderness for Puseyism. Moreover she is
certainly wrong in imagining that the ante-Nicene fathers did not as
a body teach regeneration by baptism--even Gregory Nazianzen, the most
spiritual of many, did, and in the fourth century. But, after all,
as a work of theological controversy it is very un-bitter and
well-poised, gentle, and modest, and as the work of a woman _you_ must
admire it and _we_ be proud of it--_that_ remains certain at last.
Poor Mr. Haydon! I am so sorry for his reverse in the cartoons.[79] It
is a thunderbolt to him. I wonder, in the pauses of my regret, whether
Mr. Selous is _your_ friend--whether 'Boadicea visiting the Druids,'
suggested by you, I think, as a subject, is this victorious 'Boadicea'
down for a hundred pound prize? You will tell me when you come.
I have just heard an uncertain rumour of the arrival of your brother.
If it is not all air, I congratulate you heartily upon a happiness
only not past my appreciation.
Ever affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
I send the copy of 'Orion' for _yourself_, which you asked for. It is
in the fourth edition.
[Footnote 79: This refers to the competition for the cartoons to be
painted in the Houses of Parliament, in which Haydon was unsuccessful.
The disappointment was the greater, inasmuch as the scheme for
decorating the building with historical pictures was mainly due to his
initiative.]
_To Mrs. Martin_
July 8, 1843.
Thank you, my dearest Mrs. Martin, for your kind sign of interest in
the questioning note, although I will not praise the _stenography_ of
it. I shall be as brief to-day as you, not quite out of revenge,
but because I have been writing to George and am the less prone to
activities from having caught cold in an inscrutable manner, and being
stiff and sore from head to foot and inclined to be a little feverish
and irritable of nerves. No, it is not of the slightest consequence;
I tell you the truth. But I would have written to you the day before
yesterday if it had not been for this something between cramp and
rheumatism, which was rather unbearable at first, but yesterday was
better, and is to-day better than better, and to-morrow will leave me
quite well, if I may prophesy. I only mention it lest you should have
upbraided me for not answering your note in a moment, as it deserved
to be answered. So don't put any nonsense into Georgie's head--forgive
me for beseeching you! I have been very well--downstairs seven or
eight times; lying on the floor in Papa's room; meditating _the
chair_, which would have amounted to more than a meditation except
for this little contrariety. In a day or two more, if this cool warmth
perseveres in serving me, and no Ariel refills me 'with aches,' I
shall fulfil your kind wishes perhaps and be out--and so, no more
about me!...
Oh, I do believe you think me a Cockney--a metropolitan barbarian! But
I persist in seeing no merit and no superior innocence in being shut
up even in precincts of rose-trees, away from those great sources
of human sympathy and occasions of mental elevation and instruction
without which many natures grow narrow, many others gloomy, and
perhaps, if the truth were known, very few prosper entirely, lit is
not that I, who have always lived a good deal in solitude and live
in it still more now, and love the country even painfully in my
recollections of it, would decry either one or the other--solitude
is most effective in a contrast, and if you do not break the bark
you cannot bud the tree, and, in short (not to be _in long_), I could
write a dissertation, which I will spare you, 'about it and about it.'
...
Tell George to lend you--nay, I think I will be generous and let him
give you, although the author gave me the book--the copy of the new
epic, 'Orion,' which he has with him. You have probably observed the
advertisement, and are properly instructed that Mr. Horne the poet,
who has sold three editions already at a farthing a copy, and is
selling a fourth at a shilling, and is about to sell a fifth at half
a crown (on the precise principle of the aërial machine--launching
himself into popularity by a first impulse on the people), is my
unknown friend, with whom I have corresponded these four years without
having seen his face. Do you remember the beech leaves sent to me from
Epping Forest? Yes, you must. Well, the sender is the poet, and the
poem I think a very noble one, and I want you to think so too. So
hereby I empower you to take it away from George and keep it for my
sake--if you will!
Dear Mr. Martin was so kind as to come and see me as you commanded,
and I must tell you that I thought him looking so better than well
that I was more than commonly glad to see him. Give my love to him,
and join me in as much metropolitan missionary zeal as will bring you
both to London for six months of the year. Oh, I wish you would come!
Not that it is necessary for _you_, but that it will be _so_ good for
_us_.
My ivy is growing, and I have _green blinds_, against which there is
an outcry. They say that I do it out of envy, and for the equalisation
of complexions.
Ever your affectionate,
BA.
_To Mr. Westwood_
50 Wimpole Street: August 1843.
Dear Mr. Westwood,--I thank you very much for the kindness of your
questioning, and am able to answer that notwithstanding the, as it
seems to you, fatal significance of a woman's silence, I am alive
enough to be sincerely grateful for any degree of interest spent upon
me. As to Flush, he should thank you too, but at the present moment he
is quite absorbed in finding a cool place in this room to lie down in,
having sacrificed his usual favorite place at my feet, his head upon
them, oppressed by the torrid necessity of a thermometer above 70. To
Flopsy's acquaintance he would aspire gladly, only hoping that Flopsy
does not 'delight to bark and bite,' like dogs in general, because if
he does Flush would as soon be acquainted with a _cat_, he says, for
he does not pretend to be a hero. Poor Flush! 'the bright summer days
on which I am ever likely to take him out for a ramble over hill and
meadow' are never likely to shine! But he follows, or rather leaps
into my wheeled chair, and forswears merrier company even now, to be
near me. I am a good deal better, it is right to say, and look forward
to a possible prospect of being better still, though I may be shut out
from climbing the Brocken otherwise than in a vision.
You will see by the length of the 'Legend'[80] which I send to you (in
its only printed form) _why_ I do not send it to you in manuscript.
Keep the book as long as you please. My new volume is not yet in the
press, but I am writing more and more in a view to it, pleased with
the thought that some kind hands are already stretched out in welcome
and acceptance of what it may become. Not as idle as I appear, I have
also been writing some fugitive verses for American magazines. This is
my confession. Forgive its tediousness, and believe me thankfully and
very sincerely yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
[Footnote 80: _The Lay of the Brown Rosary_.]
_To Mr. Westwood_
50 Wimpole Street: September 2, 1843.
Dear Mr. Westwood,--Your letter comes to remind me how much I ought to
be ashamed of myself.... I received the book in all safety, and read
your kind words about my 'Rosary' with more grateful satisfaction than
appears from the evidence. It is great pleasure to me to have written
for such readers, and it is great hope to me to be able to write for
them. The transcription of the 'Rosary' is a compliment which I never
anticipated, or you should have had the manuscript copy you asked for,
although I have not a perfect one in my hands. The poem is full of
faults, as, indeed, all my poems appear to myself to be when I look
back upon them instead of looking down. I hope to be worthier in
poetry some day of the generous appreciation which you and your
friends have paid me in advance.
Tennyson is a great poet, I think, and Browning, the author of
'Paracelsus,' has to my mind very noble capabilities. Do you know Mr.
Horne's 'Orion,' the poem published for a farthing, to the wonder of
booksellers and bookbuyers who could not understand 'the speculation
in its eyes?' There are very fine things in this poem, and altogether
I recommend it to your attention. But what is 'wanting' in Tennyson?
He can think, he can feel, and his language is highly expressive,
characteristic, and harmonious. I am very fond of Tennyson. He makes
me thrill sometimes to the end of my fingers, as only a true great
poet can.
You praise me kindly, and if, indeed, the considerations you speak of
could be true of me, I am not one who could lament having 'learnt in
suffering what I taught in song.' In any case, working for the future
and counting gladly on those who are likely to consider any work of
mine acceptable to themselves, I shall be very sure not to forget my
friends at Enfield.
Dear Mr. Westwood, I remain sincerely yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
_To Mrs. Martin_
September 4, 1843. Finished September 5.
My dearest Mrs. Martin, ... I have had a great gratification within
this week or two in receiving a letter--nay, two letters--from Miss
Martineau, one of the last strangers in the world from whom I had any
right to expect a kindness. Yet most kind, most touching in kindness,
were both of these letters, so much so that I was not far from crying
for pleasure as I read them. She is very hopelessly ill, you are
probably aware, at Tynemouth in Northumberland, suffering agonies from
internal cancer, and conquering occasional repose by the strength of
opium, but 'almost forgetting' (to use her own words) 'to wish for
health, in the intense enjoyment of pleasures independent of the
body.' She sent me a little work of hers called 'Traditions of
Palestine.' Her friends had hoped by the stationary character of some
symptoms that the disease was suspended, but lately it is said to be
gaining ground, and the serenity and elevation of her mind are more
and more triumphantly evident as the bodily pangs thicken....
And now I am going to tell you what will surprise you, if you do not
know it already. Stormie and Georgie are passing George's vacation on
the Rhine. You are certainly surprised if you did not know it. Papa
signed and sealed them away on the ground of its being good and
refreshing for both of them, and I was even mixed up a little with the
diplomacy of it, until I found _they were going_, and then it was a
hard, terrible struggle with me to be calm and see them go. But _that_
was childish, and when I had heard from them at Ostend I grew more
satisfied again, and attained to think less of the fatal influences of
_my star_. They went away in great spirits, Stormie 'quite elated,' to
use his own words, and then at the end of the six weeks they _must_ be
at home at Sessions; and no possible way of passing the interim could
be pleasanter and better and more exhilarating for themselves. The
plan was to go from Ostend by railroad to Brussels and Cologne, then
to pass down the Rhine to Switzerland, spend a few days at Geneva, and
a week in Paris as they return. The only fear is that Stormie won't go
to Paris. We have too many friends there--a strange obstacle.
Dearest Mrs. Martin, I am doing something more than writing you a
letter, I think.
May God bless you all with the most enduring consolations! Give my
love to Mr. Martin, and believe also, both of you, in my sympathy. I
am glad that your poor Fanny should be so supported. May God bless her
and all of you!
Dearest Mrs. Martin's affectionate
BA.
I am very well for _me_, and was out in the chair yesterday.
_To H.S. Boyd_
September 8, 1843.
My very dear Friend,--I ask you humbly not to fancy me in a passion
whenever I happen to be silent. For a woman to be silent is ominous, I
know, but it need not be significant of anything quite so terrible as
ill-humour. And yet it always happens so; if I do not write I am sure
to be cross in your opinion. You set me down directly as 'hurt,' which
means _irritable_; or 'offended,' which means _sulky_; your ideal of
me having, in fact, 'its finger in its eye' all day long.
I, on the contrary, humbled as I was by your hard criticism of my soft
rhymes about Flush,[81] waited for Arabel to carry a message for me,
begging to know whether you would care at all to see my 'Cry of the
Children'[82] before I sent it to you. But Arabel went without telling
me that she was going: twice she went to St. John's Wood and made no
sign; and now I find myself thrown on my own resources. Will you see
the 'Cry of the Human'[83] or not? It will not please you, probably.
It wants melody. The versification is eccentric to the ear, and the
subject (the factory miseries) is scarcely an agreeable one to the
fancy. Perhaps altogether you had better not see it, because I know
you think me to be deteriorating, and I don't want you to have further
hypothetical evidence of so false an opinion. Humbled as I am, I say
'so false an opinion.' Frankly, if not humbly, I believe myself to
have gained power since the time of the publication of the 'Seraphim,'
and lost nothing except happiness. Frankly, if not humbly!
With regard to the 'House of Clouds'[84] I disagree both with you and
Miss Mitford, thinking it, comparatively with my other poems, neither
so bad nor so good as you two account it. It has certainly been
singled out for great praise both at home and abroad, and only
the other day Mr. Horne wrote to me to reproach me for not having
mentioned it to him, because he came upon it accidentally and
considered it 'one of my best productions.' Mr. Kenyon holds the same
opinion. As for Flush's verses, they are what I call cobweb verses,
thin and light enough; and Arabel was mistaken in telling you that
Miss Mitford gave the prize to them. Her words were, 'They are as
tender and true as anything you ever wrote, but nothing is equal to
the "House of Clouds."' Those were her words, or to that effect, and I
refer to them to you, not for the sake of Flush's verses, which really
do not appear even to myself, their writer, worth a defence, but for
the sake of _your_ judgment of _her_ accuracy in judging.
Lately I have received two letters from the profoundest woman thinker
in England, Miss Martineau--letters which touched me deeply while they
gave me pleasure I did not expect.
My poor Flush has fallen into tribulation. Think of Catiline, the
great savage Cuba bloodhound belonging to this house, attempting last
night to worry him just as the first Catiline did Cicero. Flush was
rescued, but not before he had been wounded severely: and this morning
he is on three legs and in great depression of spirits. My poor, poor
Flushie! He lies on my sofa and looks up to me with most pathetic
eyes.
Where is Annie? If I send my love to her, will it ever be found again?
May God bless you both!
Dearest Mr. Boyd's affectionate and grateful
E.B.B.
[Footnote 81: 'To Flush, my dog' (_Poetical Works_, iii. 19).]
[Footnote 82: Published in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for August 1843, and
called forth by Mr. Horne's report as assistant commissioner on the
employment of children in mines and manufactories.]
[Footnote 83: Evidently a slip of the pen for 'Children.']
[Footnote 84: _Poetical Works_, iii. 186. Mr. Boyd's opinion of it may
be learnt from Miss Barrett's letter to Horne, dated August 31, 1843
(_Letters to R.H. Horne_, i. 84): 'Mr. Boyd told me that he had read
my papers on the Greek Fathers with the more satisfaction because he
had inferred from my "House of Clouds" that illness had _impaired my
faculties_.']
_To H.S. Boyd_
Monday, September 19, 1843.
My own dear Friend,--I should have written instantly to explain myself
out of appearances which did me injustice, only I have been in such
distress as to have no courage for writing. Flush was stolen away,
and for three days I could neither sleep nor eat, nor do anything much
more rational than cry. _Confiteor tibi_, oh reverend father. And if
you call me very silly, I am so used to the reproach throughout the
week as to be hardened to the point of vanity. The worst of it is,
now, that there will be no need of more 'Houses of Clouds' to prove to
you the deterioration of my faculties. Q.E.D.
In my own defence, I really believe that my distress arose somewhat
less from the mere separation from dear little Flushie than from the
consideration of how he was breaking his heart, cast upon the cruel
world. Formerly, when he has been prevented from sleeping on my bed he
has passed the night in moaning piteously, and often he has refused to
eat from a strange hand. And then he loves me, heart to heart; there
was no exaggeration in my verses about him, if there was no poetry.
And when I heard that he cried in the street and then vanished, there
was little wonder that I, on my part, should cry in the house.
With great difficulty we hunted the dog-banditti into their caves of
the city, and bribed them into giving back their victim. Money was the
least thing to think of in such case; I would have given a thousand
pounds if I had had them in my hand. The audacity of the wretched men
was marvellous. They said that they had been 'about stealing Flush
these two years,' and warned us plainly to take care of him for the
future.
The joy of the meeting between Flush and me would be a good subject
for a Greek ode--I recommend it to you. It might take rank next to the
epical parting of Hector and Andromache. He dashed up the stairs into
my room and into my arms, where I hugged him and kissed him, black as
he was--black as if imbued in a distillation of St. Giles's. Ah, I
can break jests about it _now_, you see. Well, to go back to the
explanations I promised to give you, I must tell you that Arabel
_perfectly forgot_ to say a word to me about 'Blackwood' and your wish
that I should send the magazine. It was only after I heard that you
had procured it yourself, and after I mentioned this to her, that she
remembered her omission all at once. Therefore I am quite vexed and
disappointed, I beg you to believe--_I_, who have pleasure in giving
you any printed verses of mine that you care to have. Never mind! I
may print another volume before long, and lay it at your feet. In
the meantime, you _endure_ my 'Cry of the Children' better than I had
anticipated--just because I never anticipated your being able to read
it to the end, and was over-delicate of placing it in your hands
on that very account. My dearest Mr. Boyd, you are right in your
complaint against the rhythm. The first stanza came into my head in a
hurricane, and I was obliged to make the other stanzas like it--_that_
is the whole mystery of the iniquity. If you look Mr. Lucas from head
to foot, you will never find such a rhythm on his person. The whole
crime of the versification belongs to _me_. So blame _me_, and by no
means another poet, and I will humbly confess that I deserve to be
blamed in some _measure_. There is a roughness, my own ear being
witness, and I give up the body of my criminal to the rod of your
castigation, kissing the last as if it were Flush.
A report runs in London that Mr. Boyd says of Elizabeth Barrett: 'She
is a person of the most perverted judgment in England.' Now, if this
be true, I shall not mend my evil position in your opinion, my very
dear friend, by confessing that I differ with you, the more the longer
I live, on the ground of what you call 'jumping lines.' I am speaking
not of particular cases, but of the principle, the general principle,
of these cases, and the tenacity of my judgment does not arise from
the teaching of 'Mr. Lucas,' but from the deeper study of the old
master-poets--English poets--those of the Elizabeth and James ages,
before the corruption of French rhythms stole in with Waller and
Denham, and was acclimated into a national inodorousness by Dryden
and Pope. We differ so much upon this subject that we must proceed
by agreeing to differ, and end, perhaps, by finding it agreeable to
differ; there can be no possible use in an argument. Only you must be
upright in justice, and find Wordsworth innocent of misleading me. So
far from having read him more within these three years, I have read
him _less_, and have taken no new review, I do assure you, of his
position and character as a poet, and these facts are testified unto
by the other fact that my poetry, neither in its best features nor its
worst, is adjusted after the fashion of his school.
But I am writing too much; you will have no patience with me. 'The
Excursion' is accused of being lengthy, and so you will tell me that I
convict myself of plagiarism, _currente calamo_.
I have just finished a poem of some eight hundred lines, called
'The Vision of Poets,'[85] philosophical, allegorical--anything but
popular. It is in stanzas, every one an octosyllabic triplet, which
you will think odd, and I have not _sanguinity_ enough to defend.
May God bless you, my dearest Mr. Boyd! Yes, I heard--I was glad to
hear--of your having resumed that which used to be so great a pleasure
to you--Miss Marcus's society. I remain,
Affectionately and gratefully yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
My love to dear Annie.
[Footnote 85: _Poetical Works_, i. 223.]
_To Mr. Westwood_
October 1843.
You are probably right in respect to Tennyson, for whom, with all
my admiration of him, I would willingly secure more exaltation and a
broader clasping of truth. Still, it is not possible to have so
much beauty without a certain portion of truth, the position of the
Utilitarians being true in the inverse. But I think as I did of 'uses'
and 'responsibilities,' and do hold that the poet is a preacher and
must look to his doctrine.
Perhaps Mr. Tennyson will grow more solemn, like the sun, as his day
goes on. In the meantime we have the noble 'Two Voices,' and, among
other grand intimations of a teaching power, certain stanzas to J.K.
(I think the initials are) on the death of his brother,[86] which very
deeply affected me.
Take away the last stanzas, which should be applied more definitely
to the _body_, or cut away altogether as a lie against eternal verity,
and the poem stands as one of the finest of monodies. The nature of
human grief never surely was more tenderly intimated or touched--it
brought tears to my eyes. Do read it. He is not a Christian poet, up
to this time, but let us listen and hear his next songs. He is one of
God's singers, whether he knows it or does not know it.
I am thinking, lifting up my pen, what I can write to you which
is likely to be interesting to you. After all I come to chaos and
silence, and even old night--it is growing so dark. I live in London,
to be sure, and except for the glory of it I might live in a desert,
so profound is my solitude and so complete my isolation from things
and persons without. I lie all day, and day after day, on the sofa,
and my windows do not even look into the street. To abuse myself with
a vain deceit of rural life I have had ivy planted in a box, and it
has flourished and spread over one window, and strikes against the
glass with a little stroke from the thicker leaves when the wind blows
at all briskly. _Then_ I think of forests and groves; it is my triumph
when the leaves strike the window pane, and this is not a sound like
a lament. Books and thoughts and dreams (almost too consciously
_dreamed_, however, for me--the illusion of them has almost passed)
and domestic tenderness can and ought to leave nobody lamenting.
Also God's wisdom, deeply steeped in His love, _is_ as far as we can
stretch out our hands.
[Footnote 86: The lines 'To J.S.,' which begin:
'The wind that beats the mountain blows
More softly round the open wold.'
_To Mr. Westwood_
50 Wimpole Street: December 26, 1843.
Dear Mr. Westwood,--You think me, perhaps, and not without apparent
reason, ungrateful and insensible to your letter, but indeed I am
neither one nor the other, and I am writing now to try and prove it to
you. I was much touched by some tones of kindness in the letter, and
it was welcome altogether, and I did not need the 'owl' which came
after to waken me, because I was wide awake enough from the first
moment; and now I see that you have been telling your beads, while I
seemed to be telling nothing, in that dread silence of mine. May all
true saints of poetry be propitious to the wearer of the 'Rosary.'
In answer to a question which you put to me long ago on the subject
of books of theology, I will confess to you that, although I have read
rather widely the divinity of the Greek Fathers, Gregory, Chrysostom,
and so forth, and have of course informed myself in the works
generally of our old English divines, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and so
forth, I am not by any means a frequent reader of books of theology as
such, and as the men of our times have made them. I have looked into
the 'Tracts' from curiosity and to hear what the world was talking
of, and I was disappointed _even_ in the degree of intellectual power
displayed in them. From motives of a desire of theological instruction
I very seldom read any book except God's own. The minds of persons are
differently constituted; and it is no praise to mine to admit that
I am apt to receive less of what is called edification from human
discourses on divine subjects, than disturbance and hindrance. I read
the Scriptures every day, and in as simple a spirit as I can; thinking
as little as possible of the controversies engendered in that great
sunshine, and as much as possible of the heat and glory belonging to
it. It is a sure fact in my eyes that we do not require so much _more
knowledge_, as a stronger apprehension, by the faith and affections,
of what we already know.
You will be sorry to hear that Mr. Tennyson is not well, although
his friends talk of nervousness, and do not fear much ultimate
mischief....[87]
It is such a lovely _May_ day, that I am afraid of breaking the spell
by writing down Christmas wishes.
Very faithfully yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT.
[Footnote 87: About the same date she writes to Home (_Letters to R.H.
Horne_, i. 86): 'I am very glad to hear that nothing really very bad
is the matter with Tennyson. If anything were to happen to Tennyson,
the world should go into mourning.']
_To Mr. Westwood_
50 Wimpole Street: December 31, 1843.
If you do find the paper I was invited to write upon Wordsworth[88],
you will see to which class of your admiring or abhorring friends
I belong. Perhaps you will cry out quickly, 'To the blind admirers,
certes.' And I have a high admiration of Wordsworth. His spirit has
worked a good work, and has freed into the capacity of work other
noble spirits. He took the initiative in a great poetic movement, and
is not only to be praised for what he has done, but for what he
has helped his age to do. For the rest, Byron has more passion and
intensity, Shelley more fancy and music, Coleridge could see further
into the unseen, and not one of those poets has insulted his own
genius by the production of whole poems, such as I could name of
Wordsworth's, the vulgarity of which is childish, and the childishness
vulgar. Still, the wings of his genius are wide enough to cast a
shadow over its feet, and our gratitude should be stronger than our
critical acumen. Yes, I _will_ be a blind admirer of Wordsworth's. I
_will_ shut my eyes and be blind. Better so, than see too well for the
thankfulness which is his due from me....
Yes, I mean to print as much as I can find and make room for, 'Brown
Rosary' and all. I am glad you liked 'Napoleon,'[89] but I shall be
more glad if you decide when you see this new book that I have made
some general progress in strength and expression. Sometimes I rise
into hoping that I may have done so, or may do so still more.
The poet's work is no light work. His wheat will not grow without
labour any more than other kinds of wheat, and the sweat of the
spirit's brow is wrung by a yet harder necessity. And, thinking so, I
am inclined to a little regret that you should have hastened your book
even for the sake of a sentiment. Now you will be angry with me....
There are certain difficulties in the way of the critic
unprofessional, as I know by experience. Our most sweet voices
are scarcely admissible among the most sour ones of the regular
brotherhood....
Harriet Martineau is quite well,'trudging miles together in the snow,'
when the snow was, and in great spirits. Wordsworth is to be in London
in the spring. Tennyson is dancing the polka and smoking cloud upon
cloud at Cheltenham. Robert Browning is meditating a new poem, and an
excursion on the Continent. Miss Mitford came to spend a day with me
some ten days ago; sprinkled, as to the soul, with meadow dews. Am I
at the end of my account? I think so.
Did you read 'Blackwood'? and in that case have you had deep delight
in an exquisite paper by the Opium-eater, which my heart trembled
through from end to end? What a poet that man is! how he vivifies
words, or deepens them, and gives them profound significance....
I understand that poor Hood is supposed to be dying, really dying, at
last. Sydney Smith's last laugh mixes with his, or nearly so. But
Hood had a deeper heart, in one sense, than Sydney Smith, and is the
material of a greater man.
And what are you doing? Writing--reading--or musing of either? Are you
a reviewer-man--in opposition to the writer? Once, reviewing was my
besetting sin, but now it is only my frailty. Now that I lie here
at the mercy of every reviewer, I save myself by an instinct of
self-preservation from that 'gnawing tooth' (as Homer and Aeschylus
did rightly call it), and spring forward into definite work and
thought. Else, I should perish. Do you understand that? If you are a
reviewer-man you will, and if not, you must set it down among those
mysteries of mine which people talk of as profane.
May God bless you, &c. &c.
ELIZABETH BARRETT.
[Footnote 88: In the _Athenaeum_.]
[Footnote 89: 'Crowned and Buried' (_Poetical Works_, iii. 9).]
_To Mr. Westwood_
[Undated.]
You know as well as I do how the plague of rhymers, and of bad rhymes,
is upon the land, and it was only three weeks ago that, at a 'Literary
Institute' at Brighton, I heard of the Reverend somebody Stoddart
gravely proposing 'Poetry for the Million' to his audience; he
assuring them that 'poets made a mystery of their art,' but that in
fact nothing except an English grammar, and a rhyming dictionary, and
some instruction about counting on the fingers, was necessary in order
to make a poet of any man!
_This_ is a fact. And to this extent has the art, once called divine,
been desecrated among the educated classes of our country.
Very sincerely yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT.
Besides the poems, to which reference has been made in the above
letters, Miss Barrett was engaged, during the year 1843, in
co-operating with her friend Mr. Home in the production of his great
critical enterprise, 'The New Spirit of the Age.' In this the much
daring author undertook no less a task than that of passing a sober
and serious judgment on his principal living comrades in the world of
letters. Not unnaturally he ended by bringing a hornets' nest about
his ears--alike of those who thought they should have been mentioned
and were not, and of those who were mentioned but in terms which did
not satisfy the good opinion of themselves with which Providence had
been pleased to gift them. The volumes appeared under Home's name
alone, and he took the whole responsibility; but he invited assistance
from others, and in particular used the collaboration of Miss Barrett
to no small extent. She did not indeed contribute any complete essay
to his work; but she expressed her opinion, when invited, on several
writers, in a series of elaborate letters, which were subsequently
worked up by Home into his own criticisms.[90] The secret of her
cooperation was carefully kept, and she does not appear to have
suffered any of the evil consequences of his indiscretions, real or
imagined. Another contribution from her consisted of the suggestion of
mottoes appropriate to each writer noticed at length; and in this work
she had an unknown collaborator in the person of Robert Browning. So
ends the somewhat uneventful year of 1843.
[Footnote 90: Her contributions to the essays on Tennyson and Carlyle
have recently been printed in Messrs. Nichols and Wise's _Literary
Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, i. 33, ii. 105.]